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His lawyers don't dispute that convicted killer Jeffery Wood deserves punishment for his involvement in a robbery more than a dozen years ago, when a clerk at a Texas Hill Country gas station convenience store was gunned down.

But Wood's attorneys and supporters argue that he doesn't deserve to die for a murder that occurred while he was waiting in a car outside the store in Kerrville. They also point out that Daniel Reneau, the gunman who killed clerk Kriss Keeran with a shot to the face, already has been executed.

"Someone answered for this in terms of the death penalty," attorney Scott Sullivan said. "A non-triggerman shouldn't get the death penalty."

Wood, who turns 35 today, is to be executed Thursday in a case that again put under scrutiny a unique Texas law that makes accomplices as culpable as the killer in a capital murder case.

He would be the ninth condemned prisoner put to death this year and the fifth this month in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. At least a dozen other Texas inmates have execution dates in the coming months.

Lawyers were in the courts seeking permission to hire mental health experts to pursue arguments that Wood is incompetent to be executed. They also were unsuccessful convincing the trial judge in the case to withdraw Thursday's execution date.

Sullivan said he would take the arguments to the appeals courts.

Attorneys also went to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, seeking clemency for Wood.

Dallas' homeless czar outlined a plan on Monday to build 700 homes for chronically homeless people throughout the city within five years - at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $7.2 million to $18 million.

An additional $16.8 million would be needed from city and other sources to provide social services for people living in those homes.

The housing's actual cost would depend on the type of financing available, Mike Rawlings, who oversees solutions to homelessness for the city, told the City Council's Housing Committee.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council consider the plan at a Sept. 10 meeting.

Some council members expressed concerns about potential neighborhood opposition to such projects and said community education would be needed.

The goal is to build provide permanent supportive housing, which is housing that comes with social services to help disabled, long-term homeless people remain stable.

Mr. Rawlings said the housing is needed to end chronic homelessness and alleviate overcrowding at the city's new downtown shelter, The Bridge.

"We're making huge progress. But the real answer is permanent supportive housing," he said. "The biggest myth is that homeless people don't want a home."

The housing is part of a national "housing first" movement to combat homelessness by providing people with homes rather than the traditional system in which many homeless cycle through shelters, hospitals or jails. Studies have shown that it's less expensive to provide housing than to have people live on the streets. Increased permanent supportive programs in recent years have been credited with helping reduce chronic homelessness nationwide.

Under the proposal, the city would pay for the housing with a portion of the proceeds from bonds issued for all city housing initiatives. That could generate potentially $10 million, although an exact amount has not yet been determined, city Housing Director Jerry Killingsworth said.

Some Housing Committee members expressed concern about their constituents' reactions to such projects.

Council member Carolyn Davis said Fair Park residents in her district strongly opposed a recent proposal to build 150 units of permanent supportive housing in their neighborhood.

Emergency workers rescued dozens of trapped residents after torrential rains deluged more than 400 homes in southern Texas and forced the closure of the main road through the Rio Grande Valley.

Officials used any available boat to pluck about 60 people from their flooded homes after more than 13 inches of rain fell on parts of Starr County.

The Department of Public Safety had recommended that U.S. Highway 83 be closed near Rosita, about midway between Roma and Rio Grande City, because a creek was more than a foot above the guardrails, said Starr County Judge Eloy Vera. Not even emergency vehicles were permitted to pass.

A body found in a remote area was been identified as the clerk whose abduction from a store in a small North Texas town was recorded by security cameras, authorities said Sunday.

Mindy Daffern, 46, had been missing since Friday from the store her family owns in the city of Scotland, 130 miles northwest of Dallas. Surveillance camera videotape showed her being confronted at gunpoint by an unmasked man who walked her outside the store.

A man suspected in the abduction led investigators to the body Saturday, and Texas Rangers confirmed it was Daffern, Archer County Sheriff Ed Daniels said Sunday.

Wallace Bowman Jr., 30, of Bowie, was being held on charges of aggravated robbery and kidnapping, and Daniels said he is expected to be charged with capital murder. His bail was set at $3 million.

