Wells Dunbar, KUT News

A colonel has stepped down and a sergeant’s court martial begins, all against the backdrop of an ongoing sex and sexual abuse scandal at San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base.

Col. Eric Axelbank, who oversaw the 37th Training Wing at Lackland, stepped down yesterday. Col. Mark Camerer now takes his place. The San Antonio Express-News notes that while the Axelbank’s departure was officially described as routine, the transition ceremony was “uncharacteristically closed to the media.”

It’s the second upper-echelon personnel change in as many months, following the August dismissal of Col. Glenn E. Palmer, who served as commander of Air Force Basic Military Training at the 737th Training Group at Lackland, the base that oversees training for all new Air Force recruits. The Express-News describes Palmer as having “led efforts to raise awareness about the problem” of sexual abuse and sex between recruits and instructors on the base.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Labor Day wildfires.

As part of a remembrance of the fires, which claimed two lives, more than 1,600 homes, many pets and livestock, and thousands of acres of wildland, KUT News is debuting a one-hour special today: “Forged in Flames: An Oral History of the Labor Day Wildfires.” It airs at 3 p.m. CST on KUT 90.5 FM, and will stream online at kut.org.

A year has passed since the fires broke out, but its aftermath continues to make news. Today, the Federal Emergency Management Office issued a statement noting $63 million in disaster assistance has been distributed to Texas since the fires. Over $39 million of that total was approved for homeowners and business owners; and some $23 million has gone to state and local governments helping citizens rebuild.

Happy Labor Day! It will be a pretty hot one with an expected high of 100.

City of Austin Offices Closed – But Animal Center Open

It’s Labor Day and that means City of Austin offices are closed – as are recreation centers, senior centers and libraries.

But the Austin Animal Center is open today and is offering free adoptions. The center says they received lots of new pets in August but that adoptions were slow. It’s once again “severely overcapacity” and has no room for incoming animals. The free adoptions are being offered at the Austin Animal Center at 7201 Levander Loop and the Town Lake Animal Center at 1156 W. Cesar Chavez.

City pools, golf courses and tennis centers are also open today.

Trash and recycling collections will remain on schedule.

September 4 marks the one-year anniversary of the devastating Central Texas wildfires which claimed over a thousand homes and altered countless lives. 

The KUT News staff has taken the reporting it did at the time and built upon it, compiling hundreds of interviews, photos, videos and more. The results can be heard in “Forged in Flames: An Oral History of the Labor Day Wildfires,” a one-hour special airing Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 3p.m. and  Wednesday, Sept. 5 at 7 p.m. A website featuring an interactive timeline, interviews and much more is also launching on kut.org Sept. 4.

Texas has one of the strongest economies in the nation. But in recent months the Lone Star State seems to have been outshined by the Golden State. The U.S. Labor Department reports that California has added 365,100 new jobs to its economy while Texas added 222,500.

This horse race captured the attention of The Atlantic. In a post to its website called “Why California Is Suddenly Adding Jobs Faster Than Texas,” author Jordan Weissman posits several reasons for the change:. One is growing government jobs in California versus declining government work in Texas. Another is the theory that California’s economy is primarily based on housing – which is making a slow but somewhat steady recovery.

Good morning and happy Friday. It may be a long weekend for many as Labor Day approaches.

It's Official: Longhorn Network on AT&T U-verse

University of Texas at Austin Women's Athletic Director Chris Plonsky confirms this morning that the Longhorn Network is now available for AT&T U-verse customers.

The Twittersphere is buzzing with the news that the LHN is now available on AT&T U-verse channel 1609.

In a report KUT News aired this morning, David Preschlack, ESPN’s head of affiliate relations said: “We’re doing everything that we can to get full distribution of the network. There’s nothing more important that I’m working on personally. And to me this is not an if, it’s a when, and we’re hopeful that we get there just as quickly as possible.”

That “when” finally sounds like "now" for local Longhorn fans.

The one-year anniversary of the Central Texas wildfires is fast approaching – Sept. 4. And with high winds from Hurricane Isaac currently prompting the same fire warnings seen before the outbreak of the blazes, the lessons learned from the fire couldn’t be more timely.

On Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 3 p.m., KUT News premieres “Forged in Flames: An Oral History of the Labor Day Wildfires,” an hour-long program featuring first-person accounts from people who were there.

Also on Sept. 4, KUT is launching the “Forged in Flames” website, which features an interactive timeline, audio interviews, photos, videos, maps and more. A living history of the Labor Day wildfires, the website will continue to be updated with survivors’ stories.

