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@houstonlanding
.org
You may have heard of
#ColonyRidge
.🤔What exactly is going on there?
The Liberty County housing development has drawn exponential growth to the area — as well as an onslaught of controversy.
Here's what you need to know.
🧵👇
📍 It’s been more than a year in the making, but the Houston Landing, a nonprofit digital news site, is finally here!
Learn about our name, staff and plans for the future. We are just getting started.
Join us on the journey!
1/ NEW: Our analysis of thousands of public records shows that defendants with mental illnesses are routinely being sent to jails in the greater Houston area instead of receiving the full level of care they need.
Here’s what else we discovered:
Houston, we have a nonprofit digital news platform!
🚀Our full website with daily news has landed.
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Major injuries at Astroworld occurred within the first 20 minutes. It was declared a mass casualty event 20 minutes later. The concert continued for another 37 minutes.
Scott had a $4.5 million incentive from Apple to complete the show.
🚨 BREAKING: Houston ISD has been notified that the state is resuming the process of stripping all power from its elected school board.
The controversial move sets the stage for the largest state takeover of a public school district in modern history.
BREAKING: The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Colony Ridge, accusing the developer of using fraudulent lending practices targeting tens of thousands of Hispanic borrowers with false statements and predatory loans.
Harris County is a day care desert.
At best, there are enough day care spaces for about 40 percent of the kids who need them.
Only nine in 100 seats can be deemed “high quality,” and only one in six Texas families can afford the high cost — $9,324 per child per year on average.
🚀 The Landing is landing on Wednesday. We are a new, nonprofit, no-paywall, nonpartisan journalism site and we are ready to fully launch. We hope you’ll join us as we take off.
🚨 BREAKING: Mike Miles is Houston ISD's new superintendent.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath made the news official today after removing the current district leader and HISD's elected school board from power.
Here's what we know so far:
Top
@TAMU
officials were involved in altering journalist Kathleen McElroy's job offer, reportedly due to concerns related to her being a "Black woman who worked at The New York Times."
She will receive a $1 million settlement.
(via
@TexasTribune
)
.
@RiceUniversity
's LGBTQ+ student organization is opening up the university's Queer Resource Center to Houston students at public colleges impacted by Texas' new law that bans on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
(via
@HoustonPubMedia
)
🔍 A Houston Landing investigation found that nearly 200 people in Texas had been flagged as potentially mentally ill but died in jail instead of getting the care they needed.
Here's a comprehensive look:
And a thread 🧵:
Update: Both ballot initiatives passed, forcing the new mayor to work more closely with council on weekly agendas and require the city to negotiate a stronger position on a regional planning agency.
Check out the live results here:
Early results show local Propositions A and B are headed for an easy passage.
Both props could force a new mayor to work more closely with council on weekly agendas and require the city to negotiate a stronger position on a regional planning agency.
The city of Houston is one step closer to potentially reshaping its relationship with the influential Houston-Galveston Area Council after officials verified Thursday that a charter amendment campaign had met the threshold for appearing on the ballot.
Congrats to our friends at
@TexasTribune
for being named
@PulitzerPrizes
finalists for their explanatory reporting around law enforcement’s catastrophic response to the mass shooting in Uvalde. 👏🏽
Read more:
NEW: Travis Scott had a $4.5 million incentive from Apple to finish his 2021 Astroworld concert, which continued for 37 minutes after officials declared it a mass casualty event.
“Does this not embarrass the members of the board the way it embarasses me?”
A week after Metro announced the decision to pause the voter-approved University BRT project, residents, community advocates and elected officials voiced their frustration.
🪩 On Sunday, thousands of
@Beyonce
fans glittered in silver and chrome outside of
@nrgpark
in anticipation of the hometown star’s final Houston concert.
Photographer
@MeridithKohut
documented faces and 'fits of the "Houston Hive."
See more photos here:
Pervez Agwan's congressional campaign appears largely unfazed by sexual misconduct allegations, as he forges ahead to the March 5 Super Tuesday primary against U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher.
Accusers aren't backing down, though.
A small Houston bookshop, suing the big state of Texas? It may sound like a story straight out of a children’s book, but it’s reality.
@MagEGordon
talks to Blue Willow Bookshop owner Valerie Koehler in her latest column.
