Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will request approval for the COVID-19 vaccine to become mandatory for all U.S. military service members by mid-September, according to a memo he sent to all Defense Department employees.
“I want you to know that I will seek the President’s approval to make the vaccines mandatory no later than mid-September, or immediately upon the U.S. Food and Drug Agency (FDA) licensure, whichever comes first,” Austin wrote in the memo.
A U.S. official initially confirmed Austin’s decision to ABC News before it was later made public in a written message to all U.S. military service members.
“By way of expectation, public reporting suggests the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could achieve full FDA licensure early next month. The intervening few weeks will be spent preparing for this transition,” Austin wrote.
Given the rising coronavirus case numbers amid the increasing spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, Austin noted that “I will not hesitate to act sooner or recommend a different course to the President if l feel the need to do so.”
In a statement released shortly after Austin’s memo was sent out, the president said, “I strongly support Secretary Austin’s message to the Force today on the Department of Defense’s plan to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required vaccinations for our service members not later than mid-September. Secretary Austin and I share an unshakable commitment to making sure our troops have every tool they need to do their jobs as safely as possible. These vaccines will save lives. Period. They are safe. They are effective.”
“We cannot let up in the fight against COVID-19, especially with the Delta variant spreading rapidly through unvaccinated populations. We are still on a wartime footing, and every American who is eligible should take immediate steps to get vaccinated right away,” Biden’s statement continued.
Because the COVID-19 vaccines are currently only being used under an emergency use authorization from the FDA, Biden will have to grant a waiver to enable the Pentagon to make vaccinations mandatory.
According to the Pentagon’s latest statistics more than 70% of all active-duty service members have received at least one dose.
Until Austin’s recommendation for a mandate, the U.S. military could only recommend to service members that they should take the vaccination. However, Pentagon officials had said that once the FDA approved a COVID vaccine that they would begin a review of whether it should be made mandatory for U.S. military personnel, just like the 17 other vaccines that are mandatory for U.S. military personnel.
Austin’s decision follows Biden’s announcement two weeks ago that federal employees would be required to provide proof of vaccination or face regular testing. Biden also ordered the Pentagon to explore “how and when” it could require service members to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
In addition to the recommendation to make the vaccine mandatory Austin wrote that “we will comply with the President’s direction regarding additional restrictions and requirements for unvaccinated Federal personnel.”
“I strongly encourage all DoD military and civilian personnel — as well as contractor personnel — to get vaccinated now and for military Service members to not wait for the mandate,” he wrote.
“All FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines are safe and highly effective,” said Austin. “They will protect you and your family. They will protect your unit, your ship, and your co-workers. And they will ensure we remain the most lethal and ready force in the world. Get the shot. Stay healthy. Stay ready.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled details of their $3.5 trillion budget resolution, setting up Congress to begin work on the second portion of President Joe Biden’s major economic objectives.
The legislative language comes just as the Senate is preparing to complete its work on a separate $1.1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill late Monday or early Tuesday morning. Taken together, the bills are designed to comprise the whole of Biden’s American Families Plan priorities.
Unlike the bipartisan infrastructure plan, which focuses on “core” infrastructure needs such as roads bridges and waterways, the budget resolution includes many of Biden’s social programs focusing on family, climate and health care.
Key campaign promises, including universal pre-K, free 2-year community college, and paid family leave are included in the package, as are many of Biden’s climate priorities. The bill, pushed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also secures investments in public housing, invests in job training, adds new Medicare benefits and extends expansions of the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats are expected to try to force the massive package through the Senate this week without a single GOP vote. Budget bills are not subject to the regular 60-vote threshold generally necessary to move legislation forward.
But any Senate action on the budget this week is just the first in a long series of steps before these objectives make it to Biden’s desk.
After the Senate votes on the budget bill, individual committees must craft legislation in line with the new budget, and that legislation will go before the full chamber for a second vote, likely in the fall.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also been clear that she’ll need to see the Senate’s final budget product before she brings the House in to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the budget resolution. House progressives want assurances that the Senate can approve social programs in the budget bill before they lend their support to the slimmed-down bipartisan package.
Republicans have vowed to fight the budget resolution at every step, including through what is expected to be a marathon of votes this week on partisan amendments designed to score political points and make centrist Democrats squirm.
