Gov. Rick Perry’s focus on sanctuary cities — cities that don't allow their police officers to enforce federal immigration laws — could offer him safe passage through the contentious immigration debate. But it will be tricky. Full Story
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For this week's installment of our nonscientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we asked about the bunker mentality at the Capitol: whether the level of security is too lax, over the top or just right, whether concealed handgun licenses ought to be the only "fast pass" through security lines and which state officials should have a security detail. Full Story
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The Environmental Protection Agency took public comment in Dallas on Friday on its new rules for greenhouse gas regulations. Because Texas has refused to establish a greenhouse gas permitting process, the EPA will directly issue permits to companies here — but as Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, federal officials say there won’t be a delay for companies wanting to them. Full Story
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Kay Bailey Hutchison pulled the trigger, announcing in a letter to her supporters that she won't seek reelection in 2012. Full Story
On Friday, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, appeared on Fox and Friends to talk about why he believes, in the wake of the Tucson shootings, that members of Congress should be allowed to carry guns in Washington, D.C. Full Story
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Many of the longest lives in Texas are lived in an unlikely place: along the impoverished border with Mexico, where residents often live until age 80 and beyond. Explanations for this so-called "Hispanic Paradox" range from theories about differences in the diet, faith and family values of first-generation South Texans to suggestions that natural selection is at play in immigration patterns. Full Story
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The Trib staff on the opening of the Texas legislative session, Hu on what actually happened on day one, C. Miller's time-lapse photo essay, M. Smith on public school kids in the criminal justice system, Stiles and Chang interactively map legislative offices, Grissom interviews the chronicler of drug war killings in Juárez, yours truly on security at the Capitol, Galbraith on efforts by industrial plants to duck the battle between state and federal environmental regulators, Ramshaw on 25-year-olds cut out of federally mandated state health insurance, E. Smith's news-making interview with House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts and our guide to some of the people who might — and might not — run for Kay Bailey Hutchison's seat in the U.S. Senate: The best of our best from January 10 to 15, 2011. Full Story
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Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott accused the federal government of putting U.S. citizens' lives at risk following a reported cross-border shooting Thursday in Hudspeth County. During the incident, first reported by the El Paso Times, at least one Mexican gunman allegedly shot toward Hudspeth County workers in rural West Texas who were doing maintenance on a desolate road. Full Story
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If the lieutenant governor's job comes open in 2014, Comptroller Susan Combs is interested. But that's a long way off, she says, and everything has to line up just right. Full Story
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No time to follow every twist and turn of the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our all-new weekly recaps of the action under the dome. Take a look back at the top political news from Jan. 10 to Jan. 14. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: Tea Party weighs in on the Senate race, and Jerry Patterson looks to move up Full Story
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On the heels of Kay Bailey Hutchison's announcement that she won't run for another term in the U.S. Senate and rampant speculation that David Dewhurst will run for her seat, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson today walked up to the edge of saying he plans to run for lieutenant governor in 2014. Full Story
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The KBH guessing game is over (finally). Now comes the fun part. Full Story
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When Andrew Cuomo took office as governor of New York earlier this month, he ordered the removal of the security barricades limiting access to his state’s Capitol. “This Capitol has become a physical metaphor for the isolation and alienation of our people,” he said in his inauguration speech. He could easily have been talking about Texas. Full Story
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Texas produces more law school graduates than it has jobs for. But that hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from proposing that the state build a new law school in the Valley. Full Story
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Upping the stakes in a long-running debate over groundwater and property rights, state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, filed a bill this week that would give Texas landowners ownership of the groundwater beneath their property. As Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, the filing comes as the Texas Supreme Court considers a similar issue. Full Story
The proof of East Texas' live-hard, die-young culture is in the bread pudding — and the all-you-can-eat fried catfish, the drive-through tobacco barns and the doughnut shops by the dozen. In a community where heavy eating and chain smoking are a way of life, where poverty, hard-headedness and even suspicion hinder access to basic health care, residents die at an average age of 73, or seven years earlier than the longest-living Texans, according to a preliminary county-by-county analysis by the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Full Story
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Minutes after learning of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's decision not to seek re-election, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst demurred when asked whether he would run for her seat. Full Story
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Your afternoon reading: Hutchison to retire; Pitts on the budget; Berman targets Sharia law Full Story
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In our TribLive conversation this morning, state Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, spoke frankly about the certainty that state employees would be cut as part of the Legislature's solution to the budget shortfall — and he said furloughs for employees who aren't cut may be ordered as well. Full Story
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