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A Houston police officer shot and wounded a man in a park near the Museum District late Friday evening. Few details were released about the shooting at Hermann Park in the 5900 block of Golf Course. Police said the suspect was shot in the leg and taken to Ben Taub Hospital and is expected to survive his injury. No further information was released. A witness, who declined to be identified, said the suspect had robbed someone in the area and the officer cornered him in the park. The suspect and the officer tussled just before the officer opened fire, the...

Nacogdoches man was infected by flesh-eating organisms while at Crystal Beach The 58-year-old Nacogdoches man who was infected by flesh-eating bacteria after swimming at Crystal Beach is improving, his wife said Friday, and doctors expect to be able to save his leg. "He's doing better, but still not communicating," Linda Gilpatrick said of her husband, Steve. Gilpatrick was infected with a bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus after swimming during a July 8 fishing trip in Galveston County. The infection quickly developed into necrotizing fasciitis, a potentially fatal tissue-destroying disease. Vibrio vulnificus, which is in the same family as the bacterium that...

AUSTIN - Nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins has been hospitalized in her recurring battle with breast cancer. "I think she's tough as a metal boot," her brother, Andy Ivins, said Friday after a visit with her at Seton Medical Center in Austin. Andy Ivins said his sister was admitted to Seton on Thursday. She spent Friday morning with longtime colleagues and friends, and was "sleeping peacefully" when he arrived later in the day. A self-described leftist agitator, Ivins, 62, completed a round of radiation treatment in August, but the cancer "came back with a vengeance," and has spread through her...

Nearly 260,000 Texans have a license to carry a concealed handgun, according to revised figures released this week by the Department of Public Safety. At the end of last year, 258,162 people had permits, up about 4 percent from the year before and more than double the number in 1996, when Texas law first allowed people to carry concealed weapons. DPS had earlier told the Houston Chronicle that 72,345 Texans had concealed handgun permits last year. That incorrect figure appeared in a story published on Dec. 24, 2006. But DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said that because of a computer programming...

CROSBY — Startled by a loud noise in the middle of the night, Jay and Russell Jefferies stumbled from their beds early Wednesday to view the monitor of their home security camera to see what had interrupted their slumber. What they saw jolted them awake. According to authorities, four heavily armed men were outside their small house in the 3900 block of Crosby Barbers Hill Road trying to kick in the front door about 2 a.m. The Jefferieses, whom investigators think are brothers, rushed to grab their shotguns and opened fire as the intruders burst through the door shooting, said...

A deputy constable shot himself in the foot Thursday morning while trying to fend off a pit bull attack, authorities said. Deputy C. Menefield was in the process of evicting a tenant from a residence in the 13900 block of Wrigley when the man opened the door and allegedly ordered a dog inside the home to attack, said DeAnn Collins, a Precinct 7 spokeswoman. She said the pit bull lunged at Menefield's leg. As the deputy tried to kick the dog away, he fired his gun, shooting himself in the left foot, Collins said. The dog ran back inside at...

Weeks after she was indicted, the ex-president will instruct courses on accounting Priscilla Slade, the former Texas Southern University president fired for spending school money on personal expenses, is teaching accounting courses on campus this semester. Her return to the classroom comes four weeks after a Harris Country grand jury indicted Slade and three aides for allegedly paying for household furnishings and landscaping, among other things, for her benefit. Priscilla Slade, the former Texas Southern University president fired for spending school money on personal expenses, is teaching accounting courses on campus this semester. Her return to the classroom comes four...

DENVER -- An Air Force officer with hundreds of hours of combat time pleaded guilty Friday to defacing cars with bumper stickers supporting President Bush. Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, a decorated officer who flew 500 combat hours in the Gulf War, Kosovo and Bosnia, pleaded guilty to felony mischief and must pay restitution to the owners of the damaged cars. Fecteau, 43, of Colorado Springs, declined comment after a brief hearing. "This episode has had a very significant impact on his Air Force career," defense attorney Patrick Mulligan said. Mulligan said the plea agreement "affords Lt. Col. Fecteau the opportunity...

The Richmond police heard shots and came running RICHMOND - Two teenagers who police said tried to steal a Rosenberg man's luxury car picked the wrong person, the wrong place and the wrong time. After abducting the man, who was able to stash his own pistol in a pocket, the teens drove him to a vacant lot Friday that just happened to be a few hundred feet from the Richmond police station, where officers were changing shifts. When McRon Thompson, 23, opened fire on the would-be car thieves, police heard the shots and came running. The teens, who were both...

No one wants to admit it, but the University of Texas changed everything. The state's flagship university brought its brand of business education to Houston and upended the local MBA market. Before UT showed up, Rice University's Jones School of Management was the highest-ranked business school in the city and offered its curriculum only to full-time students and seasoned executives earning Master of Business Administration degrees on the weekend. Before UT, the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business abandoned efforts to offer an MBA program to full-time students and refocused its mission to cater exclusively to working professionals taking...

