Hola, Houston. It's rodeo time. Everyone get happy. Throw ya hands in the air if you love Hannah Montana! Musical acts like Montana, rather the lack of Tejano acts on the rodeo bill, are just what have folks around Houston up in arms. Former State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos is calling for "friends across the whole great state of Texas not to attend the Houston livestock show, period." According to the ABC13.com story, the issue......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • An experimental pediatric heart pump is being tested in 12 hospital clinical trials including Texas Children's Hospital. • The state Democratic primary will be missing one name on the upcoming ballot. That name will be Dennis Kucinich. • A Harris County Sheriff's office captain has been accused of sexual harassment and has been relieved of duty Friday. • Ten years after annexation,......

• The woman who left her six children home alone while she ran off to Africa to meet a man she met on the internet is headed back home. Shanell Monique Mosley has been charged with child endangerment and abandonment and authorities will be waiting for her when she arrives. • A man who backed up into an HPD car during a car chase last night after a traffic stop got away by fleeing......

Good morning, Houston. So you say you're a Dynamo fan, eh? Well, here's your chance to prove it: The back-to-back MLS champs are auctioning off a chance to get close to the team's two MLS cups — literally. If you win the auction, the cups will be dropped off at your house on Christmas Eve and picked up Dec. 26; in between, you can do whatever you want with 'em (within reason, of course).......

Good morning, Houston. Did you know that we're now in a bold new Fluorescent Age thanks to Mayor Bill White and his colleagues in Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and El Paso? The collective His Honors gathered in San Antonio on Friday to name the compact fluorescent bulb the "state bulb of Texas." If that doesn't make you want to switch to CFLs, try this: December is Compact Fluorescent Light Month in Texas. What's so......

Good morning, Houston. If you're hoping that the United States will one day be free of its dependence on foreign natural gas — and we're sure at least one of you is — this isn't your lucky day: According to a report from the Energy Forum at Rice University's Baker Institute, there's no end in sight to our use of imported gas. Natural gas accounted for 22 percent of total primary energy use in......

Good morning, Houston. There's nothing quite like a building implosion to lift our spirits at the beginning of the week — if, of course, it's a building we won't miss. That happened to be the case with the Crowne Plaza hotel in the Medical Center, which was reduced to rubble Sunday; click the link for video from KHOU. (Be prepared to wait — there's a lot of buildup to the big moment in Channel......

Good morning, Houston. It's November now, and you know what that means: We're at the beginning of nearly two straight months of Christmas. Retailers put their holiday decorations up early in hopes that shoppers will see them and get in the buying mood — but will it work? Not necessarily, if most shoppers are like Sharon Baker, who the Chron found at Macy's downtown. "I do like Christmas, but I need time to celebrate......

Good morning, Houston. Seriously, what is it with North Texas these days? Yesterday we had the story of the 18-wheeler full of human heads, and today there's the Fort Worth man who accidentally shot himself in both legs in his cubicle at work. According to police, the 47-year-old man put his .45-caliber gun into his jacket pocket Tuesday morning, then draped his jacket over the back of his chair at an insurance office. When......

Good morning, Houston. Noticed a sharp increase in the number of mosquitoes this summer? You will, observers say — and now, Harris County's first confirmed 2007 human case of West Nile virus has been reported. Break out the insect repellent, check up on the West Nile symptoms and do your best not to get stung — although, these days, we guess that's about like saying "stay out of the humidity." >>A break in Gearen......

Anyone who's been to Crystal Beach knows it can be busy — but is it dangerous? We wouldn't have thought so, but we might have to think again after a woman was found raped and murdered on the beach early Sunday morning. The victim was 28-year-old Bridgette Gearen of Orange, who was visiting friends at a beachhouse near the corner of Crystal Beach and Redfish roads. After they spent Saturday at the beach, the group......

By now, you might have already seen the video floating around the Internet that seems to show a toddler who has been given ecstasy. If not, you can check it out here — just be prepared to see a lot of stupidity. In short, it's a video that first appeared on YouTube (it's since been removed); it shows the child sitting on the floor of a van, eyes rolling, as she's tapped, squeezed and slapped......

Good morning, Houston. We all know there are some perennially bad traffic spots around town — seriously, we all know — and now one of our local traffic nightmares has made Forbes' list of America's worst traffic traps. The spot is the Katy Freeway/West Loop interchange, which Forbes says costs drivers a whopping 25 million-plus hours of delays each year. That makes the 10/610 interchange the second worst in the country, by Forbes' reckoning,......

We guess Jacquelyn Woods has learned a lesson or two: She was arrested last week after trying to use a stolen credit card to buy some rims — and then making a really ill-fated attempt to run from the cops. According to KTRK, Woods showed up Monday at Cartronix, an auto accessory shop, wanting to buy some expensive rims. Red flags went up with the store staff when Woods wanted to pay using a credit......

Police had to subdue two area men with Tasers overnight — and one of them died after being shocked, though it's not known yet whether the Taser actually had anything to do with the man's death. The incident after which the man died happened at the Charleston Court Apartments in the 7600 block of Gulfton. Authorities were called to the complex around 10:15 p.m. after the suspect walked into an apartment — it's not clear......

KTRK breaks out its magical Crime Tracker again to let us know where in the Houston area we're most likely to have our cars broken into — and the answer makes us want to steer clear of Cloverleaf for a while (which shouldn't be too hard). The east Harris County community was at the epicenter of a cluster of auto burglaries, Channel 13 found. And though police have targeted burglars in the area, they haven't......

