Stiles and Babalola's long-awaited red-light camera data app. Grissom's two-parter on a powerful Texan's quest to change the DPS report on the crash that killed his son. Ramshaw's two-parter on transitional medicine. Thevenot on the charter school queue. And a ton of political news: KBH filed (but our TribCasters wondered about her path to the GOP nod); Debra Medina filed (and Hamilton tried to sort out what effect she'll have on the race); Farouk Shami defiantly remained in the Democratic primary (but Hu couldn't find evidence that he'd voted very often, let alone like a Democrat); and Rick Perry sent personalized messages to every Tom, Dick, and fill-in-the-blank. The best of our best from December 7 to 11, 2009

Benjamin Ligums was born with a rare degenerative brain disease that left him immobile, non-verbal and legally blind. His family has found a second home at Baylor's Transition Medicine Clinic, which specializes in treating profoundly disabled young adults.  

If you're checking off the boxes for gubernatorial candidates, Thursday belonged to Gov. Rick Perry, who filed for reelection before noon on the first day he was allowed to do so.

Should Texas medical schools be responsible for relieving the state’s primary care shortage? Advocates for family physicians think so. They want state lawmakers to reward medical schools that groom young doctors for family medicine — and penalize those that don’t.

Things are picking up.

As lawmakers in D.C. hammer out a health care reform bill, physician-owned specialty hospitals — a quarter of which are in Texas — face an uncertain fate.

Lobbyists spent a record $15 million on advertising during the 2005 session and another $12 million in 2007 — but less than $1 million this year. What happened?

If the "states' rights" leadership in Texas refuses to do anything for our state, then it's up to Congress to enact reform that will benefit all Americans, especially Texans.

A patient-centered approach to health care reform would build on America's world-leading quality and high patient satisfaction in a way that extends those benefits to even more people and empowers all patients to make their own medical decisions.

To insure most Texans, two big changes are needed: a guarantee of affordable insurance pricing for everyone, and a strong subsidy system for those who can't pay without help.

It's hard to believe the governor saw this coming. When Rick Perry decided to replace the a board on the eve of a hearing about the evidence that sent a Texas man to the executioner, he couldn't have been thinking the story would grow legs and stomp all around his bid for reelection.

Emergency medical technicians and entry-level nurses could be cut out of the telemedicine equation under a proposal the Texas Medical Board is considering. The change would prohibit anyone but doctors, physicians' assistants and advanced practice nurses from presenting patients for care via long-distance videoconferencing – a move rural hospitals and prison doctors adamantly oppose.

States are struggling mightily to fund Medicaid services in one the deepest recessions in recent history, according to a 50-state health care study released by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. States, many of them strapped by budget shortfalls, overwhelmingly reported being saved by the federal stimulus package, and said without it, they would have been forced to make serious cuts in Medicaid eligibility.

The executive director of the state's data and information technology agency stepped down last month. Brian Rawson, who spent the last three years overseeing the state's data consolidation and telecommunications efforts for the Department of Information Resources, will run "statewide data initiatives" for the Texas Education Agency.

You get the feeling that this legislative session is just like the last one, run in reverse. Instead of starting with a whimper and closing with a bang, it started with a bang. It shows no signs of ending with one.

If you're not under pressure, the House is sort of an interesting Petri dish right now.

The Texas Senate approved a $182.2 billion budget that includes over $10 billion in federal stimulus money, avoids across-the-board cuts in state agencies, and leaves the state's $9.1 billion Rainy Day Fund untouched.

Our bracket says Pitt will win the NCAA men's basketball championship. That doesn't mean it'll happen. And if it does happen, we won't be able to claim (honestly, anyway) that we knew it was gonna happen. We'll just have guessed right. [eds. note: After this was written, Pitt lost to Villanova, failed to make the Final Four, ruined our bracket, and painfully proved our point about predicting the future.]