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CEO of The 19th* Emily Ramshaw (left) will be interviewed by the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle (right) next week.
The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle is taking her turn at being the interviewer, putting Austinite Emily Ramshaw—a longtime local journalism trailblazer and co-founder and CEO of The 19th* news organization—in the hot seat at the organization's virtual summit event next week.
"She asked if she could interview me on 'storytelling that lifts up those who are too often underrepresented in the media,' and 'what it means to build a media outlet with gender equity, diversity and community at its core,'" Ramshaw wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
She asked if she could interview me on “storytelling that lifts up those who are too often underrepresented in the… https://t.co/GaDLEw8DyR— Emily Ramshaw (@Emily Ramshaw) 1596722463.0
The interview closes out the 19th* Represents 2020, a week filled with events commemorating the suffrage centennial, on Friday, August 14. The summit includes conversations with prominent women in politics, civic engagement, journalism and the arts. The lineup of speakers includes Kamala Harris, Melinda Gates, Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams and Meryl Streep, to name a few.
The 19th*, a new nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom focused on gender and politics, launched its news site this week. The organization is named after the 19th amendment, in which women were given the right to vote—but the asterisk stands for the "unfinished business" of the amendment, as voter suppression is still happening today.
Ramshaw is also former editor-in-chief at the Texas Tribune, another groundbreaking nonprofit journalism organization based in Austin.
In an interview with Glamour Magazine, Ramshaw described what it was like to keep Markle's booking a secret over her young daughter's desperate desire to spread the news:
"Just as Ramshaw was gearing up for the site's debut, she and her husband made the decision to send their daughter back to daycare "because we couldn't get across the finish line with her at home," Ramshaw says. "So she walks straight in, bursts into the room, and declares, 'My mommy is going to talk to a princess!' Thank god no one believed her."
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The Model Y quality control room of Giga Texas was shown to Tesla shareholders during a Q3 call. (Tesla)
New filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation show Tesla plans to finish construction on its first phase of its new Gigafactory in southeast Travis County by year's end.
Tesla's filings, first reported by Electrek this week, match the electric vehicle company's plans to start production by the end of the year. A timeline on the other phases, which include the production of the cybertruck, have not been revealed yet.
So far the project totals at least $1.06 billion in costs. The budget includes the following facilities:
- Body-in-white: $182 million
- General assembly: $493 million
- Paint: $126 million
- Casting: $109 million
- Stamping: $150 million
The factory, which Tesla has received a minimum of $14.7 million in tax breaks for, will start off with production of the Model Y, a mid-size SUV that has increased in price eight times this year. Up to 500,000 Model Y SUVs are expected each year from Austin's Gigafactory that will reportedly employ thousands of workers.
Later, the Model 3, Cybertruck, and Tesla Semi will be produced at the roughly 1,700-acre site near the Colorado River.
Tesla is also growing its Austin presence by moving its headquarters to the area. More details on whether the HQ will be on site of the Gigafactory have not been revealed.
A young man warms up in his car as his apartment complex sits in darkness during Texas' winter storm in Austin. (Tamir Kalifa—The New York Times/Redux)
Austin was honored with a surprise feature in Time's Top 100 Photos of 2021, but like many of the photos in the collection, it wasn't for capturing a feel-good moment.
The photo, featured at No. 30 on the list, depicts a telling scene during February's winter storm, when a man took to his car to warm up and charge his phone. His face, lit up by the phone screen in the dark vehicle, is the only source of light at the apartment complex, which had been out of power since early the day before, according to the caption. In the backdrop of the snowy scene sits a fully lit city skyline, an issue faced by Austin Energy during the deep freeze.
"Huge winter storms plunged large parts of the central and southern United States into an energy crisis as frigid blasts of Arctic weather crippled electric grids and left millions of Americans without power amid dangerously cold temperatures," the Time caption reads.
The picture was taken by Austin-based visual journalist Tamir Kalifa for the New York Times. Kalifa, whose works have been featured in the NYT, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and elsewhere, has taken photos for key Texas events including Hurricane Harvey, pandemic life and the Beto O'Rourke vs. Ted Cruz campaigns as well as multiple projects in Israel.
Time's 2021 rendition of the list depicts harrowing and historic moments—from family members losing their loved ones to COVID while divided by glass to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. "Seeing is still believing," the piece's intro reads, emphasizing the importance of images.
"Remember when people thought it was the year? That 2020 was uniquely cursed, the worst year ever, that all would be resolved by January. Instead, 2021 has proved to be a fraught annum of unfinished transitions, half-kept promises, all torque and in-betweens," TIME's Karl Vick writes. "If the reality we all still share is the one captured in pixels, that consensus is precious, and worth guarding while we figure out how to talk to one another again... because what would we believe if we couldn't believe our own eyes? What we want to believe, of course. And look where that's got us."
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(Pexels)
Be prepared for a wet and chilly Thanksgiving as overnight storms bring rain into the morning across Central Texas.
Thunderstorms are expected to occur just before midnight tonight with the thick of the storm passing through Austin between midnight and 3 a.m. Showers will last until around noon on Thanksgiving, bringing less than an inch of rain in total, according to the National Weather Service.
Here is a look at one forecast model's timing and coverage of showers and a few storms tonight into Thanksgiving morning. pic.twitter.com/hSfDlvc3SM
— NWS Austin/San Antonio (@NWSSanAntonio) November 24, 2021
After a sunny afternoon, temperatures are forecast to drop into Thursday evening, reaching a low of 42 degrees.
Friday will remain partly sunny before a cloudy weekend could bring a chance of showers for Saturday and Sunday.
