(NEW YORK) — California’s ongoing drought and a poor forecast is forcing the state’s water management agency to cut back on its fresh water supply to nearly 27 million residents.
The state’s Department of Water Resources announced Thursday an initial allocation of 5% of requested supplies for 2023 for 29 local water agencies across California.
DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement that the state is already preparing for a fourth dry year and more extreme drought conditions. Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s largest reservoir, remains at 55% of its average for this time of the year, according to the agency.
“This early in California’s traditional wet season, water allocations are typically low due to uncertainty in hydrologic forecasting, but the degree to which hotter and drier conditions are reducing runoff into rivers, streams and reservoirs means we have to be prepared for all possible outcomes,” Nemeth said in a statement.
DWR said it will “assess requests for additional water that may be necessary for health and safety including minimum domestic, sanitation, and fire suppression needs.”
The agency said it will reevaluate requests depending on the precipitation during the winter and spring months. California typically receives half of its rain and snow totals by the end of January, according to DWR.
Most of California has seen less than its average precipitation levels over the last 60 days, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. Most of the state is under severe to exceptional drought warnings, the data showed.
“We are in the dawn of a new era of State Water Project management as a changing climate disrupts the timing of California’s hydrology, and hotter and drier conditions absorb more water into the atmosphere and ground. We all need to adapt and redouble our efforts to conserve this precious resource,” Nemeth said.
(WASHINGTON) — The time for the big reveal of the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber has finally come, but what will we see when the Air Force’s newest long-range bomber is unveiled Friday after being shrouded in secrecy?
All that is known for sure is that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be there in person as the B-21 Raider rolls out of Northrop Grumman’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
There will be a live video broadcast of the unveiling presented by the U.S. Air Force and the plane’s manufacturer, Northrup Grumman, but it’s unclear how much of the aircraft will actually be shown as it’s made public for the first time.
The mystery surrounding the Air Force’s sixth-generation stealth fighter is in keeping with the scant details provided over the last decade during the development of the bomber — intended to replace the B-2 Spirit and the B-1 Lancet bombers.
Throughout that time, the goal has been to reveal as little as possible of what it might look like in order to avoided providing any hints of how it can remain undetectable to advanced radars.
And it has literally been cloaked in secrecy.
The first glimpse of what the new aircraft might look like came in the final seconds of a Northrup Grumman Super Bowl ad in 2015 that showed only the plane’s general wing-shaped contours because it was covered by a shroud.
Since then, Northrup Grumman has released only artist renderings of a wing-shaped aircraft in flight that looks a lot like the B-2 bomber.
Like the B-2, the new long-range aircraft is designed to deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons while flying undetectable to advanced radars and air defense systems anywhere in the world.
The B-2 does that through its unique flying-wing shape and the materials and coatings on the plane’s fuselage that reduce its radar footprint. It’s assumed the new B-21 will improve on a 30-year-old technology.
The aircraft unveiled on Friday will begin initial flight testing at Edwards AFB in California with its first flight forecast to take place in mid-2023. For now, the are six B-21 aircraft in various stages of production and the Air Force plans to to acquire at least 100 of the new bombers, with the first one entering service in the mid-2020s.
As they enter into service, they will eventually replace the B-1 and B-2 bomber fleets, joining the venerable B-52 as the U.S. Air Force’s long-range strategic bomber.
Overall, it is estimated that the fleet of a hundred B-21s will cost $203 billion to develop and operate over the next 30 years, according to Bloomberg.
Unless they are temporarily deployed overseas, the B-2 fleet is housed at Whiteman AFB in Missouri. The Air Force plans for the new B-21 to operate from Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, although Dyess AFB in Texas could be an alternate location.
In 2016, the Air Force announced that the new bomber would be known as the Raider to honor the famous Doolittle Raiders who flew the surprise bombing run on Tokyo on April 18, 1942.
(NEW YORK) — More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose forces began an offensive in August, has vowed to take back all Russian-occupied territory. But Putin in September announced a mobilization of reservists, which is expected to call up as many as 300,000 additional troops.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Dec 02, 12:27 PM EST
Bloody packages with animal eyes sent to Ukrainian embassies
Packages believed to be blood-soaked and containing the eyes of animals, were sent to Ukrainian embassies worldwide, including in Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Croatia and Italy, the Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs said Friday.
