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HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas midwife has been arrested and accused of providing illegal abortions, marking the first time authorities have filed criminal charges under the state’s near-total abortion ban, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Monday.

Maria Margarita Rojas has been charged with the illegal performance of an abortion, a second-degree felony, as well as practicing medicine without a license, which is a third-degree felony.

Paxton alleges that Rojas, 48, illegally operated at least three clinics in the Houston area where illegal abortion procedures were performed in direct violation of state law.

“In Texas, life is sacred. I will always do everything in my power to protect the unborn, defend our state’s pro-life laws, and work to ensure that unlicensed individuals endangering the lives of women by performing illegal abortions are fully prosecuted,” Paxton said in a statement. “Texas law protecting life is clear, and we will hold those who violate it accountable.”

Waller County District Attorney Sean Whittmore, whose office is located northwest of Houston, referred the case to Paxton for prosecution, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.

Waller County court records show Rojas was arrested on March 6 and she was released on bond the next day.

Court records did not list an attorney for Rojas who could speak on her behalf.

A woman reached by phone at one of Rojas’ clinics said Monday she did not know who Rojas was. Messages left at Rojas’ two other clinics were not immediately returned. On their Facebook pages, the clinics advertise various services, including physical exams, ultrasounds and vaccines.

Texas is one of 12 states currently enforcing a ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Texas’ ban allows exceptions when a pregnant patient has a life-threatening condition. Opponents of the ban say it is too vague when it comes to when medically necessary exceptions are allowed. A bill has been filed in the current Texas legislative session to clarify medical exceptions allowed under the law.

The charge of illegal performance of an abortion carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison while the charge of practicing medicine without a license carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

Paxton’s office said it has filed a temporary restraining order to close Rojas’ clinics.

In the U.S., there have been few, if any, criminal charges filed alleging the operation of illegal abortion clinics since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door to state abortion bans.

A Louisiana grand jury earlier this year indicted a New York doctor on charges that she illegally prescribed abortion pills online to a Louisiana patient. Paxton has filed a civil lawsuit against the same doctor under a similar accusation.

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Associated Press reporter Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — Greenpeace used malicious and deceptive tactics to disrupt the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and keep it from going forward, an attorney for the company behind the project said Monday.

But attorneys for the environmental advocacy group said during their closing arguments that Greenpeace had little involvement with the 2016-17 protests that are central to the case.

A North Dakota jury began deliberating Monday after a weekslong trial over Dallas-based Energy Transfer’s argument that Greenpeace defamed the company and disrupted the project.
What is the case about?

The energy company and its subsidiary Dakota Access accused Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, civil conspiracy, trespass, nuisance and other acts, and is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Nine jurors and two alternates heard the case after it went to trial in late February. Their verdict will include what damages, if any, to award.

Trey Cox, an attorney for the pipeline company, highlighted damages per claim totaling nearly $350 million.

The lawsuit is linked to the protests against the oil pipeline and its controversial Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a risk to its water supply. The pipeline has been transporting oil since mid-2017.
What did the company say?

Cox said Greenpeace exploited a small, disorganized, local issue to promote its agenda, calling Greenpeace “master manipulators” and “deceptive to the core.”

Greenpeace paid professional protesters, organized or led protester trainings, shared intelligence of the pipeline route with protesters and sent lockboxes for demonstrators to attach themselves to equipment, Cox said.

Among a number of alleged defamatory statements were that the company deliberately desecrated burial grounds during construction, which Cox said was done to harm Energy Transfer’s reputation in the international investment community. The company made 140 slight adjustments to its route to avoid disturbing sacred or cultural sites, he said.

Greenpeace’s “lies impacted lenders,” Cox said. Energy Transfer suffered $96 million in lost financing and $7 million in public relations costs, he said.

The pipeline was delayed by five months, and the company lost $80 million because it couldn’t turn on the spigot on Jan. 1, 2017, when oil was to start flowing, Cox said.

He asked the jury to find the Greenpeace entities liable.

