| August 10, 19:00 PM
, 2020 | - A man leaped to his death from the Spaghetti Bowl, in El Paso, Texas, leaving behind a note that read, “Obama take care of my family.”
| Source:
El Paso Times
|
| November 5, 2009 | - An army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, upset that he was about to be deployed to Iraq, killed 12 people and wounded 31 at the Fort Hood, Texas, military base before he was shot and subdued by police.
| Source:
ABC news
|
| October 4, 2009 | - U.S. unemployment rose to 9.8 percent, underemployment rose to 17 percent, and the average American workweek shrank by six minutes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, raising its earlier estimates, reported that eight million jobs had vanished in the recession so far, the largest mass layoff since the end of World War II. “This is what a recovery looks like,” said former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Ninety-nine of the hundred largest metropolitan areas had lost jobs in the past year. The exception was the area around McAllen, Texas, a border town where per-capita income is $12,000 and the incidence of heavy drinking is sixty percent higher than the national average. President Obama called the new jobs figures “sobering.” John “Bootsie” Wilson, the last surviving member of the Silhouettes, the soul group that sang the 1958 hit “Get a Job,” died.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Bloomberg
Source 3:
Pittsburgh Business Times
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
New Yorker
Source 6:
CNN
Source 7:
YouTube
Source 8:
Philadelphia Daily News
Source 9:
NYT
|
| July 31, 2009 | - A federal appeals court in Texas ruled to permit the sacrifice of goats.
| Source:
Fresno Bee
|
| July 24, 2009 | - More than seven 55-gallon drums of gooey oil blobs were removed from Texas beaches.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 15, 2009 | - A mother in Texas punched her 5-year-old child's teacher after the teacher admitted to shaking the child.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 26, 2009 | - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control declared a public-health emergency over an outbreak of swine flu that has infected at least 20 people in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio, and Texas. The virus is believed to have originated in Mexico City, where more than 149 people, all aged between 20 and 40, have died, and at least 1,300 people have gotten sick. Mexico's government closed all schools, universities, and zoos, canceled church services, soccer games, and bullfights, and banned visits to beauty salons and juvenile detention centers. Swine flu has been found in Canada, China, France, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain, prompting the World Health Organization to consider raising the pandemic alert level from 3 to 4 out of 6.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Yahoo News
|
| April 16, 2009 | - 300,000 people gathered in small groups across the country to protest the bailouts, the economic stimulus plan, taxes, and the federal government. “We've got a great union,” said Texas Governor Rick Perry at a protest in Austin. “There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that?” In a possible reference to the Boston Tea Party, one protestor threw a box of teabags at the White House. After a robot inspected the box, the Secret Service declared it harmless.
| Source 1:
Forbes
Source 2:
Media Matters
Source 3:
AP via Google
Source 4:
fivethirtyeight.com
Source 5:
New York Times
Source 6:
New York Times
Source 7:
Washington Post
Source 8:
Los Angeles Times
Source 9:
USA Today
|
| March 10, 2009 | - Employees of a state-run home for the mentally disabled in Texas were suspended for holding “fight clubs” among residents.
| Source 1:
ABC News
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Associated Press
|
| December 28, 2008 | - Somalian President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, whose government controls only a few city blocks in a country nearly the size of Texas, resigned and was expected to return to the northern stronghold of his clan, leaving the country to be run by insurgents. Islamist militant group Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama killed ten members of rival Islamist militant group the Shabab and called for its own members to “prepare themselves for jihad against these heretic groups” in order to “restore stability and harmony in Somalia.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| November 17, 2008 | - Evangelical pastor Ed Young, of Fellowship Church in Texas, challenged married couples in his congregation to have sex seven days a week.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 16, 2008 | - In parts of Texas hit by Hurricane Ike, an estimated 20,000 cows and horses roamed free. Four thousand cows had been found dead, and officials thought that many more would never be found. “They're being eaten,” said Texas AgriLife Extension Service spokeswoman Kathleen Phillips, “by alligators.”
| Source:
AP via Star-Telegram
|
| September 14, 2008 | - Thousands of people remained trapped without food, water, or electricity on Texas's Galveston Island in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| August 31, 2008 | - Foreclosure rates were rising in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. “We've got a housing issue, [but] evidently not in Dallas,” said President George W. Bush to a recent gathering of Houston G.O.P. donors, “because Laura's over there trying to buy a house today... I said: 'Honey, we’ve been on government pay now for 14 years. Go slow!'”
| Source 1:
FWBusinessPress
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| August 27, 2008 | - The attorney for a nearly half-ton Texas woman said she could not have beaten her toddler nephew to death because her obesity limits her movement.
| Source:
CNN
|
| August 15, 2008 | - Trustees for a north Texas school district approved a policy change that will allow teachers to carry concealed handguns to class.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| August 14, 2008 | - In response to the crisis, President George W. Bush postponed a vacation trip to his Texas ranch by one day.
| Source:
Swamp Politics
|
| August 6, 2008 | - The International Court of Justice condemned Texas for executing a Mexican national who had not been advised of his right to consular assistance. “Texas,” replied the office of the state's attorney general, “is not bound by the World Court.”
| Source:
BBCNews.com
|
| July 18, 2008 | - A tanker truck on its way to Sugar Land, Texas, overturned, spilling onto the highway more than 5,000 gallons of what a city spokeswoman described as “healthy, all-natural molasses.”
| Source:
Yahoo News
|
| July 11, 2008 | -
Texas police were searching for a burglar who kicked a two-month-old puppy.
| Source:
WOAI.com
|
| July 3, 2008 | -
Researchers at Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center found that watermelons have a “Viagra-like effect,” but a researcher in Oklahama pointed out that this benefit may be offset by the melon's diuretic properties.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| May 8, 2008 | - Three home-schooled teenagers in Texas were accused of digging up the corpse of an 11-year-old boy and smoking pot out of the skull. “He regurgitated in his plate of food when I asked him about it,” a policeman said of one of the boys. “So I knew there was some truth to the story.”
