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🟪 Austin's population surpasses 1 million residents for the first time in history (CBS Austin)

🟪 Downtown Austin office vacancy rate starting to rebound, new report shows (KVUE)

🟪 Austin's hippo-laden suburb continues to be the fastest-growing city in region (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 APD numbers are down ahead of busy summer lineup (CBS Austin)

🟪 St. Edward’s University appoints new interim president (KXAN)

🟪 As Republicans carve up Black districts, Democrats pivot to a new midterm message (Politico)

🟪 Senate confirms Kevin Warsh as next chair of the Federal Reserve (NPR)

🟪 China’s Xi warns Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to conflict (Associated Press)

✅ Austin's population surpasses 1 million residents for the first time in history (CBS Austin)

For the first time in its history, Austin's population has surpassed 1 million residents.

New census data confirmed that Austin's population broke 1 million people in 2025, the City saying that 1,002,632 residents now call Texas' capital city home, an increase of over 4,000 residents since July 2024.

Austin is now the 12th most populous city in the country, according to the City.

“This is a historic moment for Austin, and one that my predecessor Edwin Waller probably didn’t even think about when he surveyed the site that would eventually become our beloved city back in 1839,” said Mayor Kirk Watson. “There’s no denying now that Austin is a big city, and we have big challenges. But we also still have small town heart, and that’s part of what makes it the best place in the country to raise a family or to seek out new opportunities.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Downtown Austin office vacancy rate starting to rebound, new report shows (KVUE)

New numbers show just how much Downtown Austin is growing and changing.

The Downtown Austin Alliance released its 2026 State of Downtown Report this week, showing more than 160,000 people visit downtown on an average day.

The area now has nearly 14,000 residents and more than 131,000 employees. Consumer spending hit $2.5 billion in 2025, and foot traffic is back to 93% of prepandemic levels.

Big construction projects are also underway, including Interstate 35 reconstruction, light rail and the Austin Convention Center redevelopment. As these projects impact hotels, shops and restaurants in the area, new downtown projects are unlikely in the near future.

Office vacancy is at just over 20% and starting to rebound. The citywide vacancy rate is at 17%. The alliance said downtown is managing the issues that come with growth, not decline, with 740 storefronts and two Michelin-star restaurants driving the comeback.

The group said it is focused on seven goals for the year ahead, including… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ St. Edward’s University appoints new interim president (KXAN)

St. Edward’s University now has a new interim president. On Wednesday, the university appointed Matthew Shank, who will begin a transition period on June 1 and assume the interim presidency on July 1, according to a press release from the university. 

The announcement comes after the Board of Trustees announced in February that President Montserrat ‘Montse’ Fuentes will conclude her presidency on June 30 after five years in the role.

“I want to thank the Board of Trustees and the entire university community for providing me with this opportunity to serve. My focus as interim president will be to listen carefully, communicate transparently, and help position St. Edward’s for long-term strength and momentum,” Shank said.

Shank previously served as president of Marymount University in Virginia for seven years. He left Marymount University in 2018, then served as the president of the Virginia Foundation For Independent Colleges. He has also served as dean of the School of Business Administration at the University of Dayton and held faculty and administrative roles at Northern Kentucky University… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin's hippo-laden suburb continues to be the fastest-growing city in region (Austin Business Journal)

Hutto is once again among the fastest-growing cities in America, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city about 30 miles northeast of Austin – known for its Hippo mascot, which was recently named "Howdy" after a community competition – remained at No. 13, in terms of year-over-year percentage increase among U.S. cities with at least 20,000 people, according to the data.

Hutto's population grew 7.9% — or roughly 3,300 people — to 46,048 residents from July 2024 to July 2025, representing the highest growth rate of any Austin suburb of that size. That's slightly down from the 9.4% growth recorded last year, which also ranked No. 13 on the same metric.

Interestingly, Hutto added almost as many people as the city of Austin last year. Census data shows a notable slowdown for Austin, although it did recently pass the 1 million resident mark.

