Travis County DA candidates debate tonight at Dell Jewish Community Center. On Friday when a Secret Service agent wouldn't let a Capitol employee into the building, she got upset and . . . threw a bowl of egg salad at the agent. Man who sold candy to kids at his Austin apartment complex accused of raping two girls 8 years ago. "Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex": Our own Gov. Perry interviewed in this weekend's NY Times magazine....

A 17-year-old kid dies after smashing his car into a tree in Central Austin Round Rock police, fed up with pesky juvenile delinquents, close down a popular skate park for a week Tropical Storm Erin was just a warm-up; Hurricane Dean might be on its way The Texas Attorney General closes a local illegal nursing home operation; one resident was found locked in a room with boarded-up windows UT students and others looking to......

As of last week, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is on the warpath against a pharmaceutical corporation based in Coppell, Texas - just outside of Dallas - that appears to be trying to sell unapproved medical cures and bunk therapies to sick people by associating its products not with scientific documentation and development, but instead with Judeo-Christian history and faith. Niiiice. The company is called Mannatech, Inc., apparently a health supplement/therapy company that's named itself......

In the 80th Texas Legislature – going on right now in case you haven’t been near the Capitol lately and seen all the people with megaphones and message-slathered posterboards on the lawn – a bill has just been filed that would regulate commercial party boats on Austin’s local lakes. Senate Bill 997 – filed by freshman State Senator Kirk Watson (D-Austin), former Mayor of Austin and former candidate for Texas Attorney General – would essentially......

Microsoft rolled into town yesterday on its Family Gaming bus, stopping at the state capitol as part of a national marketing campaign showing off "appropriate gaming and entertainment choices for their family." The "Safety is no game. Is your family set?" campaign sees the software giant partnering with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Best Buy to teach parents how to limit their kids' exposure to raunchy video games and movie content. "With success......

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it......

News Corp, mother company of MySpace.com, yesterday announced that it would be spending "millions of dollars" to launch TV and online ad campaigns promoting internet safety for kids. No doubt motivated in large part by lawsuits, such as the one recently filed by a Travis County mother-daughter duo, that accuse MySpace of making it too easy for online predators to pick up underaged teens, and emotionally troubled youths like the 13-year-old girl who ran......

The Statesman just reported that a teenage girl in Travis County, who was allegedly sexually assaulted last month by nineteen-year old Pete Solis, has filed suit against MySpace for $30 million: The lawsuit claims the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective." Solis contacted the girl through her MySpace Web site in April, telling her......

Former Austin "spam king" Ryan Pitylak and his former cohorts settled with the Texas Attorney General's Office yesterday, agreeing to pay $10 million in penalties and associated costs for running what the Statesman calls "one of the 'largest and most notorious' spam operations in the world": According to Abbott's office, the companies bombarded consumers with millions of e-mails under at least 250 assumed names. The misleading subject lines gave the false impression that the information......

Add 197,000 names to the laundry list of people hurt by data and identity theft, as the University of Texas announced yesterday that the computer system for the McCombs School of Business was hacked by an "unknown person or persons" from April 11th to April 21st, when the breach was discovered due to unusual activity within the system. In a press conference Sunday evening, President William Powers assured that no financial or academic information......

Ah the amazing things technology has ushered into our lives over the past five years: The increase in medical technologies leading to early treatment of disease; mobile technology that allows people to work from home while raising families; ten different ESPNs; the ability to have child pornography on a handheld MP3 player that you can take to other degenerates houses and watch said smut on their computer. Um, nix that last one. Here's where......

Although we are by no means experiencing any of the havoc from Hurricane Katrina that our neighbors in Louisiana are going through, the effects we are feeling are hitting us in the wallet. We all expected this to happen, and true to form, gas prices have been going up since Monday. Reports in and around Austin indicate that the price for fuel has risen to or above $3 per gallon for premium or mid-grade.......

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by Hurricane Katrina. PLEASE /">HELP IF YOU CAN. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott released a statement yesterday warning against price gouging as many residents of Louisiana are seeking shelter in Austin and other Texas cities. Businesses that take advantage of our displaced neighbors need to be reported. UPDATE: Fox7News has a bunch of stuff posted about how Austinites can help hurricane victims . The news......

Last week, Austinist mentioned a story covered in the Statesman and local news that almost 200 convicted sex offenders in the state of Texas had received Viagra prescriptions, funded by taxpayers through Medicaid. On Friday, the state passed an immediate ban on anyone receiving Viagra prescriptions through Medicaid. According to the Statesman: The change in Medicaid policy came on the same day Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said that at least two of the......