Today is
Saturday April 19, 2025
TEXAS (AP) – At least five states have active measles outbreaks as of Friday, and Texas’ is the largest with 400 cases.
Already, the U.S. has more measles cases this year than in all of 2024, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. Other states with outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include New Mexico, Kansas, Ohio and Oklahoma. Since February, two unvaccinated people have died from measles-related causes.
The new outbreaks confirm health experts’ fears that the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year. The World Health Organization said this week cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.
How many measles cases are there in Texas and New Mexico?
Texas’ outbreak began two months ago. State health officials said Friday there were 73 new cases of measles since Tuesday, bringing the total to 400 across 17 counties — most in West Texas. Forty-one people have been hospitalized since the outbreak began, and Andrews and Midland counties were new to the list.
New Mexico announced one new case Friday, bringing the state’s total to 44. New Mexico health officials say the cases are linked to Texas’ outbreak based on genetic testing. Most are in Lea County, where two people have been hospitalized, and two are in Eddy County.
A school-age child died of measles in Texas in late February, and New Mexico reported its first measles-related death in an adult on March 6.
How many cases are there in Kansas?
Kansas has 23 cases in six counties in the southwest part of the state. Kiowa and Stevens counties have six cases each, while Grant, Morton, Haskell and Gray counties have five or fewer.
The state’s first reported case, identified in Stevens County on March 13, is linked to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks based on genetic testing, a state health department spokesperson said. But health officials have not determined how the person was exposed.
How many cases are there in Oklahoma?
Oklahoma stayed steady at nine cases this week — seven confirmed and two probable cases. The first two probable cases were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, the state health department said.
A state health department spokesperson said measles exposures were confirmed in Tulsa and Rogers counties, but wouldn’t say which counties had cases.
How many cases are there in Ohio?
Ohio has 10 cases of measles in Ashtabula County in the northeast corner of the state, nine of those newly reported this week. The first case was in an unvaccinated adult who had interacted with someone who had traveled internationally.
And in central Ohio, Knox County officials are tracing exposures from person who visited while contagious with measles. A measles outbreak in central Ohio sickened 85 in 2022.
Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?
Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines an outbreak as three or more related cases. The agency counted five clusters that qualified as outbreaks in 2025 as of Friday.
In the U.S., cases and outbreaks are generally traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. It can then spread, especially in communities with low vaccination rates. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.
Do you need an MMR booster?
The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
People at high risk for infection who got the shots many years ago may want to consider getting a booster if they live in an area with an outbreak, said Scott Weaver with the Global Virus Network, an international coalition. Those may include family members living with someone who has measles or those especially vulnerable to respiratory diseases because of underlying medical conditions.
Adults with “presumptive evidence of immunity” generally don’t need measles shots now, the CDC said. Criteria include written documentation of adequate vaccination earlier in life, lab confirmation of past infection or being born before 1957, when most people were likely to be infected naturally.
A doctor can order a lab test called an MMR titer to check your levels of measles antibodies, but health experts don’t always recommend this route and insurance coverage can vary.
Getting another MMR shot is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says.
People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective measles vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said. That also includes people who don’t know which type they got.
What are the symptoms of measles?
Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.
The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.
Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
How can you treat measles?
There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.
Why do vaccination rates matter?
In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.”
But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.
The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.
AUSTIN – The Texas Tribune reports that the Trump administration this week announced plans to clawback $11 billion in pandemic-era grants that could harm local Texas public health departments as they battle a historic measles outbreak.
In Lubbock, where many of the 40 Texans infected with measles have been hospitalized, grant funding affected by the announcement has paid for an epidemiologist who has directly responded to the measles outbreak in West Texas that has killed a 6-year-old girl. In Dallas, the grant funding was helping to equip a biolaboratory that will support more testing for pathogens, including measles.
“It’s kind of crazy to have this funding cut,” said Lubbock’s public health director Katherine Wells. “I don’t have a savings account in public health.”
The Trump administration confirmed Tuesday that it was going to eliminate funding that had been created to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritizing instead on projects that address chronic diseases and the president’s Make America Healthy Again initiative. Much of that funding, however, has been used to pay for infrastructure to respond to infectious diseases other than COVID, including measles, local health officials have said.
The Texas Department of State Health Services notified public health departments late Tuesday of the federal government’s plans. State officials have not provided specifics on how much money is cut or how many health departments are impacted.
