10 dead as Texas prison bus plunges off highway, is hit by train

Wednesday, January 14, 2015 | 2:04 PM    

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – A bus carrying 15 prison inmates and staff plunged off a Texas highway overpass and onto railway tracks below, where it was hit by a train Wednesday, killing 10 people.

“Two correctional officers and eight offenders have died from injuries sustained in the accident,” a spokesman from the Texas Department of Corrections said in a statement, adding that five people were hurt.

“One staff member and four offenders have been transported to the Medical Center in Odessa and are receiving medical treatment,” the statement said.

Jason Clark, director of public information for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told AFP that the accident occurred on a busy stretch of highway shortly after dawn, as the bus carried inmates from one prison facility in Abilene in western Texas to another in the city of El Paso.

“The bus left the roadway and made contact with the train,” Clark said.

Officials said they did not know what caused the bus to leave the roadway, but said that visibility at the time was poor and the roadway was slick, with temperatures hovering around freezing.

“The conditions were less than favorable this morning,” Sergeant Gary Duesler of the Ector County Sheriff’s Department told AFP.

“For whatever reason, whether it was for icy conditions or whatever, it went down the embankment and into the path of an oncoming train,” Duesler said.

Officials said the accident scene was horrific.

“It’s as bad as you can imagine. In 32 years it’s as bad as anything I’ve seen,” Kavin Tinney, chief of a firefighter battalion, told the Odessa American newspaper.

Texas prison officials, who said an investigation was underway, lamented the loss of life.

“It’s with a heavy heart that we mourn the loss of those killed and injured this morning in a tragic accident.

“Their loved ones will be in our thoughts and prayers,” Brad Livingston, Executive Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said in a statement.

Duesler said sheriff’s deputies worked to secure the scene as the investigation continued.

“We’ve got the road closed off because it’s a major accident scene,” he told AFP.

“There are some inmates that were transported to the hospital, and of course, they’re still inmates, so we’re providing security for them,” he said.

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10 dead as Texas prison bus plunges off highway, is hit by train

Man holding hostages at Texas hospital: sheriff"s office

Sunday, January 11, 2015 | 2:06 AM    

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – A man believed to be the father of a patient has taken at least two people hostage at a Texas hospital Saturday, authorities said, though it was not immediately clear if he was armed.

The Harris County Sheriff’s office indicated around 8:00 pm (0100 GMT) that it had deployed its High Risk Operation Unit to Tomball Regional Medical Center outside Houston.

“At this time preliminary information is that a man is holding at least two people hostage inside the hospital,” the sheriff’s office said on its website.

“It is unknown at this time whether he is armed.”

Local NBC television affiliate KPRC-TV cited witnesses inside the medical center as saying the hospital had been shut down as authorities tried to defuse the crisis.

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Man holding hostages at Texas hospital: sheriff"s office

Texas ex-official sentenced to death for murder of prosecutor"s wife in apparent revenge plot

Dec 4: Eric Williams makes his way into the courtroom before closing arguments in his trial at the Rockwall County Courthouse in Rockwall, Texas. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Vernon Bryant, Pool)

ROCKWALL, Texas –  A former justice of the peace in North Texas was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing a district attorney’s wife in what prosecutors described as a revenge plot that left three people dead.

Eric Williams was convicted Dec. 4 of capital murder in the 2013 death of Cynthia McLelland, who was slain along with her husband, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, in their home east of Dallas.

Williams has been charged, but not tried, in the deaths of Mike McLelland and prosecutor Mark Hasse.

The 47-year-old Williams lost his job and law license after McLelland and Hasse prosecuted him for theft and burglary. Prosecutors say that conviction pushed Williams over the edge. During his trial, they presented evidence that he paid a friend to rent a storage unit where he kept more than 30 guns, police tactical gear and a getaway car.

Authorities say a masked Williams gunned down Hasse in January 2013 outside a courthouse building in broad daylight.

Prosecutors say a “masked assassin,” whom they identified as Williams, approached Hasse as he walked to work and the two shoved each other. They said Hasse pleaded and yelled “I’m sorry” before he was repeatedly shot.

Two months later, Williams stormed into the McLellands’ rural home and shot both the district attorney and his wife more than a dozen times each, according to evidence at his trial.

Williams’ wife, Kim, is accused of helping him carry out the slayings and testified before closing arguments Tuesday that she drove the getaway car in Hasse’s death and helped her husband dispose of weapons used in the shooting of the McClellands.

She said Eric Williams had a hit list that included former state District Judge Glen Ashworth and Kaufman County District Attorney Erleigh Norville Wiley.

