Spent all your cash on girlie drinks and shattered dreams again this weekend, didn't you? No worries - Thriftster gives you the lowdown on cheap stuff to do until Paycheck Friday. Monday: Start the week out on a socially responsible note with the Houston Grand Opera at the Museum of Fine Arts Brown Auditorium (1001 Bissonnet St.). The event is honoring writer Leah Lax and who interviewed hundreds of Houston immigrants from around the globe...
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Two men have been charged with the murder of Andrew Morris in northeast Houston in April
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Opponents of HPD's policy on illegal immigrants say a deadline is unfair requiring them to turn in the signatures of 20,000 Houston voters by Aug. 28 to get a city charter amendment on the November ballot
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About 120 fugitive illegal immigrants were arrested as part of a nationwide sweep that resulted in some 2,100 arrests, federal officials said
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Results tagged “immigrants”
Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,...
Good morning, Houston. So what was the last bonus gift you got at work? A fruit basket? Maybe an engraved Space Pen? Well, if you worked for La Porte-based Texas Stress, you might have ended up with a Harley: Gary and Joni Hagar, the owners of the company, rewarded each of their top 10 employees with $21,000 and told them to pick out their own hogs. "I've never heard of a boss doing this...
Good morning, Houston. Hot weather? Rain? Another week in our cube farm? Looks like Houstonist has a case of the Mondays. We'd better just move on to the news ... >> Mayor: I'll find money to keep day-labor site open: A spokesman for Mayor Bill White said Friday that the mayor will help find $100,000 to fund a day-labor site after city officials voted to cut its public funding. Critics of the site, which...
If there's one thing we love, it's an election. And the city has been obliging lately. Melissa Noriega and Roy Morales, the two candidates left standing after last month's special election to fill a vacant at-large city council seat, traded remarks on immigration as early voting began yesterday. Noriega, the clear favorite after garnering 47% of the vote in May, accused Morales of using "fear as a tactic to try to get people worked up."...
Good morning, Houston. It's June 5 — does that date mean anything to you? It should: Six years ago today, Tropical Storm Allison made landfall on the upper Texas coast, bringing with it more than 40 inches of rain in some areas (and all the flooding that went with it). When all was said and done, the damages totaled $5.5 billion, making Allison the most costly tropical storm in U.S. history. Have any memories of that weekend? We know you do — share 'em in the comments.
John McCormack, CEO and founder of Visible Changes, the popular chain of hair salons, made a big promise to his employees fifteen years ago. He told them that if any of their children wanted to go to medical school, the company would pay for it. At the time, most of his employees did not even have high school diplomas and many were immigrants from developing nations. KHOU profiled two Visible Changes employees, one from Vietnam...
For the past 25 years, the Houston Area Survey, directed by Rice University Sociology Professor Stephen Klineberg, has been offering a timely window into the minds of Houstonians. The recently completed 2007 survey especially shows how Houston's attitudes reflect the changes in our post-Katrina city. This year, crime was the number one worry for Houston residents, but immigration is a fast-growing concern. For the second year, the number of people who believe that the racial...
Jack Valenti, the long-time head of the Motion Picture Association of America and Houston native passed away today at his home in Washington. He was 85 and still suffering the effects of a stroke he had in March. Valenti was born in Houston to Sicilian immigrants in 1921, growing up on the still unpaved streets of the 1st Ward. He traced his love of movies to a string of jobs working in downtown Houston movie...
One person was killed and four others were injured — one critically — during a Southwest Freeway shootout Tuesday that police say might have been triggered by a rivalry between immigrant smuggling gangs. It happened around noon as people in two trucks headed north on the Southwest Freeway began exchanging fire; the two vehicles then exited the freeway, ran a red light and crashed into a car before the occupants jumped out and continued the...
The newest results of the annual Houston Area Survey are starting to appear, showing Houstonians' increasing wariness of lingering Katrina victims and the influence of immigration in the city, among other concerns. The survey, an annual pet project of Rice University Professor Stephen Klineberg, has been tracking city-wide trends of opinions and demographics since 1982. This year, February's results show that sixty-six percent of respondents deem the influx of Katrina refugees "a bad thing",...
Good morning, Houston. Are you a smoker? Are you home from work today? According to a new report, smokers take an average of 11 more sick days each year than their nonsmoking colleagues — that's a 43 percent difference. Of course, the research was done in Sweden, which has some of the highest sick-leave rates in the world, and much of the time off could be traced to factors other than smoking-related illness —...
It's no secret that in certain circles, the city of Houston just doesn't get as much respect as other, “elite” cities like New York and Boston. But according to a recent opinion piece by Joel Kotkin in the Wall Street Journal, Houston, and other “newcomer” cities like Phoenix and Charlotte, may have the last laugh. He argues that "superstar" cities have become too expensive and overrated for their own good, driving immigrants and the middle class to cheaper cities – and business and culture along with them:
New York and its environs, for example, had 140 such [large companies] in 1960; in 2006 the number had dropped to less than half that, some of those running with only skeleton top management. Houston, in contrast, had only one Fortune 500 company in 1960; today it is home to over 20. Houston companies tend to staff heavily locally; this is one reason the city was able to replace New York and other high-cost locales as the nation's unchallenged energy capital.
