Free Republic

City leaders, along with law enforcement officials gathered to announce the launch of a program that will install 100 license plate reading cameras in the San Fernando Valley that authorities believe will help police track criminals down. Officials said that some neighborhoods north of Rinaldi Street in Porter Ranch have some of the highest crime rates in the city, which is why several cameras have already been installed in the area. “Last year, the Devonshire District reported that homes north of this very street experienced a 103% jump in home burglaries,” District 12 Councilman Jon Lee said at the event....

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — On a one-acre site alongside a string of shrimp boats docked on the Brownsville ship channel stands a $2.2 million assembly of pipes, sheds, and humming machinery _ Texas' entree into global efforts to make sea water suitable to drink. Opening a small spigot at the end of a fat pipe, plant operator Joel del Rio fills a plastic glass with what he says will taste "like regular bottled water." "Sea water," he said. "It's never gonna run out." The plant is a pilot project for the state's $150 million, full-scale sea water desalination plant slated for...

Can't post the text for this one, since contents of the Monitor's website can't be reproduced without written permission. Here is the link: Lobbyists, local biz: I-69 still alive

This Day In History | Civil War July 24 1864 Battle of Kernstown, Virginia Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops under General George Crook to keep the Shenandoah Valley clear of Yankees. On June 13, 1864, General Robert E. Lee sent Early north from Petersburg to clear the Shenandoah of Union troops and relieve pressure on his own beleaguered force. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had been pinned in Petersburg after a bloody six-week campaign with General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac. The campaign mimicked that of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's in 1862, when the Confederates...

Local congressman works new area: the Valley MISSION -- When Lloyd Doggett called her in October, Sandra Rodriguez wasn't interested in backing his bid to retain a seat in the U.S. House. The politically active Hidalgo County woman had never met the Austin Democrat, whom her father supported years ago. Besides, she had a friend who also was weighing a run in the new 25th Congressional District, which snakes from Austin to the Rio Grande Valley. Then Doggett called again. And again. And again. "He was constantly calling. We were constantly talking," said Rodriguez, who threw her support behind Doggett...

It took Lena Guerrero close to a minute to answer the door of her two-story brick home in Southwest Austin. Through a pretty leaded-glass window, I watched the former Texas Railroad commissioner, once the classic young woman in a hurry, as she methodically made her way down the hall with the help of a walker. She greeted me warmly, but her words came in a careful cadence, as if her full-throttle personality had downshifted to a more cautious pace. These days, Lena is saving her energy for the most important fight of her life—against brain cancer. "It is inoperable," the...