(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will to travel to Brussels next week to meet with NATO leaders in his first visit to Europe since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his violent invasion of Ukraine, the White House announced Tuesday.
At the show of unity on March 24, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, Biden will “reaffirm our ironclad commitment to our NATO allies.”
His trip follows the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic heading to Kyiv on Tuesday, as shelling continues there, in a show of support to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite the danger on the ground.
Just before the White House announcement, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted, “I have convened an extraordinary Summit on 24 March at #NATO HQ. We will address #Russia’s invasion of #Ukraine, our strong support for Ukraine, and further strengthening NATO’s deterrence & defence. At this critical time, North America & Europe must continue to stand together.”
Biden will also join a scheduled European Council summit “to discuss our shared concerns about Ukraine, including transatlantic efforts to impose economic costs on Russia, provide humanitarian support to those affected by the violence and address other challenges related to the conflict,” Psaki said.
The goal of Biden’s trip to Brussels will be to meet “face-to-face” with his European counterparts to assess Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said.
“We’ve been incredibly aligned to date. That doesn’t happen by accident,” she said. “The president’s a big believer in face-to-face diplomacy. So, it’s an opportunity to do exactly that.”
She added that the NATO meeting is the “real focus right now,” and wouldn’t say if Biden will be making additional stops in Poland or to meet with refugees.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(BALTIMORE) — A loaded 1,095-foot cargo ship remained stuck Tuesday morning in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, presenting Coast Guard officials with what they described as a “logistical challenge” to free the vessel without polluting the environment.
The container vessel, named Ever Forward, ran aground Sunday night after leaving Baltimore, Petty Officer 1st Class Steve Lehmann, a spokesman for the Coast Guard’s Mid-Atlantic district, told ABC News Tuesday morning.
Lehmann said the ship is stuck in about 23-feet of water but is not blocking traffic in the bay’s deep-water channel.
“It’s a pretty big logistical challenge,” Lehmann said about freeing the ship.
Lehmann said a Coast Guard environmental team boarded the ship to make an assessment of its condition and determine how to safely get it towed off what is believed to be a sandbar without polluting the water or causing harm to the crew.
“We’re making sure all boxes are checked,” said Lehmann, adding that a timeline has not yet been established on when an attempt to free the vessel will be made.
Lehmann said no one was injured and no pollution has been detected as a result of the mishap.
He said the Coast Guard was notified of the incident around 9 p.m. Sunday. The vessel was headed to Norfolk, Virginia.
Coast Guard officials said the ship was apparently traveling outside the deep-water channel when it got hung up.
Lehmann said the ship is believed to be owned by Evergreen Marine Corp., noting the company’s name on the side of the vessel. Evergreen Marine, based in Taiwan, is also the owner of a cargo ship Ever Given, which got stuck in Egypt’s Suez Canal in March 2021, blocking the world-famous waterway for six days and causing massive delays in global shipping.
ABC News has reached out to Evergreen Marine Corp. for comment but has received no immediate response.
FILE photo – Andrea Filigheddu/NurPhoto via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A Fox News cameraperson was killed and a correspondent was injured in Ukraine, shortly after the death of a freelance journalist also covering the Russian invasion.
Fox News’ Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, was killed while working alongside Fox News State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall “when incoming fire hit their vehicle outside of Kyiv” on Monday, the network said Tuesday. Zakrzewski had covered stories in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria for Fox News.
“Pierre Zakrzewski was an absolute legend at this network, and his loss is devastating,” the network said.
I don’t know what to say. Pierre was as good as they come. Selfless. Brave. Passionate. I’m so sorry this happened to you. pic.twitter.com/IvxlPWGDAl
Hall was hospitalized, according to Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media, who asked Monday to “please keep Ben and his family in your prayers.” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby also confirmed he was injured.
“The president of Fox, Jay Wallace, says that everyone always felt an extra sense of reassurance when they arrived on the scene and they saw that Pierre was there. He was a professional, he was a journalist and he was a friend,” Fox News PR said Tuesday.
Shaun Tandon, president of the State Department Correspondents’ Association, said in a Monday statement, “We know Ben for his warmth, good humor and utmost professionalism. We wish Ben a quick recovery and call for utmost efforts to protect journalists who are providing an invaluable service through their coverage in Ukraine.”
This follows the Sunday death of freelance journalist Brent Renaud, which was confirmed by the U.S. State Department. Renaud was in Ukraine to cover the global refugee crisis for a documentary with Sugar23, Time Studios and Day Zero Productions, according to Sugar23.