“DSHS was notified that the federal grant funding for Immunization/COVID, Epidemiology Laboratory Capacity (ELC/COVID), and Health Disparities/COVID, is terminated as of March 24, 2025,” according to the the notice from the agency’s associate commissioner Imelda Garcia. “The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS or System Agency) is issuing this notice to pause all activities immediately. Please do not accrue any additional costs as of the date of this notice.”
Wells said the funding cut will impact her office’s work combating the spread of measles. Lubbock has been using three grants to help pay for extra temporary staff, a part-time nurse and a full-time epidemiologist to help with vaccinations, answering phones and working with testing of patients. Two of the city’s three grants were not set to expire until 2026.
Ten of the state’s 327 measles cases have been confirmed in Lubbock and 226 cases have been in Gaines County, about 90 minutes southwest of Lubbock.
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This measles outbreak has further exposed Texas’ threadbare public health system.
The grants, she said, allowed her to hire eight people to help shoulder the workload the outbreak has brought. Since January, Lubbock hospitals have treated many of the more than 300 patients infected with measles, including a 6-year-old who died on Feb. 26.
“We’re trying to figure it out,” Wells said. But with state and federal funds cut, city and county health department that counted on those COVID-19 era grants for new programs and outreach will now have to go to local taxpayers to help shore up the abrupt shortfall.
Dallas County has already broken ground on a $52 million biolab to help combat future health threats. Their health director, Dr. Philip Huang, said the grant money Dallas County had received was going to be used to help equip that new lab.
“It was a lot of equipment,” Huang said. “These machines can help with COVID but these machines also help with our preparedness and ability to test a lot of other pathogens … including measles.”
Like Wells, he and other public health officials are now going to have to determine how to still move forward without this funding.
“The things that we’re doing and using the funds for COVID have great implications for our future preparedness for everything else so we’re not in the same situation at the start of COVID,” he said. “We had seen how little investment there had been in public health, so it’s very short sighted to say, ‘OK, well these were COVID funds it’s over.’ It’s not.”
DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas Democrats are pondering the path forward after a disastrous 2024 election season that bolstered Republican control of the state and left them nearly powerless against a renewed wave of conservative legislation. The deliberations will accelerate Saturday, when members of the Democratic Party’s Executive Committee pick a new leader to replace longtime chairman Gilberto Hinojosa. Hinojosa announced his resignation in November, just days after the disappointing election results. Though chairpersons of Texas political parties don’t have the clout of their counterparts in other states, the Democrats’ next leader will help with messaging, grassroots activity and fundraising to boost candidates up and down the ballot. Perhaps just as essential, many Democrats agree they need someone — whether it’s the next party leader or an elected official — to pull the sometimes disparate factions of the party together in order to win elections.
The November election was the latest reminder that Democrats can’t figure out how to win elections in a red state they haven’t won statewide in 30 years, even as demographic shifts have given them opportunities to break through. The 2024 elections season demonstrated that as Republicans from President Donald Trump to Gov. Greg Abbott push their conservative agenda, Democrats are often powerless to stop them. It ended with Hinojosa’s resignation after he made comments suggesting the party focused on the wrong issues during the most recent campaign. Some Democrats have offered potential solutions that ranged from being prepared to take advantage of Republican missteps, developing messages that are more relevant to average voters and being tougher in countering Trump and the GOP.
AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that almost 19 years ago, Brad Brown’s daughter, Ashley, was a West Brook High School soccer player bound for a playoff game in Houston when the bus carrying the team flipped over. Ashley was one of two Beaumont students who died in the March 29, 2006, crash. The bus they were riding on didn’t have seat belts. “No one on that bus escaped without life-changing wounds,” Brown said. Brown has spent the past nearly 20 years advocating for safer student transportation, including for school buses to have seat belts. Brown, who hopes a newly proposed bill will help achieve that goal, traveled to the Texas Capitol on Wednesday to voice support for Senate Bill 546.
The bill would tighten the state’s exemptions for installing seat belts on school buses and, for the first time, mandate widespread reporting about the presence of restraints in Texas’ school bus fleet. Sen. Jose´ Mene´ndez, D-San Antonio, who authored the legislation, presented the bill to the Senate Committee on Transportation almost exactly a year after a deadly Bastrop County crash involving a school bus. The March 22, 2024, accident resulted in the deaths of a prekindergarten student and a 33-year-old man when a concrete pump truck collided with a Hays school district bus. The bus was carrying 44 Tom Green Elementary School students returning from a field trip to the Capital of Texas Zoo in Bastrop County. The Bastrop County crash was “horrific,” Mene´ndez said. “Because of tragedies like this and others, the state’s been working to increase school bus safety for almost 20 years.” A 2017 law already requires all school buses to have seat belts but excludes buses purchased before 2017. The law also allows districts to exempt themselves from the mandate if they can’t financially support the purchase of new buses.
AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that in the Baird school district — a rural, two-campus system about 20 miles east of Abilene in West Texas — faith is a big part of the community. The two main churches host welcome dinners for faculty members at the beginning of each school year. The church youth programs are involved with the 350-student district. “It’s a very natural relationship,” Superintendent Tim Little said. Yet, while most residents in the communities the Baird district serves share similar faiths, there’s a line that the superintendent said shouldn’t be crossed. “We would frown on anyone who was coming in and trying to proselytize to our kids,” Little said. To Little and the faith leaders he works with, the relationship to support student and faculty life is separate from students’ counseling needs.
Two years ago, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 763, which required Baird and all other school districts in Texas to decide by March 1, 2024, whether they would create a program in which chaplains could “provide support, services, and programs for students,” similar to the way counselors do. Baird was one among hundreds of Texas districts that voted to uphold existing practices to allow chaplains to volunteer like any other person. SB 763 doesn’t require a chaplain to be certified by the State Board for Educator Certification. “It’s not something that we need pushed on us legislatively,” Little said. “We also realize, and our preachers in the community would tell you, they’re not qualified to be a school counselor. That’s not their calling. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to work with kids, but we want to clearly distinguish those two roles.” The American-Statesman surveyed all 1,019 Texas school districts on their votes dealing with SB 763. Of the more than half that responded, about 36% declined to create a school chaplain program. Most districts — 39% — resolved to uphold their existing volunteer policies, with some noting that chaplains were welcome to volunteer in schools just as any other community member is. About 19% of the districts that responded to the Statesman’s inquiries had agreed to create a chaplain volunteer or employment program. However, about 18 months since the law went into effect, the Statesman found that only two districts had hired, or had immediate plans to hire, a chaplain. Instead, most districts said they wanted the option to bring chaplains to campuses in times of tragedy.
ALAMO (AP) — South Texas worked to dry out on Friday after severe thunderstorms a day earlier flooded streets and compelled dozens of water rescues as many drivers were forced to abandon their vehicles on roads and parking lots, and some areas were inundated with a foot of rain.
“We’re just getting like a bucket of water poured on us and it’s too much for the drainage system,” Alamo Fire Department Chief R.C. Flores told KRGV in Weslaco, Texas. “A lot of these are stranded motorists with no immediate danger, but we do want to make sure we are prioritizing the medical calls first.”
Flores said Alamo’s fire and police departments had responded to more than 50 water rescues on Thursday.
Television news footage from flooded communities in South Texas showed multiple water-logged cars abandoned on streets on Thursday and drivers waiting on sidewalks for the flood waters to recede.
Between 6 inches (15 centimeters) and 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of South Texas in the past 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service. Palmview, located west of McAllen, received more than 18 inches (45 centimeters) of rain over the past two days.
A flood warning was still in effect for portions of South Texas, including Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy counties, through early Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.
“There’s a break from the rain this morning, which will allow flood waters to gradually recede, but we’ll still need to keep an eye on the development of isolated showers and thunderstorms once again this afternoon,” the National Weather said on social media. “Any additional rainfall will be quick to cause flooding issues given the heavy rainfall that has already fallen.”
The Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district opened two shelter locations on Thursday night for residents.
More than 20 South Texas school districts and college campuses canceled classes on Friday due to the severe weather and flooding.
AUSTIN (AP) – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that he has launched an investigation into one of the state’s Medicaid insurance providers after allegations that the company illegally spied on Texans.
The state is investigating Superior HealthPlan, an insurance company that provides Medicaid coverage to adults, children, and coverage for the Children’s Health Insurance Program in Texas, for allegedly using private investigators to perform surveillance and gather potentially confidential information on lawmakers, journalists and other Texans.
“The allegations concerning Superior’s actions, such as actions that were characterized as potentially blackmailing lawmakers to secure state contracts and surveilling private citizens to avoid paying legitimate claims, are deeply troubling,” Paxton said in a statement.
