The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has toured the Houston area to assess the damage from last week’s deadly storms.

As the Houston area works to clean up and restore power to hundreds of thousands after deadly storms left at least seven people dead, it will do so amid a smog warning and rising Texas heat.

Severe storms have battered parts of the Midwest, unleashing a curtain of heavy rain, gusty winds and tornadoes in the region.

Tornadoes touched down Monday evening in rural Oklahoma as large hail pelted parts of Kansas.

Floodwaters in the Houston area and parts of Southeast Texas are starting to recede, allowing residents to begin returning to their homes and assess damages after days of heavy rainfall.

Floodwaters in the Houston area are starting to recede, allowing residents to begin returning to their homes and assess damages after days of heavy rainfall.

Torrential rain is causing flooding in the Houston area.

Hialeah Detective Alexander Dorado suspected that a man who had beat up his girlfriend at a mobile home and had returned three days later to set her home on fire was on a crime spree.

Texas Republicans passed measures this year to eliminate Harris County’s top election job and give the Republican secretary of state power to take oversight of elections in Houston.

A judge has called a new law unconstitutional that passed in the GOP-led Texas Legislature that will dictate how elections are run in the state’s most populous county.

A Republican judicial candidate who lost a district court election in Harris County, Texas, is the first of almost two dozen disappointed contestants to have their case reach a civil trial.

Lawmakers in several Republican-led states have been looking to exert more authority over state and local election offices.

The county that encompasses Manhattan added more than 17,000 residents in the year ended last July after losing almost 111,000 during the height of urban population decline stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prosecutors say a Texas woman accused of killing a close friend in 2019 who had just given birth and abducting the baby has pleaded guilty to murder charges.

A Democrat who is the top official in Texas’ largest county on Thursday acknowledged problems around Houston on Election Day that included paper ballot shortages and delayed openings of polling locations.

Texas’ primary that put the 2022 midterm election season in full swing saw no significant issues at polling locations.

A $9 billion highway widening project being proposed in the Houston area could become an important test of the Biden administration’s commitment to addressing what it says is a history of racial inequity with infrastructure projects.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Nicholas has strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane ahead of its expected landfall in Texas.

Houston residents and officials are seething over a Texas agency's decision to not award the city a single cent of the initial $1 billion in federal flood mitigation funding the state was promised following Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Republican lawmakers around the country are pressing ahead with efforts to tighten voting laws, despite growing warnings from business leaders that the measures could harm democracy and the economic climate.

Republican lawmakers around the country are pressing ahead with efforts to tighten voting laws, despite growing warnings from business leaders that the measures could harm democracy and the economic climate.

The nation’s next big voting battle is underway in Texas.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office denied it had restricted inmates' access to food and water in the days following the storm. The jail in Harris County has long been the subject of legal action due to overcrowding. Civil Rights Corps won a settlement in a lawsuit to ensure that most misdemeanor defendants in the Harris County Jail don’t languish behind bars because they can’t afford bail. In late January, a federal judge expressed frustration over what she called a lack of progress in efforts to relieve overcrowding at the Harris County Jail during the pandemic. In a court filing, nine inmates described the facility as a “metal can of contagion.”“A lot of people are just stuck, nothing is moving,” said Gundu, of the Texas Jail Project.

Victoria Houptman-Bryan joins demonstrators as they stand across the street from the federal courthouse in Houston, Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, before a hearing in federal court involving drive-thru ballots cast in Harris County. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)HOUSTON – A panel of federal appeals court judges has rejected an eleventh hour Republican effort to bar Election Day drive-thru voting in Houston. The court hadn't been asked to invalidate votes already cast at drive-thru sites in the Houston area. “Hopefully it's all over now.”Attorney Jared Woodfill, a former Harris County GOP Chairman representing those opposed to drive-thru voting centers, noted that county Clerk Chris Hollins has shut down all but one of the county's 10 drive-thru locations for Election Day. "We have stopped the illegal voting on Election Day because Mr. Hollins has shut down drive-thru voting in all locations but one,” Woodfill said.

