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The math comes out to precisely 180. That is how many days Ethan Couch served for each of the four people he killed while driving drunk on June 15, 2013. He was speeding at 65 mph when he plowed his father’s Ford F-350 into a group of people on the roadside helping a stranded motorist outside Fort Worth. He was 16 at the time. Couch, now 20, was released from Tarrant County jail on Monday after serving two years, or 720 days, for a parole violation — not for the deaths of four people. His release will close a chapter...

NORTH TEXAS (CBS11) – It is nearly impossible these days in North Texas to avoid road construction projects. While billions of dollars are being pumped into the roadway system, TxDOT said it still can’t keep up with the growth. “There are a thousand people moving a day to Texas and we’ve (North Texas) got most of them,” said TxDOT Dallas spokesperson Donna Huerta. “We can’t keep up with that kind of demand, but what we can do is take what we have and make it better.” With a new approach allowing contractors to design and build a project simultaneously, TxDOT...

A state investigation is underway over allegations of voter fraud in Tarrant County ... Concerns have arisen over mail-in ballots, which many believe open the door to “vote harvesting,” or the process of illegally filling out and returning the ballots of valid voters without their consent. Mail-in ballots are designed for eligible voters who are unable to leave their homes, are in jail or out of the country, and many argue that such balloting is critical for those who would be unable to vote otherwise. But the mail-in balloting process allows those voters to cast their votes from home without...

HALTOM CITY, Texas (AP) - Shon Newsome almost got tricked into paying a toll for a third time. But on a recent afternoon, just before she was about to drive onto a Loop 820 on-ramp that would have required her to pay a toll, the sales executive pulled off the highway in Haltom City and asked a bystander for directions. She was trying to figure out which lane on the two-lane ramp would take her to the toll-free lanes - but the answer wasn’t clear.

Tarrant County voters are heading to the polls almost as if there were no tomorrow. In the first three days of early voting, 28,292 local ballots -- 17,767 Republican and 10,525 Democrat -- were cast here in person or by mail for the March 1 presidential primaries, state election records show.That topples the previous high tally of 26,190 set in 2008, when Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled for the presidential nomination deeper than expected into the primary season, spurring supporters locally and nationwide to a record high turnout.Now Republicans are leading the way, heading to the polls in...

(Reuters) - A Texas teen, who was a fugitive after allegedly breaking his probation sentence for killing four people while driving drunk, has been arrested in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, CNN reported on Monday, citing officials briefed on the matter. Ethan Couch, 18, was sentenced to probation about two years ago in juvenile court for intoxication manslaughter and is wanted in Tarrant County, Texas. He and his mother went missing earlier this month.

The family of a Texas teenager who killed four people in a drunken-driving wreck has agreed to pay more than $2 million to the family of a boy left paralyzed by the accident. Tarrant County court documents show that the liability insurer of Ethan Couch’s parents agreed to pay more than $1 million in cash and the rest in two annuities to a trust established for Sergio Molina. …

Note: The following text is a quote: April 16, 2010 ICE agents seize $8 million helicopter planned for illegal shipment to Iran ARLINGTON, Texas - Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday seized a Bell helicopter with an estimated value of $8 million that was destined for shipment to Iran in violation of trade sanctions. Federal agents had first grounded the helicopter in its Arlington, Texas, hangar in December. The aircraft is owned by the Italian company Tiber Aviation. U.S. Federal District Judge John McBryde, Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, signed the civil arrest...

Member of the Texas Sunset Commission today recommended 'radical' changes in the administration of the Texas Department of Transportation, including placing the troubled and controversial agency into a four year legislative 'receivership' and abolishing the Texas Transportation Commission, which runs TexDOT, and appointment of a Transportation Commissioner who would be answerable to the Legislature, 1200 WOAI news reports. But Sunset Commission member Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio) suggested going one step further. "What I am hearing form the public is that they are wanting to see an elected commissioner," she said to loud applause from the TexDOT opponents who...

County commissioners reaffirmed their stance against the Trans-Texas Corridor, and they took another step toward keeping county government transparent when they met Tuesday. First up on the court's agenda, commissioners heard a presentation by Connie Fogle on behalf of the newly formed Pineywoods Sub-Regional Planning Commission. According to Fogle, the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 391, requires state agencies to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." "Critical in the code is the word 'coordinate,'" she said. "This does not mean the commission has to cooperate. The intent is to...

Driving down to Austin lately has become a real trip. I-35 is usually packed for most of the 185 miles, and what used to take three or four hours now can take five or six. Flying down can take almost as long, when you figure in airline security delays, more flight delays, and the time it takes getting into and out of crowded airports. But what if it took 45 minutes to travel from the Metroplex to Austin by train or an hour to make a trip to Houston? Advocates of high-speed rail lines are floating these ideas once again...

