Results tagged “supremecourt”

Good morning, Houston. If you, like Houstonist, are looking forward to the day when Buffalo Bayou will be redeveloped as parkway from the East End through downtown to Shepherd Drive, you might be interested in this: The county is planning to build a massive new jail smack dab in the middle of that park system. The proposed 2,500-bed jail, which would be located next to the county jail on Baker Street, would apparently take...

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too - two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the...

Good morning, Houston. Been missing the Texas Cyclone since it was torn down last year? Then you'll be happy to know about the Boardwalk Bullet, a nearly 100-foot-tall wooden roller coaster set to open this summer at the Kemah Boardwalk. Tim Anderson, Kemah Boardwalk manager, said the Bullet will have more crossovers than any other wooden coaster in the world, and it'll be a bit taller and longer than the famed Cyclone. "It has...

Good morning, Houston. We're regular NPR listeners, and we enjoy it as much as the next guy when legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg gives us another thrilling reading of a Supreme Court transcript. Even so, we were a little surprised to hear an ad the other day for NPR's newest piece of merchandise, the limited-edition Nina Totin' Bag. Yes, it's what you'd think it is: a tote bag with Totenberg's mug on it (in,...

A fire in far north Houston that damaged the homes of three families, including that of Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina, also injured four firefighters late last night. Fire investigator Nathan Green told reporters that the fire started in the justice's garage. Justice Medina was in Austin, but his wife and son were at home when the fire started, but they escaped unharmed. However, the blaze destroyed their garage (which is detached from the...

Good morning, Houston. If you haven't gotten a speeding ticket in the city lately, consider yourself lucky — a lot of your fellow Houston drivers have. According to a report from the National Motorists Association, Houston is the third worst speed trap in the nation (up from fifth place last year). The ranking was based on the number of Houston-related posts to the NMA's Speed Trap Exchange — which, by the way, is definitely...

Good morning, Houston. Or should we say happy National Zucchini Bread Day? Yep, April 25 is the day to celebrate the delicious Southern tradition — so why not hit the kitchen and whip up a batch based on Emeril's recipe? And don't forget to send your friends a National Zucchini Bread Day e-card. No, seriously. >> Appeals court: Bible fight moot: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the legal battle...

Something we missed over the weekend in the story of the city vs. The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation: On Sunday, the Chronicle published a letter from former City Attorney John Wildenthal about agreements the city had made with social service agencies like The Center. You may remember that the Chron talked with Wildenthal, who served as city attorney from 1964 to 1966 under Mayor Louie Welch, about the situation last week, and...

KHOU is speculating about whether U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could return to his hometown of Houston if he ends up getting the boot in Washington. Gonzales, a graduate of MacArthur High School in Aldine, was a partner with Vinson & Elkins from 1982 to 1997, when he became the Texas secretary of state (from there, he was appointed to the state Supreme Court and then became White House counsel to President George W. Bush;...

So here we are in the first full day of a World Without Anna Nicole — and though she's gone, the news isn't likely to stop anytime soon. Today, the medical examiner's office in Broward County, Fla., will conduct an autopsy on Smith to see if it can determine how she died, and closer to home, experts say her legal battles will probably stay in the courts for quite some time. First, what we know...

FoxNews has confirmed that one of Houston's own, Anna Nicole Smith has passed away. Born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967 in Houston, Texas the "Reality TV Star" and former TrimSpa spokeswoman (who was just included in a class-action suit against the company) has passed away in Hollywood, Florida. She was found unresponsive in her hotel room at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel - where she had been photographed at a boxing match earlier...

We all have certain words that offend us, right? So we go through life not using those words and hoping other people will extend us the same courtesy — but that's not enough for Ken Corley, the mayor of Brazoria, who is leading a charge to outlaw use of the word "nigger" in his city. If Corley's proposal becomes a city ordinance, certain uses of the word within Brazoria's city limits would be punishable by a fine of up to $500.

The Dallas Morning News reports today that some state legislators are taking steps to make sure abortions become illegal in Texas if the U.S. Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v. Wade. State Sen. Dan Patrick, who was sworn in as a senator Tuesday, has filed a so-called "trigger bill" that would take effect if the Supreme Court should reverse its position on abortion. It's a change Patrick said is coming: "Many of us on the...

