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DALLAS (AP) — Scientists who want to learn more about a tiny flower recently discovered in West Texas are hoping it will bloom again in a couple of weeks after rain finally fell in the area.

Dubbed the wooly devil, the flower with furry leaves, purplish-striped petals and pops of yellow is a new genus and species in the same family as sunflowers and daisies: Asteraceae. It was discovered last year in Big Bend National Park, known for its rugged terrain of desert, canyons and mountains, on the border with Mexico.

“There’s a lot to learn with this species so they’re really just getting started,” said Carolyn Whiting, a Big Bend botanist.

Scientists are hopeful the flowers will bloom again after rain fell on the drought-stricken park last week, giving them the opportunity to learn more including when the plants germinate, Whiting said.

The flower was discovered in March 2024. Park volunteer Deb Manley and a park ranger were hiking in a remote area when they saw a patch of flowers that were smaller than a quarter and close to the ground.

“We stopped and took some photos and neither one of us had any idea,” Manley said. “I could get it to family but I couldn’t figure out any more than that. So we took photos and moved on, not realizing we had found a new genus.”

When Manley got back from the hike, she started researching what the flower could be. She soon found that not only was she stumped, but others were too. Her post about the flower on iNaturalist, an online platform for nature enthusiasts “caused a stir,” said Isaac Lichter Marck, a researcher at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

A. Michael Powell, curator and director of the herbarium at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, said when Manley contacted him about the flower, he immediately thought it was something new.

“It wasn’t anything I’d seen before,” said Powell, who has extensively studied the region.

By the time a team went to collect samples of the flower over a month after the discovery, they had already begun to wither away.

“We really got out there just in the nick of time before the specimens would have been completely dried up,” Whiting said.

The discovery of the flower was announced last month.

Lichter Marck said they were able to extract DNA from the flower but that there’s still a lot to learn. He said they don’t know yet how it reproduces, or what potential uses it might have. They also need to determine if it’s endangered.

The wooly devil’s official name — Ovicula biradiata — takes inspiration from its appearance: Ovicula, which means tiny sheep, is a nod to the hairs that cover its leaves; while biradiata, or bi-radial, refers to its two striped petals.

Kelsey Wogan, environmental lab manager at Sul Ross State University, said she’s excited to see if the wooly devil can be found in other places as well and what its range is.

Whiting said the park is so well-studied that finding a new species was a surprise.

“The fact that there’s still species out there that had slipped under the radar is pretty remarkable,” she said.

Wogan said part of the excitement about the flower’s discovery is that it shows “there’s still new and undescribed things out there.”

“It’s the great reminder to keep your eyes open,” she said, “and if you don’t know what something is, it might be completely new.”

MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge in Florida has blocked the imports of a high-priced fish from protected waters near Antarctica, siding with U.S. regulators who argued they were required to block imports amid a diplomatic feud triggered by Russia’s obstruction of longstanding conservation efforts at the bottom of the world.

Judge David Leibowitz, in a ruling Monday, dismissed a lawsuit filed in 2022 by Texas-based Southern Cross Seafoods that alleged it had suffered undue economic harm by what it argued was the U.S. government’s arbitrary decision to bar imports of Chilean sea bass.

The case, closely watched by conservation groups and the fishing industry, stems from Russia’s rejection of catch limits for marine life near the South Pole.

Every year for four decades, 26 governments banded together in the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, or CCAMLR, to set catch limits for Patagonia toothfish, as Chilean sea bass is also known, based on the recommendations of a committee of international scientists.

But in 2021, and ever since, Russian representatives to the treaty organization have refused to sign off on the catch limits in what many see as a part of a broader push by President Vladimir Putin’s government to stymie international cooperation on a range of issues. Russia’s refusal was an effective veto because the commission works by consensus, meaning any single government can hold up action.

The U.K.’s response to Russia’s gambit was to unilaterally set its own catch limit for Chilean sea bass — lower than the never-adopted recommendation of the scientific commission — and issue its own licenses to fish off the coast of South Georgia, an uninhabited island it controls in the South Atlantic. That drew fire from environmentalists as well as U.S. officials, who fear it could encourage even worse abuse, undermining international fisheries management.

