Washington STEM Academy, formerly known as Booker T. Washington Elementary, has served students on the east and south side of Midland for Decades. (Mitch Borden / Marfa Public Radio)
Midland Independent School District’s Board of Trustees is facing a tough decision: Spend more than $3.7 million on portable classrooms for Young Women’s Leadership Academy or close down Washington STEM Academy, a decades-old elementary school, to provide a permanent home for the all-girls school.
And time is running out for the school board to make a decision.
Protesters stand at the front steps of the state Capitol in opposition to Texas' abortion restrictions law on Oct. 2, 2021. (Michael Gonzalez / The Texas Tribune)
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision means it could take months before abortion providers’ challenge to the restrictive law returns to a federal court.
The Marfa High School campus in Marfa, Texas. (Carlos Morales / Marfa Public Radio)
One school district in the Big Bend region said it would shut down for multiple days because of a spike in positive cases and staffing shortages, while others remain open with a renewed focus on testing.
Oil rigs and a pump jack are shown in a rural area, Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Midland, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
The Texas Oil and Gas Association’s annual energy and economic impact report says both taxes and royalties paid to the state went up by more than 20% over the previous fiscal year.
The Marfa Country Clinic in Marfa, Texas. (Carlos Morales / Marfa Public Radio)
Dr. Christie Alexander, Medical Director at the Marfa Country Clinic, says the local uptick has not led to a flood of hospitalizations, but “people are feeling very ill.”
The Brewster County Courthouse in Alpine, Texas. (Travis Bubenik / Marfa Public Radio)
The owner of Marathon’s Gage Hotel sued Brewster County’s top elected official for temporarily closing hotels at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020.
The mountainous desert landscape at Big Bend National Park. (Mark Stevens via Flickr/Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Big Bend National Park reached a significant milestone this year. The Far West Texas destination surpassed 500,000 visitors in a calendar year — a first in the park’s 76-year history.
Park Superintendent Bob Krumenaker spoke with Marfa Public Radio about the numbers and what they tell us about who’s making the trek out to Big Bend and why.
President Joe Biden will deliver remarks in Atlanta on federal legislation to protect voting rights. His speech comes as Senate Democrats have been unable to pass major voting rights legislation since taking the majority in the chamber.
Continue reading
Stock tanks are as common as corrals and loading chutes in rural West Texas – this is ranching country, after all, and water for livestock is a high priority. But in Presidio County, a few stock tanks have come to … Continue reading
Officials added 36 to the estimate of lives lost in the disaster, which knocked out power in much of the state. Some experts place the toll even higher.
Continue reading
Caitlin Casey, an astronomer with the University of Texas and the Big Bend region’s McDonald Observatory, will co-lead the largest research project in the first year of the powerful new telescope’s operation.
Continue readingAs COVID-19 cases surge across the U.S. ahead of Christmas, President Biden delivers remarks on his administration’s plans to fight the onslaught of cases and the rapidly-spreading omicron variant of the virus.
Continue reading