(NEW YORK) — Bank stocks in the U.S. and Europe tumbled on Wednesday as the global financial system continued to reckon with the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the largest bank failure since 2008.
Shares of Credit Suisse fell more than 26% in early trading after a top backer said he would not be able to provide any more cash to support the Swiss bank.
The pressure on the banking industry appeared to strain some of the largest U.S. banks, too.
Citi fell nearly 5% on Wednesday morning while J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo each dropped nearly 4%.
The downward trend hammered the major stock indexes. The Dow Industrial Average fell more than 500 points, which amounts to a 1.3% decline; the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each fell about 1.5%.
The banking sector’s struggles mark the latest sign of fallout from the fall on Friday of Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th-largest bank in the U.S. Two days later, Signature Bank, the nation’s 29th-largest bank, closed its doors, suggesting the financial panic had spread.
Many bank stocks plummeted at the outset of this week but rallied on Tuesday, regaining much of their losses. The broad decline in early trading on Wednesday renewed fears of damage to the wider financial system.
The turn downward follows news on Tuesday that the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are probing the fall of Silicon Valley Bank.
The Federal Reserve Board, the governing body of the Fed, announced a day earlier that it would launch a review of the “supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank, in light of its failure.”
The second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history triggered a major government intervention to protect the financial system.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which protects the stability of the financial system, took over Silicon Valley Bank on Friday in an effort to protect depositors.
Fearing a wider spread of the crisis after the collapse of Signature Bank, the FDIC, the Treasury Department and the Fed took further action on Sunday, telling depositors in both fallen banks that the FDIC would protect all of their funds, including those that exceed its $250,000 limit.
Later that day, the Fed announced an emergency lending program to cover the deposits at issue and restore wider confidence in the financial system.
Still, the worldwide fallout in the banking sector appears ongoing.
France’s two largest international banks, Societe Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA, fell more than 10% on Wednesday. Deutsche Bank AG, a top German lender, plummeted 8%.
Some financial institutions were spared, however. Schwab, the eighth-largest U.S. bank, ticked up almost 3%.
(NEW YORK) — Social media users, online groups, and even celebrities like Martha Stewart, are touting CBD as a real aid for sleep, but some are beginning to wonder if the legal chemical found in marijuana really works.
Cannabidiol, known as CBD, is a compound found in marijuana but is not an intoxicant, meaning it does not cause a “high,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jessica Ater, a mother of two in Washington state, said she’s been struggling with sleep.
“I can’t sleep at night. Like that’s when my brain starts going crazy,” Ater told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “Nothing worked and, if it did work, not long term.”
After reading about CBD in an online mom’s group, Ater said she bought some CBD gummies at a dispensary that helped.
“My anxiety I mean I still have it at night, but it definitely helps shut my brain off so that I’m able to sleep,” said Ater.
However, Annie Guthrie, a college student who wanted to fall asleep earlier, said her experience with CBD chocolates didn’t work for her at all.
“I had the hardest time sleeping so I needed to try something that could help that,” Guthrie told GMA. “Nothing happened. It didn’t work. It didn’t work at all.”
Dr. Ryan Vandrey, one of the country’s preeminent scientific researchers on CBD, said CBD may have better results for people with anxiety or pain compared to those who have a hard time falling asleep.
“Someone who has insomnia might not benefit from it unless the insomnia is secondary to something else like anxiety, or pain condition,” Vandrey said to GMA.
The Food and Drug Administration has indicated that they want to create more regulations for CBD. So far they’ve only approved it for the treatment of some seizure disorders.
Vandrey said that studies that exist on CBD are small and some found that the chemical doesn’t always isolate from THC, the part of cannabis that makes you high.
“So we don’t have the large randomized controlled trials,” he said. “So we see a lot of promise but we still need more evidence.”
(NEW YORK) — The closures of two of the nation’s largest banks over the past week have put many consumers on edge.
Silicon Valley Bank, the nation’s 16th largest bank, struggled as the sharp rise in interest rates led to a decline in the value of the bank’s Treasuries and mortgage bonds. When the bank’s value dropped, its customers, who are mostly in the tech industry, pulled their money from the institution in a so-called bank run that forced Silicon Valley Bank to close for good.