Leibowitz in his ruling sided with the U.S. government’s interpretation of its treaty obligations, warning that the U.K.’s eschewing of the procedures established by CCAMLR risked overfishing in a sensitive part of the South Atlantic and undermining the very essence of the treaty.

“Unlimited fishing would by no means further the goals of CCAMLR to protect the Antarctic ecosystem,” he wrote. “Allowing one nation to refuse to agree on a catch limit for a particular fish only to then be able to harvest that fish in unlimited quantities would contravene the expressed purposes of CCAMLR.”

The ruling effectively extends an existing ban on imports from all U.K.-licensed fishing vessels operating near South Georgia, which is also claimed by Argentina. However, the fish is still available in the U.S. from suppliers authorized by Australia, France and other countries in areas where Russia did not object to the proposed catch limits.

Chilean sea bass from South Georgia was for years some of the highest-priced seafood at U.S. supermarkets and for decades the fishery was a poster child for international cooperation, bringing together global powers like Russia, China and the U.S. to protect the chilly, crystal blue southern ocean from the sort of fishing free-for-all seen elsewhere on the high seas.

Southern Cross originally filed it lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade but it was moved last year to federal court in Ft. Lauderdale, where the company received two shipments of seabass from a British-Norwegian fishing company in 2022.

An attorney for Southern Cross, which doesn’t have a website and lists as its address a waterfront home in a Houston suburb, declined to comment.

Environmental groups praised the ruling.

“Allowing any country to sidestep agreed limits and fish freely undermines decades of hard-won international cooperation and threatens one of the last intact marine ecosystems on the planet,” said Andrea Kavanagh, who directs Antarctic and Southern Ocean work for Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy.

But some fishing industry executives said caving to Russia’s geopolitical posturing unnecessarily hurts American consumers and businesses.

“Blocking access to the resource will not improve the fishery’s sustainability but could very well cost U.S. jobs and exacerbate food inflation,” said Gavin Gibbons, the chief strategy officer for The National Fisheries Institute, America’s largest seafood trade association.

— This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. __ Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

TOKYO (AP) — TG Natural Resources, owned by Tokyo Gas Co. and Castleton Commodities International, is acquiring a 70% stake in the East Texas gas assets of Chevron U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of Chevron Corp., for $525 million.

The move, announced Tuesday, marks Tokyo Gas’ expansion of its U.S. business at a time when President Donald Trump is seeking to boost U.S. gas exports.

Tokyo Gas denies the move is in response to Trump’s policies — the investment was being studied long before he came to office — but an investment of this scale in the U.S. is expected to be seen favorably by the Trump administration.

TGNR is a major gas producer in East Texas, jointly owned by TG East Texas Resources LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo Gas America, and CCI U.S. Asset Holdings.

Of the purchase amount, $75 million will be paid in cash and $450 million used as capital to fund the Haynesville development in Texas.

The shale gas produced on the site is for the U.S. market for now, but exporting it in the form of liquefied natural gas to Japan is an option for the future, according to Tokyo Gas.

Tokyo Gas is Japan’s largest provider of city-area gas, primarily serving the Tokyo area. Besides Texas, it also has operations in the U.S. in the Louisiana area.

“We are excited to partner with a world-class company like Chevron on this transaction. There is considerable operational overlap between the Chevron acreage and the legacy TGNR acreage, which will allow TGNR to realize synergies of over $170 million during the development of the asset,” TGNR Chief Executive Craig Jarchow said in a statement.

Resource-poor Japan imports almost all its energy, and its main sources for gas are now Australia and the U.S.

SEADRIFT (AP) – Dow, a major producer of chemicals and plastics, wants to use next-generation nuclear reactors for clean power and steam at a Texas manufacturing complex instead of natural gas.

