By Cat DeLaura

Good morning, Houston. It's Thursday.

Yesterday ended with tragic news out of Maine. At the time of writing this, the Associated Press was reporting that at least 16 people were confirmed dead in a mass shooting in the state's second-largest city. Find the latest updates here.

🌦️ Temperature check: High of 86; low of 74. Justin's insight: A quick-moving system will result in widespread showers and storms across Houston as temperatures remain balmy today. Read more here.

📩 Sign up for the Report Card. It seems like every day brings a new HISD story (including yesterday). If you're trying to keep up with everything happening after the state takeover or just trying to keep up in general with what's happening in your kids' school district, I'd recommend signing up for our new HISD-focused newsletter Report Card. Every Friday, our reporters will catch you up on the week's biggest news in an easy-to-read newsletter.

Cat DeLaura
Audience Engagement Producer
cat.delaura@houstonchronicle.com

Best of the Bayou

Today we're talking about affordable housing and tax breaks...

If you read one thing: In August, Harris County launched a new program that will cut the county-related portions of property tax bills for qualifying affordable rentals in half. The decision makes Harris County the first major county to opt into the affordable housing tax break made possible by a 2003 state law, according to the Harris County Office of County Administration.

How does the tax break work?

To apply, the properties must be owned by a Texas nonprofit and at least half the units must be rented for rates affordable to households earning 60 percent of their area's median income or less. The county will rebate half of the eligible taxes for qualifying applications, which have been capped at $1.5 million a year.

Why is the county doing this?

Harris County's decision to pursue the tax break traces back to a local nonprofit, Avenue CDC. Facing dramatic increases in insurance costs, as well as rises in utilities and property taxes, the organization's executive director, Mary Lawler, reached out to other affordable housing nonprofits to make their case to Harris County commissioners to opt into the 2003 state law.

Commissioner Adrian Garcia said he had been looking for strategies "to keep affordable housing affordable" since real estate values "caught fire during the pandemic." When Lawler brought him the state law, he said it was a simple decision to support it. "I was like this is way too easy."

Are any other area governments offering the tax break?

No other taxing entities are currently offering it, but a public information officer with the Houston Housing and Community Development Department said such a measure was being considered by the city.

Read Rebecca Schuetz's full story here.

Stay in the Loop

Susan Barber / Houston Chronicle

📰 Need to Know:

HISD students may lose technology access with Verizon partnership at risk. Dozens of campuses in HISD participate in the Verizon Innovative Learning Program, an initiative that gives students and teachers across the U.S. access to free technology they might otherwise lack.
As early voting starts, Harris County's new elections chief aims to build confidence. County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, a Democrat, is facing her first test running Harris County's highly scrutinized elections after the Texas Legislature abolished the county's elections office.
Republicans stall on renewing a Bush-era program to fight AIDS. Reauthorizing PEPFAR has stalled amid infighting over its role abroad, budget fights and the speaker drama in the U.S. House over the last two months.
HISD to replace majority of administration, including principal, at Wisdom High School. Nearly a dozen Houston ISD principals have been removed from their schools since Superintendent Mike Miles was appointed to his post in June, but his administration has taken things a step further this week.

💼 Business:

Texas is number one in solar power installed on its electric grid. With over 18,000 megawatts of solar power capacity installed on its grid, Texas has knocked California out of its longtime reign.
ERCOT seeks approval for a new rate increase. The state's grid operator said the new rate would raise residents' electric bill by less than 20 cents.
U.N. weighs plastic crackdown as Exxon and others invest in recycling. When world leaders sit down in Kenya next month for a United Nations summit on the global plastic waste crisis, attention will be focused squarely on the Texas Gulf Coast and the state of the plastic industry's recycling efforts there.
Audubon Engineering signs west Houston headquarters lease. Elsewhere in Houston real estate news, City Place landed office tenants and Worth & Co. lifestyle furniture store opened near River Oaks.

