Weekend Roundup

Get your butts in the theaters: There are too many great shows to see thisweekend!

Y'all. The Academy Awards nominations came out this week, and I realized my Oscar radar is seriously in need of repair. I've only seen three of the Best Picture nominees, and I didn't even know there was a Kung Fu Panda 2!

What I'm sayin' is: It's time to find your favorite theater in town and start checking off the movies from the big list. (Start with The Artist is my best advice to you.)

Movie theaters aren't the only theaters in town, of course. This weekend, we have lots going on in music venues and traditional theaters as well. All of them will keep you warm AND allow you to be "social" whilst watching your favorite entertainment.

FronteraFest, Austin's favorite experimental fringe theater fest, is now in full swing. The Long Fringe productions open Thursday at various theaters around the city like Salvage Vanguard and Blue Theatre, and you'll have four opportunities each to catch new works from companies like Trouble Puppet Theater and Poison Apple Initiative as well as individuals like Annie La Ganga and Christy McBrayer. With all the options available to you, you're sure to find at least one show and one theater to fit your weekend fancy.

ZACH Theatre opens their latest straight-from-Broadway production this weekend as well. Next to Normal is the Pulitzer Prize-winning rock musical about a family suffering from the effects of bipolar disorder. Austin favorite Meredith McCall plays the family matriarch, the role that won Alice Ripley a Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Musical. Come see one of our city's most talented actresses knock this performance out of the ballpark.

And if it's Broadway musicals you love, you're in luck. Elphaba and Galinda are punching everyone in the face with their show-stopping numbers in Wicked over at Bass Concert Hall. Sure it's over-the-top, but it's undeniably catchy and fun to see the characters you know from The Wizard of Oz in a brand new light. You might as well give in to it and get ready to cry and laugh and sing with that drunk lady two rows down from you. She's not afraid to sing along, so why should you be?

If electro-funk is more your speed, there's an awesome music benefit festival happening this weekend at The Parish. Oh Snap! Festival is a two and a half day music festival organized by friends of Sergio Machado to raise funds for his memorial scholarship. Machado was a foreign exchange student at Southwestern University who was killed by a drunk driver in his home country of Mozambique after graduation. Oh Snap! honors Machado's love of music and raises money to fund other awesome foreign exchange students' college educations.

One of our favorite multi-purpose venues, the ND at 501 Studios, is hosting an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime reunion for the historic Austin indie rock station, K-NACK. For two nights, bands like Sixteen Deluxe, Sincola, bo bud greene, Seed and Wannabes will take to the stage once again — some after 15 years apart — for an epic reunion, re-imagining the iconic sounds of alternative Austin radio. K-NACK DJs will be in attendance to introduce the bands and reminisce on the past. Anyone who loves music will want to be here for this special event.

Of course, if it's movies you want, there's lots going on at the Alamo Drafthouse of course. On Sunday, Sarah Pitre hosts a Girlie Night special Dance Movie Marathon at the Ritz. Starting at 1pm, you can take in the grandeur of the hate-that-you-love-them movies: Center Stage, Strictly Ballroomand Step Up 2: The Streets. A live dance team will be present to show you the moves in person in case you want to join the fun.

Or you can always go at your own pace, find your own movie theater and enjoy your movies in peace and quiet. I'm telling you: Start with The Artist and work your way down from there. It's going to change the way you see all the other ones.

Hooray for the Theater!

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Defensive Driving

Austin-based Tesla faces new probe focused on remote driving feature

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 2.6 million Teslas.

Federal regulators have opened an investigation into 2.6 million Teslas after reports of crashes involving the use of company technology that allows drivers to remotely command their vehicle to return to them, or move to another location, using a phone app.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said Tuesday, January 7 that Austin-based Tesla did not report any of the accidents. Tesla is under order to report crashes on “publicly accessible roads” involving vehicles being operated through its autonomous driving technology.

The new investigation follows another probe launched in October looking into the company's “Full Self-Driving” system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. That investigation covers 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

One driver filed a complaint after a crash while using Tesla's “Actually Smart Summon” technology and NHTSA is looking into another three similar incidents based on media reports, the NHTSA said. The agency is looking into 12 total incidents reported by users of the technology.

Each of the vehicles failed to detect posts and other parked vehicles, according to the NHTSA.

Regulators say the vehicles struck objects because the users had "too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement.”

Shares of Tesla Inc. slid more than 4 percent in late afternoon trading Tuesday.

Musk has complained that U.S. regulations are too onerous and are holding back the development of self-driving cars. Ethics experts are worried that once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, Musk will push him to ease oversight of Tesla, which just suffered its first decline in annual sales in more than a decade.

Musk donated an estimated $250 million to Trump's presidential campaign and is a frequent guest at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, vetting cabinet nominees and meeting with foreign heads of state. Trump has put Musk in charge of an advisory group, the Department of Government Efficiency, that will recommend where to cut government expenses and staff at federal agencies and reduce regulation.

The NHTSA said it will look into the top speed that Teslas can reach when users deploy its “summons” technology, as well as restrictions on public roads and line of sights requirements. It also said it expects to check for any “connectivity delays" with the app that could result in increased stopping distance.

Tesla’s Model 3 owner’s manual says that its “summons” feature is designed for use only in parking lots and driveways on private property and is disabled on public roads.

The new probe covers 2016-2025 Model S and X vehicles, 2017-2025 Model 3, 2020-2025 Model Y equipped with Tesla's Full Self-Driving driver assistance system.

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