The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.
President Donald Trump will be in Texas next week to stump for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz ahead of the November 6th General Election. President Trump said back in August he would hold a – quote – “major rally” – for his one-time political opponent’s re-election bid.
The event will be held at NRG Arena in Houston on October 22nd – the same day early voting begins in Texas.
Cruz, the Republican incumbent, has been facing a strong challenge from U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, an El Paso Democrat.
The Astros Foundation says it wants to raise awareness of domestic violence. Monday’s announcement comes after controversy over the summer concerning the Major League Baseball team’s new relief pitcher. Houston Public Media’s Gail Delaughter reports:
When the Astros acquired Roberto Osuna from the Toronto Blue Jays back in July, he was serving a 75-day suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy. The team got a fair amount of criticism for the move, but officials released a statement saying they felt confident Osuna was remorseful for his actions.
Team owner Jim Crane says the Osuna situation also heightened the team’s awareness of domestic violence issues.
“His situation turned out fairly well and certainly there’s no good answer there. But it has been resolved for now, and you know, we’re going to move forward and use this as a platform,” Crane says.
The Astros Foundation is now partnering with the Texas Council on Family Violence on several initiatives. Crane says that includes sending players out into the community to talk to young people.
We’re in the midst of the fall monarch migration here in Texas, as butterflies flutter through the state on their way to warmer weather in Mexico. At the end of last week, a bunch of the butterflies made a breathtaking pit-stop in San Angelo State Park in West Texas.
The park posted a photo from one of their volunteers, Mickey Lanty, on social media that shows innumerable monarchs clustered in one of the park’s trees.
Jim Cisneros is the San Angelo State Park Superintendent. He says sometimes, like this year, the park gets a ton of monarchs, and other times they only get a few.
“But they normally come through here about this time of year, sometimes a little bit earlier, sometimes a little bit later, but we get to enjoy them on their migration down to Mexico,” Cisneros says. “You walk out there and it’s like the trees alive, with these little butterfly wings, and then as you approach the trees the butterflies kind of fly off and then as you pass they come right back down on the trees – it’s almost like a wave as you’re walking by. So if you see someone walking through the trees you can see the butterflies come up and come back down – it’s actually pretty magical.”
Cisneros says the monarchs seem to have hightailed it out of the park this week and continued their migration as the current cold front set in.