Huntsville death row inmate Michael Dewayne Johnson, scheduled to die tonight for his role in the 1995 slaying of Waco convenience store clerk Jeff Wetterman, declined to be executed: instead, he killed himself. Johnson was found unresponsive in a pool of blood around 2:45 AM, by a guard making one of the quarter-hourly checks requisite for those about to be executed. Johnson wrote words on the wall in his own blood after slashing his...

Looks like it may be the end of the line for the Bible in the previously forgotten William Mosher memorial in front of the old Harris County Courthouse: A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Bible must be removed from the monument because a district judge made it a religious monument when he restored it 10 years ago. We talked about the Mosher monument in December; if you haven't seen it, it's a block...

The U.S. Supreme Court said it won't intervene in the attempt to replace Tom DeLay with another candidate on the November ballot Leon Andrade, a 36-year-old migrant worker, was arrested today for the March 12 machete murder of William Huang, a Houston minister and seafood market owner An 8-year-old Liberty County boy is in critical condition after being shot in the head while playing video games at a friend's house; the shooting seems to have...

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own. Phillyist thinks that readers recommended this post the most because "most of our quieter readers (probably) agree with us that rude commenting sucks." Know what else sucks? Philly's not getting the Olympics, but they are getting thinner....

Looks like the end of the road for Carole Keeton Strayhorn's attempts to get herself called "Grandma" on the November gubernatorial ballot: A state district judge ruled Thursday that the nickname flap was out of her jurisdiction and Strayhorn dropped her lawsuit seeking to officially make herself "Grandma."

>> 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...

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...

So all the trouble E. Pierce Marshall went to trying to keep his stepmom, Anna Nicole Smith, from inheriting his oil tycoon father's fortune ended up being, well, a bit of a waste: Marshall died last week after what the family called a "brief and extremely aggressive infection." He was 67.

We remember our first job, working at a suburban Houston mall. We proudly negotiated the hourly rate up to $5.00 an hour, contingent on us doing a good job for the first month, during which we would make a whopping $4.75 and hour. Soon after, in 1997, the federal minimum wage was raised to $5.15. Apparently that’s a number the federal government has felt good about, because the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since. (If...

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out their art and face off. A plagiarized novel is the...

Now that Anna Nicole Smith has got a Supreme Court win under her belt, she might be making room for something else: Several media outlets have been reporting the former Playboy playmate and widow of J. Howard Marshall II to be pregnant. In an e-mail statement to the Associated Press, Smith's lawyer Howard K. Stern said, "If Anna Nicole is pregnant, she obviously doesn't want anybody to know yet," and that "If she's not pregnant, she's not denying the rumor because she thinks it's funny how much of a stir it's causing. She'll leave it up to you to guess which one it is."

The Supreme Court gave Anna Nicole Smith the green light to keep fighting for her beloved husband's fortune today, saying an appeals court was wrong when it ruled that a Texas probate court had total jurisdiction over the estate of oilman J. Howard Marshall III.

As we discussed yesterday, the Supreme Court got a little more fun today when Anna Nicole Smith made the scene to try to convince justices that she really did marry for money love. Several justices said they were concerned that the one-time Playboy Playmate was kept from pursuing a piece of her late husband's fortune. "It's quite a story," said Justice Stephen Breyer. Smith married oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994 when he...

Tomorrow, former Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith goes to the Supreme Court. Smith is fighting for the millions she claims her former husband, the late Houston billionaire J. Howard Marshall II, promised her before his death in 1995. Smith was Marshall's third wife; she met him while she was an exotic dancer in 1991. The couple courted for three years before tying the knot in June 1994. But there's one bump in the road preventing...

OK, we admit it: We think we're going to become addicted to the Chronicle's TrialWatch blog, which gave a somewhat behind-the-scenes look at federal courthouse action surrounding jury selection in the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial. How else would we have learned about these gems: • Lay arrived at the federal courthouse first, at about 8:30 a.m., and was reportedly mobbed by reporters as he crossed Smith Street. Skilling showed up a few minutes later and...

You think you've got troubles? Try being Tom DeLay these days. First there were the ethics complaints, then those pesky indictments, and now the Supreme Court's going to review the DeLay-led redistricting that allowed Texas Republicans to take a majority of House seats in 2004.