HOUSTON (Reuters) – Texas Governor Rick Perry, a staunch conservative with a Washington outsider’s resume, will seek the 2012 Republican nomination for U.S. president, his spokesman said on Thursday, adding a top contender to the party’s field of hopefuls.

“He will make a definitive announcement on Saturday for the race,” Perry spokesman Mark Miner said. Asked if Perry is indeed joining the race, Miner said, “Yes.”

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Don, the year’s first major Gulf of Mexico storm, lost much of its punch as it moved ashore in South Texas late on Friday.

Don weakened to a tropical depression with sustained winds of about 35 miles per hour as it made landfall near Baffin Bay, 40 miles south of Corpus Christi, U.S. forecasters said.

HOUSTON, July 18 (Reuters) – The crew of NASA’s final space
shuttle mission closed the hatch to the International Space
Station for the final time on Monday in preparation for the
shuttle’s last flight back to Earth.

NASA is watching the path of Tropical Storm Bret off the
Atlantic coast of Florida but it is not expected to interfere
with Atlantis’ planned landing at 5:57 a.m. EDT (0957 GMT) on
Thursday.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – An Army psychiatrist charged in a 2009 killing rampage at a Texas military base will appear in court on July 20 in the opening phase of a court martial where he could be sentenced to death.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 40, who U.S. officials have said had links to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen, is charged in the Fort Hood shootings that killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – The crew of NASA’s final space shuttle mission restocked the International Space Station with tons of supplies on Wednesday after waking to the music of Elton John.

In media interviews, Atlantis’ crew reflected on the end of the 30-year shuttle program and the series of “lasts” that will end when the spacecraft returns to Earth for a planned landing on July 21.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Space shuttle Atlantis’ crew spent Saturday inspecting the craft’s heat shield for damage as they prepared to pay the last visit to the International Space Station in U.S. space shuttle history.

It was the first full day in space for Atlantis’ four-member veteran crew after blasting off from the shuttle’s space port in Florida on Friday. About one million sightseers witnessed the milestone in the 30-year history of the U.S. shuttle program.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Texas executed a Mexican national on Thursday over objections from President Barack

Obama’s administration that the action would violate international treaty obligations and put U.S. citizens abroad at risk.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Army psychiatrist charged in a 2009 killing rampage at a Texas military base will face a court-martial where he could be sentenced to death, a military official ruled on Wednesday.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 40, who U.S. officials have linked to a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen, is charged in the Fort Hood shootings killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – NASA astronauts made history twice on Friday, venturing on the final spacewalk of the agency’s 30-year shuttle program and completing assembly of the $100 billion International Space Station.

Astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff floated outside the orbiting outpost’s Quest airlock for the fourth and final spacewalk planned during shuttle Endeavour’s 16-day mission, the next to last in the U.S. space shuttle program.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Astronauts aboard the International Space Station pondered the future of American space flight on Thursday as they neared the end of a decade-long project to build the $100 billion orbital outpost.

During shuttle Endeavour’s 16-day mission, the next-to-last in the U.S. space shuttle program, astronauts have put the finishing touches on the station, including the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer designed to peer into the origins of the universe.