Free Republic

HUMBLE, TX — The traffic in Kingwood is already an issue, but it's about to become more frustrating as crew prepare to shut down parts of the Interstate 69 bridge that spans the San Jacinto River, just south of Kingwood. The Texas Department of Transportation announced this week that they will close the southbound lanes of I-69 over the river at the end of this month to repair damages caused during flooding from Hurricane Harvey. The construction is expected to continue through the start of summer, and the start of the 2018 hurricane season, which begins in June. Humble, Kingwood...

As Marvel's latest superhero movie, "Black Panther," draws praise and rakes in millions of dollars at the box office, Twitter trolls have emerged across the country attempting to stoke racial division by spreading false reports about the film's largely African American fans. Over the last few days, users have posted false claims that they were attacked by blacks while going to see "Black Panther," the first movie from Marvel Studios led by a predominantly black cast. "It's very unfortunate that a film that is poised to become a cultural icon is being marred by this fake news," said Darnell Hunt,...

The Houston school district is under fire after a student without legal status ended up in immigration detention following his arrest by a school police officer for an altercation with a female student. A lawyer for Dennis Rivera Sarmiento, 19, said his client was bullied by the 15-year-old girl and retaliated only after she taunted him with racial slurs, threw a full bottle of Gatorade at him and confronted him. "He's very fearful of being deported to Honduras," said Rivera's attorney, Brandon Roché. On Wednesday, students at Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston staged a lunch hour walkout to...

On a June night last year, an undercover Houston Police Department officer positively identified a 16 year-old runaway at Fantasy Plaza, a strip club off North Freeway - but first, he paid her $40 to give him a lap dance. HPD's Vice Division received information about a missing juvenile working at a Houston strip club on June 9, 2017, having used a fake ID to get hired. The next night, three undercover officers arrived at the strip club in search of the teenager, armed with three photos of her provided by her mother. In the official HPD report of the...

Have you seen the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads? Well now check out "Bill White: the Most Mysterious Liberal in the World" ad!

Marianne Williamson walked to the middle of the stage, paused for a second, then she asked all the black people to stand. The New York Times best-selling author, internationally known spiritual teacher and native Houstonian was in town recently for her "Love America Tour" at Unity of Houston. She urged the 200 of us from our seats. She then instructed a white person to hold the hand of a black person standing. A white woman and a teenage girl who looked to be mother and daughter in the row behind me took my hand and arm. Williamson then told the...

Twenty-five years ago, Fort Bend County's assistant engineer emerged from a meeting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He had new information, and he was worried. Charles Glen Crocker, then 38, had learned that the footprint for Barker Reservoir was bigger than the land owned by the government, placing future homeowners in the Cinco Ranch and Kelliwood subdivisions within what engineers called "flood pools." The reservoir, dry much of the time, could fill during a major rainstorm and spread into the homes of unsuspecting residents. His resulting letter, written on July 6, 1992, was a warning to county officials:...

HOUSTON - A woman described as a victim of sex trafficking, who is originally from Wisconsin, is recovering Saturday morning after an overnight altercation, Houston police said. The woman left a club she was at after her "pimp" was assaulting her there just before 2:30 a.m. in the 14600 block of Hempstead Road. When she left, the pimp began following her, continuing to berate and assault her, Houston police said. A "good Samaritan" pulled over after he saw the assault and got out of his dark-colored pickup truck to help, Houston police said. The pimp then told the good Samaritan...

IBADAN, Nigeria — Allegedly abandoned by their American mother in Africa, seven children from Texas begged small change to buy food and shuttled from a neglectful stranger’s care to a concrete-block orphanage, Nigerians said Thursday. Eventually, the children proved their American citizenship to a passing missionary from Texas by singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He notified U.S. authorities, who got the youngsters home last week as Texas welfare officials investigated the mother. Ages 8 to 16, the three boys and four girls, all of whom had been adopted by the woman, apparently spent 10 months in this market city of millions...

A woman from Dallas, Texas, faces up to life if prison if she is convicted on charges she damaged more than $300,000 worth of art at the end of a first date. The damaged art, owned by a prominent Houston attorney, includes two paintings by famed artist Andy Warhol.

“I wasn't in the meeting with the president so I don’t know what he did or didn't say. I can tell you my family, Heidi as a child lived in Africa, she lived in Kenya and Nigeria. Her parents were missionaries there. My brother-in-law has been a missionary with his wife and sons in Haiti for many years,” Cruz said. President Trump denied using the vulgarity. “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled...

WASHINGTON - The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants the Justice Department to prosecute mayors and other political leaders in so-called "sanctuary cities" that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. "We need to hold these politicians accountable for their actions," Thomas Homan told Fox News. "This isn't the America I grew up in. We got to take these sanctuary cities on. We got to take them to court. And we got to start charging some of these politicians with crimes." Such a policy would dramatically raise the stakes for immigrant-friendly cities and states that have clashed with the administration....

Tests run on a little boy allegedly forced to live in a closet in west Harris County show he was exposed to meth, according to an attorney appointed to represent the boy's interests...He told investigators he had been locked in this closet, and according to testimony in court was "...not allowed out of it for hours at a time." He also told investigators "...his friends..." were the "...rats and roaches..." that would visit him. "He can articulate some things that are really shocking and surprising that tell us he was in there for a quite a length of time," Leal-Hudson...

A man has been arrested on various charges after police found a small arsenal of guns on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency on Louisiana Street downtown, Houston police said. Police at the hotel called for backup around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after they attempted to arrest the man for being intoxicated and trespassing. When help arrived, police noticed ammunition laying around the man’s hotel room, Lt. Gordon Macintosh with Houston police said. The man was arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon and trespassing. When investigators looked into his room further, they located an AR-15, a shotgun, a handgun and...

HOUSTON - A man has been arrested on multiple charges after police located a small arsenal of guns on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency on Louisiana Street downtown, Houston police said. Police at the hotel called for backup around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after they attempted to arrest the man for being intoxicated and trespassing. When help arrived, police noticed ammunition laying around the man's hotel room, Lt. Gordon Macintosh with Houston police said. The man was arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon and trespassing. When investigators looked into his room further, they located an AR-15, a shotgun, a...

Texas lawmakers have gone from championing to criticizing toll roads, a shift that some Houston-area leaders worry has gone too far and could limit coming projects. "Without toll roads and that funding, I don't know what we are going to do," said Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal, citing the need for new roadways in rapidly growing parts of the Houston area. The concern, voiced at a Dec. 15 meeting of the Houston-Galveston Area Council's Transportation Policy Council - the region's transportation planning group - was shared in response to decisions by the Texas Transportation Commission. A day earlier, the commission...

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A woman accused of destroying three paintings and two sculptures belonging to Houston attorney Tony Buzbee and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage appeared in court. Lindy Layman, 29, has been charged with criminal mischief. According to details that came out in court, Layman and Buzbee were on a date Saturday when she became heavily intoxicated and they returned to his home. Buzbee believed she was too intoxicated and called an Uber driver to pick her up. She allegedly refused to leave and hid in his home. That's when Buzbee called a second...

The Anti-Defamation League expressed "deep concern" Tuesday over a sermon by a Houston imam that included references to killing Jews, but in a statement, the imam expressed remorse for the language he used. He said in no way does he support violence. Local Muslim religious leaders also called the sermon problematic, saying that the imam's message does not represent the views or sentiments of the Houston Muslim community. The ADL said that in a sermon posted on YouTube, Imam Raed Saleh Al-Rousan of the Tajweed Institute in west Houston stated:"Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews....

A grandmother stopped a would-be Christmas week jewelry robbery by shoving the perpetrator out the door of the store. The suspect attempted to shove his way through as the employees entered to prepare the Galleria-area shop. Judy Memmel, a grandmother of five, and her fellow employees opened the security gate of Houston Jewelry and unlocked the door as they prepared for a busy Christmas shopping day on December 18, Click2Houston reported. As she started into the store, a man approached wearing a suit, dark glasses, and a watch cap. The video below shows how Memmel stopped the suspected armed robber...

A prominent Muslim cleric said Judgment Day “will not start until Muslims fight the Jews … in Palestine,” during a sermon condemning the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by the Trump administration earlier this month.Sheikh Raed Saleh Al-Rousan, founder of an Islamic institute in Houston, Texas, claimed in a sermon on Dec. 8, two days after Trump’s declaration, that Jews “killed the prophets and the messengers of Allah,” according to a translation of his comments made by the Middle East Media Research Institute.  Some of his comments were made in English while others were espoused in Arabic. He stated:...