The Democrat-only bill is expected to be funded in part by raising taxes on big corporations and wealthy Americans, something Republicans see as a referendum on the 2017 tax cuts, which many of them view as on one of former President Donald Trump’s most significant legislative achievements.
As well as general opposition to the massive $3.5 trillion price tag, Republicans have also promised a bruising fight over language incorporated into the legislation aimed at implementing significant changes to immigration policy, including providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
According to a top-line summary of the budget resolution released Monday, the package will “provide green cards to millions of immigrant workers and families” and “fund smart technology for safe and efficient borders for trade, travel and migration.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has told reporters that his panel, which will write this portion of the final bill, plans to draft legislation that would provide green cards for so-called “Dreamers” — children brought to the U.S. illegally – and for farmworkers.
It is not yet clear whether these immigration policies will be permissible under the strict rules governing what may be in a Senate budget bill, but barring a ruling by the chamber’s parliamentarian that such policies are out of bounds, there isn’t much that Republicans can do to stop passage of the bill if all Democrats are on board.
It will require all 50 Senate Democrats plus the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris to move the budget resolution forward, but it is not yet clear that the caucus will remain united.
Earlier this month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., announced that she would not support a $3.5 trillion top-line package. She said she’ll allow the process to move forward this week by lending her support to the budget bill for now, but as committees slog through their work, she said she wants to see overall spending reduced.
It is also not clear if all Democrats will agree with the leadership’s budget strategy for keeping the overall price tag of the bill down. Committees are expected to sunset costly programs – like the childcare tax credit – before the bill’s 10-year budget window, even though the programs could be extended in later years, thus growing the ultimate spending on the plan.
Foreshadowing another major partisan fight to come, Democrats also left a hike of the federal debt limit out of their budget blueprint, perhaps to appease moderates in their ranks, many of whom are up for re-election in 2022 and fearful of growing deficit spending in Washington. Republican challengers are all but certain to use a vote to raise the debt limit against them.
A suspension of the federal debt limit expired at the end of July, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the US could exhaust its borrowing authority in the coming months without swift congressional action.
But Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly insisted that Republicans will not vote to increase the debt limit, arguing that Democratic policies, like the massive COVID-19 relief bill and the upcoming budget bill, are driving up the debt, even though an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling is done to accommodate spending and tax cuts that have already occurred, including the effects of the 2017 GOP tax cut.
“They won’t get our help with the debt limit increase that recklessly, that these reckless plans will require. I could not be more clear,” McConnell said of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor last week. “They have the ability. They control the White House, they control the House, they control the Senate. They can raise the debt ceiling and if it’s raised, they will do it.”
But the administration challenged that notion in a statement Monday from Yellen, who urged Congress to use “regular order,” rather than the budget bill, to raise the debt ceiling.
“The vast majority of the debt subject to the debt limit was accrued prior to the Administration taking office. This is a shared responsibility, and I urge Congress to come together on a bipartisan basis as it has in the past to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Yellen wrote.
Failure to act could prove catastrophic. The last time the parties engaged in a partisan fight over the debt ceiling in 2011 resulted in a historic downgrading of the U.S. credit rating for the first time. World and U.S. markets plunged.
The Senate is expected to leave town for a shortened August recess upon completion of its work on the budget. When they return the second week in September, they’ll have just weeks to forge a path forward on the debt limit, as well as pass a final version of the Democrat-budget bill, this as the government runs out of funding on Oct. 1.
(NEW YORK) — Adding items to a cart, shipping and restocking the kitchen can feel a bit monotonous. But thanks to Foxtrot Anywhere, a marketplace with a range of grocery and pantry products from new food entrepreneurs, it’s easier than ever to break free from a re-order rut and shop expertly curated selections.
A new era of trendy consumer product goods, especially in the food and beverage space, command attention for authenticity, diversity and quality both in ingredients and the story behind the people making them.
From stocking and supporting women-owned olive oil companies and Persian Ajil trail mix brands to a Brooklyn-based hot sauce line made by a Barbadian American drag queen, Foxtrot Anywhere puts global flavors on the map in more ways than one.
Originally launched as a brick-and-mortar reinvention of a neighborhood corner store with locations in Chicago, D.C. and Dallas, Foxtrot Anywhere now offers unique locally made and sourced goods online for nationwide delivery.
To kick off their new tastemaker series, the company tapped food expert Nilou Motamed to curate boxes that include her must-have picks like women-founded alcohol-free botanical spirits and ethically sourced Chinese teas.
