The legislation was written after the state’s largest wildfire scorched more than 1 million acres in the Panhandle last year.

Texas’ population growth has slowed, but the state’s major urban areas are still adding hundreds of thousands of residents.

A 4.8-magnitude earthquake was reported 15 miles southwest of Ackerly in West Texas, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Among the proposals is a bill that would force more inspections of power lines, which a committee concluded ignited a blaze that burned more than 1 million acres last year.

Meanwhile in the Panhandle, Republicans were less excited that Burrows won the speaker contest thanks largely to Democrats.

A yearslong dispute over exporting water to growing Texas cities offers a hint at the battles to come as the state’s population booms and water supply dwindles.

LGBTQ+ advocates called the ban one of the most extreme measures enacted by a local government.

Under Javier Joven’s leadership, his critics say, the Odessa City Council has lost focus on municipal issues like roads and water infrastructure.

“It’s like time passes, but it also freezes,” said Rosie Granados, whose twin sister was killed during the shooting.

Marcos Castañon told KSAT what happened during a walk-off home run that turned into a game-ending play.

A local volunteer died by suicide ahead of the center’s grand opening, reminding the West Texas community why such spaces are important.

One organization helping Texans pay their electric bills said the average household was $1,400 behind.

Two Texas high schools needed 23 innings, played over two days, to decide one of the longest games in prep sports history.

Authorities say multiple people have been hurt in a vehicle pileup at an intersection south of Midland, Texas.

A new operator was assigned to fix the well in Midland County, which is still not compliant with state standards.

A third infant nearby also contracted botulism last August. The Midland health department said there is no public health emergency.

A nonprofit commissioned the report that found severe and fatal vehicle crashes in the Permian Basin far outpaced the state.

The city initially protested Pilot’s applications to drill the wells close to its water supply.

Like local leaders in many other towns in West Texas, the Kermit City Council spent years saving its tax revenue fearing the energy economy would crash. Now it is struggling to keep up with essential services like trash and road repair.

The expansion, which will start with a smaller pilot in four high schools between Texas and New Mexico, is being paid for by the Permian Strategic Partnership, a group funded by major energy producers.

As oil and gas companies struggle to dispose of their wastewater in the Permian Basin, the city of Midland is challenging applications for disposal wells near one of its drinking water sources.

Authorities say a small plane overshot the runway while trying to land at a Texas airport and struck a car that was driving along a nearby road, injuring one person.

The voter approval rate for school maintenance and construction costs dipped in 2021 after lawmakers required school boards to call them “tax increases.”

The West Texas ethos of low taxes and small government has been hard for school leaders to overcome. Voters have rejected bond issues in Midland and Odessa during the last decade.

Like many regions in Texas, the county jails and hospitals have been at capacity with people needing mental health help. Local leaders hope a new 200-bed facility will alleviate pressure.

As dry soils contract, underground pipes rupture and cities must fix thousands of water leaks, frustrating conservation efforts and highlighting the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to a warming climate.

West Texas residents are organizing over their love — or concern — for books. Meanwhile, from Lubbock to Midland and Odessa, librarians are trying to reaffirm libraries’ role as community hubs.

Let’s rodeo San Antonio! Start planning for the 2024 rodeo season.

This is the third year businesses in the Permian Basin — known for high school football and oil fields — have participated in the University of Texas at Austin program. Students this year say they are seeing their hometowns in a new way.

The EPA last year announced aerial surveillance of “super-emitters.” At least one other company in New Mexico faced a similar fine.

When sizzling temperatures in June affected the air pressure in pipelines in West Texas, companies in five counties vented millions of pounds of natural gas and other toxins into the air.

The Florida governor’s events in six cities are drawing some of the state’s biggest Republican donors.

Heavy rains that fell on the area led to the breaking of several dams in the area, which essentially caused lakes to disappear, streets to be knee-deep or more in water and property to be damaged.

The Midland Police Department is asking for the public’s help in identifying a nonverbal boy who was found wandering alone on Sunday.

The Midland Police Department is searching for a missing 11-month-old girl and a 29-year-old man wanted in connection with her abduction.

