• Over a dozen people have been robbed at gunpoint on and near Lower Westheimer. HPD says that the robbers approach victims with a gun, rob them of cash, cell phones, wallets and purses and a then a black truck pulls up and the robber and accomplice speed away. • HPD has a new toy. It's a 12 ton armored truck dubbed, "The Bear" and it will be used by SWAT and can transport......

From local Houston headlines, we bring you these weekend news bits... • Ashley Benton, the 17 year old accused of murdering a 15 year old, has agreed to a plea bargain and will avoid prison time. • Former President George Bush's favorite BBQ joint, Otto's on Memorial is going to be razed to make way for new construction. There is no current date for the demise of Otto's, so go grab a Bush plate......

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. 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......

"A World of Walls Series: Do Fences Make Good Neighbors?" Rothko Chapel Lecture, by Dr. Tony Payan Walls—visible and invisible—are going up in communities, cities, and countries around the world. Tonight, the Rothko Chapel presents A World of Walls, a series exploring the cultural, political, and human rights ramifications of these human barriers. An adviser to political groups on both sides of the border, Dr. Tony Payan is an assistant professor specializing in international......

This weekend, Cy-Fair residents were surprised — we imagine that's putting it mildly, actually — when a 31-inch natural gas pipeline exploded, sending a fireball more than 100 feet into the air Saturday evening. Fortunately, the explosion was in an area not immediately near any homes, but it was close enough to make some people really jumpy. The explosion happened about two miles north of FM 529 and two miles west of Fry Road, near......

If you haven't already made lunch plans, why not go ahead and have that triple cheeseburger, large order of fries and milkshake? And why not wash it down with a giant dessert? A celebration is in order, you see: Houston has slipped to No. 6 in the Men's Fitness annual ranking of America's fattest cities. Looks like Mayor White's Jazzercise really paid off. In this year's MF rankings, Las Vegas takes the coveted title of......

But it's better than Dallas and Fort Worth. So says Fit Pregnancy magazine in their new report "The Best Cities in America to Have a Baby 2007", where we're ranked 42 out of 50. The California-based magazine assembled a board of experts that judged on criteria including affordability, health risk to mother and child, prevalence of breastfeeding, birthing options, stroller friendliness, fertility laws/resources, access to hospitals/doctors, safety, and child care. For whatever reason, the......

The Chronicle reports today that the University of Houston is taking the first steps toward starting a medical school, a move that would help address physician shortages in Texas and across the country — but could be an uphill struggle politically. The proposal for a UH medical school, drawn up by Kentucky medical school planners DJW Associates, calls for a starting class of 30 students with 15 basic sciences faculty members and six full-time clinical......

So now that Houston has passed its smoking ban, a lot of bar owners in the city are concerned that they'll lose customers to bars just outside Houston, where smoking is permitted. But they may not need to worry: If state Sen. Rodney Ellis has his way, the entire state of Texas will one day be a no-smoking zone ... so we won't die. “I mean look, there are a lot of things that will......

We've been noticing gas prices falling in our neighborhood, and apparently that's part of the trend across the area: The AAA Texas weekly gas price survey shows the average price for a gallon of unleaded gas in Houston this week was $2.06, down 3.2 cents from last week and the lowest average price of any listed in Texas. We wouldn't call it cheap yet, but it's way better than paying nearly $3 a gallon, right?......

Just when you thought you should move to Dallas Austin because all of your single friends keep telling you how kickass it is, Worldwide ERC and Primacy Relocation name Houston a top destination for relocating singles in their annual report. In fact, Texas fared well as a whole in the survey (must be our 800+ miles of I-10) with seven metropolitan areas represented. Three cities were in the Top 10: Austin (#2), Houston (#5) and......

Have you ever wondered what city had the highest average monthly calls? We knew you were thinking about it and just dying to find out, so halt your quest now Verizon Wireless has beat you to the punch. Verizon just released a study conducted on the fifty largest cities in the U.S., based on census numbers, to determine where people where making and receiving the most calls. And the top five are. . .......

Somehow we missed another of Houston's national top 10 list appearances: According to the folks at Old Spice, Houston is the ninth sweatiest city in the U.S. We suppose that explains the smell. Really, people, use some deodorant! The study estimated the amount of sweat a person of average height and weight produces walking around outdoors for an hour in a city's average high summer temperature, then ranked 100 cities based on the findings. According......

Sculptor Luis Jiménez, known for his grand works of art, left this world on Tuesday because of an accident in his Hondo, New Mexico studio. He was working on a commissioned fiberglass piece for the Denver airport. Houstonians may know him best for Vaquero, which is a tribute to cowboys that welcomes visitors to Moody Park. He was also a professor of painting and sculpture at the University of Houston. Born in El Paso, TX,......

If you're headed out to West Texas soon, you might want to pack your helmets and racing gloves: Tomorrow, the speed limit on two stretches of interstate will increase to 80 mph, the fastest posted speed in the U.S. The higher speeds will affect 521 miles of Interstates 10 and 20, from Kerrville to just east of El Paso on I-10 and from Monahans to the I-10 interchange on I-20. As Houstonist noted earlier, the......

So this moring, we have insight into the complicated philosophy by which TxDOT makes decisions about changing the speed limit on Texas highways: If everyone's already going 80, we might as well make the speed limit 80. That's what the state is proposing for sections of Interstates 10 and 20 between Kerr and El Paso counties in West Texas. Carlos Lopez, director of traffic operations for the department, said a survey of both interstates found......

Just in time for the 2006 hurricane season — which starts one month from today — thousands of officials statewide will participate in an evacuation drill tomorrow to find out how much Texas learned from the Rita evacuation debacle. The three-day drill, the first of its kind, will test the state's revamped response plan to a Category 5 hurricane hitting the Texas coast. Among the plans that will be included in this week's dry run:......

Talk about your inexplicable magazine lists: Houston has ranked No. 42 on Prevention magazine's list of America's top 100 walking cities. Huh? Prevention and the American Podiatric Medical Association recognize the country's most walker-friendly cities each year using a formula based on the percentage of adults who walk for exercise, the percentage of residents who walk to work, percentage of adults who participate in sports and/or ride public transit, the number of parks and walking......

First-day individual sales for the Rodeo were up this year, with George Strait's opening-night performance the hottest seller Thousands of people turned out downtown today to see Vince Young in a parade — oh, and to remember MLK, too Gexa Energy's lack of recognition for MLK Day is prompting calls for a boycott against the electricity provider A northeast Harris County woman ran over her granddaughter and another little girl who were playing in her......

Next time you're thinking about a trip to Dallas, don't just pack your Neiman's card — pack some heat. City Crime Rankings ranks Dallas as the fifth most dangerous city in the U.S. with a population over 500,000. Houston ranks ninth. On the overall list, not considering population, Dallas comes in 22nd most dangerous; Houston doesn't make the top 25. Of course, Dallas can explain away any difference between it and Houston by waving......