Matt Largey / KUT News

The Arctic is warming faster than any other place on Earth. Twice as fast.

That’s not easy to grasp when you’re thousands of miles away. But over the summer, one Austin high school teacher went to see it firsthand.

Susan Morrison was two years old when her dad left.

Her mother, Eleanor, was left to care for Susan and her two siblings. The experience led Susan on a journey to change the Texas Constitution to make sure other kids didn't have the same experience she did growing up.

At least one person has died on Texas roads every day since Nov. 7, 2000. Despite efforts to “End the Streak,” as the Texas Department of Transportation puts it, the state still leads the nation in traffic deaths.

Fatalities did fall about 2% between 2016 and 2017, but more than 3,700 people died in 2017.

The University of Texas at Austin is among eight schools now being investigated in connection with a nationwide admissions bribery scandal.

Keeping track of federal court cases can be confusing even for reporters whose job it is to follow this stuff, let alone the general public.

We made a commitment last year to figure out how we're reflecting the diversity of our community in the voices you hear on KUT. We started with a baseline of the first three months of 2018, when we weren't paying attention, to get an idea of the diversity of voices on-air. 

Funeral services will be held Jan. 12 at 11 a.m. for Richard Overton, the oldest man in America and the oldest military veteran, who died Thursday.

A couple weeks ago, we asked you to help us answer a question for ATXplained.

Sarah Edens moved to Austin about six months ago. She wanted to know: "When can you call yourself a 'real' Austinite?"

Hundreds of Texas firefighters will start heading to California on Monday morning to help battle wildfires burning in Southern California. 

It's Election Day — and before you head to the polls (if you haven't already during early voting), make sure you know your rights as a voter.

Austin Water officials have lifted a boil-water notice for all its customers that’s been in place since Monday. They say the water is now safe to drink straight from the tap.

In Texas, the city of Austin's water utility has issued a citywide boil water notice as it struggles with the impact of debris from flooding on its water treatment capabilities.

"The high level of debris, silt and mud requires extended filtration that slows the process of getting treated water into the system," Austin Water said in a press release. "To provide necessary water pressure for fire protection, plants must distribute water at treatment levels not typical of the utility's high standards for consumption."

With the registration deadline only three days away, Texans looking for voter-registration forms on the Secretary of State's website this weekend got an error message for nearly a day. Applications for mail-in ballots were also inaccessible. Information about who's running for office this November was also knocked offline.

Service was restored by late Saturday.

Ninety-three percent of eligible voters in Travis County are expected to register to vote by the Oct. 9 deadline, according to the county’s voter registrar. So far, 91 percent of eligible voters have already registered.

The Austin-based company at the center of a lawsuit over 3D-printable guns will send plans directly to customers, its founder said Tuesday, a day after a federal judge blocked the State Department from letting the company publish the files online for free.

A federal judge in Seattle has agreed to extend an order blocking an Austin-based company from publishing 3D-printable gun designs on the internet. 

A court battle over an Austin-based company’s plans to post 3D-printable gun designs online continues Tuesday. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia are asking a judge in Seattle to block the U.S. State Department from allowing the files to be posted until the case can be argued in court.

The judge temporarily halted the posting on July 31.

A federal appeals court is upholding a decision to dismiss a challenge to a 2015 Texas law allowing licensed handgun owners to carry concealed weapons in most places on public college campuses. Three UT-Austin professors brought the lawsuit, arguing it violated their constitutional rights — mainly that it has a chilling effect on free speech by introducing guns into a classroom setting.

Update: A federal judge in Seattle has issued a temporary restraining order stopping the designs for 3D-printable guns from being posted online.

Our original post continues:

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Austin-based firm Defense Distributed published designs over the weekend for 3D-printable guns that can be fabricated at home and would be virtually untraceable. So far, thousands have downloaded the files, but a handful of attorneys general are seeking to block the firm’s ability to post the designs online.

Update: A federal judge in Austin has denied a request by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and other gun control groups to block Defense Distributed from posting plans for making 3D-printable guns online. 

The Brady Campaign called the ruling disappointing, but said the fight wasn't over and urged the State Department to act.

Human attempts to control the weather go back millennia.

There was fire, of course, for keeping warm when winter's cold takes hold, but taming the sweltering heat of the summer is a much newer pursuit. 

Austin will be the home of the U.S. Army's new Futures Command, the installation intended to modernize the Army by developing new weapons systems and technologies.

In an announcement this morning, Army Secretary Mark T. Esper said the site in Austin will allow for an "entire modernization process under one roof." Raleigh, Boston, Minneapolis and Philadelphia were also finalists for the site selection.

Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso) says he raised a massive $10.4 million between April and June for his campaign to unseat Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The sum brings O’Rourke’s total raised since he began his campaign to more than $23 million. He ended the first quarter of 2018 with more than $8 million in cash on hand.

The City of Austin says it will no longer enforce a ban on single-use plastic bags at most retail outlets, following a state Supreme Court ruling last month that struck down Laredo's bag ban.

The court ruled Laredo's ban was at odds with state law, but urged the Legislature to pass more specific laws to allow similar bans in the future.

Texas politicians have called on the Trump administration to end its policy of separating immigrant families crossing the border illegally, and are asking the state to stop assisting immigration authorities along the border until the policy ends.