(LONG BEACH, Calif.) — A California pipeline, that delivers the majority of fuel to the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas, is expected to resume operations Saturday afternoon, the pipeline operator announced.
The Kinder Morgan gas pipeline, which supplies about 90% of needed gas, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products to the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas, experienced a disruption that resulted in a temporary shutdown of the line.
“We have isolated the source of the release within our Watson Station in Long Beach, California. Restart activities are underway for Watson Station’s associated SFPP West and CalNev pipelines. We expect these pipelines to resume operations this afternoon and begin delivering fuel to their respective market areas later today. We continue to be in close contact with our customers and the appropriate regulatory agencies as we work to resolve this issue,” Kinder Morgan, the pipeline operator, said in a statement to ABC News.
Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency Friday due to the disruption.
On Thursday, Kinder Morgan, the pipeline operator, began investigating a leak inside its Watson Station in Long Beach, California, the company said in a statement.
“Watson Station and its associated SFPP West and CALNEV pipelines have been isolated and shut down while we work to resolve this issue. There are no injuries or fire reported as a result of this incident,” Kinder Morgan said in its statement. Kinder Morgan’s 566-mile CALNEV pipeline system transports gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from Los Angeles to terminals in Barstow, California, and Las Vegas.
“The appropriate regulatory agencies have been notified, and an investigation into the cause and quantity of the release will be conducted. We are working closely with our customers on potential impacts,” Kinder Morgan said.
The disruption may cause a shortage of fuel supplies in Nevada, according to the declaration of emergency.
The emergency declaration will allow Nevada to receive federal waivers, resources to repair the pipeline and allow the state to increase the transportation of fuel by other means, according to Lombardo.
“To avoid any unnecessary shortages, I strongly urge all Las Vegas residents to avoid panic buying while awaiting repair timeline updates,” Lombardo said in a statement posted on Twitter.
The declaration expires in 15 days unless it is renewed.
(WASHINGTON) — In the six months since the launch of the national, government-backed 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, contact and answer rates have risen dramatically, while the average speed to answer has dropped, according to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration data.
“As we expected, there’s been a significant increase in the use of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline service since this transition to a three-digit number,” April Naturale, interim executive director of the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, told ABC News. “And actually, we’re really grateful that more people are contacting the line with this change. That was the whole goal.”
In December, 87% of calls, 96% of chats and 99% of texts were answered across the nation, according to SAMHSA — a 91% overall answer rate. In December 2021, under the previous, 10-digit lifeline, 81% of calls, 24% of chats and 52% of texts were answered, for a total answer rate of 64%.
The increase in answer rates nationwide comes amid a sharp increase in contacts since the launch of 988, the federal agency said.
SAMHSA data shows that 371,655 people contacted the lifeline in December, compared to 260,095 in December 2021.
In that same one-year period, the average speed to answer across all contacts dropped from 172 seconds (roughly three minutes) to 44 seconds.
“Both [contacts and answer rates] have increased at the same time because we were able to increase our capacity to answer more calls more quickly,” Naturale said.
988 launched on July 16, 2022, and marked a transition from the previous National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s number. That service originated in 2005 and, advocates say, struggled to get adequate funding and staffing since its inception.
Ahead of the transition to the new, shorter number, advocates and stakeholders told ABC News about widespread concern that the anticipated influx of calls would be too much for the service to bear.
“There was a very short window from when [the law creating 988] passed in 2020 to the go-live date in 2022. And I had a few sleepless nights myself about what this would look like, but I’m really encouraged and excited by the data that we’re seeing,” said Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
“There was a lot of work being done to build up that capacity, and clearly it made all the difference,” Wesolowski said.
The Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, passed in January, included $506.1 million to support and expand services provided by the lifeline. Combined with the $432 million previously allocated to shore up capacity ahead of the 988 launch, the Biden administration has invested almost $1 billion in the service.
“We know that many people across the country are struggling with mental health or substance use related crises,” said Dr. Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, the head of SAMHSA and the Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary for mental health and substance use. “The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is a life-saving service and I am encouraged to see that more and more people are reaching out and getting connected to the support and care they need and getting connected more quickly than ever before.”
