TV Anchor Leaving

Hotshot KHOU anchor is leaving Houston to go national: First since Dan Rather to make the big jump

Vicente Arenas — the weekend news anchor and weekday reporter for KHOU Channel 11 — is leaving the Houston CBS affiliate to join the network as a national correspondent in Miami.

Arenas, who started working at KHOU in 2003, will leave in one week and will begin his new job in Miami on March 17.

He will be the first KHOU anchor to go directly to CBS News as a national correspondent since Dan Rather left the station in 1961.

"We are so proud of Vicente and so happy that he'll still be in the family, reporting to the CBS Evening News and all the network's news broadcasts," stated an internal KHOU memo, according to the Chronicle.

CBS News president David Rhodes told Broadcasting & Cable that there was a vacancy at the network's Miami bureau which CBS wanted to fill with a reporter who was fluent in Spanish.

"We wanted someone who had Spanish-language ability," Rhodes said. "That was really a prerequisite for us. It is a bilingual city and part of this for CBS is about regional coverage."

Prior to his time at KHOU, Arenas worked at WOAI in San Antonio as the weekday morning anchor and consumer reporter and at KTRK Channel 13, primarily as a crime reporter.

Arenas, who has lived in Houston since 1998, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in journalism.

Arenas will be the first KHOU anchor to go directly to CBS News as a national correspondent since Dan Rather.

Vicente Arenas KHOU Facebook

Arenas will be the first KHOU anchor to go directly to CBS News as a national correspondent since Dan Rather.

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Who Are You?

Texas DPS reveals new driver license and ID card designs

dps.texas.gov

The new cards are meant to be harder to reproduce and easier to read.

Just three months after the federal deadline for international travelers from the U.S. to have Real IDs, Texans have a new ID design to get used to. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) launched its new driver license and identification card designs August 18. However, Texans need not rush to the DMV; their current cards are fine until they expire.

Texas DPS says the new cards have both a new look and enhanced security.

“The way driver licenses are made can make a big difference in terms of public safety,” said DPS Driver License Division chief Sheri Gipson in the official rollout announcement. “This new card design will make it even more difficult for criminals to produce counterfeit cards, and it enhances ways we can protect Texans’ identities from being stolen.”

The announcement explains that the new cards are made of tamper-resistant polycarbonate material. It complies with standards maintained by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), and is difficult to reproduce.

Additionally, the gold star in the upper right corner that denotes Real ID compliance will now be black. It'll also laser-engraved.

The personal information included on the card will also be rearranged, which Texas DPS says features an "easy-to-read format for identification and verification purposes." Those changes include bringing up the date of birth to share the first line with the drivers license number, making the issuance and expiration dates larger, moving the organ donor symbol, and more.

The art behind the text on the card is also different, most notably focusing on the Texas State Seal, adding horses, and removing the immediately recognizable Texas flags for a more flowing depiction.

Texans who missed the news about the rollout of the Real ID, a card made with federally mandated standards, probably don't have to worry about getting one. Texas was already 98 percent compliant a month before the May deadline because newly issued cards have implemented the standards since 2016.

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