Suspect Sought In Killing Of Dallas Cabbie & Midday Roundup

By KERA News & Wire Services

Dallas, TX – Police say a Dallas taxi driver was fatally shot and his two passengers were wounded by a man who chased the cab following an argument at a strip club.

Sr. Cpl. Janice Crowther says two men involved in the disturbance got into the taxi early Monday and then an unknown suspect in another vehicle pulled up next to the cab and opened fire. Police are still seeking the gunman.

After the shooting, Crowther says, the wounded passengers "left the cab driver on the ground" and drove themselves to a hospital in the cab. The taxi driver was taken to a hospital where he died. His name was not immediately released.

The passengers were treated and released, then both were arrested on unrelated charges.

Day care staffing levels in Texas under review

The ratio of adults to children in day care centers across Texas could be increasing.

A public hearing is planned Tuesday as the Department of Family and Protective Services reviews child care standards. The agency's advisory council later this year is expected to recommend changes to Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs.

The Austin American-Statesman reported Monday that Texas, with about 9,300 day care centers, currently allows one adult to oversee as many as nine 18-month-olds, and one adult for as many as 11 27-month-olds.

Sasha Rasco, assistant commissioner for child care licensing, says 75 percent of Texas day care centers already have ratios as low as those being proposed.

One plan would set limits on television or computer time, allowing a maximum two hours a day for children age 2 and older.

Texas youth prison official on trial in sex case

Jury selection is under way in the Odessa trial of a former youth prison administrator accused of sexually assaulted young inmates.

Ray Brookins - a former assistant superintendent at the Texas Youth Commission's West Texas State School in Pyote - was indicted in 2007 on charges alleging he had sex with inmates for two years. His lawyer, Bob Garcia Jr., has repeatedly declined to discuss the case.

Brookins faces two counts of improper sexual activity with a person in custody and two counts of improper relationship between an educator and a student.

Sex abuse allegations against Brookins and ex-principal John Paul Hernandez were first investigated by the Texas Rangers in 2005.

Court denies Texan's appeal over DA-judge affair

The Supreme Court has left in place the conviction of a man, despite the admission of an affair between his trial judge and the prosecutor. The justices did not comment Monday in turning down the appeal of Charles Dean Hood.

A Texas appeals court threw out Hood's death sentence earlier this year on a point unrelated to the affair.

Hood was seeking an entirely new trial based on the once-secret romantic relationship between the trial judge, Verla Sue Holland, and Tom O'Connell, the former district attorney in Collin County.