Days later, New York-based Signature Bank, the 29th-largest bank in the U.S., was ordered to close.
After the banks’ closures, even people who didn’t have money invested in Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank were left wondering what it might mean for them and their money.
ABC News’ Good Morning America spoke with financial expert Farnoosh Torabi, host of the “So Money” podcast, to break down what consumers need to know.
Are other banks still safe to keep money in?
Yes, according to Torabi.
“Silicon Valley Bank is making the news because it is an anomaly. It is an anomaly event in the financial world,” Torabi said. “It’s our human nature to see events like these and think this is what happens all of the time, or this is going to happen tomorrow at my bank, but it’s really important to put this in the perspective of history. Very few banks actually go completely out of business.”
The banks’ closings have prompted some people on social media to post about taking their money out of banks and storing it at home, which Torabi said would be one of the worst decisions to make at this moment.
“I can assure you that that is a not safe thing to do,” she said. “It is far worse to put your money at home, in a lockbox, under your mattress than at a bank in the United States.”
What do I need to ask my bank to make sure it is secure?
The one step Torabi says every person should take is to make sure their bank has a partnership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, better known as the FDIC.
The FDIC is an independent government agency tasked with keeping the nation’s banking system running.
Consumers can go to the FDIC website to see if their bank is insured, or ask their bank directly.
Torabi said it’s more important than ever, given the number of tech-driven, digital banks on the market, to know who is behind the bank and whether or not they are FDIC-insured.
“There are more choices as consumers, so we have to do our due diligence,” she said. “It’s very important that you do your homework, your background check, on that bank.”
What does FDIC insurance do?
If a bank is FDIC-insured, its depositors are guaranteed protection of up to $250,000 in funds for each different type of account held.
In other words, if a customer has $200,000 in checking and savings accounts at an FDIC-insured bank and that bank goes under, the FDIC will step in and pay the customer $200,000 so they do not lose the money.
Torabi said the FDIC website is, again, a great resource for people to figure out how their accounts are insured and up to what limit. In some cases, for example, a couple that has both individual and joint accounts at one bank may be insured past the $250,000 limit.
In extreme, larger cases, as with Silicon Valley Bank, the FDIC will also step in to cover beyond the $250,000 limit.
The FDIC, the Treasury Department and the Fed have told depositors in Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank that the FDIC would protect all of their funds, including those that exceed the $250,000 limit.
It is important to note that the FDIC does not insure risky investments like stocks, bonds or crypto.
Do I need to spread my money across multiple different banks?
Torabi said this time is a good reminder of the “importance of diversification” when it comes to our money.
“We should always be diversifying not only where we invest, but when it comes to saving, too,” Torabi said. “If you have more than $250,000 in a bank, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not protected, because we know FDIC limits work in different ways, but it’s important to check. It’s important to know.”
She continued, “Maybe what you do is you put some of that money at a different institution, or you take some of it and put it in a joint account.”
Will the fall of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank impact interest rates?
Over the last several months, Americans have been hit hard by both elevated inflation and aggressive interest rate hikes.
One interesting impact of the collapse of the two banks is that it could lead to slight relief for consumers.
While the Federal Reserve is expected to hike interest rates again next week to keep combating inflation, Wall Street analysts do not expect the hike to be as aggressive now because higher interest rates put even more pressure on banks, according to Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent.
If my money wasn’t in the impacted banks, what should my biggest concern be?
According to Torabi, the economic concern she is most focused on at the moment is layoffs and making sure consumers are prepared for that worst-case scenario.
On Tuesday, for example, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta announced it was cutting 10,000 jobs and will cancel 5,000 open positions.
Torabi said she encourages people to start thinking now about what they would need financially if they were laid off, so they can prepare.
“Doing this sort of pre-emptive crisis management now can allow you to then see, when times are still good, where the holes are in your financial life and start to fill them,” she said, adding that people should keep their resumes and networking up-to-date and ask themselves questions like, “What if I got laid off today? What would I do? Do I know how to collect unemployment? Do I have enough in savings? What would I cut out of my budget?”
