SUMMARY: A cracked water main in Austin highlighted a broader crisis: the city lost 9.3 billion gallons of treated water in 2024—16% of its supply—mainly through leaky pipes. Despite investments in mitigation, water loss rose 31% from 2023. Austin’s response includes pipe replacements, smart meters, and consulting from Black & Veatch. Costs have surged, with water main replacements now exceeding \$1,700 per foot. Cities statewide face similar challenges and are investing in leak detection and infrastructure upgrades. A proposed \$1 billion annual infusion into the Texas Water Fund aims to address looming water shortages projected to cost the state \$160 billion annually by 2030.

Read the full article

The post City of Austin pipes leaked 9.3 billion gallons in 2024 appeared first on www.kxan.com

SUMMARY: Karen Reed was found not guilty of murdering her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O’Keefe, and leaving the scene of a deadly accident after a jury trial in Massachusetts. Reed was accused of hitting O’Keefe with her car in 2022 and leaving him to die outside in the snow. While acquitted of murder, Reed was convicted of drunk driving and sentenced to one year of probation. Her defense claimed corruption and a cover-up by investigators. The verdict followed a hung jury in her first trial. Reed’s supporters cheered the outcome, but some witnesses and O’Keefe’s family criticized the prosecution and Reed’s defense. Reed also faces a civil lawsuit.

Read was accused of hitting her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, a Boston police officer, with her car and leaving him for dead in the cold. Her defense team and supporters accused corrupt investigators of framing read to cover up the true details of O’Keefe’s death.

Subscribe to FOX 4: https://www.youtube.com/fox4news?sub_confirmation=1

Dallas news, weather, sports and traffic from KDFW FOX 4, serving Dallas-Fort Worth, North Texas and the state of Texas.

Download the FOX LOCAL app: fox4news.com/foxlocal

Watch FOX 4 Live: https://www.fox4news.com/live
Download the FOX 4 News App: https://www.fox4news.com/apps
Download the FOX 4 WAPP: https://www.fox4news.com/apps
Follow FOX 4 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fox4DFW/
Follow FOX 4 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FOX4
Follow FOX 4 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fox4news/
Subscribe to the FOX 4 newsletter: https://www.fox4news.com/newsletters

Source

“To fight screwworm, the U.S. is opening a South Texas facility to disperse sterile flies” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.

McALLEN — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is ramping up efforts to fight the spread of New World screwworm across the southern border by opening a sterile fly dispersal facility in South Texas.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a plan to combat the threat of the parasitic insect that includes investing $8.5 million to build a sterile fly dispersal facility at Moore Air Base in Edinburg. It is expected to open in six months.

The screwworm is a parasitic fly that targets warm-blooded animals and has the potential to disrupt Texas’ $15 billion cattle industry.

The facility will help distribute the organisms used to combat the screwworm: sterile flies. Sterile male screwworm flies mate with fertile female screwworms that produce non-viable eggs until the population dies out.

Panama is home to the only facility in the world that produces sterile screwworm flies, producing about 117 million flies per week. Another facility in Mexico will be renovated to produce an additional 60-100 million sterile flies per week, a $21 million investment from the USDA. The larvae produced at those sites will be flown to Edinburg in the Rio Grande Valley, where they will finish growing. When they’re ready, they will be distributed to areas in Mexico to combat the screwworm.

“We have defeated the screwworm before and we will do it again,” Rollins said during a news conference in Edinburg on Wednesday. “We want to keep this production going as we apply full force to stopping the screwworm from spreading north and getting closer to our border.”

Screwworm has already spread through Central America, with recent detections as far north as Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico, 700 miles away from the Texas-Mexico border.

To mitigate the spread into the U.S., the USDA temporarily closed the southern border to imports of live cattle, horses and bison in May. This has limited the supply of cattle, driving up their cost.

Screwworm was largely eradicated in the U.S. in the 1960s with the use of sterile flies to kill off the screwworm fly population. At that time, Moore Air Base served as a fly dispersal facility and will be revived as such under the USDA plan.

Rollins added the department is exploring opening a sterile fly production facility at the air base to complement the dispersal facility and provide an additional 300 million sterile flies per week. However, the construction of this new production facility would take two to three years.

Federal lawmakers have pushed for a new sterile fly rearing and dispersal facility.

U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico introduced legislation to fund such a facility, and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio is leading a similar bill in the House.

U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, introduced a bill directing the USDA to conduct a study and report strategies to enhance preparedness and response capabilities against potential outbreaks of the New World Screwworm.

As part of their current plan, USDA is partnering with Texas animal health officials to finalize emergency management plans and stockpile therapeutics. They are also investing in research to develop new treatments, preventive methods and new response strategies.

The Texas Department of Agriculture is also working with the USDA to inspect trucks entering the state for disease, pestilence and insects.

Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, said the state is working on obtaining a permit to inject cattle feed with parasiticide. He also said the department set aside $250,000 for fly traps that will be set along the Rio Grande that can alert officials of the spread of screwworm into Texas before infections occur in the state.

Miller added he spoke with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who serves as the president of the Texas Senate, and Texas Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows to add screwworm to their list of priorities for the next legislative session.

“We’re kind of the tip of the spear when it comes to the screwworm,” Miller said. “We want to be ready should this insect infect Texas.”

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O’Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer.

Get tickets.

TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/18/texas-screwworm-facility-brooke-rollins/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The post U.S. will fight screwworm from South Texas appeared first on feeds.texastribune.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article from the Texas Tribune presents a factual and straightforward account of government actions to combat the spread of screwworms along the Texas-Mexico border. It features quotes and legislative initiatives from officials across the political spectrum, including Republicans Brooke Rollins, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, Monica De La Cruz, and Democrats like Ben Ray Luján. The reporting avoids charged language or ideological framing, instead focusing on agricultural policy, public health, and economic impact. The inclusion of bipartisan cooperation and policy detail supports a neutral tone, characteristic of centrist reporting.