WATCH: Lost Interview With Selena Uncovered By The Smithsonian

Our daily roundup of Texas headlines.

By Alexandra HartOctober 6, 2017 11:18 am

An interview with the late Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla has resurfaced after going unseen for more than 20 years. The clip is from an April 1994 interview with Tejano USA at Hemisfair Park in San Antonio, shortly after Selena won a Grammy for Best Mexican American Album.

The video was discovered by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in a camera donated to them by Univision. Watch the full clip below:


The Texas Congressional delegation is requesting additional funds for Harvey recovery efforts.

Yesterday, the bipartisan group of legislators asked for nineteen billion dollars in additional funding for rebuilding and infrastructure repair projects. That’s on top of a request from President Trump for 29 billion in hurricane aid.

 


The Air Force is facing a pilot shortage. And as Texas Public Radio’s Carson Frame reports, it’s looking to an unusual source of potential hires to remedy the problem – retirees.

25 former officers will be allowed to put their uniforms back on as part of the Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program, according to a statement by the Air Force this week. The returned officers will help take some of the administrative burden off of branch pilots. Ann Stefanek is an Air Force spokesperson.

“When we’re able to fill those positions with non-current pilots, it frees up our current pilots to do the war-fighting,” says Ann Stefanek, an Air Force Spokesperson.

The Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program is just one approach to solving a bigger problem. The US military’s service branches are all dealing with low pilot numbers. But the shortage is especially problematic for the Air Force, which was down around fifteen hundred pilots at the end of 20-16.

Several air bases in Texas, including Laughlin AFB, Shepherd AFB, and Joint Base San Antonio, train pilots, and are trying to remedy the shortage from the front end.

According to Captain Beau Downey, who’s based at JBSA-Randolph, the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command plans to increase the number of pilots it produces from 1,200 to 1,400 by 20-19.

“We’re pretty much gonna be maxing out our resources, that’s full throttle full after-burner, us putting as many pilots out as we can.”

Even with training efforts ramping up, the Air Force still expects the pilot shortage to grow next year.