Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

KUT Afternoon Newscast for October 1, 2024

Central Texas top stories for October 1, 2024. The City of Austin has unveiled its most detailed vision yet for the I-35 caps. The federal government is giving borrowers who have defaulted on their student loans extra time to apply for a program that will return them to good standing. A longstanding legal battle over the environmental impact of development in Dripping Springs arrived at the Texas State Supreme Court today. Hays County is a step closer to establishing its own animal center. On the ballot in this fall’s election are half of Austin’s 10 city council seats and the mayor’s office. TxDOT is warning about the increased risk to pedestrians from drivers less able to see them as the days get shorter.

Texas Standard: May 11, 2022

What happened to more than a billion dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds for Texas? Officials want to know whether the money was misspent. Were COVID-19 relief funds used to defray the costs of the governor’s border crackdown? That story plus, how nominally non-partisan school board elections in Texas became a magnet for big money donations, and what that could mean for what’s taught in public school classrooms. Also higher ed in Texas prisons: a new report outlines big gender disparities in opportunity. And the work of the code inspector, and why it often isn’t working to help many apartment renters. Plus a Politifact check on SB8 and much more today on the Texas Standard: