Texas Gangs: A one week gang raid in North Texas cities netted 121 suspects arrested, half on criminal charges. Operation Community Shield introduced more than two years ago, teamed with federal agents and local police, leading to the arrests of members from 27 different gangs. As reported in yesterday's AP story in the San Francisco Chronicle, the arrests included members from one of the nation’s largest and most violent gangs—“MS-13,” also known as “Mara Salvatrucha.”

Texas Execution: Double-murderer Lonnie Earl Johnson is scheduled to be executed this evening by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Johnson was found guilty of fatally killing two teenage boys 17 years ago, taking their truck to Austin, then selling the gun to buy drugs. Johnson (who is black), has insisted that the killings were in self-defense, after the teenage boys (who were white), pulled a gun and made racial threats against him. Johnson will be the 19th death row inmate executed this year in Texas. As reported by AP staff writer Michael Graczyk, Johnson's execution would mark the 398th inmate executed by lethal injection since the 1982 return of capital punishment in Texas.