The entrance to the ambassador’s residence in the Vatican was also vandalized, according to the Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs.
The Ukrainian embassy in the U.S. received a letter with a photocopy of a critical article about Ukraine. Like most other envelopes, the letter arrived along with others from the territory of an unnamed European country.
“We have reason to believe that a well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation of Ukrainian embassies and consulates is taking place. Not being able to stop Ukraine on the diplomatic front, they are trying to intimidate us. However, I can immediately say that these attempts are useless. We will continue to work effectively for the victory of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement.
The Ukrainian embassy in Spain received a letter-bomb on Wednesday which was opened and ignited, resulting in one slight injury.
A similar envelope was sent to the U.S. embassy in Madrid, but it was detected before going off, according to Spanish officials.
All Ukrainian embassies and consulates have been placed under heightened security. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on foreign governments to guarantee maximum protection of Ukraine’s diplomatic institutions.
Dec 01, 3:28 PM EST
Biden ‘prepared to speak with Putin’ if he wants to end war
Speaking at a joint press conference with France’s Emmanuel Macron, President Joe Biden said he would be open to speaking with Vladimir Putin if the Russian leader has legitimate interest in peace negotiations. Biden, however, said he has “no immediate plans to contact Mr. Putin.”
Biden also noted that Putin has “miscalculated every single thing” when it comes to this war.
“So the question is what is his — how does he get himself out of the circumstance he’s in? I’m prepared if he’s willing to talk to find out what he’s willing to do, but I’ll only do it in consultation with my NATO. I’m not going to do it on my own,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, President Macron, who has continued speaking with Putin, said it’s up to Ukraine to come to the negotiating table.
“So it’s only legitimate that President Zelenskyy sets some conditions to talk. We need to work on what could lead to a peace agreement. But it’s for him to tell us when the time comes and what the choices of the Ukrainians are,” Macron said.
-ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky
Dec 01, 1:46 PM EST
Shelling in Kherson damages power lines as energy company works to finish repairs
Electricity was back for 60% of customers in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, but shelling overnight damaged power lines, according to the head of Ukraine’s regional energy company.
Workers are hoping to finish the repairs by the end of Thursday.
In Kyiv, 652,000 residents were subject to power outages throughout Thursday, according to the director of YASNO energy company, Serhiy Kovalenko. Kyiv’s main power grid is operating at less than 70% capacity and 20% of residents are still without power or heat.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Dec 01, 12:20 PM EST
Russia accuses US, NATO of direct involvement in war
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of being directly involved in the war in Ukraine by supplying the country with weapons and training its soldiers.
“You are training their military on your territory, on the territories of Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries,” Lavrov said at a press conference Thursday.
Lavrov also claimed that Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities and other key infrastructure were intended to weaken Ukraine’s military potential and derail the shipments of weapons from the West.
Lavrov also said Moscow is open to peace talks to end the conflict.
-ABC News’ Will Gretsky
Nov 29, 11:47 AM EST
US to send $53M in energy aid to help Ukraine through winter
The U.S. will provide Ukraine with more than $53 million to acquire critical electric grid equipment to help its citizens get through the winter, the State Department announced Tuesday.
The announcement comes amid Russia’s continued attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
“This new assistance is in addition to $55 million in emergency energy sector support for generators and other equipment to help restore emergency power and heat to local municipalities impacted by Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s power system,” the State Department said in a release.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler
Nov 28, 4:36 PM EST
UN lays out ‘dire’ situation in southern Ukraine
Denise Brown, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Ukraine, traveled to the Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv over the weekend to get an update on the humanitarian issues affecting the southern part of the country, according to the U.N.
Although repairs to the area’s water system are finally able to commence, there is still a lot of work to be done to help the people in those cities, the U.N said.
“We continue to be concerned about the plight of civilians in Ukraine especially as winter sets in,” a U.N. spokesperson said in a statement.
Some heating points have already been established in Mykolaiv to help people who cannot heat their homes, according to the U.N.
“Aid workers are providing supplies and generators to make these places functional,” the U.N. said in a statement.
The agency added that donations and funding for humanitarian efforts are critical as the cold weather sets in.