“As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud,” Time editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal and president and COO of Time and Time Studios Ian Orefice said in a statement. “In recent weeks, Brent was in the region working on a TIME Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis. Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones.”
Photojournalist Juan Arredondo said he was with Renaud when he was killed.
In a video from a hospital bed, Arredondo said, “We crossed the first bridge in Irpin; we were going to film other refugees leaving and we got to a car, somebody offered to take us to the other bridge, and we crossed a checkpoint and they started shooting at us. So, the driver turned around, and they kept shooting. It’s two of us, my friend is Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind.”
“This kind of attack is totally unacceptable and is a violation of international law,” Carlos Martínez de la Serna, program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement. “Russian forces in Ukraine must stop all violence against journalists and other civilians at once.”
“Two examples of the dangers in covering war,” Kirby, of the Pentagon, said of Hall and Renaud during a Monday press briefing. “This is a war that didn’t need to be fought, to be sure. But just as to be sure, there are journalists from around the world on the ground trying to discover the truth and to show that truth and to tell these important stories.”
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Amid growing concerns about the impact of the pandemic on Americans’ mental health, and the rollout of a new three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline this summer, advocates say local call centers across the nation remain underfunded and understaffed for an expected increase in call volume.
Despite the effort to improve the system, they say, people in crisis could face delays — or might not be able to reach a counselor at all.
On July 16, the Lifeline will transition from its current 10-digit hotline number to the much easier to remember 988, modeled after the 911 emergency number for police and fire.
The 24-hour hotline has been in service since 2005, and in that time has received more than 20 million calls from people looking for help.
“What we’re building on is a proven, existing service that’s shown to reduce emotional distress and suicidality,” Lifeline Executive Director Dr. John Draper told ABC News. “It’s essentially scaling up that service to make sure that we’re going to be able to reach more people and serve them more effectively.”
When possible, calls are received by the nearest crisis center, but if a local center cannot handle them, they get routed to one of several national backup centers that receive federal funding to maintain staffing.
“And the more that happens, the longer people wait. And that’s something you don’t want for people in crisis,” Draper said is the case when there’s not enough money.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which allocates federal funding for the program, estimates a 25% increase in callers to the Lifeline for fiscal year 2022. The 988 number will only be operational for the final three months of that period.
During the first full year of 988 implementation, FY2023, SAMHSA estimates calls received will reach 7.6 million, which is more than double the most recently recorded metrics.
This year, the federal government allocated $282 million through SAMHSA for 988 implementation, an amount stakeholders call “unprecedented.”
The organization has two major goals for supporting the Lifeline crisis center network, according to John Palmieri, acting lead for the 988 and behavioral health crisis team at SAMHSA.
“One of them is making sure that there is that safety-net infrastructure that exists at the national level, so that when individuals call, if for some reason those calls aren’t able to be received at the local level, that there’s a national safety net to support those individuals in crisis,” Palmieri said.
A total of $177 million dollars is dedicated to fund the backup centers with the other $105 million going to states and territories to support local crisis centers.
“We really feel like from the perspective of the individual in crisis, it really is best for them to be connected at the local level to the degree possible, to be better integrated with the local system of care, to provide wraparound services and so on,” Palmieri said.
An internal 2021 survey of local crisis centers in the Lifeline network found that only about 43% were explicitly funded to answer Lifeline calls, according to Draper.
“They were simply volunteering their services because their organization, their agency’s mission, aligned with ours,” Draper said. “And so they would basically borrow staff from other lines of business, who were dedicated to other lines of business, to help answer calls that were unfunded. So that’s the steep hill that we have to climb.”
Since its inception, the Lifeline network has been underfunded, according to Draper. With the transition to a three-digit number looming, even more funding is needed to ensure centers are adequately staffed to accommodate the expected increase in callers.
As it stands, Draper says about 20% of calls that should be answered at the local level are currently being picked up through the national backup network. Even with the national backup network, a SAMHSA report shows that at its current capacity, the Lifeline can only address approximately 85 percent of calls.
Because local crisis centers are funded at the state level, resource allocation and sustainability of funding are inconsistent across state lines.
The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) has been tracking state level legislation around the implementation of 988.
“States are all over the map on this,” said Kitty Purington, senior program director for NASHP. “And I think there are many states who have not really grappled with what sustainability looks like going forward.”
