The Radio-Television News Directors Association's 2008 Regional Edward R. Murrow award-winners were announced yesterday. Texas and Oklahoma share Region 6, and some of our local news broadcasters cleaned up....

It's been one year since the attack at Virginia Tech. Bush throws a bash today at the White House for the Pope's birthday; there will be music, 9,000 guests, and a 21-gun salute. Spain's government now has more women in the cabinet than men, including a pregnant defense minister. Zimbabwe's election results have yet to be released; 33 arrested today as they protested for the release of the results. France passes a bill to......

Texas is hot in more ways than one, apparently. Umlauf family selling some of their sculpture pieces (not the ones donated to the city). All-female jury rules in favor of the police officers in the Ramon Hernandez lawsuit. Time Warner wants you to switch to digital cable: they are taking the weather radar channel off the basic lineup....

In an interview with Fresh Air's David Bianculli, Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler confirmed that a third season of the Austin-filmed show is on....

David Simon, creator of critic-favorites Homicide: Life on the Streets and The Wire, will be making a stop at the University of Texas tomorrow evening. Simon is delivering the College of Communication’s 2008 William Randolph Hearst Fellow lecture at the Austin City Limits Studio. Simon has won three Peabody awards for his work on Homicide, The Corner and the recently-endedThe Wire, and continues to do freelance work for The Washington Post and other publications....

King of the Hill showed its Austin ties on Sunday's recent episode, titled "Lady and Gentrification." Certainly gentrification is not an Austin-centric issue, but it is a current hot topic in our city, and it is hard to watch this episode and not see the parallels to what is happening in East Austin. True, the issue is a bit oversimplified in the 30-minute episode....

Mess With Texas during SXSW last year was a huge hit in the cozy confines of Red 7 and MWT2 promises to be an even bigger bash with a wide variety of musical acts and comedians on tap. Waterloo Park is the host this year and this year’s free, all ages show kicks off at noon on Saturday the 15th. But of course there are so many other day shows, parties, and what not going on in the town that the sponsors (including Forcefield PR, Record Store Day, JetBlue Entertainment, Fuel TV, SuperDeluxe.com, and Garnier Fructis) want to give you V.I.P. treatment if you can write a witty piece of prose. As has been the case with other stellar Waterloo Park shows, local entity Transmission Entertainment has helped organize this brouhaha....

It's not official yet, but yesterday evening Nikke Finke reported on her blog that NBC is making a deal with DirecTV to keep airing critically-acclaimed and locally-filmed Friday Night Lights. ...

Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely follows the adventures of an American Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who meets a charming Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) on the streets of Paris. Together, they travel to a commune populated exclusively by celebrity impersonators--a Neverlandesque place where everyone is famous, and the spotlight never fades....

They Might Be Giants have been making music as a band since 1982. Their odd but endearing mix of accordian, saxophone, and guitars coupled with witty lyrics earned them a huge college radio following from the mid-80's on. Songs like "Don't Let's Start" and "Birdhouse In Your Soul" even became hits, and the duo toured and recorded ad infinitum. A second chapter of their story is quite unusual: TMBG are now famous in children's circles. In 2002, the group released "No!", a kids record they had recorded years earlier for fun. The record was a surprise smash, leading to deals with both Disney for a series of children's music CD's and Simon and Schuster for the CD + book Bed, Bed, Bed (which also features a pre-Juno Kimya Dawson). Having conquered the grownups and the kids, They Might Be Giants have also become in-demand composers for TV, doing the themes for "Malcolm In The Middle", "The Daily Show", and even some Dunkin' Donuts ads. We're unsure when the group sleeps, because they seem to be awfully prolific. ...

Today's the day! This is it! Ya es el dia! Voila! Israel has now said that they might go into Gaza and reoccupy it. The Monkeywrench Gang is alive and well. Two moms in Boston got into a litigation-worthy fight at a Chuck E. Cheese. Study says, blocking TV/video game time helps kids slim down. Did you read that fishy-seeming article in the New York Times this weekend about the ex-gang-member living in Oregon?......

Today both the Clinton and Obama campaigns announced upcoming town hall meetings. Obama's will take place tomorrow at the Austin Convention Center, while Hillary's sounds like more of a "virtual" town hall meeting - on TV the Monday before election day....

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both spending an estimated $1 million on TV ads airing across Texas this month. Two recent polls show two different plausible outcomes for our March 4th primary — a Texas Credit Union League poll conducted just days ago shows Clinton ahead 49% to 41%, whereas a poll released this morning by The American Research Group shows Senator Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton 48% to 42%. Things are certainly getting interesting ......

