Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The grinding U.S. recession caught up to Texas in December, as state employers slashed 25,700 payroll jobs and the unemployment rate hit 6 percent, from 5.7 percent the month before, the Texas Workforce Commission said Friday.

These figures reinforce other recent reports indicating Texas' economy is flagging. On Friday, the Texas Workforce Commission said that Texas employers cut 25,700 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate rose to 6 percent from 5.7 percent in November. Earlier, the Federal Reserve released a report filled with anecdotes about the weakening state economy.

The move, to be announced Tuesday, is part of a settlement with the insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, which operates the industry databases. It results from a yearlong investigation by Mr. Cuomo’s office that concluded the data had understated the true market rates of medical care by up to 28 percent.

The board has been considering a draft document crafted by a committee of teachers and other education experts who recommended replacing the "strengths and weaknesses" phrase with a requirement to "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations." Some education observers who supported removing the "strengths and weaknesses" phrase from state science standards argued that that language could promote the teaching of creationism alongside evolution.

Warning as he has in past years that spiraling Medicaid costs are outpacing government spending for schools, public safety and other essential needs, Dewhurst said he would like to see the Legislature pay for a pilot program that stresses preventive care — instead of the current practice of paying doctors and hospitals for the numbers of medical procedures they perform.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, set to be released Friday, highlights the Bush administration's problems in planning for the treatment of veterans that President Barack Obama has pledged to fix. It found the VA's long-term budget plan for the rehabilitation of veterans in nursing homes, hospices and community centers to be flawed, failing to account for tens of thousands of patients and understating costs by millions of dollars.

U.S. Sen John Cornyn has formally requested congressional hearings to examine a recent rash of suicides among Houston-based Army recruiters, saying he believes the deaths demonstrate the enormous strain recruiters endure to sustain the country's all-volunteer force.

According to a study by the National Women's Law Center, a 25-year-old woman in the Lone Star State will pay as much as 22 percent more than men do when buying individual coverage if she is not covered under an employer's health plan. A 40-year-old woman will pay as much as 37 percent more.

Presidio County has never seen the kind of fictional carnage that was filmed there for the movie, "No Country for Old Men." But if it ever does, Sheriff Danny Dominguez now has the gear to fight it, thanks to millions of dollars in state and federal grants for his virtually crime-free turf and that of other sleepy Texas border counties.

El Paso still enjoys its status as one of the safest cities in the United States, while Juárez, a city of 1.5 million that has always been rough, has become a battleground for drug cartels. More than 1,550 people were killed there in drug wars last year.

In many parts of the USA far from the White House, people were happy — and looking forward to Obama's promise of change: in public housing projects, the auto towns of the Midwest, the Katrina-ravaged neighborhoods of the Gulf Coast and in schools, where for a day students watched history instead of reading about it.

There were already close to 1,200 filed bills -- including 58 proposed amendments to the state constitution -- by the end of the session's first week. Members of the Star-Telegram Editorial Board have identified nine key issues for 2009 that we'll follow. In print and online, we'll regularly document the progress of relevant bills.

The significance of the Asarco case goes far beyond Smeltertown or La Esmelda, old names for long-abandoned neighborhoods that grew up near the towering facility. The fight offers an unprecedented inside look at how corporate influence in Austin can overshadow public interest – an issue that has touched virtually every Texan through thousands of hometown fights over air pollution, water quality or toxic waste.

The rest, Zinn says, “is just gathering dust” while sick kids do without care. She claims to be hopeful the new Legislature will act quickly to change things. But if lawmakers don't get state officials in line, she says they shouldn't be surprised if she and Swanson return to court to compel Texas officials to live up to their word.

Like FDR three-quarters of a century ago, you're taking charge at a moment when all the old certainties have vanished, all the conventional wisdom been proved wrong. We're not living in a world you or anyone else expected to see. Many presidents have to deal with crises, but very few have been forced to deal from Day One with a crisis on the scale America now faces.

Let's not sit idly by while those around us hustle into futuristic projects, even if they are out there in the future. One such is having a rail-based transit plan. But that idea seemed to have gotten only a yawn last week.

As Mexico and New Mexico border areas move forward with shifting most of their railroad traffic west to Santa Teresa, Texas state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is urging the city of El Paso to purchase the freed-up tracks and establish a rail-based mass-transit system.

"The wall will surely hurt American interests all across the Americas for a whole generation," wrote State Representative Elliott Shapleigh, a Democrat and a fifth-generation El Pasoan, in a recent Op-Ed. "Is it too much too soon to ask that this wall come down or is it the right thing to do at the right time in history? If not now, when? If not under President-elect Barack Obama, then who?"

Tough economic times, such as these, call for finding revenue sources to help fill the till of Texas' present $167 billion budget. And restoring gaming at Texas' Indian casinos, and allowing slot machines at Texas' horse tracks, would bring in billions of dollars in taxes.

His assessment conflicts with Gov. Rick Perry, who said this week that the tight budget situation would probably prohibit lawmakers from designating another "Tier 1" university this year.