Texas wildlife officials have closed one of the state's five fish hatcheries because of lack of water from the ongoing drought.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department fish hatcheries director Todd Engeling said Thursday in a news release that two lakes that feed Dundee State Fish Hatchery southwest of Wichita Falls have not gotten the good rains enjoyed recently in other parts of the state.
The release says Lake Kemp is 1 foot above the level at which the hatchery loses authorization to use water from the lake.
The 97 ponds at Dundee, where striped bass and hybrid striped bass are primarily produced, represent 34 percent of Texas' available capacity for freshwater fish production.
Production of the fish will shift to other facilities.
Wichita Falls is about 140 northwest of Dallas.
AP
Boy who vanished in 2004 is placed in foster care
Authorities say a Texas boy who vanished eight years ago and was found living with his former babysitter is in foster care and doing fine.
The Texas Department of Family Protective Services said Thursday that 8-year-old Miguel Morin will remain at a foster home in the Houston area while authorities sort out his complicated case.
Officials scheduled an emergency court hearing for later in the day. The woman believed to be the boy's biological mother is expected to appear and perhaps to testify.
Estella Olguin of the family services agency said authorities hope to perform a DNA te st on Morin as soon as possible.
Krystle Rochelle Tanner was arrested Monday on kidnapping charges in Morin's late 2004 abduction. The 26-year-old woman was jailed in San Augustine, about 140 miles northeast of Houston.
AP
FDA asked to probe Texas stem cell company
The Food and Drug Administration has received a complaint against the company that stored adult stem cells used by Texas Gov. Rick Perry in an experimental procedure last year.
A University of Minnesota professor called on the FDA to investigate Houston-based Cell Tex Therapeutics, a company which banks adult stem cells for future use in medical procedures.
"This plan conflicts with FDA regulations governing human stem cells," states professor Leigh Turner in an 8-page letter to the agency.
While pursuing the Republican presidential nomination last fall, Perry revealed he that had stem cells taken from fat in his own body and then injected into his back during a July operation to treat back pain. Adult stem cells treatments are not FDA-approved, but experimentation by doctors is common.
AP
Texas courthouse shooting suspect held on $4M bond
A defendant in a family dispute accused of fatally shooting an elderly woman as she tried to run inside a Texas courthouse is being held on $4 million bond.
Bartholomew Granger is accused of wounding three other people Wednesday, including his daughter and the daughter's mother. A bystander was also injured. The 41-year-old Granger was arraigned Thursday morning. Granger is accused of grabbing a gun from his pickup truck outside the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont and opening fire.
Authorities say that sparked a shootout that ended after Granger briefly took hostages in a nearby building. Granger is charged with one count of murder. He was on trial this week in a separate criminal matter. Beaumont is 80 miles east of Houston.
AP