🟪 Travis County votes to withhold some Tesla incentives (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Austin ISD weighs $117M-plus in cuts as budget shortfall climbs to $181M (Community Impact)

🟪 Austin police changed how use of force is counted. Why it’s sparking concerns (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Intel is joining Elon Musk's $20B Terafab project that is starting in Austin (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Wisconsin city passes nation’s first anti-data center referendum (Politico)

🟪 U.S. and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire (NPR)

READ ON!

✅ Travis County votes to withhold some Tesla incentives (Austin Business Journal)

After a monthslong standoff, Travis County is only handing out part of the economic incentives it agreed to give Tesla Inc. as part of a 2020 economic development agreement. 

The Travis County Commissioners Court decided April 7 to approve handing out roughly 91% of the rebates the county was supposed to provide Tesla. Based on incomplete records provided by the company, the Travis County Commissioners Court voted to withhold 9% of the rebate funds. The incentives are for the investments the company made from 2020 through 2022.

The exact dollar amount of the awarded tax rebates is unclear. A specific number wasn’t mentioned during the commissioners meeting. ABJ reported late last year that Tesla could receive around $14 million.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Travis County’s decision to withhold 9% of the rebates it was eligible for. ABJ reported in November 2025 that Tesla and Travis County were in a dispute over reporting requirements for the incentives.

Travis County recently completed its 2020, 2021 and 2022 compliance reports for the economic development agreement that helped bring in Tesla’s Gigafactory. Christy Moffett, Travis County's director of economic development and strategic investments, laid out Tesla's investment and job creation numbers in a presentation to commissioners… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin ISD weighs $117M-plus in cuts as budget shortfall climbs to $181M (Community Impact)

Austin ISD is anticipating making more than $100 million in budget cuts to staffing, academic programs and other operational expenses across campuses and departments.

The sweeping cuts come as the district aims to reduce a mounting budget shortfall that has grown to $181 million for fiscal year 2026-27.

"As budget pressures have gotten heavier and heavier, we have navigated that and have kept those cuts farther away from the classroom, and it had limited impacts to our students," Superintendent Matias Segura told reporters after an April 7 budget work session. "But we're at a point now ... where we're no longer able to protect those cuts from impacting our classrooms."

To reduce expenses, district officials discussed four scenarios that could involve making anywhere from $117 million-$132 million in budget cuts. Additionally, the district may save $9 million-$10 million by removing vacant positions and receive $50 million from monetizing three district properties, Chief Financial Officer Katrina Montgomery said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin police changed how use of force is counted. Why it’s sparking concerns (Austin American-Statesman)

Austin police leaders say a sweeping overhaul of how the department measures use of force is producing a clearer picture of officer behavior — one that shows force is being used less frequently, even as arrests rise.

The Austin Police Department implemented the new reporting system on Jan. 1 following a yearlong review of its policies and data practices by an academic researcher who retroactively reanalyzed data from 2023 through 2025 using the same methodology. The results, presented to council members Tuesday, suggest prior data significantly overstated how often force was used.

At the center of the change is a shift in how incidents are counted. Previously, every individual action — for example, a tackle followed by a Taser deployment — was recorded as a separate use of force. Under the new “subject-level” approach, all force used against a single person during an encounter, even by multiple officers, is counted as one incident.

That adjustment alone cut reported use of force incidents roughly in half across the three-year period, according to Robin Engel, the Ohio State University researcher who led the yearlong review. Engel described widespread “inconsistencies” in how the department had been tracking force, affecting reporting, accountability and training.

The revised data reframes a key metric: how often force is used relative to police activity. While raw counts appear lower under the new system, Engel emphasized the more important trend is the declining rate of force as arrests increase… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Intel is joining Elon Musk's $20B Terafab project that is starting in Austin (Austin Business Journal)

Elon Musk's ambitious $20 billion-plus Terafab project is adding a marquee partner.

Silicon Valley-based Intel Corp. on April 7 posted on Musk's social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) that it was partnering with Tesla Inc., Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and X parent company xAI to join the Terafab project to "help refactor silicon fab technology." The post included a picture of Musk at Intel facilities.

"Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power future advances in AI and robotics," the post read.

Intel representatives declined further comment.

The addition of Intel adds a big name to the ambitious project. Musk announced the Terafab last month inside the historic Seaholm Power Plant, and claimed the joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and xAI will result in the production of 1 terawatt of compute annually. That's about 100 million to 200 million artificial intelligence chips that will be used to power Musk's products — from his self-driving vehicles to his Optimus humanoid robots to rockets. Eventually, the chips could advance Musk's goal of a multi-planet civilization… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Kyle city manager takes another job (Austin Business Journal)

Kyle City Manager Bryan Langley has accepted a job to run Goodyear, Arizona, as city manager.

