By NADIA LATHAN

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Two major lottery drawings in Texas that put nearly $180 million in the pockets of winning ticket holders have set off widening state investigations over concern that ticket sellers and buyers may have exploited the rules.

The Texas Lottery, one of the largest in the U.S., is facing mounting scrutiny from state leaders over how the winners of an $83 million jackpot this month and a $95 million prize in 2023 purchased their odds-defying tickets. Both are among the largest jackpots in the history of the Texas lottery.

At the heart of the issue, Texas officials say, is whether the games are on a level playing field.

On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his own investigation on top of one announced earlier this week by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Part of the issue lies with couriers, the companies that purchase lottery tickets for customers remotely. One was used by this month’s winner.

Edith Patlan grabs printed tickets from a Texas Lottery sales terminal at Fuel City in Dallas, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

“Texas citizens deserve far better than bad actors getting rich off of a lottery system that is open to exploitation, and we will hold anyone who engages in illegal activity accountable,” Paxton said in a statement.

Here’s what else to know about Texas’ mega lottery winnings:

What are courier services?

Couriers are companies that buy and send lottery tickets on behalf of customers online. The practice bypasses state law that requires tickets to be purchased in person. Couriers, which operate in 19 states according to a 2024 report from the Florida Office of Program Analysis and Government Accountability, do not have any regulatory oversight or licensing requirements in Texas.

Some lawmakers have expressed concern about children and people outside the state purchasing tickets.

The head of the Texas Lottery Commission said this month that the agency will ban couriers, walking back years of resistance to pushing them out of the market.

A Texas Lottery sales terminal shows the jackpot amounts up to win at Fuel City in Dallas, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

“Lottery courier services operating in Texas have been a significant concern for many of our stakeholders,” executive director Ryan Mindell said in a statement. “Previously, the agency interpreted its authority as not extending to the regulation or prohibition of these services.” The agency has since reconsidered after reviewing state laws, Mindell said.

Who won the nearly $180 million?

Neither winner of the big drawings has come forward publicly and they are under no obligation to do so under Texas law.

The $83 million ticket was purchased by a customer at a courier store called Winners Corner in Austin on Feb 17. The chain has locations in six states.

The $95 million drawing from 2023 was won after the winners purchased nearly every possible number combination, according to Abbott’s office. An investigation by the Houston Chronicle found the ticket was purchased at a retailer that added a dozen lottery terminals to print tickets the day before the drawing.

Experts told the newspaper that QR codes can be read by the machines to process large volumes of tickets in a short time. Normally, the QR images generate directly from the Texas Lottery Commission’s mobile app.

A Texas Lottery sales terminal screen is shown at Fuel City in Dallas, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

One of the state’s five lottery commissioners has since resigned amid the criticism and the commission said it will no longer allow tickets to be purchased through couriers.

“We do not engage in bulk ticket purchasing, we are not part of some organized crime syndicate,” Paul Prezioso, an executive at courier site Jackpot.com told lawmakers Monday. “We believe that a regulated courier industry is a net positive for the state of Texas.”

Can you still purchase lottery tickets in Texas?

The Texas Lottery is still in full swing and residents will be allowed to use courier services until the state’s Lottery Commission changes the rules, which is expected to happen in April.

The commission’s plan to ban couriers comes after years of insisting that the body had no authority over the companies. It also follows criticism from Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a former television sportscaster in Houston who earlier this month walked into a Winners Corner store with a camera rolling and began asking questions.

Gambling in Texas

Texas gambling has had a complicated history in recent years. Efforts to expand gambling in the nation’s second-most populous state have failed despite expensive lobbying blitzes to bring casinos to the state and legalize sports gambling.

Supporters have sought to put a constitutional amendment to voters, but the proposals have not gotten far in the Legislature.

The state lottery has brought in more than $40 billion in revenue and awarded more than $90 billion in winnings since its establishment in 1992, according to the commission’s website.

Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

By JAMIE STENGLE, Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — On the Texas border, Dr. Hector Granados treats children with diabetes at his El Paso clinics and makes hospital rounds under the shadow of accusations that have thrown his career into jeopardy: providing care to transgender youth.

In what’s believed to be a U.S. first, Texas is suing Granados and two other physicians over claims that they violated the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, calling the doctors “scofflaws” in lawsuits filed last fall that threaten to impose steep fines and revoke their medical licenses. He denies the accusations, and all three doctors have asked courts to dismiss the cases.

