State lawmakers have long been clamoring for an unmanned drone to boost security on the border. On Wednesday they'll get their wish, as an unmanned drone begins patrolling the Texas skies.

Echoing Gov. Rick Perry's refusal to interview with editorial boards across the state, Republican congressional candidate Francisco "Quico" Canseco says he won't meet with his hometown paper.

The latest ad from the Bill White campaign attacks the governor's well-placed friends.

Your afternoon reading.

Has the Metroplex caught the ethics bug?

The governor depicted by Democrats as a coward in statewide newspaper ads last week doesn't seem nervous. In fact, as he traveled from Killeen to Temple and on to Texarkana last week accompanied by a reporter from The Texas Tribune, Republican Rick Perry looked comfortable, though he says he's taking his Democratic challenger, Bill White, seriously.

The Democratic nominee for attorney general on how long of a long-shot campaign she's mounting, the incumbent’s predilection for “show lawsuits” and whether she's willing to debate her opponent (we'll give you one guess).

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana exiles have fundamentally changed Houston, and vice-versa. The uneasy arrangement was a shotgun marriage: Many evacuees had no choice in whether or where they went, and Houstonians had no choice, for humanity's sake, but to take them in.

School's in. Labor Day is coming soon. And it's time for a scouting report on 21 Texas House races to watch this fall. We based our picks on interviews with politicos and consultants, our own analysis of district voting patterns, campaign coffers, the relative strength of the candidates and issues that could turn each contest.

Hu compares and contrasts the official schedules of four big-state governors (including Rick Perry) and picks the 21 Texas House races to watch, Ramshaw on a 19-year-old with an IQ of 47 sentenced to 100 years in prison, Stiles on Perry's regent-donors, Galbraith on a plan to curb the independence of the state's electricity grid, Thevenot on the turf war over mental health, Grissom on whether the Texas Youth Commission should be abolished, Aguilar on a crucial immigration-related case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ramsey's interview with GOP provocateur Debra Medina and M. Smith on how changes to campaign finance law will affect judicial elections in Texas: The best of our best from August 23 to 27, 2010.

Your afternoon reading.

A new ad from Waco's Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards went up on television today.

Perry or no Perry, the show — Texas news outlets have decided — must go on.

Only 10 days out from Labor Day — the unofficial start of the campaign season — we bring you a scouting report on the 21 Texas House races to watch. We based our picks on dozens of interviews with politicos and our own analysis of district voting patterns, campaign coffers, the relative strength of the candidates and issues that could turn each contest. Most of the vulnerable incumbents are Democrats, which is no surprise in a Republican year. But a few veteran R's are at risk, thanks to alleged ethical lapses that could swing voters against the national mood.

The first female district attorney of Harris County on the massive scope of her job, softening her office's tough-on-crime reputation, the link between mental health care and criminal justice, why she set up a Post-Conviction Review Section and what she's learned from innocence cases so far.

Do two recent U.S. Supreme Court opinions have the far-reaching effects on Texas judicial elections that some in our legal community fear? Or do the state's current campaign finance laws adequately address the issues presented by both cases?

At a press conference in Waco this afternoon, Republican Party of Texas Chairman Steve Munisteri laid out a case alleging that Democratic state Rep. Jim Dunnam does not live in Waco's House District 57, which he currently represents.