Family of Cynthia and Mike McLelland addressed Williams during victim impact statements after he was sentenced to death, according to the Dallas Morning News.

“What you do will come back to you,” said Nathan Foreman, Cynthia McLelland’s son.

Defense attorney Matthew Seymour told The Associated Press that he had no comment.

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Texas ex-official sentenced to death for murder of prosecutor"s wife in apparent revenge plot

TEXAS TERROR TRUCK Plumber"s car resurfaces in Syria with terrorists" guns

A Texas plumber has been receiving threats after a photo emerged of Islamic extremists in Syria firing a high-powered gun from the bed of his old pickup, which still bears his company’s logo on the door.

An extremist group, Ansar al-Deen Front, posted the photo of its fighters aboard the Ford F-250 sometime on Monday. That prompted a flood of calls to Mark Oberholtzer, who owns Mark-1 Plumbing in Texas City, and has nothing to do with Syria’s bloody civil war.

“How it ended up in Syria, I’ll never know,” Oberholtzer told The Galveston Daily News.

Oberholtzer told the paper that he traded in the truck three years ago. The Houston dealership he turned it over to, AutoNation, told KHOU.com that the truck was auctioned and was likely traded from owner to owner over the course of three years.

‘We have nothing to do with terror at all’

- Jeff Oberholtzer

Oberholtzer was surprised the auto dealership sold the truck with the company’s name still on the door.

“They [AutoNation] were supposed to have done it [covered the decals] and it looks like they didn’t do it,” he said.

AutoNation did not immediately return a phone call from FoxNews.com.

Oberholtzer has owned the plumbing business for 32 years and said he has received “a thousand” calls and faxes about the photo.

“A few of the people are really ugly,” he told the paper. “I just want it to go away, to tell you the truth.”

His son told KHOU.com that the family his hard working and has no ties to terror.

“We have nothing to do with terror at all,” Jeff Oberholtzer said.

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TEXAS TERROR TRUCK Plumber"s car resurfaces in Syria with terrorists" guns

Dems to gain seat? Nasty primary may hurt GOP in Michigan House race - Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce new voter ID law for election - PROGRAMMING ALERT: Fox News Reporting on "American Payday — The Big Squeeze," with Bret Baier, tonight at 9 p.m. ET

Dems to gain seat? Nasty primary may hurt GOP in Michigan House race - Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce new voter ID law for election - PROGRAMMING ALERT: Fox News Reporting on "American Payday — The Big Squeeze," with Bret Baier, tonight at 9 p.m. ET

Texas kindergartner gets prosthetic hand from 3D printer

A Texas kindergartner is feeling like Iron Man thanks to a new prosthetic hand that was created by a 3D printer.

Keith Harris, 5, got to show off his new high-tech hand Friday as he exchanged high-fives with classmates at Mossman Elementary School in the Houston suburb of League City.

“When I first got my hand I thought it would be difficult for me to do stuff with it,” Keith told KPRC-TV in Houston. “I love it.”

The boy was born with a deformed right hand caused by a rare condition called symbrachydactyly.

Keith was all smiles in a T-shirt that read, “Ten Fingers are Overrated” as he made a fist with his new mechanical hand. “It’s not that hard,” he told the station.

Kim Harris said her son has come out of his shell with the new hand.

“This is something that’s been really positive that’s come out of having an upper-limb difference,” she said. “His personality has really come alive. He’s had confidence that’s he’s never had before.”

Keith got his 3D hand through a group called the E-Nable Organization.

KTRK-TV in Houston said a volunteer in North Carolina created the hand, which cost only $45. A new prosthetic would have been too expensive, about $40,000, and would have lasted only as long as Keith didn’t grow.

Members of the Clear Falls High School baseball team visited Keith’s classroom to give the big baseball fan a cap and T-shirt.

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Texas kindergartner gets prosthetic hand from 3D printer

Supreme Court blocks Texas, Wis. from implementing voter ID laws

FILE: Voters at the Charles Allis Museum cast their ballots for the U.S. presidential election in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (REUTERS)

AUSTIN, Texas –  A federal judge likened Texas’ strict voter ID requirement to a poll tax deliberately meant to suppress minority voter turnout and struck it down less than a month before Election Day — and mere hours after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a similar measure in Wisconsin.

The twin rulings released Thursday evening represent major and somewhat surprising blows to largely Republican-backed voter identification rules sweeping the nation that have generally been upheld in previous rulings.

Approved in 2011, Texas’ law is considered among the nation’s harshest and had even been derided in court by the Justice Department as blatant discrimination. Wisconsin’s law was passed the same year and has remained a similar political flashpoint.

