BG Reads // January 14, 2026

Author

A.J. Bingham
January 14, 2026

faustin a

Presented By

www.binghamgp.com

January 14, 2026

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin nonprofits grapple with funding cuts after Prop Q failure (KVUE)

🟪 City of Austin takes legal steps to get 6th Street bar to clean up crime (KXAN)

🟪 Central Texas Food Bank launches six new Austin ISD school-based pantries (CBS Austin)

🟪 Austin school district said Waymo continues to illegally pass its buses following recall (KXAN)

🟪 Fight for the downtown Austin IHOP continues (Austin Business Journals)

🟪 Joe Rogan breaks with Trump over ‘Gestapo’ ICE operations (The Hill)

🟪 Pentagon embraces Musk's Grok AI chatbot as it draws global outcry (Associated Press)

🟪 Trump's economic speech veers off-topic as he takes aim at Biden and Powell (NPR)

READ ON!

[FROM THE FIRM ]

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City of Austin Memos:

🏛️ Meetings this week:

🏛️ Meetings next week:

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin nonprofits grapple with funding cuts after Prop Q failure (KVUE)

Nonprofit organizations across Austin are facing major disruptions after the city announced substantial reductions to its social services contracts. The funding cuts come after voters rejected Proposition Q, a measure that would have permanently raised the city’s property tax rate and generated an estimated $110 million annually. 

One organization feeling the effects is SAFE Alliance, a nonprofit that provides a wide range of services for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and child abuse. Dr. Pierre Berastaín, CEO of SAFE Alliance, told KVUE the organization is expecting to lose approximately $145,000 in city funding this year, a shortfall that could reduce services for around 345 people.

“That funding ends up going to a number of programs,” Berastaín said. “They have less entry points for help and then as a community we need to grapple with that.”

SAFE Alliance currently operates more than 20 programs, including emergency shelter, housing stability services and support groups. Berastaín said cutting funding to organizations like SAFE doesn’t eliminate the need, but moves the costs elsewhere.

“Whenever we cut funding from one space like SAFE, we end up opening the issue somewhere else down the stream,” he said. “When you close shelters and housing, you open up jails and ERs much wider.”

City Manager T.C. Broadnax released the following statement... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City of Austin takes legal steps to get 6th Street bar to clean up crime (KXAN)

keholders of Pour Choices to take action to prevent criminal activity at and near the establishment.

Pour Choices is on the corner of Sixth and Trinity Streets. The bar’s owner, who is named in the suit, said he has not been served with the official paperwork and has no comment at this time; he also deferred to his attorney for when he does officially receive the filing.

The suit claims the bar is a place “in which persons habitually go to commit criminal activity and have knowingly tolerated such activity,” and “defendants have failed to make reasonable efforts to abate such activities.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Central Texas Food Bank launches six new Austin ISD school-based pantries (CBS Austin)

The Central Texas Food Bank is expanding its partnership with Austin Independent School District by opening six new school-based food pantries at elementary schools across the district.

The Feeding Futures School Pantry locations provide families with convenient access to food on their child's campus, according to the food bank.

“This is a wonderful way for us to provide easy access to food - nutritious, healthy food - that’s culturally relevant to families," Anurita Mittra, Vice President of Network Programs and Services with the Central Texas Food Bank, said.

By placing food resources where families already gather, the pantries help remove transportation barriers and reduce stigma associated with seeking food assistance. The pantries are designed to feel welcoming and supportive for families… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin school district said Waymo continues to illegally pass its buses following recall (KXAN)

New video obtained by KXAN shows Waymo’s driverless vehicles have been caught again illegally passing stopped school buses in Austin weeks after the company said it updated its software to solve the issue and filed a voluntary recall.

The latest violations happened on Dec. 12 and Dec. 19, according to the district. KXAN has obtained videos showing at least 22 instances this school year where Austin Independent School District’s bus cameras recorded Waymo autonomous vehicles passing while the stop arm is out.

