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By Mitch Borden

After announcing that he would run for the Democratic nomination to unseat Texas’s long-time Republican senator John Cornyn, Midland city councilman John Love the third has ended his campaign. 

By Patrick Svitek and Abby Livingston, Texas Tribune

Beto O’Rourke is reiterating that he is not running for U.S. Senate next year as speculation swirls ahead of the Monday filing deadline.

By David Martin Davies, Texas Public Radio

Former Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis filed to run for Congress on Wednesday. She seeks the Democratic nomination for the 21st congressional district of Texas, which covers the Hill Country and reaches into the San Antonio and Austin areas. 

By Mallory Falk, KERA

The Otero County Processing Center is a squat, beige facility surrounded by desert, about 30 minutes outside El Paso, in Chaparral, New Mexico. Last fall, a group of volunteers drove out to the site, to meet with some of the asylum seekers detained there.

“We’re truly in the middle of nowhere,” says Elaina Vermeulen, a legal assistant visiting from California.

By Travis Bubenik, Courthouse News

An environmental group reached a tentative settlement Tuesday in a federal air pollution lawsuit targeting a natural gas plant in the heart of the nation’s largest oilfield.

The James Lake Midstream facility gathers and processes natural gas near the West Texas town of Odessa in the epicenter of the booming Permian Basin oil patch. The Sierra Club first notified the plant of its intention to sue over alleged Clean Air Act violations in March.

By Mitch Borden

After two mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa took the lives of more than two dozen people in August, Texas lawmakers have been holding public hearings across the state — to listen to victims of those shootings and learn from officials what can be done to stop future mass violence.

The Texas Senate Select Committee on Mass Violence Prevention and Community Safety is holding another hearing in Austin on Wednesday. It will be focused on how to respond to the expanding role the internet has had in mass attacks.

By Kiah Collier, Texas Tribune

A major pipeline operator is suing the Texas Railroad Commission — the state agency that regulates oil and gas drilling — alleging that it has blatantly disregarded longstanding state law that restricts the controversial and growing practice of burning off natural gas.

By Mallory Falk, KERA

When Jesús Enrique Rodriguez Mendoza turned himself in to immigration officials, he figured he would be detained but assumed it would be for a short time. Instead, he spent nearly two years in an El Paso detention facility.

“You feel like you’re being punished and it’s a horrendous feeling,” he said. It’s not what he expected after fleeing political persecution in Venezuela. 

By Mitch Borden

The recount of Midland Independent School District’s $569 million bond was unanimously certified by its board of trustees Tuesday, but there is still a question concerning a discrepancy discovered between the total votes hand-counted during the recount and the votes electronically tallied weeks earlier on Election Day.

By Travis Bubenik, Courthouse News

Texas is withdrawing from a multistate antitrust lawsuit seeking to block a proposed $26.5 billion merger of telecommunication giants T-Mobile and Sprint that critics say would raise prices for consumers, particularly those in rural areas who already struggle with access to high-speed internet.

The move follows similar retreats from state attorneys general in Colorado and Mississippi, which each announced settlement deals to exit the litigation in October.

By Mitch Borden

Over the weekend, a hiker in Big Bend National Park died of an apparent heart attack while exploring the park with friends, according to park officials.

By Julián Aguilar, Texas Tribune

EL PASO — When David Acevedo attended a meeting with officials from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in Webb County last month, he thought he would come away with more information about the Trump administration’s border security plans.

But Acevedo, whose family owns 180 acres of land near the Rio Grande in south Laredo, said the meeting only produced more questions about how the administration was going to move forward with plans it had for the swath of land that’s been in his family for generations.

By Marfa Public Radio

The Big Bend Sentinel and Marfa Public Radio hosted a town hall on aging and dying in the tri-county area Thursday night. The event featured a panel of West Texans dedicated to serving the needs of seniors and their families.

Seniors living in the Big Bend region struggle to get the care that they need. Many end up having to leave their homes and traveling far away at the end of their lives to seek healthcare.

You can watch the livestream of the entire town hall below. Marfa Public Radio will also broadcast an edited version on West Texas Talk on Nov. 28 and 29.

Were you at the town hall? We’d love your feedback. Click here to tell us what you thought.

By Mallory Falk, KERA

For 12 nights this month, searchlights are illuminating the sky on the U.S.-Mexico border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. They don’t have anything to do with border enforcement. Instead, they’re part of a bi-national art installation that aims to connect people on both sides of the Rio Grande.

By Chase Karacostas, Texas Tribune

In lieu of state support to ensure accurate census numbers, advocates and local government officials from across Texas announced Wednesday morning their own plans to reach all parts of the vast and notoriously hard-to-count state.