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| March 8, 2008 | - After John McCain swept Republican contests in Ohio, Rhode Island,
Texas, and Vermont and secured by some counts the delegates required for his party's nomination, his rivals Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul withdrew from the presidential race. McCain visited the White House to eat a lunch of hot dogs with George W. Bush and accept the President's endorsement. “If my showing up and endorsing him helps him, or if I'm against him and it helps him, either way, I want him to win,” said Bush.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| February 28, 2008 | - Allison, a sea turtle missing three limbs who lives at a Texas turtle sanctuary, was to be fitted with a prosthetic flipper. “The problem,” explained a curator for the sanctuary, “is she doesn't swim very well.”
| Source:
PhysOrg.com
|
| February 23, 2008 | -
Texas surpassed California to become the top producer of wind power, and oil men were cashing in on the boom. “We're number one in wind in the United States,” said Texas land commissioner Jerry Patterson, “and that will never change.”
| Source:
NY Times
|
| February 7, 2008 | - A Texas prison denied an inmate a copy of Roberto Bolano's “The Savage Detectives” after determining that a passage from the book could “encourage homosexual or deviant criminal sexual behavior.”
| Source:
Slate
|
| January 19, 2008 | - The Supreme Court decided that Texas could exclude Dennis Kucinich's name from the ballots in the Democratic primary because Kucinich refused to take a party loyalty oath.
| Source:
AP via Google News
|
| October 26, 2007 | - At a high-security auction in Texas, a bookstore owner paid $100,000 for a lock of Che Guevara's hair.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 19, 2007 | - Taku the killer whale died unexpectedly at the San Antonio SeaWorld.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 19, 2007 | - Taku the killer whale died unexpectedly at the San Antonio SeaWorld.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 17, 2007 | - State inspectors visited a Texas youth jail to find spoiled food, overflowing toilets, walls smeared with feces, and a curriculum reliant on crossword puzzles.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 17, 2007 | - State inspectors visited a Texas youth jail to find spoiled food, overflowing toilets, walls smeared with feces, and a curriculum reliant on crossword puzzles.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 31, 2007 | - The Alton, Texas, chief of police was arrested for making “unwelcomed” sexual advances toward two male employees.
| Source:
KGBTV.com via Nerve.com
|
| August 31, 2007 | - City officials in Houston, Texas, were investigating a “Ghetto Handbook” distributed by the local police to its officers. The booklet, subtitled “Wucha dun did now?” contained, among other items, a glossary that would enable the police to communicate “as if you just came out of the hood.” Terms defined in the glossary included “foty” for a 40-ounce bottle of beer; “aks” for “to ask a question”; and “hoodrat” for “a scummy girl.”
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| August 16, 2007 | - It was reported that a South Carolina small-parts supplier run by twin sisters had cheated the Pentagon out of $20.5 million in shipping costs; two 19-cent washers sent to an Army base in Texas, for instance, incurred a $998,798 charge.
| Source:
Bloomberg
|
| July 31, 2007 | -
Researchers at the University of Texas identified 237 reasons that people have sex, including “he smelled nice.”
| Source:
ABC News
|
| July 9, 2007 | - Tourism was down in Crawford, Texas, where George W. Bush owns a very small ranch. To make up for declining sales of Bush merchandise, Bill Johnson, the owner of Crawford's largest gift shop, was stocking more Americana. “We're changing our mix,” he explained. “As a business, we have to do what we have to do to be successful.”
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| May 28, 2007 | - In Crawford, Texas, Cindy Sheehan resigned as the “'face' of the American anti-war movement.” “Good-bye America,” wrote Sheehan. “You are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it.”
| Source:
Daily Kos
|
| May 16, 2007 | - A Galveston, Texas, man microwaved his daughter.
| Source:
Click2Houston.com
|
| May 3, 2007 | - The Republican candidates for the presidency debated at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said that the day Roe v. Wade was repealed would be “a glorious day of human liberty and freedom” and that the current tax system “ought to be taken behind a barn and killed with a dull ax”; Senator John McCain of Arizona claimed that he would “follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell”; Texas
Congressman Ron Paul said that not going to war in Iraq would have been “conservative,“ because ”it’s a Republican, it’s a pro-American, it follows the Founding Fathers. And besides, it follows the Constitution.” California
Congressman Duncan Hunter took responsibility for the border fence in San Diego. “It’s a double fence,” he said. “It’s not that little straggly fence you see on CNN with everybody getting over it.” “No one on this stage,” said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, ”probably knows Hillary Clinton better than I do,” to which former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani replied: ”Oh my!” Collectively, the candidates invoked Reagan's name nearly 20 times.
| Source:
NY Times
|
| April 3, 2007 | - Singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, author of such hits as “Georgia on a Fast Train” and “I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be a Diamond Someday)” was sought by police in Texas after he shot a “drunk, aggressive stranger.”
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| March 24, 2007 | - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a timetable for ending the Iraq war by a six-vote margin. The bill mandates American withdrawal in September 2008 if the Bush Administration meets certain benchmarks, earlier if it does not. Several Democrats voted against the timetable because it was not sufficiently antiwar, and Republicans derided the inclusion of domestic provisions benefiting spinach growers, citrus farmers, salmon fishermen, and peanut storers. “What does throwing money at Bubba Gump, Popeye the sailor man, and Mr. Peanut have to do with winning a war?” asked Representative Sam Johnson of Texas. “I will veto it,” said President George W. Bush, "if it comes to my desk.”
| Source 1:
New Tork Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| March 21, 2007 | -
Al Gore returned to Capitol Hill to testify that global warming is a planetary emergency. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts called Gore a prophet, and Rep. John Dingell of Michigan addressed him as “Mr. President.” Joe Barton of Texas, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Gore he was “totally wrong” and that, if need be, Republican lawmakers would stay late for an “all-out cat fight” with Democrats. Ralph Hall, also of Texas, speculated that Gore's attack on the energy industry could result in war “when and if OPEC nations abandon the U.S.A.,” and Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md.) said that he thought it was “probably possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot.”
| Source 1:
AP vie Breitbart
Source 2:
Huffington Post
|
| February 1, 2007 | - In Texas, elementary school children were increasingly becoming addicted to “cheese,” a potentially lethal combination of heroin and Tylenol PM. “Any child anywhere can afford a hit of cheese,” said a detective. “It's just horrific.”