This spring, Austinite Jeremy Barta was killed when a MetroRail commuter train collided with his car while it was stuck on the tracks at a private rail crossing. Barta’s two children also suffered in the accident. The train engineer was cleared in an internal Cap Metro investigation, despite a malfunction of the train’s camera system.

In a report today, the Austin American-Statesman raises new questions about the crash. 

According to police reports, the engineer didn’t immediately apply the brakes as soon as he saw the car on the tracks:

The engineer, Kazi Adnan Jahangir, 43, applied the train's emergency brakes and sounded the horn and bells only after realizing that the white Ford Taurus, driven by Jeremy Barta, might not move off the tracks, the documents said.

A United States District Court has denied Texas’ request to implement its controversial Voter ID law.

In the case of the Texas versus U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the court writes that the law – Senate Bill 14, passed in 2011 – will have a “retrogressive effect” on the voting rights of minority citizens.

Here’s the heart of the court’s opinion:

Pursuant to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas seeks a declaratory judgment that Senate Bill 14 (SB 14), a newly-enacted law requiring in-person voters to present a photo ID, “neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race[,] color,” or “member[ship] [in] a language minority group.” ..  To satisfy section 5’s effect requirement, Texas must demonstrate that SB 14 will not “lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.” …  For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we find that Texas has failed to make this showing—in fact, record evidence demonstrates that, if implemented, SB 14 will likely have a retrogressive effect. Given this, we have no need to consider whether Texas has satisfied section 5’s purpose element. Accordingly, we deny the state’s request for a declaratory judgment.

Austin City Council members will hear from residents today about the city’s budget and the proposed property tax rate.

The proposed tax rate is up approximately 2 cents from last year – making it a little over 50 cents per $100 of taxable property value.

Council members are scheduled to adopt the city’s budget next month, in a series of meetings starting Sept. 10. Today’s public hearings are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. in the council chambers, and as always, you can watch the action online.

Council member Bill Spelman is expected to return today, after a medical absence to remove a tumor from his pancreas.

The University of Texas announced yesterday that it will not launch a formal investigation into a controversial study on gay parenting.

The study, written by associate professor Mark Regnerus and published in the journal Social Science Research, questioned the parenting abilities of gay couples. An internal audit by Social Science Research found the study was “severely flawed.” Others seized upon the fact that the research was funded by the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation, two socially conservative groups.

But UT-Austin says a four-member advisory panel composed of senior faculty members concluded there is not enough evidence to warrant an investigation.

Austin routinely tops national lists for jobs, living and general quality of life. But do those accolades apply equally to all its citizens?

One of the findings of the City of Austin’s African American Quality of Life Initiative was that black Austinites lacked several of the social opportunities African Americans enjoy in bigger cities like Washington D.C. or Atlanta. But the following op-ed from Natalie Madeira Cofield, President & CEO of the Capital City African American Chamber of Commerce, argues that more young African American professionals should consider making Austin – and cities like it – their home. You can read Cofield’s thoughts below.

‘Are there any black people there?’ 

That’s a question I am too often confronted with by my African American peers when speaking about the growing number of professional opportunities that exist in Austin, Texas. Contrarily, I have no problem finding smiling faces of non-African Americans to cheer me on while I am spreading the business gospel of ‘Austin Awesomeness’ around the country. Austin has successfully captured the hearts of hippies and techies alike.

Approximately 80 members of U.S. Army North have been dispatched from San Antonio to four states in the path of Hurricane Isaac.

Army North supports FEMA and local first responders during disasters, providing services ranging from flood rescue to fire control.

Sixty soldiers were deployed to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands when then-Tropical Storm Isaac moved through. They have now been redeployed to the Gulf Coast states.

A good — and groggy — morning to the 50,000 UT-Austin students returning to class today. Here’s some of Austin’s top overnight stories.

Austin School Board Approves 2012-13 Budget

The Austin ISD Board of Trustees approved a budget for the coming school year last night, including $14 million in raises for district employees.

The Austin American-Statesman has more details on the budget:

The district will keep its tax rate the same, at $1.242 per $100 of assessed value, with $1.079 for operations and 16.3 cents for debt. The owner of an average taxable value home, $244,534 after exemptions, would pay $3,037 annually, an increase of $7.

A three-judge federal panel has found that Texas' redistricting plans do not merit approval.

The State of Texas sued Attorney General Eric Holder in an effort to get the federal government to sign off on the plans. But in a newly-released opinion, the court states “that Texas has failed to show that any of the redistricting plans” – for seats in the U.S. Congress, the Texas House and the Texas Senate –  “merits preclearance.”

Political blog Talking Points Memo links to the opinion here.