Saturday
September 19, 2026
Today at a glance
- Weather 100° / 76°Triple digits again. Water bottle, shade, and an early start.
- Air quality 52 · ModerateFine for most of us. If your lungs are touchy, take it a little easy.
- Lake Travis 91.4% fullThe lake is close to full — good for boats and for the summer water supply. Down a touch from last week.
- Allergies HighRagweed and elm and grasses are heavy today. Windows closed, meds early.
- Power grid NormalA busy afternoon: demand near 83,200 megawatts, with 110,700 on hand.
- Sunrise 7:17 a.m.The sun is up for 12 hours and 14 minutes today, and down by 7:31 p.m.
Good morning, Austin. A hundred again, with the heat index reaching 104 by mid-afternoon, which makes Saturday errands a morning sport. Sun up at 7:17, down at 7:31. Ragweed, elm and the grasses are all running high, so the sneezing at the market is not personal. Lake Travis is holding near full. And an old black warehouse on Rosewood Avenue opens today as a free art space, which is a very good place to stand at three in the afternoon.
The Briefing
Austin's school district is two points from losing its board
Austin Independent School District (AISD) has appealed the failing ratings of Burnet and Webb middle schools to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the agency confirmed Friday. The margin is the story. Burnet's preliminary score was 59, Webb's 58, against the 60 that earns a D.
Five straight unacceptable ratings at a single campus take the decision out of the district's hands. State law then requires Education Commissioner Mike Morath either to close that school or to replace Austin ISD's elected board with appointed managers. Dobie Middle School, which had four consecutive failures, earned a D this year and fell out of the count. Burnet and Webb did not. A TEA spokesperson told Community Impact that Austin ISD is the only district in Texas that may face intervention on the 2026 ratings.
Districts usually appeal on the data behind a rating, and the agency can change a grade if it finds an error. TEA would not say when the district filed or on what grounds, because the process is open. The deadline was Sept. 11. Austin ISD has told families it is adding coaching for teachers and more intensive academic help at both campuses, and that it will not gather signatures for the parent petition that could close Burnet and Webb instead of costing the district its board.
What's next: A state decision could come as early as January, Superintendent Matias Segura told the Austin ISD board at an Aug. 13 information session.
Sources: Austin Current (the appeal, the preliminary scores, the appeal deadline), Community Impact (the January timing and the only-district-in-Texas confirmation), Community Impact (Dobie, the coaching, the parent petition)
City Desk
Money & bills
Council votes Sept. 24 on permitting software worth up to $60 million
Austin City Council members take up two contracts that together could reach $60 million. One licenses Clariti's enterprise permitting system at about $10 million for three years, with up to six more available; the second, at $31 million, covers the work of installing it. A city staff memo said the current system has been customized for over a decade, which has made it hard to maintain. KXAN
Also
The Texas Department of Insurance urged home insurers Sept. 16 to discount storm and wildfire upgrades; Gov. Greg Abbott, whose directive prompted it, said average Texas premiums rose 79% in six years. FOX 7 Austin
Public safety & courts
Two murder charges test a 2023 law on fentanyl deaths
Jordan Breck, 22, and Alysia Rodriguez-Mabry, 27, were arrested this week and charged with murder in the June 11 death of Ethan Westgard, a 19-year-old Austin Community College student found unresponsive at a St. Edward's University residence hall. A 2023 state law lets fentanyl deaths be prosecuted as murder. Defense attorney Ben Gergen, who is not on the case, said prosecutors have to show the seller knew. KXAN
Also
A Texas Department of Public Safety officer was struck by a vehicle near South Congress Avenue and Ben White Boulevard on Friday night and hospitalized with injuries police called not life-threatening. CBS Austin
Edward Vernon Johnson II, 23, was charged with assault on a public servant, a third-degree felony, after officials said he struck a Huston-Tillotson University security guard in the face on Aug. 1. CBS Austin
Abel Martinez, 28, pleaded guilty June 15 to driving while intoxicated (DWI) in a 2024 southeast Austin crash that killed a bicyclist, and received 12 months of community supervision and a 90-day license surrender. KXAN
Growth & infrastructure
Austin's light rail agency asks its board for $122 million more on Monday
The Austin Transit Partnership (ATP) board votes Monday on $122 million for Austin Rail Constructors to keep designing and then build the track, stations and systems, and on $44 million for Kiewit Austin Partnership to build the maintenance facility. A third item drops a plan to move the agency's offices for about $47 million in favor of staying at 203 Colorado St. and expanding next door. KXAN
Lake Austin businesses say the fall drawdown lands in their best weeks
The City of Austin and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) plan to lower Lake Austin by ten feet from Oct. 12 to Nov. 30, so owners can repair docks and crews can manage hydrilla. Float On Boat Rentals owner David Callejas said the closure will cost his business more than $100,000 and cost about 25 captains their seasonal work. Austin Rental Boats owner Shawn Smith said his holiday light tour may not run. KXAN
Overheard on Reddit
I35 S + frontage road closed around 6th?
