-
3 weeks ago | 
texasstandard.org | Audrey McGlinchy |Renee Dominguez
From KUT News:Lee esta historia en españolStanding at a pulpit on a Sunday morning in March, the Rev. Daryl Horton of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in East Austin prayed for a swift approval of building permits. An ask that, as anyone familiar with municipal bureaucracy knows, requires nothing short of a God-given miracle. “Y’all keep praying for the city as those permits keep going through,” Horton told the hundred-some worshippers seated in pews at his feet.
-
1 month ago | 
texasstandard.org | Luz Moreno-Lozano |Renee Dominguez
From KUT News:Since the pandemic, more people are working from home than ever before, leaving many offices in downtown Austin vacant. Now, city leaders and developers are trying to figure out what to do with that empty space to keep the area from becoming a graveyard. Office vacancies in Austin are at an all-time high, according to a report from real estate adviser CBRE.
-
May 22, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Becky Fogel |Renee Dominguez
Even though Hunter knew before she was elected that the main function of the school board was to provide oversight and guidance to the district administration, there was still a surprise or two about how things worked. “When I was an advocate I could pick up the phone and I could call anybody I wanted to and… tell them what I thought and demand what I needed,” she said. “However now that you’re on the board, you have one employee and that is the superintendent.
-
Apr 22, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Michael Marks |Renee Dominguez
Texas’ population is growing, but the number of people working to grow our food is shrinking. This is part of a national trend. In the 1950s, about 10% of the American labor force did some kind of agricultural work. Today, it’s less than 1%. There have been technological advances in the last 70 years that mean, in some parts of farming, fewer workers are needed than used to.
-
Apr 22, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Shelly Brisbin |Renee Dominguez
But besides incentives to build new plants, semiconductor makers say they need workers who can make and design chips. “With this move to onshore or reshore semiconductor manufacturing to the United States, there’s an estimated 115,000 new semiconductor jobs [that] are going to come to the U.S., and a large fraction of those are going to come to the state of Texas,” said Roger Bonnecaze, dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
-
Apr 17, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Audrey McGlinchy |Renee Dominguez
Which brings us to light. The building code requires that rooms where people sleep have some form of natural or artificial light. The word “or” provides an out. Developers don’t always need to provide natural light. Municipalities can tweak these rules when they adopt the code, tailoring it to the needs of their city — but Austin has left this section alone. Other cities, like New York and Chicago, have their own laws or codes requiring windows and natural light in bedrooms.
-
Mar 29, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Leah Scarpelli |Renee Dominguez
I was watching your performance at the Kennedy Center last year. And, you know, Texas Standard is heard statewide, and a lot of our listeners know you as kind of an iconic Austin musician, certainly. But you said something on that stage that caught my ear. You said that a lot of folks think of Austin as the big music center, but really, Denton has become the big place for music in Texas; people in the know, know that Denton has really sort of taken over that mantle.
-
Mar 28, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Sarah Asch |Renee Dominguez |Julius Shieh |Gabby Munoz
Sheep do not make up a very large percentage of Texas livestock operations, but those who raise them are increasingly turning to border collies to help them manage their day-to-day farm tasks. While the use of dogs is trending up, it’s nothing brand-new, of course: Humans have put dogs to work on farms around the world for thousands of years. But now, as farm labor shortages have persisted in Texas, many sheep farmers are turning to dogs for help.
-
Mar 14, 2024 | 
texasstandard.org | Becky Fogel |Renee Dominguez
From KUT News:Nine-year-old Emma was in a race against time. She had 20 minutes to solve four challenges related to the upcoming solar eclipse. She summed up the experience pretty succinctly: “It was hard.”The interactive game, narrated by two astrophysicists, was part of an event hosted by Girlstart in Austin this month. The nonprofit focuses on getting kids interested in science, technology, engineering and math or STEM.
-
Dec 7, 2023 | 
texasstandard.org | Audrey McGlinchy |Renee Dominguez
“In the 23 years I’ve lived here, rent has never jumped up the way it did,” he said. “It went up in increments of no more than $50 from year to year, and sometimes it didn’t go up at all. So this was certainly a surprise.”Polk earns $39,000 a year as a hospital technician. He now spends nearly half his monthly income on rent. But he never seriously considered moving. “Where is it going to be … cheaper? Nowhere. Not here in Austin,” he said.
