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WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — A Texas man accused in a fatal shooting at a worker camp in the western North Dakota oil patch has been formally charged with murder, attempted murder and terrorizing.

A friend of the Texas man who died in the weekend shooting said he is a local legend in the Houston racing scene.

Victor Lamont, 24, of Lufkin, Texas, is accused of killing Gerald Schild, 57, of Katy, Texas, and injuring Travis Lomax, 38, of Fort Smith, Ark., who was treated at a Minot hospital and released. Authorities said the shooting happened late Saturday at the crew camp near Tioga.

All three men were working for Wisconsin-based pipeline company Michels Corp., which has said the shooting happened when the men were off work. Lamont also is accused of threatening two other company workers with a gun, Williams County Chief Deputy Verlan Kvande told The Forum newspaper. Authorities have not released details of the incident or a possible motive.

Court documents do not list an attorney for Lamont.

John Mandabach, whose family owns the Houston Motorsports Park racetrack, told the Williston Herald that Schild — who competed in a handful of NASCAR races in the 1970s — has won many races at the local track. The track will dedicate the Aug. 18 races to Schild and hold a moment of silence in his memory.

"I'd be surprised at anyone at our racetrack who doesn't know who Jerry was and wouldn't be able to share some humorous story," Mandabach said. "He's just a real memorable guy that had a positive impact on anyone he was around."

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — An El Paso man convicted of killing his girlfriend's 19-month-old child has received an execution date.

Rigoberto Avila Jr. faces lethal injection Dec. 12 in Huntsville for the February 2000 beating death of Nicolas Macias. Testimony showed the child was one of two he was babysitting in February 2000 while the children's mother was attending a college class.

Evidence at his trial in 2001 showed he kicked and stomped the toddler so badly the boy's organs were torn from his spine. In a statement to police, he said the attack was in response to too much attention his girlfriend of four months was giving the child.

The 40-year-old Avila is among at least nine Texas death row inmates with execution dates scheduled for the coming months.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military officials say a sailor from North Texas has been killed in a bombing in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department on Wednesday identified the Navy casualty as Petty Officer 3rd Class Clayton R. Beauchamp of Weatherford, Texas.

DOD says Beauchamp was on patrol in the Shaban District of the Helmand Province when his unit came under attack. Beauchamp was killed Tuesday. Further details on the incident were not immediately released.

He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6, 1st Marine Division (Forward), I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of dead fish have washed up on the beach in a tourist-popular Southeast Texas city.

Officials in Galveston say cleanup crews planned to work Monday to remove the dead fish.

Peter Davis with the Galveston Island Beach Patrol said Sunday that the small shad fish likely were killed by low oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico. Davis estimated hundreds of thousands of fish have died.

Galveston County health officials say the water is fine for beachgoers.

Biologist Steven Mitchell with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says calm conditions and summer heat may have contributed to the fish kill. He says there's a possibility of a dead zone in the water off Galveston. Testing is expected this week.

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Online:

http://www.cityofgalveston.org/

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by rejecting a Texas program for approving air permits.

The ruling by a divided three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concerns the EPA's 2010 rejection of the state's flexible permitting program. That decision forced more than 100 industries, including some of the nation's largest refineries, to work directly with the EPA to get operating papers.

By a 2-1 vote, the 5th Circuit struck down the EPA's rejection of the flexible permitting program and told the EPA to reconsider it.

The flexible permit program allows plants to operate under an emissions "umbrella" but did not separately detail pollution from different sources. EPA regulators argued that the rules made it difficult to track polluters.

The case is among the keystones of Gov. Rick Perry's battles with the EPA over the state's plans for enforcing federal clean-air standards. The EPA had decided that the state's plans for issuing air emissions permits were not strict enough to prevent air quality deterioration.

In a 23-page opinion by Circuit Judge E. Grady Jolly, he and Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick concluded that the EPA exceeded its authority in rejecting the Texas program and that its grounds for doing so were insufficient, capricious and arbitrary.

Circuit Judge E. Patrick Higginbotham dissented in a 10-page opinion, disputing that the EPA had acted beyond the law.

In a statement, Perry expressed satisfaction with the ruling. "This decision is a big win for jobs and a big win for Texas," he said.

However, Neal Carmen of the Sierra Club said the ruling "does nothing to change the fact that approximately 100 refineries and chemical plants hold air permits which are not based on an approved state plan."

Carmen said the appeals court has asked the EPA to better explain its objections to flexible permitting. Until it does, the state "must rely on the existing air pollution permitting program" that state regulators had wanted to make more flexible in the first place, he said.

A message seeking comment from the EPA was not returned Monday.

HOUSTON (AP) — Retail gasoline prices have risen an average 4 cents this week across Texas.

AAA Texas on Thursday reported the average price at the pump has reached $3.53 per gallon. The nationwide retail price for gas increased by a nickel to hit $3.71 per gallon.