“What they’re doing is a great disruption story. It’s a great evolution of how we consume,” she told “GMA” about Foxtrot’s business model that identifies and promotes new makers to give consumers access to what’s new. “It’s so important for us to understand eachother’s food as a way of understanding each other — it feels so good to be in this moment in our food culture where we can open people’s eyes to the bigger world out there — spotlight flavors from Israel, Tunisia, [Barbados] — we have an opportunity to let them be heard.”
A judge on TV shows “Top Chef” and “Chopped” and the former editor-in-chief at Food & Wine magazine, Motamed said putting together these boxes was particularly rewarding, especially with her intrinsically hospitable nature.
“Creating community around food is really important — so for me to be able to curate an aisle and talk about my favorite things, to turn people on to new products that they might not be aware of and have a dialogue with people at Foxtrot to bubble up the best things they have to know about and be able to deliver it to them in this big moment is so fun.”
The self-proclaimed “obsessive gifter” said she has always enjoyed creating boxes of treats representative of the person she’s giving it to.
Whether it’s a hosting or housewarming gift, Motamed shared her favorite Foxtrot brands, including: “New York Shuk, a Moroccan harissa paste made by a Brooklyn-based couple that I have in my fridge, it’s such a good product and I think a lot of people don’t know about it; Frankie’s 457, which happens to be where I ate all my early post-lockdown meals, and the olive oil is a signature there and that’s on my kitchen counter, so that olive oil is in one of my boxes; [and] Diaspora, which is a female-owned fair trade spice company.”
“There’s such a powerful force for diversity and female empowerment — and each of these boxes is like my big hug to these hard-working artisans who make our lives more joyful,” Motamed said.
Motamed “worked very hard” with Foxtrot to bring back experiential joy of discovering new products to an online platform, using evocative descriptions since shoppers don’t have the benefit of tasting or smelling.
“There’s so many things coming at us,” Motamed said, “it’s hard to know who to trust and where to spend your money. Because products are so well made and in small batches, we want to make sure that when you get it home that you feel as good as you did in the moment. It’s full of craft, everything feels like it’s part of a joyful exploration of the best things happening in the food space.”
Niloofar Mirani founded Ajil trailmix inspired by her father’s Persian cooking, which is also vegan, gluten- and sugar-free. [It’s] “what every Persian family has in their house — it’s salty-sweet with cashews and plump raisins,” Motamed described of the product that she felt particularly connected to as an Iranian immigrant. Mirani spent a year with her father sourcing the highest quality nuts and dried fruit and perfecting their ratios in each bag, Motamed said.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 delta variant continues to raise new concerns for Americans, parents can follow a set of five principles to help make going back to school safer for their children.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, joined Good Morning America Monday to share his five-point strategy:
1. Vaccinate everyone who is eligible and who will be around children in schools
“Those kids who can’t get vaccinated, the way you protect them is making sure everyone around them is vaccinated,” Jha said.
2. Upgrade ventilation in schools
“We’ve got a lot to do to improve the air quality in schools,” he said of ventilation and filtration.
3. Test in schools
“We should be testing every unvaccinated person on a regular basis in schools,” Jha said about extensive access to testing.
4. Wear masks
5. Avoid super-crowded events
Jha suggested avoiding assembly halls and concerts.
As for the latest surge hitting the U.S., Jha said he expects “that until we put in mitigation measures and get more people vaccinated, we’re going to be struggling with the delta variant for a while.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid mask mandates and social distancing of a global pandemic, Barry’s, a boutique fitness club, says it’s disrupting the industry by giving consumers access to their product in ways that didn’t exist just one year ago.
But what it took to get there was a road wrought with challenge, uncertainty and innovation.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Barry’s, like so many fitness clubs, took a massive economic hit and had no digital offerings or infrastructure in place.
Priding themselves as “the best workout in the world,” Barry’s says it created opportunity in the height of COVID-19 lockdowns worldwide by remaining committed to keeping connections to their community alive and thriving. When it became clear global shutdowns would not be brief, the company immediately launched workouts live on Instagram, then formal at-home classes on video conferencing apps, like Zoom.
As 2020 wore on, the company eventually launched 19 outdoor studios that occupied spaces like parking garages, rooftops and empty, undeveloped land, converting those spaces into their infamous “Red Rooms” across the country.