| Source:
ABC News
|
| January 16, 2007 | -
Connecticut was fighting with Texas over which state invented the hamburger. “We are even the birthplace of George Bush, who wants people to think he's from Texas,” said New Haven mayor John DeStefano. “The hamburger is as much a New Haven original as President Bush.”
| Source:
AP via CNN
|
| January 4, 2007 | -
Iraqi security guards were arrested for taking illegal cell phone footage of Shiite officials taunting Saddam Hussein before he was hanged. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt called images of the execution “revolting and barbaric,” and Libya announced its intention to erect a statue of Hussein on the gallows. Master Sgt. Robert Ellis, a senior medical adviser responsible for Hussein's care in Baghdad, praised the stoicism displayed by Hussein. “Saddam,” he said, “was gangsta.” A Texas 10-year-old who had seen video footage of the execution died after hanging himself from his bunk bed.
| Source 1:
ABC News
Source 2:
Der Spiegel
Source 3:
STL Today
Source 4:
Reuters via MSNBC
|
| January 4, 2007 | - In Houston, Texas, the lawyer for a teenager whose forehead contains a subpoenaed 9mm bullet said that his client would allow the bullet to be removed as long as he is not charged with capital murder.
| Source:
AP via Star Telegram
|
| December 14, 2006 | - A Texas lawmaker introduced legislation that would allow the blind to participate in “the fun of hunting.”
| Source:
Reuters via YahooNews
|
| December 5, 2006 | - A plane bound for Texas made an emergency landing after a female passenger lit matches to mask the odor of her fart.
| Source:
WKMG Local News
|
| November 20, 2006 | - A Houston teenager was sentenced to jail for sodomizing a Hispanic teenager with a patio umbrella while shouting “White Power!”
| Source:
AP Via CourtTV News
|
| November 20, 2006 | - Two Texas penguins that survived a truck crash hatched a chick.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| October 28, 2006 | -
Hunters in west Texas were stalking feral pigs.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 19, 2006 | - A convicted killer on Texas
death row committed suicide 15 hours before he was supposed to die by lethal injection by slitting his jugular vein with a makeshift blade; prison authorities found the message “I didn't do it” smeared in blood on the walls of his cell.
| Source:
AP via MSNBC
|
| October 6, 2006 | - Dog-feces-cleanup franchises were opening across the United States. It's the “best job in the world,” said Matt Boswell, the Chief Excrement Officer of Texas-based Pet Butler, which operates in 14 states.
| Source 1:
The Seattle Times
Source 2:
MSNBC
|
| October 3, 2006 | - The Supreme Court refused to consider the constitutionality of Ignacio Sergio Acosta v. state of Texas, a case that challenged the Texas law that makes it illegal to promote genitalia-shaped sex toys.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| September 18, 2006 | - Anousheh Ansari, a communications entrepreneur from Texas, became the world's first female Muslim
space tourist.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| September 14, 2006 | - Former Texas governor Ann Richards died.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| September 5, 2006 | - Visitors to the Texas State Fair were enjoying deep-fried Coca-Cola.
| Source:
Local6.com
|
| August 26, 2006 | - A college student from Connecticut was found with a stick of dynamite in his luggage at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
| Source:
KNX1070 Radio via Google News
|
| August 15, 2006 | - A tree in Texas was mysteriously spouting water from its bark.
| Source:
San Antonio Express-News
|
| August 14, 2006 | -
Houston's rising crime rate was blamed on refugees from New Orleans, which has been gripped by a baby boom.
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
Breitbart.com
|
| August 10, 2006 | - Under pressure from U.S. officials, authorities in the United Kingdom announced the discovery of a terrorist plot to blow up as many as ten passenger planes in the air, possibly by using explosive liquids hidden inside sports-drink bottles. Twenty-one suspects were arrested. Britain raised its threat level to “critical”; the United States raised its threat level “for all commercial flights flying from the United Kingdom to the United States” to “red.” Carry-on luggage was banned on flights in and out of Heathrow airport, and classical and traditional musicians, who normally keep their fragile instruments with them while traveling, were forced to check them as baggage and risk damage. “These restrictions,” said a cellist, “are a disaster for me.” Bagpipers planning to attend the World Pipe Band Championships were particularly worried about the effects of the ban. Prime Minister Tony Blair, on vacation in the Caribbean, thanked U.K. security services for their “hard work,” and President George W. Bush, who had been monitoring the progress of the investigation while on vacation in Crawford, Texas (where he was reading The Stranger, by Albert Camus), flew to Wisconsin and called the arrests “a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.”
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
BBC News
|
| August 10, 2006 | - In Texas a truck carrying zoo animals overturned, immediately killing one penguin; three more penguins were killed by oncoming traffic. The octopus was not harmed.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| August 4, 2006 | - A fireball streaked through the night sky over Lakeway, Texas.
| Source:
Local6.com
|
| July 31, 2006 | - A study conducted at Texas A&M University found that cigarette smoking reduced the impact of alcohol on inebriated rats. “I hope people won't interpret that as a good thing,” said lead researcher Wei-Jung Chen.
| Source:
Seed Magazine
|
| July 30, 2006 | - Lubbock, Texas, prayed for rain.
| Source:
KCBD.com
|
| July 25, 2006 | -
Texas was overrun by butterflies.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 19, 2006 | - U.S. Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia claimed that God supported a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex
marriages. “I think,” he said, “God has spoken very clearly on this issue.” “It's part of God's plan,” said Texas
Congressman John Carter, “for the future of mankind.” “We best not,” said Colorado Representative Bob Beauprez, “be messing with His plan.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 30, 2006 | - The library of the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, cancelled its subscription to the
New York Times
.
| Source:
MySA.com
|
| June 20, 2006 | - Researchers in Texas successfully convinced fringe-lipped bats that poisonous sympatric cane toads were edible.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 7, 2006 | -
Texas
executed an axe murderer.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 17, 2006 | - At least 18 people fell ill in Dallas after eating tainted muffins.
| Source:
UPI
|
| May 12, 2006 | - In south Texas 100 people had been diagnosed with Morgellons disease. "These people," said a nurse practitioner, "will have like beads of sweat but it's black, black and tarry." "It looked," said the mother of a Morgellons patient, "like a piece of spaghetti was sticking out about a quarter to an eighth of an inch long, and it was sticking out of his chest."
| Source:
MYSA.com
|
| April 20, 2006 | -
Pawn-shop owners in Texas noted that more people were pawning their belongings in order to buy gas.
| Source:
CBS11TV.com
|
| April 16, 2006 | - Under the presumed influence of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, who collects photographs of President George W. Bush's hands, Karl Rove was relieved of his position as presidential policy adviser in order that he might focus his energies on the November midterm elections, and White House press secretary Scott McClellan resigned. “One of these days,” the President said of McClellan, “he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days.”
