The Interior Department is giving Arizona and 23 other states a total of $560 million to start cleaning high-priority derelict oil and gas wells abandoned on state and private land, the department said August 25. 

All along the U.S.-Mexico border, about 840,000 mostly low-income, immigrant Latinos have settled in colonias – cheap plots of land outside city limits without basic infrastructure such as water and sewage systems, electricity and paved roads.

A committee charged with selecting the next state ombudsman finally made its decision, but not before the process became so mired in politics that it left a sour taste in the mouths of some of the panel’s members.