(BEIRUT, Lebanon) — An explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in Lebanon’s biggest seaport in 2020 has left deep trauma in the Lebanese psyche.
Opera singer Michel Bou Rjeilly says Beirut will never be the same.
“It was all gone,” he said. “The café shops, the boutiques, the little scribbles on the walls, the old men fighting over who cheated while playing cards … Smashed, dead and unrecognizable.”
Bou Rjeilly who was injured in the explosion, said he remembers the immediate aftermath with clarity. “All my things were scattered on the floor, my brother was in front of me trying to remove the glass from my hair and head, telling me not to worry and that we will fix the house together … outside people screaming, ambulances going off, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing,” he recalled.
Nearly 200 people were reported dead after the blasts on Aug. 4, 2020, and over 7,000 were injured. The blasts destroyed 77,000 apartments and displaced over 300,000 people, the United Nations said.
Four of the port’s silos collapsed on Thursday as a belated result of the blasts, two years to the day after the explosions. Beirut residents who had gathered near the port center for protests and in homage to victims watched their port once again engulfed in smoke on this national day of mourning.
On Wednesday, U.N. experts called on the Human Rights Council to launch an international investigation into the explosion, saying, “Victims must have justice and accountability.”
Yet two years after the blasts, no one has been arrested or faced consequences. “This tragedy marked one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in recent memory, yet the world has done nothing to find out why it happened,” U.N. experts said this week.
On the anniversary of the tragedy, some Beirut residents talk about it constantly, sharing where they were when it happened, and like Bou Rjeilly, sharing their survival stories.
Some of them say if the economic crisis had hit the Lebanese commercial area of Mar Mikhael; if COVID-19 restrictions had not drastically diminished the numbers on the streets that day. if children were still at school at the time of the explosion, perhaps the death toll would have been in the thousands rather than the hundreds.
The human toll is significant. My contact in Lebanon told me as I boarded the plane to head there to cover the explosion in September 2020 that I could call him anytime because he doesn’t “sleep since the blasts.”
Apparently, he is not alone in experiencing restless nights and anxiety since the blast. Local reports have also covered a shortage of antidepressants in Lebanon’s pharmacies — some believe due to the country’s financial crisis and the trauma from the explosions.
The explosions also led to an exacerbation of the food crisis in a country already hard-hit by a dire financial crisis. Lebanon imports up to 80% of its food and the blasts affected the country’s main entry point for food products, according to a local food bank.
Mona Keenan is vice president of the Lebanese Food Bank, a nongovernmental organization that distributed over 100,000 food boxes to people in need in the last year. More than 1.5 million people are currently suffering from food insecurity in Lebanon, she said.
“The food crisis since the explosions has doubled, tripled even, (so) the need is much more than before,” Keenan said. “The port was the main place where food came from.”
The blasts have become a symbol of the struggle of the Lebanese people. The shockwaves are still being felt, with nearly 80,000 people having fled the country in the last year alone, according to Sal, an independent consultancy firm based in Beirut.
During my September in Beirut, I spoke to those who were making plans to leave the country while claiming their love for Lebanon and pride in being from its capital.
A large number of Lebanese are fleeing country, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, so expatriation is far from a new phenomenon. What’s different this time, is that some told me they were not looking back once gone, and were planning on not returning.
(NEW YORK) — Flooding is possible on Saturday for large swaths of the country — including hard-hit eastern Kentucky — as millions of Americans are also under heat advisories.
Flash flooding is possible in the Ohio River Valley, as some parts may see 2 to 4 inches of rain.
Areas from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Pittsburgh, including nearly the entire state of West Virginia, have the greatest chances for flooding on Saturday, where slow-moving heavy downpours are expected.
That also includes eastern Kentucky, which was the site of devastating floods in late July. At least 37 people have been confirmed dead in the catastrophic flooding. Parts of the region were also hit with heavy rainfall on Friday. By midday Saturday, the heaviest rain had so far stayed clear of the worst-hit areas in last week’s flooding. The flash flood threat is expected to subside in this region on Sunday.
In the Upper Mississippi Valley, areas between Minneapolis and Dubuque, Iowa, may also see flooding rains on Saturday, with 3 to 5 inches possible.
Saturday storms are expected to cause flight disruptions from New York to Florida and parts of Texas, Denver and Washington state, the Federal Aviation Administration warned. That comes after severe weather Friday night forced airlines to cancel more than 1,200 flights.
