By LAURAN NEERGAARD

WASHINGTON (AP) — This year’s harsh flu season – the most intense in 15 years – has federal health officials trying to understand if it sparked an increase in a rare but life-threatening brain complication in children.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 19,000 people have died from the flu so far this winter, including 86 children. Thursday, the CDC reported at least nine of those children experienced brain complications, and it has asked state health departments to help investigate if there are more such cases.

There is some good news: The CDC also reported that this year’s flu shots do a pretty good job preventing hospitalization from the flu — among the 45% of Americans who got vaccinated. But it comes a day after the Trump administration added to the uncertainty roiling government health agencies by canceling a meeting of experts who are supposed to help choose the recipe for next winter’s flu vaccine.

Still, it’s not too late to get vaccinated this year: “If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet, get it because we’re still seeing high flu circulation in most of the country,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Flu shot effectiveness varies from year to year. While not great at blocking infections, the vaccine’s main role “is to keep you out of the hospital and to keep you alive,” said Vanderbilt University vaccine expert Dr. William Schaffner.

Preliminary CDC data released Thursday found children who got this year’s vaccine were between 64% and 78% less likely to be hospitalized than their unvaccinated counterparts, and adults were 41% to 55% less likely to be hospitalized.

What about those brain complications? Earlier this month, state health departments and hospitals warned doctors to watch for child flu patients with seizures, hallucinations or other signs of “influenza-associated encephalopathy or encephalitis” — and a more severe subtype called “acute necrotizing encephalopathy.” Encephalitis is brain inflammation.

Thursday, the CDC released an analysis of 1,840 child flu deaths since 2010, finding 166 with those neurologic complications. Most were unvaccinated. But the agency concluded it’s unclear if this year’s nine deaths with those complications — four of whom had the worse subtype — mark an uptick.

There’s no regular tracking of those neurologic complications, making it hard to find the answers. In California, Dr. Keith Van Haren of Stanford Medicine Children’s Health said earlier this month that he’d learned of about 15 flu-related cases of that severe subtype from doctors around the country and “we are aware or more cases that may also meet the criteria.” He did not say how many died.

O’Leary, with the pediatricians’ academy, said parents should remember this complication is rare — the advice remains to seek medical advice anytime a child with flu has unusual or concerning symptoms, such as labored breathing.

Doctors see more neurologic complications during severe flu seasons – they may be linked to particular influenza strains — and survivors can have ongoing seizures or other lingering problems, he said.

Meanwhile, vaccine makers already are gearing up for the months-long process of brewing next winter’s flu shots. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee was supposed to meet on March 13 to help choose which flu strains to include but with that meeting’s cancellation, it’s unclear if the government will decide on its own.

“We have historically worked really hard to get transparency around all of these vaccine discussions,” said O’Leary, who said it’s important for the public to understand what goes into making decisions about the flu vaccine composition and other vaccine recommendations.

“The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season,” Andrew Nixon, communications director for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in an email.

AP reporters JoNel Aleccia and Mike Stobbe contributed.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Eagan native Eva Erickson got off to a promising start as one of 18 castaways vying for $1 million on “Survivor 48,” which debuted Wednesday night on CBS and is now streaming on Paramount+. Not only did the show’s first ever openly Autistic player score ample airtime, her tribe won both challenges and she made an alliance that could prove crucial to her game.

With so many characters with stories to tell and a limited run time, sometimes contestants aren’t shown much in the first episode or two. But through conversations with her teammates and on-screen interviews, the 24-year-old managed to give viewers a good idea of what to expect from her personality and gameplay.

The episode opened with a montage of shots of the castaways hearing the news, via a Zoom call, that they made it onto the show. Then just six contestants were shown introducing themselves to viewers and Erickson was one of them.

“I’m used to being in a big, male-dominated area,” she said. “I’m a physicist and an engineer and at Georgia Tech, I was the first and only girl to play on the men’s club hockey team. So this does not scare me at all. I’m gonna battle my ass off and I’m gonna beat them.”

Later, when her six-member tribe was building a shelter, Erickson devoted herself to collecting bamboo. “I am the youngest player on this tribe and I had to demonstrate my worth right away,” she said in an on-screen interview. “And so I was like, what can I do to contribute to the tribe? And so I was like, bamboo it is!”

Erickson went on to explain how her Autism plays into the game, saying she has trouble with social cues and that she doesn’t know when someone is lying to her: “I am a very direct person and I expect others to be direct with me and they’re not going to be in this game.

Eagan native Eva Erickson works on building a shelter with Thomas Krottinger during the season premiere of “Survivor 48” on Feb. 26, 2025. (Robert Voets / CBS)

“My Autism makes me so driven, so I definitely fixated on the bamboo and I was like this is what I’m gonna work on so that I have structure here. And so I was a bamboo pickup machine.”

While she openly talked about her Autism to the camera, she said her plan, at least initially, was to confide in a sole teammate with the hopes that person could keep an eye on her and help her when she gets overwhelmed. She was diagnosed at very young age, with doctors telling her parents she would face numerous issues in life and wouldn’t be able to live independently as an adult.

Erickson, who grew up loving hockey, proved the doctors wrong. She graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022. She’s currently pursuing a PhD at Brown University School of Engineering, where she’s captain of the men’s club hockey team. All the while, she said, her parents told her Autism was “not a problem, not something bad or wrong with you. You just have this thing and it makes you unique.”

