Unless you've just returned from a sabbatical taken underneath a rock, you'll have heard the news that Joe Horn, the Pasadena man who shot and killed two men who were robbing his neighbor's house, was cleared of any crimes by a grand jury yesterday. The decision came after seven months of private deliberation and public debate over a case that could have serious repercussions and set legal precedents for years to come. The facts are......

Monday's edition of the Houston Chronicle reported that the Houston Police Department has been moderately successful in their latest venture to stop crime by curbing…shopping cart theft. Apparently, Grand Theft Shopping Cart is much more of a social problem than we gave could have conceived. According to HPD’s South Central Patrol Division, putting a stop to shopping cart theft is the first step to stopping more serious crimes. And here we thought we should......

What does a property owner do when metal thieves show up and start stealing wire? Build a fence, maybe — or, if you're Magnolia bar owner Kelly Plunkett, hire armed guards ordered to shoot anyone trying to make off with some potential scrap. Ah, Texas justice. Not that we can really blame Plunkett: Earlier this month, a copper thief struck his Montgomery's Club and Grill on FM 1488, stealing about a thousand feet of copper......

>> City offers $15.5M for possible stadium site: The Chronicle reports that the city has said it'll pay more than $15.5 million for five downtown blocks that could become the site of a stadium for the Dynamo. The parcel is bounded by Texas and Walker on the north and south and Dowling and Hutchins on the east and west; it's just east of the Lofts at the Ballpark and immediately south of a vast......

• A Fort Bend County student has been accused of bringing a 9mm gun to school. The student was immediately expelled. • Two teens have been arrested after carjacking a family from their Cadillac Escalade at First Colony Mall. • Authorities are looking for a man claiming to be a police officer who attacked a 15 year old girl at a park in the 6400 block of Rustling Elms Drive back on November 18th.......

• 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......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • The parents of missing Rice student, Matthew Wilson have added $10,000 of their own money to the reward for information leading to his whereabouts. The total reward amount is now $25,000. This includes $5000 from Crime Stoppers and $10,000 from Rice University. If you have information, please contact Crime Stoppers at 713.222.TIPS • A man was ejected from his car and killed......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • Recent Katy Freeway closures are sure to cause a few headaches. As of 10 p.m., Friday night, the Katy Freeway eastbound ramp to Beltway 8 northbound will be closed until April 2008. The westbound ramp to Beltway 8 northbound will be closed until August 2008. • Three Houston area residents have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for breach of contract because they......

The question that has burned in men's minds since 2000, invading their slumber and disturbing their very ability to enjoy music, has finally been answered emphatically. It was Jerome Mathis, wideout and kick returner for the Texans, who let the dogs out. Mathis was given a citation by Brazoria County authorities on Saturday when four of his pit bulls were menacing neighbors near his home in Manvel. Animal control officers were able to intervene without......

Good morning, Houston. We heard a few weeks ago about a bat infestation at TSU, but now there's something else happening in the halls of academia: a bee infestation at UH. It seems 100,000 of the industrious little critters have taken up residence in the walls of the Cullen College of Engineering, but rather than exterminate, the university is planning to move the bees to a wooded section of campus. Beekeeper Mike Knuckley will......

At Chuck E Cheese, a kid can be a kid. Not so, however, in Harris County, where we prosecute more teens as adults than do four other heavily populated Texas counties....combined. Judges and prosecutors think we can expect the number of teens in prison to increase in the coming years as well, since recent sex scandals at the Texas Youth Commission (the juvenile hall end of the law) have led to a new rule where......

Good morning, Houston. Have you ever wondered why our freeways have multiple names — for example, I-45 south of downtown is also called the Gulf Freeway, the section through downtown is the Pierce Elevated and the part north of downtown is the North Freeway? Yeah, we have, too — and it seems we're not alone: The Chronicle's Tex-Arcana column tackled that question this weekend. The answer? In Houston, at least, the names tell where......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Keyboard Reviews Dwight Silverman over at The Chronicle has reviewed a couple of keyboards. One from Microsoft and another from Logitech. Check out his article for the lowdown on this new hardware. Raawwr! Leopard Unleashed The latest OS from Mac, Leopard 10.5 is on the loose. JKOnTheRun, Dwight Silverman and Dr. Mac have all recently run articles on this revolutionary new operating system from Apple. Metro......

With so many fun and interesting gallery openings this evening, we thought we would briefly give you a few options and let you, dear readers, decide which one to attend...or maybe gallery hopping is your thing! Eating, drinking, being merry, viewing art and what-not. Either way, there is much interesting work on view this beautiful fall evening in Houston. First up is the opening of Jack Zajac A Survey: 1967-2007 at Gremillion & Co. Gallery.......

Good morning, Houston. You might not remember it, but many local beaches used to be much wider than they are now — and soon, they'll be that wide again, thanks to a multimillion-dollar restoration project that's going to be announced today. The project will widen three miles of eroded beaches west of the Seawall in Galveston, Sylvan Beach in La Porte and other beaches in Surfside; the goal is to combat the erosion that's......

Good morning, Houston. Looks like there's another tropical disturbance out in the Gulf of Mexico — this one is called Invest 90L, and it looks like it could be headed for the upper Texas coast. The Chron's Eric Berger is keeping an eye on the system, which is located west of Florida and is headed in a general northwesterly direction; Berger reports that it could become a tropical storm by tomorrow, but isn't likely......

