The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.
It’s no coincidence that December is National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month. It’s a time when a whole lot of people are doing a whole lot of holiday shopping. On top of that, high-profile security breaches – like hacks of Target in 2013 and Home Depot in 2014 – happened around this time.
The finance site WalletHub wanted to figure out which states are the most vulnerable to identity theft and fraud. Jill Gonzalez is an analyst with WalletHub.
“We looked at several different data points, just the complaints mostly of identity theft and fraud – that’s all from the Federal Trade Commission itself,” Gonzalez says. “Then we also looked at the conference of state legislatures to see what policies were in effect in some states to help really put an end to this.”
How did Texas stack up against other states on this issue?
“Texas was the seventh most vulnerable state when it comes to identity theft and fraud,” Gonzalez says. “This is one of the lists you don’t want to be on the top 10 for.”
Texas was ranked highly due to high numbers of identity theft complaints at 144 per 100,000 residents – the ninth-biggest number in the U.S. Texas was ranked the fifth highest in fraud and other complaints at around 941 per 100,000 residents.
States that were more vulnerable than Texas – according to WalletHub’s analysis – include Illinois, Nevada, Massachusetts, Florida, California and Washington, D.C.
Before Baylor, Art Briles was the head football coach at the University of Houston. But despite his interest in the school’s head coaching vacancy, he will not be returning to campus.
In fact, he won’t even get an interview for the post.
Early Saturday, ESPN reported Briles was going to get an interview for the job. The public backlash was almost instantaneous.
Briles was fired from Baylor University in May for his role in mishandling reports of sexual assault involving his football players.
The University of Houston released a statement later the same day that there was a list of candidates to interview for Tom Herman’s old position – and that Briles wasn’t on it.
UH Coach Tom Herman left the school at the end of November to take over the University of Texas program.
Tuesday, white nationalist Richard Spencer is speaking at a venue on the Texas A&M University campus.
During a recent appearance in Washington, D.C., Spencer invoked Nazi salutes and gave attendees a Hitler-esque greeting saying, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory.”
Spencer has also called for what he calls “peaceful ethnic cleansing.”
But A&M didn’t book Spencer to speak on campus – a private citizen did. On the same day, the school is holding an event called “Aggies United.”
The event stands in opposition to hate speech and looks to celebrate diversity on campus. There will be several speakers and performances by Ben Rector and V. Bozeman, who appears on the Fox show Empire.
Texas A&M President Michael K. Young first announced the unity event at the end of November.