Let's face it: In a big city, there are places where you wouldn't be surprised if you were robbed — but we wouldn't expect a cemetery to be one of them. And yet KTRK reports that several mourners at the Houston National Cemetery have found themselves victims of thieves in the last few months. Karen Brady is one of those victims: Her purse was stolen from her unlocked car while she and her family were......

A series of developments and twists over the weekend brought the case of murdered Texas A&M student Tynesha Stewart to a grisly point: Investigators said there would definitely be no search for her remains because there aren't any remains to be found. "There are no remaining body parts," Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas said in a news conference Saturday night. "We have determined through this investigation that the defendant dismembered the victim and burned her......

The latest development in the murder of Texas A&M student Tynesha Stewart: Yesterday, Harris County sheriff's officials announced that they will not search area landfills for her body, saying that finding the body would be "virtually impossible." Meanwhile, sheriff's investigators did finally get a confession from Stewart's ex boyfriend, Timothy Wayne Shepherd, who on Wednesday had led police to a Dumpster where he told activist Quanell X he disposed of Stewart's body after killing her.......

The ex-boyfriend of missing Texas A&M student Tynesha Stewart was charged with murder this morning after he led police investigators to a dumpster where he said he put Stewart's body. The ex, 27-year-old Timothy Wayne Shepherd, hasn't made a formal confession and reportedly isn't cooperating with police now, but activist Quanell X said he did confess to him. Stewart disappeared a week ago while she was spending Spring Break at her mother's apartment. She left......

Houstonist has often seen the signs pointing the way to Fulshear and wondered what was going on out there — and now we know: Alleged carport theft! Seems Fulshear Mayor James W. Roberts has been indicted on charges of theft, official oppression and attempted official oppression related to a pair of carports that were removed from a resident's property. According to reports, the city was trying to get rid of the carports as part of......

The Harris County sheriff's office is investigating what was apparently a murder-suicide in southwest Harris County yesterday afternoon: Seems a woman and her ex-boyfriend got into an argument in the ex's driveway, and he ended up shooting her and then turning the gun on himself. Neighbors dialed 911 when they heard the first gunshots, and deputies say the man shot himself in the head as they drove up: "As the units approached the house, they......

Considering how much some Texans love their guns, it's surprising that we don't hear about accidental self-shootings more often than we do. But really, you can go for months without a single incident, and then bam — or, we suppose, bang — you get a really good one. The incident in question happened yesterday afternoon at Gay Pontiac on the Gulf Freeway in Dickinson. The victim: an off-duty Harris County Sheriff's Office reserve major and......

A guy sneaking around a south Harris County bar last night made a fatal mistake when he pretended to pull a gun on a pistol-totin' Texan: The guy ended up being shot to death in what police believe was a case of self-defense. It happened about 9 p.m. at P&C Place in the 14600 block of Almeda, where Harris County officials report the dead man was seen sneaking around the bar last night and peeking......

Remember the story of Terressa Vanegas, the Dickinson High School student who disappeared on Halloween and whose body was later found in a field near the high school? The story just got a little weirder: It seems Vanegas' best friend, Kimberlee Ramsey of Bacliff, has been missing for a week and a half. Ramsey was last seen leaving her home in the 4600 block of 7th Street in Bacliff the evening of Oct. 29. Interestingly......

A city dump truck driver crashed into a car, injured two people and killed another yesterday morning — apparently because he lost control of his truck, the Chronicle reports. The driver was trying to turn from Atascocita Road onto Will Clayton Parkway at around 11 a.m., but the truck kept going on Atascocita, hitting a Jeep Cherokee and the two workers who were building a handicap ramp at the intersection. According to KHOU, the Harris......

So yesterday, we told you about the K9 cop that bit a girl at Madison High, and today, we have the unfortunate story of a 4-month-old boy who was attacked by his dad's police dog. If we learn that police dogs are conspiring to rise up and kill us all, remember: You heard about it on Houstonist first. It happened at about 3 p.m. yesterday near Cleveland, where Marek Montgomery was sitting in a chair......

From this weekend's bizarre news file comes the story of Jeremy Barfield, the Klein High School baseball star who was drafted by the New York Mets — and was arrested Sunday morning after allegedly pushing his dad down a flight of stairs. It apparently started with an argument between Jeremy and his dad, Jesse Barfield, a former MLB All-Star and Astros coach: "(Jeremy) and his father had some kind of argument that apparently took place......

Sean Brown, one of the teens charged with murdering 16-year-old Ashton Glover waived his extradition rights yesterday in a Michigan court and will be brought back to Texas. Brown and Matt McCombs, both 18 and both of Sugar Land, were caught trying to flee to Canada through Michigan on July 12. McCombs was brought back to Fort Bend County last month and confessed to killing Glover on July 7 out of "morbid curiosity." Brown, on......

Jon Matthews, one of Houston's AM talk radio staples from the mid-eighties on to 2003, has volated his probation and surrendered to the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department, reports the Chronicle. Conservative former Marine Matthews, who received a 7 year deferred-adjudication sentence 2 years ago when he pled guilty to exposing himself to an 11 year old girl, violated his probation, which required that he abstain from alcohol and from looking at "sexually obscene material".......