📰 MORNING NEWS BRIEF 📰
Spartan races at Twin Canyons • Literary Fest today • Sunny, 65° 👇
📆 October 17th, 2026AD
🔥 TODAY’S HEADLINES
1. 🏃 Spartan races start today
2. 🗳️ Early voting opens Monday
3. 📚 Literary Fest today
4. 💧 Odd addresses water today
5. 📈 Record 19 million Texas voters
6. 📺 PAC ad targets Talarico
7. ⚖️ DA says ICE moved witness
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🌦️ WEATHER
🌡️ The Granbury airport reported 45° and clear skies at 5:15 a.m., with a west-northwest wind at 6 mph.
☀️ TODAY: Sunny, high near 65°, north wind around 10 mph.
🌙 TONIGHT: Mostly clear, low around 43°, rising to around 45° overnight. North wind 0 to 5 mph.
⏱️ NEXT 12 HOURS: 6–9 a.m. sunny, 47° to 45° • 9 a.m.–noon sunny, 48° to 56° • noon–3 p.m. sunny, 59° to 63° • 3–6 p.m. sunny, 64° to 65°
⚠️ HAZARDS: No National Weather Service alerts are in effect for Hood County this morning. Hood County is not under a burn ban.
📅 3-DAY OUTLOOK
Sunday: sunny, 71°/47°
Monday: sunny, 76°/52°
Tuesday: sunny, 80°/56°
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🚗 TRAFFIC
🚧 Old Granbury Road remains closed at Walnut Creek for bridge construction through spring 2027, weather permitting, the City of Granbury said, citing TxDOT. Traffic is detoured to Industrial Boulevard and US 377.
🚧 No active short-term city road closures were confirmed for today. With thousands expected at the Spartan races today and Sunday, allow extra time near Twin Canyons Ranch.
🚧 Plan ahead: portions of Jones, Rucker, Crossland and Pearl streets will close Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 5:30 to 7:15 p.m. for the Granbury High School Homecoming Parade.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏛️ LOCAL LEAD
🏃 SPARTAN RACE WEEKEND BRINGS THOUSANDS TO GRANBURY
Thousands of athletes and spectators are expected in Granbury today and Sunday as the Dallas Spartan Trifecta Weekend returns to Twin Canyons Ranch for its sixth consecutive year, Hood County News reported.
The obstacle course races run from a Sprint 5K to an Ultra 50K, with a Super 10K and Beast 21K in between.
Visit Granbury said last year's event drew 12,588 adult racer registrations and 921 kids racer registrations. Previous yearly estimates put the event's economic impact at more than $3 million, the tourism group said.
"Spartan is Granbury's single largest group event in terms of economic impact," said Tammy Dooley, director of Visit Granbury. Visit Granbury will have an onsite information area during race weekend.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏛️ CIVIC WATCH
🗳️ EARLY VOTING OPENS MONDAY AT ANNEX 1
Early voting for the Nov. 3 election begins Monday, Oct. 19, and runs through Friday, Oct. 30, in the Hood County Annex 1 meeting room, 1410 W. Pearl St. in Granbury, Hood County News reported.
Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 19–23; 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24; 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25; and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 26–30.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🤝 LOCAL PRIDE
📚 FIRST HOOD COUNTY LITERARY FEST IS TODAY
The first Hood County Literary Fest runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the Hood County Senior Center, 501 E. Moore St. in Granbury, according to Visit Granbury.
Tomlinson Press is presenting the free, family-friendly event, which celebrates local authors and writers.
Visitors can meet authors at a book signing, maybe catch a reading and take home an autographed copy.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🏗️ INFRASTRUCTURE WATCH
💧 STAGE 1 WATERING: ODD ADDRESSES WATER TODAY
The City of Granbury remains in Stage 1 voluntary water conservation. Odd-numbered addresses may water on Wednesdays and Saturdays, from midnight to 10 a.m. and from 8 p.m. to midnight.
Even-numbered addresses water on Sundays and Thursdays during the same hours, according to the city's Alert Center.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEWS FROM AROUND TEXAS
📈 TEXAS VOTER ROLLS TOP RECORD 19 MILLION
Texas voter registrations hit a record high of more than 19 million ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election, The Texas Tribune reported, citing a Friday release from the Texas Secretary of State.
Registrations are up 2.2% from November 2024 and 7.7% from the November 2022 midterms. Tarrant County had 32,503 fewer registered voters than four years ago, a 2.6% drop.
The record comes after officials scrambled to process 500,000 voter applications stalled by a software error in a Texas Department of Public Safety web portal.
State officials said Wednesday that backlog has been resolved.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📺 PRO-CRUZ PAC TARGETS TALARICO IN SPANISH-LANGUAGE ADS
A super PAC that backs Sen. Ted Cruz began a seven-figure statewide Spanish-language ad buy on streaming platforms Friday targeting Democrat James Talarico, The Texas Tribune reported.
Talarico faces Republican Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate race.
Truth and Courage PAC's spot, aimed at Hispanic Christians, attacks Talarico over past comments on gender and sexuality.
Talarico has called some of his past comments on social issues "cringey" and said they missed the mark.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚖️ HARRIS COUNTY DA SAYS ICE MOVED CRASH WITNESS
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said ICE had already moved a witness more than 300 miles south to the Port Isabel detention center when his office asked to interview him, Houston Public Media reported.
The man was in the back seat of an unmarked ICE vehicle when an agent struck Miguel Parra Hernandez in northwest Houston on Oct. 10. Teare said his office sent an investigator and interviewed him.
DHS said the incident is under internal investigation and the officer involved has been suspended. A DHS spokesperson called allegations that the agent struck Parra Hernandez intentionally "reckless and false."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ BOTTOM LINE
🏃 Spartan races bring thousands to Twin Canyons Ranch today and Sunday.
🗳️ Early voting opens Monday at Annex 1 on W. Pearl.
📚 Literary Fest runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Senior Center.
☀️ Sunny today with a high near 65°.
— Hood County Express
Est’d 1/26 🚂
© 2026 Hood County Express. All Rights Reserved
HoodCountyExpress.com
