By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
Texas has been allocated about 3 million doses of swine flu vaccine by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Texas Department of State Health Services on Friday afternoon announced the agency continues to order the state's full allocation of the H1N1 vaccine as quickly as possible. About 2.5 million doses had been ordered as of Thursday.
DSHS says the swine flu vaccine, due to manufacturing delays, continues to arrive in lower-than-projected quantities.
The state agency says Texas expects to receive 13 million H1N1 doses by the end of January.
Panel votes to keep prepaid tuition formula
An oversight board has voted to keep a generous refund formula for those who want to cancel their Texas prepaid college tuition plans.
The Texas Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board on Thursday decided to cancel new rules that would have cut the value of refunds.
A final board vote is needed in December after a public comment period to reinstate the previous refund policy that reflects the value of tuition, not just the amount paid in.
The former Texas Tomorrow Fund, renamed the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan, had money trouble and was suspended for new participants after legislators in 2003 deregulated college tuition.
Texas families that left the plan, after learning of the refund policy change in May, would have until Dec. 31 to return, getting a year to get caught up on tuition installment payments and interest.
SMU associate professor to lead regional EPA
A Southern Methodist University educator has been selected by President Barack Obama to be a regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Al Armendariz will lead the region that includes Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and 66 tribal nations.
The agency, in a statement Thursday, said Armendariz is an SMU associate professor, teaching environmental and civil engineering.
Man gets life term or Dallas smoke shop killing
A man convicted in the 2008 killing of a customer at a Dallas smoke shop has been sentenced to life in prison.
Formal sentencing came Thursday in Denton for 21-year-old Arsenio Desmond Petty. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty against Petty, who was convicted Wednesday of capital murder.
The case involved the Dec. 30 fatal shooting of 18-year-old Rabeca Rae Kemp during what police say was a botched robbery attempt. Three other people were hurt.
A second man, 24-year-old Maurice Antione Hall of Allen, faces trial later on a capital murder charge