How money has helped response rates
Naturale, the 988 interim executive director, told ABC News that the federal funding leading up to the launch of the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline assisted in efforts to expand chat and text services so that more centers could answer those contacts more quickly.
“One of the things we wanted to really focus on with the addition of the 988 funding was being able to expand our chat and text offering. [That] really helps us to reach more people who wouldn’t normally pick up the phone,” Naturale explained. “We think we’re reaching a much more expanded audience, and the new funding allows us to continue working on this expanded list of centers so our answer rates and our capacity are both strong.”
The emphasis on chat and text comes amid concerns for the mental health of American youth.
Last month, SAMHSA released its 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which showed that 20.1% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode during 2021.
“As more youth started to use text and then chat [to 988], we felt the need to pay attention to those modalities,” Naturale said. “Even though calls remain high, we still get a significant number of contacts or calls, there has been a significant increase in overall utilization across the country of chat and text as communication modality. So, we needed to meet that challenge.”
New services offered
988 is also offering new services six months out from its initial launch. After an initial $7.2 million investment from SAMHSA, the lifeline subcontracted with The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth, as the primary service provider for an LGBTQ-specific pilot line that started in September 2022.
It enables users of 988 to dial 3 after calling in to be connected with a counselor trained explicitly to support LGBTQ youth and young adults.
“We are incredibly proud to partner with the federal government to provide access to our best-in-class crisis services to more LGBTQ youth than ever before,” Preston Mitchum, director of advocacy and government affairs for The Trevor Project, told ABC News.
Mitchum said that the fiscal year 2023 appropriations for the lifeline — $29.7 million is designated to help enhance training and provide more access to support disproportionately impacted youth — will help build upon this program and increase access.
“The clear demand for this service not only demonstrates that LGBTQ youth face unique mental health challenges and increased suicide risk compared to their peers but also that they desire specialized care,” Mitchum said. “Part of the reason why LGBTQ youth face these disparities is because of experiences of rejection, isolation and stigma. We hear from young people every day who simply want to be respected and affirmed for who they are.”
“In moments of crisis, it’s vital that LGBTQ youth can access counselors who can understand their identities and the issues they face and provide empathy,” he added.
Since the pilot program began, about 5% of calls routed in the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline network, along with 9% of chats and texts — accounting for about 111,000 total contacts — a spokesperson for Vibrant Emotional Health, the administrator of the service, told ABC News.
For the week ending Jan. 29, the LGBTQ line saw average answer rates of 80% for calls, 98% for chats and 99% for texts, according to a spokesperson for Vibrant.
Expanding access
As the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline continues to expand and increase access, Wesolowski, with NAMI, said a “critical” next step is ensuring states are developing their own plans to sustainably fund 988 long-term.
While the national answer rates across all forms of contact are up, state-by-state answer rates still vary. State answer rates in December ranged from 51% in Alabama to 98% in Rhode Island and Mississippi, according to SAMHSA.
Callers are routed based on their area code, as opposed to their physical location — still, depending on where a call is routed, the response may be different. Many of the calls not answered at the state level are sent to one of the national backup call centers to be answered, though some are still abandoned at the state level.
The Biden administration’s funding has helped strengthen the national backup network, according to SAMHSA, so fewer calls are going unanswered, but advocates said the ideal is to have callers connected to centers in their area that can provide useful follow up mental health resources.
The law that designated 988 as the three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline back in 2020 empowered states to implement fees on cell phone bills to fund the service, similarly to how 911 call centers are funded.
So far, five states have passed laws establishing such fees, and 29 states in total have passed some form of appropriations to support the 988 infrastructure, according to Wesolowski.
“Advocates are certainly pushing and having those blunt conversations that we can’t be relying on federal funding streams,” Wesolowski said. “I think one thing that we’ve really pushed with the these phone fees is that they can be flexible. They can be set in a range that is determined annually based on what the needs might be in the state for funding that year.”