When Congress enacted legislation to designate 988 as the new Lifeline number in 2020, that law included a provision allowing states to place a tax on cell phone bills to support the service. Similar taxes are used to support emergency medical and law enforcement services through 911 call centers.
Few states have enacted legislation to impose these taxes so far. A handful of others have implemented exploratory committees or provided some funding for the rollout of the new number.
“There’s going to be some time to build this out,” Purington said. “And potentially, it’s going to be something that states are going to be doing for years.”
She compared the transition to the implementation of emergency services through 911 call centers.
“People say [911] took like 60 years to really get its footing,” Purington said. “It took decades for people to really understand and have 911 be really the go-to number. And so, this is not going to be like flipping a switch.”
Stakeholders in the mental health field remain optimistic, despite the underfunding of the program. Laurel Stine, senior vice president of public policy at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said, “ultimately, 988 is more than just a number.”
“It is an opportunity to really reimagine the behavioral health crisis response system,” Stine said.
Stine says the vision of an ideal 988 system would include well-resourced crisis centers across the country, the ability to provide follow-up care as needed, mobile mental health crisis response teams and crisis stabilization centers.
“We understand fully that a lot has to occur,” Stine said. “There are states that are well equipped, and have mobile crisis teams and are well-resourced and there’s others that are not. And so the local level of readiness is varied.”
The overall need is pressing.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently sounded the alarm to lawmakers over an increase in suicide attempts among young people during the the pandemic.
And President Joe Biden called mental health a priority in his State of Union address earlier this month, saying, “let’s get all Americans the mental health services they need.”
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
(NEW YORK) — As experts warn of a growing mental health crisis among kids due to the coronavirus pandemic, new data shows the mental health struggles kids faced even prior to the pandemic.
From 2019 to 2020, researchers found a 21% increase in children with behavior or conduct problems, according to the study.
“Our research highlights a critical need to support both children and their caregivers to improve families’ mental and emotional well-being,” Dr. Michael Warren, a co-author of the study, said in a statement. “This includes ensuring access to timely health care services and addressing social determinants of health to support children and families’ overall well-being.”
The study was conducted using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), which collects data on 36 separate health-related measures, including preventive health checkups, mental health diagnoses, physical activity and caregiver well-being, according to HHS.
In addition to finding an increase in the diagnosis of mental health conditions, the study also found that children’s physical activity decreased by 18% between 2016 and 2020. In addition, the proportion of kids with unmet health care needs grew by 32%, according to the study.
The study comes on the heels of a warning last year from the U.S. surgeon general of a growing mental health crisis among young people. Organizations representing child psychiatrists, pediatricians and children’s hospitals also declared a national emergency for youth mental health in 2021.
“I’m deeply concerned as a parent and as a doctor that the obstacles this generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate and the impact that’s having on their mental health is devastating,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in testimony before senators in December.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that emergency department visits for suicide attempts among teen girls were up more than 50% at the beginning of the pandemic compared to the same period in 2019.
Dr. Darien Sutton, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and ABC News medical contributor, said parents should realize that mental health conditions, including anxiety, may look different in kids than adults.
In children, anxiety in particular can manifest with irritability, mood changes, changes to interest in activities, and in physical conditions like stomachaches and headaches, according to Sutton.
“The first advice that I give to any parent is to have an open and honest conversation with your child at a level that they can understand,” said Sutton. “It’s important to know that your role in that conversation is to make sure that you validate and support their concerns.”
Sutton said parents should also reach out to their child’s pediatrician if they have concerns, or reach out for support through help lines like The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. You can reach Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 (U.S.) or 877-330-6366 (Canada) and The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386.
(WASHINGTON) — Americans will feel the impact of funding cuts to U.S. COVID response next week, senior administration officials said on Tuesday, as efforts to get more money from Congress sit stalled.
The first impacts will be felt by uninsured Americans, who will no longer be able to submit claims for tests or COVID treatments starting next week, they said. In two weeks, claims to cover vaccinations will no longer be accepted — meaning the program that has been covering people without insurance throughout the pandemic will effectively end.
Anyone seeking monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID will also face a tougher battle starting next week, officials said, when the government plans to cut supplies to states by 30%.
And a new purchase for hundreds of thousands more monoclonal antibody treatments, planned for March 25, will be canceled, senior officials said.
