Tuesday
August 25, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 105° / 79°Heat Advisory today. Take the shade and the water bottle with you.
- Air quality 40 · GoodThe air is clean today; it is the heat that will get you, not the haze.
- Lake Travis 96.9% fullLake Travis is nearly full, and only slipping slowly in this heat.
- Allergies LowA little grass and ragweed in the air; most noses will not notice.
- Power grid90,500 megawattsA busy grid this afternoon, but ERCOT expects enough to go around.
- Sunrise 7:04 a.m.Just under 13 hours of daylight, and the evening walk is finally back in reach.
Good morning, Austin. The second week of school begins under a Heat Advisory that runs until Wednesday evening, with a high near 105, so the walk to the bus stop is going to feel like the walk home from it. There is one small kindness in the week ahead: a 30 percent chance of rain Thursday afternoon, which around here counts as news. At the city animal shelter the air conditioning is blowing again after ten days out, and downtown there is a new marker at Fourth and Colorado for a piece of Austin history that had been going unmarked. Fill the water bottle. Check on the dog.
The Big Story
Austin will elect a school board in November. The state will decide what it can do.
Webb and Burnet middle schools each received a fifth consecutive failing state accountability rating this month. Under a 2015 Texas law, that leaves Education Commissioner Mike Morath no discretion about whether to act in Austin ISD, a district of nearly 70,000 students — only about how. He must either close the campuses that failed or replace the district's elected trustees and superintendent with leaders of his choosing.
Austin ISD is the only district in the state this year whose continued failing grades legally demand intervention, and it arrives at that point in an odd position: the district as a whole earned a B from the state this month, up from a C. District leaders likely will not know what Morath decides until the end of the year.
Fifteen candidates are running for five seats on a board that may lose its governing authority before they are sworn in. Four of the five seats have no incumbent seeking re-election; Trustees Andrew Gonzales, Kathryn Whitley Chu, David Kauffman and Arati Singh are not running again. Incumbent Candace Hunter is, and said she is not convinced a takeover is coming, pointing to the district's improved rating.
Other candidates say the job is worth having either way. "We know from history that confronting authoritarian power with people power can lead to lasting change," said Pamela Mathai, a former teacher running for the at-large District 9 seat. "I'm not shy," said Edward Bradfield, a marketing professional running in District 4. "As long as I know what the constituents and voters expect and what they want, I am willing to get in there and fight to make that happen."
What a takeover looks like is not a hypothetical in Texas. Since 2023, seven districts — Houston and Fort Worth among them — have had Morath replace their leaders. In Houston, elected trustees now sit in the front row of the audience rather than on the dais and get a minute or two at the microphone like anyone else; they receive board agendas three days out, at the same time as the public. Two weeks after an appointed board of managers discussed school closures with them, the managers voted to close 12 schools over the elected trustees' objections. "We couldn't stop it," Houston ISD trustee Maria Benzon said. In Fort Worth, board president Roxanne Martinez learned by email that the trustees had lost their powers, hours after the state swore in a board of managers at a private ceremony; by lunchtime she had lost access to her district email.
The Texas Education Agency says the arrangement is meant to be temporary. "Ultimately, boards of managers appointments are temporary and designed to address identified issues, and once exit criteria are satisfied, elected trustees will reassume their roles and responsibilities," agency spokesperson Jake Kobersky said. State law lets the commissioner restore local control after two years if the failing campus passes for two consecutive years, and appointed managers typically serve two to six years.
Whether the intervention works is contested in the research. New Orleans and Lawrence, Massachusetts saw academic gains and higher graduation rates after takeovers. A study of takeovers in dozens of districts between 2010 and 2018 found no evidence of improvement in student reading and math up to almost a decade later, and a Brookings Institution analysis found takeovers especially harmful to achievement in predominantly Black communities. Houston's state-appointed leaders point to rising test scores and better ratings; the district has also seen teachers leave and enrollment fall.
Austin ISD tried one of the off-ramps the law allows, seeking to hand a struggling campus to the nonprofit Texas Council for International Studies. Agency officials rejected the bid, saying the group had no proven record of academic turnaround.
