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Rodeo season is almost over, and the grand champion steer competition this weekend will likely bring a large crowd — and long lines.

Driving the news: I ate a ton of desserts so you'd know which booths are worth the long lines.

Funnel cakes and fried candies: I'd recommend going to Sills Funnel Cakes for your fried-dessert needs. The red-velvet funnel cake looked like it was out of a zombie film, but it was warm, fluffy and checked all the boxes.

I asked the staff which item was the most popular and they said fried Snickers — and for good reason. It was the perfect gooey dessert. Commit to the Snickers unless you have a peanut allergy.

Skip Piche Concessions, no matter how delicious the sundae funnel cake photo looks. For one, it was $17. Plus, the funnel cake, and their fried Reese's and Snickers, were dry and not optimally fluffy and warm.

Baklava: I don't know what compelled me to try a Mediterranean dessert at the rodeo, but save yourself the disappointment. While the Greek Grill's baklava was a generous portion, it was soggy and very different to the delicious baklavas I've tasted before.

Tres leches balls: This might be the best dessert I tried. While El Patio Mexican Restaurant's tres leches balls did not have the soft, milky consistency of tres leches, they did taste amazing and paired well with the whipped cream and blueberries. (Think: cake balls that are tres leches flavored.)

Plus: You can grab food and dessert at the same booth, saving you more time.

Cinnamon rolls: I'm not a cinnamon rolls fanatic, but even I fell for the Crown Cinnamon Rolls II take on the pastry. The rolls — perfectly airy— were not too cinnamon-y and the toppings weren't too overpowering.

The bottom line: Wrangle in your friends and get them to join you on your rodeo dessert adventure.

A dessert guide to the Houston Rodeo

I ate a ton of sweet treats so you know which booths are worth the long lines.

Photo of three cake calls with whipped cream and blueberries in front of a booth named El Patio

Tres leches balls are possibly the best dessert at the rodeo. Photo: Shafaq Patel/Axios

Food

Rodeo season is almost over, and the grand champion steer competition this weekend will likely bring a large crowd — and long lines.Driving the news: I ate a ton of desserts so you&#x27;d know which booths are worth the long lines.

Things to Do

For the first installment of our new Budget Bites series, in which we'll find the best budget meals (under $20), I swung by Killer Noodle, a popular Los Angeles ramen eatery that opened in the Heights last fall.

The big picture: Killer Noodle serves tantanmen, a spicy style of Japanese ramen loosely based on the Sichuan dan dan noodles.

Plus: There's a good array of vegetarian options.

Flashback: Killer Noodles opened in L.A. in 2017 and is known for being dangerously spicy, per the Los Angeles Times.

Its restaurant critic described the spiciness as "floating on a sea of endorphins" and noted there were servers hovering "making sure that you are not in too much physical distress, offering you towels, refilling the ice water."

My experience: The Houston location did not have the seemingly chaotic energy with people testing their spice tolerance that was described in L.A. Instead, it was a regular ramen destination.

I ordered the Tokyo-style ramen with soup — the signature dish — with the side of shishito peppers. My server forgot to make my ramen spicy, but the regular taste of the creamy noodles had wonderful flavor and a light kick.

Halfway through eating the ramen, I added the ghost pepper powder that I was later given. The powder amped up the flavor and was delicious but became too spicy for me to finish the bowl.

The garlic-flavored shishito peppers were a great respite while my mouth was burning.

Cost: $13.50, plus $2 for the ghost pepper powder.

If you go: 1835 N. Shepherd Dr. Normally open from 11am-10pm, with a break on weekdays from 2:30pm-5:30pm.

Budget Bites: Killer Noodle

Killer Noodle is known for being dangerously spicy.

Photo of a bowl with the words "Killer Noodle" and ramen inside the bowl. 

