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AUSTIN (AP)- The CIA is headed to the South By Southwest festival to share tips on finding innovative solutions to complex challenges.

America’s preeminent spy agency will deliver a presentation Sunday on creative problem solving at the annual SXSW music festival and tech conference held in Austin, Texas, the CIA announced Monday.

The typically tight-lipped agency said a CIA historian and one of the agency’s public affairs officers will deliver the talk, entitled “Mission Possible: The Spies’ Guide to Creative Problem Solving.”

Sunday’s presentation from the CIA comes during the first weekend of the event, which brings together thousands of artists, technology experts, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

The agency said its tips on creative problem solving are designed to be helpful to anyone, even if their particular challenges don’t include running covert surveillance, organizing clandestine meetups or sniffing out double agents.

“Come learn how creative problem-solving has helped resolve complex challenges we’ve faced in protecting national security, and how you can apply creative thinking to your own seemingly impossible missions,” the agency wrote in a social media post promoting the talk.

This month’s presentation comes at a tumultuous time for America’s intelligence community. The agency recently offered buyout offers to employees as part of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to shrink and reshape the federal government.

Trump has long criticized America’s intelligence agencies, and his CIA director, John Ratcliffe, has promised big changes, claiming the agency has strayed from its original focus on human-collected intelligence.

Ratcliffe is a former congressman and one-time director of national intelligence.

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Friday passed a resolution banning all drag performances from taking place on its 11 university campuses.

This means that Draggieland, a beloved annual event scheduled for March 27 at the Rudder Theatre on the College Station campus, will have to find a new venue. Students have also held drag shows at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi and East Texas A&M University.

The move potentially sets up another First Amendment fight between students and university administrators.

The resolution says the board recognizes the need for universities to foster a sense of community and belonging among students but adds that drag shows are “inconsistent with [the system’s] mission and core values, including the value of respect for others.”

The resolution also says drag shows are “likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women,” contrary to university and federal anti discrimination policies.

“These events often involve unwelcome and objectively offensive conduct based on sex for many members of the respective communities of the universities, particularly when they involve the mockery or objectification of women,” the resolution says.

The resolution says having on-campus drag shows may be seen as promoting gender ideology and that both President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott have said federal and state funds may not be used for that purpose. It directs the system’s chancellor and the president of each institution to implement the policy, including canceling any upcoming drag shows.

The vote was unanimous. Regent Mike Hernandez III was absent.

The Queer Empowerment Council, a student group that hosts Draggieland and other LGBTQ+ events at Texas A&M University, said in a statement Friday evening that it was “profoundly disheartened” by the decision.

“The power of drag as a medium of art is undeniable, serving as a platform for self-discovery, inclusivity, and celebration of diversity. QEC firmly believes that the Board of Regents’ decision undermines these values, which are vital to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for all students,” the council said.

It is exploring whether it can hold Draggieland on the same or a different date at a different venue.

“We are committed to ensuring that our voices are heard, and that Draggieland will go on, no matter the obstacles we face,” the group said.

In 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled an on-campus drag show, similarly arguing such performances degrade women.

The students said his comments were off base and sued him for violating their First Amendment rights as well as a state law that prohibits universities from barring student organizations from using their facilities on the basis of the political, religious, philosophical, ideological or academic viewpoints the organizations express. The court has allowed Wendler’s cancellation to stand while it makes a decision.

“They are imposing a restraint on an entire category of protected speech under the First Amendment and in no public college campus should that ever occur per our Constitution,” said JT Morris, senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, of the regent’s decision Friday. Morris is representing the students in the West Texas A&M case.

Civil rights groups also condemned the resolution. Ash Hall, policy and advocacy strategist for LGBTQIA+ rights at the ACLU of Texas, said the West Texas A&M lawsuit plus one their organization spearheaded and ultimately blocked a statewide ban on drag shows “makes this kind of absurd.”

“To do this now, while that’s already happening, is a waste of time and resources and makes it seem like the Board of Regents is more focused on culture wars than educating their students,” they said.

Sofia Sepulveda, field director for Equality Texas, noted that not all drag is performed by men.

“Women performers also delight in a chance to poke fun at stereotypes that have held women back for generations,” she said.

She also criticized the gender disparities among the flagship’s faculty.

“If A&M is worried about creating a hostile environment for women, then why don’t they hire more women?” Sepulveda said. “Right now, only 40% of the faculty at Texas A&M are women, 60% are men. That’s a serious issue.”

Draggieland organizers have said the event is an important outlet for the LGBTQ+ community at a time when it has come under attack from conservative policymakers in Texas and across the nation.

