News Ticker: April 9

Rick Perry basks in the glory, Dan Patrick refuses to give up, and Google makes some sort of announcement. Fiber is on the News Ticker.

• With typical cowboy swagger, Rick Perry's press office managed to make today's announcement about Google Fiber read like overheated copy from a baked beans ad. Bold indeed. Probably even better with ranch.

• Like a bratty little brother, AT&T was quick to steal some of the Google thunder by announcing its own intention to build a 1-gigabit fiber-optic network in Austin – and trolling for incentives to do so.

• The profusion of blue-clad people milling around Congress today is not in fact a Smurf cosplay convention.

• Today the Senate Education Committee is set to debate Dan Patrick's complicated bill that attempts to scratch Texas' business backs in exchange for totally uncoerced donations to a school choice scholarship fund. It's like the Mafia, except with more pleated khakis.

• Meanwhile, the Senate Business and Commerce Committee will take on John Carona's attempt to remake Texas in Oklahoma's image.

• Rep. Patricia Harless' nefarious plan to turn early voting periods into flash mobs is likely to be shelved.

• The readers of Southern Living think that four other cities are tastier than Austin, proving they don't know their grits from their granola.

• At least fourteen people were injured in a stabbing attack at the Lone Star College location in Cypress – just months after the community college system was rocked by a campus shooting.