New Year’s celebrations turned disastrous early Thursday morning when a fire broke out at an apartment complex in southwest Houston, leaving multiple families displaced on the first day of 2026.
The Texas Comptroller’s Office announced the debut of the Texas Lone Star Coins, available in gold and silver. Each coin displays the Texas coat of arms along with a detailed outline of the state.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is evaluating how to carry out two newly enacted state laws that could strengthen oversight of concrete batch plants across Texas.
Federal Aviation Administration officials are investigating a near-collision involving two departing flights at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on December 18, 2024, after one plane reportedly deviated from air traffic control instructions. The inquiry focuses on pilot actions, controller communications, radar data, and departure procedures to determine how close the aircraft came, whether safety rules were breached, and what changes may be needed to prevent similar incidents in the busy Houston airspace.
Unionized hospitality workers in Houston secured major wage increases and improved benefits in 2025 after a 40-day hotel workers’ strike that led to new multiyear contracts at several major hotels. The agreements raised hourly pay, expanded health coverage, and established clearer scheduling and workload rules. Union leaders report that these gains already influence negotiations and pay practices at other unionized workplaces in the city. With additional hospitality contracts set to expire in 2026, unions plan to use the 2025 hotel settlements as benchmarks in upcoming bargaining across Houston’s hospitality sector.
Bass Pro Shops will open a 72,000-square-foot store as the anchor tenant of Rainy Creek, an $80 million, 35-acre retail development along Interstate 20 in Abilene. Developer Wallace Ventures plans more than 200,000 additional square feet of shops, restaurants and a gym, as the fast-growing West Texas city adds major projects and population around its expanding I‑20 corrid
A cold front brought strong winds to the Houston region on Monday, leaving nearly 35,000 CenterPoint Energy customers without power as of 8 a.m., according to the utility’s outage tracker, while repair crews worked to restore electricity to affected homes and businesses.
The Texas Department of Transportation has launched a statewide holiday campaign to reduce drunk driving in Texas. The initiative increases public awareness and enforcement during Christmas and New Year’s, focusing on the legal and safety consequences of driving while intoxicated. The campaign uses media outreach, law enforcement partnerships and community programs to address alcohol-related crashes across urban and rural areas in Texas.
Starting Jan. 1, 2026, Texas will implement a set of new laws that expand inventory tax exemptions for businesses, require most county jails to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, streamline evictions of squatters, mandate age checks and parental consent for app store users, and establish a statewide framework for regulating artificial intelligence and deep‑fake content.
Authorities in Harris County, Texas, report that about 1 million gallons of sulfuric acid leaked into the Houston Ship Channel from an industrial facility, sending two people to a hospital and triggering a multi-agency emergency response. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says responders contained the incident and began environmental testing, with early indications that the most significant impact may affect water quality and marine life.