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Once in operation, the plant is expected to produce 1 billion pounds of propylene oxide -- a chemical used in the manufacture of bedding, furniture, carpeting, coatings, building materials, and adhesives -- and 2.2 billion pounds of tertiary butyl alcohol annually. LyondellBasell announced July 21 that it will build the world's largest plant manufacturing propylene oxide and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) in Channelview, Texas, an industrialized suburb of Houston. The project is estimated to cost approximately $2.4 billion, representing the single-largest capital investment in the company's history, and will be built at the LyondellBasell Channelview Complex. A related ethers unit,...

E mails poured in from across California. “My boys’ minds have been taken over by the liberal teachings of the schools here,” wrote a woman from Westlake Village who works in the courts. “I would like to try to save my younger son before it’s too late.” “I for one wish to not be a part of this control and socialist environment,” said a woman from Vacaville who home-schools her children and complained that California liberals ridiculed her for praying before meals. “I’m done,” announced a financial planner from Monrovia who complained she was struggling to find common ground with...

A Special Session of the Texas Legislature called by our Governor Greg Abbott is underway - and we need your activism to ensure the privacy, safety and dignity of Texans is protected. In the regular session that ended May 29, House Speaker Joe Straus kept the Texas Privacy Act and other related legislation from even receiving a vote in the Texas House, even though a majority of the House supported privacy legislation. This is in stark contrast to the Texas Senate where, under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Texas Privacy Act passed early in the regular session....

A prominent Black Lives Matter activist accused of punching a police horse will remain behind bars for at least two more days after being arrested on her way to court earlier this month. Shere Dore, 41, was a passenger in a car pulled over for an expired inspection sticker in her Fort Bend County neighborhood on July 6, her attorney said Tuesday. That led to her continued confinement without bail in Harris County. "I think they're trying to wear her down," attorney Jolanda Jones said. "I think her First Amendment rights are being criminalized." Dore was arrested July 6 for...

A 70-year-old Army veteran has been fired from a Houston-area Home Depot after trying to stop suspected shoplifters from taking thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise. KTRK-TV in Houston reports that Jim Tinney says he was fired last month from the store in Pearland. Tinney says he was trained to not confront shoplifters and knows he violated company policy, but that his military training just kicked in when he noticed three men attempting to steal tools. He threw a paint roller extension pole toward the suspects' feet. The men escaped. The Home Depot said in a statement that only trained...

Pharmaceutical giant Merck plans on creating at least 600 jobs at a new IT hub in Austin, according to Governor Greg Abbott's office. Abbott announced on Monday that Merck's new hub will include an investment of over $20 million. A $6 million grant was also offered to the company from a Texas Enterprise Fund. Abbott's office said the IT hub will work with Dell Medical School at UT Austin, the Austin Healthcare Council and others in the region. "Texas continues to excel as an economic powerhouse because global industry leaders like Merck recognize the Lone Star State as a premier...

Not long after California officially banned state-funded travel to Texas this summer, we awoke in a hotel there, behind enemy lines. It had been decades since my last visit to the Lone Star State; our daughter had gotten an offer she couldn’t refuse there from a graduate program. That was the good news. The bad news was, she’d be spending the next several years in a state whose political leaders are pathologically hostile to the blue state where she was born and raised.

A coffee shop that caters to Second Amendment Supporters and armed customers is hoping to open in 2018. So far it is only a web site with an online store that sells ground coffee and T-shirts.  They are seeking investors, if you are  interested. Here is a description of the proposed enterprise, from their web site. From operatorcoffee.com: To us, Operator Coffee is more than a coffee shop, it's a cause. We are a group of airborne veterans, special operations veterans, and active members of the shooting community. The idea for Operator Coffee was born out of a love...

FORT WORTH — Lockheed Martin will be interviewing at least 2,000 people for jobs next week — with some people being offered employment “on the spot” — as part of the buildup of F-35 production at its Fort Worth plant. Lockheed already has cleared about 1,900 applicants who pre-registered through social media for interviews, but anyone who thinks they may be qualified for one of the jobs, especially in manufacturing, can come to the Sheraton Fort Worth Downtown Hotel on Tuesday. The event opens at 7 a.m. “We’re really ramping up the activity to do this hiring. This is new...

Police said Gordon grabbed a flight attendant by the arm so hard she pulled the attendant onto her lap, then slapped her when the attendant refused to serve Gordon a drink, The Dallas Morning News reported. Gordon also got out of her seat and headed to the front of the plane, where she banged on the cockpit door several times, demanding to talk to the pilot, police said.

Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Beto O’Rourke received $2.1 million in donations in the second quarter for his campaign against incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who raised $1.6 million from April to June. Although O'Rourke raised more money in the second quarter, Cruz's campaign said in an email Thursday that the former Republican presidential candidate has $5.7 million cash on hand. O'Rourke's bid is considered a long shot because reliably GOP Texas hasn't had a Democratic senator since 1994, and although he has raised funds quickly since announcing his candidacy, O'Rourke had only $535,000 in campaign funds at the end of...

The father of a San Antonio, Texas, area teenage boy said his son apparently killed himself while participating in the satanic “Blue Whale Challenge” that is spreading on social media. After playing the game online, the parents of 15-year-old Isaiah Gonzalez found him hanging in his bedroom. His father, Jorge Gonzalez, wants other parents to know about the dangers of this game that is believed to have originated in Russia, Fox News reported. “It talks about satanic stuff and stuff like that and my son was never into that,” the teen’s father told KSAT ABC12 in San Antonio. He said...

A man arrested Sunday for public intoxication at Hippie Hollow on Lake Travis is facing additional charges after splashing urine on an officer while being booked into jail, court records say. Ernest Tamayo Jr., 32, is also charged with harassment of a public servant, criminal mischief, and failure to identify a fugitive... Officers told him he needed to leave the park immediately, and as they helped him look for his clothes he bent over...

A 14-year-old girl from Lubbock died early Sunday morning after being electrocuted in a bathtub. Madison Coe's mother and grandmother tell us she was in the bathtub, and either plugged her phone in or simply grabbed her phone that was already plugged in. It happened at her father's house in Lovington, NM. Madison just graduated 8th grade from Terra Vista Middle School in Frenship ISD. "It is with heavy hearts that Frenship ISD mourns the loss of Madison Coe. We wish to share our heartfelt sympathy with her family and friends as we carry the burden of this tragedy together,"...

A Texas City commissioner was charged with two counts of intoxicated manslaughter with a vehicle early Monday morning after her pickup hit and killed two men standing on the side of the road near the Galveston Causeway. According to investigators, the driver charged with manslaughter was identified as Texas City Commissioner Dee Ann Haney, 54. Charging documents obtained from Galveston County reveal that police arrested Haney after she admitted she was under the influence of marijuana and admitted to smoking it before her crash.

Officers found Fernandez de Lara around 1:30 a.m. on June 21 at an apartment complex in the 12000 block of Vance Jackson. Emergency crews were responding to a call from a man who claimed there was woman having a "psychotic attack" and that his face and body hurt... During an interview with police, the woman, who has not been identified, allegedly admitted she had hit Fernandez de Lara in the face and bit him during an argument... "She stated that she had taken off her clothes to show she could be free of him and had gone outside naked at...

Texas has put President Trump over a barrel with its threat to sue to stop the 2012 deportation amnesty for Dreamers, said legal analysts, calling the state’s case as close to a slam-dunk as possible. Known in Washington as DACA, the amnesty was started by President Obama — and was roundly criticized in last year’s campaign by Mr. Trump. Now in office, though, Mr. Trump has reversed himself and kept DACA intact, approving tens of thousands of new and renewal applications. But the program has been on borrowed time for more than a year, ever since a series of court...

Four people have been arrested and are now behind bars as police investigate the kidnapping and death of 13-year-old Shavon Randle. The body of another man, 19-year-old Michael Titus, was found in the same abandoned Dallas home. In an arrest affidavit, investigators say a family member of Shavon Randle was dating a man who stole drugs from two people.

BEAUMONT — If you have a gun, you could receive a $100 gift card from a group of churches and community leaders teaming up to stop violence in Beaumont. Pastors John Adolph and Randy Feldschau developed a program called "Not in My City" last summer in response to violence against officers. Following four homicides in Beaumont in June alone, the program is trying to stop violence here through a gun "buy back" program. A meeting about the gun buy back program will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at the Cathedral Church, off Eastex. They're in the process of choosing...

Tough-talking Texas, via its attorney general, took the lead in a 10-state letter to the federal government to warn that if the Barack Obama-era DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — doesn’t come to an immediate end, they’ll sue. Among the states joining the threat: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisana, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia — and of course, Texas. They gave the President Donald Trump administration a deadline of September 5 to stop issuing and granting new DACA applications. From NBC News: “The attorneys general said if new DACA permits and renewals were ended by the...