Headlines

Quote of the Week

"[T]he safest place for a woman to live is married to a man."
– Texas Freedom Network's "Just Say Don't Know" report quoting one of various abstinence-only sex-ed programs taught in Texas public schools

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• City Council will hear the city manager's final recommendations on $20 million in proposed budget cuts today (Thursday). See "City Counseling."

• Veteran campaign guru Pat Crow, recovering from a stroke, was the life of the party Monday, greeting 500-plus guests at a benefit on her behalf; the event, combined with online donations, raised a whopping $85,000 to pay off medical bills and help her transition back to living independently.

• The first mayoral debate went down Monday, and the words on everybody's lips were, "Where's Carole?" (The Carole Keeton Strayhorn campaign insists they never confirmed, but that's not what organizers say.) See "City Hall Hustle."

• A flurry of new endorsements: Police and EMS unions lined up behind Chris Riley in the Place 1 City Council race, while firefighters broke for Perla Cavaz­os. Also this week, Lee Leffingwell has landed the endorsement of several Central Texas politicos: state Reps. Eddie Rodriguez and Donna Howard and Sheriff Greg Hamilton.

• Hurry up and wait: The Austin Independent School District may at last be on the verge of announcing a finalist (or finalists) to replace Superintendent Pat Forgione, who announced his retirement more than a year ago. See "Looking for a School Chief."

• At the Lege, House committees are finally kicked into high gear, but Speaker Joe Straus is still facing tough criticism from leading Dems about his committee appointments and ambiguous rules. See LegeLand for more Lege coverage.

• The Texas Department of Transportation has announced it will delay committing $1.2 billion in federal economic stimulus funding until after consulting with lawmakers on project selection. It's a radical idea, but it just might work.

• New polls about the 2010 elections give Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a 56%-31% lead over Gov. Rick Perry among likely Republican primary voters, while Attorney General Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst are front-runners to replace Hutchison.

• President Barack Obama delivered a rousing, State of the Union-esque address to Congress this week, calling for reform on health care, energy, and education. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (l) delivered the Republican response, drawing comparisons to 30 Rock's Kenneth the Page (r) across the blogosphere.