West Texas

Big Bend area officials say the U.S. military has in recent weeks discussed the possibility of housing 200-300 troops at small county-owned airports near Marfa and Presidio, though the county’s top elected official says the idea is “not etched in stone.”

“If that’s a stump, it’s the weirdest stump I’ve ever seen.”

W.F. Strong points to how geological features defined over a century ago hold lessons for water challenges in the future.

The kindergarten vaccination rate against the measles in Gaines County is 82%, far below the 95% needed to achieve herd immunity.

The first death in relation to the ongoing measles outbreak in West Texas has been confirmed by local and state health officials. The patient was an unvaccinated school-aged child, hospitalized in Lubbock last week.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire said the exchange could help fund fixes to the city’s water system.

Sanderson, Marathon, Marfa and the Big Bend of West Texas play host to two classic films out this month for the first time on 4K Blu-ray. TPR’s Nathan Cone took a look at the discs.

On a Crane County ranch, about 90 wells have been excavated over the last few years. The group digging them up says many were improperly plugged and are now decaying and releasing fluids and gases.

Today on Texas Matters, could the West Texas Chihuahuan desert be greened? One Texan is trying to restore his 320 acres of West Texas hard scrabble into a desert forest.

In Loose of Earth, a story of a tight-knit evangelical family in West Texas, the oldest daughter tries to make sense of the contradictions of the world she is warned about and the world she has to occupy. When her father contracts cancer from "forever chemicals" her world come crashing down. The memoir is Loose of Earth, and we hear from the author Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn.