KTBB News, Weather, Talk

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A fast-growing wildfire sparked by the fatal crash of a small medical plane outside Ruidoso, New Mexico, has triggered evacuations for a rural area north of the Capitan Mountains and closures in the Lincoln National Forest, officials said Monday.

The plane was en route from Roswell Air Center to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport when it crashed before dawn Thursday, killing the four people aboard. They were identified as pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara with the company Generation Jets and flight nurses Jamie Novick and Sarah Clark with Trans Aero MedEvac.

“Our hearts remain with the families and loved ones navigating an unimaginable loss,” Matt Goertz, vice president of Trans Aero MedEvac, said in a joint statement with Generation Jets.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

The wildfire grew rapidly over the weekend amid dry and windy conditions, nearly doubling in size between Sunday and Monday morning to more than 19 square miles (50 square kilometers). It was burning out of control in a sparsely populated area despite the efforts of more than 600 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and several interagency Hotshot crews.

Adam Turner, a public information officer for the fire, said steep, rugged terrain has made it impossible for crews to engage the fire directly.

“This is what firefighters call ‘mountain goat territory,’” said Turner, adding that crews were instead working to contain and steer the fire away from several evacuated cattle ranches to the northeast and the community of Arabella to the west.

A red flag warning remained in effect across southern New Mexico on Monday, with wind speeds forecast between 20-30 mph (32-50 kph).

UPDATE: KTBB talked to Joshua Gentry from the City of Lufkin, he said the repair was complete by 5:30 p.m.

LUFKIN – City crews are responding to a water leak from a broken valve on a 12-inch water line near Highway 58 and loop 287. To safely repair the leak, water service must be shut down in the affected area.

The outage will impact businesses in the area including Eye Mart, Chili’s, Cheddar’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Olive Garden. Repairs are expected to take approximately four hours. Crews will remain on-site until service is fully restored. Drivers in the area should use caution around work zones and watch for those working.

GALVESTON (AP) – Recent outbreaks of hantavirus and norovirus on cruise ships are making headlines, but they’re unlikely to dim the growing popularity of vacation cruises, according to industry representatives and travel experts.

In fact, many within the industry still expect a record number of people worldwide to take cruises this year despite three passengers aboard the MV Hondius dying from hantavirus after the ship stopped in Argentina and a recent norovirus outbreak aboard a British ship docked in Bordeaux, France.

“The cruise consumer seems to be somewhat Teflon when it comes to stories like this,” said Rob Kwortnik, an associate professor at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration who closely watches the cruise industry.

In mid-April, an annual forecast by the Cruise Lines International Association, an industry trade group, estimated that 38.3 million people would travel on ocean-going ships this year, 4% more from a record 37.2 million passengers last year.

Industrywide sales figures are closely held. Asked about potential impacts from what happened aboard the MV Hondius, the trade association said it doesn’t comment or speculate on bookings. Several big cruise companies didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press about customer demand, including Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and Carnival.

Oceanwide Expeditions, the Dutch company that owns the MV Hondius, said it doesn’t foresee any changes to its operations. It has a cruise setting sail from Keflavik, Iceland, on May 29.

Veteran cruisegoers said the outbreak would not affect their plans.

“I have eight cruises booked, and I’ll absolutely be booking another,” said Jenni Fielding, who blogs and posts social media videos about cruise trips under the moniker Cruise Mummy. “Cruising is as safe as any other type of holiday, provided travelers follow sensible health advice and stay aware of official guidance.”

Scott Eddy, a hospitality influencer, is currently on a cruise and docked in Monaco. Fellow passengers have not mentioned the hantavirus outbreak, he said.

“The average traveler understands that this is an isolated health situation and not something unique to cruise travel itself,” Eddy said.

CruiseCompete.com, an online marketplace where consumers making vacation plans can compare offers from travel agents, booked 31.7% more cabins in the first half of May compared to the same period last year, CEO Bob Levinstein said.

“I can categorically say that we have not seen any drop in demand,” Levinstein said.

