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By HOUSTON CHRONICLE Posted: July 27, 2010, 6:53 AM CDT July 27, 2010 HOUSTON — It took five hours and four minutes, but a suspected drug trafficker finally surrendered the spoils: 85 condoms of cocaine he allegedly swallowed and intended to smuggle from Houston to France. Housrou Kedji is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Friday after being caught as he tried to board an Air France flight leaving Bush International Airport. He is charged with two counts of drug-trafficking. The 42-year-old citizen of the African nation of Togo gave up 2.2 pounds of his illicit cargo while sitting...

Break with the Past: Changing a dorm name makes a good Step towards healing UT's troubled racial history After several months of discussion within the University of Texas community in Austin, UT President William Powers Jr. will ask the school's board of regents today to consider renaming a dorm that now honors a former law professor, William Stewart Simkins, along with a neighboring park dedicated to his brother Eldred, a judge and UT regent. The reason? Simkins was not only a legal educator at UT from 1899-1929. He and his brother were members of the Ku Klux Klan during a...

Analysis: Big 12 follows UT's lead Other schools remain in fold, some grudgingly, as big dog barks By MIKE FINGER Austin Bureau June 14, 2010, 11:33PM . Mack Brown's football program was driving the entire realignment discussion. So it turns out Texas A&M won't get the satisfaction of secession. Baylor, having received the miracle its athletic director asked for, won't have to contemplate the ramifications of an alliance with UTSA. And Bob Stoops won't have to share a division with his brother. But even after all the flirtations, hidden agendas and indecision, and even after every politician, fundraiser and network...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U4tI_qzyH0

• Turtle advocates urge halt to shrimping By HARVEY RICE HOUSTON CHRONICLE April 26, 2010, 9:56PM Share Print Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponGALVESTON — A group devoted to saving endangered sea turtles Monday asked state and federal officials to halt all shrimp trawling on the upper Texas Gulf Coast because a large number of dead Kemp's ridley turtles washed ashore this month. Carol Allen, the Sea Turtle Restoration Project's Gulf Coast director, told the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that shrimp trawlers were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 Kemp's ridley turtles on...

The New Intolerance by Patrick J. Buchanan 04/09/2010 "This was a recognition of American terrorists." That is CNN's Roland Martin's summary judgment of the 258,000 men and boys who fell fighting for the Confederacy in a war that cost as many American lives as World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq combined. Martin reflects the hysteria that seized Obamaville on hearing that Gov. Bob McDonnell had declared Confederate History Month in the Old Dominion. Virginia leads the nation in Civil War battlefields. So loud was the howling that in 24 hours McDonnell had backpedaled and issued an apology...

Young Marine foils purse snatching By Robbie Magness Correspondent Published January 26, 2010 A would-be thief ran into a problem — quite literally — after snatching a purse from an elderly woman Friday at the San Jacinto Mall. The thief’s getaway path ran him directly into Baytown’s newest U.S. Marine, Private First Class John Timothy Magness, who tackled the assailant and was able to return the purse and all its contents to the shocked but grateful owner. Magness, 19, a 2009 Ross S. Sterling High School graduate, completed Marine Corps boot camp in October and Marine Combat Training in December,...

Atom Comments Saturday, July 25, 2009 Eighty-Six Year Old Texas Grandma Chases Intruder Away with a Can of "Raid" - Video 7/24/09 This story is too good! You have to see it. An 86 year-old grandmother in East Texas and her 69 year-old daughter were in their home when an intruder came into their house and demanded their purses. The 86 year-old grandmother started to call the police and the intruder told her to put the phone down or he would kill them both. She then got up and grabbed a can of "Raid" off the counter and started toward...

Dog Earns Keep in Weekend Assault By Jane Howard Lee Contributor Published June 30, 2009 A 27-year-old Baytown man went to jail Sunday after allegedly stabbing another man but police said the victim’s dog came to the rescue, and levied his own form of punishment first. Police said the incident evolved from an argument over some car keys and a barbecue. Police were called to the 1500 block of Cedar Bayou to check out a stabbing victim and a dog bite victim about 3:45 p.m. Baytown Police Captain Roger Clifford was one of the officers who went to the scene....

Autopsy of man who died in police custody shows high levels of PCP in system By AMY MOORE May, 19, 2009 An autopsy released Tuesday found that a man who died after being Tasered by Lumberton police last month had potentially lethal levels of PCP in his system. Kevin Jabreel LaDay's April 30 death drew outrage and protests from the African-American community and spurred investigations by the Texas Rangers and FBI. The autopsy report, completed by Jefferson County forensic pathologist Dr. Tommy Brown, says LaDay had a PCP level of 280 nanograms per milliliter in his blood. The report cited...

