Headlines

• April 9 – that's just one week from today, people – is the deadline to register to vote in the May 9 City Council election, which this year features an all-important mayoral race. www.traviscountytax.org/goVoters.do.

• A $116 million infusion could be just the ticket for getting a new federal courthouse off the ground in Downtown Austin, thanks to a chunk of federal stimulus money that's almost certain to turn a long-deferred architectural rendering into an actual brick-and-mortar project, across from Republic Square.

• A federal judge Tuesday rejected a lawsuit filed by Chris Comer (pictured), the former Texas Education Agency science director who resigned after drawing heat from her bosses for forwarding an e-mail about a guest speaker who is critical of creationism; Comer claimed the agency's neutral position on creationism was unconstitutional.

• Those science skeptics at the State Board of Education have managed to finagle a way to allow the teaching of creationism to slip into Texas classrooms. See "SBOE: Out With the Old Weaknesses, In With the New."

• Come September, college kids in Texas could be toting more than books to class – a House committee this week heard testimony on a bill that would allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus.

• Also this week, the House passed Texas' first journalism shield law, while the Senate debated its version of the stimulus-enhanced state budget.

• It was a year ago April 3 that law enforcement and Child Protective Services investigators descended on the West Texas compound of a polygamous Mormon breakaway sect and took 439 children into state custody; today, all but one of the children have been returned to their families.

• What's in a name? Austin Independent School District announced the new Southwest middle school will be named Diane Gorzycki Middle School, after the late band director at Bailey and Porter, while the two new schools at the Eastside Memorial High campus will be called Green Tech High School and Global Tech High School.

• April Phool: Lee Leffingwell's campaign announced that he was suspending campaigning to rejoin Phish as the band's flute player. Or would that be a phlute?

• UT students Tuesday honored the legacy of Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America, with a silent protest and discussions dedicated to furthering the rights that sprang from Chavez's activism.

Quote of the Week

"If it's a concealed handgun license, nobody's gonna know who has a weapon. That's part of the beauty of the concealed handgun license." – Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, on the attempts to overthrow the university campus firearms ban