The Brief: A New Look at the Cost of Detaining Asylum Seekers

Protestors left their signs on the fence surrounding the South Texas Family Residential Center near Dilley, Texas on May 2, 2015. A new Washington Post report takes a close look at the $1 billion contract given to the nation's largest prison company by the federal government to build a facility in the South Texas town of Dilley to detain women and children seeking asylum.

Texas lawyer who never won a capital murder case calls it quits defending ‘the very worst’ clients

Texas lawyer Jerry Guerinot said he no longer represents people accused of capital murder after four decades of posting a perfect record. Some opponents of capital punishment label him the worst lawyer in the U.S. Guerinot shrugs off the criticism, which he says comes from taking notorious cases.

The U.S. Government Just Approved an Enormous Oil Pipeline

It took seven years of organizing to stop the Keystone XL oil pipeline from being built up-and-down the U.S. - and now a new mega-pipeline "has quietly received full regulatory permission to begin construction," reports Mother Jones. Known also as the Bakken Pipeline, the project is slated to run 1,172 miles of 30-inch diameter pipe from North Dakota's northwest Bakken region down to a market hub outside Patoka, Illinois, where it will join extant pipelines and travel onward to refineries and markets in the Gulf and on the East Coast.

Texas has a front row seat to NAFTA, one of the campaign’s most contentious policies.

Caught between the anti-globalist tirades of their presidential standard bearer and their state's close trade ties with Mexico, Texas congressional Republicans are straddling a tricky political line when it comes to talk of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Texas governor makes first public event since hospital stay

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn speaks during the ground breaking ceremony for the Harbor Bridge replacement project at the Ortiz Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, Monday, Aug. 8, 2016. The project will replace the aging hat-shaped bridge that's a signature landmark of the coastal city.

Voter ID laws in jeopardy after Texas agrees to ease its rules

In agreeing last week to relax its voter-ID requirements for the November election, Texas showed how far the legal climate has shifted with respect to the wave of state laws enacted over the last decade. The agreement came less than two weeks after a federal appeals court said Texas's ID law was racially discriminatory.

Correction: Hot Air Balloon Crash-Texas story

The U.S. Supreme Court says a Virginia school board can block a transgender male from using the boy's bathroom at his school until it decides whether to intervene in his case. A Virginia school board can block a transgender male from using the boys restroom when school starts next month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

Correction: Hot Air Balloon Crash-Texas-Pilot Timeline story

In a story Aug. 2 about a hot air balloon crash, The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on inaccurate information from the Federal Aviation Administration, that the same balloon that crashed Saturday in central Texas, killing 16, had been involved in a 2014 crash. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the balloon that crashed in 2014 was owned by the same company and was similar in type and appearance, but was a different balloon.

‘A lot of last names were the same’ among balloon-crash victims

Authorities confirmed Sunday that 16 people were killed in the fiery crash of a hot air balloon in Central Texas, saying it will take "a long process" to identify the victims of the worst such disaster in U.S. history. Although the National Transportation Safety Board did not identify the company operating the balloon or its pilot involved in Saturday's crash, two officials familiar with the investigation said it was run by Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides .

Debate commission: Democrats didn’t rig debate schedule

A gunman attacked a gathering of young adults at a suburban Seattle home, killing two people at a fire pit before firing more shots from the roof, the grandmother of one of the witnesses said. Hundreds of young people lit candles and exchanged hugs in a high school parking lot as a small waterfront community north of Seattle mourned the loss of three people fatally shot at a party of young adults in an upscale... An Army medic charged in his wife's death will spend over two years in prison after being court-martialed for possessing child pornography and soliciting payment for sex.