Veggie Tokyo ramen. Photo: Shafaq Patel/Axios

For the first installment of our new Budget Bites series, in which we&#x27;ll find the best budget meals (under $20), I swung by Killer Noodle, a popular Los Angeles ramen eatery that opened in the Heights last fall.The big picture: <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Killer Noodle" data-vars-click-url="https://www.killernoodle.com/menu" data-vars-content-id="78d4a302-0297-4650-b6eb-ded560ff87dc" data-vars-headline="Budget Bites: Killer Noodle" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.killernoodle.com/menu" target="_blank">Killer Noodle</a> serves tantanmen, a spicy style of Japanese ramen loosely based on the Sichuan dan dan noodles.

Nine months after Roe v. Wade was overturned and abortion clinics were shuttered in Texas, Whole Woman's Health opened its long-awaited abortion clinic in New Mexico on Thursday.

Why it matters: After abortion clinics in Texas had to close last summer — including the Whole Woman's Health clinics in Austin, McAllen, Fort Worth and McKinney — pregnant Texans seeking abortions had to travel hundreds of miles for the procedure.

The new abortion clinic in Albuquerque will serve New Mexico residents, plus folks from other states, like Texas and Oklahoma.

Flashback: Whole Woman's Health operated in Texas for nearly 20 years. After its clinics were forced to close in July, the organization launched a GoFundMe page to raise $750,000 to open a site in New Mexico.

"Even when the courts and the politicians have turned their backs on Texans, we never will," Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman's Health, had said in a statement.

State of play: The organization has raised more than $330,000 on GoFundMe, enough to secure a location and transport three 18-wheeler trucks of equipment from storage in Texas.

Whole Woman's Health now has six clinics in Minnesota, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland and now New Mexico, plus a virtual care program that sends abortion pills by mail to New Mexico, Virginia, Maryland, Minnesota and Illinois.

Details: Whole Woman's Health of New Mexico will provide first- and second-trimester in-clinic abortion procedures up to 18 weeks of gestational age and has plans to expand care up to 24 weeks in the near future.

The clinic also provides medication abortion care up to 11 weeks.

The starting goal is to serve 75 patients a week.

Between the lines: The fully bilingual clinic staff aims to create an environment that helps patients shed personal and cultural shame and stigma around abortion care.

The intrigue: Whole Woman's Health chose Albuquerque because it's in a "safe state" and is easy to fly into.

Hagstrom Miller says she chose a city over a small border town so patients and staff could be in a more populated area where they could blend in.

Of note: 23 patients — 21 traveling from Texas and two from Louisiana — have already booked appointments for the opening weekend.

What they're saying: "In 2020, Texas had about 55,000 abortions annually. The need is great for people who are being denied abortions in the Southwest region, and so we hope to meet the need," Hagstrom Miller told Axios. 

"It's really gonna be a huge difference for us to be able to say, 'Yes, we can see you. You don't have to travel as far.'"

Context: Before the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, Texans seeking abortions had to travel on average 44 miles — even less in cities like Houston.

Now, the average number of miles a Texan has to travel is 497 miles, per the Texas Observer.

Abortion clinics that have remained open have been inundated with clients after residents of states like Texas traveled across state lines.

Whole Woman's Health opens New Mexico abortion clinic

Whole Woman’s Health chose Albuquerque because it's in a "safe state," and easy to fly into.

Illustration of a pill with an unlocked padlock top

Abortion

Nine months after Roe v. Wade was overturned and abortion clinics were shuttered in Texas, Whole Woman&#x27;s Health opened its long-awaited abortion clinic in New Mexico on Thursday.Why it matters: After abortion clinics in Texas had to close last summer — including the Whole Woman&#x27;s Health clinics in Austin, McAllen, Fort Worth and McKinney — pregnant Texans seeking abortions <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="had to travel hundreds of miles for the procedure" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2022/06/27/austin-travel-for-abortion" data-vars-content-id="ba298e4a-c34e-4358-9863-8cefe8c8ff4a" data-vars-headline="Whole Woman&#x27;s Health opens New Mexico abortion clinic" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2022/06/27/austin-travel-for-abortion" target="_self">had to travel hundreds of miles for the procedure</a>.

News

The oldest animal at the Houston Zoo just became a father to three baby tortoises.

Driving the cuteness: Mr. Pickles, a 90-year-old radiated tortoise, and his partner, Mrs. Pickles, 53, are now the parents of Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño.