Nov 25, 1:13 PM EST
Power restored in all regions, Ukraine grid operator says
All of Ukraine’s regions are now connected to the European Union’s energy system and all three nuclear power plants located in the Kyiv-controlled area are working, CEO of Ukrenergo grid operator Volodymyr Kudrytskyi announced.
“In one to two days, they will reach their normal planned capacity, and we expect to introduce planned rolling blackouts instead of emergency outages,” Kudrytskyi said.
Power is slowly returning to all Ukrainian cities, but blackouts and emergency shutdowns continue. Power issues are the worst in Kyiv, Kirivigrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava and Lviv, according to Kudrytskyi.
Kyiv’s critical infrastructure receives electricity, the water supply is fully restored and heating is being restored, but 50% of residential houses remain without power. Only one-third of houses currently have heating, according to the mayor.
(NEW YORK) — A passenger on an Antarctic cruise died and four others were injured after their Viking ship was struck by a “rogue wave,” the cruise line said.
The incident happened on Tuesday around 10:40 p.m. local time while the Viking Polaris ship was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina, Viking said.
A guest died following the incident, Viking said, though it did not share further details on the cause of death. The victim’s family has been notified, the company said. The identity or nationality of the passenger was not released.
Four other guests sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the incident and were treated by the ship’s doctor and medical staff, Viking said.
“We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities,” Viking said in a statement Thursday. “Our focus remains on the safety and wellbeing of our guests and crew, and we are working directly with them to arrange return travel.”
The ship sustained “limited damage” from the rogue wave and arrived in Ushuaia on Wednesday “without further incident,” Viking said. Images taken of the docked ship showed several damaged windows.
Passengers on board the ship described choppy conditions leading up to the incident.
Californian Beverly Spiker told ABC News that a “huge smash” against the window of her and her husband’s cabin caused her window frame to break.
“Clearly something big had happened,” she said. “A lot of water came shooting in.”
“Luckily, our windows did hold,” she added, though she said other rooms on their side of the ship were “washed out.”
Spiker’s cousin, Suzie Gooding, of North Carolina, told ABC News that at the time, the ship was going through the Drake Passage, “which is well-known for having turbulent seas.”
Gooding said despite the conditions outside looking “horrible,” the inside was “like a normal cruise ship” leading up to the incident. She said she felt a “sudden shudder” that caused cabinets to open.
“It was just unbelievable,” she said. “At the time that it happened, we personally wondered if, you know, we knew that we weren’t by any icebergs, but it’s like, did we hit an iceberg? It just was so sudden.”
Spike said she and other passengers were “shook up” afterward.
“No matter what side of the boat you’re on, it was felt throughout the ship that clearly something bad had happened,” she said. “So everybody was pretty shook up.”
The ship is docked as passengers await further travel plans from Viking, according to Gooding, who said that two other ships in their bay in Ushuaia were also damaged, possibly by rouge waves.
The Viking Polaris ship’s next departure for the Antarctic, scheduled for Dec. 5, has been canceled “after careful consideration,” the cruise line said.
Rogue, or extreme storm waves, are “greater than twice the size of surrounding waves” and are “very unpredictable,” according to the National Ocean Service.
Ushuaia, at the southernmost tip of South America, is a common starting point for cruises to Antarctica.
(NEW YORK) — Some unions representing rail workers as well as the nation’s largest labor organization blasted a Senate vote on Thursday denying workers paid sick days after the chamber passed a separate measure imposing a labor agreement and averting a nationwide rail strike.
The bill, which gives rail workers seven paid sick days, passed the House but was defeated by a vote of 52-43 in the Senate, as Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., joined Republican members in rejecting the measure. A handful of Republican members, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla, voted in favor of the bill.
“It is extremely disappointing that 43 Senators voted to prioritize the corporate greed of rail carriers and CEOs over the needs and quality-of-life improvements that our members so desperately deserve,” said the SMART Transportation Division, or SMART-TD, which represents about 28,000 conductors, making it the nation’s largest rail union.
The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees division of the Teamsters, or BMWED, which represents 12,000 members, sharply criticized the Senate vote.
“It is shocking and appalling that any Member of Congress would cast a vote against any sort of provision that raises the standard of living for hard-working Americans,” a union statement said.
