Free Republic

Starting Monday, Austin restaurants and food businesses have to come up with alternatives to tossing extra food in the trash. The city hopes businesses donate the extra food to those in need, but they could also give it to local farms or compost it. It's part of the Universal Recycling Ordinance, which the city hopes will help reach its Zero Waste by 2040 goal.

In many ways Austin, Texas, was the last place Beto O’Rourke should have been with just over a month left until a pivotal U.S. Senate election. The deep-blue city, smack dab in the middle of a deep-red state, likely doesn’t have many of the undecided voters the Democrat, whose aggressive challenge to GOP Sen. Ted Cruz has become somewhat of a national fascination, needs to win this November. So in front of a crowd estimated at 55,000 people, a truly impressive number for a U.S. Senate race, with the Austin skyline behind him, O’Rourke fired up the crowd with an...

City budget boosts spending for homelessness services The new city manager and City Council agree: The city needs more money to address the homelessness situation. The proposed Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget submitted by City Manager Spencer Cronk includes $3.1 million in new spending on homelessness-related services. That’s on top of the roughly $25 million of spending on such services that will continue from last year. Part of that proposed increase comes from the Watershed Protection Department, which has proposed hiring a contractor for an estimated $1 million over four years to clean up litter in creeks or drainage facilities that...

Generations of Texans have rightly drawn inspiration and strength from the heroes of the Alamo – the brave men who fought to the death to defend the battle-scarred mission in San Antonio in 1836 in the fight for Texas’ independence from Mexico. These freedom fighters are a symbol of valor for all Americans. It is bizarre, then, that an advisory group recommended to the Texas Board of Education that it remove the words “all the heroic defenders” from the state’s social studies curriculum describing the men who gave their lives at the Alamo. The Board of Education was holding a...

The Houston Chronicle on Monday announced an investigation into the work of one of its former reporters after editors said they became aware in discrepancies over the accuracy of his work. The newspaper's executive editor, Nancy Barnes, wrote that another Houston Chronicle journalist raised questions about whether Austin, Texas, reporter Mike Ward made up quotes from non-existent people in one of his stories. "We ask that you trust us that we've done everything we can to ensure what we've told you is fair and accurate," Barnes said in her post. "For that reason, I want to be completely transparent with...

A subdivision in a small Texas town north of Austin is facing a dangerous influx of rattlesnakes...Brown came across a baby rattlesnake in his own yard, where his two-year-old daughter and three dogs often play...According to KXAN, local authorities are aware of the issue, but to Brown's knowledge, they haven't done much other than recommend people take preventive measures by cleaning up any overgrown brush or getting rid of places where snakes can hide...As for Brown, he thinks the snakes are victims too and people should heed the recommendations from authorities. I don't want a child, adult, or dog to...

A panel advising the State Board of Education on what seventh-graders should learn in their social studies courses has urged deleting the label "heroic" from a curriculum standard about the Alamo's defenders.---snip---The panel said "heroic" was a "value-charged word."---snip---Current seventh-grade social studies curriculum standards include the "siege of the Alamo and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there." The advisory committee recommended cutting the phrase "and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there."---snip---Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the recommendation was made in response to complaints that curriculum standards are too...

Newly released video from a Texas law enforcement helicopter shows the explosion that ended the life of Austin serial bomber Mark Conditt as pursuing officers tried to arrest him earlier this year. The video, released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, shows just how close several officers were to being injured when the homemade bomb went off the morning of March 21. Conditt was driving his SUV around 2 a.m. CT as tactical teams followed him near Round Rock, just north of Austin. The video eventually shows one police van in front of the bomber’s vehicle when another bumps...

<p>AUSTIN, Texas – Residents and tourists in Austin told PJM that they oppose the idea of renaming the state capital due to Stephen F. Austin’s support for slavery.</p> <p>Austin, known as the “Father of Texas,” owned “a few slaves” in his lifetime and opposed efforts in Mexico to end slavery, according to author and historian Gregg Cantrell. In 1824, Austin defended the economic benefits of slavery, specifically for cotton. The city of Austin’s Equity Office published a report recommending street names to change since they honor figures who had ties to slavery, in addition to renaming the city itself.</p>

Born in New York, Jay grew up in Monmouth County, attended the University of Delaware, and earned a master's degree from Georgetown University. It was at Georgetown that Jay met fellow unicorn-chaser Lauren Geoghegan. Austin, a vegan, spent his days advocating for sustainable living, worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) during the Obama administration, and owned a trendy micro-house he parked in Washington... In 2017, Jay decided to follow in Julian Roman's footsteps and tempt fate. At the time, Austin wrote on his bicycle blog that "[t]here's magic out there, in this great big beautiful world."...

