Eyes on Texas: Mammoth Screens and Criminal Goats

A roundup of news, columns and features about the state, from media around the world.

USA Today notes that, once again, everything is bigger in Texas. Nate Ryan reported earlier this week that Texas Motor Speedway will unveil a 108-ton HD video board next season. The behemoth television screen, nicknamed “Big Hoss,” will be 218 feet wide and 94.5 feet tall and be able to display 281 trillion colors on almost 4.8 million pixels. The screen will cover 20,600 square feet, eclipsing a 16,000-square-foot screen at Charlotte Motor Speedway, built two years ago. It will be 79 percent larger than the screen at the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium.

A Fort Worth woman’s 911 call about goats in her backyard has become a web hit, according to the New York Daily News. Sharon Dyer called animal control after noticing two goats eating plants and destroying property in her backyard, but was then transferred to a 911 operator. Cops eventually turned up with the goats’ owner, who took Savannah and Willie home and promised to replace the damaged foliage.

While U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s 21-hour speech against Obamacare on Tuesday has been a hot topic, it isn’t the first time this week that the Texas Republican senator has been in the national spotlight. National Journal reports that 71 percent of Americans, according to the House GOP leadership’s pollster, are against “shutting down the government as a way to defund the president’s health care law.”  Cruz has stood behind the claim that the American people are against the Affordable Care Act, though the possibility that his approach could lead to a government shutdown has been unpopular, even in his own party.