Cover Story
Meet the Candidates Vying for Five City Council Seats
Austin voters cemented a generational shift in 2022 by electing five City Council candidates who embraced the city planning philosophy of New Urbanism. Those elected became part of a supermajority dedicated to using market forces to bring down home prices by encouraging the construction of dense, mixed-use housing and effective public transit. That supermajority went…
News
After Garces Perez Has Surgery to Remove Bullet, Austin Lawyer Questions Dell Seton
Eleven days after being shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez finally had surgery to remove the bullet in his upper back last Thursday, Oct. 1, according to one of his attorneys, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch. Garces Perez had told press during a Sept. 21 press conference that the bullet hadn’t…
City Meets With Conservative Cicero Institute About New Homelessness Initiative
First things first: Have Mayor Kirk Watson and the city’s Homeless Strategies and Operations department been meeting with the Cicero Institute – the right-wing think tank working to sweep homeless people off the nation’s streets? That was one question at City Council’s Tuesday work session, as city staff briefed the dais on the groundbreaking No…
The Week’s Biggest News in Brief: Oct. 1-7
Loose Lips in the GOP’s Ship: Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton has done a great job of dodging questions related to his record and avoiding any debates with his Democratic opponent James Talarico. But now his private conversations are coming back to bite him in the ass, as leaked audio from last…
District 1: Six Candidates Race to Represent East Austin
For the last eight years, Austin City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison has represented District 1, one of Austin’s biggest districts that stretches all the way from parts of East Seventh Street to north of East Parmer Lane in the Dessau area, out to the city’s eastern boundary. It’s now time to change hands. District 1…
District 3: Four East Austinites Challenge José Velásquez for His Seat
We asked current Austin City Council Member José Velásquez why he’s still the best pick to represent East and South Austin’s District 3 for another four years. “Oh, I’d leave that up to the community,” he replied. “I’d point to our track record and what we’ve been able to accomplish together.” But that doesn’t mean…
Some Immigrant Children Face Trial Without Legal Representation Thanks to Trump
Across the country, children face immigration proceedings that could determine whether they can remain in the United States. Some of them are doing so without any legal representation. Since July 31, immigrant minors have had to navigate those proceedings without an attorney by their side, following the Trump administration’s decision to withhold funding from a…
District 9: Zo Qadri’s Council Voting Record Draws Several Challengers
You could argue that Zo Qadri is the most prominent urbanist on City Council. Part of that is due to the district he represents. District 9 is the most urban of the city’s 10 districts, covering the majority of Downtown, many of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, and the headquarters of the Chronicle. It includes the…
District 8: First Responder and City Scrutinizer Face Off
If you subscribe to the notion that police, fire, and EMS workers are heroes, then there’s a hero running for City Council this year. And if you think that members of the U.S. Armed Forces are also heroes, then we’ve got two running. Selena Xie, a commander with Austin-Travis County EMS, and Jeffery Bowen, a…
District 5: Candidates Look to Unseat Ryan Alter
The portion of South Austin that makes up District 5 could see new representation for the next four years, as incumbent Ryan Alter faces three opponents competing to claim the seat. Among the district’s residents’ largest concerns are the lack of adequate public transportation, the development of affordable housing, and the area’s homeless population. Looking…
Austin Asks for Feedback as It Considers Rules for Large Water Users
Dozens of residents walked between displays about water conservation, reuse, and consumption Monday, Oct. 5, at the city of Austin Permitting and Development Center, as Austin Water officials asked them to consider one question: How should the city manage its largest water users? The city’s water wonks presented some possible answers. “Tonight, we’re having an…
Music
Muddy Grounds, Electronic Sounds: Reports From ACL Weekend One
There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing – or so goes a Norse proverb commonly cited in my Midwestern upbringing. It’s a sentiment that served ACL Weekend One attendees well because, while there’s little you can do clothing-wise to simultaneously tackle the heat, sun, and dust typical of October in Texas, a…
“Fragile Vessels” Exposes the Toll of Extreme Heat
How do you describe the feeling of a 100-degree day in Austin? Temperature is at once an ephemeral and a universal experience – both clear and unavoidable, yet strangely evading description. It’s fitting, then, that “Fragile Vessels: A Gathering and Exhibition on Extreme Heat” included a bit of almost every media – documentary, field notes,…
Music Notes
