By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH

When floodwaters rushed through a girl’s summer camp nestled in the Texas Hill Country, Michael McCown’s 8-year-old daughter was among 27 campers and counselors swept to their deaths.

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On Wednesday, McCown joined other Camp Mystic parents, some wearing buttons memorializing “Heaven’s 27,” in demanding that Texas lawmakers pass a bill that would boost camp safety, including generally keeping cabins out of flood plains, instituting new requirements for emergency plans and mandating weather radios.

“It will hurt my family forever that, for reasons I still do not know, these protections were not in place nor thought out thoroughly for my daughter and the rest of the girls here,” he said. “Please pass this bill, protect our kids and do not let their deaths be in vain.”

McCown’s middle child, Linnie, was sandwiched between two brothers. She was sometimes a pest to her 11-year-old brother. But to the youngest, just 3, she was mother figure, making him cereal on weekends so her parents could catch a few minutes of sleep.

“To everyone else she was a joy,” her father told lawmakers. “She hugged her teachers, was a friend to everybody and spread an infectious giggle everywhere she went.”

Then came the floods.

Just before daybreak on the Fourth of July, destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet on the Guadalupe River, washing away homes and vehicles. All told, at least 136 people died, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.

FILE – A building at Camp Mystic is reflected in water after a flash flood swept through the area, on July 7, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman, File)

County leaders were asleep or out of town. The head of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather beforehand, but it’s now unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesperson for camp’s operators said in the immediate aftermath.

Some of the camp’s buildings — which flooded — were in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency considered a 100-year flood plain. But in response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area.

Upon learning of the flooding, McCown rushed to the town of Kerrville to pick up Linnie, receiving an email en route that if parents hadn’t been personally contacted, then their daughters are accounted for.

“I felt a wave of relief, which was quickly shattered about 30 minutes later when my wife called incredibly distraught to say that Linnie is missing,” he recalled.

He joined the search downstream from the camp and found the body of a deceased girl. He also made two trips to a funeral home to identify bodies. One was not Linnie; the other, he believed, was. He later provided authorities with a DNA swab.

He’s haunted by questions.

Camp Mystic flood victim photos are seen on a lawmaker’s desk as families testify in front of the Senate Disaster Preparedness and Flooding committee at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

“How,” he asked, “could these girls vanish into the night without anyone having eyes on them while cabins literally just 20 yards away had no casualties? So what went wrong?”

Cici Williams Steward said assurances that her daughter, Cile Steward, would be safe were betrayed and protocols that should have been in place were ignored. Today, the body of the 8-year-old “remains somewhere in the devastation of the Guadalupe River,” the only Camp Mystic camper still missing.

“We are suspended in endless anguish, unable to move forward, unable to find peace,” a tearful Steward said. “We ask you, please pass SB1 so no parent sends their child to camp believing they are safe only to face this nightmare. And just as urgently, please do not stop the search for Cile Steward. Please do not give up on our girl.”

Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, speaks before Camp Mystic families who lost their daughters in the July 4 flooding testify in front of the Senate Disaster Preparedness and Flooding committee at the Texas Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Texas State Sen. Charles Perry described the proposed legislation as a “legacy to the loss” and an answer to what has been learned during hours of public testimony. He said it’s dubbed the “Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act.”

“It’s only appropriate,” Perry said, “to memorialize the 27 little girls that lost their lives at Camp Mystic in this way.”

It can take some planning to get to the State Fair.

Here’s what you need to know about transit and parking options.

Park-and-ride, Express Bus options

There are 34 free park-and-ride options offered during the Fair.

Buses run from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. on Labor Day). The last bus to the Fair runs at 8 p.m. (6 p.m. on Labor Day) and the last one leaves the Fair to return to a park-and-ride lot at 11:30 p.m. (9:30 p.m. on Labor Day). Times vary based on traffic and crowds. Grandstand shows typically end between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., with the last show on Labor Day ending at 4 p.m.

Metro Transit park-and-ride locations can be found in Blaine, Maplewood, Minnetonka, Bloomington, Cottage Grove and Maple Grove, with Maple Grove service only available on weekends and Labor Day.

