SUNRISER:...Colder Winter Coming, Your Cowboys Stink, Covid Test Kids, Government Shutdown, Etc., Etc...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | It used to be that our weekends were usually slow news days, Saturdays and Sundays left for outings, football and that so-called downtime. Not anymore, though. News comes hard and heavy every day of the week, Sundays, too. If it's not our politicians in continuing silliness, it's a killer hurricane or breathless words that the U.S. has been "invaded" by billions of immigrants.

We're on station, as we used to say in the U.S. Navy.

Here, then, is our second installment of Monday Sunriser, a regular feature offering a synopsis of the weekend's news and perhaps a bit of what's to come in the next few days.

Read'em and weep, baby. It's either good news or bad news, little in between unless you go to the fashion and Hollywood magazines.

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Your Dallas Cowboys flew over to Arizona and flew back as losers. Looks like the annual, late-season fold has begun earlier this season for Da Boys.

This from the Arizona Republic: [ It’s always a fight in the NFL, but the Cardinals were supposed to be the 98-pound weakling on the beach that got sand kicked in his face by the bullying behemoth, the visiting Dallas Cowboys.

Instead, the Cardinals flipped the tables and despite being listed as 13-point underdogs, kept sticking to the Cowboys all afternoon before securing an improbably 28-16 victory at State Farm Stadium.

The Cardinals had lost 14 of their last 15 games at home dating back to 2021. ]

Super Bowl this year for the Cowboys, you're saying?

Keep dreaming...

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Busted in Pharr. Yeah, far out.

Former Pharr Police Department chief Andy Harvey, shown in photo above, has been arrested for allegedly making a silent abusive call to 911 and resisting arrest.

Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center records indicate Harvey was booked on Sunday on a charge of resisting arrest, search or transport and silent abusive call/electronic communication to the 911 service.

No other information about the allegations were immediately available.

We'll monitor this for the next few days and see what this is all about. Until then, picture smalltown Pharr as just another McAllen suburb...

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Starting today, Americans can order four free COVID-19 tests from the government with the reopening of the Biden administration's at-home testing program.

The program's relaunch comes as COVID hospitalizations have continued creeping up, passing 20,000 for the first time since March this month, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC's COVID data tracker found 2.7% of all deaths in the U.S. were linked to COVID-19 for the week of Sept. 10-16, which is a 12.5% increase from the week before.

Since the expiration of the public health emergency in May, many insurers stopped covering the cost of COVID tests. The government's program has been unavailable since June 1.

The Biden administration said it's previously provided more than 755 million at-home tests through its partnership with USPS.

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That threatening government shutdown got you worried. Well, if you're thinking Social Security check, don't worry - it'll still be mailed to you. Food stamps? Yeah, worry about those.

With less than a week before a potential government shutdown and no clear resolution in sight, lawmakers are split on whether the country should brace for the wide-ranging impacts of a shutdown.

In the House, where most of the fight over government spending has been taking place, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has struggled to unite House Republicans behind a deal as conservative hardliners block almost all of McCarthy’s attempts at avoiding a shutdown.

As a result, some GOP lawmakers have resigned themselves to the government closing its doors, given how little time is remaining for lawmakers to meet their deadline and the ongoing turmoil that has engulfed the House.

What are local congressmembers saying about this - anything?

No, nothing from District 15s Monica De La Cruz.

And nothing, no, from District 34s Vicente Gonzalez. 

Oh, well...

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That summer of 2023 beat you down, lad? Well, hang on to your cheap, fake-leather jacket, 'cause the weatherboys are predicting a colder-than-usual winter for South Texas.

This from cnn.com: [ Fall has only just begun, but it’s not too soon to look ahead to winter, especially since this one may look drastically different than recent years because of El Niño.

This winter will be the first in a few years to feel the effects of the phenomenon, which has a sizable impact on the weather during the coldest months of the year.

El Niño is one of three phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which tracks water temperature changes in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that can have rippling effects on weather patterns around the globe. The El Niño phase occurs when these ocean temperatures are warmer than normal for an extended period. ]

We can't wait. And we know you can't wait, either.

Just hang on for a few more weeks, like three...

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The Daily Beatdown - Miami murdered Denver 70-20 on Sunday in a wild game that had the sluggish, give-up Broncos looking very much like the woeful Lopez High School eleven.

Maybe it was the humid Southern Florida heat that drained the Rocky Mountain boys. Or maybe the Denver club felt a bit down after not getting an invite to Mar-A-Lago.  

70 to 20 should never happen in professional football. True, the unbeaten Dolphins were on fire.

I mean, aren't these guys pros?

Not every Sunday, as the dog-ass Cowboys also proved...  

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Guess what day tomorrow is?

Yepper.

Taco Tuesday...

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