Latest news with #Lubbock
New York Times
a day ago
- Business
- New York Times
NiJaree Canady, Texas Tech bring stunning end to Oklahoma softball's dynastic run
OKLAHOMA CITY — We gather here today to say goodbye to the Oklahoma softball dynasty, and hello to the NIL era. Because if Texas Tech just proved anything, it's that you can buy a championship. Last summer, the school spent a million dollars and change to lure the best player in softball to Lubbock, Texas, in hopes of making it to its first-ever Women's College World Series. Advertisement Naturally, NiJaree Canady upped the ante. The junior transfer from Stanford headlined a 3-2 defeat of No. 2 Oklahoma in the Women's College World Series semifinal on Monday. Canady struck out eight batters, allowing four hits, to end the Sooners' pursuit of a fifth straight national championship. Of course, nothing is easy when it comes to facing the Sooners, who gave Canady everything she could handle. In the top of the seventh, Canady was one strike away from shutting out the Sooners, who have not been held scoreless in more than 300 games, since exactly six years ago Monday, per the ESPN broadcast. Then, Oklahoma junior Abigale Dayton stepped up to home plate with everything going against her. The Sooners trailed 2-0. There were two outs. It was the bottom of the seventh. And she was staring down a 0-2 count. Dayton hammered one out of the park, bringing squealing Oklahoma fans to their feet and tying the score at two to give the Sooners life. Believe. — Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) June 3, 2025 But if the Sooners suggested that if there's one pitch left, there's life, the Red Raiders proved it. Red Raiders redshirt sophomore Lauren Allred hit a walk-off sacrifice fly in the bottom of the seventh to secure Texas Tech's first-ever appearance in the WCWS championship series. Canady, playing in her third WCWS after steering the Cardinal there the past two years, leads the nation with a dumbfounding 0.86 ERA and the Red Raiders with 11 home runs. No. 12 Texas Tech meets No. 6 Texas in the championship series starting Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. Game 2 follows Thursday at 8 p.m. ET and Game 3, if necessary, is slotted for Thursday at 8 p.m. ET. This story will be updated. (Top photo of NiJaree Canady: Nathan J. Fish / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
Medscape
2 days ago
- Business
- Medscape
Measles Update: Where Are We Now?
For 30 years, pediatrician Tammy Camp, MD, of Lubbock, Texas, never once encountered a case of measles on the job. Now, that's all changed. As she told colleagues last week, that's not all that's different in West Texas, the epicenter of the 2025 measles outbreak in the Southwest. 'We're seeing mothers who are scared, crying in the clinic because they have a baby that they have delivered just 6 weeks ago and they know that the child is too young to receive a measles vaccine,' she said in a National Academy of Medicine update about the outbreak. 'Yet, they know they need to return to work because they are responsible for putting food on the table for the rest of their family members.' To make matters more complicated, Camp has to worry about disease transmission in her clinic. While Lubbock is 90 miles from the outbreak's rural ground zero in the tiny Gaines County, the city is treating many infected people, including most of the pediatric patients who've been hospitalized. There's more. 'The other thing that's been difficult has been watching our residents and faculty struggle with the pain of watching a child suffer from a disease that they know is completely preventable, something that does not have to happen,' she said. Fortunately, the measles outbreak in the Southwest seems to be slowing. 'We do believe a lot of that has to do with the community awareness of what's going on. We have increased immunity, both actively through infection and passively through vaccines,' said Tiffany Torres, MPH, MS, surveillance, epidemiology and laboratory manager at the Lubbock Public Health Department. Still, she said, 'we don't believe this outbreak is done yet.' Outbreak Spread Amid Lower Vaccination Rates As of late May, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has confirmed 1046 measles cases in 30 states and three deaths. Since 2000, only 2019 has seen more reported cases in the United States. Yvonne 'Bonnie' Maldonado, MD, professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, said measles remains one of the most infectious viruses known, with an estimated basic reproduction number (R0) of 12-15. 'This means about 12-15 susceptible individuals who are exposed to an infected individual will become infected,' she said. 'This is one of the highest, if not the highest, R0s that we know of. We need levels of about 95% population immunity in order to prevent sustained transmission,' she said. However, the percentage of US kindergarten students who've received measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccinations dropped to 92.7% in the 2023-2024 school year, Maldonado said. Public Health Workers on the Frontlines In the Southwest, Lubbock Public Health Department's Torres said her team swung into action after the first measles case by setting up a mass online meeting for medical professionals across West Texas and the Panhandle. 