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Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn arrives at a Dripping Springs, Texas ranch where he wraps up his campaign for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate.
With 93.3% of votes counted, Decision Desk HQ declared a victory for U.S. Sen. Job Cornyn, who was reelected to his fourth term after beating his Democratic challenger MJ Hegar by 10 percentage points.
During the campaign period, Cornyn ran on his record. On his website, he emphasized his role in passing legislation to address human trafficking and the high cost of prescription drugs.
The incumbent also criticized his opponent, painting her as a recipient of "dark money" from the super PACs such as Senate Majority, Future Forward and EMILY's List, and accusing her of conspiring with Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee, to "California-Our-Texas."
Hegar, a decorated combat veteran, Round Rock mom and self-described "badass," hasn't held public office. She narrowly won the Democratic nomination for the Texas Senate seat in a runoff election against state Sen. Royce West in July.
"I'm not a career politician, running for U.S. Senate was never my plan," Hegar said in a statement. "I am confident that the work we did will move our state forward for years to come."
Her campaign stressed her experience working as a program manager for Seton Healthcare Family, as well as her support for the Affordable Care Act, as proof of her ability to lead Texas out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic recession it has created.
This stands in sharp contrast to Cornyn, who has long opposed the ACA and recently voted to confirm President Trump's latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, whom many Democrats fear will further endanger the legislation.
Hegar also focused on Cornyn's low profile among voters. Although he acknowledged this dynamic, he maintained a five- to 10-point lead over Hegar in polls, according to a round-up compiled by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
Despite Cornyn's lead in the polls, Democrats believed that the race was winnable for many reasons: high turnout among Democratic voters in the July runoff election, Trump's flagging approval rating and a flood of donations from around the country.
Turnout, of course, did break records. More than 9.7 million Texas voters cast their ballots early this election, compared to fewer than 9 million in the entire 2016 race.
Cornyn, who has been publicly supportive of the president, did appear to distance himself last month, when he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial board that when he disagrees with Trump he does so privately.
A handful of other Republican senators facing closer-than-expected reelection races have done the same, according to multiple reports.
"The president has had, in strictly political terms, a not particular good year and is an erratic standard bearer," Jim Henson, a professor of government and director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, told Austonia in August. "So if you are a Republican candidate in Texas, and your fate is hitched to the president's, it's a very anxiety-ridden ride."
Opposition to the president was not great enough to hand Hegar a victory—or flip Texas.
Samantha Cotten, the regional communications director for the Republican National Committee, expected as much.
"Beto O'Rourke lost in 2018, MJ Hegar will lose in 2020," she said in a statement to Austonia in August. "Democrats' dream of turning Texas blue will be shattered once again and it is little wonder as to why considering Democrats are actively campaigning on destroying the Second Amendment, the energy industry, and our cities by defunding police."
This story was updated at 5:30 a.m. with the final percentage of votes counted, as well as how many percentage points Cornyn led the race by.
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(U.S. Marshals)
The Austin woman suspected of killing star cyclist visiting from out of town, Moriah "Mo" Wilson, has now been captured after evading arrest for more than a month.
Kaitlin Marie Armstrong, an Austin yoga instructor, is believed by officials to be the killer of Wilson, who was found with gunshot wounds in a friend's house on May 11. The murder is being investigated as a crime of passion after Wilson met up with Armstrong's ex-boyfriend.
According to the U.S. Marshals, Armstrong was located at a hostel on Santa Teresa Beach in Provincia de Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Officials said she may have been using her sister's name after fleeing Austin on May 14, the day after police questioned her. She was last identified at Newark Liberty International Airport on May 18.
Federal authorities say they plan on returning Armstrong to the U.S., where she'll face charges of murder and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Here's a timeline of events since the night of Wilson's murder.
- The night of her death, Wilson met with Armstrong’s ex-boyfriend Colin Strickland, a fellow pro cyclist. According to an affidavit, the pair went swimming, then to dinner, before he dropped Wilson off at her friend's home where she was staying in East Austin at around 8:30 p.m.
- While Wilson and Stickland had previously had a romantic relationship, Stickland said the two were friends. The affidavit says Strickland lied to Armstrong about his whereabouts that evening.
- Video footage shows Armstrong’s Jeep pulled up nearby the home within a minute of Wilson arriving home.
