Walt Disney Elementary and Stevenson Primary schools are slated to have a new replacement school by 2028, according to officials with Arcadis, a design firm for K-12 schools in the Greater Houston metro.

The overview: The new replacement campus will be built on Walt Disney Elementary’s former school site, AISD Superintendent Carol Nelson said.

How we got here: In late December 2024, during winter break, Walt Disney Elementary’s school site faced severe damage from an EF-2 tornado, Community Impact previously reported. 

Due to the damage, Walt Disney Elementary students returned after winter break to the former Alvin Elementary school site, located at 1910 Rosharon Road, Alvin. Students are still attending school at this location. Trustees voted to demolish Walt Disney Elementary's school site at an April meeting, Community Impact previously reported. 

The cost: The replacement campus will cost nearly $45 million, paid for through the district’s 2024 bond, according to district documents.  

Sushi chef Michael Zhou moved to Houston in 1995, working in Japanese restaurants until he opened his first restaurant in Houston’s Memorial area, which he was forced to close four years later as rent costs rose.

The overview: Amid challenges with inflation, as well as increased rent and labor costs, business and restaurant owners across Pearland and Friendswood say they are struggling.

The restaurant industry runs on tight margins, said Mike Shine, the executive director of the Houston chapter of the Texas Restaurant Association.

The challenges: Zhou said he’s seen food prices increase month over month, which made it challenging to keep menu prices stable. Around the same time prices increased, he said he started to notice fewer people were eating out, leading the restaurant to offer more promotions such as daily happy hours and lunch specials.

Texas is the nation’s largest energy producer, leading other U.S. states in both natural gas production and renewable energy generation, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows. Yet as people, businesses and data centers continue to move to the state, experts say Texas leaders need to harness new strategies to make energy more affordable and ensure the state power grid remains reliable.

The details: Amid high inflation nationwide, energy prices are on the rise in Texas, and residents are feeling the strain, experts said at the Texas Energy Summit, which ran from Nov. 4-6 in Austin.

In a June 2025 report, the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization, found that 65% of low-income Texans recently engaged in “energy-limiting behaviors,” such as turning off their air conditioning to reduce electric bills or underheating their homes in the winter. 

What they're saying: Experts said state lawmakers and officials could invest in energy efficiency and residential demand response programs to tackle affordability and grid reliability issues.