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......

The Houston Business Journal picked up this story yesterday, and while we're over-joyed, we can't say that we're all that surprised. We knew those Rice kids were up to something sustainable. A team of Rice students lead by Roque Sanchez and David Dewane have won $100,000 and permission to compete in the US Department of Energy's fourth Solar Decathlon in Washington D.C. Rice will be joined by a number of other schools and each......

Good morning, Houston. If you were an HPD cadet, you'd think you'd want to keep your nose clean — but apparently no one sent that memo to a cadet who was busted this weekend for allegedly buying and selling crack in southeast Houston. The man was caught off Scott and Nagle in the Third Ward; according to KHOU, he told police he had been smoking crack all weekend with at least two other HPD......

Good morning, Houston. If you've lived here a while, you probably know that the city is prone to livestock running amok — so it shouldn't be too surprising that Third Ward residents found a pair of ewes loose in their neighborhood yesterday. Some neighbors and a KTRK crew tried to catch the animals and eventually chased them to the TSU campus, where a Harris County sheriff's deputy and KTRK photographer Ben Lutman made a......

Good morning, Houston. At Houstonist world headquarters, our e-mail boxes are graced almost daily with offers from people who want to move millions of dollars to U.S. bank accounts and allow us to take a huge share of the money just for helping — eh, all in a day. But there's a new e-mail in the same vein floating around now: It comes from someone claiming to be Michelle Kristine Kraiser, the "the Confidential......

Good morning, Houston. Are you feeling particularly crunk today? Maybe you should be: Crunk is among the words added to Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary this year. Also among the 100 new words are DVR, IED, gray literature and smackdown. But we think we'll get the most use out of crunk, which M-W defines as a style of Southern rap music but which has a variety of definitions in the Urban Dictionary. Which brings us to......

Drums Please! Dinky Drum Company Annual Recital Someone call Matthew McConaughey. The buzz has already started around Dinky Drum Company School of Music. The eclectic drum company will hold it's Annual Recital is tonight @ 7:00 p.m. at the Third Ward Multi-Purpose Center on Ennis. This year's treat will be, “And the Siblings Play," featuring duets and Trios performed by a brother-sister pair, and 2 brothers ensembles. Keeping it in the family, the recital will......

Fourteen people were injured in a bizarre chain-reaction accident in the Third Ward yesterday involving a Trans Am, a Metro bus, an RV and a brake shop. It happened just after 5 p.m. as the bus was headed south on Dowling Street; while it was crossing the intersection at Pierce, a Trans Am headed east on Pierce ran a red light and slammed into the bus. The crash sent the bus careening off into the......

This is the third in a series of posts on upcoming City Council races. Check out last week's post about District I and District E and keep reading Houstonist for campaign coverage. There's no shortage of interest in the city council seat that Ada Edwards, District D's representative, will vacate due to term limits after this election. District D includes Neartown/Montrose, Midtown, and part of the Third Ward, as well as other neighborhoods. Local businessman......

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......

We are excited and giddy (ok, maybe just some of us are giddy) about the recent attention and preservation efforts to Houston's Historic Wards. Heck, they even have their own Wikipedia listing! (but then again so does your momma). And a continued step in the right direction, last week's City Council approval a six-month ban on demolition of historic buildings in the Old Sixth Ward area , the city's oldest intact 19th century neighborhood —......

FactoryPeople Weekend Pop-up Store @ FineSilver Gallery FactoryPeople, Austin’s hub for fashion, music and culture, is hitting the road with everything from designer deals to DJs to create a weekend of shopping at Houston’s FineSilver Gallery. Kicking off on Sat., Jan. 27 (11a – 7p) through Sun., Jan. 28 (11a – 5p), FactoryPeople will showcase its handpicked Spring ’07 collections and end-of-season bargains with 10% of all sales benefiting local non-profit Workshop Houston. On......

Good morning, Houston. If you haven't made up a personal budget for 2007 yet, we recommend that you don't run over and kill anyone this year — it can really blow your grand financial schemes, as Mercedes murderess Clara Harris found out last week. Jurors in her wrongful death civil trial decided the dentist should pay her in-laws $3.75 million for their pain and suffering after she ran over and killed their son, her......

