Narco-blockades in Texas?
A Texas Department of Public Safety report released this week highlighted a particularly frightening danger agency officials say has emerged along the Texas-Mexico border: so-called narco-blockades,...
View ArticleFriday night on Rundberg: APD's 100 percent enforcement
The police department’s second “100 percent enforcement” initiative in the Rundberg area began Friday night in a motel room on Interstate 35, where officers Rafael Kianes and Taber White set up laptops...
View ArticleBill targeting wage requirements fizzling
As we first reported last month, a Dallas lawmaker had proposed a law that would prevent cities like Austin from requiring companies to pay a “living wage” to construction workers to qualify for...
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After facing deportation (partly because of a fish), immigrant gets word he...
This is a story about a fish that nearly got Jesus Gutierrez deported. Last August I visited the law offices of Thomas Esparza Jr. in South Austin to interview so-called “Dreamers” - undocumented...
View ArticleAuditor's report: IT projects cost state $26 million more than planned
Major information technology projects at eight different state agencies generally took a lot longer and cost the state a lot more than originally planned, according to a report from the State Auditor’s...
View ArticlePerry links Mexican cartels to DA slaying despite lack of evidence
While many signs point to the involvement of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang in the recent killings of Kaufman County prosecutors, Gov. Rick Perry has another target in mind: Mexican drug cartels and...
View ArticleGov.'s alarm installer has license denied
If trust of important people who value their security is a measure, Adam Waters has had some success in the business of security alarm installation. When he worked in North Carolina, Waters installed...
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Boston Marathon bombing echoes 2011 Fort Hood attempt
The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon this week give a chilling glimpse of just how much damage AWOL soldier Pfc. Naser Abdo could have caused had his attempted 2011 Fort Hood attack...
View ArticleCyber group targets Zetas in Ciudad Acuna
Fed up with the silence surrounding the cartel activity that has engulfed their border city, a group of cyber-savvy “hacktivists” have launched an unprecedented attack against the Zeta crime syndicate...
View ArticleFBI investigation of Boston bombing suspect reminiscent of botched Fort Hood...
The Boston Marathon bombing case isn’t the first time FBI agents had someone on their radar who later inflicted mass casualties, but didn’t take action. In 2011, agents interviewed Boston bombing...
View ArticleHow a Black-eyed Pea dinner led to a scholarship
Last week I was in West covering the explosion at West Fertilizer Co., talking to people who had been evacuated from their homes, watching donations stack up at the Best Western and trying to find...
View ArticleWhat's the connection between prostitution and driver's ed?
Does an incident of prostitution mean a person is morally unfit to teach you how to ride a motorcycle? Over the past couple of years, I’ve written plenty about some of the more questionable aspects of...
View ArticleRundberg motels meet to talk strategy
In Sunday’s paper we explored how the hotels and motels clustered along Interstate 35 near Rundberg Lane have over the years become the preferred crash pads for drug dealers, prostitutes and other...
View ArticleAustin police hire three new crime lab analysts
In early February, we wrote about a mounting backlog of samples awaiting testing at the Austin police crime lab that was causing unprecedented delays in both felony and misdemeanor criminal cases....
View ArticleQ&A with anti-narco hacker group in Ciudad Acuna
Last month we brought you the story of a group of “hacktevists” in Ciudad Acuna who are embarking on an audacious plan to publicly reveal addresses, photos and documents related to cartel activity in...
View ArticleVeterans seek to block food stamp cuts
An influential veterans lobbying group is trying to stop billions of dollars in potential cuts to the nation’s food stamp program, warning legislators that some 1.5 million veterans depended on such...
View ArticleTexas lawmaker had warrant out for arrest nearly a year
A Texas lawmaker has had an Austin police warrant out for his arrest for nearly a year for an unresolved speeding ticket, but paid his fine this afternoon within minutes of an American-Statesman...
View ArticleBallistics tests still pending on DPS helicopter shooting
Six months after a grand jury investigation was promised into the South Texas shooting deaths of two Guatemalan immigrants in a pickup truck being pursued by a Texas Department of Public Safety...
View ArticleWhat's the difference between Bales and Hasan capital cases?
Over the last year, Maj. Nidal Hasan has tried several times to plead guilty to charges he killed 13 people and wounded 32 during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in November 2009. But despite saying he...
View ArticleDoes IRS prosecute cases highlighted in Statesman weekend story?
This weekend I wrote a profile of Howard Antelis, an IRS tax examiner who turned whistle-blower after trying for years to get his bosses at the tax agency to pay attention to what he said was...
View ArticleCalifornia follows Texas lead on veteran claims
The state of California is following Texas’s lead by establishing a “strike force” of state-employed claims counselors to help the federal Department of Veterans Affairs reduce a historic backlog of...
View ArticleSome Hasan jurors have skeptical view of death penalty
Conventional wisdom might be that a jury of high ranking Army officers wouldn’t hesitate before sending Maj. Nidal Hasan to death row for his role in killing 12 soldiers and a civilian during a 2009...
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Nuevo Laredo newspapers write about dengue fever, but keep silent on Z-40's...
As the Associated Press reports today, the newspapers of Nuevo Laredo have made no mention of the arrest of Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, better known as Z-40, the supreme leader of the murderous Zetas...
View ArticleDespite Fort Hood's aggressive prosecution of sexual assailants, many victims...
At Fort Hood, officials are understandably proud of their high prosecution rate when it comes to sexual assaults. Of the 200 sexual assault reports in the last two years, 49 have resulted in...
View ArticleThis blog has moved!
The Focal Point blog has moved to new location. Click here to get the latest entries. If you use an RSS reader, you will want to update your feed.
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