What's next: Austin ISD's school board election is Nov. 3; Morath's decision on intervention is expected by the end of the year.
Sources: Austin Current, The Texas Tribune
The River
40 items · grouped by beat
Roads & transit
The Austin Transit Partnership is still looking for new offices as light rail work expands, months after it declined to approve a $32 million downtown lease that Mayor Kirk Watson opposed. A decision could come in September. "The agency was not as clear, was not as transparent, and was not as open about why it was making decisions when it announced and we were going to vote on space," Watson, who is vice chair of the ATP board, said at an Aug. 19 discussion. Community Impact
A Travis County-funded feasibility study found no engineering dealbreakers for a 125 mph passenger rail line between Austin and San Antonio, County Judge Andy Brown announced Aug. 20. County documents put the project at roughly $13.5 billion, running largely on public right-of-way along SH 130 and I-10, and cutting travel time between the cities to 55 to 65 minutes. Community Impact
Two road projects around the CedarView development in north Cedar Park are due to finish by late August, the city says, timed to the Scheels opening. Signals at New Hope Drive and Enchanted Rock Drive were expected live July 30, and work at New Hope Drive and Main Street-Block House Drive is set to be done by Aug. 29. Community Impact
Public safety & courts
Hutto police arrested six men on Aug. 22 and 23 in a multi-agency operation targeting people investigators believed were seeking sexual contact with children under 15. Officers posed as decoys online and made arrests at meeting points including elementary school parking lots, parks and hotel lots. The men, aged 28 to 55, face charges ranging from online solicitation of a minor to trafficking of a child; the department did not release names because more charges are possible. "Protecting children is one of the most important responsibilities we have," Police Chief Jeffrey Yarbrough said. KXAN
The Austin Country Flea Market may not reopen after Sunday's fire, property owner Corbin Graham said. "I think the flea market is going to be rendered inoperable, but it's too early to tell," Graham said. Austin Fire Department Captain Danny Oliver said structures collapsed and will have to be rebuilt. Vendors spent Monday salvaging what they could. The Travis County Fire Marshal's Office said Monday afternoon that a cause had not been determined. CBS Austin
Vendors at the market said the loss is more than merchandise. "It's a place to gather, meet, hang out, make money," said Jason Vidal, who has been going since he was a teenager. Sheryl Worthington, who has run Coach's Turkey Leg there for more than a decade, said customers tell her they came as children with their fathers and grandfathers. "We lost stuff, people lost stuff, but we didn't lose people, and that is the most important," said Steve Worthington. KXAN
A Travis County jury convicted Victor Orellana-Carranza, 39, of murder on Aug. 18 and sentenced him to 40 years for the May 4, 2025 shooting of 15-year-old Neithan Jadiel Montenegro-Chavarria in the 5700 block of Hammermill Run in southeast Austin. Investigators said Orellana-Carranza went to the home looking for his 2-year-old son, assaulted the child's mother, left, returned with a firearm and fired at two teenagers. The district attorney's office said he confessed and tried to flee the country. CBS Austin
A Travis County jury convicted Uriel Flores-Dehuma, 44, of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 on Aug. 13 and sentenced him the next day to 25 years. The case, involving two victims, dates to a February 2021 arrest by Austin police; he was reindicted in April 2026 on that count plus aggravated sexual assault of a child, six counts of indecency with a child by contact and one by exposure. CBS Austin
The family of Francesca Ortiz, found dead outside an apartment building at the Waters at Bluff Springs in South Austin on June 17, has put up a billboard along I-35 seeking information and is offering a $5,000 reward. Detectives said video shows Ortiz walking around Building 2 around 11:45 p.m. the night before, knocking on doors. "It looks like she's either looking for someone or supposed to meet someone. The problem is we just don't know," Austin police homicide Detective Israel Pina said. FOX 7 Austin
A barn fire in the 1000 block of CR 138 near Hutto was contained around 4:55 p.m. Monday after threatening to spread, Hutto Fire Rescue said. A dog died in the fire and the barn collapsed; no civilians or firefighters were hurt. Round Rock, Pflugerville and Taylor fire departments assisted. KXAN
