South Texas residents living near billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX launch site will soon decide whether they'll be officially recognized as Starbase, Texas.

If a majority of the roughly 500 residents living around the South Texas site vote yes in May, Starbase will be the state’s newest city.

In Brownsville, the city and local hospital have helped residents lose more than 23,000 pounds since 2008.

Citing all the work the company has put into the region, employees are requesting a special election in Cameron County to incorporate a city.

Flores briefly represented the district after winning a 2022 special election. Gonzalez went on to beat her by nearly 9 points in the general.

The first-term Republican defending her seat said a private school voucher program will help her community, especially students from low-income families.

This week’s ruling was the latest twist since cities and groups in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley sued to block the projects.

Many of the solutions are costly, putting them out of reach for small towns. But the region's most populous cities are getting innovative.

Cascos began his political career as a Democrat but later flipped to the Republican Party.

Texas is losing an estimated 1,000 acres of farm land a day, mostly to other industries. The Rio Grande Valley is losing land at a faster clip.

In a rare joint statement, the district attorney and the defense agreed that prosecutors withheld evidence that could point to a Rio Grande Valley woman’s innocence in the death of her toddler.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is negotiating a land trade involving part of Boca Chica State Park.

Monday’s vote lets Texas Parks and Wildlife staff begin negotiations to swap 43 acres in the park for 477 acres next to a federal wildlife refuge.

The group is “helping to build party infrastructure at the regional level, because the various regions of our state are distinct and therefore require different strategies,” a PAC official said.

Brownsville is the last major deepwater port in Texas that doesn’t have large fossil fuel projects. The 750-acre facility will export Texas natural gas to other countries.

Authorities say one person was killed and a curfew was imposed after a powerful tornado tore through a community near the southern tip of Texas on the Gulf coast.

Truckers have reported waiting up to 24 hours to cross the border because of the inspections. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered similar inspections last year to stop smuggling, but troopers found no contraband after checking more than 4,000 vehicles.

Environmental groups claim the Federal Aviation Administration let SpaceX do its own environmental assessment before its rocket self-destructed above the Texas coast and debris rained down over a wide area.

A company planning to build a massive liquefied natural gas export facility near Brownsville says carbon capture technology will reduce its pollution, but some locals say it’s a “Band-Aid on a bullet hole.”

Securing the land rights to build Texas’ portion of a border wall is proving to be a tedious and daunting process according to officials with the Texas Facilities Commission. The comments came during a Jan. 4 TFC meeting when another border wall construction contract was awarded.

For some local relief programs, a lack of staffing, political support and effective community outreach got in the way of spending federal funds to prevent evictions, a new report found. More than $30 million went unspent and had to be returned.

Mayra Flores, a Republican, won a special election to fill the unexpired term of U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela. Another election will be held in November.

Designed more than a century ago, the Rio Grande Valley’s canal system in South Texas was built to irrigate the booming agricultural industry that once dominated the local economy.

In a story published Oct. 9, 2021, about Allen West being diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia, The Associated Press misspelled Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s last name in two references in the story and once in the summary.

Congressional Democrats are going bigger than ever on the environment, with a spending package they're trying to muscle through.

Cameron County residents line up in the early hours of the morning to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at a drive-in distribution site in Los Fresnos. Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas TribuneNeed to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? Almost a year into the pandemic, COVID-19 is still rampant across the state. While doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have begun to arrive — and more are coming — it will be months still before it is broadly available to the public. And for the latest news on the coronavirus pandemic, you can sign up for our newsletter here.

BOCA CHICA, Texas – Space fans will just have to wait another day after SpaceX aborted its first attempt at a high-altitude test flight for its SN8 Starship Prototype in Boca Chica on Tuesday. Starship SN8 is expected to fly more than 41,000 feet into the air, do a now-iconic bellyflop or skydiving-like maneuver and then correct itself just before landing on the launchpad. The spacecraft is a two-stage vehicle that founder Elon Musk hopes will one day take as many as 100 people to Mars. It’s the first Starship to be fully outfitted with a nosecone and flaps. You can watch a replay of the first attempt below.

But attorneys for two private religious schools have told the county that the order is unlawful and goes against Republican Gov. Laguna Madre Christian Academy in Laguna Vista and Calvary Christian School of Excellence in Harlingen plan to open for face-to-face classes on Aug. 31 and Sept. 8, respectively. Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevio Jr. said First Liberty is misconstruing the countys order regarding schools as an attack on religious freedom. The number of reported coronavirus cases in Texas increased by 3,493 and there were 104 more deaths due to COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, Texas health officials reported Sunday. State health officials reported 114,391 active cases of the virus and that 451,776 people have recovered.

HOUSTON Officials in South Texas, which has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic in recent weeks, said theyre also prepared to handle any challenges from Tropical Storm Hanna, which was headed their way and expected to make landfall this weekend. Areas of South Texas could see anywhere from 3 to 8 inches of rain, with some parts possibly seeing up to 12 inches. We could be dealing with significant flash flooding across much of deep South Texas, Birchfield said. South Texas officials' plans for any possible rescues, shelters and monitoring of the storm will have the pandemic in mind. Greg Abbott has announced that various resources to respond to the tropical storm are on standby across the state, including search-and-rescue teams and aircraft.

CIUDAD VICTORIA – Officials in a Mexican border city are tightening checks on travellers coming from Texas, saying they fear U.S. visitors may be helping feed a spike in COVID-19 cases. Municipal and state officials in Matamoros, together with Mexico's National Guard began setting up checkpoints Saturday at the three border crossings to question U.S. citizens and residents coming from Brownsville, Texas. At least 180 people were turrned back at a single point on Saturday, according to city officials. Commercial traffic, critical to the economy on both sides of the border, has continued on a large scale. Residents and officials on both sides have asserted that travellers from across the border were bringing the infection.