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WEST TEXAS (AP) – Damaging earthquakes that rocked West Texas in recent days were likely caused by oil and gas activity in an area that has weathered tremors for decades, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A sequence that began in 2021 erupted with its largest quake on Friday, a magnitude 5.1 in the most active area in the country for quakes induced by oil and gas activities, experts say. The recent quakes damaged homes, infrastructure, utility lines, and other property, weakening foundations and cracking walls, the city of Snyder Office of Emergency Management said on Facebook. Officials declared a disaster in Scurry County.

There have been more than 50 earthquakes with a magnitude of 3 or larger — the smallest quakes generally felt by people are magnitude 2.5 to 3 — in the yearslong sequence, said Robert Skoumal, a research geophysicist with the USGS, in an email. A sequence is generally a swarm of earthquakes in a particular region motivated by the same activities, he said.

While Friday’s was the largest in the sequence, officials have also recorded a recent 4.5, a 4.9 on July 23 and a 4.7 last year.

“This particular portion of the Permian Basin has a long history of earthquakes induced by oil and gas operations, going back to at least the 1970s,” said Skoumal.

The Permian Basin, which stretches from southeastern New Mexico and covers most of West Texas, is a large basin known for its rich deposits of petroleum, natural gas and potassium and is composed of more than 7,000 fields in West Texas. It is the most active area of induced earthquakes in the country and likely the world, according to the USGS. The are many ways people can cause, or induce, earthquakes, but the vast majority of induced earthquakes in the Central United States are caused by oil and gas operations, Skoumal said.

Earthquakes were first introduced to the area via water flooding, a process in which water is injected into the ground to increase production from oil reservoirs.

Four other tremors larger than a magnitude 5 have rattled western Texas in the past few years. The biggest was a 5.4. “All four of these earthquakes were induced by wastewater disposal,” said Skoumal.

Further analysis is needed to confirm the specific cause of the region’s earthquakes, but because the area isn’t naturally seismic and has a long history of induced earthquakes, “these recent earthquakes are likely to also have been induced by oil and gas operations,” said Skoumal.

Oklahoma experienced a dramatic spike in the number of earthquakes in the early 2010s that researchers linked to wastewater from oil and gas extraction that was being injected deep into the ground, activating ancient faults deep within the earth’s crust. The wastewater is left over from oil and natural gas production and includes saltwater, drilling fluids and other mineralized water.

The large increase in Oklahoma quakes more than a decade ago led state regulators to place restrictions on the disposal of wastewater, particularly in areas around the epicenter of quakes. Since then, the number of quakes began to decline dramatically.

AUSTIN (AP) — Texas Senate lawmakers grilled a utility executive Monday about the events that led up to prolonged power outages in Houston after Hurricane Beryl hit the city earlier this month.

Jason Ryan, CenterPoint Energy executive vice president. was called to testify before a special legislative committee examining the company’s failure to provide a timely outage tracker and an overall lack of preparedness for the hurricane.

“Our constituents deserve answers,” Sen. Brandon Creighton said, naming some of his constituents who died in the storm.

Nearly 3 million people lost power in the Houston area after Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall on July 8. At least 36 people have died due to heat complications after losing power, according to officials.

Gov. Greg Abbott and the Public Utility Commission have demanded answers from CenterPoint Energy, the city’s largest utility provider, about why the outages lasted for so long. Apart from the inquiry by lawmakers, the utilities commission has begun its own investigation.

The storm damaged power lines and uprooted trees that left millions of people without electricity for days. CenterPoint has defended its storm preparedness and has said that it deployed about 12,000 additional workers to help restore power.

Last Thursday, CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells apologized to customers during a meeting with the Public Utility Commission of Texas in Austin.

“We will do better. While we cannot erase the frustrations and difficulties so many of our customers endured, I and my entire leadership team will not make excuses. We will improve and act with a sense of urgency,” Wells said.

Hurricane Beryl is the latest natural disaster to hit Houston after a powerful storm ripped through the area in May and left nearly 1 million people without power. In 2021, Texas’ power grid went out amid a deadly winter storm that left millions across the state freezing in their homes.