Juan's parents moved to Houston when he was just 3. He went on to play soccer for the University of Houston-Victoria and later managed youth programs for
@HoustonDynamo
for 6 years.
Then his DACA status ended.
Who loses when we stop protecting Dreamers?
Last week's removal of medians on Houston Avenue has left advocates concerned about the city's road safety. Was
@houmayor
's decision to rip out the controversial concrete a one-off? Or does he plan to halt future expansions of Houston’s safe street network
A little-known practice allows military service members facing criminal charges to avoid trial by being discharged. The Army is increasingly using it for cases in which soldiers are charged with violent crimes. (
@ProPublica
,
@TexasTribune
,
@MilitaryTimes
)
Houston Landing journalists took home nine awards from the
@TexasEditors
journalism contest at the group’s annual conference this weekend, including first-place awards in feature writing and specialty reporting.
A former campaign worker has sued a progressive Democratic challenger to Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, accusing him of making unwanted sexual advances toward her after she complained about another staffer sexually harassing female staffers.
The
@HoustonZoo
’s $72 million Galápagos Islands exhibit is the world’s first zoo exhibit dedicated to promoting conservation on the isolated Pacific islands.
Before its Friday opening,
@MagEGordon
brings you a behind-the-scenes look:
📸
@MarieDennise
Thank you for coming to our community office hours on Wednesday and getting to know us, our work, and other people who are invested in building a better Houston. More importantly, thank you for trusting us enough to share your thoughts about how we can better serve you.
🎉 Shoutout to our colleagues at the
@HoustonChron
for being named Texas' "Newsroom of the Year" for the fifth year in a row.
And congrats to every staffer who won an individual award, too!
📍 Hey Houston, we’re out here at
@UrbanHarvest
this morning.
👋🏽 Come say hi, learn about our voter guide from civic engagement reporter
@timcarlin_
and get some free Landing swag!
Colony Ridge has sold over 35,000 properties in the past decade. Almost half end up back in the developer’s control and are later resold to new buyers.
Since 2012, the developer has reacquired about 45% of all the properties it sold.
We did some more digging. 🧵👇
Houston Landing live has officially started!
@BunBTrillOG
is currently leading our game show around Houston’s voter engagement.
Follow along for more updates ⬇️
“It was a total mess.”
After a destructive storm wiped out power in many parts of Houston, senior citizens at the Houston Heights Tower had little assistance or help for two days.
No one at the city was aware of the residents’ plight.
Why did HISD scrap no-cost Verizon program that gave internet, laptops to 56,500 students?
After we did some digging, the answer is coming into focus.
New from
@small_asher
:
At least 27 complaints sent to three state agencies since 2019 previously were unreported, raising questions about how Texas leaders failed to publicly identify Colony Ridge residents as potential victims instead of villains.
.
@GovAbbott
& the Texas GOP spent months fearmongering about the immigrants living in Colony Ridge.
Their concern should have been with the developers exploiting Latino families trying to achieve the American dream of owning a home.
I'm glad to see
@TheJusticeDept
investigating.
No one had truly quantified how prevalent this problem was until
@alexdstuckey
created a comprehensive database.
She collected documents from across Texas to discern how many people had a documented mental health concern before they died from unnatural causes in a jail.
New: The fierce thunderstorms and at least one tornado that roared through Greater Houston on Thursday — producing winds in the neighborhood of 100 mph — startled seasoned forecasters who mostly expected the approaching weather to dissipate.
We uncovered about 100 appeals of criminal defendants who said they were unlawfully incarcerated.
Their cases had languished in the court system for years, some even decades.
Here’s what we found.
"Honestly, I just want the public to know what happens inside of the schools."
We asked 15 HISD students about big changes on their campuses this year. Here’s what they said.
It’s Fall 2021. A school administrator had just suspended Channelview High School senior Danielle Stephen for not carrying a backpack made of see-through material.
Stephen was sent home.
The problem was she didn’t have one to go to. 🧵
Houston Landing — a new, nonprofit, no-paywall, nonpartisan journalism site — is ready to fully launch.
Beginning Wednesday, you will see multiple news stories a day from our team.