“It needs to be done for Morton County. It needs to be done for Morton County’s law enforcement and the next community where Greenpeace exploits an opportunity to push its agenda at any cost,” Cox told the jury, referring to the county where the protests were centered.
How did Greenpeace respond?

Attorneys for Greenpeace said Energy Transfer didn’t prove its case or meet its legal burden for defamation or damages, that Greenpeace employees had little or no presence or involvement in the protests, and that Greenpeace had nothing to do with the company’s delays in construction or refinancing.

A letter signed by leaders of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA and sent to banks involved in the project’s construction loan contained the alleged defamatory statement about desecrating burial grounds, which Cox equated to digging up dead bodies.

Greenpeace International attorney Courtney DeThomas said the other side hasn’t shown how the one act of signing a letter with 500 other organizations damaged them, and that the letter would have been sent to the banks with or without Greenpeace’s name on it. Thousands of protesters were already at Standing Rock by the time the letter was signed, she said.

Greenpeace USA attorney Everett Jack Jr. disputed the company’s claims as including costs from months before and years after the protests, with no witnesses to say that the Greenpeace entities were the cause.

Jack also said no law enforcement officers or any of Energy Transfer’s security personnel testified that Greenpeace was the cause of any violence or property destruction, or was a leader, organizer or instigator in the protests. He said law enforcement “did a phenomenal job of watching the protests.”

Greenpeace representatives have criticized the lawsuit as an example of corporations abusing the legal system to go after critics and called it a critical test of free speech and protest rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the case is about Greenpeace not following the law, not free speech.

HOUSTON (AP) — Louisiana is set this week to execute a man by nitrogen gas, the first execution in the state in 15 years.

Jessie Hoffman Jr., 46, is scheduled to die on Tuesday in Louisiana. He was convicted of the 1996 murder of a woman in New Orleans. If Louisiana carries out the execution, it would join Alabama as the only two states to use nitrogen gas to put a prisoner to death.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976, states have used five different execution methods: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad and hanging.

Here’s a look at how the U.S. executes people:
Most U.S. executions are by lethal injection

Lethal injection has been the preferred method in the modern era, with 1,428 carried out since 1976. Texas has done the most, killing 593 inmates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit center.

Twenty-eight states as well as the U.S. military and U.S. government authorize the use of lethal injection, in which an inmate has a deadly mixture of drugs injected into their bodies as they are strapped to a gurney.

But throughout its use, lethal injection has been plagued by problems, including delays in finding suitable veins, needles becoming clogged or disengaged and problems with securing enough of the required drugs.

“A number of states are beginning to experiment with new methods of execution … because of the problems with lethal injection,” said John Banzhaf, a professor emeritus of law at George Washington University Law School.
Use of electrocution is down since 2000

Nine states authorize the use of electrocution, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee. Since 1976, 163 electrocutions have been carried out. But only 19 have been done since 2000.

In this method, a person is strapped to a chair and has electrodes placed on their head and leg before a jolt of between 500 and 2,000 volts runs through their body. The last electrocution took place in 2020 in Tennessee.

Texas used electrocution from 1924 to 1964, killing 361 inmates, according to the state’s Department of Criminal Justice. The electric chair used by Texas was nicknamed “Old Sparky.” It is now displayed at the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville, where the state’s death chamber is located.
Louisiana could join Alabama in the use of nitrogen gas

Lethal gas is authorized as the default execution method in eight states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wyoming.

From 1979 to 1999, 11 inmates were executed using this method, in which a prisoner would be strapped to a chair in an airtight chamber before it was filled with cyanide gas.

In 2024, Alabama revived the method when it became the first state to use nitrogen gas to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith. A mask is placed over a prisoner’s face and nitrogen gas is pumped in, depriving the person of oxygen and resulting in death.

Alabama has executed four inmates using nitrogen gas, with the last one taking place in February.

