Demographics

Seven Texas counties — Rockwall, Williamson, Collin, Hays, Fort Bend, Montgomery and Denton — are listed among the nation's 30 fastest growing areas, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today. They also voted for John McCain in the 2008 presidential race.

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When high-ranking officials in the Obama administration travel to Mexico today to discuss that country's role in combating border violence, one key member of the team will be missing: the commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security, whose nomination has languished in the U.S. Senate since September.

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Leaders from one end of the Texas-Mexico border to the other want Gov. Rick Perry to tone down the scary rhetoric and get real about solving problems in their hometowns. And, by the way, they would like to be consulted about security plans that affect their communities. "We know what's going on on the border," says Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas. "Our needs were not taken into consideration."

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Grissom on the 1.2 million Texans who've lost their licenses under the Driver Responsibility Act and the impenetrable black box that is the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Ramshaw and Kraft on nurses with substance abuse problems and rehabilitation that can get them back to work, M. Smith finds it's not easy being Rick Green, Stiles on counting Texans (and everybody else), Rapoport on the State Board of Education's war with itself and the runoff in SBOE District 10, Thevenot's revealing interview with a big-city superintendent on closing bad schools, Aguilar on the tensions over water on the Texas-Mexico border, Hamilton on the new Coffee Party, Hu on Kesha Rogers and why her party doesn't want her, Philpott on the runoff in HD-47, Ramsey on Bill White and the politics of taxes, and E. Smith's conversation with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heleimann: The best of our best from March 15 to 19.

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The federal government seems to be warming to Gov. Rick Perry's demands for an unmanned drone on the Texas-Mexico border.

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At the heart of America's symbiotic relationship with Mexico is a long-standing and sometimes tense agreement over an issue more far-reaching than homeland security and immigration: water.

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I suppose if you're a Texas politician this week you just have to make hay out of the situation on the border. Today, it was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White's turn.

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Revealing more details about the first phase of the border spillover prevention plan that he activated Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry today announced he is sending two helicopters to the Texas-Mexico border, an OH-58 Kiowa and a UH-72 Lakota. The exact locations of the choppers, however, will not be released for security purposes.

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It’s not just Gov. Rick Perry who wants the President to make a trip south.

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U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both Republicans, sent President Obama a letter today, calling for him to get busy trying to quell the violence on the U.S.-Mexico border and stop it from spilling into Texas.

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The governor's political radar is characteristically fine-tuned here, at least for the short term.

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The violence in the border city of Juarez has offered Gov. Rick Perry another shot at the federal government and what he deems is its failure to secure the nation’s border with Mexico.

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Gov. Rick Perry said he's activating the "first phase of the state’s spillover violence contingency plan" in the wake of increasing drug violence on the Texas-Mexico border. But the next sentence of the press release says he's not telling anyone what the plan is, for security reasons.

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U.S. authorities teamed with Mexican law enforcement agents on Monday and scoured the streets of the border city of Juarez in search of clues to the weekend murder of three people, including two U.S. citizens, with ties to the U.S. Consulate in that violent city.

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With the violent Mexican drug war creeping ever closer to the U.S. side of the border, Gov. Rick Perry is calling again for the federal government to put unmanned aerial vehicles and National Guard troops on the Texas-Mexico border.

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Following the weekend killing in Juarez of three people with ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, the U.S. Department of State has issued a strongly worded and startling warning for Americans to stay away from Mexico. The department also has told family members of U.S. government officials in Mexican border towns they can return to the U.S.

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The weekend slaughter in Mexico of two U.S. citizens with ties to the consulate’s office in Ciudad Juarez has sparked outrage from Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have publicly condemned the attacks that left a pregnant consulate employee, her husband and a Mexican national dead.

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Census Bureau questionnaires arrive at 8.4 million Texas homes this week. "Fill that sucker out," the bureau's regional director says, "so we don't have to come and knock on your door."

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Thevenot on the non-stop wonder that is the State Board of Education and its latest efforts to set curriculum standards, E. Smith's post-election sit-down interview with Bill White at TribLive made some news and got the November pugilism started, Ramshaw on whether it makes sense for the state to call patients and remind them to take their pills, and on the state's botched attempt to save baby blood samples for medical research, Hamilton's interview with Steve Murdock on the state's demographic destiny, M. Smith on whooping cranes, fresh water, and an effort to use the endangered species act to protect them both, Grissom on potties, pickups, and other equipment purchased with federal homeland security money and Stiles' latest data and map on where that money went, Aguilar on the "voluntary fasting" protesting conditions and treatment at an immigrant detention facility, Kreighbaum on football, the new sport at UTSA, and Philpott on Rick Perry and Bill White retooling their appeals for the general election. The best of our best from March 8 to 12, 2010.

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Texas border leaders on Friday unleashed a diatribe at the interim director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection for postponing a planned pay raise for federal agents and failing to beef up protection of the state’s border region.

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