HOUSTON — months after the death of the former president, George H.W. Bush’s office in Houston is to close for the last time at 5 p.m. Friday.
Bush Chief of Staff Jean Becker says “as one era ends, a new one is beginning.”
In a statement issued Monday, Becker said the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation will be renamed The George and Barbara Bush Foundation.
She said the foundation will affiliate the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Center and the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.
It will also be affiliated with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation and the Points of Light organization.

Hundreds file claims in wake of Texas petrochemical fire
HOUSTON — An executive for the Houston-area petrochemical storage facility that was heavily damaged by fire says the company has received hundreds of compensation claims seeking lost wages and other damages.
Brent Weber, a senior vice president for Intercontinental Terminals Company, told reporters Tuesday that about 2,000 people have called an ITC claims hotline and another 300 have submitted claims in writing.
He didn’t specify how many made a formal claim.
Coast Guard Lt. Commander Caren Damon says a portion of the Houston Ship Channel remains closed Tuesday , but that ships have navigated the restricted portion of the channel without a gas component tainting their hulls.
The Deer Park facility caught fire March 17 and burned for days .
Schools and roads were closed and gasoline and other materials seeped into nearby waters.

Man charged with keeping mother’s body tarped in front yard
HENDERSON — An East Texas man is jailed after sheriff’s deputies said he was keeping his mother’s body wrapped in a tarpaulin in their front yard.
Jeremy David Cassin is in the Rusk County Jail charged with corpse abuse. Bond is set at $25,000. If the 42-year-old Henderson man is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to two years in state jail.
Online jail records list no attorney for Cassin.
Rusk County Sheriff Jeff Price tells KYTX-TV of Tyler that Cassin’s grandmother called deputies from Houston after Cassin told her that her daughter, 63-year-old Karen Cassin, had died. Deputies said the son told them that he found his mother dead in bed March 18, so he wrapped her in the tarp and placed her under a group of pine trees.