September 4, 2015

Cruz Opens Texas Swing With Warning for Rivals

FORT WORTH — Ted Cruz opened a daylong swing through his home state Thursday with a warning for other presidential candidates looking to make Texas part of their campaign calculus.

"We’ve got a tremendous base of support here, and so they may discover a difficult path," the Republican U.S. senator told reporters before a raucous rally at the Fort Worth Stockyards.

All but a few of the 17 GOP hopefuls have visited Texas this summer, hoping to take advantage of its expanded influence in the 2016 nominating process. As Cruz spoke, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was crisscrossing the state for a series of fundraisers, part of a three-day trip to Texas with public events in Dallas, San Antonio and Midland.

While many candidates have turned to the state to fill their campaign coffers, their "fundraising has not yielded a whole lot of results," Cruz said. He went on to repeat his increasingly common boast that his campaign has reported raising nearly six times the amount of money from Texas than the campaign of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/09/03/cruz-opens-texas-swing-warning-rivals/

September 4, 2015

Former Nevada beauty queen arrested again for alleged drug possession

A former Miss Nevada has been arrested and charged yet again on drug charges, another strange chapter in nearly a decade of run-ins with the law.

Katie Rees, 31, was crowned Miss Nevada 2007 in Oct. 2006 but her reign (and possible run at Miss USA) would be short-lived as a collection of scandalous pictures from three years previous were leaked online, leading to her dethroning in Dec. 2006.

The photos featured a 19-year-old Rees partying at a Florida bar doing stuff that beauty queens ought not to be doing, according to pageant brass. Those photos are decidedly not-safe-for-work even in a post-Miley world.

This week on Wednesday Rees was arrested for the second time this summer on drug charges after Las Vegas police say she was found with methamphetamine, marijuana, prescription medication, and drug paraphernalia. She was in a car with her boyfriend when police pulled him over for allegedly failing to use a turn signal in traffic. The boyfriend told police that none of the items were Rees’.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Former-Nevada-beauty-queen-arrested-again-for-6482922.php

September 4, 2015

NBC golf analyst Rolfing battling cancer

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Television golf analyst Mark Rolfing has been diagnosed with salivary gland cancer and will not be part of the Golf Channel or NBC broadcast team for the rest of the year.

Rolfing had surgery three weeks ago to remove a malignant growth from his left cheek area. He said Thursday he is starting a second phase of treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for this rare form of cancer.

NBC and Golf Channel televise the last three FedEx Cup playoff events and the Presidents Cup.

Rolfing says his doctors are confident the cancer will be cured after the second phase of treatment. He lives at Kapalua on Maui and says he intends to rejoin the broadcast team at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in January.

http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/NBC-golf-analyst-Rolfing-battling-cancer-6484073.php

September 4, 2015

Cruz views on jailing of Kentucky clerk reflect embrace of nullification, disobedience

WASHINGTON – Sen. Ted Cruz has become a nullification advocate — a supporter of civil disobedience.

This afternoon, he denounced a federal judge — named to the bench by George W. Bush — for jailing a Kentucky county clerk who stubbornly defies court orders to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

“Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny. Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America,” Cruz said in a campaign statement.

The senator has made a crusade for religious liberty a centerpiece of his presidential bid. A rally in Iowa last month celebrated florists, bakers and wedding chapel owners who have turned away same-sex couples, citing their own deeply held religious views.

Read more: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/09/cruz-ire-on-jailing-of-kentucky-clerk-reflect-embrace-of-nullification-disobedience.html/

September 4, 2015

Ken Paxton gets extra week to hire lawyer

The state’s chief lawyer, Attorney General Ken Paxton, is apparently having trouble finding a lawyer to represent him on criminal charges of securities law violations.

State District Judge George Gallagher originally ordered Paxton to designate a lawyer by Thursday but granted a one-week extension before the deadline expired.

Paxton’s original lawyer, Joe Kendall, stepped aside during an Aug. 27 hearing on the case, saying in court documents that “differences have arisen that adversely affect the attorney-client relationship.”

When Paxton told Gallagher that he did not yet know who would be on his legal team, the judge expressed confusion, noting that Dallas lawyer Pete Schulte had earlier introduced himself as Paxton’s new lawyer. Schulte had also taken to Twitter to announce that he was part of Paxton’s legal team.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/ken-paxton-gets-extra-week-to-hire-lawyer/nnXzt/

[font color=330099]Could it be that no lawyer will touch the case because they don't expect to be paid?[/font]

September 3, 2015

US Muslims hope new billboards reclaim Islam's message

BOSTON (AP) — New billboards in Boston, New York, San Diego and other cities proclaim what their Muslim backers say is the true message of Islam: peace and justice, not extremism and violent jihad.

