After a week of uncertainty and media attention, a graduation ceremony at Medina Valley High School proceeded on Saturday with the valedictorian allowed to pray if she wished. A judge earlier in the week had prohibited a public call to prayer at the ceremony, but after an emergency appeal to the 5th Circuit Court, the school was allowed to follow its original program, which included an invocation and benediction. Whether such prayer would be considered school-sponsored remains at issue in federal court.

All incoming college students in Texas must be vaccinated for bacterial meningitis under new state law. Previous law required the vaccine only for students who lived on campus, but authorities felt that left too many other students vulnerable to the disease, which can spread quickly in crowded living quarters. The new law takes effect in January.

National news media descended on East Texas on Tuesday as law enforcement authorities received a tip about a mass grave of dismembered bodies in Liberty County. Generating massive media coverage as they searched the property, officials were forced to concede that there was no crime scene and that a woman who claimed to be a psychic had placed the call.

Record numbers of wildfires in Texas this year have led at least five Texas counties to ban Fourth of July fireworks. Though burn bans are in effect in most counties, Gov. Rick Perry has also extended disaster declarations initiated in Panhandle counties to cover the holiday.

A House committee has approved a Texas Windstorm Insurance Association reform bill, which now heads to the full House and Senate. Gov. Rick Perry added legislation on the troubled quasi-governmental agency, which has been tied up in legal problems since Hurricane Rita, to the special session agenda. Lawmakers failed to pass a bill in the regular session after disagreeing about limiting the amount of damages plaintiffs could collect in punitive damages against the association.

Oil and gas producers cheered as U.S. Sen. John Cornyn introduced an amendment seeking to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from listing the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species. Its habitat is partially in the oil- and gas-producing Permian Basin in West Texas, where such a designation by the EPA could take a toll on the industry.

Legal aid to low-income Texans could get an unexpected boost in a finance bill making its way through the special session. Members of the Texas Supreme Court pushed senators to find a way to fund programs that help low-income individuals with civil legal problems like foreclosures and child custody disputes. Lawmakers planned to raise the money through an increase in court fees, but that proved unnecessary when Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, amended the finance bill to add $17 million for legal aid and $7 million for an indigent defense program.