'We wanted to spread all the guidance that we had available and offer recommendations for postexposure prophylaxis of close contacts, as well as the vaccine options for those who are eligible to receive an MMR vaccine,' she said. The health department helped with reporting, contact tracing, and testing, Torres said. 'We also increased our vaccine efforts, removing any barriers that may have been for people to receive an MMR. We identified gaps in vaccine coverage. We found those areas that may have a low vaccine rate and sent a strike team out to the areas to try to boost that vaccine coverage prevent the spread to other communities as well.' Health workers have focused special attention on daycare facilities, she said. 'We want to be sure to avoid getting any kind of infection [in infants] because it's very, very difficult to stop the transmission. Most of them cannot receive an MMR vaccine.' Building Trust and Getting Injections in Arms How can medical professionals fight back against the influence of the antivaccine movement? Heidi Larson, PhD, founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project, said her research has shown that that language matters: Messaging that focuses on 'protection' and shared responsibility tends to resonate better than language invoking 'moral obligation.' 'People's willingness [to be vaccinated] is always higher when they see it's benefiting others,' said Larson, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and University of Washington, Seattle. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Larson's team worked with platforms like YouTube to promote campaigns built around returning to valued activities — 'getting back to what you love' — rather than focusing on data alone. She also noted that in the United States, people are more likely to trust family and community leaders than physicians. 'Medical professionals are trusted, but they are part of a larger trust ecosystem. Peer influence is a powerful tool.' As she put it, 'people trust their family more than scientists. They trust friends more than scientists.' In addition, religious leaders in the US score higher than in other countries. 'These are the influencers,' she said, 'even though we still have high trust in scientists and healthcare professionals.' What does that mean for measles prevention? 'We need facts and figures, of course. But we also need to appeal to people's emotions, to stories.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Hudson Westbrook Is Determined to Outgrow His Viral Country Hit
'You see a really quick rise, and a lot of people don't see that you came from nothing to a hundred real quick,' Hudson Westbrook says. He's speaking from experience. A little more than a year ago, Westbrook was just another student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, working cattle in his downtime. He'd dabbled in music since he was a teenager in Stephenville, the town heavy on cowboys and rodeo west of Fort Worth where he was raised, and he'd been experimenting with songwriting for roughly a year. One viral hit in the summer of 2024, followed by a Billboard Top 30 country and Hot 100 single last fall, and Westbrook is on the cusp of bona fide country music stardom. More from Rolling Stone 'Squid Game' Teases 'Grave Consequences' in Trailer for Third and Final Season Sean Combs Trial: RICO Heating Up, Suspicious Destroyed Evidence and Alleged Rape Trump Spreads Bizarre Conspiracy Theory That Biden Was Executed and Replaced by a Robot Clone His 17-track debut album, Texas Forever — announced on Friday and due out July 25 — may well push Westbrook off that cusp. But, at only 20, he's doing all he can to keep his career blow-up in perspective on the album. 'I took all my songs from last year,' Westbrook tells Rolling Stone, 'and I went, 'Hey, these are songs about where I am at right now.' I want this record to be where Hudson is at this point in time. That's the best way to describe an album — a point in time.' He is banking on that point in time being enough to parlay his demographic of college-aged country fans into a sustained fanbase. At a time when the artists experiencing similar rises are either teenagers — Ty Myers, Bayker Blankenship, and Maddox Batson — or in their post-college 20s — Zach Top, Wyatt Flores, and Dylan Gossett — Westbrook has managed to pull the best of both worlds into his orbit. His support shows in May at the youth-skewed Calf Fry Festival in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and the older-focused Lone Star Smokeout in Arlington, Texas, were among the best-attended sets of each festival. He's also banking on learning the ropes of both performing and fame as he goes. 'The first time I stood onstage, my legs were shaking,' Westbrook says. 