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
Forbes.com
Source 3:
BBC News
|
| April 3, 2006 | - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) announced that he would not run for reelection to Congress. "I've never done anything in my political career," said DeLay, "for my own personal gain."
| Source:
Time
|
| March 15, 2006 | - Miss Deaf Texas was struck and killed by a train. "They sounded the horn," said a police detective, "and got no response."
| Source:
Seattle PI
|
| March 13, 2006 | - In Texas wildfires have burned 3.5 million acres of land since December.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| March 9, 2006 | - Former Texas Governor Ann Richards announced that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| March 8, 2006 | -
Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) won the Republican
primary for his congressional seat.
| Source:
Capitol Hill Blue
|
| February 18, 2006 | -
Texas
attorney Harry Whittington apologized for the trouble he caused when he was shot by Vice President Dick Cheney.
| Source:
Chron.com
|
| February 16, 2006 | - A man in Texas was sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping his former girlfriend, then branding her.
| Source:
Chron.com
|
| February 12, 2006 | - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot and severely injured a fellow hunter while hunting quail at a friend's 50,000-acre Texas ranch.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 16, 2006 | - In El Paso, Texas, a mechanic was sucked into a jet engine. "It doesn't happen very often," said a Boeing spokeswoman.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| January 2, 2006 | - It was flooding in California, and parts of Oklahoma and Texas were on fire.
| Source 1:
CBS News
Source 2:
Forbes.com
|
| December 13, 2005 | - In Houston, Texas, a receptionist named Kristina Roberts was suing her boss, Jorge Garcia, for ejaculating on her as she worked. Garcia insists the ejaculation was consensual.
| Source:
CourtTV.com
|
| December 10, 2005 | - Ninety-two members of the U.S. House of Representatives were planning to challenge the provision of the 14th amendment that provides those born in the United States with citizenship. “Addressing this problem,” said Representative Lamar Smith (R., Tex.), “is needed if we're going to try to combat illegal immigration on all fronts.”
| Source:
|
| December 2, 2005 | - An atheist student group at the University of Texas was handing out pornography to anyone who gave them a Bible as part of a “Smut for Smut” program. “We consider the Bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world,” said a student.
| Source:
XBiz [NSFW]
|
| November 25, 2005 | - It was revealed that the investigation into illegal payoffs made by lobbyist Jack Abramoff involves not only Representative
Tom DeLay (R., Texas), but Representative Bob Ney (R., Ohio), Representative John Doolittle (R., Calif.), Senator Conrad Burns (R., Mont.), 17 current and former Congressional aides, and two former Bush Administration officials.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| October 31, 2005 | - In Waco, Texas, a pastor stepped into a baptismal pool with a microphone in his hand and was electrocuted in front of 800 parishioners.
| Source:
CNN
|
| October 27, 2005 | - A woman in Texas came down with dengue fever.
| Source:
Austin-American Statesman
|
| September 24, 2005 | -
Hurricane Rita, the third-most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, struck Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, killing 36 people and causing flooding, tornadoes, and storm surges, and re-flooding parts of New Orleans. Hurricane evacuations caused miles of traffic jams in Texas, and a bus filled with elderly people exploded when an oxygen tank caught fire, incinerating at least 24 passengers.
| Source 1:
Wikipedia
Source 2:
Houston Chronicle
|
| September 22, 2005 | - In Wichita Falls, Texas, a man named Roderick Johnson was suing prison officials for allowing him to be made into a sexual slave. Johnson testified that he had once been the "property" of a prison gang called the Gangster Disciples, who rented him out at rates ranging from $3 to $7 per rape. A defendant in the case said that Johnson’s testimony was not credible because he never showed the "bruises," "possible broken bones," or "a little worse" that would prove that the sex was nonconsensual.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| September 14, 2005 | -
Texas
executed Frances Newton.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| September 6, 2005 | - Houston, Texas, the headquarters of contractors Halliburton and Baker Hughes, was preparing for a boomin the wake of Hurricane Katrina; one real-estate firm was offering special financing deals "for hurricane survivors only."
| Source:
IHT
|
| September 5, 2005 | - Barbara Bush visited the Astrodome and said that, given that the evacueesfrom Hurricane Katrina that were residing there were "underprivileged anyway," things were "working out very well" for them.
| Source:
Editor & Publisher
|
| July 13, 2005 | - Three Texas teens were in trouble for teabagging a fourth.
| Source:
The Star-Telegram
|
| June 16, 2005 | - And four cheerleaders in Texas were in trouble for smearing human feces on a pizza in an attempt to frame a rival cheerleading squad.
| Source:
WOAI.com
|
| June 10, 2005 | - Two women were upset when they visited a Houston
mausoleum and found that the cremated remains of their mother had been replaced by a can of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips.
| Source:
Local6.com
|
| May 23, 2005 | - In Waxahachie, Texas, the high school student yearbook neglected to include a girl's name in a photo caption, referring to her instead as “Black Girl.”
| Source:
AZCentral.com
|
| May 19, 2005 | - In Houston large black grackles swooped down from magnolia trees to attack passersby, including a lawyer.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| May 18, 2005 | - In Texas a five-year-old brought a loaded gun to his pre-kindergarten class.
| Source:
AZCentral.com
|
| May 5, 2005 | -
Texas lawmakers were trying to stop sexy cheerleading.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 20, 2005 | -
Texas legislators were considering a bill that would ban gay people from taking in foster children.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| April 3, 2005 | - A former scout master in Houston, Texas, resigned from the Lion's Club and turned himself in for sexually abusing a blind nine-year-old boy.
