José Garza skipped a 12-hour Texas House hearing on his own "prosecutorial integrity," leaving a deputy to face a lawmaker who waved a pistol and another who accused the office of "hiding the weenie." The no-show has the House speaker vowing more state oversight of local prosecutors next session.
— via KUT, Andrew Weber
LCRA opened floodgates at Wirtz and Starcke dams Friday, sending faster, higher flows into Lake Travis as rain keeps falling on day one of ACL Fest. A flood watch covers Travis, Hays and Williamson counties through 7 p.m., with isolated spots possibly seeing 6 more inches.
— via KUT, Chelsey Zhu
A year after Texas clarified its abortion-emergency law, the doctor who championed it says most of her own patients have never heard of it. Now a new campaign is handing out clinic fliers and training sessions to close that gap before the next crisis hits an ER.
— via KUT, Olivia Aldridge
A South Lamar shop named for the paper bands on Japanese records opens October 2, stocked with books, records and objects pulled from a photographer's 26 trips to Japan. Obi runs soft-opening weekends through October 11, built around slow browsing rather than quick turnover.
— via CultureMap Austin, Kimberly Reeves
A man shot by ICE after a traffic stop carried a bullet in his back for 11 days before surgery, and his wife wasn't allowed in the operating room. Neither officer at the scene had an active body camera, lawyers say, and he now faces up to 20 years in prison.
— via KUT, Gabriel Velasquez Neira
Zilker Park's 62nd Trail of Lights runs December 10-23, with more than 2 million lights strung across 70 displays and 96 trees. Seven of the 14 nights are free, and tickets covering everything from $8 general admission to a $95 heated-lounge pass are live now.
— via CultureMap Austin, Alex Bentley
A Texas nonprofit wants two new youth prisons halted after a statewide lockdown left hundreds of kids confined to closet-sized cells for days, sometimes with only minutes outside. The agency says worsening mental health needs are driving the violence; critics say isolation is making it worse.
— via KUT, Toluwani Osibamowo
Charli XCX, Lorde and Twenty One Pilots headline ACL's first weekend at Zilker Park, while Pioneer Farms lights up a half-mile trail with more than 5,000 carved pumpkins. Add Boz Scaggs at Bass Concert Hall, a non-scary zoo bash and a stein-holding Austoberfest to round out the weekend.
— via CultureMap Austin, Brianna Caleri
A shipping container on East Sixth Street is about to pour coffee grown on a 35-acre family farm in Nicaragua. Talisman Coffee tests the La Holly setup with four pop-up dates before going full-time on November 1, as Taco Flats adds breakfast tacos to the bar's new morning lineup.
— via CultureMap Austin, Brianna Caleri
A KUTX host who's attended all 25 years of Austin City Limits traces its shift from a sparse, comfortable gathering to a tech-money magnet packed with tourists. He still recalls sneaking off to Barton Springs mid-festival, and says the big festivals have all started blurring into one another.
— via KUT, Caroline McConnico
AISD sued more than 100 of its own neighbors to clear the way for a 435-unit apartment tower, and three days after talks collapsed, City Council approved the rezoning anyway. Residents counter with a 200-unit "missing middle" alternative and odds they'll win the lawsuit, meaning the project could be tied up in court for years before a single unit gets built.
— via Austin Chronicle, Brant Bingamon
Federal health officials tapped Dell Medical School as lead academic partner on two new initiatives meant to fix a clinical trial system Kennedy says "takes far too long" and "costs too much." One project aims to bring trials to rural patients; the other will build a national data pool, with Dell as the first institution to test it.
— via KUT, Olivia Aldridge
Nine Austin homes, one never-before-seen material: rammed earth, inspired by a research trip to Arizona. The 40th annual AIA Austin Homes Tour hits October 24-25, with four houses designed by women-led firms and two architects showing off their own residences.
— via CultureMap Austin, Brianna Caleri
Texas has executed five Black men in a row; a sixth, Jamaal Howard, is set to die Oct. 7 despite a court psychologist once estimating his IQ at 65 to 70. One jury deadlocked on his competency, a second found him fit anyway, and his own trial attorney never had him evaluated for intellectual disability.
— via Austin Chronicle, Brant Bingamon
UT-Austin has quietly cut three majors, African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies, folding them into a new department. Students and faculty say they're getting no answers, so about 50 people marched on Guadalupe to demand some.
— via Austin Chronicle, Erika Gonzalez
Mike P. Nelson, the director tasked with rebooting Saw next, delivers an Anaconda knockoff so threadbare it steals from Predator and Aliens in back-to-back scenes. Subpar CG, a muddled monster, and a misdirection trick lifted wholesale from 1997 sink it.
— via Austin Chronicle, Richard Whittaker
