Convenience Big Store: 🥵 Want water at the World Cup? Pay up!

June 6, 2026

📋Arguing over a list; it's a tradition as American as road rage and insurance premiums. If you feel bereft of something to argue about, have no fear—my hardworking colleagues at Chron have a new project. It's called Texas 250: Who Shaped Texas, and it's a massive list ranking the most influential Texans in the last 250 years. To coincide with America's 250th anniversary, we wanted to talk about the heroes, villains and weirdos who shaped our home state. You can read more about the project here.

☑️The whole list, compiled by our staff, will come out on July 1. In the lead-up to that reveal, we're asking you to vote for your favorite Texans in a few categories. Right now, you can vote for your favorite Texans in music. Willie Nelson? Selena? Kelly Clarkson? You decide! You can click here to vote every day until June 11.

🤑If you vote, you're eligible for a $50 gas card as a fun treat. We'll also personally go to the Strait of Hormuz and get it for you, too. I bet we have your attention now!

And because subscribers to Y'all Heard are beautiful, sexy and smarter than the average person, you'll get the full Texas 250 list before everyone else as a special sneak peek. Want to see where Beyoncé and LBJ landed on the list? Subscribe to the newsletter!

—Gwen Howerton

Lone Star Lowdown

📈BUY: Overpriced water
The World Cup is coming to Houston next week, and it's going to be a scorcher. Thankfully, all of the matches in Texas will be indoors, but it still seems bad that FIFA has quietly banned fans from bringing reusable water bottles into host stadiums. Dying of heat stroke? That'll be $20 for a Dasani, please.

📉SELL: Eating meat
New horrible little creature just dropped! The New World screwworm, a flesh-eating fly that preys on livestock and was once eradicated in the U.S., is back. Health officials confirmed that it's in Texas this week, and it's poised to devastate our state's cattle industry if the invasion gets worse. That means even higher beef prices than normal. James Talarico isn't actually a vegan, but we all might become one if the screwworm has anything to say about it. Don't look up photos of what it can do to cattle if you have a weak stomach.

💬 NOTABLE QUOTABLES

"Houston is a city. Maybe not a proper, lawful, healthy, or sane one. But it is a city. Dallas is 45 suburbs in a trench coat." —An account pretending to be Lyndon Johnson, weighing in on an argument over whether Houston and Dallas are "real" cities.

Round for the Table

🏳️‍🌈Looking back at Houston Pride

Houston Pride is today, so I thought it would be worth looking back at Houston's first "official" parade in June of 1979. While the first gay pride march happened in 1976, 1979 marked the first organized parade. Back then, it was called Houston Gay Pride Week, a week of festivals and events leading up to the parade that would go down Westheimer in Montrose. Houston historian JD Doyle's website has a fascinating photo gallery that's worth a look. (And you can read my profile of him and his sites from last June).

Lionel Messi of Argentina celebrates after scoring the team's third goal during the South American FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifier match between Argentina and Venezuela at Estadio Más Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti on September 04, 2025 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

⚽Messi's biggest crowd … at Kyle Field?

Lionel Messi is one of the greatest footballers of all time. He's played on some of the world's biggest stages, but possibly the largest audience in his decades-long career will come on Saturday when Argentina plays Honduras in a friendly match at Texas A&M's Kyle Field. As CBS Sports reporter Shehan Jeyarajah points out, the home of The 12th Man seats 102,733. That's slightly bigger than Camp Nou, where Messi's former club, Barcelona, plays. Messi might not even play, but that won't stop his fans from flocking to Aggieland anyway.

A fan runs onto the court and takes a photo with Victor Wembanyama #1 of the San Antonio Spurs.

👽 Would you risk it all to meet an alien?

Each week, we see someone who is acting the fool and say, "Honey, bless your heart." Maybe it's Ted Cruz gloating about $4 gas or a guy who has no idea what swangas are. Some people just have no self-awareness.

There is no fanbase quite like that of the San Antonio Spurs. Those people will do anything for their team. Including never being able to watch an NBA game in person ever again.

During the NBA Finals, two Spurs fans were banned for life from every single NBA arena. The reason: One of them ran onto the court at Frost Bank Arena during Game 1's final quarter to take a selfie with Victor Wembanyama. Security immediately tackled the fan, who was also arrested.

Wemby, for his part, was mostly just bewildered. "I didn’t know how to act," Wembanyama told reporters. But he still made a kind of smile at the camera. What a good sport!

Is this a diehard Spurs fan? Maybe! Because nothing is fun anymore, something tells me that somehow crypto and betting markets were involved, just like the WNBA dildo-fracus was. Regardless, congrats, doofus! You spent more than a month's rent to go to your last NBA game ever. I guess it really is #PorVida.

Thanks for reading Y'all Heard. Comments? Concerns? Email me at gwen.howerton@hearst.com. Like Y'all Heard? Forward it to a friend.Sign up here.