El Paso delegate fight could be resolved soon [1]

By Ramon Bracamontes / El Paso Times, 4/25/8

The challenge questioning whether the El Paso County Democratic Party properly seated its delegates for the state party convention may be settled this weekend, and if it is not, the challenge will linger until the state convention in June, officials said.

Irked judge says ex-mayor must part with pooch/Move brings the 'Puddles' saga in Alice to an end [2]

By JOHN MACCORMACK, San Antonio Express-News, 4/25/8

ALICE — The high-profile tug-of-war over a small dog ended abruptly here Thursday when an irate judge ordered the city's former mayor to give up the Shih Tzu she has kept since a neighbor asked her to care for it 10 months ago.

Texas to spend less on maintaining highways [3]

By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER/The Dallas Morning News, 4/24/8

AUSTIN - Texans are in for a bumpier ride over the next decade or more, as the state transportation department plans to spend much less on highway maintenance than previously anticipated.

Government funding for Texas road maintenance is slashed [4]

By PATRICK McGEE, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer, 4/25/8

State transportation officials slashed road maintenance funding Thursday for the next decade to help pay for new road construction, officials said. Local officials will not know how Tarrant County will be affected until September, when the Texas Transportation Commission approves specific plans.

Panel relents, shifting $5 billion to new roadways [5]

Patrick Driscoll, San Antonio Express-News, 4/25/8

The Texas Transportation Commission, buckling to pressure, decided Thursday to let highways decay some during the next decade rather than follow through on a scare to choke off all construction money — including funds for the U.S. 281 toll road.

$58M for roads cut [6]

By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau, 4/25/8

AUSTIN -- Transportation officials on Thursday approved a spending plan that could mean about $58 million less than local leaders expected for new roads in El Paso over the next decade.

Texas Youth Commission's Denton County superintendent forced to quit [7]

Associated Press, The Dallas Morning News, 4/24/8

DALLAS – A Texas Youth Commission superintendent quit before she was fired after allowing two juvenile inmates to work alongside an adult whose probation banned him from working unsupervised with minors, an agency investigation revealed.

Investment directors seek to recommend interests in which they have a stake [8]

By Robert Elder, Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF, 4/25/8

The University of Texas Investment Management Co. today will discuss repealing ethics rules that board Chairman Robert Rowling says are "extremely harmful" to the company's job of managing billions of dollars of public higher-education endowments.

States' lawmakers keep busy on immigration bills [9]

Hernán Rozemberg, San Antonio Express-News, 4/25/8

The immigration debate may have faded in Congress since its attempt to overhaul the system fizzled earlier this year, but state legislatures aren't letting it go. State lawmakers in 44 states have introduced at least 1,106 immigration-related bills in just the first three months of 2008, according to a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures released Thursday.

Pflugerville district official named TEA science director [10]

COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS, Austin American-Statesman, 4/25/8

Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott has appointed Kenneth Heydrick as the Texas Education Agency's director of science. Heydrick is the science and health curriculum coordinator for the Pflugerville school district.

Motion against Fort Worth judge withdrawn after racist e-mail proven fake [11]

By MELODY McDONALD,Fort Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer, 4/25/8

DALLAS -- After everyone in the courtroom heard the evidence Thursday, it was clear: A racist e-mail purportedly sent by Tarrant County state District Judge Elizabeth Berry was a fake, and Berry had nothing to do with it.

Cabela's gets towns hook, line, sinker [12]

By RICK CASEY, Houston Chronicle, 4/25/8

One of the few balms available when you realize that you've been made into a sucker by a slick guy from out of state is to learn that he made some other rubes into even bigger suckers.

There's no place like Rhome for city council high jinks [13]

Bud Kennedy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4/25/8

Nothing against the candidates debating gas wells and downtown colleges, but the most fascinating local election this year might be in Rhome.

