Reporting Texas
News and features from UT-Austin's School of Journalism
byRebecca Butler
Waller County saw a population increase of over 42 percent during the 2010s after the arrival of several large companies, most notably the Japanese air conditioning manufacturer Daikin Comfort. Although the city of Waller’s population is only about 4,000, Daikin employs over 9,000 people.
In 2014, the Texas-themed convenience store chain Buc-ee’s moved into the town, bringing new job opportunities and more tax revenue to the city. Three years later, Daikin built a 4.23 million square foot factory, roughly the size of 65 football fields — making it the third-largest factory in the United States at the time of its opening. Daikin’s technology park serves as its American headquarters.
Daikin will soon increase its Texas presence. It announced in November that it has bought the naming rights to Minute Maid Stadium, home of the Houston Astros baseball team.
The Austin Parks and Recreation Department is moving forward with replacing the Dougherty Arts Center in South Austin despite uncertainty over funding for the two-phase development plan, the parks department said in a recent memo. The proposed arts center’s campus would include a Smithsonian-caliber gallery space, a 2,600-square-foot black box theater and studio spaces and […]
byAlex Lamb
Scientists working for the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics in the Jackson School of Geosciences have developed airborne radar equipment capable of seeing through Europa’s thick layers of ice to determine whether water is present. They call this equipment REASON, and it launched in October aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on a five-year journey toward the distant orbit of Jupiter.
byShunya Carroll
Soo-Hee Kang has traveled 7,000 miles to media at the University of Texas school of radio, television and film. The distance made Kang feel hopeless when the president of South Korea placed her country under martial law.
“After the martial law ended,” Kang said, “I became very angry and felt like I had to do something — even from far away.”
