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December 2, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 APH: Data shows food, housing, health care amongst city’s ‘top challenges’ (KXAN)

🟪 Zilker tree lighting kicks off Austin's holiday season (KUT)

🟪 Hundreds of Texas voters flagged as potential noncitizens may have already proven their citizenship (Texas Tribune)

🟪 U.S. Supreme Court could send clear signal in Texas redistricting case if it extends administrative stay (CBS News)

🟪 AI may be scoring your college essay. Welcome to the new era of admissions (Associated Press)

🟪 As political winds shift, top chipmaker TSMC looks beyond Taiwan (NPR)

READ ON!

[FIRM NEWS]

(Sunday) // I had the honor of representing the Austin Trail of Lights Foundation Board as President at one of our city’s most beloved traditions, the Zilker Tree Lighting.

Now in its 59th year, the Tree Lighting continues to bring our community together, marking the start of a season defined by connection, celebration, and Austin spirit.

[New Blog] Austin 2026: The New Rules of Economic Development at City Hall

Learn more about Bingham Group’s new practice — and review all of our services here: binghamgp.com/services

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of July 2025)

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ APH: Data shows food, housing, health care amongst city’s ‘top challenges’ (KXAN)

After Austin Public Health published its 2025 Community Health Assessment for the Austin-Travis County area, it stated that mental health, food insecurity, healthcare access, housing, and more were the top challenges identified in the data.

Austin Public Health (APH) partnered with multiple organizations from August to September to “conduct a comprehensive assessment grounded in community voices and diverse data sources,” according to the assessment that was provided in an APH news release on Monday.

The organizations that partnered with APH for the assessment are Ascension, Baylor Scott & White Health, Capital Metro, Central Health, Integral Care, the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, St. David’s Foundation, UTHealth School of Public Health, and the Travis County Health and Human Services, the release said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Zilker tree lighting kicks off Austin's holiday season (KUT)

Hundreds of people gathered at Zilker Park on Sunday for the 59th annual lighting of the Zilker Holiday Tree. The Austin tradition included a musical performance by the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble and visits with Santa Claus. Mayor Kirk Watson and City Council Member Paige Ellis led the winners of the Zilker Holiday Tree Youth Art Contest in turning on the lights.

The tree, located in Zilker Park across Barton Springs road from the Trail of Lights, is built each year by using one of the city's moontowers as the anchor and measures 155 feet tall and includes 3,309 lights.

It's free to visit and is accessible from 6 to 10 p.m. through Jan. 1. Drive-up viewing is allowed Dec. 2-6, 8-9, and Dec. 24 - Jan. 1. Parking is free at the nearby lot on those nights as well… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ U.S. Supreme Court could send clear signal in Texas redistricting case if it extends administrative stay (CBS News)

The U.S. Supreme Court could soon extend its administrative stay in the Texas redistricting case that has generated nationwide controversy and headlines for months. If so, a legal analyst told CBS News Texas that it will become a clear signal that the Justices will keep the 2025 congressional maps in place for next year's all-important midterm elections.  

On Nov. 21, Justice Samuel Alito gave Texas Republicans a partial victory when he granted an administrative stay in the case. That set aside a ruling by two federal judges in El Paso, Texas, who blocked the 2025 maps after concluding Republicans illegally racially gerrymandered the districts so they could potentially win up to five extra seats in Congress. The lower court judges ruled that candidates would instead have to run under the existing congressional maps drawn in 2021. 

Republicans have insisted they were motivated by partisan gains, not race, when they redrew the districts over the summer. Alito's stay reinstated the 2025 maps approved by the legislature in August… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Hundreds of Texas voters flagged as potential noncitizens may have already proven their citizenship (Texas Tribune)

County election officials investigating the eligibility of 2,724 Texas voters flagged as potential noncitizens have so far found that hundreds of the voters registered through the state Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote while obtaining a driver’s license or state ID.

DPS keeps copies of the proof of citizenship that registrants provide, such as birth certificates or passports. The agency also keeps copies of proof of lawful presence in the U.S., such as green cards, provided by immigrants.

But the Texas Secretary of State’s Office told Votebeat and The Texas Tribune it did not check the voters flagged as potential noncitizens against DPS’ records before sending the list to county election officials to verify citizenship.

And at least one county election official has asked Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson and DPS for help checking DPS’ records but has yet to obtain access to them, according to documents obtained by Votebeat through a public records request and an interview.

When Celia Israel, who oversees voter registration for Travis County, asked the state for help determining voters’ citizenship, Nelson’s office directed her to DPS, according to a letter Israel sent Nelson’s office last month. But that agency said it couldn’t help her directly, citing state law, records show… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ In Houston, young mothers face some of the highest barriers for college and work in the U.S. (Texas Tribune)

The sprawling swath of Houston has long built its reputation on economic promise. The city touts a booming job market, home to oil titans like ExxonMobil and food distributors like Sysco, and is one of the most affordable major U.S. metros with its cheaper groceries and rent.

And yet new analysis of census data reveals Houston’s economic wins are leaving its youngest residents behind. Since the pandemic, nearly 125,000 young adults in the greater Houston metro area are neither employed full-time nor in school. They may take on short-term or gig work to get by, but it often isn’t enough to escape poverty. Experts call these 16- to 24-year-olds “disconnected,” which means they are cut off from pipelines that lead to stability. At 13.3%, Houston has the worst rate of disconnection of the 25 largest metro areas in the country, according to a report by the economic opportunity research group Measure of America first shared with The Texas Tribune… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ AI may be scoring your college essay. Welcome to the new era of admissions (Associated Press)

Students applying to college know they can’t — or at least shouldn’t — use AI chatbots to write their essays and personal statements. So it might come as a surprise that some schools are now using artificial intelligence to read them.

AI tools are now being incorporated into how student applications are screened and analyzed, admissions directors say. It can be a delicate topic, and not all colleges are eager to talk about it, but higher education is among the many industries where artificial intelligence is rapidly taking on tasks once reserved for humans.

In some cases, schools are quietly slipping AI into their evaluation process, experts say. Others are touting the technology’s potential to speed up their review of applications, cut processing times and even perform some tasks better than humans.

“Humans get tired; some days are better than others. The AI does not get tired. It doesn’t get grumpy. It doesn’t have a bad day. The AI is consistent,” says Juan Espinoza, vice provost for enrollment management at Virginia Tech… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ As political winds shift, top chipmaker TSMC looks beyond Taiwan (NPR)

Silicon Valley may be the heart of global tech, but its pulse depends on a special kind of lifeblood — high-end microchips — many of which flow out of a science park on Taiwan's west coast.

The park has been home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, since the company's inception nearly four decades ago. It is from this base that TSMC made itself indispensable to modern life; its chips are in everything from cell phones to cars. By some estimates, it produces over 90% of the world's most advanced chips.

But the calculus has been shifting for Taiwan's biggest and most profitable company, as the U.S.-China rivalry has intensified and chips have come to be seen as strategic to U.S. national security because of their applications in military technologies and artificial intelligence… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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