Here are things you need to know for Friday, August 14:
1. Texas hospitalizations below 7,000 for first time in weeks
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Texas reported fewer than 7,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients for the first time in six weeks Thursday, but that encouraging sign was clouded by questions over testing as schools reopen and college football teams push ahead with playing this fall.
Testing has dropped off in Texas, a trend seen across the U.S. as health experts worry that people who are not symptomatic are not bothering to seek tests because of long lines and the prospect of waiting days to get results.
2. Family says online spat led to murder of 28-year-old mother of 5 in northeast Houston
Family members of a woman killed Aug. 6 in northeast Houston said she had nothing to do with the online spat the led to a real-world confrontation. Community members said a confrontation that was supposed to be a fist-fight ended in gunfire on Gallahad Street at North Wayside Drive.
A 41-second bystander video encapsulates the chaos that led to the murder of Tammy Goody, 28, a mother of five.
Not much is seen on the video, save for the interior of a car and later, when it appears the man making the recording is running with the phone in his hand. For one moment the video does show a man kneeling over the body of a woman lying motionless on the street.
3. 9 Texas men, including 3 soldiers, charged in child sex ring case
Central Texas authorities say they’ve cracked a child prostitution ring involving nine men, including three soldiers.
Two Fort Hood soldiers and one from Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio are among the nine suspects netted in their investigation, Killeen police said.
The nine made agreements involving money, drugs and alcohol on various social media platforms for sex acts with girls aged 15 and 16, police spokeswoman Ofelia Miramontez said.
4. Austin cuts police budget by 1/3 amid national ‘defund’ push
In a unanimous vote, the Austin City Council moved Thursday to cut about one-third of next year’s $434 million police budget amid national calls for “defunding” law enforcement agencies in favor of spending more money on social services.
That will come to just over $150 million that will be redirected to social services in the 2021 fiscal budget, which starts Oct 1.
5. Texas Democrats see a winning formula in Kamala Harris. Will she bring suburban women and Black voters to the polls?
On Tuesday afternoon, former Vice President Joe Biden announced Harris would be his running mate in November. While the choice didn’t come as a dramatic surprise, it was groundbreaking nonetheless: If Democrats take the White House, Harris would be the first woman and first person of color to become vice president and would be well-positioned for a possible future White House run.
In Harris, Texas Democrats see a winning formula — someone who can excite key members of their electorate but who holds positions that won’t alienate the more moderate voters the party is trying to win over with President Donald Trump on the ballot.
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WORD OF THE DAY
Cabriole [kab-ree-ohl; French ka-bree-awl] (noun) 1. (furniture) a curved, tapering leg curving outward at the top and inward farther down so as to end in a round pad, the semblance of an animal’s paw, or some other feature: used especially in the first half of the 18th century; 2. (ballet) a leap in which one leg is raised in the air and the other is brought up to beat against it.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Aug. 14, 2003: A major outage knocked out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Fifty million people were affected, including residents of New York, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as Toronto and Ottawa, Canada.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“In nature there are few sharp lines.” - A. R. Ammons