Houston Chronicle

After Hurricane Beryl, over 2.2 million homes and businesses in the Houston area lost power, with some residents going a week without it. Readers are invited to?a live Zoom event on Wed, Sept. 25?with Energy and Power Grid reporter Claire Hao, as she interviews Paul Hope, Consumer Reports' Deputy Home Editor, and @America Garcia, Solar United Neighbors' Texas Program Director, on how to power your home during an outage. Our expert guests will cover finding the right generator or solar panels for your situation, generator safety, recommendations and more. Register for our free event here: https://lnkd.in/gA7Hr2HG

With our restaurant guides, the Chronicle’s food team hopes to help you answer the question,? "Where should we eat tonight?" Here are all of our favorite restaurants (so far), in one handy place. Check out our guides here: https://lnkd.in/g43SK9vg

A team of researchers from the University of Houston have developed a new vaccine to treat and prevent the spread of flu and multiple coronavirus strains. Through two nasal sprays — an immune activating therapeutic treatment and a new vaccine — the team of UH researchers have not only broken ground on vaccinating against SARS-CoV-2 and the flu virus, but also on creating a universal?coronavirus vaccine. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eS4gJrPQ

Black water erupted from another West Texas oil well last week in the same area as one that?flowed toxic water?for weeks and inspired?a controversial no-fly zone?in December, worsening the recent rash of foul water blowouts affecting the area. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eb89FvHM

Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for hospitals to begin tracking the immigration status of patients has been welcomed by proponents as a way to finally track the cost of caring for those in the country illegally. But critics warn it will scare those who need care, including pregnant women, from getting it. Texas paid more than $123 million to reimburse hospitals for emergency services for undocumented immigrants in 2023, according to federal data tracking Medicaid spending. The federal government paid more than $231 million to reimburse hospitals that same year.? Read more here: https://lnkd.in/esvpBshx

Houston may suffer from hurricanes, but there's one deluge that we don't mind: the flood of choice offerings when it comes to the arts. Some of the country's most acclaimed arts groups are based here and, as the 2024-25 season gets underway, it's clear that these reputations will be burnished even more over the next year. Check out the full arts guide here: https://lnkd.in/eMUENpjN

Texas isn’t the only?state to get furious?after its?utility companies underperformed?in a natural disaster. Two decades ago, Florida was pummeled with eight major hurricanes in just two years. Millions of residents were left without power, some for as long as three weeks. What followed was an unprecedented campaign to pull the state’s power grid out of the costly pattern of destroy-and-rebuild. Instead of asking utilities to disaster-harden their grids, the government made them. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gky-Ntgb

Houston’s pizza scene has been leveling up recently, so we have some new spots to recommend in our refreshed guide. Detroit style, classic Neapolitan, modernized Neapolitan… the takes just keep coming. Read the Chronicle food team's full Houston pizza guide here: https://lnkd.in/e7GzqujW

A?Houston Housing Authority audit?reveals a disconnect between the?goal and outcomes of its controversial tax deals: While the agency uses the housing shortage for its lowest-income residents to justify the program, the tax incentive has resulted?in minimal gains for Houston’s most needy families. Only 1% of the tens of thousands of tax-exempt units created during a seven-year period actually target the needs of Houston’s extremely low-income residents, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis.?The vast majority of affordable units?created by the program cater to households with higher incomes already served by the market. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eRMTNGBd

"Outside of bragging rights, the move will have almost no impact on the local economy except, perhaps, to make Houston and Texas more dependent on the oil and gas industry that has caused so much heartache," writes Chronicle business columnist Chris Tomlinson. Read the full column here: https://lnkd.in/eb89FvHM