The good thing about Bush's State of the Union speech tonight: it will be his last! St. Austin's Church turns 100. Judge decides against landowners in Brownsville border fence dispute. This has us baffled: Harris County assistant district attorney sends out e-mail using "Canadian" as a racial slur....

Having won the Iowa Democratic Primary, U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama appears to be rocking and rolling with new momentum. The latest numbers show Obama leading the pack in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, with Hillary Clinton lagging in second place by a 10 point gap. What's going on here?...

Photo of the Walls Unit gurney from Britannica Student Encyclopedia 25 Years of Lethal Injection: What Have We Learned?Friday, December 7Texas Prison Museum (map) This Friday marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first execution by lethal injection in the United States. Naturally, Texas, along with the city of Huntsville -- sometimes referred to as the "execution capital of the world"-- took this honor. With executions effectively on hold in Texas while the U.S. Supreme Court......

Photo by dground on flickr City Council considering the gathering of information about Austin's homeless and the expansion of services that help them. The council may also merge Park Police, Austin Aviation Police and City Marshals with APD. Travis County officials aiding Hays County officials in the search for a woman who may have witnessed the murder of her son. Williamson County man on the run from child sexual assault charges captured in Costa Rica.......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......

Have a happy and safe Halloween! If you're headed to Sixth Street, leave your light saber/fake gun/billy club at home. Williamson County won't kick privately-run immigration detention center out of Taylor now that they aren't liable for it. Some Texas prosecutors will wait for the Supreme Court's decision next year before asking judges to set execution dates. After a soldier died in a Ft. Hood training exercise, his supervising officer is facing court martial.......

UN issues their Global Environmental Outlook report, GEO-4, while population blogs about Britney Spears' new tattoo. The U.S. dollar continues its downward spiral. Wildfires continue in California, but firefighters say they are gaining ground. Iran remains defiant in the face of new U.S. imposed sanctions to prevent their nuclear dream. Supreme Court of Georgia frees teen in controversial sex case. Texas gas prices are up for the second week in a row. Astronauts begin......

Governor Rick Perry today announced his official support of Republican presidential candidate and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose pro-abortion stance has enraged many conservatives. Perry, in today's declaration, admitted that reconciling the hot-button issue was the biggest obstacle in his endorsement. Giuliani, in turn, pledged to nominate hard-line "strict constructionist" judges to the Supreme Court. Perry replied that he was "comfortable" with this answer. "For the last six months, I have cogitated,"......

CAMPO approved the toll roads . . . who didn't see that coming? UT's statue of Cesar Chavez was unveiled today. GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee was in town over the weekend. Austin resident Marion Jones has given back her 5 medals from the 2000 Olympics and may have to give up $100,000 of prize money after admitting to steroid use. The Supreme Court won't hear the appeal re: the 1999 Aggie bonfire deaths......

Yesterday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals - the state's highest criminal court - decided to stay the lethal injection of Hilberto Chi, a 28-year-old Honduran man convicted of killing a men's store manager in Arlington back in 2001. This ruling comes one week after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether a specified form of lethal injection constituted the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishment," a practice prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Last......

Last Friday in Houston, a young girl brought a loaded 9mm pistol to school and started pointing it at people. She is 12 years old. The U.S. Supreme Court's new term starts this week. Why exactly is socialized medicine such a bad idea? Interesting article... The guy who tried to extort $1 million from Tom Cruise commits suicide. Article about the bloggers who helped bring the story of recent government oppression in Burma to......

Old Pecan Street Festival, UT home game, Silicon Labs Marathon Relay, and Alzheimer’s Memory Walk are all in the downtown area this weekend. Watch for street closures! Sheryl Cole's Safe Surrender program will allow people with outstanding warrants to turn themselves in at area churches. APD is supporting Jennifer Kim's anti-panhandling ordinance; a public hearing on the ordinance is set for October 18. The US Supreme Court stopped the execution of Carlton Turner Jr., who......

Burma continues to adopt China's interpretation of "restraint" when it deals with protests. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf continues to be the bee's knees of Pakistan with the recent ruling from Pakistan's Supreme Court. Jena 6 Defendant Released on Bail. Holy crap! The FDA is understaffed and overwhelmed. Laura Hall's attorney asks to be replaced in order to appear as witness for the defense. If Gov. Rick Perry lives outside Austin city limits, are we......

Tonight, unless an unlikely eleventh-hour reprieve is granted, Texas will execute its 400th inmate since the state resumed the practice in 1982. Johnny Ray Conner32-year-old Johnny Ray Conner was convicted for murdering Houston resident Kathyanna Nguyen during a grocery store robbery in 1998. Nguyen, the store's owner, had been trapped behind the counter and was surrounded by a bulletproof enclosure; the killer reached his gun through the change slot and shot her in the head.......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too—two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the city's Congonhas......

