Wednesday
September 2, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 100° / 79°Triple digits again. Water bottle, shade, and an early start.
- Air quality 50 · GoodClear air. A great day to be outside.
- Lake Travis 95.4% fullThe lake is close to full — good for boats and for the summer water supply. Down a touch from last week.
- Allergies ModerateGrasses and ragweed and elm are up. Allergy folks, take the pill before it takes you.
- Power grid NormalA busy afternoon: demand near 86,500 megawatts, with 104,600 on hand.
- Sunrise 7:08 a.m.The sun is up for 12 hours and 44 minutes today, and down by 7:52 p.m.
Good morning, Austin. What is left of Edouard is drifting over us today as a smear of tropical moisture, which in practice means one neighborhood gets a loud twenty minutes and the rest of us watch it happen on the radar. The high is 100 again. September has arrived on the calendar and nowhere else. Take the shade side of the street this afternoon, and take water with you — the pickup lines and the bus stops are long right now, and standing still in this is the part that gets people.
The Briefing
The budget cut has a walking route
The Austin Independent School District (Austin ISD) replaced neighborhood bus stops for high schoolers this year with hubs at elementary schools, transit stops and community centers. The change saves an estimated $2.3 million. It also left Margaret, a freshman at Anderson High School, with three ways home: the shoulder of Loop 360 with no sidewalk, a trail that takes more than an hour, or a scramble down a concrete embankment and across Bull Creek. She said she nearly had heatstroke the first time. Her mother, Daphne Harrington, left work early to collect her, which cut her pay. "I realize there's budget cuts, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the safety of our children," Harrington said.
The district has been adjusting. Kris Hafezizadeh, who runs Austin ISD transportation, said his team read more than 3,500 comments and has gone from 98 hubs to 108, shortening the average walk from 2.5 miles to about 1.5. Every added stop costs. A new route runs about $65,000 a year, he said.
Anderson itself lost its cooling on Tuesday. The chiller was reaching 40 percent of the campus and classrooms were hitting the mid-80s, so Principal Brian Lancaster released students at 12:15 p.m., and a 400-ton rental chiller went in overnight.
What's next: Hafezizadeh said a stop will be added by the Harrington family's apartment complex as soon as Friday.
Sources: KUT (bus hubs), KXAN (Anderson High), Community Impact (nonprofit fundraising)
City Desk
Money & bills
Texas collected $4.62 billion in state sales tax in August, up 7.1 percent from a year earlier, Comptroller Don Huffines said Tuesday; online shopping receipts rose more than 20 percent. FOX 7 Austin
Overheard on Reddit
Rent fees in Austin out of control
Anyone else have over $250 in fees alone...on top of their rent? This just seems wildly obnoxious. Not letting post a screenshot, so here it is in text format: 09/01/2026 - Rent-Lease Charges - $1,277.00 09/01/2026 - Sub-metered Sewer - $31.86 09/01/2026 - Community Amenity Fee - $25.00 09/01/2026 - RPMIS Insurance Fee - $25.00 09/01/2026 - Valet Trash - $25.00 09/01/2026 - Trash - $24.61 09/01/
Overheard on Reddit
Diabolical Austin energy bill??
Is anyone's bill this month astronomical?! I know it's summer but bruh lol last year my bill was $75. This year it's almost $300 and Austin energy keeps telling me they don't know why. How can they charge these wiiiiiild figures without being able to explain why? I'm so annoyed
Public safety & courts
A deported Austin man, a citizen by birth, is allowed back into the country
Brian José Morales García, 25, who lived and worked in Austin, returned to Texas on Sunday, his lawyers said, after the federal government agreed to let him re-enter while his lawsuit proceeds. He was deported to Mexico in April following a traffic stop near Fredericksburg. The Department of Homeland Security disputed his account and said he entered the country illegally; his lawyers submitted his Colorado birth record. The Texas Tribune / KUT
A murder charge in the Timber Heights Drive shooting
Joitorian Bouye, 21, faces a first-degree felony murder count in the death of Tyrell Pordia, who was shot Aug. 29 at a home in the 11700 block of Timber Heights Drive, Austin police said. An arrest warrant affidavit says Bouye told a detective he shot Pordia with a rifle and that he has schizophrenia and paranoia. He had no attorney listed Tuesday. KXAN
Also
Austin police arrested Elizabeth Rozo, 42, on Aug. 25 and seized thousands of pieces of stolen mail, about 400 suspected stolen bank cards and 17 stolen postal keys. KXAN
Austin police are looking for a man accused of assaulting a security officer at Huston-Tillotson University, 900 Chicon Street, on Aug. 1 as the officer escorted him off the property. City of Austin
Austin police are investigating five reports of tire slashing during August in the southeast Austin neighborhood between Burleson Road and Ben White Boulevard, east of Interstate 35. KXAN
Lee Anthony Chavez-Avera died Aug. 26 when a vehicle struck the scooter he was riding against traffic in the 4600 block of northbound MoPac (Loop 1), Austin police said. City of Austin
A detection camera alerted Travis County Fire Rescue to a 10-acre brush fire sparked Monday by a mower, before any 911 calls; the county's rescue helicopter made 12 water drops. CBS Austin
Growth & infrastructure
Lake Austin drops a dozen feet in October, and the marinas are counting
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) will lower Lake Austin about a dozen feet between Oct. 12 and Nov. 30 at the city's request, closing public boat ramps and swimming at Emma Long Metro Park. David Callejas, who owns Float On Boat Rentals, said October is one of his best months, and estimated he will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and put about 20 employees out of work. FOX 7 Austin
Council landmarks a 140-year-old east Austin house over its owner's objection
The Austin City Council voted unanimously last week to make the original front portion of the Goins-Versea-Nitschke House at 907 E. 13th Street a city landmark, blocking the demolition its owner, the Dallas developer Eureka Holdings, had applied for. Preservation Austin says it is the sixth property the council has designated over an owner's objection. Eureka's attorney, Blayre Peña, said the building is structurally failing. KXAN
Also
State senators pressed agencies Tuesday on how much water data centers use; the Texas Water Development Board sent mandatory surveys to 324 of them and fewer than a third answered. CBS Austin
The city's Living Streets program is taking applications for the fall, and its GoGrant program is offering employers help with commutes disrupted by construction. City of Austin
Overheard on Reddit
PSA: Zilker Park Closure
September 21 - October 18, 2026 (or beyond sometimes). Then maybe a little bit of time before the Trail of Lights closure.
