The Monitor

Remember when the federal government reclassified ketchup as a vegetable to make school lunch offerings comply with nutritional guidelines? The Reagan-era move enabled schools to use the condiment as a larger element when preparing students’ meals, for example.

When Garth Stevenson, a nature musician and composer, carried his 6-foot-tall double bass instrument with him to Antarctica, he had a life-changing experience when he imitated whale calls on his instrument. He ended up drawing 12 sei whales to the edge of the icebreaker where he stood making music. Having grown up in the mountains of Western Canada, Stevenson has always connected his music to nature, but this experience in Antarctica revealed the two-way connection between humans and our natural world.

WESLACO — Wanting to try something new and different, I came to Lê Phở House — a Vietnamese kitchen in Weslaco — with an open mind and I left with a stomach full of delicious noodles, broth, beef and a curiosity into a new cuisine.

MISSION — “We’re not the sleepy little cities we used to be, especially the McAllen area, Pharr (and) Mission. We keep growing. It’s amazing what’s going on,” McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos said amidst a gaggle of local officials on Monday.

Two people were killed while another is hospitalized with “major injuries” after a fiery four-car crash outside Edinburg on Tuesday morning.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that there are about 240,000 women and about 2,100 men diagnosed with breast cancer each year. Although breast cancer-related deaths have declined over the years, it remains the second leading cause of cancer death for women.

Longtime coach Erasmo “Mo” Molina, a prominent Rio Grande Valley and Texas high school boys basketball figure, died at 78-years-old, his family announced Monday.

A man was arrested after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers discovered more than 100 packages of methamphetamine concealed within his vehicle at the Rio Grande City port of entry, according to a criminal complaint.

A Mexican citizen was arrested Monday after a Starr County sheriff’s deputy found multiple large bundles of marijuana inside the man’s green Ford Explorer, according to a criminal complaint.

It is April 17, 1836, and Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna once again cannot go to sleep. He has split the Mexican Army of Operations for the Tejas Campaign into three fronts. All have the same mission: Suppress and end the Texas Revolution movement. The army retook the Alamo in Bejar (San Antonio) on March 6. The campaign will not be complete until Gen. Sam Houston and the remaining Texas militia is captured or forced east across the Louisiana border into the United States. Houston hurriedly led his men eastward in full retreat.