Wednesday
August 26, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 104° / 80°Heat Advisory today. Take the shade and the water bottle with you.
- Air quality 40 · GoodClear air. A great day to be outside.
- Lake Travis 96.8% fullThe lake is close to full — good for boats and for the summer water supply. Down a touch from last week.
- Allergies LowA little grasses and ragweed around — most noses won't notice.
- Power grid90,600 megawattsA busy grid this afternoon, but ERCOT expects enough to go around.
- Sunrise 7:04 a.m.The sun is up for 12 hours and 56 minutes today, and down by 8:00 p.m.
Good morning, Austin. There is rain in the forecast — not today, but Thursday, and after eleven straight days in the triple digits the mere mention of it counts as a mood. Today is another 104 under a Heat Advisory that lifts at seven tonight. Give yourself extra time on the drive in: northbound MoPac was closed at 45th Street early this morning after a fatal crash. And people here are trading Dolly Parton stories today. She died Tuesday at 80, and her Austin history is longer than you might expect — it is down in the River, four decades of it.
The Big Story
Three Central Texas governments have switched off their license plate cameras this month
Pflugerville covered its Flock Safety license plate reader cameras and switched the system off on Tuesday, hours before a City Council meeting at which, CBS Austin reported, the council did not approve a new contract with the company. It is the third Central Texas jurisdiction in three weeks to step back from the technology.
The city's contract with the Atlanta-based company ended July 31, and the cameras stayed on while Pflugerville negotiated an extension. A vote on a two-year, $175,000 renewal was delayed earlier this month after residents raised questions about how the data is shared.
What changed in between was a records request. Pflugerville resident Sam Aly obtained the city's Flock audit records under the Texas Public Information Act and reviewed 179 days of them beginning Feb. 26. By his count, the city made 5,078 requests for information in that period while outside agencies made about 1.5 million requests involving a network that included Pflugerville cameras — roughly 295 outside requests for every one the city made. CBS Austin noted the records do not by themselves show whether every outside request returned data captured by Pflugerville's cameras.
The figures reported differ. Council Member Jonathan Coffman, working from the same records, said 459 outside organizations ran nearly 1.6 million searches on a network that included Pflugerville's cameras over six months, some of them hundreds of miles away and outside Texas, against the 78 organizations listed on Flock's own site, all of them in Texas. CBS Austin reported that nearly 380 unauthorized agencies had access and quoted Coffman saying 80 agencies had approved access while a report found more than 450 tapped in. The camera count differs too: CBS Austin puts the city's fleet at 28, while FOX 7 Austin reported Flock lists 32 connected to the police department.
Coffman said a city staff investigation found the system had been configured to block the statewide and national sharing officials had been told was switched off. "It happened anyway. Our settings said one thing. The system appears to be doing something else," he wrote, adding that he did not believe anyone working for the city misconfigured a setting or hid anything from the council or the public.
Flock says its customers hold the controls. "Customers control their own sharing settings through the Flock platform," the company said in a statement to CBS Austin. "These sharing relationships are opt-in and can be changed or revoked by the agency at any time." In a CBS News interview earlier this month, founder and chief executive Garrett Langley said of concerns about misuse: "We listen, and we learn, and we'll continue to move forward because until everyone has an equal level of safety in this country, we have work to do."
The case for the cameras sits on the city's own transparency dashboard. Between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, the Pflugerville Police Department says Flock cameras supported 333 arrests and helped recover 219 stolen cars. Mayor Doug Weiss, who told KXAN this month that "there's a level of safety that Flock provides," said Tuesday that the city's focus is resident safety. He and Coffman said there is no rush to bring in a replacement vendor.
The retreat is regional. On Aug. 5 the Burnet County Sheriff's Office said all fixed Flock cameras in the county had been taken down at Sheriff Calvin Boyd's direction, citing resident concerns; two had been vandalized beforehand. Days later the Lago Vista City Council voted unanimously to remove that city's cameras after a petition drive by residents. On Aug. 13, Flock announced changes to its safeguards: a seven-day default retention period for license plate data, misuse detection required for every customer and case codes required for searches.
