On Thursday's show: What will 2025 hold for Houston's economy? Patrick Jankowski of the Greater Houston Partnership shares his annual economic outlook.

Also this hour: We get the latest on efforts to address the problem of children having to cross railroad tracks to get to school after an HISD student was killed doing so this week.

Then, the Bayou City’s vibrant restaurant scene has built up over the years in no small part due to the rise of a generation of talented area chefs. Many of them have spent years in kitchens developing their craft and learning it at area schools, including the recently closed culinary school at The Art Institute of Houston. We revisit a conversation with one of the school’s alumni, Chef Ryan Lachaine, the co-owner and executive chef of Riel.

And with the news earlier this week that renowned poet Nikki Giovanni has died, we revisit a 2022 conversation with her when she was serving as a writer in residence at Prairie View A&M University.