Louisiana would be the second state to use nitrogen gas as an execution method if it carries out the death sentence against Hoffman. After a federal appeals court on Friday vacated a preliminary injunction that had stopped the execution, Hoffman’s lawyers said they planned to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Firing squads are rarely used in the modern era

Since 1977, only four inmates have been executed by firing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

On March 7, Brad Sigmon became the first person executed by firing squad in the U.S. in 15 years when he was put to death in South Carolina. The other three executions by firing squad took place in Utah.

Five states including Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah authorize its use, but it is not the primary execution method. For this method, an inmate is usually bound to a chair and is shot through the heart by a group of prison staffers standing 20 to 25 feet (6 to 7.6 meters) away.

Idaho has had firing squad executions on the books as a backup if lethal injection drugs are unavailable since 2023. But in the wake of last year’s botched lethal injection attempt on Thomas Eugene Creech, Gov. Brad Little recently signed a bill into law that makes the firing squad the state’s primary execution method.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Doug Ricks, has suggested Idaho could use a firing squad machine, triggering the guns electronically to eliminate the need for additional execution team members.
Hanging was once the primary execution method

In the U.S., hanging was the main method of execution until about the 1890s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Data collected by researchers of U.S. executions from 1608 to 2002 found 9,322 people were put to death by hanging, in which a person was blindfolded and their hands and legs were secured before a noose was placed around the neck and they fell through a trap door.

But in capital punishment’s modern era, only three individuals in the U.S. have been executed by hanging in 1993, 1994 and 1996.

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Associated Press video journalist Cody Jackson in Fort Pierce, Florida, and writer Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at juanlozano70.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — With Oklahomans still reeling from deadly wildfires that whipped across the state and destroyed hundreds of homes in recent days, authorities warned that Tuesday would bring a renewed risk of fire to an area spanning from western Oklahoma through the Texas Panhandle and into southeastern New Mexico.

More than 400 homes were severely damaged or destroyed in the outbreak of wildfires that started Friday in Oklahoma. At least four people died due to the fires or high winds, including a person killed in a vehicle accident as a result of poor visibility due to dust or smoke, officials said.

While calm weather over the weekend helped crews get a handle on most wildfires burning across Texas and Oklahoma, forecasters at the National Weather Service said extremely critical fire weather conditions were expected Tuesday in parts of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

With wind gusts predicted to reach as high as 50 mph (80 kph) in the afternoon, along with dry conditions and “receptive fuels,” fires could spread rapidly, the weather service said.

“These fires, once they get started, become really hard to stop,” said Keith Merckx of Oklahoma Forestry Services. “They move more quickly than our resources can keep up with.”

He said officials will be returning their attention to western and central Oklahoma, where high winds were expected to pick back up again over the next few days. Much of the state will be back under fire warnings beginning at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Andrine Shufran and her husband spent Monday raking through the ashes of their home in a neighborhood in Stillwater that she said “looks like a checkerboard” after the recent fires.

“There’s no predictability or fairness about destroyed houses,” Shufran said. “There’s only two options for the homes in our neighborhood: standing or burned to the ground.”

Her home was one of more than 70 destroyed by wildfires in Stillwater, a city of about 50,000 about 65 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City and home to Oklahoma State University.

Shufran, a director at Insect Adventure, a petting zoo that’s part of OSU and the university’s extension campuses, said current and former students, friends and city officials have stepped in to help her and her husband.

“I’ve been more overwhelmed by how fantastic Oklahomans are when they’re friends with you, or neighbors with you, because we’ve had so many people reach out,” Shufran said.

Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce warned on Facebook on Monday afternoon of worsening fire conditions in the area.

“Be prepared to take action quickly, if necessary,” he wrote.

Southwest of Stillwater, residents in two parts of rural Logan County were urged to evacuate their homes Monday afternoon after wildfires that already burned more than 47 square miles (120 square kilometers) in the county since Friday picked back up amid high winds and dry conditions.

An evacuation shelter had been set up at the county fairgrounds in Guthrie, said Logan County Deputy Emergency Management Director Shawn Pierce.

Pierce said an estimated 54 homes were destroyed in last week’s fire in the county, which is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Oklahoma City.