Does not seem to be accident-related. Does seem to be organized and right at rush hour. Any ideas?
Also
Travis County closes the intersection of Old San Antonio Road and Puryear Road on Monday to widen it and add a turn lane; the county said the closure could last up to 180 days. KXAN
The Texas Department of Transportation shut southbound Interstate 35 between Stassney and Slaughter lanes overnight for the $548 million Capital Expressway South project, due to finish in late 2028 or early 2029. FOX 7 Austin
Overheard on Reddit
A house from the Green Book era still exist in Austin
From 1936 to 1966, Black motorists carried the Green Book, and Austin’s listings were mostly "tourist homes“— ordinary houses where families rented out a spare room because the hotels wouldn't take them. The Limerick Frazier House at 810 E. 13th is the one you can still drive past, bought in 1905 by a Samuel Huston College professor and run in the 1930s by Mrs. Laura Allman Frazier as lodging for
Austin Water holds an open house on proposed rules for large water users Oct. 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Permitting and Development Center, 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Drive. City of Austin
City Hall & county
More than a million Texans sit on the voter suspense list, tens of thousands in Travis County; they can still vote, with extra steps, and can update a registration through Oct. 5. KUT
A federal judge paused the Republican Party of Texas's effort to limit its primaries to voters registered with the party, saying he expects the Legislature to change the law. Texas Tribune
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth toured Saronic, an Austin builder of autonomous warships, on Friday and called the visit the start of a new era of American manufacturing. CBS Austin
Schools
Austin ISD released a dashboard on Sept. 15 tracking 29 campuses with unacceptable ratings, covering teacher vacancies, principal experience and attendance; it said it will update the figures by the 15th of each month. KXAN
New students at the University of Texas at Austin can no longer major in African and African diaspora, Mexican American and Latino, or women's and gender studies; those enrolled may finish. Texas Tribune
The university is finishing the Autry C. Stephens Engineering Discovery Building at San Jacinto Boulevard and East 24th Street, the last piece of an $820 million decade of construction; faculty move in next week. KXAN
Western Governors University and Girl Scouts of Central Texas launched an artificial intelligence patch, open to more than 12,000 scouts, at an event at Austin Community College's Highland campus. KXAN
Business & street life
The Ostillo Art Foundation opens today at 2600 Rosewood Ave., a warehouse turned gallery, library and performance space; admission is free and the first show gathers artists of eight nationalities. KUT
A five-story mosaic of more than 70,000 hand-placed tiles honoring civic leader Roger Taylor Sr. was unveiled Sept. 18 at Seabrook Square II, a 60-apartment supportive housing community in the J.J. Seabrook neighborhood. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
David Komie Law Billboards
I'm so used to seeing the old signs. Yeah, I figure he'd age, but is this new one AI? Bc it totally looked like it. Tripped me out to see the new signs up!
Austin guitarist Jackie Venson headlines a benefit called Ctrl-Alt-Del at Radio East, 3504 Montopolis Drive, raising money for Save Our Springs Alliance legal work on proposed data centers. CBS Austin
We Are Blood, the sole blood supplier to more than 50 Central Texas hospitals, holds its Legacy of Life Benefit in its 75th year; it needs 200 donations a day. Community Impact
Overheard on Reddit
Thank you to the man who cabbed my dad across town
My dad rode a greyhound down from New Mexico and had all his stuff stolen, no phone. He was going to walk from Austin all the way to the outskirts of Georgetown. A kind Mexican gentleman helped him by getting him a cab and also paying for it. Thank you, it means more than you can ever know. Thank you so so much for saving him from the heat stroke. You are an angel among men <3
Weather
Today: sunny, with a high near 100 and a heat index as high as 104. South-southeast wind 0 to 5 miles per hour. Tonight: mostly clear, low around 76. No weather alerts are active this morning. National Weather Service
Sunday is mostly sunny and near 101, with the heat index again at 104, and Monday is sunny and near 100. National Weather Service
The Back Page
16 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.
Imad Ahmed grew up watching Cheers and wanting the thing the show was about: a place where everybody knows your name. He never had one. Then a taco truck called Vecinos opened in East Austin, and Ahmed, who is Muslim and keeps halal, went in and loved the food — the homemade flour tortillas reminded him of the parathas he ate growing up in a Pakistani household. So he asked the question that usually ends it. Did they have lard in them? They did. Ahmed figured that was that; nobody changes a tortilla recipe for one customer. He mentioned it anyway. A few weeks later he came back and chef Jon Escamilla told him they had been messing around with some recipes without lard. He could not believe it had anything to do with him. It did. The lard-free tortillas brought Ahmed back more often, then brought his mosque in to be catered, and the conversation kept widening from there, until an East Austin truck had quietly become the go-to taco joint for the city's Muslim community. All of it started with a man deciding it did not hurt to mention it. KUT