Save Our Springs Alliance, long-time advocate for Barton Springs and other environmentally-sensitive zones throughout Central Texas, issued a press release yesterday stating that it's being forced into bankruptcy by a court judgment won against it by Central Texas residential developers. In 2004, SOS Alliance filed a lawsuit against Lazy Nine Municipal Utility District, seeking to prevent the district -- which is allegedly just a puppet-agent of Wilshire Homes and Forest City Properties of Cleveland, Ohio......

In celebration of its 150th birthday,the American Institute of Architects (AIA) surveyed over 1,800 randomly selected Americans in late February to compile a list of the 150 Favorite Works of Architecture in the United States. The AIA created a panel that narrowed down the options to 248 structures, which included the Empire State Building, the White House and the Washington National Cathedral. The University of Texas' own Battle Hall rounded out the list at......

Bush's approval ratings have hit a new low, but Paula Abdul's star rating is still rising. A local Senate bill is asking that the revenue from red light cameras be transferred into a state fund to support trauma and emergency medical care. This is better than not knowing where the added revenue will go, but we still do not like the idea. Austin City Council members have approved a resolution to get $30 million......

"UT spied on its non comformists and dissident students"Your every move is being watched. Scary thought, right? A thought we like to associate with Orwellian sci-fi or Alex Jones, but in recent years we've seen this idea become a reality. Little black boxes with blinking red lights are at traffic spots, street corners or up in trees making sure you're not up to any funny business. Now, in a democracy sans Habeas Corpus, we......

The Supreme Court takes up its first climate change case. Dedicate your yoga practices to swing voter Anthony Kennedy. Need more evidence that the post-Google YouTube has jumped the shark? Cops are on there now. Wal-Mart's sales fell in November for the first time in a decade. That capitalism, she's a fickle mistress. One in every 32 American adults were under law enforcement control (jail, probation, parole) last year. That's a record. Go team!......

Congressional Districts 21 and 25 are two of five districts across Texas that have been required to hold special elections after the Supreme Court ruled part of the 2003 redistricting map unconstitutional and ordered the five districts redrawn. This means that voters in these districts must first vote for a congressional candidate and then move on to the rest of the ballot. If you only select the straight-party ticket, your ballot won't register a......

On October 10, Ms. Magazine will release its fall issue with a cover story sure to spark a lot of debate. The magazine’s cover story, entitled “We Had Abortions,” will list the names of 1,016 women who have signed a petition stating that they have had abortions and support Pro-Choice legislation. In addition to the print version of the issue, Ms. Magazine is also taking names for their online petition, the numbers of which are......

Walk in any sex shop in Austin, and you’ll be confronted by a bevy of “educational aids,” “adult novelties,” and “personal massage devices.” Call an in-home sales rep and you’ll be offered a plethora of “marital aids.” Sex toys still circulate; they just go by different names. ...

Local: It seems that Delay's 2003 gerrymandering has left Texans confused about what district they reside in. One Austin couple appear to be in two Congressional Districts at the same time. In other redistricting news: The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has ordered that all proposed solutions for fixing the state's congressional districts are due to the court on July 14th. State: Republican Gov. Rick Perry delivered a speech to......

By a vote of 7-2 on Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld most of Delay's Republican-drafted 2003 congressional redistricting plan. However, the court did rule that one Congressional district in southwestern Texas had been drawn in a way that violated the rights of Hispanic voters and ordered a lower court to review the issue. Justice Anthony Kennedy stated it would be unfair to strike down the 2003 GOP plan after letting a 1991 pro-Democratic Texas......

To us, it’s always seemed that the Constitution for which American soldiers have bled and died on the field of battle for a few hundred years now – from the American Revolution up to the present day – was really more of a tool for making our lives more convenient, rather than a safeguard that prevents Orwell’s predictions from coming true......

Local: Travis County Commissioners on Tuesday approved a controversial 1,800-home Hill Country development project known as Sweetwater. Sweetwater will cover roughly 1,000 acres with its main entrance at the intersection of Texas 71 and Bee Creek Road. Residents and environmentalists have said the area is already stressed by booming development. Christy Muse, executive director of the Hill Country Alliance, said that "questionable" actions by the commissioners allowed the project to fall under the state's......

It's getting pretty damn difficult to be a smoker these days. First the city kicks us out of our beloved bars to enjoy our filthy habit, now the state is grabbing into our back pocket without even the courtesy of a reach around. Self--righteous jerk-offs. As Bill Hicks once said, "I'd quit smokin if I didn't think I'd become one of them." The legislature finally passed bills to finance the state's schools. The legislation......

The whole world is at your fingertips. Check it out... Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does too have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out......

We reviewed Not Clown. Hilarious!. So much good music this weekend. You wouldn't have believed it if you didn't read it here. We might be the best blog in town, but there are plenty of other great ones out there. Jason McElwain, hoops legend. The feel-good story of the year (with video). The Texas re-districting battle takes to the Supreme Court. Round Rock Express tickets went on sale. The Great Mundane prepares to bring......