Officials said the water levels at the local reservoir were too low to meet safety standards.

The Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the state's oil and gas industry, has sent investigators to west Texas following a 5.4 magnitude earthquake near Midland.

Did you feel a random rumble Friday afternoon?  If so, it was the result of a magnitude 5.3 earthquake about 12 miles north of Midland.

Oil and gas companies produce 3.8 billion barrels of wastewater per year in the arid Permian Basin. A state consortium is trying to figure out whether it can be reused.

The federal environment agency says it will continue flyovers of the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico until Aug. 15 using infrared cameras to survey oil and gas operations.

It is the latest example of how Texas Democrats are on edge over the administration’s approach to high gas prices.

Labor shortages, supply chain issues, hesitant financial backers and a frosty relationship with the Biden administration have limited how much Texas oil and gas companies are ramping up production.

Authorities are trying to determine why a pickup truck crossed into the opposite lane on a darkened, two-lane West Texas highway before colliding head-on with a van, killing nine people including six New Mexico college students and a golf coach.

Authorities say the person fatally shot last week by a sheriff’s deputy at a West Texas apartment complex was a 14-year-old boy.

A West Texas oilfield company and a company executive have been indicted in the 2019 poisonous gas deaths of a worker and his wife.

A West Texas man has pleaded guilty to hate-crime charges relating to an attack on an Asian family at a warehouse store.

Five employees at a Texas private school have been arrested on a felony charge after authorities accused of them of failing to report the alleged sexual assault of a student on campus.

One of the five candidates for the Republican Texas Railroad Commission nomination has been killed in a traffic crash while traveling from a West Texas campaign appearance.

The surge in seismic activity from increased underground pressure is shaking the West Texas ground and rattling longtime residents.

As Texas universities and colleges begin a fifth semester during the COVID-19 pandemic, many students say they are struggling with uncertainty and an indifference toward school and the future.

A West Texas man has been acquitted of murder in the 2019 fatal shooting of a police officer who was shot while checking a security alarm at the man's home.

After high-profile clashes with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a fellow Republican, Seliger suspects members of his own party are trying to oust him.

The San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo will be held Feb. 10-27 at the AT&T Center and Freeman Coliseum fairgrounds.

Texas-based ConocoPhillips bought Shell’s Permian Basin assets for $9.5 billion, its second major purchase in the oil-rich area over the last year.

There have been 20,256 reported cases among students across the state since the school year began.

In a story published May 22, 2021, The Associated Press reported that Vector Fleet Management submitted fraudulent invoices to Midland County.

A man reported missing at the Guadalupe River was found dead on Wednesday, according to the Guadalupe County Sheriff's Office.

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas’ environmental regulator on Friday barred most uses of the water at an oilfield camp converted into a holding center for immigrant teenagers, raising alarms about the safety of more than 400 youths detained there. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said running water at the Midland camp could be used only to flush toilets or wash clothes because officials aren't sure whether the water is safe. AdThe Midland camp did not have an active permit with TCEQ for a public water system, according to the agency’s online records. Texas Sen. Kel Seliger said Friday that water on site is drawn from a well that the company drilled without getting a TCEQ permit. Hopefully not oilfield pollutants, but they don’t know.”It's unclear whether TCEQ has tested the water or whether any hazardous chemicals have been found.

A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive. President Joe Biden’s administration has been sharply criticized for its response to a surge in crossings of unaccompanied immigrant children. “I feel like I have to wait and try again.”The Biden administration is not expelling immigrant children unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian. But Pfluger and other Midland officials said the Biden administration wasn’t answering their questions or giving them assurance that officials would keep the surrounding community safe. HHS opened the Midland site without notifying some top local officials who say many of their questions aren't being answered.

(AP Photo/Shafkat Anowar)MIDLAND, Texas – A West Texas flower shop owner who posted a video on Facebook bragging about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office being broken into during the U.S. Capitol riot last week was arrested Wednesday, federal officials said. The Midland Reporter-Telegram reports that Cudd and Rosa appeared Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Griffin in Midland. “She did not break into Nancy Pelosi’s office," Flanary said. “She didn’t go anywhere inside or near it.”“We’re pretty confident that the cameras will show she was only in the public portions of the Capitol,” Flanary said. A mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building last week following a rally the president held.