The association survey found that Dallas, Austin and Houston have the most expensive gasoline, at $3.54 per gallon. The least expensive gasoline in Texas is in El Paso, at $3.28 per gallon.

AAA says higher oil prices amid tensions with Iran and increased demand during the summer continue to push U.S. gasoline prices higher.

DENVER (AP) — A representative for Willie Nelson says the country music legend is feeling better after canceling a weekend performance and will be back on the road.

The 79-year-old Nelson was scheduled to perform Saturday at a private home in Castle Pines Village, Colo. The benefit was for an organization that provides animal care and shelter in the Denver area.

The host of the fundraiser, Fred Bartlit, told The Denver Post (http://bit.ly/NedGyD ) that he was informed that Nelson was taken to the hospital after having trouble breathing.

But Elaine Shock said Monday that Nelson was not hospitalized and no other concerts will be canceled. His next performance is scheduled Tuesday in Dallas.

Online: http://www.willienelson.com/

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A former auto mechanic who shot and killed three of his former housemates while they were sleeping 14 years ago was hoping Tuesday to delay his execution for a third time.

John Balentine, 43, is scheduled to die by injection Wednesday evening.

Ballentine, who had a long criminal record in his native Arkansas before he killed the three Texas teens in January 1998, avoided lethal injection in September 2009 when a federal appeals court gave him a reprieve a day before his scheduled trip to the Texas death chamber. Then in June 2011, he was within an hour of execution when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped it.

Ballentine's attorney is seeking to stop his execution again.

"I thought it was done the last time," Randall Sims, the district attorney in Amarillo, said. "The sad part of every delay is it's not closure for the families of the victims."

Balentine's lawyer Lydia Brandt argued he had deficient legal help at his 1999 trial, that his legal assistance during early appeals also was faulty and the deficiencies have led to issues that should be reviewed in the courts but can't be addressed now because they weren't properly brought up earlier.

"Mr. Balentine's case is illustrative of why capitally sentenced prisoners in Texas have no meaningful opportunity to raise (these) claims," Brandt told the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Katherine Hayes, an assistant Texas attorney general, disagreed, saying the latest appeals were "only another attempt to delay ... proceedings and further postpone his impending execution."

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit refused Balentine's appeal, and Brandt's request for a rehearing before the full appeals court was pending Tuesday. Rejection there could send the case to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, voting 7-0, rejected a clemency petition for Balentine.

His guilt was not an issue in the appeals.

Balentine was convicted of fatally shooting Mark Caylor Jr., 17; Kai Brooke Geyer, 15; and Steven Watson, also 15. Caylor was the brother of Balentine's former girlfriend, and prosecutors said a feud between Caylor and Balentine led to the shootings in a tiny house where Balentine also once lived. Evidence showed all three teens were shot once in the head with a .32-caliber pistol as they slept.

In a tape-recorded statement to police played at his trial, Balentine said he moved out of the Amarillo house because of drug use there. He said he learned later that Caylor was looking to kill him because he had "jumped on his sister."

Balentine described slipping into the house and shooting each of the teens.

"Mark had threatened my life, threatened my brother, girlfriend ... waving a gun and talking about what he was going to do to me," he told police.

He said he didn't know the other two victims, Geyer and Watson.

Balentine was arrested six months later 600 miles away in Houston, where he was pulled over for driving a car with a broken taillight. He gave the traffic officer a false name that showed up as an alias for the suspect wanted in the Amarillo slayings.

He refused to speak with reporters as his execution date neared. Originally from Newport, Ark., he had a lengthy record in Arkansas that included at least two prison stints and convictions for burglary, kidnapping, assault and robbery. When he was 15, records show he broke into a high school ROTC building and stole rifles and military fatigues.

Randy Sherrod, one of Balentine's trial lawyers, has said Balentine rejected a plea bargain that would have sent him to prison for life because he feared being in the general prison population and believed death row would be safer because its inmates are kept isolated.

Brandt's appeal was critical of Sherrod and his now-deceased co-counsel for failing to produce witnesses to support a life sentence for Balentine rather than death. But Sherrod said they "couldn't find anyone to say anything good about him."

"We didn't have much to work with, really didn't," he said. "There was no way to get anything positive on the record."

Balentine would be the eighth prisoner executed this year in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. At least eight other executions are scheduled for the coming months.

DALLAS (AP) — Two brothers have been charged with robbing the same North Texas bank twice.

Federal prosecutors in Dallas on Wednesday announced the indictment of 43-year-old James Robert Cleveland Butler and 45-year-old Johnny Charles Butler.

The siblings allegedly held up a Bank of America branch in Forney last Nov. 25 and again on May 18. Both were arrested following an Aug. 2 standoff at their home in Quinlan, about 25 miles northeast of Forney.

Each brother faces two counts of armed bank robbery and one count of possessing a firearm during a violent crime.

Johnny Butler is also charged with assault on a federal officer and discharging a firearm during a crime. Prosecutors say gunfire came from within the Butler home during the standoff. Johnny Butler was wounded before the pair surrendered.