Morning Roundup: It's almost Friday edition

Good morning, Houston. It's been a long week, but fortunately, there's not much of it left. So to get things moving on toward Friday — and because we're still smarting over not knowing Texas had two Clear Lakes — we're jumping right into the news this morning. Go!

>> Enron lawyers in hot water?: Two former Enron lawyers have been charged with civil violations of securities laws for — hang on to your hat — allegedly helping the energy company perpetuate fraud. Specifically, the SEC alleges that former Associate General Counsel Rex Rogers didn't fully disclose that ex-Chairman Ken Lay sold more than $86 million in Enron stock back to the company in 2000 and 2001 and that ex-Enron finance group general counsel Jordan Mintz arranged murky disclosures of Enron's repurchase of a Brazilian power plant from a group run by Andy Fastow, Enron's former CFO. "They used their expertise to further aid and abet Enron's massive fraud," the SEC's Fredric Firestone said; lawyers and Rogers and Mintz say their clients did nothing wrong.

>> Well, that's one way to handle it: Michael Skadden, a Houston attorney who got a citation from a red-light camera, has burned the ticket and subsequent nonpayment notices to protest the city's camera system. Skadden, a former ACLU official, said the camera citations are unconstitutional and called the system "Orwellian in character" — and because the camera citations are civil, there's not much the city can do to make him pay. Ah, law.

>> The sand, the surf ... the oil well?: So we all know there are great beaches on Padre Island — but we didn't know there could be oil underneath them. Sure enough, though, and now drilling rigs are starting to pop up along the beaches. Though the drilling activity worries environmentalists, it is protected by law, and oil companies say they're doing a lot to protect the beaches and wildlife that lives around them. And it's apparently worth it: "What's out there on the national seashore is a drop in the bucket," activist Roland Gaona said. "However, that's several billion dollars' worth of a drop."

>> Today's weather: More warmth, more humidity. Expect a mostly cloudy afternoon with a high around 82; overnight, a slight chance of storms will move in after 1 a.m., leading into a potentially rainy Friday. Look for an overnight low around 66.

More headlines after the jump ...