Bowman did not yet have an attorney to speak for him, Daniels said.

Daffern's body was found in a remote area near the town of Sunset in neighboring Montague County. Investigators were awaiting on an autopsy report, Daniels said.

"She was just a down-to-earth, good person," he said. They're a very close-knit family, and of course it's just completely devastated the family."

Video from one store camera showed a man casually walking into the store and handing Daffern a cup, then pulling out a handgun and pointing it at her face.

A second camera showed the gunman walking her out of the store. Daffern was seen handing the cup back to the man, who sipped from it while holding the gun on her with his other hand. Daffern had her hands up and appeared to plead with the man. Video from a third camera showed a sport utility vehicle leaving the store parking lot.

On the video, the gunman showed no apparent concern about appearing on camera, and his face was clearly visible.

"I'm not sure he realized those were cameras, I don't know," Daniels said. "I haven't talked to him, I don't know what he was thinking at that point."

Bowie police began searching for Bowman after recognizing him on the video. On Saturday, police found an SUV matching the vehicle on the video at a motel about 40 miles away, Daniels said.

Authorities found Bowman at the motel Saturday morning. He was unarmed, and the weapon used in the crime has not been found, Daniels said.

The missing four-seat private plane carrying the Jacomini family has been found in Summit County, Colo.

Susie Jacomini's father called KPRC-TV to say they found the plane and that there were no survivors. He hung up after delivering the grim news.

A hiker from Denver found the plane in the mountains at 11,400 feet on Mount Guyot, south of Breckenridge.

Rescue crews are on the scene, but have said that there are no survivors. The Summit County Sheriff's Department is working closely with rescue teams at the wreck site.

The family of four vanished without a trace after its small private plane took off from Steamboat Springs, Colo., KPRC Local 2 reported Saturday.

On the Cessna 182 four-seat plane was the pilot, Tommy Jacomini, his wife, Susie, and their two young children, 8-year-old Tommy Jr. and 6-year-old Victoria.

The family was headed back home to its ranch in Brenham, Texas. The family never reached its intended destination.

Relatives reported the family missing Saturday morning.

Tommy Jacomini was an executive with the Sempra Energy Trading Corp. Relatives said he was an experienced pilot who was used to navigating through the mountainous areas that may have been on his route.

Officials said that he never filed a flight plan and no distress call was received.

The Dallas lawyer who helped John Edwards' former mistress move across the country has donated $3.5 million since 2005 to help fuel a Democratic resurgence in Texas, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Fred Baron has been by far the largest donor to a group called the Texas Democratic Trust, and Republicans are now taking aim at candidates who take money connected to him.

Baron, who is Edwards' longtime chief fundraiser, has helped Democrats rebound from near-obscurity in the Texas House to within striking distance of winning a majority of seats this fall. Baron started the Texas Democratic Trust and gave it $1.9 million in 2005 and 2006, providing more than 80 percent of its funding, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

"Without Fred Baron, none of this would have happened," Democratic consultant Jason Stanford told the newspaper. "He paid for it. He paid for the work that was absolutely necessary."

Baron was thrust into the national spotlight after acknowledging that he quietly began sending money to Rielle Hunter, Edwards' mistress, to resettle in California. Baron has said he did not tell Edwards that he helped Hunter, nor how much money he gave her.

The Edwards saga has given Republicans new ammunition to attack Baron and those who have benefited from his donations. This week, Republicans criticized Democrat Diana Maldonado, who is running for a state House seat, because she received $25,000 from a group that Baron gave $25,000 to in April.

"Making that connection is absolutely in-bounds, and we would be remiss if we didn't," said Hans Klingler, a spokesman for the Texas Republican Party.

Slightly more than half of the money raised by the state party's political action committee in 2005 and 2006 came from the Democratic Trust. Baron's recent donations are unmatched in Texas by anyone in his party.

As Baron's money poured in, Democratic gains accelerated. At the start of 2006, Democrats held 63 of the 150 seats in the Texas House. They now hold 71, within five seats of a House majority.

