State district court Judge John Dietz likened the state's school finance case to the soap opera As The World Turns when he opened Wednesday's hearing on whether to reconsider evidence in the trial that concluded in February.

He drew the comparison not because of the trial's drama but because of its longevity.

Another interview with a key IRS employee, another oblique connection to Washington, D.C., and yet still no explosive revelations in the scandal surrounding the agency's targeting of Tea Party groups.

That, it seems, was precisely the point of Rep. Elijah Cummings' decision to release 205 pages of redacted interview transcripts Tuesday (here and here).

A new poll by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune shows that many Texans are not familiar with some of the highest profile politicians in the state, particularly the Democratic ones.

The trial of accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan will begin in three weeks.

Yesterday, a military judge denied Hasan’s request to delay his trial another three months.

The same judge previously barred Hasan from using the “defense of others” argument. The Army psychiatrist argued that the Fort Hood shootings were necessary in keeping soldiers from being deployed to Afghanistan, where they would put others’ lives at risk.

We'll let LeBron James do the talking. He said about the sixth game of the NBA finals between the Heat and Spurs:

"It's by far the best game I've ever been a part of."

And it certainly was a stunner: The Heat's Ray Allen hit a three-pointer with just 5.2 seconds on the clock to tie the game, denying the Spurs their fifth NBA title. The game went into overtime and remained airtight, but eventually the Heat prevailed 103 to 100.

ESPN has highlights:

This week the Eanes School District is holding a conference called iPadpalooza.

Every child in the district has an iPad and schools want to find ways to use them better.

The conference comes as the Center for American Progress released a study that says states don’t know how much investments like these in education technology are actually helping students. 

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz recently praised American ingenuity at a college graduation in Michigan, saying “Americans were the first to walk on the moon. We invented ‘Pong,’ ‘Space Invaders’ and the iPhone.”

Sure, the iPhone and Pong were American inventions, but “Space Invaders?” Gardner Selby with the Austin American-Statesman's fact-checking project, PolitiFact Texas, came by to tell us what they found out.

You can listen to our conversation with the player above and read the fact check online.

The Texas Senate voted, about 30 minutes before midnight, to pass an abortion bill, Senate Bill 5, with a vote of 20 to 10.

Before debate began roughly 6 hours earlier on the Senate floor, SB 5 got a significant change.

The bill's sponsor, State Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, filed a substitute version, removing the provision that would prohibit abortion after 20 weeks of gestation.

That may be to give other provisions a better chance of passing the Legislature.

Time to crack open your recipe books, food entrepreneurs. A bill signed into law by Governor Perry overhauls regulation of so-called “cottage food businesses” to allow people to sell more products directly to consumers from more places: not just from their homes, but also at farmers markets, festivals, fairs and other events. The law takes effect September 1. 

There are a few qualifications to the law, along with a list of banned foods, so here's an easy to digest breakdown of House Bill 910.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has eliminated funding to the only office in the state that investigates and prosecutes political corruption cases.

It started with a mistake that landed Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg in jail for drunk driving.

Willa Cather and Don DeLillo are literary names not primarily associated with sports writing.

However, Cather, who attended the University of Nebraska and was an avid football fan, penned in 1894 a short ghost story about football titled "The Fear That Walks at Noonday." In 1997, DeLillo’s “Underworld” was famously framed by the 1951 National League Championship game between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

As the Texas Department of Transportation looks for ideas for the future of I-35, one vision is being proposed that could drastically alter Central Austin.

The so-called “Cut & Cap” plan, which was proposed by urban designer and architect Sinclair Black, would submerge I-35 underground from River Street to Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, and cover the highway with an urban boulevard and a park.

To celebrate Juneteenth, KUT News is bringing you voices from Austin's black community. 

Nneka Waturoucha is a 19-year-old University of Texas student. Her father is American and her mother is Nigerian. While she grew up around minority communities in Houston, she’s still assimilating into the predominately white West Campus area.

In a 45-minute interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, President Obama defended a government program that collects vast data about the electronic activity of Americans.

Obama rejected comparisons to the Bush-Cheney administration, saying his administration had implemented new safeguards to protect Americans' privacy.

Paying for transportation infrastructure is big part of the special session underway now at the Texas Capitol. But, for some lawmakers, it's not a big enough part.

Senate Joint Resolution 2 would send some oil and gas tax money into a new fund, but everyone agrees that much more money is needed.