Morning Roundup: Come here often? edition

Good morning, Houston. Pardon us, but we seem to have lost our phone number. Can we borrow yours? Yeah, we know — it's lame. And apparently we're not the only one with a bad pickup line: Houston is the country's 14th best city for singles, according to Forbes magazine. We lag behind Dallas-Ft. Worth (No. 9) and Austin (No. 12), but we're far ahead of San Antonio (No. 28). On the bright side, Houston is No. 1 in the nation in terms of online dating. That is something to be proud of, right? Uh ...

>> Judge throws out anti-smoking ban action: Looks like Houston's general smoking ban will go into effect Saturday after all: Monday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Gray Miller rejected some bar owners' complaints about the ban, saying the plaintiffs didn't meet the high burden required for an injunction to be granted. The plaintiffs, Crazy Frogs Saloon and the Houston Association of Alcoholic Beverage Permit Holders, claimed the ordinance unfairly regulates alcohol-selling businesses and that it's too vague. "The city of Houston's smoking ordinance, in my view, does not conflict with the state law that regulates the sale of alcohol," Miller said. The ban will prohibit smoking in nearly all workplaces in the city, including most bars; only a handful of businesses and meeting areas will be exempted. Mayor Bill White, who has long supported the ban, told the Chronicle it marks a "new era of protection of public health."

>> This just in — or out: Have you ever gone on vacation and temporarily suspended your Chronicle subscription? Well, when you got back, we imagine you expected to find a sidewalk free of unread newspapers — but would you have thought your house would be cleared out, too? That's what happened to some families in Tomball, and police say the woman behind the burglaries was a Chronicle subcontractor's employee. The suspect, 27-year-old newspaper deliverywoman Amanda Searfoss, reportedly used lists of vacationing subscribers to target and rob specific homes. Searfoss was on probation for drug possession and had a suspended driver's license — and, as you might imagine, that doesn't make Chronicle subscriber and burglary victim Lloyd Andrew too happy. "They tell these basic convicted criminals, who don't have a driving record, to drive through the neighborhood in the wee hours of the morning, [with] a list of everybody out of town. It's just crazy," he told KTRK. The Chronicle, for its part, reminded everyone that thousands of newspapers are delivered daily without burglaries.

>> Clearing history's injustices?: It's been 90 years since the Camp Logan riot in Houston left 20 people dead and led to the largest court-martial in U.S. history — and now, some descendants of the 19 black soldiers who were executed in the riot's aftermath are trying to clear their ancestors' names. The soldiers, from the Third Battalion of the 24th United States Infantry regiment, were hanged Dec. 11, 1917, after being accused of taking part in the Aug. 23, 1917, riot; they were executed without appeal, even though witnesses testified that some of the men didn't participate in the riot. An exhibit on the riot is on display at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, and a petition at the museum seeks to have the notation "service terminated by death without honor" from the executed soldiers' records. "Maybe it could clear their names," Bessie Swindle, the outreach liaison for U.S. Rep. Al Green, who is working with petition author Angela Holder, told the Chronicle.

>> Today's weather: Looks like more rain this afternoon: There's a 50 percent chance of showers, with an afternoon high around 90. Tonight, the rain chance will continue until somewhere around 10 p.m., after which things will cool down to the upper 70s.

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