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AUSTIN - A state audit to be released today will link hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn to tax cases handled by her office. The audit will recommend the state's chief tax collector be prohibited from taking political money from individuals with pending cases. The Houston Chronicle first reported in 2002 that Strayhorn had taken $500,000 in political donations during her first three years in office from people and consultants with contested tax cases pending before her, despite a campaign promise that she never would do so. After that report, Strayhorn continued to...

AUSTIN, Texas - A grand jury has indicted a political action committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and a Texas business group in connection with 2002 legislative campaign contributions. The five felony indictments against the two groups were made public Thursday. Neither DeLay nor any individuals with the business group has been charged with any wrongdoing. The charge against Texans for a Republican Majority alleged the committee illegally accepted a political contribution of $100,000 from the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care. Four indictments against the Texas Association of Business include charges of unlawful political advertising, unlawful...

The U.S. economy produced 169,000 new jobs in August and more than previously believed in July, demonstrating steady strength that many economists believe will be interrupted by the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Unemployment stood at 4.9% last month, the Labor Department said, while average hourly earnings rose 0.1%. Analysts had been expecting 190,000 new jobs, a 5% unemployment rate and an increase of either 0.2% or 0.3% in hourly earnings, depending on the survey. Friday's report was a moderate positive for the U.S. stock and bond markets because it lends support to interest rate doves at the Federal Reserve. Traders...

Officials closed the Reliant Astrodome to further New Orleans evacuees late Thursday, shortly before five more busloads arrived. Although the passengers initially were told they would have to reboard the buses and go to Huntsville, officials relented and allowed at least one busload of 67 passengers to stay. The fate of the other four buses was still being considered late Thursday. Houston Police Sgt. Nate McDuell said the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office ordered that no more evacuees be accepted. "We're at capacity and buses are being diverted to other cities and other shelters," McDuell said. Tired, distraught passengers got...

When we heard that Louis Farrakhan agreed with Mexican president Vicente Fox that Mexican immigrants take jobs "not even blacks want," we had to pause for a moment and think. Eyebrows raised, both in offense and agreement to the assertions both Fox and Farrakhan made so poignantly. The truth is, many of us African-Americans do feel that we are too good to be doing low-paying service-oriented jobs or anything that will get our hands dirty. Many of us agree that Mexican immigrants are more accepting of certain jobs that we don't think we need to do anymore. As Hispanics are...

Longview has a readily available workforce that could help attract and retain jobs, but it's hidden, according to a marketing specialist with the Southwest Trade Adjustment Assistance Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Ernesto Villalobos spoke Wednesday to local business officials about how to recruit and retain Hispanic workers, focusing on recent immigrants and non-U.S. citizens. "It's my belief that if we're going to have the labor force of the future ... we need to understand the Hispanic culture," said John Stroud, executive director of the Longview Economic Development Corp., which sponsored Villalobos' visit. Villalobos asked the...

Monte Lake, a labor and immigration lawyer in Washington D.C., called on farmers in the audience to quickly become familiar on the plethora of immigration proposals swirling in Congress thanks to a fiery debate on the issue playing out in the media. ...Lake said efforts to deport existing illegal aliens immediately would be the “death penalty” for the agriculture sector and also have a ripple effect on the rest of the nation’s economy. “The economic study shows that for every field worker you have, you create four to 10 other jobs. These exist because of these people and all of...

Immigrant farmworkers, who comprise up to 80 percent of the agricultural workforce, are on the front line of food production. To better equip farmworkers in the dairy industry to recognize and prevent acts of agroterrorism, UC Davis' Western Institute for Food Safety and Security has developed an agroterrorism awareness training course. The course was field-tested this summer in focus groups with 57 workers from five dairies in California's North Bay and Central Valley regions. Training materials, written in English and Spanish and at an appropriate literacy level, included a manual and take-home comic-book style novella. The materials were designed to...

Apparently part of the pattern recently dubbed “the greening of hate,” another group opposed to immigration has come on the scene using spurious reasoning to turn people against undocumented immigrants. Aug 30 - Got a hacking cough, or a frog in your throat that just won’t go away? Has your asthma gotten worse? And have you avoided visiting the doctor to discuss these problems since the local clinics are so crowded or the local hospital has closed? Well, blame immigrants. That is essentially the message of a recent campaign by the group Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). Press releases and...

A new study based on Internet comments posted to thousands of sites about the 2005 box office slump sheds some light on why people have been going to the movies less often. Canada-based Brandimensions Perspective, after surfing thousands of weblogs, forums, discussions boards and chat rooms, found that moviegoers are, among other things, frustrated with what they believe are mostly bad or mediocre movies, with the high cost of tickets and concessions and with pre-show commercials and previews. The shrinking DVD release windows and popularity of such services as Netflix have also made going to the movie a less frequent...