Superior HealthPlan CEO Mark Sanders was questioned Wednesday by members of the Texas House Committee on the Delivery of Government Efficiency about his company’s use of private investigators. The topic surfaced as lawmakers questioned company representatives about potential fraud and waste of taxpayer funds connected to its Medicaid contracts, and Sanders told the committee members that the company used private investigators in the past, but hasn’t done so for the past few years.
On Thursday, Superior fired Sanders, the Dallas Morning News reported.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Sanders defended his company’s actions at the hearing by saying that the information gathered was nothing beyond what was publicly available.
“It was just understanding (what interests people), so we could have been knowledgeable of when we’re meeting with different individuals. That’s really it,” Sanders replied.
Lawmakers expressed concern that the actions aimed to secure leverage to help the company win future state contracts, discredit legitimate insurance claims by individuals, and track journalists reporting on allegations against Superior HealthPlan.
“I disagree. You wanted leverage, and you felt that you were going to use it. Just disgusting,” said state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington.
State Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, asked Sanders that if there was no intent to gain leverage over people, why did private investigators working for Superior HealthPlan look into legislators’ divorce records?
“I don’t recall at the time,” Sanders told lawmakers.
House Bill 5061, filed by state Rep. Jeff Leach earlier this month, addresses some of the lawmaker’s concerns by prohibiting any contractor that works with the state from engaging in surveillance.
“We’re up here talking to a company who has received millions, billions of dollars in taxpayer funds through Medicaid contracts, who has used that money to hire private investigators to follow around patients and legislators that are [now] asking questions about what the heck is going on,” said state Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway. “It’s ridiculous.”
Tiffany Young, spokesperson for Texas Health and Human Services, referred questions on how the investigation could affect Texans’ Medicaid coverage to Paxton’s office. The attorney general’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
A wide-ranging crackdown on abortion pills, out-of-state travel and other ways Texans are evading the state’s near-total abortion ban drew zealous support from abortion opponents who said during a Senate committee meeting on Thursday that illegal trafficking of abortion pills harms women.
Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, authored Senate Bill 2880, which legal experts say is the most comprehensive attempt yet to stop Texans from accessing abortion pills or out-of-state abortions.
The bill would target online pill providers and tech companies that host abortion-related websites, and make it a felony, punishable by up to life in prison, to pay or reimburse the costs of an abortion, a direct hit on abortion funds, which help cover the costs of out-of-state abortions. It would also expand the ability of private citizens to bring wrongful death lawsuits against pill providers after an abortion and empower the attorney general’s office to more easily prosecute abortion offenses.
By going after the internet service providers, social media sites and search engines that power these websites, Texas could potentially undermine the entire network of pills and providers serving abortion-ban states.
“Senate Bill 2880 is a big toolbox of policies for Texas to fight back against these websites,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, during Thursday’s hearing of the Senate State Affairs Committee. “Texas will be leading other states on how we can fight this concerning trend.”
A large body of research has shown abortion drug mifepristone, first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000, to be safe and effective. But anti-abortion groups have been actively pushing to get the medications restricted or even moved off the market through lawsuits and legislation. Anti-abortion groups told lawmakers during the hearing that pregnant women in Texas are receiving pills such as mifepristone and misoprostol in the mail without any information about how to take them, or guidelines on follow-up care. Providers shared stories about women hemorrhaging at home or struggling to dispose of the remains of an aborted fetus.
“I see women suffering daily from the effects of incomplete chemical abortions,” said Whitney Freeman, director of medical services at Prestonwood Pregnancy Center in the Dallas area.
Freeman said sometimes women receive pills in the mail with no medical instructions, or with instructions in a foreign language such as Russian. Patients are told not to tell medical providers that they are in the process of a chemical abortion, which can then prevent them from receiving the care they need, Freeman said
SB 2880, called the Woman and Child Protection Act, would allow private citizens to sue for up to $100,000 per violation of the law. This is an escalation of the legal framework that allowed Texas to ban nearly all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy in 2021.
Critics of the bill told lawmakers on Thursday that the legislation demonstrates government overreach and would infringe upon constitutional free speech. Austin Kaplan, an Austin attorney who sued over the 2021 law, told The Texas Tribune that it was inevitable that lawmakers would keep pushing to expand the use of this private enforcement mechanism. He said this bill, as written, would likely be challenged in court, although he noted that hasn’t stopped Texas lawmakers before.
“Looking at this, it looks just completely impossible,” he said. “But what’s the penalty for the Legislature? The legislator gets reelected. They don’t pay out of pocket for this litigation.”