Torabi said that same kind of action-oriented thinking can also apply to looking at the fall of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
“As a consumer, as a depositor at a bank that didn’t have any relationship with SVB [Silicon Valley Bank], I think it’s not worth your time obsessing over this,” she said. “Just make sure to dot your i’s, cross your t’s, make sure your money is FDIC-insured and if you have questions, talk to your lender, talk to your bank. They would know better than anybody.”
(NEW YORK) — OpenAI released the latest version of ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence language model making significant waves in the tech industry, on Tuesday.
GPT-4, the latest model, can understand images as input, meaning it can look at a photo and give the user general information about the image.
The language model also has a larger information database, allowing it to provide more accurate information and write code in all major programming languages.
GPT-4 can now read, analyze or generate up to 25,000 words of text and is seemingly much smarter than its previous model. GPT-4 scored in the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam. Its previous model scored in the 10th, according to OpenAI.
ChatGPT, which was only released a few months ago, is already considered the fastest-growing consumer application in history. The app hit 100 million monthly active users in just a few months. TikTok took nine months to reach that many users and Instagram took nearly three years, according to a UBS study.
“While less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios, [GPT-4] exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks,” OpenAI wrote in its press release, adding that the language model scored a 700/800 on the math SAT.
Though impressive, OpenAI acknowledged the program is still “far from perfect.”
“It is still flawed, still limited, and it still seems more impressive on first use than it does after you spend more time with it,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted.
Artificial intelligence models, including ChatGPT, have raised some concerns and disruptive headlines in recent months. In education, students have been using the systems to complete writing assignments, but educators are torn on whether these systems are disruptive or if they could be used as learning tools.
These systems have also been prone to generate inaccurate information — Google’s AI, “Bard,” notably made a factual error in its first public demo. This is a flaw OpenAI hopes to improve upon — GPT-4 is 40% more likely to produce accurate information than its previous version, according to OpenAI.
Misinformation and potentially biased information are subjects of concern. AI language models are trained on large datasets, which can sometimes contain bias in terms of race, gender, religion and more. This can result in the AI language model producing biased or discriminatory responses.
Many have pointed out the malicious ways people could use misinformation through models like ChatGPT, like phishing scams or to spread misinformation to deliberately disrupt important events like elections.
OpenAI says it “spent months making [ChatGPT] safer,” adding the company is working with “over 50 experts for early feedback in domains including AI safety and security.”
GPT-4 is 82% less likely to provide users with “disallowed content,” referring to illegal or morally objectionable content, according to OpenAI.
(WASHINGTON) — Following a series of close calls involving commercial flights, aviation leaders are set to meet Wednesday to discuss the incidents and work to identify patterns and factors fueling risks to the industry.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced the safety summit last month as part of a review of the nation’s aerospace system, looking at structure, culture, systems and integration of safety efforts.
“We are experiencing the safest period in aviation history, but we cannot take this for granted,” the FAA’s acting administrator, Billy Nolen, said. “Recent events remind us that we must not become complacent. Now is the time to stare into the data and ask hard questions.”
The summit will feature remarks from Nolen as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy. The event will also include a panel moderated by Nolen and former NTSB Chair Robert Sumwalt, while participants will include various union and lobbying officials.
Nolen will ask participants about what they see in their own operations and request specific ideas about how to enhance the country’s safety net with concrete actions.
In an interview, Buttigieg said he has been seeing an “uptick” in close calls with aircraft in recent weeks.
“This year, we’re on track to have more than 20 — and even one is one that I would not like to see happen,” he told ABC News Transportation Correspondent Gio Benitez.
Buttigieg said he’s “very concerned” about these incidents but stressed the overall safety of the nation’s aviation system.
“We need to make sure that there is continuous improvement, continuous attention to our national aviation system,” Buttigieg said. “Air travel didn’t become the safest way to travel on its own. The American transportation system had to learn from decades of crashes.”
Data shows the more serious incidents have been declining over the last two decades even as the total number of incidents grows.
Buttigieg told ABC News that the rebound of aviation from lows seen during the COVID-19 pandemic has been “putting strain on the system” and the increased demand in air travel also may be contributing to the recent close calls.
When asked if experience among aviation workers is to blame, Buttigieg pushed back, saying, “It’s not just experience in general.”
“We are still talking about human beings,” he said. “And while, again, these cases are extremely rare — we’re not going to allow any of them to pass by without getting a very close, focused look at how it happened, why it happened and what steps could prevent it from happening.”