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana File)Texans who were involved in Wednesday’s siege upon on the U.S. Capitol were not shy about it on their own social media accounts. Texans among the mob who stormed the Capitol included a former mayoral candidate, a real estate agent, a lawyer and a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy. Videos Cudd posted on her own Facebook have gone viral. A lieutenant with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is under investigation after she posted photos of the incident on her Facebook.

MIDLAND, Texas – The city council in Midland on Monday declined to approve ordinances related to enforcing Texas’ mask mandate. Monday’s decision came amid a spike in the number of coronavirus cases in Texas. In El Paso, officials have been asking Abbott for support for a curfew in the county as mortuaries are being overwhelmed due to COVID-19 deaths. El Paso has recorded a steep incline in COVID-19 cases and deaths over the last few weeks. On Monday, El Paso recorded 328 new coronavirus cases and seven new deaths, bringing the active case count to more than 36,000 and the death toll to 862.

But law enforcement authorities said Jerry Gardner, of Cedar Park, didn’t give up easily. Gardner was involved in a violent series of encounters, beginning at a gas station in Midland, where the carjacking occurred Friday night, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office said. Gardner then struck a customer who tried to intervene in the carjacking before taking off on Interstate 10. Gardner then ran toward a Kendall County deputy and the suspect was shocked with a Taser, the KCSO said. After a brief struggle, he was arrested and taken to the Kerr County Jail, where he is being held on bonds from six charges totaling $528,500.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed presidential permits for energy development during a tour of the Double Eagle Energy oil rig in Midland on Wednesday. Carlos Barria/REUTERSPresident Donald Trump sought to give a morale boost to the beleaguered Texas energy industry during a visit Wednesday to the Permian Basian, while also rallying oil-and-gas workers against Democrats ahead of the November election. "We were very close to losing a very powerful, great industry," Trump said, "and now we're back and we're just gonna keep expanding." While Texas officials welcomed Trump to Texas by endorsing his "support of Texas energy producers, the industry across the state has been harshly disrupted in 2020. The trip was Trump's 16th visit to Texas as president but first to the Midland-Odessa area, a Republican stronghold.

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will shift his focus to American energy dominance during a stop in Texas later this week that will include his first visit to an oil rig. During the stop Wednesday at Double Eagle Energy in the west Texas city of Midland, Trump will discuss how the U.S. is achieving energy dominance by cutting regulations, simplifying permitting and encouraging private investment in energy infrastructure, the White House said. While in Texas, Trump will raise money for the Republican Party and his reelection campaign at a fundraising luncheon with supporters in nearby Odessa. It will be Trumps 16th visit as president to Texas, the White House said. The White House said Trump has taken steps to help the energy industry recover after the coronavirus outbreak caused demand for energy and prices to plummet as people stayed home to avoid becoming infected.

FILE - In this May 29, 2020 file photo, two cars are flipped over after major flood damage, in Sanford, Mich. Sanford village, with a population of 859, is pulling together after the devastation of two dam failures in May. Volunteers are still clearing muck and providing supplies to those whose homes were destroyed since there's no telling when major state and federal help will come. Although state or federal government aid would be a huge help, Ricards said Sanford could not wait. We celebrated birthday parties, their graduations, anything you can think of there.The goal is to keep people in the village, Cole said. I think its better just to help than to sit back and wait" for state or federal funding, Cole said.

The majority of the lineup for this year’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was released Thursday and it includes big names in country and pop. The rodeo will run from March 3-22, just weeks after the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, which runs Feb. 6-23. Here in the Alamo City, Cody Johnson, Midland, Chris Young and Brad Paisley will also play for the San Antonio rodeo. Other San Antonio rodeo performers include ZZ Top, Aaron Watson and Sammy Hagar and the Circle. Here’s the full lineup for the 2020 San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo:

A Midland oilman has spent millions over the last decade financing groups focused on moving the Texas Legislature in a more conservative direction. While critics have decried his hardball tactics, Tim Dunn isn't backing down.