The New York-based Islamic Circle of North America has erected 100 new billboards over the summer in those cities as well as in Phoenix, El Paso, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee, Cleveland and elsewhere.

They feature statements such as: "Muhammad believed in peace, social justice, women's rights" and "Muhammad always taught love, not hate; peace, not violence."

Organizers say the American Muslim community wants to reclaim the message after violent attacks by Islamic radicals, which they denounce as abusing Muhammad's teachings.

http://kdhnews.com/news/nation/us-muslims-hope-new-billboards-reclaim-islam-s-message/article_c003e845-2035-5af0-933a-f3a47354c5f9.html

September 3, 2015

Nueces County, sheriff officer’s association reach tentative agreement

CORPUS CHRISTI -- The Nueces County Sheriff Officer's Association signed a tentative agreement Wednesday on a new collective bargaining deal.

After initially rejecting an agreement with that would have increased base pay salaries by 4 percent on Aug. 20, the group submitted another proposal to Nueces County officials, said association president Jose A. Gonzalez.

If ratified by the group's membership and approved by the Commissioners Court, the agreement will give about a 15 percent raise to deputies, correctional officers, deputy constables, sergeants and lieutenants employed at Nueces County Jail and the McKinzie Jail Annex over four years. It will also give about a 12.5 percent pay raise to the assistant chief and chief.

The agreement will pay out $4.2 million during four years to sheriff's office employees, Gonzalez said.

Read more: http://www.caller.com/news/local/county-sheriff-officers-association-reach-tentative-agreement-1ec4d7a7-dfdb-7137-e053-0100007f6376-324016481.html

September 3, 2015

Ex-NFL running back Phillips charged with killing cellmate

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — Former NFL running back Lawrence Phillips has been charged with murder in the death of his cellmate at a Central California prison.

Phillips is suspected of killing 37-year-old Damion Soward at Kern Valley State Prison in April. Officials determined Soward was strangled.

The Kern County district attorney's office says the 40-year-old Phillips faces a first-degree murder charge.

Phillips was once one of the nation's top college football players at Nebraska. He played for the St. Louis Rams, Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers during a three-year NFL career.

Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/crime/article/Ex-NFL-running-back-Phillips-charged-with-killing-6480290.php

September 3, 2015

Ruling strikes down lesser prairie-chicken's 'threatened' listing

AP FILE PHOTO A July report by Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies showed an aerial survey found a 25 percent increase in lesser prairie-chicken population.

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled the lesser prairie-chicken’s listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act went too far.

Judge Robert Junell granted the motion of Permian Basin Petroleum Association, which filed the suit along with Chaves, Eddy, Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico, to declare the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s listing as unlawful and to set aside the listing, according to court documents.

“FWS failed to properly apply (its standards) to its evaluation of the (rangewide conservation plan), resulting in material error,” Junell wrote in his ruling. “This caused FWS to arbitrarily and capriciously list the (lesser prairie-chicken) as a threatened species.”

He called the FWS analysis of the situation “neither rigorous nor valid.”

Read more: http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2015-09-02/ruling-strikes-down-lesser-prairie-chickens-threatened-listing

September 3, 2015

Judge sets bond for men in Amarillo diverted flight case

A federal magistrate judge in Amarillo on Wednesday appointed attorneys for six men arrested on charges related to a disturbance aboard a Southwest Airlines flight that was forced to land in Amarillo earlier this week.

The six men appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Clinton E. Averitte on Wednesday morning in Amarillo’s U.S. District Court. FBI agents brought in the six men in pairs from the Randall County jail, where they are being held.

Each of the six men is charged with one count of interference with a flight crew and aiding and abetting. If convicted, each faces up to 20 years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

-snip-

Averitte set their bonds at $10,000, unsecured, due to minimal or no prior criminal histories and they are expected to be released today. The conditions of their release were that they could not travel outside of the southern district of California unless they are traveling to Amarillo for court appearances.

Read more: http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2015-09-02/judge-sets-bond-men-amarillo-diverted-flight-case#.Vefrx5cT_RY