“In fact, such a vote is nothing less than anti-American, an abdication of their oath of office and you are deemed, in my eyes, unworthy of holding office,” it added.
SMART-TD and BMWED were among four rail unions that rejected a tentative agreement brokered by the White House in September, which later set the terms of a labor contract for rail workers passed by Congress on Thursday and signed by President Joe Biden on Friday. That contract did not provide rail workers with any paid sick days.
The contract imposed by Congress includes a 24% raise from 2020 to 2024, bonus increases and an additional paid day off.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization representing 12.5 million workers, slammed the Senate vote denying paid sick days but applauded other parts of the imposed contract.
“While rail workers won significant wage increases and other important gains today, it’s deeply disappointing that 43 senators sided with multibillion-dollar rail corporations to block desperately needed paid sick days,” the AFCL-CIO said in a statement.
“Rail workers keep America’s economy moving, yet rail companies treat workers as essential one minute and disposable the next,” the labor federation added.
The American Association of Railroads, a trade group representing rail companies, in a statement applauded the vote in Congress on Thursday that averted a nationwide strike but did not comment directly on the Senate’s rejection of paid sick days.
“The Senate acted with leadership and urgency with today’s vote to avert an economically devastating rail work stoppage,” AAR president and CEO Ian Jefferies said on Thursday. “The product of these agreements is a compromise by nature, but the result is one of substantial gains for rail employees.”
“Without a doubt, there is more to be done to further address our employees’ work-life balance concerns, but it is clear this agreement maintains rail’s place among the best jobs in our nation,” he added.
After signing the bill imposing the labor agreement on Friday, Biden said the contract helped the U.S. avert a “catastrophe,” even as he acknowledged that the measure fell short of worker demands.
Biden has faced criticism for backing congressional intervention in support of labor terms rejected by some of the rail unions, despite referring to himself as a pro-union president.
“Look, I know this bill doesn’t have paid sick leave these rail workers, and frankly every worker in America, deserves,” Biden said. “But that fight isn’t over.”
“I supported paid sick leave for a long time,” he added. “I’m going to continue that fight til we succeed.”
Unions accused rail companies of penalizing workers for taking time off for medical reasons, since employees do not receive paid sick days. To win a favorable deal, rail companies jeopardized the nation’s economy, unions said.
The National Carriers’ Conference Committee, which represents the nation’s freight railroads in national collective bargaining, said rail employees are provided “significant” time off and that the companies had offered a fair contract that included a considerable wage increase.
The terms of the labor contract followed guidelines issued by a presidential emergency board formed by Biden in July. Two months later, in September, the White House brokered a tentative agreement based on those terms but the deal was later rejected by 4 rail unions.
While alluding to disappointment over the Senate vote on paid sick days, Transportation Communications Union President Arthur Maratea applauded Biden’s efforts to forge an agreement in a statement on Thursday.
“Regardless of our feelings on the outcome of the vote today, union members should not discount the lengths to which the Biden Administration went to deliver a Presidential Emergency Board with strong recommendations that provided our members with record wage increases, preserved our healthcare (which was under assault), and even provided an extra paid day off,” he said.
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles County may soon reimpose indoor mask mandates as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in the area.
During a press conference Thursday, LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the largest county in the United States had reached “medium” COVID-19 transmission levels and will require face coverings if it reaches the “high” category.
As of Dec. 1, Los Angeles County is averaging 2,490 new COVID-19 infections every day, the highest number recorded since Aug. 26, according to health department data.
Ferrer said the real count is likely much higher due to several people testing positive with at-home rapid tests and not reporting the results to health officials or due to people not testing at all.
Additionally, there are currently 1,164 residents hospitalized in the county due to the virus, which is the highest number of patients seen since Aug. 11.
Daily deaths are still relatively low at 14, but the figure could rise because COVID-related fatalities tend to lag a few weeks behind case and hospitalization increases, Ferrer noted.
“There is this common line of thinking that the pandemic is over and COVID is no longer of concern, but these numbers clearly demonstrate that COVID is still with us,” she said.
Two weeks ago, county officials said they were “strongly recommending” that residents wear masks in indoor public settings but stopped short of requiring them after the COVID-19 case rate hit 100 per 100,000 residents.
