Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

California took its global-warming dispute with the Bush administration to court Thursday, demanding that the federal government act on a request filed nearly two years ago to let the state limit motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases.

According to a former AT&T employee, the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek. As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country

People often ask: I want to get greener, what should I do? New light bulbs? A hybrid? A solar roof? Well, all of those things are helpful. But actually, the greenest thing you can do is this: Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.

Texas has 185 high schools that are hemorrhaging students fast enough to be called "dropout factories" in a new national report. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University conducted the study for the Associated Press.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Thursday a major real estate appraisal company colluded with the nation's largest savings and loan companies to inflate the values of homes nationwide, contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis.

El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez announced recently that he is asking the state environmental agency to review the possibility of criminal charges against Asarco stemming from alleged violations in the "transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes."

He's Joe Arpaio, who after four terms as the elected sheriff, delights at being called "America's Toughest Sheriff." Arpaio has his own unique and controversial interpretation of state and federal immigration laws.

In the case of housing-related investments, investors’ trust was betrayed. Supposedly safe investments suddenly turned into junk bonds when the housing bubble burst. High profits reported by hedge funds — profits that were reflected in huge payments to the fund managers — turn out to have been based on wishful thinking.

A study being released today suggests that school choice isn't a powerful tool for driving educational improvement in Milwaukee Public Schools. But more surprising than the conclusion is the organization issuing the study: the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank that has supported school choice for almost two decades.

The American Psychological Association's (APA) 2007 Stress in America poll, released Wednesday, showed that nearly half of Americans -- 48 percent -- believe that their stress levels have increased during the past five years.

Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas.

As you may know, our state and nation are experiencing a dramatic increase in foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market as countless families find themselves unable to meet their financial commitments. This month, I requested that Governor Perry call a special session in 2008 to address this crisis.

It was fitting that John Edwards, announcing his candidacy for president at the end of last year, chose as his setting not his hometown, Robbins, N.C., where he unveiled his first presidential campaign four years earlier, but the front yard of a mangled brick house in New Orleans’ Upper Ninth Ward. New Orleans is the new national shorthand for neglect, and it is, not coincidentally, the spiritual center of Edwards’ campaign.

The House, last Thursday, upheld President Bush’s veto of a bill to provide health insurance to 10 million children, but Democrats vowed to send it back to him next month, with minor changes, in the belief that they could ultimately prevail.

On Nov. 6, 2007, sixteen propositions will appear on statewide ballots. The following is a condensed overview of the propositions as they will appear on the ballot on which all Texans will vote. Early voting begins on Oct. 22. Make your vote an informed one for a better Texas!

“Generation Q” — the Quiet Americans. In the best sense of that term, they are quietly pursuing their idealism, at home and abroad. But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country’s own good.

An analysis of more than 130 million home loans made over the past decade reveals that risky mortgages were made in nearly every corner of the nation, from small towns in the middle of nowhere to inner cities to affluent suburbs.

Many candidates change. Romney seems to have given himself a makeover. Which has prompted more than a few people to ask: Who is this guy? The search for an Overarching Theory of Mitt has been a preoccupation in Massachusetts, where his journey rightward played out in a highly public way.

Habana Health Care Center, a 150-bed nursing home in Tampa, Fla., was struggling when a group of large private investment firms purchased it and 48 other nursing homes in 2002. The investors and operators were soon earning millions of dollars a year. Residents fared less well. Over three years, 15 at Habana died from negligent care.

Across the nation, there is one clinical pediatrician for every 1,769 children under the age of 18. In El Paso, there are 64 practicing pediatricians, one for every 3,532 children. The Children’s Hospital at Thomason Hospital will help address the pediatrician shortage.