“We are extremely heartened by the court’s decision, which affirms our position that the Texas voter identification law unfairly and unnecessarily restricts access to the franchise,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. “We are also pleased that the Supreme Court has refused to allow Wisconsin to implement its own restrictive voter identification law.”

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi on Texas’ Gulf Coast, an appointee of President Barack Obama, never signaled during a two-week trial in September that she intended to rule on the Texas law before Election Day. But the timing could spare an estimated 13.6 million registered Texas voters from needing photo identification to cast a ballot.

The Justice Department says more than 600,000 of those voters, mostly blacks and Hispanics, currently lack eligible ID to vote.

Gonzales Ramos’ nearly 150-page ruling says the law “creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose.” It added that the measure “constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax.”

Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office said it would appeal, but in the meantime the state may hold the election under rules that predate the voter ID law.

“The Court today effectively ruled that racial discrimination simply cannot spread to the ballot box,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

In the Wisconsin case, meanwhile, the nation’s highest court used a one-page order to grant an emergency stay sought by the American Civil Liberties Union and blocked implementation of the state’s voter ID law — overturning a decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals three days earlier that declared it constitutional.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented. Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in a statement that he believed the law was constitutional and that “nothing in the Court’s order suggests otherwise.”

Still, Luis Roberto Vera, Jr., national general counsel for League of United Latin American Citizens, said “You can call it the perfect storm against voter ID.”

“It’s a total victory on both fronts,” Vera said.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said the order “puts the brakes on the last-minute disruption and voter chaos created by this law,” that he said imperiled the vote for thousands of registered voters in the state.

Wisconsin advocates now have 90 days to file a formal petition asking the Supreme Court to take up the case, a deadline so far beyond Election Day that the law may not be reinstated by Nov. 4. The dissenting Supreme Court justices raised concerns that absentee ballots had been sent with no notification of the need to present photo IDs — and that there was not enough time to address this issue before voting begins.

Nineteen states have voter ID laws. Courts nationwide have knocked down challenges — including at the U.S. Supreme Court. But Texas’ case attracted unusual attention from Holder.

He brought the weight of his office to the case after the Supreme Court last year struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act. It had blocked Texas and eight other states with histories of discrimination from changing election laws without permission from the DOJ or a federal court. Holder vowed to wring whatever protections he could from the new and weakened version, and made Texas a first target.

“Even after the Voting Rights Act was seriously eroded last year, we vowed to continue enforcing the remaining portions of that statute as aggressively as possible. This ruling is an important vindication of those efforts,” Holder’s Thursday statement said.

Abbott is the favorite to replace outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the Nov. 4 election. His office had argued that minorities and whites alike supported the law in public opinion polls. It also pointed to other states, such as Georgia and Indiana, where the similar measures have been upheld.

But opponents slammed Texas’ law as far more discriminatory. College students IDs aren’t accepted by poll workers, but concealed handgun licenses are. Free voting IDs offered by the state require a birth certificate that costs little as $3, but the Justice Department argued that traveling to get those documents imposes an outsize burden on poor minorities.

As a result, attorneys argued, Texas has issued fewer than 300 free voter IDs since the law took effect.

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Supreme Court blocks Texas, Wis. from implementing voter ID laws

Patient dies, 3 hurt as ‏medical helicopter crashes in Texas

Saturday, October 04, 2014 | 4:02 PM    

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (AP) — A medical helicopter crashed early Saturday a few blocks from a North Texas hospital where it was headed, killing a patient it was transporting from nearby Oklahoma and seriously injuring the pilot and two medical personnel who were aboard, authorities said.

The helicopter, operated by Air Evac Lifeteam, was taking the patient from Waurika, Oklahoma, to United Regional Health Care in Wichita Falls, about 35 miles to the southwest, when it crashed just before 2 am, Fire Chief Jon Reese told the Times Record News.

“The crews are pretty tore up, families are devastated,” Reese said.

The patient died at the scene. The pilot was in serious but stable condition at United Regional. The flight nurse and paramedic were in critical condition at the Parkland Hospital burn unit in Dallas, about 125 miles to the southeast.?

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Patient dies, 3 hurt as ‏medical helicopter crashes in Texas

UWI students excel at Texas leadership contest

TWO members of the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Department of Government High Achievers’ Society (HAS) placed in the top five of the 26th annual Charles E Williams II Advanced Leadership Oratorical Contest at the Southern Black Student Leadership Conference in Houston, Texas earlier this month.

The two are Renee Osbourne and Cleopatra Parkins.