AUSTIN – KUT rejports that it was just before 11:00 pm when John Castillo’s cellmate alerted the guards. Castillo was passed out. His breathing was shallow. Prison staff rushed him to the medical unit, where they tried CPR and dosed him with epinephrine. But it was already too late. Castillo was dead. He was 32, according to his autopsy. The state’s doctors determined a seizure disorder was to blame. The high temperature inside the prison was also an “important contributory factor” in his death, they said. The Hughes Unit in Gatesville, about an hour outside Waco, is one of dozens of state prisons that lack full air conditioning. On the day in August 2023 when Castillo was found unresponsive in his cell, the indoor temperatures there topped 94 degrees. The Texas Newsroom recently obtained the autopsies of several prisoners, including Castillo, who are named in a lawsuit against the state alleging the lack of A/C in prisons amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Three autopsies mention heat as a possible contributing factor in the inmates’ deaths. All three occurred last summer.

Elizabeth Hagerty, 37, complained of heat rash days before she died. The night she was found in her cell, the air around her registered 95.7 degrees. Patrick Womack, 50, had a core temperature of 106.9 degrees at his time of death. Castillo’s was 107.5 degrees. But Texas prison officials reject the idea that heat caused any of these deaths. “[The Texas Department of Criminal Justice] does not count those deaths as heat deaths because the primary cause of death was due to other reasons such as underlying medical disorders, overdoses, etc.,” Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Amanda Hernandez said in response to The Texas Newsrooms’ questions about the autopsies. But experts said this explanation ignores how heat can exacerbate underlying illness, hastening or even triggering death. Inmate advocacy groups say prison officials don’t want to acknowledge this because they’re now being sued over this very question. This week, they take their case back to court. “To suggest to the community, to the citizens of Texas, that the heat is not killing people in the Texas prison system is an absolute falsehood,” said Jeff Edwards, the plaintiff’s lead lawyer. “It’s outrageous, it’s wrong and that’s what our case is all about.”

SAN ANTONIO – A year after a state law requiring armed police officers on every school campus in Texas sent school districts into a recruiting frenzy, school leaders are still grappling with how to scale up existing security forces to comply with the law, which was passed in the wake of the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, according to the San Antonio Report. Anticipating some of the difficulties districts would have, including inadequate funding and a shortage of qualified peace officers, lawmakers created an exemption, in which some of the largest school districts in San Antonio are now using to implement alternative security plans. Those alternatives are left up to districts, with possible alternatives laid out in the law, including contracting with or hiring armed security guards, or arming district employees.

North East Independent School District, for example, created a safety specialist position in addition to their already existing police department, recruiting 46 former military personnel and other qualified candidates for those roles. Heading into the next school year, the district has filled 40 of those campus-based positions created since House Bill 3’s passage in 2023, according to district spokeswoman Aubrey Chancellor, with others in the interview process. The district will hire two additional positions to fill in and assist with other security needs, like auditing secondary school campuses, Chancellor said. However, the armed officials have a limited scope, according to a letter shared with parents by Superintendent Sean Maika, who said that law enforcement duties would remain with certified NEPD officers. “Our Safety Specialists will focus solely on safety and security on campus,” he said. “In fact, the only time the specialists are authorized to use their weapon is if there is a direct threat to life.” The specialists will undergo extensive training, including active shooter training and firearms requalification, Stop the Bleed training and crisis and trauma training to better understand and intervene when a safety situation arises, Maika said.

HOUSTON (AP) — The gold bikini-style costume that Carrie Fisher wore as Princess Leia while making “Return of the Jedi” in the “Star Wars” franchise has sold for $175,000, according to the auction house that handled the sale.

The costume was made famous when Fisher wore it at the start of the 1983 film when Leia was captured by Jabba the Hutt at his palace on Tatooine and forced to be a slave.

The costume, one of the most memorable in the “ Star Wars ” movies, was sold on Friday by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions.

Joe Maddalena, Heritage’s executive vice president, said the costume that was sold was one that was screen tested and worn by Fisher on the movie’s set but ultimately did not make it onto the final version of the film as it was switched out for one that was more comfortable.

The auction house said the costume sparked a bidding war among collectors.

Maddalena said he wasn’t surprised by the attention bidders gave to the costume as well as to a model of a Y-wing fighter that took on the Death Star in the original “Star Wars” film that sold for $1.55 million. He said “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” have very avid fan bases.