Amnesty International USA will present a free screening of Chasing Freedom at 8pm tonight at the Aurora Theater. The 2004 CourtTV film features Juliette Lewis as an egocentric lawyer who takes on a pro bono case for an Afghan woman seeking asylum in America from the Taliban. Together they face the harsh legal system, highlighting the difficulty that many foreigners have seeking asylum in America.
Surely you remember Pizza Patrón, the Dallas-based pizza chain that started accepting Mexican pesos as well as U.S. dollars this week in a dual-currency trial program. Well, you're not the only one: Since it announced the program, Pizza Patrón has gotten a slew of hate mail and death threats, the AP reports. Who knew people would get so upset that they would threaten to kill a pizza restaurant?
Based loosely on a P.D. James novel, Children of Men has been marketed as an action movie with a sci-fi style topical premise--fertillity has ended and one pregnant woman is humankind's only hope for survival. Based on the previews, we went in with images of Clive Owen (as heroic rescuer), maybe a car chase or two, some nice cozy explosions...
The English vs. Every Other Language debate got a little more heated last night in Friendswood as local officials and residents debated the merits of making English the city's official language. You may remember when the issue came up last week after resident William Hilburn complained to the city that he couldn't communicate with city employees trimming trees near his house.
We may be in for more flooding tonight and tomorrow as another round of strong storms heads for Houston Speaking of which, if you find yourself trapped in high water while driving, stay calm and wait for your car to float Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed: Houston's drainage system isn't anything to write home about Latin American immigrants in Texas will send $5.2 billion home to their relatives this year — up 64...
So imagine you're an illegal immigrant who gets a job under a program that would help you get American citizenship, and then you find out the necessary paperwork wasn't filed by the deadline, so you get fired. That's the situation a group of immigrants working for Houston-based Cafe Express have found themselves in — and they've filed suit against Wendy's International, Cafe Express's parent company, over it.
During yesterday's City Council meeting, many councilmembers took the chance to offer their condolences to the family of Rodney Johnson, the HPD officer who police say was killed by an illegal immigrant during a traffic stop last week — but gilt-haired Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs went one step farther, saying Mayor Bill White should use Johnson's death as a platform to change the police department's policy on immigrants. And that didn't sit well with other councilmembers,...
HISD's Newcomer Charter School, designed to provide immigrants who must work full-time with an education, graduated it's first class on Sunday. Opened in January 2005 within Lee High School, the program has proved popular--currently there are about 200 names on waitlist to get in. Enrollment will expand after the school moves to it's permanent location, later this school year.
The mid-decade census estimates are in, and they show that Hispanics make up the majority of Houston's young population. According to the findings of the American Community Survey, 55 percent of Houstonians age 15 and younger are Hispanic, while just 17 percent of people age 75 and older are. By contrast, 55 percent of Houstonians over 75 are Anglo. The numbers aren't a surprise, but UH sociology chairman Nestor Rodriguez told the Chronicle they present...
An immigration-related billboard unveiled alongside the Katy Freeway yesterday is raising some eyebrows from people on both sides of the immigration issue, KTRK reports. The sign, which faces westbound traffic on the Katy at Heights Boulevard, was paid for by Grassfire.org and U.S. Border Watch; it reads, in bold red, white and blue lettering, "Stop the invasion — secure our borders." Steve Elliott with Grassfire.org told the Chronicle that the billboard is intended to let...
A group is trying to get the city charter changed to allow HPD officers to get more involved in immigration enforcement by removing a policy that prevents officers from asking people about their immigration status and giving them access to federal databases. The group, Protect Our Citizens, kicked off a petition drive yesterday at City Hall to try to get the 20,000 signatures required to put the measure on the November ballot. Under HPD's current...
Police have arrested three men — Bakari Holland, 18, Koty Holmes, 19, and Rashard Renfro, 23 — in connection with the carjacking Tuesday night that left a toddler dead A judge ruled today that Andrea Yates must turn herself in to the Harris County Jail by Monday evening to wait for her retrial in the 2001 drowning deaths of her children Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens' son Michael was charged with burglary after he was...
Today in funny, during this morning's CNN Live Today reported President Bush inserted his foot in his mouth when, during a televised press conference, he teased a reporter for wearing sunglasses when it was cloudy outside. Bush later learned the L.A. Times reporter is blind. In other news ... >> Texas: Thanks in part to a donation from a Houston oilman who died May 30, democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell has collected $333,212 for...
Police have arrested a 15-year-old girl in the stabbing death of a teen boy Tuesday afternoon at a Montrose-area park. The victim, Gabriel Granillo, and two friends were attacked by 20 or 30 people at Ervan Chew Park in what police say was a gang attack; even though HPD said it believes the incident was an isolated incident, they're stepping up patrols in the area just in case. Meanwhile, more details are merging about the...