Meanwhile, more than 70 million Americans are under heat alerts this weekend, with heat alerts issued from Oklahoma to Maine.
In the Northeast, heat advisories extend from Delaware to Maine. Temperatures will feel like the mid-upper 90s for much of the Northeast coast Saturday.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska, where the heat index is expected to surpass 110 degrees on Saturday.
Triple-digit temperatures are also forecast from Texas to Iowa.
The scorching temperatures are expected to persist in many of the same areas on Sunday.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Saturday after experiencing a rebound infection but will continue to isolate until he gets a second negative result, the White House physician said.
“The President today continues to feel very well,” Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a letter to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “Given his rebound positivity which we reported last Saturday, we have continued daily monitoring. This morning, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing was negative.”
“In an abundance of caution, the President will continue his strict isolation measures pending a second negative test as previously described,” O’Connor added.
Biden first tested positive for the virus on July 21, experiencing a slight fever, cough and sore throat among other mild symptoms. He isolated at the White House residence and completed a five-day course of Paxlovid, an antiviral treatment for those with mild to moderate symptoms who are considered a high risk for severe illness, before testing negative.
After emerging from isolation, he hailed the available COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.
“We’ve got through COVID with no fear — I got through it with no fear. A very mild discomfort because of these essential, lifesaving tools,” he said in a Rose Garden speech. “And guess what? I want to remind everybody: They are free. They are convenient. And they are safe, and they work.”
But on July 30, he tested positive again in what O’Connor called an example of “rebound positivity” from the Paxlovid treatment.
While uncommon, some patients who take Paxlovid can test positive again after finishing the treatment course but doctors emphasize that doesn’t mean the drug isn’t effective. High-risk patients who take the antiviral treatment still have a dramatically lower risk of being hospitalized due to the virus.
Biden said he was feeling well and made several virtual appearances during his second infection, addressing the nation from the Blue Room balcony about the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on Monday and touting a strong jobs report and movement on his agenda in the Senate on Friday.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden have plans to travel to Kentucky on Monday, the White House previously announced, in what would be his first trip since his diagnosis. If they do travel, they will join Gov. Andy Beshear and his wife Britainy Beshear in a meeting with families affected by the state’s devastating flooding. At least 37 people died in the flooding, which also left water and electricity systems heavily damaged.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate parliamentarian has signed off on key climate and health care provisions in the Democrats’ major spending bill.
The rulings from Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s non-partisan rule keeper, come before an expected vote Saturday afternoon to begin debate on the $739 billion climate, health care and tax package titled the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Democrats are using a fast-track process known as reconciliation to pass the bill through a simple majority vote. The Senate parliamentarian is responsible for issuing opinions on whether provisions meet conditions of the budget reconciliation rules.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the Senate Finance Committee’s clean energy tax package — a major portion of the bill — adhered to the chamber rules.
The Inflation Reduction Act sets out $369 billion for climate, much of which would go toward tax credits to prop up clean energy technologies. Consumer tax credits are included for Americans to make “home energy efficiency improvements” and for those who purchase electric vehicles.
It also provides a tax credit to clean energy developers who pay their workers the prevailing wage.
“I’m especially pleased that our prevailing wage provisions were approved,” Wyden said in a statement. “These provisions guarantee wage rates for clean energy projects. Clean energy jobs will be good-paying jobs.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also announced Saturday that the parliamentarian signed off on most of the drug pricing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act except for one prescription cost-reducing program Democrats wanted to include.
“Democrats have received extremely good news: for the first time, Medicare will finally be allowed to negotiate prescription drug prices, seniors will have free vaccines and their costs capped, and much more. This is a major victory for the American people,” Schumer said in a statement.
The legislation will allow the federal health secretary to directly negotiate the prices of certain expensive drugs for Medicare starting in 2026. It would also cap out-of-pocket costs for those who use Medicare drug plans at $2,000.
Democrats wanted to penalize drug companies for raising prices of some prescription drugs faster than inflation, in an effort to keep costs down. But, according to a source familiar, the parliamentarian ruled that these penalties cannot be applied on individuals with private health insurance. They’ll stay in affect for Medicare.
“While there was one unfortunate ruling in that the inflation rebate is more limited in scope, the overall program remains intact and we are one step closer to finally taking on Big Pharma and lowering Rx drug prices for millions of Americans,” Schumer said.
