By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
Gov. Rick Perry is giving up his claim of residency in College Station - and the tax break that went with it. Perry has lived in Austin for nearly two decades.
In a prepared statements issued Wednesday, Perry spokesman Mark Miner says the governor has withdrawn his application for a homestead exemption in College Station, where he owns a house.
Although Perry lives in a state-provided mansion in west Austin, he began claiming the Brazos County home as his primary residence in 2007.
Miner said Perry will refund a $183.16 school tax break he got from the homestead exemption.
Microsoft ordered to pay $290M in patent ruling
A federal judge in Texas has ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling some versions of its Word software in the U.S. within two months.
U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis was reaffirming his court's May decision, which found Microsoft's widely used word processing program infringes on a Canadian technology company's patent. The dispute is over the way Word 2003 and Word 2007 encode and display information.
The judge makes exceptions for versions of Word that remove certain custom code before opening a file, leaving the door open for Microsoft to come up with a technical workaround to the injunction.
The judge also has ordered Microsoft to pay $290 million to Toronto-based i4i LLP.
Microsoft says it will appeal.
Albanian immigrant denied asylum back in custody
U.S. immigration authorities are holding an Albanian asylum seeker they had previously tried to sedate and deport.
Lufkin restaurateur Rrustem Neza was taken into custody Friday at work. His attorney, John Wheat Gibson, says Neza is being held in Louisiana pending deportation.
ICE petitioned a federal court in late 2007 for permission to medicate Neza. That was after agents couldn't deport him because he was terrified and wouldn't calm down at the airport.
Neza's deportation was postponed when the U.S. House subcommittee on immigration began examining his case as part of a private bill. U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a conservative Republican from Tyler, introduced the bill seeking to give Neza lawful permanent resident status.
But the bill and Neza's appeals in his asylum case both failed.
'Fight club' trial put on hold
The first trial of a former worker at a Texas facility for the developmentally disabled where fights were videotaped has been put on hold.
The prosecution's final witness was not available Wednesday.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that State District Judge Sandra Watts recessed the trial of Jesse Salazar until an undetermined date. A Corpus Christi police detective, scheduled to testify in the case, might have to undergo surgery.
Salazar is one of six former employees of the Corpus Christi State School charged for their roles in orchestrated late-night fights between the facility's residents.
Texas teen suspension lifted over MySpace page
A 16-year-old girl will be allowed to remain on the Burleson High School drill team after a suspension over contents of her MySpace page was dropped.
Alicia Smock said Wednesday that her daughter, Lindsey Wessel, will be allowed to compete because rules governing what was posted online were "vague."
Wessel had received eight demerits for language used and content on her personal Web site. She was suspended for an upcoming football game. Smock says the demerits will also be removed.
The school on Wednesday, in a statement, cited a loophole on the definition of when demerits could be given as part of the team's constitution.
Smock says she has been advised that the constitution will be updated for the next school term. Burleson is about 12 miles south of Fot Worth.