Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, asked House Speaker Joe Straus a series of questions Tuesday about which committee was in charge of spending stimulus dollars. Straus said it would be up to the budget-writing Appropriations Committee to act on the recommendations of a newly formed panel, led by Democratic Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco , that is reviewing agencies' plans for spending the stimulus dollars.

Few people have probably given much thought to whether or not Food Stamp recipients can buy food products at any place that actually sells food. After all, the “Lone Star Card” signs on the doors of supermarkets, mini-marts, and convenience stores are so commonplace that most people don’t give them a second though.

Texas houses nearly 5,000 residents with mental disabilities in facilities known as state schools, and Gov. Rick Perry has declared the need to fix the problems a legislative emergency.

The $787 billion stimulus bill Democrats pushed through late Friday also provides money to build and renovate border ports of entry and for technology at the Southwest border. But it does not require contractors who receive stimulus money to participate in a program designed to make sure U.S. employees are working legally.

Gov. Rick Perry said he wants 1,000 troops to help guard the Texas-Mexico border, and for the U.S. to fund strong security measures to fight the Mexican drug cartels that have spread violence and fear in Mexico, including Juárez.

Texas officials shouldn't "wait until the federal government has a club against our heads or a lawsuit forces us to do what we know we need to do," said state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who proposed the reforms with state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs.

Mexico’s attorney general said Tuesday he sees no need for U.S. troops to intervene in his country’s war on drug cartels, nor to gear up for a spillover of violence across the border.

State Sens. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and John Carona, R-Dallas, and state Rep. Jose Menendez, D-Dallas, said creating resort-style casinos and allowing tribal slot machines would generate jobs and recapture billions of dollars Texas loses to neighboring states that permit gambling.

In a controversial program aimed at enhancing border security, Texas sheriffs have erected a series of surveillance cameras along the Rio Grande and connected them to the Internet.

For more than 100 years, the American Smelting and Refining Co.—better known as Asarco—spewed toxic lead, cadmium and arsenic over El Paso, New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico. The City of El Paso has been waging a battle with the company since the 1970s to clean up the mess. In “Dirty Money” (Oct. 31, 2008), the Observer detailed the struggle to close down the polluting smelter. Despite community opposition, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted a permit last year to restart the smelter, mothballed since 1999 because of depressed copper prices.

The dead men, who appeared to have been tortured and whose wrists were bound and heads were covered with tape, were found about 6 a.m. after they they'd been shot multiple times, Chihuahua state police said. Police identified six of the seven as Miguel Humberto Pera Carrillo, 25; Carlos Campos Ramos, 41; Raul Humberto Cazares Flores, 30; Hector Arellano Medina, 26; Ivan Ramirez Huerta, 28; and Sergio Gerardo Cuevas Vega, 20.

"Even before Republicans had control of the Statehouse, we knew it was inevitable," said Masset. "We knew we would peak in the 1990s and really run the place. And we thought we would control Texas until about 2020 when Hispanics would be large enough in numbers that we'd start losing."

Details about how the $787 billion stimulus package will help colleges and universities -- and even how much they might receive -- haven't been worked out.

"We need for people with disabilities to have a choice about how they receive care. And when there's a seven- or eight-year waiting list for care in the community, that's not a choice," said Rose, D-Dripping Springs, who chairs the House Human Services Committee. "Today, we over-institutionalize. We need to rebalance our system in favor of community-based care."

When it comes to foreclosing on homeowners who fall behind on their mortgage payments, Texas is among the country's most heartless states. Mortgage lenders in Texas must give only 20 days notice before foreclosing on property. That's one of the shortest notice periods in the United States.

Most of the money will be allocated along established formulas for existing state grants and programs, but some funding will be allowed for new and innovative programs that must be approved by federal agencies. The money is earmarked for education, transportation, health and human services, and extension of unemployment benefits and health insurance for those recently losing their jobs.

Leaders who spearheaded the opposition to Asarco, however, warned about obstacles ahead regarding the cleanup and potential uses of the 500-acre West El Paso property during "A Day in the Sun: Adios ASARCO, Hello Future" at UTEP's Union Cinema. Several hundred people attended.

The body of a man who had been set on fire was still smoldering when he was found dead Wednesday afternoon in central Juárez as the area homicide toll surpassed 300 for the year, Chihuahua state police said.

At the conference, Reyes also said organized crime wants to control the city's preventive police force, but "we will not permit any criminal organization to interfere with the work of law enforcement."

According to Juárez news media, the manifesto of the Comando Ciudadano por Juárez, or CCJ, alerted the community against a group of kidnappers and extortionists that travels the city in a white Grand Cherokee with tinted windows and Texas plates and a white pickup also with tinted windows but no plates.