“The power of ‘Star Wars’ proves itself again. These movies are just so impactful,” Maddalena said.

In a November 2016 interview with NPR’s “Fresh Air,” Fisher said wearing the costume was not her choice.

“When (director George Lucas) showed me the outfit, I thought he was kidding and it made me very nervous. I had to sit very straight because I couldn’t have lines on my sides, like little creases. No creases were allowed, so I had to sit very, very rigid straight,” said Fisher, who died about a month after the interview.

Richard Miller, who created the costume, said in an interview that’s included in a “Star Wars” box set that he used soft material to build the costume so that Fisher could move around more freely.

“However, she still didn’t like it. I don’t blame her,” said Miller, who was the chief sculptor for Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company founded by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. “I did put leather on the back of it to help it feel better.”

The costume had its share of critics, who thought it sexualized Fisher for the franchise’s male fan base.

In “Interview” magazine in 2015, Fisher told actor Daisy Ridley, who starred in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “You’re going to have people have fantasies about you. That will make you uncomfortable, I’m guessing.” She pushed back against the idea of being a sex symbol and told Ridley to “fight for your outfit.”

HOUSTON (AP) — Several days of events honoring the life of longtime U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas were set to begin Monday with the lawmaker lying in state in Houston’s city hall.

President Joe Biden also was scheduled to come to Houston Monday evening to pay his respects to Jackson Lee, according to the White House.

“No matter the issue — from delivering racial justice to building an economy for working people — she was unrelenting in her leadership,” Biden said in a statement after Jackson Lee’s death.

The congresswoman, who helped lead federal efforts to protect women from domestic violence and recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday, was 74 when she died on July 19 after battling pancreatic cancer.

Her body will lie in state in Houston’s city hall rotunda for 10 hours on Monday.

The Democrat had represented her Houston-based district and the nation’s fourth-largest city since 1995. She previously had breast cancer and announced the pancreatic cancer diagnosis on June 2.

Mayor John Whitmire, along with members of Jackson Lee’s family and religious leaders, are expected to take part in a prayer service Monday morning on the steps of city hall before the rotunda is opened to the public.

“For decades, Congresswoman Jackson Lee was a dedicated fighter for Houstonians. I invite everyone to visit city hall to pay tribute to this true public servant and honor her unwavering commitment to our community,” Whitmire said.

Before being elected to Congress, Jackson Lee served on Houston’s city council from 1990 to 1994.

She is set to be only the second person to be granted the honor of lying in state in Houston’s city hall rotunda. The other was renowned cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, who died in 2008.

Jackson Lee also is set to be remembered at viewings and services on Tuesday and Wednesday before her funeral Thursday.

Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to attend the funeral service in Houston.

After first being elected, Jackson Lee quickly established herself as fierce advocate for women and minorities and a leader for House Democrats on many social justice issues, from policing reform to reparations for descendants of enslaved people. She led the first rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act in nearly a decade, which included protections for Native American, transgender and immigrant women.

Jackson Lee routinely won reelection to Congress with ease. She unsuccessfully ran to be Houston’s mayor last year.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden, who belatedly opted against seeking reelection, on Monday will pay a visit to the library of the last president to make the same difficult choice, more than a half-century ago.

Biden’s speech Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, is designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, enacted under President Lyndon Johnson. But the visit has taken on very different symbolism in the two weeks it took to reschedule it after Biden had to cancel because he got COVID-19.

The speech, originally set for July 15, was once seen by the White House as an opportunity for Biden to try to make a case for salvaging his sinking presidential campaign — delivered in the home district of Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the 15-term congressman who was the first Democratic lawmaker to publicly call for Biden to step aside.

Two weeks later, the political landscape has been reshaped. Biden is out of the race. Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely Democratic nominee. And the president is focused not on his next four years, but on the legacy of his single term and the future of democracy.

No American incumbent president has dropped out of the race as late in the process as did Biden. Johnson announced he would not seek reelection in March of 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War.

Biden has drawn a lot of comparisons to Johnson of late. Both men spoke to the nation from the Oval Office to lay out their decisions. Both faced pressure from within their own party to step aside, and both were ultimately praised for doing so.

