Iza Robata officials celebrated a Jan. 16 opening of their new location Humble, according to the restaurant’s Facebook page.

On the menu: The restaurant serves Japanese cuisine including ramen and poke bowls, as well as traditional Japanese sake, innovative cocktails and boba drinks, per the website

The big picture: Iza Robata has four additional locations, including two in Spring, one in College Station and one in Rosenberg.

• Opened Jan. 16
• 15936 Woodland Hills Drive, Ste. 600, Humble

Lake Houston Outreach—a volunteer-run nonprofit—aims to fill knowledge gaps for Humble ISD sophomores and inspire the next generation of leaders, Lake Houston Outreach President Beth Hancock said.

In a nutshell: While the organization was founded in 2019, nonprofit leaders said the organization really found its niche with the launch of its Youth Leadership Academy in September 2024. Through the program, roughly 50 volunteers mentor local teens. 

“We wanted to train up the next generation of leaders so that they could contribute back to the Lake Houston community and it doesn't end with us,” Hancock said.

Lake Houston Outreach helps students learn skills, including:

• Managing budgets
• Civic engagement
• Navigating career path/college selection
• Job interview skills
• Letter and essay writing
• Applying to jobs and colleges

Four astronauts boarded the Orion spacecraft on April 1 and lifted off that evening from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of Artemis 2, NASA’s first manned lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.

What you need to know: Artemis 2 is sending NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day mission to orbit the Earth and moon, according to NASA’s website.

Quote of note: “Building on the uncrewed Artemis I mission, which sent Orion 1.4 million miles beyond the moon and back, Artemis II will begin with two Earth orbits including a high‑Earth orbit before the crew embarks on a trajectory that will take them thousands of miles beyond the lunar far side—the farthest any humans will have traveled from Earth," Texas A&M professor Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, a former NASA astronaut who has flown five shuttle missions, said in the release.

Eligible Texans have until April 2 to register to vote if they would like to cast a ballot in the May 2 elections. Races that will be up for election include city council member seats and school district board of trustee spots across the Greater Houston area.

What you need to know: Texas requires voters to be registered 30 days before election day. Missing the deadline could prevent eligible residents from casting a ballot, unless they qualify for a limited ballot during early voting.

Key dates include:

• April 2: voter registration deadline
• April 20-28: early voting
• May 2: election day (7 a.m.-7 p.m.)

The Texas power grid is undergoing “generational” growth, experts said during the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ annual summit March 31 in Round Rock. Much of that growth is due to data centers—an industry under scrutiny from state lawmakers as some Texas communities push back against proposed developments.

The big picture: Over 2,000 projects totaling 453,000 megawatts are currently looking to connect to the state grid, ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said April 1. About 357,000 megawatts of those connection requests are potential data centers, ERCOT documents show.

Looking ahead: Communities should take the lead on discussions about individual data center projects, Vegas told reporters. He said that when “communities that are ready to support those investments,” ERCOT is prepared to help data centers connect to the grid.

During a March 31 discussion on data centers, panelists noted that the projects have an “increasingly high” negative reputation in communities across the state. Austin consultant Eric Goff said developers often need to make commitments to local residents to earn their support for data center proposals.