“People that have never had experience in the classroom are dictating what happens in the classroom,” elected Houston ISD Trustee Elizabeth Santos said.
@MirandaKDunlap
and
@small_asher
cover the many conflicting feelings about the state takeover of HISD:
Come November, Houstonians will elect a new mayor for the first time in nearly a decade.
But who exactly has stepped up as a contender to lead America’s fourth largest city with Sylvester Turner term-limited from running for reelection?
@timcarlin_
reports
Court records and police statements made to date suggest the Lakewood Church shooter legally obtained the AR-15 style rifle she fired on Sunday, even with her criminal record and mental health history.
Here's a rundown of the law.
🧵: Our goal is to build one of the largest nonprofit newsrooms in the U.S. that’s focused on local news. And with your support, we’re making progress!
Meet our new hires.
+ Director of audience:
@forrestmilburn
+ Suburban reporter:
@cadoyle_18
Harris County commissioners appointed a new representative to the H-GAC board, replacing
@LinaHidalgoTX
.
@mack_oxenden
revealed that Hidalgo missed over 50 consecutive meetings spanning four and a half years, leaving the county with zero representation.
You may think that as journalists, we just move on to the next story.
But, what distinguishes our work is that we take the time to follow up and stick with something if we feel like there’s more left unsaid, which there often is.
🧵
Other cities and counties have tried guaranteed income programs, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton didn't sue them.
🤔 So, why is Paxton only calling Harris County's guaranteed income program unconstitutional?
🗳️ Come November, Houstonians will decide who their next mayor will be in a historic election — the first of its kind in nearly a decade.
So, we spent this past summer building an interactive mayoral guide with questions and concerns asked by our readers.
You may have heard a lot of buzz around the Houston Public Library system lately.
This has been culminating over months, and the Landing's
@MagEGordon
has been at the helm of staying on top of what's going on there.
So let's get you caught up. 🧵
“I would die before they contacted me because they’ve shown no real interest."
Houstonians are losing faith in a sidewalk accessibility program as their requests linger for years.
The city has a backlog of nearly 100 requests.
What's taking so long?
Houston ISD's state-appointed superintendent, Mike Miles, has repeatedly said that the district's academic performance isn't good enough.
But what is the data telling us? 📊
@MirandaKDunlap
digs into it to uncover how HISD compares to other big cities.
CenterPoint’s power outage map remains down. 🙅♀️
If you're having trouble getting information on power outages and restorations, text LANDING to 682-213-6868 and let us know.
In the meanwhile, here’s where to find more electricity info.
Toxic air lingers in Cloverleaf, a predominately Latino community that sits in the shadow of Houston’s Ship Channel, revealing failures in state’s decades-old air monitoring system.
(via
@TexasTribune
)
The Houston Landing launched one month ago. Since Feb. 1, we’ve published:
🟡 Our first investigation
🟡 5 Columns
🟡 3 Letters from the Editor
🟡 Our first poem
If you missed anything, let’s take a look back.
📍 It’s been more than a year in the making, but the Houston Landing, a nonprofit digital news site, is finally here!
Learn about our name, staff and plans for the future. We are just getting started.
Join us on the journey!
It’s official: We’re launching our full site on June 7! 🚀
But we recognize not every reader can access our coverage on our website.
So, we’re launching a texting service.
Text LANDING to 682-213-6868 or sign up here:
🔌 After leaving millions of Houstonians in the dark, literally and figuratively, CenterPoint finally released its own outage map.
Many are reporting that the information on the map is inaccurate and unhelpful.
📹:
@MirandaKDunlap
Meet the Drisdales, a father-daughter duo who are on a mission to illuminate the streets of Third Ward Houston, the neighborhood that raised them but struggles today with high crime rates.
💡 Read this story and learn how to report light problems:
Mayor Turner rejected an invitation from HISD Superintendent Miles to visit campuses Miles is overhauling, accusing him of creating an “apartheid situation” in the district.
Turner said the “gimmick” invitation wasn’t for him, but rather the media.
In Houston, there’s growing interest in mariachi programs for younger musicians, who stand to gain both musical experience and a connection to a cultural identity they may not always have had the chance to embrace.
