On the gubernatorial campaign front:

State Sen. Wendy Davis told the National Press Club she will either run for governor or for reelection to her Senate seat in 2014, narrowing speculation about her next political step. The Fort Worth Democrat is making appearances all over the country after her filibuster temporarily killed an anti-abortion bill in the Texas Senate. Her term in the state Senate ends at the beginning of 2015.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, paralyzed by a falling oak tree in 1984, will receive more than half a million dollars this year from a legal settlement that guarantees him a six-figure yearly income for the rest of his life. Now the front-running candidate for Texas governor, Abbott discussed the terms of his multimillion-dollar-lawsuit agreement for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Texas Tribune. His campaign also provided a copy of the 1986 settlement.

Though Texas will join 26 other states in defaulting to a federal marketplace for purchasing health insurance, it is one of only six that will not enforce new health insurance reforms prescribed by the law. Because Texas did not create its own state-based marketplace, known as a health insurance exchange, under the Affordable Care Act, it must use a federally facilitated one instead. If a state does not enforce those reforms, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will step in to do it.

The West community will receive additional federal funding to rebuild following the explosion of a fertilizer depot in April that killed 15 people and flattened much of the town. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided millions of dollars in aid immediately after the explosion, but the agency initially rejected the state’s request for additional financial assistance. The state’s appeal, submitted in early June, has now been approved, enabling federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

The University of Texas at Austin's custodian of records informed the University of Texas System on Monday that all pending records requests from embattled Regent Wallace Hall are considered "cancelled, effective immediately."

The persistence of drought conditions across Texas brought extra attention on the once-obscure Texas Water Development Board this legislative session, as lawmakers approved a major overhaul of the agency's leadership. And with a major financing proposal before voters, the power of the state agency, which has just under 300 employees, is poised to grow.

The Travis County Commissioners Court agreed to restore some money to the Travis County district attorney’s Public Integrity Unit after Gov. Rick Perry in June eliminated state funding for the office. The five-member commissioners court voted 4-1 on the proposal, which will cost Travis County taxpayers about $1.8 million next year. Perry vetoed that line item from the budget after District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who served jail time earlier this year for a drunken driving violation, refused to resign from her office.