The Midday Brief: May 18, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

“Federal officials say they're expanding the area of the Gulf of Mexico where fishing is shut down because of a massive oil spill. They had already shut down fishing from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle soon after an offshore oil rig exploded and sank last month. About 7 percent of federal waters were affected.” — Oil spill to shut down 19 percent of Gulf fishing, Associated Press

“What we're seeing in Texas governor's race is a contest between a masterful battlefield general and a canny courtroom lawyer. Each brings a set of instincts about how to outmaneuver an opponent, which sets this up as a fascinating battle of tacticians.” — Assessing the tactical race for governor, Dallas Morning News

“But the results are not likely to offer a single satisfying answer to how big Democratic losses might be in November. Rather, Tuesday's voters will drop clues on a variety of questions, about anti-incumbent sentiment, "tea party" power and presidential popularity.” — Primaries may help foreshadow November elections, Washington Post

“Oynes has worked for the Interior Department for 35 years, most recently for more than a decade as associate director for offshore energy and minerals management for the Minerals Management Service. His department at MMS, which oversees offshore oil drilling, has increasingly been under criticism for having too close of a relationship with the companies it regulates.” — Oynes to resign in wake of oil leak, Politico

New in the Texas Tribune:

Lawmakers said Monday that the state's newborn disease screening program — which has been used to warehouse infant blood samples for biomedical and forensics research — has misled parents and given them few options to protect their babies' DNA.— Uninformed Consent

While Congress investigates the April 20 explosion that killed eleven people and spiked an underwater oil leak that continues to spill more than 210,000 gallons a day, another BP rig is at the center of its own firestorm. — The Next Deepwater?

Community leaders in far West Texas want to legalize pot while also holding American drug users accountable for the overwhelming violence in Mexico. — TribBlog: El Paso City Reps. Urge Changes in Drug Policy