Despite the need for “more work to be done,” Wesolowski said she feels encouraged by the progress the lifeline has made over the last six months.
“Everyone is working toward improving this day after day and there’s still consensus across the board that this is a priority at the federal level, at the state level, with advocates, with providers, with law enforcement,” Wesolowski said. “[It] gives me a lot of hope that we’re going to be facing a future where everyone knows 988.”
For her part, Naturale shares the hope that people will turn to 988 in times of need.
“It’s our goal to decrease suicide in this country and increase the idea that anyone — they don’t have to be in suicidal crisis — anyone experiencing mental health distress can pick up the phone,” Naturale said. “Being able to call 988 and get treatment without judgment, get interventions without judgment: That’s really our goal.”
If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text the new three digit code at 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.
(WASHINGTON) — It appears President Joe Biden will not sit down for an interview to air on Super Bowl Sunday after all.
The White House first said Friday that Biden wanted to do this year’s interview with Fox Soul, a Fox network aimed at a Black audience, but that Fox Corp “asked for the interview to be cancelled.”
“The President was looking forward to an interview with Fox Soul to discuss the Super Bowl, the State of the Union, and critical issues impacting the everyday lives of Black Americans. We’ve been informed that Fox Corp has asked for the interview to be cancelled,” tweeted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
A Fox Corp spokesperson hours later told ABC News there was some “initial confusion” after the White House reached out to FOX Soul Thursday evening, and that they were looking forward to interviewing the president.
But a White House spokesperson told ABC News that is not the case.
“As we said earlier, we had arranged an interview with FOX Sports Host Mike Hill & Vivica A. Fox with the President ahead of the Super Bowl and Fox Corp had the interview cancelled. FOX has since put out a statement indicating the interview was rescheduled, which is inaccurate,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Fox News anchors had made clear on air over the past few days that it was the White House that hadn’t committed to making Biden available for the traditional Super Bowl interview ahead of Sunday’s big game, which Fox will broadcast.
Jean-Pierre had also declined to say if Biden would participate in the interview, telling reporters on Thursday aboard Air Force One, “I just don’t have anything to preview for you about Sunday.”
Biden did sit for interviews with the networks that hosted the Super Bowl the last two years: NBC in 2022 and CBS in 2021.
According to White House aides, the White House had agreed to an interview with two Fox Soul anchors: sports reporter Mike Hill and actress Vivica A. Fox, who has a show on Fox Soul.
While it is a tradition for presidents to grant an interview to the network broadcasting the Super Bowl, there is precedent for declining. Former President Donald Trump opted out of the interview in 2018 when NBC was airing the game.
(SAN DIEGO) — Three people were shot, including one fatally, at an agricultural nursery in Southern California on Friday, authorities said.
A suspected shooter was taken into custody on the property, according to the San Diego Sheriff.
The incident occurred around 3 p.m. local time at Atkins Nursery in Fallbrook, a village located about 50 miles north of San Diego, the San Diego Sheriff said.
First responders and law enforcement officers responded to an “incident involving several patients with gunshot injuries,” the North County Fire Protection District said Friday afternoon.
Responding deputies found two victims outside a barn on the property with gunshot wounds to their upper torso, the sheriff said. The victims — a woman believed to be in her mid-30s and a man in his late 60s — were transported to a local hospital where they underwent surgery for non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
A third victim — a man believed to be in his late 50s — was found dead from apparent gunshot wounds to his upper torso, the sheriff said. His identity is not known at this time.
Another man located inside the barn was determined to be the alleged shooter, the sheriff said. The suspect, identified by the San Diego Sheriff as 76-year-old Enrique Barajas Gutierrez, was arrested and taken to the Fallbrook Sheriff’s Station without incident. He will be booked into the Vista Detention Facility for murder, the sheriff said.
A rifle of unknown type and caliber is believed to have been used in the shooting, the sheriff said.
A motive is under investigation. Investigators are working to determine the relationship between Gutierrez and the victims, though they believe he is the father of the female victim, the sheriff said.
“At this time, there is no further threat to the community,” the San Diego Sheriff said.
