Three British soldiers killed by American friendly fire in Afghanistan. A new database will crack down on uninsured drivers. Former astronaut Nowak appears in court. Lawmakers to probe safety at Utah mine. Texas parks receive financial boost. Love hurts. Is finding a new place to live in Russia more painful than having fire set to your private parts?......

They think they won't find those miners in Utah. Historical irony?: Israel rejects hundreds of African refugees, some from Darfur, calling their flight "economically" motivated. Virginia Tech just can't catch a break. Corporate PR sticks its long scalpel into Wikipedia. At 2:37 pm, we systematically curl up underneath our desks for ten minutes. Now we come to find out that, dammit, that's only natcheral. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is going to appear in the......

We enjoy watching This Old House on PBS (mostly for the building tips and partly for the gardener's accent). The show will be exceptionally interesting this Saturday as they start on the Austin house. This past fall, the show helped some homeowners in Hyde Park renovate their house using green/environmentally-safe practices and products. Since completion, the house has been given a five star rating for green building by the city. This is the first......

A couple from Utah have decided that kidnapping their daughter is the best way to stop her marriage. Those silly "scientists" now say that the ozone hole will take an additional 15 years to recover from pollution. This puts it in the year 2065. Hurricane experts are predicting just one more hurricane for this 2006 season. The Perry camp is accusing Carole Couger Keeton Strayhorn of using college fund ads for election help. North......

All hail the last minute edition of This Week in Theatre! Cutting right to the chase, our Austinist Pick of the Week is, not surprisingly, Sodomy & Pedicures: A Pinko Feminazi Confesses. We interviewed the show’s creator, Jessica Hedrick, and she’s hilarious. Read it for yourself if you don’t believe us. Then read the comments – you’ll notice endorsements from local theatre big wigs galore. Directed by Rude Mech Sarah Richardson, and assisted by......

When we first got geared up to move to Austin, someone told us Austin was "bordering on lazy," which pleased us. Now, we have something to back up such blanket statements: Austin/San Marcos has been named one of the top "Chill Together" cities in the country. Austin ranked 9th on the list put out by Sperling's BestPlaces and Bailey's Irish Cream (who, of course, would like to remind you to drink responsibly). Among Austin's......

If you're planning a summer road trip, you're gonna wanna do some research. To help inform your decision, here's a link to the latest state poll results on the president's approval rating. (And we imagine the numbers got a bit of a bump from his latest attempt to regulate immigration.) Here's a hint: don't go to Idaho or Utah. Interestingly, the first times we went to those two states we remarked that they might......

Another Waco-type situation presently looms on the horizon out in west Texas, just south of San Angelo. This time, instead of the Branch Davidians and David Koresh, it’s the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a radical polygamist organization based out of Utah, headed by its spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs. Jeffs is wanted in Arizona and Utah on criminal charges of sexual conduct with a minor and rape. He is also......

Austin will be home to the first-ever Spanish-language 24-hour sports station. As if we don't have enough moronic locals calling in to radio stations to talk high school football and give their weak takes on the NBA, now we can have it in Spanish, as well. ESPN Deportes will debut on KWNX-AM (1260 AM) late this summer. The station had previously been carrying the same programming as 1530 AM, which we never really understood.......

In their survey on the "state of emergency medicine" among the states, the American College of Emergency Physicians this week rated Texas as decently mediocre. Coming in at a paltry #21, we were nevertheless praised for our "the paragon for medical liability reform," which the Austin Business Journal attributes to our quarter-million dollar cap on noneconomic damages in liability awards and settlements for individual physicians, approved via last year's successful Prop 12. But while......

Marginal religious sects, ritual sodomy, women and children in danger and one “evil, evil man”? Just another day in our Legislature. Yesterday a House committee heard from Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, about the hazards posed to the state by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, a fringe sect of Mormonism which is currently building a compound outside El Dorado, near San Angelo. The leader of the Fundies, Warren Jeffs (pictured), is being......