Levinstein said that norovirus — an extremely contagious stomach bug that thrives in crowded environments — is conflated with cruises in the minds of many Americans because the U.S. Centers for Disease Control requires ships to disclose when 3% or more passengers report symptoms.

On a ship with 5,000 passengers, an illness impacting 3% of them “goes completely unnoticed by the vast majority of vacationers, and experienced cruisers know this,” he said.

Current news cycles rarely impact passengers’ decisions to join a cruise because the trips generally are booked at least 6 months — and often as much as a year – in advance, Kwortnik said.

“People who are booking cruises tomorrow are thinking about the holidays,” he said.

During a conference call Thursday with investors, Switzerland-based cruise line Viking said demand for its river cruises softened briefly during the first three months of this year after the Iran war began but then quickly rebounded.

Viking said 92% of its 2026 cruises and 38% of its 2027 cruises were booked. The company didn’t mention hantavirus or norovirus.

Andrew Coggins, a cruise industry analyst and professor in Pace University’s Lubin School of Business, said even if travelers set to embark on a cruise soon are unnerved by the latest news, they’re unlikely to get a refund.

“I think if there’s any impact on demand, it would be in the long term. If you’re cruising in the next few months, you’re past the point at which you can get your money back,” he said.

Coggins said he thinks the hantavirus story got a lot of attention because it reminded people of the Diamond Princess, which was quarantined off Japan for two weeks in early 2020 after the coronavirus that grew into a global pandemic was detected on board.

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the cruise industry, shutting down many smaller operators. Cruises didn’t see an upswing in passengers again until 2022, Coggins said.

There are still fewer cruise passengers from China and Japan than there were before COVID, according to CLIA. But Coggins said demand elsewhere is booming.

“There are new ships on order out to 2037. The cruise lines are bullish. They see demand growing and they want to offer new bells and whistles, new ports, new destinations,” he said.

One reason for cruising’s growth is broad appeal across generations and income levels. In a recent U.S. survey, Bank of America found that Generation Z respondents and millennials were the most likely to say they planned to cruise over the next 12 months.

The survey also found that cruise spending rose for lower-income households even as those households spent less on airfare and lodging. Cruise lines have been wooing those passengers in recent years with shorter, more affordable itineraries.

Kwortnik said cruising also offers travelers value for their vacation dollars.

“On average, it costs more just to stay at a hotel in Miami than it does to sail on a cruise out of Miami – and the cruise includes lodging, multiple destinations, food, entertainment, and transportation all in the fare,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — China has agreed to ramp up trade for U.S. agricultural products such as beef and poultry, buying at an annualized rate of $17 billion per year for 2026 and at that level for 2027 and 2028, the White House announced Sunday, two days after President Donald Trump returned from a high-stakes summit in Beijing where he sought to ease the impact on American farmers from the trade war he launched last year.

China would restore market access for U.S. beef and resume imports of poultry from U.S. states determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be free of the bird flu, the White House said. The deals are on top of China’s soybean purchase commitments last year.

The agreements offer some hope to American farmers harmed by the trade war as they saw a major export market for soybeans and other products dry up. Farmers also are feeling new pressure from Trump administration policies — the war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran has curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade corridor that has restricted global fertilizer supplies and sent those prices soaring.

There was no immediate confirmation of the terms from Beijing.

China’s Ministry of Commerce on Saturday said the two sides would “resolve or make substantial progress toward resolving certain non-tariff barriers and market access issues” regarding agricultural goods.

The U.S. would “actively work” to address China’s concerns regarding detention of its dairy products, seafood, the export of potted bonsai, and the recognition of Shandong province as a bird-flu-free zone, while the Chinese side will “likewise actively work” to address U.S. concerns regarding the registration of beef processing facilities and the export of poultry meat from certain states to China, a ministry spokesperson said.

The two sides also agreed to expand trade, including that of farm goods, through measures such as reciprocal tariff reductions on “a specific range of products,” though the spokesperson did not specify the products.

China, recognizing the link between food security and national security, has diversified its sources of imported soybeans, beef and other farm goods, turning increasingly to Brazil, Argentina and other countries over the U.S.