About 10 fires continued to burn in Texas on Monday as officials geared up for more high winds Tuesday, said Texas A&M Forest Service spokesperson Erin O’Connor.

Although most of the fires have been contained due to slower winds Sunday, Texas officials were expecting wildfire danger to ramp up further into the week, O’Connor said.

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AP reporter Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

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Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

(AP) — At least 41 people are dead after a weekend of dynamic storms unleashed tornadoes, blinding dust and wildfires — leaving behind uprooted trees and flattening hundreds of homes and businesses across seven states in the U.S. South and Midwest.

Weather forecasters gave an unusual “high risk” designation to the storm system, which began Friday before tapering off Sunday. For now, people in the affected communities are surveying damage as some brace for more potentially damaging weather.

“It’s not that uncommon to get impacts across that many states, but this one was even on the stronger side of what we would typically see,” Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Monday.

Here’s what to know about the unusually erratic and destructive weather system that socked central and eastern portions of the U.S.
Where and how did people die?

Missouri has reported the most deaths with at least 12 lost to tornadoes. Mississippi lost six people to tornadoes.

Two boys, ages 11 and 13, were killed when a tree fell on their home in western North Carolina on Sunday, according to a statement from Connestee Fire Rescue. Relatives said two children were trapped in their bedroom and both succumbed to their injures before firefighters could reach them, officials said.

At least three people were killed in central Alabama when tornadoes swept across the state. John Green found the body of his neighbor, Dunk Pickering, who killed by a tornado in Plantersville on Saturday night. Residents spent hours pulling people from the rubble and carrying them to paramedics who were unable to reach the area because of fallen trees blocking the roads.

Kansas reported eight deaths and Texas three, due to vehicle crashes caused by dust storms.

Oklahoma reported four people dead from high winds or fires, and Arkansas has reported three.
Multiple tornadoes in several states

There was a significant outbreak of tornadoes, with 46 on Friday and 41 on Saturday, according to a preliminary count, Chenard said. There were no reports of tornadoes on Sunday, but there were reports of wind damage, especially from West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Two strong tornadoes tore through the same Mississippi county roughly within an hour of the other on Saturday, according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service.

The twisters had preliminary ratings of EF-2 and EF-3, out of a rating scale of 0 to 5. They caused devastating damage in Walthall County, in far southern Mississippi, and the town of Tylertown, where tall trees were ripped in half and entire neighborhoods wiped out.

Six people were killed and more than 200 were displaced, Gov. Tate Reeves said.

Wayne County, Missouri, resident Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbors Friday found five bodies scattered in rubble outside what remained of his aunt’s house. Scattered tornadoes killed at least a dozen people in the state Friday, authorities said.

Coroner Jim Akers of Butler County, Missouri, described the home where one man was killed as “just a debris field.”

“The floor was upside down,” he said. “We were walking on walls.”
Wildfires and dust storms also proved deadly

Wind-driven wildfires caused extensive damage in Oklahoma and officials in both Oklahoma and Texas warned that parts of both states would again face an increased risk of fire danger this week.

More than 130 fires were reported across the state on Friday and over 400 homes were damaged. Oklahoma officials said Sunday evening that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had confirmed four fatalities related to fires or high winds across the state.

Dust storms spurred by high winds resulted in eight deaths Friday after at least 50 vehicles crashed on a highway, according to the state highway patrol. Authorities said three people also died in car crashes during a dust storm in Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle.
Another system coming this week

The National Weather Service said weekend tornado watches had mostly expired, but dangerous winds were still possible in the Carolinas, east Georgia and northern Florida through Sunday.

Another system is moving out of the Rockies and into the Plains in coming days, Chenard said. The threat of winter weather picks up on Tuesday into Wednesday in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, with significant snow and wind bringing hazardous conditions.

To the south, across portions of the Plains, there will be drier air, bringing fire weather risk.

