News Roundup: Two Texas Groups Sue HUD Over Fair Housing Act Enforcement

Our daily look at Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelMay 9, 2018 1:20 pm

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state. 

Two civil rights groups in Texas are part of a coalition suing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. From KUT News in Austin, Syeda Hasan reports the lawsuit has to do with enforcement of the federal Fair Housing Act.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 bans discrimination in buying, renting or financing a home. But earlier this year, HUD suspended a rule that calls for implementing those guidelines. Now, civil rights groups are suing. The lawsuit was filed in federal court today by the National Fair Housing Alliance, the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and the nonprofit Texas Appleseed. Maddie Sloan with Texas Appleseed says many communities need the federal guidance to help counter decades of housing segregation.

“For HUD to withdraw that guidance,” Sloan says, “to withdraw that technical assistance, hurts those communities, as well as the families that are hurt by segregation.”

The fair housing implementation rule was developed over six years by the Obama administration. It required hundreds of communities that receive federal funds to submit plans for desegregating their housing. The rule was suspended under HUD secretary Ben Carson.




Felony charges have been dismissed against another 62 bikers for their alleged involvement in the Twin Peaks shootout in Waco. The 2015 incident left nine people dead. Tuesday’s dismissals were the largest round yet from the McLennan County District Attorney’s office. Will Burney, with KWBU in Waco, reports.

The DA’s office began slowly dismissing charges earlier this year, and recently began picking up the pace. 155 were originally indicted and given a blanket charge of engaging in organized criminal activity. District Attorney Abel Reyna has said the dismissals are to focus on defendants with more culpability.

The next round of trials is planned for late August. A retrial of the head of the Dallas chapter of the bandidos motorcycle club is scheduled for September. Jacob Carrizal’s first trial ended in a hung jury.




A San Antonio family thought they had rescued a pair of adorable kittens from an alley, but it turns out they what they had actually scooped up was an adorable pair of young bobcats.

Lisa Norwood is a spokesperson for the city’s Animal Care Services. She told the local CBS affiliate TV station in San Antonio that the family started wondering about the kittens after they bit three people.

“I think they maybe started doing a little bit more research, and educating themselves, and thinking, you know, these don’t look like your standard house cat,” Norwood says.

The baby bobcats were transferred to Wildlife Life Rescue and Rehabilitation, where they’re being monitored before being released back into the wild.

Now, if you do come across bobcat kittens, here’s a word of advice – the best thing you can do is stay out of their way and leave them alone. Typically, their mothers leave them for hours while they’re off hunting.