The committee also signaled its support of a priority bill for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, which would prohibit cities and counties from using taxpayer dollars to pay for out-of-state abortions and travel. Senate Bill 33 targets Austin and San Antonio, which have designated $400,000 and $500,000, respectively, to assist residents with costs associated with navigating abortion bans.
“State law already prevents taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions, but some cities have “worked to exploit a loophole,” said bill author Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, “by using taxpayer funds to pay for travel accommodations, child care and other expenses women incur when they seek out-of-state abortions.”
“We have so many things we need to be spending our taxpayer dollars on,” said San Antonio City Council Member Marc Whyte, who testified in favor of the bill. “Not once have I heard the residents of San Antonio saying they want their tax dollars spent on sending women to other states to receive abortions.”
Under SB 33, the attorney general or any Texas resident could bring a civil legal action against cities that misuse funds by paying to facilitate abortions.
Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.
HOUSTON (AP) — The woman convicted of killing Tejano music legend Selena Quintanilla-Perez has been denied parole after spending decades behind bars for fatally shooting the young singer at a Texas motel in 1995, the state’s parole board announced Thursday.
Yolanda Saldívar will continue serving a life sentence at a prison in Gatesville, Texas, after a three-member panel of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to not release her. In a statement explaining the denial, the board said the panel found that Saldívar continues to pose a threat to public safety and that the nature of the crime indicated “a conscious disregard for the lives, safety, or property of others.”
Her case will be eligible to be reviewed again for parole in 2030.
The singer known to her fans as simply Selena was one of the first Mexican-Americans to make it into the mainstream music scene and was on the verge of crossing over into the English-language pop market when she was killed.
Saldívar founded Selena’s fan club and had been the manager of the singer’s clothing boutiques, Selena Etc., until she was fired in early March 1995 after money was discovered missing.
Selena a Corpus Christi native, was 23 years old when she was shot in the back with a .38-caliber revolver at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi on March 31, 1995. She was able to run to the motel lobby where she collapsed, and she was pronounced dead at a hospital an hour later.
Motel employees testified that Selena named “Yolanda” in “room 158” as her attacker.
“I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to kill anybody,” a sobbing Saldívar said during a nine-hour standoff with police. She told police she had bought the .38-caliber revolver to kill herself.
More than 50,000 people lined up to view Selena’s body the day before she was laid to rest in Seaside Memorial Park on April 3, 1995, just 13 days before her 24th birthday.
Saldívar’s trial was moved to Houston because of the publicity surrounding the case. Saldívar testified that she had intended to kill herself during the confrontation with Selena, but that the gun misfired.
On October 23, 1995, a jury in Houston convicted Saldívar of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
While in prison, Saldívar — a former nurse — obtained her paralegal and associate degree in criminal justice and has filed several civil rights complaints alleging mistreatment by the state’s prison system, according to court records. She also helped other inmates to file petitions.
In court documents filed in 2016, Saldívar said she was being held in protective custody — meaning she was segregated from other inmates — because prison officials were concerned for her safety due to the “high profile” nature of her case. She filed several appeals of her conviction but all were rejected.
Selena — “the Queen of Tejano” — rose to stardom and won a Grammy during a Tejano music boom in the early 1990s. Her hits include “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” “Como la Flor,” “Amor Prohibido,” “No Me Queda Mas” and “Tu Solo Tu.”
“Dreaming of You,” her English-language crossover album released a few months after her death, topped the Billboard 200, and featured hits “I Could Fall in Love” and “Dreaming of You.” Jennifer Lopez played the singer in “Selena,” a 1997 biopic.
The Grammys awarded Selena a posthumous lifetime achievement award in 2021.
AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that Trailblazing former Austin Mayor and Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton died around noon Wednesday at her home in Tarrytown, her son Brad McClellan confirmed to the American-Statesman. She was 85. “Mom was first in a lot of things — first woman mayor of Austin, first woman comptroller, but first of all she was a mom and a grandma,” said McClellan, an Austin lawyer. “Always the most important things were her sons — my brothers — and her grandkids. There’s no question about that.” Mayor Kirk Watson said Keeton’s imprint on Austin and on Texas is lasting and genuine. “Carole Keeton was a historic figure in Austin and the state,” said Watson, whose first stint as mayor came after Keeton was the first woman to hold that office. “Importantly, she gave so much of herself to the city and state she loved and to the people both as a community and individually.”