Schumer said earlier this week that the first vote on the spending bill is expected Saturday afternoon.
The motion to proceed, if passed, would begin debate on the bill and give lawmakers the opportunity to vote on amendments in what’s been dubbed “vote-a-rama.”
Republicans have pledged to bring up amendments on issues related to immigration, crime and energy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters on Friday that the voting session will be “hell.”
President Joe Biden on Friday praised the movement on the bill, stating Democrats were “on the cusp” of passing what he said was the “most important step” to combating inflation.
“In short, this bill is a game changer for working families and our economy,” he said. “I look forward to the Senate taking up this legislation and passing it as soon as possible.”
(NEW YORK) — In early May, when the first cases of monkeypox surfaced in the United Kingdom and Europe, health officials in the United States advised Americans not to panic.
There had been outbreaks of the rare disease before that had been controlled with testing and vaccines, and experts were optimistic an outbreak of monkeypox in the U.S. could be contained.
“We’re working hard to contain the cases that are happening so they don’t spread onward,” Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology division, said during a media briefing in May.
More than two months later, the situation appears to be much different.
As of Friday, there were more than 7,100 reported cases in the U.S. across 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to the CDC, resulting in the Department of Health and Human Services declaring the outbreak a public health emergency Thursday.
That stands in stark contrast to instances of the disease in the recent past — two travel-associated cases in 2021 and a small outbreak in 2003 linked to contact with pet prairie dogs, which were infected after being kept near small mammals from Ghana.
Currently, about 80,000 specimens per week are being tested and at least 600,000 vaccines have been distributed throughout the nation, health officials said during a media briefing Thursday.
While the federal government has acquired more than 1 million vaccine doses as part of the national stockpile preparedness program and has newly appointed monkeypox crisis coordinators, some public health experts interviewed by ABC News said the first cases in Europe back in May should have been a warning sign for the U.S. to ramp up testing and vaccination because of the possibility of community transmission.
Unlike COVID-19, monkeypox is more difficult to transmit, passing primarily through direct skin-to-skin contact. But there has been criticism leveled that it was a slow start and some mistakes made during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were repeated.
“Quite frankly, the inability of the government and inability of federal public health to respond sooner than it did is what cost us here,” Dr. Perry Halkitis, dean of Rutgers School of Public Health, told ABC News.
The White House said Thursday President Joe Biden is getting “regularly briefed on monkeypox” and it’s an issue that is “top of mind” for him.
Lack of alarm bells
The first case of the current outbreak was reported in the U.K. on May 7. Soon cases began to crop up in countries in mainland Europe, such as in Portugal and Spain.
The U.S. did not see a case of monkeypox confirmed until May 19 in a Massachusetts patient. With only one case, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health cautioned the risk to the public was low.
But like the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, some public health experts warned that cases were likely more widespread than was publicly known.
Halkitis said the U.S. should have immediately started assembling a task force and increasing the supply of tests and vaccines after the first monkeypox patient was confirmed in Europe, suggesting potential community transmission.
“When the disease first appeared, that should have rung alarm bells for people,” he said. “We know perfectly well from COVID how quickly things spread because of global travel. We should have been at that point acting immediately, putting task forces together, getting vaccines and we did not do that.”
“Now they’re going to put a task force together? It’s a little late,” Halkitis continued.
Testing criteria not broad enough
It was not until late June that the HHS announced it was expanding testing capacity and accessibility by shipping tests to five commercial laboratories nationwide.
Between mid-May and early June, U.S. laboratories had only tested a little more than 2,000 specimens from patients suspected to have monkeypox, a CDC report found.
However, testing has rapidly increased from 6,000 specimens per week in late June to more than 80,000 per week currently, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a media briefing Thursday.
“As testing has increased, our capacity for testing has increased and far outpaced the demand,” she said. “So right now, we’re really only testing at about 10% of the capacity we have, and we are encouraging anyone who has a prospective rash that could be monkeypox to present for testing.”
The CDC currently recommends that people be tested only if they think they have monkeypox — including the telltale sign of a rash — or have had close contact with someone who has monkeypox.
But Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said testing recommendations should be expanded to a few more groups because not all rashes look the same and some high-risk people may not know that they were even exposed.
“We should be testing much more than we’re testing now and I think we should loosen the criterion or guidance for who we should test,” he told ABC News. “I think we should flood the community with testing, just like in COVID.”
