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. 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. If you've ever been to Rich's, the dance club in midtown, you probably won't be surprised to hear that the crowd there Saturday was sporting "feather boas, glittering hair accessories, sparkling dresses and tutus." But exactly who was in the crowd might take you by surprise: It was a bunch of kids there for Baby Loves Disco, part of a national series of dance events that benefit childhood cancer research. (In......

Tuesday, August 7 at 2pm is the last chance for the public to speak about the pending historic landmark status of the River Oaks Shopping Center, River Oaks Theater, Alabama Shopping Center, and Alabama Theater in front of City Council. Members of the public must sign up to speak by 12pm Tuesday by calling the City Secretary Anna Russell (713-247-1840), and people who have already spoken to City Council on this issue may not do......

We love getting the dirt on City Hall by reading the Chronicle's NewsWatch: City Hall blog. But it's usually not quite as titillating as something Matt Stiles put up yesterday: the story of a pink sex toy found in a men's room at the City Hall Annex. Stiles found out about the discovery when he got to his office yesterday: a police officer, a janitor and two security guards were huddled around a trash can......

Good morning, Houston. If you ever stop to think about all the ordinances in effect in the city — admit it, you do — you probably wonder just how much space all those laws would take up if they were written down. Well, now we know: around 5,000 pages. That tidbit comes from the Chronicle's Matt Stiles, who recently reported that the city approved a new three-year contract with the Municipal Code Corp. of......

Just a couple of days after the Chronicle's Matt Stiles reported that HPD was still ticketing drivers for having license plate frames despite a new law meant to prevent them from doing so, Mayor Bill White said the police department should knock if off, calling the practice of writing tickets for obstructed license plates a "gotcha system." The 2003 law that technically allowed police to ticket drivers for having obscured plates was apparently intended to......

City Council candidate Roy Morales probably has more important things to do than deal with a signmaker who has accused him of not paying $1,000 he owed for signs made during the 2005 election. The printer, Michael Franks, says that Morales also owes him $4,000 from this year's election. Morales didn't deny that he owed Franks the money. The Morales campaign told ABC's Miya Shay that they were working out a payment plan with the......

And could there be anything more exciting? Good news: the new budget will allow for increased funding for the police and fire departments. Some of these funds will pay for new police cadet classes for the understaffed department and for the firefighters' recent raise. Health care costs are also expected to go up, while the entire budget will go up less than 4%. Overall, it is likely that there will be little for most people......

The Chronicle's Matt Stiles brings us the locations of the city's 10 newest red-light cameras, a couple of which we had already noticed — while lawfully stopping at red lights, we might add. And here they are: Northbound Wayside at Gulf Freeway Northbound Woodridge at Gulf Freeway Northbound West Bellfort at Southwest Freeway Northbound Fairbanks N. Houston at Northwest Freeway Northbound West Sam Houston Parkway South at Westpark Eastbound FM 2351 at Gulf Freeway Eastbound......

The Chronicle's update on fund-raising among candidates for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' former at-large City Council seat probably has Melissa Noriega feeling pretty good: Noriega, it seems, has raised about four times as much as her two closest competitors in the race. Noriega — the wife of state Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Houston), has raised more than $100,000 in total and still has more than half that in the bank headed toward the May 12 election. That's 10......

If The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation does end up losing its West Dallas Avenue land, it's clear it won't happen quietly: Yesterday, about 200 of The Center's residents, board members and supporters made the scene at City Hall, holding banners outside the building and packing the City Council chamber to make their side of the story heard. The Center, you'll remember, is concerned over news that the city wants to seize the land......

Good morning, Houston. The good thing about having a lovers' spat is that there's almost always someone else out there having one that's far worse — take, for example, the story of a Conroe quarrel that led to a woman ramming her ex-boyfriend's car. Thomas Young-Davis told police that his ex got upset that he had a new girlfriend, so she followed him to a gas station yesterday afternoon, backed into his car twice......

The Chronicle's Matt Stiles and KTRK's Miya Shay reported earlier this week on the "courtesy" program that allows certain local elected officials to park free at Houston's airports, noting that more than 100 city officials, state legislators and members of Congress have racked up around $100,000 in free parking under the perk. Officials have been offered the free parking since the 1980s; it's intended for use during official business, but some of the instances were......

One of the big topics around Houston last year — among people who care about such things, anyway — was that the flood of hurricane evacuees who came here in late 2005 would push the city's population over 2.1 million, which would trigger a provision in the city charter calling for the addition of two City Council districts. Officials were waiting on the results of a Census Bureau estimate released during the summer before they......

What do you get when you cross Chron.com with Houston city government? A delicious new blog. Finally, the Chronicle has tapped the market of people who want to know everything that goes on at City Hall - we're talking seven posts a day worth. In all seriousness, we're excited about the new blog, especially its "On the Agenda" feature. Matt Stiles is the official City Hall blogger, but we already have four posts today from......