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Texas Wildfire Season Hits 1 Year; No End In Sight

Wildfire, propelled by high winds, can burn the length of a football field in a single minute.
Wildfire, propelled by high winds, can burn the length of a football field in a single minute.

By KERA News & Wire Services

Dallas, TX – The devastating Texas wildfire season has now been going on for a year, and there's no end in sight.

A few fires have flared up recently - unlike the numerous massive blazes this spring and summer.

But the Texas Forest Service says more large fires are expected this winter because of the ongoing drought. So officials are not declaring an end to the wildfire season that started Nov. 15, 2010.

Blazes statewide have destroyed nearly 4 million acres, more than 2,900 homes and left 10 people dead in the past year.

Agency spokeswoman April Saginor says the dates of the Texas fire season dates vary each year.

Another devastating season ran from April 2005 through September 2006. But the 2008 and 2009 seasons each lasted less than a calendar year.

Construction Begins On Chisholm Trail Toll Road

Fort Worth motorists are on notice: get ready for construction delays on I-30, especially between Summit and University.

North Texas Tollway officials told city council members today that work on the Chisholm Trail Parkway is about to begin. It will be a toll road that connects downtown Fort Worth and Cleburne.

Elizabeth Mow is project development director for the North Texas Tollway Authority.

Mow: The main lanes of 30 for that short section, Summit to just east of University, will be shifted slightly south to make room for the direct connectors that will connect 30 to the new tollway. So, you will see narrowing of lanes and shifting one side to the other along 30 starting immediately.

Mow says the 28 mile Chisholm Trail toll road will be completed in 2014.

Perry calls for government overhaul

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says if elected he would end lifetime appointments for federal judges and slash the pay for members of Congress in half.

Rolling out a plan to overhaul Washington, the Texas governor also calls for requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress for any tax increases. He also would halt all proposed federal regulations.

Perry claims his plan is far more aggressive than any of the other Republicans who are challenging him to go up against President Barack Obama next November.

He says his plan would jumpstart the economy.

Perry discussed his ideas at a heating and cooling company in Iowa on Tuesday.

4 inducted into Texas newspaper hall of fame

Carmage Walls, who formed two companies that now operate 11 Texas newspapers, is among four 2012 inductees in the Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame.

Also named Tuesday as part of the 2012 class of inductees were Arthur H. Kowert, Roy Robinson and William Dean Singleton. The induction ceremony will be Jan. 20, as part of the Texas Press Association Midwinter Conference at the Hyatt Regency DFW Airport Hotel.

Hall of fame members are selected for their contributions to the newspaper industry.

Walls, who died in 1998, was associated with Texas newspapers for nearly 50 years. A self-educated son of a Georgia sharecropper, he began managing and buying newspapers in the 1930s and 1940s, mainly in the Southeast and in Texas.

At the time of his death, Walls left his newspaper ownership in Texas in two companies: Southern Newspapers Inc. and Galveston Newspapers Inc.

Texas judge seeks to keep seeing daughter, 10

A Texas judge seen beating his older daughter in a video she posted on YouTube is fighting to stay in contact with his younger daughter.

A motion on behalf of Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams was filed Monday in Rockport over visiting his 10-year-old daughter.

The judge objects to a temporary restraining order, issued last week, barring him from visiting the girl without getting permission from her mother, his ex-wife Hallie Adams. The couple divorced in 2007.

A custody hearing has been set for next Monday.

The secretly recorded 2004 video, posted in late October by the judge's now 23-year-old daughter Hillary Adams, attracted more than 6 million viewers by Tuesday.

Judge Adams has not heard cases since the online video began drawing wide attention in early November.

Lost JFK assassination tapes on sale

A long-lost version of Air Force One recordings made after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, with more than 30 minutes of additional material not in the official version in the government's archives, has been found and is for sale.

There are incidents and code names described on the newly discovered two-plus hour recording. It predates a shorter recording formerly thought to be the only surviving version.

The Raab Collection, a Philadelphia historic documents dealer, is selling the reel-to-reel tape for $500,000.

The tape comes from the estate of Army Gen. Chester "Ted" Clifton Jr., a Kennedy aide who was in the Dallas motorcade when the president was assassinated.

Clifton died in 1991. The Raab Collection acquired the items after the death of Clifton's wife in 2009.