LAS VEGAS (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris was a surprise guest at the U.S. Olympic men's basketball team's practice Tuesday, and her message was clear.
“Bring back the gold,” Harris said.
Harris — who flew to Las Vegas on Tuesday for campaign appearances — addressed the team briefly at the end of its fourth and final training camp practice session. She has long said that she's a Golden State Warriors fan; the U.S. team is coached by the Warriors' Steve Kerr and includes Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
“It's a great reminder of the fact that we're playing for our country,” said Kerr, who has met Harris on multiple occasions because of her Warriors fandom. “Vice President Harris told the guys how much she admired them, how much they really embody excellence and that we are going over there to try to win a gold medal for our country.”
Harris shook hands with the players, chatted briefly with LeBron James and a few others, and posed for a group photo with the team.
“Truly, you all represent the best of the best,” Harris told them. “And being Team USA, it is about representing our nation. You are, as you are every day on and off the court, ambassadors for who we are as a country. You represent leaders in every walk of life. And for you to go to Paris and bring back that gold is just another example of your excellence, your teamwork, your compassion and your commitment.”
U.S. assistant coach Erik Spoelstra said he didn't know the vice president was coming to practice.
“It was a pretty special moment for the entire group,” Spoelstra said. “She just mentioned that we represent our country and everybody's going to be watching and rooting for us and it's a big responsibility. But she knows that we all are putting in the work to represent everybody here and do it with class.”
Harris is planning to meet with voters in both Las Vegas and Dallas this week. She’s facing extra attention among Democrats considering her prospects as a possible replacement for President Joe Biden, who is resisting calls to step aside.
The U.S. men's team plays its first of five pre-Olympic exhibition games Wednesday against Canada in Las Vegas. Even though that game won't have any bearing on the Olympics — the first U.S. game in France is against Serbia on July 28 — Harris encouraged the team to go ahead and start winning now.
“Our nation is cheering you on and we are so proud of you,” Harris said. “Beat Canada and bring back that gold.”
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
FILE - Vice President Kamala Harris takes a photo with Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, left, and others, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, May 17, 2022, during a reception to celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is launching its formal outreach campaign to Asian-American voters, putting Vice President Kamala Harris at the forefront of the effort with events in Nevada and Pennsylvania this week. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. traveled to West Texas on Sunday after a second elementary school-aged child who was not vaccinated died from a measles-related illness.
Ahead of a “Make America Healthy Again” tour across southwestern U.S., Kennedy said in a social media post that he was in Gaines County to comfort the families who have buried two young children.
Kennedy said he was working with Texas health officials to “control the measles outbreak.” Seminole is the epicenter of the outbreak, which started in late January and continues to swell — with nearly 500 cases in Texas alone, plus cases from the outbreak believed to have spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Mexico.
The second young child died Thursday from "what the child's doctor described as measles pulmonary failure,” and did not have underlying health conditions, the Texas State Department of State Health Services said Sunday in a news release. Aaron Davis, a spokesperson for UMC Health System in Lubbock, said that the child was “receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalized.”
This is the third known measles-related death tied to this outbreak. One was another elementary school-aged child in Texas and the other was an adult in New Mexico; neither were vaccinated.
It's Kennedy's first visit to the area as health secretary, where he said he met with families of both the 6- and 8-year-old children who died. He said he “developed bonds” with the Mennonite community in West Texas in which the virus is mostly spreading.
Kennedy, an anti-vaccine advocate before ascending to the role of nation’s top health secretary earlier this year, has resisted urging widespread vaccinations as the measles outbreak has worsened under his watch. On Sunday, however, he said in a lengthy statement posted on X that it was “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles."
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has been used safely for more than 60 years and is 97% effective against measles after two doses.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention teams have been “redeployed,” Kennedy added Sunday, although the nation’s public health agency never relayed it had pulled back. Neither the CDC nor the state health department included the death in their measles reports issued Friday, but the CDC acknowledged it when asked Sunday.
The number of cases in Texas shot up by 81 between March 28 and April 4, and 16 more people were hospitalized. Nationwide, the U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.
Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, a liver doctor whose vote helped cinch Kennedy’s confirmation, called Sunday for stronger messaging from health officials in a post on X.
“Everyone should be vaccinated! There is no treatment for measles. No benefit to getting measles,” he wrote. “Top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.”
Cassidy has requested Kennedy to appear before his health committee Thursday, although Kennedy has not publicly confirmed whether he will attend.
A CDC spokesperson noted the efficacy of the measles vaccine Sunday but stopped short of calling on people to get it. Departing from long-standing public health messaging around vaccination, the spokesperson called the decision a “personal one” and encouraged people to talk with their doctor. People “should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines," the spokesperson added.
Misinformation about how to prevent and treat measles is hindering a robust public health response, including claims about vitamin A supplements that have been pushed by Kennedy and holistic medicine supporters despite doctors’ warnings that it should be given under a physician's orders and that too much can be dangerous.
Doctors at Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock, where the first measles death occurred, say they've treated fewer than 10 children for liver issues from vitamin A toxicity, which they found when running routine lab tests on children who are not fully vaccinated and have measles. Dr. Lara Johnson, chief medical officer, said the patients reported using vitamin A to treat and prevent the virus.
Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration’s former vaccine chief, said responsibility for the death rests with Kennedy and his staff. Marks was forced out of the FDA after disagreements with Kennedy over vaccine safety.
“This is the epitome of an absolute needless death,” Marks told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday. “These kids should get vaccinated — that’s how you prevent people from dying of measles.”
Marks also said he recently warned U.S. senators that more deaths would occur if the administration didn’t mount a more aggressive response to the outbreak.
Experts and local health officials expect the outbreak to go on for several more months if not a year. In West Texas, the vast majority of cases are in unvaccinated people and children younger than 17.
With several states facing outbreaks of the vaccine-preventable disease — and declining childhood vaccination rates nationwide — some worry that measles may cost the U.S. its status as having eliminated the disease.
Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the CDC. The first shot is recommended for children ages 12 to 15 months, and the second for ages 4 to 6 years.
Seitz reported from Washington. AP reporter Matthew Perrone in Washington contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - A sign is seen outside a clinic with the South Plains Public Health District, Feb. 23, 2025, in Brownfield, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, file)
FILE - A measles sign is seen at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Feb. 25, 2025, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, file)
