Results tagged “garbage”

What might be the world's shortest police chase ended tragically early Wednesday when a couple of suspects crashed an allegedly stolen van, killing one of them and critically injuring the other. It started around 3 a.m. Wednesday when someone in an apartment complex in the 5800 block of Fondren reported that a Dodge Caravan was being stolen; a police patrolman spotted the van leaving the complex and tried to pull the driver over — but instead of pulling over, the driver sped up. "The second that driver spotted the officer is when the pursuit started," HPD spokesman Officer Gabe Ortiz told the Chronicle.

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they...

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti...

Trash pickup, like a lot of public services, is one of those things we never give much thought to — aside from the times when a holiday pre-empts our regular trash day (like this week) and we have to figure out when to roll our beloved black city trash bin out to the curb. But come July 2, one in six Houston households will have to turn their thoughts to garbage: On that day, new trash collection routes will go into effect for around 67,000 households in the city.

Though the identity of the body found in the garage of a Midtown home last weekend hasn't officially been released, The Facts is reporting that it may be that of 28-year-old Jerry Glaspie, a former Danbury resident. Laura Glaspie, Jerry Glaspie's sister-in-law, told the paper that the family got confirmation from police late last week. "It's traumatic. No doubt in our mind he was murdered," Laura Glaspie said. "They're waiting on the toxicology and autopsy reports. They don’t have an actual cause of death yet."

This morning, the Chronicle has more details from the Tynesha Stewart murder case — and if you thought the story couldn't have been more gruesome, think again. According to witness statements used in a search warrant request for confessed killer Timothy Wayne Shepherd's apartment, Shepherd once said that he "would boil someone and eat them." That hits pretty close to home, considering that police say Shepherd destroyed Stewart's dismembered body parts on barbecue grills. So...

Steven Weinstein, the man whose car had a dead body hidden in its trunk, will be held without bond until at least Friday, a judge ruled yesterday. State District Judge Caprice Cosper said she wants Weinstein, 42, stabilized on anti-depressant medication before she considers bond and wants him examined by a mental health professional before he's released. "I appreciate what you're saying," Weinstein told Cosper. "But the best thing for me is to take my medicine, stay in my bed, in my home."

A group of activists held a press conference yesterday demanding a search for murdered A&M student Tynesha Stewart's remains — despite Stewart's family's request that a search not be conducted. "We respect the wishes of the family, but we too are a family and we too have been traumatized by the rollercoaster that we, the community and the greater public have been put upon — not only by the heinousness of the crime that has...

Has your city-issued garbage can turned up missing lately? Turns out you might be the victim of those wily scrap metal thieves: According to KHOU, folks are now using the big, black, wheeled plastic trash cans to store their scrap metal booty:

So what if you and your neighbors suspected there was a dead body hidden inside one of the houses on your block, but no one took you seriously? That's apparently what happened in Midtown for weeks before police finally investigated this weekend and discovered a body in the trunk of a car parked inside the garage of a townhome. Ugh.

Good morning, Houston. Yeah, it's been a while since we had a Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee media moment — but now, thanks to Isiah Carey, we have a classic: a series of photos showing Jackson Lee's skill in getting in front of TV cameras during Sen. Hillary Clinton's visit to Houston last week. The hardest-working woman in Congress? You betcha — don't you know it's tough do to your own blocking? [via HouStoned] >>...

Houstonist had no idea what the Adopt-a-Stop program was until it was mentioned in one of our favorite Chronicle features, Move It!, on Monday. It works much like adopting a block or a mile on the highway, but Adopt-a-Stop works to keep neighborhood Metro bus stops looking spiffy. According to Metro, there are about 12,000 bus stops scattered throughout the city, and keeping them clean and graffiti-free is quite a task.

Houstonist is a big fan of the developing parkway system along Buffalo Bayou downtown. The sections that are finished seem very well done, and walking along the bayou from Sabine Street to Allen's Landing — yes, it can be done — gives you a completely new look at the city. Unfortunately, it also gives you a look at a whole lot of trash, as the Chronicle notes today: a parade of aluminum cans, plastic bags, paper, styrofoam containers and other refuse floats down the bayou and collects on its banks, which makes for a not-so-pretty sight. And guess what? You might be contributing to it:

Fourteen supporters of Houston's striking janitors were arrested yesterday evening after they handcuffed themselves to the entrances of the Chevron building downtown, part of a national protest against the oil company. According to the Chronicle, a group of protesters tossed garbage bags into the revolving door and around the entrance of 1500 Louisiana St., then chained themselves to the door, the skywalk and each other. Police arrived in about 15 minutes and made the arrests; officers said the protesters would probably be charged with trespassing.

