The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says licensed handgun owners can legally carry loaded weapons into Texas churches. According to an opinion Paxton issued Thursday – that is, unless a church provides oral or written notice prohibiting their carry.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked Paxton to clarify the issue in the aftermath of the November mass shooting that killed 26 people in Sutherland Springs.
Paxton also said that churches are exempt from state fees that private institutions must pay to form their own security forces. That’s in accordance with a new law the Texas legislature passed earlier this year that took effect September 1.
Houston-based energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan says a nearly 500-mile long pipeline project is moving ahead. The announcement comes as the company has secured enough transportation agreements for the pipeline.
Marfa Public Radio’s Carlos Morales reports.
Kinder Morgan says its proceeding with its nearly $1.7 billion project now that enough companies have bought into it.
The pipeline has a capacity of roughly 2 billion cubic feet per day. Several big name companies like Apache and Pioneer have signed on to transport natural gas through the pipeline.
The project, known as the Gulf Coast Express Pipeline, will carry natural gas from the west Texas town of Coyanosa to the Corpus Christi area. Currently, there are at least a dozen other pipeline projects in the works that would carry oil or natural gas from the Permian Basin to export hubs in the coast, where it can be easily sold and shipped.
The Gulf Coast Express is expected to be in operation by October 2019.
It may not be the North Pole, but lots of Christmas wishes are getting fulfilled out of a warehouse in northwest Houston. Gail Delaughter takes a look at what happens when you ask Santa for that last-minute gift.
In the days before Christmas, the real action isn’t at Santa’s workshop. It’s at Houston’s Amazon warehouse.
Long aisles are filled with bids containing everything from household goods to electronics and even things like ugly Christmas sweaters. We get a tour of the sprawling warehouse from Amazon’s Allison Flicker.
“Our Amazon associates who are working in the Prime Now hub are picking orders just a couple of minutes after customers place them,” explains Flicker.
And if you live in the right spot here in Houston, and you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can have your purchases delivered as fast as one hour.
“So when that happens they call out ‘one hour’ because you have to make sure you move super, super fast on that one,” adds Flicker. “So the whole team kind of mobilizes to make sure that item gets out really, really fast.”
Amazon has been providing one and two-hour delivery in Houston for a couple of years now. But despite the facility’s central location, that service still isn’t available large parts of the area.
We asked Amazon where they plan to roll out the service next. They’ll only say that they’re currently working on new locations.