He also said because monkeypox does not always manifest as a rash on the skin — with sores sometimes appearing in the mouth, vagina or rectum — those at high-risk who don’t have a traditional rash should have swabs performed in those areas to test for monkeypox.
Delay in making vaccines available
In May, Biden called the level of exposure something “everybody should be concerned about” but that the country has vaccines and that it doesn’t rise to the level of concern of COVID.
So far, the U.S. secured 6.9 million doses for delivery by May 2023, according to the HHS, with 1.1 million made available to states for ordering.
Some experts say vaccines could have been distributed a lot more quickly. The U.S. government currently has a contract with Danish firm Bavarian Nordic to “finish and fill” Jynneos, a vaccine approved for both smallpox and monkeypox.
The bulk of the 1.1 million doses initially sat in a plant that needed to be inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a typical process for the agency.
Last month, the FDA said it had approved 786,000 doses to be released after it finished inspecting the plant and determined the vaccines being formulated there met its standards. The investigation only took about six weeks, much faster than typical for the FDA.
“Six weeks is pretty fast for that,” Dr. Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, told ABC News. “What the argument would be is that the three-year-shelf life is too short.”
As soon as vials are filled with the vaccine, a three-year ticking clock to expiration begins. Poland says the FDA may have held off on signing off to try to get the vaccine to as many people as possible before this occurred.
However, demand is far outpacing supply. About 600,000 doses have been delivered and there are 1.1 million people eligible to be vaccinated.
Currently, the U.S. only uses the Jynneos vaccine, not another smallpox vaccine called ACAM2000 — which the U.S. has in a stockpile — because the latter can cause side effects in people with certain conditions, such as those who are immunocompromised.
But Poland says the vaccine should be used and people can be screened to make sure they don’t have any conditions that put them at risk.
“I understand reluctance to use it but, especially if monkeypox really starts exploding, I don’t think you’ll have a choice at that point,” he said. “I think if your choice is we’ve got nothing or we’ve got this, that’s easy for me.”
To increase the number of doses available, FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said during a media call on Thursday the agency has “identified a potential solution.”
“We’re considering an approach … that would allow health care providers to use an existing one-dose vial of the vaccine to administer a total of up to five separate doses,” he said.
The vaccine would be given in a smaller, shallower injection under the skin, a method Califf said would still be safe and effective but would allow up to five doses to be pulled from one vial.
Hesitation to declare a public health emergency
The HHS on Thursday declared monkeypox a public health emergency, 78 days after the first U.S. case was detected in May and about two weeks after the World Health Organization did the same.
It also comes two days after Biden named a national monkeypox team to help combat the outbreak and help increase the availability of tests, treatments and vaccines.
Larry Gostin, a former CDC and WHO consultant who has been advising the White House on monkeypox response, said the announcement could be a “turning point” in the nation’s health response after a “lackluster start.”
“It’s coming very, very late,” Gostin, also a professor of medicine at Georgetown University., told ABC News’ “Start Here.” “It’s not a time to panic, but it’s absolutely a time to get serious. And I hope that this will be a pivotal turning point for the administration after a lackluster start.”
By issuing a declaration, HHS will be able to take a series of actions including accessing funds set aside for such an emergency as well as appointing personnel to positions directly responding to the emergency. It will also help speed up test and vaccine distribution.
“One thing that’s been hampered from the beginning is money,” Chin-Hong said. “Money means personnel, it means even delivering medications to patients, it means diverting people away from other activities temporarily to try to focus on one outbreak instead of focusing on 10 million other things.”
Before the U.S. declared an emergency, New York, Illinois and California all declared their own emergencies. But without a national declaration, it meant states couldn’t access federal resources.
“California, Illinois and New York might be able to cobble stuff from their own state funds, but they can’t really use federal funds — unless it’s been like some puny money for random emergencies in the future — because there’s no dedicated monkeypox money from a federal level,” he said. “You know, a lot of the efforts in each of the parts of the country is hampered by money.”
As to why the U.S. took so long to declare a health emergency — HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra cited “evolving circumstances” for the declaration — experts say there are a few reasons.
One is to avoid further stigmatization of the LGBTQ community. So far, most cases in the U.S. have been reported among men who have sex with men, a group that includes people who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary.
