fellow Texans: you've probably heard that chirping sound - especially after rain - and wondered what it was. well, @mosebuchele.bsky.social solved it a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it and hope you do too. especially love that we don't know how they reproduce w/o water. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

Researching the history of executive session at Austin City Hall and came across this from 1923.

They're baaack! The mats of blue-green algea often have a dark greenish hue and a slimy puke-like consistency. They can be toxic to humans and their pets and become entangled in other water vegetation. Stay algae aware when out with your dog! www.kut.org/austin/2026-...

Toxic blue-green algae has appeared in Austin lakes for another year. The algae (actually cyanobacteria) can be poisonous to humans and has killed several pet dogs since it arrived in our waterways after flooding in 2019. It thrives in warmer water. www.kut.org/austin/2026-...

Austin's Bikeshare service has been shut down since a May 23 fire inside a battery charging room at a CapMetro facility on Ben White. The same day, a Bikeshare bike caught fire on South Congress. The role of batteries is being investigated in both. www.kut.org/transportati...

He has called Native Americans “third world savages” and believes that the U.S. should “round up every muslim." Now, Republicans want him to regulate oil and gas and Democrats see an opportunity. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

Our ATXplained live show is one week from today! The Austin lore we have gathered.. the depths we have plumbed... Let's just say it will be a night like no other. Join us at the Bass on the 21st! texasperformingarts.org/event/atxpla...

A couple years ago Austin City Council members were talking openly about ending the city contract with Texas Gas Service over high bills. Today they will consider a proposal to keep partnering with the gas utility for another ten years. What happened? www.kut.org/austin/2026-...

The Texas Newsroom has obtained videos of an immigration operation last summer in East Austin. It involved the arrests of five workers near a construction site. We wondered what the tapes said about how state police and ICE work together in Texas. 1/ www.kut.org/crime-justic...

Jorge Pederson was one of the victims of the shooting on West 6th this month. When my editor asked me to write his remembrance, I did not expect to laugh when speaking with his loved. But our talks were full of laughter. It's the kind of guy he was. www.kut.org/austin/2026-...

Interesting! Exxon has its physical headquarters in Texas. But it's been incorporated in New Jersey since 1882 and the days Standard Oil. Company now seeks to shift its legal home to oil-friendly Texas. Says it may "reduce the risk" of future lawsuits. finance.yahoo.com/news/exxon-e...

Austin officials hope the new rules will thread the needle between local priorities (city police shouldn't do immigration enforcement) and state law (cities cannot tell cops not to call ICE). www.kut.org/austin/2026-...

BREAKING: Dallas police detain man outside of Ken Paxton campaign event. Officers pulled what appeared to be ammunition for several types of weapons from a blue sedan that hotel workers said the man had been driving, according to our reporter on the scene. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/u...

Sen. John Cornyn's election event at the Downtown Marriott in Austin tonight is not the traditional watch party. It's a press availability. They say they're saving the party for the runoff... We're told he'll be out in a while to take some questions.

For Valentine’s Day, a story about what happens when your loved one is drifting away — and the ways we try to hold on. (Recommend the “listen” button on this one) www.kut.org/austin/2026-...

Five years ago, all of us in Texas were about to learn how quickly things can fall apart when the power goes out. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

NEW: The Office of Refugee Resettlement has a new policy of concentrating pregnant minors in its custody into one single South Texas shelter. The move comes over the objections of some even within the agency, who say it’s about denying abortion access. 1/ www.kut.org/politics/202...

A divide has been growing in progressive Austin over how aggresively city leaders should resist the ICE surge in Texas. That disagreement erupted into raucous protest at a meeting with the police chief and city council members on Thursday. www.kut.org/crime-justic...

Update on Austin police’s ICE cooperation: At a protest outside city hall this week, council members told @mosebuchele.bsky.social they could not guarantee APD officers wouldn’t call ICE on undocumented people they encounter. APD to release new guidelines soon. kutkutx.studio/austin-signa...

Cleared off and gently opened our Austin Water hook up in case of a worst case scenario in freeze -always try to cut water at the residential valve first in event of burst pipes- city meter was swarming with what I think are Crazy Ants? Probably not great for new smart meters.

We were looking at some of the ways local and state law enforcement works, and does not work, with ICE and something interesting came up. The feds appear to alert some local police forces to impending raids, but not others. 1/ www.kut.org/crime-justic...

"John Jones was out of options and low on cash." So starts this exceptionally well written piece by @England_Weber on the heinous crime that haunted Austin, and brought decades of grief, trauma and wrongful incarceration. Read it, even if you already know the story. www.kut.org/crime-justic...

City of Taylor Econ. Development Corp. sold land that was "to be held in trust for future use as parkland" to a data center developer. Deed restriction is from 1999, not so long ago. Neighbors outraged. City not commenting. Interesting story from Kailey Hunt! www.kut.org/energy-envir...

Notable comment from head of Austin Resource Recovery in recent city audit. He says only 65% landfill diversion rate is acheivable "Even with perfect recycling behavior." City goal is 90 percent. www.austintexas.gov/sites/defaul...

Austinite Corey Pudhorodsky is about halfway into a 50 hour stay on the Texas state capitol grounds, sharing 50 facts about climate change. He's doing it for his 50th birthday!

