Good morning, Houston. Remember the city's smoking ban, which went into effect in September? Well, so does KPRC. The station checked around and found something that will shock you to your very core: Houstonians are still smoking in bars and restaurants! No, really. One of the bars Channel 2 visited was Henry Hudson's Pub on the west side, where reporters found customers and the bartender smoking — and "we even bought a pack of......

Good morning, Houston. Hot weather? Rain? Another week in our cube farm? Looks like Houstonist has a case of the Mondays. We'd better just move on to the news ... >> Mayor: I'll find money to keep day-labor site open: A spokesman for Mayor Bill White said Friday that the mayor will help find $100,000 to fund a day-labor site after city officials voted to cut its public funding. Critics of the site, which......

We rang in 2007 with a mixed message about Houston's crime rate: Though the homicide rate reached a 12-year high in 2006, instances of other crimes decreased last year. Today, thanks to KTRK's mystical Crime Tracker, we know a little more about exactly how those stats break down — and in short, things are better in the notorious Fondren/southwest district, but not so good on the east side. The Crime Tracker found that the Fondren......

A group of downtown residents gathered last night to talk with city leaders about what development that they'd like to see in their 'hood — and, not surprisingly, at the top of their list were more retail markets and fewer nightclubs. "I'm sick of seeing [downtown] slide, going into a burlesque environment," Annette McBride, who has lived downtown for more than 10 years, said. City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado agreed that the clubs can be a......

Remember Patricia Gutierrez and Melissa Rojas, the two women who were killed when they drove into a flooded underpass during the flooding a couple of weeks ago? Finally, the spot where they died is getting some markers that could keep more people from getting stuck in high water there — though it's not clear to us exactly how effective they'll be. TxDOT announced this weekend that the underpass at the Gulf Freeway and Tellepsen......

A new report on the dangers of second-hand smoke has authorities across the country scrambling to strengthen their local smoking ordinances — including Houston, where City Council could push for a ban in all public buildings when the ordinance comes up for review in September. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said yesterday that there's evidence that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than previously thought, especially to children. "Second-hand smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is......

Hundreds of Houston-area students skipped school today to participate in rallies protesting tighter restrictions on immigration, some of them determined to march all the way from Missouri City to downtown. Among them were about 100 students from Jeff Davis High School, a few hundred from Austin and Sam Houston highs, 65 from Alief Hastings and nearly 100 from Eisenhower. A Davis student, Hector Arguelles, distributed a flyer giving a description of pending federal legislation that......

One of the city employees involved in the bonus scandal in the mayor pro tem's office gave an interview to KPRC this afternoon, very vaguely pointing the finger at Mayor Pro Tem and City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado. Florence Watkins, who has worked for the city for nearly 12 years, said she knew she was wrong for taking a share of $130,000 in unauthorized pay bonuses, but she thought she had earned the money. Her salary......