A swimmer at Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, located about 45 miles northwest of Austin, Texas, has died after developing a meningitis infection from a brain-eating amoeba in the water, health officials announced Wednesday. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress
Aug. 30 (UPI) — A swimmer in Texas has died after developing a meningitis infection caused by a brain-eating amoeba from an Austin area lake, health officials announced Wednesday.
Austin Public Health officials said the swimmer, who has not been identified, contracted an amebic meningitis infection from Naegleria fowleri, more commonly known as a brain-eating amoeba, after swimming in Lake Lyndon B. Johnson earlier this month.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, primary amebic meningoencephalitis infections are rare with only 39 reported infections in Texas between 1962 and 2022. A sample from the case has been sent to the CDC.
“Although these infections are very rare, this is an important reminder that there are microbes present in natural bodies of water that can pose risks of infection,” Austin-Travis County Health Authority Dr. Desmar Walkes said in a statement. “Increased temperatures over the summer make it ideal for harmful microorganisms to grow and flourish.”
Naegleria fowleri is a free-living amoeba that lives in warm freshwater and soil. It can also live in swimming pools that are not properly chlorinated. The amoeba, which is more commonly found in Texas and Florida, does not live in salt water.
Health officials say the amoeba usually enters the body through the nose and travels to the brain where it can cause an infection that destroys tissue, which is usually fatal. The infection cannot occur if water is swallowed.
Initial symptoms of a amebic meningitis infection, which can begin one to 12 days after swimming, are severe headache, fever, nausea and vomiting before progressing to seizures, stiff neck, coma and death within 18 days of exposure.
To reduce risk of infection, health officials warn swimmers to limit water going up their nose by holding their nose shut, wearing nose clips and keeping their head above water.
Health officials also recommend staying out of warm freshwater during periods of hot weather.
The city of Arlington also announced Wednesday it has shut down its public splash pads and pools after a water sample detected the possible presence of Naegleria fowleri.
The sample was collected from the California Lane Park splash pad as part of a voluntary federal study. City officials were notified Tuesday that the sample had tested positive.
In 2021, a 3-year-old boy died after he became ill with the brain-eating amoeba following a visit to Arlington’s Don Misenhimer splash pad. Since his death, Arlington implemented the Bakari Williams Protocols which require increased chemical testing for the city’s pools in the boy’s honor.
Arlington city officials said they have not been notified of any illnesses this month linked to the facilities. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently conducting follow-up tests on the water.
Kinky Friedman, the cigar-chomping, mustachioed Texan country singer and mystery novelist whose body of work often seemed like the un-kosher marriage of the Borscht Belt and the Bible Belt, died June 27 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 79.
As frontman for the flamboyant 1970s country group Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, he was notorious for satirical songs such as “They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” a raucous sendup of racism, and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed,” which poked fun at feminism.
He could also turn serious, with songs dealing with social issues such as abortion and commercialism. His 1973 song “Ride ’em Jewboy” is a haunting elegy on the Holocaust, recorded by Willie Nelson and sung in concert by Bob Dylan. The lyrics transform cowboy cliches into a rumination on Hitler’s victims:
Now the smoke from camps a-rising
See the helpless creatures on their way
Hey, old pal, ain’t it surprising
How far you can go before you stay?
The Jewboys broke up in the mid-1970s and Friedman spent much of the next decade in a haze of drugs. In the mid-1980s he cleaned up and began writing a series of successful, raunchy, comic mystery novels whose main character is himself. He wrote more than 20 books, all on a manual typewriter.
https://youtu.be/uBewkqSdehQ
One reviewer, the actress and author Fannie Flagg, described his writing as “Raymond Chandler on drugs, if Chandler had possessed a tremendous sense of humor.”
In 2006 he ran for governor of Texas, looking to unseat incumbent Republican Rick Perry in a bid that went from joking to serious. His campaign material included a 13-inch talking action figure and bumper stickers that read, “My governor is a Jewish cowboy.” His official campaign slogan was “Why the hell not?” He considered himself tough on immigration, pro-choice, anti-capital punishment and a proponent of alternative fuels.
In time, his campaign gathered force as a serious quest to shake up Texas politics, break down traditional party machines and reach out to a dramatically disaffected electorate.
“In the last election for governor, only 29% of eligible voters went to the polls,” Friedman, known as “the Kinkster,” told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that year. “Seventy-one percent didn’t vote — they didn’t like the choice between paper and plastic.”
In the end, Friedman placed fourth in the six-person race, receiving 12.6% of the vote.
Born Richard Samet Friedman in Chicago in 1944, he moved with his parents to Texas as a baby and earned his nickname in college from his curly hair. His parents were educators who ran a summer camp for mainly Jewish children at Echo Hill Ranch, the 400-acre spread where Friedman would come to live in a small but rambling lodge.
“We had services every Friday night, and Kinky would play the guitar,” Ellen St. Clair, who spent four summers at Echo Hill, told JTA in 2006.
The property is also home to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, a home and adoption center for abused and abandoned dogs that Friedman helped found.
He attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he majored in psychology. Friedman proudly recalled that during their time as members of the Jewish Tau Delta Phi fraternity he and a friend, Nathan “Chinga” Chavin, tried to admit African-American students, an effort that was ultimately thwarted.
After graduating in 1966, he served in the Peace Corps in Borneo. After returning from the Peace Corps, he formed Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, at a time when hybrid “country rock” bands — including The Band, the Eagles and Buffalo Springfield — were rising up the charts. The Jewboys drew a cult following — and occasional protests, as when the National Organization for Women awarded Friedman its “Male Chauvinist Pig Award” in 1973.