'I was nervous as hell. But the more that I do it, and the more that I am myself, the more people are gonna love all this. At the same time, I've also learned that it's not mentally stable for me to sit here and try to please other people. So, I do my best to try to be myself as much as possible onstage and through my songs. 'But, now, if you go to the grocery store, and Hudson bumps into your cart and doesn't say 'excuse me' or says 'screw you' or something worse, and someone takes a video of it — you're done. That's the part that's not fun.' Being from Texas, Westbrook sports a powerful roster of musical influences to help him manage. 'The main reason I love music, really, was Cross Canadian Ragweed. And I listened to Parker [McCollum]. I listened to Koe [Wetzel]. Stoney LaRue, Randy Rogers — all those dudes. I was breaking cattle in college, but going all the way back to when I was a little kid, I just had a bone in my body meant for music. I didn't say anything about it, and I never really told my mom that I wanted to learn guitar, but they knew I loved listening to music. So, when I got my Parker on or my Koe on or my Ragweed '17' on, don't talk to me.' McCollum ended up being more than an influence. The viral song that started it all for Westbrook was 'Take It Slow,' which he put out on social media in May 2024. Nearly immediately, the comment sections were filled with comparisons to McCollum. This is mostly because the two lanky, blond Texans could be dead ringers for one another. 'Even though I listened to these influences, I found that my sound, naturally, has veered so far away from them,' he says. 'People compare me to Parker, and I get it, because I have blond hair and blue eyes, and you want to connect something to it, but it's also not how I sound.' This is evident on Texas Forever, where Westbrook's natural baritone is delivered with a twang that echoes George Strait much more than it does the range of McCollum. The album's 17 tracks are all written or co-written by Westbrook, including a fresh version of his Top 40 country radio single, 'House Again,' which has already been certified gold since its release last fall. The songwriting is straightforward, often incorporating Gen-Z slang prominently. 'On this album, there's a cool trend that's been going on,' he says. 'We've used titles that are everyday sayings, like 'Funny Seeing You Here' or 'Good Taste in Whiskey' — things that people always say that you might think are clever or whatever. So, I took my age and my demographic's slang — and just natural sayings — and used them for song titles. That's the stuff I've related to. 'I've been living rent-free in your head' is a song title, to me. 'I love a good melody and a catchy melody. I hate writing from the hook. I hate having to get that first and then going through the rest of the song. I'd rather let the song go where it wants to go. 'House Again' was written in an hour. 'Five to Nine' was written in 12 hours.' Notably absent from the project is 'Take It Slow' — a bold move given the recognition that song has with Westbrook's fans. It's by design. Westbrook appreciates the song for launching his career, but it's already been overtaken by 'House Again' as the must-play song at his concerts. He feels he's put better music out in the world, and plans to continue that trend. 'That was such a weird time for me, because so many things had to line up and go perfectly,' Westbrook says of his viral hit. 'I met a guy at Guitar Center, and he knew bass, and knew a drummer. The drummer knew a lead player. We all got together, and we went into the studio and recorded 'Take It Slow.' My fiddle player, Silas Clark, took a video of it, and I posted it. I woke up one day to ten million views. But I didn't know or care about a viral moment. As a new artist, I didn't know what good was or what bad was.' Pat Fielder, however, knows good or bad like the back of his hand. Based out of Lawrence, Kansas, Fielder is a senior buyer for Mammoth Live — one of the last major independent promotion companies left in the United States. In the wake of 'Take It Slow,' Fielder immediately put together a series of shows for Westbrook at small to mid-sized clubs across the Midwest last fall and winter. Nearly as quickly, Fielder and his colleagues found they had underestimated Westbrook's draw: The shows sold out. 'We put tickets on sale, and after a few days it became obvious that we needed to decide if we were going to let these shows be sellouts or move them into larger venues due to the demand,' Fielder tells Rolling Stone. 'We ended up doing a little bit of both. I'm not sure that my bosses believed me that he could sell out the larger venues at first, but that only lasted for a day or two.' One of the shows Fielder and Mammoth originally booked for Westbrook was at the 900-capacity Granada Theater in Lawrence, Kansas, set for early February. After selling out in the presale, the show got moved to the 2,400-capacity Uptown Theater in Kansas City — which also sold out. Westbrook took the stage at that show in a Kansas City Chiefs jersey with 'Sold Out' stitched across the back, and he had another viral moment for covering the Chiefs' best-known fan, Taylor Swift, during the set. In hindsight, Fielder says he may have stumbled upon the most concise explanation for Westbrook's appeal. 