That’s the latest message in a hot new merchandise drop for National Tequila Day that aims to help provide food security to hospitality workers as they continue to rally back from the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Creative executive Dylan Hattem — founder of DS Projects, the company behind This T-Shirt — launched the charity-driven brand at the onset of the pandemic with a focus on authenticity and purpose to “help the people who power the restaurants and bars you love.”
Now, as patrons are able to once again saddle up to bars safely, they can do it in style with a custom tee made by This T-Shirt that also benefits the restaurant industry.
The merch-for-good brand teamed up with the Tequila Don Julio Fund to create an exclusive unisex tee. The net proceeds from each sale will be donated to No Us Without You, a non-profit that provides food security to undocumented immigrants, many of whom are the backbone of hospitality service in the greater Los Angeles area.
The shirt design is emblazoned with the phrase “Save Bars. Drink Tequila” on the front in a trendy, bright blue serif font. The back of the shirt contains a list of seven classic tequila cocktails in various large, bold typefaces: margarita, Paloma, Anejo old fashioned and tequila sunrise, to name a few.
The pre-shrunk premium cotton is also made from recycled material, and wearing it can serve as a reminder to support devoted bartenders, restaurant staff and hospitality workers — not to mention it can serve as a conversation starter to inspire more interest in the charity’s efforts.
The unisex T-shirts cost $40, with $37 per sale donated. It comes in six sizes, ranging from small to 3XL, and is available online through Sept. 20, 2021, while supplies last.
(EL DORADO, Calif.) — A couple whose gender reveal celebration triggered the El Dorado Fire in California last year that killed a firefighter and left 13 injured has been charged.
Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez each were charged with one felony count of involuntary manslaughter, the San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson announced Tuesday.
Other charges include three felony counts of recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, four felony counts of recklessly causing a fire to inhabited structures and 22 misdemeanor counts of recklessly causing fire to property.
The El Dorado Fire sparked on Sept. 5, 2020, when the couple and their young children set off a smoke bomb at a gender reveal ceremony at El Dorado Ranch Park in Yucaipa, at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains.
The device ignited dry grass on the hot day, authorities said. Despite trying to douse the flames with a water bottle, strong winds fanned the fire and it ripped through the wilderness and national forest land, fueled by extremely dry conditions, Cal Fire said at the time.
The fire burned over 22,000 acres across San Bernardino and Riverside counties and forced the evacuations of hundreds of residents, officials said.
Charles Morton, 39, a 14-year veteran firefighter, died while fighting the flames. The blaze also injured two other firefighters and destroyed several residential structures, prosecutors said Tuesday.
“He’s fighting a fire that was started because of a smoke bomb — that’s the only reason he’s there,” Anderson said.
The defendants were arraigned in court on Tuesday and entered not guilty pleas. They were released on their own recognizance.
If convicted on all counts, they could face sentences in the “lower teens to low twenties” in terms of years, Anderson said.
The charges for the couple are seen as a warning to others as much of the western U.S. remains hot and dry, with wildfires still spreading and more than 18 million Americans under heat alerts.
(GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba) — Following the transfer of the first Guantánamo Bay inmate of the Biden administration this week, remaining detainees at the offshore prison are hoping that a change in policy from the Trump years will bode well for their release, according to testimony obtained by ABC News.
Moroccan national Abdul Latif Nasser, 56, was released into the custody of his home country and reunited with his family on Monday after being held without charge for 19 years at the Guantánamo Bay detention center, on a U.S. naval base in Cuba. The U.S. Department of State authorized Nasser’s transfer five years after he was initially cleared for release during the Obama administration.
“The United States is grateful to the government of Morocco for its willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility,” a State Department spokesperson told ABC News on Tuesday. “The Biden Administration remains dedicated to a deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing of the Guantánamo facility.”
Nasser’s departure made him the first inmate to be transferred from the facility since 2016, and leaves the number of remaining detainees at 39. In testimony shared exclusively with ABC News by U.K.-based legal charity Reprieve, which represents several Guantánamo detainees, those still inside the camp expressed hope in their prospects of freedom under President Joe Biden, after a Trump-era policy of refusing to release more detainees. They appealed to the 46th commander in chief to ensure their release.
Of the remaining Guantánamo detainees, 10 have been cleared for release, 10 are part of the military commissions process and two have been convicted, a senior administration official told a press briefing on Monday. The rest are eligible for review, and several of those inmates spoke about their hopes for release in the testimony shared by Reprieve.
Khalid Qassim, a 44-year-old Yemeni citizen, was denied recommendation for transfer out of Guantánamo Bay by the interagency Periodic Review Board last year, due to “his continued refusal to answer questions regarding pre-detention activities,” which the board said includes “involvement” in “basic and advanced training” from al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Qassim’s lawyers argue he was captured for a bounty and that his capture and detention is a case of mistaken identity due to false confessions under torture.
“I saw the national anthem and Biden speaking,” Qassim said in a conversation with his lawyer in January, two days after Biden’s inauguration, shared with ABC News. “You know, it used to almost be exciting when you saw Trump speak. Every time it was something new. What he said, he would say crazy things, how he loves dictators, things like this. It’s good to not hear some crazy talk.”
“Now it’s the attorneys’ work,” he added, “and the work of people like Kamala Harris or Nancy Pelosi to make sure we go home.”
In an op-ed published by The Guardian in 2017, Qassim wrote: “I have never been charged with a crime and I have never been allowed to prove my innocence. Yet I am still here.”
Ahmed Rabbani, a 51-year-old Pakistani citizen born in Saudi Arabia, is also being held in indefinite detention at Guantánamo Bay. He has not been recommended for transfer or charged with a crime but has been detained since 2004. He was named in the historic 2014 Senate Select Committee Report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention program as having been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which he has described as “torture, pure and simple.”
“I would tell [Biden] I want to touch my child,” Rabbani said in a conversation in January, shared with ABC News. “I would tell him that I would like to die in the laps of my children. I do not want to go in a coffin or a body bag. I want justice. I have been held for political reasons, and I have nothing to do with the political reasons.”
Afghan national Asadullah Haroon Gul, 39, has been been detained at Guantánamo Bay without trial since 2007. He was captured by Afghan forces while serving as a commander of the now-former Hezb-i-Islami militia, known as HIG, which once fought alongside al-Qaida and the Taliban against the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. government detained Gul on the claim that he had regular contact with senior leadership within the al-Qaida and Taliban ranks and may have useful information regarding ongoing operations. But Gul’s lawyers argue that his war ended in 2016, when the HIG struck a peace deal with the Afghan government.
“I think Biden is serious about a lot of things,” Gul said in a conversation in June, shared with ABC News. “If we talk about justice I do not see any reason why I should not be released from here.”
Reprieve and other advocacy groups, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Victims of Torture, welcomed Nasser’s release but said that further action to speed up the closure of Guantánamo Bay is needed.
“Abdul Latif Nasser’s release shows how easy this process can be when there is political will, and that it can be done safely,” Reprieve’s deputy director, Katie Taylor, told ABC News on Wednesday. “We’re taking the Biden administration at their word. They say they want to close Guantánamo and the first step is to transfer the remaining men who have been cleared for release, followed by others who have never been charged with a crime.”
The anesthesia medication ketamine is showing increased promise as a treatment for people experiencing depression who haven’t found relief with other prescription medications.
Though ketamine is known for its recreational use as a party drug, it can also be prescribed legally by doctors. In recent years, ketamine has become more accessible for those struggling with depression. In 2015, there were fewer than 60 ketamine clinics in the U.S. Three years later, there were more than 300, according to the journal of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
Generic ketamine isn’t specifically approved as a depression treatment, but U.S. doctors are often allowed to prescribe Food and Drug Administration-approved medicines “off-label” for another use.
A growing body of evidence has shown ketamine, which has been used since the 1970s in the field of anesthesia, can be successful in treating depression and suicidal behaviors. In fact, ketamine is part of a growing field of research into whether drugs that have traditionally been viewed as illegal psychedelics or party drugs could, in certain contexts, help people with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other behavioral health and psychiatric disorders.
In 2019, the FDA approved Spravato, a ketamine-related nasal spray drug, given in conjunction with antidepressants that has been shown to help people with treatment-resistant depression. But many clinics offer generic ketamine, often in the form of intravenous infusions.
Dr. Steven Mandel, founder and president of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, said because ketamine is already a low-cost generic drug, it’s unlikely that a pharmaceutical company would pay for the process that would be needed to get the drug approved specifically as a depression treatment.
“For a medicine like ketamine that is already approved and available, adding a new indication for the treatment of depression would probably cost tens of millions — if not hundreds of millions — of dollars,” Mandel said. “No one wants to spend that money.”
