Family members arrive at a hotel for loved ones of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines jet in Beijing Sunday. Search teams across Southeast Asia scrambled on Saturday to find a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 239 people on board that disappeared from air traffic control screens over waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Credit Vincent Thian / AP
The flight departed from Kuala Lumpur and was last reported over open waters between Malaysia and Vietnam.
This post is being updated throughout the day Saturday.
An international search is underway for a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet that's been missing for more than 24 hours. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard when it took off from Kuala Lumpur early Saturday on a flight bound for Beijing.
A regular inspection of the missing Boeing 777-200 found no technical problems 10 days ago, reports China's state-run Xinhua news agency, citing a Malaysia Airlines spokesman.
It’s the summer of 1985 – when teenagers carried boom boxes on their shoulders and poured pop rocks into soft drinks. For Austin-based writer/director Michael Tully – that summer is also all about table tennis – or ping pong.
“Ping Pong Summer” premiered at Sundance this year – and has been picked up for theatrical release. But before it hits movie houses, it hits SXSW Film.
Michael Tully talked with KUT about his film:
On "Ping Pong Summer":
"What I try to describe this movie as is like a pitch between combining my own, very personal upbringing of like a middle class family, very well-adjusted into this typical "Karate Kid," 80's, coming-of-age movie."
Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs are free, online courses hosted by universities, but open to anyone with Internet access. Universities and colleges are increasingly offering them, but some question the MOOC model.
Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs are free, online courses hosted by universities, but open to anyone with Internet access. They’re a recent development in higher education.
This year, the University of Texas at Austin offered nine MOOCs through the nonprofit, edX.
Many praise MOOCs as a way to provide more educational opportunity, but some are questioning whether MOOCs are really a successful education model.
Jeff Meadows is one of those people.
He’s a teacher development coordinator with the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada and he’s hosting a core conversation at SXSW called, “If MOOCs Are So Great, Why Aren’t We All Doing it?" He came to KUT to talk more about it.
At lunchtime on the North Harris campus of Houston's Lone Star Community College, students stream through the lobby of the student services center, plugged into their headphones or rushing to class.
Many walk right past a small information table about the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. Border Patrol announced on Friday that it is changing its policy on using deadly force against moving vehicles and people who throw rocks.
The agency's chief, Michael J. Fisher, sent a memorandum to employees in which he said the policy is designed to help agents avoid dangerous situations.
The story of Austin's various "Don’t Move Here" t-shirts is, in many ways, the story of Austin itself: the transformation of an undiscovered secret into something much bigger.
While the "Don’t Move Here" meme certainly predates its first recorded t-shirt printing – not to mention the concept of a "meme" itself – modern history posits spring 1997 as the time it was first put to cotton.
It was then that Austin pop-rockers The Wannabes minted a batch of merch bearing the slogan.
Update: UT-Austin has received the green light to participate in the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope. When constructed, it will be the world's largest telescope.
The UT System Board of Regents authorized UT-Austin to put $50 million of its research reserves toward the project, and allowed the university to raise an additional $50 million in donations.
“Being a charter investor in this remarkable scientific tool will benefit our students, our faculty and the whole university,” UT-Austin President Bill Powers said in a statement Friday.“Not only will we be helping to answer the most basic questions about our universe, but our involvement will underscore our status as a top world university. This is the leading edge of science, and it is where Texas must be.”
An Austin-based advertising company created a web app to avoid crowds at SXSW. It uses Foursquare technology to let you know which bars, restaurants and coffee shops people haven't checked in at.
Credit avoidhumans.com
IFC's SXSW Film party, seen here in 2012, would definitely rate Code Red on the Avoid Humans app.
Latham Smith, a tugboat captain who works for the oil industry, is featured in "The Great Invisible."
Credit Courtesy of Participant Media
"The Great Invisible" examines the crisis in depth through the eyes of oil executives, survivors and Gulf Coast residents who experienced it.
Credit Courtesy of Participant Media
"Above All Else" is the story of a man who risks his family and future when he rallies a group of landowners and activists to blockade the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Credit Courtesy Immigrant Workers Films
"Above All Else" follows David Daniel as he organizes a tree-top blockade of the pipeline.
Credit Courtesy Immigrant Workers Films
"Vessel" follows a doctor who sails a ship around the world, providing abortions at sea for women with no legal alternative.
