Texas

Activists battling a new oil pipeline chained themselves to bulldozers in Texas on Wednesday, temporarily halting route-clearance work in the latest protest against the Keystone XL project to carry oil from the tar sands of northern Canada. But TransCanada, the company that hopes to build the pipeline, took an important step forward with a proposed new route for the northern segment of the line. The company says the route would skirt the delicate Nebraska Sandhills, the permeable sands that lie atop one of the nation's most important agricultural aquifers.

The Angels will get their fill of Texas next season. The team's 2013 schedule was officially released on Wednesday, and there are no trips combining the Rangers and new American League West member Houston. So, the Angels will make six different stops in Texas to play the Rangers and Astros. As was reported last week, the Angels will open the season on April 1 at Cincinnati, their three-game interleague series against the Reds followed by three games at Texas. The home opener is April 9 against Oakland.

This post has been updated. See note at the bottom for details.  A retired British businessman was expected to make his first appearance in a federal court in El Paso on Monday after he was extradited last week on charges that he tried to sell missile batteries to Iran in 2006. Christopher Tappin, 65, turned himself in Friday after fighting extradition for two years and was taken to El Paso by federal marshals. Daryl Fields, spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, told The Times that Tappin was scheduled to have an initial hearing on Monday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Castañeda.

Fire crews in Oklahoma and Texas raced Thursday to control wind-whipped wildfires that destroyed dozens of homes, forced evacuations and shut down parts of a major highway. Howling wind that had gusted to more than 50 mph grounded air-based firefighting efforts in Oklahoma and drove blazes that scorched neighborhoods like "a war zone," Midwest City Police Chief Brandon Clabes said.

A panel of federal appeals court judges ruled Friday that Texas cannot ban Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds while a federal lawsuit over funding is pending. The lawsuit, filed last month, concerns a law Texas legislators passed last year that would have eliminated funding to 49 Planned Parenthood clinics Tuesday. On Monday, before that could happen, a federal judge in Austin granted an injunction barring the state from enforcing the law until the federal case is resolved.

at Minnesota 5, Texas 3: Pinch-runner Carlos Gomez scored the go-ahead run as the Twins scored three times in the eighth inning. The second-place Rangers fell to five games behind the Angels in the American League West. at New York 8, Chicago 3: Mark Teixeira hit a home run and drove in four runs, and the Yankees completed a three-game sweep. Alfredo Aceves (9-1) gave up two hits in three scoreless innings of relief. Kansas City 3, at Seattle 0: Zack Greinke (13-8)

Darrell Royal, the legendary football coach who died on Wednesday, was considered royalty in Texas, where he coached for 20 years. Royal was always referred to as "Coach Royal," years after he left the profession. He was hired at age 32 and retired in 1976, at age 52, after never having a losing season in 23 years as a head coach and posting a record of 167-47-5 in 20 years at Texas. The Longhorns won outright national titles in 1963 and 1969 and the UPI coaches' share of the 1970 championship, which was awarded before the team's Cotton Bowl loss to Notre Dame.

HOUSTON -- The brinkmanship continues as Texas battles to cut government funding to Planned Parenthood. Texas legislators passed a law last year to effectively remove Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from the Texas Medicaid Women's Health Program as of today.  Planned Parenthood clinics had sued the state to maintain funding and appeared to have won a victory Monday when a federal judge in Austin issued an injunction that...

HOUSTON -- A West Texas jury has found a former associate of polygamist religious leader Warren Jeffs guilty of bigamy. Wendell Loy Nielsen, 71, stood trial for marrying three women in addition to his legal wife, two of whom he married on the same day in 2006. At trial this month, his attorney had argued that the sect's “celestial marriages” did not violate state bigamy laws. The jury in San Midland, about 330 miles west of Dallas, deliberated for about an hour and a half before finding Nielsen guilty Wednesday of three counts of bigamy, court clerks told The Times.  Nielsen is the former president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon offshoot sect.