{"id":386201,"date":"2026-07-25T11:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/386201\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T11:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:39:15","slug":"can-brisket-buy-you-love-hpd-tries-to-influence-an-influencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/386201\/","title":{"rendered":"Can brisket buy you love? HPD tries to influence an influencer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thumbs down: HPD is focused on the top issues in Houston, like reaching out to the anonymous World Cup social media star Freddy<\/a>. They slid into the German influencer<\/a>\u2019s DMs. And when he didn\u2019t respond, they sent the same message two more times. When Freddy said his schedule was too busy, they offered up lunch with the police chief and Mayor John Whitmire himself. Who paid for the BBQ? That remains a mystery. But who paid for the police officers’ time while they were breaking brisket with the social media star? That\u2019s all taxpayers. Bitte, Freddy.<\/p>\n

Thumbs up: On Instagram this week, Houston rapper Tobe Nwigwe challenged his celebrity friends to pronounce his full Nigerian name<\/a>, Tobechukwu Dubem Nwigwe. The judge? Tobe\u2019s mother. Stephen Curry did great. Erykah Badu earned a \u201chell no.\u201d Anthony Anderson got a \u201che tried.\u201d Note to Nwigwe and his mom: Next time, could y\u2019all do \u201cKuykendahl\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thumbs down: Senate candidate and Casanova conservative Ken Paxton held a rare press conference this week, touting his credentials and many sheriff endorsements. But apparently Paxton was so out of practice with the format that he forgot that press conferences involve answering pesky questions from the press. He dodged inquiries about his Utah luxury condos, saying he\u2019d prefer to keep things about \u201claw enforcement.\u201d But then, he chose not to respond when asked about a law enforcement issue that hits close to home\u00a0\u2014 a Texas Tribune story showing that, while touting a crackdown on illegal voting, Paxton himself appears to have voted illegally six times in the past two years, using an address where he doesn\u2019t live. Or maybe that\u2019s not so close to home? It depends, we guess, on his real address.<\/p>\n

Thumbs down: Speaking of Paxton misfires, an appeals court this week overturned a decision<\/a> that closed a midwife\u2019s clinics outside Houston after the attorney general alleged that she had been performing illegal abortions. The midwife still faces those charges, but the court threw out the injunction forcing her to close up shop because, it turns out, courts require actual evidence that a crime was occurring. In Paxton\u2019s filing with the lower court, the attorney general had relied solely on an anonymous email.<\/p>\n

Thumbs twiddled: Meanwhile in Central Texas, recent flooding tested new sirens and warning systems and the results were largely positive. But the area is still dealing with the fallout. In Ingram, volunteers are scouring the countryside for kangaroos that Hill Country floodwaters<\/a> washed from an exotic animal farm. As of Tuesday, seven had been found dead, but it\u2019s hoped that four will be found alive. \u201cThey can\u2019t live off the land,\u201d said Phillip Torres, part of the couple who own the farm. \u201cSpecial diet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anybody sees any of them hopping around, holler, holler,\u201d pleaded his wife Juliann.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thumbs up We\u2019re excited about any film project that Houston native Richard Linklater releases, and Glen Powell is clearly Texas\u2019 top A-list actor. Now they\u2019re teaming up to make a movie about baseball icon Lou Gehrig<\/a>. Sign us up! Sure, we Astros fans may bristle that Texans are making a film about a Yankees legend. But Gehrig\u2019s life is a tragic, inspiring tale, and those of us who want Linklater to continue making movies\u00a0\u2014 especially if they\u2019re filmed in Texas\u00a0\u2014 should all be invested in this biopic\u2019s success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thumbs down:\u00a0The Houston Texans\u2019 grand plans for an 83-acre \u201cToro District\u201d in northwest Harris County\u00a0\u2014 a new headquarters, practice facility and mixed-use development\u00a0\u2014 are now in peril,<\/a> and for a super-wonky reason. A state district judge recently threw out a 2021 ballot measure about \u201cinvestment zones,\u201d ruling that it failed to explain to voters that they\u2019d be taking on debt to pay for those investments. Will the Texans manage an end run around the ruling? If not, the Toro District is toast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thumbs down: HPD is focused on the top issues in Houston, like reaching out to the anonymous World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-386201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}