Buttigieg wrote to attendees of the safety summit on Tuesday, saying he expects to accomplish three things: identifying “patterns and risk factors,” identifying how the different parts of the aviation system can “address any risks” and identifying and implementing “additional steps” to reduce those risks.
“It is our responsibility to take a hard look at all factors and determine what steps are needed to reinforce a safety culture and strengthen safety practices, especially given significant disruptions and changes to the aviation sector coming out of a global pandemic,” Buttigieg wrote.
FAA and NTSB investigating a string of incidents
The FAA and NTSB are currently investigating six close calls involving commercial planes in recent months — five of which occurred at airports and one over the Pacific Ocean.
In December, United Flight 1722 bound for San Francisco experienced a sudden loss in altitude over the Pacific, officials have said. Shortly after takeoff from Maui, the Boeing 777 dropped to just 775 feet above the water in less than 20 seconds. The plane was then able to regain altitude and continue on to its final destination. There were no injuries.
On Jan. 13, an American Airlines flight crossed a runway at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport without clearance from air traffic control, causing a Delta Air Lines plane to abort its takeoff from that runway, according to the NTSB. The closest point between the two aircraft was about 1,400 feet, a preliminary report from the agency stated.
Also in January, United Airlines 384 crossed a runway at Honolulu’s airport without clearance from air traffic control. A Cessna was landing on the same runway at the time. The Cessna came to a stop approximately 1,170 feet from the United flight, according to the FAA. There were no injuries or damage to the aircraft.
On Feb. 4, a FedEx plane landing at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas came within 100 feet of a Southwest Airlines jet taking off on the same runway, the FAA said. Both planes were given clearance from air traffic control to use that runway.
And in February, two more close calls, according to officials — one of which occurred at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport in Florida after an air traffic controller cleared an American Airlines flight to land on the same runway an Air Canada Rouge plane was cleared to take off from. The American flight self-initiated a go-around and the two aircraft were approximately 3,100 feet from each other.
The other incident occurred at Boston Logan International Airport after a Learjet took off without clearance from air traffic control as a JetBlue flight was preparing to land on an intersecting runway.
(WASHINGTON) — There’s a growing list of politicians, conservatives and liberals alike, who back raising teacher pay.
But while members in both chambers of Congress, multiple governors and President Joe Biden all agree that the issue deserves attention, amid high inflation and an ongoing shortage of instructors, they disagree on whether it needs the federal government to offer a solution — and if so, how.
Nationally, teachers’ median pay was about $61,000 in 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, meaning half of teachers made less than that and half made more.
Compensation can vary widely: California, Massachusetts and New York’s average teacher wages top $85,000 annually, labor statistics show, while Oklahoma and Mississippi on average pay teachers less than $50,000.
Last week, Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law the LEARNS Act, a sweeping package which, among many other changes, increases the minimum salary for public and charter school teachers in her state from $36,000 to $50,000.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to go further. On Thursday, he introduced the Pay Teachers Act which, like a similar legislative proposal in the House, would raise public school teacher salaries nationwide to $60,000 or higher.
“There is a major teacher crisis in America and we need to significantly attract more people into the teaching profession,” Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), told ABC News. “Probably the easiest — the fastest — way to do that is by raising the minimum salary to at least $60,000,” he said.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., who sits on the HELP committee with Sanders, said he supports the premise behind the bill but would like it to be tied to performance. Braun said a larger overhaul of the system may attract more educators.
“I think we need to invest more in our school teachers,” Braun said in the wake of Sanders’ legislation.
“I’m not sure I’d take that approach. I think, in general, teacher pay obviously is going to have to be raised,” Braun said. “And to me it would be done through some type of performance measurement in general and inject choice and competition into the process. It might be an easier place for teachers to build a career if it was kind of restructured, you know, in other ways other than just throwing more money at it.”
The Pay Teachers Act is one of two recent proposals focused on instructors’ salaries.
Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, a career educator, introduced the American Teacher Act last month with Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a former principal. Their bill would incentivize states to raise minimum salaries to $60,000 for public K-12 teachers, through a grant program at the U.S. Department of Education, as well as mandate yearly increases congruent to inflation.
Wilson previously told ABC News that she sees her target number as the most achievable goal despite some educators supporting higher base pay.
Citing some of the same concerns as Sanders did, Wilson said in December, “We can choose to take this issue head on or lose America’s teachers and have the education of our students severely impacted.”
Under Wilson and Bowman’s bill, states would need to opt-in to the federally funded short-term grants. Sanders called for the money to come from tripling funding for high-need or low-income public schools, as designated under Title I.
It’s unclear how quickly either bill may be taken up by committees, if at all.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Education Department has called for COVID-19 pandemic relief money from the federal government to be used to bump up teacher pay in the short term while also urging state-level action.
“Secretary [Miguel] Cardona has vocally said that states and schools can use American Rescue Plan funds to lift up the salaries of teachers,” a department spokesperson said, adding, “He also made sure to call on governors and state legislatures to match the urgency of the president to [use] the same amount of funding because the ARP money is temporary, so now it’s about long-term investments to make sure teacher salaries are lifted up.”
Whether there’s a majority in the currently divided Congress to pass either Sanders’ or Wilson and Bowman’s bill — or any push to increase teacher pay nationally — remains unknown. Other Republicans and Democrats disagree with how this issue should be handled and said they’re wary of Congress stepping in.
“There are constitutional questions, but there are also logical questions about it,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said. “I think everyone would love for teachers to make more, but teachers don’t work for the federal government, so they should talk to their school boards and state legislatures.”
The House’s Education and the Workforce Committee chairwoman, Rep. Virginia Foxx, advocated for increased teacher pay when she was in the North Carolina state legislature. Congress, however, shouldn’t force a national policy where the states would know better, she said.
“Imposing a one-size-fits-all plan at the federal level to K-12 education across the country will not improve schools or set students on the path to success,” Foxx, R-N.C., said.
Both Arkansas and Florida have recently approved major bumps to teacher pay at the state level. Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, backed a budget that boosted salaries to a $47,000 minimum.
In January, DeSantis proposed investing $1 billion to raise teacher salaries again.
Education finance expert Jess Gartner said teachers are categorically underpaid — they should make at least 20% more than they do, on average — but she also said that in her view the recent congressional proposals are not rooted in economic reality.
“This [$60,0000] is just a number,” Gartner said. “What is it based in? Where did that number come from? Is it high enough? Is it too high? I do not like policies like that because I think they sound great in headlines but in practice, it’s chaos.”
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, last week pushed back on conservative lawmakers’ criticism.
“They’re wrong,” he said. “Congress has got to work with the state. Certainly states have an enormous responsibility, but states are going to need financial support. That’s going to significantly come from the federal government.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of University of California at Berkeley’s Law School, said he believes Sanders and Wilson are well-within their constitutional authority to tie salary requirements to federal funding.
Teachers have told ABC News that strict time demands coupled with persistent student behavioral issues and lack of administrative support have made the profession undesirable without some pay incentive.
Even with incremental salary increases, some teachers said their raises have been inadequate due to the pressures from inflation.
“We have the worst compensation plan in any major industry in America,” said Eric Hale, the compensation committee lead within Texas’ teacher vacancy task force. “That’s a tough sell for a savvy student who can go into any other industry and look at making twice, three times as much as a teacher, right? So we got to fix that.”
(NEW YORK) — At least one hiker is dead and one still remains missing after a group of three were reported missing in Utah on Monday, officials say.
The incident occurred on Monday morning when the Kane County Sheriff’s Office in Utah received a call from a spouse informing them that a party of three hikers — who had left on Friday to hike Buckskin Gulch on the border between Arizona and Utah — were supposed to have come back by Sunday but had never returned.
A search and rescue team was immediately initiated for the three missing hikers — all adult makes in their mid-40’s to mid-50’s — with a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter being sent to the canyon where they had been hiking, according to the Kane County Sheriff’s Department.
“Camping debris was located which led to the location of one of the three hikers,” said Allan Alldredge of the Kane County Sheriff’s Office in a statement obtained by ABC News. “A SLC helicopter with hoist capabilities was then flown over the canyon to lower someone to extract the hiker and get them medical attention.”
The hiker was subsequently taken to hospital for medical treatment, but authorities gave no further details on the man’s condition.
