In the News

If you’d like to send a little Tricentennial cheer around the globe, the U.S. Postal Service during May will be using a special pictorial postmark to celebrate San Antonio’s 300th anniversary, available only at the Arsenal post office, 1140 S. Laredo St.

Aiming to prevent further tragedies similar to the fatal hot air balloon crash that killed 16 people near Lockhart in 2016, an Austin congressman won passage of legislation Friday in the U.S. House that would require balloon operators to obtain a medical certificate. In October, the National Transportation Safety Board had found that the Federal Aviation Administration’s refusal to require balloon operators to obtain a medical certificate contributed to the Caldwell County crash. The wide-ranging FAA bill that passed Friday includes an amendment by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, that ends the exemption. “The FAA should have corrected this long ago,” Doggett said this week as he introduced his amendment. “Now with adoption of this amendment, I am hopeful that no other family will ever suffer the same horror as this tragedy near Lockhart.”

An Austin congressman, whose district runs into parts of San Antonio, has offered up federal legislation to make hot-air balloon flights safer.

Highlights • More than 2,000 Central Texas students meet at Austin’s Wooldridge Square to rally for gun control laws. • The nationwide school walkout came on the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. • Kelsey Tasch knows she’s far more likely to die in a car accident than a school shooting.

WASHINGTON - Two San Antonio congressmen on Tuesday demanded that Attorney General Jeff Sessions answer allegations that the Justice Department is improperly rejecting candidates for immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals based on politics.

Highlights: GOP Rep. Michael McCaul and Sen. John Cornyn praise the president’s actions. Rep. Lloyd Doggett and some other Democrats say Trump should have sought congressional approval.

WASHINGTON — With tax rates falling, spending rising and deficits soaring, House Republicans dusted off a long-debated proposal on Thursday to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget — only to watch it fail.

April 11--U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, will end his 20-year political career on Capitol Hill, he announced Wednesday. Ryan said he would complete the rest of his term, which ends in January.