Regina Lankenau

How Houston's Chicano Squad solved murders nobody else could solve | Opinion

After Abbott held public school funding hostage to his voucher agenda, teachers are left to pick up the slack and pay out of pocket to stock up their classroom.

Venezuela’s electoral authorities have declared autocratic President Nicolás Maduro the winner. Venezuelans in Houston continue to fight and hope for change.

When Jonathan Sturgis last said goodbye to his 93-year-old mother Barbara, he thought he was leaving her in good hands. On Tuesday, the day after Hurricane Beryl chewed through Houston and left millions without power, he checked on his mom at The Terraces, the Kingwood independent living complex where she lived. The power had been knocked out there, but Jonathan and his mom enjoyed lunch. He noted it was a little warmer than usual inside, but he knew they had a backup generator. No reason to wor…

Two resettlement agencies have closed. Is Houston still the City of Refugees? | Opinion

Yesterday, in less time than it took for me to browse nordstromrack.com, choose my wedding heels and place my online order, I cast my vote in Mexico’s landmark election. For my first time ever voting in an election, the experience was decidedly anticlimactic. There were no pins proclaiming “I Voted,” no red-white-and-green flags and no indelible ink stain on my thumb to prove I did my civic duty. It was just me and my laptop, and a tequila shot that felt more bittersweet than celebratory. I sup…

I must admit, I’ve never participated in a protest. Partly because I feared jeopardizing my and my family’s immigration status in the U.S. by marching on the streets and risking arrest. And partly because, while there’s no shortage of social injustices that rile me up, frankly, I can struggle to identify with protesters. Their signs and demands often necessitate pithy, binary stances that go against my search for nuance. Yet I can’t help but feel awe as I watch people my age put everything on th…

After Rook TX gamed a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot, will frequent lottery players continue to play the game?

I’d been staring, mesmerized by the large embossed pendulum swinging in its wooden case, when four successive chimes suddenly startled me out of my trance. A couple of minutes later, as if the clock knew I’d been too caught off guard to take note the first time, it patiently tolled four times again. “That’s one of the quirks of French Morbier clocks, you know,” a man behind the store counter offered. “They strike the hour twice.” With a shock of spiky white-blonde hair, multiple rings and his el…

Alfredo, 33, used to love living in Chiapas, near Mexico’s southern border. But that was before the cartel turf battle that’s raging there. The violence has scared away the tourists he used to guide through the jungle. When I spoke with him a few weeks ago, he told me he felt ready to leave it all if it meant a better future for his young family. And the United States, all of a sudden, looked tempting. Like many, Alfredo is convinced that asylum is the easiest and cheapest option for him and his…