"Evil is a make-believe concept we've invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans." A progressive young American couple was killed in an Islamic State-claimed terrorist attack last month while on a bike trip around the world. Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, who were both in their late 20s, quit their jobs in 2017 to embark on a trip around the world. Austin, a vegan, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian, decided that they're were wasting their lives working. "I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years...

Now the Anti-History movement of the left has a new target. A target as big as a city. A new report from Austin, Texas’s Equity Office about existing Confederate monuments suggested changing the city's name. The report identified several neighborhoods and 10 streets named in honor of the Confederacy or William Barton, a slave owner dubbed the "Daniel Boone of Texas," that could be changed, The Austin American-Statesman reported Friday. Austin’s namesake, Stephen F. Austin - also referred to as the "father of Texas" - opposed efforts by Mexico to abolish slavery in the Tejas province, saying freed slaves would...

In discussion of possible changes, report also asks, ‘What’s next and where do we stop?’ Known as both the “father of Texas” and the namesake of the state’s capital, Stephen F. Austin carved out the early outlines of Texas among his many accomplishments. He also opposed an attempt by Mexico to ban slavery in the province of Tejas and said if slaves were freed, they would turn into “vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace.” For that reason, the city of Austin’s Equity Office suggested renaming the city in a report about existing Confederate monuments that was published this week. Also...

President Trump said Thursday, “Twitter 'SHADOW BANNING' prominent Republicans. Not good," Trump tweeted. "We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.” Shadow banning, also known as ghost banning, is when a user and their content visibility is limited from the online viewers in a way that does not make it clear to the user that they have been banned. For example, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Mark Meadows, R-N.C., Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel all failed to appear on Twitter’s autofill search box when users typed in their names, Vice News reported...

As Americans fought in recent weeks over whether restaurants should refuse to serve top aides to President Trump, an entire city has been debating what it means to host his convention for reelection. Charlotte won the rights to the 2020 Republican National Convention on Friday. But that's largely because it faced little serious competition. And even before the victory was announced in Austin, Texas, this thriving, progressive urban island in the Trump-friendly South was suffering some buyer's remorse. Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, a Democrat, says the decision to host the convention was the hardest she has tackled — "not just...

The U.S. Army is standing up the Army Futures Command in Austin, the capital of Texas, in its first major reorganization in more than forty years, Army leaders announced on Friday. The new command will consolidate all Army efforts to prepare for war fighting, from planning to developing future combat systems. The Army had considered more than a hundred locations, but decided on Austin, Texas, since it is a growing tech hub close to top schools and affordable to live in. “The Army made the right choice. The Austin Mega Region has 6,500 high-tech companies, an innovation ecosystem with 36...

WASHINGTON -- Austin, Texas, will be the location for the headquarters of the new U.S. Army Futures Command, Army Secretary Mark T. Esper announced today at a Pentagon news conference. Army Undersecretary Ryan D. McCarthy then explained the details. He said the process started with 150 metropolitan areas, narrowed down to five. Besides Austin, officials considered Boston; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; and Philadelphia

A microscopic parasite is getting dozens of Texans sick. Since May, state health officials say 56 cases of Cyclospora have been reported in Texas. 16 of those cases originated in Travis County, which breaks down to more than one out of four victims being in the Austin area. This is the sixth consecutive year Texas has faced a Cyclospora outbreak from late spring to the end of summer. Health officials know they need to shut it down from the source... A 2015 outbreak was finally traced to fresh cilantro. “They were actually tracing it back to the particular fields in...

Area residents who use the 183A toll road will likely see new tolls heading northbound to Liberty Hill and southbound into Austin in the coming years. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, operator of the 183A toll road, is looking to extend 183A for 6 miles to the north from the current end of the toll segment in Leander to just north of S.H. 29 in Liberty Hill. CTRMA also seeks to widen the existing U.S. 183 south of S.H. 45 near Lakeline Mall down to the Arboretum area in Northwest Austin, adding a pair of variable toll ‘express lanes’...

Steven Crowder surprise confronts woman who threatened to firebomb our van in Austin. Hilarity ensues when things get heated in this first installment of ‘Crowder Confronts’.