A young Texas Highway Patrol trooper died over the weekend after he was wounded while investigating a car crash.

The Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS) announced the death of Trooper Kevin Alexis Ramirez Vasquez, 25, in a press release on Sunday. Ramirez Vasquez was responding to an accident when he was “struck by a vehicle” on Tuesday morning.

“Trooper Ramirez Vasquez suffered serious injuries and was taken to Medical Center Hospital in Odessa,” the department said. “He was then airlifted to a Lubbock-area hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on Sept. 28.”

The trooper, who is survived by his parents and three siblings, joined the TXDPS in 2023 and was stationed in Odessa. He had also served in the U.S. military, both before and during his time as a trooper.

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Trooper Kevin Alexis Ramirez Vasquez, 25, died after responding to a car accident. (Texas Department of Public Safety via Facebook)

“Trooper Ramirez Vasquez lived a life of service, serving in the United States Army prior to joining the department, and he was currently serving in the National Guard,” the press release stated.

“He is the 241st DPS officer to die in the line of duty since 1823.”

In a statement, TXDPS Director Steven McCraw said there are “no words to ease the loss of one of our brothers in uniform.”

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The trooper was stationed at the Texas Department of Public Safety office in Odessa. (Google Maps)

“Texas Highway Patrol Trooper Kevin Alexis Ramirez Vasquez served this state honorably to his very last breath,” McGraw said. “His commitment to keeping the roads safe, protecting the people of Texas and the sacrifice he made will never be forgotten.”

Trooper Kevin Alexis Ramirez Vasquez, 25, had also served in the Army and National Guard. (Texas Department of Public Safety)

“Today, I ask that you keep his family, friends and colleagues in your prayers during the difficult days ahead.”

Fox News Digital reached out to TXDPS for additional comment.

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Fruity Pebbles, Starburst, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and sports drinks are just some of the foods and beverages that could disappear from California schools after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning certain artificial food dyes from K-12 campuses.

Assembly Bill 2316, which goes into effect beginning on Dec. 31, 2027, bans the use of Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 in foods and drinks being sold at schools statewide.

The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), the same California lawmaker who spearheaded the effort to ban certain additives in some processed foods from being sold in the state.

According to the bill’s authors, the chemicals have been linked to developmental and behavioral harms in children, who cited a 2021 report from the California Environmental Protection Agency.

The Food and Drug Administration has said color additives are safe for consumption when used within its regulations and that it has “reviewed and will continue to examine the effects of color additives on children’s behavior.”

For Gabriel, the bill is personal. In March, the lawmaker told the Los Angeles Times that he had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a child. His son also has the neurodevelopmental disorder.

“California is once again leading the nation when it comes to protecting our kids from dangerous chemicals that can harm their bodies and interfere with their ability to learn. This bipartisan law will empower schools to better protect the health and wellbeing of students and sends a strong message to manufacturers to stop using these harmful additives,” Gabriel said in a statement.

Gabriel also hopes the new law will “encourage the federal government to take a more proactive role in protecting Americans from dangerous chemicals in our food supply.”

AB 2316 builds on legislation Newsom signed last year, which banned the sale of food containing four widely considered harmful food additives commonly found in candies and baked goods.

AB 418, which Newsom signed last year, requires manufacturers to reformulate their products by Jan. 1, 2027, to comply with state law. This impacts food sold anywhere in California.

AB 2316 only applies to school nutrition.

“Our health is inextricably tied to the food we eat – but fresh, healthy foods aren’t always available or affordable for families. Today, we are refusing to accept the status quo, and making it possible for everyone, including school kids, to access nutritious, delicious food without harmful, and often addictive additives,” Newsom said in a statement.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and an A-list Hollywood actor, has died.

Kristofferson died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said in an email. He was 88.

McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given.

Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such country and rock ‘n’ roll standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”

He starred opposite Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” starred opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 “A Star Is Born,” and acted alongside Wesley Snipes in Marvel’s “Blade” in 1998.

Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.