Dow’s subsidiary, Long Mott Energy, applied Monday to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a construction permit. It said the project with X-energy, an advanced nuclear reactor and fuel company, would nearly eliminate the emissions associated with power and steam generation at its plant in Seadrift, Texas, avoiding roughly 500,000 metric tons of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions annually.

If built and operated as planned, it would be the first U.S. commercial advanced nuclear power plant for an industrial site, according to the NRC.

For many, nuclear power is emerging as an answer to meet a soaring demand for electricity nationwide, driven by the expansion of data centers and artificial intelligence, manufacturing and electrification, and to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet. However, there are safety and security concerns, the Union of Concerned Scientists cautions. The question of how to store hazardous nuclear waste in the U.S. is unresolved, too.

Dow wants four of X-energy’s advanced small modular reactors, the Xe-100. Combined, those could supply up to 320 megawatts of electricity or 800 megawatts of thermal power. X-energy CEO J. Clay Sell said the project would demonstrate how new nuclear technology can meet the massive growth in electricity demand.

The Seadrift manufacturing complex, at about 4,700 acres, has eight production plants owned by Dow and one owned by Braskem. There, Dow makes plastics for a variety of uses including food and beverage packaging and wire and cable insulation, as well as glycols for antifreeze, polyester fabrics and bottles, and oxide derivatives for health and beauty products.

Edward Stones, the business vice president of energy and climate at Dow, said submitting the permit application is an important next step in expanding access to safe, clean, reliable, cost-competitive nuclear energy in the United States. The project is supported by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

The NRC expects the review to take three years or less. If a permit is issued, construction could begin at the end of this decade so the reactors would be ready early in the 2030s, as the natural gas-fired equipment is retired.

A total of four applicants have asked the NRC for construction permits for advanced nuclear reactors. The NRC issued a permit to Abilene Christian University for a research reactor and to Kairos Power for one reactor and two reactor test versions of that company’s design. It’s reviewing an application by Bill Gates and his energy company, TerraPower, to build an advanced reactor in Wyoming.

X-energy is also collaborating with Amazon to bring more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear power projects online across the United States by 2039, beginning in Washington state. Amazon and other tech giants have committed to using renewable energy to meet the surging demand from data centers and artificial intelligence and address climate change.

TEXAS – Patrick De Haan, chief petroleum analyst for Gasbuddy.com, says gasoline prices are set to rise for the next few weeks, even in Texas. The nation’s average price of gasoline has risen for the second straight week, increasing 2.7 cents compared to a week ago and stands at $3.11 per gallon, according to GasBuddy® data compiled from more than 12 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is up 2.2 cents from a month ago and is 39.7 cents per gallon lower than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has increased 0.9 cents in the last week and stands at $3.558 per gallon.

“We’ve seen the national average inch up for the second straight week, but with renewed refinery issues on the West Coast, gas prices there are likely to jump 10-35 cents per gallon over the next couple weeks. Meanwhile, motorists in the Northeast should consider filling up soon, as the final step in the transition to summer gasoline is just a couple of weeks away— and with it, a likely increase in prices,” said De Haan.

“As we head into April, Americans should expect gas prices to rise, with a peak that could occur in mid-to-late April. While average prices remain well below last year’s levels, we’ll likely begin to catch up, with prices expected to increase in most — if not all —states over the next few weeks. Continued uncertainty around whether tariffs will be implemented on April 2 could also impact pump prices, setting the stage for a volatile period for American drivers.”

The most common U.S. gas price encountered by motorists stood at $2.99 per gallon, unchanged from last week, followed by $2.89, $3.09, $2.79, and $3.19, rounding out the top five most common prices.

The median U.S. gas price is $2.99 per gallon, up 3 cents from last week and about 12 cents lower than the national average.

The top 10% of stations in the country average $4.46 per gallon, while the bottom 10% average $2.58 per gallon.

The states with the lowest average prices: Oklahoma ($2.64), Mississippi ($2.66), Tennessee ($2.70).

The states with the highest average prices: California ($4.71), Hawaii ($4.41), and Washington ($4.10).