But ketamine’s unique status can create problems for patients. Ketamine’s use for depression is off-label and it is typically not covered by health insurances. Because of this, “there are some access issues,” said Dr. Panagiota Korenis, a psychiatrist and associate professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
“It’s often limited to a subset of the population that can pay out of pocket or be a part of a trial,” she said.
There are also certain risks associated with ketamine.
“It is a drug that can be abused potentially,” said Korenis, who noted that patients typically need to be treated in the clinic and typically cannot take multiple doses of the medication home with them.
Nevertheless, Korenis is hopeful that ketamine may prove itself as another powerful option for those with depression.
“Ketamine certainly is being shown to be a medication of interest and one that has potential for the future,” said Korenis.
Experts debate whether ketamine is a psychedelic and able to produce similar altered states of consciousness as MDMA and psilocybin, which have shown healing properties in some studies.
But many clinics are opting to administer ketamine in a manner similar to psychedelics in clinical trials. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, or KAP, is a combination of ketamine and therapy that is similar to psychedelic-assisted therapy used in recent carefully controlled clinical trials.
For example, MDMA, also known as molly or ecstasy, is a psychedelic drug that is now being studied in controlled therapy settings as a possible treatment for PTSD. But no psychedelic treatments are FDA-approved, meaning doctors cannot administer them outside of a clinical trial. MDMA is illegal for recreational use in the U.S.
For those who are unable to get into a clinical trial of psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin, KAP may be the closest legal equivalent.
“Ketamine works for depression and suicidality — it works quickly, it’s safe,” said Mandel. “For the other medicines, we just don’t know. They seem to have great early promise, but we do need a lot more data and a lot more time before we can fully embrace them.”
Psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin may require a couple of more years until they receive FDA approval, according to Rick Doblin, Executive Director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. In the meantime, Mandel hopes more patients learn about ketamine as an option for depression.
“Ketamine should be available to anyone suffering from these afflictions,” said Mandel.
Nicholas Nissen, M.D., is an author, host of the “Brain Health with Dr. Nissen” podcast and a contributor for the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — New York City health workers will be required to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced during a Wednesday news conference.
“The delta variant continues to make more and more trouble, and we’ve got to fight back,” de Blasio said. “We need a strong, clear approach — that every single one of our workers gets vaccinated or tested weekly.”
Beginning in August, all @NYCHealthSystem staff and @NYCHealthy clinical workers must show proof of a #COVID19 vaccine or a weekly negative COVID test. Join us at City Hall for more.
The new rules, which will go into effect on Aug. 2, will apply to all employees at city-run hospitals and clinical workers for the health department. The city plans to extend the new rules to additional health department staff in coming weeks. Those employees will be required to show proof of vaccination or a negative test result.
The mayor stressed that the new rules are an additional step to keep the city safe and won’t take away from grassroots efforts, such as mobile sites and at-home vaccinations, to raise vaccination rates in the general population. The new rule isn’t technically a vaccine mandate, since employees have the option to get tested each week.
“Every single one of those employees has a choice,” added de Blasio, noting that a vaccination was the better of the two options. “This is about keeping people safe and stopping the delta variant.”
Vaccination rates in New York City’s general population are slightly above the national average. As of Tuesday, 58% of New York City residents had received at least one dose and 54% were fully vaccinated, compared with 56% of all Americans who’ve gotten at least one shot and 49% who are fully vaccinated, according to data from the city health department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Hospital workers tend to be vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population, although the percentage of fully vaccinated New York City hospital workers (70%) is slightly lower than the statewide average (74%), according to the state health department.
(WASHINGTON) — With more than 161 million people now fully vaccinated in the U.S., experts say we are bound to see reports of breakthrough infections, meaning people test positive for COVID-19 while fully vaccinated.
These breakthrough COVID-19 cases aren’t proof the vaccines aren’t working, experts said, but are normal and expected. All evidence suggests that even in the face of the new, highly-transmissible delta variant, COVID vaccines are still working as they should to dramatically decrease the risk of hospitalization and death.
“When you hear about a breakthrough infection, that doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is failing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said before Congress on Tuesday.
COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective, but they do not block the virus 100% of the time, meaning that some breakthrough infections occur after vaccination.
“I think people need to appreciate when you talk about breakthrough infections that the original data from the clinical trial — the efficacy data was based on preventing clinically apparent disease, not preventing infection, such as a symptomatic infection,” Fauci said.
