Free Republic

LAREDO, Texas — Out behind the nursing home where Josefina Alexander Gonzalez turned 99 Saturday, there’s a dilapidated green ranch house, its porch cover still held up by rough-hewn tree trunks. To the southeast, you see a lot of tall brush and honey mesquite, a view that hasn’t changed much since the 1940s, when her parents bought a 1,000-acre ranch … any other direction, and you’ll see new construction on her property, as developers cash in on the last large tract of open space inside of Loop 20 in north Laredo, now worth as much as $150 million. But if...

Senator Zaffirini shrugs off political opponent’s claims By Tricia Cortez Times staff writer Raymond Bruni has accused his opponent, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo), of being “controlled by special interest groups” and of “abandoning the middle class and working families.” He pointed to campaign contribution reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission, which show Zaffirini has raised $249,680 from July through the end of February, in which approximately one-third has come from PAC, or political action committee, money. Bruni has also questioned the communications workshops she has given to public entities in Laredo, in which her firm, Zaffirini Communications, has...