In early 1976, he joined Dylan on the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Friedman claimed to have been the first “full-blooded” Jew to take the stage at the Grand Ole Opry.
Friedman would cite Mark Twain and the humorist Will Rogers as his heroes, and the inevitable comparisons were not far off.
“These days,” he once said, “there are many people around the world who listen to the songs that made me infamous and read the books that made me respectable.”
As a part of its rankings week showcase, EA has released its top offenses for the new EA CFB 25 game, with the Texas Longhorns tying for the third-highest-rated squad in this year’s game.
Texas was given a 91-rated offense, tying with Alabama for the third spot. The two teams ahead of the Longhorns and Crimson Tide are Georgia and Oregon, who share the top spot with a 94 overall rating.
Texas looks to feature one of the best offenses in real life in 2024, which will lead to exciting gameplay for the first college football game in over a decade. Just two returning Power Five quarterbacks had more passing yards in 2024 than Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, and he’ll have the privilege of throwing to the transfer portal’s top receiver Isaiah Bond in the upcoming year.
The offensive line is also one of the best in the nation, ranking inside the top five of rankings from sites like On3, PFF, and 247. Behind that line will be runningbacks CJ Baxter and Jaydon Blue, who combined for 1,057 rushing yards on over five yards per carry in 2023. The Texas offense is filled from top to bottom with playmakers, likely making them one of the deepest offenses to play within the game.
At the quarterback position, Ewers will likely be one of the three highest-rated passers, especially given his status as the cover athlete, and is backed up by Arch Manning, who sadly won’t be in the game due to him opting out. Whether they replace him with an auto-generated player or just leave him out, freshman Trey Owens will be a fine backup in the game.
The running back room not only features Baxter, the No. 1 rusher in the class of 2023, and Blue, but also Tre Wisner, who averaged six yards per carry last year, and the No. 3 running back in the class of 2024, Jerrick Gibson. Baxter will be the highest rated of the group, but the other three rushers will likely be pushing above 95 speed, making them perfect for a simulation football game.
In the receiving core, Bond is joined by two other transfer receivers Matthew Golden and Silas Bolden. Both pass-catchers were rated as four-star or higher transfers, and tight end Amari Niblack was the top tight end transfer in the country. Returning for the Longhorns are sophomore stud wide receivers Johntay Cook, DeAndre Moore, and Ryan Niblett, while five-star freshman Ryan Wingo will bring verticality to the team.
This offense will not only be one of the highest rated but also the most fun teams in the game. With the bountiful playbook of head coach Steve Sarkisian and his love for players with speed, it’ll be hard to slow down an offense like this.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick warned of the deadly consequences of the border crisis, calling out President Biden for failing to “seal the border with Mexico right now” following the brutal murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray.
“If Joe Biden had any compassion at all for this family or the families of Laken Riley or Rachel Morin and others who have been killed… he would secure the border on Thursday, the day of [Nungaray’s] funeral,” Patrick told “America’s Newsroom,” Wednesday.
“This little girl, she was tortured, she was strangled, and she was thrown in the river like a rag doll,” he continued. “Now I want America to wake up. This can come to your wife, your daughter, your sister, your grandmother. It can happen to you. There are animals roaming this country today because of Joe Biden, and these three women I just named would all be alive today – today – if it weren’t for Joe Biden. The blood is on his hands.”
MIGRANT ARRESTED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT RAPE OF 13-YEAR-OLD IN NEW YORK PARK
Video image of Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, and image of Jocelyn Nungaray (Houston Police Department; Fox Houston Courtesy of the Nungaray family)
Prosecutors said Tuesday that two illegal immigrants from Venezuela allegedly lured the Houston girl under a bridge where they sexually assaulted her before tying her up and killing her.
Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, have each been charged with capital murder.
“While we’re there, looking at the casket and praying for this family, [Biden] will be letting more animals like the two that allegedly killed her into this country,” Patrick remarked.
The Texas Republican urged former President Trump to confront Biden at Thursday night’s CNN Presidential Debate on the result of his border policies.
“I would ask President Biden, ‘can you tell me who Rachel Morin is? Can you tell me who Jocelyn is? Can you tell me who Laken Riley is?’ And Joe Biden has a choice. He could either say, ‘Yes, there are three people who should be alive today except for my border policies,’ or, ’I don’t know who they are,’” he said.
Jocelyn’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, tearfully told “Hannity” on Tuesday that “we have to stop burying our kids.”
“This isn’t right. We have to have more reinforcement when it comes to letting people in. This is not okay,” she said.
Pena Ramos illegally crossed into El Paso, Texas, in May, sources with the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Fox News. He was caught by Border Patrol agents and was released into the U.S. with a Notice to Appear in court.
Rangel Martinez also crossed illegally into El Paso in March and was caught by Border Patrol. He was released into the U.S. on an unknown basis.
Pena Ramos was wearing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) ankle bracelet at the time of the crime – a detail highlighted by Jocelyn’s grandfather, Kelvin Alvarenga, during the “Hannity” interview.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told Fox News in a statement Friday that he “illegally entered the U.S. without inspection, parole or admission by a U.S. immigration officer on an unknown date and at an unknown location.”
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg described the city of Houston as a “huge international hub” that draws in people from all over the country.
“Unfortunately, we see a great deal of violence committed by illegal immigrants, and we see as many victimized by other illegals and regular people here. It’s an enormous problem. This was bound to happen,” Ogg told Fox News on Tuesday. “It’s one of those things that, as an elected prosecutor, you are just waiting for [the] other shoe to drop. I’m just sick and sickened this little girl was the innocent victim of these two monsters.”
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Fox News’ Louis Casiano, Bill Melugin, Griff Jenkins, Yael Halon and Greg Norman contributed to this report.
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