Texas

Only a few weeks ago, race relations had reached such a low point in the troubled East Texas town of Paris that federal Justice Department mediators were called in to try to bring together black and white citizens, but the public meeting quickly dissolved into rancor.

Leaders in a small Texas border city said Wednesday that they felt blindsided after learning that a judge had ordered public land turned over temporarily to the federal government as it works on a fence along the border with Mexico. U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum ordered Eagle Pass to surrender 233 acres of city-owned land. The Justice Department had sued for access to the land Monday. Ludlum's ruling came the same day, before the city could muster a challenge.

A Texas mayor who admitted stealing her neighbor's Shih Tzu was indicted Friday on felony charges -- a serious turn in a canine custody drama that has become the butt of jokes in the Lone Star State. Grace Saenz-Lopez, the mayor of Alice, was indicted on charges of concealing and falsifying evidence by a Jim Wells County grand jury. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The mayor filed a report with police Jan.

The day after a grand jury indicted a Texas Supreme Court justice on arson-related charges, the district attorney here had the case dismissed, arguing there was insufficient evidence to move forward. The unusual action Friday by Harris County Dist. Atty. Chuck Rosenthal in the case against Justice David Medina and his wife outraged two members of the grand jury, who called it a blatant example of politics trumping justice. Both Medina and Rosenthal are Republicans.

A bizarre legal battle was effectively ended Tuesday when a judge ruled that a grand jury that had indicted a Texas Supreme Court justice over the prosecutor's objections was operating with improperly filed paperwork, the justice's attorney and the grand jury foreman said. The mistake, made when the Harris County district attorney's office extended the grand jury's term in November, invalidated all indictments issued after that, District Judge Jim Wallace ruled.

HOUSTON -- When the team bus pulls up at Reliant Stadium this evening and Coach Hugo Sanchez and the players on the Mexican national soccer team disembark, another milestone will have been reached. For the fifth consecutive year, the Tricolor will be on tour in a country where it is every bit as welcome and as well-supported as it is in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey or anywhere else "El Tri" travels.

In a bid to overcome angry resistance to the government's planned border barrier, federal officials have agreed to run a contested section close to the Rio Grande rather than slice through miles of private land. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the agreement with Hidalgo County officials Friday, hailing it as a precedent that could be echoed in other parts of the state where resistance to the barrier has been most intense. "It's a great model for what we can do," he said.

As they race back and forth between Ohio and Texas in advance of their March 4 primary showdown, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are squaring off over who has the answer to the nation's spiraling foreclosure crisis. Neither presidential rival offers a comprehensive solution, economists say, but that has not inhibited them from touting their populist credentials and tugging at voters' heartstrings.

In the land of the Texas Longhorns, where men are men and football is a sacrament, there are lessons to be learned about the intersection of politics and sport. On Thursday, during a pre-debate tour of the sacred Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sen. Barack Obama taught some and learned some, compliments of Mack Brown, University of Texas head coach. Obama stood in the locker-room gloom, nursing a cold but patiently posing for pictures with anyone who breathed.

A police officer in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's motorcade was killed in a motorcycle accident Friday morning on the way to a campaign rally, authorities said. The officer was identified as Senior Cpl. Victor Lozada-Tirado, who died after apparently crashing into a concrete barrier, Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle said in a televised news conference. "Officer Lozada was very, very well respected. He had been here a long time and had touched a lot of people," Kunkle said.