New from
@DanyaPH
:
📸
@AntranikTaviti1
This video shows how Dickinson Police slammed a man to the ground and didn’t get him help for a major brain injury despite numerous signs of distress.
He eventually died.
City officials are demanding accountability.
One of our first hires was investigative journalist
@Alexdstuckey
, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter whose first story about jail deaths was published a little over a week ago.
Her story is already making a difference — and she’s just getting started.
📸 Our first walk-and-talk, hosted by columnist
@MagEGordon
, was a success!
Thank you to all who came out to
@HoustonArboretu
today to share what kind of coverage matters most to you.
More walks to come. Be the first to know. Subscribe to our newsletter:
We made a point to hire one of the best photographers we could find as our first photo editor (now director of photography). Meet
@MarieDennise
, award-winning photojournalist and the first Latina president of the National Press Photographers Association.
In this week’s Letter from the Editor, our photo editor
@MarieDennise
explains how she became interested in photography and how our photographers will play a vital role in forging bonds with the communities we serve.
📝 Read:
Many Houstonians will continue to be without power for days or even weeks in the wake of Thursday’s deadly storm that pummeled the Houston region.
Here's our guide with answers to FAQs about the wide-scale outage and resources where you can find help:
When you map inequity in Houston — from rates of childhood asthma, to the city’s white population, to the effects of climate change — an arrow-like shape appears.
What is the Houston Arrow and how can visualizing this lead to a brighter future?
Records shared with the Landing show that a Houston GOP attorney, paid by Harris County DA Kim Ogg's office, played a role in the prosecution and indictment of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's aides.
Here's what we know.
✍️:
@chronsnyder
While Houston may not be the most walkable city, many of us use sidewalks every day, and many of us are well aware that in some areas sidewalks need repairs or simply don’t exist.
Who’s responsible for fixing the sidewalks?
@byangelicaperez
explains:
No paywalls.
No subscription fees.
At Houston Landing, we are all about providing essential journalism to empower our communities. That means everyone should have access.
Read more about our mission and what makes us different here:
Former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill said he was told in 2004 that Paul Pressler, a Southern Baptist leader and his law partner, had sexually abused a child.
Yet he continued to work with Pressler for nearly a decade. (via
@TexasTribune
)
Harris County,
@BakerRipley
and
@HouUnitedWay
just opened applications for Early REACH, which will provide 800 to 1,000 free day care seats between now and 2025. Here’s how you can apply. 👇
NEW: The Houston Police Department released its complete investigation of the Travis Scott Astroworld concert, where 10 fans died and hundreds of others were injured in November 2021. 🧵👇
“The land is a living museum.”
🌱 For wildlife ecologists, a historic coastal grassland 70 miles south of Houston represents the future of a more biodiverse city — and it has a lot to do with seeds.
Houston's planning department declined to release records related to the controversial installation and removal of a concrete median on Houston Avenue, citing concerns about terrorism.
One legal expert called the move an "overreach" of exemption rules.
We're
#hiring
!
Come work for us and join our mission of advancing democracy and improving the lives of all Houstonians one story at a time.
Open roles include
💼 Harris County and Neighborhoods Reporter
💼 HISD Reporter
+ more
Apply:
Houston schools are about to enter their second year under an overhaul with massive stakes for education nationwide.
HISD reporter Asher Lehrer-Small will be answering your questions about this in r/education.
Join us on Thursday, August 8 from 12 to 2 p.m. CT.
New: We’re adding four positions to our current team of three to cover education in Greater Houston.
“At Houston Landing, we view education as the cornerstone to success — for families, and for the city,” Editor-in-Chief
@manny_garcia1
said.
Learn more:
“We do not want our schools to look like prisons.”
Mayor Turner, Members of Congress, Houston City Council and high-profile religious institutions are condemning Houston ISD for eliminating some librarians.
NEW:
Why did so many trees fall after Hurricane Beryl? 🌳
Despite what many think, strong winds aren't the sole reason. Lack of maintenance and tree biology both have an impact on the strength and health of Houston’s trees.
Here's more on what we know.
Have you ever met a journalist? 78% of Americans say they haven't.
We want you to feel safe enough to share stories, send us tips and respond to questions, so if you'd like to get to know us better, we invite you to join us tomorrow.
Learn more and RSVP: