KUT Staff

Residents in some cities and towns in Central Texas will be voting on city council members, bond propositions and school board races May 4. Early voting started Monday and closes April 30. 

Here's a roundup of items on the ballots.

Storms are moving out of the area Thursday morning, after power was knocked out for more than a thousand homes in Austin. Austin Energy says the power is back on for almost all of its customers.

Two Austin politicians endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate over the weekend – but it wasn't either of the candidates from Texas.

Longtime Austin publisher and civil rights activist Akwasi Evans has died. He was 71.

"Akwasi had a wonderful spirit. He was a fighter," said Travis County Commissioner Jeff Travillion, adding that Evans had been dealing with health issues. "He worked really hard to make sure that the East Austin African American community was represented and that it had a significant role in the development of Austin. He was one-of-a-kind and will be sorely missed."

"The first thing we need to do is remember and give a prayer" for the victims of the serial bombings last year, Austin Mayor Steve Adler told community leaders and others gathered at City Hall on Thursday for a memorial service on the anniversary of the bombings.

Former UT Austin President William Powers Jr. died Sunday from complications after a fall in September. According to a press release from the university, Powers had oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy, a rare adult-onset muscle disorder. He was 72.

Army Spc. Hugh Gary Bryan was buried Wednesday with full military honors at Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, is testifying on Capitol Hill today. 

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison, to begin in May, after pleading guilty to charges related to payments he made to two women who allege they had sexual encounters with Trump.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will detail his legislative priorities for this session this morning in his State of the State speech.

Monkeys losing parts of their tails to frostbite. Alligators living for months with no sunlight. Lions and tigers lying in their own waste for weeks.

These are just a few of the allegations of animal mistreatment Austin American-Statesman reporter Elizabeth Findell detailed in a piece last week about the Austin Zoo.

A crowd gathered on the UT Austin campus Monday to honor the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Among the speakers – many of them leaders, elected and otherwise – was fourth-grader Bradon Owens, who won the 14th annual MLK Oratory Competition.

President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, William Barr, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning.

Federal authorities have closed their investigation into the series of bombings across Austin last year, finding Mark Conditt had no overarching ideological motivation and acted alone. 

State lawmakers were back in Austin on Tuesday as the 86th regular session of the Texas Legislature convened. The day was mostly a big opening party: Family and friends of lawmakers flooded the Capitol for swearing-in ceremonies and celebrations.

From the serial bombings in Austin to historic flooding in the Hill Country to the midterm elections, here are some of the best images from KUT in 2018.

It's safe to say 2018 was an eventful year. In the spring, a series of bombings killed two people and seriously injured four others. A few months later, a school shooting outside Houston prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to convene a series of roundtable discussions and issue a school-safety plan.

A commander with the Austin Police Department was indefinitely suspended Thursday – essentially fired – after an investigation into allegations that he assaulted a woman he met on Tinder.

The woman contacted police in August to report that Jason Dusterhoft had become increasingly violent during sex.

Tech giant Apple announced today it plans to invest $1 billion in a new Austin campus. The 133-acre campus off Parmer Lane is about a mile away from Apple's existing campus and would accommodate 5,000 new employees. The new facility is slated to open in 30 to 36 months.

On the ballot this Election Day is an Austin ISD Board of Trustees race and a runoff for the Austin Community College board. None of the candidates in those races got 50 percent of the vote last month, so the top two finishers are facing off.

Austin voters picked their final three City Council members­ – for District 1, 3 and 8 ­– in runoff elections today.

The body of former President George H.W. Bush arrived at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston last night ahead of a memorial service this morning. The service is expected to start at 10 a.m. 

Former President George H.W. Bush is being honored with funeral services at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.

The body of former President George H.W. Bush is lying in state this week at the U.S. Capitol. The forty-first president died on Friday. Watch the remembrance ceremony live.

This midterm, the U.S. Senate race in Texas captivated the entire country and was touted as a bellwether for Democrats' future in the deep-red state. On election night, KUT journalists Julia Reihs and Gabriel C. Pérez joined Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke, respectively, as they watched the results come in.

Here's what they saw: