Another person has died following the crash of a pickup truck overloaded with illegal immigrants in South Texas.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore says nine people remain hospitalized following the most recent death.
Palmore says the 11 men and three females who died include illegal immigrants from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
The accident occurred in rural Goliad County, about 90 miles southeast of San Antonio Sunday evening.
Authorities say 23 people were packed into the pickup when it ran off the road and crashed into trees.
AP
Pipelines Complain About Eminent Domain Decision
Pipeline owners and operators called for Texas lawmakers to pass laws protecting them following a Supreme Court ruling against them.
Representing Denbury Associates, Greg Schnacke said the court's decision to allow property owners to challenge his company's eminent domain authority could hurt the entire oil and gas industry in Texas. He testified Monday before the House Land and Resource Management Committee.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled that receiving a state permit to build a pipeline did not automatically give that company eminent domain powers to condemn the land along the pipeline's route. The Court ruled that property owners can challenge the company's authority in court.
Industry representatives say the ruling will lead to multiple challenges in different courts and make pipelines for new oil and gas fields more difficult.
AP
Texas A&M dedicates biodefense center
Texas A&M University has formally dedicated a new national biodefense center where researchers work on strategies to respond to bioterrorism and develop vaccines in the event of a pandemic or some chemical or biological or nuclear threat.
The A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing is one of three such national centers announced last month. Others are in Maryland and North Carolina.
The state of Texas has committed $40 million to the nearly $300 million project on the Texas A&M campus in College Station. The federal government is contributing $176 million.
Top officials from the Texas A&M University System, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and federal Health and Human Services officials cut a ceremonial Aggie maroon ribbon Monday to open the center.
AP
4 Dallas firefighters treated for heat after blaze
Emergency officials say a Dallas resident safely escaped a house fire but four firefighters have been slightly hurt.
Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans says the four firefighters suffered heat-related issues in the pre-dawn blaze Monday. Evans says all were treated at the scene.
The National Weather Service says temperatures were in the low 80s at the time of the fire, reported around 3:30 a.m. Monday.
Investigators say electrical short in the attic caused the fire. Evans says the home suffered about $125,000 worth of damage.
AP
Man confesses in Texas to 1970s Oregon murders
Police in Oregon say a 63-year-old man called authorities in Texas and confessed to two Portland homicides in the 1970s.
Portland detectives arrested Jeffrey Paul Cutlip over the weekend in Brownsville, Texas. Police said he admitted his involvement in two slayings - one in 1975, the other in 1977. Authorities haven't released the names of the victims or other information about the crimes.
Cutlip is being held in the Cameron County Jail awaiting extradition to Portland.
Oregon Department of Corrections records show Cutlip has spent most of the past three decades behind bars, in and out of prison for crimes including sodomy, burglary and robbery. He was required to register as a sex offender following a 1982 sodomy conviction. Records say he targets female strangers using threats and weapons.
AP