Currently, the weekly rate is 185 per 100,000 and Los Angeles County would likely be considered “high” if it reaches 200 per 100,000.
If cases keep climbing at the same rate, Ferrer said the county will likely reach the “high” category by next week.
According to Ferrer, mask requirements will return if Los Angeles County sees daily average hospital admissions exceed a rate of 10 per 100,000 and if more than 10% of staffed inpatient beds are being occupied by COVID patients. Both are benchmarks set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Given both the increases in hospitalizations and the lack of certainty in the winter trajectory for COVID-19, continuing some common-sense mitigation strategies that we know work to limit transmission and illness, including masking and being up to date on vaccines and boosters, remains a very sensible approach,” she said.
Health department data shows 73% of all residents are fully vaccinated but the percentages vary widely by age.
Seniors aged 65 and older have the highest rate with 92% fully vaccinated while children between ages 6 months and 4 years have the lowest rate with just 6% fully vaccinated.
(NEW YORK) — The founder of nonprofit organization Sistah Space drew international attention after she detailed racist comments from a British royal aide while attending a Buckingham Palace reception on combatting violence against women hosted by Queen Consort Camilla.
Ngozi Fulani, whose charity focuses on supporting women of African and Caribbean heritage affected by domestic violence, detailed her encounter with “Lady SH” in a viral tweet about her experience that took place Tuesday at an event to mark the international campaign, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.
“Because of the work that we do at Sistah Space, we talk about domestic abuse, but we also look at the racism or, you know, barriers for Black women reporting domestic abuse,” Fulani said, addressing the controversy in an interview with ABC News Live on Friday. “So because of that work, that’s why we received the invitation in the first place. I did not expect that five minutes after I got into the palace, I was approached by a woman that I didn’t know and I still don’t know.”
The royal aide was later revealed to be Lady Susan Hussey, godmother to Prince William and lady-in-waiting to the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Fulani, a British national, said that Hussey asked her repeatedly where she was from after moving her locs to see her name badge, allegedly responding, “No, what part of Africa are you from?” when Fulani said her organization is based in the U.K., continuing to question Fulani when she insisted that she was British.
“I know when someone’s asking me a question because they’re interested and when someone’s asking me a question because there’s a motive at the end,” Fulani told ABC News Live of the interaction she perceived as more than a case of genuine curiosity. “This is about her feeling comfortable that I can’t claim my British citizenship.”
Several commenters under the post mentioned the incident as a reminder of the racism and terroristic threats faced by Meghan Markle upon her entrance to the British Royal Family when she married Prince Harry in 2019. The duchess of Sussex, who is biracial, accused the Firm of ignoring her pleas for help when she suffered suicidal ideation and claimed an unnamed royal had concerns about her unborn baby’s skin color in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Earlier this week, Neil Basu, the former head of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, confirmed the Sussexes faced “disgusting and very real” threats when they lived in the United Kingdom.
In response to the allegations, Buckingham Palace said in a statement last March that the royal family was saddened to learn the “full extent” of Harry and Meghan’s experiences.
“The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately,” the palace wrote.
The duchess of Sussex will make a trip to New York with Prince Harry next week, shortly after the prince and princess of Wales’ Boston travels this week.
Hussey has since resigned from her royal role and offered “her profound apologies for the hurt caused,” according to a statement from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.
“We take this incident extremely seriously and have investigated immediately to establish the full details. In this instance, unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments have been made,” the palace said in a statement. “We have reached out to Ngozi Fulani on this matter, and are inviting her to discuss all elements of her experience in person if she wishes.”
In the wake of Hussey’s resignation — something Fulani did not want, according to her friend and fellow activist Mandu Reid — Fulani told ABC News on Friday that she and the palace have not spoken directly, but “will have that discussion” on how the situation should have been handled once they do.
“I haven’t spoken directly to the palace and neither have they to me. And when that happens, we will have that discussion,” she said. “But I just want to make something clear: The palace appointed her or gave her that position. So it’s for her and the palace to sort out. It’s not for me.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday signed legislation aimed at averting a nationwide rail strike while acknowledging that workers didn’t get everything they wanted.
