🟪 Leaked Austin ISD messages reveal doubts, criticism in school closure process (KUT)

🟪 Cesar Chavez allegations spark calls to rename Austin street, rethink parade (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Autonomous freight trucks are headed to an Austin highway (Austin Businses Journal)

🟪 New NRCC report: The Latino vote could crush Republicans, and a House win goes through Texas. (Punchbowl News)

🟪 Corpus Christi water emergency may be just two months away, city leaders say (Texas Tribune)

🟪 'Not our war': U.S. allies balk at Trump's Strait of Hormuz demands (NBC News)

🟪 Rebuffed by allies, Trump now says U.S. doesn't need help defending the Strait of Hormuz (NBC News)

🟪 Trump’s tariffs were supposed to help manufacturers. But instead, they’re hurting (Associated Press)

READ ON!

📍 Yesterday, Bingham Group attended the 2026 Asia x Austin Summit — an official SXSW event hosted at the Long Center by the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce (pictured with Cedar Park Chief Economic Development Officer Author Jackson and Williamson County Judge Steven Snell).

✅ The Summit brought together international delegates, civic leaders, and investors to explore the growing opportunity between Asia and Central Texas. Sessions focused on the Texas Triangle's emergence as a global destination for investment and industry — and the international interest in our region is one worth watching closely.

✅ Yesterday Bingham Group attended the 2026 Asia x Austin Summit — an official SXSW event hosted at the Long Center by the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce (picutured with Cedar Park Chief Economic Development Officer Author Jackson and Williamson County Judge Steven Snell).

🎙️ Hugh Forrest, former President and Chief Programming Officer of SXSW, joined our friends on the Austin Era's podcast to discuss the festival's impact on Austin's growth and his role in shaping it.

✅ Leaked Austin ISD messages reveal doubts, criticism in school closure process (KUT)

As Austin ISD administrators debated which neighborhood schools to close last year, their internal messages portray a far messier process than what was visible to the public.

Despite a public rubric meant to guide the closures, administrators compared campuses, questioned whether decisions aligned with the district’s own criteria and vented frustration about parents pushing to protect their schools. In some threads, participants attempted to delete messages after colleagues reminded them the conversations could become public records.

The exchanges, obtained by Austin Current, offer a rare window into the district’s decision-making during the contentious consolidation process that ultimately led trustees in November to approve closing 11 schools across 10 campuses and relocating dual language programs. The conversations reveal internal tensions over how to balance declining enrollment, financial pressures and the competing priorities of different school communities.

The messages also raise questions about whether decisions followed the district’s publicly stated framework and how much influence community pressure, property considerations and internal debate played in determining which schools would close… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Cesar Chavez allegations spark calls to rename Austin street, rethink parade (Austin American-Statesman)

Cesar Chavez, a national civil rights leader who organized and advocated for farmworkers, left a lasting legacy in Austin through repeated visits over the course of his life — a legacy now facing renewed scrutiny amid allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct involving women and at least one minor.

The accusations have left some Hispanic and Latino community leaders — who have spent years organizing parades and promoting memorials of Chavez — grappling with his namesake. One Mexican American advocacy group voted Tuesday morning to propose reversing the 1993 renaming of Austin’s First Street to Cesar Chavez Street. Organizers of Austin's annual Cesar Chavez celebration will vote Tuesday night on how, or even if, to proceed with the event.

The 25th Annual Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Marcha de Justicia and Celebration is scheduled for March 28 at Terrazas Branch Library… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Autonomous freight trucks are headed to an Austin highway (Austin Businses Journal)

A prominent Swedish autonomous trucking company has inked a deal to operate on a stretch of highway near Austin.

Einride AG and Buda-based SH 130 Concession Co. on March 17 announced they signed a memorandum of understanding for the toll road east of Austin to become the company's preferred test route for autonomous freight operations. The latter private company manages and operates the 41-mile southern section of the State Highway 130 toll road that stretches from Austin to San Antonio.