Aerial footage from the scene showed a large law enforcement presence near the nursery.
Residents were asked to avoid the area Friday night due to the active crime scene.
@NorthCountyFire is on scene of an incident involving several patients with gunshot injuries. @SDSOFallbrook is also on scene. Please avoid this area. Reche Road is currently closed from Rabbit Hill to Scooter Lane. pic.twitter.com/FHMOxBFF1q
— North County Fire Protection District (@NorthCountyFire) February 10, 2023
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said they were “coordinating closely with local officials on this developing situation.”
“Our thoughts are with those impacted by today’s act of violence, and all the Californians recovering from tragic shootings this year,” the office tweeted.
(NEW YORK) — Some 70 years after humans drove cheetahs to extinction in India, the country now seeks to bring them back.
In efforts to reestablish a population, South Africa will ship about 100 of the carnivorous cats to India over the next decade with the first batch of felines set to arrive this month.
The animals will end up in central India’s Kuno National Park, with protected areas home to rare and endangered animals. The cats are among the initial ones introduced in India under Project Cheetah, the first intercontinental translocation initiative of its kind.
The African cheetahs that will be arriving in India are not native to the region but the incoming cats belong to the genetically distinct African subspecies which diverged from its Asiatic cousin thousands of years ago. The now-critically endangered subspecies, the Asiatic cheetah, originally roamed from the Arabian Peninsula to central India, but now only a handful of them remain in Iran and they thought to be inbred with questionable long-term viability.
India’s development in the last 100 years has seen much of the grasslands, where the cats lived and thrived, transformed into farmland. Along with the loss of their natural habitat, prey depletion and hunting also led to their local extinction. In fact, the last known photograph of wild cheetahs in India shows three dead cats posed in front of a hunter more than 70 years ago in 1948.
By moving these cats to India, Project Cheetah seeks to relieve some pressure on South African reserves — where the animals are numerous — while hoping to boost overall cheetah numbers worldwide. It is estimated there are only around 7,000 of the African cats alive today.
India hopes the relocation operation will help sustain biodiversity while also sparking eco-tourism which, in turn, could help local communities economically. To get people excited for the project, the government even recently ran a month-long campaign where people could suggest names for the cheetahs and win a chance to see them.
Zoologist Nobuyuki Yamaguchi of University of Malaysia, Terengganu, tells ABC News that, despite setbacks, healthy cats from Africa would be able to survive in their new Indian environment.
“Some will die but many die in their native habitats in Africa, too,” Yamaguchi said.
Yamaguchi also says the national park the cheetahs will call home can only host between eight to 25 of the cats.
“Conservationists may need to explore the possibility that the cheetahs can live in a human-dominated landscape around the park,” Yamaguchi continued. “Asian lions and leopards currently live outside of parks, but no one knows yet if cheetahs can do it, too.”
While excitement continues to build for the cheetahs’ arrival, it remains to be seen whether support for the African cheetahs will continue long-term. Critics claim the space-requiring cats will eventually face the same human pressure that killed them off decades ago.
India’s government, however, has pledged to expediently manage human-cheetah conflict in conservation areas “through compensation, awareness, and management actions to win community support.”
Yet despite government backing for Project Cheetah and a groundswell of support from the scientific community, the animal’s legal right to exist in the country isn’t guaranteed. The Indian Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that the translocated cheetahs “would be introduced on an experimental basis.”
Many questions remain about whether translocating a subspecies of cheetah to a new ecosystem thousands of miles away is an effective and ethical way of preserving biodiversity. Some argue that India already has big cats and that the country’s resources should be used on human-related problems, such as overpopulation and poverty.
Carnivore biologist Dr. K. Ullas Karanth, Emeritus Director for the India-based Centre for Wildlife Studies, tells ABC News that Project Cheetah is costly and ill-conceived.
“Basically, the science underpinning this project is poor and India’s wildlife management system is by-and-large not fully trained in the science involved,” Karanth said. “The population models used for Cheetahs are deeply flawed. The African conservationists involved in the project have surplus cheetahs they want to get rid of, and they have no idea of the social conditions in India these cheetahs will face.”
