Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Alexandra Ramirez and Patrick James are seniors in the same high school, taking different classes at differing ranking levels, but both are about to embark on the same journey thousands of other high school seniors across the country are ready to set sail on—the college searching and application process.

Long-term exposure to the tiny, dirty particles in polluted air seems to increase the risk of deep vein thrombosis, which are blood clots in the thighs or legs, an Italian study finds.

Texas' sales tax collections in April dipped nearly 2 percent compared with the same month last year, the first monthly decline since 2003, according to a report that the state comptroller released Friday.

Your mother enters the hospital for knee-replacement surgery. Two weeks later, she's readmitted, but this time, she has to be hooked up to a ventilator because a hospital-acquired infection, resistant to antibiotics, has entered her bloodstream. She could die.

McElroy is El Paso's military growth and expansion coordinator. His job is to tackle city problems related to the ever-accelerating growth at Fort Bliss. One of his biggest tasks is putting together a regional growth management plan, or RGMP, for the city.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry said Friday that he's definitely running for re-election in 2010 and compared himself to the chief executive of a prosperous corporation that is in no need of a change at the top.

Six out of 10 colleges and universities now recommend specific health insurance plans for their students, and three of 10 require them. But as the Giuntas discovered, many of the policies turn out to be scanty at best, and inferior to comparably priced alternatives.

A coalition of consumer advocates, public policy groups and academics wants to attack our country's dependence on debt by creating a national campaign much like the one used to curb smoking.

Last week, Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, described his challengers' health care plans as a "move closer to a nationalized health care system." But that's a stretch. To nationalize means to transfer ownership or control to the government. There's still a vast distance between what the Democratic candidates have proposed and nationalized health care.

Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. John McCain has had cancer in the past. Last weekend, Mrs. Edwards bluntly pointed out that neither of them would be able to get insurance under Mr. McCain’s health care plan. It’s about time someone said that and, more generally, made the case that Mr. McCain’s approach to health care is based on voodoo economics

Data from federal and state campaign-finance records, Internal Revenue Service filings, and the National Institute on Money in State Politics show that from 2002 through 2006, Ameriquest, its executives and their spouses and business associates donated at least $20.5 million to state and federal political groups.

About one-fourth of the more than 800 employees suspended or fired for mistreating residents at Texas' 13 large facilities for the mentally and developmentally disabled worked at two state schools targeted by federal investigators, state records show.

As Texas public schools struggle for dollars, college tuition breaks the bank, and all of us are faced with record-breaking gas and food prices, Governor Perry finds $22 million to give away to a company that doesn't need it.

One in four U.S. adults count themselves as evangelical Protestants, giving them serious clout in a country where religion and politics often mix. Conservative evangelicals have become a key support base for the Republican Party.

A $10.7 billion budget surplus predicted this week by Comptroller Susan Combs set Capitol-tongues awagging with plans for tax rebates and self congratulations for cultivating such a robust economy.

Agents selling private health insurance plans to the elderly and disabled would be barred from cold-calling, door-to-door solicitations and pitching their products outside hospital waiting rooms or pharmacies, under a federal rule proposed Thursday.

The survey respondents were split over the impact of political interference on regulations. According to the report, 48% believed that the EPA's actions were "frequently or always" consistent with scientific findings, and 47% believed that agency policy "occasionally, seldom or never" made use of scientific judgments.

Analysis also shows that Millennials mostly reject the conservative viewpoint that government is the problem, and that free markets always produce the best results for society. Indeed, Millennials' views are more progressive than those of other age groups today, and are more progressive than previous generations when they were younger.

In budget-preparation instructions this week, the governor's office and the Legislative Budget Board asked agencies to submit zero-growth spending requests plus options for reducing spending by 10 percent.

A government report released in January says health care spending in the United States has passed $2 trillion, is growing at the fastest pace since 1981, and now accounts for some 13 percent of the nation's total gross domestic product.