Reopening their physical brick-and-mortar clubs would prove to have its own set of challenges when it became time.
Developing new operating and safety protocols and augmenting them to meet local government mandates has been an incredibly labor intensive process over the past 16 months, Barry’s told Good Morning America.
“We updated our HVAC system, introduced the use of EPA-registered cleaning supplies and at one point, social distancing in class and added five-minute breaks in between rounds to allow for extra cleaning and mask mandates.”
Now, as the world slowly begins to reopen, despite the lingering threat of COVID-19 and its emerging variants, Barry’s seems to have found footing in developing hybrid models of their business by blending versions of all their pandemic-era products into an omni-channel of offerings, including the newly unveiled “Barry’s X,” which includes live as well as on-demand classes.
According to Barry’s: “Barry’s X” is the first community-driven digital fitness product that seamlessly integrates key touch points of an in-person studio experience into a digital setting. Not only are you checked in by a moderator (who organizes the class and provides the same attention as the front desk), you’re also able to participate in a many-to-many experience which provides their fitness community with the opportunity to see and be seen.
“‘Barry’s X'” was created to provide people with the opportunity to experience the best workout in the world, taught by the best instructors, alongside an incredible global community – no matter where you are,” Barry’s CEO Joey Gonzalez told GMA exclusively.
The company says users will be able to turn their camera on during a live class, allowing the instructor to correct their form in real time, allowing them to see others in the class and be seen themselves. This will allow for an immersive digital experience that will allow instructors to help and correct form during a class, the brand touts, while also being able to check in with friends who are also taking the same class together.
“The camera-on feature allows you to be seen, as well as see old friends, new faces,” Gonzalez said. “And since it’s Barry’s, you can expect to see some famous ones as well.”
Another feature: Users will also be able to connect with their friends by sending friend requests and view their schedules and stats. Friends will also be able to invite each other to a class.
Gonzalez told GMA that they do expect a rise in hybridization as we continue to emerge from the pandemic.
“A number of boutique fitness studios across the country closed permanently during COVID, which means those respective workout communities have been displaced and will be looking for a new studio. As far as digital workouts, the landscape has never been more crowded,” Gonzalez said.
(NEW YORK) — A United Nations climate panel has confirmed — in its strongest language ever — that the impacts of human-caused climate change are severe and widespread, and that while there is still a chance to limit that warming, some impacts will continue to be felt for centuries.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the report reads. “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”
The UN panel said there is more evidence than ever before that human activity and greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet at a rate unprecedented in the last 2,000 years and that the impacts of that warming are already severe and widespread.
“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” according to the report.
“Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and their attribution to human influence, has strengthened” since the last UN climate science report in 2013.
The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was compiled by 234 authors from 66 different countries who analyzed more than 14,000 scientific reports about climate change. It will set the stage for global negotiations later this year on how to more drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the impact of warming temperatures as much as possible.
John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said the report underscores the “overwhelming urgency” and high stakes for those international talks.
“The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is out of reach. As the IPCC makes plain, the impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat to wildfires to intense rainfall and flooding, will only continue to intensify unless we choose another course for ourselves and generations to come. What the world requires now is real action,” he said in a statement.
That review confirmed that warming temperatures are contributing to more extreme events in every inhabited part of the world and that if temperatures increase an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the world will see increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. At 2 degrees of warming, the changes will start to reach levels that could threaten human health and agricultural systems in parts of the world.
Global average temperatures have increased between 0.8 degrees and 1.3 degrees Celsius since the industrial age, and climate researchers around the world have ruled out any natural explanation for the rapid rate of increasing temperatures. The report says “some recent hot extremes over the past decade would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system.”
The report finds that global surface temperatures, meaning the temperatures of the oceans and on land, will continue to increase until at least 2050, regardless of actions taken to decrease emissions.
And unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, the world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming in the next 20 years. Limiting future warming to 2 degrees Celsius will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the IPCC.
Ko Barrett, a vice chair for the UN climate panel and senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that even though the world’s current path is likely to meet or exceed the amount of warming targeted in the Paris Agreement there is still a chance to limit the amount of warming and limit the impacts of climate change.
“It’s true that unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be beyond reach. But there are pathways that take us to keep these levels in check. It just requires strong rapid and sustained reductions in CO2 (carbon dioxide), methane and other greenhouse gases,” she told ABC News.