Einride was founded in 2016 and is pushing a future where freight is conveyed largely without people. It boasts more than 25 customers across seven countries in North America, Europe and the Middle East, with approximately $65 million in expected annual recurring revenues and over $800 million in potential long-term annual recurring revenue.

Its customers include PepsiCo Inc., Maersk, GE Appliances and Mars Inc., officials have said in the past.

The partnership with SH 130 Concession Co. will establish SH 130 as a testbed for Einride's purpose-built, cab-less autonomous freight vehicles, according to the news release. It will also support the safety validation of autonomous highway operations on SH 130, including integration with frontage roads…  🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin draws another billionaire as Uber co-founder joins California exodus (Austin American-Statesman)

Travis Kalanick, the Uber co-founder and one-time Silicon Valley bad boy, has relocated to Austin.

He disclosed the move to a residence on Lake Austin while discussing his new company Atoms.

“I’m Austin now. I own a place in Austin. I’ve owned it for five years,” the billionaire former CEO of ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. said on the tech podcast TBPN, noting his love of waterskiing and the lake just 20 minutes from the city.   

Kalanick was pushed out of the global ride-hailing company in 2017 over reports of rampant workplace-culture issues around sexism, violations of privacy and misogyny.

The company’s massive growth and exploits were detailed in Mike Isaac’s book “Super Pumped,” which later became a scripted Showtime series. The book opened a window on the lives of Silicon Valley’s Tech Bro culture, one that valued fierce competition, shirking of government rules and business growth above all else… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ New NRCC report: The Latino vote could crush Republicans, and a House win goes through Texas. (Punchbowl News)

House Republicans are very aware that the same Latino voters who propelled the GOP to the majority in 2024 could desert them this fall. Swing districts with large Latino populations in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California will determine control of the House. Republicans made serious inroads last cycle with these voters, especially among Hispanic men. GOP candidates were buoyed by cost-of-living concerns and the appeal of President Donald Trump on the ballot.

But the Latino voting bloc swings widely between the two parties, and the 2024 election feels like a lifetime ago. Trump is implementing mass deportations targeting many Hispanic communities, prices remain stubbornly high and the job market is showing weakness.

Now, some in the GOP are growing nervous that these same voters could revert back to Democrats — or just stay home. Recent elections have given Democrats hope, too. In November, Democratic candidates won the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, two states with significant Latino populations. “Our Hispanic voters didn’t show up,” NRCC Chair Richard Hudson acknowledged in an interview during the House GOP retreat last week. Speaker Mike Johnson was even more blunt: “We got a little hiccup with some of the Hispanic, Latino voters because some of the immigration enforcement was viewed to be overzealous.”

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) has been loudly sounding the alarm that Trump’s deportation regime is unpopular among her majority-Latino Miami-area seat. Plus, Democrats flipped the Miami mayor’s seat for the first time since 1997. More recently, robust turnout from Latinos in the Texas Senate Democratic primary and a special election upset excited Democrats.

Those Texas results even led House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to brag that Republicans went too far and ended up drawing a “dummymander” in the Lone Star State. Republicans take notice. At a House GOP Conference meeting on Tuesday, Hudson presented polling with a concerning message — Hispanic voters weren’t aware of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans’ most important legislative achievement… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Corpus Christi water emergency may be just two months away, city leaders say (Texas Tribune)

Corpus Christi leaders on Tuesday unveiled new projections suggesting that the city could be just two months away from triggering emergency water measures.

At a marathon city council meeting that stretched for 10 hours, Nick Winkelmann, interim chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water, outlined five potential scenarios — two of which would push the city into a level one water emergency by May. At that point, the city’s water supply would be projected to fall short of demand within 180 days.

When pressed by council member Kaylynn Paxson on which scenario the city is preparing to follow, staffers at the water utility said they expect to narrow the possibilities down to two or three in the coming weeks as more data becomes available…

Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott — who sharply criticized Corpus Christi leaders for their handling of the crisis recently — has ordered agencies to suspend normal procedures in an effort to buy the city more time.