Homes south of Fort Worth suffered tornado damage [14]

By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News, 4/25/8

A tornado is what damaged or destroyed homes near Crowley on Wednesday night, officials confirmed Thursday. The tornado was about 100 yards wide and traveled about one-quarter of a mile, wreaking havoc on houses along Sharondale Drive in unincorporated southern Tarrant County.

40 more women in sect opt for shelters/Only 7 decide to return to their Eldorado ranch [15]

By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau, 4/25/8

AUSTIN — Forty women opted Thursday to go to a family violence shelter rather than return to the West Texas ranch where authorities allege children are unsafe because of the polygamist group's practice of "spiritually marrying" underage girls to older men.

Mothers from polygamous sect separated from young children [16]

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer, The Dallas Morning News, 4/25/8

ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- Mothers from a polygamous sect described an emotional, rushed scene when they were forced from the shelter where they had been staying with their young children since the state removed them from their homes.

Texas boot camps among those cited in federal inquiry [17]

By BOB DEANS, Cox News Service, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4/25/8

WASHINGTON -- An undercover investigation has documented torture, abuse and four deaths -- two of them in Texas -- at private reform camps for troubled youths around the country, a federal watchdog agency reported to Congress on Thursday.

Group sues, says housing program perpetuates segregation [18]

By KIM HORNER / The Dallas Morning News, 4/25/8

A Dallas civil-rights organization has filed a lawsuit claiming that the state's largest affordable rental housing program perpetuates racial segregation.

Texas high school students still lack dollar sense, study says [19]

By TERESA McUSIC, Special to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4/25/8

Texas high-school students scored the highest in the nation in a financial-literacy test -- but they still failed the test. "Somehow, somewhere, we're missing the boat," said Beth Woehler, executive director of the Institute of Financial Literacy in Houston.

Solar industry heads to the Capitol for help [20]

By Asher Price, Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF, 4/25/8

For all the sun that beats down on West Texas, the state added fewer solar panels to convert sunlight to electricity than Connecticut or Massachusetts did last year. Representatives from the nation's solar industry came to the Capitol on Thursday to try to change the way Texas approached solar energy. Gathering for the Texas Solar Forum, they tried to persuade state lawmakers to harness more of the sun's power.

Former congressman accused of assault with weapon [21]

By MIKE TOLSON, Houston Chronicle, 4/24/8

Local criminal defense attorney and former U.S. Congressman Craig Washington was indicted Thursday on a charge of aggravated assault in connection with a New Year's Day shooting incident outside his law office.

Lena Guerrero, once a rising star in Texas politics, dies after battling cancer [22]

By W. Gardner Selby, Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF, 4/25/8

Lena Guerrero, whose historic rise in Texas politics raised bright expectations before she tumbled in a self-induced résumé flap, withstood inoperable cancer for eight years. She succumbed Thursday at age 50.

Guerrero was Railroad Commission pioneer/First woman, minority to serve faced résumé scandal [23]

By CLAY ROBISON, Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau, 4/25/8

AUSTIN — Lena Guerrero, who became the first woman and the first minority to serve on the Texas Railroad Commission but saw her political career unravel over a misstated résumé, died overnight following a long struggle with cancer, friends said Thursday. She was 50.

Guerrero was tough, brash, flawed [24]

By Sara Perkins/The Monitor, 4/24/8

MISSION - Lena Guerrero was one tough cookie. The Mission-born political operative - the first Hispanic and first woman appointed to the Railroad Commission of Texas when she took her position in 1991 - died in her sleep Thursday morning. She was 50.

Lena Guerrero: First woman, Hispanic on Texas Railroad Commission [25]

The Associated Press, The Dallas Morning News, 4/24/8

AUSTIN – Lena Guerrero, the first Hispanic and first woman on the Texas Railroad Commission, has died after a long battle with cancer. She was 50. Ms. Guerrero, whose political career crashed because she lied on her résumé, died Thursday. She spent recent years as a Capitol lobbyist, despite an ongoing fight with brain cancer.