AUSTIN, Texas — Austin city leaders recognized nine Black-led grassroots organizations on Tuesday after the groups completed a yearlong training initiative designed to strengthen their work serving people experiencing homelessness.

Mayor Kirk Watson called homelessness a true humanitarian crisis in the city of Austin, telling attendees, “I want to say I’m proud to live in a city that cares as much about this issue as we do.” He later added, “We have to do better in Austin, Texas.”

The participating organizations work on the front lines of Austin’s homelessness crisis, including groups like The Pfaith House. Founder Kimberly Holiday said her organization focuses on supporting women and children facing some of the most difficult circumstances. “We have transitional housing in Pflugerville for women and children who are actively fleeing domestic violence and or experiencing chronic homelessness,” she said.

Other honored groups include

• Black Men’s Health Clinic
• Change 1
• The Healing Project
• Hungry Hill Foundation
• Indeed Transitional Outreach Ministry
• My Sister’s Keeper ATX
• Walking by Faith Prison Ministry
• We Can Now

The groups completed a yearlong capacity-building initiative led by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, funded by the City of Austin and Indeed, to expand the organizations’ impact. Holiday said the initiative has strengthened collaboration among providers. “I believe strongly that with the cohort we have created an ecosystem to be able to support one another and also an ecosystem for those that we serve,” she said.

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David Gray, director of Austin’s Homeless Strategies and Operations Department, said the city wanted to invest in the organizations’ growth. “We wanted to invest in them, cultivate their growth and professional development, and help their organizations continue to deliver extremely high impact in our Austin community,” he said.

Gray said the cohort received professional development training from Austin Community College, one-on-one coaching from local business leaders, and lessons on mental health and wellness. “When you have a diversity of providers who are out there each and every day engaging with people, that creates more entry points for folks to come into our homeless response system,” he said.

Holiday said the training helped her turn long-term goals into a reality. “I feel very strongly that it created the infrastructure that I needed to take my vision to action, and we are changing lives.”

City officials say the organizations are now better equipped to reach more people and deliver more support where it’s needed most.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal on a Texas free speech case that allowed local officials to remove books deemed objectionable from public libraries.

The case stemmed from a 2022 lawsuit by a group of residents in rural Llano County over the removal from the public library of more than a dozen books dealing with sex, race and gender themes, as well as humorously touching on topics such as flatulence.

WATCH: The fight against book bans by public school librarians shown in new documentary

A lower federal appeals court had ruled that removing the books did not violate Constitutional free speech protections.

The case had been closely watched by publishers and librarians across the country. The Supreme Court’s decision to not consider the case was criticized by free speech rights groups.

The Texas case has already been used to ban books in other areas of the country, said Elly Brinkley, staff attorney for U.S. Free Expression Programs at PEN America.

“Leaving the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in place erodes the most elemental principles of free speech and allows state and local governments to exert ideological control over the people with impunity. The government has no place telling people what they can and cannot read,” Brinkley said.

Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, said the Supreme Court’s decision not to consider the case “threatens to transform government libraries into centers for indoctrination instead of protecting them as centers of open inquiry, undermining the First Amendment right to read unfettered by viewpoint-based censorship.”

The Texas case began when a group of residents asked the county library commission to remove the group of books from circulation. The local commission ordered librarians to comply and a separate group of residents sued to keep the books on the shelves.

Llano County, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of the Texas capital of Austin, has a population of about 20,000. It is mostly white and conservative, with deep ties to agriculture and deer hunting.

The book titles originally ordered removed included, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson; “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; “In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak; “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health” by Robie H. Harris; and “Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings.

Other titles include “Larry the Farting Leprechaun” by Jane Bexley and “My Butt is So Noisy!” by Dawn McMillan.

A federal judge ordered the county to restore some of the books in 2023, but that decision was reversed earlier this year by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The county at one point briefly considered closing its public libraries rather than return the books to the shelves after the federal judge’s initial order.

In its order on May 23, the appeals court’s majority opinion said the decision to remove a book from the library shelf is not a book ban.

“No one is banning (or burning books). If a disappointed patron can’t find a book in the library, he can order it online, buy it from a bookstore or borrow it from a friend,” the appeals court opinion said.

Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham, the ranking official in the county, did not immediately respond to an email to his office seeking comment.

Hillel Italie contributed from New York City.

AUSTIN, Texas – Austin police are looking for a suspect who was seen bashing in another car’s window in a road rage incident.

Austin road rage incident

What we know:

On Friday, Dec. 5, video showed a Subaru cutting off another driver in a Honda on the Capital of Texas Highway. The Subaru driver then steps out of his vehicle with what appears to be a baton and smashes the Honda’s window. 

The suspect then got back into his vehicle and tried to drive away from the scene. The Honda can be seen following in close pursuit, as both drivers used the side of the road to pass stopped traffic.

Austin police said they were treating it as an assault with an injury case. The case is currently under investigation and no suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident.

At this time, APD has not confirmed if there has been a person of interest identified.

Criminal defense attorney speaks out

What they’re saying:

“That’s aggravated assault all day, every day,” says Jeremy Rosenthal, a criminal defense attorney. 

He says the suspect smashing the window could face some serious prison time.

“It would be a second degree felony, which would carry with it a sentence between 2 and 20 years in a prison in Texas,” Rosenthal said.

In this case, the baton, which the suspect uses, could be seen as a deadly weapon, and could lead to extra criminal charges.

Although the video doesn’t show the moments leading up to the incident, Rosenthal says, based off the captured evidence, that the sort of force used by the suspect would be almost impossible to justify in court.

“There’s really no good defenses here. It’s not me is probably not going to be a defense. The person had it coming is not going to be a good defense. I was defending myself is not going to be a good defense,” Rosenthal said.

By the numbers:

Statistics gathered by the Texas AAA show that this sort of behavior has become all too common on Texas Roadways.

• In 2024, over 1,700 car accidents were the result of road rage in Texas.
• Nationally, 96% of drivers admit to engaging in aggressive driving behaviors.
• 11% of drivers admit to taking violent action, like intentionally bumping another car or confronting another driver.

Based off a recent study from AAA, these sorts of behaviors tend to spread. 

Their research shows that drivers who experienced higher levels of aggressive driving also had higher levels of engagement in aggressive driving.