Overheard on Reddit
What is your least favorite traffic light in Austin?
Which light do you find that you hit the most and takes the longest?
City Hall & county
Democrat Pooja Sethi and Republican Jennifer Mushtaler are on the Nov. 3 ballot for Texas House District 47, which covers parts of northwest, west and southwest Austin. Community Impact
Austin Emergency Management is marking National Preparedness Month with two September events, including its fifth annual Get Ready Central Texas preparedness fair. City of Austin
Schools
An Austin school Texas rejected as a charter is now taking voucher money
Alpha School, founded in Austin, was turned down by the State Board of Education last summer when it sought to run charter campuses on a model where software teaches lessons in two hours a day and adults handle motivation. It has since roughly quadrupled to more than 30 Texas campuses, most of them accepted into the state's voucher program by the comptroller's office, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found. The Texas Tribune
Also
The State Board of Education debated amendments Tuesday to more than 700 pages of high school social studies standards, with a final vote expected later this week. KXAN
The Architecture, Construction and Engineering (ACE) Mentor Program of Austin, a free 16-week after-school course, is enrolling ninth through 12th graders on a first-come basis. KVUE
Business & street life
Red River loses Valhalla, and the block across the street goes up for sale
Valhalla, the metal bar at 710 Red River Street, is set to close Oct. 26 after its building sold to a franchise of Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, whose owner Janet Hickerson said her lease near the convention center is not being renewed. Across the street, the building holding Elysium and the 13th Floor was listed Tuesday at $4.1 million, which the listing says is its first time up for sale in 80 years. Austin American-Statesman / Austin Chronicle
Also
Marlow, a cocktail bar that spent three years in the Red River Cultural District, held its last night Aug. 29. Austin Chronicle
The city dedicated a marker reading "As Queer As You Want To Be" at Fourth and Colorado streets on Aug. 21, where the rainbow crosswalks were painted over in July. The Daily Texan
Austin Parks and Recreation will cap parking at Commons Ford Ranch Metropolitan Park from Saturday for the holiday weekend, and will tow vehicles left outside the gated entrance. City of Austin
Overheard on Reddit
It's absurd that Austin's public pools are only open a few months and close mid-August
There are a handful of things in Austin - especially related to the summertime - that feel like they could easily be better for everyone. But whether it's the Bullock Museum IMAX Theater's seating dilemma or restaurants that should have stronger AC, I think this might be the most obvious thing in our city worth improving. It’s impractical that Austin’s most accessible neighborhood pools shut down
Overheard on Reddit
Parrots spotted in the city.
Upwards of 10 parrots were flying about in Austin. These parrots were spotted right off Ben White directly across 290 from Palazio’s. Are these escapees who mated or did someone really have all these parrots? Or were they just trying to enjoy an after hours show. Naughty birds.
Weather
Today: mostly sunny, then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, with a high near 100. There are no active alerts for Travis County. Tonight: partly cloudy, low around 79. National Weather Service
Edouard, now a tropical depression creeping north across east Texas, keeps enough moisture nearby for spotty afternoon showers through Friday, KXAN's forecasters say, with the heaviest rain staying east of us. KXAN
Edouard came ashore in Louisiana on Tuesday and knocked out power across several Southeast Texas counties as it moved inland. KXAN
The Back Page
3 days until Texas football · Texas State at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (DKR), Sept. 5, 2:30 p.m.
Kelly Shaw taught preschool in Austin and, before that, wrote for late-night television, which meant parents kept asking her the same question: what should my kids be watching? She had no answer. "Eventually I just heard it so much, and I was like, 'I should just make something,'" she said. So she did. "All Aboard! with Ms. Kelly" premiered Saturday — a slow, well-researched children's show built out of live lessons, music and singing, in the shape of the programs she grew up on. It took years. Funding fell through, studios changed, and the thing sat half-built until she brought in the Austin filmmakers Grace and Emily Potter to direct, a connection that traces back to one friendship one of them made as a radio-television-film major at the University of Texas. "It was just me for a long time," Shaw said, "and the moment we brought the Potter sisters on to direct, it just changed everything. They came with so much more optimism and hope, and that Austin filmmaker mentality of 'We can just make it, and we'll just get it done.'" The Daily Texan