Making those cuts now will keep the U.S. monoclonal antibody supply on-hand until late May, officials said, when they predict the U.S. will fully run out of antibody treatments.
“These are immediate, near-term consequences, some of which we’re having to act on this week, next week, and the first week of April. So time is not on our side. We need the funding immediately,” one senior administration official told reporters.
Biden and his administration have warned for weeks that there was not enough money left to support critical COVID-19 response efforts, including testing at the current pace, purchasing more COVID-19 treatments and acquiring more booster shots.
But pleas for Congress to allot billions more in its latest funding bill fell short last week, leaving government relief efforts strained.
The White House is expected to lay out more details of the cuts in a letter to congressional leadership later Tuesday, senior officials said, and have held meetings on Capitol Hill since February briefing members of Congress on the funding shortfalls.
In a statement highlighting what it said would be the impact, the White House said, “The federal government does not have adequate resources to purchase enough booster vaccine doses for all Americans, if additional doses are needed.
The administration officially requested $22.5 billion earlier this month.
Officials also warned about a faltering defense against any new variants, if more funding isn’t granted by Congress.
“We want to be clear, waiting to provide funding until we’re in a worse spot with the virus will be too late,” an administration official said.
Lack of funding will hamper USAID efforts to vaccinate people abroad, officials said, meaning that “large unvaccinated populations worldwide will increase the risk of new deadly emerging variants emerging that could evade our current vaccines and treatments.”
And in the instance of a new variant, the U.S. would not have the money to buy new variant-specific vaccines for all Americans to get vaccinated, if that becomes necessary, officials warned.
Research on new vaccines and treatments will also be affected by cuts, officials said, including progress on a pan-coronavirus vaccine, which could protect against a range of variants.
On testing capacity, the administration said that current domestic supply will get Americans through June, despite earlier warnings that Americans would see less testing availability starting this month.
“Without additional funding, we do not have the ability to maintain our domestic testing capacity beyond June,” a senior administration official said.
“And because it takes months of ramp up to rebuild capacity, failure to invest now will leave us less prepared for any potential future surges. So, providing funding only when cases rise is far too late to make a difference,” the official said, noting that the U.S. felt the impact of that mistake firsthand during the omicron surge.
Preparing for future surges is becoming increasingly relevant again as cases rise in the U.K. and China due to the BA.2 variant, which is a more transmissible strain of omicron.
But for now, the path forward for COVID-19 relief is murky.
The White House’s request was chiseled down to less than half as much in Congress last week, before it was later cut from the larger spending bill entirely.
Approval for more funding hinges on agreement from Republicans in the Senate, who oppose more spending and say they weren’t given clear warning on the need for more money until too recently.
“Before we would consider supporting an additional $30 billion for COVID-19 relief, Congress must receive a full accounting of how the government has already spent the first $6 trillion,” a group of 25 Republican senators wrote in a letter to the White House in early March.
But Democrats in the House were also splintered last week after leadership agreed to dip into funding that was already allotted to state governments to cover the latest request.
On Tuesday, a senior administration official steered clear of any specific advice for Congress to get the funding approved, but said there is “precedent” for bipartisan support for COVID relief under the previous administration.
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance, coming within about 9 miles as of Friday.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 15, 7:51 am
Two killed in strike on Kyiv neighborhood
Two people were killed on Tuesday morning after Russian forces shelled residential areas in Kyiv, officials said.
The sound of large explosions echoed across Kyiv before dawn from what Ukrainian authorities said were artillery strikes. The shelling ignited a huge fire and a frantic rescue effort in the Svyatoshyn neighborhood.
Shockwaves from an explosion also damaged the entry to a downtown subway station that has been used as a bomb shelter. City authorities tweeted an image of the blown-out facade, saying trains would no longer stop at the station.
Mar 15, 5:51 am
Residents protest in Russian-occupied cities: UK military
Residents of Kherson, Melitopol and Berdyansk, cities occupied by Russian forces, have held “multiple” demonstrations protesting the occupation, the U.K. Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
Protests in Kherson came as Russia may be making plans for a “referendum” to legitimize the region as a Russian-backed “breakaway republic,” similar to Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea, the Ministry said.
“Further protests were reported in the city yesterday with Russian forces reportedly firing warning shots in an attempt to disperse peaceful protesters,” the Ministry said.
Russia is likely to “make further attempts to subvert Ukrainian democracy,” the update said.