| Source 1:
Houston Chronicle
Source 2:
ABC13.com
|
| March 24, 2005 | - Fifteen people died in an explosion at a BP oil refinery in Texas.
| Source:
AP
|
| March 20, 2005 | - The U.S. Senate subpoenaed Terri Schiavo, a woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1991, to testify before the Health, Education, and Labor Committee. The subpoena was intended to make it impossible for Schiavo to be taken off the feeding tube that allows her to survive; the order, however, was defied by a Florida judge, and the feeding tube was removed. Schiavo then began to die of dehydration. The House and Senate held emergency sessions in order to pass a bill that would transfer the case from state court to federal court. The bill was then signed by President George W. Bush, who had flown in from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for the occasion.
| Source:
Wikipedia
|
| March 2, 2005 | - A toddler in Deer Park, Texas, drowned in a dirty swimming pool.
| Source:
Click2Houston
|
| March 2, 2005 | - A toddler was swept away in the Rio Grande as his parents tried to cross into Texas from Mexico.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| February 18, 2005 | -
Texas
executed another prisoner.
| Source:
CNN
|
| February 3, 2005 | - Richard "Kinky" Friedman announced he would run for governor of Texas.
| Source:
Local News Headlines
|
| February 1, 2005 | - Teenagers in Texas were having more sex, a survey found.
| Source:
Reuters
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| January 21, 2005 | -
Norwegians were shocked to see the president and his family repeatedly give the University of Texas "hook 'em, 'horns" sign, which they interpreted as a salute to Satan, during the festivities, and sign-language users pointed out that the sign means "bullshit."
| Source 1:
New York Daily News
Source 2:
AP
|
| January 7, 2005 | -
Houston was named the fattest city in the U.S. for the fourth time in five years,
| Source:
The New York Times
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| December 30, 2004 | - President George W. Bush stayed on vacation down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and complained about the U.S. being called stingy. He then doubled his initial aid offer to $35 million. Senator Patrick Leahy noted that "we spend $35 million before breakfast in Iraq."
| Source:
New York Times
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| December 25, 2004 | - It snowed in Texas.
| Source:
Fox News
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| November 17, 2004 | -
Texas prisoner Anthony Fuentes was executed.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
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| November 17, 2004 | - A Texas website was planning to offer hunters the ability to shoot animals online.
| Source:
ZDNet
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| November 10, 2004 | - A pregnant baboon ran wild at George Bush Airport.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
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| November 10, 2004 | - Former high-school football star Demarco McCullum, Texas
prisoner #999180, became the 21st prisoner executed in that state this year.
| Source 1:
The Advocate
Source 2:
CNN
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| November 3, 2004 | - Voters in Dallas County, Texas, elected an openly gay Hispanic woman as sheriff.
| Source:
Reuters
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| October 30, 2004 | - Governor Rick Perry of Texas refused to proclaim "UN Day."
| Source:
New York Times
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| September 16, 2004 | - A Texas judge found that the state's system of educational funding is unconstitutional.
| Source:
New York Times
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| August 14, 2004 | - A Texas dentist died after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria called
vibrio vulnificus
,
| Source:
Health Talk
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| July 20, 2004 | - County commissioners in Jefferson County, Texas, voted to change the name of Jap Road, which was reportedly named 100 years ago in honor of a Japanese rice farmer.
| Source:
Reuters
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| July 18, 2004 | - Charges were dismissed against a Texas woman who holds "Tupperware-type" parties for housewives interested in buying dildos.
| Source:
Associated Press
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| May 29, 2004 | - Authorities in Texas killed 24,000 chickens after avian flu was found on a farm near Sulphur Springs.
| Source:
New York Times
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| May 19, 2004 | -
Texas executed a schizophrenic man.
| Source:
New York Times
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| May 8, 2004 | - President Bush continued to maintain that the Abu Ghraib torturers were un-American, but human-rights advocates pointed out that similar abuse takes place in U.S. prisons all the time, especially in Texas.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 8, 2004 | - Someone desecrated the grave of James Byrd Jr., the black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup in Texas, for the second time.
| Source:
New York Times
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| April 21, 2004 | - Governor Rick Perry of Texas proposed shifting the burden of school financing in the state from property taxes to sin taxes on gambling, alcohol, and stripping.
| Source:
New York Times
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| April 1, 2004 | - The International Court of Justice ruled that U.S. courts must review the death sentences of 51 Mexican citizens whose rights under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations were violated; although international treaties are "the supreme law of the land," according to the U.S. Constitution, Governor Rick Perry declared that "the International Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction in Texas."
| Source:
New York Times
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| March 30, 2004 | - The feral hog population in East Texas was out of control, wildlife scientists warned, and one rancher said he was afraid to let his children leave the yard.
| Source:
Texas A&M University
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| February 25, 2004 | - A mosque was set on fire in Houston.
| Source:
New York Times
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| February 16, 2004 | - A grand-jury investigation was under way in Texas into a political action committee controlled by House speaker Tom DeLay.
| Source:
New York Times
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| February 13, 2004 | - Three pharmacists were fired in Denton, Texas, for refusing to fill a prescription for emergency contraception.
| Source:
New York Times
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| February 11, 2004 | - A former Texas National Guard officer charged that in 1997 he overheard a superior and a Bush adviser discussing ways to "cleanse" Bush's file to remove embarrassing information. The officer said he later saw papers with Bush's name on them in a garbage can.
| Source:
USA Today, New York Times
|
| January 5, 2004 | -
President Bush spent the first day of the new year killing small birds in Texas; he reportedly resolved to eat fewer desserts.
| Source:
New York Times
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| January 2, 2004 | - A small plane fell from the sky and crashed into two houses near Dallas.
| Source:
New York Times
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| December 16, 2003 | - The Texas Department of Criminal Justice website removed its listing of executed prisoners' last meals. A prison spokesman said the last meals were removed because some people thought they were in "poor taste."
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
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| December 12, 2003 | - The Pentagon accused Halliburton, which recently removed its name from outside its corporate headquarters in Houston, of overcharging for gasoline in Iraq.
| Source:
Reuters
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| November 25, 2003 | - Two 16-year-olds in Texas were arrested for plotting to kill 24 people at their high school.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 14, 2003 | -
Texas Republicans produced a very odd-looking congressional map that will probably give the party seven additional seats in Congress. "I'm a Texan trying to get things done," said Tom DeLay, who engineered the highly unusual redistricting.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 10, 2003 | - Four white Texans were arrested for beating a retarded
black man unconscious.
| Source:
New York Times
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| October 1, 2003 | - School officials in Paris, Texas, apologized after the high school band played "Deutschland uber alles," with the Nazi flag flying, on the evening of Rosh Hashana.
| Source:
New York Times
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| August 26, 2003 | - Eleven Democratic state senators from Texas were still on the run in New Mexico.
| Source:
New York Times
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| August 9, 2003 | - Seventeen people died in a car-bomb attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, and President Bush told reporters down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, that his men were making "good progress" in Iraq.
| Source:
New York Times
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| August 8, 2003 | - Democratic lawmakers from Texas were still on the run in New Mexico.
| Source:
Associated Press
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| July 29, 2003 | - Democratic state legislators in Texas once again fled the state over Republican plans to redraw congressional districts.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| July 12, 2003 | - Eleven people in Texas were quarantined with SARS-like symptoms.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 24, 2003 | - The United States Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan law school's use of affirmative action in its admissions process and overturned a Texas
sodomy law, saying that "the state cannot demean [homosexuals'] existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 15, 2003 | - Fifty-one Democratic state legislators fled Texas for Oklahoma to prevent the Texas House of Representatives from achieving a quorum; Texas Rangers were sent to fetch them.
| Source:
Ft. Worth Star Telegram
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| May 4, 2003 | - Prime Minister John Howard of Australia was rewarded for his country's service in the invasion of Iraq with a sleepover down at the Presidential Ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he was served green-chili cheese grits for supper.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 2, 2003 | -
President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in an S-3B Viking airplane and, clad in a military jumpsuit with the words "Commander in Chief" printed on the back, he informed the assembled sailors, whom he said were "the best of our country," that the war on Iraq had been won.
The commander in chief, who served as a pilot in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War, told reporters that he had briefly flown the airplane. "I miss flying," he said. Few publications mentioned the president's long unexplained failure to report for duty during that period, and his daring arrival was widely hailed as a "Top Gun moment."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 29, 2003 | -
Gay rights groups were calling for the resignation of Senator Rick Santorum, who told the Associated Press that if the Supreme Court overturns a Texas ban on sodomy, “then you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.
| |
| April 8, 2003 | -
A 12-year-old boy in El Paso, Texas, was suspended from school for sexual harassment after he stuck out his tongue at a girl who refused to be his girlfriend.
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| April 1, 2003 | -
Texas executed a paranoid schizophrenic murderer.
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| March 18, 2003 | -
A judge in Texas ordered a man to spend 30 nights in a 2-foot by 3-foot doghouse for abusing his stepson and rejected an appeal for a larger doghouse.
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| March 18, 2003 | -
Three young children were found beheaded in Brownsville, Texas, and their parents were charged with murder.
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| February 25, 2003 | -
“Animal-rights activists were organizing opposition to a bill in the Texas House that would define many of their activities as acts of terrorism.
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| February 4, 2003 | -
The space shuttle Columbia broke apart while entering the upper atmosphere, scattering debris and the remains of seven astronauts over east Texas and Louisiana; three young children in Plainview, Texas, found a charred leg; a man in Hemphill found a torso and a skull along a rural highway. Fragments of the shuttle were offered for sale on eBay within a few hours.
| |
| February 4, 2003 | -
A substitute teacher in Fort Worth, Texas, was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in a classroom while other students watched.
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| January 21, 2003 | -
Thirty vials of plague were reported missing at Texas Tech University, but investigators later concluded that researchers had destroyed them without completing the proper paperwork.
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| January 7, 2003 | -
President George W. Bush, who spent much of his holiday clearing brush down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, mentioned North Korea on his way to grab a cheeseburger and said that Saddam Hussein still “hasn't heard the message.”
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| January 7, 2003 | -
The president later traveled to Fort Hood, Texas, where he told some soldiers that Saddam Hussein “holds the United Nations and the U.N. Security Council and its resolutions in contempt.
He really doesn't care about the opinion of mankind.” It was reported that Condoleezza Rice is sometimes teased by her colleagues in the White House for speaking in complete sentences.
| |
| November 26, 2002 | -
The Bush Administration approved the drilling of two new gas wells along the Padre Island National Seashore in Texas.
The administration also revised the regulations governing power plants; officials said that the new rules, which will permit more pollution, will make the air cleaner.
| |
| October 1, 2002 | -
Texas executed a clown who murdered two young girls for playing loud music and talking back when he asked them to turn it down.
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| September 10, 2002 | -
German officials refused to allow a Turkish couple to name their baby Osama bin Laden, and it was noted that President Bush has spent 42 percent of his term at Camp David, Kennebunkport, and his ranch in Texas.
| |
| August 20, 2002 | -
Texas executed a Mexican.
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| August 20, 2002 | -
President Bush held an economic forum in Waco, Texas, in an effort to demonstrate that he's doing something about the economy.
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| August 13, 2002 | -
A man from Texas named John Winter Smith was trying to visit every one of the 3,450 Starbucks on the planet.
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| July 23, 2002 | -
An Air Force fighter pilot accidentally dropped a practice bomb on a house in Texas, destroying the roof and a bathroom.
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| July 9, 2002 | -
A cowboy from Texas rode his horse to New York City as a tribute to the victims of September 11.
| |
| June 18, 2002 | -
The Roman Catholic diocese of Brooklyn denied John Gotti a public funeral mass because of concerns that crowds of onlookers “would take away from the decorum.” In Dallas, Texas, a council of Roman Catholic bishops decided to remove any priest from the ministry who has ever abused a child.
| |
| June 4, 2002 | - The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the state of Texas in the matter of Calvin Jerold Burdine, who was convicted of murdering his gay lover and was sentenced to die after his court-appointed lawyer slept through the trial; Texas officials, who had argued that having an unconscious lawyer did nothing to affect the fairness of his trial, must now retry Burdine or let him go.