Bastrop County firefighters fought a brush fire in the 2800 block of FM 2104 near Paige on Monday, with the Bastrop Fire Department and Bastrop-Travis County ESD 1 assisting. The city of Bastrop said the fire was out; the county's burn ban was scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. Monday. KXAN
The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement is investigating staffing at the Leander ISD Police Department, which the district launched a year ago, and state records show nearly half the officers who started there have since left. The district placed its police chief on administrative leave during KXAN's reporting, and TCOLE confirmed it is pursuing suspension of the chief's peace officer license. The district said it has identified areas for improvement and hired an outside consultant to examine the department's culture. KXAN
Victor Martinez Nieto, detained with his 5-year-old son Liam by immigration agents in North Austin on Aug. 16 on the way to a children's soccer game, has chosen deportation to Mexico with the boy rather than risk separation, his lawyer Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said. The Department of Homeland Security said "parents have a choice if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates." Lincoln-Goldfinch said Liam's mother, who lives in Austin, was not offered that option. KUT
City Hall & county
Council Member Paige Ellis will not appear on the ballot for a third term. The city clerk rejected her petition, and her campaign said it fell 62 signatures short of the 3,044 required from qualified voters in her district. "Our campaign verified our petition against two voter files before submission, and our internal count showed a healthy cushion," the campaign said in a statement, adding that Ellis accepts the result. The clerk is scheduled to draw the ballot order at 2 p.m. Wednesday. KXAN
City Council takes up data center rules at a work session Tuesday and votes Thursday. Staff recommend adding a data center classification to the land development code, requiring compliance with environmental standards and offering no incentives; Mayor Kirk Watson and several council members recommend freezing approvals until a full policy is adopted. "We've got to start from ground zero basically and create sort of basic ground rules," said Council Member Marc Duchen. Council Member Mike Siegel said he supports a ban on large data centers but not on the small servers banks and universities run. FOX 7 Austin
Mayor Kirk Watson unveiled research and a five-year plan called Generation ATX aimed at child well-being. The study compared Austin with the 50 largest U.S. cities across 47 indicators and found Austin first or second among major Texas cities on 36 of them, but last among major U.S. cities in Medicaid, CHIP and SNAP enrollment. It also found Austin's child population has fallen by more than 17,000 in five years. United Way for Greater Austin will lead the next phase. KXAN
The city dedicated an LGBTQ+ historical marker on Aug. 21 at the southwest corner of Fourth and Colorado streets, under the Bettie Naylor Street sign and near Rain and Oilcan Harry's. The marker reads "As Queer As You Want To Be." It was directed by a 2023 council resolution and paid for from the city's historic preservation fund. The dedication followed the state-directed removal of rainbow pavement markings at the same intersection earlier this year. Community Impact
Schools
The State Auditor's Office found the Texas Education Agency's management-to-staff ratio exceeded the state requirement for large agencies — one manager per 3.5 employees, against a required 11 staff per manager — without an approved appeal, and flagged insufficient monitoring and missing documentation on state-funded grants. TEA told CBS Austin it is "the third leanest, most efficient state agency with regard to the ratio of employees to total appropriations." The audit came from a budget rider by Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, who said she wants the agency held to the standards it applies to districts. CBS Austin
San Marcos CISD received an overall C with a score of 76 in the state's 2026 ratings, the same score as last year, with five campuses rated D: Goodnight Middle School and Bowie, Mendez, Travis and De Zavala elementaries. Chief Academics Officer Twila M. Guajardo said the D ratings "do not meet our expectations" and that support is being tailored campus by campus. The board met Monday night to discuss an interim superintendent after Michael Cardona announced he will retire at the end of September. KXAN
