ATX-NCA: Impact 9/1/2025

Luanne's Coffee & Matcha opened off East Cesar Chavez in early August.

The mobile drink cart is located at a salon featuring two hairstylists, an esthetician and a tattoo artist.

What's on the menu: The mobile drink cart serves iced and hot espresso and matcha beverages. The business is known for its honey cornbread latte with matcha, corn soy milk, honey vanilla syrup and a cream top. Other specialty drinks include the banana bread latte and blue coconut matcha latte.

About the owners: Co-owners Paige Riojas and Vanessa Garcia started the small business after leaving their corporate careers. Co-owners Paige Riojas and Vanessa Garcia started the small business after leaving their corporate careers. The married couple combined their shared love for coffee and matcha to create Luanne's.

Notable quote: "I've been drinking matcha for years, but it's really having its moment right now," Riojas said. "We can have so much fun with this."

• 1607 E. Cesar Chavez St., Austin

Here are the top trending Community Impact stories in the Austin metro from Aug. 25-29.

1. Former hotel converted into affordable apartment complex in North Austin

2. Georgetown to use eminent domain to complete Williams Drive intersection improvements

3. Georgetown to deliver Round Rock water to Liberty Hill

4. A regional destination: Texas’ second-largest retail store set to bring visitors to Cedar Park

5. New Dave’s Hot Chicken location undergoing construction in Cedar Park

6. Double R Hat House offers hand-shaped cowboy hats 'that last'

By the fall of 2026, AISD officials plan to merge some campuses, and revise attendance boundaries and its transfer policy. These actions come as the district looks to cut costs amid a $19.7 million shortfall and declining enrollment.

The details: The district is aiming to reduce its student capacity by thousands of vacant seats as AISD’s enrollment has declined by more than 12,000 students over the last 10 years, according to the Texas Education Agency.

In August, the district ranked all 116 of its campuses for potential consolidation using a data rubric that assessed campus utilization, facility condition, educational suitability and cost per student.

AISD officials have said the district’s current resources are spread too thin and that consolidating campuses will allow the district to have fewer, better-resourced schools. Some teachers and parents said they are concerned about the impact on employees and families, and the socioeconomic inequities between campuses.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ new congressional map into law Aug. 29, declaring in a video posted to social media that “Texas is now more red in the United States Congress.”

The details: Under Texas’ current congressional boundaries, Republicans hold 25 of Texas’ 38 congressional seats. State lawmakers have said the new map will help them gain up to five more during the 2026 midterm elections.

Texas Democrats have called the mid-decade redistricting effort unconstitutional and "racially discriminatory," while Republicans asserted that the map "complies with the law" and was designed to help more Republicans get elected to the U.S. House.

Next steps: Texas’ new congressional map is set to take effect in early December, although it will be discussed in court two months earlier. After state senators approved the map Aug. 23, the League of United Latin American Citizens and a group of Texas residents filed a lawsuit asking that the map be found unconstitutional.

A panel of three federal judges will hear arguments in the case Oct. 1-10 in El Paso.