Karanth says the worst-case outcome of Project Cheetah would be of the needless creation of captive, artificially-fed cats in large enclosures.
“Establishing a free-ranging wild cheetah population in India is a multi-decade effort of relocating some villages, in a more arid, much larger area in Western India with sustainable wild prey populations,” Karanth continued. “The size of such an area should be 6,000 to 10,000 square miles .. Bringing the cheetahs over before they have ample land to sustain them is putting the cart before the horse.”
The cats arriving from South Africa will eventually join eight radio-collared cheetah’s — three males and five females — which were translocated in September 2022 from Namibia.
The World Wildlife Fund of India tells ABC News the short-term success of Project Cheetah will be seen as a success if the translocated cheetahs can adapt to and breed in their new environment.
“The initial years of the project will be the most crucial to the beasts’ long-term survival. Ultimate success will be determined by the species persisting in the wild and occupying some of its historical habitats. Only time will tell whether the return of the cheetah will contribute to the overall conservation of wildlife in India — either way, there will be great learning through this whole process.”
(NEW YORK) — More than three-quarters of U.S. states are experiencing a teacher shortage, highlighting a growing concern among public education and government officials about challenges that were exacerbated during three years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on pandemic learning published in June 2022 found that public education lost about 7% of its total teaching population (233,000) between 2019 and 2021 — with many educators, in phone calls, text messages and interviews with ABC News, citing strict time demands, persisting behavioral issues and lack of administrative support, among other obstacles.
According to the education departments, agencies and associations surveyed for this story, staffing issues have continued.
“Our nation is undergoing a mass exodus of teachers leaving the classroom,” Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., told ABC News in December. “We can choose to take this issue head on or lose America’s teachers and have the education of our students severely impacted.”
Between October and the end of January, ABC News reached out by phone and email to the overarching education departments in all 50 states as well as Washington. D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For all 53, ABC News asked if they were experiencing any shortages or extreme staffing vacancies and, if so, what their greatest need was in terms of subject-matter position openings.
As of Feb. 9, at least 39 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands — 41 out of 53 surveyed — reported ongoing shortages. Many also reported subject matter vacancies in areas such as physical and special education and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Sabrina McCall, the Anderson, South Carolina, School District Five director of human resources and teacher effectiveness, told ABC News that the No. 1 contributing factor in her district has been student misbehavior.
“It’s difficult to overcome,” she said. “They [the teachers] have a lot on their plate. And when you add student behaviors in there, it sometimes just messes up the entire plate.”
From Kentucky and Idaho’s communications officers’ statements calling the teacher shortage a “crisis” to several Missouri school districts implementing four-day weeks as a recruitment and retention tool, some states, as the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) put it, are still facing “unprecedented” staffing challenges.
One outside expert, however, said the data on vacancies doesn’t tell a simple story.
Jess Gartner, the founder & CEO of Allovue, a company that combines financial technology with education data, suggested the nation’s shortage situation is “complicated.”
“Part of what’s driving what feels like a very acute challenge or crisis right now — it seems from the data — is more driven by the creation of new positions than a mass exodus of existing staff,” she said.
Where are the shortages?
ABC News received responses from 49 of the 50 states’ education departments and related groups, making multiple efforts to reach Rhode Island, whose state officials have yet to respond to email and phone requests.
Many states say they’re still surveying district data and compiling vacancy statistics that will be released later this year. Puerto Rico did not have its data; neither did Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon or Tennessee.
Florida, New Hampshire and New Mexico did not report shortages and Louisiana said it didn’t believe it was having a teaching shortage either.
Texas education officials said the state “is employing more teachers this school year than ever before, and new teacher production numbers remain high. However, as with many states, Texas public school systems have had a challenging time filling vacant positions due to various factors.”
Despite some states missing vacancy tallies for the 2022-2023 school year, the federal government reported public schools have been experiencing difficulties filling teaching vacancies for more than two full school cycles, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
In Alaska, the state described “significant challenges” and a pressing need for special education teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and more. Across the country, in New York, officials pointed to openings for literacy and special education instructors as “two persistent” and statewide issues. And in Missouri, officials said their staffing problems were the result of “less supply” and “increased demand.”
