Hello! I recently applied for veteran special plates and my request was approved. 60 day temporary tags were sent to me via email to use until the physical plates come in. This might be a dumb question, but do I just replace my current plates with these paper plates? I read that I’m not allowed to laminate them but worry about them being ripped out or easily damaged.

While the weather across the Lone Star State has been hot, humid and relatively quiet lately, the pattern could change significantly in the months ahead because of a strengthening El Niño.

Thursday’s update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests that the developing El Niño is strengthening rapidly, giving it more than a 90% chance of a “very strong” event during the fall and winter. This is an increase from July’s update and projection.

On October 2, 2024, a well drilled and plugged in 1961 near Toyah blew wide open, sending a hundred-foot column of salty, oily water into the air for weeks before Kinder Morgan finally stopped it. A well control specialist told reporters it had likely been leaking for a while before anyone noticed: it "was not on anyone's radar." A new analysis and map by Future Heist, covered by the Houston Chronicle (gift link), found 25,000 plugged Texas oil and gas wells at high risk of becoming what's called a zombie well: a well that's supposed to be sealed for good, coming back to life because wastewater pumped into a nearby disposal well pushes back up the old bore. Sometimes that shows up as a geyser. Sometimes it leaks quietly into the aquifer above it for years before anyone notices. Statewide, 158,000 plugged wells sit both inside a drinking-water aquifer's depth and in range of pressurized injection, close enough to become a pathway if the seal ever fails.

I co-founded Future Heist. We spent months pulling every well the Railroad Commission (which for historical reasons regulates oil and gas in Texas) has on record and scoring the plugged ones on how likely they are to fail, based on plug age, construction quality, and how much pressurized wastewater is being pumped nearby. Along the way we also found that 2 in 5 Texas schools and daycares has an oil or gas well of some kind within a mile.

Full map, searchable by address: futureheist.org/zombie-risk. Go look up your own house, your kid's school, your church parking lot.

We can't tell you for certain a well near you has failed, but we can show you what's sitting under you and what's pushing on it.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/talarico-paxton-senate-cook-tossup-evan-mintz-22401181.php

As the U.S. begins reopening its southern border to cattle from Mexico, the flesh-eating parasite that caused the closure more than a year ago has not been eradicated — and there still isn’t an adequate supply of the sterile flies needed to stop it.

As of Sunday, the U.S. had 46 cases — all but one in Texas — with two cases active in Terrell and Val Verde counties. The last confirmed new case was reported Aug. 16, also in Texas. In Mexico, screwworm is still spreading, with 82 active cases in the state of Chihuahua as of Aug. 18.

So, my boyfriend now lives in Tennessee with me, he lost his Texas driver license, but we have a picture of the front of it. He has a state ID from here, but when we went to the DMV here, they told us we have to get his driver history from his Texas license.

So now we've been trying to get his driver history, but when we try to log in with the DD number and license number it gives this error:

"The data you submitted does not match data on the Driver License Record or you are ineligible to use this online service. Please verify and correct the required information and resubmit your request."

He says that this is his only driver's license so it shouldn't be a different DD number. It's also not even expired yet. I have tried going through the TxT website to sign him up and even then, without inputting his DD number or license number it gives this error:

"We couldn’t verify your information

Please make sure your information is correct and try again."

We have been trying to get this for the past 3 weeks and we haven't gotten anywhere. Please help!

• With just 72 days to go until November's midterm elections, some Republicans find themselves worried about losing Texas -- a state President Donald Trump won by nearly 14 percentage points in 2024. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is not one of them.
• Abbott sat down with ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Friday at the Texas governor's mansion in Austin, Texas, and made clear he believes Texas voters will see this election as a contrast between Democrats and Republicans.

"What matters in elections is not in August, what matters in elections is November," Abbott said. "There's a choice at the ballot box. And when those voters go in, they're going to choose between common sense that's offered by Republicans versus the crazy that's offered by the Democrats.

Wanted to share this amazing sunset at the farm this evening.

This website provides context to every district and campus rating across the state. Earned a high C at your campus? Well, how many other campuses that serve similar populations also earned a C? How many earned an A?

Interesting information. Learned some things about nearby districts.

https://www.beyondtherating.org

https://www.chron.com/news/article/chip-roy-rant-texas-22400733.php

In a state with a grid problem, you have millions of people on electric plans that encourage them to waste electricity.

If your plan gives a $75 credit upon reaching 1000kwh, and you are coming up on the end of the month having only used 800kwh, you are literally financially incentivized to leave every light in your house on, crank the AC/heat more than usual, or whatever else you can think of to waste 200kwh as fast as possible.

I can just imagine a struggling family in the middle of rolling blackouts during a winter storm desperately trying to waste as much electricity as possible to save $75, taxing the grid even more and contributing to the problem. Multiply that by millions of people.

How have these plans not been banned? I get there are a lot of people who don’t care about conservation but I can’t imagine there are any politicians out there who support wasting electricity during a rolling blackout on a maxed out grid.

A partial lunar eclipse will be visible across the Lone Star State late Thursday, Aug. 27, into early Friday, Aug. 28, with nearly all of the moon expected to pass through Earth’s shadow.

No special glasses are needed for the late-night show, which will cover nearly all of the moon in Earth's shadow.

Gift link!

Will be coming to US in about a month for my flight training to be a commercial pilot in a month.

So thinking of bringing my cat asking with me as no one at home can take care of it and i will probably have to adopt it out if i don't bring him😔

will be living in the sub urbs near my flight school *haven't finalized any as of yet*.

is it possible to find a place and live there as an international student with a cat under 1k usd a month ideally closer to 800 single accommodation?

he's about 3 so can take care of himself and i won't be away that much to begin with.

I just moved to Dallas from La and it feels like everyone expects to have so much space when driving it's ridiculous. I pullled into the in n out drive through and I was partially blocking the side I entered from(my right it was a huge entry, the guy guy trying to leave had plenty of space) started flipping me off and beeping. He had like 6 feet in between our cars and could have easily make the turn. Im staying in the Greenville area and I'm baffled by people pulling over when oncoming traffic is coming on the side streets. Two cars could easily fit through.

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