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News For September, 2010

  • Beyond the Bake Sale

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    With or without the controversial federal education funding that would come with Texas-specific strings attached, many of the state's school districts are preparing for tough budgetary times ahead — and they're getting creative about potential solutions. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports. Full Story 

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  • Get Out the Knives

    By Ross Ramsey

    Given a choice between spending cuts and revenue increases to balance the state budget, Texans lean solidly toward cuts, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Seven in 10 oppose any new taxes to address what could be a $21 billion shortfall. Full Story 

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  • The Show Must Go On

    By Julián Aguilar

    Despite the violence-fueled cancellation of bicentennial festivities in other major border towns, Nuevo Laredo plans to forge ahead with its celebration of Mexican Independence Day. Full Story 

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    Credit: Christian Frausto Bernal

  • The Fight For Ceci

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Frank and Chila Covington could hardly be mistaken for cruel. For four decades, they showered their daughter, Ceci, who has Down syndrome, with love, affection and opportunity. But when they argued with a group home provider who insisted that Ceci needed psychotropic medication, their world turned upside down. In the time it took for the provider to accuse the Covingtons of “cruelty,” a Tarrant County judge called a secret hearing and removed their guardianship, telling them they could no longer communicate with their own child. And he had every legal right to do so. Full Story 

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    Credit: Emily Ramshaw

  • White on the Looming Debate Deadline

    By Elise Hu

    Wednesday is the Gov. Rick Perry-issued deadline in a long-running standoff over Bill White's tax returns. Perry has said he won't debate White unless the Democrat releases tax returns from the mid-1990s by Sept. 15. White explains in a news conference Tuesday why he won't release the returns. If the standoff continues, this will be first time in 20 years that candidates for Texas governor haven't met in a televised debate. Full Story 

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  • "A Workplace of Intimidation"

    By Elise Hu

    Was it a broken process or a breakdown in leadership that kept bad doctors from getting removed from the state workers' compensation system? Lawmakers sought to answer that question on Monday but left a House hearing with no clear understanding of why hundreds of potential enforcement actions stalled or disappeared entirely over the last half-decade. Full Story 

  • Surge Protectors

    By Reeve Hamilton and Brian Thevenot

    Two years after Hurricane Ike’s surge crossed Galveston like a speed bump on its way to Houston, planners and academics are staring down multibillion-dollar public policy dilemmas. To describe Ike as a “wake-up call” understates and trivializes the matter. Like other coastal areas around the nation and around the world, the Houston-Galveston region is only now grappling with complex and costly questions of how to protect sprawling seaside development from the combination of subsidence and an expected sea-level rise from global warming. Full Story 

    U.S. Air Force member conducted search and rescue operations on Galveston Island after Hurricane Ike on Sept. 13, 2008.
    Credit: Staff Sgt. James L. Harper Jr.

  • Explaining Closed Cases

    By Elise Hu

    In this clip from Monday's testimony, Commissioner Rod Bordelon of the state Division of Workers' Compensation explains why he dismissed several cases against doctors that a physician review panel had already sent to enforcement. Under questioning, he admits he looked into the process and subsequently shut it down after a call from state Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler. Full Story 

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