TEXAS TODAY

MOUNT PLEASANT (AP) - Officials say a firefighter has been released from a hospital after being treated for minor injuries from a blaze at the Pilgrim's Pride protein conversion plant in Mount Pleasant.

Firefighter/engineer Craig Eudy had said the firefighter was taken to a hospital Monday night.

Pilgrim's Pride spokesman Ray Atkinson said the fire started after 9 p.m. Monday in the protein conversion plant, not in the main chicken processing plant. No employees were reported hurt.

Eudy says "every available firefighter" was called to fight the fire. He says firefighters expected to be on the scene until early Tuesday, but he had no other details.

Dead man's brain tested for mad cow disease:

CORPUS CHRISTI (AP) - The brain of a Corpus Corpus man who died earlier this month was tested for a human form of mad cow disease, health officials said.

Annette Rodriguez, interim director of the Corpus Christi-Nueces County Health District, said the district was notified in early July by officials from a Corpus Christi hospital that a patient may have had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Results of a brain biopsy are expected in two months to confirm whether the man had the disease and if it is the variant linked to mad cow.

She said the tests were being run out of state.

Rodriguez said it was not clear where the man, whose identity was not released, may have been exposed to the disease.

"He traveled all over the world," she said in a story in Tuesday's editions of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

There are about 300 U.S. cases each year of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fast-progressing illness that usually affects older people and leads to dementia, movement disorders and ultimately death.

In very rare cases, a form of the disorder can be caused by consuming meat products from cows infected with mad cow disease.

Former Texas Southern student was FBI informant:

HOUSTON (AP) - A former Texas Southern University student testified that he was paid $5,000 by the FBI to tape university officials in the midst of a corruption investigation.

Oliver Brown and two other former students filed a civil lawsuit against TSU officials for allegedly thwarting their First Amendment rights by disciplining them for their anti-corruption speech. The lawsuit alleges they were retaliated against for exposing corruption at the university.

Known as the "TSU Three," Brown, William Hudson and Justin Jordan, helped bring to light a spending scandal that led to plea bargains with ex-school President Priscilla Slade, who promised to repay $130,000, and former CFO Quintin Wiggins, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

"We stood up for the taxpayers' right to know how their money was spent," Brown said in a story Tuesday in the Houston Chronicle's online edition. He held a news conference at lunch on Monday outside the courthouse.

Brown said he received a lump sum after working as a federal informant for 18 months, beginning in 2005.

Peter Plotts, assistant Texas attorney general representing TSU officials, said the focus of the case is not on protected speech but that the former students were disciplined for separate threatening or abusive speech.