Image by the "Subway Cyrano," from GothamistNew York City was at its strangest and swellest this week. On Sunday, tens of thousands people ran in the NYC Marathon, including Mrs. Tom Cruise, aka Katie Holmes, who ran it in just under 5 hours, 30 minutes. Gothamist also found out that limes in Corona are sometimes illegal, the weird maple syrup might be back and a famous punk music pioneer-turned-real estate broker was possibly killed by......

El Paso man fails to take down commercial airliner by flashing laser beam at it, gets nabbed by FBI—plans for world domination totally ruined 9-year-old boy sets a Northeast Austin apartment complex on fire while playing with lighter Septuagenarian arrested for multiple child molestation charges, faces up to 99 years in prison The Mega Millions jackpot is now at almost $150 million Whole Foods is pissed that someone leaked their trade secrets With today......

It's always awesome when Austinites earn national recognition — unless it's coming from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Back in May, a 20-something-year-old woman robbed a Northwest Austin Wachovia bank, while sporting a UT cap and a rather confident smile. The sassy lady evidently had such a good go of her first robbery that she took her one-woman-act to the west coast. According to the FBI's "WANTED" poster, the "Ponytail Bandit" is believed to have......

Way back in September 2006, we reported that some guy on a Jet Ski stumbled across a concrete-filled barrel with human remains spilling out of it out on Lake Buchanan. Nine months later, the identity of these remains has now been revealed. According to the results of DNA tests performed at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, the mysterious remains belong to one Charles Maynard Wyatt, age 62, of Travis......

Authorities will be holding a press conference later this afternoon to discuss the explosive device placed in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center yesterday. The package was found about 2 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center at 1902 S. Interstate 35, north of Oltorf Street. The clinic provides services including abortion. The southbound feeder road remained closed much of the evening, and I-35 was closed briefly......

Tonight, Alamo Music Mondays presents Let Them Eat Rock, Rodman Flender’s (Idle Hands, Leprechaun 2) documentary look at the supremely bizarre career of Boston aristo-rockers The Upper Crust. Formed in 1994 from bits of various Boston indie bands (including Lyres, Bags, Mente and Clamdiggers), The Upper Crust play AC/DC-meets-Spinal Tap rock about the trials and tribulations of being obscenely rich. Their live shows--featuring the band dressed in full 18th century nobleman’s garb--became wildly popular in......

Austin remains the nation's fifth safest large city, according to the latest annual rankings published by Morgan Quitno Press. The Lawrence, Kansas-based research firm placed Dallas and Houston on the other side of the spectrum -- both are among the country's most dangerous, at sixth and tenth, respectively. Meanwhile, our northern neighbors in Round Rock should be happy to know that they're still living in of the overall safest cities, despite dropping to thirteenth......

Our new toll roads will officially open to traffic November 1st. According to a recent report from the FBI, the large city with the highest crime rate is our very own Dallas. The government is uploading anti-drug videos to youtube in another vain attempt to turn the tide on their war on drugs. Meanwhile, Kinky would like to legalize marijuana. NASA has postponed the Wednesday landing of the Atlantis due to the appearance of......

Sidewalks are returning to Shoal Creek Boulevard. The new sidewalks will replace the curb islands created last year in order to slow down traffic. UT redshirt freshman Colt McCoy will be the starting quarterback in this weeks game against North Texas. Universal Music Group's massive catalog of music will soon be available for free legal downloads. One of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted is now in custody. Warren Steed, fugitive leader of a polygamist......

A young African-American man with Snoop Dog cornrows was selling the tickets for America: From Freedom to Fascism at the Barton Creek AMC today. He was passing them through the circle cut in the window over the book he was reading: The Millionaire Next Door. Another man—white, middle-aged, wearing khakis, and not a theater employee—was handing out xeroxed fliers about the film that had “WAKE UP!” in bold letters. He wasn’t pushing them into anyone’s......

Park Officials in Bastrop are busting out the big guns against the hundreds of black vultures that presently terrorize the local establishment. The new Texas State Highway 130 (under construction) may allow drivers to fly down the road at 85 mph. Unfortunately it took a violent death to push the Backyard music venue to address the dangers related to their parking situation. Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of the deceased.......

Another Waco-type situation presently looms on the horizon out in west Texas, just south of San Angelo. This time, instead of the Branch Davidians and David Koresh, it’s the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a radical polygamist organization based out of Utah, headed by its spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs. Jeffs is wanted in Arizona and Utah on criminal charges of sexual conduct with a minor and rape. He is also......

We know people who drove for 24 hours from Minneapolis to make it to SXSW this year (much love, kids). We know people who flew from Bangkok and Madrid. We even have a friend who hitched from Seattle to be here. We thought that last scenario was a little extreme. The we read this. Chicago artist Catherine "Cat" Chow, currently an artist-in-residence in New York's Artists Alliance Studio Program, snuck onto an American Airlines......

After a weekend of frayed nerves and FBI Investigations, life is getting back to normal for UT students as investigators have established that the powdery substance found over on Thursday was not the deadly Ricin. UT freshman Kelly Heinbaugh was doing her laundry in the Moore-Hill residence hall when she found the powder in a roll of quarters. Early tests for Ricin were positive, and the FBI evacuated the dorm and inspected the laundry......

You may have heard in recent weeks about a man who was running around town committing armed-robberies at restaurants. (No, we didn't tell you about it here, but Jesus, people, do we have to do everything for you?) Well, apparently this fella robbed five different restaurants in Austin, the last one being the Alamo Drafthouse Village on Anderson Lane. He terrorized Austin after having done the same thing in Louisville. Apparently, he was feelin......

-Chaos continues to reign supreme in Paris, where over 3,000 vehicles and dozens of businesses have been destroyed. All of this is over the accidental death of two teenage boys, who had been hiding from the police. -Harry Potter has the "potential to frighten some children" -They caught that death-row inmate who'd escaped from Houston outside a liquor store in Louisiana - trashed. -Cheney wants desperately to retain the power to torture terror suspects......

Cha-Ching!! Police busted 38 places with 700+ slot machines recently. Who knew? Apparently this is the biggest gambling bust in Austin history; big enough to warrant the involvement of the FBI and the IRS. Austin Police Chief Stan Knee seems appalled that not only was there gambling but the machines may have been rigged! Who would have thought that places like "Pasty’s Game Room" and "Gold Touch Game Room" would have gambling? When Tacos......

According to investigation reports from the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, crazy bitch runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks had originally picked Austin as being the final destination in her kidnapping from a toothless Mexican flee from her pending nuptials. The best part was her reasoning: she had seen Texas hunk Matthew McConaughey on tv talking about how much he loved Austin. Ummm…ok. Too bad she didn’t see the Ewoks on Charlie Rose expounding......

In The News Today: Feds Investigate Rocha Shooting: The FBI and the DOJ’s civil rights division are getting involved in the case of Daniel Rocha. Looks like the relations between Austin authorities and Austin minorities just got worse, if that's possible. Downing Street Memo: On May 1st, the UK Times published a memo that made President Bush just look, well, bad. There will be a forum today on Capital Hill regarding the memo and......

Now that the FBI informant credited with exposing the Watergate scandal has revealed himself, it's only a matter of time before the pivotal communications between Deep Throat and Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are shown to the public. UT, as you may recall, purchased the entire Watergate archive back in 2003 for the bargain sum of $5 million. A subset of the massive collection, consisting largely of tape recordings, reports, and......