A wide-ranging coalition of education, criminal justice, religious and charitable groups today called on Texas lawmakers to use more than a machete to balance the state budget this year. Full Story
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Though graduation rates for community colleges are stagnant nationwide, a few Texas colleges have seen improvements. But don't go busting out the champagne just yet. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: the Republican Caucus; Arizona-style immigration policy in Texas looks unlikely, a study says; and a bid to rename the Railroad Commission Full Story
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Thirty-six states' worth of nuclear waste has found a home — in Texas. Full Story
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The sixth annual Texas Transportation Forum was the largest yet, with contractors, state officials and others meeting to talk mobility in the state. Mose Buchele of KUT News reports on the added challenges they will face this year to keep Texas moving. Full Story
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Electronic textbooks are increasingly touted as an alternative to the more expensive traditional ink-on-paper variety. But how do lessons make the jump from the print to digital? Full Story
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The executive director of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department discusses the acquisition of a large piece of remote and rugged land along the Devils River; next steps for the bighorn sheep released in Big Bend Ranch State Park; the threats posed by invasive species like the giant salvinia, an exotic, rootless fern, and zebra mussels — and what the state's budget shortfall might mean for his agency and for the state's lands, waters, fish, wildlife and parks. Full Story
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The 112th Congress will convene Wednesday with new faces at the helm of a number House committees. Jennifer Stayton of KUT News talked with U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, who will take over as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, about the issues on which he expects to find bipartisan support, the assertion that Americans won't work certain jobs and why he supports a repeal of the new health care law. Full Story
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In the midst of state-mandated budget cuts, 135 tenured professors have accepted buyouts at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: more religious rhetoric in the speaker's race; Texas' clout in Congress; and DNA clears wrongly jailed man Full Story
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As the speaker's race wraps up, the drama's still thick. Full Story
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Get acquainted with a phrase that will be oft-repeated in the upcoming 82nd Legislature’s brawls over public education: unfunded mandate. To help schools cope with any reduced funding, lawmakers will look to relax state regulations that create costs local school districts bear on their own or with limited help from the state. But will dropping these requirements hurt educational quality? Full Story
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The jail conditions expert and professor at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs on why maintaining treatment programs that keep offenders in their communities and reducing some of the harsh, long-term jail sentences often doled out in Texas' notoriously tough criminal justice system could be more cost-efficient and allow Texas to close prisons. Full Story
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It's not hard to find strange bedfellows in the Texas Legislature when the bills start flying. Republicans and Democrats frequently cross the aisle to support legislation that they feel will help their constituents. As Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the same could be true as lawmakers try to figure out how to balance the state budget. Full Story
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Alan Bersin, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol commissioner, will be headed to Big Bend National Park on Thursday for an announcement that might please residents of that remote area of the border. Bersin is set to meet with National Park Services staff to discuss the opening of a border crossing in Boquillas Canyon. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: (another) speaker's race video, nuke waste and a truce in the Mexican drug war Full Story
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The big day's coming up fast, but first, let's take a moment. Full Story
It was a very interesting and newsworthy year for Texas politics and public policy, so it makes sense that traffic on our still-new-ish site would be robust — but even we optimists at Trib HQ didn't imagine that it would be this robust. Full Story
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When foster kids bounce from placement to placement, they leave their belongings with state child welfare workers — where advocates say they often get misplaced, given to the wrong child or even stolen. Full Story
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