The cases are a pivotal test of intensifying Republican efforts to prevent such treatments, including President Donald Trump’s executive order that would bar federal support for gender-affirming care for youth under 19.

Some hospitals have already begun unwinding services for pediatric patients. But, so far, only Texas is demonstrating what punishing doctors looks like when bans are allegedly broken.

Granados, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he was meticulous in halting transgender care before Texas’ ban took effect in 2023. He denied that he continued prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to transitioning patients and said he was initially unclear which patients, who are not named in the lawsuit, he is accused of wrongfully treating.

Pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados speaks during an interview at his private practice in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

The other accused doctors — both in Dallas — are under temporary court orders not to see patients and only practice medicine in research and academic settings.

“Looking at the patients was hard because they were kind of disappointed of what was going on,” Granados said of ending their care. “But it was something that needed to be followed because it’s the law.”

The lawsuits are believed to be the first time a state has brought enforcement under laws that ban or restrict gender-affirming care for minors, which Republicans have enacted in 27 states, including this month in Kansas over the Democratic governor’s veto. Although those accused of violating bans face criminal charges in some states, they do not in Texas.

Nationwide, doctors and hospital executives are reevaluating transgender health programs that carry a widening risk of litigation and losing federal funding. For transgender Americans, the climate has narrowed options for care and deepened fears.

Trump has launched a broad charge against transgender rights quickly in his second term, signing executive orders that include barring schools from using federal education dollars to support students who are socially transitioning. Supporters say restrictions protect vulnerable children from what they see as a “radical” ideology about gender and making irreversible medical decisions.

The Texas lawsuits were brought by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has previously gone beyond the state’s borders to launch investigations into gender-affirming treatment.

His office did not respond to requests for an interview. At a court hearing Wednesday involving the Dallas doctors, an attorney in Paxton’s office declined to comment and referred questions to the agency’s press office.

“I will enforce the law to the fullest extent to prevent any doctor from providing these dangerous drugs to kids,” Paxton said in a statement this month.

A practice in El Paso

Granados is one of two pediatric endocrinologists in El Paso, a desert city of about 700,000 where mountains rise in the distance.

Granados, 48, is from Ciudad Juarez, the neighboring Mexican city that sprawls out south of El Paso. He said that after attending medical school in Mexico he completed additional training in New York and Connecticut but he wanted to return to what he said is an underserved region.

He opened a gender clinic at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso before starting his own practice in 2019. Before the ban, Granados said, treating transgender youth was just an extension of his practice that also treats youth with diabetes, growth problems and early puberty.

He said he accepted transgender patients only if they had first received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a mental health provider.

“It was not different from doing everything else that a pediatric endocrinologist does,” he said. “It was just taking care of children who required that specific therapy.”

Emiliana Edwards was among them. Now 18, she called Granados an “amazing” caregiver who carefully explained her gender-affirming treatment. But at her first appointment after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the ban in 2023, Edwards said the room felt different, “like there were wires everywhere.”

Emiliana Edwards, 18, former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados speaks during an interview in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

“It felt like we couldn’t talk about anything really, even the most simple stuff,” she said.

Her mother, Lorena Edwards, said Granados put a “cold stop” to her daughter’s care.

“It was just: ‘I don’t provide that care anymore.’ And it was done,” she said.

Bringing cases to court

At the heart of Texas’ lawsuits against Granados, Dr. May Lau and Dr. M. Brett Cooper are allegations of prescribing treatment to transition their patients’ sex after the ban took effect.

In one instance, the state accuses Granados of prescribing testosterone to a 16-year-old, alleging that although the doctor’s records identify the patient as male, the teenager’s sex assigned at birth is female. Granados and Lau are also accused of having instructed patients to wait until after the ban was in place to fill prescriptions.

Granados does not dispute that he has continued prescribing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. He said those treatments are not for gender transition but for children with endocrine disorders, which occur when hormone levels are too high or too low.

He said he prescribes testosterone for many reasons, including for patients whose testicles don’t work or had to be removed because of cancer. Others have brain tumors, or surgery or radiation to the brain, that impact puberty. Patients with early onset puberty also need puberty blockers, he said.

Attorneys for Lau said she has always complied with the law and the claims have no merit. Attorneys for Cooper did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is really part of a bigger pattern of extremism within the state that even other states have shied away from replicating,” said Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal for the Human Rights Campaign.