🚗 Outside the Loop:

Montgomery County agencies start cadet training programs to boost firefighting ranks. County officials are turning to in-house training and community college partnerships to recruit firefighters as growth continues.
This college history professor teaches students how to workout like a Roman soldier. For all y'all who apparently can't stop thinking about the Roman Empire, here's a new way to keep it front of mind.
Conroe ISD considers book policy similar to Katy ISD's controversial guidelines. The policy would align with Katy ISD to define "sexually explicit materials" and allow board members to formally appeal a decision by the district's book reconsideration committee.

Click here to play the Houston Chronicle's puzzles.

Point of View

Quote from the Editorial Board: ''Hydrogren will help make our planet a whole lot healthier, and our region a lot more prosperous, if we develop it responsibly.''

🗣️ Houston's new hydrogen hub: Houston is about to get a lot richer thanks to the hub, writes the Editorial Board. But is Biden's New Deal truly green?

🗪 Other points of view:

Houston Prop B: Rural counties have unfair power in Houston's metro region, say Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and Fort Bend County Judge KP George. Prop B would fix that.

Sign up for the "SaysHou" newsletter to get more editorials, columns and letters curated by the Chronicle's opinion team here.

Houston vs. All Y'all

Houston Chronicle

Astros manager Dusty Baker is retiring. Our reporters looked back at his 26 years as a manager and 19 years as a player. Plus, Matt Kawahara looked ahead to how the Astros are built to contend again in 2024 even with a new manager.

The scoreboard:

🏀 Orlando Magic 116, Rockets 86.

Find more of our sports coverage here.

Get Out

Jordan Hughes

Contemporary American restaurant Auden joins Autry Park's buzzy dining lineup. Labeling a restaurant as "contemporary American" could mean anything these days, but at Auden, chefs Kirthan and Kripa Shenoy interpret so-called American food through Houston's diverse culinary scene.

View Through the Lens

Today staff photographer Karen Warren is taking over this section of The 713 to explain what it is like covering the Astros through their wins and losses over the past seven years.

Umpire James Hoye, center, gets in between Texas Rangers Adolis Garcia, left, and Houston Astros catcher Martin Maldonado, right, after being hit by a pitch from relief pitcher Bryan Abreu, clearing the benches in the eighth of Game 5 during the American League Championship Series.

Warren: Baseball season is a long season, one hundred and sixty-two regular season games and more with the postseason.

The Astros have been in the postseason for the past seven years, and I have been allowed to tag along for the ride. During each of these playoff seasons, I put my nose to the grindstone to get the work done. Sleep is secondary. Stress, caffeine and worry about missing "the shot" are the fibers of my existence during those periods.

This season, before the start of the ALCS round against the Rangers, a fellow photographer from Dallas said to me, "I hope you are enjoying this time. You won't always be covering the Astros in the postseason…"

That statement gave me pause. It's become routine for them to be in the thick of it, but had the last seven years of working anxiety robbed me of my enjoyment?

After some thought, I decided that I had allowed myself to find some rays of joy as I had the best seats in the house during this "golden era." In 2017, I was on top of a firetruck with Carlos Correa and George Springer as nearly a million people cheered them through downtown. This season, it was Game 5 of the ALCS in Arlington, when in the blink of an eye there was a bench clearing (pictured above) and a Jose Altuve home run that turned that game 180 degrees. Another Altuve moment (pictured below) was when he put on a pair of protective glasses that Julia Morales was sharing with everyone so they could see the solar eclipse during batting practice. "That's very nice!" he said.

And yes, the Astros may not have made it to the World Series this year, but spring training is right around the corner, and that too is something I very much enjoy.

Houston Astros Jose Altuve wears protective glasses to look at the solar eclipse during workouts ahead of Game 1 of the ALCS at Minute Maid Park.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the adorable photo of Altuve above as much as I am. And I hope we all enjoy our Thursday as much as he appears to be enjoying staring at the sun.

Cat DeLaura

cat.delaura@houstonchronicle.com

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