Creatures in Cedar Park have some thinking chupacabra

“I don’t know what it is,” said Rick Cumptson, who has seen the animals in a field outside of his store, Bunk Beds Etc. “I’d never even heard of chupacabra until about two weeks ago. I started looking, trying to figure out what the hell these were.”

Photo note: This is not an image of the alleged creature seen by residents of Cedar Park, but it was in the results when we searched ‘chupacabra’ in our photo archive.

Photo: Courtesy of Robert Floyd

Lehman High School graduating class boasts 9 sets of twins

It’s not a record, but it’s pretty darn close. Lehman High School in Kyle will be graduating nine sets of twins Friday.

Photo: Ricardo B. Brazziell/AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Looking for parking downtown? New app could help

ParkMe is a free iPhone app that uses parking “heat maps” which receive real-time information from the City of Austin’s “smart” parking stations.

The app doesn’t take it down to the individual space, but the map refreshes every five minutes.

Central Texas lakes are the place for summer’s unofficial beginning

Lakes are still low, but this weekend’s predicted perfect weather won’t stop people from hitting the lakes.

Things to remember:

• Austin Police Department is having a ‘no refusal’ initiative through 5 a.m. Tuesday.
• Because of the low water levels, only one boat ramp at Mansfield Dam Park will be available to the public.
• Personal watercraft, wet bikes, motorized surfboards and similar devices are banned from sunset today to sunrise Tuesday because of the crowds expected on the lake.

These baby zebra photos are the cutest thing you will see today

Are we right or are we right?

Even better news: We have more of them here.

Check out this photo our photographer Ricardo Brazziell shot of the solar eclipse over Austin. Did you get a chance to see it Sunday evening?

Pen pals since 1949 meet up for the first time

In 1949, Joan Otto began writing to her pen pal Yoshiko Oguchi, who lived in Japan, and never stopped. For 63 years, they exchanged about six to eight letters a year. This week, they met for the first time.

“I can’t express how to feel,” Oguchi said. “We talked and talked. We just talk like human beings. We don’t worry about the countries or the ages.”

Video of their meeting is linked in the story as well.

Lake levels rise after storm but are still less than half-full

Last week’s rain helped bring up lake levels, but we still have a long way to go.

Lake levels rise with this week’s rain

The Lower Colorado River Authority says it expects Lake Travis to rise between 1.3 and 2.4 feet thanks to the rain we’ve received.

Austin adds 10 miles to proposed urban rail system

Check out the new urban rail map that was unveiled last week at a transit planning task force meeting. What do you think about the new proposed map?