Wells Dunbar, KUT News

If the film "Trash Dance" has a mantra, it’s simple: Power to the people. Those people and that power, however, don’t conjure up the familiar themes of power through politics but, strangely enough, dance.

And garbage trucks. 

The film follows choreographer Allison Orr’s work with Austin Energy and Solid Waste Services to make meticulously synchronized dance routines featuring everyday utility service vehicles. So it’s power to the people, who give you power and haul your trash.

Update: See KUT News' photos from Eeyore's 2014 celebration in the slideshow player below. 

Original post (April 26): It doesn’t get much more Austin weird than Eeyore’s Birthday Party – the annual Pease Park bacchanal known for outrageous costumes and booming drum circles.

This Saturday, April 26 is Austin’s 50th celebration for the beast of burden.  To mark the occasion, KUT News puts down the turkey leg to bring you five things you may not have known about the long-running festival.

In an eco-friendly city like Austin, you’d think reclaimed water systems for the home would be a no-brainer. Instead, the entire city has only one fully licensed greywater system. But that could soon change.

Greywater systems (or graywater, or grey water – there’s no universally accepted spelling) take used water from sinks, showers and washing machines and funnel it to uses like landscaping instead of sending it down the drain. (Greywater doesn’t include toilet water.)

Taking out the trash is a thing of the past: All Austin restaurants will have to start composting by 2017, and restaurants 5,000 square feet and up only have until 2016. The Austin City Council approved the ordinance change today.

Don’t worry: your favorite restaurant isn’t tearing up the parking lot and turning it into a compost heap. Restaurants will be allowed take their pick of private contractors to pick up their food scraps and haul them off for composting.

Update: The memorial for West has concluded. For an overview of the ceremony, see NPR's take: "Texas Town Honors Dead From Fertilizer Plant Blast."

Original Post: A memorial service for the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, is being held at Waco's Baylor University today.

Scheduled to speak: Gov. Rick Perry, Baylor University President Ken Starr, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, and Pres. Barack Obama.

Update: The library dedication at the George W. Bush Library has concluded.

Here’s more coverage from KUT News and NPR:

• Agenda Texas: The Legacy of Governor George W. Bush
• Bipartisan Praise at Bush Library
• Five Presidents to Help Dedicate George W. Bush Library Today
• Photos: Inside the George W. Bush Presidential Center

Original Post: Pres. Barack Obama will help dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library today.

Last week, the Austin City Council got its first look at the numbers for next year’s budget.

The financial outlook? Well … we’ll get back to you about that.

The thing is, Austin’s currently negotiating its three public safety contracts – police, fire and EMS. And budget staff call those contracts a wild card in the city’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget.

Volma Overton Sr. was a civil rights pioneer in Austin. He brought a hard-fought lawsuit to desegregate Austin schools – and brought his school-aged children with him to Austin’s segregated places, pushing against the racial boundaries of the time.

One of those children is Volma Overton Jr. KUT News recently sat down with him to talk about another front his father fought on: changing Austin’s form of at-large elections, where all candidates for City Council have to run citywide.

This weekend, a man hijacked a Capital Metro bus – resulting in a police pursuit that lead to Bastrop before the hijacker killed himself.

Today, Capital Metro announced the man that took the bus was one of their own: Salvador Martinez, a bus operator employed by Cap Metro contractor McDonald Transit. Martinez’s tenure with Cap Metro dated back to 1998.

If you asked the Internet, it might tell you that Austin's a hipster-loving, small business-starting, traffic-riddled, undiscovered yet overrated place that keeps it weird. The web's traffic-baiting list-makers rank Austin as a leader in categories from fitness friendliness to porn consumption per capita.

But you're not asking the Internet, you're asking KUT News. And, as has been done a couple times now, KUT News has compiled a list of lists honoring, tweaking and trashing Austin over the past few months. Here's the third installment of The Top 10 Austin Top 10 Lists:

• Big time for small business: Business website Thumbtack.com saluted Austin for business-friendly regulations and low licensing fees, ranking the city tops in the U.S. for small businesses. But the crowning stems partially from the state’s spartan regulation, as the survey also named Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio in its top 10.

UPDATE (12:15am): A Texas Department of Public Safety official says there were fatalities in a massive explosion in the town of West, Texas Wednesday evening. 50 to 75 homes were damaged, along with a 50-unit apartment complex, in the explosion at a fertilizer plant there.

DPS Trooper D.L. Wilson says all of the roughly 100 people injured have been removed from the scene. He could not say how many people may have died in the blast, though he did say there were fatalities.

After seven tries and several decades, geographic representation is finally coming to the City of Austin. And as the city prepares, the vortex of activity swirls around … none other than three certified public accountants.

That’s the Applicant Review Panel. It’s a group of three CPAs, randomly selected from a group of applicants, who will vet applicants for the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. That’s the group that will ultimately draw the district lines.

An Austin citizen has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg from office, arguing that her recent DWI arrest provides grounds for removal.

The Austin Chronicle reports that the lawsuit, brought by local attorney Kerry O'Brien, seeks to have Lehmberg temporarily removed from office until a verdict is reached in her DWI arrest. That verdict should come easily, as Lehmberg has penned a letter pleading guilty “without any request for leniency or consideration of any type.”

Update (9:14 p.m.): Close to 200 people from Central Texas are in Boston for Monday's marathon, according to the marathon's athlete tracker. Explosions near the finish line, which claimed at least three lives and reverberated across the nation, sent Austinites scrambling to check on the status of family and friends participating in the race.

“We were texting people, emailing them," said Michael Madison, a business manager with the local running group Gilbert’s Gazelles, who was back here in Austin.  "We were just keeping tabs on who had said they were okay or who they were with, because we had a couple people staying at the hotel where the first blast came out of.”