As the debate continues over the alignment of Metro's proposed University light rail line, a calmer discussion is going on in the Third Ward, where the eastern end of the University Line would run. At issue is how the line would get from the University of Houston to Main Street — Third Ward residents want to make sure the line will help the neighborhood, not drive it out of existence. Planners are looking at......

Not surprisingly, U.S. Rep. John Culberson's announcement last week that he won't support a proposal to run a light rail line down Richmond Avenue has sent Metro into something of a tailspin: The agency has now pushed the date it expects to recommend an alignment for the University Line back a few weeks while it conducts cost and ridership estimates for a variety of routes that would take the line from the Third Ward......

METRO announced yesterday that Harrisburg is the official choice for the east-end line - the only selection to have been made since the red line. Construction is supposed to begin one year from now, with completion in December 2010, and it will initially consist of "train-like buses" that would be turned into rail if the ridership was strong enough (now that's some magic wand!). Some business owners in the area have voiced conerns, such as......

It looks like Metro might not have won critics of the proposed University light rail line's Richmond Avenue alignment over last night at the first of three public meetings on the project: KTRK and the Chronicle report that the people who oppose having the rail on Richmond still oppose it, even with a "compromise" unveiled this week that would switch the line from Richmond to Westpark at Greenway Plaza. "None of this is any......

There's news today from the Chronicle on Metro's proposed University light rail line: Metro Chairman David Wolff met with the Chron's editorial board this morning and said he could "live with" an alignment that would take the line from Main Street west along Richmond Avenue, then south at Greenway Plaza to Westpark. It's a Metro compromise between keeping part of the line on Richmond and avoiding Afton Oaks and residential areas between Greenway and the......

Got an opinion on Metro's proposed University light-rail line? Now's your chance to put it on the record: Metro will hold two "scoping meetings" this week designed to record citizens' concerns. The alignment of the proposed rail line, you'll remember, has sparked a great deal of controversy — in the initial rail referendum, it was identified as a Westpark rail line, but some observers are worried running the line along Westpark would doom it......

Hello again, Houstonians! Fun abounds this week, so check out all these exciting events. Friday, June 16 94.5 The Buzz's preparty for Buzzfest XVII should be lots of fun (see if you can spot Houstonist Karah Leigh!) You'll have chances to win tickets, and band 10 Years will be performing. It'll run 7-midnight at Scout Bar (18307 Egret Bay Blvd. in Clear Lake) Saturday, June 17 There'll be no quiz at "The Lesson Part Won:......

From this weekend's news, another reason not to live in those townhomes that are going up all over the Inner Loop: If you do, the city might not pick up your trash. That's the issue at the Calumet Street Lofts in the Third Ward, one of those Urban Lofts developments that shoehorns a bunch of metal townhomes into a tiny area by putting some on the inside of the property, accessible by narrow driveways. And......

The cornerstone of HISD's new push toward college prep: Put all the poor kids in all-day pre-kindergarten classes Six people were injured when an SUV rear-ended a car that was pulled over on the shoulder of the Katy Freeway in the Heights Willie Williamson, a 17-year-old Klein High junior, died Sunday after a "car surfing" accident Gee, the University of Houston campus sure is looking swell these days A Third Ward beauty salon and two......

A 42-year-old man has been charged with murder after a gunfight erupted over a disagreement over appliances Sunday morning The Texas Transportation Commission will vote on a proposal to offer paid permits for the Bolivar and Port Aransas ferries that would allow morotists to bypass lines waiting to board the ferries Don't seek vengeance, the judge in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial told potential jurors today A teenaged girl who claimed she was kidnapped and......

It's no secret that Houston and the New York media have had a love/hate relationship over the years — well, OK, mostly hate. So we were interested to see what the NY Times said in yesterday's 36 Hour travel feature on Houston — and it seems writer Dan Halpern actually got it: Houston doesn't have a clear-cut positive reputation, like Austin (the laid-back slacker capital), or even a good nickname, like Dallas (Big D).......