GOVERNOR’S BALL
Lady Antebellum, Pat Green booked for Abbott bash
Country stars Lady Antebellum and Pat Green are booked to perform at the inauguration ball for Republican Gov.-elect Greg Abbott.
Organizers on Monday announced that the two hitmakers will play at the “Future of Texas” ball on Jan. 20. The bash will follow Abbott being sworn in as the 48th governor of Texas.
Republican Dan Patrick will also take the oath of office as the next Texas lieutenant governor. That ceremony will take place on the south side of the Capitol.
Handling the festivities is the Texas Inaugural Committee, which is largely a group of megadonors to Abbott and Patrick.
DALLAS
13 primates die at South Texas research facility
A federal agency is considering whether to penalize a research facility in South Texas where 13 primates died of hyperthermia on separate occasions when rooms overheated.
A spokeswoman with the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday the agency is looking into what actions would be appropriate following the deaths of the animals at Covance Research Products in Alice, which is about an hour west of Corpus Christi.
HOUSTON
Police: Woman found in fridge died months earlier
Investigators believe a woman was killed more than two months before her body was found stuffed in a disabled refrigerator in a vacant Houston apartment.
KPRC-TV in Houston reports that a court affidavit indicates 27-year-old Anastacia Oaikhena Lambert was killed Sept. 26. Officers went to her apartment Dec. 8 after maintenance workers reported a stench coming from the unit. The apartment’s power had been turned off Nov. 20 because utility bills went unpaid.
Thirty-eight-year-old Patrick Lambert is charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of his estranged wife. He appeared in court Monday and was ordered held without bond.
Lambert was arrested Dec. 12 in Mexico, where prosecutors say he had abandoned the couple’s 11-month-old son.
The child for now is in the care of Mexican authorities
AMARILLO
Police seek armored car driver, money
Amarillo police say an armored car has been robbed and the driver is missing and believed to be in danger.
Police say the 24-year-old man was gone when the armored car was found running shortly before 8 a.m. Monday. The contents of the Rochester Armored Car Co. rig are also missing.
Sgt. Brent Barbee says driver was not armed and the case is being investigated as a missing person. The driver, who’s from Amarillo, was last seen wearing a company uniform. Police are reviewing evidence and trying to confirm the circumstances of his disappearance.
Amarillo police did not say how much money was stolen.
A federal inspector’s Nov. 21 report found that two animals died when a thermostat malfunctioned, causing the room temperature to soar. About a month later, a similar incident occurred when an override switch on a thermostat failed, causing the deaths of 11 primates.
Telephone and email messages left with Covance were not returned Monday. The company, based in Princeton, N.J., provides drug development and animal testing services.
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