Texas Court Orders Primary Date
The federal court in San Antonio is ordering Texas to hold its primary elections May 29th. The official order issued tHursday resolves, for now, the state’s redistricting battles.
The three-judge panel issued the election schedule two days after releasing political maps for the state to use in the 2012 election. Some minority groups maintain the maps are ignore minority population gains and are drawn to dilute minority voting power.
The filing period for candidates reopens tomorrow and closes March 9th. County election officials will mail out voter registration cards April 25th, and any run off elections will be July 25th.
AP
State Attorney General Warns Of IRS Email Scam
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is warning about phony IRS emails. He says don’t open attachments or click on links to respond to the emails that appear to come from the IRS.
The Attorney General says tax season is an active time for identity thieves who trick taxpayers into handing out their sensitive information, like social security numbers, employer information, and investment account numbers.
In a recent so-called phishing scam, the fraudulent email claims that the recipient missed the deadline for filing a federal income tax return and that the taxpayer could owe up to ten thousand dollars for failure to submit on time. The email provides a link to a fake IRS website.
The Attorney General says the IRS does not use email text messages.
BJ Austin
Hot Summer Could See Rolling Power Outages
With temperatures in the 80’s on the first day of March, ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, is predicting capacity to meet summer demand will be tight.
ERCOT officials say based on the National Weather Service three-month outlook, Texas will see above normal temperatures, but not as extreme as last summer. However, the projected summer peak demand has been increased by 1200 megawatts over a “normal” summer.
ERCOT says there’s basically no cushion if temperatures soar like last summer and the system also experiences loss of some generating capacity. If that happens, rolling outages are likely. The summer assessment will be updated May first.
BJ Austin
Gas Prices Up Again
Gas prices continue to climb. The latest statewide average for a gallon of gas is $3.57, that’s up a nickel from last week.
Dallas has the most expensive gasoline in Texas at $3.59 a gallon: Amarillo the cheapest, $3.41. AAA Texas says continuing tensions in the Middle East and concerns about future supplies continue to put pressure on market crude oil prices. And that affects the price at the pump.
BJ Austin
Opera Fans Eager To See Cowboys Stadium Performance
The Dallas Opera has been flooded with requests for free tickets to its live simulcast of The Magic Flute at Cowboys Stadium. In January, when the unusual, big venue for an opera experience was announced, 7500 seats were available. They were quickly snatched up as demand increased. Dallas Opera General Director Keith Cerny says that’s what they were hoping for.
Cerny: This is the first time that the Dallas Opera has held this kind of even in a stadium, and we didn’t really have anything to go on in terms of estimating numbers. I will say I’ve been particularly delighted in seeing how quickly this audience has come together in the metroplex.
Twenty-one thouand tickets have been requested. Cerny suspects a majority of the audience will be first-time opera-goers. Ticket requests can still be made through the Dallas Opera website for the April 28th Cowboys stadium simulcast. So far, requests have come from 23 states and Canada.
BJ Austin