China sharply cut back US imports during the trade war

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show China’s imports of U.S. agricultural goods peaked in 2022 with $38 billion but fell to $8 billion in 2025. These figures include nearly $18 billion in soybean purchases in 2022 and $3 billion in 2025.

It’s not immediately clear how much more China would buy from American soybean farmers, who were hit especially hard in the trade war. China, traditionally the largest foreign buyer of American soybeans, stopped purchasing them altogether last year after Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese goods.

The latest agreement builds on a trade truce Trump reached with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October in which China agreed to resume buying U.S. soybeans. The White House said then that China committed to buying 12 million metric tons in the current marketing year and 25 million metric tons for each of the next three years.

According to the White House, hundreds of U.S. beef plants, including those run by Tyson and Cargill, also will be able to export again to China, though it’s not immediately clear how much beef American businesses will be selling to China.

China let licenses for hundreds of U.S. beef plants expire last year, and the import value for 2025 fell to less than $500 million, according to USDA figures. China’s purchases of U.S. beef had peaked at $2.14 billion in 2022, the government data shows.

The U.S. export of poultry meats and products to China was $286 million in 2025, down from more than $1 billion in 2022.

Trump and Xi used summit to find areas of economic cooperation

During the summit last week, Trump and Xi discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation, including expanding market access for American businesses in China and increasing Chinese investment into U.S. industries, the White House had said. The two leaders agreed to set up separate boards of trade and investment — though offered few details on the proposals or how they would differ from existing trade dialogues.

The Board of Trade will allow the two governments to manage trade of “non-sensitive goods,” and the Board of Investments would provide a venue for the two sides to discuss investment-related issues, according to the White House.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said the two bodies would address respective concerns regarding trade and investment. The Board of Trade, the ministry spokesperson said, would allow the two sides to discuss issues such as tariff reductions on specific products. “In principle, the two sides agreed to reduce tariff on products of respective concern at equivalent scale,” the spokesperson said.

Xi said last week that China’s door of opportunity will open wider when he met with U.S. business leaders joining Trump on the trip. Among those who traveled to Beijing was Brian Sikes, CEO of the agricultural giant Cargill.

Soybeans, which are used for livestock feed and biofuels in China, are among the top U.S. agricultural exports. Soybean exports to China in the past had accounted for about half of U.S. exports of agricultural goods to the Asian nation.

USDA data shows the U.S. exported 10.9 million metric tons of soybeans to China as of May 7, putting China on track to fulfill its previous commitment by the end of the marketing year on Aug. 31. This is well below the 25 million to 30 million metric tons that China purchased in past years.

Before Trump’s initial planned trip to Beijing in late March — which was postponed by the Iran war — the American Soybean Association urged him to prioritize soybeans in the trade talks with Xi.

Scott Metzger, president of the association, said Thursday the group would like to see “additional soybean purchases this marketing year, as well as continued progress toward fulfilling future purchase commitments.”

“Greater certainty and consistency in the marketplace help provide farmers with the confidence they need as they make decisions for the year ahead,” he said.

DALLAS (AP) – Days after Spirit Airlines shut down in the middle of the night, a lawyer for the defunct budget carrier stood before a bankruptcy judge and apologized to the price-conscious customers who might struggle to find affordable flights in its absence.

“We apologize most specifically for those Americans who may now be priced entirely out,” Spirit lawyer Marshall Huebner said in court, thanking all the passengers who relied on the airline during its 34-year run, many of whom, he said, “could not otherwise have afforded air travel.”

Spirit’s May 3 demise is not the only curveball confronting people planning trips a week before the summer travel season has its traditional U.S. launch on Memorial Day. Rising jet fuel costs tied to the Iran war have pushed up airfares and associated fees across the commercial aviation industry. Two of the remaining U.S. budget carriers just finalized a merger.

The uncertain outlook for economical air travel reflects how difficult it has become for low-cost, no-frills airlines to operate while squeezed by volatile fuel prices, inflation and increasingly fierce competition. While budget airlines appeal to customers motivated by fare prices alone, traditional carriers can more easily generate revenue to offset fuel costs through premium cabins, membership rewards, corporate travel programs, add-on charges and pricing algorithms.