While Erickson appeared to hit off with all five of her fellow tribemates, she chose to confide in Joe Hunter, a 45-year-old fire captain from California.

She explained her diagnosis to Hunter and told him she can get overstimulated and that if he squeezes her hands, it helps get her grounded.

Hunter immediately told her he had her back. In an interview, he teared up as he said: “This is bigger than the game now and transcended it in a way that changed everything … I’m not gonna let her down. So even if that hurts my game or whatever, if I got to go home early, I’m not gonna let her down.”

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By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five former secretaries of defense are calling on Congress to hold immediate hearings on President Donald Trump’s recent firings of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and several other senior military leaders, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

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The five men — who represented Republican and Democratic administrations over the past three decades — said the dismissals were alarming, raised “troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military” and removed legal constraints on the president’s power.

Late last week, Trump fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed that by firing Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations; Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of the Air Force; and the judge advocates general for the military services.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a meeting with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at the Pentagon in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Hegseth has defended the firing of Brown, saying that other presidents made changes in military personnel and that Trump deserves to pick his own team. Hegseth said he fired the JAGs because he didn’t think they were “well-suited” to provide recommendations when lawful orders are given.

The letter — signed by William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Jim Mattis and Lloyd Austin — said there were no real justifications for the firings because several of the officers had been nominated by Trump for previous positions. And it said they had exemplary careers, including operational and combat experience.

“We, like many Americans — including many troops — are therefore left to conclude that these leaders are being fired for purely partisan reasons,” said the letter, adding that “we’re not asking members of Congress to do us a favor; we’re asking them to do their jobs.”

In the meantime, they said, senators should refuse to confirm any new Pentagon nominations, including retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, who Trump has said should be the next joint chiefs chairman.

Trump’s choice of Caine is unusual. Caine, who is widely respected in the military, would have to come back onto active duty but he does not meet the legal requirements for the top post. According to law, a chairman must have served as a combatant commander or service chief. The president can waive those requirements.

Hagel is a Republican and Mattis, an independent, was Trump’s first defense chief. The other three are Democrats. Four of the five served in the military, including two — Mattis and Austin — who were four-star generals.

“The House and Senate should demand that the administration justify each firing and fully explain why it violated Congress’ legislative intent that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff complete a four-year term in office,” the letter said.

The chairman has a four-year term, and Brown had served a bit less than 17 months.

In recent decades, a number of three-star and four-star officers have been fired, but Pentagon leaders have routinely made clear why they were ousted. Those reasons included disagreements over the conduct of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, problems with the oversight of America’s nuclear arsenal and public statements critical of the president and other leaders.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS and MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled Congress has voted to repeal a federal fee on oil and gas producers who release high levels of methane, undoing a major piece of former President Joe Biden’s climate policy aimed at controlling the planet-warming “super pollutant.” The fee, which had not gone into effect, was expected to bring in billions of dollars.

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The Senate on Thursday voted along party lines 52-47 to repeal the fee, following a similar House vote on Wednesday. The measure now goes to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

Methane is a much stronger global warming gas than carbon dioxide, especially in the short term, and is to blame for about one-third of the world’s warming so far. Oil and gas producers are among the biggest U.S. methane emitters and controlling it is critical to address climate change.

Most major oil and gas companies do not release enough methane to trigger the fee, which is $900 per ton, an amount that would increase to $1,500 by 2026. The measure was part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, but the Environmental Protection Agency didn’t formally set rules until late last year.

That timing made it vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to pass a resolution to undo rules that are finalized towards the end of a president’s term. If those resolutions pass and the president signs them, the rule is terminated and agencies can’t issue a similar one again.

“It’s a sorry testament to the influence of Big Oil on Capitol Hill that one of the top priorities of Congress is a blatant handout to the worst actors in the fossil fuel industry,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program.

The American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry, applauded the move, calling the fee a “duplicative, punitive tax on American energy production that stifles innovation.”

“Thanks to industry action, methane emissions continue to decline as production increases, and we support building on this progress through smart and effective regulation,” said Amanda Eversole, the executive vice president and chief advocacy officer at API.

Globally, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have been steadily climbing.

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who chairs the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee, spoke in favor of repeal on the Senate floor.

“We should be expanding natural gas production, not restricting it. Instead, the natural gas tax will constrain American natural gas production, leading to increased energy prices and providing a boost to the production of natural gas in Russia,” she said.

Repeal of the methane fee is the latest of several pro-oil and gas moves Republicans have taken since the start of Trump’s term. On his first day, he declared a national energy emergency, calling for more oil and gas production, and fewer environmental reviews. Democrats failed to overturn that declaration yesterday. Trump has also lifted a pause on new applications for liquified natural gas export terminals, removed the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and moved to open up more areas of public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling.

The fee on methane releases was aimed at pushing companies to adopt better practices to curb emissions and make their operations more efficient. Technology exists to prevent leaks and to fix them. The EPA had said the fee was expected to reduce 1.2 million metric tons of methane emissions by 2035 — that’s about the same as removing 8 million cars from the road for a year.

The Biden administration had also implemented methane regulations on existing oil and gas wells, after addressing methane escaping from new wells. The EPA at the time meant for the fee to complement that rule and focus on the worst polluters.

About half of all methane emissions from wells are from just 6% that are smaller producers, according to a recent study.

Phillis reported from St. Louis.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment