Your afternoon reading.

Debate(ish) day is upon us.

The former first lady on life in the Governor's Mansion vs. life in the White House, her newfound freedom living in Dallas, why she kept her personal politics out of her husband's presidency, the role she's playing at the Bush Library, the two works of fiction she's reading now and her fondest memories of the Texas Book Festival, which she launched when she was living in Austin 15 years ago — and whose annual gala she'll headline tonight with a reading from her best-selling memoir, Spoken from the Heart.

The trial-lawyer-as-epithet strategy, a perennial favorite of Texans Republicans, is playing big in the effort to oust longtime Democratic House member Jim Dunnam, D-Waco.

A new rule that took effect this summer allows — for the first time — real categorization of campaign spending. 

As former Gov. Mark White ended his argument before the Willingham court of inquiry calling for a change in the way the state carries out the death penalty, an appellate court issued an order demanding that Judge Charlie Baird stop the hearing.

Your afternoon reading.

In his latest television ad Texas agriculture commissioner, Todd Staples wants voters to know he does more than just work with the state's farmers and ranchers.

On a day it was plagued by hackers, Back to Basics PAC still managed to release a new television ad.

Anti-Rick Perry websites run by the Back to Basics PAC are crashing all around them this morning. The group blames hackers for the server meltdowns.

In his latest television ad, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White says there's a "for sale sign in Austin."

In a new ad, state Rep. Diana Maldonado, D-Round Rock, features testimonials playing up her leadership on business and education issues.

Austin Democratic state Rep. Mark Strama released a campaign ad on Wednesday calling for a focus on renewable energy.

It might be too late in the game for a possible scandal to take hold, but that's not stopping Bill White from trying.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard testimony Wednesday in a case that could have far-reaching ramifications for criminal justice nationally. Lawyers for Henry “Hank” Skinner maintain that the Texas death row inmate has a civil right to access DNA evidence that could exonerate him in the 1993 murders of his live-in girlfriend and her two sons. Lawyers for the state argue that Skinner exhausted his opportunity to analyze potentially exculpatory evidence when his defense team declined to request testing at his original trial, fearing that the results might be incriminating.

Judge Charlie Baird will decide today whether to recuse himself from an investigation into the innocence of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Corsicana man executed in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three young daughters. But with or without Baird, a bigger question is in play: Is a court of inquiry the appropriate venue to consider Willingham’s guilt or innocence?

The Texas Association of Community Colleges is accusing the University of Texas of siphoning money from programs that support community colleges into UT’s College of Education.