Andrew Weber is a freelance reporter and associate editor for KUT News. A graduate of St. Edward's University with a degree in English, Andrew has previously interned with The Texas Tribune, The Austin American-Statesman and KOOP Radio.
Broderick James says there he wants to take his "Power of Hope" message to all of the "Rundbergs in every city" in Texas.
Credit Jon Shapley for KUT News
James performs on the corner of Rundberg and North Lamar because he wants to serve as a motivational force in a neighborhood plagued by crime. "I want people to look at me and think, 'If he can be happy then so can I.'"
Credit Jon Shapley for KUT News
James says his running started as a way to calm himself down as a teenager. Since then he's continued his habit to find inner peace and motivate others to do the same.
He's everyone's favorite cardio-loving community activist — a relatively new emissary of Austin weird.
His name is Broderick James, but he's better known as the Rundberg Running Man, a local fixture you can find dancing, running and freestyle rapping on the corner of Lamar and Rundberg on a daily basis. While many Austinites know him for his daily exploits, most people outside the city would simply peg him as a typical fitness freak.
James wants to change that, only there's a problem: money.
These days, "cedar fever" is nothing to sneeze at. The severity of the cedar allergy season we’re in right now is near record-highs, with a count of over 21,400 parts per million on Wednesday – the second highest reading in history. In Austin, it’s common to experience a bout of cedar fever in winter months. But allergist Dr. Seth Hollander says the weather over the past few years has made it even worse.
Obama is expected to announce changes to the NSA after revelations of a massive domestic surveillance program on US citizens and others around the globe. Obama's been fielding critics since the first of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's leaks last June.
You can watch livestream of the announcement below:
For some, the combination of student debt and the post-grad blues is a crushing weight – one that comes swiftly, and without warning. But now, for prospective Texas college students, a forecast of post-grad life is a click away.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will speak via satellite at SXSW Interactive in March. In a rare public interview, Assange will discuss the "pervasive spread of surveillance, advantages and abuses of the digital age, and the future of democracy," according to a statement from the festival.
Assange will speak with Benjamin Palmer of New York-based web marketer The Barbarian Group at 11 a.m. on Mar. 8, the second day of the Interactive portion of the festival.
Palmer told KUT that his conversation with Assange at South By will be more of a conversation about the future of the Internet and international communication, and less of a formal interview.
"This is where everyone that's inventing all the next platforms goes to kind of hear thought leadership, you know?" Palmer said. "And I feel like Julian's point of view — where the Internet has come from, where it's going and what's generally happening — is a really important conversation to have at a place like South By Southwest."
Transmission Events announced their annual Fun Fun Fun Fest will stay at Auditorium Shores this year, despite the city's ongoing renovation of the park that initially put the fest's location up in the air.
The ninth annual fest will be held Nov. 7 to Nov. 9 this year.
It's official: University of Texas Regents approved Charlie Strong's contract today. Strong will be paid $25.4 million over 5 years — $5 million per year with a $100,000 bonus available after every year.
The forthcoming Lady Bird Lake boardwalk won't solve all of the walkability issues along the lake, and the city is looking for input on how to make the area more pedestrian-friendly.
Credit Image courtesy courtesy of the Trail Foundation, townlaketrail.org
The City of Austin will host a walking tour of the south shore of Lady Bird Lake tomorrow to get public input on future development along the shore from Auditorium Shores to the area near I-35. The tour of the roughly 100-acre strip is open to the public and will feature a dozen experts on development, cultural and environmental issues that could arise over the next 20 to 30 years of development.
Alan Holt, a planner with the Planning and Development Review Department, says the tour will begin a long process of public outreach as the area develops, but that it will also highlight connectivity issues that won't necessarily be mitigated by the boardwalk project, which is nearing completion.
"Right now, if you would walk down to the shore, or to the lake or to the boardwalk, you have to hop fences to get into gated communities to do that, or walk through acres and acres of parking lots," Holt says.
The mural on the north wall of the University Co-Op was painted in 2003, but the co-op and artists say they don't have enough money to renovate the mural marred by graffiti.