The Hays CISD board voted 6-1 Monday to hire the law firm Thompson & Horton to help find a successor to Superintendent Eric Wright, who announced his retirement in June and will stay into February. The district adopted a 2026-27 budget on June 29 that includes $12.25 million in reductions, the elimination or restructuring of 125 positions and suspended stipends for 970 more employees. "Making sure that teachers' voices are being heard," said Keke Powell, a second-grade teacher and president of the Hays Educators Association, when asked what the next superintendent should prioritize. CBS Austin
Round Rock ISD now expects a $23.6 million shortfall for the 2025-26 year, which would leave its fund balance at $43.2 million — about 30 days of the district's approved $486.1 million in expenditures for 2026-27, against the 60 to 90 days the state's financial rating system generally rewards. Chief Financial Officer Ludivina Cansino cited higher insurance costs, legislative impacts and property tax protests. The district has projected or ended with a shortfall in each of the last six fiscal years. Community Impact
Enrollment doubled to 147 at Oak Creek Academy, a Killeen private school for students on the autism spectrum, after the state's Texas Education Freedom Accounts program began; founder Tracy Hanson said 76 percent of her students are now state-funded. State data shows 1,111 program participants live in Killeen ISD, and comptroller campus data shows 400 of them attended a Killeen ISD school last year — under 1 percent of the district's roughly 43,000 students. Killeen ISD did not respond to Nexstar's questions about the effect on its funding. KXAN
Texas A&M University-Victoria now requires full-time faculty to work in person five days and 40 hours a week, which officials say complies with Senate Bill 2615. Teresa Klein, president of Texas AAUP-AFT, wrote to university leaders Monday warning of "overcompliance or misapplication" of the law and asked that the policy be rescinded. President Christian Hardigree said students "deserve faculty who are present, accessible and fully engaged" and wrote that "flexibility is not an exemption from accountability." The Texas Tribune
Health
The Texas Third Court of Appeals dismissed a 2017 lawsuit by three Travis County taxpayers challenging Central Health's $35 million annual payments to UT's Dell Medical School, ruling the plaintiffs lacked standing and that the payments fall "squarely within" the hospital district's authority. Central Health said the opinion affirms what it has argued since the case began. Fred Lewis, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he was disappointed and plans to seek a rehearing and ultimately appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. KUT
Delta-8 THC became a Schedule I drug in Texas on July 31 after the state Supreme Court allowed a ban to take effect, and Austin police have set out how they will enforce it. APD said in a statement that a substance proven legal by its packaging will not be seized, that plant material leads to arrest or citation only within a high-priority felony narcotics case, and that extracts such as vape liquid and edibles will be seized and submitted into evidence for possible testing. Products containing delta-9 remain legal below 0.3 percent of dry weight. The Daily Texan
Business & tech
Anthropic is in talks to occupy a large data center development in the Cedar Creek area of Bastrop County, the Austin Business Journal reported, citing several sources. No agreement has been finalized. ABJ reported the artificial intelligence company has been working with BlackChamber Partners and Pacifico Energy on what has been described as a 2,842-acre gas-fired electric generation facility to support the development, and that it follows a lease the company took in Milam County. KXAN / Austin Business Journal
Scheels opens its 300,000-square-foot Cedar Park store at CedarView on Saturday, its second in Texas and 35th nationwide. The employee-owned sporting goods retailer says it has hired more than 500 people for the store, which will include more than 75 specialty shops, a 65-foot Ferris wheel and a 16,000-gallon saltwater aquarium. Grand opening events start at 7 a.m. in the parking lot at 2150 Cedarview Drive, with doors opening at 9:30. CBS Austin
Texas added 1,600 nonfarm jobs in July, reaching 14.468 million, and 165,600 over the past year, the Texas Workforce Commission said. The Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro had about 1.51 million employed residents, up 1,600 from June and 5,800 from a year earlier; its unemployment rate was 4.0 percent, down from 4.1 percent in June but above the 3.6 percent recorded in July 2025. The commission releases August data on Sept. 18. FOX 7 Austin