Students raised funds to keep the show going when the university stopped sponsoring it in 2022. In the years since, they’ve seen LGBTQ+ representation and resources on campus diminish.

Last year, Texas A&M University cut an LGBTQ+ studies minor and stopped offering gender-affirming care at the Beutel Student Health Center. In a statement Friday afternoon, the university said it had begun coordinating with the division of student affairs to notify student organizations about the board’s decision.

Regents were also expected to discuss Friday who should be the system’s next leader after Chancellor John Sharp retires this year. Regents met in Houston earlier this week to interview candidates. They did not make a decision on a finalist Friday.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

Since starting their beekeeping business southwest of San Antonio in late 2019, the Wheeler family has aimed to produce about 3,000 bee colonies each year, many of which are used to pollinate crops like watermelons and pumpkins.

In the last 15 years, bee colony collapses have become more common. It’s typical for the Wheelers’ Frio Country Farms to lose about half of their bees each year. But last year, that trend worsened and the growing number of dead bees is hurting their financial bottom line.

The losses have gotten so bad that the Wheelers are considering pivoting away from pollination services toward honey production, said co-owner Ryan Wheeler, 36, in the hopes that it will help the bees stay “healthy and strong.” Farmers throughout the country rely on beekeepers like the Wheelers to grow bees to pollinate more than 100 types of fruits and vegetables.

“I just don’t really know why, but [the number of bee deaths] was definitely elevated this year,” Wheeler said. “I’m hoping that it’s nothing terrible, but it sounds scary when you hear all of the reports.”

The Wheeler family’s operation is one of the thousands experiencing what experts are calling some of the heaviest bee losses in recent memory. Since June, commercial beekeepers in Texas have lost about two thirds of their bee colonies on average, according to a survey published last month that was administered by Project Apis m., a honey bee research nonprofit. Commercial beekeepers across the nation lost about 62% of their bees — with no apparent reason — in the same period, the survey also said.

The financial losses to beekeepers nationwide go up to $635 million, the survey added. Experts worry the colony collapses are unsustainable and will have a chain effect on fruit and vegetable growth that will impact consumers. They say having fewer bees to pollinate this year can lessen the quality and quantity of foods that rely on pollination like watermelon, berries and, especially, almonds.

Heavy bee losses in one season can also impact the beekeepers’ ability to grow more in the next, causing a “trickle-down effect,” said Geoffrey Williams, an agriculture professor at Auburn University who co-authors a yearly survey on bee losses each year.

“This is one of the years where, from what I’ve heard through the grapevine, these beekeepers may not even recover,” Williams said. “In some cases, I think we’re going to lose beekeeping companies because they had to essentially just throw in the towel.”

The heavy losses in the past year are expected to have an outsized impact on Texas, which is one of the nation’s top beekeeping states. Texas has had somewhat of a beekeeping renaissance in recent decades, with the number of beekeeping companies in the state more than quadrupling from 1,851 to 8,939 from 2012 to 2022, according to a Washington Post analysis of census data.

In addition to having a relatively mild climate ideal for growing bees, the state became an attractive location for the industry thanks to a 2012 law that gives tax breaks to those who keep bees on at least five of their acres.

But heavy losses in recent years threaten some of the beekeeping gains the state has made. The colony collapses have impacted even some of the largest honey bee outfits in Texas, hurting their revenue and ability to provide enough bees to their partners in California for almond pollination. Almond crops are fully dependent on bee pollination.

For many beekeeping companies in Texas, sending bees to pollinate almonds in California represents a high portion of their income early in the year. Some companies, like the Wheelers’ Frio Country Farms, weren’t able to send bees to pollinate in California this year. Others, like Tim Hollmann’s more than 40-year-old beekeeping business, had to send over a much smaller supply than usual.

Hollmann, 62, has operated Hollmann Apiaries since 1984, but bees have been a part of his life for even longer. In running a small bee outfit with his father during his teenage years, Hollmann said he was able to put himself through college at the University of South Dakota.

Today, he’s responsible for growing thousands of bee colonies each year. Though his business is based in South Dakota, about half of its operations are in Texas. Before Hollmann’s bees are shipped off to California in early February to pollinate almonds, they are nurtured in Texas for several months. But Hollmann has struggled to meet his quota over the past few years, and it’s unclear why that has been the case.

“We’ve lost some serious ground here last year that certainly we’re not going to make up for this year,” Hollmann said. “In fact, we’re going to fall further behind.”

While he brought about 6,750 bee colonies to Texas late last fall, he was only able to send about 1,800 to California for almond pollination earlier this month. With about 124 colonies remaining in Texas, Hollmann said more than 70% of his bees died in the past year, exceeding the national average. He can’t remember experiencing losses ever that high before.

