The Midday Brief: June 7, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

"Word is that Texas' favorite political frenemies, Hutchison and Perry, will be together this week for the first time since their fractious primary election. The chill is gone ... or at least the political necessity has arrived of presenting a united Republican Party if the GOP hopes to win big in the fall." — Rick and Kay, together again, Trail Blazers

"Border seizures of methamphetamine are surging after years of decline, indicating that the drug once seen as a poor man's cocaine drummed up in backwoods U.S. kitchens is becoming a key export of Mexican drug traffickers." — Drug seizures soar at Texas-Mexico border, Texas on the Potomac

"Some public colleges and universities in Texas are prepping for what could be additional budget cuts by freezing hiring and deferring equipment purchases." — Texas higher education budget cuts could go deeper, The Associated Press

"Eric Celeste, the campaign spokesman for Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, got in a zinger last week when responding to the contents of a fund-raising mailer by Republican Danny Clancy." — Is Craig Watkins Kobe Bryant or Shawn Bradley?, Trail Blazers

New in The Texas Tribune:

"Congress is known for having arcane battles, but the biggest fight these days in water law is over a single word in a 1970s-era measure designed to reduce pollution in America's waterways. Texas environmentalists and ranchers are among those anxiously awaiting the outcome." — Navigating "Navigable"

"Increasing numbers of college students are attending classes, and even completing some degree programs, online — an innovation that could be welcome in an era of rising enrollments and shrinking budgets. But virtual higher ed has its critics, who says the distance learning model will never match what one lawmaker terms the "interpersonal Aristotle style" of education." — Going the Distance

"The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a new rule on sulfur dioxide emissions that will impact coal plants in Texas. As KUT’s Erika Aguilar reports, it comes as tensions between the EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality continue are boiling over." — A New Pollution Battlefront