Harvard scores papers related to Norman Mailer's sex life three years after the author sold his official archives to UT. Yo-Yo Ma will play with the Austin Symphony later this year; maybe some of the parking issues evident this Sunday will have been dealt with by then. Burnet Road Farmer's Market land for sale (again). Hope you didn't try to bribe a fake cop downtown earlier this month. Infant asphyxiation deaths at an increase this year in Travis County, Austin's Center for Child Protection reports....

Hope in the City, a church in southwest Austin that exists to glorify God by growing devoted followers of Christ in communities that advance His Kingdom in Austin and the nations, is running into trouble with the city. They have been so successful at attracting devoted followers of Christ that there is no longer room in the parking lot. The church would like to build another parking lot in the field between their buildings and Williamson Creek, but city officials denied their request because the church is in the Barton Springs watershed and has used its 15% land cover allowed by the Save Our Springs ordinance. City officials have suggested that church members could take the bus, but that would require a miracle. The church is now suing the city on grounds that their free exercise of religion is being illegally hindered....

We mentioned the plan a while ago, but it appears to have legs, so here we go again. Brewster is proposing creation of what he calls the "Austin Parking Enterprise." The city would partner with developers to own parking garages in buildings being developed. Initially, it would operate the Seaholm garage and any in the Green Water Treatment Plant redevelopment. We're scared that this proposal will mean more parking gets built, making downtown more car-centric and pedestrian-unfriendly than it already is. According to the proposed policies, the Parking Enterprise "should seek to maximize the availability of public parking" and "may finance more parking spaces than are required for an associated private development."...

This weekend human rights activists protested against the family immigration detention center in Taylor. Body left for San Antonio medical examiner after traffic accident wasn't dead yet. McKinney man caught after following UPS trucks and stealing packages left outside homes. Was Jessica Simpson's appearance at the Cowboys game yesterday the reason they lost? If not, can we blame her anyway?...

Photo by Merrick Brown on flickr City charter revision committee wants your input on single-member districts. Executive director of CAMPO resigns effective January 15. Man attacks cop with screwdriver after the policeman catches him breaking into cars at the Highland Mall parking lot. A Hutto man is the first to be treated under Jessica's Law, legislation which deals harshly with child predators. Two adolescent boys (aged 11 and 14) have been charged with attempting to......

No. 5 Jose Gonzalez - "Time to Send Someone Away" from Retread Sessions on Vimeo. If you missed Jose Gonzalez at the Parish last week, you missed one of the most intimate, gorgeously performed sets in a long while. All is not lost, though! KUT 90.5 FM's video series called Retread Sessions spent some time with Gonzalez in the America/Americas gallery at the Blanton Museum on campus, and filmed two songs in the process.......

Photo by punchup on flickr East Austin halfway/"sober" house to close after neighbors complained. Mother and child hit by truck in Georgetown HEB parking lot. Double B Foods recalling 98,000 pounds worth of sausage roll products for listeria contamination. After a fight at Taylor High School, the police tasered a girl, arresting her and two other students. 109,263 mistakes in the math textbooks proposed to be used for the 2008 school year at Texas elementary......

Image from EAST East Austin Studio TourSaturday, November 17 - Sunday, November 18Various Venues (Austin)Free, 10am-5pm Daily[info]The 2007 East Austin Studio Tour (E.A.S.T.) is happening this weekend, and over the next two days we'll be previewing a handful of the artists whose works you'll be able to check out. Here's our guide to E.A.S.T. 2007: The tour runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. With 113 studios and over 200 artists......

There are reports of an armed man on the roof of a downtown building, near Guadalupe and 14th St. A nearby preschool has been evacuated. Police have blocked off the area around the building. 10:45 update: A witness had spied a man in all black fatigues, perhaps holding a gun, in a parking garage, and called it in earlier this morning. But now police have stopped the search for the armed man, thinking that he......

Image from Brackenridge Field Laboratory Development StudyMembers of the Integrative Biology section of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Texas have come forward with their own plan (large pdf) for the portion of the Brackenridge Tract currently containing the Brackenridge Field Laboratory. UT's Brackenridge Tract Tack Force recently recommended that the University hire an outside master planner to propose redevelopment for the entire tract, including the field laboratory. The biologists' plan contemplates......

Same thing, another week. As you move on to the next line on the calendar, you're still out there trying to make a connection. Sadly you let most of them slip by without saying a word. We understand, no one wants to be overzealous and get shot down. If only you had some place to find a second chance. Oh yes, Missed Connections. If only you had someone to sort through and find the......

Hand food: it's almost as awesome as food on sticks, but boasts the added bonus of carbohydrates! Food that comes in its own container is perfect for busy Fall days at work and school. Austin offers some great options for sandwich-y goodness on the go, so jump in your preferred mode of transport and grab some grub that requires little else than a hungry stomach, and perhaps a napkin or three. Hog Island Italian Deli......

The SMART car, one of Europe's most eye-catching two-seaters, is finally coming to the states next year. If you can't wait to get behind the wheel of this fuel-sipping sub-$12k urban commuter, head over to Bookpeople post-haste. As part of its pre-US-launch promotional push, SMART is taking the European version of its "fortwo" vehicle on a 50-city road show. Austin is the final leg in its Central Tour, which started in Minneapolis back in June.......

Cop shot in the foot during early morning shootout near Montopolis. UT student Daniel Toole fell to his death from Goodall Wooten dorm this weekend. Public universities in Texas cost more than the national average (for the second year in a row). UT won a state landscape preservation award (over a week ago) for their transplanting of live oaks during stadium renovation. Two kids in a family on their way to visit their wounded......