Complicating the outlook are bleak seasonal forecasts. Projections from the National Weather Service show little to no rainfall expected between July and September, limiting inflows to key reservoirs that supply the city, including Choke Canyon, Lake Corpus Christi and Lake Texana… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Join us April 14 for a conversation with Don Huffines, GOP nominee for comptroller (Texas Tribune)

Former state Sen. Don Huffines won the Republican nomination for Texas comptroller in a landslide this March.

Join the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, April 14 in Austin or online when Huffines sits down with Texas Tribune Editor-in-Chief Matthew Watkins for a conversation about the candidate’s goals for the office, his relationships with the state’s top leaders and the upcoming general election… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ The Postal Service may be out of cash in 2027 without Congress' help, postmaster says (NPR)

If it continues business as usual, the U.S. Postal Service is on track to run out of cash for paying its workers and vendors in about a year and may have to stop deliveries, Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers this week.

The warning is the latest development in longstanding money troubles at USPS — a unique federal government agency that relies on stamps and service fees, not tax dollars, to deliver mail and packages six days a week to every address in the country.

"I am not sure that the American public is aware that the Postal Service is at a critical juncture. I know that I wasn't aware of the extent of it before I took on this role, but at our current run rate and if we continue to pay our required obligations in the same manner as we have done in recent years, then we will be out of cash in less than 12 months," Steiner, who joined USPS last July, said in a written statement released ahead of a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on Tuesday… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump’s tariffs were supposed to help manufacturers. But instead, they’re hurting (Associated Press)

Jay Allen is a fan of President Donald Trump, and voted for him on the belief that the Republican would cut taxes and trim regulations, helping his manufacturing business in northeast Arkansas.

But the tariffs at the core of Trump’s economic agenda have wreaked havoc on his company, Allen Engineering Corp., which makes industrial equipment used to install, finish and pave concrete. The import taxes have raised the costs of engines, steel, gearboxes and clutches made abroad that Allen needs to build power trowels that can sell for up to $100,000 each.

Allen’s experience embodies a growing body of evidence that the tariffs that Trump said would help American factories are, in fact, squashing many of them. The problem could get worse as the administration scrambles to craft new tariffs to replace the emergency import taxes that the Supreme Court ruled illegal in February… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ About 90 ships cross the Strait of Hormuz as Iran exports millions of barrels of oil despite the war (Associated Press)

About 90 ships including oil tankers have crossed the Strait of Hormuz since the outset of the war with Iran and it is still exporting millions of barrels of oil at a time when the waterway has been effectively closed, according to maritime and trade data platforms.

Many of the vessels that passed through the strait were so-called “dark” transits evading Western government sanctions and oversight that likely have ties to Iran, maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence said. More recently, vessels with ties to India and Pakistan have also successfully crossed the strait as governments stepped up negotiations.

As crude prices spiked above $100 a barrel, U.S. President Donald Trump pressured allies and trade partners to send warships and reopen the strait, hoping to bring oil prices lower.

Most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway for global oil and gas transport that supplies roughly one-fifth of the world’s crude oil, has been halted since early March, after the war started… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Rebuffed by allies, Trump now says U.S. doesn't need help defending the Strait of Hormuz (NBC News)

President Donald Trump dropped his push Tuesday for U.S. allies to join in protecting the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian threats — an about-face that came just one day after he called upon nations to “get involved” so oil tankers can safely navigate the crucial shipping lane.

First on social media and later in an Oval Office meeting, Trump said the outside military support he has been working to muster is no longer necessary in the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran on Feb. 28.

“We don’t need any help, actually,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office as he hosted Ireland’s prime minister, Micheál Martin.

“President Trump has great relationships with foreign leaders around the world. At the same time, he has long called attention to the disproportional dynamics that have been enabled by weak Presidents for decades — including the United States’ extensive financial support of NATO and unfair trading practices that hurt our farmers and workers,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “The President was resoundingly elected to put America First, and he will continue to bolster US national security through Operation Epic Fury, with or without NATO.”

Trump had gotten a chilly response from U.S. allies he’d tried to enlist in a joint effort to police the strait, which has been effectively shut down in the face of Iranian attacks that have jeopardized oil supplies… 🟪 (READ MORE)