Morning Roundup: Would you trust this man? edition

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 Metro (which means us) $46,000. "We're trying to add a little levity, a little lightness to an education piece," Metro's George Smalley told Channel 13. But the film seems to have missed the mark: "You think it was funny?" Dolcefino asked a Metro bus passenger after screening the film. The reply: "It was stupid." Looks like they should have gotten the real Colbert.

>> New units for South Texas Project?: NRG Energy, a partner in the South Texas Project nuclear power plant in Matagorda County, has filed applications to build two new units at the plant — the first such applications in the U.S. in nearly 30 years. The units would add 2,700 megawatts to the plant's capacity, enough to power more than 2 million homes. "Advanced technology nuclear power plants, generating a vast amount of electricity cleanly, safely and reliably, will make an enormous contribution toward the greater energy security of the United States," NRG President and CEO David Crane said. The proposal is meant to help keep up with the estimated 10,000-megawatt growth in Texas' power consumption in the next seven years; if approved, the new reactors could be online in 2014 and 2015.

>> Tightening the county's toll belt: Harris County has unveiled a new proposal for who gets free rides on the county's toll-road system: Under the plan, tolls would be lifted only for marked police vehicles, emergency vehicles, military convoys, funeral processions and county-owned and -leased vehicles. That means no more free toll-road rides for county employees who have a car allowance — they've had free EZ Tags for years, and after a while, all those non-tolls can add up. What's more, County Judge Ed Emmett told KTRK, "Nobody knew who had [the free tags]. I want to take these EZ Tags away from those who don't deserve them, and we [should] have a system where we can monitor and enforce." Under the proposal, which is expected to be approved in a couple of weeks, between 10,000 and 15,000 official vehicles will still be eligible for free access to the toll-road system.

>> Evacuee-related killings dropping, HPD says: Hurricane Katrina evacuees have been the victims or suspects in less than half the Houston killings as a year ago, according to HPD statistics. Through Sept. 17 of this year, there were 25 Katrina-related killings in the city, compared with 61 during the same period in 2006. Though there are still an estimated 100,000 evacuees living in Houston, police and community leaders attribute the drop in evacuee-related homicides to the fact that fewer evacuees today are living in the apartment complexes where much of last year's crime took place. Overall, the number of homicides in Houston has dropped 14 percent this year, to 248 as of Sept. 17 compared with 279 in the same period last year.

>> Today's weather: Expect a better chance of rain this afternoon: up to 40 percent, along with highs in the low 90s. Tonight and Thursday, the rain chance will slack off, leading to what looks like a pretty nice end of the week.

Time for the rest of the news ...