Just when you thought that the return of actual baseball would distract us from the off-season drama, a Congressional committee has taken the first steps toward starting a criminal investigation of Roger Clemens on a charge of perjury in his testimony about whether or not he used HGH and other steroids. But what about McNamee? Thusfar, he's home free: a draft letter that mentions Clemens--and only Clemens, not his former trainer--was drawn up by the......

West Texas, specifically Marfa, may be No Country for Old Men, but it certainly seems to be the place for making Academy Award winning films. Speaking of winning, one lucky Houston Fiesta shopper hit it big in the Texas Lotto. >> TSU's president calls for entrance standard: The Chronicle reports that new TSU president John Rudley is moving toward more stringent admissions standards for the embattled university. President Rudley is taking over the helm......

Good morning, Houston. If you've ever been driving around in the 'burbs and wondered who names the streets, well, it just might be someone like Susan Vreeland-Wendt, who the Chronicle's Nancy Sarnoff interviewed yesterday. Vreeland-Wendt, marketing director for The Woodlands Operating Co., has come up with more than 1,600 names for roads, parks and neighborhoods in The Woodlands in the last 20 years. Turns out she gets inspiration from all kinds of places: paint......

Like all of us here at Houstonist, you're no doubt paying very close attention to the political unrest in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The opposition party there are the Republicans (distinguished from our Republicans from our Georgia by their lack of seersucker and combovers), and they have a very familiar logo: We for one welcome our new Eastern European football overlords. The proletariat demands better health coverage for our wide receivers, higher pay......

Good morning, Houston. Are you planning on taking a summer vacation? Here's something to consider, if you are: Continental, along with several other airlines, raised their fares in 30% of the top U.S. markets this week. Some one-way fares are up $10, some $5, and some remain the same. This was a relatively small increase, but will still hit the wallets of summer vactioners. With airfare increasing and gas prices so high, how about......

Good morning, Houston. It's Thursday — the last day of May — which means there's just a few more hours to enter the Houstonist photo exhibition. We're accepting entries until 11:59 p.m. tomorrow, so be sure to send your photos before then. As always, the details and entry form are at 600sqmi.com. Good luck! >> Aw, hail: We knew there was a chance of rain yesterday, but we didn't expect a long bout of......

Senator Mario Gallegos, a Houston Democrat, can finally return home after jeopardizing his health to fight a controversial voter ID bill. Gallegos recently underwent a liver transplant and a follow-up procedure due to concerns that his body was rejecting the liver. He even had a hospital bed set up in the Senate sergeant's office, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Senate floor. Doctors advised Gallegos to stay in Houston to recuperate, but......

Mayor White traveled to Austin two weeks ago to speak to the state legislature about SB 1317, a bill that would prevent cities from creating ordinances that protect air quality. It was no secret that the bill was targeted at the mayor's recent move to minimize the pollution caused by refineries that lie outside Houston city limits. The bill, authored by State Sen. Mike Jackson (R - LaPorte), was passed by the Senate yesterday, despite......

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......

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......

Good morning, Houston. If you have an outstanding municipal warrant, it's time to start watching out: More than 150 law enforcement agencies, including HPD, are gearing up to arrest you next week. It's part of the Great Texas Warrant Roundup, which runs for a week beginning Friday; if you don't take care of your warrant, KHOU warns, you risk "being arrested and embarrassed in front of family, friends or even co-workers." No, not co-workers!......

Now we know what the blockbuster private-sector job is that's pulling Robert Eckels away from his post as Harris County judge: Eckels said yesterday that he will be a partner with law firm Fulbright & Jaworski. His position, according to the firm, will draw on his government contacts: At Fulbright, Eckels intends to develop an administrative, regulatory and government relations practice serving clients who seek to be heard with respect to legislation, local ordinances or......

The Chronicle reports today that Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, who has held the top elected post in the county since 1995, may be considering leaving office before his current term expires to take a job in the private sector. "In the last 90 days I've had conversations with a New York firm and international investment banking firms," Eckels said. "I have had more serious discussions than in the past. They are more concrete." Though......

The Dallas Morning News reports today that some state legislators are taking steps to make sure abortions become illegal in Texas if the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v. Wade. State Sen. Dan Patrick, who was sworn in as a senator Tuesday, has filed a so-called "trigger bill" that would take effect if the Supreme Court should reverse its position on abortion. It's a change Patrick said is coming: "Many of us on the......

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......

Shelley Sekula-Gibbs told the Chronicle this morning that she will resign her seat on the Houston City Council as soon as the results of Tuesday's Congressional District 22 special election are certified, paving the way for her to head to Washington to spread a little sunshine around the halls of Congress. For a few weeks, anyway. Sekula-Gibbs, a write-in Republican candidate to fill out Tom DeLay's expired term in the House, beat out three other......

