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A spike in COVID-19 cases combined with the holidays makes for an extraordinary amount of stress. For ways to deal with it, Lisa called Alejandro Chaoul, an expert on the therapeutic effects of meditation and Tibetan yoga. They spoke with Chaoul sitting cross-legged on the floor of his wife’s family’s house in Costa Rica, where the family was quarantining. They discuss mindful ways to fight sleeplessness, loneliness and anxiety. But first, as promised, a surprise for Christmas: Chronicle Op/Ed editor Raj Mankad talks with Houston singer-songwriter Glenna Bell about her 2008 Christmas song Be my Valentine (on Christmas) and how its hopeful-yet-melancholy vibe feels just right for Raj at the close of 2020. Read stories by Lisa Gray and connect with her on Twitter or Facebook. Questions, comments or suggestions? Want a sticker? Send Lisa an email. Listen to Glenna Bell's music on Spotify. Here's a list of Alejandro Chaoul's upcoming classes and meditation sessions. And here's where you can stream a free half-hour "Meditation for Crisis and Uncertainty" video with Ale, courtesy Rice University's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode was available Friday, 12/11, on the Q&A with Lisa Gray feed. Want to get next Friday's episode delivered pronto to your podcast app? Click here to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or search your favorite player. New vaccines are on the horizon — but is it too late to blunt the pandemic’s winter surge? Might Houston fare better than the rest of Texas? And why could a traditional-method vaccine be better for kids? Lisa checks in with vaccine researcher Peter Hotez. He’s a professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and he co-directs the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, where his lab team is developing COVID-19 vaccines. Read stories by Lisa Gray and connect with her on Twitter or Facebook. Have questions, comments or suggestions? Want a sticker? Send Lisa an email.    Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forty-two percent of Americans say they're unlikely to get a COVID-19 vaccine. To end the pandemic, how do we persuade them? Tips from Texas A&M researcher Lu Tang. Read stories by Lisa Gray and connect with her on Twitter or Facebook. Have questions, comments or suggestions? Want a sticker? Send Lisa an email.  Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Click to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The Army Corps of Engineers’s latest ideas on how to reduce flooding along Buffalo Bayou has riled many Houston residents who were expecting a more modern solution to flooding than the concrete channelizing of Houston's bayous implemented in past decades. Lisa talks with Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer and co-director of the storm-studying SSPEED Center at Rice University. Read: Digging Buffalo Bayou deeper? Houstonians up in arms over Army Corps' 'old-fashioned' flood fixes. Connect with Lisa Gray on Twitter and Facebook.  More: SSPEED Center — Severe Storm Prediction, Education, & Evacuation from Disasters Center Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UPDATE: Q&A with Lisa Gray is now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all the usual places. If you like the show, please follow and tell a friend.With President-elect Biden pledging a science-based approach to wrangling the pandemic — and with record infections across the country — Lisa dials up world-class coronavirus expert Ben Neuman in his lab at Texas A&M University - Texarkana, and peppers him with questions: the state of coronavirus research? The safety of warp-speed vaccines and how they work? Would he take the shot? How long will these vaccines protect us? And ... what about that Russian vaccine? Connect with Lisa Gray on Facebook and Twitter. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to this sneak peek episode of Q&A with Lisa Gray. We'll let you know (middle of next week?) when the show is available on Apple Podcasts and all the usual places. As the United States nervously waits for this presidential election to be decided and we’re awash in discussions of the fine points of voting security, Lisa was eager to talk with voting security expert Dan Wallach to discuss the actual threats to American democracy. Wallach is a professor at Rice University's Department of Computer Science where he also manages the university's computer security lab. He is currently on sabbatical with a nonprofit group called VotingWorks, making and promoting better voting systems. This interview was recorded late in the afternoon of November 5, 2020.  Connect with Lisa Gray on Facebook and Twitter.  Read Lisa's interview with Dan Wallach on HoustonChronicle.com. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With COVID-19 cases surging in the U.S., and what may be signs of a coming spike in Houston, we offer this extra episode of Coronavirus Chronicle. In this interview with Lisa Gray, vaccine researcher Dr. Peter Hotez discusses the coming winter surge, and why he’ll be taking the first vaccine he can get. Since March, Hotez has emerged as Houston’s best explainer of the novel coronavirus, and one of the best in the nation. Connect with Lisa Gray. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's guests, Roman Mars, creator and host of the (very) popular 99% Invisible podcast and 99PI colleague Kurt Kohlstedt, want you to ask that question about the mundane — and therefore invisible — things that surround us. Why are stop signs red? What do those spray painted squiggles on sidewalks mean? What are those round things that keep us in our lanes on the freeways called?* On a virtual book tour, Roman and Kurt talk with Lisa about how the pandemic necessitated quick, smart solutions to new problems — think of those feet-shaped floor stickers at the grocery checkout — and how COVID might reshape our cities.  