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| May 14, 2002 | -
The House Appropriations Committee passed a measure authorizing the President to use force to free any American detained by the new International Criminal Court, which Tom DeLay, the majority whip from Texas, called a “rump” and a “rogue” court.
| |
| May 14, 2002 | -
The shrunken head of an Indian woman that was stolen from the Frontier Times Museum in Bandera, Texas, was found in a bag on the side of a road. “She looks all right,” said the local police chief. “They're just tickled to death that nobody tore her up. We're still going to investigate it, and hopefully we can get somebody in jail.”
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| May 7, 2002 | -
Texas executed a one-legged murderer after refusing his request to be outfitted with a prosthetic leg so that he could walk to his own execution.
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| April 30, 2002 | -
Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met with President George W. Bush down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and went for a ride in the President's pickup truck.
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| April 9, 2002 | -
Someone stole the shrunken head of an Indian woman from the Frontier Times Museum in Bandera, Texas.
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| April 2, 2002 | -
The United States joined the rest of the United Nations Security Council in demanding that Israel withdraw from Ramallah, though later that day President George W. Bush, speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, said that he thought Sharon was doing what he had to do.
| |
| March 26, 2002 | -
Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned all five of her children in a bathtub, was sentenced to life in prison; her family blamed her husband for not being more attentive to her postpartum psychosis, and her husband blamed the medical establishment. He was said to be considering legal action, noting that the doctor who treated his wife two days before the killings is “a trained professional who's supposed to be able to recognize these kinds of things. I'm not. I'm just a guy.”
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| March 19, 2002 | -
A Texas school district cancelled further performances of “Stop the Violence,” a play that preaches pacifism, after rioting broke out among the high school students watching it.
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| March 12, 2002 | -
A woman in Fort Worth, Texas, was arrested for running over a homeless man and then parking her car, with the injured man still stuck in her windshield, in her garage; her lawyer denied accusations that his client apologized to the man, ignored his cries for help for three days, and let him bleed to death, but did not dispute the fact that her boyfriend dumped the victim's lifeless body in a park.
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| March 5, 2002 | -
The Texas veterinarian who first isolated the Ames strain of anthrax was fighting $9,000 in fines for burning the carcasses of anthrax-infected cattle, in violation of Texas air pollution rules.
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| March 5, 2002 | -
At the time of the offense, Texas preferred that the anthrax be buried in a landfill, leaving open the possibility that the bacteria could be harvested by terrorists.
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| February 19, 2002 | -
A jury in Texas found a man guilty of assault for shooting his girlfriend because he thought she was going to say “New Jersey,” the sound of which sends him into an uncontrollable rage; the man also goes crazy when he hears “Wisconsin,” “Snickers,” and “Mars.”
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| February 19, 2002 | -
Scientists at the Genetic Savings and Clone in College Station, Texas, announced that they had cloned a cat.
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| January 29, 2002 | -
Chinese inspectors discovered that a new Boeing jet that was meant to be Jiang Zemin's private plane was filled with sophisticated satellite-operated listening devices, which apparently were put there when the plane was being outfitted in San Antonio, Texas.
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| January 22, 2002 | -
The Enron scandal continued to unfold.
Arthur Andersen and Company, the big accounting firm that served simultaneously as consultant and auditor for the Texas energy company, admitted that it had destroyed thousands of Enron-related documents.
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| January 22, 2002 | -
Joey Allen Long of Paris, Texas, was arrested for stealing $4,600 worth of bull sperm.
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| January 15, 2002 | -
The United States Department of Justice appointed a special criminal task force to investigate the collapse of Enron, the Texas oil company.
Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation, as did the entire United States Attorney's office in Houston, because of conflicts of interest.
| |
| January 15, 2002 | -
Police in Bayview, Texas, were investigating the theft of a ten-foot giraffe.
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| January 8, 2002 | -
Texas deregulated its energy market.
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| January 1, 2002 | -
President George W. Bush held a news conference down at the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and again defended his plan to use military courts to try terrorism suspects: “One thing is for certain,” he said, “whatever the procedures are for the military tribunals, our system will be more fair than the system of bin Laden and the Taliban.” A reporter asked the President whether the events of the last year had changed him. “Talk to my wife,” he replied.
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| January 1, 2002 | -
One Fry.” — shut down its frozen-onion-rings factory in Pecos, Texas, eliminating 700 jobs, 10 percent of the town's workforce.
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| December 4, 2001 | - Durst, who has been disguising himself by wearing women's clothing and pretending to be mute, had shaved his head and eyebrows and is suspected of murdering and cutting up a man in Galveston, Texas.
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| November 20, 2001 | - Presidents Bush and Putin had a fine time kidding around down on the ranch in Crawford, Texas, and they agreed to cut American and Russian nuclear arms by two thirds.
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| November 20, 2001 | - There were floods in Texas and Algeria, and wildfires were burning in southern Appalachia.
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| August 14, 2001 | -
President George W. Bush defended his monthlong Texas vacation after a poll showed a majority of Americans disapproved: “I'm working on lots of issues,” he said. “National security matters.”
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| August 7, 2001 | -
Texas began deregulating its market in electricity; prices immediately shot from $45 per megawatt hour to $1,000.
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| July 24, 2001 | - A natural-gas well exploded near Waco, Texas, killing two Halliburton Company workers.
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| July 3, 2001 | - A giant cloud of dust from the Sahara blew across the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, reducing air quality and visibility in Texas.
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| June 26, 2001 | - Governor Rick Perry of Texas vetoed legislation banning the execution of retarded people just a few days after President Bush declared that retards should never be put to death; Bush and Perry both have claimed that Texas has never done so, though six inmates with IQs below 70 have been put down since 1980.
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| June 12, 2001 | -
President Bush went off to Europe, where he is viewed, according to a senior administration official, as a “shallow, arrogant, gun-loving, abortion-hating, Christian fundamentalist Texan buffoon.”
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| June 5, 2001 | - Chen Shui-bian, president of Taiwan, visited Texas and received a nice gift from Rep. Tom DeLay: a new pair of eel-skin boots, embossed with the president's initials as well as the Texas and American flags, intertwined.
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| June 5, 2001 | -
President Bush's twin daughters were in trouble with the law after they tried to order drinks at Chuy's, a restaurant in Austin, Texas; Jenna, the bad twin, even tried to use a fake I.D.
