Two historic military planes crashed mid-air during an air show in Dallas Saturday afternoon, killing six people, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

In three key local elections, the Austin mayoral race will be decided in a runoff, Republican Tim O’Hare won the Tarrant County judge race and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins won reelection.

GOP candidate Lauren Davis’ campaign surfaced a Waco police report about a prank for which Jenkins apologized in 2010. He says he was only wearing camouflage at the time.

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins declared a state of disaster in the region, and Gov. Greg Abbott directed the state’s emergency operations center to be ready to support communities impacted by the flooding.

Heavy rain across the drought-stricken Dallas-Fort Worth area is causing streets to flood and submerging vehicles as officials warn motorists to stay off the roads.

With just under a month to go until the State Fair of Texas kicks off on Sept. 24, fair officials announced that masks will be required indoors and in outdoor crowded settings.

The summer surge of the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus made for a disruptive start of the school year in many parts of the country Monday.

The ruling comes after several school districts and a handful of counties across the state defied the governor’s executive order that restricted local entities from instituting mask mandates.

COVID-19 is surging again in Texas. Hospitalizations are increasing faster than at any other time. Local officials and school leaders are rebelling against Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates. Here’s the latest.

In the face of skyrocketing hospitalizations, the heads of cities, counties and school districts have grown desperate for ways to contain the virus.

COVID-19 is surging again in Texas. Hospitalizations are increasing faster than at any other time. Local officials and school leaders are pushing back against Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates. Here’s the latest.

The local officials are asking for courts to rule that Abbott’s ban on local mask mandates is unenforceable.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is the most recent official to defy the governor’s order. He announced Monday that the city’s nearly 22,000 city employees will be required to mask up inside city buildings where social distancing is not doable.

Their Texas swing is part of a larger effort by senior administration officials who are fanning out across the country this week to encourage vaccinations ahead of the administration’s self-imposed goal of hitting a 70% countrywide vaccination rate by July 4.

Abbott saysSAN ANTONIO – With more than two million Texans out of power Wednesday and seven million residents now under boil water notices, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order in an effort to shore up the state’s power supply amid the freezing conditions. An unstable grid would risk devastating power outages, but residents have gone days in some cases without power. With water pumps running out of power, residents across the state now have to adhere to boil water notices. Abbott said ERCOT has been “kind of opaque.”“The way that it runs is not transparent,” Abbott said.

Howard Holland, 82, receives his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from Wes Vaughn at the Dallas County mass vaccination site at Fair Park Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)AUSTIN, Texas – The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Texas continues to fall from record highs as the state nears the end of what has been its deadliest month of the pandemic. State health officials Monday reported fewer than 13,000 people were being treated for the virus in Texas hospitals, marking the seventh consecutive day of declining patient loads. More than 34,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Texas, the second-most in the nation behind California. The U.S. is recording just under 3,100 deaths a day on average, down from more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago.

Many Dallas County seniors received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination site at Fair Park in Dallas. A divided Dallas County Commissioners Court had voted Tuesday to prioritize vaccines at its Fair Park distribution center for individuals in mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods, a reflection of increased vulnerability to the coronavirus in 11 Dallas County ZIP codes, according to the Dallas Morning News. But Texas health officials pushed back on the proposal, warning that it was “not acceptable to [the Department of State Health Services. Her letter came after County Judge Clay Jenkins wrote to state officials asking whether the county’s plan was permissible. The county government is responsible for just 10% of the vaccines distributed in Dallas County.

Officials in Dallas County have confirmed a woman with underlying health conditions died of COVID-19 while on a commercial airplane. The woman, who was in her 30s, died after boarding a flight from Arizona to Texas, officials said Sunday. According to NBC DFW, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said the woman died as the plane was parked on the apron on July 25. No further details were released, but county officials said the woman had “underlying high-risk health conditions.”So far, 1,085 people in Dallas County have died from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The county’s risk level remains in the red zone — a stay home, stay safe indicator — due to an increase in hospitalized patients.

Credit: Emily Kinskey for The Texas TribuneNeed to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? Hospitals in some parts of the state are filling with coronavirus patients, alarming health officials who say Texas could be on the brink of another surge after a relative plateau in September. A wave of infections and hospitalizations swept Texas this summer, overwhelming hospitals along the U.S.-Mexico border. Not all parts of the state are seeing an increase in hospitalized coronavirus patients. North-central Texas has seen coronavirus hospitalizations increase by about 30% since September, said Stephen Love, president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council.

Greg Abbott said Texas counties could allow bars to reopen, only one of the state’s 10 most-populous counties — Denton — has decided to take him up on the offer. “Therefore, following the doctors’ advice, I won't be opening bars at this time.”The same path was followed by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. But Denton County announced Wednesday that bars would be opening in the North Texas county. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said he would continue consulting with health authorities before deciding whether to opt in. Among the undecided Texas counties, their own health indicators and how reopening bars could affect progress amid the pandemic are top concerns.

AUSTIN, Texas Texas surpassed 9,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths Wednesday while testing again dropped to the lowest levels since June, and infection rates hit another record. The state on Wednesday reported 324 additional deaths, bringing the total number of confirmed new deaths added from COVID-19 over the past week alone to more than 1,600. Some of those deaths occurred in July, when Texas began waiting on death certificates before adding to the total number of fatalities. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Tuesday that the number of individuals showing up for tests has dropped by 40%, which reflects trends nationwide. The Texas Department of State Health Services did not respond Wednesday to questions about the decrease in testing numbers.

Greg Abbott released a statement Wednesday expressing his dissatisfaction with the jailing of Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther who was also issued a citation for violating the stay-at-home orders and reopening her business Salon A la Mode. She was subsequently ordered to spend a week in jail by a Dallas Judge after continuing to operate her business, defying the Stay Home, Work Safe orders issued by Abbott. “I join the Attorney General in disagreeing with the excessive action by the Dallas Judge, putting Shelley Luther in jail for seven days. As I have made clear through prior pronouncements, jailing Texans for non-compliance with executive orders should always be the last available option,” said Abbott. The first case confirmed in the U.S. was in mid-January and the first case confirmed in San Antonio was in mid-February.