Jennifer Stayton | KUT

Early voting in the 2020 general election begins Tuesday. The coronavirus pandemic has led to some changes to the voting process, but many of the basics remain the same.

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Travis County election officials say they expect to receive 100,000 ballots by mail for the 2020 general election – about four times the usual number for an election like this. Here's how to make sure your ballot makes it through the process.

It was a summer of turmoil for Luby's. The COVID-19 pandemic has driven down traffic in many restaurants, and the future of the beloved cafeterias is uncertain.

As COVID-19 has spread across the United States and around the world, it has been followed by a spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Given the proliferation and endurance of these theories, it’s worth taking a look at the psychology behind them.

Numbers from UT Austin show that only 5.1% of its students are Black. While the university says the number of Black undergraduates on campus has risen over the past few years, the percentage is still small.

“Protect Texas Together” is UT Austin’s comprehensive plan to operate safely while the coronavirus pandemic continues. But after seeing other universities open for the fall and then shut down because of coronavirus cases, some students say they don't feel very protected.

Joseph Frilot considers himself an introvert. He’s a sixth- and seventh-grade pre-AP social studies teacher in Austin, and he couldn’t imagine himself participating in a march for justice when the idea first came up. Then, he thought of his students and the example he wanted to set for them through his actions.

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2020 has been a difficult and upsetting year so far. The coronavirus pandemic, police killings of Black people, reckonings with racism and a militantly divided electorate ahead of the presidential election have some people looking for bright spots. But it's possible to go too far in that optimistic search for a little good news.

Film has always served as a platform for delving into crucial but difficult topics like racism. In his new book, a Baylor University English professor explores Hollywood’s good, bad and ugly moments when it comes to race.

Capital Metro's Project Connect transit expansion plan got some initial OKs this summer. The transit agency's board approved its recommended system plan in June, and the Austin City Council passed a resolution supporting the plan. But this is just the beginning of the line.

The recent police killings of Black people, the subsequent protests and the removal of Confederate statues and other symbols have focused attention this summer on systemic racism. What has received less attention is the deep and ongoing trauma that racism has laid in.

Peniel Joseph writes that Martin Luther King Jr. is "most comfortably portrayed as the nonviolent insider," while Malcolm X "is characterized as a by-any-means-necessary political renegade."

But those familiar biographies, he says, don't capture the nuanced evolutions their activism and politics underwent during their lives.

We're embarking on a summer unlike any in decades: A pandemic. Protests and demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism. A looming presidential election involving one of the most divisive presidents in history.  

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the absence of immunity to COVID-19 does not qualify a voter to use the disability category to request a mail-in ballot during the coronavirus pandemic. The court also says it will not make election officials investigate – or deny – applications to vote by mail.

Confused by the back and forth over mail-in ballots in Texas? OK, let's sort some of that out.

"I think anybody out there with a second-grader probably feels my pain, but feels her pain, too," KUT Projects Editor Matt Largey says from his home "office."

Austin Public Health officials say they’re still crunching the numbers, but their investigations so far show construction joins long-term care facilities, health care and grocery stores as the industries hit hardest locally by COVID-19. The officials say they are still working to determine exactly how many cases have originated and spread from construction sites.

But they claim that number may be hard to pin down.

At least 335 positive COVID-19 cases and 30 deaths have been reported among staff and residents of Austin-area nursing homes and long-term care facilities. But testing levels remain low, and health officials say they don't have a good estimate of how many tests would be needed for that entire population.

KUT Managing Editor Ben Philpott told the news staff on March 12 almost all of us would be working remotely the next day to practice that routine "just in case."

The next day, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Austin, and that trial run became the new normal.

Tracey Sengele, 44, has asthma, so she didn't think it was all that unusual when she started feeling bad and having breathing problems during the second week of March.

She didn't realize at the time that she was one of Hays County's first cases of COVID-19.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday that some Texas businesses like restaurants can reopen with limited capacity Friday. Austin Public Health had been thinking about making a similar move – just not so fast.

KUT Managing Editor Ben Philpott told the news staff on March 12 almost all of us would be working remotely the next day to practice that routine "just in case."

The next day, the first positive cases of COVID-19 were reported in Austin, and that trial run became the new normal.

UT Austin's COVID-19 Modeling Consortium is analyzing data on a rolling basis to chronicle and predict the spread of the coronavirus. The news so far in the Austin-Round Rock area is pretty good. Adherence to social distancing and other guidelines has reduced transmission by over 90%.

But there is no guarantee that it will continue on this path.

On March 13, Central Texans woke up to the news of the first local confirmed cases of COVID-19. Schools closed. UT Austin shut down. That launched a stretch of tough times for the local economy as many operations either slowed or stopped completely.

No school means no programs for Creative Action, an Austin-based arts education organization. And that means no income and no need for most staff.

We’ve all heard about the orders to stay home, practice social distancing and frequently wash our hands to help slow the spread of COVID-19. We’ve also probably seen or heard about people who just won't do that.

When the stakes are so high, why don't people follow instructions to help others and themselves?

The co-founders of a nonprofit encouraging civil conversation across political divides spent several months in Smithville, Texas to put some of their online work into practice in the community. They say their thinking has shifted about how to help a polarized electorate come together.

Maria Stewart, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Belinda Sutton, Aurelia Shines. These people may not be familiar, but two historians hope they will soon become household names.

Dr. Daina Ramey Berry of UT Austin and Dr. Kali Nicole Gross of Rutgers University co-authored a book out this month called A Black Women's History of the United States. They say their goal was not to create the final word on black women's contributions to American history but to provide a starting point for further thought, research and discussion.

A study headed by a professor at UT Austin's McCombs School of Business asked 80 undergraduates to identify which social media news headlines were real and which ones were fake. The person who did the best in detecting fake news got 66% of the headlines correct. That's a D.