Your afternoon reading.
The Midday Brief: Sept. 14, 2010
Posted in
Demographics
TribBlog: UT’s First Majority-Minority Class
For the first time in the school’s history, the freshman class at the University of Texas has more minority students than white students.
Posted in
Health care
TribBlog: Magistrate Says Tort Reform Not Unconstitutional
A federal magistrate says the medical malpractice caps Texas lawmakers instituted in 2003 should withstand a constitutional challenge.
Posted inState Government
White on the Looming Debate Deadline
Wednesday is the Gov. Rick Perry-issued deadline in a long-running standoff over Bill White’s tax returns. Perry has said he won’t debate White unless the Democrat releases tax returns from the mid-1990s by Sept. 15. White explains in a news conference Tuesday why he won’t release the returns. If the standoff continues, this will be first time in 20 years that candidates for Texas governor haven’t met in a televised debate.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
A Hardline in the Sand
Nearly half of all Texans would repeal the constitutional promise of citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil, and nearly two-thirds would favor Arizona-style laws allowing the police to ask about the immigration status of anyone they stop for any reason, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll.
Posted in
State Government
Explaining Closed Cases
In this clip from Monday’s testimony, Commissioner Rod Bordelon of the state Division of Workers’ Compensation explains why he dismissed several cases against doctors that a physician review panel had already sent to enforcement. Under questioning, he admits he looked into the process and subsequently shut it down after a call from state Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler.
Posted in
Energy
Slideshow: Galveston Rebuilds
Two years after Hurricane Ike’s surge washed over Galveston, residents here still struggle to rebuild parts of the island, which has lost about 10,000 people from its pre-flood population of about 50,000.
Posted in
Energy
Surge Protectors
Two years after Hurricane Ike’s surge crossed Galveston like a speed bump on its way to Houston, planners and academics are staring down multibillion-dollar public policy dilemmas. To describe Ike as a “wake-up call” understates and trivializes the matter. Like other coastal areas around the nation and around the world, the Houston-Galveston region is only now grappling with complex and costly questions of how to protect sprawling seaside development from the combination of subsidence and an expected sea-level rise from global warming.
Posted in
Health care
“A Workplace of Intimidation”
Was it a broken process or a breakdown in leadership that kept bad doctors from getting removed from the state workers’ compensation system? Lawmakers sought to answer that question on Monday but left a House hearing with no clear understanding of why hundreds of potential enforcement actions stalled or disappeared entirely over the last half-decade.