Beekeepers and experts in the field have compared recent losses to a phenomenon that occurred heavily in the late 2000s called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. First reported in 2006, CCD occurs when a majority of worker bees in a colony suddenly disappear. In the late 2000s, honeybee colony losses jumped from about 10-15% on average to 30-50% each year. Loss averages haven’t improved since.

“The beekeeping industry has been warning for almost 20 years that we’re going to pass a point of no return at some point,” said Blake Shook, a Texas beekeeper who co-founded a business that supports others in the bee business.

The high losses over the past year, Shook said, could impact the price of fruits, vegetables and other foods reliant on bee pollination for growth. Fruits and vegetables like apples, blueberries, pumpkins and watermelons, could have their quality “greatly diminished” by heavy bee losses, he added. Texas is one of the four largest watermelon-producing states in the country, coming behind Florida, Georgia and California.

“Bees are the backbone of agriculture,” he added. “All things that make food delicious and nutritious come from honey bees. ”

While the heavier bee losses are putting beekeeping operations and producers at risk, it is still unclear what the underlying causes are or how they can be reversed. But bee experts say there are a few potential culprits.

According to Garett Slater, one of the state’s leading honey bee specialists at Texas A&M University, there are often five key reasons why honey bee colonies collapse: parasites like the Varroa mite, pathogens, pesticides, poor nutrition among the bees and weak queen bees, who are responsible for keeping bee colonies unified and laying eggs. The cause of recent losses is likely a combination of these factors, said Slater, who works directly with beekeepers to help prevent colony collapse.

rroa mites in particular have been a common pest for honey bees, Slater added. The mites are often able to spread viruses that honey bees are not immune to, he said, making it difficult to address the problem. Slater added that Texas A&M is currently working with the United States Department of Agriculture to help breed bees that are resistant to varroa mites.

Unlike the mid-to-late 2000s, Texas and the U.S. are better prepared to address the heavier bee losses today and discover why they are happening. Slater said. His position at Texas A&M is relatively new and began in June. In the role, he supervises specialists throughout the state who promote sustainable beekeeping practices.

Even prior to this past year, the losses beekeepers were facing was “already unsustainable,” Slater said. More frequent and consistent losses moving forward would already heighten the problems beekeepers are already facing, he added.

“If 70% losses become the new norm, that could directly impact pollination, that could directly impact honey production, [and] that could directly impact bee sales to local beekeepers and groups across the state,” Slater said. “So it could have a huge impact locally in Texas but even across the nation.”

Juliana Rangel, a professor of entomology at Texas A&M, said the losses beekeepers are seeing are likely not due to any human error. The beekeepers she’s engaged with haven’t changed their practices all that much since last year, she said, suggesting that another factor is likely at play.

Hollmann, who has been in the industry for more than 40 years, is also at a loss about what is causing the colony losses. He has his suspicions, namely that the Varroa mite might be causing havoc or colonies aren’t adequately supporting their queen bees.

But he also has bigger picture worries. Hollmann feels that continued high losses may dissuade people from joining the industry, which plays a crucial role in maintaining the food ecosystem and helping to grow nutritional foods in the U.S. and across the globe.

“I’m just not sure we’re going to get the young, talented individuals to want to carry on this industry for the next generation and generations beyond,” he said. “I’m seriously worried about that.”

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth’s celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.

Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company’s Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.

“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.

An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.

A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun’s glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space.

Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.

Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company.

Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander’s exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare Crisium.

The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down.

It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment.

On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon’s gray pockmarked surface. At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.

The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business.

Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.

Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines’ lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.

A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.

The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.

NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency’s top science officer Nicky Fox.

“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon,” Fox said.

Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.

Kim said everything went like clockwork.

“We got some moon dust on our boots,” Kim said.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

HOUSTON (AP) — South Carolina is preparing this week to execute a man by firing squad, a capital punishment method that hasn’t been used in the U.S. in nearly 15 years.

Since the 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.

Brad Sigmon is scheduled to die Friday in South Carolina. He was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat at their home in 2001.

Here’s a look at how the U.S. executes people:
Most US 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 them 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 Texas used was nicknamed “Old Sparky.” It is now displayed at the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville, where the state’s death chamber is located.
Alabama resumes the use of lethal 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 this 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’s last such execution took place in February.
Firing squads are rarely used in the modern era

Since 1977, only three inmates have been executed by firing squad and all were in Utah, with the last one in 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

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, lawmakers are considering a bill to make firing squads the 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. New Hampshire’s remaining death row inmate could be executed by hanging if lethal injection is not available.

___

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

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on X at juanlozano70.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth’s celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.

Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company’s Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.

“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.

An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.

