Nadia Hamdan, KUT

Updated 6:10 p.m., March 5 

Lawyers for a woman who says she was sexually assaulted in Austin are asking a court to force Travis County prosecutors to answer questions and provide evidence after learning of a prosecutor’s phone call that they say defames the woman.

A new group that aims to improve the response to sexual assaults in Austin and Travis County was announced yesterday. Its formation comes after public concern over how investigations have been handled. But that concern isn't new: There has been a group in place for nearly three decades tackling these issues, and the work hasn't been easy. 

Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt and former state Sen. Wendy Davis announced the creation of a Sexual Assault Prevention and Healing Work Group today in response to concerns about how sexual assaults are handled in Travis County.

The group will focus on collecting data about sexual assaults to better advocate for survivors.

City Council Member Alison Alter posted a resolution today that would direct the city manager to find a third-party investigator to look at how sexual assault cases are handled in Austin.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning in Austin and I’m struggling with a recorder in one hand and a mic in the other. The rest of me is riding a mule. That’s right: a mule.

The scene gets weirder. The man riding another mule next to me is dressed as Santa Claus. His name is Sam Grey Horse.

Shareholders of Round Rock-based Dell Technologies voted Tuesday to take the company public after operating for five years as a private company. The closing of the roughly $23 billion move will happen at the end of the month.

Austin led Texas in the number of hate crimes reported last year, according to FBI data. The FBI’s 2017 hate crime statistics data show the state capital had 18 total incidents, marking the third year in a row the city saw hate crimes in the double digits.

The City of Austin and the Austin police union have reached a tentative agreement for a new labor contract.

The agreement reached last night would give officers a pay raise and allow the city to expand its efforts on civilian-led police oversight. During negotiations Thursday, Austin Police Association attorney Ron DeLord expressed frustration with the process, calling it “theater.”

The ride-hailing company Uber launched its new JUMP e-scooters in Austin today.

Uber's JUMP e-bikes have been in Austin since the summer, but now the company is getting in on the city’s growing scooter culture. Uber plans to initially drop a few hundred of the scooters across the city. They can be found and reserved through the Uber app.

An overnight spike in silt in Austin's tap water triggered an official boil-water notice from state regulators.

The water briefly exceeded the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s regulatory standards for drinking water quality, surpassing a limit of 5 turbidity units. The city's earlier boil-water notice was only precautionary.

The UT Austin program aimed at expanding masculinity is back from a five-month hiatus after conservative media outlets accused it of treating masculinity as a mental health issue.

In 2015, the MasculinUT program was created within UT’s Counseling and Mental Health Center. Its goal was to engage the community in challenging stereotypes surrounding masculinity, with a goal of reducing interpersonal violence and sexual assault.

The Lower Colorado River Authority is advising residents along Lake Travis to be wary of rising water as levels at Lake Travis are forecast to reach near-record highs.

An advisory committee is expected to recommend today that the Texas State Board of Education remove the word "heroic" from social studies curriculum when referring to defenders of the Alamo.

Round Rock-based Dell Technologies is going public again after operating for five years as a private company. The $21.7 billion deal, announced Monday, was approved by the boards of Dell and VMware on Sunday night. VMware is the networking software company Dell acquired when it bought EMC.

Young women molested by Larry Nassar, the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor, called on Texas to pursue criminal and civil charges against the owners of the Karolyi Ranch, a Huntsville facility that hosted the women's national team for decades.

Roughly 10,000 people marched from Austin’s City Hall to the steps of the Texas State Capitol on Saturday, rallying in response to a student-led movement demanding stricter gun laws. It was one of more than 800 “March for Our Lives” protests happening across the country.