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SAN ANTONIO – According to San Antonio Report, several of Texas’ large urban counties have a new plan to boost voter participation ahead of the 2024 presidential election: hiring an outside company to find and register new voters. It’s the latest chapter in the ongoing battle between counties that want to make voting easier and a state with a Republican-led legislature pushing in the opposite direction. On Tuesday, Bexar County Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of asking county staff to find roughly $600,000 for a subscription to Civic Government Solutions (CGS), which keeps a database of unregistered voters, tracks voters as they move from other places and mails out prefilled voter registration forms with prepaid return envelopes. It’s the type of work normally done by nonprofit groups, political parties and individual campaigns, which target likely supporters based on their voting history or other data they’ve collected.

CGS, on the other hand, says it targets all potentially eligible voters and uses a “proprietary database” to identify people who wouldn’t normally appear in commercial voter files. “We send each potential voter in your universe customized persuasive messaging and state-specific instructions,” the company’s website says. When people receive that information along with the prefilled form and envelope, it says, “this combination of materials has proven to maximize returns.” Bexar County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez (Pct. 2), who brought the idea forward, said he learned about it from Harris County, which voted in April to pursue a roughly $1 million voter registration effort with CGS. Travis County Commissioners voted to hire CGS at the beginning of 2024 and could spend up to $500,000 for its services this year. Dallas County has been in talks with the company as well, according to CSG. “This is not, from my perspective, a Democrat or Republican agenda item,” Rodriguez told the San Antonio Report. “It’s how do we get more people civically engaged? How do we make it easier for them?” But the move is already drawing complaints from some local Republicans who’ve balked at the idea of using public funds to boost voter turnout in a Democratic stronghold.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Heavy rains associated with Hurricane Beryl and the earlier Tropical Storm Alberto have led at least 200 crocodiles to enter urban areas in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, across from Texas, state and federal authorities said this week.

So far, authorities say they have captured and relocated around 200 of the big reptiles since Alberto pelted the region with rain in June. Beryl brushed the same area before making landfall in south Texas earlier this week.

Authorities said the heavy rains raised water levels in coastal lagoons, leading the animals to crawl into cities like Tampico and the nearby cities of Ciudad Madero and Altamira, where at least 165 crocodiles have been captured and relocated.

The head of Tamaulipas state environment department, Karina Lizeth Saldívar, said in a statement that “the recent rains have increased the water levels in the lagoon systems, which had led to an increase in the sightings of crocodiles.”

The federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection said about 40 more crocodiles had been captured in the area in June and were relocated to appropriate habitat outside populated areas.

The problem may continue, the office said, noting that “as the water levels go down in places like streets and drainage canals that were flooded, crocodiles will turn up and sightings will certainly increase.”

The problem came to light this week when social media users posted videos of several crocodiles tied up in urban areas. That “caused an uproar in social media,” the department said.

Crocodiles are a protected species in Mexico. Attacks by them in Mexico are rare but have occurred.

HOUSTON – The Houston chronicle reports that an abnormally high number of patients have sought care for carbon monoxide poisoning this week in the Houston area, health officials and doctors said Thursday, as Hurricane Beryl knocked out power for millions and left many relying on portable generators. “I think we’re on record pace here unfortunately,” said Dr. Joseph Nevarez, a UTHealth Houston professor and director of hyperbaric medicine and wound care at Memorial Hermann — Texas Medical Center. Hurricane Beryl on Monday knocked out power for more than 2 million households, 1 million of whom still do not have power as of Thursday. Since the storm swept through Houston, four to eight patients per day have needed to use Memorial Hermann’s hyperbaric chamber, which delivers pure, pressurized oxygen and is usually reserved for the most severe cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, Nevarez said.

Other patients have needed lower levels of care in the hospital’s emergency room. The problem has further strained busy Houston emergency rooms and illustrated what health professionals say is a lack of education about an increasingly popular piece of machinery in the storm-stricken region. While the number of carbon monoxide poisoning complaints usually increase with power outages, the Houston Health Department said the current volume stands out. Surveillance from medical facilities in Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties found 116 carbon monoxide-related visits from midnight Monday to 10:45 a.m. Thursday morning, according to data provided by the health department. “The Houston Health Department has not seen it spike so high as it did the past couple of days,” including the during the May derecho and Winter Storm Uri in 2021, said health department spokesman Porfirio Villarreal.

AUSTINI – The Austin American-Statesman reports that five years after the American-Statesman sued the University of Texas for records on students who were disciplined for violence and sexual misconduct, and two years after an appellate court ordered the records released, the school is taking its fight to withhold the information to the state Supreme Court. Set for a hearing Oct. 1, the case may decide whether public universities in Texas can protect the names of students found responsible for such offenses through campus disciplinary proceedings — and could have broader ramifications for public information access in the state, experts say. The Statesman requested the records from UT and UT-El Paso in 2019 as part of a USA Today investigation into college athletes who were able to continue playing Division I sports after being found responsible for violent, criminal or sexual misconduct.