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)HOUSTON – A federal judge on Monday rejected another last-ditch Republican effort to invalidate nearly 127,000 votes in Houston because the ballots were cast at drive-thru polling centers established during the pandemic. Another 20,000 or more voters had been expected to use drive-thru polling locations Tuesday, Hollins said earlier Monday. “I cannot in good faith encourage voters to cast their votes in tents if that puts their votes at risk,” he said. Harris County offered 10 drive-thru locations as an option for its nearly 5 million residents amid worries of spreading the coronavirus. More than 40% of Harris County residents are Latino, and about one in five residents are Black.

With an election official looking on an elderly voter uses the drive-thru option to vote outside Richardson City Hall during early voting Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, in Richardson, Texas. Texas is one of just five states that did not dramatically expand mail-in voting this year because of COVID-19. Long lines were common at polling sites across Texas, as were masks, although voters are not required to wear them inside polling places. Travis County, which includes the state capital of Austin, will also offer extended hours at select locations during early voting. Upping the ante is the chance to flip the Republican-controlled Texas State House of Representatives.

HOUSTON Top officials in Houston are calling for the city to lock back down as area hospitals strain to accommodate the onslaught of patients sick with the new coronavirus. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, both Democrats, said this weekend that a stay-at-home order is needed for America's fourth largest city to cope with the surge of COVID-19 cases. State health officials reported 8,196 new cases Sunday, another 80 deaths and a total of 10,410 people hospitalized due to the virus. On Friday, Abbott extended a statewide disaster order that warned Texans another shutdown might be needed if the virus spread isnt contained. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

HOUSTON - The Houston Police Department has a message for the community: their doors are open. Dhaliwal gained national attention in 2015 when the sheriff's department changed its policy to allow him to wear the Sikh turban and a beard as part of his uniform. Police Chief Art Acevedo said the department had already been working on a religious accommodation policy. Lt. Col. Kamal Kalsi, one of the first Sikhs to be granted a religious accommodation from the US Army, told CNN that Houston's move sends a powerful message. Since Dhaliwal's death, the Sikh Coalition has called on state and national police agencies to develop religious accommodation policies.

Harris County Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal was shot "from behind... at least a couple of times" while conducting a traffic stop, officials said. (CNN) - For the residents of one of the largest communities in Texas, Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal was a lot more than a law enforcement officer. This week, Dhaliwal was gunned down in midday during a traffic stop, in "a cold-blooded manner, ambush style," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a press conference. Another member of the center told the affiliate Dhaliwal was an "essential element" of their community. "He treated his brothers and sisters in law enforcement as if they were just brothers and sisters.

Google Maps via CNN(CNN) - Three siblings died after they were overcome by waves while swimming in Texas. The four children between ages 7-13 were swimming at Sylvan Beach in LaPorte on Thursday night. One of them resurfaced and the bodies of the other three were recovered from the water, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted. The children, all siblings, likely went beyond a water safety buoy, Gonzalez said. The-CNN-Wire & 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company.

Derion Vence, who initially reported 4-year-old Maleah Davis missing, was arrested and booked into the Harris County jail in May on suspicion of tampering with a human corpse, according to police. (CNN) - A grand jury in Texas has indicted a man who was already facing a charge in connection with the death of Maleah Davis, the Harris County District Attorney's Office said Thursday. Derion Vence, the girl's mother's former fianc, was indicted on a charge of tampering with the four-year-old's body, District Attorney Kim Ogg said. Vence, 27, was arrested May 11 on suspicion of tampering with evidence - the same charge he was indicted on. The search for Maleah moved to Arkansas after the suspect allegedly confessed to community activist Quanell X, who visited him in jail last week.

Jazmine Robin, who was born prematurely, was 10 weeks old when she died July 15, 12 days after leaving the hospital, prosecutors said Monday. Detectives last July were called to a Houston hospital after staff there found "clearly inflicted head trauma," according to a Houston police affidavit. The child suffered multiple fractures to several ribs - 71 rib fractures in all - and 23 "long bone" breaks. "It is concluded that a minimum of two traumatic events resulted in 96 fractures," the affidavit said. Robin and White were being held Tuesday in the Harris County jail.