Morning Roundup: Now that's a bonus edition

Good morning, Houston. So what was the last bonus gift you got at work? A fruit basket? Maybe an engraved Space Pen? Well, if you worked for La Porte-based Texas Stress, you might have ended up with a Harley: Gary and Joni Hagar, the owners of the company, rewarded each of their top 10 employees with $21,000 and told them to pick out their own hogs. "I've never heard of a boss doing this for their employees, especially when they did this out of the kindness of their hearts," Texas Stress Sales Manager Cy Rankin told KTRK. "I was like, 'Man, that's awesome!'" Yep, not bad at all, we'd say.

>> Officials nab suspected human smuggler: Harris County constables and federal agents arrested a suspected human smuggler at a Katy immigrant "stash house" on Monday, the third such raid officials have made in the Houston area this year. Officials were tipped off around noon Monday, after a 17-year-old Honduran escaped from the house; immigrants who were in the house told them that guards had tied them up with rope and threatened to harm them if they tried to escape. In spite of that, the immigrants found at the house were reported to be in good health. The suspect, 34-year-old Honduran native Armando Herrera, has been charged with charges of conspiracy and harboring illegal aliens.

>> A slowdown for local housing construction: The number of homes being built in the Houston area is expected to drop this year — the first such drop in more than a decade. About 40,000 homes are expected to be built in the area in 2007, down around 20 percent from 2006. But according to housing analysts, that's really no reason to worry: "Things are just fine," analyst Mike Inselmann told the Greater Houston Builders Association on Wednesday. "They're not as good as we want them to be, but there's a recovery in our future." Among the problems is a cutback in production nationwide and a drop in subprime lending, or loans to borrowers who have bad credit. "These buyers are being shut out of the market right now. It's going to take a while until we see a resolution on that issue," Inselmann said.

>> Today's weather: Um, well, it may rain today and it may not. There's a 20 percent chance of showers today and tonight, and that looks like the lowest probability of rain for the next few days, so we'd better enjoy it. Look for an afternoon high of 92 today, with an overnight low in the mid-70s.

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