Before serving as Austin’s mayor from 1977 to1983, Keeton was the first woman to preside over the Austin school board. And after her city service, she was three times elected to statewide office. “She was a powerful personality that filled a room and pushed people to think about the future but also made you laugh at the drop of a hat,” Watson said. Keeton, who also was known as Carole Keeton, Carole Keeton McClellan, Carole Keeton Rylander and Carole Keeton Strayhorn during her long public service career, died in the home that her grandparents built, her son said. “She was born in Austin, Texas, and died in Austin, Texas,” McClellan said. “She loved this city and this state more than anything besides the family.” After serving as mayor, Keeton made an unsuccessful bid in 1986 to unseat longtime U.S. Rep. J.J. “Jake” Pickle, running as a Republican in the heavily Democratic district. Eight years later, she was elected to one of three seats on the Texas Railroad Commission. She won a razor-close race to be the state’s top financial officer in 1998.
WASHINGTON – The Austin American-Statesman reports that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn made official Wednesday what he has been saying for weeks: He will seek a fifth six-year term in Washington in 2026, leaning into his support of President Donald Trump and relitigating his complaints about the policies of former President Joe Biden. “President Trump needs a partner who’s battled-tested to restore law and order, cut taxes and spending, and take back our jobs and supply chain,” Cornyn says in the video announcing his campaign, in which he also criticizes the spike in illegal immigration under Biden after Trump’s first term ended. The announcement drew an almost immediate rebuke from Cornyn’s potential chief rival in the Republican primary — Attorney General Ken Paxton, who in a social post of his own suggested that the incumbent is cozying up to Trump more out of expedience than conviction.
“Are you delusional?” Paxton posted as a direct reply to Cornyn on his personal page on X. “You’ve constantly turned your back on Texans and President Trump, including trying to stop his campaign in 2024 and saying his ‘time has passed him by.’ Texans won’t believe your lies or forget how you’ve consistently worked to undermine the President.” A primary battle between Cornyn — who by the time his current term ends will be tied for the second-longest time ofr a Texan to serve in the Senate — and Paxton could set the stage for one of the most heated statewide GOP primaries since Republicans began their full dominance of Texas politics in 2002. Texas Republicans have largely avoided bloody primary battles in statewide elections, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor. Paxton, a three-term attorney general, was forced into a runoff in 2022 against then-Land Commissioner George P. Bush, but the incumbent then trounced Bush 68% to 32%. A Cornyn-Paxton matchup would likely be more dramatic, Rottinghaus said. “It will be very bitter, and very expensive,” Rottinghaus said. “We’re talking around $40 million to $50 million, maybe more, for a primary.” And Trump will be a factor, regardless of whether he chooses to make an endorsement, Rottinghaus said.
NEW YORK (AP) -A county clerk in New York refused Thursday to file a more than $100,000 judgment from Texas against a doctor accused of prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas, setting up a potential challenge to laws designed to shield abortion providers who serve patients in states with abortion bans.
A Texas judge last month ordered Dr. Margaret Carpenter, who practices north of New York City, to pay the penalty for allegedly breaking that state’s law by prescribing abortion medication via telemedicine. The Texas attorney general’s office followed up last week by asking a New York court to enforce the default civil judgment, which is $113,000 with attorney and filing fees.
The acting Ulster County clerk refused.
“In accordance with the New York State Shield Law, I have refused this filing and will refuse any similar filings that may come to our office. Since this decision is likely to result in further litigation, I must refrain from discussing specific details about the situation,” Acting Clerk Taylor Bruck said in a prepared statement.
New York is among eight states with telemedicine shield laws, which were considered a target for abortion opponents even before the standoff between officials New York and Texas.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last month invoked her state’s shield law in rejecting Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s request to extradite Carpenter to Louisiana, where the doctor was charged with prescribing abortion pills to a pregnant minor.
Hochul on Thursday praised Bruck’s refusal and said “New York is grateful for his courage and common sense.”
An email seeking comment was sent to the office of Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton.
A call seeking comment was made to Carpenter, who is the co-medical director and founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine. Carpenter did not show up for a hearing in the case in Texas.
DALLAS — Oil and gas activity edged up slightly in first quarter 2025, according to oil and gas executives responding to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Energy Survey.
The business activity index—the survey’s broadest measure of conditions facing Eleventh District energy firms—came in at 3.8, suggesting slight growth since the last survey.
