KRTS 93.5 FM Marfa Public Radio

For día de los muertos, Marfa Public Radio is asking listeners to share their memories of loved ones. The station will air your dedications and remembrances on Nov. 1.| Lea esta nota en español

Four seats on the Midland City Council are up for grabs this election season. One race is unopposed, in another an incumbent is facing a young challenger and five candidates are jostling for the council’s two at-large seats.

83rd District Attorney Ori White says he fired his one-time assistant prosecutor Jerry Phillips for refusing to follow a judge’s order in a burglary case. In court filings, Phillips says while he did refuse to follow the order, his firing over the matter was “pretextual.”

Seliger has served in the Senate since 2005 and led the higher education committee. He was seen as a champion of public education and local control but was derided as too soft on social conservative issues near the end of his tenure.

As the Texas Legislature’s third special session came to a close, lawmakers approved millions of federal funds towards building a new facility between Midland and Odessa dedicated to mental and behavioral health.

Even as the latest COVID-19 surge in the Permian Basin’s largest cities slows, deaths continue to rise. This has health officials continuing to urge locals to get vaccinated, especially as the region’s vaccination rates lag behind the state’s and nation’s.

A Midland woman appeared in court this week to enter into a plea deal with the federal government for participating in the Jan. 6 capitol attack.

Funcionarios de un condado fronterizo del Lejano Oeste de Texas han votado a favor de traspasar la propiedad de un cementerio histórico a la Tribu Lipán Apache, cuyos antepasados están enterrados en una pequeña parcela de Presidio, Texas. Sin embargo, el traspaso sigue supeditado a que los funcionarios de la ciudad transfieran primero al condado parte de los terrenos del cementerio. | Read this story in English

Officials in a Far West Texas border county have voted to hand over ownership of a historic cemetery to the Lipan Apache Tribe, whose ancestors are buried at the small plot in Presidio, Texas. However, the transfer is still contingent on city officials transferring part of the cemetery land to the county first. | Lea esta nota en español

The U.S, Mexico, and Canada restricted travel across land border crossings in March of 2020 for essential reasons including work, medical care and education.

In the Permian Basin, thousands of oil and gas wells fill the landscape, and today some of that aging equipment is bursting and leading to uncontrolled leaks. 

Just this summer, one of these aged wells began leaking and spewing toxic water — more than 20 years after it was filled with concrete and abandoned — throwing one rancher into a bureaucratic nightmare filled with more questions than answers.