Morning Roundup: Up next: At Home with Carol Alvarado edition

Good morning, Houston. If the dearth of new TV in the wake of the writer's strike has left you willing to watch anything, we've got some news for you: HTV, the municipal station, is launching a new program! Woohoo! Entertainment Houston, a 30-minute show, will focus on — wait for it — Houston's facilities, included the Wortham Center, Jones Hall, the George R. Brown Convention Center and the not-quite-finished Discovery Green. A new episode of Entertainment Houston will come out every other month, so we imagine there'll be plenty of chances to catch up on what you've missed. Look at it this way: It can't be much worse than Supernanny.

>> County to pay $1.7M civil rights settlement: Harris County comissioners agreed Monday to pay a $1.7 million settlement in a civil rights suit that led to former county DA Chuck Rosenthal's resignation. The complainants, Sean Carlos Ibarra and Erik Adam Ibarra, say sheriff's deputies threatened and wrongfully arrested them after they filmed deputies conducting a drug raid at a neighbor's house in 2002; a subpoena in the case exposed controversial e-mails Rosenthal had sent, leading to his resignation. County Commissioner Ed Emmett said the settlement will allow officials to get on with their work: "The rational thing to do was to accept this settlement offer," he told the Chronicle. "Sometimes you make the best deal you can and move on." U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt will determine whether the county will be responsible for paying the Ibarras' legal fees.

>> Area mayor's wife in hot water: Mary Sue Jackson, the wife of the mayor of Roman Forest in Montgomery County, was being held last night on a $200,000 bond for allegedly stealing nearly a quarter-million dollars from a beloved Humble woman. Jackson volunteered to pay utility bills for the victim, Lillian McKay, the widow of a former mayor of Humble and a woman for whom a museum and post office are named. So McKay entrusted her checkbook to Jackson, who police say proceeded to use McKay's money to pay for all sorts of personal things — her daughter's taxes, her daughter's wedding and her daughter's insurance among them. "It's just one thing after another," McKay's nephew Rocky Janda told KTRK. V.H. Gonzalez of the Humble police said there were a number of online and telephone transfers from McKay's account to Jackson's personal account; Jackson, who used to work as a nurse at a health clinic McKay's husband founded, is due in court today.

>> Today's weather: As you might have noticed, it was so cold this morning that you could have used a witch's tit as a bedwarmer. But the good news is that we should be in for a beautiful, if slightly breezy, afternoon, with a high of 63 and lots of sunshine. Tonight, the temperature will drop into the mid-40s under clear skies.

>> In brief: Culberson: Winning this election won't be easy ... Woman, 97, injured when nightgown catches fire ... Houston Grand Prix cancelled ... NASA tries to engage Generation Y ... Confused about the primary/caucus thing? Check this out