If you're Republican CD22 candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, we guess it's pretty cool when the president comes to town to campaign for you — and if you're President George W. Bush, where better to get an enthusiastic reception than Sugar Land? So it seems only natural that Bush turned out yesterday to stump for Sekula-Gibbs, who is trying to win Tom DeLay's congressional seat on a write-in campaign. Bush's visit was largely instructional: "See, if you......

Halloween is Tuesday, which means this weekend is really the time for all of the –ists to celebrate. And whether they’re designing super-spooky costumes or talking about the super-spooky upcoming elections, we’d say that they’re doing a fine job of it. Austinist knows that few things in life are scarier than zombies, people with way too much money, and politicians who try too hard to be funny. Slightly less scary, depending on whom you......

Tom DeLay said today he will withdraw from the congressional race to allow Republicans to run a write-in candidate in November Federal officials are looking into the bus fire that claimed the lives of 23 nursing home residents during last year's Rita evacuation determine whether buses are safe for people with special needs Four penguins and a load of exotic fish died today when the truck carrying them to Moody Gardens overturned on an East......

A federal judge ruled today that Republicans can't replace Tom DeLay with another candidate in this fall's 22nd Congressional District race Nine current and former Cy-Creek EMS employees have been indicted in connection with a 2004 grenade prank that cost a man part of his foot In southwest Houston, a toddler died this afternoon after a television fell on his head Merrill Lynch has agreed to pay Enron $29.5 million to settle its part of......

HISD trustees voted 6-3 yesterday to reject a 4-cent tax hike that would have brought the district $44 million, saying they didn't want to burden homeowners with extra taxes St. John Baptist Church in Missouri City, founded by freed slaves in 1869, burned early this morning in what police say was a deliberately started fire; an investigation is under way As we head into the holiday weekend, looks like storms may be coming, KHOU's David......

Timothy Randle, one of five people charged in connection with a crime spree that left four people dead, said he is innocent today in an interview with KPRC from his jail cell During the second day of her retrial for drowning her five children, Andrea Yates sobbed this morning as she watched a police video showing her kids' bodies Harris County Republicans nominated Orlando Sanchez, a former city councilman and mayoral candidate, as their candidate......

Remember when we got excited about the potential of the federal minimum wage, which is the minimum wage for Texas, being increased? We were apparently a little premature with that excitement, because as it turns out, the Senate (controlled by Republicans) wasn’t exactly into the increase. Actually, according to the Chronicle, they “smothered” the issue. (By sitting on it, perhaps?) This was the Senate’s way of saying, “Silly Democrats, $5.15 an hour has been enough......

A driver was killed on the Southwest Freeway near Newcastle early this morning in a head-on collision with a driver going the wrong way Ashley Paige Benton, the girl accused of murdering a teen in this week's attack at Chew Park, should remain in custody on a murder charge, a judge said today A ride at Schlitterbahn Galveston was shut down today after people complained of becoming itchy after being in the water; officials believe......

Whatever your political leanings, you're going to want to mark June 9 on your calendar: It's the day you'll want to get together with friends and have a farewell party for Tom DeLay. Whether you mope or celebrate is your business — but can you think of anything else DeLay has done that has the potential of bringing so many people together? Look out, liquor cabinet! DeLay wrote House Speaker Dennis Hastert yesterday that June......

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......

Tom DeLay must have known that his charm and charisma would one day catch the attention of moviemakers — but we bet he'd rather his film debut not be in The Big Buy, a new documentary set to be released this spring. The film ... will be distributed this spring by the Hollywood producer and liberal provocateur Robert Greenwald, whose last release was a scathing attack on Wal-Mart sponsored by a variety of labor unions......

Imagine Houston overrun with Republicans. Oh, wait. Houston is one of 31 cities invited yesterday to compete for the 2008 Republican National Convention, and it looks like the city might go after the event. Though it's unclear who worked to get Houston on the list of possible host cities, we all know how much attention the Republican convention can bring a town — just look at New York in 2004. The funny thing is, Mayor......

Next time you wonder why Houston isn't able to reduce its pollution levels, think about the local lawmakers who voted against legislation designed to protect the public from toxic air pollution. Seems 20 of 34 state representatives from the Houston metro area — all Republicans, some representing industrial districts east of Houston — voted to table five measures that would have tightened health screening levels for pollution, set fines for the periodic release of......

You think you've got troubles? Try being Tom DeLay these days. First there were the ethics complaints, then those pesky indictments, and now the Supreme Court's going to review the DeLay-led redistricting that allowed Texas Republicans to take a majority of House seats in 2004. We're sure you remember the redistricting. DeLay & Co. pushed for redrawing the congressional district lines in the middle of the decade, an unusual move Republicans said was prompted by......