Texas

The first Solicitor General of Texas, Greg Coleman, died in a plane crash yesterday when the Piper PA-46 Malibu he was flying in went down as the pilot tried to land it at an airport in Destin, Fla.

A burn ban stopped Aggies from setting fire to their massive bonfire yesterday evening, and now dry conditions have prompted Williamson County to issue a burn ban of its own.

The ban was issued today at 1:30 and will remain in effect until further notice. It applies to any fire outside of an "enclosure" that contains all the flames and sparks. The ban can be enforced by any police officer.

Judge Pat Priest is warning lawyers they may be working late tonight. As of now, the jury has not come back with a verdict on the third day of deliberations. Priest says alternatives--including the possibility of having the jury deliberate on Thanksgiving--are worse than putting in some overtime today.

The jury earlier requested copies of several interviews DeLay did with news organizations, and with former DA Ronnie Earle.

The Aggies are in town tomorrow for one of the biggest rivalry games in college football.  Longhorn fans are hoping Texas plays with confidence following last weekend’s Florida Atlantic win.  Texas A&M is ranked 17. 

Head Coach Mack Brown praised Texas A&M's defense and acknowledged he’s not happy being the underdog going into the Thanksgiving Day game. 

Updated at 11:50am: Jurors have asked yet another question, this time about the language of the conspiracy charge against Tom DeLay.  Jurors wanted to know if DeLay had to agree to both parts of the alleged conspiracy -- both sending corporate money to the Republican National Committee and sending an equal amount of money back to Texas legislative candidates -- to be found guilty of conspiracy. 

The Department of Defense released suicide data for October on Friday, reporting 25 potential suicides. That brings the total number of suicides so far this year to 172, meaning we've already surpassed the overall total for 2009, according to the National Journal.

The Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission (TABC) has finally weighed in on caffeinated alcoholic beverages such as Four Loko, the soon-to-be-altered caffeinated alcoholic beverage that refuses to ride into the world of forgotten novelty. From the TABC’s press release on Friday:

Texas total nonfarm employment was up by 47,900 jobs in October, according to a Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) press release. This number accounts for an impressive third of the 151,000 jobs the entire U.S. economy added in the same period.

“Every major industry added jobs in October with notable increases in Construction employment” said TWC Chairman Tom Pauken.

TWC also released that the unemployment rate stayed steady at 8.1 percent, a substantial percentage and a half less than the country’s, which is currently at 9.6.

Hispanic Caucus Elects New Chair

San Antonio Democrat Charlie Gonzalez has been elected chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.  My SA news reports the Caucus unanimously picked Gonzalez.  The six-term lawmaker says he plans to reach out to five newly elected Hispanic Republicans and ask them to join the caucus.  Gonzalez starts his new leadership role when the 112th Congress convenes in January.

Four Loko-lovers may need to start looking for the next alcoholic fad as "blackout in a can" is changing its formula.  The move comes in response to the considerable heat brought by the U.S. government following several incidents across the country involving the alcohol and caffeine-infused drink.

The federal government warned four companies that manufacture caffeine-spiked booze products to stop selling the drinks or deal with the threat of litigation and seizure of assets. The companies have 15 days to comply with the Food and Drug Administration-penned (FDA) letter.

The national hysteria over the caffeinated alcoholic beverage Four Loko is reaching a fever pitch with bans looming or already enacted in Boston, New York, Michigan, Washington state, and Pennsylvania.

Now there's speculation that the controversial drink may have been consumed by the driver of an SUV that crashed and killed a 14-year-old girl in North Texas, reports My Fox Dallas-Fort Worth:

George W. Bush and his wife Laura will be wielding the golden shovels tomorrow as they dig symbolic dirt for a groundbreaking ceremony on the country's newest Presidential Library.

A new report today by the United States Department of Agriculture found Texas has the second lowest rate of "household food security" in the United States.  Household food security is defined as a family having "access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members."

People who live in the Austin exurb of Kyle have an opportunity to meet their future city manager tonight. Four people are finalists for the job. They'll be shaking hands tonight at 7 p.m. at Kyle City Hall.

Here are the names of the finalists and links to their biographies:

It took military prosecutors nine days to present their evidence in the pre-trial hearing for Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009.

Today, it was the defense's turn to present evidence in the Article 32 hearing, but Hasan's lawyers rested after just four minutes.

Old Man Winter paid a visit to the Texas panhandle today and dumped heavy, wet snow on the Amarillo area.

KFDA TV in Amarillo reports downed trees and "widespread" power outages.

Xcel Energy says around 5,000 customers are without power right now and it's not expected to come back on for at least the next few hours.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will not be giving monetary help to Texas for the flooding that happened during Tropical Storm Hermine.

The decision is actually the second denial for Texas from FEMA.  The federal agency  initially turned down Texas in October.  Governor Perry now has a request into the Secretary of Commerce for a disaster declaration. If approved, Texas business owners could apply for loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA.)

The Cedar Park High School Timberwolf Band is headed to Indianapolis for the Bands of America Grand National Championships next week. The competition begins on November tenth and runs through the thirteenth. The band took first place at the Bands of America Super Regional competition in San Antonio on October 30, also receiving awards for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Visual.

The FDA confirmed earlier today that they have found the presence of the bacteria listeria monocytogenes at the SanGar Produce & Processing Plant in San Antonio.

The Burleson County District Attorney has dropped murder charges against Anthony Graves. Graves had been behind bars for nearly two decades for the murders of six people in 1992 in Somerville, TX, a small town of about 2,000 just an hour-and-a-half east of Austin.

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, was recently slapped with a $269 million sales tax bill by Texas. The $269 million figure comes from the amount the state claims the company owes from back-taxes since December four years ago, plus interest and penalties.

Looking to go camping on the Gulf Coast in Corpus? Bummer alert: Corpus Christi City Council has instituted a curfew on Corpus Christi Beach between midnight and 5 p.m.

Tornadoes touched down near Dallas over the weekend, according to the Dallas Morning News and the AP.

A tornado is believed to have touched down in Rice, near Interstate 45, about 45 miles south of Dallas.

The weather service also believes a second tornado hit near the Hunt County city of Lone Oak, about 60 miles northeast of Dallas near Lake Tawakoni.

The articles you read on the Texas Tribune website will soon be found in the pages of America's most influential newspaper, the New York Times. (The Trib is a reporting partner with KUT and our own Ben Philpott spends close to half his time there.)