Breonna Taylor protest
Dozens rallied overnight in downtown Austin protesting a Kentucky grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor shooting case. Residents, students and even out of state visitors on vacation rallied in downtown, chanting and taking to the streets following a Kentucky grand jury charging one of the three officers involved in the case with wanton endangerment.
“I was out here in solidarity with Louisville and in solidarity with their struggle and the fact that Breonna Taylor’s murderers were not appropriately charged,” says an activist.
Many activists were outraged that murder nor manslaughter were laid out in Taylor’s death. Some reports say nearly a dozen arrests were made.
COVID-19 update
After seeing rising coronavirus numbers this week, the pendulum swings back in the opposite direction for Travis County. Almost across the board, active cases have fallen by more than 30, now down to 734. Hospitalizations are down by seven, now at 86. Both ICU bed usage and ventilator usage have also decreased in the past day. The county’s confirmed 28,745 cases overall and 27,590 for are recoveries.
16 more active cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Williamson County. As of this morning, 172 are said to be active out of the 8,515 discovered over the past six months. 16 of those active cases require hospitalizations. That is a decline from two from a day ago. In total, the county has recorded 8,202 recoveries from the virus.
Contact tracing
Contact tracing has not been an easy task for Austin Public Health. Chief Epidemiologist Janet Pichette says they’re trying to compile the most accurate data and investigate possible outbreaks. However, they can’t find a lot of the people that need to be in contact with.
“You make calls, and people don’t often answer the telephone. And so we’re not able to complete a case investigation,” says Pichette.
She and other health leaders say answering the phone and staying in contact with them is vital in helping track cases and where cases are coming from throughout Travis County.
Buffalo Billiards closed
You can add another local business to the growing list of those that aren’t surviving the pandemic. Buffalo Billiards on Sixth Street is now closed down. It first closed back in March as coronavirus bar shutdowns took root. But now, after 21 years in operation, the longtime bar and pool hall is officially gone.
Enrollment for AISD
Enrollment has been a challenge for the Austin school district for a lot of years, and this year is certainly no different. Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde says they’re about 3,500 fewer kids than expected this year. She tells KVUE a lot of those kids are on the pre-kindergarten level.
“The goal right now is to work to recoup as many of these students as we can prior thio the end of October, if at all possible,” Elizalde says.
If they can’t bring the numbers up, school funding will be impacted and more kids could fall behind. Jobs ultimately could be a risk.
GOP files lawsuit against Gov Abbott.
Governor Abbott is now the target of a lawsuit filed by the Republican Party of Texas. Their Attorney Jared Woofill says Abbott doesn’t have the power to allow early voting to begin on October 13th, which is six days earlier than scheduled.
“The Texas Constitution says very clearly that only the legislature can suspend laws. You compare that to Governor Abbott’s orders, time and time again he says he is suspending laws,” says Woodfill.
In previous lawsuits, the governor argued that he does have the power under the Texas Disaster Act. The Texas GOP is hopeful the state Supreme Court will sign with them.
Tesla gigafactory in Travis County
Tesla CEO Elon Musk touches on the upcoming gigafactory in Travis County. Speaking at the annual shareholders meeting this week, Musk says the Austin area was chosen for a lot of reasons, including location.
“For Giga Texas in Austin is roughly two thirds of the way across the US. So in terms of delivering cars to the central US and into the East Coast, it’s just faster, it costs less, it fundamentally improves our economics,” Musk says.
The factory in Travis County will produce the new cyber truck. Musk says there are already more than half a million pre orders for it. Tesla hopes to move quickly and have the factory open, possibly by late next year.
FEMA grant for fires
As a number of local firefighters in California are helping battle massive wildfires, Texas Senator John Cornyn says $1.2 million in federal aid is coming to Travis County to help mitigate fires locally. The money is a FEMA grant that will be used to help the area state better prepared and able to respond quickly to fire related emergencies.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-9-24-20
