Headlines

Fifty-eight-year-old Claire Hirschkind falls to the ground as police surround her during the Feb. 3 arrests of Occupy Austin members. See "Convictions Stand, Despite Evictions." (Photo by John Anderson)

• City Council meets today (Thursday, Jan. 9), with more roiling discussion of Austin Ener­gy's proposed rate changes (public hearing at 6pm, and another one likely for March 1), as well as a morning briefing on the status of the proposed ban on single-use plastic bags. Council will also vote on spending $2.4 million on a new multiuse facility in Colony Park, next to the troubled Turner-Roberts Recreation Center. Once more into the breach ...

• Also today, Council Members Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo will lay out a proposal that calls for giving Austin Energy a 3.5% interim increase, without the discount for customers living outside the city limits that AE proposed last week.

• Red line to drinky time: Capital Metro and the city of Austin are considering a deal that would extend Friday service until midnight, with hourly trains from 4pm to midnight on Saturdays.

• Citing Jordan Smith's recent Chronicle report on the troubled Austin Police Department investigation of the yogurt shop murders ("Scene of the Crime," Dec. 16, 2011), this week Public Safety Commission Vice Chair Kim Rossmo called for a new review by different investigators.

• Republican Elizabeth Ames Jones' primary challenge to Texas Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, is in peril: Former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire has filed a lawsuit claiming that she is breaking residency rules requiring railroad commissioners to live in the capital. If she lives in Wentworth's district, she should not be drawing her state pay. If she lives in Austin, she's ineligible to challenge Wentworth.

• In an opinion harshly criticizing the reasoning of a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals – "the panel has effectively eviscerated the protections of the First Amendment in the abortion context," he wrote – U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks dismissed the lawsuit challenging on constitutional grounds the state law requiring women to undergo a doctor-narrated ultrasound procedure before obtaining abortions. An appeal to the full 5th Circuit is expected.

• After an extraordinary public backlash, Susan G. Komen for the Cure rescinded its decision to suspend grants to Planned Parenthood, and a few days later, Komen VP and GOP careerist Karen Handel – widely considered a main force in the defunding decision – stepped down.

• Rumors of Mitt Romney's nomination as GOP presidential candidate appear greatly exaggerated: Former Pennsylvania senator and darling of the religious right Rick Santorum scored a hat trick on Feb. 7, sweeping the Missouri primary and the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses.