::Houston NetSquared Meet Up:: The Houston Chapter of NetSquared returns tonight to kick-off another year of fascinating speakers. The Houston group recently got national props from Social Change advocate, Britt Bravo. Keep up the great work, guys! We are really excited to start the 2008 year with a wonderful guest speaker!! Kelly McCann, longtime advocate and CEO of the AIDS Foundation Houston, Inc., will be speaking about her work promoting AIDS awareness, prevention education. Kelly......

The Chronicle reported yesterday on Harris County's plans to demolish two of its buildings to make way for another amazing county plaza. Fair enough — the county has a lot of buildings, and apparently we could always use another plaza. The problem is that the two structures that are potentially on the chopping block — the former District Attorneys Building at 201 Fannin and the Family Law Center at 1115 Congress — happen to be......

So a man named Willie Joe McAdams was arrested Thursday during a traffic stop at Main and Hillcroft — at first glance, not so unusual. But what makes this arrest different is that McAdams was picked up so he can return to jail: Two and a half months ago, McAdams was accidentally released from state prison 36 years early. Oops. McAdams was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2004 for shooting Cedric Thomas in......

Good morning, Houston. Been missing the Texas Cyclone since it was torn down last year? Then you'll be happy to know about the Boardwalk Bullet, a nearly 100-foot-tall wooden roller coaster set to open this summer at the Kemah Boardwalk. Tim Anderson, Kemah Boardwalk manager, said the Bullet will have more crossovers than any other wooden coaster in the world, and it'll be a bit taller and longer than the famed Cyclone. "It has......

Jurors heard opening arguments yesterday in the murder trial of Ashley Benton, the girl accused of stabbing a 14-year-old gang member to death at Chew Park near Montrose last summer. Benton — who was 16 at the time — was involved with the Crazy Crew gang, members of which got into a fight with members of MS-13, the gang with which Granillo was affiliated. Benton's defense attorneys told jurors Monday that she stabbed Granillo in......

In order to maintain a sense of order during the last week of school, HISD has banned the bringing of backpacks to school at the following campus'. Those miscreants trying to have fun will have to find some other means of smuggling silly string into class - or packing heat, whichever the case may be. Fortunately, duffel bags and gym bags were not mentioned in the article we read, just saying. Houstonist was particularly amused......

There are few details about it so far, but a Porter couple was arrested yesterday for helping a convicted robber escape from a Fort Worth lockup. The escapee in question is Eladio Diaz Jr., who was last seen Sunday night at the North Texas Intermediate Sanction Facility, a minimum-security compound for parole violators; Jose Chavez and his wife, Jacqueline Diaz Chavez — Eladio Diaz's sister — were arrested for allegedly helping Diaz break out. Diaz......

What could be more fun than building another Texas prison? Building one in Mexico, says Sen. Craig Estes, north Texas state senator and fertilizer magnate, in his recent Bill SB 185. The very hypothetical prisons would be intended for Mexican nationals doing time for nonviolent crimes. As reported yesterday in an AP story, Estes' argument goes roughly as follows: Texas is facing a squeeze in prison space in the near future. Since roughly five......

A new visitation policy at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is rankling some Europeans who make frequent visits to state prisons, the Chronicle reports. The policy, which limits people who travel more than 300 miles to visit a Texas prison to one "special visit" per trip — that's two four-hour sessions on consecutive days — prevents long-distance death penalty opponents from making connections with inmates, they claim, but prison officials say they're just trying......

You may have heard about the recent rash of executions that have taken place in Texas: Lamont Reese (June 20), Angel Maturino Resendiz (June 27), and Derrick O'Brien (July 11). O'Brien marked the fourteenth execution in Texas so far this year, which is getting near the 2005 grand total of nineteen. Rankings for all states can be found here - Texas is way ahead of the pack at fourteen, where Ohio and South Carolina are......

Houston thieves should forget scrap metal and go straight to the courthouse, where here have been a spate of thefts recently. In the most recent theft at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, a judge's purse was stolen from her chambers and her SUV was taken from the garage yesterday — and autthorities suspect the thief might have been one of the defendants scheduled to appear in court. The thief reportedly went into Judge Pam......

Christopher McKinney, a former state trooper, was sentenced to two years in prison today for stealing $4,900 from a motorist he stopped in 2004 Police have arrested 24-year-old Matthew White in connection with a series of arsons in the Kingwood area Dan Duncan, energy magnate and the city's wealthiest man, is giving the Baylor College of Medicine $100 million to help develop a comprehensive cancer center Police say a love triangle may have been behind......

So you've managed to coexist with MetroRail for nearly two years without running into the train? Congratulations. Now you might be electrocuted: Electrical current escaping into the ground from the Metropolitan Transit Authority's light rail tracks remains a puzzle to Metro engineers. But officials of the agency say they have plugged some of the leaks and hope to find the source of the rest soon. Houstonist was never afraid of the light rail line before......