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  • TribBlog: Suspending Driver Suspensions

    By Brandi Grissom

    The Texas Public Safety Commission on Thursday approved changes to the Driver Responsibility Program that would include an amnesty program for drivers with outstanding surcharges, reduced fines for poor drivers and new incentives to encourage more people to pay up. Full Story 

    A Texas Department of Public Safety official seal.
    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • "This Report Backs Us Up"

    By Elise Hu

    State auditors found muddled chains of command, missing files and a massive backlog of cases when they dug into the enforcement process at the Division of Workers' Compensation, according to a report released Thursday. The findings support the claims of former employees who exited the division this year amid complaints of stalled action on dozens of cases against workers' comp physicians accused of abusing the system. Full Story 

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    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • Blood Lines: Peace in Poverty

    By Brandi Grissom

    For years, the sister cities of Presidio and Ojinaga watched jealously as other border cities prospered. Now when they look east to the Rio Grande Valley and west to El Paso and Juárez, they see fear and bloodshed, and the envy fades to thankfulness. The poverty and isolation that have held them back keep the violence at bay. But for how long? Full Story 

    Elevated view of Presidio, Texas.
    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • Baby Bump

    By Sarah Acosta

    At a hearing today, the Department of Family and Protective Services will consider stricter caregiver-to-child ratios for child care centers — but improved care for Texas toddlers could also mean less income for child care providers and higher tuition for families. Full Story 

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    Credit: Justyna Furmanczyk

  • TribBlog: DHS Payday

    By Julián Aguilar

    DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in Laredo today announced more money for border states and defended an administration under fire from folks on the Mexican border. Full Story 

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    Credit: Bob Daemmrich, Caleb Miller

  • TribBlog: Pickens Updates Plan

    By Kate Galbraith

    T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman, updated the presentation today for his Pickens Plan to get the country off of foreign oil. He focuses almost entirely on natural gas, and makes no mention of the wind power he also peddled two years ago. Full Story 

    Legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens says operators are to blame for plunging oil prices.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune

  • TribBlog: Goodbye, Simkins

    By Elizabeth Titus

    The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously this morning to rename an all-male dorm Creekside Residence Hall after weeks of debate about the man the building was originally named for: William Stewart Simkins, a dead UT law professor and Ku Klux Klan organizer. Full Story 

    Simkins Hall at the University of Texas-Austin in July, 2010.
    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller

  • 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