First there was Keep Austin Weird, then Keep Austin Wired, Keep Austin Corporate— and, starting tomorrow, Keep Austin Good. The first annual “Don’t Lose a Good Thing, Keep Austin Good” is sponsored by Los Angeles lifestyle magazine GOOD, and described in a press release as “part party, part information exchange,” bringing the spirit of fun and the commitment to Austin’s quality of life together. Vendors and local businesses will hand out information about community......

An early morning altercation led to a man stabbing three of his friends and running over two of them in a North Austin parking lot. Department of Labor awards $509,937 in a grant to Austin-based non-profit, American YouthWorks. The city won't be billing the 3 UT students for their rescue from the cave this weekend. 1983 KFC mass-murder case finally comes to trial in Bowie County. Panhandlers in Boerne may soon have to purchase......

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The Northcastle Apartments (8100 North MoPac) have become the newest front in the affordable housing/density wars. Trammell Crow Residential is seeking a zoning change in connection with a plan to demolish the complex and replace it with a larger, denser, more expensive complex. The Zoning and Platting commission will be hearing the request at their meeting tomorrow (item 13). Some residents aren't happy to be displaced, but other residents don't seem to like living there......

The Statesman is reporting that a gunman walked into a business in North Austin this afternoon and began shooting. The Travis County/Austin STARFlight Rescue team has been deployed. The incident happened at the 13500 block of US-183, near Anderson Mill Road. Update 1: The shooting occurred at a car dealership service center. The gunman reportedly shot himself after leaving the building. Update 2: The gunman, an ex-employee of the service center, attempted to shoot the......

The Hey Cupcake! trailer that used to call the campus area home is now on South Congress, in the parking lot across from Vespaio. At two bucks apiece, the palm-sized treats are made fresh and delivered to the trailer several times a day. The vanilla and chocolate cupcakes are good, but not transcendent — they're basically what you'd think of when conjuring up a basic sugary cupcake in your mind's eye, replete with day-glo......

It’s not too often that a modern-day musician says “here, take this, it’s my whole freaking brain, synapses and gooey parts and all,” but Spencer Krug, the madman extraordinaire behind Sunset Rubdown (as well as the widely adored Wolf Parade), has done just that. With Random Spirit Lover, he throws his cerebrum straight off the parking garage, giving the audience a meandering but purposeful masterwork of clatter whose intricacy is belied only by its complication.......

Sad, but true: Sunday night, after having some drinks on Sixth Street, a young couple drove to Hutto and left their babies in the car as they indulged in margaritas at a restaurant. The children, a one-year-old boy and five-month-old girl, were locked in a Ford Expedition for half an hour on that warm evening before the cops were called. Luckily some people in the parking lot had noticed the small children in the......

Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th Hey you, big-spender: If you missed FactoryPeople's last pop-up store, take a look-sy at the rockin' jewelry by Austinite Brian Crumley (now based in New York). The Crumley trunk show is from noon to 6 p.m. Guests can chat up Brian and sip Crumley Cosmos—a raspberry champagne cocktail—while browsing through sample on the new fall lines. Enter to win Crumley's handsome Banquet Amulet, a large hand blown glass......

Brewster McCracken is pushing city council to create a program to build more parking garages downtown. There are already a lot of parking garages downtown, and every new development includes several floors of parking, but it is often not profitable to open these garages to the public. Similarly, it doesn't make economic sense for developers to build public parking garages. According to the Statesman, McCracken estimates that the proposed Seaholm garage would cost $3.78......

Today is National (Park)ing Day, where groups from all around the country get together to create temporary art and beautification projects in metered public parking spots. "National Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to reclaim public parking spaces for parks and open spaces - places for people to enjoy," say event organizers at the Trust for Public Land. "The quality of our daily experience is only enhanced by often neglected necessities like parks, playgrounds, and gardens......

The Mexican holiday of Diez y Seis is this weekend (September 16), and the City of Austin, along with the Consul General of Mexico and the Fiesta de Independencia Foundation, is holding the annual celebration at Waterloo Park. The holiday is a celebration of Mexico's independence from Spain. At this local celebration, Consul General Rosalba Ojeda will perform "El Grito", the yell that in some ways led to the War for Independence. Performances at this......

Hot Freaks! is a loose affiliation--a cabal, if you will--of international music and culture bloggers, including Dallas' Gorilla Vs. Bear, New York's brooklynvegan, and Toronto's Chromewaves, who have banded together Voltron-style to wreak cross-promotional havoc on the Western blogosphere. Masterminded by Austin promoter John Mascarenhas, Hot Freaks! has put together a lovely set of after-parties for those of us who won't be snarled in post-ACL parking-lot quagmires until midnight. Both events are looking really tempting,......

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......

As you may recall, CWS Capital Partners is trying to build a new residential development in the place of some aging condos on the shore of Lady Bird Lake between the Statesman's offices and East Bouldin Creek (where the hike and bike trail currently dead-ends). The Parks Board has voted to recommend that the Planning Commission deny CWS Capital Partners’ request for a variance that would allow it to build 150 feet from the......

Citing "severe exhaustion," Amy Winehouse cancels entire North American tour... to the surprise of exactly no one Texas State scores highly in U.S. News' latest "America's Best Colleges" ranking Love 'em or hate 'em, those Gibson guitars scattered around town are going up for auction in October Armed man in Williamson County barricades himself in truck, prompting highway closure for nearly two hours Might the Marriott deal be on the chopping block? A horribly......