Remember the striking Houston janitors who protested in other cities and blocked the Westheimer/Post Oak intersection? They've been busy this week, too: Yesterday they rolled buckets and trash bins through downtown during rush hour and returned to Uptown — and today they stormed the Houston Club, disrupted a speech and gathered outside HPD headquarters.

Those striking janitors sure have been busy lately: Earlier this week some of them hit the road to take their crusade for higher wages to other cities, and today some others hit the road — literally — blocking a busy Uptown intersection for a couple of hours. It happened at Westheimer and Post Oak at about 1:30 p.m., when protesters dragged a bunch of garbage cans and trash bags into the intersection, formed a circle around them and handcuffed themselves to each other and the cans. According to KPRC, police showed up and directed traffic for a while; at 2:30, they closed the intersection and started breaking the crowd up. Twelve people were arrested and may face Class B misdemeanor charges for obstructing a pathway. The roads re-opened by 3 p.m.

Paper by Design has some amazing pumpkin photos. We can only wish for that kind of talent, our efforts look more like a two year old did the carving (Houstonist Warning: Toddlers and knives do not go well together!! Always supervise closely when the little ones want to "help".) We found a site where you can hone your carving skills and try your hand at lots of designs, without all of the scooping and...

Does this cell phone make my backside look big? Rather than tossing it into the garbage, recycle it! Houstonist recently received some environmentally friendly news: That old (circa 1984) brick phone and rechargeable batteries can be conveniently recycled, as can cordless power tool batteries (yeah, we know, that phone cost you nearly $4,000 — but hey, the Commodore 64 used to be all that, too). We like doing our part to save the planet, and thanks to Call2Recycle, recycling some electronics or components thereof is a lot easier. Since 1994, the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp. has recycled more than 22 million pounds of rechargeable batteries, meaning they're being kept out of the garbage:

When Houstonist was in the third grade, we didn't really know the finer points of handling contraband at school — then again, the stuff we sneaked in back then mainly consisted of candy bars and Garbage Pail Kids cards. We certainly never took a grenade to school (probably because we never had the chance to), and if we had, we'd like to think we would have been savvy enough not to show it to our...

: in this case, it's Bellaire High School, where three bats have been found hanging out in a third-floor hallway. The bats were noticed over the past two weeks, and Bellaire police officer Richard Perez got called to the school when one was captured. "One was actually hanging off the ceiling tile, and there was one behind a doorway entry coming off the stairwell. Another one was behind a garbage can," Perez told KPRC.

Breaking the law, breaking the law We -ist folks love us some crime, and no misdemeanor is too petty for a post on any of our sites. This week, join us for a rogues' gallery of miscreants major, minor, and alleged. Gothamist gets us started with "Law & Order", muppet style. Oh, you know what isn't a crime? Taking pictures on the MTA. So, why are cops stopping photographers? In other Gotham crime, a...

A robbery suspect led police on a two-hour chase today; it ended when the man crashed his pickup into a Pasadena waterway Eskico Truman Garner, a 75-year-old Texas City man, was sentenced to more than 33 years in prison today for trafficking in crack cocaine Also in Texas City, some residents of the apartment complex where an explosion occurred Wednesday still can't go home because of smoke damage and electrical outages And Curtis Jetton, injured...

From this weekend's news, another reason not to live in those townhomes that are going up all over the Inner Loop: If you do, the city might not pick up your trash. That's the issue at the Calumet Street Lofts in the Third Ward, one of those Urban Lofts developments that shoehorns a bunch of metal townhomes into a tiny area by putting some on the inside of the property, accessible by narrow driveways. And...

On Friday, the Chronicle carried a profile of a kindred spirit of Houstonist's: Jerry Wood, who seems to delight in learning all there is to know about Houston. As a child, Wood had a rich fantasy life and terrible eye-hand coordination. Creating make-believe cities on paper was Wood's way of trying to master the world. "I found the world to be a scary place," he said. "I would try and understand it better, to imitate...