“Russia has reportedly installed its own mayor in Melitopol following the alleged abduction of his predecessor on Friday 11 March,” the update said. “Subsequently, the Mayor of Dniprorudne has also reportedly been abducted by Russian forces.”
Mar 14, 9:56 pm
Latest talks with Russia went ‘pretty good,’ will continue tomorrow, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy updated the status of negotiations with Russia in his latest address Monday, saying the latest talks went “pretty good” and will continue tomorrow.
Zelenskyy also addressed Russian troops, telling them they would be treated “decently” should they surrender.
“On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I give you a chance — chance to survive,” Zelenskyy said. “You surrender to our forces, we will treat you the way people are supposed to be treated. As people, decently.”
Zelenskyy also thanked the producer at a Russian state news channel who appeared on camera behind an anchor and held up an anti-war sign. She was later arrested.
“I am grateful to those Russians who do not stop trying to convey the truth,” he said. “To those who fight disinformation and tell the truth, real facts to their friends and loved ones. And personally to the woman who entered the studio of Channel One with a poster against the war.”
(NEW YORK) — With targets on the backs of her and her husband and from an undisclosed safe place, Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska sent out a desperate two-word plea to America and the world: “STOP WAR.”
In an exchange of written messages with ABC News, Zelenska described the blitz of Russian missiles raining on Ukraine and the deaths of civilians, including at least 71 children, as “genocide.”
“I guess my message is very similar to the one the whole world delivers. Only two simple words: STOP WAR,” the 44-year-old Zelenska wrote, unable to speak by phone or in-person due to high-security risks.
‘Help us stop Russian atrocity’
After her husband of 18 years, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was elected president of Ukraine in 2019, Zelenska launched an initiative as the first lady to improve the quality and nutrition of food in schools. But on Feb. 24, her priorities were dramatically altered when Russian tanks and troops invaded her country, leaving crisscrossed trails of destruction and death and prompting a diaspora of refugees, now topping 2.8 million.
Zelenska has become an inspiration to women across her war-torn land and the world, an outspoken mother of two beseeching the West to “help us to stop Russian atrocity in Ukraine.”
To reflect the stark realities of war, she has frequently posted images and videos on social media of hospital wards full of wounded citizens. She has also called Putin out for disingenuously describing the invasion as a “special operation.”
“When Russia says that it is ‘not waging war against civilians,’ I call out the names of these murdered children first,” she wrote in a 1,000-word “testimony” she publicly released last week.
‘I fear for my husband’
In her exchange with ABC News on Sunday, day 18 of the war, Zelenska said one of her greatest concerns is the well-being of her husband, who Ukrainian officials claim has been the target of several assassination attempts.
“As every woman in Ukraine, now I fear for my husband,” Zelenska wrote. “Every morning before I call him, I pray everything goes well. I also know how strong and enduring he is. He is able to withstand anything, especially when he defends people and things that he loves.”
Referring to Putin and his supporters in the Kremlin, she expressed doubt as to “whether they have ordinary and sincere human feelings.”
“Ask yourself these questions and you will understand the difference of views on this war,” she wrote.
‘It is genocide’
While imploring the West to help Ukraine, she has not shied away from criticizing Western leaders for being silent in response to Putin’s crackdown on the rights of his own citizens and his previous encroachments of her country’s borders.
“Today, our country and our civilians pay a very high price for the silence and hesitation regarding this issue. Yesterday, it was innocent women and children in the maternity hospital in Mariupol. We have lost more than 71 children because of the Russian war — it is genocide of the Ukrainian people,” Zelenska wrote to ABC News.
She added, “Moreover millions of people are suffering in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Irpin, Sumy and other cities. They don’t have water, food and medicine. Russian soldiers are blocking humanitarian aid. We need to stop it. By saying ‘we,’ I mean the whole world.”
Zelenska asked “citizens of America, Europe and the whole world” to hold their leaders accountable for “silently observing for decades while the regime, where you cannot express your opinion, where the nation has been turned into slaves, grew and strengthened.”
“Leaders have lost their chance for respect. But you haven’t yet!” Zelenska said. “Today, the key life decisions are made in the offices of people who YOU elected as leaders in your countries. These are YOU who gave and keep giving the right to act on your behalf. And when they do not act, when they let our kids die — these are YOU who give them this right.”
She said it “is essential” for the West to understand that Ukraine “is now protecting Europe and our shared values.”
“Every day of our fight increases the price that Ukraine pays for securing these values,” Zelenska wrote. “Surely, in this fight as a nation, we become stronger and tougher. I wish the sanctions against Russia from the U.S. and E.U. become the same: stronger and tougher.”
She repeated her husband’s call for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, a request that has been rejected by the White House and the international community for fears it could start World War III if a Russian military jet is shot down in a confrontation with U.S. and NATO aircraft enforcing such a zone.
“We ask NATO to close our sky on behalf of all the people of Ukraine, or at least provide us with aircraft so we can defend our sky by ourselves,” Zelenska wrote.
‘You are giving life in the bomb shelters’
Zelenska directed a special message to Ukrainian women.
“You are giving life in the bomb shelters, calming children with lullabies, while Russian aviation keeps destroying our peaceful Ukrainian cities,” she wrote. “I admire your power. The power that becomes tougher than a hammer.”
She also directed a message specifically to American women.
“I appeal to you, women in America, and ask to support Ukrainian women and children who escaped from war and are looking for a shelter in your country,” she said. “These days every act of kindness and humanism is vital while we are bravely fighting for freedom for Ukraine, for Europe, for the whole world.”
(NEW YORK) — By the end of International Women’s Day this year, a Twitter account that sent out hundreds of tweets calling out companies for their gender pay gap had gone viral.
The Twitter account, @PayGapApp, is the brainchild of Francesca Lawson and her partner, Ali Fensome, of Manchester, England, who said they wanted to see companies pay up, literally, to the women they were celebrating.
“It came from a place of frustration of seeing all these lovely messages of empowerment and celebration and inspiration, but without actually knowing whether they were true or not,” Lawson, a 27-year-old copywriter and social media manager, told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “If companies are so keen to promote themselves as celebrating women and equality, then that really needs to come through in their actions as well.”
Lawson and Fensome, a software developer, built their pay gap bot using public data thanks to a pay transparency law in place in the United Kingdom since 2017. The U.K. government requires that companies with over 250 employees submit annual reports on their gender pay gaps based on payroll data.
Fensome said the fact that tweets from the @PayGapApp went viral, shows that people want more transparency when it comes to pay.
“It shows that there’s such a demand for data, for transparency, for accountability,” Fensome, adding that she hopes other similar efforts are started around the world, told GMA. “What we want is for the data to make a difference, and the way that’s going to happen is if it stays in the public eye and people maintain pressure.”
There is no such federal law in the United States calling for pay transparency from companies, although a growing number of cities and states have enacted regulations.
As the country marks Equal Pay Day and as women remain far behind in the workforce amid the coronavirus pandemic, pay transparency is being called upon as a leading solution to close the gender pay gap.
“One of the problems with challenging pay discrimination right now is that it is really easy to be paid less than your male counterpart for years and have no idea that that is the case because most employers keep pay secret,” said Emily Martin, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), a policy organization that fights for gender justice. “What pay transparency means, fundamentally, is dismantling the secrecy of pay.”
On average, women working full time, year-round are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to men, according to the NWLC. That makes Equal Pay Day, March 15, the day that women had to work into 2022 to make what white, non-Hispanic men earned in 2020 alone.
The numbers are even starker for women of color, with Latinas typically earning only 57 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men, and Black women typically making 61 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to the NWLC.
When Victoria Walker, a freelance travel reporter, quit her New York City-based job in February as a writer for a travel website, she said she wanted to make sure the person coming in after her made what they deserved.
Because her job salary was not listed publicly, Walker, 29, tweeted her salary advice when she announced her job move on Twitter.
“Before I forget — if you apply for my old job as Senior Travel Reporter, you should ask for no less than 115k, a signing bonus & a relocation bonus if you’re moving to NYC,” she wrote in a tweet that went viral. “In full transparency, I was at 107k.”
Walker said she sent the tweet in hopes that people who applied for the job would not “inadvertently lowball themselves” when it came to their pay. She said she was really surprised by the viral response to the tweet.
“A lot of people who weren’t even applying for the job were like, ‘Wait, this is what travel reporters can make,'” said Walker. “They told me they found they’ve been underpaid and undervalued, and a lot of people didn’t know about signing bonuses and relocations.”
Starting in May in New York City, employers, like Walker’s former company, will be required to include a minimum and maximum salary with job listings under a bill passed in December by the New York City Council.
At least eight states, including Colorado, California, Maryland, Washington and Nevada, and cities already have laws in place that implement some degree of pay transparency, according to Martin.
“The laws vary from state to state, but they all are building on that idea of the importance of giving people who are applying for jobs more transparency, more information about the salary for the job,” said Martin. “And sort of shifting the power dynamics around who controls that information in a way that they can really make a difference.”
Many of the state laws already in effect also have another bonus for women in that they prohibit employers from setting a person’s salary based on their salary in their previous job, according to Martin.
“Those salary history prohibitions are important for ensuring that pay discrimination doesn’t follow someone from job to job through their career,” she said. “When you put these things together, it has the effect of giving the job applicant more power over information and ensuring that the employer doesn’t hold all the cards.”
Because pay transparency laws have been in effect in various states, enough real-world data exists to show that it makes a difference in lowering the wage gap, according to Martin. Public sector employees, like at federal agencies, have also for decades been following a formal grade and steps system that makes salary ranges and information public.
One 2019 study from PayScale, a compensation data and software firm, found that among companies whose female employees described a transparent pay process, women were estimated to earn between $1 and $1.01 for every dollar earned by men.
Tips for women when asking for pay
Katie Donovan, a pay equity expert, has been leading the fight for equal pay for women since 2011, when, while out to dinner, a friend revealed she was being paid $30,000 less than a male colleague whom she had trained.
Donovan, the founder of Equal Pay Negotiations, a pay equality consultancy, said she immediately thought of being underpaid as a woman herself and remembers thinking at the time, “I don’t want my nieces 20 years from now having the same, exact conversation.”
“At the end of the day, our jobs are a financial decision for 99.9% of us that decides every other financial decision, like can we rent, can we buy a house, can we get a car,” she said. “And it’s the financial decision that we have the blinders on, and that’s by design, and that exhausts me.”
Donovan went on to lead the movement to ban employers from asking about salary history in job interviews. She said she sees the next fight in the equal pay battle as making sure that companies offer salaries that are not the median, which incorporates women’s already low pay, but above, which incorporates what white men are getting paid.
“If we really want to finally get a chance of achieving closing the pay gaps, we need to start with changing the data we’ve looked at,” she said. “If we’re aiming for the median of everyone, it’s mathematically less than the median of white men.”
Here are four tips for women from Donovan and Martin:
1. Do your research on salaries beforehand: “In part because of the internet and in part because of these policy changes, we are living in a moment where you can find more information about pay in particular roles and particular companies than you could 10 or 15 years ago, and that is a source of power for workers,” said Martin.
“It always of course is a good idea to do your research in these situations and to learn as much as you can about what is publicly available or what the law requires an employer to provide in terms of pay information,” she said.
2. Be comfortable asking about salary: “There’s a little bit of culture shift happening with employers where there is more of an understanding that posting a salary range is a good equity practice, so we’re seeing more employers do it even where the law doesn’t require it,” Martin said. “That in turn means that it is a more reasonable question for job applicants to ask of employers, even if employer hasn’t posted it, to ask whether that information is available.”
3. In most cases, you’re protected against giving your salary history: “Under the Federal Equal Pay Act, a lot of courts have held that salary history isn’t legal justification for paying a woman less than a man in the same role, so you do actually have some protection against pay discrimination based on salary history,” Martin said.
“That’s one reason why if I were in that position, I would try to gently deflect an interviewer by saying something like, ‘It sounds like what you really want to understand is the salary that I’m looking for in this job, and this is what it is,'” she said. “And hopefully that is informed by some data that you’ve been able to find in the world through sites like Glassdoor and the like about what the market rate is for the position.”
4. Ask for more than the median salary range: “As a candidate, when you’re given a job offer, you say, ‘I’m not accepting median. That’s low,'” said Donovan. “You aim for 75 percentile or higher, because that’s where the white guys are hanging.”
(NEW YORK) — When the coronavirus receded across much of the globe last month and the omicron surge declined, many Americans were hopeful that was perhaps the signal that the United States was entering a new phase of the pandemic.
However, new data indicators, domestically and internationally, suggest that the virus continues to spread.
Although official counts of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are still declining, new wastewater data updated this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the United States may be seeing the beginnings of an uptick in COVID-19 infections.
Between Feb. 24 and March 10, 37% of wastewater sites that are monitored by the CDC have seen an increase of 100% or more in the presence of the COVID-19 virus in their wastewater. Approximately 30% of these sites have seen an increase of 1,000% or more.
“It is likely we will see a new rise in cases across the United States as our wastewater data is showing a concerning signal,” said Rebecca Weintraub, assistant professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Now is a key moment to communicate why we need to accelerate the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine, remind communities why boosters are needed, secure an ongoing supply of tests and N95 to communities — especially the red zones.”
Throughout the pandemic, wastewater surveillance has been a tool used as a preliminary indicator of COVID-19 trends in the U.S.
Because asymptomatic patients can shed the virus, wastewater surveillance can capture infections that may not have been identified in official counts. In addition, many Americans are taking at-home COVID-19 tests and are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, experts say, infection totals are likely undercounted.
Wastewater data is sparse across the country, but indicators show some sites in the Northeast, including in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, as well as across Ohio, have seen notable increases in the presence of COVID-19 in local wastewater.
In New York City, some sites saw a 50% increase in the presence of COVID-19 in the city’s wastewater.
COVID-19 trouble brewing overseas
The uptick in the presence of COVID-19 in U.S. wastewater sites comes as other countries in Europe and in Asia are seeing significant viral resurgences.
Across some parts of Asia, COVID-19 has been surging to unprecedented levels. In Hong Kong, the number of virus-positive residents requiring hospitalization has been pushing health care facilities to the edge.
In China, more than 50 million people in the northeastern province of Jilin and the southern cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan, are heading into lockdown after a viral resurgence.
In Europe, COVID-19 cases have steadily been rising after many countries have moved to end COVID-19 restrictions.
Since the beginning of the month, new cases per capita in the United Kingdom have grown by 32% and hospitalizations are also up by 5% in the last week. In Germany, infections are up by 45%, while in Italy, daily cases have increased by 26%.
“Across Europe and in the U.K., we are seeing COVID-19 cases go up in countries just exiting from an Omicron BA.1 surge,” Dr. Sam Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation and a member of its Pandemic Prevention Institute, told ABC News. “Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, what’s happened in Europe has happened around the globe. … We can’t afford to sit around and let this early warning from Europe again go unheeded.”
Many health experts have been raising the alarm about the global increase in infections and hospitalizations, suggesting that Americans should be prepared for the U.S. to follow a similar viral trend.
“The next wave in Europe has begun,” Dr. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, said in a tweet and a blog post on Saturday. “Any proclamation that the pandemic is over ignores the potential recrudescence of a new variant with high transmission and immune escape.”
Presence of omicron subvariant BA.2 steadily growing
What is behind this latest COVID-19 resurgence is still unclear. However, experts say it is likely a confluence of factors.
“While we know from genome sequences that the BA.2 omicron subvariant is what’s infecting people, we still don’t know what’s causing the resurgence,” Scarpino said. “Is it the increased transmissibility of BA.2, more vaccine breakthroughs, relaxing of non-pharmaceutical interventions, waning immunity, or all of the above?”
Last month, U.S. officials from the CDC unveiled a new plan for determining COVID-19 risk in communities and updated its recommendations for use of face coverings, allowing nearly all of the country to go mask-free under the new guidelines.
Across the pond, in the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently declared an end to the country’s COVID-19 mitigation measures. Similarly, countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands have already ended restrictions, while in France, most COVID-19 limitations were lifted on Monday, just weeks before the presidential elections.
The presence of BA.2, a subvariant of omicron, has also been growing rapidly across the globe.
“BA.2 is itself highly transmissible, and both BA.1 and BA.2 appear to generate comparatively short-lived protection against reinfection. So it is likely that the combination of higher inherent transmissibility and higher rates of interaction as restrictions ease are combining to generate this resurgence,” Matthew Ferrari, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University, told ABC News.
In the U.S., the presence of BA.2 has been nearly doubling every week, according to federal data. Estimates indicate that the omicron subvariant now comprises an estimated nearly 11% of new cases in the U.S. as of March 5.
“We’ve been watching it closely, of course,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a White House press briefing on Monday, pointing to the fact that BA.2 appears to be more transmissible. “We currently have about 35,000 cases in this country. We expect some fluctuation, especially at this relatively low level, and certainly that to increase.”
Experts say how significant a COVID-19 resurgence could be is still unclear, given how many Americans were infected in the nation’s omicron surge.
“I am hopeful that the large U.S. omicron wave will dampen a new surge, but I am concerned that we will see a resurgence as restrictions are eased,” Ferrari said. “Dropping masks and other restrictions will necessarily result in an increase in risk. How big that increase will be remains to be seen.”