'My wife and I had her niece, a senior in college at the time, over for dinner,' he recalls. 'She said, 'All my friends who used to make fun of me for listening to country music are obsessed with Hudson Westbrook now.'' That may be a lot of brand-new pressure on Westbrook, but he plans to handle it by putting himself in front of as many people as possible. He'll make his CMA Fest debut this week before launching a full-fledged summer tour on June 7, a tour that includes major Texas shows at Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels and Cook's Garage in Lubbock. He also has a run as McCollum's opener slated for July, for anyone looking to compare the two up close. In fact, that's where Westbrook will be when Texas Forever is released. If he gets his way, he'll be in McCollum's shoes a year from now. 'I want to tour the hell out of it,' Westbrook says of Texas Forever. 'The goal is to play stadiums and headline festivals. Keep working my way up, keep getting better — and stay the same person I was the year before.' Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose fourth book, Never Say Never: Cross Canadian Ragweed, Boys From Oklahoma, and a Red Dirt Comeback Story for the Ages, was released in April via Back Lounge Publishing. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
My son caught world's most infectious disease and could suffer permanent damage... my warning to all parents
A mother who lives in the epicenter of the Texas measles outbreak has revealed how her son's infection left her fearing he could suffer permanent brain damage. Alex, from Lubbock, near Gaines County, revealed her baby erupted in the hallmark red and splotchy measles rash and developed a dangerously high fever after he was exposed at daycare to the virus — the most infectious in the world. At eight months old, he was too young to have received the measles vaccine — which is normally administered for the first time at 12 months old — but there is a high proportion of unvaccinated people in the area, which is experiencing a record-high case count. Earlier this month, the US officially reported 1,000 measles cases in 2025 — marking only the second time case counts have crossed this threshold since the disease was declared eradicated in 2000. And officials are warning if the disease continues to spread unabated, the US could lose its measles elimination status. Alex said her son was exposed to measles on April 3, after another parent sent their child to daycare despite having another child at home who was infected with the virus. She said: 'If you're not going to vaccinate, at the very least, don't send your sick kids to daycare. My baby now has measles.' She was alerted to the infection by the daycare, and immediately isolated her baby — thinking for the first few days that they were in the clear. Then, on April 10, the little boy developed a mild fever, became sluggish and had congestion and a cough. After she took him to see a doctor on April 13, she was told they could see small, white spots on the inside of his cheeks — a sign of a measles infection. The next day an angry, red rash erupted, which spread down from his hairline to his face before eventually overtaking his whole body. The worried mother-of-two posted videos of her son's rash online, where her baby appeared tearful, listless and completely covered in the rash. Alex was extremely concerned her son's infection could turn fatal or leave him with lasting side effects. She said on her TikTok: 'Apart from brain swelling, I'm mostly concerned about secondary pneumonia.' Measles can cause brain inflammation, also known as encephalitis. It is a serious side effect of the virus and can cause permanent brain damage. The CDC reports it occurs in about one in 1,000 cases. Additionally, pneumonia can lead to septic shock, respiratory failure and even kidney and lung damage. Measles is the most infectious disease in the world, with an infected person able to pass the disease to nine out of 10 people exposed who are unvaccinated. It is particularly dangerous to young children, with the CDC saying one in 20 unvaccinated children who are infected develop pneumonia while one in 1,000 suffer from encephalitis — swelling of the brain that can cause permanent damage. One to three in every 1,000 unvaccinated children who are infected die from the disease. Many people commenting on Alex's videos were quick to say the disease did not appear to be a mild illness, with some even saying it motivated them to get their children vaccinated. One wrote: 'My mother told me measles wasn't that bad when I told her I won't travel with my baby because of the outbreak. I sent her this and she changed her mind. My heart hurts for your baby.' A second said: 'I'm so sorry your little angel is going through this. My son got his six months