The U.S. Border Patrol is restarting its controversial Alien Transfer and Exit Program, in which illegal border-crossers caught in Arizona are transported to Texas and deported to Mexico. Texas officials say the plan makes as little sense to them now as it did last year. Full Story
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Six weeks after the drubbing their party took at the hands of voters, surviving Texas House Democrats find themselves at a crossroads — on style and substance, politics and policy. With massive budget cuts looming, will they effectively sit out the session and force Republicans in the majority to have all the blood on their hands? Will they participate just enough to soften the blow in the areas they care about the most: education and health care? Can they hold together a solid 51-vote bloc on key legislation? Where exactly should they go from here? And who will lead them? Full Story
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In this week's TribCast, Evan, Ross, Elise and Ben discuss the difficult budget votes ahead, the weakened House Democratic Caucus and what redistricting means for 2012. Full Story
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Today, leaders from journalism and First Amendment advocacy groups sent a letter to Tarleton State University challenging a controversial and restrictive open-records policy. Full Story
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The baby blood battle continues with a second lawsuit against the Department of State Health Services for not only storing but allegedly selling, distributing and bartering baby blood samples. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: looming DREAM Act vote embroils senators, and a new report ranks public ed efficiency Full Story
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Even as Texas schools face budget cuts, their spending per student is on the rise, according to a new report from Comptroller Susan Combs that rates district expenditures against student achievement. Full Story
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The state budget ax — ever looming, and by now not unfamiliar — has swung again. Full Story
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In his first competitive House race analysis for 2012, Nostradamus-on-the-Potomac Charlie Cook only lists two Texas congressional seats as potentially in play. One of them is not CD-17. Full Story
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The budget shortfall — estimated to be as much as $28 billion — will require the Legislature to take a paring knife and possibly a machete to government agencies and programs. The largest single consumer of state dollars is public education, so it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which funding for teacher salaries, curricular materials and the like isn’t on the chopping block, especially if lawmakers want to make good on their promises of no new taxes. But where is that money going to come from? Full Story
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A public hearing in Austin on Thursday will address a proposed rule allowing 36 states to ship their low-level radioactive waste to West Texas. As Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, the rule has raised the eyebrows of environmentalists and the new governor of Vermont. Full Story
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One in 10 Asian-Americans has hepatitis B, a rate that is 20 times higher than the rest of the population — and is surely pronounced in Houston, which has the fourth-largest Asian population of any U.S. metropolitan area. But state public health officials struggle to get funding for vaccinations and outreach. Full Story
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Sixty-nine years ago, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor compelled the U.S. to join World War II — and led to the internment of thousands of Japanese, German and Italian Americans. As Matt Largey of KUT News reports, researchers are now trying to preserve and memorialize those sites in Texas. Full Story
Backers of medical marijuana laws are holding fast to hopes that the specter of an ever-encroaching government will resonate with the most energized wing of the Republican Party in the upcoming legislative session. Full Story
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The tussle between Texas and federal environmental regulators is heating up in yet another arena — natural gas drilling — after the EPA ordered a gas company to act to come to the aid of two North Texas homes with contaminated wells. Texas Railroad Commissioners fired back, calling the EPA's move "premature" and "grandstanding." Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: agencies asked to cut more, emergency appeal in death penalty case and a big day for Joe Barton Full Story
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The legal wrangling between Texas and the federal government over the state's air-pollution permitting system for big industrial plants is intensifying, as Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a brief in a federal court yesterday defending the system. Full Story
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As expected, state leaders are asking state agencies to cut their current budgets even more. This time, by 2.5 percent. Full Story
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Though successful in covering the gruesome aspects of the cartel-related carnage in Mexico, the U.S. press falls short in exposing the muzzling of its Mexican counterparts at the hands of organized crime, says Ricardo Trotti, director of press freedom at the Inter American Press Association. Full Story
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As the death penalty went on trial in Texas on Monday, one side of the courtroom fell silent. Full Story
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