What's next: Pflugerville's cameras stay off and covered until the City Council gives further direction; Coffman said he will call for all of the city's Flock contracts to be cancelled and for other surveillance technology to be suspended in the meantime.
Sources: KXAN, CBS Austin (council meeting), CBS Austin (audit records), FOX 7 Austin, KXAN (Flock overhaul), KXAN (Burnet County), KXAN (Lago Vista)
The River
36 items · grouped by beat
Roads & transit
A person riding a scooter on northbound MoPac was struck by a vehicle and died at the scene early Wednesday, Austin-Travis County EMS said. Austin police shut all northbound lanes at 45th Street and directed traffic to exit there. KXAN
Austin police are investigating the death of a pedestrian struck on the westbound State Highway 71 ramp to northbound US 183 on Aug. 20. The driver stayed at the scene, was not impaired and cooperated, APD said. Police counted it as Austin's 52nd fatal crash and 52nd traffic death of 2026; by the same date last year the city had recorded 66 fatal crashes and 70 deaths. KXAN
Drivers on Congress Avenue lost the left turn onto Second Street this week and one southbound lane between Second and Third, as the Congress Avenue Urban Design Initiative moves up the street block by block. Two northbound lanes stay open and sidewalks remain passable. Crews work 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; the project runs to summer 2027. KXAN
Austin Water will start work next week on Riverside Drive near Auditorium Shores, installing 2,800 feet of 24-inch reclaimed water pipeline from South First Street to Lee Barton Drive. About 650 feet goes in by directional drilling and the rest by open trench. Construction is expected to last two years. FOX 7 Austin
The Texas Senate Transportation Committee spent three hours Tuesday on autonomous vehicles and heard few complaints. The Department of Motor Vehicles has taken 42 complaints about more than 1,500 registered driverless vehicles since reporting reforms took effect at the end of May; three were dismissed as off-topic. "This is quite a success Texas has led because this effort will be commonplace in 10 years," said Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston. KXAN
A right-lane exit ramp from northbound SH 195 to Ronald Reagan Boulevard has opened in Williamson County, giving drivers direct access where they previously had to use a turn lane and cross the southbound lanes. The Texas Department of Transportation led the $3.6 million project, paid for from the 2019 county road bond. Three more ramps connecting the two roads are expected to start construction in late 2027. Community Impact
Public safety & courts
Federal prosecutors have filed about 40 gun-related cases in the Austin area in recent months, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas said, working with local agencies and the Travis County District Attorney's Office. Charges include felon in possession, drug trafficking and illegal machine gun possession, carrying minimum sentences of 10, 15 and 30 years. "It's much easier for us to detain someone pending trial a lot of times than it is on the state side," U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said. KXAN
Austin police arrested Kario Antoine Caldwell, 29, on Aug. 20 and charged him with first-degree murder in the September 2021 killing of Charles Wayne Roberts, 67, at a tent encampment near East Riverside Drive and South Pleasant Valley Road. An arrest warrant affidavit describes gloves and two fired casings recovered at the scene. Court records do not yet show an attorney for Caldwell. KXAN
The FBI's Austin-area office says cryptocurrency investment fraud is growing quickly here, part of more than $11 billion in reported national losses. The special agent in charge described a pattern that starts on a dating site or social platform and ends with victims sending cryptocurrency to a wallet the fraudsters control, then paying invented cash-out fees. KXAN
Travis County fire leaders held a briefing Tuesday on wildfire conditions as the county's burn ban stays in effect. Travis County ESD 1 Fire Chief Donnie Norman deployed to the Palo Pinto County fire as a strike team leader, joining eight other county wildland firefighters already there. "This isn't the time to take chances, and we know that most wildfires are preventable," County Judge Andy Brown said. Chiefs said elevated risk should last into mid or late September. FOX 7 Austin