shots today, and I elected to get the MMR early because of your video.' Texas is in the grips of America's biggest measles outbreak in two decades — mostly among young children. Two young and unvaccinated girls, ages six and eight, have died as a result of the outbreak. After two days of the rash, Alex posted it was beginning to calm down — saying she felt they were now over the worst of the virus. Her son was not hospitalized for the disease, but was treated at home to help reduce the symptoms. In another video, she detailed what she gave to her son to help with the infection. She gave him Tylenol and Motrin for the fever and budesonide, a prescription drug used to reduce inflammation. He also received antibiotics to head-off any secondary infections, because measles weakens the immune system — raising the risk of other illnesses. The mother only let her baby sleep lying down on her chest throughout the illness, and kept using cool baths and washcloths to try to lower his temperature. She also gave him the probiotic Ther-Biotic Baby for his gut, and cod liver oil - an unproven remedy touted by Robert F Kennedy Jr - to boost his levels of Vitamin A and D. Her baby had mostly recovered by April 17, with his rash having disappeared. Alex showed him crawling and smiling again. The mother said she posted her son's illness online to warn others over measles, with doctors being quick to comment saying this was the first modern case recorded publicly that they had seen. Alex has another child who has been vaccinated against measles, and she said she was not pro- or anti-vaccine, but felt it was important for everyone to work together to stop the disease from spreading.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Climate
- Washington Post
Cantaloupe-sized hail keeps bombarding Texas
Mammoth hail keeps pelting parts of Central Texas. Cantaloupe-sized hail — approximately six inches in diameter — was recovered following a series of rotating supercell thunderstorms earlier this week. One of the stones that fell in Menard, Texas, was 5.87 inches across, and was picked up by a team of researchers conducting a hail study field mission. While it just missed this threshold, the technical term for six-inch hail is 'gargantuan' (yes, really). A year ago this week, meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Lubbock issued the first-ever 'DVD-sized hail' warning, corresponding to stones at least 4.75 to 5 inches in diameter. Hail that large is difficult to detect on radar. Unless forecasters receive real-time reports from storm chasers or the public, most warnings are usually for softball-size (4.00 inches in diameter) or grapefruit-size (4.50 inches in diameter) hail. Sunday's biggest hailstones fell in Afton, Texas — about 70 miles east-northeast of Lubbock. The storm chasers who found them estimated they weighed nearly a pound and a half each. On April 24, storm chaser Adam Lucio posted on social media that he recovered a 5.22-inch hailstone near Cedar Hill, Texas. And on April 29, I found a 4.74-inch 'DVD-sized' hailstone during a storm in nearby Guthrie, Texas. The vicinity of Dickens County, Texas, had three 'DVD-sized' hailstorms in 33 days. And it's roughly the same area where a 7.25-inch stone fell on June 2, 2024. (That one hit the rural settlement of Vigo Park, Texas, and was approximately the size and shape of a pineapple.) The National Weather Service has implemented a standardized lexicon for talking about big hail. 'Baseball-size' hail is 2.75 inches in diameter, for example. Three-inch hail is 'teacup-size,' and 3.5-inch hail is 'large apple-size.' Meteorologists hadn't really thought of anything past DVDs given the rarity of six-inch hail. Now, storm chasers have gravitated toward 'cantaloupe-size.' Why is so much of this huge hail being produced in this part of Texas? The spring months feature something called a 'dryline' in west Central Texas. That's the border between bone-dry desert air to the west and moisture-rich Gulf air to the east. Those clashing air masses, which wage regular battles near Interstate 27 from Amarillo to Lubbock and then south to Midland-Odessa, spark rotating supercell thunderstorms that can produce massive hail. But east of Lubbock, there's also another factor at play — the presence of Palo Duro Canyon and the Caprock Escarpment. It's the transition zone between the lower-elevation rolling terrain to the east and the elevated high plains of the Llano Estacado, situated at more than 3,000 feet elevation, to the west. The rocky, uneven terrain of the Caprock makes for uneven heating, with sunshine on some features and shade falling on others. That can induce local circulations and air currents that frequently generate the first storms of the day. And whichever storm sprouts first often has access to the greatest supply of undisturbed storm fuel. The world record (and national record) is an 8.00-inch diameter hailstone, which was logged during an extreme storm in Vivian, South Dakota, on June 23, 2010. It weighed 1 pound 15 ounces, and left a crater in the ground.