Bryson Tiller Tuesday 13, Moody Center Tiller’s 2015 debut album, T R A P S O U L, signified his crafty ability to merge R&B sensibilities with trap production. Near the peak of his stardom, a feature on 2016 DJ Khaled cut “Ima Be Alright” actually offers another great thesis: “I love to get on…
Geese, Blood Orange, the XX, and More Reviews From Sunday at ACL
Saturday cooled down and stayed dry, so you know Sunday had to swing back to showers. The weather didn’t deplete attendance as ACL Fest’s first weekend wound down, though – locals Flight by Nothing received as warm a reception at 2pm as alleged rock & roll psyops Geese, genre-agnostic auteur Blood Orange, and enduring 2010s…
Lorde, Young Miko, Finn Wolfhard, and More Reviews From Saturday at ACL
Friday more or less went off without a hitch despite the rain, but ACL Fest opened its gates two hours late on Saturday as construction crews attempted mud cleanup. Organizers fit almost everyone into the day’s new truncated schedule: UK dream pop act Night Tapes shuffled from an opening slot at the T-Mobile stage to…
Charli xcx, Skrillex, Turnstile, and More Reviews From Friday of ACL
Indeed, rain descended on Zilker Park in the days leading up to this year’s Austin City Limits fest, and it didn’t stop Friday. And yet the Chronicle team lived to tell the tale. Locals Elijah Delgado and Grocery Bag repped Austin to out-of-towners, Turnstile invited punks to the mud pit, and “a woman known as…
Arts + Culture
Roberto Riggio, Atash Bandleader, Dies at 55
Roberto Riggio, Grammy-nominated director of world music act Atash, passed away on Monday, Sept. 28. He was 55. Born in Mexico and raised in Edinburg, Texas, the violinist and composer came to Austin to study music at UT in 1989 and never stopped learning and playing in the four decades that followed, becoming an influential…
“Invasive Species 2” Grows Bigger in Scope and Scale
It’s in the air, the water, and now it’s in our local art galleries & microcinemas! Yes, that’s right: Curated by Alexis Hunter, this October bears out “Invasive Species 2,” a multi-day and -disciplinary series where women artists invade male-dominated art biomes including the fine arts, film, and literature – changing their environment to one…
Screens
Naza Review: Cold Data, Cold Blood
Naza is not simply a film about the ongoing Israeli bombing campaign against Gaza. It is a warning. Starting in 2023, directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor spent almost two years interviewing over 100 people involved in the Gaza offensive, from soldiers to drone operators to intelligence officers. For the film, 24 of them were…
The Social Reckoning Review: Network Down
But is it art? As a snarky twentysomething, I cherished a T-shirt that bore that question, a guaranteed if glib conversation starter at any bar. I thought of that shirt while watching The Social Reckoning, screenwriter-turned-director Aaron Sorkin’s followup to the Oscar-winning The Social Network. An old-fashioned, unsubtle account of how a whistleblower revealed Facebook…
Columns
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The late Alan Rickman invited half a dozen terminally ill children and their families to visit the studio every day to see behind the scenes of Harry Potter movies. One of the latest crazes to hit the TikTok generation is vaginal prebiotic capsules. If you squirm when you see a particularly gory scene in a…
The Luv Doc: Swimming in Huzzes
Dear Luv Doc, My huzz (if u dont know that means crush) is so cute and he’s in my homeroom but he doesnt even notice pretty girls. I have to find a way to get my hands on him. So I started dating the quarterback of our high school team, I only started dating him…
Day Trips: Casa Rio, San Antonio
Casa Rio in San Antonio reached its 80th anniversary on Oct. 4. That’s quite a feat for the oldest restaurant on the River Walk. The story of the iconic Tex-Mex restaurant began in 1921 when the San Antonio River flooded downtown, killing about 50 people. Residents called for a dam upstream (Olmos Dam), and channelizing…
Feedback: October 9, 2026
University Divided Dear Editor, At the end of last December, I retired from UT, where I had taught in the Department of French and Italian for over 30 years. While there has been a lot of deserved focus on the fate of gender studies at UT, the changes have been even more sweeping, and, I…
Qmmunity: National Coming Out Day
Wow, wow, wow: October’s already well underway. Have you decided on your Halloween costume yet? Me, I’m not a costume person. Something about the work involved wards me away, especially given how poorly I take to fabric crafts. But that wasn’t always the case, to be honest. I used to be obsessed with dressing up…
Hellish Week Stands Between Austin FC and Playoff Doom
It’s October, and Austin FC is still very much alive in the MLS Playoffs race. That would have seemed nearly impossible just two months ago, after the club endured a miserable stretch of games across both sides of the World Cup break, losing six out of seven MLS contests and looking about as vivacious as…
Fun + Games
Free Will Astrology
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Periodically, you have the cosmic right to receive precisely what you need. Life is duty-bound to deliver a close approximation of full satisfaction. I believe now is one of those times. So please be bold and articulate about naming the specific blessings you require. Write them down, speak them aloud, and…