- At around 10 p.m., Wilson's friend called Austin police after finding her in a pool of blood. Wilson had been staying with the friend ahead of the upcoming bike race in nearby Hico, Texas.
- Armstrong was brought in for questioning the day after the murder and released after appearing “very still and guarded” when confronted with video evidence.
- The Lone Star Fugitive Task Force said her black Jeep Cherokee was sold to a South Austin CarMax dealership on May 13 for $12,200.
- She leaves from the Austin airport on May 14.
- Shell casings found on the scene matched a gun belonging to Armstrong.
- Austin police obtained an arrest warrant for Armstrong on May 17.
- She took a flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to San Jose, Costa Rica on May 18 using a fraudulent passport, according to the Marshals.
- On May 25, another warrant was obtained for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
- On June 29, she was captured by the U.S. Marshals
As the EPA faces limits on greenhouse gas regulations, Texas researchers work on carbon capture tech
UT is developing technology targeted at power, steel, cement and other industrial plants to lower emissions. (UT Austin)
On Thursday, the Supreme Court limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority in regulating greenhouse gases, a move that comes at a time when experts have warned about the need to take action on climate change.
The ruling was brought after a challenge to a lower court opinion brought by Texas and more than a dozen other states.
Vaibhav Bahadur, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin called the SCOTUS decision significant, noting that Texas is the biggest energy producer in the U.S., and produces more energy than the United Kingdom.
“Power generation accounts for a significant fraction of U.S. carbon emissions, and the EPA loses its ability to control what's happening in about half of that sector,” Bahadur said. “And it's not just the U.S., I think people and environmentalists on pretty much anywhere on the planet will be disappointed because this is going in the wrong direction. We know we want to be decarbonizing, and this is essentially putting a roadblock on progress toward decarbonization.”
So, we’re going to need some insurance, Bahadur says. He’s carrying out work that’ll act as such through his research on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the process of sucking carbon from the air and burying it.
For the past five years, he’s been working on a novel approach to storing carbon. It involves supercharging the formation of carbon dioxide-based crystal structures and storing billions of tons of carbon under the ocean floor.
“If all of this is successful, then we will have another option for safely and responsibly storing carbon at the bottom of the seabed for essentially eternity,” Bahadur said.
Still, Bahadur talked about a different approach to responsibly cutting down emissions in the next decade, and doing so in a meaningful and substantial way, then the environment will eventually heal itself and we might not need CCS.
But that’s not the path we’re headed down.
“We're already starting to see temperature records being shattered this year, and we're still to hit peak summer,” Bahadur said. “All of this just makes me think that we need CCS to a larger extent, and possibly sooner than what a lot of scientists anticipate, especially if we can't keep our emissions in check.”
Gary Rochelle, a professor in the department of chemical engineering at UT, thinks CCS was ready to be deployed in 2010 and those 12 years have made a difference.
“But now we've emitted all that CO2,” Rochelle said. “And unfortunately, unlike other pollutants, when you emit CO2, it's there. It's not going away.”
Gary Rochelle and Vaibhav Bahadur are both researching technology to address carbon emissions. (UT)
Still, the delay is good in that now researchers like him have had time to learn about and improve the technology, allowing for fewer problems once it's deployed.
In December, UT announced a licensing agreement with advanced technology company Honeywell. The technology from that is targeted at power, steel, cement and other industrial plants to lower emissions.
Rochelle has been working on the technology since 2000 as part of an international collaborative effort. When he talked to Austonia on Thursday, he had just had calls with collaborators in Germany and Norway. Currently, he’s working with some Ph.D. students on addressing a chemical reaction that can happen with the technology known as oxidation that could lead to ammonia emissions and cause problems for a large-scale commercial unit.
Rochelle says he’s driven to this work because he wants to make a contribution.
“We're trying to develop this technology so that we can make a difference,” Rochelle said. “It's a nice problem to work on. The students are motivated and those are the primary things which drive us.”
Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the high court’s decision which acted as a blow to President Joe Biden’s plan to reduce emissions.
“Today’s landmark victory against an out-of-control administration is also a big win for Americans who worry about skyrocketing energy costs due to expensive federal regulations that threaten our energy industry,” Abbott said. “President Biden cannot keep attacking the energy industry and the hardworking men and women who power our nation.”
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