A federal judge in San Antonio ordered the release of a 19-year-old Austin woman held in immigration detention for about two months and separated from her 8-month-old son, ruling the government violated the constitution by detaining her without a hearing. ICE released her Tuesday. She was picked up after Travis County prosecutors dismissed an assault charge filed when she called Austin police alleging her boyfriend was abusing her. ICE argued the arrest created "exceptional circumstances." KUT
City Hall & county
Austin City Council votes Thursday on a resolution starting work on data center rules, with staff proposing standards for smaller facilities and a majority of members opposing large ones outright. "We all want to make sure we end up with a framework that creates legal, durable and enforceable rules that protect quality of life issues," Mayor Kirk Watson said Tuesday. Utilities have identified at least 10 data centers in Austin today, each using 20 megawatts or less. Community Impact
The Austin Parks and Recreation Department will end all adult indoor sports leagues on Oct. 1, a cut approved by City Council in the fiscal 2027 budget that removes two programming positions and saves an estimated $400,000. Players who pay $350 a season packed a Monday board meeting to object. "These leagues are much more than just a game," said a participant identified as Lester. The department said it is looking at ways to "reimagine" adult sports. FOX 7 Austin
City Council voted at its Aug. 12 budget meeting to move 911 operations out of the Austin Police Department and into a new Office of Joint Emergency Communications, shifting $675,000 from APD's budget. "The creation of the Joint Emergency Communications department is an opportunity to improve how Austin coordinates and responds when residents call for help," said Council Member Zohaib Qadri. Austin Police Association president Michael Bullock said the change adds "more layers of bureaucracy." The Daily Texan
Austin Parks and Recreation begins repairs Sept. 8 on the 1917 stone retaining wall along the eastern edge of Barton Springs Pool, where the city says five sections show signs of structural failure from tree and vegetation growth. Thirty-seven trees will be removed and not replanted. The pool keeps normal hours; work runs in phases into early 2027. CBS Austin
Hays County commissioners voted Tuesday to accept a petition that moves a proposed countywide hospital district toward a May ballot, after hours of debate over whether the signatures met requirements. Officials eventually verified at least 100 signatures gathered by County Judge Ruben Becerra. "We did this backwards, this is not how it's supposed to go," Commissioner Michelle Cohen said. Other district items were tabled. KXAN
A state law passed last year has made it much harder for Austin neighbors to block new housing. House Bill 24 gutted a Jim Crow-era rule under which a petition from nearby property owners forced a city council supermajority to approve a project. A 64-unit development on South Austin Christian Church's Travis Heights land drew a petition signed by 29 property owners and was approved anyway. The Texas Tribune
Schools
Austin ISD's kindergarten vaccination rates rose above 97 percent for every state-required shot in 2025-26, up more than 20 percent for some required shots from a year earlier, when all but Hepatitis B sat below 80 percent. The district's exemption rate is 3.22 percent. Alana Bejarano, AISD's executive director of health services, credited in-house nursing, campus clinics and nighttime clinics. National kindergarten measles coverage slipped to 92.4 percent. KUT
Thirty of the 31 Austin ISD campuses that received a D or F in the state's 2025-26 ratings are Title I schools, and most sit east of Interstate 35, Austin Current found. District data also shows the number of Title I campuses rated D or F fell 36 percent between 2024 and 2026, and 16 Title I schools earned an A or B this year, double the number two years ago. Austin Current
Austin Community College expects more than 44,000 students this fall, up 6 percent from last year and nearly 17 percent from two years ago. More than 14,000 are enrolled through the free-tuition program the board approved for high school graduates and GED completers starting with the class of 2024, a 40 percent increase over last fall. Advanced manufacturing enrollment is up about 21 percent. KXAN
