County judge criticized for speaking Spanish during updates

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas county official is apologizing after criticizing a top administrator in the Houston area for speaking Spanish during a news conference about a recent fire at a petrochemical storage facility.
The Houston Chronicle reports after Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo spoke both English and Spanish during a recent news conference about the blaze, a commissioner from a neighboring county criticized her on social media for speaking Spanish.
Chambers County Commissioner Mark Tice told the newspaper, “This is the United States. Speak English.”
Tice later apologized, saying he was “not proud of my behavior.”
Hidalgo’s office says with a large number of Spanish speakers in Harris County, where Houston is located, the county judge “will continue to communicate as broadly as possible especially when public safety is at stake.”