Audrey McGlinchy

Earlier this year, Austin announced that it would have to close Givens Pool on East 12th Street for the summer. A couple weeks later, it revealed that Mabel Davis in Southeast Austin would need to close, too. A total of four pools are closed this season. The reason? Leaking and aging infrastructure.

B-cycle, Austin’s bike-share system, recently added three new stations as part of an 18-station expansion over the next 18 months. All the new stations will be close to or in downtown, adding to the company’s existing 51 docks.

Paul Slutes is accustomed to less-than-enthusiastic welcomes.

At times, this often resembles a recent scene at Balcones Pool: Despondent swimmers greet him, seated on the concrete with their knees to their chins. Forty minutes earlier, a lifeguard closed the pool because of low chlorine levels. That’s why Slutes is here.

On a Sunday in late April, Pastor Clarence Jones asked his congregation to join him.

"Oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Congregation?" he said, his voice booming from the front of the church. Roughly 40 congregants seated in the pews responded: "I saw the Lord and he heard me ..."

More than 100 people filled an auditorium yesterday to hear from Democratic candidates running for the Texas House District 46 seat – a district that stretches from East Austin out to Manor and north to Pflugerville – to hear five candidates opposing 12-term state Rep. Dawnna Dukes of Austin. 

Austin City Council members have delayed a vote on the so-called “agent of change” proposal, which would establish rules aimed at easing tensions between neighbors and music venues over amplified sound. An early version of the rules asked both new businesses and established venues to commit to “build accordingly to accommodate for sound.”

The Austin City Council on Thursday decided to do away with the city’s 27-year-old daytime curfew for juveniles, but extended the city’s nighttime curfew for people under 17 until Oct. 1. 

After Austin Mayor Steve Adler’s response to a sexist email his office received went viral, he began fielding calls to run for president. As someone who has covered the mayor for most of his time in office, I was struck by how different the tone of the response was from his in-person demeanor, which is more subdued, measured and diplomatic.

Adrian Ortega stood back from the pool at the Austin Motel on South Congress Avenue looking uncertain.

“I have done nothing like this before,” said Ortega, a former Austin lifeguard who now oversees the city’s aquatics programs, including swim teams. “It’s totally outside of my comfort zone.”

Standing a few yards from first base in an East Austin ballpark, City Council Member Ora Houston recounted her earliest memories of the diamond.

Drunken driving. Property theft. Possession of a controlled substance.

These are some of the crimes for which the Travis County Sheriff’s Office did not honor requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain suspected undocumented immigrants past their sentences or dispositions.

At the start of the Texas legislative session, you might have characterized the number of bills reversing City of Austin regulations as an onslaught. There were bills to undo the city’s "ban the box" rule, its plastic bag ban, the city’s ride-hailing regulations.

Jake Wegmann, a professor of housing and real estate at the University of Texas, stood on the sidewalk in Mueller, a large mixed-use development on the site of Austin’s old airport. He pointed across the street to a string of attached, two-story homes.

Annette Naish used to work for FEMA, traveling across the U.S. responding to natural disasters.

“I found out that in this country there are some of the most wonderful people in the history of the Western world,” she said.

Aubrey McIntosh sauntered out of an office on East Seventh Street, a new pink moustache in hand.

“I would hate to not be able to drive,” said McIntosh, a retired chemistry professor who had just reactivated his Lyft driver account at the company’s local office.