Headlines

Fun Fun Fun Fest attendees were forced to wait up to three hours to get in the festival after a holdup at the ticket will-call booth created a long line down Riverside Drive and eventually across the South First Street bridge. Event organizers later allowed those in line to enter regardless of check-in. (Photo by Sandy Carson)

City Council was pleased to adjourn at a relatively sedate 10:30pm last week – mostly by postponing plenty of business to next week (Nov. 20) and beyond, partly because Council Member Bill Spelman was absent, recuperating from surgery. See "Council: All You Can Eat!"

Winter arrived with little warning this week, bringing freezing temperatures to briefly balmy Austin and "Polar Vortex" hysteria to national headlines. Right now it looks like a cold snap, and Longhorn fans traveling to Stillwater this weekend should wear their thermal underwear.

ATU Local 1091, representing Capital Metro's bus drivers and mechanics, announced Tuesday a $655,000 settlement of its unfair labor practices complaint against fixed-route contractor McDonald Transit, concerning unilateral imposition of new wage and working conditions.

AISD officially named its newest school the Jaime D. Padron Elementary, after the APD officer killed in the line of duty in 2012. It's the second AISD elementary opened along Rundberg in two years, reflecting the area's fast-growing student population.

After a defeat in her campaign for lieutenant governor, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, says she was approached by business and community leaders to run for mayor of SA. While she mulls a potential bid over with her family, Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, said he'll resign from his legislative post to fully focus on the mayoral campaign.

Déjà vu all over again: The first pretrial hearing for former APD Detective Charles Kleinert has been pushed back for the fifth time – it's now scheduled for Dec. 5. Kleinert is charged with manslaughter for the 2013 shooting of Larry Jackson Jr.

Bill filing for the 84th Legislature began on Nov. 10, with the typical deluge. So far, senators have filed 163 pieces of planned legislation, with 257 out of the House, covering a gamut of subjects from legalizing gay marriage to open carry for handguns.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the man who doesn't believe in global warming and backs the teaching of creationism in schools, is lined up to chair the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space. Current chair U.S. Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma is likely moving on to wreak havoc on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Loretta Lynch could become the country's first black female attorney general. President Obama nominated the current U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York to take over for current Attorney General Eric Holder. Unsurprisingly, Senate Republicans are demanding that her confirmation process be delayed until the new, majority GOP Senate takes over in 2015.

The U.S. and China – representing the two largest world economies – announced a historic accord to mutually reduce carbon emissions in the coming decade, a step that environmentalists call necessary to any international progress to combat climate change. Republican congressional leaders immediately denounced the agreement.