Two men kidnapped a woman at a Bastrop Whataburger this morning. Mayor Wynn apologizes to city after assault charge, says he is in anger counseling. Winter weather leads to more than 200 flights being cancelled at DFW. On election day, APD arrested two members of the Mexican Mafia. With 41% of Texas precincts reporting, Obama is in the lead for caucus delegates. An agreement set up today between the City of Austin and TxDOT means that your vehicle registration could be denied if you don't pay your traffic fines. After losing the race for Tax Assessor-Collector, Maxey endorses Nelda Wells-Spears and says he is going to help the Obama campaign....

Mayor Wynn says, "We're taking action today that will lower the cost of utility bills, make housing more affordable, help improve air quality and take critical steps in the fight against global warming," as City Council adopts codes to make new homes zero energy capable. El Paso high school student collapses and dies after finishing the PSAT. Blanco High School pranksters put bloody deer carcass in Comfort High School bus. Bird conservationists are opposed......

FACT: In 2007, there will be 181,510 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the U.S. alone. Of those diagnosed, nearly 41,000 will succumb to the disease. AWESOME FACT: When detected early, breast cancer has a 96% survival rate. This Wednesday, join Mayor Wynn and members of Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s Austin Affiliate to kick off National Breast Cancer Month and celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Austin’s Race for the Cure. To celebrate......

Iraq to review all security contractors working within its borders, after Blackwater screwup kills eight over the weekend. What the hey, they're an autonomous government. Right? Clinton to public: Can I have a health-care do-over? Racism ain't dead, for the 897th time. Mayor Wynn doesn't drive a hybrid, but he will, he tells Sprig.com. Senator Craig is getting support from the ACLU, which has got to sting. Everybody's leaving Britney. Why didn't FOX let......

The Austonian threw itself a ground breaking party this morning in the parking lot on the corner of 2nd and Congress, where the shiny building designed by Houston-based Zeigler Cooper Architects will one day stand. The festivities, complete with mimosas and mini-quiches, celebrated the future ‘landmark’, and featured a whole lot of loving between the City and Benchmark Development. Senator Kirk Watson and Mayor Will Wynn showed up, and praised Benchmark’s contributions to Austin’s......

Back in June, after Mayor Wynn gave his global warming presentation at the Alamo Downtown, the funnymen at Master Pancake Theater performed a special one-off skewering of Roland Emmerich's cheeseball disaster flick The Day After Tomorrow. Sad you missed it? Well cheer up, sunshine, because the show went over so well that the one-off has now become an eleven-off! Starting tomorrow, the Master Pancake guys (aided by guest comedian Scott Chester) will roast The Day......

ACL Previews Austinist Launches Dedicated ACL Page! Preview: Manchester Orchestra and Patterson Hood Preview: Ian Ball and the Little Ones Interview: Paolo Nutini ACL Band Clash, Round 2: The Killers Vs. Björk Weekly Features Tales Of Mere Existence Hots On #9: Sound Off New Release Tuesday: Frisell's Floratone The Argyle Academy New Movie Releases: The Invasion, Superbad, Death at a Funeral, and More Truesday: Friesday The Laurie Show News, Features, and More Travis County......

Mayor Will Wynn and writer/actor/director Turk Pipkin will tackle a hot topic (this one, not that one) this coming Monday as they host a special "Global Warming Q&A Session" between screenings of Pipkin's Nobelity and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth at the Paramount Theatre. Mayor Wynn loves talkin' climate change (he's a key member of the U.S. Mayors Council on Climate Protection, and in January, he trained with Al Gore to deliver the slideshow Gore......

Yesterday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality - the state organization in charge of keeping our water, earth and air clean - granted a crucial air permit to Dallas-based energy corporation TXU for the purpose of building a lignite-fired power plant in Robertson County, about 100 miles northeast of Austin. Lignite, often referred to as "brown coal," is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for electric power generation. It's really......

