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Culinary instructor talks local benefits of Texas Michelin Guide

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Culinary instructor talks local benefits of Texas Michelin Guide


AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas is close to having its first Michelin-star restaurant, with several cities, including Austin, becoming featured destinations. The announcement could benefit not only restaurant-goers but also local culinary students.

Jamie Vaughn, a culinary arts educator with Austin ISD, spoke with KXAN about Austin’s recent recognition in the Michelin Guide, which could create more job opportunities for students and allow them to train at Michelin-star restaurants in Texas.

Read an edited transcription of the conversation below or use the video player above to watch.

KXAN: Talk to us about the program with Austin ISD. What is it? And how long has it been around?

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VAUGHN: We’re heading into our 24th year with Hospitality and Culinary Arts at Travis Early College High School, and it is a dynamic program because it’s a community program. Travis is a true community school in the heart of Austin. It’s been around since 1953. You can’t go anywhere that you don’t find somebody who hasn’t graduated from Travis or worked at Travis.

But more than that, we have so many great business partners for our hospitality and culinary students. We work with the Visit Austin Foundation, the Austin Restaurant Association, and the Hotel and Lodging Association. It’s a unique program, and our students not only train in our classes, they go out into the industry in Austin. So, they’re interning at local hotels, like the Hilton and the Fairmont and Visit Austin and in local restaurants.

We also have a unique program called a P-TECH (Pathways in Technology), which is different than most high school programs. The opportunity we wanted for our students was for them to get a college degree while they were getting their high school degree. So we’ve partnered with ACC, and students can enroll in AISD, Travis, and get their degree in hotel and restaurant specialization while they’re at Travis for free. So they’re taking classes simultaneously.

KXAN: We want to focus on your students. Tell us about what some of their dreams are, and maybe why they participate in the program.

VAUGHN: I just get emotional because our students are so funny and they’re talented and they’re hard-working. Their dreams are not much different than your dreams in high school or mine, which was—they’re trying to figure out what their passions are. What do they want to do? And how can they get there?

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We’ve got just incredible faculty and staff at Travis. They get to know every single student and so do their mentors out in the hotel and restaurant industry. And they say, ‘What do you like, how can we help you get there?’ And the students just really thrive. I mean, they really just meet every goal they have for themselves and that we have for them. They’re just excited about the industry, and we’re happy to help them on that path.

KXAN: The Michelin Guide naming Austin as one of its feature destinations—What kind of opportunities could this huge announcement provide for the students that you work with?

VAUGHN: This is so big for our students and their families and our community. First, we know what’s going to bring tourism to Austin, right? I know some people are like no more tourists, no more cars. But tourism is so important to this community. It’s really what makes our community thrive, so for our students and their families, it means jobs.

Restaurants in Austin are the number one private employer, and so it’s going to create more jobs for them. But more importantly, aspiring chefs can stay home if they want to train at a Michelin-star restaurant or with those chefs. We’ve always had great chefs in Central Texas.

If you had a student who was like, ‘I want to work at a Michelin-star restaurant,’ you had to send them out of state, and so for them now, we want them to stay here. We don’t want to lose their talents, so we want them to be able to train at Michelin star restaurants in Texas, and in Central Texas. We want them to then turn to give back to the community that raised them., so this is just incredibly exciting news for our school and our students and their families.

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KXAN: Is there anything else that you want people to know anything else that people should know about the future of the program, how this might expand and even attract more students?

VAUGHN: The future of hospitality and culinary is just thriving, especially in Austin. When you look at the great community, they are not just operating in a silo, their stepping out to us insane. Send us the next generation. We want to train your students and we want to grow them here. Michelin is going to be a great opportunity for that. I want students to know that no matter where they are in Central Texas, they can come to AISD and come to Travis and be part of these dynamic programs and go on to work in a Michelin-star restaurant.



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Austin, TX

Austin, TX venue Emo’s on the move again, AEG to take over the building

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Austin, TX venue Emo’s on the move again, AEG to take over the building


Emo’s in Austin is on the move again. 

After more than a decade at 2015 E. Riverside Drive (following the original Red River-era venue closing in 2011), Emo’s current Riverside space will be taken over by AEG Presents when the lease ends later this year. The Los Angeles, CA-based company will assume operations in January 2027 and plans to reopen the building under a new name in early 2027 following upgrades, renovations and a full rebrand.

AEG are also opening a new 4,000-cap venue nearby next spring as part of the River Park mixed-use development in southeast Austin.

C3 Presents, who reopened Emo’s at the Riverside location, say this isn’t the end of Emo’s — they’re working on a new home and plan to move the venue back to downtown Austin, with more updates to come.