Lake Travis ISD trustees adopted a tax rate of $1.0329 per $100 of valuation on Aug. 19, down from $1.0397 and the lowest in district history, though it will still raise more money than last year: the district says a rate of $1.0113 would have generated the same revenue. Taxable values are projected to rise about 3 percent. Community Impact
Lake Travis ISD had the highest-paid Austin-area superintendent in 2025-26 at $483,116 and Pflugerville ISD the highest average teacher pay at $69,917, according to Texas Education Agency data compiled by Community Impact across 15 districts. Bastrop ISD was among the three lowest for both superintendent and teacher pay. Community Impact
Health
More than 500,000 people in Central Texas — just over 17 percent of the region — were food insecure in 2024, according to Feeding America's Map the Meal Gap study released this summer. Rates ranged from 14.6 percent in Williamson County to 19.9 percent in Caldwell County. More than 40 percent of food-insecure Central Texans do not qualify for SNAP. Statewide, more than 6 million Texans are food insecure, the highest total of any state. KXAN
A Texas House subcommittee heard testimony Tuesday that the state's death investigation system needs updating, focusing on the law requiring a medical examiner's office only in counties above 2.5 million people. Elsewhere, elected justices of the peace rule on cause and manner of death. House Speaker Dustin Burrows put the question on lawmakers' interim study list ahead of the session that begins in January. KXAN
Business & tech
Vendors left without a storefront when Painted Tree Boutiques closed all its locations nationwide in April have opened their own. More than 60 of them now lease space at Austin Style Boutiques at the Shops at Volente near Anderson Mill and RM 620. "A lot of the vendors that do this for a living, they didn't have a place to stay," said co-owner Koda Johnson, whose booth lasted nine days at Painted Tree. FOX 7 Austin
The Austin metro ranked ninth on Indeed's 2026 Best U.S. Cities for Work, which scores metros above 200,000 people on job opportunity, pay, job quality, career mobility and work-life balance. Austin placed fifth for compensation and seventh for work-life balance and flexibility. Texas Workforce Commission data shows about 1.42 million nonfarm jobs in the metro in July, up 1.7 percent year over year. CBS Austin
The Texas Animal Health Commission issued an emergency order Monday requiring Mexican-origin cattle entering Texas to carry radio frequency identification, an electronic certificate of veterinary inspection and a Texas entry permit, even if they first enter the U.S. through a port in another state. New World screwworm has affected Mexico since November 2024. The order stands until modified. FOX 7 Austin
Around town
Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80. Her Texas history runs through Austin: she co-starred in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," which premiered at the Paramount Theatre in July 1982 and filmed partly in Pflugerville and Austin; she played the Frank Erwin Center in 2016 on her last major headlining tour; and she performed at ACL Live during South by Southwest in 2022. In 2023 she sent Austin drag performer Brigitte Bandit a rhinestoned acoustic guitar. KXAN
Thirty-three volunteers gathered before sunrise on Aug. 16 at Coordinates Vineyards in Hye, about an hour west of Austin, and hand-picked 1,564 pounds of estate Tannat grapes in just over an hour. The vineyard said rising pH, birds finding the fruit, clusters starting to raisin and a possible storm all pushed it to harvest. Late spring freezes, summer heat and July flooding made this a hard year for some Hill Country growers. CBS Austin
Overheard on Reddit
Twelve Hours At City Hall: The day I finally fell in love with Austin
I have never been in love with Austin. I’m not into the music scene. I’m not into the trails. Don’t care about UT football. Don’t hang out at Barton Springs. Don’t spend my days at the city’s parks, in the libraries or out exploring the food scene. And I have never, ever believed Austin is weird. I am, essentially, a very boring person.
