Thursday
September 10, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 100° / 78°Triple digits again, and the heat index runs seven degrees past that.
- Air quality 26 · GoodClean air today, which makes it the one easy part of going outside.
- Lake Travis 93.4% fullStill close to full and down only a little from last week. Boats are fine.
- Power grid NormalDemand peaks near 86,500 megawatts this afternoon with 103,700 on hand.
- Sunrise 7:12 a.m.Twelve and a half hours of daylight, and the evenings keep quietly shrinking.
Good morning, Austin. The hundred is back, and the heat index will push it to 107, which is the kind of number that turns a parking lot into a decision. A few showers may bubble up late this afternoon, though most of us will watch them happen to somebody else. The sun came up at 7:12 and goes down at 7:42, and there is a little less of it every day now. Levitation starts tonight on Red River, so somewhere between the office and your front door there is a version of this evening that involves standing in a dark room listening to something very loud. Saturday will be hotter still. Drink water like it is your job.
The Briefing
The mayor's plan puts the takeover fight in parents' hands
Mayor Kirk Watson asked parents at Burnet and Webb middle schools this week to petition the state to close their own campuses. The ask is strange. Both schools drew a fifth straight failing rating from the Texas Education Agency in August, which under state law obliges Commissioner Mike Morath to act. He can close the campuses, or he can replace the elected board of the Austin Independent School District (Austin ISD) with appointees. Watson's argument is that a parent petition takes the second option off the table. The district has until Friday to appeal the ratings.
Two other things are true about the district those parents are being asked to save. Its buildings keep failing in the heat — Kealing Middle School has been fighting a broken chiller since last Thursday, the fourth campus with air conditioning trouble since Aug. 27. And it is $205 million into a round of cuts that took $1 million from Communities in Schools. Nonprofits are now raising what the budget no longer covers.
Parents at Webb answered the mayor in public. "Can the mayor make that statement in Spanish?" the campus parent-teacher association wrote.
What's next: Austin ISD's deadline to appeal the two preliminary ratings is tomorrow, Sept. 11.
Sources: Austin Current (the proposal, the ratings, the parents), KUT (the petition deadlines and Watson's own words), KVUE (Kealing), Austin Current (the cuts and the nonprofits)
City Desk
Money & bills
School property taxes on the average Texas home fell to $896 last year from $1,037 in 2024, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt told a Senate committee on Sept. 1. Community Impact
Homeowners over 65 or with a disability saw the average bill fall to $380 from $565, Bettencourt said; his office surveyed appraisal districts in all 254 counties. Community Impact
Austin's active short-term rental listings dropped nearly 26% from August 2025, and the average daily rate fell 25% to $215 a night, AirDNA data shows. CBS Austin
Overheard on Reddit
Austin Girlies ~ Nail Salon Rant/ Recommendations
Is anyone else fed up with the prices of manicures and pedicures? I just got a gel pedicure set and was charged $98. It was a $16 up charge because I got gel. And lo and behold the quality isn’t even that impressive. I am SO over these prices. Do any of y’all have any recommendation on nail salons near oak hill & Central C where the quality of the nails are great and the prices are a bit more affo
Public safety & courts
Two children were taken from a Ben White crash in critical condition
Austin police shut the northbound Interstate 35 service road at Woodward Street, near East Ben White Boulevard, after a crash called in about 7:40 a.m. Wednesday. Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services took two children to hospitals in critical condition and an adult with serious injuries that were not life-threatening. A county air rescue helicopter also responded. The intersection with westbound Ben White closed as well. KXAN
Also
Austin police charged John Vincent Stoker, 37, with murder in the Feb. 21 shooting of Joshua Baker, 44, who was found dead outside an apartment complex on East Rundberg Lane. KXAN
Attorneys argued Wednesday over the capital murder conviction of Michael Highfill, who is serving life for the 1998 death of Luis Flores in northeast Travis County. KXAN
The Texas Defender Service, which sought the hearings, argues Highfill's constitutional rights were violated at trial; he is not eligible for parole until 2038. KXAN
University of Texas at Austin police said Colton Banks was arrested again on Sept. 8 in the 2200 block of San Gabriel Street, accused of peeping into West Campus windows. CBS Austin
Growth & infrastructure
Lake Austin drops 10 feet next month, and the boat businesses found out in August
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) will lower Lake Austin about a foot a week from Oct. 12 until it sits 10 feet down, refilling by Nov. 30. The city asked for the drawdown, and shoreline owners get exposed lakebed for repairs and dredging. Owners of boat rentals and lakeside restaurants say seven weeks was not enough warning for a fall that carries Austin City Limits, Formula 1 and football. KXAN
Also
Winter drawdowns ended after Winter Storm Uri so the Highland Lakes dams could supply the grid, and spring water demand rules out March and May, Austin Watershed Protection's Liz Johnston said. KXAN
A May agreement may exempt Dog's Head from a data center ban
City Council has begun banning data centers inside the city limits, but the development agreement it approved with Endeavor Real Estate Group on May 21 binds the 2,600-acre Dog's Head tract east of downtown to the rules in force that day. A city spokesperson told the Chronicle that the agreement's Exhibit B "includes uses that currently allow for data centers." Austin Chronicle
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport has more than a dozen projects under way, among them a $165 million West Gate expansion whose new gates have opened. CBS Austin
Southwest Airlines said on Sept. 2 that it will open a lounge at Austin-Bergstrom in late 2027, one of its first four; construction has already started. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
Dangerous drivers lately, why?
