Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

As far back as 2002, the southern Dallas charter school for at-risk children inflated attendance figures to the Texas Education Agency. Under pressure, it repaid the state $200,000.

Latino voters matter like never before, especially in Texas. They make up a quarter of the Texas electorate and are about 3.6 million strong. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is thought to have a strong edge with the group leading up to the March 4 Democratic primary, though many Latinos, particularly younger voters, seem to be giving Mr. Obama a serious look.

This spring, the Journal of Adolescent Health published research showing that teens who got comprehensive sex education in schools were 60 percent less likely to become, or make somebody, pregnant. The figures compared those teens to peers who got no formal sex ed.

The Administration for Children and Families, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, found during a 2006 review that state "conservatorship caseworkers" didn't visit foster children and their birth parents frequently enough.

On their knees and sobbing, followers of Warren Jeffs formed a perimeter around the massive temple on the grounds of the YFZ Ranch as law officers prepared to go inside Saturday night. Avoiding a violent confrontation pleased the authorities, but they described their six days in the compound as frustrating in part because "children were shuffled around houses as we were searching," Texas Ranger Capt. Barry Caver said Thursday.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who in December announced his decision to retire at the end of 2008, likes to tell the story of a waitress who came up to his table some years ago and said, "That man over there wants to know if you're the district eternity of Austin." Earle, 66, will step down at the end of this year, to be replaced by Rosemary Lehmberg, the winner of this week's run-off election. That will complete 32 years in office since Earle's first election in 1976 – not quite eternity but a long enough prosecutorial career to suggest that Earle's local influence on law enforcement and the pursuit of justice will not soon disappear.

Taxpayers could be on the hook for nearly $900,000 in damages and attorney fees after a jury found that a black state trooper who served on the elite detail that protects Gov. Rick Perry was subjected to racial discrimination and retaliation, including demotion and a pay cut.

A Travis County jury has awarded more than $600,000 to a state trooper who filed a lawsuit charging the Department of Public Safety with retaliation and discrimination after he was transferred out of the elite protective detail that watches over Gov. Rick Perry and his family.

Kansas and Kentucky are the first states to approve a compact that will make it easier for children of military families to change schools if enough other states sign on. The compact seeks to provide flexibility for the 1.5 million children of military families in the U.S. They attend an estimated six to nine school systems between kindergarten and graduation on average, and differing educational requirements in different states often add to their burden.

With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

Officials said the government hospital, which was rated the nation's worst VA facility in a 1995 study, stopped admitting patients the day after the most recent suicide.

UPS (NYSE: UPS) today announced the deployment of 167 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) delivery vehicles in Texas, Georgia and California. The CNG vehicles, part of UPS’s global alternative fuel fleet, will help reduce the company’s carbon footprint and its dependence on fossil fuels.

With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug's actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

More than 800 employees at Texas' 13 large facilities for the mentally and developmentally disabled have been suspended or fired for abusing patients since fiscal year 2004, state officials said Tuesday.

When the Environmental Protection Agency announced new clean-air standards last month, Texas' governor groused that the pollution limits were bad for business. Never mind that the state's smoggy air is bad for breathing.

TCEQ Chairman Buddy Garcia has gone on record opposing the stricter standard for ozone smog announced by EPA last month. Not only does Mr. Garcia doubt the evidence justifying a tighter standard, he went so far as to claim it couldn't be "further from the truth" that current air pollution levels in Texas were unhealthy.

The laudable, albeit small, effort by the DOE recognizes that regional commitments make an important difference in propelling solar power toward achieving a scale and affordability that will allow it to replace dirty coal-fired power plants and significantly reduce global warming pollution.

The removal of women and children from a polygamist sect's ranch outside Eldorado has raised a number of questions. On Thursday, some of those questions were put to Marleigh Meisner, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, and John J. Sampson, a University of Texas law professor who teaches the Children Rights Clinic. The clinic provides legal representation for abused and neglected children in Travis County.

A push to get the Legislature to permit cities to increase sales taxes by up to a penny to pay for the 239-mile rail network has failed in the past two sessions, but supporters insist the plan is more necessary than ever. Many of its key backers are pressing to put the issue before the Legislature again next year, though key Dallas area senators have said it is likely to fail again.

Educators and lawmakers – not to mention parents – want to see less drilling of students for the annual Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and less severe penalties for schools that have trouble meeting their achievement goals.