Houston Chronicle

The Hogan-Allnoch building received a three-month reprieve from the wrecking ball Tuesday, its second in nine months. Full Story »

For more than two decades, Willowridge High School band director Ronald Thornton led his students both inside and outside the classroom. Thornton, 60, died Friday evening at Methodist Sugar Land Hospital. Full Story »

Texas Southern University has been placed back on probation by its accrediting body, almost six months after the agency had lifted the cloud. Full Story »

More than 20 years after a Houston bank executive was found strangled and beaten to death in Sugar Land, police believe the case has been solved thanks to a DNA match. Full Story »

Starting next year, the Harris County District Attorney's Office no longer will file state jail felony charges against suspects found with only a trace — less than a hundreth of a gram — of illegal drugs, District Attorney Pat Lykos said Tuesday. Full Story »

Captured prison escapee Arcade Joseph Comeaux Jr. told community activist Quanell X that he got a gun from state prison staff, who helped him hide it in his prison cell for three weeks. Full Story »

The Galveston County District Attorney's Office dropped resisting arrest and other criminal charges against Brandon Backe and three other wedding guests in May, but that left misdemeanor charges of interfering with a police officer. Full Story »

The fire erupted inside a mobile home in the 22100 block of Betty Lane in Montgomery County's White Oak Estates community. Full Story »

James McLaughlin, 49, and his wife, Rebecca McLaughlin, 48, were jailed Tuesday in lieu of $500,000 bail on murder charges stemming from Ronald “Spider” Dewars' death. Full Story »

One of Texas' longest-serving death row inmates, who says the inadequate legal help he received and his own mental impairment make him ineligible for execution, can appeal his sentence, a federal court has ruled. Full Story »

Interviews reveal nothing as extreme as the racist and sexist graffiti scrawled on the walls inside a female firehouse dorm last summer. Full Story »

FBI Director Robert Mueller has asked Webster to take a look at how the bureau handled information about Maj. Nidal Hasan in the months before the shooting at the Texas military base that killed 13 people Full Story »

Houston Fire Department firefighters rescued a crew of window washers who were stranded on scaffolding in the Greenway Plaza area this afternoon in high winds. Full Story »

Astros pitcher Brandon Backe will be tried before a Galveston Municipal Court jury on charges of interfering with a police officer in connection with a wedding event stormed by 30 officers last year. Full Story »

Houston police are asking for the public's help in finding the gunman in a fatal shooting in south Houston last month. Full Story »

GALVESTON — Astros pitcher Brandon Backe and three others will be tried before a Galveston Municipal Court jury on charges of interfering with a police officer in connection with a wedding celebration stormed by 30 officers last year, a city spokeswoman said today. Full Story »

The body of man reported missing late last month was found buried near Lake Livingston last week. Ronald James Dewars, 52, was reported missing by his girlfriend Nov. 27, according to the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office. Full Story »

Nearly two-thirds of businesses will see the tax per employee increase threefold under rates announced today. Full Story »

Texas threatens whooping cranes by diverting water from the Guadalupe River, according to an alliance of governments and conservation groups. Full Story »

A second member of a polygamist church raided in Texas last year goes on trial for sexual assault of a child today. Full Story »

Houston ISD's fourth- and eighth-grade students are better at math than their peers in many other urban school systems, though the district's progress has been relatively flat since 2007, according to national test results released Tuesday. Full Story »

A Texas pension fund will decide this week whether to award CVS Caremark Corp. a new pharmacy-benefits contract valued at almost $1 billion after the state's attorney general sued the company for alleged Medicaid fraud. Full Story »

The operation involved online chats in which the suspect, Jorge Luis Perez, offered to trade images with an undercover inspector, officials said. Full Story »

Houston city workers mistakenly thought a fake fire hydrant was the real thing, painted it and gave it a serial number. Full Story »

Beta Theta Pi’s Ryan Vissotzky says the “shot buses” were used to transport members to events at other locations before the fraternity Christmas party. Vissotzky says buses were rented “to keep everyone safe.” Full Story »