Meanwhile, both Obama and Clinton are pulling out all the stops to appeal to our state's Hispanic population, which account for as much as 25% of Texas' eligible voters, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Obama today launched a Spanish radio ad (mp3) stressing his humble working-class roots. Each campaign is also spending upwards of $1 million on TV ads that began running this week....

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

Tonight's massive Super Tuesday election returns should make for some top notch TV watching, but there's no reason why you should spend the evening yelling at political pundits by yourself. Whether you're a hardcore democrat or republican, plenty of your like-minded brethren are getting together around town to watch the returns and collectively celebrate (or commiserate). Besides the formal meetup spots, you'll probably stand a decent chance of catching some prime time coverage at Brown Bar and the Cloak Room....

15% of items put out for recycling in Austin end up in a landfill anyway. Dewhurst doubts TxDOT's claims of being really low on funds. Speaking of TxDOT, you can vote on their site for the next state license plate design. Voting ends next Monday. Illegal immigrants moving to Texas in large numbers from . . . Oklahoma and Arizona?...

Annie Hall once said of Los Angeles, "It's so clean out here," to which Woddy Allen's character, Alvy Singer replies, "That's because they don't throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows." Well, apparently since there aren't any TV shows being made right now they are funneling all of that refuse into the romantic comedy market....

When I graduated from college, there's weren't a lot of gay characters in movies and TV. This was the mid-90's so when there was a gay character, he was usually dying of AIDS. I saw every one of these movies, but I was desperate to see characters more like myself....

A healthy dose of semi-abrasive indie rock on a cold weekend night -- what more could you want? Milk and cookies, you say? Sorry, Emo's doesn't serve that. Saturday night, our beloved and hallowed Emo's plays host to Les Savy Fav, supported by Fatal Flying Guillotines and Attack Formation....

What's not to love about that hairy chest and denim jacket?...

Tomorrow's screening of Real Genius with John Gries in attendance is totally sold out (*sad face*). But cheer up--you can still enter our contest for a chance to win a pair of tickets to the 9:45pm screening of Napoleon Dynamite AND a pair of pajamas autographed by Laslo Hollyfeld himself!...

Photo from KXANWhen you're tuning in to tomorrow night's episode of Friday Night Lights, keep your eyes peeled for a cameo appearance by local weatherman Jim Spencer. On the show, KXAN's Chief Weathercaster warns of a tornado approaching the fictional town of Dillon, TX. The episode spoiler reveals that a rival high school is subsequently damaged by the twister, forcing both teams to share Laribee High's weight room, football field and lockers. Antics doubtlessly ensue.......

Thousands of monkeys are invading government buildings in Delhi, forcing employees to arm themselves with sticks and stones in case they are attacked. David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music at Wired magazine. Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister, who stars as a schoolgirl in Nickelodeon's popular TV show "Zoey 101," is pregnant. She met the father at church. Reuters photographs of the year The Pirate Bay just launched their new music......

This week's news on art, books, music, and film....

Production still courtesy of Troma Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead w/ Lloyd Kaufman Live! Friday, December 7thAlamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (17329 Research Blvd)(7:30pm, $10)[info] | [tickets]Over the course of the last thirty-three years, Lloyd Kaufman's Troma Entertainment has produced hundreds of films, attracted legions of devoted fans, and influenced the likes of Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Trey Parker, Eli Roth and Takashi Miike. In fact, by Kaufman's estimation, the studio now owns more than......

Photo from KXXV-TVAround 2:10am this morning, nineteen-year-old Kenneth James Jones drove his Ford Contour into the bedroom of a Temple couple's house. His car and the debris from the collision ended up quite close to the sleeping couple's bed, but they were not injured. The driver ran off from the accident; police found him later walking on Highway 317 with some slight injuries. An accident reconstruction team is trying to figure out what exactly happened,......

Photo by StuSeeger on flickr#13 Texas (9-2) vs. Texas A&M (6-5) Time: 2:30 pm, Friday, Nov. 23 Location: College Station, Texas; Kyle Field TV: ABC Radio: KVET (98.1 FM, 1300 AM) Maybe it is true that good things come to those who wait. After back-to-back losses to open conference play, the Texas Longhorns have waited -- through nail-biting finishes and devastating injuries -- and now stand on the verge of what is most definitely a......

Image from www.gordonramsay.comWe ran across this post on Craigslist, and have to admit we love the idea of surly superchef Gordon Ramsay kicking ass in some of our not-so-favorite Austin restaurants. According to the (highly excited and haphazardly capitalized) post: FOx TV’s KITCHEN NIGHTMARES IS CASTING in Austin ! Acclaimed Chef , Culinary Expert & Award Winning Restaurateur GORDON RAMSAY IS LOOKING TO HELP RESUSCITATE & FIX YOUR RESTAURANT ISSUES! IF YOUR RESTAURANT IS HAVING......