After vehemently encouraging Austinites to indulge in the splendor of live musical entertainment, Mayor Will Wynn's charisma is now focused on more literary pursuits. Wednesday, March 28th, at 7pm marks the official start of the annual Mayor's Book Club. For the sixth installment of the book club Mayor Wynn has chosen Stephanie Elizondo Griest's Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. To get readers in the mood, the City of Austin is......

Citizens of Austin, the Mayor's Book Club has made its 6th annual selection and your compulsory reading assignment for Spring 2007 is Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana by Stephanie Elizondo Griest. A part of the Austin Public Library's Keep Austin Reading program, the goal of the Mayor's Book Club is "to to develop a community experience through reading and discussion of a shared book." No need to mail book reports......

The fourth annual Austin Game Conference kicked off this morning. Right about now, thousands of gaming industry developers are probably sitting through opening remarks by Game Initiative conference director Tonda Bunge, Mayor Wynn, and Blizzard Entertainment's Rob Pardo -- the guy who brought computer geeks around the world such escapist hits as StarCraft and Warcraft III. Running through Friday, AGC includes an exhausting schedule of programming, with seminars focused on topics such as "The Joy......

As you're navigating around Austinist today, you might notice that things have been fiddled around with a bit. Today we're pleased to present the IST Network-wide implementation of several new features and gadgets that we're hoping will make your reading experience even better than before. Over on the left sidebar is a new box entitled "Contribute!". Clicking on that takes you to the new Austinist Labs, where you'll find these nifty features (thanks to......

Shopping at locally-owned businesses puts three times the dollars into Austin's economy, according to numbers published by the Austin Independent Business Alliance (AIBA) on their website To celebrate Austin's Independent [Business] Week, AIBA, Mayor Will Wynn, and a bunch of local shops have teamed up to launch the "I Bought Local" sticker campaign. Kinda like the ones you get when you vote, these armadillo-themed stickers are a nice way to show off your support for......

“The question is no longer if we're going to grow, but how we're going to grow - with transportation, open space housing affordability and city services.” – Mayor Will Wynn (during his recent re-election campaign) Major change is coming to Austin’s downtown area over the next few years, as we now begin to enter what is being referred to as “Austin’s next boom.” Already, as you read this, the new generation of residential towers......

According to the United Way Capital Area's group, Success by Six, Travis County isn't doing so hot in serving area children. The county received a C for "healthy", and Ds for "Happy" and "Smart" on the group's report card (.pdf). Some results:Only 13.35% of area child care facilities meet national/state accreditation standards. 79.7% of Austin parents knew the name of their young child's favorite book. 17.8% of Austin-area parents and families are living below......

We went to Carnaval. And loved it. SXSW full list of bands and movies updated. Cat Power backs out of SXSW and cancels tour. Ausitn art goes green. Tired of run-of-the-mill valentine's day activities? We got you covered. We reviewed the new documentary The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat and Beers. And laughed our asses off. For about $600 in fees, your band can play a showcase at Waterloo Records during SXSW. The week in interviews:......

It's that time again! Yesterday, Mayor Wynn announced the 2006 selection for the Mayor's Book Club: a work by Luis Alberto Urrea entitled The Devil's Highway. Austinites are encouraged to pick up a copy of the book and read it during the months of February and March. In April, the library will be hosting discussions, presentations and other events that will tie into the book and its themes. On April 26, the author will......

The Austin Chronicle's Daniel Mottola reports in today's issue that our city's title as Clean Energy Capital of the World may be contested in the near future. Last week, Mayor Wynn agreed to the Energy Freedom Challenge, a "national public education campaign to challenge cities around the U.S. to become the first city to acquire over half of its electricity from renewable energy resources." The EFC is sponsored by Solar Austin, one of the......

Contaminated water is being pumped out of New Orleans, now that a major levee has been plugged. The mayor is saying it could take up to two months to get the water cleared out and the energy back on. In an article in The Statesman, Austin is praised for its generosity. About three warehouses are full of donations; they're so full, in fact, that donations are being put on hold in Austin . Monetary......