Texas

VAN HORN, Texas, July 20 (Reuters) - Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, is set on Tuesday to blast off aboard his company Blue Origin's New Shepard launch vehicle for a suborbital flight as part of a history-making crew - another milestone in ushering in a new era of private space travel.

The American billionaire is due to fly from a desert site in West Texas on an 11-minute voyage to the edge of space, nine days after Briton Richard Branson was aboard his competing space tourism company Virgin Galactic's successful inaugural suborbital flight from New Mexico.

(AP) --- A chemical leak at a Houston-area water park left dozens suffering from minor skin irritation and respiratory issues Saturday, authorities said.

Twenty-nine people were taken to local hospitals following the incident at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Splashtown in Spring, the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office tweeted. Thirty-nine others declined to be taken to a hospital after undergoing decontamination procedures.

KPRC-TV reports that some of those who became sick were children, including a 3-year-old who was hospitalized in stable condition.

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — In Republicans’ bid to retake control of Congress, this traditionally Democratic stretch of south Texas has quietly become a top battleground.

After making unexpected gains last November, the GOP is zeroing in on a trio of House seats in the region as key targets heading into next year’s midterm elections. They include the 15th congressional district, which hasn’t sent a Republican to Washington since its creation in 1903, but where a GOP newcomer came within three points of winning in 2020.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats in the Texas Legislature bolted Monday for Washington, and said they were ready to remain there for weeks in a second revolt against a GOP overhaul of election laws, forcing a dramatic new showdown over voting rights in America.

PHARR, Texas (AP) — Republican lawmakers traveled to Texas to cheer former President Donald Trump as he paid a visit to the southern border Wednesday and hammered the Biden administration for its immigration policies amid a decades-high spike in border crossings.

Trump, who was joined by more than two dozen House members, also continued to spread lies about the 2020 election as he participated in a border briefing and visited the wall he championed in a trip that was strikingly similar to the many he’d taken here while president.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas inmate faces execution on Wednesday after killing his pregnant wife, 5-year-old daughter and father-in-law more than a decade ago in what prosecutors called a brutal and senseless attack.

Authorities say John Hummel stabbed his wife, Joy Hummel, more than thirty times in December 2009. He then used a baseball bat to beat to death his daughter, Jodi Hummel, and his 57-year-old father-in-law, Clyde Bedford, who used a wheelchair. He then set their home on fire in Kennedale, a Fort Worth suburb.

DEL RIO, Texas (AP) — Marianela Rojas huddles in prayer with her fellow migrants, a tearful respite after trudging across a slow-flowing stretch of the Rio Grande and nearly collapsing onto someone’s backyard lawn, where, seconds before, she stepped on American soil for the first time.

“I won’t say it again,” interrupts a U.S. Border Patrol agent, giving orders in Spanish for Rojas and a dozen others to get into an idling detention van. “Only passports and money in your hands. Everything else — earrings, chains, rings, watches — in your backpacks. Hats and shoelaces too.”

PLANO, Texas (AP) — Brenda Martinez, a 19-year-old community college student, thinks the government should help immigrant students more. Donald Huffman is worried about turning 50 next week with no work available because the federal government is delaying the pipelines he usually helps build. Binod Neupane, who just moved to Texas to research alternative fuels, wants action on climate change.

AUSTIN (Texas, US), June 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Wednesday a bill that allows Texans to carry firearms in public without a permit, the latest in a series of measures expanding gun rights in conservative US states.

The law, which was passed in the Republican-dominated state Senate and House of Representatives last month, will allow anyone 21 years or older who is not barred from possessing a firearm to carry one in public without a permit.

(Reuters) --- Want to bid for a seat on a spaceship ride with Jeff Bezos? You’ll need to be quick - and you’ll probably need more than $4 million.

Blue Origin is planning a live auction on Saturday to conclude the month-long bidding process for a seat on the sightseeing trip to space next month with the company's founder, billionaire Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) executive Bezos.

The identity of the winner - presumably an ultra-wealthy space aficionado - will not be immediately disclosed.