Houston is home to about 600,000 immigrants of dubious legal status.

But this week, the tension between justice and mercy took a break. Compassion won. As the waters rose, no one asked if his rescuer – or the rescuee – had a green card. In Houston, spontaneous generosity ruled.

Ordinary citizens carried strangers to safety. One man showed up at a shelter with a stack of warm pizzas. A woman hosted 16 people and seven dogs in her home. Two guys tired of watching the devastation on TV put up a sign in a Walgreens parking lot Tuesday to accept donations. The Houston Chronicle described Joe Looke and Daniel Webb  as "middle men of mercy."  Within a few hours, donors filled 30 SUVs with food, water, medicine, and toiletries.

Texan William J. Dyer writes that his Facebook feed is filled with these acts. “I've been choked up in admiration … about small bits of sanity and kindness and extraordinary calm and love that no one, or no more than a handful of other people, will ever see, or know about, or remember.”

Even as the rain eased Wednesday, mercy also ruled, at least temporarily, with a federal judge’s decision to block a new Texas law banning “sanctuary” cities for unauthorized immigrants.

The Texas law is similar to one in Arizona. And the United States is founded on the rule of law. But a lesson may be drawn from Houston: Justice and mercy are often best served when individual circumstances shape the response.

Now our five stories selected for today.