By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
The state attorney general is arguing that under Texas law, divorce, like marriage, is reserved for a man and a woman.
A state district judge in Austin last week granted a divorce between a San Antonio woman and an Austin woman who married in Massachusetts in 2004. A day later, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a motion to block the divorce before it was entered into the official record.
Abbott told the San Antonio Express-News that the marriage was not valid in Texas, and therefore neither is the divorce.
Bob Luther, an attorney for Sabina Daly of San Antonio, told the newspaper that Abbott's motion will cost his client and her former spouse a lot of unnecessary expenses.
Angelique Naylor of Austin told the Austin American-Statesman that the divorce brought peace to the family.
Judge: Pay Dallas-area man $395K in ticket caper
A district judge has ordered that nearly $400,000 be paid to a Dallas-area maintenance man prosecutors say was the rightful winner of a $1 million jackpot last year.
Tuesday's order to pay Willis Willis comes while authorities search for the convenience store clerk they say stole the winning ticket when Willis asked if it was a winner. The clerk, Pankaj Joshi, is believed to have fled to his native Nepal after getting a check for $750,000.
The government has seized or frozen about $395,000 from Joshi's accounts during the investigation.
Willis says he wants to pay off medical bills, college tuition for the youngest of his six daughters and buy new golf clubs.
Texas co. appeals $18M RI mercury storage penalty
A Texas energy company convicted of illegally storing hazardous mercury in a rundown Rhode Island building has asked a federal appeals court to throw out an $18 million penalty.
A federal judge in October fined Southern Union $6 million and ordered it to pay an additional $12 million for storing the mercury without a permit in Pawtucket.
The mercury was exposed to the public in 2004 after vandals broke into the building and dumped containers of the hazardous liquid at a nearby apartment complex.
Southern Union says in Tuesday's filing with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the fine was "grossly excessive" and far higher than the punishment it says is handed out for more egregious behavior.
The penalty was stayed while the company appealed.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.