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AUSTIN, Texas - Police say 22 people are behind bars after a group of over 30 cars drove onto I35 at a speed of 5 miles per hour to demand rent relief. “It's frustrating to see us working so hard for justice and to bring like these things to light, and then to be silenced like this by APD is expected, but still disappointing,” said one protester. A rent strike organized by Rent Strike ATX brought traffic to a near standstill after multiple cars protested rent on the interstate. “We were fighting no rent while we can't work during this...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Texas State Capitol Saturday calling on government leaders to reopen Texas – as the state’s death toll from COVID-19 continues to grow. People attending the “You Can’t Close America” rally ignored social distancing guidelines and could be heard chanting “let us work.” It comes just a day after Gov. Greg Abbott announced executive orders to open state parks and some businesses as part of a phased reopening of Texas.

AUSTIN (KXAN) – The company behind a plan last week to cut some of its employees’ pay checks if the $2-trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill was approved has now changed its mind. The plan would’ve allowed the company to reduce paychecks by the amount of stimulus payment expected from the government. The company wanted those workers to sign what it called its “Employee Emergency Compensation Fund.” The agreement would have also allowed the company to take 50% of the stimulus act’s $500 per child credit. A worker who asked that we not identify him provided KXAN a copy of the letter...

While Congress was working out the details on a bill that would provide Americans with stimulus checks, at least one Austin company was looking for ways to save payroll. “The form says they are preemptively deducting funds from our paychecks. That number is based on what they’re anticipating the government relief fund to be,” a worker for the company told KXAN. The worker asked not to be identified in this investigation so as not to impact his company’s ability to continue doing business. The worker said his company emailed a form titled “Employee Acknowledgement of ‘Government Assistance’ Pay Reduction” to...

Officials at Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas say they have canceled 261 abortions since Tuesday, after the state effectively banned the procedure. Sarah Wheat, the chief external affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas in Austin, said the health centers have also been prevented from helping patients seeking abortions. “Our health centers have received 583 calls from patients seeking appointments during that same time period,” she said in a statement. On Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott issued on order halting procedures that are “not immediately medically necessary” during the coronavirus outbreak. The next day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton confirmed...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin and Travis County are expected to issue orders Tuesday telling people to stay at home to help prevent the further spread of the coronavirus, Mayor Steve Adler told KXAN Monday. “I would anticipate that probably tomorrow the county judge and I will enter new orders,” he said. City and county lawyers are discussing Monday night when it would take effect. While Austin says it’s still working on the details of the order, it may look something like Dallas County’s rules. During the stay-at-home order time in Dallas, only “essential” businesses will be allowed to continue operating....

Austin’s Mayor Adler has officially banned gatherings of 250 people or more anywhere in the city or Travis County. The ban on public or private gatherings, part of orders adopted by Adler and Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt, takes effect on 2 a.m. on Sunday March 15 and will continue until at least May 1, 2020.

The bartender was working at Polvo's Mexican Restaurant.After a man was accused of crashing into a pedestrian and driving with the body in his car for half a mile, an Austin bartender has been charged in connection to the horrific case. Rafael Medina, 31, was bartending at Polvo's Mexican Restaurant located at 360 Nueces St. when he is believed to have served alcohol to a customer who was showing signs of intoxication, according to a March 11 press release from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. That customer, identified by police as Paul Joseph Garcia, hit a pedestrian who was walking...

According to SXSW’s terms and conditions of participation, their strict no-refund policy states, “Any and all payments made to SXSW are not refundable for any reason, including, without limitation, failure to use Credentials due to illness, acts of God, travel-related problems, acts of terrorism, loss of employment and/or duplicate purchases.” Due to the cancellation, the festival also laid off a third of its employees, a decision referred to as “the only way to stop the bleeding” by a source to the Austin Chronicle.

...In the video above one of his aides appearing on camera with Adler states, ‘’We want everyone to know, it’s still safe and a wonderful thing to stand with Austin.’’ They also have announced there would be a fund set up, which residents could contribute to with donations, that would benefit those who are, ‘’hit the hardest by this, and the least likely to be able to come out of it.’’ So they are now asking residents to help bail out those who were directly impacted by the rash decision made by Adler. What is evident here is that this...

