Election day tomorrow
Early voting is over but mail-in ballots are still coming in. Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir says more than 553,000 residents cast their ballots in-person early this go around, and she’s still expecting a big turnout tomorrow. However, she also wants to make sure that by-mail voters get their packets in.
“It would probably benefit you to go ahead and use the hand delivery drive through.That’s at 5501 Airport Boulevard,” says DeBeauvoir.
You could hand deliver your mail-in ballot today from 8 p.m. to 5 p.m and tomorrow from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
FBI investigating IH-35 incident
The FBI is now investigating an incident along Interstate 35 in Hays County, where a campaign bus for Vice President Joe Biden was surrounded by trucks flying flags for President Trump. The incident is supported by President Trump, who said in a tweet that these patriots did nothing wrong and the FBI should be investigating other groups like Antifa.
Unemployment benefits policy
Since the beginning of the pandemic, The Texas Workforce Commission waived the requirement that people using unemployment benefits had to track that they were actually looking for work. But as of now, those work search requirements have been restored.
“There are many jobs available that allow for accommodations for people at risk for COVID-19,” says the commission’s Cisco Gamez.
The requirement is that you make at least three searches or applications for jobs per week.
Downtown real estate market
The Austin area retail space market continues to slide down in the third quarter. The commercial real estate firm CBRE’s Brad Bailey explains COVID is still holding down the downtown market.
“People that are supposed to be going to work on a daily basis that support the local businesses on the first floor of some of these buildings, restaurants and service industries are not able to do as well as they would otherwise,” says Bailey.
However, he does note retail spaces out in the area suburbs are at least holding their own.
Holiday travel industry
With the holidays fast approaching, this normally would be the busiest time of year for the travel industry, but probably not this year because of the pandemic. Paul Hartshorn, with the Texas based Association of Professional Flight Attendants, says they’re doing everything they can to make flights safe.
“We’re hoping that as they move into this and people get more used to the change in policy, that it will be a much smoother experience,” Hartshorn says.
With fewer planes in service, you can expect there will be some pretty full flights.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-11-2-20