Today alone I encountered 8 folks straight up just take solid red lights, not yellow turning red. I mean solid red for at least 5-8 seconds red and folks just taking them like they were green. Why? Do people not understand how traffic lights work? Also 4 of those vehicles were teslas… I have a dash cam and seriously thinking about having a bad drivers in Austin page and just shame them at this poi
City Hall & county
City Council unanimously passed a resolution on Aug. 27 from District 2 Council Member Vanessa Fuentes directing staff to draft mold inspection and remediation rules for rental housing. The Daily Texan
People living outside with pets have few options at the city's cooling centers: Austin Public Library admits only service animals, two years after a city commission recommended allowing companion animals. KXAN
Schools
Watson asks Burnet and Webb parents to petition to close their schools
The mayor's proposal, released Wednesday, would have parents of a majority of students at either campus ask Commissioner Mike Morath to close it, which state law generally requires him to grant. Watson wants the district to then open a new school that keeps each community together. Parents must file by Oct. 15, and the superintendent forwards a validated petition by Dec. 1. Austin Current
Overheard on Reddit
Kealing Middle School been w/o AC for weeks.
My daughter is a student there. Several parents continue to put in service orders and contact district to no avail. Papers are drenched and the kids smelllll. Come on public education! We can do better!!! Editing to say our principal and school staff are amazing. This is absolutely a AISD/Matias Segura issue.
Also
Kealing Middle School's chiller failed last Thursday and crews were installing a new pump on Wednesday, Principal Timothy Estes told families. KVUE
Austin Ed Fund, the district's philanthropic partner, awarded $350,000 this month for 48 teacher-led projects covering sustainability studies, literacy growth and student incentives. Austin Current
The University of Texas at Austin will lead a National Science Foundation center on how people and robots adapt to each other, funded at $6 million a year for five years. The Daily Texan
Business & street life
Levitation comes back to Red River tonight
The independent festival runs Thursday through Sunday at Far Out Lounge, Stubb's, Mohawk, 13th Floor, 29th Street Ballroom, Elysium, Hotel Vegas and Central Presbyterian Church. It spent last year at the Palmer Events Center and returns to Red River with Far Out as its hub. Bikini Kill, Die Spitz and Sleep headline. Festival Director Rob Fitzpatrick said this year leans heavier and darker. KXAN
Also
Studio Hill Austin, a recording studio on Hennig Drive founded by Grammy winner Sangeeta Kaur, opened Wednesday after three years in the works. KXAN
Overheard on Reddit
Chill Barton Evening 🤙
Enjoying the clearer water now that crowds are dying down 🏊
Thousands filled the Palmer Events Center on Saturday for the second ThrillerCon Austin, a vintage clothing and collectibles market with hundreds of vendors from around Texas. The Daily Texan
Overheard on Reddit
Some picture I took of your beautiful city on my trip from Vancouver Canada
I’m not the greatest photographer however I really like the architecture of the city. It is also very clean and everyone I’ve met has been so nice!
Weather
Today: mostly sunny, high near 100, with heat index values as high as 107. South wind 0 to 5 miles per hour. No active alerts for Travis County. Tonight: partly cloudy, low around 78. Friday reaches 100, Saturday 102 and Sunday 100. National Weather Service
A handful of showers and weak storms should return late this afternoon, KXAN's forecasters said, with most areas staying dry and a lucky few picking up a few hundredths of an inch. Coverage falls below 10% Saturday and Sunday, and heat index values run 5 to 6 degrees above the air temperature into next week. KXAN
The Back Page
25 days until the voter registration deadline · Texans must be registered by Oct. 5 to vote in the Nov. 3 election; early voting runs Oct. 19 through Oct. 30.
At a table inside Epoch Coffee, two people in neon pink T-shirts are handing out cardboard boxes of warm-weather first aid kits — socks, snacks, sunscreen — and asking whoever walks past to carry one to somebody sleeping outside. One man on his way out took six. They belong to Street Medics Austin, a mutual aid nonprofit of 50 to 70 volunteers, many of them University of Texas students, some with medical training and some who simply showed up. Carissa Stephens, a pediatric nurse, heads the outreach team; the group has been at this since 2020. "The truth is that the more people that know how to save a life in an emergency, the better we are and the stronger we are as a community," said executive director Matthew Blaney. Austin Chronicle