The Harris County Leadership Academy, set in the lonely outskirts of Katy, is surrounded by a rattling security gate and topped with coiled wire. Guards monitor every movement on closed-circuit TV. Dorm rooms contain thin cots that are piled in a corner during the day and communal showers shielded only by a low wall. A …
The images and sounds of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy flashed across television screens and social media posts: Wailing toddlers flanked by armed Border Patrol agents. Children huddled under foil blankets in detention centers. A seven-minute recording of weeping youngsters crying out “Mami!” and “Papa!” As news reports and eyewitness accounts of children being yanked …
SANTE FE — The 16-year-old in blue striped pajamas and stylish black-framed glasses giggled with her two best friends, who talked about school dress code (no holes in jeans or off-the-shoulder shirts), gleefully checked friend requests, and marveled over Justin Timberlake’s height (he’s tall). Sarah Salazar didn’t say much on Wednesday afternoon. It still hurts …
After nearly a century of scoring women on their looks, the Miss America contest has announced that it is ending the swimsuit portion of the competition. Starting next September, participants will no longer be required to parade before judges — and an audience of millions of television viewers — in skimpy beach wear and high …
In the beginning, there will be no lights. The sanctuary of St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church in Spring — shuttered since the waters of Harvey poured through its doors — will be cloaked in darkness. As a procession makes its way through the refurbished church, past the freshly painted walls and over just-installed travertine …
Rome Shubert was sitting in his first-period art class shortly before 7:30 a.m. Friday when another student barged in and threw something on the desks behind him. Rome heard three loud pops and dropped to the ground, flipping his desk in front of him to shield himself. Then, he said, he ran for his life. …
Inside Annunciation Catholic Church, there are vaulted ceilings and gothic arches, frescoes depicting the Angel Gabriel’s apparition to the Virgin Mary and majestic stained glass windows recounting the mysteries of the rosary. There are 149-year-old pews, as old as the structure itself. A 1924 Pilcher’s Sons Opus organ in the music loft. The smell of …
On a corner of Freedmen’s Town, on the holy ground where Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church once stood, are circles of crushed granite and worn brick. They spiral past four benches studded with colorful mosaics and into a rosette-shaped center where a stone reads: “To God be the glory.” The historic church, long a mainstay …
The three paragraphs stopped her cold. There, in black and white, was the news Jacqueline Kiffe had both sought and dreaded for nearly 25 years. Kiffe reeled. As if she had been punched in the gut. She had long been searching for any trace of a boy she had first met in a Pasadena middle …
In the last few days of Barbara Bush’s life, the 92-year-old former first lady talked about reuniting with those she had lost — her parents, close friends, the daughter who died long ago when she was just 3. Bush was “physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready to leave this life for the next,” said her …
In the past, Emmanuel Episcopal Church marked Holy Saturday with a Great Easter Vigil, a deeply spiritual ritual that concludes with the lighting of the paschal candle — a symbol of rebirth and renewal. But this year, a time when so much has changed for so many, members of the Christian church in west Houston …
The latest work from novelist Junot Díaz, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur “genius grant” and National Book Critics Circle Award, began with a plea from his goddaughters. They begged Díaz to create a book that reflected their reality, as “smart, young Dominican girls of African descent living in the Bronx.” “I always felt …
In her early morning Sunday sermon at New Light Church, Dr. I commands a sweeping stage carpeted in gold and flanked by video screens. Her voice rises full and impassioned over the audience of nearly 5,000 worshippers. Her high heels flash as she strides from one side of the altar to the other. One hand …
Hurricane Harvey dumped 51 inches of rain over the Houston regiion, damaged thousands of homes and upturned countless lives. From the beginning of the storm through the aftermath, I reported on the anxiety, the confusion and the efforts to help those in need and get back to some normalcy, particularly in the hard-hit suburb of …
Hilda Ramirez never steps foot outside St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. When her 11-year-old son leaves for school, she holds her breath, praying that he will return. When sirens wail on the streets outside, her heart stops. For much of the past two years, the Austin church has provided sanctuary for Ramirez, a 30-year-old immigrant who …
After my daughters were asleep and our house settled into the stillness of night, I cried. The tears, held back as we talked about Valentine’s Day parties and sorted through candy and cards, as we wrangled over a research paper on Stevie Wonder due the next day, as we danced in the kitchen and kissed …