Headlines

Searching for a permanent home, Austin Pets Alive! is in talks with City Council to extend its contract at Town Lake Animal Center's former site. The five-year extension proposal, sponsored by mayoral run-off candidate Mike Martinez, would also allow APA! to make repairs to the old facility. (Photo by Jana Birchum)

City Council meets today (Nov. 20) with a massive 182-Item agenda, and only one more meeting this year (and in its tenure). Prominent are the Decker Lake golf course proposal, and the revision strategy for CodeNEXT. See "Council," Nov. 21.

Chief Art Acevedo suspended the two officers involved in the rape joke story from two weeks ago, Officer Michael Castillo for three days and Mark Lytle five. Both must also participate in a training group that works with sexual assault victims.

Gov. Rick Perry still faces his day in court. District Judge Bert Richardson rejected a defense motion that special prosecutor Michael McCrum was not properly sworn in more than a year ago. He has yet to rule on more substantive motions concerning the constitutionality of the charges.

The State Board of Education met this week to debate social studies textbooks, criticized as ideologically-driven and factually inaccurate by a coalition of academic scholars. After more than four hours of public testimony Tuesday, the SBOE failed to move the issue forward. A vote is expected Friday.

Calling all incarcerated lovebirds: Texas prison officials are looking into revising a policy mandating inmates get married by proxy to align with a new state law that requires both parties be present for a marriage ceremony if the whole thing's to be official. No word yet on any timetable.

K2 is back – and tearing through the city's collective nervous system. The synthetic knockoff marijuana, also known as Spice, claimed more than 25 overdoses in a 24-hour stretch Monday and Tuesday. Most came at or near the homeless shelter downtown on Neches Street. We advise anyone within earshot to steer clear of K2 for a while.

Chronicle alum Jordan Smith turned over a new leaf in the effort to exonerate Rodney Reed, with a recent story in The Intercept identifying Connie Lear as a rape victim of Georgetown PD Sgt. Jimmy Fennell Jr. Lear, until now publicly anonymous, first voiced her beliefs in April regarding the killing of Stacey Stites - Fennell's fiancée - and elaborates with Smith about how she believes Fennell's actually the one who killed Stites.

By a single vote, Senate Democrats defeated a bill that would approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, heavily opposed by environmental advocates. But the victory may be short lived: Republicans have vowed to resurface the vote when they dominate the Senate come January.

President Obama is expected to announce an executive order tonight, Nov. 20, granting temporary legal status to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants. The use of executive action to halt deportation is far from unprecedented - it's been used in some form by every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.