By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – It's Week 8 of the unusual pre-summer slide in retail gasoline prices across Texas.
The weekly AAA Texas price survey released Thursday shows the average price of regular unleaded gasoline across Texas fell by an average of a penny this week to $2.58 per gallon. Nationally, the average price remained unchanged at $2.71 per gallon.
The state's cheapest gas again was found in the Fort Worth-Arlington area, where the average price of regular unleaded fell a penny to $2.52 per gallon. The most expensive regular unleaded gasoline averaged $2.65 per gallon in both El Paso and Corpus Christi, down 2 cents in El Paso and 3 cents in Corpus Christi.
The auto club statement notes that crude oil prices remain fairly stable around the $75 per barrel level, $12 less than seven weeks ago.
History favors Texas judge facing possible removal
Embattled Texas Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller may have history on her side when she appears before a state disciplinary panel.
Keller will answer charges Friday that she denied a death row inmate the chance to file a last-minute appeal hours before his 2007 execution. The presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals faces five charges of judicial misconduct.
Death penalty opponents and critics want Keller removed from the bench, but the state Commission on Judicial Conduct has suspended a judge not under indictment only six times since 2002.
Keller faces no criminal charges, and her attorney says removing Keller would "negate the will" of Texas voters who elected her to the court.
Man pleads guilty of luring minor into sex on tape
A Dallas-area man has pleaded guilty to luring a 14-year-old girl into a van and engaging in sex acts with her while having the encounters photographed and filmed.
U.S. Attorney James Jacks says 56-year-old Jack Zimmerman pleaded guilty in Dallas on Thursday to one count of enticing a minor and one count of production of child pornography.
Court documents state that Zimmerman met the girl in an Internet chat room by posing as an 18-year-old man from Dallas. Pornographic images were found on Zimmerman's digital camera when he was arrested in December 2009.
Zimmerman faces a 30-year prison sentence if the court accepts his plea bargain. Sentencing is scheduled for October.