Shaghf Cafe officials said the franchise opened a new location on July 25 in Cypress. Founded in the United Arab Emirates in 2018 per the website, the franchise has two additional locations in the Houston area including Sugar Land and Katy.

On the menu: Shaghf Cafe offers specialty coffees including hot coffee, frappuccinos, ice coffee and teas. Coffees offered include:

• The Pumpkin Hot Milk made with steamed milk infused with pumpkin spice

• The Twist Caramel featuring bold espresso blended with creamy steamed milk and a swirl of caramel syrup, topped with whipped cream

The coffee shop also offers desserts such as brownies, molten lava cake, acai bowls and carrot cake.

The Cy-Fair ISD board of trustees will discuss sending a voter-approved tax rate election, or VATRE, alongside a four proposition bond election in November.

The details: The board of trustees will discuss adopting a tax rate of $1.1569 per $100 of taxable property, which would trigger a VATRE as the proposed rate exceeds the state threshold, per meeting documents.

A public hearing regarding the adoption of the fiscal year 2026-27 tax rate is planned for the Aug. 10 regular meeting, where the board will discuss approving an individual authorized to calculate truth-in-taxation state requirements.

The board of trustees plan to discuss a $1.63 billion bond broken into four propositions, per meeting documents. 

Also of note: Multiple district policy revisions, additions and deletions will be discussed with topics ranging from library materials to parent rights and responsibilities.

The CFISD board of trustees are slated to meet Aug. 6 and 10 at 6 p.m. for a work session and regular meeting, respectively, in the Mark Henry Administration Building Boardroom.

Harris County commissioners are set to discuss the county's minority- and women-owned businesses equity program over a week after a federal court issued a decision that the city of Houston's version of the program was unconstitutional.

The big picture: Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey added the item to the agenda after U.S. District Judge David Hittner, the ruling judge on the case, said the city of Houston's program violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Run by the Harris County Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity, the program was established in November 2020 by commissioners to provide equity among women- and minority-owned businesses for county contracts. 

Also on the agenda: Commissioners will receive an update on third-quarter projections for the Harris County fiscal year 2026-27 budget. During the presentation, the budget office will also look at identifying "high-value, underutilized county real estate assets to sell or lease to generate general fund revenue for the FY27 budget."

Texas is halting the approval of new data center projects until state regulators can audit all data centers seeking to connect to the power grid, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Aug. 3.

The overview: The governor directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to conduct “a comprehensive verification and audit” of all data center applicants “before any additional data centers are approved to move forward.” 

Data center regulation has emerged as a bipartisan issue in recent months, and the move comes amid both growing public criticism of Texas’ booming data center industry and recent political pressure for Abbott to respond.

Zooming in: Abbott asked the PUC and ERCOT to collect information about the tax exemptions each data center is collecting; details about each project's anticipated water and electricity usage; and how data center developers will work to limit noise, light pollution and other impacts on local communities.

Officials did not say how long the pause would last or when the audits would begin.