Good morning, Houston. If the dearth of new TV in the wake of the writer's strike has left you willing to watch anything, we've got some news for you: HTV, the municipal station, is launching a new program! Woohoo! Entertainment Houston, a 30-minute show, will focus on — wait for it — Houston's facilities, included the Wortham Center, Jones Hall, the George R. Brown Convention Center and the not-quite-finished Discovery Green. A new episode......

Good morning, Houston. So this is what it must be like to live in California, huh? We're looking at a string of fantastic days, with highs in the lower to mid 70s and lows around 50 into the weekend. Today, expect a high of 73 with clear skies. You know what that means? We all have to spend as much time as possible outside. Yep, you have our permission to skip school and work......

Good morning, Houston. If you, like Houstonist, are looking forward to the day when Buffalo Bayou will be redeveloped as parkway from the East End through downtown to Shepherd Drive, you might be interested in this: The county is planning to build a massive new jail smack dab in the middle of that park system. The proposed 2,500-bed jail, which would be located next to the county jail on Baker Street, would apparently take......

Good morning, Houston. In the mood for a really, really bad promotional video? It's your lucky day: May we introduce you to "The Metro Report", a quasi-Colbert Report-style production in which a host, Elliot Roberts, "interviews people on the street" about why they love riding public transportation. Which makes us wonder: Where'd Metro find all these people? Oh, right, they're actually actors — and, according to KTRK's Wayne Dolcefino, this bit of self-promotion cost......

Here's one of those things we never would have expected people to be able to quantify: According to a TxDOT study, delays at Houston rail crossings will cost us $2.6 billion over the next 20 years. "Gridlock: That's where you're headed eventually," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett told KHOU. "No question about it." Eventually? We've already experienced gridlock trying to get across the East End some mornings, or the Union Pacific tracks on Richmond or......

The unpopular proposal to double tolls on the Westpark Tollway during rush hour is officially dead: Harris County commissioners officially scrapped the plan Tuesday, meaning the price of the county's toll roads will remain the same — or won't, actually, given that a 25-cent increase on all toll transactions will still take effect on Sept. 3. The Westpark proposal, as we're sure you remember, called for toll transactions to double for inbound traffic between 6......

Well, the peak pricing proposal for the Westpark Tollway died more quickly than we expected: On Thursday, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said the county commissioners will cancel the proposed doubling of Westpark tolls at rush hour, a decision that "was certainly influenced by the public's reaction." Under the proposal, transactions along the Westpark would have doubled from $1.25 (after a general 25-cent increase across the entire county toll road system to $2.50 from 6......

So all day yesterday, we heard people complaining about about the Harris County commissioners' proposal to raise the cost of using the county toll road system — and we even added our two cents. But is the rate increase a done deal? No, according to KHOU, which reports that commissioners approved a "toll-setting policy" on Tuesday, with the actual toll increase decision still to come in another vote. Or yes, according to KTRK, which says......

With the official beginning of the 2007 hurricane season a little more than a week away, Harris County officials have released a new evacuation plan based on ZIP codes. Residents of coastal and low-lying areas can determine whether they're in evacuation zones using a map of the area that groups ZIP codes into four zones based on threat, from the coast up through Brazoria and Galveston counties to Houston's East End, Channelview, Baytown and......

As expected, transportation consultant and former state representative Ed Emmett took over as Harris County judge yesterday, replacing outgoing judge Robert Eckels. Emmett won the post on a 4-1 vote of the county Commssioners Court: The only "no" vote came from Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, who said she was voting against Emmett because she preferred to appoint someone who wouldn't seek to be elected to the office next year. Garcia later changed her vote to make......

More on the resignation of Harris County Judge Robert Eckels: The Chronicle is reporting that Eckels plans to make tomorrow his last day in office, and it looks like former state Rep. Ed Emmett will take his place. Eckels has "strongly hinted" that he will support Emmett to serve as county judge until an election can be held next year for someone to fill the remaining two years of Eckels' term — an election in......

Good morning, Houston. If you have an outstanding municipal warrant, it's time to start watching out: More than 150 law enforcement agencies, including HPD, are gearing up to arrest you next week. It's part of the Great Texas Warrant Roundup, which runs for a week beginning Friday; if you don't take care of your warrant, KHOU warns, you risk "being arrested and embarrassed in front of family, friends or even co-workers." No, not co-workers!......

So, the big political news around Harris County today is that County Judge Robert Eckels will step down. It's not like nobody expected the announcement — rumors have been going around for at least a couple of weeks — and it's not like we know when Eckels will quit or what he'll do afterward, but still, it's big news. Right? Eckels, reportedly fighting back tears, began his goodbye during Thursday's State of the County address:......