🟪 Austin leaders divided on bond election to improve roads and parks (KUT)

🟪 NHL exploring Texas expansion in Houston or Austin with billionaire Dan Friedkin and family (Associated Press)

🟪 Hays County to establish new water board and regulatory standards for data centers (KUT)

🟪 Niederwald may get one of the metro's next big subdivisions (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas leaders are asking data centers how much water they use. Most aren’t responding. (Texas Tribune)

🟪 GOP embraces speculation about China’s role in data center backlash (The Hill)

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Last week, I joined the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce's Access Singapore delegation as part of the broader Access Asia mission.

Together with fellow business leaders and senior City of Austin officials, we spent the week meeting with leaders across government, technology, infrastructure, aviation, sustainability, and advanced manufacturing. .

The timing of the mission was particularly significant. It served as a next step in activating the landmark Memorandum of Understanding signed between the City of Austin and Enterprise Singapore in 2025.

That relationship has continued to gain momentum, including the opening of Enterprise Singapore's Austin office earlier this year, further strengthening ties between Central Texas and one of the world's leading hubs for innovation, investment, and trade.

Looking forward to bringing a number of ideas, connections, and perspectives back to Austin and Central Texas!

✅ Austin leaders divided on bond election to improve roads and parks (KUT)

Austin leaders could ask voters this fall for money to tackle several projects across the city.

Last month, a majority of the Austin City Council directed staff to create a bond package with a focus on parks, transportation and cultural arts. Staff responded with a plan that would spend about $400 million.

Council Member Ryan Alter helped lead the effort.

“We have a lot of deferred maintenance and just other capital needs," Alter said. "That ranges from our parks to our sidewalks and roadways. There are just things that you have to invest in as a growing city.”

But some on the council, including Mayor Kirk Watson, are concerned this isn't the right time to ask voters for money. A November bond election would come just one year after voters soundly rejected a property tax rate increase known Proposition Q, which would have raised more than $100 million in property tax revenue.

A final bond package has not been approved by the Austin City Council. So the exact cost to taxpayers is still unknown… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ NHL exploring Texas expansion in Houston or Austin with billionaire Dan Friedkin and family (Associated Press)

The NHL is exploring potential expansion in Texas in either Houston or Austin under an agreement with billionaire Dan Friedkin and his family, Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday.

Bettman said the Board of Governors executive committee endorsed a term sheet agreed to with the Friedkins over the next six months. The total investment required between an expansion fee and the cost to build a new arena in one of those cities would amount to $3.5 billion, according to Bettman, who said discussions over the past two years largely revolved around Houston before Austin joined the conversation.

“That’s part of the process is to determine what would be best, both for the league and for Dan Friedkin and family,” Bettman said. “Both cities will require a new arena. It may be more feasible in one place than the other. And as we dig a little deeper and do the due diligence, we’ll figure out which makes the most sense.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Hays County to establish new water board and regulatory standards for data centers (KUT)

Hays County commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday to establish a review board to evaluate proposed intensive-water-use developments like data centers and give commissioners guidance based on water availability studies, drought contingency plans and conservation measures.

It also creates a checklist for proposed developments in the county, requiring transparency reports, projected water-use estimates and independent environmental surveys.

Additionally, the resolution temporarily suspends “discretionary approvals” related to data centers and other water-intensive developments in the county through the end of the year.

These discretionary approvals can vary from tax abatements to development agreements and vary from project to project.

"The resolution does not create a blanket prohibition on data centers or other industrial projects," wrote Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra in a message to KUT News. "What it does is establish a temporary review period for certain discretionary county actions and sends a clear policy message that Hays County is taking the issue of water availability and conservation seriously."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Niederwald may get one of the metro's next big subdivisions (Austin Business Journal)

An Arizona-based real estate investment company is restarting development at a massive Hays County master-planned community.

County commissioners approved preliminary plans for The Ridge West at Camino Real subdivision during their June 23 meeting, making way for one piece of Walton Global Holdings LLC's massive 1,736-acre master plan.

According to the submitted plans, the nearly 532-acre Ridge West project currently lands in bounds of the city of Niederwald's extraterritorial jurisdiction and Hays County.

Those documents also detail plans for 2,784 single-family home lots with 31 different phases, bringing around 60 to 120 lots online at a time. Over half of the development will be 40-foot lots with the remaining homes set for 30- and 45-foot lots… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas leaders are asking data centers how much water they use. Most aren’t responding. (Texas Tribune)

Data centers need a lot of water and energy. State officials want to know how much, and they hoped a survey sent to data center companies would give them the answers.

But at a legislative hearing Tuesday in Austin, they were told less than a third of the companies surveyed responded.

“Bad data, bad study,” said state Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Texans have been thirsty for information on how much water data centers in Texas use — and plan to use — as a rush of proposed new projects has flooded communities across the state. With more than 248 proposed data centers, Texas is challenging Virginia to become the No. 1 market for data centers in the U.S.

Communities and some state officials have aggressively pushed back against the growing industry. Their impact is being felt as Texas has shifted from aggressively courting data centers to tightening oversight — the latest move, by Gov. Greg Abbott, directs public utilities to ensure that the infrastructure costs required to serve data centers are not passed on to their customers.

