Results tagged “abuse”

Good morning, Houston. If you're hoping that the United States will one day be free of its dependence on foreign natural gas — and we're sure at least one of you is — this isn't your lucky day: According to a report from the Energy Forum at Rice University's Baker Institute, there's no end in sight to our use of imported gas. Natural gas accounted for 22 percent of total primary energy use in...

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Dwight Roundup Here's what Dwight Silverman over at the Chronicle has been blogging and writing about recently. Apple Leopard, what will be your next computer, analog TV's, gibbons and leopards, Firefox updates, software freebies and Comcast throttling customers. HAAUG and OS X Leopard The Houston Area Apple Users Group and Dreux Ste. Marie will bring you a review of the new Mac OS, Leopard. This event...

Eddie Griffin 25, died Friday in southeast Houston when his SUV smashed into an oncoming train. Officials stated that Griffin's SUV exploded on impact after he ignored all railroad warning lights and sirens as he drove around the railroad barrier as the train was crossing. His body was burned so beyond recognition that he wasn't identified until yesterday when dental records confirmed his identity. The Rockets thought so much of Griffin's talents that they...

Houston rapper Lil' Flip is in some trouble, the Chronicle reports: Lil' Flip (whose real name is Wesley Eric Weston Jr.) turned himself in to police on a charge of credit card abuse this weekend, and he's due in court today. Weston, known as the "freestyle king" for his ability to improvise, is accused of buying a $671 Southwest Airlines ticket to Baltimore from Houston on June 8 with an American Express card held by...

Well, here's something you don't hear about very often — and thank goodness you don't: In Conroe, a woman has died after her boyfriend set her on fire during an argument. It happened just after 11 p.m. Saturday when John Marshall Dodd, 41, got into a fight with his girlfriend, 44-year-old Terry Leigh Lee (or Terry Lee Bailey, according to KPRC and KHOU), at Lee's house. "Apparently they had been out for the evening, gotten...

Dark Matter: 5 Gothic Horror Tales of Horror Appropriately enough for the rain and gloom (going on week 6--yes, we are counting), today opens a new series of gothic horror by Don Nigro at the Midtown Art Center. Presented by Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company, these five short plays take the audience on a journey to the dark side of romance. Beginning today, the plays run at 8:00pm each night July 5th-14th, 16th, 19th-21st (7:30pm on...

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches...

Good morning, Houston. We all know there are some perennially bad traffic spots around town — seriously, we all know — and now one of our local traffic nightmares has made Forbes' list of America's worst traffic traps. The spot is the Katy Freeway/West Loop interchange, which Forbes says costs drivers a whopping 25 million-plus hours of delays each year. That makes the 10/610 interchange the second worst in the country, by Forbes' reckoning,...

New information in the story of a woman whose 2-year-old daughter died Monday at Hermann Hospital: Though the woman initially claimed the child had fallen into a campfire on a Galveston beach, she now says the child was scalded in a hot bath. When the mother, 24-year-old Yokandra Lanett Midkiff, brought her daughter Krysdiunbria to the hospital Monday, Krysdiunbria was in a coma and suffering from severe infections from the burns. Doctors weren't able to...

Katherine Nadal, the woman accused of cutting her infant son's genitals off and blaming the mutilation on the family dog, made a court appearance yesterday — but police say they still don't have a motive in the case. Not much really happened during the hearing: Nadal, 25, in handcuffs and in tears, told state District Judge Denise Collins that she doesn't have a job and has no money to hire an attorney, so Collins said...

Opening statements began Tuesday in the trial of Quintin Wiggins, the former Texas Southern University CFO who is among those indicted on charges of misspending state money at the university — and, not surprisingly, Wiggins' attorney claims that what appeared to be the mishandling of funds was really just Wiggins carrying out orders from his bosses. Wiggins is accused of misdirecting more than $200,000 in public funds toward furniture, landscaping and a home security system...

More on the strange case of a baby found mutilated in Webster last month: The AP reports that a Harris County CPS caseworker testified yesterday that he doesn't believe the injuries were caused by a dog, as the infant's mother claimed. "No, I don't believe the dog attacked the child," the CPS's Armando Morin said. "The dog would have had dried blood under its chin, bloody paws. It didn’t have any, animal control said." Five-week-old...

More bizarre news keeps emerging in the story of Laurie Williamson, a Houston woman accused of keeping her children sick to get attention for herself. Prosecutors say Williamson, a former nurse, used her medical knowledge to convince doctors that her three kids suffered from a variety of ailments including Tourette syndrome, Crohn's disease and epilepsy — which led to unnecessary medications and surgeries for the children. Psychiatric experts say it looks like a classic case...

The Chronicle's Matt Stiles and KTRK's Miya Shay reported earlier this week on the "courtesy" program that allows certain local elected officials to park free at Houston's airports, noting that more than 100 city officials, state legislators and members of Congress have racked up around $100,000 in free parking under the perk. Officials have been offered the free parking since the 1980s; it's intended for use during official business, but some of the instances were...

