Aaronson maps Medicaid patients' access to pharmacies, Aguilar on Mexicans in exile, Batheja on an unlikely threat to a veteran lawmaker's re-election, Galbraith and Murphy interactively track reservoir levels around the state, Grissom on the ringleaders who rule the state's largest youth lockup, Hamilton on how much Texas professors are paid, Ramsey on who's conservative, Ramshaw and Tan on the latest Planned Parenthood kerfuffle, Root on what Santorum's exit means for the Texas primary, and parts 4 (by M. Smith) and 5 (by Tan and Dehn) of our series on school district closures: The best of our best content from April 9-13, 2012.

The historic Texas drought caused statewide worries over potential water shortages when reservoir levels fell dramatically. Our interactive data app allows you to check the current status of the state's reservoirs. 

At our Hot Seat conversation at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, state Reps. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, and Tryon Lewis, R-Odessa, and state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, discussed cuts to public and higher education and other by-products of the 82nd Session.

The manager of a West Texas farm on the oddities of crop insurance, why all the farmers near Lubbock want to grow cotton and why West Texans don't believe in climate change despite the drought and weird weather.

Aaronson interactively maps Texas Medicaid providers, Aguilar talks legalization with the head of the Drug Policy Alliance, Galbraith on farmers watering what they know won't grow, Grisson sits down with exoneree Michael Morton, Hamilton on the elusive $10,000 college degree, Murphy et al. update the 2012 election brackets, Ramsey on Bill Ratliff's frank budget analysis, Ramshaw on a hospital where the overweight need not apply, Root on Joe Straus' primary opponent and Tan rounds up reactions to the Supreme Court's health care hearings: The best of our best content from March 26-30, 2012.

The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn an administrative order that charged Range Resources, a Fort Worth-based natural gas driller, with contaminating water wells.

By mid-summer last year, it was so hot and dry that many West Texas cotton farmers gave up hope of producing a crop. Yet they had to keep watering, pumping from diminishing aquifers like the Ogallala, to claim crop insurance.

The PBS NewsHour, in partnership with StateImpact Texas, takes a look at how two Texas communities are dealing with  the Texas drought.

Opponents of a coal company's plan to mine land in Eagle Pass are also fighting a plan to build a rail line to transport the coal to Mexico.

Some farmers in West Texas oppose new regulations that cap the amount of water they can pump from wells that tap the Ogallala Aquifer. A two-year moratorium on enforcement has not appeased them.

In this episode of the Texas Tribune Weekend Insider, we look at growing elementary class sizes and limits on groundwater use in West Texas.

In 2011, residents of some large Texas cities increased their water usage — despite the widespread adoption of restrictions on lawn-watering.

The Lower Colorado River Authority decided Thursday night that there wasn’t enough water in the Highland Lakes to send water downstream to rice farmers in Southeast Texas. Terrence Henry of KUT News and StateImpact Texas reports on where the farmers go from here.

John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas' state climatologist since 2000, has seen his duties explode in the last 18 months amid public clamor for information on the drought. 

Texas rice farmers near the Gulf Coast are anxiously awaiting word on whether they'll get water from the Lower Colorado River Authority for a rice crop this spring. The LCRA says the farmers' prospects are not good — which will relieve other Texans who also have a stake in the water.

For Texas industry, the drought has brought a conservation focus at many plants, which may have to pay more for future supplies.

The Lower Colorado River Authority will soon decide whether rice farmers near the Gulf Coast will get water this year when the lakes near Austin are low because of the drought.

The Lower Colorado River Authority, the utility that controls water flowing from the Highland Lakes to the Gulf Coast, is set to approve a new plan for allocating water. But as Mose Buchele of StateImpact Texas reports, the authority will first hear from the various — and often feuding — communities relying on the affected water sources.