Dallas police defend arrest of West’s wife
Dallas police on Monday defended their arrest of Angela Graham-West, Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Allen West’s wife, for allegedly driving while intoxicated.
At a press conference, Police Chief Edgardo Garcia showed video of her Friday traffic stop, field sobriety test and arrest. He gave few details when asked about what portions of the field sobriety test Graham-West might have failed.
But information about police suspicions were detailed in an arrest warrant affidavit that The Texas Tribune obtained from Graham-West’s lawyer, who said his client had not been drinking and questioned the strength of the officer’s evidence.
Toxicology results from a blood test are pending. Garcia said results from a Breathalyzer test conducted during the traffic stop were inconclusive.
The affidavit that attorney Todd Shapiro provided to the Tribune claims that Graham-West, 61, showed signs of intoxication in portions of the field sobriety test.
In an interview, Shapiro said a previous brain aneurysm behind her right eye contributed to some issues with the field sobriety test.
“She told the officer about it and there’s no mention anywhere in the ... probable cause affidavit that this woman had some health issues that could affect her performance or mask themselves as signs of intoxication,” Shapiro said.
— Kate McGee, The Texas Tribune
Dallas
Heat indexes in area could climb to 110
Heat indexes may climb as high as 110 in some parts of North Texas as temperatures hover in the upper 90s through Wednesday.
The sun will be strong over Dallas at least until Thursday, when some clouds come into the forecast.
“Looks like a typical hot, sunny, late-summer pattern,” KXAS-TV (NBC5) meteorologist Grant Johnston said in a Monday forecast.
He said this week’s temperatures will be “edging up a little above normal,” which is about 95 in mid-August.
Still, the region has faced fewer triple-digit days this August, compared with previous years. Typically, Dallas averages about 10 of them, but only one has been recorded this month, according to the National Weather Service.
Isolated afternoon storms are likely toward the end of the week and into the weekend across North Texas, and muggy conditions are possible throughout the week.
— Maggie Prosser, The Dallas Morning News
School mask mandate heads back to court
Bexar County’s order requiring masks in public schools is — once more — before the Texas Supreme Court as the clash over face coverings raging between local governments and the state’s Republican leadership continues.
Gov. Greg Abbott asked the state’s highest civil court Monday to overturn an appeals court ruling last week that allowed Bexar County’s mask mandate for schools to stay in place — the latest in a series of ongoing court battles that have prompted local mask rules to be enacted, thrown out, then reinstated.
This time, Abbott wants justices to nix a Thursday ruling by the 4th Court of Appeals — which allowed San Antonio and Bexar County to order mask-wearing for students, teachers, school staff and visitors at K-12 public schools.
The appeals court upheld an earlier ruling by state District Judge Antonia Arteaga that blocked Abbott’s executive order banning local mask mandates with a temporary injunction — essentially reinstating the Bexar mandate after the Supreme Court temporarily nixed it the week before.
— Joshua Fechter, The Texas Tribune
Rice discovers dozens of COVID false positives
Days after it moved its first two weeks of classes online due to a high number of students testing positive for the coronavirus, Rice University said Monday it has retested dozens of students and “all but one of those have turned out to be negative.”
According to officials, the university uses three providers for its testing program. As it started to ramp up testing again, it conducted 4,500 tests in the first nine days with initial results showing 81 positive results. Half of those positive tests came in last Thursday.
While the numbers seem small, officials say, it resulted in a 2% positivity rate. That is much higher than what Rice experienced last year, which was an average 0.24% when it ran 150,000 tests.
The university used the results as the basis for its decision to shift classes online for the first two weeks of the semester and push back the start of classes by two days as the delta variant continues to surge throughout Texas and the Houston area.
“This unusual campus positivity rate prompted us to take quick action and assume a more cautionary posture until we could determine whether there was a significant risk of widespread infection,” wrote Kevin Kirby, chair of the Crisis Management Advisory Committee, in a letter to students.
The university’s COVID-19 dashboard now shows 27 positive tests since Aug. 13.
— Kate McGee, The Texas Tribune
