Analysis: In Texas education, finding and fixing problems is hard. And slow.

At the same time, hundreds of high-poverty schools received A grades, including many in South Texas. Those are just some of the takeaways from this year's ratings.

To qualify for the September and October debates, candidates must receive donations from at least 130,000 individual donors and get 2% support in four polls.

With the focus of Washington on the border, five Texas members of Congress have served as guides for their colleagues and advocates for their constituents.

More than 600,000 Texans will immediately be eligible to have their driver's licenses reinstated after the program's Sept. 1 repeal. The system was widely criticized for adding additional annual fees on top of the price of tickets, but all pending surcharges will soon be waived.

Senate Bill 21, authored by Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican from Houston, made Texas the 16th state to raise the legal smoking age from 18 to 21.

The majority of attacks were against small local governments, according to the state's Department of Information Resources.

For decades, Texans who can’t afford a lawyer have gotten caught in a criminal justice system that’s crippled by inadequate funding and overloaded attorneys. A growing body of caseload data — and a recent lawsuit — point to an even more fundamental hazard: the unchecked power of Texas judges.

The line outside the funeral stretched several blocks. “I think our community lost something and this is our community grieving together," said local state Rep. Joe Moody.

Farrar, an attorney first elected to the lower chamber in 1994, represents House District 148, which covers parts of northern and western Houston.