Hutto's prominence on the list is unsurprising for many. The city in recent years has become a target for some of the region's biggest industrial projects. Just this week, the Austin Business Journal reported that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Enterprises LP may build a huge factory in the city. Big projects in the region include Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Tesla Inc. suppliers and data centers… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ APD numbers are down ahead of busy summer lineup (CBS Austin)

A busy summer rush is expected to come to Austin this year as the Austin Police Department is still hundreds of officers short of full staff.

On Wednesday, Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock told the city's Tourism Commission that there are currently 1,477 sworn officers in the Austin Police Department. 36 recent academy graduates are set to begin field training soon.

But that's still hundreds of officers short of their 1,816 authorized positions, and even fewer than what they desire to fully meet the public safety demands of the city.

"Realistically, our staffing should be around 2100 officers," Bullock said. "We're still significantly short in order to be able to reduce our reliance upon overtime to fill a lot of these vacancies."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

📝⏱️ Q2 2026 Survey: 5 minutes, 9 questions. Click here to share your input.

✅ Census: As North Texas’ far-flung towns grow, Dallas and its bigger suburbs shrink (Texas Tribune)

Fewer people are moving to Texas cities amid the country’s broader immigration slowdown, but the state remains home to some of the fastest growing cities in the country, new U.S. Census Bureau data show.

Celina, a city about an hour north from downtown Dallas, was the fastest growing city in the country last year, according to census data released Thursday. The city grew by 24.6%, adding more than 12,710 residents between July 2024 and July 2025.

Eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. are in Texas — primarily suburbs in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, the state’s largest urban area. Meanwhile, some of the state’s biggest cities like Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth are still adding tens of thousands of residents — despite a slowdown in international migration to the United States and lower birth rates… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Cornyn and Paxton bury each other in negative ads as Senate GOP runoff enters final stretch (Texas Tribune)

From the jump, the battle for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination has featured a massive cash imbalance, with incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and his allies in Senate GOP leadership unleashing millions in ads to pull him to a first-place finish in the March primary over Attorney General Ken Paxton.

That financial disparity has persisted in the runoff after neither Cornyn nor Paxton broke 50% of the vote in round one. Through Wednesday, pro-Cornyn forces had outspent the Paxton side more than four to one, according to media tracking firm AdImpact, allowing the incumbent senator’s allies to dominate the airwaves with ads attacking Paxton, a warrior of the far right, as incompetent, corrupt and adulterous.

Lackluster fundraising on Paxton’s side, meanwhile, has handicapped his ability to counter that messaging on TV, though he has ramped up his airtime in the week ahead of early voting, which begins Monday. Paxton’s spots in the runoff have tagged Cornyn as a generational relic, weak on red-meat issues and an ally to Democrats… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Ex-Texas Lottery Director quietly indicted - then unindicted (Texas Tribune)

Gary Grief, the former director of the Texas Lottery Commission who has absorbed much of the blame for the agency’s role in helping international gamblers engineer a $95 million Lotto jackpot win in 2023, was indicted for abuse of public office, according to documents filed in Travis County District Court. The case, a first-degree felony, was then quickly dismissed, documents show. According to the bare-bones filing, Grief, who retired from his lottery position in early 2024, was indicted by a grand jury on April 16. The indictment alleged he “intentionally and knowingly misuse(d) government property,” specifically, “the Lotto Texas drawing held on April 22, 2023, and the value of the use of the said Lotto Texas drawing was of the value of $300,000 or more.”

The case was dismissed the following day by the Travis County District Attorney’s office for “prosecutorial discretion,” according to court documents. The assistant district attorney who dismissed the case did not return a phone call seeking comment. Nor did Grief’s last known attorney, Sam Bassett. The speedy and unexplained dismissal of the serious criminal indictment of a former high-level state official adds another element of mystery to a scheme that last year consumed the Texas Legislature. It resulted in the resignation of the Texas Lottery Commission’s executive director, the dismantling of the agency and at least two state investigations.