Texas
The Ross fire in Palo Pinto County, about 200 miles from Austin, had burned more than 50,000 acres and was about 5 percent contained Tuesday afternoon, with evacuations underway. Gov. Greg Abbott said FEMA approved the state's request for a Fire Management Assistance Grant. Hundreds of firefighters from across Texas are working the fire. FOX 7 Austin / KXAN
A federal judge declared Senate Bill 12 unconstitutional for the second time Tuesday, permanently blocking Attorney General Ken Paxton from enforcing it. The 2023 law restricts certain sexually oriented performances on public property or in front of children; it does not mention drag, though a version in the Legislature did. U.S. District Judge David Hittner wrote that it is too broad. Paxton called the ruling "profoundly flawed" and "an affront to Texas values" and said he will appeal. Plaintiff Brigitte Bandit, an Austin drag performer, said "I'm sick of this state trying to censor art." KUT / The Texas Tribune
A federal judge in Brownsville said Tuesday he was "not inclined" to keep ICE officer Christian Castro jailed in Cameron County past Thursday, when the 90-day limit on pre-extradition detention expires. Minnesota, which charged Castro with four counts of assault and one of falsely reporting a crime, sued to force Gov. Greg Abbott to sign extradition paperwork. Abbott has ordered the secretary of state to determine whether Castro qualifies as a fugitive. The Texas Tribune
Democrat James Talarico leads Republican Ken Paxton 42 percent to 39 percent in the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll of 1,200 registered voters taken Aug. 5-13, with a margin of error of 2.83 points. The same poll had Paxton ahead 43-42 in June. In the governor's race it showed Greg Abbott leading Gina Hinojosa 45-40, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick leading Vikki Goodwin 42-35. KXAN
Talarico's campaign said it will petition a Collin County court to unseal transcripts of two rounds of deposition testimony Paxton gave in a legal dispute involving his financial adviser and former business associates. The Texas Tribune
A federal judge ordered the release from detention of Daniel Tirado Pantoja, a witness to the July shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE officers in Houston. He is the second witness in the case a federal judge has ordered released. The Texas Tribune
Sports
Texas quarterback Arch Manning was asked Tuesday about teammates and coach Steve Sarkisian describing him as more vocal at practice this fall. "I'm really just a nice guy," Manning said, before allowing that being off-limits helps: "They can't hit me during practice, so I can kind of say whatever I want." Florida State transfer linebacker Justin Cryer put it differently: "Arch is kind of annoying." KXAN
River sources: KXAN (MoPac crash) · KXAN (SH 71 ramp) · KXAN (Congress Avenue) · FOX 7 (reclaimed water) · KXAN (autonomous vehicles) · Community Impact (SH 195 ramp) · KXAN (federal gun cases) · KXAN (2021 murder arrest) · KXAN (crypto scams) · FOX 7 (wildfire briefing) · KUT (ICE detention release) · Community Impact (data centers) · FOX 7 (adult sports leagues) · The Daily Texan (911 department) · CBS Austin (Barton Springs wall) · KXAN (Hays hospital district) · The Texas Tribune (HB 24) · KUT (AISD vaccinations) · Austin Current (Title I ratings) · KXAN (ACC enrollment) · Community Impact (LTISD tax rate) · Community Impact (district salaries) · KXAN (food insecurity) · KXAN (death investigations) · FOX 7 (Painted Tree vendors) · CBS Austin (Indeed ranking) · FOX 7 (cattle import order) · KXAN (Dolly Parton in Texas) · CBS Austin (grape harvest) · KXAN (Ross fire, FEMA grant) · KUT (SB 12 ruling) · The Texas Tribune (SB 12 ruling) · The Texas Tribune (extradition hearing) · KXAN (UT poll) · The Texas Tribune (deposition petition) · The Texas Tribune (witness release) · KXAN (Arch Manning)
Weather
Today: sunny, with a high near 104 and heat index values as high as 107, on a south-southwest wind of 0 to 5 mph. Alerts: a Heat Advisory for Travis County runs until 7 p.m. Wednesday. Tonight: partly cloudy, with a low around 80. Next few days: a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms Thursday with a high near 102 and a heat index as high as 108, a 20 percent chance Friday with a high near 101, then sunny and 100 Saturday and Sunday. National Weather Service
Tuesday was the 11th straight day of triple-digit highs in Austin and the 28th of the summer, though temperatures have stayed under record levels, FOX 7 Austin said. FOX 7 Austin
KXAN says a cold front sagging over North Texas keeps the better rain chances north of Central Texas today, with a few stray showers possible this afternoon. The front sinks south Thursday, lifting rain chances to 30 percent areawide and bringing up to a quarter inch where showers fall, with isolated spots over an inch. Highs stay near 100 through the end of August. KXAN
Weather sources: National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio · KXAN (forecast) · FOX 7 (heat streak)
10 days until Texas football · Texas State at DKR, Sept. 5, 2:30 p.m.
When Painted Tree Boutiques shut every store in the country in April, dozens of Austin vendors lost their shelf space overnight — one of them nine days after painting the booth. Rather than wait for another chain to come along, they found a room near Anderson Mill and 620 and filled it themselves. More than 60 of them are back in business under one roof, and the roof is theirs.