FORT BEND COUNTY – The Houston Chronicle reports that Fort Bend County officials on Sunday confirmed that a woman has contracted measles, the first confirmed case in the county following outbreaks in West Texas and the Panhandle. The woman, who officials did not identify, likely contracted the disease during recent international travel, county officials said. The case is being investigated by Fort Bend health officials who were conducting contact tracing to identify possible exposures and limit further spread of the disease, according to a county news release. “I want to reassure our community that we are working closely with Health and Human Services to keep everyone informed,” Fort Bend County Judge KP George said in a statement. “Your safety and well-being remain my top priority. I urge all residents to check their immunization records, get vaccinated if necessary and stay vigilant for symptoms. Together, we can protect our families, neighbors and the greater Fort Bend community.”

AUSTIN – KXAN reports that legislation to mandate Texas sheriffs participate in immigration law enforcement is moving closer to a vote at the Texas Capitol. Senate Bill 8 is on the chamber’s intent calendar for Monday. The bill filed by State Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, would require all Texas counties with 100,000 or more people to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) program. Schwertner described the program as a partnership between local law enforcement and federal ICE in the identification and detainment of criminal aliens. “People overwhelmingly saw the policies of an open border and how it affects communities, and they overwhelmingly warrant stronger enforcement of criminal aliens to make sure they are identified, detained, prosecuted and deported,” Schwertner said.

Senator Schwertner has discussed the ideas in Senate Bill 8 in previous sessions. He said this year, the ideas are getting more traction at the Capitol. The current genesis of the bill is the people overwhelmingly voicing their opinion last November, on November 5, that we need stronger border enforcement and enforcement of our immigration laws,” Schwertner said. Some opponents of the legislation have raised concern that it could create discourage some people from reporting crimes, potentially putting public safety at risk. “As SB 8 is discussed, it is my sincere hope that public safety is carefully considered. When people are afraid, they hide in the shadows. Victims don’t report crime and witnesses don’t come forward with information. Criminals win as they take advantage of the vulnerable among us,” Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez wrote in a statement on SB 8. “The impact of that reaches beyond immigration to our humanity. I want victims of crime to run to law enforcement, not away from us,” Hernandez added.

AUSTIN – Inside Climate News reports that in Central Texas, a bitter fight over a $1 billion water project offers a preview of the future for much of the state as decades of rapid growth push past the local limits of its most vital natural resource. On one side: Georgetown, the fastest growing city in America for three years straight, which in 2023 signed a contract with an investor-funded enterprise to quickly begin importing vast volumes of water from the Simsboro Formation of the Carrizo Wilcox Aquifer, 80 miles to the east. On the other side: the cities atop the Simsboro that rely on its water. Bryan, College Station and the Texas A&M University System, a metro area with almost 300,000 people, have sued the developer to stop the project. A trial is set for the first week of May.

“We’re going to fight this thing until the end,” said Bobby Gutierrez, the mayor of Bryan. “It effectively drains the water source of the cities.” The pump and pipeline project to Georgetown, developed by California-based Upwell Water, is the largest of at least a half dozen similar projects recently completed, under construction or proposed to bring rural Carrizo Wilcox aquifer water into the booming urban corridor that follows Interstate 35 through Central Texas. It would eventually pump up to 89 million gallons per day, three times the usage of the city of Bryan, to Georgetown and its neighboring cities. “That basically stops all the economic development we have,” Gutierrez said. “We’re talking about our survival.” The fight over the Upwell project could well be a prelude for the broader battles to come as cities across Texas outgrow their water supplies. Lawmakers in the state Capitol are pushing to avert a broad scarcity crisis with funding to desalinate seawater, purify salty groundwater and treat oilfield wastewater to add to the supply. But all of these solutions remain years from realization. In the near term, only import projects from freshwater aquifers will continue to meet the growing water demands of thirsty Texas cities. Regulation of such projects falls to a patchwork of small, rural agencies called groundwater conservation districts, which might not be fully equipped or empowered to manage plans for competing regional water needs that can affect entire cities for generations to come.