(Image: Michael Hagerty, Houston Public Media)

Every once in a while, after a period of serious, heavy — okay, let’s face it, even occasionally depressing news — we like to take some time out to give you the opportunity to focus on the good news in your life. It could be about your personal life, about your friends or family, about that new restaurant, or movie you saw, or heart warming story you heard, or who got married, or had a baby, or won an award.

Or, it could be about something actually in the news — some development, some report, some experience, something heartwarming you think is worth highlighting. What’s the good news of recent months, Houston What’s making you smile? What makes Houstonians…happy?

Our Happy guests includes Katherine Center, Houston author of such books as Happiness for Beginners, Jessica Brown, co-owner of Station Theater, and Paul Pendergraft.

Also this hour…

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the News

A lot can happen in a week. Some of it good. Some of it bad. Some of it downright ugly. When faced with intriguing developments in the week’s news, we turn to our rotating panel of “non-experts” to parse The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of it all.

This week, our panel weighs in on Harris County leading the nation in exonerations and a new report saying Houston has the sixth-lowest cost of living among major US cities.

On today’s panel: Vladimir Davidiuk, conservative writer and political analyst, Lisa Falkenberg, columnist for the Houston Chronicle, and Mary Flood, a blogger and legal consultant with Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

A Tour of Rice’s Moody Center for the Arts

Last month (Feb. 24, 2017) Rice University opened the doors on the new Moody Center for the Arts. The facility is a hybrid art gallery, theater space, classroom and workshop. Houston Matters producer Michael Hagerty takes us on a tour.

Houston Matters offers a free daily, downloadable podcast here, on iTunes, Stitcher and various other podcasting apps.