In South Carolina, McCall said her district pulled some aspiring educators from local apprenticeship programs to help fill positions left open from teachers quitting over the summer.
Separately, last October, NCES found particular vacancy problems in high-poverty, high-minority school districts. Barnard College professor Erika Kitzmiller believes the vacancy rate in low-income schools has worsened inequities that existed in education prior to the pandemic.
“There’s clearly a strain on the system if we can’t find teachers who are qualified to fill positions in high-need districts,” Kitzmiller told ABC News. “We know that people [school districts] are having difficulty just finding people regardless of qualifications or competencies or effectiveness. And those vacancies are highly prevalent in low-income schools that predominantly serve Black and brown youth.”
However, the vacancy issues are location-specific as well, according to education advocates. Urban and rural student populations often face acute shortages, said Gartner.
“The reality is that these experiences can vary a lot across geographies … even from one county to the next,” Gartner explained.
“It is almost always true that when there are economic challenges and when there are curricular challenges or policy changes, those things hit our large urban school districts and our rural school districts the hardest,” she added.
Some states see declining shortages
With data varying from district to district, not all states are feeling the same strain in the same way, if at all. Some tout above average statistics and say they have less to worry about than the areas with severe staffing issues.
For example, Alabama’s state education officials said they were struggling to find “qualified teachers” in rural areas but the state’s overall challenges are subsiding.
“Alabama, like most other states, has experienced teacher shortages in certain areas,” the state said in December, adding, “It is not as urgent as it has been in the past.”
In contrast, the number of educators in New Hampshire has been steadily increasing, according to a July 2022 report released by its state education department.
“While there may be teacher shortages in certain subjects and certain locations throughout New Hampshire – specifically special education, paraprofessional, and STEM positions – the educator shortage has not worsened, overall,” wrote Stephen Appleby, director of the New Hampshire Education Department’s Division of Educator Support and Higher Education.
“Instead, it has improved during the past two years,” Appleby wrote.
New Mexico, which last year sent in the National Guard to aid short-staffed school districts, saw a 34% decrease in the 2022 teacher vacancy rate, according to a statewide report. The state also touts the highest average teacher compensation throughout the Southwest region.
“Improved teacher salaries have been an important incentive to get people back into the classroom and New Mexico’s teachers appreciate the hard work of Gov. [Michelle] Lujan Grisham and the Legislature to make this happen,” the state’s teacher’s union president, Mary Parr-Sanchez, said in a statement.
Florida’s education department said it only saw 2% of its teaching positions unfilled to start the 2022-2023 school year, thanks to its recruitment and retention strategies.
The education department also had hundreds of qualified veterans apply for temporary teaching certificates, and it gave bonuses to retired military veterans and first responders who committed to at least two years of teaching. Last year, Florida recorded the largest teacher salary raise in its history, boosting the average starting salary from $40,000 to $48,000. In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed investing $1 billion that could raise teacher salaries again.
From Tennessee — whose Grow Your Own program was the first in the nation to have a recognized apprenticeship program through the U.S. Labor and Education departments — to Texas’ Teacher Vacancy Task Force, most states have been trying varied approaches to help crack the shortage issue.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy recently signed an executive order establishing a task force to combat his state’s public education challenges.
“Unfortunately, our state is no exception to the national teacher shortage currently straining our education system,” Murphy said in a statement. “With a critical need for learning recovery and acceleration as well as mental health support for our students, teachers and other school staff are more essential than ever,” he said.
But Gartner warns that if states didn’t fill the hardest hit positions during the fall, now might be too late.
“If you’ve got dozens or hundreds of those same positions open, is it likely that you’re going to fill them this far into the year? Probably not. So what’s plan B?” she asked, adding, “That is not an enviable decision to make. Because what you’re really saying is we now have to spend money on our second-best resource or our third-best resource that we would prefer to have because the resource simply is not available.”