Comedian Stephen Colbert's one-man campaign against towns named Canton has its latest target firing back.

A city councilman in Canton, Texas, called Colbert a sucker and joked that he would "mash his nose," days after the comedian referred to the town as an "incorporated outhouse."

"What does that sucker know about it? He's never been here anyway," Councilman John Fuller said in a story Friday in the Tyler Morning Telegraph. "If he comes down here, I'll mash his nose."

In an ongoing gag on his show "The Colbert Report," Colbert has been taking pot shots at a variety of towns named Canton. It began when he referred to a Georgia town as "the crappy Canton."

Colbert then referred to Canton, Kan., with an unprintable epithet and claimed the town's residents watched "horse-drawn paintings" for entertainment. Colbert also referred to Canton, S.D., as "North Dakota's dirty ashtray" and suggested the town's dogs all suffer from alcoholism.

Cantons in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Ohio have so far escaped Colbert's ire.

Leaders of the Texas town of Canton, which has a population of about 5,100, invited Colbert to the town's monthly flea market. Called "First Monday Trade Days," the flea market harkens back to Texas' frontier traditions, "when it was common to trade a rifle for a good hunting dog," according to a city Web site.

"Canton is known worldwide," City Manager Andy McCuistion said of the town, located about 55 miles southeast of Dallas. "You can go anywhere in the world, and people will say, 'Canton? Yeah, I know where that is. It's where that big flea market is."'

HARROLD, Texas (AP) -- A tiny Texas school district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.

The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff's Office, leaving students and teachers without protection, said David Thweatt, superintendent of the Harrold Independent School District. The lone campus of the 110-student district sits near a heavily traveled highway, which could make it a target, he argued.

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in a story published Friday on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Web site.

Barbara Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said her organization did not know of another district with such a policy. Ken Trump, a Cleveland, Ohio-based school security expert who advises districts nationwide, said Harrold is the first district with such a policy.

Trustees approved the policy change last year, and it takes effect when classes begin this month. For employees to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun, must be authorized to carry by the district, must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and must use ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricocheting bullets.

Officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change, Thweatt said. The district also has other measures in place to prevent a school shooting, he said.

"The naysayers think [a shooting] won't happen here. If something were to happen here, I'd much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them," Thweatt said.

Texas law outlaws firearms at schools unless specific institutions allow them.

It isn't clear how many of the 50 or so teachers and staff members will be armed this fall, because Thweatt did not disclose that information, to keep it from students or potential attackers.

The state's child welfare agency has cleared a Hurricane Katrina survivor of allegations she abused her five children, who were allegedly kidnapped by their caretaker last month.

The United States demanded today that Russian troops end their occupation of Georgia immediately after Georgia signed a ceasefire agreement.

Detained ethnic Georgians sit in a truck with coffins as they are made to collect the bodies of dead Georgians soldiers in the South Ossetian capital of Tshinvali August 15, 2008.

Gov. Rick Perry today appointed two new Texas Public Utility Commission members to replace outgoing ones.

A tiny Texas school district may be the first in the nation to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes begin later this month, a newspaper reported.

The infamous "Texas 7" were convicts who broke out of a South Texas prison in 2000.

A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles to stand trial in El Paso on immigration fraud charges.

Federal regulators Thursday declared a San Antonio charter bus company an "imminent hazard" to public safety because of its affiliation with a Houston motorcoach operator involved in a deadly Aug.

President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, center, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, right, walk to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Aug.

Sprouting like mushrooms, rogue motorcoach operators come and go, often defying efforts to keep unsafe buses and drivers off the nation's highways.

A study of 439 U.S. and Mexican-born Latinas seeking pregnancy and postpartum services at public health clinics in San Antonio uncovered elevated levels of depression among the more "Americanized" women, report ...

United States Attorney Rebecca A. Gregory announced today that a man and woman from Port Arthur have been found guilty by a jury for charges related to a December carjacking in the Eastern District of Texas.