For more information go to mnstatefair.org/get-here/free-park-and-ride.

There’s also service from Express Bus provided by Metro Transit as well as Minnesota Valley Transit Authority and SouthWest Transit. All Express service is wheelchair accessible.

For information on these options go to mnstatefair.org/get-here/metro-transit/.

New this year — service begins at 7 a.m. from all three Minnesota Valley Authority Express Bus Service stations.

Bus fare through Metro Transit app, parking updates

Those purchasing tickets through the Metro Transit app can get a small discount. A round-trip ticket costs $5 through the app or their website and $6 at boarding locations.

For real-time updates, such as on parking lot capacity, visit Metro Transit’s social media on Facebook and its alerts-only feed on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Falcon Heights street parking

The Falcon Heights City Council voted in May to create temporary paid parking zones during the Fair, making around 1,000 parking spots near the Fairgrounds available for a fee.

The pay-by-mobile parking program turns select city streets east of Snelling Avenue into paid parking zones and charges $25 per day for vehicles to park between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. during the 12 days of the Fair. Trained ambassadors hired by the city will be available to give directions, answer questions and enforce parking.

The streets north of Larpenteur Avenue include: Asbury, Arona, Simpson, Pascal, Holton, Albert, Ruggles and Crawford. Avenues to the south of Larpenteur include: California, Idaho and Iowa.

Fair attendees can pay via website, app or automated pay-by-phone line and enforcement is tied to license plate information. See how to pay and other Falcon Heights parking information at falconheights.org/residents/parking/state-fair-parking.

Parking violations are $100 from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15.

Residents living on streets designated as a parking zone received one free parking pass in the mail starting in July, with additional passes available by request.

Road work wrapped up

Meanwhile, recent road work that closed portions of Interstate 94 from Interstate 35W to Minnesota Highway 280 in recent days has wrapped up.

Work is expected to resume after Labor Day and the end of the Fair.

Bikes and scooters

Those riding a non-licensed bike or scooter to the Fair can park in one of three free corrals on Fairgrounds. The corrals are located at the Loop Gate on Como Avenue, the North End Gate, and the Randall Avenue-Buford Gate. The corrals are open from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (9 p.m. on Labor Day).

Bikes or scooters with license plates must park in the Motorcycle Lot ($15 each) or in the general parking lots on the Fairgrounds ($25). Attendees may also park and lock bicycles at Express Bus lots and ride a bus to and from the Fair.

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The city’s public housing agency is calling for proposals from private partners to create new housing near NYCHA campuses.

A view of NYCHA’s St. Nicholas Houses near the intersection of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 127th Street in Harlem. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Being New York City’s largest landowner comes with some perks.

NYCHA is looking to leverage its large footprint together with private development to help address New York City’s housing crisis and the agency’s own deep rehabilitation needs.

NYCHA has 2,473 acres of land in the city and a population the size of Minneapolis. As of 2025, the aging NYCHA housing stock has a $78.6 billion backlog in physical repair needs after decades of federal disinvestment. 

Now, officials want to expand their footprint even further, developing housing projects on private land near NYCHA sites. The public-private partnerships would create new affordable housing and potentially help NYCHA address its deep repair needs.

“NYCHA will leverage private-sector partners which will lead to the development and expansion of deeply affordable housing,” said Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrion in a statement.

Officials say it’s part of an all-hands-on-deck strategy to address the housing crisis in the city. 

NYCHA is already converting 38,000 units to private management under the city’s PACT program. PACT converts public housing subsidies to project-based vouchers, which command a higher payment from the federal government, generating revenue NYCHA plans to use on repairs. Another 1,700 units have voted to be part of NYCHA’s Preservation Trust pipeline, which retains NYCHA management while converting to Section 8.

With this initiative, NYCHA is seeking proposals from private developers that leverage new funding and development tools the agency has developed. That could include building new units that would join the federal government’s RAD program, supporting new affordable housing with project based vouchers, or selling development rights to fund repairs or new housing.

