UT professor arrested for heinous crimes
A University of Texas professor has been arrested. Mario Villareal, charged with five counts of possession of child pornography. The arrest affidavit says Villareal was sending and buying illicit photos and videos of children from a woman in Tennessee. The university says he’s been placed on leave and removed from all teaching duties. He’s been the managing director for the Salem Center for Policy at the McCombs School of Business since last year.
Austin police update
As the Public Safety Commission continues talks on demolishing Austin police headquarters downtown, police are making a push to remain stationed in the general vicinity if that building does eventually come down. Assistant Chief Troy Gay says more than 100 officers comprise that corridor.
“We do request that our downtown area command is in the downtown area, since they are on foot and on bike,” says Gay.
Instead of removing police, Gay has also proposed sharing the site with other social service groups. Some council members want a social justice center built in its place.
A new police oversight commission has been launched in Austin. This week, the Community Police Review Commission held its first meeting. Mayor Steve Adler says it was formed during the police contract talks of 2018.
“It’s to make policy recommendations on discipline, on training, on community relations. The complaint process is to address community concerns and review practices of the police department,” says Adler.
He says the commission will play a big role in reforming policing in the city and will make recommendations on next year’s reimagined budget for APD.
Gov. Abbott tweets about possible reopenings
Governor Greg Abbott has tweeted out a cryptic message apparently aimed at bar owners. The governor says hospitalizations, new cases of COVID and the overall state positivity rate all look very good and continue to improve. He says yesterday saw the lowest number of deaths in quite some time, all of which back in August would be required criteria for getting bars back open.
“If we were able to get to a positivity rate of well below 10% and maintain that positivity rate,” said Abbott.
According to Johns Hopkins, Texas positivity rate is now under 6%. Abbots Tweet includes a photo of two beer mugs and the caption ‘Cheers!” He says he’ll be announcing more openings soon.
COVID-19 update
Travis County hospital numbers show little movement in either direction over the past day. 78 people are hospitalized for coronavirus. Out of 646 active cases, 13 of those patients are on a ventilator. Since March, 29,857 cases have been confirmed. The county says 28,781 have recovered.
In Williamson County, there’s been a pretty noticeable upswing in active cases. The county says 171 cases are active as of this morning, that’s up by 43 from a day ago. But as that number’s gone up, hospitalizations are back down into the single digits. Now at only 7. 8,802 cases have been confirmed and in total, 8,488 recoveries.
Austin/Round Rock Metro job growth
The Austin/Round Rock Metro continues its economic fight for normalcy. The Dallas Federal Reserve’s Christopher Slijk says the area is seeing continued job growth in his retaking ground lost due to the pandemic. Between June and August, the area added more than 62,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.4%.
“Looking at sort of the bigger picture right now, the Austin area is still down nearly 50,000 jobs compared to the prior peak in February, which is about 4% below pre-COVID levels,” says Slijk.
He also says not to downplay the progress made. That 4% is still a way to go before things were back to where they were.
Ken Paxton pressured to step down
The pressure is mounting on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to resign after his top aides called for the feds to investigate charges of bribery and abuse of office. Both governor Abbott Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick say they’ll wait to comment on the charges until after an investigation is complete. Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa says the governor’s failure to defend Paxton says a lot.
“I promise you he has some inside information as to the allegations, knows that this guy’s going down and he doesn’t at all want to be tainted by him,” says Hinojosa.
Republican Congressman Chip Roy, a former Paxton deputy, says his former boss must step down for the good of the people of Texas. Paxton calls this nothing but false accusations from rogue employees.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-10-6-20