“We’re almost certainly going to see fire” on Monday and Tuesday, said Keith Merckx at Oklahoma Forestry Services. “These fires, once they get started, become really hard to stop. They move more quickly than our resources can keep up with.”
Recovery efforts

President Donald Trump said the White House was monitoring the storms and would assist state and local officials to help in the recovery. He said National Guard troops were deployed to Arkansas.

TEXAS – The nation’s average price of gasoline has fallen for the fourth straight week, declining 1.3 cents compared to a week ago and stands at $3.02 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 down 10.6 cents from a month and is 42.4 cents per gallon lower than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has decreased 5.0 cents in the last week and stands at $3.558 per gallon.

“As concerns over tariffs and policy uncertainties grow, gas prices have continued to decline across much of the country, raising the possibility that the national average could slip below $3 per gallon and approach some of the lowest prices seen in years,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “However, this decline shouldn’t necessarily be celebrated, as it comes with strong warning signs. When the economy slows, gasoline demand drops — along with demand for other refined products like diesel and jet fuel. We’ve already seen some signals that the months ahead could be challenging. All of this suggests that gas prices are likely to remain low for now. However, if economic conditions improve, gas prices could eventually follow suit and start rising again.”

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A former pastor of a Texas megachurch accused of child sexual abuse surrendered to Oklahoma authorities Monday.

Robert Preston Morris, 63, turned himself in to officials in Osage County, where he was charged last week with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, Phil Bacharach, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, told The Associated Press.

Court records show an Osage County judge set a $50,000 bond and ordered Morris to surrender his passport.

Morris is expected to make an initial appearance before a judge at 10 a.m. on May 9, Bacharach said.

Attorney Mack Martin declined to comment on the charges but said he anticipated entering a not guilty plea on Morris’ behalf.

Morris resigned last year as pastor of Gateway Church in the Dallas suburb of Southlake after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her in the 1980s.

The victim, referred to in the indictment as C.C., told authorities the abuse started when she was 12 years old and Morris was a traveling evangelist staying in Hominy, Oklahoma, with her family, according to the attorney general’s office. She said the abuse continued for four years.

Cindy Clemishire, Morris’ accuser, said in a statement that she is very grateful to the authorities who have worked to make the indictment possible and is hopeful “justice will ultimately prevail.”

“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child,” said Clemishire, now 55. “Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable.”

The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted, but Clemishire said she would like her name included.

Morris was known to be politically active. The church hosted President Donald Trump on its Dallas campus in 2020 for a discussion on race relations and the economy.

Morris could face up to 20 years in prison for each of the five charges, according to the attorney general’s office.

CAPE CANAVERAL (AP) — It’s lights out for the first private lunar lander to pull off a fully successful moon mission.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander fell silent over the weekend, wrapping up two weeks of science experiments for NASA. The end came as the sun set at the moon, no longer providing energy for the lander’s solar panels.

“Mission is completed,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said via X late Sunday night. “But the Ghost still lives on in our hearts and minds for the journey it’s taken us on!”

The lander operated five hours into the lunar night as planned before it died Sunday evening. Photos of the lunar sunset and glow will be released on Tuesday, Kim said.

Blue Ghost launched from Cape Canaveral in January as part of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program. It landed at the moon’s far northeastern edge on March 2. It carried a drill, vacuum and other science and tech instruments for NASA. Firefly confirmed Monday that all 10 experiments worked.

Late last week, Blue Ghost observed a total solar eclipse from the moon — a total lunar eclipse as seen from Earth.

The Texas-based Firefly became the first private company to land on the moon without falling or crashing after a string of failed missions by other companies over the past few years. Only five countries — the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan — have achieved a successful landing.

A Japanese company’s lunar lander shared the SpaceX rocket ride, but took an even longer route to get to the moon. That lander from ispace is targeting an early June touchdown.

Another Texas company, Intuitive Machines, ended up sideways in a crater near the moon’s south pole earlier this month, dooming the mission. It was the second incomplete mission for Intuitive Machines. Its first lander put the U.S. back on the moon last year for the first time since the Apollo era after a less-than-perfect landing that hampered communications.

Firefly is already working on its next lunar lander and striving for one moon landing a year.