Nathan Bernier, KUT News

The Travis County Tax Office wants you to know you can pay your property tax bill as late as January 3 and still get a December receipt. That's important to people who want to claim their property tax as a deduction on their 2010 tax return.

"That's because we are closed on the last day of this month, December 31st," tax office spokesperson Tina Morton told KUT News. "By law, when the deadline falls on a business day and we're closed, it automatically moves to the next business day."

The slaying of Austin drummer Bill Maddox, a drummer who played for local guitar legend Eric Johnson, is getting top story treatment from local media.  TV stations have been calling the Austin City Limits TV show today, which shares an office with KUT, and asking for B-roll of Maddox's ACL performance from 2001. Expect to see glimpses on tonight's newscasts.

The City of Georgetown emailed us to let us know a 130-pound frog sculpture, stolen from San Gabriel Park in late-October, had been returned on Christmas Day. Surveillance camera footage from December 25 shows two people unloading the sculpture from an SUV and then driving away.

Georgetown Parks and Recreation superintendent Glenn Moss just happened to be strolling through the park yesterday and noticed the sculpture had been returned.

CST Environmental, a company based in San Leandro, California, is suing the city because it wasn't awarded a bid to demolish a decommissioned power plant in East Austin, according to the Austin Business Journal.

A state lawmaker wants to abolish the Texas Enterprise Fund and other pools of money Governor Perry can use at his discretion to attract investment. But doing so could disproportionately harm Austin, according to our analysis of a report released last week by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.

The two-day winter storm has ended in the northeast, but the effort to dig out from the snow is still going strong. Some flights to the region from Austin are still being canceled and the Wall Street Journal reports that it could take days to clear the backlog of travelers.

Several factors stood to delay a full resumption of flights, including the need to plow gates and get airport staff and flight crews back in place.

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Texas A&M University recently barred its employees from telling students to file open records requests under the state's public information act. Now, a group of fifteen journalism organizations is weighing in on the debate.

A letter from the groups, posted on the Poynter journalism blog, accuses the University of using a "potentially illegal" policy to "squelch investigations by its own students."

The National Transportation Safety Board has released its final report into the attack on an IRS building launched earlier this year by Joe Stack, a man believed to be frustrated with the federal government.

Starting today, Austin Solid Waste Services pay-as-you-throw customers can leave their trees on the curb for pickup. If you tree is 6-feet or taller, it must be cut in half.

Everyone else can drop off their Christmas trees by the Polo Fields in Zilker Park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the following days:

Probably no surprise that the guy credited with distributing gifts to millions of kids is getting more tech savvy. Here are some ways to track Santa's flight path on the WWW.

The official NORAD Santa Tracker is going mobile. Not only can you follow Saint Nick's path on their website, but you can also follow his progress on your cell phone by visiting m.noradsanta.org or doing a search for "Santa" on your smartphone's Google Maps app.

While states like California and Washington debate the merits of legalizing marijuana for recreational use, Texas State Rep. Elliot Naishtat (D-Austin) couldn't even get a hearing on his conservative medical pot bill. Naishat's proposal wouldn't legalize marijuana, but it would permit judges and juries not to send legitimately sick people to jail if they're caught puffing weed on the advice of a doctor.

Ever notice how the volume on your TV seems to get louder when the commercials come on? The US Congress sure did. And earlier this month it passed the CALM Act, which orders the Federal Communications Commission to figure out how to make it stop.

In case you haven't been able to explore all the Christmas lights in Austin, here are some YouTube videos of local light displays from this year. Should you feel inspired, you can follow this map to see more great light displays in person.

Round Rock resident John Storms has received a lot of attention for his LED display that is synced to music. It was featured nationally on Good Morning America and Storms was interviewed locally on Fox 7.

Here are some of his sequences.

Ever see flashing red and blue lights of a police cruiser on your block and wonder what they are doing over there? Here's how to find out.

The Austin Police Departments' Public Information office is open during normal business hours. You can start by calling them directly at 512-974-5017.

If they are unable to help you, or it's after hours, try contacting the APD division that covers your neighborhood.  You can find that list here.

The University of Texas system is filled with experts researching a wide range of topics, but coordinating them to help the tens of thousands of Texans living with physical disabilities is no easy task. Just ask UT Health professor Lex Frieden. He was handed that responsibility at the beginning of the month. But says he is up for the job. Lex has lived in a wheelchair most of his life, and was one of the architects of the Americans with Disabilities Act.