A group of former players — including Aly Wagner and Brandi Chastain — has joined with global investment firm Sixth Street to bring a National Women’s Soccer League team to the San Francisco Bay Area.

There are so many great places to visit, but Austin, Texas, is by far one of our favorite.

Greg Abbott said Thursday that Texas is looking at when it will be able to lift all statewide orders related to the coronavirus pandemic and that an announcement is forthcoming. Abbott made the comments at a Corpus Christi news conference where he was asked when the statewide mask mandate would be ended as Texans continue to get vaccinated. Abbott called it a “great question.”“We’re working right now on evaluating when we’re gonna be able to remove all statewide orders, and we will be making announcements about that pretty soon,” Abbott said, without giving a specific time frame. In addition to the mask mandate, statewide orders that are currently in effect include a policy that rolls back business reopenings in a hospital region if its COVID-19 patients exceed 15% of capacity for seven days. He has expressed openness to reforming executive authority, while also promising that “we will not have any more shutdowns in Texas.”

Many businesses closed their doors on the strip during the spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneWith COVID-19 cases surging, Austin's mayor announced a ban on restaurants and bars serving customers on site during late night and early morning hours throughout the New Year's weekend, but Gov. Greg Abbott quickly attacked the move and said the city isn't authorized to exceed his statewide restrictions. “We are now facing our most dangerous surge,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said during a Wednesday press conference. “Today in Texas, COVID-19 represents one in five of every person hospitalized,” said Mark Escott, interim health authority and public health medical director for the City of Austin and Travis County.

As the economy faltered, so did the underpinnings of the Texas state budget that depends on taxes and fees those businesses generate. A fast drop for the Texas economy — and for the state budgetApril 8: The pandemic's impact on the Texas economy is a full-on recession, state Comptroller Glenn Hegar said. In a few places in Texas, sales tax revenues have risen in the pandemicJune 15: When Texas stores closed and social distancing began at the beginning of the pandemic, sales naturally dropped. Coronavirus spreads to the Texas state budgetJuly 22: Now that the first official estimate of the coronavirus' effect on the Texas economy is out, the hard work starts. Legislators have to figure out which parts of the state budget to cut and which parts to keep.

More than 10 states — not including Texas — have already been federally approved for additional jobless relief, providing an extra $300 or $400 in unemployment checks. Greg Abbott said he was directing the state employment agency to apply for the federal funding. Once approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the money will provide an extra $300 weekly for jobless Texans, and another $100 on top of that if Texas decides to chip in. The directive from Abbott comes as 61,416 Texans applied for unemployment relief in the week ending Aug. 15. In total, more than 3.2 million Texans have applied for jobless assistance since the coronavirus pandemic began.

But jobless Texans expecting the weekly benefit still don't know if they will receive the money. In the ensuing days, the state agency in charge of unemployment relief, the Texas Workforce Commission, has not had answers for unemployed Texans seeking the benefits. Congress passed a broad coronavirus relief package in March that added $600 to people's weekly unemployment checks. Still, the extra payments expired in late July, and the president and both parties in Congress have been unable to come up with a deal to reauthorize them. But Republicans in the Senate have pushed for a narrower proposal and have accused Democrats of holding extra payments hostage in negotiations.

Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas TribuneMore than 46,000 Texans who lost their jobs in recent months are having portions of their unemployment benefits clawed back after the Texas Workforce Commission found that they were initially overpaid. State law requires TWC to recover all unemployment benefits overpayments, Cisco Gamez, spokesperson for the state agency, said in an email. If TWC finds unemployment fraud in a case, the person has to give back the benefits and pay a 15% penalty. "We cannot pay you benefits if you have an overpayment," Gamez said. There is no statute of limitations on debts owed to the state, Gamez said on an email.