The conference, which was themed ‘Leaders over Limits’, focused on developing the youth leaders skill sets and characteristics, to aid in motivating them to achieve goals and objectives despite societal and personal limitations.

The oratorical contest is aimed at challenging and stimulating the minds of participants, and providing them an opportunity to display their talents of speaking and interpreting their ideas on a specific subject. The competition was open to more than 600 students from over 50 universities across the United States. The Jamaican students were successfully placed in the top five, with Parkins placing second in the competition.

Their success has been welcomed by the Department of Government, given the new vision and focus of the head of the department, Dr Lloyd Waller, who has paid significant attention to youth development and mainstreaming. This has led to various new initiatives and a greater focus on advocacy for youth-led participatory programmes placing youth at the centre of the development process.

The department has also placed youths as the drivers of development and good governance. Its upcoming Research Day will feature a youth-led initiative, spearheaded by the HAS. The focus of HAS is that of Vision 2030′s Youth Perspective. The forum will consist of individuals with a vested interest in youth and youth development, as well as young leaders of the nation.

The Good Governance Society, under the theme ‘You think it, We do it’, will be participating in civic tours across Jamaican high schools, with the aim of educating students about various tenets of good governance, such as accountability, transparency, participation, the rule of law, the equity and inclusiveness, as well as how the Jamaican youth can play their role in preserving these ideals for the good of the nation.

The students were accompanied to the Texas contest by facilitator Shinique Walters. The Office of the Principal assisted in sponsoring the students to attend the conference.

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UWI students excel at Texas leadership contest

Texas prison system running out of execution drug

News

Thursday, August 01, 2013 | 11:00 AM

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The nation’s most active death penalty state is running out of its execution drug.The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says its remaining supply of pentobarbital expires in September. Department spokesman Jason Clark says officials are exploring all options but have yet to find an alternative.Texas has lethally injected 11 death-row inmates so far this year, most recently yesterday Wednesday July 31. Two executions are scheduled in September and at least five others are set for following months.It wasn’t immediately clear if the September executions may be delayed.Other death penalty states have encountered similar problems as drug manufacturers have balked at using their products for capital punishment.Texas has executed 503 inmates since 1976, when the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume. Virginia is second at 110.

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Texas prison system running out of execution drug

Texas prison system running out of execution drug

Latest News

Thursday, August 01, 2013 | 11:00 AM

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The nation’s most active death penalty state is running out of its execution drug.The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says its remaining supply of pentobarbital expires in September. Department spokesman Jason Clark says officials are exploring all options but have yet to find an alternative.Texas has lethally injected 11 death-row inmates so far this year, most recently yesterday Wednesday July 31. Two executions are scheduled in September and at least five others are set for following months.It wasn’t immediately clear if the September executions may be delayed.Other death penalty states have encountered similar problems as drug manufacturers have balked at using their products for capital punishment.Texas has executed 503 inmates since 1976, when the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume. Virginia is second at 110.Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jamaicaobserverFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamaicaObserver

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Texas prison system running out of execution drug

Texas "running out of death drug"

2 August 2013 Last updated at 00:11 ET Texas is planning at least five more executions this year The US state of Texas is running out of a key drug used for lethal injections, according to officials.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said that the state’s supply of pentobarbital would end in September.

Texas has the highest execution rate in the country, with 11 inmates put to death so far in 2013.

Some drugs companies have objected to their products being used for capital punishment.

Texas has used pentobarbital, a drug used to treat severe epilepsy, in executions since July 2012.

‘Clamped down’

The state was forced to change to the single-dose sedative when supplies of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used previously, were cut off.

But state officials are now having difficulties with the availability of pentobarbital, which is also typically used to put down animals.

“We will be unable to use our current supply of pentobarbital after it expires,” the Associated Press news agency quoted department spokesman Jason Clark as saying. “We are exploring all options at this time.”

The state is planning at least five more executions this year.

Reuters quoted Mr Clark as saying that Texas was confident it would be able to continue with the deaths, despite the shortage.

Richard Dieter, who heads the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, said other states would be having similar problems.

“The states really scramble to go all over to get drugs,” he told AP.

“Some went overseas, some got from each other. But these manufacturers – a number them are based in Europe – don’t want to participate in our executions. So they’ve clamped down as much as they can.”

The first US prisoner put to death using pentobarbital is believed to be 58-year-old John David Duty.

Duty, who killed a cellmate in 2001, died in Oklahoma in December 2010.

Texas is reported to have executed more than 500 death row inmates since 1982 – the highest of any US state. Virginia came in second with 110, AP said.

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Texas "running out of death drug"