Even though the CDC has said there is no evidence that monkeypox is a sexually transmitted infection and that anyone can contract the disease, Halkitis said health officials may have been worried about further discrimination of LGBTQ people.
“The other reason I think there’s a hesitation is because I think people are exhausted with COVID,” he said. “And the last thing people want to hear about is another public health emergency when we don’t even have the last one under control.”
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer, Cheyenne Haslett and Karen Travers contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an abortion bill into law Friday, banning the procedure with very few exceptions, making it the first state to pass such a bill since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June. The ban will go into effect on Sept. 15.
State lawmakers had passed the legislation earlier Friday.
“Following the overturning of Roe, I stated clearly that I would be willing to support legislation that made progress in protecting life. In my view, SEA 1 accomplishes this goal following its passage in both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly with a solid majority of support,” Holcomb said in a statement.
Known as SB1, the GOP-led state Senate 28-19 voted to accept the bill after it was passed by the Republican-controlled state House 62-38 earlier that day.
The bill replaces the state’s current 22-week abortion ban with a near-total ban on abortion. There are exceptions if the woman’s life is in danger and in cases of rape or incest up until 10 weeks’ gestation.
Under the bill, patients cannot use telehealth medicine to seek an abortion and must consult a provider in person.
This bill “makes Indiana one of the most pro-life states in the nation,” Republican Rep. Wendy McNamara, who sponsored the legislation, said at a media briefing after the House voted to pass the bill.
Earlier last week, the state senate voted on several amendments to the bill, including stripping exceptions for rape or incest.
Republican state Sen. Michael Young, who introduced the amendment, said at the time that “exceptions equal death.”
“And what you’re telling me is if they rape the woman, we oughta kill the baby,” Young said during the debate, according to local reports. “That is not right, and I will never, ever accept that.”
However, the amendment failed to pass on a 28-18 vote, with 18 Republicans siding with the Democrats to keep rape and incest exceptions in place.
Republicans in the state house also attempted Thursday to remove exceptions for rape or incest from the bill, but it failed on a vote.
The House also changed some language from the Senate version of the bill. The Senate bill allowed abortions for rape and incest among girls 16 years and older up until eight weeks’ gestation and up until 12 weeks for those aged 15 and younger, which the House changed to 10 weeks for all victims regardless of age.
Additionally, the House removed a portion of the bill requiring rape and incest victims to sign an affidavit attesting the attack happened before being allowed to get an abortion.
(NEW YORK) — Former WNBA player Niesha Butler has opened the first Afro-Latina-owned STEM camp, S.T.E.A.M. Champs, in New York City to reduce accessibility barriers to tech educational resources for Brooklyn youth.
“If a kid could actually say that they can be LeBron James, and roll it off their tongue as easy as that, then they can literally say ‘yeah, I can also put a man on the moon,’ or ‘I can also create the next app,'” Butler told ABC News.
Butler, a New York City native, says “there’s talent in Brooklyn.” She established S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Champs in the middle of Brooklyn to encourage inner-city youth to channel their ambition into educational opportunities. Butler also hires interns, may of whom have tried coding for the first time with the program, she says.
“People sell basketball dreams every other second in our community. I thought it was really important to, let’s sell these tech dreams,” Butler said.
Prior to opening her doors in Brooklyn, Butler partnered with organizations like Girl Scouts, BronxWorks and a local AAU basketball team to host STEM-focused workshops reaching over 300 New York City students. Monday was the first day of camp in the newly opened facility.
“There’s not a lot of people of color in tech,” Butler said. “These jobs are open for everybody and they’re empty…so obviously we need to do a better job at educating our kids and in recruiting them.”
Other tech education camps and workshops across the nation have worked to close the gap and make tech careers interesting and accessible to students of underserved communities.
Black Girls CODE is one of those resources providing workshops and public speaking opportunities for Black girls. Program alumni Kimora Oliver and Azure Butler say that the program’s first chapter in California’s Bay Area created an environment that allowed local Black female students to envision themselves in the tech industry.
“Unfortunately, STEM is a white and male dominated field,” Oliver told ABC News. “I feel like [Black Girls CODE] is giving a diverse group of Black girls the exposure that they need to decide for themselves whether they want to continue with STEM in the future.”
For almost 40 years, another program called Academically Interest Minds (AIM) at Kettering University has tailored its pre-college curriculum to expose youth of color to STEM coursework and campus life.
