🟪 San Marcos becomes the first Texas city to ban data centers, testing its local control (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Central Texas leaders warn AI-driven layoffs could signal broader job losses (KXAN)

🟪 Austin ISD delays most school boundary changes amid focus on budget, academics (CBS Austin)

🟪 What to know about the decision to make Bible stories required reading in Texas public schools (Associated Press)

🟪 Texas promised children with disabilities up to $30K vouchers. Fewer than 30 got the full amount. (Houston Chronicle)

🟪 Supreme Court’s explosive final week: Here’s the biggest cases (The Hill)

READ ON!

✅ San Marcos becomes the first Texas city to ban data centers, testing its local control (Texas Tribune)

San Marcos has become the first Texas city to ban data centers within city limits, banking on its local authority to stop the data center boom and setting a precedent for other municipalities to follow.

San Marcos City Council voted 4-3 on June 16 to define data centers and make them ineligible for any part of the city in its zoning laws, citing concerns that these developments would funnel water and energy resources from the local community. The city has no data center projects proposed within its limits, although the threat has reached its borders where at least two data centers have been proposed in surrounding unincorporated parts of Hays County, according to Data Center Map, an industry research tool. Powerless to leverage any of their laws to outright ban data centers, Hays County commissioners recently passed a mostly symbolic resolution to pause data center development over severe water scarcity but the resolution isn’t legally binding.

San Marcos is testing a novel approach to outright ban data centers by exerting its home rule powers, which gives certain bigger cities — 352 of them across the state — the right to create their own zoning codes and control development, land law experts say. Compared to counties and cities without home rule authority such as smaller cities and bigger cities without zoning laws like Houston and Alvin, municipalities like San Marcos have a better chance at surviving legal challenges to their data center bans because of their expanded powers, experts say… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Central Texas leaders warn AI-driven layoffs could signal broader job losses (KXAN)

After thousands of layoffs tied in part to artificial intelligence, Central Texas leaders are raising concerns about what it could mean for the future of jobs in Austin’s booming tech sector.

Since 2018, Oracle has employed thousands in Austin, helping fuel the city’s rapid growth as a tech hub. But following thousands of layoffs nationwide, with cuts tied to shifting investments in AI, some officials say it may be an early warning sign.

“For families in Austin and across the country, 21,000 layoffs is a disaster,” U.S. Rep. Greg Casar said... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin ISD delays most school boundary changes amid focus on budget, academics (CBS Austin)

Austin ISD is delaying its plans to update school boundaries after thousands weighed in, shifting its focus instead to budgeting, academics and enrollment.

In a letter to families Friday, Superintendent Matias Segura said the decision comes as the district works to “navigate many complex issues, such as budget, staffing, academic visioning and continued enrollment efforts after the latest consolidations."

The decision pauses a districtwide rezoning effort that was originally planned to take effect in August 2027. The districtwide realignment is now expected to go into effect in the 2028-29 school year.

Austin ISD still plans to bring a smaller set of “urgent” boundary changes to trustees this fall. This will include adjustments for campuses impacted by consolidation efforts and schools with enrollment growth that would require the use of portables, and assigning an attendance boundary for Marshall Middle School… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ What to know about the decision to make Bible stories required reading in Texas public schools (Associated Press)

Bible stories have become required reading for more than 5 million public school students in Texas.

The vote to approve the plan Friday by the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education reflects a broader conservative effort to introduce more religion into U.S. schools. Last year, Texas became the largest state to require every classroom to display the Ten Commandments.

The mandated reading list has drawn fierce opposition. Critics argue that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state, lacks diversity, and favors Christianity over other religions. Supporters say Judeo-Christian traditions were fundamental to the nation’s founding and that should be reflected in the public school curriculum.

Here’s what to know about the reading list and the broader fight over religion in public schools… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ The Pentagon's flu vaccine policy change created an 'epidemiological time bomb' at Lackland (Texas Public Radio)

In April, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth changed Pentagon policy to make flu shots voluntary for all military personnel, declaring that mandatory influenza vaccines "weaken our war-fighting capabilities."

Within weeks, recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio started getting sick. The virus burned through boot camp, and by June 24, according to a statement from Congressman Joaquin Castro, 275 people had been infected. The Air Force confirmed one trainee died June 12 due to a "medical emergency," though officials did not specify whether it was flu related.

The speed with which this all happened was not a surprise, according to Dr. Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases at UT Health Houston. The April policy change created an “epidemiological time bomb.”

"Military settings are prime for transmission,” Ostrosky said. “When you have an introduction of a highly communicable disease in a congregate setting like this, it's just going to spread like wildfire.”

