Yesterday was the second of the Super Tuesdays for this Presidential Election year and included primary elections in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont. Houstonist could careless about who wins. We're just excited to see the record turnout at the polls. We all win when that happens. Congratulations, Houston, and all you Texans that don't live in our kickass town. According to Wikipedia - stop laughing - Super Tuesday...refers to the Tuesday in February......

Good morning, Houston. Well, uh here's something you don't hear about every day — but it being Halloween and all, we couldn't resist: In Hunt County, police pulled over an 18-wheeler Sunday morning and found about two dozen human heads in the back. True story. But it's not what you think: Turns out the heads (which were embalmed) were specimens used in medical training in Fort Worth, and they were headed back to a......

Good morning, Houston. Looks like there's another tropical disturbance out in the Gulf of Mexico — this one is called Invest 90L, and it looks like it could be headed for the upper Texas coast. The Chron's Eric Berger is keeping an eye on the system, which is located west of Florida and is headed in a general northwesterly direction; Berger reports that it could become a tropical storm by tomorrow, but isn't likely......

Houston's hometown hero (and shoulda,woulda, coulda been Texan) Vince Young popped up on the NFL wire for being caught in an altercation during yesterday's training camp practice. The build up to the showdown occurred at Baptist Sports Park in Nashville, TN when S Donnie Nickey knocked down WR Joel Filani after the wideout ran the wrong route. Trainers were forced to assist Filani, and on the subsequent play Nickey threw WR Courtney Roby to......

Houstonist took it on the chin with another late night out on the town. Don't ask. What happens out there stays out there. We missed our alarm. We showed up late for work. The office coffee pot was broken so we headed to Starbucks to get a jump start. Our caffeinated bliss was tainted after we learned about the nine cent price increase that is now in effect. While we agree with Lewis Black......

As Spring teenager David Ritcheson's family heads to Mexico today to claim Ritcheson's body, a few details are emerging about when he jumped from a Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday morning. Witnesses said Rtcheson climbed up a tower near the bow of the Ecstasy about 6:15 a.m., and moments later, ship crew members showed up and began trying to negotiate with him. Friends joined in — "What the [expletive] are......

Good morning, Houston. Good news for anyone who loves to travel and have a spare $200,000 laying around: You can now buy tickets to space, with the journey set for 2009 on Richard Branson's space plane. More than 100 tickets have already been sold, and Houston travel agents Tara Hyland and Diane Vest are two of the only "Accredited Space Agents" offering them in the U.S. And yes, the tickets are $200K each. Anyone?......

Before you try to tackle President Bush and the state of the whole country tonight, you can read Mayor White's state of the city address, delivered yesterday afternoon at a Greater Houston Partnership luncheon. White, a popular and effective mayor, discussed the achievements of the city in the past year as well as goals and programs he sees for Houston's future. Among other things, Bill White mentioned the success of his Safe Clear program in......

Happy Holidays! Chances are, you're reading this the day after Christmas, back at your day job after all-too-short a holiday, and the last thing you want from us is stuff about the holidays. But that's just too bad. Because, see, here in the Ist-A-Verse, we do things ahead of time. It might be December 26 for you, but that's what you get for not checking your Favorite Local Blog on Christmas Eve. Austinist is......

So what do you do if you're an ex-president with some extra time on your hands during the holidays? One idea: become a Salvation Army bell ringer like former President Bush and Barbara did yesterday. George and Bar were kettleside outside Gallery Furniture to help increase donations — two of the Salvation Army's four U.S. regions reported last week that giving is down as much as 11 percent compared with last year. "We know we're......

A jury sentenced a teenage white supremacist to life in prison today for beating a Hispanic boy with a pipe at a party in April Two more ex-Enron executives, Michael Kopper and Mark Koenig, were sentenced today: Kopper got three years and one month; Koenig, 18 months HISD's enrollment is down by 7,000 this fall; the district blames the drop on more charter schools and people moving to the 'burbs Can anyone ever really replace......

Because Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is only going to be a congresswoman for a few weeks, we suppose she feels the need to make the news as often as possible: Earlier this week, Tom DeLay's staffers walked out on Sekula-Gibbs, and now Shelley is accusing those staffers of inappropriately wiping all the office computers clean before they left. We smell a developing Capitol Hill smackdown — no, not the one between Shelley's people and DeLay's people; we're......

Looks like everyone's favorite brief-tenure congresswoman, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, has made an impact on Washington already: According to Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, former Congressman Tom DeLay's aides quit en masse yesterday, apparently after finding the golden-haired Sekula-Gibbs a little hard to work with. The full text of the Roll Call article is only available to subscribers, but we'll summarize: As you remember, Sekula-Gibbs won the special election last week to fill former Congressman Tom......