It's not the least bit hard to describe the choice that Texas Transportation Commission members will face Thursday at their meeting in Austin: (1) Agree with the overwhelming preference of this region's elected officials and allow the North Texas Tollway Authority to build the Texas 121 toll road in Denton and Collin counties, or (2) award the lucrative project to the apparent favorite among state toll road devotees, the Spanish company Cintra.From here, it's an easy decision: Pick NTTA.But there is reason to worry that in the boiling pot of Austin politics, the commission may see things differently. Because of...

A two-year ban on long-term toll road leases with private companies, pockmarked with exceptions and thus largely symbolic, cleared a Texas Senate committee Wednesday on a unanimous vote. However, the more meaningful action on toll roads should begin in the next two weeks, when a large bill addressing a wide range of concerns over tollways will be introduced in the Senate. The much-publicized moratorium bill by Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, Senate Bill 1267, has an excellent chance of passing the Senate, given that 29 of 31 senators have either signed on as co-sponsors or voted for it in committee. But despite...

In the political world, rapid change only occurs when the public focuses attention on a specific issue. We have that situation right now in Austin. Public and legislative attention is focused on the Texas Department of Transportation and a proposed moratorium on the Comprehensive Development Agreement process, including the recently announced CDA to construct State Highway 121 in Collin County. This public and legislative attention may offer an opportunity for Texas to reaffirm our commitment to focus government spending on core functions – in this case, transportation. There are many subplots swirling in this complex CDA moratorium issue – reining...

Hundreds of people angry with the state's toll road contracts sounded off before state senators Thursday. Public hearings on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor began early Thursday morning. Senators invited public input because state lawmakers will make some important decisions this session about how to pay for highways. So many people showed up that crowds were forced into overflow rooms. The Texas Department of Transportation and toll roads have found many critics, largely because of the private companies hired to build and run them. There are also questions about how much taxpayers pay for the roads. Speakers sounded...

DENTON - "Grandma" lost her argument for a contrived ballot nickname. But Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn of Austin might have found a plank on which to build a campaign against Gov. Rick Perry. It's a plank 600 miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It's a giant, privately owned, multilane tollway that would part the Texas countryside the way the governor parts his ample hair. Strayhorn, a Republican running as an independent candidate, has criticized the Trans-Texas Corridor tollway plan loudly for months. So have the other principal challengers in this traffic jam of a race, novelist Kinky Friedman of Medina...

Aid push made for 5 tied to Hamas Backers seek to raise $500,000 for Muslim brothers' legal team 02/15/2003 By STEVE McGONIGLE / The Dallas Morning News Supporters of five brothers accused of doing business with Middle Eastern terrorists are asking the Dallas-area Muslim community to help raise $500,000 to pay for a team of prominent attorneys hired to defend the men. The Muslim Legal Fund of America, a nonprofit group established by friends of Richardson businessman Ghassan Elashi and his brothers, is having a fund-raiser Saturday at the Dallas Central Mosque. A leaflet distributed by the fund described...

The tinderbox that is North Texas erupted Tuesday into wind-blown grass fires that torched homes in Tarrant and Hood counties and blackened thousands of acres across the region. In Hood County, flames destroyed 20 to 30 homes, displacing 50 to 75 people, officials said. Five homes in Arlington and three in Kennedale were seriously damaged or destroyed, officials said. Near Gainesville, a woman died trying to protect a home from fire, authorities said. "I can't tell you how fast these fires have ignited," said Traci Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Texas Forest Service. "It's just crazy." Gov. Rick Perry issued...

The Texas Department of Transportation is in the process of identifying preliminary routes for its proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, some of which could be located in Montgomery County. According to Gaby Garcia, spokeswoman for TxDOT's Turnpike Authority Division, TxDOT will conduct approximately 38 public meetings this summer, at which time the proposed routes would be unveiled. A public meeting is tentatively scheduled in Montgomery County in August, she said, although the date and time have not yet been determined. The initial study areas of the I-69/TTC corridor, which is to extend from Mexico to northeast Texas, range from 20 to...

FORT WORTH - Wesley Wayne Miller, convicted more than 20 years ago in the highly publicized killing of 18-year-old Retha Stratton, will be back in Tarrant County next week as the prison system makes another attempt to release him on parole. Tarrant County commissioners approved a deal with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice on Tuesday to charge the state $45 a day to keep Miller in jail through Aug. 31. Miller will technically be on parole and his arrival at the jail will be the first step toward living outside prison, Sheriff Dee Anderson said. However, at least until...