Transgender adults and youth make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, according to estimates by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ research center at the UCLA School of Law.

Going elsewhere for care

Granados’ trial has been set for late October; trial dates have not yet been set yet for Lau and Cooper. While the cases are pending, Lau and Cooper agreed to practice medicine only in research and academic settings and not see patients.

Neither Lau or Cooper attended the Wednesday hearing in their cases by a judge who is set to decide where their trials will be held.

Under Texas’ ban, the state medical board is instructed to revoke the licenses of doctors who are found to have violated the law.

Lorena Edwards said she watched her daughter thrive during her transition then descend into melancholy as laws targeting transgender rights gained steam.

Emiliana Edwards has switched to receiving treatment in neighboring New Mexico — where gender-affirming care is legal — but she said attacks on the transgender community have taken a toll on her mental health.

“We’re normal people, too, and we’re just trying to live,” she said.

By JEFF AMY, JACK BROOK and STEPHEN SMITH, Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Carnival season 2025 is approaching its climax in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast, with big parades rolling down the main routes as some revelers get fancied up for formal balls while others dress in costume to poke fun and make merry.

Three parades will roll Thursday night in New Orleans with scores of masked riders on colorful floats. More processions will continue every day through Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. Costumed revelers will jam the French Quarter as more parades roll in New Orleans’ suburbs, other Louisiana cities, and all along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.

What is Mardi Gras?

Carnival in New Orleans and around the world is rooted in Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. The season begins on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, and continues until Mardi Gras, which is the final day of feasting, drinking and revelry before Ash Wednesday and the fasting associated with Lent, the Christian season of preparation for Easter.

FILE – Rex, the King of Carnival, rides in the Krewe of Rex as he arrives at Canal St. on Mardi Gras day in New Orleans, March 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Carnival celebrations have become thoroughly secularized in New Orleans, where the largest and best-known celebrations in the U.S. include street parties, fancy balls and boisterous parades. Some of the parades are high-tech extravaganzas that feature massive floats laden with flashing lights and giant moving figures.

“It’s all about family. It’s like a six-mile-long block party and nothing could be more fun. It’s for everyone,” said Virginia Saussy of the Krewe of Muses, which is set to parade Thursday night. “You got to come experience it to understand.”

How else do people celebrate Mardi Gras?

On Mardi Gras in southwest Louisiana, some people will take part in the Cajun French tradition of the Courir de Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday Run. These rural processions, with links to rituals from medieval France, feature masked and costumed riders, with stops where participants perform and beg for goods. Inebriated maskers often chase live chickens to include in a communal gumbo at the end of the day.

FILE – Revelers throw beads from the balcony of the Royal Sonesta Hotel onto crowds on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras festivities in the French Quarter in New Orleans, March 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

In New Orleans, some African Americans mask in elaborate beaded and feathered Mardi Gras Indian suits, roving the city to sing, dance, drum and perform. The tradition, a central part of the Black Carnival experience in New Orleans since at least the late 1800s, is believed to have started in part as a way to pay homage to area Native Americans for their assistance to Black people and runaway slaves. It also developed at a time when segregation barred Black residents from taking part in whites-only parades.

How is New Orleans reacting to the New Year’s Day attack?

Following the Jan. 1 truck attack that killed 14 people in the heart of New Orleans, the Department of Homeland Security upgraded Mardi Gras to its highest risk rating. This means there will be significantly more law enforcement officers present than in prior years, said Eric DeLaune, who is leading Mardi Gras security as special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans.

FILE – Revelers play brass band music as they begin the march of the Society of Saint Anne Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, Feb. 17, 2015. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

The city hosted the Super Bowl in early February and will employ many of the same security measures: SWAT teams on standby, armored vehicles along street corners, helicopters circling overhead and plainclothes agents mingling in crowds. The city will deploy 600 police officers, along with hundreds more from state and local agencies.

“We’ve made an effort to make carnival season as safe as we possibly can without intruding on the historical and cultural context of Mardi Gras,” said DeLaune, a Louisiana native who grew up attending the parades. “We didn’t want to change the feel of Mardi Gras.”

What are other security precautions?

Thousands of revelers will gather along the city’s oak and mansion-lined St. Charles Avenue to watch towering floats, marching bands and celebrities parade. To protect them, a “serpentine” layout of heavy barricades has been arranged on the road’s opposite side to bar fast-moving vehicles while still allowing traffic.

