Astros Head To Game Seven: Your Texas Roundup

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I’m now the coolest dad around.”

—Houston Astros outfielder Cameron Maybin on Twitter. Maybin’s stolen base during game two of the World Series secured free Doritos Locos tacos at U.S. Taco Bell restaurants Wednesday, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

BIG NEWS

Spooky Six
The Houston Astros had a chance to win the World Series on Tuesday, but ended up losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-1, forcing a decisive game seven. The Astros held a 1-0 lead after George Springer’s solo homer in the third inning, and appeared to be in the driver’s seat with Justin Verlander cruising through the first six innings. But the Dodgers managed to pull ahead with an RBI double from Chris Taylor and a sacrifice fly from Corey Seager. Then Joc Pederson smashed a solo home run in the seventh to put the Dodgers up 3-1, a lead they’d hold on to for the rest of the game. Closer Kenley Jansen slammed the door shut, striking out three batters while holding the Astros without a base runner over the final two innings. The loss now puts the Astros in a difficult must-win situation, though we shouldn’t have expected anything less for a series that’s been full of drama. Game seven will be Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, and Lance McCullers Jr. will start for the Astros against Yu Darvish of the Dodgers. First pitch is scheduled for 7:20 p.m. Central Time.

MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS

Retirement Party
U.S. Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Dallas Republican, announced on Tuesday that he won’t be running for reelection, according to the Dallas Morning News. “Today I am announcing that I will not seek reelection to the US Congress in 2018,” Hensarling said in a statement. “Although service in Congress remains the greatest privilege of my life, I never intended to make it a lifetime commitment, and I have already stayed far longer than I had originally planned.” Hensarling is sixty years old, and he’s represented Texas’s fifth congressional district since 2002. He’s a pretty big deal in D.C., chairing the powerful Financial Services Committee, and he’s been a prominent figure in shaping the regulation of the financial industry. He told the Morning News that he decided not to seek reelection due to family reasons. As the Morning News notes, North Texas politics will look a whole lot different in the next election cycle, as Hensarling will join longtime U.S. Representative Sam Johnson, a Plano Republican, in retirement after the election.

More Money
Governor Greg Abbott met with lawmakers in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to ask for more federal disaster aid. Abbott said Texas needs $61 billion more in federal disaster recovery money for infrastructure alone after Hurricane Harvey, according to the Texas Tribune. Abbott told reporters at the Capitol after his meeting Tuesday afternoon that he’d had a “well-reasoned discussion,” and had stressed that rebuilding the state’s Gulf Coast was in the country’s best national security and economic interests. “We are asking not for any handouts or for anything unusual, but we are asking for funding that will flood the entire region that was impacted so that the federal government, the state government, and the local government are not going to be facing these ongoing out-of-pocket costs,” Abbott said. About 61 percent of the funding would go toward flood control projects, a third would go toward housing, and the rest would be divided between hazard mitigation, roadways, and water services projects.

Immigration Battle
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration on Tuesday in an attempt to secure the release of a ten-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who was placed into deportation proceedings by Border Patrol after undergoing surgery in Corpus Christi. The lawsuit alleges Rosamaria Hernandez, an undocumented girl who lives in Laredo, was detained in violation of her statutory and constitutional rights. “All of us should be outraged and alarmed that the federal government would chase a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy to a hospital, arrest her after surgery, and rip her from her loving home,” Andre Segura, legal director of the ACLU of Texas, said in a press release, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “This is not only unconstitutional, but heartless.” Hernandez, who has been in the country since she was three months old, was transported earlier this month via ambulance to Corpus Christi for gallbladder surgery. On the way, Border Patrol agents at an immigration checkpoint in Freer discovered her undocumented status, escorted her ambulance to the children’s hospital, and waited outside the girl’s hospital room as she recovered. Immediately after her surgery, they took her to a shelter for unaccompanied minors in San Antonio while she waits for her case to be processed, despite the hospital’s orders suggesting that she’d be much better off in the care of her family and regular physicians.