Abbott has also issued recommendations for legislative action, including requiring data centers to use the most efficient, and more expensive, water recirculation systems to cool their servers… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ GOP embraces speculation about China’s role in data center backlash (The Hill)

Republicans are embracing allegations that data center opposition in the U.S. is being fueled by foreign actors, raising questions over how influence operators are contributing to one of the fiercest debates in the tech policy space. Reports, including from OpenAI, recently emerged suggesting China and other countries are carrying out influence campaigns to fan the flames of Americans’ frustration with the data center build-out. Data centers — the server warehouses powering the AI boom — once enjoyed support from politicians on both sides of the aisle.

But public opinion has rapidly deteriorated in the face of concerns about the infrastructure’s impact on electricity bills and the environment. Democrats have seized on this backlash, especially around energy costs, while Republicans have struggled to coalesce around a message addressing voters’ worries ahead of the midterms.

“It makes sense for Republicans to point out China’s genuine efforts to influence American politics,” Ryan Fedasiuk, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill. “I’m glad we’re doing so. But on some level, it’s cope … it’s not going to make the problem go away.” President Trump largely supports industry development, arguing tech companies need to be able to build without obstacles to effectively compete with China in the so-called AI race.

He has sought to speed up the approval of data center projects, curtailing environmental reviews and pushing for faster grid connections. But the White House is also grasping the reality of data centers’ increasing unpopularity. Earlier this year, Trump secured commitments from leading AI firms to cover rising electricity costs from data centers.

As the president and his fellow Republicans try to balance a pro-tech agenda with constituents’ concerns, at least one key administration official and several GOP lawmakers are latching onto the reports of foreign influence campaigns. “Any place that’s trying to build data centers is getting bombarded with foreign-directed propaganda to try to block these from being built,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox Business Network late last month… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas board hears heated testimony on social studies standards as final vote nears (Dallas Morning News)

Dozens of speakers called on the Texas State Board of Education to move forward with a set of revised social studies standards during testimony that began Monday afternoon and stretched well into the night. Dozens more asked the board to amend the standards to give more attention to certain cultures or chapters in history.

Monday’s meeting represented the last opportunity for the public to weigh in on the standards before the board takes them up for a final vote. More than 250 people signed up to give public testimony on the issue.

Board members are expected to discuss proposed amendments in the coming days before taking a final vote on Friday. The proposed standards would lay out what students are expected to learn in their social studies classes at each grade level. The standards have drawn controversy, with critics saying they place too much emphasis on Christianity while giving short shrift to other world religions.

For example, biblical figures such as Abraham and Moses are included alongside figures from American and Texas history such as George Washington and Sam Houston… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Lackland flu outbreak raises questions about Pentagon vaccine policy (Texas Public Radio)

At least 222 trainees have gotten sick during a flu outbreak at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. The Air Force says it has been working to contain the virus for the past three weeks. The Air Force says medical personnel are isolating and treating sick trainees, monitoring those who may have been exposed, and administering antiviral medications to help contain the outbreak.

The number of reported illnesses has climbed to 222, according to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. Earlier in the week, Castro said nearly 160 members of the 37th Training Wing had gotten sick.

Castro has called for a full accounting of the outbreak and an investigation into the death of trainee Keon McDaniel, who suffered a medical emergency during the outbreak. Military officials say the cause of death remains under investigation and have not said whether influenza played a role. In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ended the military's long-standing influenza vaccine requirement, arguing the mandate weakened military readiness.

A Pentagon spokesperson said the policy change was intended to "maximize operational readiness, lethality, and force generation, while safeguarding at-risk populations." The spokesperson said the department remains committed to the health and readiness of service members and civilian personnel. San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who previously served as Undersecretary of the Air Force, said the outbreak was preventable… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Mamdani's political gamble pays off as his endorsed candidates sweep their primaries (NPR)

Primary night in New York marked the first major test for Mayor Zohran Mamdani's political movement, and it was widely successful.

All three of Mamdani's endorsed candidates for Congress were victorious, marking a massive win for the left and a major blow for establishment Democrats.

Mamdani endorsed in three competitive House primary matchups in New York City, breaking with Democratic leaders by throwing support behind leftist candidates who were unafraid to criticize Israel and push for ambitious economic policies.

The biggest upset of the night came in New York's 13th district, where Mamdani-backed candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old community organizer and democratic socialist, narrowly defeated five-term incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat, 71, to represent Upper Manhattan and part of the Bronx. That's according to a race call by The Associated Press… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump's power takes center stage in US Supreme Court's home stretch (Reuters)

The U.S. Supreme Court's current term is rapidly approaching a climactic finale in which ⁠some ⁠of its biggest cases yet to be decided will test Donald ⁠Trump's aggressive efforts to expand presidential authority.

The court issued five rulings on Tuesday, with more expected on Thursday. Its annual terms run from early October ​to around the end of June, sometimes spilling into July. The court has not announced when it will wrap up its term and begin a summer recess.

The court often waits until the end of its term to issue its most consequential ‌rulings. This year is unusual for the number of major ‌cases lingering that involve the critical issue of presidential power — and Trump's particularly bold use of it. 

The cases involve his efforts to limit birthright citizenship, fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, oust Democratic members of independent agencies and terminate ⁠a humanitarian legal status ⁠protecting hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Haitian immigrants from deportation… 🟪 (READ MORE)