Some of today's brightest new acts are releasing albums today. MGMT’s major label debut, Oracular Spectacular, is out in stores today after being available on iTunes since last year. The title of this album kind of speaks for itself; the young duo concocts some of the dreamiest, glammiest rock sounds your ears will ever come across. -Read an album review in Pitchfork -Watch the interactive music video for the song, “Electric Feel” -The Wall Street......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • A bicyclist was killed early Friday evening after being struck by a van on Old Katy Road. • A new three million dollar ad campaign to enhance the city's image is set to launch in February. The ad campaign will feature celebrities such as Beyonce and heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley. Expect to see these ads in The Wall Street Journal, USA......

Good morning, Houston. Looks like our freewheeling land-use policies have gotten some national attention: The Wall Street Journal has a story focusing on the proposed residential tower at Bissonnet and Ashby. "The condo-tower dustup is just the latest in a string of odd situations allowed by Houston's lenient land-use rules," the article explains. "Rowdy cantinas, rock-crushing operations and commercial dumps sometimes pop up in residential neighborhoods. Condo towers sprout next to schools. A pay-by-the-hour......

If you didn't see Jeff Skilling's interview with The Wall Street Journal on Saturday, here's what you missed: He thought about killing himself, became resolved to live when federal prosecutors went after him, thinks he helped convict himself and maintains he's not guilty. "I've come to the conclusion that life is better than the alternative, which was not a conclusion that was real clear to me for a period of time," Skilling told the Journal.......

By now, we've all heard a lot (and a lot of the same) about yesterday's Enron verdict — and all this, of course, is only the beginning as we enter four months of speculation about Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling's sentencing and the appeals the ex-execs are certain to file. But in the meantime, there's still some wrapping up to do from yesterday, beginning with Lay and Skilling's reaction to their convictions on charges of......

Former Enron Chairman Ken Lay continued spinning his story of innocence at his trial yesterday, maintaining that Enron's collapse was the fault of ex-CFO Andy Fastow, short sellers and the financial journalists at The Wall Street Journal. Lay stressed that be believed Enron was doing just fine, which means he couldn't possibly have been lying to people when he told them things were OK at the company even as it was sliding toward corporate doom......

As expected, former Enron Chairman Ken Lay blamed others for his company's downfall on Monday, his first day of testimony in his and ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's trial. Lay said theft by former CFO Andy Fastow, a conspiracy of short sellers and The Wall Street Journal combined to create a "run on the bank" that ruined what was the country's seventh-largest company in 2001 — and then he pulled a classic "I'm responsible, but not......

As the so-called "trial of the century" (at least by Houston standards) gets rolling today, the techno-crazy Houston Chronicle keeps us up to the second with two new blogs: Legal Commentary, in which attorneys give insight into the legal wranglings of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, and TrialWatch, which gives Chron staffers the chance to tell us what's going on at the courthouse, right now. From TrialWatch, we learn that reporters from Bloomberg were the......