KRGV.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Environmentalists are questioning a plan by the University of Tennessee to allow hydraulic fracturing on a state-owned tract of rolling woodland. The University of Texas recently said it would appoint outside experts to review that school's Energy Institute after it reported on environmental effects from gas without disclosing that an energy company had paid the lead researcher.

HOUSTON (AP) Many investors who lost their life savings to a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Texas tycoon R. Allen Stanford are getting back only a pittance of what they put in. The recovery process got a boost this week as the Justice Department and other parties that had been battling for control of about $300 million in Stanford's frozen foreign bank accounts and other assets agreed to work together.

CAMERON, La. (AP) Authorities have identified the three people killed in a southwestern Louisiana helicopter crash. It happened in a remote area of Cameron Parish Friday morning. The victims have been identified as 69-year-old California man, William R. Croucher; 55-year-old Michael Lee Tyree of Iowa (EYE' oh WAY'), La., and 41-year-old Timothy Lloyd Goehring of Sulphur, La.

HOUSTON (AP) Scout's Honor Rescue Houston is campaigning to raise funds to pay the $25,000 in treatment costs for a Labrador retriever that had been coated with fuel and set on fire last month but survived. Houston animal control officers found the dog Feb. 20 after it had wandered for days near Hobby Airport, covered with second- and third-degree burns. It's expected to soon be released from the treatment center.