Morning Roundup: A big, wet July edition

Good morning, Houston. As we prepare for the rain chance to increase again — yeah, sorry, we hate to be the bearers of bad news — we're stopping for a second to realize just how much it's rained so far this month. Officially, we've had 8.34 inches of rain so far in July, smashing the 2.34-inch average for the month and making this the eighth-wettest July on record. And there's still a week left — wonder how we'll end up? We're pulling the ark out of storage just in case.

>> Crime and ... punishment?: Trent Young said something strange happened last week after his apartment was burglarized: While the police were investigating the crime scene, Young claims that a man drove up and confessed to the burglary, but the police let him go. Young said the man admitted to being one of four people who broke into the apartment and even had pawn receipts for the stolen items, so he's not sure why HPD let him go free — but activist Quanell X said it's a matter of race. "He would have been arrested and he would have been under the jail," Quanell X told KHOU. "This is nothing but special favoritism because this was a young white kid. To me the victim is African American, the state judge is white, the police officer is white." HPD apparently hasn't released information on the incident, but told Channel 11 that no one confessed to the burglary.

>> Another extension for hurricane victims: The federal government will extend rental payments for about 11,400 hurricane evacuees for 10 months, the Chronicle reports today. The evacuees — about 3,500 of them in Houston — lived in public housing or got federal housing vouchers before hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's voucher program for hurricane victims, which was supposed to end Sept. 30, will now run through June 30, 2008, a move that'll cost the government about $105 million. Ending the program on schedule would have been "absolutely horrendous," HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said.

>> Humane Society goes after local billionaire: The Humane Society of the United States has joined the controversy over Houston billionaire Dan Duncan's helicopter hunting trip, urging the Justice Department to prosecute Duncan for killing a moose and sheep in Russia and bringing their busts back to the U.S. Duncan admits that he shot the animals from a helicopter while flying with a Russian guide in 2002, but he says he didn't know it was illegal to bring parts of the animals back to the United States; the government could prosecute him under the Lacey Act, a 107-year-old law meant to prevent the interstate and international trafficking of rare animals and plants. Duncan's attorney, Rusty Hardin, told the Chronicle that he "respects everyone's right to have an opinion," but declined further comment.

>> Today's weather: Looks like today will be the last day before the rain comes back: Look for a partly cloudy day with an afternoon high of 91 — and, with luck, we'll feel more of that coolish breeze we noticed around lunchtime Monday. (No, seriously, we did.) Tonight, skies will remain partly cloudy as the temperature drops to around 72.

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