June 2026 was the busiest month in Austin-Bergstrom International Airport's history, with more than 2.1 million passengers, and February, March and July also set monthly records this year, according to KXAN's airport data hub. The busiest year on record remains 2023, at more than 22 million passengers; 2025 was the third-busiest at more than 21.6 million. Southwest has carried 41.9 percent of AUS passengers this year, followed by Delta at 18.9 percent. KXAN
Around town
Two kennel buildings at the Austin Animal Center went without air conditioning for ten days before the units were restored, the city said, and the system in Building H, which houses cats, then began failing. Austin Animal Services said about 80 dogs were affected after the runs lost cooling on Aug. 14, with portable units and box fans used in the meantime. The shelter, which staff say has been severely over capacity for much of two years, will waive adoption fees at a Clear the Shelter event Saturday. FOX 7 Austin
A nonprofit called the Austin STEM Center opened in northwest Austin with a community event featuring robotics demonstrations, engineering projects and a community-built Rube Goldberg machine. The facility includes a robotics arena, a makerspace, wood and metal shops and an electronics lab, and organizers said it is meant to serve students, educators, families and industry partners across Central Texas. KXAN
Picnik has reopened for a week-long soft opening with a new format: one farm-to-table meal a day, served 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with every main plate free of gluten, seed oils, refined sugar and peanuts. Founder Naomi Seifter, who started Picnik as a 150-square-foot trailer in 2013 and bought the business back in December, closed the restaurant on July 27 to make the change. "We are literally building the car as we are driving it," the restaurant wrote online. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
I wish people could do better. One little spot on Lake Travis and I filled my bag not even looking while enjoying a sliver of the lake.
Please pack out what you bring in
Texas
Attorney General Ken Paxton released a data center platform Monday in his Senate race, pledging to ban Chinese technology from U.S. data centers, hold companies criminally liable if their data centers power AI chatbots that endanger children, and repeal the industry's sales tax exemptions. He said it puts "Texas first." Paxton voted for that exemption in 2013 as a state senator; the comptroller projects it will cost $3.2 billion over two years. Democratic opponent James Talarico, who released his own plan in July, said Paxton "has taken nearly half a million dollars from the data center industry." The Texas Tribune
The Railroad Commission voted 2-1 last week to remove the guaranteed public comment item from its monthly open meetings; a commissioner must now individually request one. Commissioner Christi Craddick voted against, saying people should be able to speak at open meetings. Commissioner Wayne Christian, who introduced the policy, said it "expands opportunities for public participation" through monthly listening sessions, which commissioners do not attend. Virginia Palacios of the watchdog group Commission Shift, who registered to speak and was not called, told the commissioners: "You just approved an agenda item on public participation without allowing public participation." The Texas Tribune
Gov. Greg Abbott asked a federal judge Monday to reject Minnesota's bid to force the extradition of ICE officer Christian Castro, held in Cameron County Jail on Minnesota charges including four counts of second-degree assault. Abbott wrote that he has "serious doubts that the prerequisites for extradition have been met" because Castro appears to have returned to Texas on federal orders rather than fled. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has said Abbott's refusal "is unconstitutional and violates federal law and Texas law." Both sides were due in court in Brownsville on Tuesday. The Texas Tribune
Texas is set to receive at least $7.5 billion from the federal border reimbursement fund created in July 2025, Sen. John Cornyn told The Texas Tribune, describing an amount negotiated by Gov. Greg Abbott and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. That is three-quarters of the $10 billion available through the department. Cornyn said the money has not moved since. "It's a little maddening to feel like you're pulling teeth, but that's sort of what it feels like," he said. The application deadline was extended to mid-September. The Texas Tribune
Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Insurance on Aug. 24 to promote market competition and "prohibit excessive or unfairly discriminatory rate setting," and asked for legislative recommendations by Sept. 14. State data puts the average Texas home insurance premium at $3,506 in 2025, up from $1,791 in 2016. Rep. Gina Hinojosa, who is challenging Abbott in the Nov. 3 election, called the directive an attempt to "distract that life has gotten more expensive under him." Community Impact
