Paul Flahive

Blindness affects millions of Americans, but is still an uncommon disability. Stephen Kuusisto was born with retinas that weren't fully developed and were damaged further by an overly oxygenated incubator. He underwent several surgeries as a child but was never able to gain much sight, describing his vision as "like looking at a Jackson Pollock painting."

Now a celebrated author, poet, and professor of disability studies, he teaches the awareness he hoped to achieve in his two memoirs, "Planet of the Blind" and "Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening." 

Syphilis rates in Bexar County jumped 15 percent, crossing the thousand person mark in 2013, according to the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District. District officials are calling it an "epidemic" and have been edging up continuously for nine years. San Antonio has the highest rate in Texas and exceeds the national average.

Thousands of San Antonio kids are ending up in adult courtrooms over "Failure to Attend School" (FTAS) violations. In 2012, a third of all class C misdemeanors filed against minors were FTAS in Texas. The state saw 76,000 cases in courts that year, according to Texas Appleseed. 

  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law July 2, 1964. It was the result of a hundred years of discrimination, hundreds of sit-ins and non-violent protests, and a political battle as large as the shift in history the act would prove to have. 

San Antonio Police have made their position clear; Lyft drivers will be stopped in the city when they are caught. Lyft, the app-driven, car-for-hire service, describes itself as a ride-sharing program, and is therefore not subject to the city's current ordinance, which includes fees and additional regulations.

Former Houston Mayor and Democratic candidate for Texas governor Bill White says that the country is being misled and that a fundamental principle in America's management has been broken.

In his new book, "America's Fiscal Constitution: Its Triumph and Collapse," White makes the case that the out-of-control spending that started under President George W. Bush has departed from the nation's history; a history that saw our "fiscal constitution" shredded.

  The San Antonio Book Festival has its inaugural run as a solo event this weekend. Last year the burgeoning book fest partnered with Austin's annual Texas Book Festival by adding a series of events locally.

This year, with 90 national and local authors, organizers are confident the event will again be a success and will top their 4,000 person attendance last year. Organizers want to turn San Antonio into a literary destination.

This morning the Supreme Court came down on the side of Shaun McCutcheon to the collective exasperation of campaign finance reformers. McCutcheon, an Alabama millionaire who challenged the Federal Election Commission's limit on how much money a person can donate in the aggregate. You can find the majority opinion here.

Equal pay for women has become a rallying cry for Democrats across Texas. Wendy Davis' campaign for governor has seized on the issue, making it central to her messaging.

Attorney General Greg Abbot, who is on the Republican ticket in the race for governor, has dismissed the issue, but was recently criticized when women in his own office were found to be paid less than their male colleagues for the same work.

Last year the Texas Legislature passed a state law allowing women who were discriminated against by their employers in pay to sue in state court. Gov. Rick Perry subsequently vetoed the bill, calling it redundant:

"Texas' commitment to smart regulations and fair courts is a large part of why we continue to lead the nation in job creation. House Bill 950 duplicates federal law, which already allows employees who feel they have been discriminated against through compensation to file a claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission." - Gov. Rick Perry

The federal law Perry refers to is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which allows women to sue in federal court. The state version is better, said advocates, because it allowed for a quicker response at the local level, criticizing the federal court system as underfunded and slow. The Texas Association of Business wrote Perry to support a veto, arguing that the bill increased cumbersome regulation and frivolous lawsuits. 

“Asking an employer to be responsible for decisions that were made 10 or 15 years ago just does not work.  In many cases no one would be around that would know anything about why those decisions were made at the time.  The lack of a statute of limitations for filing these cases is bad for business, and this bill is bad for business, pure and simple.” - Bill Hammond, president TAB

Texas Gov. Rick Perry wrote a letter to the U.S. attorney general last week. In it, Perry stated he would not be able to certify Texas prisons under the guidelines of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA).

Perry cited several points of issue, with the largest being cross-gender monitoring.

The guidelines establish that only members of the same sex should monitor prisoners in private settings like showers and dressing areas. Perry called the restriction "impossible" to enforce.