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AEG Presents Vice President Robin Phillips shared the following:

There’s like no weirdness or any bad blood or anything. It just, you know, new lease and they’ll [Emo’s] go do something great. They have been important to the Austin music scene, so I have a lot of respect for them.

But I don’t think the Austin music scene or legacy is limited to one name. I know people will remember the original Emo’s and this Emo’s as, you know, both great venues… And I don’t think Austin’s music scene is just a name, it’s the artists, in my opinion.

 

A C3 spokesperson added:

Emo’s has a long history in Austin and we’ve been working behind the scenes for some time on a new home for this venue. After we wrap up at this venue in December, we will focus our efforts on our new location.

 

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Emo’s gave the following statement to Austin local news KXAN:

We’re grateful for all of the fans and artists who’ve shaped Emo’s to what it is today: a community of like-minded people who love live music. We have a vision for our future and will be moving into a new building downtown that celebrates our punk rock roots with the new amenities that fans are looking for from a venue. We’ll continue to share updates on the next chapter for Emo’s on social media.





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Austin, TX

Highly pathogenic virus found in herd of Texas dairy cows

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Highly pathogenic virus found in herd of Texas dairy cows


State and federal agriculture officials said highly pathogenic avian flu has been found in a herd of dairy cows in Texas.

What we know:

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Officials said the H5N1 virus was confirmed with laboratory tests in late May after cows at an unspecified farm became sick and milk production dropped. The dairy has since been quarantined and an investigation is underway.

This is the first case of avian flu in a Texas dairy herd this year, officials said.

What they’re saying:

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“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is confident that pasteurization is effective at inactivating H5N1, and that the commercial, pasteurized milk supply is safe,” officials at the Texas Animal Health Commission said in a statement.

A dairy cow is seen at a farm on June 1, 2026.

A dairy cow is seen at a farm on June 1, 2026. (Tim Evans/Bloomberg / Getty Images)

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Dig deeper:

H5N1 has a high rate of severe disease and death in animals that become infected.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the risk to the general public from avian flu is low. Some sporadic human infections have been reported around the world since 1997. There have been no known cases of person-to-person spreading of avian flu.

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The Source: Information in this story came from the Texas Animal Health Commission, the USDA, the FDA and the CDC.

TexasHealthPets and AnimalsFood and Drink



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New Texas law tightens rules for autonomous vehicle companies, including Waymo

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New Texas law tightens rules for autonomous vehicle companies, including Waymo


Self-driving cars have become a common sight on Austin streets, but a new Texas law is adding tougher requirements for the companies behind the wheelless vehicles.

Senate Bill 2807 imposes stricter rules on autonomous vehicle companies operating in the state, including state authorization, emergency response plans for law enforcement, and a public portal where residents can verify operators and file safety complaints.

The changes come as Austin continues to track incidents involving autonomous vehicles. The city’s autonomous vehicle dashboard shows 75 incidents in 2026, including a collision, eight near misses, and seven incidents of ignoring police direction.

Attorney Drew Gibbs, a partner at Slingshot Law, said one crash involved a Waymo vehicle.

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“There was a T-bone collision. A pretty serious T-bone collision where a Waymo just crashed into the side of my client’s vehicle,” Gibbs said.

ALSO| Waymo files voluntary software recall over flooded-lane risks on high-speed roads

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One of the incidents of ignoring police direction happened during the mass shooting on West Sixth Street back in March, when three people died, and 15 others were injured.

Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock said autonomous vehicles can struggle in unusual situations.

“It didn’t impede on anything in the moment, but it’s not necessarily uncommon where these vehicles don’t quite know how to deal with these one-off scenarios,” Bullock said.

The new law requires autonomous vehicle companies to be authorized by the state, to provide an emergency response plan for law enforcement, and to participate in a public-facing portal that allows the public to verify operators and submit safety complaints.

Kara Kockelman, a professor of transportation and engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, welcomed the added oversight.

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“I’m glad that the state is taking this a bit more seriously now,” she said. “It’s important not to just let others slip in without kind of meeting those basic minimums.”

Bullock said the emergency planning requirement may not make a major difference in fast-moving situations. Asked how impactful it is to have a fully laid out emergency response plan, Bullock said, “These plans are great, but it takes time to work through all of those versus the immediacy of having someone behind the wheel.”

The four autonomous vehicle companies operating in Austin — Waymo, Zoox, AV-Ride, and Tesla — are all state-authorized.

The Texas DMV said an autonomous vehicle company can lose its authorization to operate in Texas if the agency deems the vehicles are operating in a way that endangers public safety.

Waymo was contacted for comment, but had not responded.

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