Officials told a Public Utility Commission meeting on Aug. 14 that 250 to 300 projects would be eligible for the first batch of the data center audit Gov. Greg Abbott ordered on Aug. 3, which new data centers must clear before connecting to the grid. Projects have requested more than 474 gigawatts from ERCOT — over five times the 91 gigawatts of peak demand ERCOT recorded in July. UT law professor Randy Erben noted a governor's directive is not legally binding, though the governor appoints the commissioners. The Daily Texan
A grass fire about 60 miles west of Fort Worth had burned up to 10,000 acres and was 5 percent contained Monday, Palo Pinto County emergency officials said, closing part of Highway 180. There were no mandatory evacuations, though nearby residents were encouraged to leave. Matt Turner of the Texas A&M Forest Service said crews were being rotated in and out because of the heat; North Texas hit a record 109 degrees on Aug. 24. FOX 7 Austin
Sports
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said he is unsure what to make of the eligibility rules that could let a released NFL player return to college, after former Ole Miss tight end Dae'Quan Wright was expected to join LSU. "This stuff is — we are like changing every day right now," Sarkisian said. He said he would weigh any addition against the chemistry his roster has built: "Is it worth rocking that boat by bringing somebody in that isn't familiar with your program?" KXAN
River sources: Community Impact (transportation updates) · KXAN (Hutto operation) · CBS Austin (flea market owner) · KXAN (flea market vendors) · CBS Austin (40-year sentence) · CBS Austin (25-year sentence) · FOX 7 (Francesca Ortiz) · KXAN (Hutto barn fire) · KXAN (Paige brush fire) · KXAN (Leander ISD police) · KUT (deportation) · KXAN (Paige Ellis) · FOX 7 (data center rules) · KXAN (Generation ATX) · Community Impact (historical marker) · CBS Austin (TEA audit) · KXAN (San Marcos CISD) · CBS Austin (Hays CISD) · Community Impact (Round Rock ISD) · KXAN (Killeen private school) · The Texas Tribune (A&M-Victoria) · KUT (Central Health) · The Daily Texan (THC enforcement) · KXAN / Austin Business Journal (Bastrop data center) · CBS Austin (Scheels) · FOX 7 (Texas jobs) · KXAN (AUS data hub) · FOX 7 (Animal Services) · KXAN (Animal Center AC) · KXAN (STEM Center) · Community Impact (Picnik) · The Texas Tribune (Paxton platform) · The Texas Tribune (Railroad Commission) · The Texas Tribune (extradition) · The Texas Tribune (border reimbursement) · Community Impact (home insurance) · The Daily Texan (data center audit) · FOX 7 (Palo Pinto fire) · KXAN (Sarkisian)
Weather
Today: sunny, with a high near 105 and heat index values as high as 107, on a south wind around 5 mph. Alerts: a Heat Advisory for Travis County runs until 7 p.m. Wednesday. Tonight: mostly clear, with a low around 79 and heat index values as high as 106. Next few days: mostly sunny and near 105 Wednesday with a heat index as high as 109, then a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms Thursday with a high near 102, and a 20 percent chance Friday with a high near 100. National Weather Service
KXAN says the summertime heat dome will shift west later this week, opening the door to isolated to spotty showers Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with Thursday the best and last chance for rain. Coverage and accumulation look minimal, and the month closes hot and dry with highs near 100 Saturday and Sunday. KXAN
Looking further out, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center expects above-average temperatures across nearly all of the United States from September through November, with the highest odds shifting away from Texas toward the Northwest. Most of Texas is forecast to see near-average precipitation; only the Panhandle, Big Bend and far West Texas have better odds of above-average rain. The center says a very strong El Niño is a near certainty this fall and winter. FOX 7 Austin
Weather sources: National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio · KXAN (forecast) · FOX 7 (fall outlook)
11 days until Texas football · Texas State at DKR, Sept. 5, 2:30 p.m.
A new nonprofit STEM center opened in northwest Austin this week, and the thing they built to show it off was not a robot or a rocket but a Rube Goldberg machine, assembled by whoever showed up. It is the most Austin possible way to demonstrate an electronics lab: gather the neighbors, hand them some parts, and let a marble take the long way around.