After the bitter presidential campaign and four years of political divide, how can the United States again find a path toward unity? University of Houston Sociology Professor Luis Salinas, Ph.D., says the challenge will be to get beyond the current climate of lies that are permeating our daily discourse. “A lot of baseless rumors, conspiracy theories go around and basically rev up fear, rev up hate to further divide people,” he said. “We had every major convention in Houston cancel,” said Michael Heckman the Acting President & CEO of Houston First. “We’ve seen some major conventions move from the first quarter and the second quarter to the second half of the year so that’s very good news.”Much more on this week’s Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall.

The bid from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was quite a bit lower than the next highest bid and that’s what caught the attention of City Council Members Abbie Kamin and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. Pandemic places greater strain on Houston Food BankThe need for food from the Houston Food Bank has doubled since the start of the Pandemic from 400-thousand pounds a day to now 800 thousand pounds. Nicole Lander is the Chief Impact Officer for the Houston Food Bank and says the community has stepped up in a big way. “Obviously media literacy is something that can be taught, and based on our own experiment we’ve noticed that people who read about it or even watch videos on it, they actually improve their tendency to notice fake news better.” Helen Bouygues with much on Houston Newsmakers and in this week’s Houston Newsmakers EXTRA! More Information:Abbie Kamin, Houston City Council, District CCarolyn Evans-Shabazz, Houston City Council, District DNicole Lander, Chief Impact Officer, Houston Food BankHelen Lee Bouygues, President, Founder Reboot Foundation