Comments from the public led to new policy, a DPS spokesman says AUSTIN - The state has ordered its troopers to cover up any tattoos in a move intended to preserve the officers' clean-cut image. Last week, the Texas Department of Public Safety began requiring the state's almost 2,700 uniformed troopers to hide any visible tattoos or brandings while on duty. The state already mandates short hair, shiny shoes and no jewelry or piercings for troopers, department spokesman Tom Vinger said. Long sleeves or skin-colored patches to conceal body art have been added to that list. Comments from the public...

Congressman says Travis County DA is prolonging the case until after the fall elections AUSTIN - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay said Tuesday the Travis County district attorney is just playing politics by prolonging his criminal case and will drop the "bogus" charges after the fall election. An appellate court panel today is hearing the prosecutor's motions to overturn a lower court's decision to drop some of the charges. "Unfortunately, Ronnie Earle is trying to drag this out over a period of time," DeLay said. "In fact, I imagine he's trying to drag this out past the November elections and then...

When intruders held his family at gunpoint, victim fought back and survived 3 bullets Bill Harvey can't explain why he's alive to tell how he wrestled a gun from a robber, shot the man and then survived a barrage of bullets from the suspect's three accomplices. The violent scene unfolded about 6 p.m. Saturday inside Harvey's west Houston home in the 2200 block of Woodland Park Drive while his wife and five children watched. "I don't know what to think," Harvey, 34, said Sunday. "I absolutely have no remorse now for killing a man, and I'm trying to figure out...

Study finds as many as 12 million immigrants may be in U.S. unlawfully WASHINGTON - As many as 12 million illegal immigrants now live in the United States, up from an estimated 8.4 million in the 2000 Census, according to a new study released Tuesday. The estimate by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also said that illegal workers fill nearly one out of every 20 civilian jobs. They hold 24 percent of all jobs in farming, 17 percent in cleaning, 14 percent in construction and 12 percent in food preparation. The population and work force estimates were released a day...

MESQUITE — With the Super Bowl approaching, the family of First Lt. Simon Timothy Cox Jr. thought of their deployed football fan in Iraq. "He was so excited about sports and his family," said Dorothy Duff, his mother-in-law who lives in Dallas. "He would get so involved and yell at them ... 'You're kidding me!'" Cox, 30, died Thursday after a roadside bomb detonated near his tank in Taji, the Department of Defense announced Sunday. The Mesquite High School graduate was in his second tour of duty when he died, becoming at least the 195th Texas casualty in Iraq since...

Rookie officer's training helped foil carjacking Holly Mong was just six months into her career as a police officer when she shot two armed men who tried to hijack her car outside her Jersey Village apartment. Police said Mong, 22, a Richmond Police Department rookie, was wearing civilian clothes about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday when two suspects climbed into her Jeep Liberty and pointed guns at her head as she was starting the vehicle. "It was her training that helped her react in that situation," said detective Sgt. C.J. Harper of the Jersey Village Police Department. On her off day, she...

Priscilla Slade's accountability is said to be at issue in part because of a big furniture bill Texas Southern University's regents stripped President Priscilla Slade of her authority to spend money and hired an outside law firm to investigate her management of school finances Friday. The board of regents also placed another senior administrator, Quintin Wiggins, who oversees the university's business operations, on paid leave, pending the outcome of an audit by the Bracewell and Giuliani law firm. The nine-member board, which includes lawyers, corporate executives and religious and financial leaders, made the decisions after meeting for more then five...

Jonathan Finkelman was 16 and had a good home and a good future, but bad choices changed everything Jonathan Finkelman, 16, lived in comfortable suburban surroundings and attended one of the city's best public high schools. He had lots of friends, boyish good looks and a nature that led him to donate half of his bar mitzvah gifts to a children's outreach program. His death last month during what police are calling a botched drug-deal-turned-robbery was worse than anything his friends could imagine. For Bellaire High School parents, it was a reminder that nothing guarantees their children's safety — not...

If you go to the link, there are a whole bunch of children books that have been photoshopped as if Fat Ted was the author. http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1848320 I found many of them pretty funny.

Jacob Tadesse went to A&M because it had a scholarship, not for its traditions, but the Yates grad found support Editor's note: This is the second story in an occasional series chronicling Jacob Tadesse's first year at Texas A&M University. Colleges and universities across Texas are grappling with how to recruit and retain minority students. Jacob Tadesse showed up last week at his alma mater Jack Yates High School in one of Houston's grittiest neighborhoods to sell the idea of college, and Texas A&M University in particular. With baggy jeans and some street slang, Tadesse did not look or sound...