Global:

Closed AI
The race to innovate new artificial intelligence (AI) continues to ramp up, but a new market has emerged: private defense and security. While previous iterations were immediately made available to the general public as chatbots, new strides like Anthropic’s Mythos model are being restricted to private use out of concern over their newfound ability to discover and exploit cracks in other sites’ security. AI has already been deployed in physical warfare, and this development could extend its use to cyber attacks and other hacks.

War and a Piece of the Japanese Constitution
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi may be trying to revise the country’s constitution to remove Article 9, which prohibits Japan from resorting to military force against other countries. Created by American authorities during the post-World War II occupation, the “pacifist” constitution was intended to prevent Japan from engaging in further warfare. Now, some members of the majority Liberal Democratic Party want to remove Article 9, one of a number of proposed changes to the governing document that Japan’s legislature is considering.

National:

Galaga?
This year’s annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner was interrupted by an armed intruder with plans to assassinate President Donald Trump. Cole Allen, an engineer from Los Angeles, charged past security in an attempt to reach the press gala, which the president was attending. After firing at Allen but missing, Secret Service agents tackled and arrested the perpetrator. Security evacuated top officials as the event disbanded.

Canvas Hackers Triumph
Throughout the first week of May, the crime group ShinyHunters mounted a hacking campaign on the learning management system Canvas. Although Instructure, the company that owns Canvas, initially indicated that the breach was under control, ShinyHunters downed the website for all of its 275 million users on May 7. The URL led only to a ransom message that threatened to release user data without payment. More than 8,000 Canvas clients, including hundreds of American universities and school districts, lost access until Instructure resolved the outage on May 8. Instructure later announced that they agreed to pay ShinyHunters to delete the stolen data.

State:

Jobs Council Gets to Work
On March 16, Governor Greg Abbott launched the Texas Jobs Council to address worker shortages in the state. Brent Taylor, a Teamsters leader, and Megan Mauro, the interim president of the Texas Association of Business, will co-chair the 12-member council. It is made up of union and industry officials and administrators whom Abbott appointed to find ways the state can reduce government regulations that could slow development of the workforce. Abbott, who visited South Texas on a brief speaking tour to promote the advisory board, announced that it was a response to the need for skilled infrastructure workers as business in Texas expands. He specified that the council would pursue training for professions like welding, technician work, and plumbing.

Corpus Christi’s Water Blues
Corpus Christi may be the first Texas city to run out of public water. After seven years of drought, the City of Corpus Christi reports that its reservoirs are diminished to 8% of their full volume, and officials are considering expanding restrictions on home water use, which have been in place since 2023. The port city’s water is strained by the industrial plants who export materials and fuel and consume 60% of municipal water provisions according to KRIS 6 News Corpus Christi.

Local:

Are Our Springs Safe?/The Ideal Spring
A proposed expansion of MoPac Expressway has generated pushback from the environmental group Save Our Springs Alliance (SOS). SOS launched the Better MoPac Coalition to oppose the plan and filed a lawsuit against the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), which launched the project to ease congestion. The suit challenges CTRMA’s choice to withhold public comments concerning the construction submitted on their website.

Obama Visits Austin
The restaurant Taco Joint now shares one experience with the White House: Barack Obama came, made some people happy, and left. On May 12, former President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to the Tex-Mex venue. He accompanied two Democrats running for statewide office in Texas: State Senator James Talarico, a candidate for the Senate seat, and State Representative Gina Hinojosa, running for governor.

Engulfed in Extinction

Nik Bayer, Staff Writer • May 29, 2026

There may be no winners in war, but it seems certain that endangered species are among the losers of the ongoing Iran conflict. On March...

Autonomous Cars Hit the Streets

Phoenix Gerome, Staff Writer • May 29, 2026

Some people fear a future dominated by technology. Others embrace it. Austin is already living it. Major U.S. cities, including Austin, Chicago,...

KUT Fest a Hit Despite Venue Change

Jack Zipfel, Staff Writer • May 29, 2026

A last-minute change of venue didn’t stop the first KUT Festival from attracting hundreds of visitors to hear speakers, music, and discussions...

Commentary

Austin Rising Rent Narrative Needs a Reality Check

Pilar Dettmer, Staffer

May 20, 2026

Austin’s rent prices have been on many people’s minds. Despite notorious preconceptions of high rent prices in Austin, in recent years, Austin’s rent prices have surprisingly been dropping.

According to the National Multifamily Housing Council, Austin saw the lowest rent growth in 2025 out of the 150 largest metros in the U.S. with a growth of -4.2%. This decrease of rent growth isn’t new. Ever since Austin’s rent prices peaked in August 2022, with the average price for a two bedroom apartment reaching a high of $1,726, the average rent price in Austin has dropped to $1,431 as of April 2025, representing a 17.1% drop from their peak, according to Team Price Real Estate. It is this steady decrease in rent prices that makes it evident that the high rent prices that Austin has been known for in recent years was an extraordinary event, and that prices are returning to pre-pandemic levels.

One of the major factors that led to Austin’s skyrocketing rent in 2021-2022 was an issue with the supply vs. demand for housing. From 2020-2022, Austin was the fastest growing out of the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S. and had the highest percentage of net migrants, with a population increase of 121,121 (5.3%) and 64,764 net migrants (4.1%), according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce. This increase in population went hand in hand with the drop in vacancy rates. According to Team Price Real Estate, vacancy rates in Austin reached a low of 3.96% in September 2021. It was this high demand for housing from Austin’s booming population and the low availability of housing that contributed to Austin’s spike in rent prices from roughly 2020-2022.

As of April 2025, Austin’s average apartment rental price has dropped to $1,431, or a 17.1% decrease from their peak, according to Team Price Real Estate. A major contributor to this drop in prices has been the increase in supply of apartments, with over 15,000 units having been built in 2025, according to KVUE. With this increase in supply better matching the demand for housing, vacancy rates have increased, reaching 10.01% in 2025, according to Team Price Real Estate. It is this more proportionate housing supply and demand that has allowed for higher vacancy rates and for property owners to lower the prices they are asking tenants to pay.

One could argue that Austin’s rent prices are still too high, with 48% of Austin renters spending more than a third of their income on rent in 2022, where spending anything more than 30% of income on rent is considered unaffordable, according to KUT. However, when looking at rent prices nationally, Austin’s average rent is 5% below the national average of $1,995, according to Zillow. Austin’s rent prices have also had one of the steepest declines among the country’s largest metros, according to Realtor.com. In contrast, cities that have become highly unaffordable, such as San Francisco, had an 11.5% increase in rent prices in 2025 resulting in an average rent price of $3,040, according to Grow SF. Austin did not see this type of consistent, upward trend and is instead on track to return to its rent prices from before the boom in 2021-2022.

In order to help allow Austin’s rent prices to keep dropping, continuing to have a housing supply that matches the demand is key. One main way to do this is by supporting an increase in density in Austin through the construction of apartment buildings that allow a large amount of people to live in a small area, which in turn will help to keep rent prices at a reasonable level.

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