The Country Houses of John F. Staub Stephen Fox Color Photography by Richard Cheek Texas A&M University Press Houston Texas – 1930’s. By the first quarter of the 20th century, Houston had made a dramatic evolution from the dusty southern outpost of the late 19th century into (basically) the city we know today. Industry was in full swing and there was a growing class of socialites moving into town, the Weiss’s, Farish’s, and Dow’s......

Houston City Council Member M.J. Khan of District F will be traveling to Doha, Qatar April 6-13 as a representative of the State Department's Speaker and Specialist Program. Council Member Khan will be meeting with local businessman, dignitaries, academics, students, and politicians from the region. During these visits, he will discuss topics ranging from Houston council business to the American political process and living as a Muslim in the United States. He will visit students......

What's Governor Perry doing in the Middle East? Lone Star Times has the scoop. His first order of business was to help dedicate a new Texas A&M University campus in Qatar. The campus takes up a sprawling 2,500 acres and is part of a deal between the Qatar Foundation and A&M to provide a full, four-year degree program in mechanical, electrical, chemical and petroleum engineering. We wonder if it'll make Qatar's top party schools list.......

Aggie President Dr. Robert Gates has accepted President Bush's nomination for Secretary of Defense in the wake of former Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation. Rumsfeld announced his resignation on Wednesday in the wake of the large Republican losses in Tuesday's midterm election. Gates is no stranger to the Intelligence and Defense arenas or politics. He began his career in 1966 as a CIA analyst and moved up from there eventually serving as the Director of Central Intelligence......

Texas A&M University has announced that educational content from a variety of classes will be made available via iTunes U to the general public. A&M is the first university in Texas to offer "coursecasts," podcasts of classroom-type content, to folks not affiliated with the university. In order to "Click. Sync. Learn. Gig'em," interested parties must first download and install iTunes before launching TAMU on iTunes U. It's so easy even a caveman an Aggie can......

You may remember the problems that Baytown's grand old tree on Texas Avenue has endured - poisoning, threats from the axe, car crashes — now, we can add termites to the list. Formosan termites, which could prove to be deadly, have infested the tree and consist of workers, which are an off-white color, tear-shaped soldiers, and winged termites, which have dense golden hair — not your typical goldilocks. Exterminating supplies, installation, and follow-up have been......

It's time to put an end to those visions of sugarplums that have been dancing in your head all weekend — instead, let's talk about everyone's favorite topic: urban sprawl! The Chronicle reported Monday that some planners believe there may be almost no open space left in Harris County in 30 years. That's based partly on those 2 million people expected to move into the county by 2035 (3.5 million in the metro area)......