By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – A new state auditor's report says the food stamp program in Texas is inefficient and outdated and suffers from a growing number of inaccuracies.
The State Auditor's Office said inexperienced staff and inefficient office setups mean the program run by the Health and Human Services Commission has not been able to keep up with the increased number of applications spurred by the recession.
The auditor says 80 percent of food stamp applications are still kept as paper files. Applicants are often forced to wait in long lines for answers to basic questions and can't get answers over the phone or Internet.
The state report follows a warning to Texas by federal officials concerned last year about growing delays. Food stamps are primarily funded by federal money.
ATF ramping up probe of explosives in east Texas
A federal agency says it will add resources to investigate a series of incendiary devices found in east Texas in recent weeks.
Spokesman Tom Crowley of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tells the Tyler Morning Telegraph his agency believes at least some of the incidents are related.
The latest of at least a dozen incidents was a suspected pipe bomb found Monday in the front yard of a business in Tyler, about 90 miles east of Dallas.
Crowley said additional agents will be used to conduct interviews and look at surveillance video.
Federal officials also told the newspaper they were investigating the discoveries of suspected incendiary devices during an investigation into church fires last month.
Texas financier Stanford again wants new attorneys
Texas financier R. Allen Stanford is again asking for new attorneys as he awaits trial on charges he bilked investors out of $7 billion as part of a massive Ponzi scheme.
A motion was filed in Houston federal court on Tuesday asking that Stanford's current two attorneys be replaced by two others. The motion, if granted by U.S. District Judge David Hittner, would give Stanford his fourth set of lawyers in less than a year.
Kent Schaffer is one of the two attorneys Stanford wants replaced. He says he's happy to step aside because there was conflict with Stanford over how to try the case.
Stanford has been jailed since he was indicted in June on various charges, including wire and mail fraud.
New Texas vanity plates get an extra letter
Beginning this week, Texans have a little more leeway to get personal with their license plate. Vanity plates may now contain seven characters, rather than the traditional six. The only catch: the first letter must be a "T."
The so-called T plate gives drivers a second chance to nab names and words claimed long ago by other drivers.
Kim Miller Drummond, a spokeswoman for My Plates, the company selling the plates for the Department of Motor Vehicles, said 43 were sold on Monday, the first day they were offered. Among them were T GOLDEN, T RANCHR and T MIZZOU.
But plates bearing an extra character won't come cheap. Expect to pay $95 a year, or as much as $495 for 10 years if you want to keep the plate that long.