First Monarch I've seen in Austin since early summer.

Breaking | GHF whistleblower Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar says he has been interviewed by the International Criminal Court, which is probing alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions at Gaza aid sites.

Last year Austin's water utility lost 9.3 billion gallons of water because of a leaky distribution system. That's enough to fill Lady Bird Lake about four times over and 31 percent rise from the previous year. Why the big jump? Some of it might be improved monitoring. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

Saharan dust is back! It will hurt air quality this weekend, so stay safe. But also, take a moment to marvel at this natural phenonenon. This stuff rides winds all the way from Africa to get here. And that's just the start of what make it soo fascinating. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

"You all spoke so passionately and you burned valuable time of your life. " Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra said. “We can do absolutely nothing about it." Great piece from @mayafawaz.bsky.social on what happens when a data center wants to move next door. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

May was our first month with above average rainfall since last July, all thanks to last week's storms. Still, it was not enough to bring us out of a longterm rain deficit. This spring was also the hottest ever recorded at Austin's Camp Mabry. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

May was our first month with above average rainfall since last July, all thanks to last week's storms. Still, it was not enough to bring us out of a longterm rain deficit. This spring was also the hottest ever recorded at Austin's Camp Mabry. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

Gas utility stories are tough to find visuals for. Everyone's done the meter, the stovetop flame. Looking for something new, KUT's Michael Minasi took a gag reference I put in the audio for this story and came up with this great illustration. More please! www.kut.org/energy-envir...

Starting last January people in Austin started noticing major hikes in their gas bills. In some cases, they report bills doubling, even when they used less gas than they had the same month of the previous year. 1/ www.kut.org/energy-envir...

City staff suggested "instead of building 26.6 acres of caps [...] Austin could construct fewer than 8 acres, covering just Cesar Chavez to Fourth Street and 11th to 12th Street. This [..] would reduce the total price tag to $360 million." from @kutnathan.bsky.social www.kut.org/transportati...

Aurora Energy's Olivier Beaufils on what modeling reveals about the grid and cost impacts of limiting solar & wind development in Texas, and the massive potential benefits of reducing energy waste & increasing demand flexibility. #txlege #txenergy www.douglewin.com/p/the-impact...

Vote "The Disconnect" for Best Podcast in this year's "Best of Austin" Chronicle awards. For years we have helped make sense of the power grid with unmatched reporting and storytelling. More important now than ever! Literally no other podcast like it! vote.austinchronicle.com/politics-and...

Vote "The Disconnect" for Best Podcast in this year's "Best of Austin" Chronicle awards. For years we have helped make sense of the power grid with unmatched reporting and storytelling. More important now than ever! Literally no other podcast like it! vote.austinchronicle.com/politics-and...

Dangerous heat incoming! May triple digits were exceptionally rare in Austin until recently. From 1898 (when records began) to 2002 only three years saw May triple digits. This will be our sixth such year since 2003. www.kut.org/energy-envir...

We've got a TON of info on what Trump's executive order targeting public media funding could mean for @kutnews.bsky.social and @kutx.bsky.social, and stations across the country. Been a little surreal helping with this report on threats to our own operations. www.kut.org/politics/202...

Let's say Harris won last year and Vance was holding 10k-20k person rallies where he railed against left-wing "oligarchy." Would the CW be that this was crazy and a waste of time? Or would we be seeing NYT op-eds and A1s about what "oligarchy" is and why the GOP base was on fire about it?

After this week's rains, a familiar chirping has returned to Austin. The frogs are back. After this story published, I got a ton of feedback about what people think the frogs sound like. One of my favorites was "sneakers on a basketball court." www.kut.org/energy-envir...

"Building new power plants in Texas is about religion." The state pledged billions for more gas power. What does it mean for the power grid, costs and the climate? All that and more in the season finale of The Disconnect. kutkutx.studio/the-disconne...

One of the worst things to happen to TV news in my lifetime is the fixation on how politicians should deal with a crisis from a PR perspective rather than the scandal itself. This wasn't common years ago. They just discussed the substance of the news, not how politicians should spin things.

TOMORROW: Texas Senate will hear SB 819, a bill that would severely limit energy development, restrict Texas' economic growth, raise consumer costs, and make a mockery of private property rights. I'll be tracking and reporting on the hearing live at douglewin.com

Nice solidarity here when Greene calls on an American: "I'm an American journalist, and I'd like to hear your answer to what she's asking."

Spot the camouflaged parrots.

Unidentified men grabbing someone off the street and putting her in a car because she wrote an op-Ed. This as flatly authoritarian as anything we’ve seen in this country in a very long time.

Batteries shattered the record in ERCOT today w/ over 5,500 megawatts, meeting 10.3% of power demand. Previous record was less than 5,000 megawatts. There were well over 25,000 megawatts of gas and coal plants offline today. Batteries are keeping us out of energy emergencies.

It used to be when a huge hailstone fell in a cow pasture only the cows would see it. Nowadays, that pasture may have turned into a sprawling subdivision, and everyone who lives there has a cell phone to document the discovery (and the damage). www.kut.org/energy-envir...