By BJ Austin, KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – Residents and jail inmates are moving out of the courthouse town of Palo Pinto as a wildfire that's part of the Possum Kingdom Complex menaces the town of about 400 residents.
Palo Pinto County Judge David Nicklas says evacuees are being moved to Mineral Wells in the eastern part of the county, 12 miles to the east of Palo Pinto. He said about 100 inmates of the county jail also are being moved to an undisclosed location.
Nicklas said a wildfire that had been northwest of town had circled around to the north and northeast. Winds gusting from the northeast late Tuesday afternoon placed the county seat in harm's way.
Palo Pinto is 56 miles west of Fort Worth.
Dallas Firefighters Head to Wildfires
Four teams of Dallas firefighters are headed to the Possum Kingdom wildfires - west of Fort Worth.
City officials say each team includes 10 firefighters, a command vehicle, and four "booster trucks". Those are Ford F 350's equipped with a water tank and other equipment.
Each team will deploy for three days at a time and will rotate.
Dallas City officials say wildfires are burning in 39 counties, over one million acres.
More than 14 hundred firefighters from agencies across 34 states and the federal government are battling the Texas fires.
Panel considering options for $4b in revenue
A Senate panel is recommending a bevy of options to raise more than $4 billion in one-time revenue.
The options include the sale of state property, pushing large school payments into the next fiscal year and speeding up the collection of various taxes.
A Senate Finance subcommittee brought the recommendations to the full committee Tuesday. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst charged the subcommittee with finding options for "non-tax revenue" that could help the state deal with a massive budget shortfall.
The committee was expected to vote on the measure later this week.
The recommendations also repeal a hotel sales tax exemption for long-term residents and an economic development tax refund.
Scam targets Texans who had personal data leaked
The state attorney general's office is warning that telephone scammers are targeting about 3.5 million Texans who had Social Security numbers and other personal information inadvertently exposed to the public.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says investigators have received reports of victims of the security leak receiving calls at home asking to confirm Social Security numbers.
In a statement Tuesday, Abbott said the callers claim to represent one of three state agencies whose employees or retirees had their information exposed, but none of the agencies are actually making such calls.
The FBI and Abbott's office are investigating after personal data was left for a year, and in some cases even longer, on a Texas comptroller's office server that was publicly accessible.
Four comptroller's office personnel involved have been fired.
High Gas Prices: More People Running on Empty
With gasoline prices edging toward four dollars a gallon, Texans are waiting longer to fill up, and many are running out of gas.
Dan Ronan, with Triple-A Texas, says calls are up for roadside assistance from drivers out of gas.
Ronan: For the first quarter just in Texas our calls are up about five percent. In some other states, it's been significantly higher. And we're finding that this is something of an issue, where people are trying to get as much gas as they possibly can out of a tank.
Ronan warns that repeatedly running on empty could damage the car's fuel pump.
He says Triple-A saw this ramp-up of roadside assistance calls in 2008, when gas prices were as high, or higher.
Historic Tarrant County Clock To Go Silent
The clock atop the historic Tarrant County Courthouse in downtown Fort Worth stops tomorrow for a year. The landmark timepiece will undergo a five million dollar restoration project.
The joints between the granite blocks will be sealed to prevent rain water from getting in the clock tower interior. Clock works and the clock face framing will be repaired, and water-damaged wood flooring will be replaced.
Scaffolding on the tower goes up later this month. The work should be completed by the summer of 2012.
Texas House votes to outlaw Salvia
The Texas House has approved a bill that would outlaw Salvia divinorum, a decorative plant with hallucinogenic qualities commonly known as Diviner's Sage.
The measure passed Tuesday would place the plant, its derivatives and extracts under Penalty Group 3 along with peyote, codeine and steroids. Possession of the drug would be punishable as a state jail felony.
The plant is native to Mexico, where people have used it for religious and medical reasons. Extracts are sold in some shops and over the Internet.
State Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson, the author of the bill, has introduced similar legislation in 2007 and 2009, but the measures failed. The bill faces a final procedural hurdle before moving to the Senate.