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This year’s Paris Olympics were a fantastic showing of athletic prowess, comeback stories, camaraderie and friendship, and Texas athletes helped more than we could have hoped to make that possible.
Nineteen Texas athletes won 28 of the United States’ 126 medals, according to The Washington Post. Current and former University of Texas student-athletes won 16 medals, including six gold, according to UT. The number of medals won by athletes with Texas ties is higher still, according to The Dallas Morning News SportsDay team.
That’s worth celebrating. And this year’s games came with a few comeback stories that have made us positively giddy.
Sha’Carri Richardson, the 24-year-old Dallas track star and finalist for our 2023 Texan of the Year award, proved she still has her stride. After she was suspended from the Tokyo Olympics for testing positive for THC, Richardson this year helped lead the U.S. to a gold medal in the women’s 4x100m relay final, Dallas Morning News columnist Kevin Sherrington reported from Paris.
Brittney Griner made a great comeback as well. Two years ago, Griner was imprisoned in a Russian penal colony, unsure of whether she would ever get home, let alone play basketball again.
But a 2022 prisoner swap brought her back stateside after spending 10 long months in prison, and this year, Griner did better than just compete in the Olympics again. She helped bring home a gold medal for the U.S. women’s basketball team in a nail-biter of a game against France, marking the team’s eighth consecutive gold medal in the event.
And who could forget about the woman who is perhaps the greatest gymnast of our time? She calls herself “Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, that loves to flip,” Sherrington reported. After withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics for mental health reasons, she brought home three gold medals and a silver this year.
If winning a silver medal in the Olympics can be called a defeat, Biles showed extraordinary graciousness in it. After the floor exercise event, she called Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who won the gold, “queen,” Sherrington reported.
There have been a couple of sour notes, like the dispute over a bronze medal involving Jordan Chiles and Romanian Ana Barbosu in the floor exercise. But even still, the Olympic games, and the athletes who made them so wonderful to watch, reminded us why these events mean more than medals. They are about people who come together despite differences of culture, language and politics.
They set the example of graciousness in victory and in defeat.
In an age when many of us don’t watch the same things or talk about the same things, these Olympics brought us together. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that a little unity can go a long way, especially with divisions all around us.
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Saturday started out a bit warm and sticky outside in North Texas, but there will be plenty of sunshine in the afternoon. Temperatures are expected to climb into the upper 80s. Most of the area will stay dry today, but there is a chance for an isolated storm that could reach severe criteria late tonight for counties to the northwest of the metroplex.
Make sure you have an indoor plan for Mother’s Day celebrations tomorrow! Sunday morning will start warm, muggy, and dry for most with the exception of an isolated storm possible along the Red River.
A First Alert Weather Day is in place on Sunday due to a front that will swing across North Texas in the late afternoon through the evening. All modes of severe weather will be likely, but the main threat includes a significant risk of hail up to 2 inches in diameter and winds up to category 1 hurricane strength.
Once the front moves through, cooler temperatures will settle into the forecast on Monday. However, the cool down won’t last long. A warming trend returns and temperatures climb into the 90’s once again at the end of the next week. Stay tuned!
Just days before Mother’s Day, a North Texas father is grieving the sudden loss of his wife and unborn son after she died unexpectedly, only days before her due date. Avi Carey said he is still in shock over the death of his wife, Tiffany, whom he described as his “rock” and “soulmate.”
“Tiffany’s smile, her radiance, her presence … she didn’t meet a stranger,” Carey said.
The couple had been together for nearly two decades, raising two children, Kingston and Kasyn, and preparing to welcome their third child, a baby boy they planned to name Kylo.
Carey said Tiffany began complaining of a severe headache just days before she was due to give birth. He recalled her sitting on the couch, dozing off multiple times – something he said was unusual.
A short time later, Carey found her unresponsive.
“I saw her face … her lips were blue. And I already knew,” he said with tears in his eyes.
Tiffany Carey and her unborn son died May 2, leaving behind a grieving husband and two children. The loss came less than a week after the family had celebrated a baby shower.
“We went from celebrating the baby shower to planning a funeral in less than five days,” Carey said.
Health officials say cases like this highlight a broader crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women in the United States are more than three times as likely as white women to die from pregnancy‑related causes, and most of those deaths – around 80% – are considered preventable.
Carey said he is still searching for answers and now lives with questions about whether warning signs were missed.
“I would say educate yourself. Take everything seriously,” he said. “That should have been a red flag … the headache.”
Now, surrounded by baby supplies meant for a child who never arrived, Carey said he is focused on honoring Tiffany’s memory and raising their children with the values she lived by.
“She always said, ‘You’ve got to lead with love,’” he said. “She did that in everything.”
Trump administration to release UFO files soon, president says
President Trump said his administration plans to release information and materials relating to UFOs.
Ever look up at the vast Texas sky and see something move across it? It could be a shooting star, a satellite — or a UFO.
The Pentagon released several documents Friday, May 8, detailing sightings of unidentified flying objects, or “bogeys,” in U.S. airspace, including reports from Texas.
The documents were released by the U.S. Department of Defense at the directive of President Donald Trump, marking the release of government files related to “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)” and UFOs.
“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation — and it’s time the American people see it for themselves. This release of declassified documents demonstrates the Trump Administration’s earnest commitment to unprecedented transparency,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in a statement.
Here’s a look at the files related to Texas.
A DoD incident summary shows that on Jan. 1, 1948, a man identified as “Mr. A. Schroeder” reported a UFO in the 1100 block of Highland Ave in Abilene, Texas.
Schroeder reported seeing a stationary bright blue-green bell-shaped object in the western sky above Abilene at 1:25 a.m. and 1:30 a.m.
Also in 1948, Lt. Aytch Johnson noticed a silver flat disk in the sky in Fairbanks, Alaska.
According to the incident report, the Fort Worth man observed the object flying over Alaska at around 1:06 p.m. on April 18, 1948, at an estimated speed of 250 to 300 miles per hour.
The report also noted that the sighting “may have been the reflection of sun from wings” of aircrafts flying in the area at the time.
The DoD released the transcript and audio file of NASA’s Gemini 7 mission in 1965 when astronaut Frank Borman reported to NASA mission control in Houston his sighting of an unidentified object, which he referred to as a “bogey.”
While the launch didn’t take place in Texas, the report came back to space control in Houston.
The conversation occurred on Dec. 5, 1965 — 4 hours and 24 minutes into the flight — when Borman notified space control that there was a “bogey” on their left-hand side.
When asked to clarify what they are seeing, Borman said he was seeing “hundreds of little particles” on their left, about three to four miles away.
As NASA Public Affairs clarified, the bogey was an unidentified object, along with the particles.
Some documents have connections or reports of possible UFO sightings in Texas, but are missing details to understand the situation.
For example, the DoD received a clipping from the Yoakum Times-Record reporting UFO sightings by Mrs. Anna Banys in 1947, but it is unclear why she was writing to the DoD.
This is a developing story. Check back for more updates.
Mateo Rosiles is the Texas Connect reporter for USA TODAY and its regional papers in Texas. Got a news tip for him? Email him at mrosiles@usatodayco.com.
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