A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun’s glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space.

Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.

Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company.

Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander’s exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare Crisium.

The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down.

It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment.

On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon’s gray pockmarked surface. At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.

The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business.

Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.

Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines’ lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.

A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.

The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.

NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency’s top science officer Nicky Fox.

“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon,” Fox said.

Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.

Kim said everything went like clockwork.

“We got some moon dust on our boots,” Kim said.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

DALLAS (AP) — The number of people with measles in Texas increased to 146 in an outbreak that led this week to the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, health officials said Friday.

The number of cases — Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years — increased by 22 since Tuesday. The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in Texas, including almost 100 in Gaines County, and 20 patients have been hospitalized.

The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The child was treated at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, though the facility said the patient didn’t live in Lubbock County.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official and a vaccine critic, said Wednesday that the U.S. Department of the Health and Human Services was watching cases but dismissed the outbreak as “not unusual.”

But on Friday afternoon, Kennedy said in a post on X that his heart went out to families impacted by the outbreak, and he recognized “the serious impact of this outbreak on families, children, and healthcare workers.”

Kennedy went on to say in the post that his agency will continue to fund Texas’ immunization program and that ending the outbreak is a “top priority” for him and his team.

The virus has largely spread through rural, oil rig-dotted West Texas, with cases concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton has said.

Gaines County has a strong homeschooling and private school community. It is also home to one of the highest rates of school-aged children in Texas who have opted out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% skipping a required dose last school year.

Texas law allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs. Anton has said the number of unvaccinated kids in Gaines County is likely significantly higher because homeschooled children’s data would not be reported.

The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing infection and severe cases. The first shot is recommended for children ages 12 to 15 months, and the second for ages 4 to 6 years. Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.

Vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.

The U.S. had considered measles, a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours, eliminated in 2000, which meant there had been a halt in continuous spread of the disease for at least a year. Measles cases rose in 2024, including a Chicago outbreak that sickened more than 60.

Eastern New Mexico has nine cases of measles currently, but the state health department said there is no connection to the outbreak in West Texas.

At a news conference Friday in Austin, officials confirmed the first reported case in Travis County since 2019. Dr. Desmar Walkes of the Austin-Travis County Health Authority said the case involved an unvaccinated infant who was exposed to the virus during a vacation overseas.

Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Chris Van Deusen said the case was one of four linked to international travel so far this year, none of which were part of the West Texas outbreak. The others were two in Houston last month and one reported this week in Rockwall County, east of Dallas.

In the Travis County case, the child’s family members were vaccinated and were isolating at home and no exposures were expected, Walkes said. She could not give the exact age of the infant.

Officials at the news conference urged people to get vaccinated if they are not already.

“We’re here to say quite simply: Measles can kill, ignorance can kill and vaccine denial definitely kills,” said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat.

School officials in two Texas cities each reported reported one rubella case this week, but Van Deusen said no infections had been confirmed.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — An appointee of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wiped away tears and gave an emotional defense of her credentials after a tense exchange over diversity hiring policies, which was later followed by the state’s top Republicans rushing to support her publicly.

Texas Water Board Development Chair L’Oreal Stepney, who is Black, was consoled at one point by lawmakers after the exchange Thursday with GOP state Rep. Brian Harrison, who questioned her and other agency officials over their hiring practices.

Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who are all Republicans, later issued statements of support for Stepney and her service, while other GOP lawmakers criticized Harrison over the exchange.

“While passionate and open discussion will always be welcomed, comments that demean and belittle will never be tolerated,” Republican state Rep. Greg Bonnen, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, posted on X.

Harrison is an outspoken critic of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in state government. He questioned Stepney and Edna Jackson, who is also Black, over a line in the agency’s strategic plan that its workforce should reflect the state’s growing diversity.

Harrison did not directly question the credentials of Stepney or any other agency workers during the hearing.

On Friday, he defended his questioning during the hearing.

“My line of questioning was perfect and professional,” said Harrison, adding that he had posed similar questions to dozens of other agency heads. “It was Democrats on the committee who raised the issue of her qualifications. I never said a word about it.”

Harrison’s line of questioning prompted Democratic state Rep. Nicole Collier, who is Black, to express her outrage at having “to watch two Black women have to defend 246 years of systemic racism.”

Stepney then delivered an emotional defense of her credentials to the panel. She said March would mark 33 years working for the state and listed off her two engineering degrees from the University of Texas at Austin, one in aerospace engineering and the other in civil engineering.

“It was a deep honor for me to be appointed to the board, to be confirmed by the board, and to be appointed chair,” she said. “I have always been grateful to the governor. What have I done? I have protected the drinking water supply of 31 million Texans.”