The district said there have been 23 violations involving Waymo’s autonomous cars – which are counted among more than 7,000 the district issued to various drivers this year.

The Dec. 19 video shows the early hours outside a south Austin apartment complex. In the video, it appears to show an adult and a child crossing the street as the bus approaches. The Waymo appears to slow down but does not stop while the pedestrians are crossing in front of the vehicle… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Fight for the downtown Austin IHOP continues (Austin Business Journals)

Three local real estate pros who have been in hot water recently over separate criminal investigations are wrestling for control of a downtown site that could hold one of Austin's biggest towers in the coming years.

In the latest step in a years-long battle to foreclose on the downtown Austin IHOP site, a creditor has challenged owner World Class Holdings' Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, calling it a bad-faith tactic to protect the property from foreclosure.

World Class has continually staved off foreclosure attempts on the IHOP property at 707 E. Cesar Chavez St. since late 2020. The land was most recently set to hit the auction block on Dec. 2, but World Class maintained its hold on the property — at least temporarily — thanks to an eleventh-hour voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy declaration by owning entity WC 707 Cesar Chavez LLC.

Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy provides an automatic stay and prevents the foreclosure of properties, and it's a legal strategy World Class has employed in the past to prevent foreclosure.

But now lender Cesar Rainey Street LLC, which purchased a $2.7 million loan for the property from original lender Amplify Credit Union in 2020 and has attempted to foreclose on the property multiple times since, has challenged the validity of the Chapter 11 case, alleging it is "a bad-faith tactic to stall (the) lender from validly exercising" its right to foreclose.

Cesar Rainey Street's sole manager is Justin Bayne, the president of Bayne Commercial, according to property records, but it is controlled by an investor group led by Bryan Hardeman, founder of Continental Automotive Group and a local real estate investor, according to previous reporting.

The tussle is intriguing due to just the property. Add in who the players are behind the action, and an odd storyline appears. The owner of World Class, Nate Paul, last year pleaded guilty to a charge of making false statements to a lending institution. Bayne was recently arrested on accusations that he played a key role in a high-end cocaine distribution enterprise. And Hardeman stands accused of arson and burglary charges, but he denied his involvement in the fires in an email to the Austin Business Journal shortly after his 2024 arrest… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Army & ACC: partnership extended for Army Software Factory (Army)

The U.S. Army signed a 10-year Intergovernmental Support Agreement (IGSA) with the Austin Community College District (ACC) on January 12. This collaboration is designed to accelerate the Army’s continuous transformation by bolstering the Army Software Factory (ASWF), empowering Soldiers with the cutting-edge skills needed to deliver readiness at the speed of relevance.

ASWF is a Transformation and Training Command (T2COM) unit that enables Soldiers to reach global mission outcomes through software operations. Soldiers apply for a position at the ASWF. While there, the Soldiers’ tech talent is developed and expanded to build proficiency and mastery in commercial technologies and processes. This results in an upskilled technical force that enables the Army to be better prepared for software-centric and dynamic contested environments.

Col. Vito Errico, ASWF director and founder explained the growth and success of not only the ASWF, but the partnership with ACC.

Errico paraphrased American author and cultural anthropologist Margaret Meade saying, “Never underestimate the power of selfless and committed people to change the world. We’ve progressed to a program that is one of the most in demand programs across the Department of War,” Errico said, “with a repeatable, scalable operating model for academia, with industry and of course here within the Army.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texts among Kerr County officials show confusion about missing campers during July 4 floods (Texas Tribune)

The first 911 call from the historic Camp Mystic on the Guadalupe River came in at 3:57 a.m., when a caller told the dispatcher she was stranded on a hill and cabins around her were filling with water. Around the same time, the swelling river swept away Camp Mystic’s owner and his son, the family’s lawyer said, along with a number of campers.

But it wasn’t until 6:34 a.m. — more than two hours later — that a Kerr County sheriff’s office captain sent the first text message to a group of emergency response leaders about what he called potential “issues” at Camp Mystic.