FILE – Revelers fill Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras day in New Orleans, Feb. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Rusty Costanza, File)

“You’re going to weave it like a snake,” New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters at a February press conference. “That will slow anybody down who thinks they are going to use a vehicle as a weapon.”

Drones are banned, she added. Ice chests and coolers — which had been used to plant explosives during the Jan. 1 attack — will remain barred from the busiest section of the city’s historic French Quarter, said Louisiana State Police Superintendent Robert Hodges.

Why is Mardi Gras so late this year?

Because it’s linked to Easter, the date of Mardi Gras can fall anywhere between Feb. 3 and March 9. That’s because Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

FILE – The brass section of the MAX high school band marches during the Hermes Parade on St. Charles Ave., in New Orleans, Feb. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

This year’s date of March 4 is one of the latest possible. That means warmer temperatures are likely along the Gulf Coast rather than the often cool and clammy weather of February. However, there’s a chance of rain on Tuesday in the region.

What are ‘throws?’

“Throw” is a noun used to describe the trinkets that float riders in parades and walking members of carnival clubs — known as krewes — give to spectators. Shimmery strings of plastic beads are ubiquitous, although some krewes are exploring alternatives out of environmental concerns. Participants in the parade of New Orleans’ Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club hand out highly sought-after painted coconuts.

FILE – Jeff Thomas and Shelton Pollet find a rare peaceful spot on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans, Feb. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Rusty Costanza, File)

At Thursday’s Muses parade, glittery hand-decorated shoes are the prize souvenir.

“The first year we created a bead that was a stiletto shoe and it was just to be a commemorative bead — but it took off,” said Saussy, who is the chairwoman of Muses’ theme and floats. “People love shoes, who knew?”

Amy reported from Atlanta.

By Nada Hassanein, Stateline.org

As bird flu cases inundate more poultry and dairy farms, state officials worry that the Trump administration’s firings of federal scientists and other actions will undermine efforts to track the virus and protect Americans.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rushed to rehire workers who were involved in responding to the outbreak and were fired amid federal workforce cuts. These employees were part of a federal network that oversees labs responsible for collecting samples and confirming H5N1 tests.

State officials also fear funding cuts will hamper those federal labs, and say that by scrubbing some public health data from government websites, the administration may complicate efforts to track the outbreak.

Federal labs are “key for us to be able to do our work, and we need to make sure those labs stay funded, or we can’t do what we do,” said Dr. Amber Itle, the state veterinarian for Washington state. Itle said federal money pays for most of her office’s bird flu efforts, and that the nation’s bird flu surveillance system — one of the most robust in the world — needs to stay in place.

President Donald Trump’s budget cuts and firings include thousands of terminations across the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, among others. While the USDA scrambled to rehire its workers, public health experts say federal agencies often work in tandem to respond to health emergencies.

A dozen probationary employees also were let go this month at the Manhattan, Kansas-based National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, a USDA spokesperson told Stateline. The federal facility works closely with the USDA and aims to protect agricultural systems against animal diseases. The spokesperson said these positions were administrative and “not deemed essential to the functions of the lab.”

“When we start to take away resources that we need to support animal health response, that ultimately could threaten public health,” Itle said, “because if we can’t find it in animals, we could be exposing people without knowing it.”

The Trump administration initially removed reams of public health data related to poverty, pollution, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, adolescent health, racial inequities, sex, gender and LGBTQ+ people from federal agency websites. Some of the data was quickly restored. But Washington state health officials said they are downloading bird flu-related information in case it disappears.

Michael Crusan, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, compared state-federal bird flu cooperation to a dance.

“You can’t swing dance without a partner,” Crusan said. “So how are we supposed to keep this process running smoothly?”

70 human cases

The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, known as H5N1, has killed millions of wild birds and has led to emergency culling of commercial flocks.

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Nationwide, there have been 70 confirmed human cases since 2024, according to the CDC. Most of these cases have been among farmworkers, who are in daily close contact with poultry and cattle.

California has tracked the most cases, with 38 patients, nearly all exposed to the virus from dairy herds, followed by Washington state with 11 cases. Other infections in humans have been confirmed in Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin.

In recent weeks, Ohio and Wyoming reported their first human cases of the virus. A CDC study found cases among three dairy veterinarians, with one working in a state that had no infected cattle.

In January, a patient in Louisiana died after contracting the virus, the first human death from bird flu. The patient was an older adult with underlying medical conditions, and had contracted the virus after exposure to a backyard flock and wild birds.

Hospitalization remains rare. For now, bird flu doesn’t easily infect humans and doesn’t spread from person to person, health experts say. The CDC says there is little risk to the general public, but that could change as the virus mutates and continues to infect mammals such as cattle. The virus also has been found in domestic cats.

To eradicate bird flu, experts are emphasizing comprehensive case surveillance, testing and an overall public health strategy that recognizes the interdependence of humans, animals and the environment.

“You can’t have healthy humans without healthy animals, wild and domestic, and healthy environments,” said Maurice Pitesky, a food security expert at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “Ultimately, you’re trying to reduce the potential of the virus to move from those wild waterfowl to those farm animals.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the pressure is mounting to safeguard farms.

“The longer this virus circulates on farms, especially infecting dairy cattle and exposing humans that work on those farms, the more chances it has to evolve to something that is more dangerous for humans,” Adalja said.

The virus has been detected in more than 200 mostly wild and feral mammals in the U.S. since 2022. Those mammals may have become infected from eating fresh wild bird carcasses, but there is no indication of transmission from mammal to mammal, experts say.

A recent CDC study found cases in two indoor cats belonging to dairy farmworkers. Other infections in cats have been linked to raw pet food. Officials are urging people to refrain from drinking raw milk and from feeding dogs and cats raw pet food.

“The more mammals it infects,” Adalja said, “the more chances it has to adapt to mammals.”

All 50 states

More than 166 million birds across all 50 states have been infected nationwide since 2022, according to CDC data as of Tuesday. Over the past month, the virus has been detected in 86 commercial flocks and 51 backyard flocks. Infected poultry flocks must be culled when an outbreak occurs. In groceries nationwide, egg prices have surged amid the shortages.

The virus is also suspected in recent die-offs of wild birds. In five Michigan counties as of mid-February, more than 300 dead wild birds, including geese and mallard ducks, have been found, the state Department of Natural Resources reported. The department has issued guidance on how waterfowl hunters and property owners can stay safe when encountering dead birds.

Melinda Cosgrove, laboratory scientist manager at the department’s Wildlife Health Section, said her state’s confirmed positive cases are mostly in poultry flocks. To stay abreast of potential cases in the wild, the state has an “Eyes in the Field” webpage by which residents can report sick or dead wildlife to help the department track potential cases.

Those migratory birds are behind the spread across farms, said Kevin Snekvik, executive director of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory. “Birds migrating north and south up to Alaska, they’re the culprits,” said Snekvik, who is also a professor at Washington State University’s Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology.

States have also been monitoring changes in bird flu patterns by tracking the virus in wastewater. The U.S. has long avoided vaccination of poultry because many of its trading partners will not import vaccinated birds. But federal officials earlier this month gave conditional approval of an updated version of a previous vaccine to protect poultry against the H5N1 virus.

Farmworker testing

In Nevada, a recent spillover to dairy cattle of a specific H5N1 genotype previously found in birds was detected in a milk sample, officials announced earlier this month.

Seventeen states have reported outbreaks in dairy cows. Cows usually recover from the virus, but cattle must be isolated when the virus is detected to prevent further spread. It can be spread to humans through close contact.

Despite the widespread cases in dairy farms, not all states have joined a federal-state partnership to test milk. Currently, 36 states test under the surveillance strategy.

Helping dairy and poultry farmworkers get tested is important for public health response. But many farmworkers are immigrants with no sick leave and who may speak primarily Indigenous languages or Spanish. The Trump administration’s deportation efforts have caused further reticence to report symptoms, said Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, a food systems scholar and human geographer at Syracuse University who studies agricultural labor.

“You have a population of workers who don’t have access to health care to begin with,” she said, noting how many dairy farm laborers live in rural or remote places far from city centers. “You have this geographical barrier. You have a linguistic barrier. You have a cultural barrier. And then, of course, today, you have on top of it a lot of fear.”

Since dairy cattle infections were first detected in California in September 2024, the state’s Animal Health and Safety Lab, the only lab in the state handling the most dangerous samples, has received between 400 and 2,000 samples weekly, lab director Ashley Hill wrote in an email to Stateline.

The lab currently has just five technicians authorized to do most of the testing and a handful of support staff who can chip in. Lab technicians are set to strike this week along with university health care, research and technical professionals across the state, according to the union, which represents 20,000 workers.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.