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January 8, 2026

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin's airport to add 32 gates as part of expansion (KUT)

🟪 Expect movement on Austin’s potential 2026 bond package this month (KXAN)

🟪 Hutto to appoint interim council member at next meeting (Community Impact)

🟪 Texas becomes first state to end American Bar Association oversight of law schools (KERA)

🟪 After Venezuela, Trump’s cartel threats put Mexico on edge (Politico)

🟪 How the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ reinforces Xi’s vision of power in Asia (New York Times)

READ ON!

[FIRM NEWS]

🟪 Book Review - The Austin–San Antonio Megaregion: Opportunity and Experience

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🗓️ 2026 Council Meeting Schedule

• Work Session: Tuesday, January 20 @9AM

• Regular Meeting: Thursday, January 22nd @10AM

🏛️ [New Memos]

• Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Amended Budget (posted 12.30.2025)

• Staff Response to Artificial Intelligence Resolution (posted 12.26.2025)

• Update related to the Equity Overlay Study (posted 12.26.2025)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin's airport to add 32 gates as part of expansion (KUT)

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will add 32 gates as part of a massive expansion project already underway, almost doubling from the 34 gates it has now.

The new numbers were revealed Wednesday after decade-long lease contracts were finalized with the seven biggest airlines at ABIA: Southwest, Delta, United, JetBlue, Spirit, American and Alaska.

Those leases lock down how much space the airlines will occupy and help the city secure financing for the airport expansion, whose price tag now exceeds $5 billion. Funding for the project comes exclusively from airport revenue.

"Today's a big deal," Mayor Kirk Watson said. "Austin is a remarkably successful city right now, and part of the proof of that is you have these major airlines that want to be a part of it."

Of the new gates, 26 of them will not be available until the early 2030s when Concourse B opens. The billion dollar facility, currently being designed, will connect to the Barbara Jordan Terminal by an underground walkway. 

After the expansion, Delta will become the new anchor tenant of the main terminal. The airline said it will occupy 15 gates, open a new lounge and spend $250 million to upgrade its part of the terminal… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Expect movement on Austin’s potential 2026 bond package this month (KXAN)

This month, you’re going to start hearing more about a city of Austin bond election that may end up on your ballot in November 2026.

In an interview with KXAN earlier this week, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said he’s working with city staff to put together a decision tree, if you will, that will guide how the city moves forward. That’s expected to go before the Audit and Finance Committee next week.

As the mayor put it, that decision tree will address: “How do we ask the right questions on what ought to be in that bond election and importantly, why have a bond election.”

The mayor gave KXAN some insight into what kind of questions are likely to be on the decision tree… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Hutto to appoint interim council member at next meeting (Community Impact)

Hutto officials invited residents to apply for an interim City Council seat that will be filled this week and serve through May 2026, until voters elect a permanent replacement. Council is expected to appoint a replacement for the empty seat at its Dec. 8 meeting.

According to the city’s job posting, the interim council member will represent residents, participate in policy decisions, approve budgets, and attend public meetings and community engagements during the temporary appointment period.

The seat became vacant following the departure of former Place 1 City Council member Brian Thompson.

City officials said 11 eligible applications have been received so far. Under the city charter, City Council is required to appoint an interim member at its next regular meeting… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texas becomes first state to end American Bar Association oversight of law schools (KERA)

Texas is now the first state in the U.S. to eliminate American Bar Association oversight of its law schools, ending the state's 42-year-long reliance on the national organization.

The Texas Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday finalizing a tentative September opinion, asserting the ABA should "no longer have the final say" on which law school graduates can take the bar exam — a requirement to becoming a licensed lawyer in each state.

"The Court advised that it intends to provide stability, certainty, and flexibility to currently approved law schools by guaranteeing ongoing approval to schools that satisfy a set of simple, objective, and ideologically neutral criteria using metrics no more onerous than those currently required by the ABA," reads the order signed by all nine justices… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump still fuming about Cuellar’s ‘disloyalty’ weeks after pardon (San Antonio Express-News)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday endorsed the Republican running against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, making clear he expected the Laredo Democrat to switch parties or leave the U.S. House after pardoning him of corruption charges. “I never assumed he would be running for Office again, and certainly not as a Democrat, who essentially destroyed his life even with the Pardon given, but he did,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

“And now, despite doing him by far the greatest favor of his life, 20 years of FREEDOM, I am fighting him for his seat in Congress.” Cuellar filed for reelection as a Democrat minutes after Trump granted him and his wife a full and unconditional pardon on Dec. 3. The pair faced prison sentences of up to 204 years each for roughly a dozen charges, including money laundering, conspiracy and bribery.

While Trump declined to endorse the Republican challenging Cuellar in the days immediately following the pardon, he said Tuesday that he supports Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina. “Tano’s views are stronger, better, and far less tainted than Henry’s,” he wrote. “HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” The district is seen as one of several in Texas that Republicans need to flip to maintain their slim majority in Congress in this year’s midterm elections. Last year, the GOP-led state Legislature redrew Cuellar’s district to make it more winnable for a Republican.

Trump nonetheless asserted that he would have pardoned Cuellar again if given the chance, repeating the contention that the Laredo Democrat was targeted for bucking his party on border security and other issues. Cuellar is the only anti-abortion Democrat in the U.S. House and often joins the GOP on key votes. Cuellar “truly deserves to be beaten badly in the upcoming Election, but (is) not somebody who should be serving a 20 year jail sentence,” Trump wrote… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ After Venezuela, Trump’s cartel threats put Mexico on edge (Politico)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is dismissing talk of a U.S. “invasion” of her country. Privately, some Mexican officials and business leaders are concerned that President Donald Trump’s threats may soon become reality. A worst-case scenario, some fear, is a U.S. strike that results in civilian casualties and throws the country into political and economic chaos. Trump’s rhetoric, including his suggestion over the weekend that Washington may have to “do something” about cartels that are “running Mexico,” is reviving fears in Mexico City that the United States may act unilaterally against Mexico — particularly after the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday.

“Mexico should indeed be concerned, and Mexico is going to have to thread the needle very carefully,” said Arturo Sarukhán, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. “I don’t think it’s likely that there will be a unilateral use of force by the U.S. on Mexican soil — but does that mean it won’t happen? Absolutely not.” The concerns have grown even as bilateral relations are at a high water mark, driven in part by close cooperation on border security and Trump’s warm words for Sheinbaum, whom he called a “terrific person” as recently as Sunday.

But despite the public assurances from Sheinbaum and Trump’s apparent affection for her leadership, business leaders reliant on peace and stability are increasingly anxious. They worry about the Trump administration’s hostile posture as it treats drug trafficking and border security as core national-security threats that can be tackled with military force. “Setting aside personal judgments about what happened in Venezuela, this action increases concerns about the potential for unilateral action against Mexican cartels,” said Pedro Casas Alatriste, CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Rubio plans to meet with Danish officials next week to talk about US interest in Greenland (Associated Press)

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he plans to meet with Danish officials next week after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over Greenland, the strategic Arctic island that is a self-governing territory of Denmark.

Since the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump has revived his argument that the United States needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, had requested a meeting with Rubio, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland’s government website. Previous requests for a meeting were not successful, the statement said.

Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ How the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ reinforces Xi’s vision of power in Asia (New York Times)

Just hours before American commandos seized President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in a daring raid, a senior Chinese official had met the Venezuelan leader at the presidential palace, a show of support for one of Beijing’s closest partners in the Western Hemisphere. The speed with which U.S. forces acted afterward to capture Mr. Maduro sent a blunt message to Beijing about the limits of its influence in a region that Washington treats as its own.

China now risks losing ground in Venezuela after Saturday’s assault in Caracas, despite decades of investment and billions of dollars in loans. But the assault also reinforces a broader logic that ultimately favors President Xi Jinping’s vision of China and its status in Asia: when powerful countries impose their will close to home, others tend to step back.

The White House has framed the Maduro operation as part of an updated Monroe Doctrine, or as President Trump describes it, the “Donroe Doctrine.” A globe carved into spheres of influence — with the United States dominating the Western Hemisphere and China asserting primacy across the Asia-Pacific — and where might makes right, regardless of shared rules, could benefit Beijing in a number of ways. Stephen Miller, a top aide to Mr. Trump, articulated this doctrine in an interview with the CNN host Jake Tapper on Monday. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said.

“These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” It could keep the United States and the brunt of its military forces away from Asia. And it could undercut Washington’s criticism of Beijing when Chinese forces elbow their way across contested waters of the South China Sea and menace Taiwan, the island democracy China claims as its own… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Gabbard MIA on Venezuela operation, amid tensions with Trump policy (Washington Post)

President Donald Trump’s top national security advisers in recent days have outdone one another, publiclyextolling his bold decision to launch the risky military raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. But one key figurehas been largely absent from public view: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who for years has spoken out against costly U.S. interventions abroad, waited more than three days before commenting publicly about Operation Absolute Resolve.

Her usually busy feeds on X, where she maintains official and personal accounts, were abnormally quiet until she issued a terse statement Tuesday afternoon. She has been missing in action from Fox News and other conservative broadcasts, where she’s been a frequent guest championing Trump’s priorities and excoriating his perceived enemies in a way previous intelligence chiefs avoided.

“President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders, confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers,” she wrote Tuesday on her official X account. “Kudos to our servicemen and women and intelligence operators for their flawless execution of President Trump’s order to deliver on his promise thru Operation Absolute Resolve.” Gabbard’s comments in support of the operation diverge sharply from the sentiments she expressed seven years ago, explicitly warning against a Venezuelan intervention.

Her 2019 social media posts have recirculated endlessly in the last few days, often accompanied by snarky comments. “The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela. Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders--so we have to stop trying to choose theirs,” Gabbard, then a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, posted on X (then Twitter), in January 2019… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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