Morning Roundup: Arrested pleasure edition

Good morning, Houston. If you're a smoker who's not a fan of the citywide smoking ban set to take effect this fall, here's something to be happy about: At least you don't live in Abilene, where a man was arrested on a warrant for smoking in public. Brian Wayne Hendrix was cited for smoking in public, a violation of Abilene's smoking ban, in late February; when he failed to show up in court, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and he was finally caught during a traffic stop Tuesday. Hendrix is the first person to have been arrested under the ban, but he said it won't stop him from lighting up in the future: "I never thought I'd be going to jail for smoking a cigarette, but I'd do it again," he told the AP.

>> Crews find drowned worker's body: Divers yesterday located the body of a man who drowned Tuesday while working on a water line in northwest Harris County. The man, 22-year-old Cornelio Salvador Moreno, was caught when the wall of a tunnel deep beneath Cypress Creek broke, flooding the excavation site; the recovery effort was slowed by the continued flooding and debris in the water. Tuesday was Moreno's first day on the job; he had recently gotten married and had a daughter who is less than two weeks old. "He was just trying to work. That was it," relative Sonia Rodriquez told KPRC.

>> Flash and burn: A lightning strike sparked a fire in a tank at the BP Texas City refinery Wednesday, but fortunately, the tank was used to store waste water mixed with some oil products — nothing dangerous. The fire began at about 1 p.m. and was classified as a level 2, which meant it was out of control but confined to the refinery premises. After a while, firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control and finally to put it out; only a few workers were cleared out of the area and there was no shelter-in-place order. Coincidentally, BP's main office building a few blocks from the refinery also lost power during the storm.

>> Retrials for three Merrill Lynch execs: Three former executives with Merrill Lynch & Co. whose fraud and conspiracy convictions in connection with an Enron deal were overturned last year will be retried in January, a judge ruled yesterday. The convictions were overturned when a circuit court panel found problems with the theory the government used in their trials; this time, prosecutors and lawyers have been trying to work out plea deals to keep James Brown, Daniel Bayly and Robert Furst from going to trial again, but so far, no luck. "We're planning on getting ready for trial," Furst's attorney, Paul Coggins, told the AP. "Our clients don't relish the thought of going through another trial. We had hoped it was over."

>> Today's weather: Well, here's our one day of bliss before a potentially not-so-great weekend: We're starting the morning off fairly cool, but things will warm up to a near-perfect 68 degrees this afternoon, with plenty of sunshine. Tonight, look for partly cloudy skies and a low around 49.

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