Barrett said that even with the sobering findings of the report, she’s seen a stronger reaction from governments and young people throughout the world who want to prevent the worst-case scenarios.
“At the same time that it’s, you know, undeniable that these — some of these findings are dire. There also is, at least in my mind, a real sense of hope and a drive for action,” she said.
While drastic emissions reductions could stabilize rising temperatures and prevent more dire consequences from additional warming, the UN panel found that some impacts of climate change to the oceans and ice in the Arctic are locked in for years to come, while the amount of emissions will determine how rapidly those impacts accelerate.
The report found that oceans will continue to warm, become more acidic and contain less oxygen for the rest of the 21st Century — though those impacts can still be made less severe if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Glaciers and permafrost are also almost certain to continue melting for decades — or even centuries — and the report says the Arctic may “practically” be ice free in September near the middle of the century under certain greenhouse gas scenarios. September is when we usually see the minimum sea-ice coverage in the Arctic.
“If we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases today the planet would stop warming, but sea level would continue to rise. However, I think it’s important to manage that our emissions matter hugely for the long-term amount of sea level rise and how quickly it comes,” Bob Kopp, an author of the report and director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, told reporters on Sunday.
The report found that global mean sea level has already risen by .656 feet between 1901 and 2018 and will continue to rise at least through 2100.
“In the longer term, sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt and will remain elevated for thousands of years,” the report says.
While the report lays out some dire impacts of climate change it’s also a call to action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to prevent some of these worst-case scenarios and limit these impacts as much as possible.
“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net-zero CO2 emissions. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Panmao Zhai.
The IPCC is expected to release two more reports on adapting to the impacts of climate change and possible policy solutions to limit warming and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement in early 2022.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 616,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 09, 7:31 am
‘This is not your grandfather’s COVID,’ pediatrician warns
Children with COVID-19 used to make up 1% of patients hospitalized at Children’s Hospital New Orleans. Now they account for about 20%, Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, told “Good Morning America” Monday.
He said about half of the children hospitalized are under 2 years old. Most of the others are between 5 and 10 years old, so too young to be vaccinated.
“This is not your grandfather’s COVID,” Kline said. “This delta variant is an entirely new and unexpected challenge.”
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, warned on MSNBC that with “schools act[ing] as an accelerant, you should assume we’re going to see pediatric intensive care units all across the South completely overwhelmed and even a possibility of small tent cities of sick adolescents and kids.”
Hotez said parents need to know that “delta is something different” and “picking off young people like we’ve never seen.”
“If your adolescent kid is unvaccinated, you should assume there’s a high likelihood that that child is going to get COVID,” he said, adding, “And we haven’t even gotten to the ‘long COVID’ discussion around young people and what that means for their long-term cognitive health.”
(NEW YORK) — Lawmakers and water utilities in the West are urging residents to conserve water as reservoirs hit record lows amid climate change-driven megadrought.
Among the calls to action is a reminder for residents to make choices that lessen use of municipal water when it comes to maintaining landscaping in desert surroundings.
About 30% of water usage for the average American family is used for the outdoors, such as watering lawns and gardens, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But in the West, where water is zapped almost instantaneously by either the blazing sun or thirsty vegetation, outdoor water usage increases to about 60% of total household use, according to the EPA.
While water is “pretty cheap” in the U.S. at the moment, that could change as the commodity becomes more precious, John Berggren, a water policy analyst with conservation organization Western Resource Advocates, told ABC News.
However, experts say they have noticed a societal shift in how people in the West approach everyday decisions to protect the precious water supply, including when it comes to how to design lawns.
Landscaping should match the environment
In the summer, a “big chunk” of the water supply in the West goes to irrigating non-native turf grass, which is what is generally used for lawns, Berggren said.
There are benefits to turf grass, Berggren pointed out. It’s aesthetically pleasing and cooling — which helps reduce the urban heat island effect — and it offers functionality for recreation, for kids and pets to run around in and as parks and ballfields. Grasses native to the West don’t offer the same recreational functionality.
The typical grass used for homes and ballfields is Kentucky bluegrass, which is not native to the West, which is why it requires so much water for upkeep, he said.
A solution is to remove the turf grass. While people often think ripping up turf grass means replacing it with cement, the best move is actually to replace it with live vegetation that is native to the area, such as shrubs and trees, Berggren said.