While fewer than 40 of the 226 U.S. schools contacted by USA Today produced disciplinary records, the investigation revealed that at least 33 student-athletes had been able to transfer schools and walk onto the field sometimes just months after being charged with crimes or being found responsible for violating school policies on violence and sexual harassment or assault. The newspaper asked the schools for three pieces of information as authorized for release by the federal Family Education Records and Privacy Act, or FERPA: the name of each student found responsible for a violent offense or sexual misconduct, the violation committed and any punishment imposed. While FERPA makes most aspects of student records confidential, Congress amended the law in 1998 to allow federally funded universities to disclose those records. “If students do not know about violent offenders in their college community, how will they know how to protect themselves?” U.S. Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Pennsylvania, said during floor debate on the provision.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge in Kansas has refused to block the nationwide enforcement of a Biden administration rule requiring firearms dealers to do background checks of buyers at gun shows, leaving Texas as the only state so far where a legal challenge has succeeded.

U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse’s ruling this week came in a lawsuit brought by Kansas and 19 other states, three individual gun collectors and a Wichita, Kansas-based association for collectors. They sought an order preventing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from enforcing the rule that took effect in May through the trial of their lawsuit.

Twenty-six states with Republican attorneys general, gun owner groups and individual gun collectors filed three federal lawsuits in May against the Biden administration. The rule is an attempt to close a loophole allowing tens of thousands of guns to be sold every year by unlicensed dealers without checks to see whether buyers are legally prohibited from having firearms. It applies not only to gun shows but also to other places outside brick-and-mortar firearms stores.

Critics contend the new rule violates gun rights protected by the Second Amendment and that Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t have the legal authority to issue it. They also argue that the rule will depress gun sales, making firearms less available to collectors and costing states tax revenues.

But Crouse, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said in his ruling Wednesday that predictions of harm to the states, gun collectors and groups are too speculative and create doubts that they actually have grounds to sue. He said such doubts undermine their argument that they are likely to win their lawsuit — a key question for the courts in deciding whether to block a rule or law ahead of a trial.

“While they may ultimately succeed on the merits, they have failed to make a strong showing that they are substantially likely to do so,” Crouse wrote.

Crouse’s ruling contrasts one from another Trump appointee in Texas before the rule took effect. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk blocked its enforcement in that state and against members of four groups, including Gun Owners of America. But Kacsmaryk didn’t block it in three other states that joined Texas in its lawsuit — Louisiana, Mississippi and Utah.

Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court there, but a judge has yet to rule.

The states also sued U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the U.S. Department of Justice and the ATF’s director. The DOJ declined to comment Friday on Crouse’s ruling.

Phil Journey, one of the gun collectors involved in the Kansas case, said he doesn’t know whether Crouse’s ruling will be appealed.

“I am confident the rule and perhaps the underlying statute will ultimately be voided,” Journey, a former Kansas state senator who’s now a state district court judge in Wichita, said in a text.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach also said in a statement that he expects the rule ultimately to be struck down.

“This is a very early stage in a case that is likely to continue for a long time unless President Trump is elected and immediately rescinds the rule,” Kobach said.

In the lawsuit before Crouse, Kansas was joined by Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

The lawsuit originally was filed in federal court in Arkansas, with that state also suing. But in ruling just days after the rule took effect, U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr., an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said Arkansas had no standing to sue because its argument that it could lose tax revenue was too speculative. Moody then transferred the case to Kansas.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Actor Matthew McConaughey continued to tease he might run for political office to a room full of governors Friday, joshing about drinking his brand of tequila with at least one of them the night before and taking advice from another to be himself if he ever does run.

Whether the star known for “Dazed and Confused,” “A Time to Kill” and “True Detective” would run as a Democrat or Republican, and for what office, remained unknown. McConaughey has been vague about his political affiliation and didn’t tip his hand at the National Governors Association meeting.

“I’m on a learning tour and have been for probably the last six years,” McConaughey told New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who asked about his plans. “Do I have the instincts and intellect that it would be a good fit for me and I would be a good for it. You know, would I be useful?”

He was learning a lot at the governors’ annual summer meeting, he told Murphy.

“I learned a lot from you last night through that tequila, sir,” he kidded Murphy, who’d brought up drinking McConaughey’s tequila with him.

McConaughey took part in a panel discussion with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, about how to promote civility in politics.

Cox, the genial governor of famously polite Utah, has led a “Disagree Better” campaign to counter harsh rhetoric and combativeness in government — a project that has caught the attention of McConaughey, who’s also been outspoken about U.S. leaders practicing more respect.

The three discussed how politicians’ need to grab attention — and clicks online — drive extreme rhetoric. McConaughey said that extreme polarization has bled into Hollywood as well.

“My industry has to watch its tongue out of the gate because it’s coming from the left. We have to open that conversation with our opening statements and not invalidate a moderate or conservative at the gate, which we’re guilty of to an extent,” McConaughey remarked of actors and directors weighing in on politics.

McConaughey hinted in 2022 he might run for governor in his home state of Texas. He has meanwhile been outspoken on gun control, urging Congress from the White House after that year’s school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, to pass legislation to bolster background checks for gun purchases and raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle to 21 from 18.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, encouraged McConaughey to someday run and offered advice.

“Don’t fall into the trap to think you should be just one thing,” said Green. “A lot of Republicans will want you to be Republican and a lot of Democrats will want you to be a Democrat, just be you because that might be something special for all of us.”