The Kane County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that one of the three hikers reported missing in Buckskin Gulch on Monday has since been found dead while another still remains missing.
Authorities did not disclose how the man may have died but did confirm that the search for the third missing man is still currently active.
In separate instances, the search for the three hikers also led to multiple other rescues of people in the area who needed to be airlifted out due to severe weather, officials said.
“During this search, two other parties have called for SAR resulting in 11 people being airlifted out of the canyon due to severe weather,” said Alldredge.
The identity of the victims have yet to be released and the search and rescue operation for the last missing man is ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — Five thousand miles long, 400 miles wide, and over six million tons, a massive bloom of seaweed is drifting toward Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
Scientists at the University of South Florida, with the help of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, have been tracking the bloom of sargassum, a type of brown seaweed, using satellites. Originating in the Atlantic Ocean, the bloom is approaching the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, posing a threat to beaches across the Gulf, including tourism-centric Florida.
“If you’ve ever been on a beach that had a huge abundance of this, it’s not fun,” Dave Tomasco, executive director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, told ABC News. “It rots, it uses up the oxygen water, and smells like rotten eggs.”
When the bloom hits a beach, it can pile one to two meters high on the shoreline and clog swimmable waterways, according to scientists. If the seaweed is not removed from the beach quickly, it will begin to rot, emitting hydrogen sulfide gas, most associated with the smell of rotting eggs that can irritate skin, eyes and the throat, as well as make breathing difficult for those with asthma.
According to Tomasco, the bloom is more likely to harm the tourism industry than harm wildlife by piling up and stinking up famous Florida beaches.
Octavio Penaloza, who manages Wings Beachwear in Miami Beach, said the bloom impacting Miami could impact his bottom line.
“If anything happens to the beach, it would impact us,” he said.
He noted that his busy season includes June and July — the same months when the sargassum peaks in size, according to scientists. While his customer base includes tourists buying souvenirs without visiting the beach, many customers stop by his store for beachwear, which would become unnecessary if beaches become less pleasant.
“[If] the seaweed comes, we will have like less people coming to buy from our store because they mostly buy things to go to the beach,” Penaloza said.
For a measurable impact on Florida beaches, University of South Florida research professor Brian Barnes said that a concentrated amount of about “the size of a football field” of seaweed must land on a seashore at once.
“If it’s a big enough blimp or big enough patch that hits a particular beach, then it can kind of overwhelm the capabilities [of the beach],” Barnes said.
While the bloom spans over two million square miles, it only completely covers about .1 percent of the sea surface, spread in patches that vary in size significantly, according to Barnes. The bloom will take months to reach land ultimately and might increase in size as the water temperature increases; the location where it lands is also dependent on wind and currents, with Barnes warning that Southeast Florida, including Miami and the Florida Keys, are the areas in the United States most likely to be impacted.
When and if it arrives, the Florida Department of Health warns that decaying sargassum’s hydrogen sulfide will irritate the skin, eyes, throat, and nose. It is unlikely to injure seriously in an airy setting like a beach, but people with asthma might have trouble breathing due to the gas.
Tomasco also noted that the hydrogen sulfide could interact with paint molecules on homes, turning them into a grayish silver color and even tarnishing silverware.
Chuanmin Hu, a professor at the University of South Florida who works on tracking the bloom with Barnes, said the amount of seaweed heading to the coast is not a cause for alarm, emphasizing that sargassum is natural and not toxic to ocean life.
Hu said that this amount of seaweed is the “new normal” for the Atlantic Ocean; however, the current seaweed mass set the record for the largest bloom of sargassum recorded during January, though it decreased in size in February.
“At least it will be one of the major sargassum years, although we don’t know if it will be a record year or not,” Hu said, emphasizing that the size of the bloom reaches its peak in June and July.
Compared to the red tide, a toxic algae bloom that has wreaked havoc on Florida’s Gulf Coast over the last decade by killing sea life and even manatees, sargassum is not harmful to wildlife under most conditions. Hu said that some animals, including sea turtles, fish, crabs, and shrimp could eat or find shelter in the blooms.
However, Tomasco warned that sargassum on beaches could disrupt sea turtle nesting habitats. Hu also noted that if sargassum sinks to the ocean floor compactly, it could smother and kill coral and seagrass.
