💡 Why our lights stayed on: Texas' power grid didn't fail during last week’s winter storm, its toughest test since last year’s deadly blackouts. But experts question whether it’s ready for a truly deep freeze. “The grid held up fine for a couple of reasons: the weather wasn’t as bad as we thought, and wind overperformed,” said Michael Webber, an energy professor at the University of Texas. “The demand wasn’t as high, and the supply wasn’t as low.” (Bloomberg)

💰 “Pay to play” at Harris County?: For decades Harris County’s four commissioners have operated under an unwritten agreement not to meddle in each other’s precincts. This basically means that the commissioners can pick the winners of no-bid contracts in their districts. From 2020 to 2021, a Houston Chronicle analysis found, commissioners steered 93 percent of engineering, architecture, surveying and appraisal contracts to county vendors who’d contributed to them. “If that’s not a pay-to-play system, what is?” says the director of Texans for Public Justice. (Houston Chronicle)

💰 Billionaire exes donate to Houston kids: Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $13 million to Communities in School Houston, which aims to surround students with supportive adults. Scott was previously married to Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon – who this fall will open Bezos Academy, a tuition-free nonprofit preschool, in Denver Harbor. (Houston Chronicle, Houston Chronicle)

🛰 How the International Space Station will die: NASA’s current plan is to keep the ISS operating through 2030, at which point private space stations should be up and running. Then the ISS will “deorbit,” plunging to a watery grave at a remote spot in the South Pacific known as Point Nemo – the final resting place for more than 260 other pieces of space junk. (CNN)

Keri Blakinger, who once served time herself, is now one of the country's best reporters covering prisons and jails. At the Houston Chronicle, she wrote stunning stories about Texas' youth prisons, which have raged out of control for years. (Some have “gladiator wards” where kids fight each other for lack of anything else to do.) Now, at the Marshall Project, she's just published a new story that shows the effects those awful prisons have on the kids' lives -- and how frequently those youth prisons lead to Texas' death row.

Remember Raj Mankad, the Houston Chronicle’s op-Ed editor, who spoke on our podcast about riding his bike around Loop 610? Yesterday the Chronicle published his excellent essay about that strange quest to reconnect with the city – plus a lovely companion piece that notes that the “center of gravity” of Houston’s population has shifted outside the Loop. Here are excerpts:

“As loud and ugly and even terrifying as Loop 610 can be, there’s something comforting about its embrace. We all use 610 at one time or another, our lives unfolding in the passing lanes, stalled in the claustrophobia of rush hour, rambling along the feeders. The beauty of the Loop is that it belongs to everybody.”

– Raj Mankad, “Bike ride around 610,” Houston Chronicle (yes, the same Raj Mankad who talked about biking the Loop on our podcast)

“[Loop 610] has played an important role in many people’s lives — not the freeway itself, of course, but the neighborhoods and shops and factories and playgrounds alongside it, the dibs and dabs that make up a city. Almost half a century after Loop 610’s completion, generations of Houstonians no doubt have their own stories to tell about life along Beltway 8. Their descendants might wax nostalgic about the Grand Parkway.” 

– Mike Snyder, “We Inner-Loopers have lost our special status,” Houston Chronicle

Fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) are one of 65 squirrel species in the U.S., and one of the most common in the Houston area. “We usually see them eating nuts and berries,” writes Liz Landry, a Houston Arboretum naturalist, “but they are opportunistic and have been known to eat insects, bird eggs and frogs.”