“We have so many beautiful native plants that are adapted to our climates out here in the West,” he said. “You’ll have lots of color. You can have lots of green.”
Once established, native plants require little water “beyond normal rainfall,” according to the EPA.
Along with the aesthetics, the plants will also provide collection for storm water runoff and water quality benefits, Berggren said.
Providing incentives to residents could prove effective, experts say
Development codes enacted in municipalities around the West between the 1960s and 1980s had little to no restrictions on how much turf grass property owners could install. But officials and scientists are starting to rethink the approach to turf grass as the decadeslong drought worsens and populations increase, Berggren said.
However, the cost to transform lawns can’t be overlooked. Adding native plants for a xeriscaping project, or designing the landscape to reduce irrigation, can cost up to $5,000, according to home and garden blog Happy DIY Home.
Water providers and conservation programs are incentivizing homeowners to get rid of their turf grass, with some offering between $1 and $3 per square foot to replace it with native plants, Berggren said.
“And so if you’re replacing a couple 1,000 square feet of turf, suddenly, that’s a pretty big incentive to do so, and you can pay for a lot of the project with that program,” he said.
Turf buyback programs have become so important that states are providing the funds to maintain them.
Last month, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced the expansion of a statewide turf buyback program as one of four efforts to conserve water amid the megadrought.
First-of-its-kind legislation passed in Nevada
Municipalities and states are also starting to realize that not all areas where there is turf grass are equal, Berggren said. Plots of land where the turf is purely ornamental, such as median strips on highways, are known as non-functional or non-essential turf, and states in the West are starting to do away with them.
For example, if a patch of grass in southern Nevada is green, that means it’s being irrigated with municipal drinking water, Bronson Mack, public information officer of the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said.
“The one thing to really keep in mind is whether or not those communities are irrigating that grass with water resources, or is that grass just getting naturally irrigated from precipitation,” Mack said. “Here in Southern Nevada, we’d only get 4 inches of rain a year. So, it is not enough water to sustain our outdoor landscaping.”
Lawmakers in Nevada recently passed a law banning non-essential turf in the Las Vegas region served by the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Assembly Bill 356 requires grass at non-residential properties to be ripped out within five years. After Dec. 26, 2026, those properties will no longer be able to irrigate non-functional turf with Colorado River water supplied by the water authority, Mack said.
“So their options are to find a new water source, which is pretty challenging to do,” Mack said.
The new legislation is the first of its kind in the country, he added.
More communities are also instilling caps on how much of any given property can contain turf grass, such as 20%, Berggren said.
The new laws are paralleled by a cultural shift to make people re-think how they use their yards. If they find they only use the backyard, the incentives motivate them to replace the grass in the front yard with native plants, Berggren said.
Prior to the early 2000s, homes in Nevada state had wall-to-wall grass, but 20 years later, landscapes in new developments have no grass and use water-efficient material instead, Mack said, adding that nearly 70,000 residential and commercial landscaping projects to remove more than 200 miles of grass have taken place in Southern Nevada alone since then.
“That’s why it’s good to see so many homeowners kind of being proactive in like ripping up their front lawn and putting in nice, beautiful, native vegetation, because then their neighbors see it, and then people driving down the street see it,” Berggren said.
Communities across the Southwest have embraced the trend to transform lawns to be water-efficient, Jay Lund, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, and the head of the school’s Center for Watershed Sciences, told ABC News.
“A few years ago, I was walking around the neighborhood of a friend in Albuquerque, and you could see that the neighborhood was going through a transition,” he said. “You could see that the older lawn were lush and green.”
More ways to conserve water
Water-efficient irrigation techniques can reduce water usage by up to 15%, according to the EPA.
Something as simple as replacing sprinkler heads can upgrade irrigation systems to save a significant amount of water, Berggren said.
It is not necessary to water grass every day, according to the EPA, which recommends testing the lawn by stepping on a patch of grass instead. If the grass springs back, it does not need water, the agency says.
Better Homes & Gardens recommends that homeowners in the region let lawns brown during the summer, or give them about 1 inch of water per week.
Do not water lawns during the afternoon, as the water will evaporate before the drops even hit the ground. Water lawns early in the morning instead.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Melissa DeRosa resigned Sunday as the top aide to embattled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, less than a week after state investigators said he allegedly sexually harassed 11 women and she was part of the “retaliation” against one of his accusers.
As secretary to the governor, DeRosa was the most powerful unelected bureaucrat in state government and, until now, stood loyally by Cuomo even through recent controversies, including scandals like the sexual harassment allegations to nursing home death data, to the use of state resources to write his book.
Cuomo has denied these allegations and scandals.
In a statement, DeRosa did not mention Cuomo by name but said it had been “the greatest honor of my life to serve the people of New York for the past ten years.”
She added, “the past two years have been emotionally and mentally trying,” but did not explain whether that meant the pandemic or the controversies that have engulfed the governor and have state lawmakers beating the drums of impeachment.
“I am forever grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such talented and committed colleagues on behalf of our state,” DeRosa’s statement said.
DeRosa’s name appears throughout the attorney general’s report, particularly in the section that details accusations made by Lindsey Boylan.
Boylan, who formerly worked as an aide to the governor, spoke out in December in a series of tweets claiming Cuomo “sexually harassed me for years.”
“Ms. Boylan said Ms. DeRosa would scream at her and yell at her for illogical things,” the report said. It also described DeRosa’s role in releasing Boylan’s confidential personnel file to reports after Boylan went public with her accusations against Cuomo.
“Ms. DeRosa made the decision to disclose the confidential files on December 13, the day Ms. Boylan tweeted that the governor had sexually harassed her,” the report said.
Cuomo has denied the allegations raised by Boylan and all other accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 615,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.2 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.4% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC last week, citing new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant, changed its mask guidance to now recommend everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission — vaccinated or not — wear a face covering in public, indoor settings.
Here’s how the news is developing Monday. All times Eastern:
Aug 08, 8:36 pm
Court rules cruise vaccine mandate does not violate Florida law
A federal judge ruled Sunday in favor of Norwegian Cruise Line and will allow the company to require proof of vaccination on cruises out of Florida despite a state law that bans cruise ships from enacting such an order.
Norwegian sued the state last month contending that the law prevented them “from safely and soundly resuming passenger cruise operations from Miami, Florida.”
Florida’s law threatens to fine companies $5,000 each time they ask a customer to provide proof that they’ve been vaccinated.
Florida has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the last couple of weeks, with most cases affecting unvaccinated residents.
Judge Kathleen M. Williams wrote in her decision that Norwegian “has demonstrated that public health will be jeopardized if it is required to suspend its vaccination requirement,” and the Florida Department of Health, “identifies no public benefit from the continued enforcement of the Statute Case.”
Neither the cruise line nor the Florida Department of Health issued immediate statements about the ruling as of Sunday evening.
Aug 08, 7:04 pm
Memphis school delays first day of school due to COVID cases
A Memphis area elementary school sent a message to parents Sunday, just hours before the new school year was about to begin, informing them that the first day of classes would be postponed for a week due to COVID-19 cases among the staff.
The letter from Donelson Elementary School administrators didn’t specify how many staff members contracted the virus but indicated they “are simply at a point where opening tomorrow would risk further exposure to students and staff.”
The first day of classes is tentatively rescheduled for Aug. 16, the letter said.
Aug 08, 3:50 pm
Austin hospitals down to 6 ICU beds
Hospitals in Austin, Texas are down to just six available intensive care unit beds as more COVID-19 patients are admitted, officials warned.
City officials said there are 591 COVID-19 patients that are hospitalized. The seven-day average of new coronavirus ICU admissions in Austin’s hospitals has jumped from 23.4 on July 4 to 184 on Aug. 6, the city’s health department data showed.
Over the weekend, the Warn Central Texas system sent out an alert to residents via text message that urged people to wear a mask, get vaccinated and stay home if possible.
Aug 08, 2:44 pm
WHO warns of phony COVID lottery scam
The World Health Organization issued a warning Sunday about online scams involving a phony COVID-19 lottery.
The scammers claim to be a financial management firm in London under the name “Capital Finance, Inc. London,” WHO said.
The fraudsters allege through emails that the “COVID-19 Lottery Compensation Prize” is brought to you by WHO, in association with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), according to WHO.
The emails also state that they come from a group appointed by the WHO to process payment of these prizes, and then solicit personal details and in some cases, money from their victims, WHO warned.
“WHO is not offering or conducting a lottery prize to compensate individuals, whose names or contact details are purportedly selected at random, for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the UN agency said in a statement.