“49% of African American students who attend Kettering University now, are AIM graduates,” Ricky D. Brown, the university’s director of multicultural student initiatives and the AIM program, told ABC News.
For many, STEM educational resources introduce an element of choice in considering STEM and exploring pathways of academic interests.
A study released in July by the National Bureau of Economic Research says that early intervention programs like S.T.E.A.M Champs, AIM and Black Girls CODE are effective in helping students achieve academic success in higher education and STEM majors.
“Some of these kids don’t have a computer at home to study,” Butler said. “When I go to some of these centers, they don’t have good Wi-Fi…they have outdated computers.”
According to the study, underrepresentation in STEM is due to a lack of preparation and access to educational resources.
“Given that STEM preparation and college access are shaped prior to college entrance, STEM focused enrichment programs for high school students are promising vehicles to reduce disparities in STEM degree attainment,” the study’s authors wrote.
In the coming weeks, Butler plans to meet prospective students halfway with a “Code on the Court” event at local Brooklyn basketball courts offering free signups to 10 students.
As the program grows, Butler says she looks forward to partnering with large tech companies like Google and Microsoft to reduce limitations and doubts in the minds of students.
“If I could just affect one kid, we’re affecting hundreds of kids,” Butler says.
(NEW YORK) — An average of 38 children die every year in hot cars.
Tuesday marked the 14th hot car death in the U.S. this year, a number that is expected to rise as heat waves continue across the country.
These tragic deaths are 100% preventable “if we can use a little tech to help,” said Janette Fennell, the founder and president of Kids and Car Safety, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing injuries and death to children from vehicle-related incidents. Fennell has been ringing the alarm bell on hot car deaths for more than 15 years.
“We have begged the auto industry to do something,” she went on. “It’s an uphill battle. But we’re on the cusp of things that need to happen.”
To Fennell that means honking vehicles that flash lights and send text alerts to drivers — even nearby strangers — that a child has been accidentally forgotten in the back seat or has surreptitiously climbed inside a vehicle.
“Cars remind you to check your tire pressure, to shut off your lights, to take your key,” she argued. “To really end these terrible fatalities, we have to be able to detect when there’s a living being locked in a vehicle and alert anyone who can come to their aid.”
Automakers have been researching various technologies for decades. Ed Kim, president and chief analyst at automotive consulting firm AutoPacific, said General Motors deserves credit for being the first automaker to address the issue of rear seat warnings in 2001. The industry committed in 2019 to placing a back seat reminder in every new vehicle by 2025.
“Market research shows safety and security are some of the most important things for consumers when buying a vehicle,” Kim told ABC News.
Many vehicles now display safety alerts in the gauge cluster. Some of the tech can be manually disabled, prompting concerns that drivers may become indifferent to it.
Simon Roberts, a father of two small children and an engineer at Toyota Connected North America, said Toyota has been aggressively working toward a solution to the issue, one that’s becoming more perilous with each year as temperatures spike. In May, the Japanese automaker introduced its “Cabin Awareness” concept, which is currently undergoing real-world testing with May Mobility, an autonomous-vehicle company.
“We want to be an extra set of virtual eyes if you will,” Roberts told ABC News. “We don’t like the status quo and won’t accept it.”
The Cabin Awareness concept deploys millimeter-wave, high-resolution 4D imaging radar to determine if a person or pet has been left behind in a locked vehicle. The imaging radar sensor, located above the headliner, can detect a life form even after a driver exits, according to Toyota. If a child or pet is locked inside, warning signals will light up on the instrument cluster. The vehicle will make noise and the driver may get notifications via the Toyota app as well as text messages, the company said. Moreover, the technology can send alerts through smart home devices or send text messages to designated emergency contacts.
Roberts said the team is also currently exploring vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications to get the attention of passersby. The engineering team took inspiration from a microwave radar technology created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that was able to detect human breathing and heartbeats under more than 30 feet of rubble after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in 2015.
“Good people make mistakes and this can happen to any of us,” Roberts said. “This is a big issue we need to solve.”
Roberts pointed out that opening windows in a locked car can still cause heat stroke and death for occupants inside. More than 900 children have died of heatstroke since 1998, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A child can die when his or her body temperature reaches 107 degrees and a child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s, NHTSA states on its website.