Biden, speaking from the Roosevelt Room, said the bill “ends a difficult rail dispute and helps our nation avoid what coming out of that would have been an economic catastrophe in a very bad time in the calendar.”
The legislation, passed under pressure of a looming Dec. 9 deadline by the House and Senate this week, forces workers to accept a tentative agreement Biden himself helped broker between unions and rail companies back in September that offered union members a raise and increased health care benefits.
That agreement was later rejected by some worker unions because it didn’t include days of paid sick leave.
But on Thursday, the Senate voted 80-to-15 to impose the agreement while subsequently voting down a bill passed by the House that would have provided workers with seven days of paid sick leave.
Six Republicans voted to add sick leave but the measure ultimately fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass. Some of those lawmakers joined five Democratic caucus members, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, in voting against the bill forcing workers to accept the agreement.
“Look, I know this bill doesn’t have paid sick leave these rail workers, and frankly every worker in America, deserves,” Biden, criticized for not doing more for workers despite calling himself a pro-union president, said Friday. “But that fight isn’t over. I didn’t commit we were going to stop this because we couldn’t get in this bill that we were going to stop fighting for it. I supported paid sick leave for a long time. I’m going to continue that fight to we succeed.”
Sanders, who led the effort to get sick leave passed, slammed railroad companies for not giving their workers these days despite bringing in massive profits. Unions asked for 15 sick days but the railroads settled on one personal day.
“At a time of record-breaking profits for the rail industry, it is disgraceful that railroad workers do not have a single day of paid sick leave,” he said in a statement after Thursday’s vote.
Rail companies celebrated the legislation’s passage, with Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ian Jefferies saying the Senate “acted with leadership and urgency with today’s vote to avert an economically devastating rail work stoppage.”
A strike would’ve cost $2 billion a day in lost economic output, according to the Association of American Railroads. Such a loss would’ve likely forced Americans to pay more out of pocket for goods, experts previously told ABC News.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also praised the “swift bipartisan action in Congress to prevent a devastating rail shutdown.”
“This deal will see well-deserved and long-overdue pay increases for rail workers,” Buttigieg said. “Meanwhile, we will continue to push for paid leave for all American workers.”
Biden was the one to ask Congress to step in to avoid the strike. He said he was hesitant to override workers but that larger economic concerns required the deal to be adopted.
“This was tough for me but it was the right thing to do at the moment to save jobs,” Biden said.
But workers weren’t pleased with the congressional action, with some accusing Biden of going against his pro-union statements.
The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division, after Biden’s call for Congress to act, said the president was ignoring workers’ concerns.
SMART-TD, the second-largest rail union representing about 28,000 conductors, said in a statement after the Senate vote that it was “extremely disappointing” that so many voted against sick leave.
“The ask for sick leave was not out of preference, but rather out of necessity. No American worker should ever have to face the decision of going to work sick, fatigued or mentally unwell versus getting disciplined or being fired by their employer, yet that is exactly what is happening every single day on this nation’s largest freight railroads,” the union said.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. is facing a surge of respiratory viruses, mainly driven by COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Flu and RSV have appeared earlier than usual and have particularly affected children, leading to 78% of pediatric hospital beds being full, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
All three viruses have symptoms that are similar, which can make them difficult to tell apart. But knowing which virus a person has can help them receive proper treatment or, if need be, let them know if they need to isolate.
Here are some questions to consider when trying to determine if you have COVID-19, flu or RSV.
What are the symptoms?
COVID-19, flu and RSV are more similar to each other than they are different in terms of symptoms.
One of the only symptoms exclusive to one virus and not the others is loss of taste and smell, which has been a hallmark symptom of COVID-19.
However, public health experts told ABC News the absence of one of the symptoms does not mean a patient doesn’t have a particular virus and that the only way to be sure is to get tested.
“In most cases, if anybody has generic symptoms, such as fever, cough, runny nose, there’s going to be no real way to distinguish which one is which without a test,” Dr. Scott Roberts, an assistant professor and the associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale School of Medicine, told ABC News.
How quickly did symptoms come about?
Flu symptoms typically appear rather quickly while symptoms of RSV and COVID-19 appear more gradually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
COVID-19 has an incubation period of two to 14 days while RSV has an average incubation of about five days but can be anywhere from two to eight days.