The annual South by Southwest film festival kicks off in Austin today. The 10-day fest features more than 89 world premieres and a total of 133 feature films. Janet Pierson heads SXSW Film. And it’s ultimately her job to weed through the thousands of submissions to come up with the slate of film offerings.
Janet Pierson stopped by KUT to talk about this year’s lineup.
On What Makes a Good SXSW Film:
"It's a total picture that we're looking for. You know, you look for a lot of things. Original voices is a big deal, something that surprises you, something that really works - that has a depth. We look for a transformational experience. We want to be moved somehow."
Human beings are a social species. Our natural programming requires a certain amount of social contact with other people.
Shared experiences are simply a fundamental component of our needs as humans. We don’t just have a need for direct interaction and verbal communication either – there's all sorts of nonverbal communicative actions we take in the presence of others that we wouldn’t do alone.
In this installment of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke take us through the psychological benefits of "going out" and mingling with our fellow humans.
Edward Reyes, center, is the president of the Dove Springs neighborhood association. He's planning to run for city council in District Two, as the city transitions to single-member district elections.
Since August of last year, KUT has been looking at the Dove Springs neighborhood in Southeast Austin in its Turning the Corner series. It’s a neighborhood trying to rise above the challenges of poverty – and one common theme that’s been repeated by residents is that they feel ignored.
Cynthia Valadez used to live in the Dove Springs neighborhood.
“That was the one area of Travis County and the City of Austin that failed to get the clinics, the offices, the grocery stores, the doctor’s offices," Valadez says. "Anything that’s health related didn’t go there. You couldn’t do anything in that community."
It takes a lot of manpower to put on a festival, especially as one as big as South by Southwest.
"One thing that I don't think a lot of people realize is that there's like 200 people that have full time jobs at South by Southwest," says SXSW cofounder and managing director Roland Swenson. "During the event there are hundreds of more temporary workers that we hire."
When it comes to volunteers, Swenson knows there's a lot – even if he's not quite sure of the number.
"You know I think there's going to be over 3,000," he says. "I don't have a precise count, but that's for 15 days of South by Southwest."
Many countries in the European Union are drawn to the benefits of fracking: cheap energy and energy independence. But many Europeans, including these protesters standing outside EU headquarters in Brussels, object to the practice on environmental grounds.
While watching the turmoil in Ukraine unfold, you may feel as though it has little to do with the United States, but the conflict is stirring a contentious debate in Europe over a topic familiar to many Americans: fracking.
Much of the continent depends on Russian natural gas that flows through pipelines in Ukraine. European countries are asking themselves whether to follow the U.S. example and drill for shale gas.
One of the largest gatherings of creative minds is happening right now in Austin, but how can you become a valuable part of that community without sucking the life out of it or annoying other people with your relentless self-promotion?
Don't be "human spam" or a "vampire." That's the advice of Austin Kleon, a local artist and writer whose book "Steal Like an Artist" spent six months on the New York Times best-seller list.
"There's basically the people who want to take all the inspiration, and then there's people who want to flood you with their own thing that they're shilling," he says.
C5 Texas is a 5-year leadership program for high-potential youth from low-income families. We serve 300+ in north & central Texas, accepting 72 new youth each year. Selection is based on performance, need, & readiness.
The Mission
C5 changes the odds for high-performing youth from risk-filled environments, inspiring them to pursue personal success, and preparing them for leadership roles in college, work and their communities. We encourage C5 youth to be Character-driven, Community-focused, Challenge-ready, College-bound and Committed to a better future.
Originally published on Thu March 6, 2014 11:03 am
South by Southwest Interactive is the technology-driven part of the annual Austin-based festival for digital, film and music and it starts on Friday. An expected 30,000 people will take part in the interactive and film week that precedes music, and they love it for the spontaneity and the chaos. They also hate it because of the chaos — parties on every corner, marketing handouts at every turn and a sprawling program of panels, screenings and speakers that span at least a dozen city blocks in the heart of Texas.
Montessori education models have been around for more than a century, but experts say the charter school movement and other factors have made it more popular in public schools in the last decade.
There are a lot of different opinions for how to educate children. Many are being discussed in Austin this week as part of the SXSWedu conference.
One method gaining popularity in public and charter schools is the Montessori model.
It’s an individualized, structured method in which children control their education with the help of a teacher, rather than a teacher standing in front of a classroom teaching everyone the same idea or subject. This fall, a Montessori charter school opening up in East Austin is aiming to enroll low-income students.
But as public schools, they must adhere to state and federal standards, while staying true to their unique methods.
