Free Republic

County residents next week will have a chance to air concerns to state lawmakers and area leaders about Hurricane Ike recovery efforts. The committee on Hurricane Ike will meet at 10 a.m. Jan. 7 at the Galveston Island Convention Center, allowing the public to tell state lawmakers and area leaders what issues and obstacles they face almost four months after the storm struck Southeast Texas on Sept. 13, causing catastrophic flooding from storm surge and displacing thousands of people from their homes. The storm was the third most destructive to ever make landfall in the United States. The committee has...

Friday, they prepared for the worst. Saturday, they watched and waited. What they saw Sunday was not good. "We're affected right now, huge," Landry's Restaurants chief Tilman Fertitta said after a hurricane assessment meeting with a dozen of his executives Tuesday.

Rudy Giuliani is jetting around the country wooing Bible-thumping conservatives, but his plane is often provided by a king of Sin City. The Republican presidential hopeful anted up more than $122,000 last summer alone for jets traceable to casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands empire has made him the third-richest American, a Daily News review of campaign records shows. Last quarter, The Sands' innocuously named Interface Operations LLC was the top provider of corporate jets to the frequently flying Giuliani ... (snip) In addition to the Las Vegas Sands, Giuliani's fleet of corporate connections includes more than a...