Humble ISD officials celebrated the opening of a new “Dreamland”-themed playground at Lakeshore Elementary on Dec. 8.

The details: According to a Dec. 4 news release, the playground is designed for children ages 5-12 and includes the following features:

• A 23-foot-tall “Dream Delivery Tower”
• Four levels of rope climbing challenges
• Three 19-foot-tall slides
• A 41-foot-long structure comprised of varying rope patterns
• A 10-seat swing set

• Opened Dec. 8
• 13333 Breakwater Path Drive, Houston

Allayah Beamon, founder of A1 Academics K-12 Tutoring Service, said the mobile tutoring center has plans to expand to Atascocita, Cypress, Humble, Katy, Kingwood and New Caney on Jan. 10.

The details: A1 Academics K-12 Tutoring Service offers services for children in kindergarten through 12th grade with individual in-person and virtual sessions, according to the company's website.
Tutoring subjects offered include:

• Spanish ESL
• Hebrew
• Math
• STEM
• Science
• Reading and writing
• Critical thinking skills
• Test prep/study habits
• Language arts/ELA
• History

• Expanding Jan. 10

Since city council members voted in July, a public comment session has taken place on the final Tuesday of every month at 6 p.m. inside the council chambers in Downtown Houston. Now, the test that was intended to run through Dec. 31 has been adopted as a permanent change.

The discussion: During the Dec. 10 meeting, council members discussed what went well and what they wanted to change with the new ordinance moving forward.

Council member Fred Flickinger, District E, proposed an amendment to change the evening session from monthly to quarterly. However, his amendment was ultimately denied in an 8-9 vote.

Meanwhile, council member Mario Castillo, who suggested the ordinance in July, said he has noticed that the evening sessions have been "pretty popular," but did make some tweaks to the ordinance. 

What's changed: Changes to the ordinance include:

• Switching the start time from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m.
• Eliminating proclamations
• Clarifying that the final public session is a non-consolidated meeting

The Texas power grid is expected to hold up this winter, officials with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Dec. 9. This is due in part to “tremendous supply growth on the ERCOT grid,” ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said, amid an influx of data centers coming to the state.

The overview: Since last winter, over 11,000 megawatts of generating capacity have been added to the ERCOT grid, Vegas said. That growth, which largely comes from battery storage and solar facilities, could be used to power about 2.8 million homes during periods of peak electric demand.

Zooming in: Under most weather conditions, there is a less than 2% chance of a grid emergency through February, ERCOT found.

However, Texas could be in trouble in the unlikely event that a repeat of Winter Storm Uri hits large parts of the state this winter, although ERCOT noted that the probability of such a severe storm happening again was "well under one percent." The February 2021 freeze devastated an unprepared power grid, resulting in nearly 250 deaths.