Good morning, Houston. In the mood for a really, really bad promotional video? It's your lucky day: May we introduce you to "The Metro Report", a quasi-Colbert Report-style production in which a host, Elliot Roberts, "interviews people on the street" about why they love riding public transportation. Which makes us wonder: Where'd Metro find all these people? Oh, right, they're actually actors — and, according to KTRK's Wayne Dolcefino, this bit of self-promotion cost......

Good morning, Houston. We just don't understand the entertainment juggernaut (or is it "juggernette?") that is Hannah Montana: Tickets to her Nov. 11 Toyota Center show sold out in five minutes Saturday, and now they're going for as much as $1,275 on eBay — granted, that's for a set of four tickets, but still, wow. The markup through eBay and ticket brokers has left some parents shelling out big bucks to give their kids......

Good morning, Houston. Next time you happen to be walking along Northwood Drive in Baytown — and really, we can't imagine why you would be — be sure to use the sidewalk. If you don't, you could end up being slapped with a $150 citation. It happened to Clifton Stewart, a minister who said he moved to the neighborhood to save money; on Aug. 21, Stewart was cited for violating a state law that......

Man, this is getting repetitive. While the Rockets will never be mistaken for the 06-07 Cincinnati Bengals, this certainly has been a productive off season for law enforcement personnel when Rockets players are around. The latest player to run into trouble with Johnny Law is recently-acquired forward Justin Reed, who was arrested last night in Jackson, Mississippi for misdemeanor marijuana possession. Reed played for the Minnesota Timberwolves last season, and was brought to Houston in......

This time, the weapon wasn't just spittle. Less than a month after being arrested in Houston for allegedly spitting on a parking attendent, Rockets point guard Rafer Alston is facing more serious charges in New York after an altercation in a club last night. According to the police report, Alston slashed another man's neck at the club; he has been charged with felony assault. The New York tabloids have all the gory details, which can......

Victor Montano, a sixteen-year-old Houstonian, was hit and killed by a police vehicle in New Orleans. He had been visiting the city for about two weeks. Police caught Montano spray painting along the floodwall last Thursday afternoon. When he saw the police, he took off running and the officer followed in his SUV. The officer said it appeared as though Victor was going to jump over a fence, but when tripped and fell in front......

A bullet was fired through a window at KPFT world headquarters in Montrose around 1 a.m. this morning, narrowly missing a woman's head. Fortunately, no one was actually injured in the incident. Pictures of the window were posted on the KPFT blog within hours. In the same blog post, station manager Duane Bradley indicated what seems to be the consensus, that he believes the station was expressly targeted by the unidentified shooter: Security considerations will......

The latest in urban plight: copper theft. HPD Captain Caesar Moore, who oversees the burglary and theft division, told KUHF that they see about 250 metal-related thefts a month. Oftentimes, the copper is stolen from air conditioning units at churches, and Moore explained how this typically goes down: Usually it's drug related. They'll steal an air conditioning unit, the metal out of it and they may get $40 up to $80 for the copper parts......

Apparetly, the troubles at the HPD crime lab aren't quite over yet: An analyst in the lab was suspended last week, accused of improperly handling evidences, which means that police will have to review about 200 narcotics cases. The analyst, whom the Chronicle identifies as James K. Carpenter, reportedly "was not handling evidence in compliance with lab protocols," which led investigators with the police department's Internal Affairs Division to check out the lab last week.......

Good morning, Houston. In case you haven't noticed, it's finally hot. We've had temperatures in the high 90s so far this week, and coupled with high humidity, they're making it dangerously warm — so much so, in fact, that we were under a heat advisory yesterday. And it looks like today's temperatures will be about the same, so remember to avoid heat exhaustion by drinking plenty of fluids, avoiding strenuous outdoor activities in the......

Rafer Alston is spitting mad. He was mad, he admits, Sunday night when he got into a shouting match with a downtown parking attendant who was threatening to tow his car. But what has the erstwhile "Skip To My Lou" pissed today is that he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor public intoxication and assault as a result of the confrontation. The arrest record accuses him of expectorating on the parking attendant and being drunk......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. When/where is it ever appropriate/cool to wear a band's t-shirt? Obviously not to their concert, but should you be a certain distance away from where the band is known/popular? I would think the goal would be to evangelize to people who don't know they exist. Also, I have a Phil Collins concert T from the early 90's. How should I destroy it? --Mason......

Good morning, Houston. Sure, we've had a lot of rain, but there haven't been any hurricane scares yet — so it's pretty easy to overlook the fact that we're headed into the peak of the 2007 hurricane season. Not that easy, though: The Chronicle's Eric Berger reminds us that there's still some storm activity in the Atlantic, including a system 650 miles east about 650 miles east of the southern Windward Islands that could......

Tokyo Police Club @ Meridian We love when a band with critical-acclaim like Tokyo Police Club stops by the Bayou City. Sure, albeit on a Monday night, probably headed to or from Austin, but we are glad to have them nonetheless. We caught TPC at a few festivals this year and every set we've seen has been stellar, even in the hot, hot heat of a 2:00pm set time at Cocahella, they still got the......