“There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said at a 2009 BMI award ceremony for Kristofferson. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”

Kristofferson retired from performing and recording in 2021, making only occasional guest appearances on stage, including a performance with Cash’s daughter Rosanne at Nelson’s 90th birthday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 2023. The two sang “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again),” a song that was a hit for Kristofferson and a longtime live staple for Nelson, another great interpreter of his work.

Nelson and Kristofferson would join forces with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to create the country supergroup “The Highwaymen” starting in the mid-1980s.

Kristofferson was a Golden Gloves boxer, rugby star and football player in college; received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England; and flew helicopters as a captain in the U.S. Army but turned down an appointment to teach at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.

At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Cash liked to tell a mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years in interviews, Kristofferson said with all respect to Cash, while he did land a helicopter at Cash’s house, the Man in Black wasn’t even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut and he certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.

In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.

“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He kind of took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record that was record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”

One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, “Performing Songwriter,” that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”

Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.

Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”

In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge and together they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.

The formation of the Highwaymen, with Nelson, Cash and Jennings, was another pivotal point in his career as a performer.

“I think I was different from the other guys in that I came in it as a fan of all of them,” Kristofferson told the AP in 2005. “I had a respect for them when I was still in the Army. When I went to Nashville they were like major heroes of mine because they were people who took the music seriously. To be not only recorded by them but to be friends with them and to work side by side was just a little unreal. It was like seeing your face on Mount Rushmore.”

The group put out just three albums between 1985 and 1995. Jennings died in 2002 and Cash died a year later. Kristofferson said in 2005 that there was some talk about reforming the group with other artists, such as George Jones or Hank Williams Jr., but Kristofferson said it wouldn’t have been the same.

“When I look back now — I know I hear Willie say it was the best time of his life,” Kristofferson said in 2005. “For me, I wish I was more aware how short of a time it would be. It was several years, but it was still like the blink of an eye. I wish I would have cherished each moment.”

Among the four, only Nelson is now alive.

Kristofferson’s sharp-tongued political lyrics sometimes hurt his popularity, especially in the late 1980s. His 1989 album, “Third World Warrior” was focused on Central America and what United States policy had wrought there, but critics and fans weren’t excited about the overtly political songs.

He said during a 1995 interview with the AP he remembered a woman complaining about one of the songs that began with killing babies in the name of freedom.

“And I said, ‘Well, what made you mad — the fact that I was saying it or the fact that we’re doing it? To me, they were getting mad at me ’cause I was telling them what was going on.”

As the son of an Air Force General, he enlisted in the Army in the 1960s because it was expected of him.

“I was in ROTC in college, and it was just taken for granted in my family that I’d do my service,” he said in a 2006 AP interview. “From my background and the generation I came up in, honor and serving your country were just taken for granted. So, later, when you come to question some of the things being done in your name, it was particularly painful.”

Hollywood may have saved his music career. He still got exposure through his film and television appearances even when he couldn’t afford to tour with a full band.

Kristofferson’s first role was in Dennis Hopper’s “The Last Movie,” in 1971.

He had a fondness for Westerns, and would use his gravelly voice to play attractive, stoic leading men. He was Burstyn’s ruggedly handsome love interest in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and a tragic rock star in a rocky relationship with Streisand in “A Star Is Born,” a role echoed by Bradley Cooper in the 2018 remake.

He was the young title outlaw in director Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” a truck driver for the same director in 1978’s “Convoy,” and a corrupt sheriff in director John Sayles’ 1996, “Lone Star.” He also starred in one of Hollywood biggest financial flops, “Heaven’s Gate,” a 1980 Western that ran tens of millions of dollars over budget.

And in a rare appearance in a superhero movie, he played the mentor of Snipes’ vampire hunter in “Blade.”

He described in a 2006 AP interview how he got his first acting gigs when he performed in Los Angeles.

“It just happened that my first professional gig was at the Troubadour in L.A. opening for Linda Rondstadt,” Kristofferson said. “Robert Hilburn (Los Angeles Times music critic) wrote a fantastic review and the concert was held over for a week,” Kristofferson said. “There were a bunch of movie people coming in there, and I started getting film offers with no experience. Of course, I had no experience performing either.”

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Hall reported from Nashville. AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Rosanne Cash.