As the hours went on and the road to the camp remained impassable, the texts show the leaders in the text thread received sparse and sometimes contradictory information about whether anyone from the camp was missing — and how many were missing. As nightfall neared, the officials were still struggling to understand the scope of the disaster there… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico sprint towards Democratic primary race for Texas Senate (CBS News)

As they sprint toward the March 3 primary in Texas, James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett have different ways of attracting voters.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico's campaign said a town hall in Plano Monday night attracted 2,000 people. He told the crowd, "We are building a movement here in Texas." 

His event comes as the State Representative from Austin announced he has assembled 13,000 volunteers to knock on doors throughout the state and that he raised $6.8 million in the fourth quarter and $13 million since he launched his campaign through December 31. 

During an interview with CBS News Texas Tuesday morning, Talarico was asked how all of it translates into a victory in the primary on March 3rd. He said, "Well, our campaign has all the momentum, and you see it at these events all over the state, from Beaumont to El Paso, from Amarillo to Brownsville, and everywhere in between, including, as you mentioned last night, in Plano, where 2,000 people showed up."

These and all other candidates are now sprinting toward the primary, which is seven weeks away. Early voting begins in five weeks, on Tuesday, February 17… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Joe Rogan breaks with Trump over ‘Gestapo’ ICE operations (The Hill)

Podcaster Joe Rogan voiced sympathy with Americans who have expressed anger and frustration at the way President Trump’s administration has conducted immigration enforcement during his first year in office. “You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people — many of which turn out to be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said on Tuesday’s episode of his podcast, likely referring to the president’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to aid in the crackdown.

He added, “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?” Rogan, who was interviewing Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said issues concerning immigration “are more complicated than anyone wants to admit.”

Trump’s immigration agenda reached a flash point last week following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, a Minnesota woman federal officials allege impeded an ICE operation in Minneapolis by using her vehicle as a weapon. The Department of Homeland Security has defended the officer who killed Good, while protests against immigration operations in the North Star State have grown in the days since the shooting.

Polls indicate that many Americans disagree with the administration’s justification for the shooting and believe the officer should face legal action. Rogan, a prominent media voice who is particularly influential with young men, has broken with Trump on a number of issues in recent months after voicing support for the president during his 2024 campaign. Trump sat with the podcast host for a more than three-hour interview just days before the 2024 election, as part of an effort to use appearances with internet influencers and popular podcasters to shore up support among younger voters… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Pentagon embraces Musk's Grok AI chatbot as it draws global outcry (Associated Press)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will join Google's generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military's data as possible into the developing technology.

"Very soon we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department," Hegseth said in a speech at Musk's space flight company, SpaceX, in South Texas.

The announcement comes just days after Grok — which is embedded into X, the social media network owned by Musk — drew global outcry and scrutiny for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent.

Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked Grok, while the U.K.'s independent online safety watchdog announced an investigation Monday. Grok has limited image generation and editing to paying users… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump's economic speech veers off-topic as he takes aim at Biden and Powell (NPR)

President Trump gave a grievance-laden speech at the Detroit Economic Club Tuesday that touched on what he labeled a resurgent American economy but meandered into many different topics including criticism of former President Joe Biden, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Minnesota's Somali population and Minneapolis protesters.

"We have quickly gone from the worst numbers on record to the best and strongest numbers and an economy that is far ahead," Trump said from the Detroit Economic Club.

The speech, which comes amid polling showing his handling of the economy at a historic low, lasted just more than an hour. He touted plans to crack down on fraud, freeze federal payments to states with sanctuary cities and cap credit card fees at 10% for a year. He also teased further proposals to come on health care and housing.

"It's unfair," Trump said in Detroit on credit card interest rates. "The rates are too high to provide further relief to hardworking Americans."

But Trump spent much of his time blaming Biden for inflation rates and criticized the fed chair, Powell, whom the Justice Department is targeting in a new investigation. Trump told NBC News on Sunday he had nothing to do with the probe, but he has been criticizing Powell for months for not lowering interest rates and has been threatening to fire him… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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