Credit Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon for KUT
Painted 40 years ago, the south wall mural was defaced some time in the early morning on Tues. Jan 7. APD says it's difficult to find suspects in cases such as this without any witnesses.
Credit Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon for KUT
Daniel Johnston's famous mural was defaced on Christmas Day last year and quickly repainted. Because of their intricate artwork, the Co-Op murals can't be as easily refurbished.
In 1974, a group calling themselves the Austintatious Artists wanted to express themselves. So, they found a wall in West Campus and painted what would become a venerated piece of Austin public art. Since then, that mural has lived on. They even painted another one in 2003 on the south wall of the same building.
Now, younger graffiti artists are laying claim to the same walls in droves. While it's something that's happened a lot over 40 years, the University Co-Op and the artists say the murals desperately need repair or they could be lost.
The federal government and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education released guidelines encouraging school to use fairness and equity in their discipline policies and warning of potential punishment, if they don't.
The U.S. Department of Education says African-American students make up 15 percent of the nation’s population but account for more than one-third of those who have been suspended from school at least once.
Education advocate Deborah Fowler, with Texas Appleseed, says minority students, especially African-American students, are more likely to experience discipline more frequently, both from administrators and from school resource officers.
Today, iHeartRadio announced a one-day country festival, featuring Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Lady Antebellum, among others.
The Clear Channel-sponsored, Bobby Bones-hosted festival will descend upon the Frank Erwin Center on March 29th, making it the second country music fest planned for May 2014, after Jeff Foxworthy's Natty Light-sponsored Red Fest at Circuit of the Americas.
The Longhorns welcomed new head football coach Charlie Strong today in a press conference at Darrell K. Royal Stadium. And if the presser had a theme, it was simple: Integrity.
Strong told reporters he respected the foundation of Mack Brown's tenure, that the coach was a man with integrity, and that players must perform, both on and off the field, with integrity and accountability. Ultimately, Strong says his goal is to bring the Longhorns back into the national title conversation.
"The bricks are there," Strong said. "And I just need to put another brick on top of it."
Well-known Austin attorney and activist Andi Sloan has died of complications from pneumonia, after a 7-year battle with cancer.
While Sloan worked as an attorney and executive director of the Texas Advocacy Project, she was best known for her work lobbying California-based pharmaceutical company BioMarin to release an experimental drug to treat breast and ovarian cancer with her group Andi's Army.
What do twerking, Sharknado and the government shutdown have in common?
They're all some of the top trends in Google searches in Austin this year, according to the search giant's 2013 Zeitgeist report. Austin's searches didn't do much to keep it weird. For the most part, the searches were fairly nationalized, unlike previous years, with one exception.
With that in mind, here's the list of Austin's 2013 top Google searches:
Now that Mack Brown's officially resigning, Longhorn fans can breathe a sigh of relief, or of sorrow, after four years of lackluster play from UT football. But, despite latter day streakiness as a coach, Brown leaves the program second in all-time wins and an overall record of 158-47, including the 2005 BCS championship.
Brown's shoes won't be easy to fill, but there are plenty of high profile coaches in the running to do just that. Here's a list of the rumored replacements.
UT fans might have missed the bit of good news from Longhorn athletics this weekend. With the bad news of Mack Brown's retirement comes a bit of good news: the Longhorns Volleyball team will head to the Final Four tournament.
In an impressive shutout win against Nebraska, the top-ranked Horns extended their playoff match win streak to 23, the second longest in school history, according to UT Athletics.
Construction crews will install temporary highway lighting along MoPac tonight, and will also remove existing light poles that in the way of the construction of the forthcoming MoPac express lanes. A full map of construction is available online.
The project will add North and Southbound express lanes between Parmer Lane and Cesar Chavez.
After much speculation, University of Texas President Bill Powers confirmed that Steve Patterson will succeed DeLoss Dodds as athletic director of the university later this fall, who is retiring after 32 years as the school's A.D.