Secretary Hegseth argued the voluntary policy would pose no threat to military readiness. But Ostrosky says the outbreak demonstrates the opposite. He explained that even young, otherwise healthy recruits can be bedridden for days or hospitalized with influenza. "It ends up affecting our readiness for combat at a time when we're having several conflicts throughout the world," he said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas promised children with disabilities up to $30K vouchers. Fewer than 30 got the full amount. (Houston Chronicle)

One of the biggest selling points of Texas’ new private school voucher program was that it would support students with disabilities, offering up to $30,000 in state-funded accounts for tuition and other services. The possibility drew thousands of applications from across Texas, and hundreds of families flooded public school districts with requests for special education evaluations to qualify for higher amounts. However, fewer than 30 students with disabilities actually received the $30,000 maximum, according to data from the Comptroller’s Office.

That’s less than 1% of applicants who indicated that they had a disability. It’s something the Texas Education Freedom Account directors tried to warn parents about earlier this year. “Most students will receive less than the maximum,” a handout about special education vouchers read.

But many families still hoped that they would get closer to $30,000 to pay for private schools dedicated to students with disabilities, which can easily cost between $25,000 to $60,000 a year, according to a Chronicle analysis. One in four of the over 100,000 students awarded vouchers had a documented disability, and their average funding award was about $16,000, or roughly half the maximum amount, according to the Texas Comptroller’s Office. While nearly 13,000 families received more than the base amount, only around 220 families received over $20,000, records shared with the Chronicle from June 23 show.

“The headline in everything we communicated was: ‘Homeschoolers get $2,000, private school students get $10,474 and students in special education get up to $30,000,’” said Travis Pillow, communications director for the education accounts. “It might be natural to see that round number and say, ‘My student is getting $30,000.’ When in reality, the ‘up to’ was very important, and the vast majority are getting less than that.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Supreme Court’s explosive final week: Here’s the biggest cases (The Hill)

The Supreme Court is expected to wrap up its term this week, with eight cases still awaiting rulings, including some of the most intensely debated of the past year. The court’s next release of decisions will take place this morning at 10 a.m., when rulings in some of the remaining cases will be announced. The next decision day will be revealed after that. Last week saw the court hand the Trump administration major wins, giving a green light to some of its moves on immigration policy. But a ruling on the contentious issue of birthright citizenship is still pending, along with the president’s right to fire federal appointees and the rights of transgender athletes, among other issues.

Arguably the most anticipated ruling is on President Trump’s executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship, which was one of his first acts after returning as president last year. Justices seemed skeptical of the administration’s arguments defending the order when they heard the case in April. In a sign of how important Trump has viewed the case, he became the first sitting president ever recorded to have attended Supreme Court arguments as a listener.

A decades-old precedent could be overturned if the court rules in Trump’s favor on his attempts to fire Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member Rebecca Slaughter. Trump decided to remove Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner who was first appointed in 2018, last year because her service was “inconsistent” with the administration’s policies. The act setting up the FTC only permits the president to remove commissioners for cause, and the Supreme Court’s 1935 ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States upheld that barrier. But a majority of the court appeared open to allowing Trump to fire Slaughter without cause during arguments held in December. The ruling could also have wide-ranging implications for other federal agencies, limiting their independence from the president.

One federal agency that the high court has seemed more inclined to protect is the Federal Reserve, which could be critical in saving board of governors member Lisa Cook’s job. Trump sought to fire Cook last summer over allegations of mortgage fraud against her, making him the first president to try to remove a sitting Fed governor in its history. Cook has rejected the allegations and argued the Justice Department investigation into her was politically motivated… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Left-wing Democratic primary wins pose a test for a Jeffries speakership (Washington Post)

As New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and fellow democratic socialists celebrated a trio of insurgent leftist victories that rocked last week’s House primaries in New York, so did congressional Republicans. In the days since, the GOP has gleefully speculated that a potential Democratic majority next year could be just as unruly and restive as its own has been, with an ideological battle between liberals and moderates undermining a possible speakership of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).

“You can call it the Bolshevik Revolution of 2026,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said following the election results, while the National Republican Congressional Committee facetiously sent Jeffries a sympathy card and flowers. Jeffries and his Democratic allies have downplayed the tensions, noting that their party held together a broad spectrum of members the last time they were in charge of the House, from 2019 to 2023.

But there are warning signs for Jeffries, who already faces growing frustration from the Democratic base that he is not fighting back hard enough against President Donald Trump. If Democrats win only a narrow majority in the heavily gerrymandered chamber in November, it will give each vote outsize importance and Jeffries critics more opportunities to stir up trouble. Two of the challengers backed by Mamdani, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez, defeated Democratic incumbents endorsed by Jeffries; only one of the three, Brad Lander, has committed to vote for him as speaker.

Those candidates, all of whom are likely to win their heavily Democratic districts in November, and a handful of others who have prevailed against more moderate Democrats in primaries this year, are expected to push for more liberal policies, particularly regarding Israel and Gaza, immigration enforcement, and universal health care.

“What I hope will happen is that Democratic leadership will incorporate the lessons that voters are sending into the agenda that we’re going to be fighting for,” Lander said. Jeffries, for his part, has projected his typical calm and refused to engage with conjecture about how his leadership could be challenged. His office did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Post, but he congratulated Valdez, Lander and Avila Chevalier on social media Saturday… 🟪 (READ MORE)