Some of the poorest seniors in Texas live in Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley.
Many only speak Spanish and don’t have access to the basics, like food or medical care. But a Texas A&M professor and his team of community health workers – or "promotoras de salud” – are trying to find ways to help seniors along the border improve those conditions.
They're working in places like the colonia border town of Progreso, near the Mexican border. Progreso is one of the poorest places in the one of the poorest counties in the United States. The unemployment rate is more than 10 percent.
Update: South by Southwest announced this morning that Lady Gaga will perform at this year's festival. She's set to take the stage Thursday, March 13. The City of Austin had originally denied a request to have Lady Gaga perform, citing concerns that the Doritos venue wasn't big enough.
So, SXSW is moving that venue for one night to the Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater at Eighth and Red River streets.
Originally published on Thu March 6, 2014 12:43 pm
This post was updated at 10:30 a.m. ET on March 6.
Facebook said Wednesday that it will limit minors' access to pages and posts that offer firearms for sale, along with other measures intended to curtail illegal gun trafficking.
"This is something we've been working on for a while," says Facebook spokesman Matt Steinfeld. "We want to balance the interests of people who come here to express themselves while promoting an environment that is safe and respectful."
Jim Hogan thanks God for his victory in a statewide Texas primary election on Tuesday. His campaign clearly had little to do with it.
Hogan paid his filing fee and then did essentially nothing else.
"Not being a politician, I didn't want to spend money," he says. "I didn't buy any mailers or yard signs. I think it's a waste to spend a lot of money on these politics."
The federal government is sending $11.8 million to Travis County to help buy out homes in the flood-prone Onion Creek neighborhood.
More than 600 homes in the area were damaged or destroyed in last October’s flooding, but Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell’s office says the effort to buy out homes and restore the area to its natural habitat goes back to another flash flood there in 1998.
The SAT, a standardized test that for many students is an intimidating hurdle to clear en route to college admissions, is about to undergo a major redesign. Among the changes being announced by The College Board in Austin on Wednesday: The test will revert to a 1600-point scale, and the essay portion will be optional and scored separately.
According to the Texas Education Agency, more than 182,000 Texas public high school students took the SAT, the ACT (another test used in college admissions developed by ACT, Inc.) or both exams in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available. That total represents nearly 69 percent of all public high school graduates in Texas.
Originally published on Wed March 5, 2014 11:59 am
Count Los Angeles as the latest big city to say no to electronic cigarettes.
The City Council there voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban use of the devices, which release vaporized nicotine, in almost all public places, including bars, workplaces and beaches.
Election results are now in with between 99.95 and 100 percent of precincts counted statewide. Click Here for KUT's rundown of election night winners. Click Here to check out how Republicans voted across the state. Click Here to see results from the Democrats.
One hundred percent of Travis County precincts have also reported results. But the final tallies might change just a tad because votes cast after 7 p.m. have not yet been included. The polls in Travis County were open late on Tuesday because of bad weather. Click Here for the latest from Travis County.
Overall, the night turned out to be a good one for many Tea Party candidates. KUT's Ben Philpott takes a look at that:
The results are in for the 2014 Texas Primary Elections. We now know who most of the candidates will be in the November general election, but several statewide races are headed to a runoff on May 27.
We've compiled a list of the top vote earners for the major statewide and Travis County races. The percentage of votes received (as of this writing) is shown next to each candidate's name. Races with an asterisk are heading to a runoff.
Edward Snowden will speak at South by Southwest Interactive via videoconference next week. The man who leaked details about the extent of National Security Agency surveillance is currently living in Russia under asylum.
If you don't have a badge, you can still hear Snowden on Monday at 11 a.m. because the Texas Tribune will be offering a free live stream of the session. Snowden will be interviewed by the American Civil Liberties Union's "principal technologist" Christopher Soghoian.
Sage Salvo is the creator of Words Liive, a curriculum program that uses hip hop to teach literature and poetry. He's pitching his program at SXSW Edu this week.
What do the works of Edgar Allen Poe and Jay-Z have in common?
A lot, argues Gilbert Perkins,who goes by his stage name: Sage Salvo.
Salvo is an artist and poet from Washington D.C., but he’s also developed a curriculum called Words Liive. It uses rap and hip-hop to teach major themes and devices in poetry and literature – everything from similes and metaphors to epic poems and motifs in novels. Salvo is pitching his curriculum in Austin this week for SXSWedu and stopped by KUT to talk about his curriculum.
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