Morning Roundup: A sign of the times edition

Good morning, Houston. Remember Mayor Bill's agreement with Clear Channel that would result in the removal of nearly 900 billboards across the city? Well, it's not necessarily a done deal after all: On Wednesday, six City Council members voted to delay the plan, saying they still had questions about its ramifications. The problem, they said, was that the deal would allow Clear Channel to move remaining billboards: "We're allowing new billboard locations to pop up, and they will pop up in disadvantaged neighborhoods," Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck said. Most billboards in the city are scheduled to come down in 2013, deal or no deal; White said his proposal is the best hope for cleaning things up before then. Council will consider the plan again next week.

>> Would-be robber caught in cliché: A Galveston man was arrested early Tuesday after trying — and failing — to rob a doughnut shop. It happened around 4 a.m. when the robber, dressed all in black, walked into the Donut Palace on Broadway and demanded cash; unfortunately for him, the employees of the shop were Asian and didn't understand English well enough to know what he was talking about. The suspect got frustrated, left the shop and ran right into a Galveston police officer who recognized him from the robbery report. The officer arrested 23-year-old Brandon Jermaine Branch and took him to the doughnut shop, where workers identified him. Branch is now in jail on bonds totaling $80,000; he faces two counts of aggravated robbery, each of which carries a possible 99-year prison term and $10,000 fine.

>> Animal cruelty or learning experience?: KHOU reports on a controversy that's been brewing in Columbus in the past couple of months centering on a couple of students who beat a live raccoon to death, skinned it and cooked it in front of their classmates. It happened in a class where students are supposed to learn how to find and prepare food in the wild — apparently, Houstonist missed that class when we were in high school — but the animals used for demonstrations are supposed to already be dead when they're brought to class. In this case, there was a substitute teacher who seems not to have known better, so the class got to see more than they bargained for. "They started stepping and stomping on [the raccoon], joking that they're tenderizing the animal," Columbus Police Chief Danny Jackson said. "They skinned that raccoon, cooked it and ate it." Jackson said animal cruelty charges won't be filed because, by all accounts, the raccoon died quickly.

>> Today's weather: Expect a chilly, slightly nasty day today, with a chance of rain through the mid-afternoon, a north wind and a high barely making it to the mid-50s. Tonight, the clouds should break up somewhat as temperatures drop to around 50.

Grab a cup of hot chocolate and check out today's headlines ...