>> 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......

::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......

Misty Ann Weaver, the woman charged with three counts of felony murder and one case of arson in connection with the March 28 office building fire she confessed to setting, pleaded not guilty yesterday. Weaver, 33, told investigators in April that she set the fire in the office of her boss, plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Capriotti, to cover up the fact that she hadn't finished paperwork related to an accreditation audit for the doctor. After......

Good morning, Houston. Interested in cheering on the University of St. Thomas sports teams? Now you know what to call them: the Lions, the mascot university officials settled on last week. Actually, the lion isn't the mascot — that would be the Celt — but the lion will represent the Celt. Get it? The lion was chosen over the Irish Wolfhound and the Celtic helmet. Good choice, we'd say — though we'd like to......

Good morning, Houston. If you haven't gotten a speeding ticket in the city lately, consider yourself lucky — a lot of your fellow Houston drivers have. According to a report from the National Motorists Association, Houston is the third worst speed trap in the nation (up from fifth place last year). The ranking was based on the number of Houston-related posts to the NMA's Speed Trap Exchange — which, by the way, is definitely......

Good morning, Houston. When we hear the words "concrete canoe," two other words come to mind: "doesn't float." But our instincts are wrong: Concrete canoes can be seaworthy, and one created by University of Houston engineering students floats so well that it's headed for the national concrete canoe competition in Seattle. The national contest is set for mid-June, and it could lead the team to a spot in the international competition in Holland in......

For the past 25 years, the Houston Area Survey, directed by Rice University Sociology Professor Stephen Klineberg, has been offering a timely window into the minds of Houstonians. The recently completed 2007 survey especially shows how Houston's attitudes reflect the changes in our post-Katrina city. This year, crime was the number one worry for Houston residents, but immigration is a fast-growing concern. For the second year, the number of people who believe that the racial......

A judge yesterday nearly halved the bail for Misty Ann Weaver, the nurse who confessed to setting the March 28 fire that killed three people at a northeast Houston office building. Weaver's bail had been set at $330,000, but state District Judge Michael McSpadden reduced it to $180,000 based on Harris County bail guidelines: $50,000 for each first-degree felony charge, such as felony murder, plus $30,000 for an arson charge. Weaver must post 10 percent......

Good morning, Houston. Did you read the Chronicle over breakfast this morning? We're sure the paper is thanking you: According to the Newspaper Association of America, the Chron lost 2 percent of its circulation in the six-month period ending in March. That's really not so bad compared with drops among some of the other biggest papers in the country: 3.5 percent for The Washington Post, 4.2 percent for the LA Times and a whopping......

Yesterday Mayor White announced the city's new "pay or play" proposal, which would help to provide health care to employees working on city contracts. Under this program, contractors can choose to play, which means they agree to offer a minimal level of health care benefits to full-time employees. Or if they opt to pay, they must contribute to efforts to support the local network of medical service providers that form the "safety net" for Houstonians......

Good morning, Houston. We can't remember a time when Ed Brandon wasn't on KTRK — so it'll be odd when he's not on TV anymore. As we learned from Mike McGuff yesterday, Brandon plans to retire in mid-April after 35 years in front of the weather map. McGuff has a long (and fascinating) interview with Brandon; once you've checked that out, you can leave a comment for Ed on Channel 13's website. >> Lampson......

Looks like Gov. Rick Perry's order that all Texan pre-teen girls be vaccinated against HPV could be on its way out: Yesterday, members of the House Public Health Committee approved a measure to rescind the executive order, meaning the bill will move on for consideration in the full House, where it reportedly has the support of more than 90 of the House's 150 members. Rep. Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton) filed the bill Feb. 5, three days......

Houstonist grew up in this city (for the most part), and we think we turned out fine. Right? Well, our shortcomings and hangups aside, it's dangerous to be a kid in Houston these days, according to Children at Risk President Robert Sanborn. Sanborn spoke to a group of child advocates at a summit at the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast yesterday. This is what he had to say about the state of affairs......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Gov. Rick Perry was expected to propose privatizing the Texas Lottery to generate money for health care and education, and he didn't disappoint: The governor projects that selling the lottery off to a private operator could net the state at least $14 billion, he said in his State of the State address this morning in Austin. The money would be used to form a $2.7 billion endowment for Texas' uninsured and a $3 billion fund......

Good morning, Houston. We're still a little foggy from yesterday's Super Bowl parties — and from the point in the second quarter when we started thinking about when we might see the Texans in the big game (don't try it — it'll make your head hurt, trust us). If you got your no-more-football party on, this might not be a bad time to kick back, down a hangover cure and catch up on some......

Good morning, Houston! There's some good news: If you graduated from high school, you're already ahead of a third of Texas students. Of course, that means there's also some bad news — namely, that a third of Texas students don't finish high school. And according to statistics, the situation is even worse in the state's big cities: There, more students drop out than finish high school. Elleen Coppola, a Rice University researcher, said dropouts......

Fourteen supporters of Houston's striking janitors were arrested yesterday evening after they handcuffed themselves to the entrances of the Chevron building downtown, part of a national protest against the oil company. According to the Chronicle, a group of protesters tossed garbage bags into the revolving door and around the entrance of 1500 Louisiana St., then chained themselves to the door, the skywalk and each other. Police arrived in about 15 minutes and made the arrests;......

Once again, business leaders are looking at ways to spruce up Houston’s global image between now and 2016. Does this ten-year window have anything to do with our Olympic hopes that same year? Probably. Their main focus is on creating more jobs in our major industries: Aerospace, energy and health care. We seem to have the job situation under control, though. Our big problem is outsiders’ perception of the city, which continues to focus......

A new three-year study by UH researchers will focus on drug abuse patterns among Katrina evacuees and how the hurricane might have affected them — the first study of its kind, KUHF reports. The study of 300 evacuees will also look at how Houston's health care system has helped or hurt evacuees with drug problems, information researchers hope will lead to better treatment of drug abuse after disasters. "The whole purpose of this is to......

So if you happened to visit the Houston Airport System's website yesterday, you would have been in for a surprise: For a few hours, visitors to the airport site were mysteriously redirected to an adult website. The adults-only site is owned by a producer and talent scout for Playboy. Airport System officials say they have no idea how the switch happened: "Of course, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced," HAS spokeswoman Marlene McClinton told......

In a bizarre circlular move, the state House approved a $1 hike in the state cigarette tax today, an increase expected to generate $680 million that will be used to offset lower property taxes in Gov. Rick Perry's retooled school finance plan — and the higher price of cigarettes is expected to cut smoking in Texas, which means tobacco companies will have to try harder to convince teens to buy cigarettes so they can stay......

Yesterday, Knight-Ridder Newspapers carried a wire story highlighting the tensions between Katrina evacuees and Texans — specifically Houstonians — as the Gulf Coast diaspora continues. Some Houston residents say they are growing uneasy about their "guests," following a trail of hotel rooms left ransacked by evacuees and as Houston experiences a sharp jump in its homicide rate, with at least 33 Katrina refugees being involved in 25 killings in that city. In Houston, where......

When 78-year-old Mary Zebeda's daughter called the customer service number printed on her mom's new Medicare card, she just wanted to get some answers about the health care plan. She got some service all right, but it wasn't customer service — or rather she did, in a manner of speaking: When Zebeda's daughter called the customer service number listed on the letter and her new member card, she heard the following message. "Call the Talk......