Patterson's resume includes a stint with the championship-era Houston Rockets, the Houston Aeros hockey team, the Portland Trailblazers and played an integral role in helping bring an NFL franchise back to Houston in the Houston Texans. In a statement released this afternoon, however, Powers praised his most recent work at Arizona State University.
There’s recent statewide and local efforts to mitigate congestion – which will take substantial investment and extensive construction. So despite proposals in the pipeline, traffic will continue to be a slow-going, fast-growing problem.
So, it got us wondering: What are the worst intersections in Austin?
The Sustainable Food Center's East Austin farmer's market had a perennially irritating problem: Poison ivy was blocking a portion of the market's space. They couldn't use chemicals or herbicides — it wouldn't exactly jive with their goal of sustainability.
So they got creative, turning to a four-legged, environmentally (and people) friendly alternative: Goats.
Now, Austin parks may be looking to adopt the strategy to beautify green spaces across the city, as well.
A Republican Bexar County judge who narrowly won his election in 2010 announced today that he will run next year as a Democrat.
In a written statement, Judge Carlo Key of San Antonio, who is running for re-election to County Court Position 11 in San Antonio, cited ideological extremism as the reason for his departure from the Republican Party of Texas.
An Austin Police officer was involved in a fatal crash this morning on U.S. Highway 290 near Sawyer Ranch Road.
In a written statement, APD identified the officer as Lieutenant Clay Crabb, a veteran officer who began his tenure with the Austin Police Department in 1998 after four years with the San Angelo Police Department. Crabb, 42, was on his way to work when a truck struck the driver's side of his vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the other vehicle was not seriously injured.
Crabb was awarded 16 commendations in his service including the Superior Service Citation and the Master Peace Officer Ribbon.
If you’ve been to Austin City Limits Music Fest, you’ve seen them. And while they’re not the band, they are on stage and they are very talented, in their own way.
They've worked with everyone from Wu-Tang Clan to Green Day, from Black Sabbath to Jack White. They even braved the harsh cold of President Obama’s 2012 inauguration this past January.
They’re the sign language interpreters of LotuSIGN, and you can find them emphatically interpreting bands' lyrics and sounds at performances across the country. And while there’s plenty of air guitar and air piano, LotuSIGN means business.
According to a new report, the number of prescriptions veterans received for powerful opiates has surged since the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the agency charged with helping veterans recover from war [the Department of Veterans Affairs]instead masks their pain with potent drugs, feeding addictions and contributing to a fatal overdose rate among VA patients that is nearly double the national average.
Update: The Associated Press reports a deep fried Cuban roll took top honors at the State Fair of Texas’ “Big Tex Choice Awards” this year: That's shredded pork, ham, cheese, pickles and sauce, rolled in dough and thrown in a deep fat fryer.
Another foodstuff profiled below – Fried Thanksgiving Dinner (which is exactly like it sounds) – took the prize for “Most Creative” entrée. The State Fair opens Sept. 27.
The Austin Aquarium is set to open this November despite two citations from the city and allegations of illegal animal trafficking surrounding one of the owners.
After construction violations from the city's code compliance office last month and a recent guilty plea to animal trafficking charges from one of the owners of the new Austin Aquarium, the University of Texas' Texas Advanced Computing Center has put a potential partnership with the effort to bring an aquarium to North Austin on hold.
Brothers Vince and Ammon Covino have been embroiled in legal squabbles since opening up aquariums in Portland, Oregon and Boise, Idaho in 2012 and 2011, respectively.
Talking or texting at any movie theater is frowned upon, but at the Alamo Drafthouse it’s an actionable offense.
For years, the Austin-based theater chain has kept audiences tight-lipped with its pre-show “Don’t Talk/Don’t Text” PSAs and ejection policies – often resulting in viral success.
Sure, art can be “heady” in the metaphorical sense. But few projects both metaphorically and literally embody that adjective like the Psychokinetic Child: a 20 foot tall, three-dimensional baby head.
Currently under construction, the exterior of the head will feature a fully mechanized mouth and eyes. But it's on the inside where things get interesting: the curious may walk inside the baby’s head to contemplate five shrines to objects familiar to modern life – homes, clothes, cars, chairs and phones.
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