In 2013, 1.3 million Texas households received food stamps — up from 505,968 in 2000, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The state has worked for decades to halt the proliferation of colonias, but it has no way to declassify communities that have outgrown the colonia description.

After 24 years in the Legislature and a failed campaign for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte bid an emotional farewell to her colleagues on Tuesday. She now faces a crowded field in the race to be San Antonio mayor. 

One day after an Austin lesbian couple obtained a marriage license from the Travis County clerk, state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, says he wants to move the distribution of marriage licenses to the Texas secretary of state’s office.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to void a marriage license issued to two Austin women who became the first same-sex couple to legally wed in the state.

Two Austin women made history Thursday when they became the first gay couple to legally wed in the state. But after the Texas Supreme Court intervened, attorneys for the state and for the couple disagreed on whether the marriage is valid.

The state agency responsible for supervising, monitoring and providing treatment to sexually violent predators is out of space to house sex offenders, agency officials told state lawmakers on Wednesday.

Saying it will unleash "legal chaos," Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday asked the Texas Supreme Court to block a Travis County probate judge's ruling that the state’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional.

Citing recent court decisions legalizing gay marriage in Alabama, plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage are asking a federal appeals court to clear the way for marriages in the state.

They acknowledge they're pushing a boulder up a hill in the conservative Texas Legislature. But three House Democrats remain laser-focused on repealing the 24-hour waiting period for abortion imposed by the state’s 2011 sonogram law.

Emblems of Jack Stick’s days as the state health agency's deputy inspector general remain: roughly 300 high-dollar badges he designed and ordered for his investigators at a cost to taxpayers of $36,000.

After a few failed legislative attempts, Republican lawmakers are once again working to make drug testing mandatory for some Texans who receive state welfare benefits. 

A day after state Rep. Molly White, R-Belton, came under fire for instructing staff to ask Muslim visitors to her office to pledge their allegiance to the U.S., Gov. Greg Abbott called for civil discussions "so that everyone has the opportunity to weigh in on their beliefs."

UPDATED: A Muslim group at the Capitol has asked Speaker Joe Straus whether state Rep. Molly White violated ethics rules by instructing her staff to ask Muslim visitors to her office to declare their allegiance to the U.S. 

Four years after a legislative effort to keep Planned Parenthood from receiving state dollars for health care for low-income women, the Texas Senate is back at it — this time over funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings.