Freight Transportation

Down Boy: Texas Ranks Third in Most Dog Bites in the U.S.

Being a mail carrier for the postal service must be a bitch, particularly in older neighborhoods where they have to walk up to houses instead of just driving by a mailbox. There's the heat and carrying a big pack full of mail. But, perhaps the worst part is the fear of being attacked by a dog. Any a ... More >>

The Best Things at Coachella This Year, Weekend Two

Ed. Note: This is the final post of our piggyback Coachella 2013 coverage, with an eternal debt to our friends at LA Weekly and OC Weekly. The Visual Stimulations for People Who Were High Coachella's art installations -- the ones designed to impress you while you're high, aka all of them -- were pa ... More >>

Free Press Summer Fest '13 Announces Postal Service, Stooges, Cat Power, TV On the Radio, Social D, Geto Boys, Calvin Harris, etc.

Moments ago, the lineup for the 2013 Free Press Summer Festival was announced online at fpsf.com. Let's get to it, shall we?

Bang Bangz

Say Goodbye To Nine Houston Post Offices

Offices a-closin'​The U.S. Postal Service has announced it's thinking about shutting 3,700 locations across the country, many in small towns. But Houston would not be spared: A list of potential closings -- hilariously labeled the "Expanded Access Study List" -- shows nine sites in the city a ... More >>

Union Pacific Is Very Sorry For Blocking Major Galleria-Area Roads For 7 Hours Today

A crew had to stop where they were​Galleria area drivers had a nasty morning today because a Union Pacific train was dropped dead in its tracks blocking Richmond and West Alabama for almost seven hours. Union Pacific spokesperson Raquel Espinoza tells Hair Balls the train's crew had reached t ... More >>

Houston Dogs Worst In Country For Attacking Mail Carriers

Probably lives in Houston​It's hard out there for a Houston mail carrier -- if the heat doesn't get you, the dogs probably will. The United States Postal Service has put out its list of the 10 most dangerous cities for dog attacks, and coming in at the top is....us. USPS says 62 Houston lett ... More >>

Frankie Sanders: Union Boss Put in Travel Vouchers for Hotels Closed by Katrina

Make sure your fake receipts are not for closed hotels.​If you're going to rip your union off for $10,000 by putting in fake travel vouchers, don't put in one showing you stayed at a New Orleans hotel while it was closed because of huge Hurricane Katrina damage. It's just common sense. Con Ar ... More >>

Freelance Whales

Neal Uy Lim: Got Millions Through Counterfeit Postage Scheme

Don't mess with Newman​A Houston man has been convicted of running a multi-million scheme where he used counterfeit postage machines to rip off the post office. Neal Uy Lim, 50, owned three large pre-sorting mail businesses in the Houston area, operations that handle bulk mail and get a disco ... More >>

Don't Kill the Messengers

How bike couriers plan to survive the internet age.

"The Wreck Of The Old 97": Country's First Million-Seller

Before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all hands, inspiring Gordon Lightfoot's famous ballad, there was another wreck and another song. In 1903, The Southern Railway had a deal with the United States Postal Service for mail delivery. One of the trains involved in the mail haul was The Fast M ... More >>

RealFilms Screening: Living with the Trinity

How the Trinity River made political history

Lead Plaintiff In "Toxic Town" Lawsuit Dies

Photo by Daniel Kramer​A little over two years ago, the Houston Press published an award-winning story looking into Somerville, a small town 90 miles northwest of here that contained a plant that made railroad ties."Toxic Town" described the high rate of cancer in the town and focused on the lead ... More >>

Alan Jackson

Texas Is Still The Destination Of Choice, Moving Company Finds

​For 42 years, Allied Van Lines has issued a report saying where people are moving to and where they're leaving. Once again, Texas tops the list of destination states.Dominates the list, is more like it. The state had a net gain of almost 2,000, the company reports, far greater than second-place A ... More >>

Commuter Rail From Galveston And Hempstead By 2012!! Well, Maybe

​The Citizens Transportation Coalition is currently giddy with dreams of 90 MPH commuter trains speeding from Galveston and down 290 into the city...possibly by 2012, which sounds like the far future but is only three years away. There hasn't been much public movement on commuter rail since the HG ... More >>

Railroad Wins Important "Toxic Town" Suit

Photo by Daniel KramerDennis DavisIn 2007, our Todd Spivak did a feature on  the "Toxic Town" of Somerville, 90 miles southnorthwest of Houston and home to a Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway plant.Residents there have much higher cancer rates than normal, a fact some traced to the arsenic, ... More >>

Important "Toxic Town" Trial Starts Up Today

Photo by Daniel KramerThe polluters who turned Somerville into the Toxic Town described in an award-winning Houston Press story may have had a good result in the first lawsuit they faced, but a second one -- beginning a week from today in the town of Caldwell in Burleson County -- may be different. ... More >>

The East End Doesn't Like Metro's Light-Rail Overpass (Updated)

The Houston East End Chamber of Commerce, the Eastwood Civic Association, and some East End residents are up in arms over Metro's plans for a light rail overpass on Harrisburg Boulevard. So what's their problem, you say? Why would anyone have anything critical to say of Metro? Yeah, Hair Balls found ... More >>

Truck Drivers Falter Under the Weight of High Fuel Prices

The rising price of diesel hits independent owner/operators the hardest

Duck Season. Rabbit Season. Tax Season.

Toxic Town: Linda Faust Loses to BNSF Railway

Toxic Town: Cancer and Birth Defects in Somerville

In Somerville, chances are far better than normal that you will die of cancer or give birth to a deformed baby

Cold as Ice

NHL 2K7 looks pretty, but fails to light the lamp.

Buy Your Bike Bods Here

Ultra Man

Champa is the champ of our DJ competition at South Beach

Letters

Welcome to Fire Island

While communities across the country block LNG terminals, Quintana just shrugs

Best Mall Alternative

Kim Hung Mall

Best Post Office

Sam Houston Branch

Perilous Paths

A severed foot revives the fight over safe train crossings for schoolkids

Going off the Rails

A proposed line into the Bayport Industrial District has residents from Clear Lake to the East End vowing to stop the "toxic train" in its tracks

The Cannabis Caper

How a citizen's donation to NORML got routed to the DEA

Letters

Rotten to the Corps, Wife Strife, Sweet and Neat

Letters

Silent Echo, Going Postal, Freedom Fighter

Zoned Out

The biggest Houston postal "improvement" ever has cut 400 jobs -- and snarled mail delivery

Stale Mail at the Fed

Urine, tax returns, and credit card payments pile up at the federal building

Letter Bombs

Dittborn's airmail art challenges your assumptions about his Chilean background

Puff It Up

Anchors have feelings - and a flair for fashion!

Pushing the Envelope

Sushi via the U.S. mail? Velveeta boxes affixed with stamps? To Beth Jacobs, it's all art.

City Hall's Dime Debts

When it comes to Houston follies, full fare is only fair

Letters

D.on't

P.olice S.emis?

Semi-Safe

Pasadena police wanted bad trucks off the road. Then big-rig politics wrecked their plans.

Stolen and Forged

The check is in the mail takes on a whole new meaning in West University Place

Return to Sender

With The Postman, Kevin Costner fails to deliver

DisUnion

Rent by charges of corruption and ineffective representation, Teamsters Local 988 may be driving itself to destruction

Press Picks

The Bender Difference

A former corporate downsizer takes a hard-nosed approach to helping the homeless