U.S. Department of State

The Battle Against the Keystone Pipeline

Environmentalists and landowners battle to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and its load of crude from flowing across Texas rivers and aquifers.

Rest of the Best

Houston's top 5 local music venues.

With Andrew WK Out, Who Can Bring the Party to the Middle East Now?

Over the weekend, the State Department shocked uptight old white people around the United States by announcing that expert on partying Andrew WK would be bringing the party to Bahrain as a cultural ambassador. In the world we live in, this shouldn't be all that shocking. President Obama is practica ... More >>

Video Released Yesterday Shows Houston Journalist Austin Tice Alive, But Terrified

In the first glimpse of Austin Tice since a message he tweeted on August 11, the captured Houston journalist appeared in a video clip released yesterday on a website supporting the Syrian government. It shows Tice marching in rugged and arid terrain, blind-folded, among men armed with bazookas and m ... More >>

Missing Houston Journalist, Austin Tice: Where Are You?

It's now been 33 days since anyone's heard from missing Houston journalist Austin Tice, lost somewhere in Syria, possibly in captivity, and even Twitter's gone quiet about him. This is how these things work, unfortunately, when it comes to social media -- everyone expresses outrage, panic, disappoin ... More >>

This Week In Food Blogs: The End of Cheap Food?

The Village Voice: One of the highlights of my recent trip to D.C. was getting to watch the announcement of the brand-new American Chef Corps live at the State Department. Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice has more on what the so-called Diplomatic Culinary Partnership entails, while Eater has the ... More >>

Eating D.C.: Dining Dispatches from the Capital

As of this writing, I am still comfortably ensconced in the Hotel Palomar in our nation's capital. There is a Negroni at my side, compliments of the hotel, which was waiting for me in the room after I returned from walking off a Shake Shack burger at lunch. That's service. Both the Shake Shack and ... More >>

How to Speak Republican

Leaked document reveals the secrets of the GOP's coded language.

Reviews For The Easily Distracted:
Haywire

Title: Haywire So Is Gina Carano The Next Big Action Star? She certainly has the acting chops for it. Uhhh... Exactly. Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: Two-and-a-half Jean Claude Van Dammes doing the splits out of five. Brief Plot Synopsis: Private security operative is betray ... More >>

The Keystone XL Pipeline: Houston's Cardno Entrix In The Crosshairs

Keystone XL: Coming to Texas​Houston-based Cardno Entrix is the latest target of scrutiny in the newest allegations of cronyism surrounding TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline project. A group of U.S. senators has called for an investigation into the State Department's handling of the Keystone ... More >>

Muy Caliente Summer Edition

Rough Justice: Bloodthirsty Bar Greets Bin Laden's Death

ericalessandrini.blogspot.com​Osama bin Laden is dead. Following a late dinner at Van Loc Sunday, Rocks Off was a block or two away from Leon's Lounge when a friend texted us the news around 10 p.m. When we entered the bar, our buddy Lonesome Onry and Mean's daughter in the military had just ... More >>

Jessica Tata Brought Into Custody

Jessica Tata, 22, is in custody.​The long strange trip of the woman wanted in connection with the deaths of four children in a daycare fire in February is over as Jessica Tata was escorted to Harris County jail early Tuesday morning. Tata was the owner of Jackie's Child Care, located in a res ... More >>

DPS Tells Christmas Shoppers To Avoid Mexico, In Case You Were Considering It

Feliz Navidad, but watch out for kidnappers​Cross off all those kitschy souvenir knick-knacks you were planning on giving away for Christmas. (Do they still sell those taxidermied frogs playing saxophone?) The DPS is officially warning shoppers to avoid Mexico. Just visiting is out, too. "Me ... More >>

WikiLeaks: Texas Company Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops

DynCorp: WikiLeaks is not kind​Another international conflict, another horrific taxpayer-funded sex scandal for DynCorp, the private security contractor tasked with training the Afghan police. While the company is officially based in the DC area, most of its business is managed on a satelli ... More >>

The James Baker Monument: Five Things It Needs

James Baker: Not related to Velvet Revolver​Finally, there will be a reason to visit downtown Houston: A statue honoring former Secretary of State James Baker will be unveiled Tuesday.Why Baker? As the monument's official website so modestly puts it, he's "A Magnificent American."Some people might ... More >>

Josh Daniel Goes From Houston Press To Hillary Clinton's Speechwriter

Josh Daniel: From the Press to some government job​In a huge step down that can only be seen as evidence of incredible drug abuse or chronic ineptitude, a former Houston Press copy editor has become the new chief speechwriter for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Josh Daniel, who had been working ... More >>

Chile Mine Disaster: NASA Helps Out

NASA goes underground​NASA may be out of the moon business and seen a lot of other space-related dreams curtailed, but now it looks like they can direct their energies underground.The government of Chile has asked for NASA's help in dealing with the 33 miners trapped in a tight space a half-mile u ... More >>

Asylum Denied

Unlike refugees from other troubled countries, only a fraction of Mexicans seeking U.S. asylum are accepted – no matter how horrible their wounds or their stories.

