By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
An official says ex-FBI director William Webster will conduct an independent review of the FBI's probe of the Fort Hood shooting suspect.
The official says FBI Director Robert Mueller has asked Webster to take a look at how the bureau handled information about Maj. Nidal Hasan before the shooting at the Texas military base that killed 13. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter before an official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Many government agencies are reviewing their handling of information about Hasan before the Hasan allegedly went on a killing rampage. Webster also served as CIA director.
In the FBI's case, they examined e-mail exchanges between the Army psychiatrist and a radical imam overseas.
Man on Texas death row nearly 32 years can appeal
An appeals court is allowing one of the state's longest-serving death row inmates to proceed with claims that he had poor legal help and is mentally impaired and ineligible for execution.
Anthony Pierce has been on death row nearly 32 years. Only three other prisoners have been there longer. He was condemned for the 1977 robbery and slaying of the manager of a Houston fried chicken restaurant. The victim was 40-year-old Fred Johnson. Pierce, now 50, was 18 at the time.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday also turned down the state's appeal of a ruling that jurors weren't allowed to properly consider mitigating evidence at his third capital murder trial.
Pierce also has a manslaughter conviction for fatally stabbing a fellow death row inmate in 1979, a year after he arrived.
Snow blankets West Texas; wind damages school bus
Overnight ice and snow have blanketed parts of West Texas, and high winds blew out the window of a school bus in El Paso, injuring three children. Snow covered already-iced roadways in Lubbock by Tuesday morning, delaying classes at Texas Tech University and area schools.
A wind advisory was in effect in far West Texas. El Paso Fire Department officials issued a warning after the school bus incident and a roof collapse.
National Weather Service meteorologist John Lipe said conditions were better south and east of Lubbock. Temperatures remained above freezing in Sweetwater, Abilene and San Angelo. Temperatures were expected to reach the low 50s later Tuesday in the Lubbock area and the Texas Panhandle.
Questions on potential traffic near Bush library
An independent engineer has raised potential traffic concerns for the area near George W. Bush's planned presidential library in Dallas. Joseph T. Short, president of Lee Engineering, was hired by University Park to review a traffic study commissioned by the Bush Foundation.
The foundation study, offered in October, found the existing system can adequately handle anticipated library traffic. The Dallas Morning News reports the new review notes the Bush study does not look at traffic impact until 2015, two years after the library is to open at Southern Methodist University.
University Park director of public works Gene R. "Bud" Smallwood says he is asking the Bush Foundation for more information. A foundation official did not immediately comment. A public hearing on library development was scheduled Tuesday by the city's planning and zoning commission.