Some vacancies point to funding for increased support
With the federal government providing nearly $200 billion in elementary and secondary school emergency funds during the pandemic, Gartner believes the overall data on district vacancies has been conflated because that money is being sent to states and local education agencies to create new positions to help students with their social, emotional and mental health needs.
That addition of federal dollars also caused a 57% spike in new job openings in public education, according to Gartner.
But most of the relief money goes to address severe staffing challenges at high-need or the low-income public schools, as designated under Title I, and Gartner said the funding was allocated proportionally. Still, there’s not enough money for the increased vacancies created by the combination of quitting teachers and extra positions, which Gartner suggests compounds the challenges that these schools normally see.
“You’re going to have some districts where they’re probably seeing higher than typical quit rates [voluntary resignations],” the educator, who has taught in schools around the world, told ABC News. “They have more job openings available right now, so that gap is really large.”
Gartner said the so-called teacher exodus doesn’t outpace other professions. Government data supports this view: From January 2017-January 2022, K-12 employee quit rates were down compared to the private sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Even in the midst of a lot of turmoil, a lot of economic volatility, a lot of heightened stress, we’re still seeing consistently lower rates of attrition in public education than we are in nearly any other industry,” Gartner said.
(NEW YORK) — During the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting social interactions and wearing masks kept pesky viruses away. But now, stuffed sinuses and miserable post nasal drip are back — and for some people, feel worse than ever before.
Cold viruses aren’t any more virulent than they were before the pandemic, experts say. But that doesn’t make the experience of having one any better. ABC News spoke to experts about why they might seem harder to bear.
Why do cold symptoms feel worse?
Experts say there is currently no evidence to suggest the viruses that cause cold symptoms are any more severe than they were pre-COVID. However, there are some reasons they may feel more severe.
One reason is because people may have forgotten how miserable cold symptoms can feel after a few years without them.
Cold symptoms can include things like sneezing, coughing and runny nose, but in more severe cases can cause body aches, chest discomfort or even fever, according to the CDC. They also usually last up to 10 days.
“All of us have forgotten about what common colds used to be like, and we’re getting them now again,” said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
Lack of exposure to viruses that cause cold symptoms may also be playing a role. People who haven’t had a cold in a while won’t have as much immunity to viruses, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at UCSF.
“Lack of exposure to viruses over time might make a cold seem much worse than before, because you haven’t been exposed a little bit along the way,” he said.
However, having some immunity isn’t always protective when it comes to colds, as there are over 200 known viruses that can cause symptoms of the common cold, according to the National Institute of Health.
“Being exposed to one doesn’t mean that you’re going to be protected by another one that comes along,” said Chin-Hong.
Are you more likely to catch a cold now than during the height of COVID?
People are socializing more than they did during the height of the pandemic and are in more public spaces without masks. That might make catching a cold more likely, experts said.
“We may have been a little spoiled over the last few seasons, because we’ve been spared this experience of getting one or two or even three common colds during the winter,” said Schaffner.
Socializing also means interacting with other people who also didn’t have much exposure to cold viruses in the past few years.
“There’s less of a forcefield in the population, so the chances of you encountering a cold is higher,” Chin-Hong said.
He added, “When more people are ill, and more people don’t have immunity, they’re more likely to get ill and that leads to a cycle of encounters.”
There were similar trends with RSV and the flu this year.
“We saw a lot more RSV in the beginning of this year, because a lot of kids were not born when there was RSV circulating so of course, they’re going to get it and probably feel it a little bit more,” said Chin-Hong.
What are the best ways to fight the common cold?
Washing your hands.
“We haven’t emphasized washing hands and surfaces for COVID because there’s less evidence for that. But for colds, there’s tons of evidence.” said Chin-Hong.
If you do find yourself getting sick, there are things you can do to help relieve symptoms.
It is important to keep your fluid intake up, according to Schaffner, and taking a steamy shower can help with a runny or stuffy nose.
For a sore throat, Schaffner said, “a little bit of gargling with warm salt water will help. And if you have any pains or perhaps a degree of fever as people do with the cold, then take some acetaminophen, and that’ll help you get through the day and get a little more sleep.”