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......

Houstonist stayed up half the night glued to our television just to bring you the latest election results, locally, state-wide, and nationally. Let's look at how things went down yesterday. Locally: Much to the mayor's delight, propositions A-H all passed. This means good things for Houston's libraries, parks, police force, airports, etc. Mayor White is keeping the city moving, literally and figuratively. The Chronicle offers complete election results, but we're going to look at a......

Breaking the law, breaking the law We -ist folks love us some crime, and no misdemeanor is too petty for a post on any of our sites. This week, join us for a rogues' gallery of miscreants major, minor, and alleged. Gothamist gets us started with "Law & Order", muppet style. Oh, you know what isn't a crime? Taking pictures on the MTA. So, why are cops stopping photographers? In other Gotham crime, a......

The Dixie Chicks' new album Taking the Long Way is appropriately titled, considering the winding route their tour has taken — particularly if you're in Houston. The Chicks have officially announced that they are cancelling a number of tour dates including the stop at the Toyota Center originally scheduled for Sept. 30. Other cities on the tour that have had shows cancelled include Kansas City, Memphis, St. Louis and Knoxville; the band is pushing back......

Even as the stores sport back to school sales (which depress us, even now), summer lingers on your friends the -ists. This week's collection of links provides some of the best, worst, and oddest bits of summer fun. So, bring your laptop up onto the roof, make yourself an umbrella drink or ten, and enjoy this week's choice posts from across the Gothamist network. Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing)......

>>World: After about a month of repairs, London icon Big Ben keeps on ticking. >>Nation: In an Ohio village, you might just wake up with an outhouse on your lawn, and guess what? You have to pay to have it hauled off. >>Texas: Cindy Sheehan not only wants to protest at President Bush's Crawford ranch, she wants free parking too. >>Offbeat:A North Carolina ice cream shop is asking customers to sign a liability waiver......

>> World: British health food stores will sell tea spiced with hemp flower syrup and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. "Iced Cannabis Tea" is also sold in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. >> Nation: Another crazy poll verifies something we never expected. This time, the U.S. is the No. 1 patriotic country out of 34. Venezuela comes in second. >> Texas: The Supreme Court's decision to uphold much of 2003's......

Today in funny, during this morning's CNN Live Today reported President Bush inserted his foot in his mouth when, during a televised press conference, he teased a reporter for wearing sunglasses when it was cloudy outside. Bush later learned the L.A. Times reporter is blind. In other news ... >> Texas: Thanks in part to a donation from a Houston oilman who died May 30, democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell has collected $333,212 for......

We remember our first job, working at a suburban Houston mall. We proudly negotiated the hourly rate up to $5.00 an hour, contingent on us doing a good job for the first month, during which we would make a whopping $4.75 and hour. Soon after, in 1997, the federal minimum wage was raised to $5.15. Apparently that’s a number the federal government has felt good about, because the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since. (If......

The new album by the Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way is being released Tuesday, but, apparently they've decided to be more direct in their words than the CD title would suggest. The Chicks recently appeared on 60 Minutes a week ago and promoted their new release and it's first single, "Not Ready to Play Nice." That clearly is true since they have also decided to retract their apology to President Bush. You may recall......

The bodies of two women were found within miles of each other, and police believe their deaths may be connected A car crashed into a light pole on the Hardy Toll Road this morning, throwing the driver onto the other side of the freeway and pinning the passenger in the car The father of a missing 3-year-old boy has been charged with injury to a child even as the search for the boy continues The......

According to Time magazine, Tom Delay will not seek reelection and plans on dropping out of congress in May and changing his place of residency to Virginia? Wow, this guy knows how to quit cold turkey. The money quote: "I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace......

President Bush took a 1,500-mile trip to Crawford today to vote in the state Republican primary; from there, he'll head to New Orleans Speaking of the primaries, Harris County officials predict a 7 percent voter turnout, but they say that's no surprise A man going to Reliant Park at lunchtime today turned in front of a MetroRail train, which crashed into his truck: "I feel pretty stupid," he said Narrow streets in older neighborhoods are......

When Southeast Texas schools took in 22,000 students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the federal government promised it would reimburse the schools for most of the cost of educating the kids. But it seems the government isn't holding up its end of the deal yet: Karen Soehnge, the chief academic officer for the Houston school district, said the U.S. Department of Education had assured the district it would be reimbursed for 90 percent of the costs......