“Dynamic pricing has taken away one of the last structural advantages that low-cost carriers had,” said Shye Gilad, a former airline captain who now teaches at Georgetown University.

For decades, low-cost carriers thrived by offering fares that traditional airlines often couldn’t match without losing money. But that edge has weakened as the “big three” — American, Delta and United — got better at tailoring prices to different travelers, and as JetBlue, Southwest and other airlines that long positioned themselves as less expensive alternatives began chasing higher-paying customers.

Today, big airlines can sell a handful of bare-bones seats at Spirit-level prices while still charging more for standard and premium tickets elsewhere on their planes. That has made it harder for budget airlines to compete solely on price.

“They can’t just be the cheapest airline anymore,” Gilad said. “They have to be the smartest low-cost airline.”

Like gasoline and diesel prices, the price of jet fuel has jumped since the Iran war put a chokehold on Middle East oil shipments 11 weeks ago. The strain prompted the Association of Value Airlines, a U.S. trade group representing Allegiant Air, Avelo Air, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Sun Country Airlines, to ask the Trump administration in late April for $2.5 billion in temporary financial aid.

Airlines for America, the trade group for Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, opposed the idea, saying that federal help would give the budget airlines an unfair advantage.

“Government intervention on behalf of those airlines would punish other airlines that have engaged in self-help in order to deal with increased costs and reward airlines who haven’t made those tough decisions,” Airliens for America said in a statement. “And, in the long-term, sustaining businesses that cannot earn their cost of capital harms competition and consumers by making it more difficult for other airlines to compete.”

Transporation Secretary Sean Duffy rejected the request the day Spirit stopped flying.

Even before the latest run-up in fuel costs, consolidation was already underway in the budget airline sector. Alaska Airlines completed its $1 billion purchase of Hawaiian Airlines in September 2024 after the two carriers agreed to maintain the level of service on key routes within Hawaii and between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland where they didn’t face much competition.

Spirit was an unsuccessful merger target of both Frontier and JetBlue as its losses mounted after the coronavirus pandemic.

Allegiant said last week it had finalized its roughly $1.5 billion acquisition of Sun Country, a deal first announced in January. The combined airline brings together passenger service with Sun Country’s cargo operations and charter business serving sports teams, casinos and the U.S. Department of Defense.

“Consolidation is a signal” of weakness in the industry, Gilad said. “If you can remove a competitor and improve your product offering, you might be able to eke out more profit.”

Other experts note the diversity within the budget airline sector, a factor that could make some carriers more resilient to spiking fuel costs and market disruptions than others.

“Budget airlines are a pretty peculiar creature,” Vikrant Vaze, an aviation systems expert at Dartmouth College’s engineering school, said, describing a category that has encompassed struggling carriers like Spirit to giants like Southwest Airlines, which grew from a low-cost pioneer into one of the largest U.S. airlines.

“Even though they can be clubbed together as budget airlines, if you want a big umbrella term, they’re very different from each other,” Vaze said. “They have very different levels of budget-ness.”

Allegiant’s focus on leisure travel centers on smaller airports with less direct competition. JetBlue, a hybrid low-cost carrier, leans more heavily on premium seating and loyalty perks than Spirit ever did.

Frontier comes closest to Spirit’s model as an ultra low-cost carrier, though analysts say it entered this period of volatility with stronger liquidity and could benefit from Spirit’s exit. It has already begun expanding in former Spirit-heavy markets that include Las Vegas, Detroit and the Florida cities of Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.

Gilad sees echoes of his own experience working as a pilot and flight-training instructor at Independence Air, a short-lived low-cost airline that previously served as a regional carrier for United and Delta. The airline, which launched in mid-2004 as fighting between U.S.-led forces and insurgents in Iraq sent fuel prices soaring, shut down during bankruptcy proceedings in January 2006.

“They burned through almost $200 million in 18 months,” Gilad said. “It was just that quick that they were gone.”

He said the same structural pressures remain in place today, but there are fewer remaining budget airlines to share them.