(PHOENIX) — Before fans flocked to Phoenix for this weekend’s Super Bowl, the city hosted another major football championship event featuring a different group of hard-hitting players.
The Wheelchair Football League held its second Super Bowl on Tuesday with a match between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Rams.
The league, which was created by the NFL, the Bob Woodruff Foundation and Move United, is made up of athletes with disabilities who compete in wheelchairs, complete with uniforms and helmets of NFL teams.
Many of the players are veterans who were wounded abroad, and for some, like Alex Nguyen, a wide receiver and defensive back for the WFL’s Chiefs, the league has given them a new meaning in life.
“I guess finding sports kind of just turned it around a little bit for me,” Nguyen, who lost his leg while serving in Afghanistan, told ABC News. “Everybody’s got that fire that an able-bodied football player does.”
The league was founded in 2020 and now has 400 athletes in 11 teams across the country. Passes, receptions and throws take place on a 60-yard hard ground, in some cases a parking lot, and tackling is done by touching the upper part of the body.
Bart Salgado, a former Marine who plays for the WFL’s LA Rams, told ABC News there are plenty of times players crash into the pavement.
“Some guys can just get themselves back up. Some guys need a little bit of help,” he said.
The league’s fanbase has been growing throughout the years, according to Anne Marie Dougherty, the CEO of the Bob Woodruff Foundation.
“I saw the championship game last year, [and] I was like, ‘Wow those are some hard hits! OK!’ We’re here for it, those are some great throws,” she said.
Cam Jordan, a defensive end for the New Orleans Saints who attended this week’s championship game, agreed.
“These guys out here smashing into each other with reckless abandon. And I love the mentality,” he told ABC News.
One of the best parts of the league, according to the players, is the new community they’ve grown and the camaraderie they’ve created.
Even though the Chiefs defeated the Rams in the game 7-0, players on both teams said they were ready to celebrate with some post-game drinks.
“Yeah during the game. We might hate each other a little bit,” Nguyen said.
“But it’s just trash-talking and sportsmanship,” Salgado added.
(NACIMIENTO, Chile) — Wildfires that have been raging across Chile for more than a week have now killed at least 26 people and left more than 2,000 injured.
Over 1,500 homes have also been completely destroyed by the fires, leaving thousands more homeless as a heatwave has enveloped the region with temperatures reaching upwards of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Chile’s Interior Ministry confirmed to ABC News that, so far, more than 889,000 acres of forests have been destroyed so far in the Andean nation.
Over 6,000 firefighters — many of them mainly volunteers — are currently on the ground trying to control more than 323 active fires, including 90 that are raging out of control, according to officials.
Weather experts say that the drought that has taken hold in Chile has been brought on by a mix of climate change and a Pacific Ocean weather condition called La Nina. The combination of these conditions have allowed for stronger winds from the ocean to deeper into Chile and has been a catalyst for the spread of these wildfires.
The Chilean government have now put three regions in the south-central part of the country — Biobio, La Araucaunia and Nuble — on high alert and Chile’s Interior Minister Carolina Toha said that a curfew will be declared in these regions.
The United States has sent a DC-10 Air Tanker aircraft with a capacity of 36,000 liters to help contain the wildfires while Chilean authorities said that Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and Spain have already provided some form of logistics and material support.
Toha also said that water tanks could be used to battle the fires and have asked for them to be available as soon as possible.
Authorities warned that high temperatures and strong winds could further complicate the situation even further over the weekend.
Jack White has announced a one-off headlining concert in New York City.
The show will take place February 22 at the venue Brooklyn Steel, which only holds about 1,800 people. The last time White played NYC, he headlined Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena, which holds around 19,000.
Tickets will only be available through the Fair AXS platform. Registration is open now through Tuesday, February 14, at 10 p.m. ET.
The Brooklyn Steel show coincides with White’s upcoming performance on Saturday Night Live, which airs February 25 on NBC.
White spent most of 2022 on the road supporting his two new solo albums, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive.