But their reasons were very different. Johnson stepped away in the heat of the war and spoke at length about his need to focus on the conflict. Biden, 81, had every intention of running for reelection until his shaky June 27 debate performance ignited fears within his own party about his age and mental acuity, and whether he could beat Republican Donald Trump.

Biden has called Trump a serious threat to democracy, particularly after the ex-president’s efforts in 2020 to overturn the results of the election he lost and his continued lies about that loss. The president framed his decision to bow out of the race as motivated by the need to unite his party to protect democracy.

“I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation,” Biden said in his Oval Office address. “Nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. And that includes personal ambition.”

Biden decided to seek the presidency in 2020 after witnessing the violence at a 2017 “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-wielding white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, chanting “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!”

Biden said he was horrified by Trump’s response, particularly when the Republican told reporters that “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

During his presidency, Biden has often put equity and civil rights at the forefront, including with his choice for vice president. Harris is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to have the job. She could also become the first woman elected to the presidency.

Biden’s administration has worked to combat racial discrimination in the real estate market, he pardoned thousands of people convicted on federal marijuana charges that have disproportionately affected people of color and provided federal funding to reconnect city neighborhoods that were racially segregated or divided by road projects, and also invested billions in historically Black colleges and universities.

His efforts, he has said, are meant to push the country forward — and to guard against efforts to undermine the landmark legislation signed by Johnson in 1964, one of the most significant civil rights achievements in U.S. history.

The law made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It was designed to end discrimination in school, work and public facilities, and barred unequal application of voter registration requirements.

Johnson signed the act five hours after Congress approved it, saying the nation was in a “time of testing” that “we must not fail.” He added: “Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.”

Eight years later, Johnson convened a civil rights symposium bringing together those who fought for civil rights to push for more progress.

“The progress has been too small; we haven’t done nearly enough,” he said in 1972 during the symposium. “Until we overcome unequal history, we can’t overcome unequal opportunity … There is still work to be done, so let’s be on with it.”

Biden has said he is “determined to get as much done” as he can in his final six months in office, including signing major legislation expanding voting rights and a federal police bill named for George Floyd.

“I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose,” Biden said from the Oval Office. “I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism, make it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period.”

Later Monday, Biden will also travel to Houston to pay his respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died July 19 at age 74.

HOUSTON (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, will each travel to Houston this week to pay their respects to former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, according to statements from the White House.

Jackson Lee died at age 74 on July 19 amid a battle with pancreatic cancer. The Houston Democrat was one of the longest serving members of Texas’ congressional delegation, known as a staunch advocate for progressive causes.

Harris called Jackson Lee a “dear friend” in a statement following the Congresswoman’s passing and lauded her work on disaster relief following Hurricane Harvey, and as an advocate for women’s rights. Harris and Jackson Lee were both members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, a historically Black sorority, and worked together on legislation, including the law that made Juneteenth a national holiday.

“Sheila Jackson Lee was, first and foremost, a leader dedicated to serving the people of her beloved city,” Harris said in a statement. “No task was too small as long as it was the right thing to do.”

Biden and Harris’ trips to Houston are not expected to overlap. Biden will travel to Houston on Monday and is expected to visit Houston City Hall, where Jackson Lee is lying in state.

Harris will be in Houston on Wednesday to deliver remarks at a political event, according to a Sunday evening press release. And she will deliver a eulogy at Jackson Lee’s homegoing service on the following day. The Celebration of Life Service on Thursday will take place at Fallbrook Church and will be livestreamed, according to a schedule of events shared by Jackson Lee’s family.

The trip will mark Harris’ third visit to Texas in the last month. On July 10, Harris traveled to Dallas where she spoke to about 20,000 members of Alpha Kappa Alpha at their annual convention.

Last week, Harris traveled to Houston and received a briefing on the ongoing recovery efforts following Hurricane Beryl. The following day, she delivered a keynote address at the American Federation of Teachers’ national convention in Houston.

Biden was scheduled to visit Texas on July 15 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That trip was postponed after an attempted assassination on former U.S. President Donald Trump and has been rescheduled for Monday. The president will travel to Houston after delivering his speech at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library.

Biden withdrew from the presidential race on July 21 and quickly endorsed Harris, urging Democrats to rally around the vice president to defeat Trump, the Republican challenger.

The article was originally posted in The Texas Tribune