South by Southwest, the annual tech, film and music conference in Austin, will proceed as planned despite concerns about coronavirus, Austin public health officials said during a press conference on Wednesday. "It's important for us to remember at this stage that we're actively evaluating mass gatherings on a daily basis," said Mark Escott, the interim medical director and health authority for Austin Public Health. "Right now there's no evidence that closing South by Southwest or other activities is going to make this community safer. We're constantly monitoring that situation." The organizers behind SXSW, which is scheduled to take place from...

Alex Jones shows the breathalyzer paperwork on air that proves he was under the legal limit for blood alcohol content needed to charge him with a DWI after being arrested.

After South by Southwest was cancelled on Friday over concerns about the coronavirus, two of its founders told the Austin Chronicle that the film festival doesn’t have insurance to cover the cancellation. Nick Barbaro, a co-founder of SXSW who is also the publisher of the Chronicle, told the paper that the festival does not have cancellation insurance relating to a disease outbreak or a policy that would be triggered by the city declaring a local state of disaster. “We have a lot of insurance (terrorism, injury, property destruction, weather). However, bacterial infections, communicable diseases, viruses and pandemics are not covered,”...

AUSTIN, Texas — For the first time in its 34-year history, South by Southwest has been canceled as the City of Austin declares a local disaster due to concerns about coronavirus spreading. In an announcement on Friday by Mayor Steve Adler, Judge Sarah Eckhardt, Dr. Mark Escott of the Interim Health Authority and Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden, the City of Austin declared a local disaster, canceling the spring festival event as the COVID-19 virus causes worldwide concern. Judge Eckhardt also signed a companion declaration of disaster to apply county-wide in Travis County to festival gatherings that have guests...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Two more high-profile tech companies say they won’t attend the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival happening later this month over fears of the novel coronavirus. Facebook and Intel confirmed to KXAN they do not plan to send anyone to the tech conference, which draws tens of thousands of people from across the world to Austin. “Due to concerns related to coronavirus, our company and employees will not be participating in SXSW this year,” Tracy Clayton, a Facebook spokesperson, said in a statement. An Intel spokesperson said the company has “withdrawn from on-site activities at this year’s SXSW.”

Like Trump, Sanders is tapping into a seething discontent in American life over who has power and who doesn’t. AUSTIN, Texas — At a massive Bernie Sanders rally like the one held downtown here on Sunday evening, you get the sense that a huge swath of the Democratic voter base is deeply unhappy with everything in America, and has been for a while.The immediate object of their ire might be Donald Trump, but their discontent goes further back than the last election, and it encompasses more than politics as usual. They want everything Sanders promises: Medicare for all, free college,...

The owner of Vince Young Steakhouse says homelessness in Austin is reaching a boiling point... The first real major incident that I had was I had my head split open,” Brown said in an interview. “We had a guy, he was knocking over tables on our patio.” When he called 911, he said the man believed to be homeless hit him in the head. He needed 13 stitches. Then about six months ago, he found a man relieving himself in the parking lot. When Brown asked him to leave, Brown said the man responded, “This is Austin. We can do...

Across the country, coronavirus fears are sparking allegations of discrimination against people of Asian descent. It's bad enough that it prompted a CDC official to warn that being Asian isn't a risk factor for coronavirus. Now some Asian Americans in Austin say they've become targets... Flannigan says any Asian or Asian Americans targeted because of unfounded coronavirus fears should file a report with the Anti-Defamation League. "Austinites are better than this, y'all. Like we do not need to be downshifting into racism or discrimination or hate when comes to a public health issue," he said.

Peek went on to major in international politics at Princeton, study Persian, and pursue a master's in international relations at Harvard before heading to D.C. as a foreign policy researcher for the conservative Heritage Foundation. He then became a foreign policy adviser to Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican. When Smith lost his next election, Peek went on to work for another Republican senator, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, on Syria and Lebanon policy, helping to draft a bill expanding sanctions on Hezbollah. In 2008, he enlisted as a reserve officer in the Army and spent a year in Afghanistan at...

On the heels of the city's first case of measles in 20 years, another vaccine-preventable disease, rubella, has been confirmed in Austin. Austin Public Health says this is the first case of rubella in Travis County since 1999. Rubella is covered by the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. While Austin/Travis County has a relatively high vaccination rate, there are pockets of communities where vaccination opt-outs bring herd immunity to an unstable status. Rubella is less contagious than measles, but the virus has similar symptoms and is contracted the same way. Rubella is spread mainly through droplets that come from...