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News For July, 2010

  • A Dream Preferred

    By Reeve Hamilton

    The majority of students who enroll in community colleges never make it out with a credential. Some Texas schools are turning to Achieving the Dream, a national initiative that requires them to own up to their problems and improve those success rates. Full Story 

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  • Pat Dixon: The TT Interview

    By Ross Ramsey

    Texas Libertarian Party Chairman Pat Dixon helped get the Party on the ballot in 2004 and to keep it there ever since. He talked with The Tribune about Libertarians, how they relate to the two major parties in Texas, what's going on with the Green Party right now, and whether third parties stand a chance in state elections. Full Story 

    Texas Libertarian Party Chairman Pat Dixon
    Credit: Ross Ramsey

  • Data App: Personal Finance

    By Matt Stiles

    Politicians, candidates and other state officers are required to disclose their personal finances, to discourage conflicts of interest and, according to the law, "strengthen the faith and confidence of the people of this state in state government." Yet getting these documents isn’t easy, so we've put all 3,070 available online. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Justin Dehn/Todd Wiseman

  • HuTube: Perry on FOX Business

    By Elise Hu

    Gov. Rick Perry chats with the FOX Business Network's Neil Cavuto about his latest poll numbers, the moratorium on deep water drilling and the cancellation of a Border Governors' Conference that was going to take place in Arizona, until Mexican governors boycotted the meeting. Full Story 

    Screenshot from Neil Cavuto on Gov. Rick Perry

  • TribBlog: TEA's Scott "Happy to Scrap" Projection Measure [Updated]

    By Brian Thevenot

    Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott has been taking heat for ducking questions from reporters and a legislator regarding the Texas Projection Measure, the magic formula that last year suddenly moved thousands of Texas schools into higher state rating categories with little underlying achievement gain by students. He finally took questions from the Tribune, walking a fine line between defending the formula’s much-maligned statistical validity and saying it wasn’t his idea in the first place and, as he put it, “I’m happy to scrap it” if legislators and other critics have a big problem with it. Full Story 

    Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott in March, 2010.
    Credit: Justin Dehn

  • High Prescribers

    By Emily Ramshaw

    A Houston psychiatrist who uses clinically controversial brain scans to diagnose everything from anxiety to marital discord. A Plano music therapist who believes his Peruvian pan flute tunes cure mental illness. And a Beaumont child psychologist reprimanded for continuing to prescribe to a proven drug abuser. These physicians have written more prescriptions for potent antipsychotic drugs to the state’s neediest patients than any other doctors in Texas. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • Alternating Current

    By Kate Galbraith

    Since 1999, when then-Gov. George Bush signed a law that deregulated the Texas electricity market, a debate has raged about whether and how much the move has benefitted ordinary Texans. Who's right? Full Story 

    Sunrise after a night of thunderstorms on June 19, 2010, in Alpine, Texas.
    Credit: Spencer Selvidge

  • Charles Bowden: The TT Interview

    By Julián Aguilar

    Charles Bowden, author of Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields, on how he keeps his sanity, when the narco-wars will end and Mexican President Felipe Calderón's Pandora's box. Full Story 

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    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • Age of Innocence

    By Kate Ergenbright

    More than 120 college students worked 12,300 hours-plus on Innocence Project of Texas cases from 2007 to 2009, according to the Task Force on Indigent Defense. As student participation has increased, so have exonerations. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Adler's interactive multimedia feature on three decades of gubernatorial debates, Grissom on the other side of the judge sometimes called "Killer Keller" and on the state's new public defender for death row inmates, Thevenot on education "growth standards" that don't reflect student performance but do appear to inflate the rankings of the schools they attend, Smith and Hu on a briefly public battle between lobbyists and the abrupt end to that litigation, Hamilton on why the mayor of DISH is throwing in the towel, Aguilar on the former and future mayor of El Paso's troubled sister city of Juárez, and Reed on how many Bobcats and Eagles it takes to turn on a lightbulb. The best of our best from July 5 to 9, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • TribBlog: Hate on Ice

    By Sarah Adler

    The Westboro Baptist Church, whose members believe God hates homosexuals, is planning to convey that message in protests at nine sites in the Dallas and Arlington area this weekend. One of the organizations the church plans to protest is throwing its own counter-fundraiser to buy an ice machine used to provide lunches for HIV-positive people. Full Story