Korean automaker Hyundai first rolled out its Ultrasonic Rear Occupant Alert sensor in the Palisade SUV for model year 2020. The sophisticated sensing-based alert sets off blinking lights, honks the horn and sends a text message via Hyundai’s telematics Bluelink connected car system, directing the driver to immediately check the back seat. Though the Ultrasonic technology is only available in select models for now, a Hyundai spokesperson said a Rear Occupant Alert (ROA) system comes standard in 99% of the company’s vehicles. When the driver shut offs the vehicle, a reminder pops up on the instrument panel to check the rear seat.
“We’re trying to be pioneers in this space,” Brian Latouf, chief safety officer of Hyundai Motor North America, told ABC News. “We’re paying close attention to this issue and messaging and communication are important.”
Right now there are limitations to the Ultrasonic sensor, Latouf noted. The vehicle has to be locked for an alert to be sent via the Bluelink system and not all Hyundai drivers are connected to the Bluelink app. The ultrasonic sensor looks for motion so a sleeping child may not trigger the system, he added. The vehicle, however, will still honk and display the “check rear seat” message on the instrument panel dash.
“We’re learning from Ultrasonic to make it more accurate and we are considering finer-tuned systems like infrared technology,” Latouf said.
Electric carmaker Tesla launched its “Dog Mode” in 2019 so owners could keep their pets in an air-conditioned cabin while the vehicle was unattended. A message on the large screen says “My owner will be back soon” and displays the temperature inside.
Kim, like Fennell, said these alerts — while largely helpful — can cause drivers to become inured to the constant warnings. The current tech may also desensitize motorists to real emergencies and create liabilities for companies.
“Certainly there is a risk if a warning becomes such a part of the routine that you just start ignoring it. That’s definitely a concern,” Kim said. “There are people who will get so accustomed to the warning that it becomes meaningless and they don’t pay attention to it anymore.”
He added, “Having the alert is better than not having it and this feature doesn’t cost much for an automaker to implement.”
Brian Moody, executive editor of Kelley Blue Book, said these warning systems add an “extra level of sophistication” to the vehicle and are an important selling point. The larger debate may be whether automakers are liable if the alert technology fails in a car with children and pets inside, he said.
“At some level there has to be personal responsibility,” Moody told ABC News.
There are ways to prevent hot car deaths without technology: teaching children to honk the horn if they get stuck inside or placing an important item in the rear as a reminder. Fennell said she’ll keep pushing for more advancements until no child dies in a hot car. If Toyota’s Concept Cabin system becomes a reality, Roberts said the company would be open to sharing its technology with industry competitors.
“This is a social good initiative,” he said. “If we can help the industry move forward, why wouldn’t we do that?”
(NEW YORK) — All roads in and out of Death Valley National Park are closed after unprecedented amounts of rainfall caused substantial flooding in the area, park officials said Friday.
Approximately 500 visitors and 500 staff are currently unable to exit the park, which straddles the California-Nevada border, the officials said in a statement. No injuries to staff or visitors have been reported.
The California Department of Transportation expects it will take several hours to open a road on Highway 190 east of the park to allow an exit, park officials said.
Dozens of cars belonging to visitors and staff are buried in several feet of debris and many facilities are flooded including hotel rooms and business offices.
Additionally, the Cow Creek Water system, which provides water to the Cow Creek area for park residents and offices, has failed, according to park officials. A major break in the line due to the flooding is being repaired, officials said.
The park received at least 1.46 inches of rain in the Furnace Creek area, almost an entire year’s worth of rain in one morning, as the park’s annual average is 1.9 inches of rainwater, the park reported.
This was the second-highest amount of rainfall in a day at Furnace Creek, just behind 1.47 inches recorded on April 15, 1988.
The park is working with the California Department of Transportation, and state and county emergency services on assessing the situation and damage.
(NEW YORK) — Two people are dead and five are missing after a boat capsized near the Florida Keys, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday night.
The boat, which was determined to have been carrying migrants, had 15 people aboard before it capsized south of Sugarloaf Key, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Local search crews and good Samaritans rescued 8 people. Six were taken for medical evaluation, the statement said.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who lost their lives off the Lower Keys,” Rear Admiral Brendan McPherson, commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District, said in the statement. “Our search continues for others that may have survived this tragic incident.”
U.S. Border Patrol reported more than 130 migrants had been apprehended along the island chain in the last two days, according to Miami ABC affiliate WPLG.
“This situation highlights the risks these migrants face as they attempt to enter the United States illegally by sea,” McPherson said.
