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  • TribBlog: Campaigns Sound Off Over 'Fight Club' [Updated]

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The day after the Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle collaborated to expose a fight club — this one involving young girls at a Houston-area residential treatment center for foster kids — gubernatorial hopeful Bill White's campaign sounded off on it, blaming Gov. Rick Perry for not being aware of the abuse. Full Story 

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    Credit: Nick de la Torre / The Houston Chronicle

  • Going the Distance

    By Reeve Hamilton and Grant Derigo

    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 say the distance learning model will never match what one lawmaker terms the "interpersonal Aristotle style" of education. Full Story 

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  • Navigating "Navigable"

    By Kate Galbraith

    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 anxiously awaiting the outcome. Full Story 

    Collapsed bridge structure on the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River viewed from U.S. Route 83 at Rath City, Texas.
    Credit: Wikipedia

  • Again?

    By Ross Ramsey

    The beginning of a real race for speaker of the House looks the same as a dud. The proper mix includes one or more popular people who want the job, a high level of dissatisfaction with the person currently in the post, and a level of frustration in the rank and file that is sufficient to overcome every member's natural reluctance to get involved in a political knife fight. Full Story 

  • Forced to Fight

    By Emily Ramshaw, The Texas Tribune, and Terri Langford, Houston Chronicle

    Workers at a center for distressed children in Manvel provoked seven developmentally disabled girls into a fight of biting and bruising, while they laughed, cheered and promised the winners after-school snacks. The fight was one of more than 250 incidents of abuse and mistreatment in residential treatment centers over the last two years, based on a Houston Chronicle/Texas Tribune review of Department of Family and Protective Services records. Full Story 

    The Dystar Residential Inc. campus, in Manvel, photographed on Friday, June 4, 2010.
    Credit: Nick de la Torre / The Houston Chronicle

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Ross Ramsey

    Ramshaw on geriatric care in state prisons, with Miller's photo essay inside those walls; M. Smith interviews the state's newest Supreme Court justice, Debra Lehrmann; Aguilar finds fewer Mexicans seeking asylum in the U.S; Galbraith sorts out the politics of pollution and whether our air is dangerous to breathe; Thevenot discovers authorities writing tickets for misbehavior to elementary school kids; Philpott reports on early hearing about political redistricting; Kreighbaum examines fines levied against polluters and finds they're often smaller than the economic benefits of the infractions; and Stiles and Babalola spotlight some of our data projects from our first seven months online: The best of our best from May 31 to June 4, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • The Brief: June 4, 2010

    By David Muto

    Physician-owned hospitals, which provide some of the best health care in the nation but have been in danger since health insurance reform passed, are taking their case to court. Full Story 

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  • Gimme Shelter

    By Julián Aguilar

    Despite the drug war raging on the other side of the border, the number of Mexican nationals applying for asylum in the United States is declining. Approvals are down even further. Full Story 

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  • Debra Lehrmann: The TT Interview

    By Morgan Smith

    The Texas Supreme Court justice-to-be (she'll take retiree Harriet O'Neill's seat on June 21) talks about about judicial elections, the recent ethics complaint filed against her and what happens when she disagrees with the law. Full Story 

    Judge Debra Lehrmann sits for a portrait at the Four Seasons in Austin, Texas on Thursday June 3, 2010.
    Credit: Spencer Selvidge

  • Quite an Undertaking

    By Julián Aguilar

    When a family member dies, accessing bank accounts and collecting on insurance policies requires proper paperwork. Despite a state mandate to process death certificates in a timely fashion, however, doctors are dragging their heels, funeral directors say, leaving survivors in the lurch. Full Story 

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    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • The Pollution Wars

    By Kate Galbraith

    Since last week's announcement that the EPA is getting tough on Texas, the state and the feds have been going at it. But does alll the hubbub mean that the air we breathe is dangerous? Full Story 

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  • Dying on the State's Dime

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Texas’ “geriatric” inmates (55 and older) make up just 7.3 percent of Texas’ 160,000-offender prison population, but they account for nearly a third of the system’s hospital costs. Prison doctors routinely offer up the oldest and sickest of them for medical parole, a way to get those who are too incapacitated to be a public threat and have just months to live out of medical beds that Texas’ quickly aging prison population needs. They’ve recommended parole for 4,000 such inmates within the last decade. But the state parole board has only agreed in a quarter of these cases, leaving the others to die in prison — and on the state’s dime. Full Story 

    An inmate sleeps in his cubicle in the geriatric unit of the Estelle Prison in Huntsville.
    Credit: Caleb Bryant Miller for The Texas Tribune