Hudspeth County officials entered into an agreement with Barnard Construction this week that will allow the border wall contractor to use and improve two county roads leading to the Rio Grande. The vote revealed riffs in the broader community over whether to fight or comply with the advancing wall project.

Far West Texas is home to several species of azure-hued avians. Some of these bird species are full-time residents, while others are summering now in our region.

Órale, the Caló onda this week is the verb arrear. It comes from the Spanish word for mule team driver, arrero, which was a brutish but well-known trade in Spanish colonial times. Arreros made their living driving the wagons that hauled goods from the provincial capitals to the outlying villages in the countryside, often days and weeks away. As the work was hard and perilous, so too were the men who arreaban those wagons. Out of that harsh experience, came many sayings and words. There are two primary nuances to arrear in Caló. One is what an arrero would yell to drive the mules through a muddy river crossing or up a steep hill. The other nuance is that of the action of driving a mule team, arrear, which many in the world of Caló today use to say they’re driving a car. We’ll focus on the later nuance in this episode and go back to the other, more colorful one in the next episode.

One state lawmaker said information about how much water data centers are using is "woefully lacking."