The lottery is now overseen by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. With the Lotto jackpot swollen to $95 million, on April 22, 2023, a single buyer purchased virtually all of the possible 25.8 million number combinations for the game, guaranteeing that one of its tickets would be the winner. No other player guessed the correct six numbers, and two months later the State of Texas handed an entity called Rook TX a $57.8 million check. The company collected another $2.5 million from lesser prizes… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Frisco pastor calls Islam 'demonic agenda,' says mayoral race is 'spiritual battle' (Dallas Morning News)

In Frisco, a mayor’s race that might ordinarily have been fought over issues of zoning and development has become a “spiritual battle for the soul of the city,” according to Keith Craft, lead pastor at Elevate Life Church. He made the remark from the pulpit the day after the May 2 election in which Rod Vilhauer, a member of the nondenominational church, garnered about a third of the vote and advanced to a runoff. On stage in front of a sanctuary that accommodates about 3,000 in stadium-style seating, Craft warned his congregation that Muslims were “making a play” for Frisco and that Islam was not a religion but an “ideology from hell.”

He said Vilhauer, who stood a few rows from the church’s stage, was the right man to lead the city. He laid his hands on Vilhauer’s head as members of the congregation, with outstretched hands, joined him in asking God to give the candidate “wisdom, knowledge and divine favor” as he continues to campaign. Four candidates were on the ballot in Frisco, the first time in nine years that city residents had a chance to weigh in on an open seat for mayor. In that time, the city’s population grew by about 40% and has grown more diverse in terms of race and religion… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ As Republicans carve up Black districts, Democrats pivot to a new midterm message (Politico)

Democrats are changing their redistricting strategy — again.

Just two weeks after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised to invoke “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time,” his side has been forced to shift drastically into a defensive posture thanks to a pair of court rulings that moved the House map toward the GOP.

Now, with little to no chances left to redistrict ahead of November to counter GOP gains of 10 favorable House seats or more, Democrats are stuck doing something they know all too well: blaming President Donald Trump, and hoping it will spur voters to turn out for them in the midterms.

In statements and interviews since Virginia’s Supreme Court struck down state Democrats’ new congressional map and the high court narrowed the Voting Rights Act, the party is arguing that Republicans’ aggressive moves to dismantle Black- and Hispanic-majority districts in the South will outrage voters of color and spur them to the polls in record numbers.

“Given the highly unfavorable political environment confronting House Republicans, the extremists will not meaningfully benefit from their scandalous gerrymandering scheme,” Jeffries said in a Monday “Dear Colleague” letter. “Quite the opposite. Democratic enthusiasm and resolve have grown more intense.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ China’s Xi warns Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to conflict (Associated Press)

China’s Xi Jinping warned President Donald Trump on Thursday that the two countries could clash over Taiwan if the issue was not handled properly, an unusually harsh admonition that stood in contrast to the American leader’s praise for his counterpart.

The exchange at a highly anticipated summit in Beijing underscored just how far apart Trump and Xi remain on thorny issues, including the war in Iran, trade disputes and Washington’s relations with Taiwan, which is self-ruled but which China claims as part of its territory.

It also suggested that Trump’s three-day visit to China is likely to be longer on pageantry and symbolism than substantive political or economic breakthroughs.

The pair met for about two hours behind closed doors at the Great Hall of the People after an elaborate welcome ceremony featuring booming cannons, a band playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and China’s national anthem, and hundreds of school children waving flowers and American and Chinese flags… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Senate confirms Kevin Warsh as next chair of the Federal Reserve (NPR)

President Trump's pick to lead the Federal Reserve won Senate confirmation on Wednesday, just in time to officially take over as the leader of the central bank this week.

Trump is hoping Kevin Warsh can lead the Fed into much lower interest rates — but the president could be frustrated by persistent inflation.

Warsh was confirmed on a 54-45 vote, mostly along party lines. He has argued there's room to lower rates, but he also promised to use his own judgment in setting monetary policy — and not to take orders from the White House. Warsh denied charges from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that he would be Trump's "sock puppet."… 🟪 (READ MORE)