Morning Roundup: Going to the dogs edition

Good morning, Houston. Here's one of our favorite news stories this week: During an arson trial downtown yesterday, Hunter, a chocolate lab, took the stand and demonstrated how he investigated the fire in question. The Harris County Fire Marshal's office uses Hunter to sniff out accelerants; he has investigated more than 400 fires and has testified in at least a half-dozen cases.

>> Watch that truck: If you pay any attention to HPD's lists of the most-stolen vehicles in town, you'll know that Ford pickups are really popular with thieves. And where better to find a variety of trucks than at the rodeo? That's why police are warning rodeogoers to be careful with their vehicles this year — not necessarily at Reliant Stadium, but in surrounding hotel and business parking lots. "We're not trying to cry wolf here and scare [people] not to come to town," HPD Officer Jim Woods said. Just, you know, warning them that their big Houston welcome might come in the form of an auto theft. Hey, it's what people in big cities do.

>> Report: Gov't partly responsible for bus blaze: The bus explosion that killed 23 local nursing home patients during the Rita evacuation in 2005 was caused in part by lax government oversight of bus lines, the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. The lack of oil in a wheel of the bus probably caused the fire that sparked the explosion, but according to the NTSB, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration did a bad job of making sure buses were safe — the operator of the bus line in question, Global Limo Inc., had numerous violations but was still allowed to stay on the road. The recommendation: Shutting down companies with unsafe buses on the road and unqualified drivers behind the wheel. And this wasn't done a long time ago why?

>> Four-month delay for coal plants: A panel of judges on Wednesday pushed the permitting process for six new coal power plants back to June, giving groups on both sides of the issue more time to prepare their cases. The four-month delay "[provides] a bit more time to allow all the parties to fully prepare, have their Ts crossed with response to testimony and that sort of thing," said administrative judge Kerry Sullivan. The ruling came one day after a decision from a state district judge that Gov. Rick Perry's decision to fast-track the permitting process for the plants wasn't binding on the state hearing administrators; an attorney for TXU, which wants to build the plants, called yesterday's delay "a bunch of nonsense."

>> Today's weather: If you liked yesterday's beautiful weather, you'll be a big fan of today's: Morning fog will soon burn off, leading us into a mostly sunny afternoon with a high in the upper 70s. Tonight, look for partly cloudy skies with a low of 55; our next chance of rain comes Saturday.

More news after the jump ...