By comparison, flu has an incubation period of one to four days.
“So, if somebody says, ‘I went to Thanksgiving party yesterday where someone had flu and the next day I had a fever,’ I can already tell you that’s flu,” Roberts said. “I know it’s much too fast for it to be COVID.”
How old is the patient?
Public health experts told ABC News that depending on how old a patient is can affect the severity of the disease.
For example, RSV is most severe for infants younger than six months older and young children, particularly those with weakened immune systems or congenital lung or heart disease.
“Children under six months of age and children maybe a little bit older who have underlying medical conditions or who were premature, end up with the shortness of breath and the difficulty breathing because their airways are just so small, and they don’t have a lot of reserve there to move air through the small air passages when they’re inflamed,” Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News.
However, relatively young and healthy adults are not likely to have a severe case of RSV if they get infected.
“In children, we tend to see a lot more of the sort of bronchiolitis respiratory issues with RSV,” Dr. Allison Bartlett, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told ABC News. “Adults, when they get RSV, it tends to be a like a cold. It’s just like one of the colds that you would get every year.”
With COVID-19, age is the number one risk factor when it comes to severe disease and death.
As of the week ending Nov. 19, Americans aged 65 and older make up 92% of all deaths from the virus, according to an ABC News analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
What treatments or precautions do I need to follow?
“Not everyone needs to be tested; our pediatricians’ offices and hospitals are overloaded,” Bartlett said. However, figuring what the illness is can help treat the patient and potentially family members or close contacts, she said.
For example, with COVID-19, it’s important to follow CDC guidelines, which include isolating for at least five days — or longer if symptoms don’t improve — and wearing a mask around others.
Additionally, they can be prescribed Paxlovid if they are at risk of severe illness.
With flu, patients can receive Tamiflu to shorten the course of their illness as long as it is given early on and people who are exposed to flu can receive the treatment to prevent them from getting sick.
However, the most important thing a person can do if they are infected — when possible — is to stay home.
“If you’re really, really sick, go the hospital. If you’re not that sick, and it looks like a common cold, then you stay home and don’t infect people,” Doron said.
(NEW YORK) — Pumpkin seed oil, zinc and other nutritional supplements may help with hair loss, according to new research published in JAMA Dermatology.
Researchers in Boston and Miami reviewed 30 different studies — some had men participating, while others focused on women, and another looked at hair loss in children — and found nutritional supplements with the best potential benefits from several hair loss brands and natural supplements.
A few of the brands include Viviscal, Nourkrin, Nutrafol, Lamdapil and Pantogar, and potentially beneficial supplements include the likes of capsaicin and isoflavone, omegas 3 and 6 with antioxidants, apple nutraceutical, total glucosides of paeony and compound glycyrrhizin tablets, zinc, tocotrienol and pumpkin seed oil, according to the findings, published Wednesday.
All of the supplements in the study reportedly had mild to no side effects.
Whether or not the supplements work may depend on the person and the type of hair loss that person is experiencing, according to health experts.
The study reported that zinc improved hair thickness and density, apple nutraceutical showed increased hair density and hair formation, and Viviscal showed improvements in hair counts and decreased hair shedding.
ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who has shared her own COVID-related hair loss journey, said the supplements noted in the research are “widely available.”
She said treatment options will be individual to each person.
“I think the bottom line here is that you have to get at, pardon the pun, the root cause of your hair loss, because it’s not one size fits all,” Ashton said Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America. “But if you look at how these supplements produced the results that they did, according to this compilation of studies, they varied.”
Ashton recommends speaking with a dermatologist to discuss treatment options and what works best for a specific type of hair loss. She said the evidence is still emerging on the beneficial effects of supplements for hair loss.
“I want to emphasize these results can vary,” said Ashton. “They can be mild. They can be more significant, but for people suffering with significant hair loss issues, usually a visit to a dermatologist is step one.”
Ashton said she found success by varying her hair styling techniques, in addition to diet and supplements.
“It’s not just about diet and nutritional supplements, but I think the key thing here is evaluate your particular situation,” she said. “For me, diet was a big contributing factor, but then resting your hair from styling or coloring damage and my favorite, those clip-on ponies and wigs, can be really, really helpful.”
