Morning Roundup: Eye on the Gulf edition

Good morning, Houston. Looks like there's another tropical disturbance out in the Gulf of Mexico — this one is called Invest 90L, and it looks like it could be headed for the upper Texas coast. The Chron's Eric Berger is keeping an eye on the system, which is located west of Florida and is headed in a general northwesterly direction; Berger reports that it could become a tropical storm by tomorrow, but isn't likely to reach hurricane status. Should be interesting to watch.

>> City commits extra $24M for police: Mayor Bill White announced Tuesday that the city will spend an extra $24 million on police overtime and will increase the number of officers on patrol by more than 500 in the next three years, another attempt to bring the city's crime rate under better control. "We cannot guarantee that we will not have criminals in Houston, Texas," White said. "But what I can say is that the criminals are going to have their hands full with the Houston Police Department." The program is part of the department's planned ramp-up to a force of 5,400 or more officers in the coming years; as staffing increases, White said overtime spending will decrease. New figures show that violent crimes have dropped 5 percent since last year, and HPD Chief Harold Hurtt said he expects the increased spending will cause the crime rates to drop another 5 percent over the next two or three years.

>> Congress honors DeBakey: Congress voted yesterday to bestow its highest civilian honor on Dr. Michael DeBakey, the surgeon known as the father of cardiovascular surgery in America. In 1964, DeBakey became the first surgeon to perform a coronary bypass, and in 1966, he used a partial artificial heart on patients who couldn't be taken off a heart-lung machine after open-heart surgery. DeBakey, 99, called the award a great honor: "My pride as a citizen of the United States of America is overflowing," he said in a statement. The vote to give DeBakey the award — which Congress has presented to about 300 people since the first was given to George Washington in 1776 — has been send to President Bush for his signature.

>> Today's weather: We've decided not to trust the weather forecast when it comes to rain chances — it's steered us wrong too many days lately. So we'll say this: It looks like we should have a beautiful, sunny (but warm) day today, though you never know when a monsoon might blow in. In Houston, it never hurts to have an umbrella on hand, does it? Expect a high around 92 today and a pleasant low of 68 tonight.

One thing we're sure of, though: headlines after the jump ...