Despite many high-profile cases of breakthrough infections with mild or no symptoms, including among Olympic athletes and some politicians, the overall number is very low compared to the number of people vaccinated.
And the number of people who have been hospitalized or died after being fully vaccinated is even lower, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments. This demonstrates that vaccinated people are far less likely to die of COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated people.
That doesn’t mean severe illness as the result of an infection isn’t possible, but this tends to happen in people who are elderly or otherwise immune-compromised, experts said.
“Out of 157 million fully vaccinated in the US, there were 4,909 hospitalizations and 988 deaths,” Dr. Carlos del Rio, infectious disease physician and professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, said during a press briefing on Monday.
“Of course we will see some breakthrough infections that lead to severe illness, more in vulnerable populations with underlying chronic conditions who couldn’t mount a response to vaccines because they couldn’t,” Dr. John Brownstein, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, told ABC News.
Although studies on this aren’t completed, Fauci said last week that the risk of a vaccinated person spreading COVID to someone else is assuredly far less than an unvaccinated person spreading COVID.
“You could make a reasonable assumption that the rate of transmissibility from the asymptomatic vaccinated person to an uninfected person would be less likely than if the person was unvaccinated,” Fauci said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing last week.
The overall number of breakthrough infections is rising, but that could be because more people overall are getting vaccinated, resulting in more breakthrough cases, Dr. Shobha Swaminathan, an associate professor and infectious disease expert at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told ABC News.
“As the number of infections in the U.S. increases, there may be a slight increase in the number of ‘breakthrough’ infections,” Swaminathan said. “However, the majority of infections continue to be reported among those who have not been vaccinated.”
Experts said the delta variant could be contributing to these cases, but for now, research is ongoing.
“If it causes an increased rate of breakthrough infections, that’s unknown,” adds Brownstein.
But experts feel reassured by what they do know, that even with the highly-transmissible delta variant sweeping the country, more than 99% of COVID-19 deaths are among people who are unvaccinated.
Alexis E. Carrington, M.D. is an ABC News Medical Unit Associate Producer and a rising dermatology resident at George Washington University. Sony Salzman is a Coordinating Producer for ABC News Medical Unit.
(WASHINGTON) — With more than 161 million people now fully vaccinated in the U.S., experts say we are bound to see reports of breakthrough infections, meaning people will test positive for COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated.
These breakthrough COVID-19 cases aren’t proof the vaccines aren’t working, experts said, but are normal and expected. All evidence suggests that even in the face of the new, highly-transmissible delta variant, COVID vaccines are still working as they should to dramatically decrease the risk of hospitalization and death.
“When you hear about a breakthrough infection, that doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine is failing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said before Congress on Tuesday.
COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective, but they do not block the virus 100% of the time, meaning that some breakthrough infections occur after vaccination.
“I think people need to appreciate when you talk about breakthrough infections that the original data from the clinical trial — the efficacy data was based on preventing clinically apparent disease, not preventing infection, such as a symptomatic infection,” Fauci said.
Despite many high-profile cases of breakthrough infections with mild or no symptoms, including among Olympic athletes and some politicians, the overall number is very low compared to the number of people vaccinated.
And the number of people who have been hospitalized or died after being fully vaccinated is even lower, according to the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments. This demonstrates that vaccinated people are far less likely to die of COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated people.
That doesn’t mean severe illness as the result of an infection isn’t possible, but this tends to happen in people who are elderly or otherwise immune-compromised, experts said.
“Out of 157 million fully vaccinated in the US, there were 4,909 hospitalizations and 988 deaths,” Dr. Carlos del Rio, infectious disease physician and professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, said during a press briefing on Monday.
“Of course we will see some breakthrough infections that lead to severe illness, more in vulnerable populations with underlying chronic conditions who couldn’t mount a response to vaccines because they couldn’t,” Dr. John Brownstein, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, told ABC News.
Although studies on this aren’t completed, Fauci said last week that the risk of a vaccinated person spreading COVID to someone else is assuredly far less than an unvaccinated person spreading COVID.
“You could make a reasonable assumption that the rate of transmissibility from the asymptomatic vaccinated person to an uninfected person would be less likely than if the person was unvaccinated,” Fauci said at a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing last week.
The overall number of breakthrough infections is rising, but that could be because more people overall are getting vaccinated, resulting in more breakthrough cases, Dr. Shobha Swaminathan, an associate professor and infectious disease expert at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told ABC News.
