Results tagged “coastguard”

Good morning, Houston. We remember our days as student drivers — not bad overall, though we did have a pregnant in-car instructor who had a nasty habit of slamming on the brakes every time we passed a doughnut shop. Still, we didn't have it anywhere near as bad as the kid who passed his driver's test Monday, then crashed his car into the side of a Houston DPS office. The driver was parking his...

Good morning, Houston. We enjoy a good, quick breakfast as much as anyone, but seriously, there are limits — just ask the four people who were hurt Monday when a driver who was eating oatmeal at the wheel crashed into a Metro bus near downtown. Witnesses told KPRC that the driver ran a red light at Pierce and St. Charles and hit the front of the bus, which caused the driver's vehicle to spin...

Good morning, Houston. Seems like everyone's listening to iPods these days, eh? And even if you don't have one of the near-ubiquitous mp3 players, all might not be peace and quiet: As the AP notes, iPod-related noise pollution is a growing problem. It can happen in several ways, including people who turn their iPods up to top volume and others who sing along with the music in their heads. Bbut there are ways to...

So, have you heard the one about the guy who went chasing his prized pet bird, got stuck 60 feet up in a pine tree and had to be rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter? Good story — and it happened right here. The bird was Geronimo, an Umbrella Cockatoo; the tree was in Porter; and the man was William Hart, a roofer. Hart said Geronimo flew out the window of his house around 4...

In another of the weekend's bizarre stories, a man and woman fell 50 to 60 feet off a cruise ship's balcony in the Gulf of Mexico early yesterday morning — fortunately, they're OK, but the incident is raising questions about exactly how they managed to fall in the first place. The man, 22, and the woman, 20, fell from the balcony of the woman's cabin aboard the Grand Princess when the ship was about 150...

Good morning, Houston. Even if you don't have a pizza pan with the Virgin Mary's silhouette on it, don't despair: You could still own a half-liter bottle of holy drinking water. The water is being marketed by a man in Stockton, Calif., who has the liquid blessed by Catholic and Anglican priests with plans to expand the line to other faiths as well. One warning: The water's label carries the note that sinners who...

Good morning, Houston! If you leave the house this morning, expect wrecks everywhere — the freezing rain and freezing bridges everyone's been talking about finally hit last night. If we were TV news, we'd have one of those flashy "Winter Storm" graphics and some super-serious music — but we're not, so: >> The ice cometh, man: Basically, here's the situation: It's cold and people are crashing into each other all over the city. Road...

Don't look now (because you probably wouldn't be able to see anything anyway), but it's foggy again. There's a dense fog advisory for southeast Texas until 10 a.m. today as banks of inland and sea fog combine to bring visibility below an eighth of a mile across much of the area — a lot like yesterday morning. Yesterday, the fog news focused on airplanes that weren't able to take off or land; today, 45 ships...

Speaking of things you don't hear about every day — we were, weren't we? — the Coast Guard is continuing its search today for a man who went overboard from a Carnival cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. A passenger on the Carnival Conquest reported seeing the man, 42, fall from a cabin balcony at about 11 p.m. Saturday, near the end of the ship's week-long Caribbean cruise. The ship was...

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for? Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez. Chicagoist talked about the passion as they bid adieu to Bell...

We'll bet you can't guess what's special about today. No, really, just try to guess. Anything? Oh — why, yes, it U.S. Coast Guard Day, as a matter of fact. But that's not what we're talking about here.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned part of Texas' redistricting map today, saying some of the new divisions didn't protect minority voting rights Sheriff's officers are searching for Hector Caranza, a 5-year-old boy discovered to be missing from his northeast Harris County home this morning Orlando Sanchez, the newly named Republican candidate for Harris County treasurer, is suggesting that talk about eliminating the office of county treasurer is discriminatory against him Webster Smith, a Coast Guard...

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...

A U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadet from Houston is involved in the first court-martial in the school's 130-year history — and it's a doozy, involving binge drinking, rape and race. Webster Smith, 22, faces accusations of misconduct from several female cadets centered on nights of heavy drinking. During one, in June 2005 in Annapolis, Md., Smith is accused of having sex with one of the women after she passed out. She claims Smith raped her;...

Crews are still working to contain an oil spill in Nassau Bay after a tugboat sank there last night. The tug, owned by Payne Brothers Inc., sank while it was connected to a work barge and leaked about 75 gallons of waste oil into the bay, which is near Clear Lake. The leak continued this morning. Response crews from the Coast Guard, Harris County Pollution Control, Nassau Bay Volunteer Fire Department, Kemah Fire Department and...

ahead — if you need to use the Bolivar Ferry: Starting tomorrow, motorists using the ferry will be subject to random searches.

A dedication ceremony in Galveston yesterday marked the beginning of work on the country's first offshore wind energy farm, which will include 50 windmills generating electric power when it's finished. A similar project has been proposed off the coast of Cape Cod, but it's been subject to legal wrangling. Thanks to Texas history, though, that hasn't been a problem here. The reason dates back to 1836, when Texas won its independence from Mexico. When Gen....