Texas lawmakers are considering possible changes to the Texas Public Information Act, including how to reduce frivolous requests and whether or not the act hurts government contractors.

Texas has one of the best open records laws in the country, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst asked the Senate Open Government Committee to take a look at possible changes when the Legislature meets next year. Needless to say, changing the law that requires the government to make its records public always makes open government advocates, such as journalists, a little nervous.

Baylor and “Beauty and the Beast” have a history, but not in the way many have heard.

A 1979 Baylor alum, Jim Hillin, who was the Computer Generated Imagery Supervisor of the 1991 animated feature, helped design the famous ballroom scene of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

“I was looking for a new gig,” he said. “I got a call from Disney, from producer Don Hahn.”

Students at Baylor have all walked by the Sadie Jo Black Gardens located on Founders Mall and noticed vibrant plants and flowers that add a hint of aesthetic beauty amid the hustle and bustle of undergraduates scrambling to class.

With the university’s newest award, it seems there are others who have taken note as well.

The Professional Grounds Management Society awarded the University the 2012 Green Star Award last month.

States will receive more than $9 in federal money for every $1 they spend to cover low-income residents under President Barack Obama’s health care law, according to a nonpartisan analysis released Monday.

Expanding Medicaid to cover about 20 million more low-income people will cost more than $1 trillion nationally from 2013 to 2022, said the joint report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute. But the analysis found that states will pay just $76 billion of that, a combined share of roughly 7 percent. The feds will pay the other $952 billion.

Republican governors have resisted the Medicaid expansion, saying it adds an unacceptable burden to already strained budgets. And the Supreme Court handed the governors a victory this summer, ruling that states are free to reject the Medicaid deal.