Good morning, Houston! Sure, you might have had some bad experiences on the bus when you were in school, but we're willing to bet your bus driver never passed out at the wheel like one did in Magnolia yesterday. The driver had just dropped a student off on FM 1488 when she passed out; fortunately, a 9-year-old passenger called 911 on his cell phone and got help. Looks like the driver had a heart...

Happy Martin Luther King Day, Houston. Whether you decide to attend one of the dueling parades or just stay in, we're sure you're keeping an eye on the weather — which seems to be this morning's big story. Hello, winter! >> Enter winter: We started to wonder last night if the cold weather would ever get here — but in case you haven't noticed, it did. It's rainy and around 40 degrees downtown now,...

We've all heard about people using stolen identities to buy electronics, jewelry, whatever — but yesterday, a Houston man was arrested for appropriating another man's identity and using it to buy an entire beauty salon. William Cornell Robinson, 36, is accused of stealing the identity of a San Jacinto County man and using it to buy the Awesome Hair Salon this summer. According to the previous owner of the salon, who still works there, Robinson...

So Jeff Skilling had the next chunk of his life mapped out for him this afternoon: The former Enron CEO was sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison, meaning he'll get out of jail when he's 76. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ordered Skilling to home confinement for a while — for how long, it's not clear: Lake asked the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to recommend when Skilling should be sent to jail....

Local lawyer John O'Quinn, who made millions in tobacco settlements in Texas, had a lovely weekend at Kruse International's annual Labor Day car auction, the Chronicle tells us. He purchased a $500,000 Lamborghini Gallardo signed by such varied celebrities as Samuel L. "Motherf****ing Snakes" Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Regis Philbin. (Does he even count as a celebrity at this point?) Profits from the one-of-a-kind car went to benefit the Child Safety Network, whose mission is...

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on...

A Katy woman accused of having sex with a neighbor boy beginning when he was 11 years old is now thought by police to have had his baby. The woman, Dina Marie Blakley, 37, was recalled by neighbors in Katy's Creekstone subdivision as having had frequent fights with neighbors and having children always congregating at her house. The victim, who is now 15, told a relative about the abuse early last month. The relationship began...

Eric Cooper's trial for tampering with a government document, which begins this week, could end up just being about a man accused of signing his name to his ex-wife's car title without permission. But it could also open the door to a lot of grief for Cooper, the guy a variety of ex-wives and girlfriends say is a smooth-talking con man who built relationships on lies. Either way, we bet it'll be pretty interesting. If...

A new three-year study by UH researchers will focus on drug abuse patterns among Katrina evacuees and how the hurricane might have affected them — the first study of its kind, KUHF reports. The study of 300 evacuees will also look at how Houston's health care system has helped or hurt evacuees with drug problems, information researchers hope will lead to better treatment of drug abuse after disasters. "The whole purpose of this is to...

>> World: British health food stores will sell tea spiced with hemp flower syrup and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. "Iced Cannabis Tea" is also sold in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. >> Nation: Another crazy poll verifies something we never expected. This time, the U.S. is the No. 1 patriotic country out of 34. Venezuela comes in second. >> Texas: The Supreme Court's decision to uphold much of 2003's...

A prosecutor told jurors today that Andrea Yates killed her five children because she thought she was a bad mother and wanted to be punished A woman trying to run down another woman ran her car into a crowd of people at a party early this morning, injuring the target and a nearby man Gov. Rick Perry and officials cut the ribbon today to open a 10-mile section of the reconstructed Katy Freeway between the...

Remember when you were in school and always had to sell crap? Magazines, sausage baskets, wrapping paper, candy bars — it was all done to benefit school programs, and of course you were guaranteed to do pretty well, because what adult would turn down a little kid with a catalog full of sausages? What we never would have imagined was someone stealing our hard-earned money, but that's what police say the PTO treasurer at a...

Depending on a board vote later this week, HISD might crack down on bullying, cheating and classroom distractions — all the things that make school so memorable. A new code of student conduct under consideration by the HISD trustees would give teeth to the district's bullying rules, which now stipulates that students who bully or verbally abuse other students have reports sent home to their parents and might get detention. Under the new policy, principals...

What, you may be asking yourself, is going on with the City Hall bonus scandal these days? The investigation into government spending is continuing, and it keeps turning up interesting things like news about City Controller Annise Parker shutting down 11 special bank accounts set up by City Council members. Parker said she shut down the accounts, which held donations that councilmembers used to fund special events, to avoid any inadvertent violations of city law...

A crew searching near the Ship Channel for a missing 3-year-old toddler came across something unusual Monday: eight plastic bags containing the bodies of dogs. County animal control investigators said they don't know where the dogs came from or who put them on a pile of trash alongside Market Street Road. "Somebody maybe picked them up from a veterinary clinic, and rather than take them to a landfill or somewhere else, they just dumped them...

The civil rights movement was... oh... about 40 years ago, but that didn't stop employees at Commercial Coating Services, Inc., a Conroe-based company, from physically and verbally abusing Charles Hickman, a black man, because of his race. Hickman received a substantial settlement to the tune of $1 million after he sued for racial discrimination and harassment. In 2002, one of his employers even went as far as putting a noose on Hickman's neck and choking...