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All Coverage

  • Ports of Prosperity

    By Julián Aguilar

    After a sluggish 2009, Texas' top trade districts — Houston, Laredo and El Paso — are rebounding well from the national recession and witnessing huge increases in the value of trade passing through their ports this year. Full Story 

    An international bridge connecting Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • A Shot in the Arm

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Most of Texas' health insurance companies have fully covered the costs of the infant vaccine Prevnar 13, which prevents deadly cases of bacterial pneumonia and meningitis. The exception has been Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, which has forced physicians to make up the difference or turn babies away. But no more: On Monday, the same day The Texas Tribune asked about the reimbursement gap, BCBS reversed course. It will now cover all costs associated with the vaccine. Full Story 

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  • The "Career" Path

    By Reeve Hamilton

    Private, for-profit colleges, which offer professional certificates at a steep cost, have come under fire for peddling big student loans to vulnerable Texans in exchange for credentials of dubious value. Full Story 

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  • Water, Water Anywhere?

    By Erika Aguilar, KUT News

    This month, parts of Central Texas will decide how much water will be in the aquifers below the land for the next 50 years. The decisions will affect Dripping Springs, Johnson City, Wimberley and other towns south and west of Austin that rely on groundwater supplies. Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports. Full Story 

    The Blue Hole springs in Wimberley
    Credit: Doug O'Brien

  • They Want Their GOTV

    By Erika Aguilar, KUT News

    The push to get out the vote is underway. Democrats in Austin scattered about town Saturday morning to reach out to registered voters and sign up new ones for the November election — a strategy they banked on in 2008. But as Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, they've got competition. Full Story 

    Democrats and Republicans have started their efforts to register voters for the 2010 election in Texas.
    Credit: Courtesy KUT

  • The University of Someplace Else

    By Elizabeth Titus

    Fewer students from Mexico have enrolled at border schools like the University of Texas at El Paso, UT-Pan American, and Texas A&M International since 2006, while their ranks have grown at schools farther from the Rio Grande, like UT-Austin and Texas A&M. Can the drop be attributed to the drug war, or is the growing violence simply compounding the decades-old problem of border "brain drain"? Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • Follow the Money

    By Ross Ramsey

    The mid-year campaign finance reports reveal which races have the attention of the political players. They're a down-in-the-weeds look at where the fights will be this fall. Full Story 

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  • The Off Switch

    By Kate Galbraith

    Rather than building new power plants just to meet peak electricity demand on hot summer afternoons, why not just persuade people and companies to use less electricity? "Demand response" is quickly taking hold in Texas. Full Story 

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    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller

  • Hide in Plain Sight

    By Ben Philpott, KUT News

    A few elected officials and municipalities in Texas are asking a federal judge to throw out the state’s open meetings law, which they claim is an infringement on free speech. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports. Full Story 

  • A Size Thing

    By Ross Ramsey

    The last Democrat who outraised Rick Perry in a governor's race — Tony Sanchez — was writing his own checks. But without lifting his own pen, Democrat Bill White raised more money than the Republican incumbent and had $3.1 million more in the bank than the governor at mid-year, according to their campaign finance reports. Full Story 

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    Grissom's three-part series (here, here and here) on prosperity and peril along the U.S.-Mexico border, Hu on the Division of Workers' Compensation audit report, Stiles puts more than 3,000 personal disclosure forms filed by politicians, candidates and state officials online, M. Smith on attempts to curb the practice of barratry (better known as ambulance chasing), Ramsey interviews the chair of the Texas Libertarian Party, Hamilton on attempts to improve the success rates of community colleges, Galbraith on whether electric deregulation has helped or hurt Texans, Aguilar talks to a chronicler of the bloody narco-wars and Ramshaw on doctors who most often prescribe antipsychotic drugs to the state's neediest patients: The best of our best from July 12 to 16, 2010. Full Story 

    The best of our best from the week of July 12th.