Why it matters: Mr. Pickles is the most genetically valuable radiated tortoise in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan, making his offspring an important contribution to the future of this critically endangered species.

Context: Radiated tortoises are known to produce few offspring.

Flashback: Mr. Pickles has been at the zoo for 36 years and has been with Mrs. Pickles since she arrived in 1996.

The Pickles had had only one little Pickle previously, in 1997.

What they're saying: According to zoo officials, the hatchlings were a surprise. A herpetology keeper saw Mrs. Pickles as she was laying her eggs at closing time.

"The soil in Houston isn't hospitable to the Madagascar native tortoises, and it's unlikely the eggs would have hatched on their own if the keeper hadn't been in the right place at the right time," per the Houston Zoo.

Endangered tortoises have three hatchlings at Houston Zoo

Mr. and Mrs. Pickles are now the parents of Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño.

The baby tortoises. Photo: Jackelin Reyna/Houston Zoo

Animals

The oldest animal at the Houston Zoo just became a father to three baby tortoises.Driving the cuteness: Mr. Pickles, a 90-year-old radiated tortoise, and his partner, Mrs. Pickles, 53, are now the parents of Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño.

The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. spiked in 2021, with deaths disproportionately impacting Black women.

Why it matters: The U.S. still has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, and previous research has largely attributed that to an outsized prevalence among Black mothers, Axios' Tina Reed reports.

Driving the news: More than 1,200 women died during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth in 2021, a 40% increase from 2020, according to data released last week by the National Center for Health Statistics.

In 2020, 861 women died during pregnancy or shortly after, compared to 754 women in 2019.

Context: Maternal mortality rates climbed during the pandemic, likely due to COVID-19 itself and the pandemic's impact on delaying care for other conditions.

Between the lines: There are stark racial disparities in the maternal death rate, according to the data.

In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to a rate of 26.6 per 100,000 for white women.

Zoom in: In Harris County, the maternal mortality rate in 2020 was 54.85 per 100,000 live births. For Black mothers, the rate was 106.01 per 100,000 live births, according to the Harris County Public Health.

Plus: From 2016 to 2020, Precinct 1 — which consists predominantly of communities of color — had the highest maternal mortality rate among other precincts at 56.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the 2021 Harris County Public Health Leading Causes of Death report.

What they're saying: "The Texas Medical Center sits in Harris County, and it's a little bit astounding that unfortunately we still have some of the highest rates of Black maternal and infant mortality," Ericka Brown, director of the Community Health and Wellness Division at Harris County Public Health, told Community Impact last year.

She also notes that the state's elevated maternal mortality rate is correlated to its high rate of uninsured residents and other barriers to care that underserved communities face.

The intrigue: The Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee report, released in December, estimates that up to 90% of the deaths in the state may have been preventable, per the committee review of 2019 data.

What we're watching: Last summer, Harris County launched a $7.75 million home visitation pilot program aimed at reducing maternal and infant mortality, per Community Impact.

The five-year program, which will focus on Black mothers, will pair around 300 mothers with community health workers to provide access to both prenatal and postpartum care.

Go deeper: Mothers in states with abortion bans nearly three times more likely to die.

Maternal mortality rate spike, disparities continue

The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world.

Maternal deaths

The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="spiked in 2021," data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/03/16/maternal-mortality-rate-cdc-pandemic" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/03/16/maternal-mortality-rate-cdc-pandemic" target="_self">spiked in 2021,</a> with deaths disproportionately impacting Black women.Why it matters: The U.S. still has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, and previous research has largely attributed that to an outsized prevalence among Black mothers, <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="Axios&#x27; Tina Reed reports" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2022/02/23/us-maternal-mortality-disparities-by-race" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2022/02/23/us-maternal-mortality-disparities-by-race" target="_self">Axios&#x27; Tina Reed reports</a>.

Shafaq Patel

Featured stories

Whole Woman's Health opens New Mexico abortion clinic

Maternal mortality rate spike, disparities continue

Budget Bites: Killer Noodle

Endangered tortoises have three hatchlings at Houston Zoo

A dessert guide to the Houston Rodeo