“As the number of infections in the U.S. increases, there may be a slight increase in the number of ‘breakthrough’ infections,” Swaminathan said. “However, the majority of infections continue to be reported among those who have not been vaccinated.”
Experts said the delta variant could be contributing to these cases, but for now, research is ongoing.
“If it causes an increased rate of breakthrough infections, that’s unknown,” adds Brownstein.
But experts feel reassured by what they do know, that even with the highly-transmissible delta variant sweeping the country, more than 99% of COVID-19 deaths are among people who are unvaccinated.
Alexis E. Carrington, M.D. is an ABC News Medical Unit Associate Producer and a rising dermatology resident at George Washington University. Sony Salzman is a Coordinating Producer for ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The city of Liverpool, England was stripped of its World Heritage status on Wednesday, after a U.N. committee determined that the recent construction has been detrimental to its value.
Liverpool was inscribed on the United Nations’ Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage List in 2004 for its value as a Maritime Mercantile City. The committee listed it as “in danger” in 2012, over concerns about development within the city.
— UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳😷 (@UNESCO) July 21, 2021
UNESCO says Liverpool’s “historic centre and docklands were inscribed for bearing witness to the development of one of the world’s major trading centres in the 18th and 19th centuries.” They also cited major developments in dock technology, transportation, and port management that were made in Liverpool.
But UNESCO says the Liverpool Waters development project at the city’s north docks, as well as a new soccer stadium being built for the club team Everton F.C., have contributed to an “irreversible loss of attributes.”
— Liverpool City Council (@lpoolcouncil) July 21, 2021
Liverpool is just the third property to lose World Heritage status, according to the U.N. The prior sites to lose that status are the Elbe Valley in Dresden, Germany and the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman.
(NEW YORK) — With many students heading back to school soon, researchers are gathering information that can help schools set COVID protocols.
Some devices being studied are portable air purification units, which could add a layer of protection and slow the spread of aerosols and droplets in a classroom setting. In fact, New York City plans to have such devices in its classrooms.
Good Morning America got an exclusive look at testing by the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota at the Well Living Lab to examine these devices.
“I think it just provides another layer of security for people,” Dr. Bruce Johnson of the Mayo Clinic told GMA.
In its study, a team of more than 20 researchers built an experimental “classroom.” They rigged up a mannequin in the center to spray out a neon-colored solution to mimic how a sick student might spread particles as they breathe.
Then, researchers measured what was collected on 70 surfaces all over the room, such as desks, chairs and iPad, to see how the droplets spread with and without air purification.
“We’re able to say at each point in the room — how quickly are particulars depositing on different surfaces,” researcher Dr. Zachary Pope said.
Researchers also found that using portable air purifiers to supplement a classroom HVAC system, it may result in up to five times lower particle concentration in the air, improving air quality throughout the room, not just near the unit.
The study from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota drew similar results to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted earlier this month.
The agency now recommends schools should “filter and/or clean the air in the school by improving the level of filtration as much as possible.”
“I think they [parents] should be put at ease in the sense that we have solutions available,” Hogan said. “There’s a lot of information that is — now available to school administrators and they should be comfortable with the fact that they’re looking into it. And hopefully will be able to implement these solutions.”
For teachers or parents looking to invest in an air filter system, researchers said that any portable air filtration system will do the job. But a quick skim through the product specifications will show how many square feet the product will cover to ensure that it covers enough units of the entire room.
If an air filtration system is beyond your budget, another option would be to update your HVAC system or open a window to add that layer of protection.
The IOC steered the bidding for the 2032 Games towards Brisbane, avoiding rival bids. The city was given exclusive negotiating rights in February, leaving officials in Qatar, Hungary and Germany disappointed with the failure of their own planned bids.
It will be the first Games in Australia since the 2000 Olympics in Syndey. Prior to that, Melbourne hosted the Olympics in 1956.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the IOC that Australia knows “what it takes to deliver a successful games.” That, in an 11-minute video call with IOC members.
Brisbane is the latest host city to be named, and will follow the Summer Games in Paris in 2024, and the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028. The IOC describes the Brisbane project as “a passion-driven, athlete-centric offer from a sports-loving nation.”
Events will be held across the Australian state of Queensland. The city of Brisbane says it already has more than 80 percent of stadiums and event venues in place, which will allow it to avoid excessive spending.
