[17th Miss Regt]

Attempt to smear Texas and their governor...

[Angelino97]

This is the Daily Mail, so I doubt they intended to smear Texas. It's just background info, a common journalistic practice.

The DM especially has a habit of expanding its stories with biographical details to provide color. The DM article on Anne Heche's crash has lots of info about her childhood and past romances and marriages, though that has nothing to do with the crash.