“Business activity showed little growth this quarter while respondents noted a heightened level of uncertainty due to geopolitical risk, trade policy and other factors,” said Michael Plante, an assistant vice president at the Dallas Fed.
Key takeaways:
The company outlook index fell to -4.9 this quarter, a decline of 12, indicating slight pessimism about the outlook.
The uncertainty index jumped 21 points to reach 43.1 this quarter, pointing to increased uncertainty about the outlook.
Oil and natural gas production both grew slightly this quarter. The oil production index was 5.6 vs. 1.1 last quarter while the natural gas production index was 4.8, an increase of 8.
Employment and employee hours both remained close to last quarter’s level. The employment index was 0, down slightly from 2.2 in the fourth quarter of 2024. Employee hours was 0.7, suggesting little change from last quarter.
Costs rose at a faster pace. The lease operating expenses index increased to 38.7 from 25.6, the finding and development costs index rose 6 points to reach 17.1, and the input costs index for oilfield support service firms was 30.9 vs. 23.9.
Breakeven Prices Up Slightly; Smaller Firms See Higher Breakevens Compared to Larger Firms
“Average breakeven prices to profitably drill a new well increased just a little bit this year. Across all responses, the average was $65 per barrel, up $1 from last year’s average. Larger firms had an average breakeven of $61 per barrel compared to $66 for smaller companies,” Plante said.
Additional takeaways from the special questions:
The average price needed to cover operating expenses for existing wells was $41 per barrel, up $2 from last year’s survey.
Executives from E&P firms reported on the cost of regulatory compliance for their firm this survey. The most selected response was $0 to $1.99 on a per-barrel basis, chosen by 49 percent of respondents. 28 percent selected $2 to $3.99 per barrel, 15 percent selected $4 to $5.99 per barrel and the remainder chose greater than or equal to $6 per barrel.
60 percent of executives reported that administrative and legal costs were the main cost component of their firm’s regulatory costs. Monitoring costs were the next most selected response, chosen by 21 percent of executives. Eleven percent chose abatement costs while 8 percent selected other costs.
Opinions are mixed on how the cost of regulatory compliance will change in 2025 vs 2024. The most selected response was “remain close to 2024 levels,” chosen by 40 percent of executives. Another 21 percent chose “increase slightly” while 13 percent chose “increase significantly.” And 20 percent expect a slight decrease while 6 percent expect a significant decrease.
55 percent of oilfield support service executives expect steel import tariffs to slightly decrease customer demand. The next most selected response was “no change,” picked by 28 percent of respondents. Another 8 percent expect a significant decrease, 8 percent a slight increase and 3 percent a significant increase.
Many executives expect the number of employees to remain the same when comparing December 2025 to December 2024. 57 percent of respondents selected “remain the same.” 21 percent selected “increase slightly” while 14 percent selected “decrease slightly.” Only a small percentage selected “increase significantly” or “decrease significantly.”
37 percent of executives expect total merger and acquisition deal value for the U.S. upstream oil and gas sector to increase slightly this year. Another 22 percent of executives expect the deal value to decrease slightly in 2025, and an additional 18 percent each selected “remain close to 2024 levels” and “decrease significantly.”
The survey samples oil and gas companies headquartered in the Eleventh Federal Reserve District, which includes Texas, southern New Mexico and northern Louisiana. Many have national and global operations.
Data were collected March 12–20, 2025, and 130 energy firms responded. Of the respondents, 88 were exploration and production firms, and 42 were oilfield services firms.
For more information, visit dallasfed.org.
NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. airman has been charged with coercing a 9-year-old girl to share sexually explicit images of herself, after he posed as a 13-year-old on the gaming site Roblox.
David Ibarra, 31, was arraigned Wednesday in a New York federal court after being arrested in February in Anchorage, Alaska, where he was serving on active duty in the Air Force, prosecutors said in a statement.
A judge ordered him to be held pending trial on charges including sexual exploitation of a child. Ibarra’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ibarra was serving as an air transportation specialist Senior Airmen, which mainly manage cargo, according to an Air Force spokesperson.
Prosecutors say the girl, who lives on Long Island, a suburban region east of New York City, met the man on TikTok in August and he asked her to communicate with him on Roblox, telling her he was a 13-year-old boy living in Texas.
He allegedly got the girl to text him from her phone and eventually directed her to create explicit videos and images, while sending her money via Apple Pay.
Ibarra paid her $191 in a series of 17 transactions, prosecutors allege.