Connect with Lisa Gray. *Botts' dots   Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Executive Editor Steve Riley was the first guest Ferrill interviewed for this show and today, six months later, Steve is Ferrill's final guest as Coronavirus Chronicle comes to a close. In March, Steve observed that coronavirus was "like a hurricane that would hit all places everywhere, in every way, all the time." Steve and Ferrill discuss how correct that description turned out to be, how Chronicle journalists adapted to working from home and how (and why) the organization worked to be the place readers could get the information they needed as the pandemic unfolded. Connect with Ferrill Gibbs and Steve Riley. Read: EXPOSED | PART ONE - Nearly 3 dozen local COVID patients said their symptoms preceded the Houston region’s first confirmed case, data shows EXPOSED | PART TWO: Warned - COVID-19 exposed the failure to learn lessons from prior pandemics   Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Senior writer, columnist and Coronavirus Chronicle co-host Lisa Gray sits down with Ferrill for a chat as the podcast nears the end of its six-month run. Among the topics they discuss: the state of journalism, the phycological effect of focusing closely on the coronavirus pandemic month after month and why Lisa would ever "want to do this in the first place?" They also touch on the rejuvenating effects of gardening now that the fall planting season has mercifully arrived in Houston. Connect with Ferrill Gibbs and Lisa Gray. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Columnist Chris Tomlinson weighs in on the state of things at the six-month mark of the pandemic. 2020, he says, has been a really horrible year, but there are so many different ways things could go so much worse. "When," he asks, "was the last time uniformed groups of armed men, with no government sanction whatsoever, marched through the streets in full combat gear? That is happening routinely in the United States today. And it's not just the right wing, it's the left wing too. Everyone is arming up."  Connect with Chris Tomlinson. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Texas editor Robert Eckhart discusses how we're doing six months into the coronavirus pandemic. He says it's been a year of "upheaval" as political norms have been turned upside down, and as the election approaches Democrats and Republicans alike are limiting their arguments to the one or two issues they thing will gain the most votes on November 3rd. One of the things that worries him about modern politics, is that so much of it is based on fear. And, he says, "how many great decisions do we make when we're scared to death of each other?" Connect with Robert Eckhart. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vaccine researcher (and frequent guest) Dr. Peter Hotez is worried. As the COVID case numbers are trending upward again, he's worried about a "third peak" this fall and winter that would start at a higher infection level than the first two peaks of May and July, creating "a triple hump, with successively bigger humps." Hotez is also worried about how the anti-vaccine movement has, he says, expanded under a banner of "health freedom" into a globalized, anti-science movement linked to neo-nazi groups. He's also worried about the return to school, crowded polling places and complacency as the pandemic drags on.  Connect with Lisa Gray. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nancy Sarnoff, Chronicle real estate reporter and co-host of the Looped In podcast, commiserates with Ferrill over the outlook for commercial real estate in Houston. She does not see a bright future in the near term for hotels, offices, restaurants and retail strip centers as the full effect of the region's economic stall becomes apparent. Connect with Nancy Sarnoff. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since the pandemic hit in March, 15,000 Texans have died of COVID-19 — and 400,000 Texans have registered to vote. From Austin, politics reporter Jeremy Wallace discusses the effect those two numbers might have on the outcome of the November election. Read: Texas shatters voter registration records again as Trump-Biden election draws closer Connect with Jeremy Wallace.   Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Saturday, the morning after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, columnist Erica Grieder started calling women to ask how they were processing the news. Those women told her they were shocked, heartbroken, devastated, sad and scared, but that everyone was busy. With the election only 45 days away, everyone, they said, is getting to work. Read: Grieder: Loss of Justice Ginsburg leaves Texas women devastated, determined to carry on fight Connect with Erica Grieder.   Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week Texas governor Greg Abbott held a press conference (!) and announced the next phase of reopening for much of the state, allowing most businesses, restaurants, offices, museums and libraries to operate at 75% capacity, up from 50%. He did not allow bars to reopen. Texas bars have been shutdown since June 26. Austin-based reporter Cayla Harris also tells us how the state has changed the way it calculates the positivity rate. With the new calculation method, the positivity rate in Texas has been declining since its peak in early July. Connect with Cayla Harris. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the best people in the world to answer that question is Lauren Ancel Meyers. Meyers, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas-Austin, leads UT’s COVID-19 modeling consortium. Since the pandemic began, her team has modeled the virus’ spread across the United States. This week, the consortium released a new set of dashboards for Texas -- including one for the Houston area. Connect with Lisa Gray.   Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seeking to support LGBTQ businesses threatened during the pandemic, the Human Rights Campaign, through an LGBTQ business preservation initiative, has given five-figure grants to 10 enterprises across the country, including Houston's Pearl Bar. Reporter Hannah Dellinger talks with Ferrill about why the survival of the bar is essential to its patrons and why the HRC is aiding the cultural landmark, one of 16 lesbian bars remaining in the country. Read: Pearl Bar gets preservation grant during pandemic Connect with Hannah Dellinger. Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A handful of Texans have been accused of trying to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES, according to the Department of Justice — and a recent story by reporter Olivia Tallet. One case involves an Almeda-area funeral director who tried to buy two limousines and two hearses with some of the $13 million he is accused of pocketing.  Read: Texas leads SBA pandemic relief loan fraud in national prosecutions Connect with Olivia Tallet.   Support the show: https://offers.houstonchronicle.com/?offerid=125&origin=newsroom&ipid=podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.