“They sink to the ocean floor and smother things,” Hu said, noting that most of the bloom will likely end on the seafloor instead of the beach.
While the blooms are the “new normal” compared to the last few years, Barnes noted that they were “unheard of” before 2011, characterizing their sudden emergence as a mystery.
“Any type of bloom of any relative size is unheard of before 2011,” Barnes said. “Like, we never saw any type of bloom like this; there’s no reports of huge beachings or anything like that in the Caribbean.”
While Hu said there is no direct evidence to link the blooms to climate change, Tomasco pointed to the nature of sargassum — including the fact that it grows larger in warmer waters — as an indication of why it has reemerged.
“The world is changing, and part of that is the oceans are getting warmer, and algae seems to be able to grow over a longer period of the calendar now then used to be the case,” Tomasco said.
Tomasco also pointed to the increased use of fertilizing in Florida agriculture and landscaping, which runs off into the gulf and helps spur the seaweed’s growth. Hu clarified that the fertilizer would impact the seaweed when it enters the Gulf of Mexico near the shore, not when the sargassum initially grows in the Atlantic.
Regardless of the reason for the growth, what is clear to all three scientists is that coastal communities will learn to manage the new normal of this seaweed.
“I don’t see anything that indicates it’s trending anywhere but up,” Barnes said.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Marshals on Tuesday issued a wanted poster for Roy McGrath, an ex-chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan who is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars while working for a state agency.
The Marshals are “now seeking to apprehend the former Maryland governor’s top aide after he failed to appear in court on Monday, March 13,” the agency said in a brief statement posted on Twitter.
McGrath was charged in 2021 and 2022 with wire fraud, embezzlement and falsifying documents stemming from his time running the state-owned Maryland Environmental Service, a position to which he was appointed by Hogan before becoming a top gubernatorial aide, federal prosecutors have said.
According to prosecutors, McGrath allegedly falsified documents in order to receive more than $276,000 related to his time at MES, which provides services like water and wastewater management, solid waste management, composting and recycling.
McGrath is accused of “caus[ing] the MES Board of Directors to approve paying McGrath a $233,647.23 severance payment—equal to one year’s salary—upon his departure from MES by falsely telling them that the Governor [Hogan] was aware of and approved the payment,” among other suspected crimes, prosecutors said last year.
He also allegedly submitted false time sheets and allegedly attempted to delete documentation from a board of directors meeting about his compensation.
McGrath was living in Florida and was supposed to be in Baltimore for the start of his trial on Monday, according to the Marshals — but he did not show up.
A lawyer for McGrath did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Prosecutors have said McGrath faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each of the five counts of wire fraud; a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each of two counts of embezzling funds from an organization receiving more than $10,000 in federal benefits; and a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for the charge of falsifying a document if convicted.
(NEW YORK) — Lunchables are ready for their first day of school.
In tandem with the National School Lunch Program, the ready-to-eat packaged Lunchables kits, made by Kraft Heinz, have been approved to be served in schools for the first time.
“Ahead of the 2023-2024 school year, school administrators are now able to purchase two top-selling Lunchables offerings: Turkey and Cheddar, and Extra Cheesy Pizza,” a representative for Kraft Heinz told ABC News’ Good Morning America in a statement.
The approved kits are made with a specialized recipe that adds protein and whole grains, which is intended to keep kids powered throughout the day. The new Lunchables also have reduced saturated fat and sodium, and a larger serving size.
According to Kraft Heinz, part of being approved by the National School Lunch Program means the lunches will provide “more wholesome options to students for purchase or through the free school lunch program.”
Beyond its debut in cafeterias, Lunchables also announced it is concept-testing adding fruits into products sold in retail stores later this year.
The company also said it recently reduced the salt and oil ingredients in the Lunchables cracker itself.
“At Kraft Heinz, we are transforming from the inside out, with innovation as one of our key drivers of growth. Lunchables K-8 is the latest example of growing and expanding the core of our Kraft Heinz portfolio,” the company representative told GMA. “This new NSLP-approved Lunchables checks both boxes — we renovated the nutrition profile by adding more whole grains and protein and are leveraging new channels to better meet unmet needs.”
