Austin

AUSTIN – Federal authorities are investigating two cases from last year in which Texas A&M researchers were infected with biological weapons agents – including the university's failure to report the exposures when they happened.

New documents obtained by The Sunshine Project, an Austin-based bioweapons watchdog group, show three researchers tested positive for exposure to the weapons agent Q fever in April 2006, two months after another researcher fell ill following contact with the agent Brucella.

AUSTIN – With so many non-violent Mexican citizens clogging an increasingly jammed Texas prison system, a state lawmaker thinks it may be time for Texas to set up its own prison in Mexico.

After all, he figures, the inmates would be closer to home and they're going to be deported anyway when their sentences are complete, so the move would save taxpayers money.

AUSTIN – Two private foster-care contractors approved a DeSoto couple as foster parents last year, unaware that police had been dispatched to their home about a dozen times to investigate disturbances, The Dallas Morning News has learned.

Six-year-old foster child Katherine Frances was fatally body-slammed onto a bedroom floor at the home last month, DeSoto police said.