The impact of the recent boom in shale drilling is hard to miss in some remote Texas towns, where hotels and home builders scramble to keep up with the influx of oil and gas workers. Taxes on oil and gas production have soared past estimates from the state's comptroller's office for fiscal 2012. [...] with production expected to continue to rise over the next several years, the economic benefits will continue. Last fiscal year, oil and gas production taxes — also known as severance taxes — came in far above the comptroller's estimates (which are known to be conservative). Tax income from oil production and regulation was 43 percent higher than estimated, at $2.1 billion, and the natural gas production tax brought in $1.5 billion, 38 percent higher than estimated. Property taxes, which go toward local governments, are also significant — about $3.6 billion was collected from oil and gas interests in 2012, roughly equivalent to the amount of oil and gas production taxes that year. Higher oil prices, though they hurt Texans at the gas pump, remain a net benefit to the state's economy, according to Mine Yücel, a vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The petrochemical industry, for example, has enjoyed a boom thanks to low natural gas prices, which have slipped considerably from 2008 highs.

A new report found that only two-thirds of Texas eligible for food stamps in 2011 received them, leaving federal aid on the table

Mayor Julian Castro praised solar advocate Bill Sinkin for touching the live of many in San Antonio as an activist.

Senior State Department officials pressed for changes in the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used after the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya last September, expressing concerns that Congress might criticize the Obama administration for ignoring warnings of a growing threat in Benghazi.

New student housing complex called The Luxx will have 212 units near Main Campus

Research expenditures declined 4.3 percent between 2011 and 2012

A man died Sunday evening after he jumped from Loop 410.