Sunday, May 17, 2009 | 4:34 a.m. Parting Company Law vs. Moral Values A civilized society's first line of defense is not the law, police and courts but customs, traditions and moral values. Behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled over … Democracy and Majority Rule Democracy and majority rule give an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny. Think about it. How many decisions in our day-to-day lives would we like to be made through majority rule or the democratic process? How about …...

Lumberton stands up to hate group Strong support for local police in face of Quanell X protest Jerry Jordan News Editor Several hundred Lumberton residents and others from throughout Southeast Texas came to show their support for the Lumberton Police Department this past week as Quanell Ralph Evans (Quanell X), leader of the separatist hate group the New Black Panther Party, descended on the tight-knit community to protest the recent death of Kevin Jibrell Laday. According to Lumberton Police Chief Danny Sullins, Laday crashed his car into a ditch on Pine Burr Road at about 3 a.m. on Thursday, April...

Lumberton police accused of beating man to death (Texas) By BLAIR DEDRICK ORTMANN April, 30, 2009 The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the death of a man whose family alleges he died because Lumberton police officers beat him. FBI spokeswoman Shauna Dunlap confirmed the investigation Thursday by phone, but cautioned that opening a case does not mean there was wrong-doing. ``One of the reasons we do confirm these types of investigations is so the community has extra reassurance,'' Dunlap said. The family of Kevin Jibreel LaDay, 35, alleges that officers beat him to death after his car...

February 3, 2009 Paris, Texas, race relations dialogue turns into dispute Black, white residents vent, share views with help of Justice Department mediators By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent February 1, 2009 PARIS, Texas — Ten days into a new American era, a hundred white and black citizens of this deeply polarized east Texas town tried their hand at the kind of racial reconciliation heralded by the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama, gathering for a frank community dialogue on the long-taboo topic of race. Things didn't go so well. The black speakers at Thursday night's meeting, led by two...

Please pray for my best friend Jimmy, who is in a hospital in Louisiana in critical condition. We have been best friends since elementary school back in Beaumont. We went all the way through school together, then joined the Marine Corps and went to boot camp together. He was the best man at my wedding and the pall beared at my dad's (a WWII vet) funeral. We have been very close through the years. I am leaving for the 4 hour trip to Baton Rouge as soon as I get off the computer. I won't be able to respond until...

Friday, January 9, 2009 For Immediate Release First Southern National Congress a Resounding Success SNC News Service Marion, VA; December 11, 2008 – Over one hundred Southern men and women, from all walks of life and from fourteen States, gathered near Hendersonville, NC December 5 through December 7 to convene the First Southern National Congress (SNC). This historic meeting at the Kanuga Conference Center in the shadow of the Blue Ridge was the first all-South congress since 1861. It was a “resounding success,” according to Thomas Moore of Charlottesville, VA, who was elected Chairman. Delegates attended from the following States:...

Domestic dispute ends in a deadly shooting Conroe police say altercation arose when father tried to take children Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Dec. 20, 2008, 9:26PM Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzA woman's 80-year-old grandfather fatally shot her estranged husband after he tried to take their two children from the grandparents' house, Conroe police said Saturday. Brice Wade Boudreaux, 32, died Friday evening at the home on Silver Creek Drive in Conroe, police said in a statement. The investigation was ongoing Saturday, and it was not immediately clear whether the grandfather would face charges. He was questioned by police and released....

Huffman takes Senate Dist. 17 seat in runoff By ALAN BERNSTEIN Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Dec. 16, 2008, 11:32PM 1 2 STEVE UECKERT CHRONICLE BuzzRepublican Joan Huffman defeated Democrat Chris Bell in Tuesday's runoff election for a Houston-area seat in the Texas Senate, setting a new high for the number of women in the 31-member legislative chamber. With votes from all precincts counted, Huffman, a former judge and prosecutor, had 56 percent against the former congressman and Houston councilman, according to results that will be made final and official in a few days. "I have my supporters and thousands of...

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 25, 2008 Hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose to their highest level in five years last year, led by attacks between Latinos and blacks, officials said Thursday. The annual report by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission showed hate crimes rose by 28%, to 763, with vandalism and assault leading the way. Robin S. Toma, executive director of the... Boy, 6, critically hurt as gunfire...The Homicide Report Bratton walks a fine line on race Video: Surveillance tape: anti-Semitic graffiti on synagogue In what commission Executive Director Robin Toma called...

545 PEOPLE Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. You...