Carlos "Charlie" Uresti

Houston’s official nickname since 1967: Space City. It’s NBA team: the Rockets. Its MLB franchise is the Astros, and they played in the Astrodome. No wonder the city is in a funk as space shuttle Atlantis makes its final landing today.

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Texas peace officers will be allowed to inquire into the immigration status of any person arrested or legally detained under legislation passed by the Texas Senate early Wednesday morning.

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A bill aimed at reducing the glare from outdoor lighting in a large swath of West Texas in order to help the McDonald Observatory is currently stuck in the Senate, though its sponsor hopes to get it to the floor by the tomorrow's legislative deadline.

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The Senate passed the "reptile bill" today, which creates regulations for hunters who want to collect snakes and horny toads along Texas highways.

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A bill by state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, seeks to repeal in-state tuition for students who are not living in Texas legally. He says it will make tuition rates fairer, but others argue that the tuition break ultimately benefits the state.

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They won’t give names, nor will they engage in a game of hypothetical vote counting, but Senate Democrats will say the coalition forming against the state’s proposed sanctuary cities bill isn’t what observers would expect.

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An effort by Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, to require undocumented Texas students to pay out-of-state tuition rates sparked emotional debate in the Senate today, and forced Birdwell to pull the measure down.

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Senate lawmakers tentatively passed a controversial measure to require women seeking abortions to receive sonograms — and have the details of the fetus described to them — prior to the procedure.

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Holdup? What holdup? Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, says he's got the votes to send abortion sonogram legislation back to the House — but the timeline for doing it depends on how quickly the Senate passes the budget.

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A panel of senators today discussed an abortion sonogram carve-out that would allow women in remote communities to wait just two hours after a sonogram to have an abortion, instead of 24 hours.

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The biggest hurdle getting an abortion sonogram bill passed this session may be good old-fashioned stubbornness.

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Texas Democrats today called Gov. Rick Perry's ad featuring a Houston widow an underhanded attempt to promote Arizona-style immigration laws. Perry's camp says Democrats are confused.

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Ask a Republican who’s not on Gov. Rick Perry or Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s payroll about the 2010 governor’s primary, and you’ll get a response about a well-timed trip to Palm Springs in early March, when the two candidates square off. Party faithful want to stay above the fray: Primary challenges to longstanding incumbents tend to get rough quick.

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