The girl’s mother eventually became aware of the messages. Posing as an older sister, she garnered more information about the sender by texting him from her own phone, and he ultimately sent her a selfie revealing part of his face, according to the indictment.
Investigators used Ibarra’s El Paso, Texas-based phone number and searched his iCloud account to confirm his identity, according to prosecutors.
Under interrogation the 31-year-old allegedly admitted to paying the girl for the images, saying he thought the victim was 12. Prosecutors say he acknowledged coercing other girls into sending explicit images as well, including one in New Jersey.
Ibarra has been “in an unpaid status” since his arrest, Air Force spokesperson Erin Eaton said via email. It is not clear what other military discipline he could face.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday found the extreme heat in Texas prisons is “plainly unconstitutional,” but declined to order the state to immediately start installing air conditioning, which could cost billions.
The judge affirmed claims brought by advocates of people incarcerated in the state, where summer heat routinely soars above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). But they will have to continue pressing their lawsuit later in a trial.
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2023 by Bernie Tiede, the former mortician serving a life sentence whose murder case inspired the movie “Bernie.” Several prisoners’ rights groups then asked to join his legal fight and expand it.
The lawsuit argues the heat in the state facilities amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, and seeks to force the state to install air conditioning.
Jeff Edwards, lead attorney for prisoners and advocates, called the judge’s order a victory, even if it didn’t require an immediate fix.
“We proved our case,” Edwards said. “The court made it very clear what the state is doing is unconstitutional and endangering the lives of those they are supposed to be protecting … This is step one in changing the Texas prison system.”
Edwards said advocates will push for relief for prisoners as quickly as possible. “I’m regretful we can’t protect them with temporary relief this summer, but we will move as fast as we can,” he said.
Texas has more than than 130,000 people serving time in prisons, more than any state in the U.S. Only about a third of roughly 100 prison units are fully air conditioned and the rest have either partial or no electrical cooling.
“This case concerns the plainly unconstitutional treatment of some of the most vulnerable, marginalized members of our society,” U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his ruling on a a temporary injunction request. “The Court is of the view that excessive heat is likely serving as a form of unconstitutional punishment.”
But the judge said that ordering the state to spend “hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to install permanent air conditioning in every (prison),” could not be accomplished before it expired in 90 days.
It would take months to install temporary air conditioning, and could even delay a permanent solution, the judge wrote.
Pitman said he expects the case will proceed to trial, where advocates for prisoners can continue to argue their case.
He also issued a warning to the state that they will likely win at trial, and that the state could face an order to install air conditioning.
The judge also noted that the state Legislature, which is in session through May and writes the two-year state budget, is also considering bills that would require air conditioning to be installed in prisons.
But the Republican-majority Legislature has been hearing complaints about extreme heat in prisons for years and has not addressed the issue. In 2018, the state was ordered to install air conditioning at a unit for older prisoners and those that are medically vulnerable.
Officials at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Texas is not alone in facing lawsuits over dangerously hot prisons. Cases also have been filed in Louisiana and New Mexico. One filed in July in Georgia alleged a man died in July 2023 after he was left in an outdoor cell for hours without water, shade or ice.
A November 2022 study by researchers at Brown, Boston and Harvard universities found that 13% — or 271 — of the deaths in Texas prisons without universal AC between 2001 and 2019 may be attributed to extreme heat. Prisoner advocates say those numbers are only likely to increase as the state faces more extreme weather and heat due to climate change.
Last year in a hearing, people who were formerly incarcerated testified about their experiences in hot prison buildings where they said temperatures reach above 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 Celsius).
They testified some inmates would splash toilet water on themselves to cool off, fake suicide attempts to be moved to cooler medical areas, or even deliberately set fires so that guards would be forced to hose down cells.
“It’s sad it takes a federal court to come in and change things,” Edwards said Wednesday. “This is not a Spanish galley in the 1600s, this is 2025.”
Texas Department of Criminal Justice Director Bryan Collier has acknowledged that heat was a factor in three deaths from multiple causes in 2023, and that prison staff and inmates sometimes fall ill from high temperatures.
But the state disputed the hundreds of deaths in recent years alleged by the prisoner advocates, and argues Texas has implemented effective heat mitigation measures, such as providing fans, towels and access to cooler “respite” areas.
Collier also insisted he would like to have air conditioning installed across the prison system, but that state lawmakers have never agreed to spend enough money to do that.