“Returning to its roots as a public developer, NYCHA must leverage available assets to serve current public housing residents while creating more affordable housing opportunities citywide,” added NYCHA Chair Jamie Rubin.

Councilmember Chris Banks, who runs the City Council Committee on Public Housing, expressed skepticism about the proposed effort.

He said that past private partnerships have not delivered what they promised.

“I don’t buy that,” said Banks. “I don’t trust NYCHA or these developers that it’s going to help and support the surrounding buildings.”

The proposals could include “build first” projects where new housing is constructed offsite and made available to current NYCHA residents who can move in with a voucher. It may also create vacancies that would enable NYCHA to make repairs in older buildings, and eventually move new tenants in from the agency’s long wait lists for housing assistance.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could get access to that vacant lot [across the street] to help free up the space for the regeneration of that campus—that’s never been done before,” said Jessica Katz, former Chief Housing Officer for the city and leader of the NYCHA Regeneration Initiative.

Any redevelopment project is logistically difficult, especially when rehabilitation requires tenant relocation, but the conditions at NYCHA increasingly demand it, Katz says.

“The physical needs of the NYCHA portfolio have deteriorated very significantly over the last 10 years,” said Katz, who noted that rehab requires more money and longer relocations. “One goal of this new construction model is the fact that there just needs to be a place for people to go while the buildings are being rehabbed.”

It’s notably different from more controversial “infill” projects, where NYCHA partners with developers to build on parking lots or other open space within campuses, generating revenue that supports repairs at existing buildings.

NYCHA has tested infill projects recently, like when it sold a slice of land to fund repairs at the Manhattanville Houses in West Harlem or a contested plan to move NYCHA tenants to new buildings and demolish and rebuild the Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan. 

Infill projects have garnered criticism from residents, but gained more vocal support from elected leaders in recent years, like Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo also mentioned infill at NYCHA campuses in their primary election housing plans.

A spokesperson for NYCHA said that the Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) only seeks proposals for private land, not infill.

Banks said NYCHA’s priorities are in the wrong place. After a NYCHA apartment is vacated, it takes the housing authority an average of 339 days to move a new tenant in, while more than 173,000 applicants sit on a waitlist. 

“I find that very presumptuous of NYCHA when currently there’s about 5,000 vacancies… I think they should actually deal with that issue before they step outside to develop more, to be a part of these types of partnerships,” said Banks.

The tools used and the ownership structures of the plans NYCHA is soliciting may depend on the specific project.

Developers have other tools to play with in their proposals. NYCHA hopes that lending some of its affordable housing funding mechanisms to private development will chip in on filling a citywide affordable housing need.

NYCHA has some wiggle room under a federally-mandated cap on the number of public housing units in the city. Under one of the tools, it could build new public housing units up to the cap, then convert them to PACT, making room to build more under the cap, and doing it all again.

Another way is through a transfer of assistance, where public housing residents would switch to Project Based Section 8 assistance and move into a new development, freeing up vacancies in existing public housing that could facilitate repair and rehabilitation, or get people off the housing authority’s long wait list.

Because of its “towers in the park” design, many NYCHA campuses have a lot of land at their disposal. Where NYCHA campuses don’t have as much housing as zoning would allow on their lot, a transfer of development rights enables them to sell off that extra buildable area to an adjacent owner, who could build bigger than otherwise permitted.

Getting tenants on board will be a challenge no matter the project.

“We’re heavily focused on making sure that residents have input when these programs are being introduced to them,” said Banks.

“Trust is very hard won, and it is very easily lost, and NYCHA residents have lots of reasons not to trust that these projects are going to go forward,” said Katz.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post NYCHA Looks to Expand its Footprint With Private Partnerships appeared first on City Limits.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Worker-led protests erupted at Microsoft headquarters this week as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.

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A second day of protests at the Microsoft campus on Wednesday called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.

The police department began making arrests after Microsoft said the protesters were trespassing.

“We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.

Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”

The company said it will share the findings after law firm Covington & Burling completes its review.

The promised review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza.

In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the American tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial AI products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.

Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.

Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.