The Phoenix suburb on April 6 unanimously approved the hiring of Langley for its top unelected position in a special meeting. Langley's last day at Kyle City Hall will be May 15. Kyle is south of Austin with about 70,000 residents and a $600 million annual budget. Langley recently oversaw a $1.3 billion capital improvement campaign while managing a team of about 500 employees.

He is set to begin his new role in Goodyear on May 18. Kyle city leaders said they'll discuss a temporary replacement at an upcoming City Council meeting… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year (Texas Tribune)

Texas will lose out on at least $3.1 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years thanks to an exemption for the state’s booming data center industry, according to the comptroller’s office.

That figure is likely a vast underestimate given the explosion of new facilities being built, but already makes the tax break one of the state’s costliest incentive programs and soon to be the most expensive of its kind in the nation.

Lawmakers, who will meet in January for the next legislative session, say they are considering proposals to either limit the scope of the tax break or get rid of it altogether.

“These new numbers are extremely concerning and I will say they’re unsustainable” said state Sen. Joan Huffman, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “I plan to look at filing legislation to either repeal the exemption or take a very close look at it and see.”

Lawmakers approved the tax break more than a decade ago, when data centers were smaller and required fewer resources. From 2014 to 2022, the exemption amounted to between $5 million and $30 million in lost state revenue per year. By 2023, that skyrocketed to more than $150 million, and this year Texas is forgoing at least $1.3 billion — a number that is rapidly increasing every year, based on state projections… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas considers required reading list for schools, which includes the Bible (New York Times)

Texas education officials are considering sweeping changes to English and social studies instruction that would put readings from the Bible on a new state-required reading list for millions of public school students. The changes would also bring a U.S. and Texas centric lens to history, with less emphasis on world history, a shift some historians and progressive groups have opposed.

The Texas State Board of Education, an elected board with a 10-to-5 Republican majority, was meeting on Tuesday to consider the proposals, which could shape instruction for a generation of students. Texas is home to 5.4 million public school students, about 11 percent of the total U.S. public school population. The hotly debated reading list drew hours of public testimony, from teachers, students, parents, politicians and religious groups.

A draft of the list, proposed by the Texas Education Agency, outlines more than 200 texts, with widely recognized classics such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle for kindergartners, “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L’Engle for seventh graders and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech for eighth graders. But it also includes passages from the Bible in middle and high school, raising questions about the separation of church and state.

A second proposed list, from Will Hickman, a Republican member of the state board, would require fewer books overall and include biblical passages starting in elementary school. Supporters say the Bible excerpts, which include the story of David and Goliath from the Old Testament and a meditation on love from First Corinthians, have important literary value. Critics asked the board to dial back the biblical passages, arguing that they belong in a comparative religion class, or not at all. The board is weighing broader questions about which books — and which authors — qualify as essential reading, and how much flexibility to give to teachers to select additional texts of their choosing… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Wisconsin city passes nation’s first anti-data center referendum (Politico)

A small Wisconsin city home to a data center project backed by President Donald Trump voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to restrict future data centers, in a first-of-its-kind referendum that backers said could offer a blueprint for AI infrastructure opponents around the country.

Voters in the Milwaukee suburb of Port Washington approved the measure by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, according to unofficial results. City residents who sponsored the voter initiative said it marks an escalation of tactics to oppose the massive facilities needed to power artificial intelligence and could inspire activists in other towns to follow suit.

“This is really setting a precedent,” Christine Le Jeune, founder of the nonprofit Great Lakes Neighbors United, said in an interview Tuesday evening. “This is something that other communities can look to.” At least three other communities around the country are set to vote on similar ballot measures targeting data center projects later this year. And in Ohio, data center opponents are seeking to place an initiative on the statewide ballot that would ban new construction of certain large data centers.

The Port Washington referendum doesn’t actually derail the city’s controversial data center campus — a $15 billion, 1.3-gigawatt facility from tech giants OpenAI and Oracle that’s one of multiple “Stargate” AI megaprojects the companies are planning with the Trump administration’s support. Instead, it takes aim at future projects by requiring city leaders to obtain voter approval before awarding developers lucrative tax incentives… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ U.S. and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire (NPR)

The U.S. and Iran reached a ceasefire deal on Tuesday, less than two hours before the deadline President Trump imposed for Iran to meet his demands or else face wide-scale destruction.

Trump hailed the agreement early Wednesday as "a big day for World Peace!"

"Iran wants it to happen, they've had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else," Trump posted on social media.

Trump said the U.S. "will be helping with the traffic buildup" in the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran "can start the reconstruction process."

As part of the agreement, set to take effect immediately, Trump said the U.S. and Israel would suspend bombing Iran for two weeks, subject to Iran following through on its commitment to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for safe passage during the ceasefire period, a strategic waterway through which about 20% of the world's oil supplies passes… 🟪 (READ MORE)