KUT News

Did you know - during the first 11 years of desegregation, after Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, more than 45 thousand African American teachers lost their jobs.

A Republican primary challenger to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller says the department didn’t notify more than 700 Texas students about a computer hack releasing critical personal information including Social Security numbers until 32 days after the breach. Is Trey Blocker's claim true? We asked Garnder Selby of PolitiFact Texas. Read the fact-check: http://www.politifact.com/texas/state...

The StoryCorps mobile booth is in Austin this month, and we’re bringing you some of the stories that are being recorded there. Locally recorded stories will air Monday and Wednesday mornings during Morning Edition. Deborah White recently sat down in the StoryCorps mobile booth with her daughter Trinity, to share some advice and some reflections on love and marriage.

This month, Austin Shakespeare is presenting a new staging of the Anton Chekhov classic play "The Seagull." Actors Matt Radford Davies and Corinna Browning, dramaturg Marina Alexandrova, and director Ann Ciccolella talk about the play.

In this edition of This Is Just To Say, poet and novelist Carrie Fountain talks with poet Carl Phillips about his poem White Dog.

New solar tariffs come as Austin phases out a residential solar rebate program. Plus, Texas State University's president on a year of racially charged incidents on campus. And a grand juror speaks with the cousin of a teenager killed by an Austin police officer. Those stories and more in this edition of KUT Weekend! Subscribe at http://weekend.kut.org

Margaret Koch and her good friend Rachel Santos-Ramirez work together at the Bullock Texas State History Museum. They sat down together in the StoryCorps mobile booth recently, where Margaret asked Rachel to share some family memories.

Despite public opinion surveys suggesting widespread support for tighter restrictions on bump stocks -- which allow someone to shoot a semi-automatic rifle with rapid fire -- public comments submitted to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on potential new regulations overwhelmingly oppose any restrictions on bump stocks. That's according to an analysis by The Trace, a non-profit n...

There are a lot of factors that help to regulate our overall health and wellness. If we are content in our lives and relationships, we are more likely to be healthy. If we exercise and eat well, we reap the benefits in our mind and body. Also, as recent studies by Ted Kaptchuck and others show, if we take medications or supplements, even if they're nothing but rice powder and sugar, we can feel be...

The leader of Texas State University is defending the San Marcos campus as a place of diversity and inclusion after a series of racially charged incidents over the last year. Those incidents range from white supremacist fliers being plastered on campus to the student-run newspaper running a column expressing hatred of white people to the student body president Connor Clegg being called on to resig...

Tomorrow you'll be able to listen back to the Views and Brews on Sonny Rollins and The Art of Power. In the meantime check out this live recording from the event of Leonard Cohen's "Who By Fire" with Rabbi and jazz historian Neil Blumofe on vocals; Alex Coke, saxophone; Derrick Becker, trumpet; Sean Giddings, piano; Roscoe Beck, bass; Brannen Temple, drums. Engineered and mixed by Jake Pearlman.

The StoryCorps mobile booth is in Austin this month, and we’re bringing you some of the stories that are being recorded there. Melinda Cantu and Coni Huntsman Stogner are best friends and also co-vice presidents at the SAFE Alliance, which was created when SafePlace and the Austin Children’s Shelter merged about a year ago. They recently sat down in the StoryCorps mobile booth to talk about their...

Brown's voice produced dozens of hits for Atlantic Records. Turning the record label into an R&B powerhouse. Trained in the church choir in her hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia, Brown sang a range of style from jazz to gospel-blues.

Poet and novelist Carrie Fountain talks with poet Matthew Zapruder about the collaboration that inspired his poem, "Frankenstein Love."

Why some views of the Texas Capitol building are legally protected in Austin. Plus, how have private prisons fared under President Trump? And a local organization training children to become film makers. Those stories and more in this edition of KUT Weekend! Subscribe at http://weekend.kut.org

A lot of people have input when it comes to formal education: teachers, students, administrators, staff, and parents just to name some. Out of all of those groups, though, who is actually in control of the quality of the education provided? In this episode of KUT's podcast "Higher Ed," KUT's Jennifer Stayton and Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger discuss who does - and who actually sh...

Because we know "how" things work sometimes we think we understand "why" these things work as they do, and that can be a problem. In this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke talk about the difference between "how" vs. "why" knowledge, and why it's important to recognize what you really need to know.

Husband and wife Scott Hamilton and Susan Diamond recently sat down in the StoryCorps mobile booth with their seven-year-old son, Teo, and remembered the first time they met him and how he became a part of their family.

Since 1952, the Volunteer Services Council (VSC) has made a difference in the greater Austin community by bringing comfort and hope to the children and adults receiving treatment for mental illness at Austin State Hospital (ASH). We invite you to continue partnering with the VSC by supporting our mission to enhance the quality of life of our patients.

Toward the end of his administration, President Obama was reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons. That changed when Donald Trump was elected president. What happened? We asked Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior counsel at the Brennan Center’s Justice Program at NYU's School of Law, and the author of Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration. https...

On social media, cable television, and even on the drive to work, it can seem like we are surrounded more and more by incivility. A new book by a pair of former White House Social secretaries is all about this. KUT's Jennifer Stayton spoke with Lea Berman and Jeremy Bernard about their book "Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power of Civility at Work and in Life." Berman was the Social Secre...

For most of this month, volunteer have been working in Pease Park to help artist Patrick Dougherty create the latest in his Stickwork series in Pease Park. Kristen Brown of the Pease Park Conservancy talks about the project.

Democratic candidate for Governor Andrew White said he misspoke when he claimed half of new Texas teachers lack a college degree. Is the claim true? We asked Gardner Selby of PolitiFact Texas. Read the fact-check: http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2018/jan/17/andrew-white/andrew-white-says-half-new-teachers-lack-degrees-c/

The StoryCorps mobile booth is in Austin this month, and we’re bringing you some of the stories that are being recorded there. Judge Harriet Murphy is a longtime advocate for civil rights and a member of the National Bar Association Hall of Fame; in 1973 she became the first African-American woman to be appointed to a judgeship in the State of Texas, and her memoirs, "There All The Honor Lies," wi...

While in Tennessee during the summer, Haley’s future work would be greatly influence by his grandmother, who often recited the family history. After graduating from high school and spending two years in Alcorn State College, he joined the U. S. Coast Guard in 1939.