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No regular City Council meeting this shortened week, but plenty of ongoing business: budget work sessions Tuesday and Thursday framed a CodeNEXT work session Wednesday, leading into next week's formal budget adoption, aka "readings": Sept. 11, 12, and 13, and it might well take all three days.

Make It Fit: Still on the pending agenda is Mayor Steve Adler's "Downtown Puzzle," which fended off a siege of sorts last week with a counter (or parallel) proposal to move some hotel occupancy tax funding to "heritage preservation." See "Council: Still Puzzling."

With Houston and its neighbors along the coast still reeling under the wreckage of Hurricane Harvey, a second massive storm, Irma, appears headed for the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and South Florida, with some chance it would break into the Gulf if it doesn't head up the East Coast instead.

Former President Barack Obama slammed the current administration's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) in a Facebook post on Tuesday. Obama called the move "cruel" and "self-defeating." "To target these young people is wrong because they have done nothing wrong," he wrote.

Gerrymandered Texas electoral maps face further legal wrangling this week, courtesy of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Last week, Alito issued a temporary stay on a lower court ruling finding that Texas' House and Congressional maps violated the Voting Rights Act, and this week he is accepting petitions as to whether the court should redraw the maps in time for the March primaries.

Elsewhere in voter suppression: Texas' Voter ID law will remain in place for this November's election. After U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found in August that the latest version of the law still violates the Constitu­tion, on Sept. 5 the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that it should be used in the next election, pending a further ruling.

The Downtown Austin Alliance has launched a public survey to gather input regarding the future of Downtown, to identify areas in need of improvement and preservation. Find the survey at engage.downtownaustin.com now through Sept. 28. Survey takers will be eligible to win one of four prize packages.

Fuel Up Freely: Remember when Austin ran out of gas? On Wednesday Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton reiterated that Texas does "not have a gasoline shortage." Post-Harvey panic, however, caused outages at gas pumps throughout the state over the long weekend, "due to exponentially higher demand than normal as people stockpile fuel." Sitton expects the issue to be resolved by Friday.