Imprisoned Iran Hikers: Mom Still Has Hope, And Obama, On Her Side

Photos courtesy Ben FellemanShane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fatta: The three hikers​Ben Felleman is almost a typical Millennial or Gen Y young man: a 25-year-old who digs the local Houston music acts, enjoys steady employment as an SAT instructor and his own freelance work as photographer, and ... More >>

Hikers Imprisoned In Iran Getting Houston Support Tomorrow

Music and a vigil this Saturday​Ben Felleman is hoping that the vigil he is hosting this Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of his cousin Josh Fattal's arrest and imprisonment in Iran's infamous Evin Prison is canceled: "I would be thrilled to get that call that could transform the event fr ... More >>

Over the Line

As Mexican drug cartels increasingly recruit American teens as runners, a Sugar Land teen goes across the border and ends up dead.

The Man Who Sued the Pope

Houston's Daniel Shea thinks Joseph Ratzinger has a lot to answer for if he'd talk.

KBR Rape Victim's Arbitration Award Not So Final Yet

​Just when it looked as if the legal battle between former KBR contractor Tracy Barker and Halliburton, which used to own KBR, was about to come to a multi-million dollar conclusion, filings made today in the rape case seem to indicate there is still some ways to go until it is all over. More th ... More >>

Who Was Roland Carnaby?

Readers weigh in on the ongoing mystery

Pine Leaf Boys

Heroic Iraqi Refugee On His Deathbed As Family Struggles to Obtain Temporary Visas to Be At His Side

Photo courtesy of Dario Lipovac​Houston's Iraqi refugee community is saying a painful goodbye to one of its most valued members. Now Marwan Hamza's friends are scrambling to help his family do the same. Hamza, 22, is on his deathbed at Memorial Herman hospital after crashing his car earlie ... More >>

Not Bad for Government Work

Spoofing the run-up to war, In the Loop is political satire done right.

Finally, Americans Who Were Delivered By Midwives Near Mexico Can Breathe Easy

Photo by superfemDavid Hernandez of Harlingen may have been delivered by a midwife not far from the border with Mexico, but he always knew he was born in the United States. The trick was convincing the U.S. Department of State, which refused to issue him a passport based on a history of midwife frau ... More >>

Political Change (Here And In DC) May Help Murder Victim's Mom

Carrie Ruiz of Humble is praying that President Obama and his promised commitment to foreign diplomacy will help bring her daughter's killer to justice.Nine years ago, Ruiz's teenaged daughter, Felicia, was stabbed to death 26 times in an open field. Two of the three attackers are now behind bars, b ... More >>

World Court Says Texas Violated Law By Executing A Mexican Who Doesn't Really Benefit From Their Decision

Jose Medellin is probably in Hell, if you believe in that sort of thing, and we're not sure how good the Internet service is down there. (We're guessing they use Comcast, though.)Medellin was executed in August by Texas after being convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena.His execution ... More >>

Hispanics Delivered by Border Midwives Are Having Trouble Getting U.S. Passports

Post-9/11 worries target South Texas

The Immigration Cops Hate Midwives

Chuck Rosenthal: So Tough on Crime That a Suspect Goes Free

The DA doesn't make deals. And that's why Jesus Salazar is living the free life in Venezuela while a teenage girl lies dead, stabbed 26 times.

The Devil Came on Horseback

War, slaughter, genocide — and you feel like seeing a movie?

Parish Predators

Despite the bishop’s remarks to the contrary, the Galveston-Houston Roman Catholic Archdiocese had child molesters and let them go. But don’t blame just the Church.

Tale of Two Cities

Catholic priest John Chinh Tran re-created Vietnam's Thai Xuan Village in Houston with an iron hand. These days his control is slipping away.

He Won't Back Down

The mayor was threatened -- or maybe he wasn't

Relying on Reliant

IFest makes the jump from downtown to South Main

Critical Condition

Expect the Iraq war to worsen the Medical Center's reduction in Arab patients

A Killer Nanny

Charlotte Foster wanted a male nanny who’d play sports with her sons. She got an escaped murderer.

RiceTec Paddy Whack

An Alvin-based rice company, the Prince of Liechtenstein, the United States Patent Office, and an Indian eco-feminist bring global trade debates to a roiling boil on Houston's back burner

The Russians Are Melting

You want oligarchs? We got oligarchs!

Deliverance from China

Unmarried and pregnant, she knew her options in a land obsessed with population control: Abort or become an outcast. Lijun looked for another way out.

Gothic Houston

Nationwide goth music conference inspired by Houstonian

News of the Weird

The Party Boys

Politics pulls out the hard "soft" cash, Houston-style

Malpractice

Dan Morales' showboating witch-hunt against "bogus" doctors is indeed an "incredible story." Incredibly lame.

Press Picks

It's All Great

A finished documentary about an incomplete Orson Welles masterwork