West Texas, specifically Marfa, may be No Country for Old Men, but it certainly seems to be the place for making Academy Award winning films. Speaking of winning, one lucky Houston Fiesta shopper hit it big in the Texas Lotto. >> TSU's president calls for entrance standard: The Chronicle reports that new TSU president John Rudley is moving toward more stringent admissions standards for the embattled university. President Rudley is taking over the helm......

You might not have heard of Olivewood Cemetery, a black graveyard founded in the 1870s on land where freed slaves were once buried. Olivewood is still with us today, at 1300 Court St. (behind the Grocers Supply warehouse at Studemont and Hicks), but it's largely overgrown and forgotten — though it won't be for long if two groups vying to become its caretaker have their way. The question now, though, is which group will win......

Due to a number of problems that have already been reported with early voting, several counties are ready to get rid of the voting records system used in Texas because it is too flawed. The system, TEAM, began operating in January in order to comply with federal regulations on centralizing voting information across the state. Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said that the new database is "causing statewide voting problems" and that "it's a......

Good morning, Houston. Did you read the Chronicle over breakfast this morning? We're sure the paper is thanking you: According to the Newspaper Association of America, the Chron lost 2 percent of its circulation in the six-month period ending in March. That's really not so bad compared with drops among some of the other biggest papers in the country: 3.5 percent for The Washington Post, 4.2 percent for the LA Times and a whopping......

KPRC has an interesting story today about the spots in downtown Houston where the most parking tickets were issued last year. And in a stunning bit of irony, the place where the most tickets were issued in 2006 (a whopping 6,024) was the Municipal Courts Building, where you go to pay parking tickets. The other downtown location where thousands of tickets were given last year was the University of Houston-Downtown (5,878 tickets), an urban campus......

The Chronicle reports today that the University of Houston is taking the first steps toward starting a medical school, a move that would help address physician shortages in Texas and across the country — but could be an uphill struggle politically. The proposal for a UH medical school, drawn up by Kentucky medical school planners DJW Associates, calls for a starting class of 30 students with 15 basic sciences faculty members and six full-time clinical......

If you've looked closely at your traffic tickets lately, you might have noticed that a good part of the fines — about half of them — don't have anything to do with what you got the ticket for. Instead, they're surcharges that help fund a variety of things from a juvenile crime program at Prairie View A&M to a court personnel training fund. The Chronicle took a look at these "loser fees," the latest way......

Two Prairie View A&M students caused the car crash early Monday morning that killed them and the driver of the other car, Harris County deptuties said yesterday. The wrong-way collision on Highway 290 near Mason Road killed Lamond Foster and Antwan McKinney, from Prairie View. Investigators said they are still not sure if alcohol played a role in the crash. Officials with the Harris County Sheriff's Department said they are still waiting for the Harris......

Police are searching for two men who they say chased and killed a man in a west Houston apartment complex Sunday evening A 6-year-old boy watched his stepfather shoot his mother to death, then turn the gun on himself, outside a northwest Harris County Wal-Mart on Saturday night Residents of Southgate are rallying around a large oak tree that may be cut down to make way for new construction Investigators are looking into the cause......