Texas Will Release Some Voter Information to Trump Administration: Your Texas Roundup

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I just really love the car.”

—Kerry Kerr, of Denton, to the Denton Record-Chronicle. Kerr finally reclaimed her beloved 1993 Nissan 240SX after a three-year dispute with a local mechanic, who had held the car after charging her $5,000 for an engine that was never installed.

BIG NEWS

Roll Call
The state of Texas said on Wednesday that it would hand over some of the voter information requested by President Donald Trump’s administration. In a detailed list provided to the Dallas Morning News, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office said it will release voters’ full names, addresses, dates of birth, voter history dating back to 2006, and voting status. Texas is complying, for the most part, with a request from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was formed by Trump via executive order in May. Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state and vice chairman of the commission, asked for a trove of voter data in a letter to all 50 states last week. The request included full names, addresses, dates of birth, political parties, the last four digits of voters’ social security numbers, a list of the elections they participated in since 2006, felony convictions, registration status in other states, military status, and whether they lived overseas. In the letter, Kobach said the information will be made available to the public. Critics of the commission’s request have raised concerns over privacy and federal overreach. According to CNN, 44 states and D.C. have refused to hand over at least some of the requested voter information to Trump’s commission.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS

What The Hail?
Texas was wrecked by hailstorms in 2016, shattering the state record for damages, according to the San Antonio Express-News. In a review of information recently released by the state, the Insurance Council of Texas found that the statewide homeowner losses due to hail surpassed $5 billion last year, more than any other state since at least 2000. The previous record in Texas was $1.9 billion in 2015. Last year there were more than 500,000 claims, twice the number as any previous year, and wind and hail damage to vehicles alone reached $1.5 billion in losses. “The best way to describe the hail season (last year) was that it was just relentless,” Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas, told the Express-News. “It started in March and it really didn’t let up through the end of May. There were many, many days, actually weeks, where we had golf-ball size hail or larger every day somewhere in the state.” Last year’s storms also slammed urban centers, including a particularly bad hailstorm in El Paso and a trio of storms in San Antonio.

Crown ‘Em
The University of Texas at Austin announced on Wednesday that the athletics program inked a marketing deal with Corona, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Wasting no time, the Mexican beer has already coined a tagline: “Horns up, limes in.” Corona’s advertisements will be on display at football, basketball, and baseball games, and the company will also sponsor a responsible drinking campaign. “There really isn’t anything more emblematic of the state of Texas than the storied history of the four-time football national champion Texas Longhorns,” John Alvarado, VP of marketing for Corona Extra, said in a news release. “Corona is honored to be a part of the legendary Longhorns lore, and we’re excited to raise our Coronas and Hook ’em Horns this season as part of a statewide platform.” It seems like a pretty sweet deal for Corona. In 2016, Texas brought in $3.1 million in revenue from alcohol sales at sporting events, with its football stadium selling more beer per capita than any other college stadium.

Seats On A Plane
Welp, we’ve got another airline controversy, and this time it’s United back in the headlines. According to the Houston Chronicle, United workers made a woman flying from Houston to Boston give up her son’s seat, forcing the woman to hold her two-year-old son in her lap for about three hours on the flight. She paid about $1,000 for her son’s ticket. The passenger who got her son’s seat, meanwhile, shelled out just $75. “Not a single airline employee on that flight asked me why I had a large child on my lap,” Shirley Yamauchi of Kapolei, Hawaii told the Chronicle. “I didn’t feel safe or comfortable, but I really didn’t have a choice.” United later admitted it had screwed up. “On a recent flight from Houston to Boston, we inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi’s son,” United said in a press release, according to the Chronicle. “As a result, her son’s seat appeared to not be checked in, and staff released his seat to another customer and Ms. Yamauchi held her son for the flight. We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience. We are providing compensation as a goodwill gesture. We are also working with our employees to prevent this from ever happening again.”