News

San Antonio’s political power twins Julián and Joaquín Castro continue to attract the spotlight of the national media. Yesterday the brothers were guests on the PBS Charlie Rose program. 

Joaquín is just days away from being sworn in as a congressman and Julián is moving forward with implementing the recently passed Pre-K for SA program.

The two sat down with PBS interviewer Rose, who quizzed the two with questions about their lives, ambitions and policy views - particularly about gun control.

Flamenco music is relatively new on the music scene (especially considering the long history of music as art), but still dates backs a couple of hundred years. It was brought to Spain by gypsies, who were erroneously named because they were mistaken for Egyptians but are of Indian descent.

People who are saddled with big student-loan debts can soon take advantage of the government’s loan repayment and forgiveness plan that officially begins this Friday.

The Department of Education program will allow students and families who are paying off high student loan debt to reduce their payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income.

Derrick Smith, a certified credit counselor with Consumer Credit Counseling of San Antonio, said students must have received two separate loans.

Bexar County Sheriff-elect Susan Pamerleau is using the final days of December to gather her executive team so they can hit the ground running on new year's day.

On Monday, at her second press conference since the election, Pamerleau announced she would retain Chief Deputy Manuel Longoria.

"He provides great continuity," she said. "Besides that, he’s a man of integrity, he cares about the officers, he cares about this community. He’s got the right sight picture and I know that already he and I are working great together."

The federal hearing concluded without a final decision in the case between the Northside Independent School District and a John Jay High School student who refuses to wear a radio frequency identification card.

In the meantime, 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez, the sophomore refusing the ID card, will be allowed to stay at John Jay until the end of the semester. Northside Superintendent Brian Woods said that decision was made by the district.

[Update: Thursday, Dec. 20] The Texas School Safety Center, located at Texas State University in San Marcos, now says there are only 29 schools not in compliance with the safety audits.

This is down from the 78 total districts who did not meet the Texas Education Code safety requirement -- 38 that did not report, and 40 that were not fully compliant. The center said that slow paperwork is to blame for those schools that are now cleared.

SAMMinistries says a million dollars donated by a local philanthropist this week will help the center provide financial planning classes to more people who are on the "cliff" of homelessness.

Harvey Najim, who wrote the personal check, said people come in need of assistance, but are not looking for a hand-out.