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| May 29, 2001 | - The Texas legislature was working on a bill that would ban the execution of retarded people.
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| May 15, 2001 | -
Texas enacted a hate-crimes law previously killed by Governor George W. Bush.
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| May 15, 2001 | - In Conroe, Texas, a justice of the peace ordered a boy to bend over, in court, to receive three swats.
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| April 17, 2001 | - The Texas legislature approved a resolution that could lead to a referendum on the death penalty.
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| April 10, 2001 | -
Researchers in Texas found that men who sniffed T-shirts in a laboratory were able to tell whether they had been worn by a woman who was fertile; the men described such shirts as smelling “pleasant” or “sexy.”
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| March 27, 2001 | - After months of dithering, United States
agriculture agents seized a flock of sheep from Skunk Hollow Farm in Vermont that are suspected of having a form of mad-cow disease. Twenty-one cattle in Texas will be destroyed because of similar concerns.
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| March 27, 2001 | - Census data showed that Hispanics will soon outnumber “non-Hispanic whites” in Texas.
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| March 20, 2001 | - An appeals court upheld the Texas antisodomy law in a case involving two Houston men who were arrested for having sex in their own home.
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| March 20, 2001 | - The bones of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the former president of the American Atheists, were identified, as were those of her son and granddaughter. The bones were found on a ranch in Texas; the bodies were burned, their legs removed, and stacked in a shallow grave.
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| February 27, 2001 | -
President Bush went to Crawford, Texas, for a visit and attended a party in his honor for about fifteen minutes, where he made a few brief remarks: “Home is important,” he said. “It's important to have a home.” The President announced that among government agencies the Department of Education would receive the largest budget increase.
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| January 30, 2001 | - A federal appeals court in Louisiana heard arguments that a Texas death-row inmate should be given a new trial because his lawyer slept through much of his murder trial.
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| January 30, 2001 | - A grill cook at a Whataburger restaurant in Dallas, Texas, was arrested for lacing a taquito sold to a police officer with marijuana.
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| January 30, 2001 | - One thousand Texas
cattle were quarantined after it was discovered that they were fed ground-up ruminants in violation of a ban designed to prevent mad cow disease.
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| January 23, 2001 | -
California was forced to impose blackouts for the first time since World War II; George W. Bush said that he was opposed to price caps on wholesale power and suggested that California simply relax its environmental regulations and allow power companies to go full tilt. He recently gave the following analysis: “The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.” Much of California's electricity is produced by plants in Texas.
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| January 9, 2001 | -
Animal
researchers at Texas A&M University unveiled a bull calf named Bull 86 Squared, a clone of Bull 86, a naturally disease-resistant bull that died in 1997; they say the calf is 100 times more resistant to brucellosis, tuberculosis, and salmonellosis, all of which can be transmitted to humans through beef or milk.
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| 0, 2000 | -
Texas researchers found that estrogen regulates fat-cell growth and keeps women's bellies from growing as fat as men's, at least pre-menopause. “Nobody ever does female rodent research,” said one scientist, explaining why such basic findings were so long in coming. “Male researchers hate working with female rats.”
| Source:
Science News
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| 0, 2000 | - William Wayne Justice, a federal judge in Texas, known as “the law east of the Pecos,” whose rulings integrated public schools, reformed prisons, and helped educate illegal immigrants, died at age 89.
| Source:
NY Times
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| December 19, 2000 | - The number of executions carried out in the United States declined by 14 percent this year; half were held in Texas, which had its best year ever, killing more prisoners in one year than any other state in American history. The warden of the prison in Huntsville, Texas, who has presided over eighty-four executions, told a reporter: “Just from a Christian standpoint, you can't see one of these and not consider that maybe it's not right.”
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| December 12, 2000 | -
George W. Bush told a television interviewer that he wasn't “exactly sure” what the word “snippy” meant: “We don't use that word here too often down here in Texas.”
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| December 5, 2000 | - The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of a retarded
Texas killer who believes in Santa Claus; he was scheduled to die but got a reprieve.
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| November 21, 2000 | -
Texas almost broke the record for the most executions by a single state in one year; a retarded murderer and rapist was granted a stay four hours before he was to be killed.
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| November 7, 2000 | - The Mexican government was upset about a Mexican citizen on death row whom Texas failed to notify of his right under the Vienna Convention to contact his government's embassy; the Mexican government did not find out about his arrest until a year after he was condemned.
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| October 24, 2000 | - The Texas Defender Service issued a report on the death penalty; the report said that the Texas system was “a national embarrassment” due to racial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, and other problems.
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| October 24, 2000 | - According to a newspaper analysis of Texas governor George W. Bush's time records, Bush spent an average of fifteen minutes reviewing each death-penalty case that crossed his desk; as governor, he worked about six hours a day.
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| October 24, 2000 | - The town of Jarrell, Texas, hosted a “Running of the Bulls, Texas Style” in imitation of the annual event held in Pamplona, Spain; Hereford, Watusi, and Brahman bulls reluctantly shambled after uncomfortably sober cowboys in a large set of portable pens.
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| October 10, 2000 | - Red tide rendered much of the Texas coast unfishable.
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| October 3, 2000 | - Rain fell in north Texas.
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| September 26, 2000 | - A federal judge said that the government was guilty of no wrongdoing in the deaths of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas.
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| September 12, 2000 | - In a Spanish article posted to Voter.com, Texas
Republican representative Henry Bonilla said that Governor George W. Bush was “extending the monkey” to Hispanic voters.
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| September 0, 2000 | - Two men who kissed at a Chico's Tacos in El Paso, Texas, were ejected by guards for “faggot stuff.”
| Source:
El Paso Times
|
| August 29, 2000 | -
Texas executed another inmate.
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| August 22, 2000 | - Governor George W. Bush agreed to pardon death-row inmate Roy Criner after new DNA tests proved that he was innocent; Ricky Nolan McGinn, a Texas inmate who was convicted of raping and murdering his twelve-year-old stepdaughter, failed his DNA test after receiving a stay of execution and will return to death row.
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| August 15, 2000 | -
Texas executed a retarded murderer who enjoyed coloring with crayons.
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| August 1, 2000 | - A plague of grasshoppers was destroying crops in much of Texas.
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