By Sahar Chmais The number of Hays County residents hospitalized with COVID-19 has been dropping since Monday, Sept. 13. Over the nine-day span, the number of hospitalizations has gone from 61 residents to 44 as of Wednesday, Sept. 22. A total of 356 COVID-related fatalities have occurred in Hays Co...

By Sahar Chmais Buda City Council approved the city’s Fiscal Year 2021-22 budget with the tax rate set at $0.3423 per $100 of value, remaining the same as 2021’s rate. State law considers anything above the no new revenue rate to be a tax increase. Buda’s tax increase would be 9.26%, depending on th...

By Sahar Chmais  Kids 5 to 11 years old may soon be eligible for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine after trials showed 'favorable safety' and a 'robust antibody response', according to Pfizer.  The trial for this age group had 2,268 participants who received a lower two-dose regimen than those ages 12 and o...

By Sahar Chmais Two veterans service systems received a collective $400,000 to aid Hays County veterans. Hays County Veterans Office was funded with $100,000, and the Hays County Veterans Treatment Court received $300,000 through the Texas Veterans Commission (TVC). The TVC awarded $6.8 million gran...

By Sahar Chmais UPDATE: When the story was reported, the number of infections counted on the Hays CISD COVID dashboard was 65 active cases in the school. The number of active cases is 74 as of the district's latest update this evening. An entire school campus in Hays CISD has closed down due to the ...

Staff Report UPDATE: Hays County corrected their press release, which originally stated that there would be an addition of a traffic signal. The upcoming work on US 290 at Martin Road in Dripping Springs does not include the addition of a traffic signal.  A revised quote from Pct. 4 Commission Walt ...

By Sahar Chmais In Hays CISD, where masks are not mandated, 2.6% of students and staff were infected with COVID three weeks into the school year. In Austin ISD, where masks are mandated, that number is 0.8%. Dripping Springs ISD, also without a mask mandate, has a similar statistic to HCISD, with 2....

By Sahar Chmais In a $26 billion U.S. settlement with opioid manufacturer Johnson and Johnson (J&J) and three other drug distributors, the city of Buda will receive $10,784. J&J was accused of downplaying the risk of addiction while marketing opioids. The three distributors were accused of having re...

By Sahar Chmais Hays County Court at Law 3 Judge Daniel O’Brien has COVID-19, delaying his docket for the week. Though it is unclear where O’Brien may have contracted the virus, on Thursday, Sept. 2, a prosecutor attended O’Brien’s court and later that evening tested positive for COVID-19, according...

By Sahar Chmais Inmate population is increasing, jail outsourcing costs are rising, but Hays County plans to hold the line on outsourcing costs during the next fiscal year. In the 2019-2020 budget, $3.8 million was spent on sending Hays County inmates to other county jails, and the hope for this yea...