Morning Roundup: Doughnut-a-go-go edition

Good morning, Houston. We've always wondered about our lady friends' uncanny ability to find food — particularly food they claim they shouldn't be eating — and now there's scientific evidence that women may actually have a built-in talent for locating grub. The news comes from The Daily Telegraph in the UK, which reports that women at a farmers' market were much better at finding a stall where they had bought a certain food than men — 27 percent better, in fact, especially when they were hunting high-calorie foods like doughnuts. "It was a dramatic effect," researcher Max Krasnow said. "Memory for the high-calorie foods like honey and avocados was as much as four times as accurate as memory for the low-calorie foods like cucumber and lettuce," he said. Thanks to the Chron's Eric Berger for pointing this out — and ladies, send your comments to him, not us.

>> 3 die in collision with train: Three teenagers — 18-year-old Chris Alain Rodriguez, his brother Peter, 13, and 16-year-old Jennifer Medina — were killed late Wednesday when they tried to beat a passenger train at a northeast Harris County crossing. Harris County sheriff's deputies said the three drove around crossing gates and ignored the lights, bells and the Amtrak Sunset Limited's horn in an attempt to cross the tracks before the train arrived; their silver Mazda ended up being wrapped around the front of the train and dragged about 2,000 feet, then catching fire. "If they had waited about 8 seconds, the train probably would have passed them. It was very short," Deputy Jeremy Thomas told the Chronicle. "When people look down the tracks, they think they have plenty of time. But they don't. At that speed, a train is moving forward bout 80 feet each second." Officials said none of the train's 66 passengers were hurt, and most didn't even realize the crash had occurred.

>> Houston man admits to stealing church plaques: Earnest L. Wilson, 51, has confessed to a string of thefts of more than 100 brass plaques from local churches, KPRC reports. Wilson reportedly stole the plaques — which marked churches' addresses and building dedications — and took them to Emancipation Park in a shopping cart. There, he used an electrical grinder to cut them into pieces, which he sold to scrap metal businesses. Police said Wilson was caught on surveillance tape stealing a plaque from Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in the Montrose on July 21, which apparently led to his arrest. Wilson has been charged with felony theft.

>> We're guessing the nudity won't help his case: A man suspected of being a sexual predator led police on a high-speed chase through the Heights on Wednesday night — and he was naked from the waist down. It started when the officer spotted the man driving without his headlights on around midnight near North Main and 24th Street; when he tried to pull the man over, he sped off. The chase reached speeds of 90 mph and ended on 23rd Street, where the pantsless suspect jumped from his car, ran through a yard and jumped a fence. When the officer finally caught up with the man and tried to put him in the patrol car, the suspect bashed his head on the hood of the car, then smashed his face into the window, but he was eventually taken downtown. It's not clear why the man wasn't wearing his pants, which KPRC reports were in his car.

>> This weekend's weather: Looks like it'll be hot all weekend, but there may be a little rain — hot rain, of course — to break the monotony. Look for lots of sunshine today, with an afternoon high of 95; on Saturday and Sunday, the highs will be in the low 90s, with a chance of afternoon storms both days. Lows will stay in the upper 70s.

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