AUSTIN — Texas doctors who perform abortions without parental approval or after the third trimester could face capital murder charges because of a new law that takes effect this week, a prosecutors group says. The Texas District and County Attorneys Association has outlined that scenario in its new book updating the Texas penal code and in public presentations around the state. The group says such charges could occur under the new law because of the 2003 fetal protection law. But key legislators said today that wasn't their intent. Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, who pushed the parental consent measure, said in...

Milwaukee hosts a U.S. Small Business Administration program next month that economists consider the sort of catalyst that is essential to rebuild the nation's distressed communities and inner cities. The one-day Business Matchmaking forum on Sept. 14, which systematically pairs procurement executives from dozens of big corporations such as American Airlines and FedEx with scores of small businesses meeting SBA qualifications, coincides with the national convention of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which takes place this year in Milwaukee and dovetails with the Hispanic group's pro-business agenda. "If you want to do business with Hispanics, this will be the premier...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- An Orange County elementary school teacher accused of writing a letter critical of Hispanics could be dismissed from her job during a School Board hearing scheduled for this week. Orange County elementary school teacher Jan Hall. A handwritten letter allegedly written by Sadler Elementary School teacher Jan Hall was addressed to a congressman and published in a local Spanish newspaper. The letter said Hispanics are causing American students to fall behind in school and asked for laws to be changed to prevent Puerto Ricans from coming to Orlando because they are "destroying the city every day," Local...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - (KRT) - The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday searched for as many as 31 Cubans thought to have been on a speedboat that capsized while trying to cross the Florida Straits. The search began after a merchant ship rescued three Cubans about 30 miles north of Matanzas, Cuba, on Sunday and took them to an unidentified Cuban port. There, the survivors told Cuban authorities that the 28-foot speedboat they had been on sank with 31 other people aboard, the Coast Guard said. The Cuban government notified the U.S. Coast Guard, which launched a search and rescue...

Illegal immigration is a complex national problem. It won’t be solved by piecemeal attacks such as that of GOP gubernatorial hopeful Jerry Kilgore in opposing a day laborer site in Herndon. Such tactics fuel anti-immigrant prejudices while skipping the hard part, acknowledging the broad tradeoffs and difficult compromises necessary for a permanent solution. If exploitation of nativist emotion isn’t Kilgore’s intention, then he should pull the plug on this line of campaigning. See the complete Pilot, exactly as in print - View stories, photos and ads - E-mail clippings - Print copies Log in or learn more Email this Page...

...Clearly, it is past time for Congress to fix this country's broken immigration system. ...Yet the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants come north in search of work and a better life for their families. They fill low-wage jobs shunned by Americans and help keep the economy humming. Immigration quotas are much too low for them to enter lawfully. Congress needs to create a broader legal channel for such immigrants. Doing so would let law-enforcement agencies target their limited resources on stopping terrorists and other hardcore criminals at the border. ...Congress needs to work out the details -- so that security...

The Customs and Border Protection agency has plenty of work to do as it constructs the virtual fence needed to help protect the country from terrorists. It’s a long fence, and its electronic extensions overseas are making it longer. The country’s land borders extend some 7,500 miles, and there are 95,000 miles of shoreline and navigable rivers. Each year more than 500 million people, 130 million vehicles, 2.5 million rail cars and 7 million cargo containers cross the borders, 95 percent of them at the country’s 361 land, sea and air ports. Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, border...

AQABA, Jordan - Police detained several suspects on Saturday as the hunt widened for the attackers who fired and supplied the rockets that narrowly missed a U.S. Navy ship anchored in the bay of this Red Sea port best known for beach vacations and Mideast summits. Those arrested included Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians and Jordanians, according to a Jordanian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. He would not give the number of detainees. Interior Minister Awni Yirfas told The Associated Press that security forces had found the launcher used to fire...

California's employment picture brightened significantly in July as the state added tens of thousands of jobs and the unemployment rate dropped. The state's jobless rate was 5.1 percent in July, ... The July jobless rate was the lowest since May 2001, when it was also 5.1 percent. In July 2004, California's unemployment rate was 6.2 percent. The agency's survey of employers showed that nonfarm payroll employment in California grew by 29,900 jobs from the previous month, for a total of 14, 783,400. "That looks quite nice,'' Nancy Sidhu, senior economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said Friday...

With anti-war protesters continuing their vigil outside President Bush's ranch, the commander in chief began a five-day push Saturday to tell Americans why he thinks U.S. troops must continue the fight in Iraq. In his weekly radio address, Bush argued that the war in Iraq will keep Americans safe for generations to come. He'll try to drive the point home with speeches in upcoming days in Utah and Idaho. "Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," the president said in the recorded broadcast. "They know that if...