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  • TribBlog: "The Rumor Mill in Austin is Very Efficient"

    By Ross Ramsey

    State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, says he's talking to the Texas A&M Universtity System about a vice chancellor's job there, but says the issue is "unresolved," and that the public conversation about his intentions "is really premature." That said, he's already talking about how he'd leave office. Full Story 

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    Credit: Texas Senate

  • Naming Rights

    By Elizabeth Titus

    The University of Texas once admired Ku Klux Klan organizer and law professor William Stewart Simkins. Today the UT System's regents meet to consider whether the tree-shaded all-male residence on San Jacinto Boulevard that bears his name still should. Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller

  • Blood Lines: Valley of Death

    By Brandi Grissom

    For decades, residents of impoverished Mexican border towns have toiled in the cotton and alfalfa fields or in the giant factories of Juárez. Those seeking more than paupers’ wages worked for the cartels. Yet their communities remained peaceful until the horror of the drug war bled into the farmland. As the violence worsens, law enforcement has rushed to both sides of the Rio Grande — but greater security brings little comfort and little hope. Full Story 

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    Credit: Ivan Pierre Aguirre

  • Floundering and Flourishing

    By Brandi Grissom and Elise Hu

    Depending on whom you ask, anywhere between 100,000 to half a million Juarenses have left Mexico since drug violence exploded in 2008. In a tragic irony, neighboring El Paso is flourishing economically as Juárez descends further into terror. Full Story 

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  • Mark Jones: The TT Interview

    By Matt Stiles

    The chairman of the political science department at Rice University recently ranked Texas House members' partisanship based on their 2009 legislative votes. Our interactive chart highlights what he describes as Texas' increasingly polarized political environment. Full Story 

    Mark P. Jones, political science chair at Rice University.
    Credit: Mark P. Jones

  • The Long Arm of the Law

    By Morgan Smith

    Curbing the practice of barratry — "ambulance chasing," in the vernacular — has prompted an uneasy alliance between tort reformers and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association: They agree on reform ... just not on the form it should take. Full Story 

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    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • Blood Lines: Prosperity Amid Peril

    By Brandi Grissom

    As the savage drug war rages on in Juárez, both the fun and the business have fled, bringing to El Paso, its sleepy sister city, a vibrant new culture and an economic boost. In a tragic irony, a measure of El Paso’s recent fortune results directly from the suffering of Juárez. But experts warn that El Paso leaders rely on Juárez’s decline at their own risk. Ultimately, as Juárez goes, so goes El Paso, they say. Full Story 

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    Credit: Ivan Pierre Aguirre

  • TribBlog: New Doc at Workers' Comp

    By Elise Hu

    After the exodus of at least half a dozen employees and swirling questions about its lack of enforcement against unscrupulous doctors, the Division of Workers' Compensation has put a new man in charge of the investigations. The former executive director of the Texas Medical Board, Dr. Donald Patrick, started Monday. Full Story 

    Dr. Donald Patrick, neurosurgeon and Medical Advisor at the Division of Workers' Compensation.

  • TribBlog: Not Cool With School

    By Forrest Burnson

    Texans overwhelmingly reject the way the State Board of Education sets requirements for textbooks and curriculum, which ignited a nationwide controversy earlier this year, according to a statewide survey the Texas Freedom Network released today. Full Story 

    An observer holds a protest sign during testimony at the State Board of Education (SBOE) textbook hearings on Wednesday, May 19, 2010.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich