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World

Hurricane Fiona: Puerto Rico landfall

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CNN
 — 

[Breaking news update at 3:52 p.m. ET]

Hurricane Fiona made landfall along the extreme southwestern coast of Puerto Rico near Punta Tocon at 3:20 p.m. ET with winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

[Previous story, published at 3:09 p.m. ET]

Power has gone out across all of the US territory of Puerto Rico on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, as Hurricane Fiona bears down on the islands, which are already grappling with the threat of flooding and mudslides stemming from the Category 1 storm.

“Puerto Rico is 100% without power due to a transmission grid failure from Hurricane Fiona,” the website said.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi confirmed the outage in a tweet, noting the entire electric system was out of service and officials have activated the proper protocols to work to restore power.

The blackout – which followed hours of progressively worsening power outages – comes five years after Puerto Rico’s power grid was devastated by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, leaving many residents without electricity for months. But officials have stressed it won’t be like last time: Not long before the lights went out, Abner Gomez, head of public safety and crisis management at LUMA Energy, which operates Puerto Rico’s power grid, said utility authorities plan to repair and restore electricity with the help of local government agencies.

“This is not Maria, this hurricane will not be Maria,” Gomez said.

Fiona has continued to strengthen Sunday and now packs sustained winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center’s update at 2 p.m. ET, at which point the storm was about 25 miles southwest of the city of Ponce.

The storm’s impacts have already been felt: At least one death has been reported in Basse-Terre in the French territory of Guadeloupe, according to the vice president of the territory’s environmental agency, who said the capital had been devastated by flooding. And in Puerto Rico, flash flooding has already begun.

Pierluisi warned the storm “will cover our entire island” in a news conference Sunday, noting winds and rain bands from the storm may extend outward up to 100 to 120 miles. “This is impacting us now,” Pierluisi said. “It’s south of Puerto Rico but very close to our coast.”

The hurricane – the third of the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season – is bearing down on Puerto Rico, with the eyewall approaching the southern coast, according to the National Weather Service’s office in San Juan. Winds are expected to increase along the immediate coastline, the hurricane center said, while conditions are forecast to deteriorate throughout Sunday afternoon and evening as Fiona moves near or over the southwestern part of Puerto Rico.

There is a possibility Fiona’s center might skirt Puerto Rico, precluding a traditional “landfall.” But regardless, the impacts of the storm remain the same.

“Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours while Fiona moves near Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and over the southwestern Atlantic,” the hurricane center said. “Hurricane conditions are expected on Puerto Rico today, and are expected in portions of the eastern Dominican Republic tonight and Monday.”

The National Weather Service on Sunday warned of life-threatening to catastrophic flooding, issuing flash flood warnings for south and east Puerto Rico, including Ponce and Yabucoa, through at least mid-afternoon. The service said flooding had started after an estimated 1 to 4 inches of rain had already fallen.

Very heavy rainfall of 12 to 16 inches is forecast across a wide swath of Puerto Rico, with most of the rain expected Sunday, and isolated locations across southern and eastern Puerto Rico could see up to 25 inches, per the hurricane center.

The northern and eastern Dominican Republic, too, is forecast to see 4 to 8 inches of rain, with isolated totals up to 12 inches possible.

“These rains will produce life-threatening flash flooding and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain,” the hurricane center said.

Already, authorities have responded to one such landslide: Emergency officials responded Saturday evening to a landslide around 8 p.m. ET at an apartment complex in Guaynabo, according to fire and public safety officials. There were no initial reports of injuries.

Puerto Rico officials continue to closely watch the island’s mountain regions, which have suffered landslides in the past and where the soil is saturated from the rain, Pierluisi said.

Around 120 shelters with 25,000 cots have been opened for those in need, the governor said. Classes Monday have been canceled and government workers – save emergency workers – should stay home, too.

A hurricane warning – indicating hurricane conditions are expected – was issued for Puerto Rico, including the islands of Vieques and Culebra, and later expanded to include the eastern Dominican Republic from Cabo Caucedo to Cabo Frances Viejo. The Dominican Republic’s northern coast, from Cabo Frances Viejo west to Puerto Plata, were under a hurricane watch Sunday morning, meaning hurricane conditions are possible in the next 48 hours.

How to prepare for a hurricane

President Joe Biden on Sunday morning approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, freeing up federal resources, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for emergency response and disaster relief efforts.

The threat won’t end once the storm passes between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Further strengthening is expected, and the official forecast track indicates Fiona could be a major hurricane by Wednesday as it tracks to the east of the Bahamas and toward Bermuda.

“It appears likely that Fiona will become the first major hurricane of this Atlantic season in a few days,” the hurricane center said.



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Science

New images show intriguing Perseverance discovery on Mars

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A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



CNN
 — 

If you love space and exploring the cosmos, there is no shortage of wonder right now.

Scientists identified mysterious diamonds that likely originated from a dwarf planet that once existed in our solar system – until it collided with a large asteroid 4.5 billion years ago.

The rare space diamonds aren’t the only find mesmerizing researchers. A “breathtaking” image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing the secrets of star birth in the Orion Nebula. Expect to see more unprecedented Webb images in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the Artemis I mission has a new launch date scheduled for September 27, with a 70-minute window that opens at 11:37 a.m. ET.

And on Mars, inspiring discoveries are afoot as the Perseverance rover investigates an intriguing site.

The Perseverance rover has made its most exciting find on the red planet to date.

Perseverance has finally collected samples from the site of an ancient river delta, which is full of rock layers that serve as a geological record of the Martian past. Some of the rocks include the highest concentration of organic matter found by the rover to date, according to NASA scientists.

Among the organic matter are minerals that correlate with sulfates, which could preserve evidence of once potentially habitable sites on Mars and the microbial life that may have existed there.

New photos show the promising rocks amid the delta’s alien landscape. These important samples could answer the ultimate cosmic question: Are we alone in the universe?

Modern humans and Neanderthals lived in tandem until our ancient relatives went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Now, researchers think they may have pinpointed something that gave Homo sapiens a cognitive edge over the Stone Age hominins.

Scientists discovered a genetic mutation that may have allowed neurons to form faster in the modern human brain.

“We’ve identified a gene that contributes to making us human,” said study author Wieland Huttner, professor and director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

But some experts think more research is needed to ascertain the gene’s true impact.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander – and these golden geese have provided some pretty significant benefits.

Three teams of scientists won the 2022 Golden Goose Awards, prizes organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for pioneering breakthroughs.

One of those includes the Foldscope, a microscope made from paper that costs $1.75 to make. Stanford University bioengineer Manu Prakash came up with the idea on a research trip in the Thai jungle more than a decade ago.

The scientific instrument has traveled around the world, and researchers have even used it to identify a new type of cyanobacteria.

Mark your calendars: A NASA spacecraft will intentionally crash into a tiny asteroid on September 26.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, launched in November and is on its way to a rendezvous with Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting an asteroid called Didymos.

The mission will nudge the asteroid, which poses no threat to Earth, to change its speed and path in a first-of-its-kind test of kinetic impact. If DART is successful, the mission could demonstrate future ways to protect Earth from space debris.

The spacecraft recently got its first glimpse of Didymos from about 20 million miles (32.2 million kilometers) away. On the day of the encounter, we’ll see Dimorphos for the first time before DART collides with the space rock.

The Xerces blue butterfly, Floreana giant tortoise and Tasmanian tiger are just some of the species that the world has lost due to human-driven threats.

Environmental and travel photographer Marc Schlossman has spent 15 years documenting extinct and endangered animal specimens in Chicago’s Field Museum collection for his new book, “Extinction: Our Fragile Relationship With Life on Earth.”

Schlossman provides a glimmer of hope at a time when biodiversity loss is accelerating. Of the 82 species photographed for the book, 23 are extinct, he said.

Thanks to conservation efforts, the rest have been brought back from the brink of disappearing or – as in the case of the New Zealand kākāpo – can recover with “robust” conservation work.

Take a closer look:

– One of Saturn’s moons grazed the gas giant 160 million years ago and smashed apart – and this chaotic encounter could explain the origins of the planet’s signature rings.

– Food DNA from 6,000-year-old pottery found on the Isle of Lewis reveals that ancient Scots enjoyed a breakfast that may sound familiar to us.

– Spectators spied an unusually slow-moving fireball in the night sky over Scotland. The mystery object could be a space rock or space debris.

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Business

A squirrel in a Virginia substation caused a blackout

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CNN
 — 

A small creature caused a blackout in Virginia Beach last week: a wandering squirrel that made its way into the substation.

It happened around 8:45 a.m. on September 7, according to a tweet from Bonita Harris, spokesperson for Dominion Energy, which provides electricity in Virginia and other states.

The power outage affected over 10,000 Virginians, Harris said. Power was restored by around 10 a.m.

Harris told CNN that animals occasionally get stuck in the company’s substations, despite efforts to keep them out.

“Dominion Energy has standard equipment in place to keep squirrels and other animals safe when near our equipment,” Harris said. “This equipment reduces the number of incidents greatly, but sometimes determined little critters will still get in there.”

The squirrel did not survive the incident, Harris said, although sometimes animals receive a brief shock and go mostly unharmed.

Harris said workers quickly rerouted power to another source to keep as many customers’ lights on as possible.

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Health

Polio is back — how concerned should Americans be?

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CNN
 — 

New York’s governor has declared a state of emergency after health officials detected poliovirus in the wastewater of five counties – evidence the disease is circulating. The declaration also follows a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of an unvaccinated person in Rockland County, New York, who was diagnosed with paralytic polio this summer – the first case identified in the United States in nearly a decade.

Understandably, these events have sparked a lot of questions: Why does one case of polio worry officials? What does it mean to find poliovirus in wastewater? Who should be worried about contracting the disease? If someone had the vaccine years ago, are they still protected now?

To understand more about this disease, which most people alive today have never experienced, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also author of “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”

CNN: So far, there has been only one documented case of paralysis due to poliovirus in New York. Why does one case worry health officials?

Dr. Leana Wen: An August report from the CDC said that “even a single case of paralytic polio represents a public health emergency in the United States.” This is for two main reasons.

First, polio is a disease with the potential for very severe consequences. During its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, polio resulted in tens of thousands of children becoming paralyzed every year. Thousands died from the virus.

This changed with the introduction of vaccines that are highly effective – more than 99% effective at protecting against paralytic polio. Thanks to massive vaccination campaigns, the last incidence of wild-type polio occurred in 1979 – and it had been considered to be eliminated in the United States. The reemergence of such a disease, which can have such serious impacts, is a major threat.

Second, the one case of paralytic polio may be the tip of a large iceberg. Most cases of polio infection are asymptomatic and do not cause paralysis. Symptoms – which can include fatigue, fever and diarrhea – tend to be mild and can resemble those of other viruses. Public health officials are worried there are many other people who may be infected with polio and could be transmitting it unknowingly.

This is particularly concerning because Rockland County, where the recent paralytic case of the virus was diagnosed, has a polio vaccination rate of just 60%. In some parts of the county, the vaccination rate is as low as 37%. These numbers are far below the threshold needed for herd immunity, and that means there are a lot of individuals in the area who are vulnerable to polio infection and potential severe outcomes.

CNN: What does it mean that poliovirus has been detected in the wastewater of five counties, including New York City?

Wen: Finding poliovirus in sewage means one of two things: That there are people actively infected with polio who are shedding the virus, or that the virus signal could be from people who recently received the oral polio vaccine (OPV). OPV is no longer given in the United States – since 2000, the version used in the US is the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), which is injected – but other countries are still using OPV, and it’s possible that travelers from those places are shedding virus from the vaccine.

In rare circumstances, the weakened virus from people who just received OPV could cause paralytic polio in unvaccinated individuals – which is a major reason why OPV is no longer used in the US.

One additional point of concern is that a wastewater sample from Nassau County on Long Island has been genetically linked to the paralytic polio case identified in Rockland County. (The two counties are not adjacent, rather approximately 40 miles apart.) This is further evidence of community spread that’s going largely undetected.

CNN: How can people contract polio?

Wen: Polio is an infectious disease that can be transmitted in a number of ways. A primary route is fecal-oral, meaning someone could get polio if they come into contact with feces from an infected person. This could occur, especially in children, through putting objects like toys that have been contaminated with feces into the mouth.

Poliovirus could also be transmitted through the respiratory route – for example, if someone who is infected coughs or sneezes and those droplets land around your mouth. It’s worth nothing that people who are vaccinated could also contract polio and pass it on to others, though they are extremely well-protected from severe illness themselves.

CNN: Should New Yorkers be worried about contracting polio?

Wen: Again, people who are vaccinated against polio are extremely well-protected from paralytic polio, and should not be concerned at this point. It should be pointed out, however, that while IPV is very good at preventing the most severe potential effects of the disease, people who received the vaccine could still be carriers of polio and could transmit it to others. Those at risk for serious outcomes are people who are unvaccinated and those who are incompletely vaccinated, including young children under 6 who have not yet completed their polio vaccine series.

CNN: How many polio vaccines should someone receive?

Wen: The CDC recommends children receive four doses of IPV. The first is given at 2 months of age, the second at 4 months, the third between 6 and 18 months old and the fourth between 4 and 6 years old.

Adults who have never been vaccinated against polio should receive three doses of IPV. The first should be given as soon as possible, the second one to two months after that and the third six to 12 months after the second.

CNN: If someone had the vaccine years ago, are they still protected? Who should get a polio booster now?

Wen: The protection against severe disease remains strong for many years after immunization; it’s believed it probably lasts for a lifetime. There is no need for most vaccinated people to get more doses.

However, if someone has not completed their original vaccine series, they should get their remaining doses. Some fully vaccinated people can also receive an additional lifetime booster of IPV under specific circumstances – for example, if they have direct contact with someone suspected of having polio or if they are health care workers with higher risk of exposure to people with the disease.

CNN: What if you’re not sure whether you were vaccinated? Say you don’t recall getting the vaccine, and it’s been many years. Is there a blood test you can take to verify either way?

Wen: You could check with your primary care physician’s office or state health department to see whether they have records of your immunizations. If they don’t, and there is no other way for you to verify – for example, by asking parents or other relatives or caregivers – you should speak with your health care provider about getting the full vaccine series for polio now. There is no blood test that can reliably detect whether you’re fully vaccinated against polio.

CNN: What if you or your family members haven’t yet gotten vaccinated against poliovirus?

Wen: People who have yet to receive any doses or are incompletely vaccinated should make sure to get their entire polio vaccine series right away. This is particularly important if they live in or around Rockland County in New York – but really everyone should get caught up with their routine immunizations.

It was a tragedy decades ago that so many children became permanently paralyzed and even died from polio. This should not happen again, since we have such effective vaccines that can prevent severe consequences of the disease.

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US

Railroad strike averted after marathon talks reach tentative deal

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Washington, DC
CNN Business
 — 

Unions and management reached a tentative deal early Thursday, averting a freight railroad strike that had threatened to cripple US supply chains and push prices higher for many goods.

The deal with unions representing more than 50,000 engineers and conductors was announced just after 5 a.m. ET in a statement from the White House, which called it “an important win for our economy and the American people.”

A verbal agreement between the two sides was reached at about 2:30 am ET according to sources, and the final hours were spent getting the details worked out.

That concluded about 20 hours of talks between the unions’ leadership and the railroads’ labor negotiators hosted by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. They began their meeting Wednesday morning with the clock ticking down to a strike that had been set to start at 12:01 am ET on Friday.

President Joe Biden called in personally to talk to negotiators around 9 pm ET Wednesday, according to a person familiar with negotiations. Biden stressed that catastrophic harm could come to families, businesses and communities if the rail system shut down. Sources within the unions were giving Biden’s call credit for helping to get the deal completed without a strike.

“We’re very proud of what was accomplished,” said Jeremy Ferguson, president of the conductors union and one of the leaders involved in the marathon session. He thanked Biden and Labor Department officials involved in the talks for the deal.

“Everybody pulled together to make sure that we could get our members what they deserved,” he said.

“This is the quality of life issue we have been trying to get for our members since bargaining started,” said Dennis Pierce, president of the engineers’ union and the other union official involved in the talks.

The agreement does not mean the threat of a strike has gone away entirely. The deal needs to be ratified by union members. But it’s good news for a wide range of businesses that depend upon the freight railroads to continue to operate, and for the wider US economy. About 30% of the nation’s freight moves by rail.

The deal gives the union members an immediate 14% raise with back pay dating back to 2020, and raises totaling 24% during the five-year life of the contract, that runs from 2020 through 2024. It also gives them cash bonuses of $1,000 a year.

Few other details of the deal have so far been made public. But the statement from Biden indicated that the major sticking point – involving work rules and scheduling issues – that had brought the country within a day of its first national rail strike in 30 years had been addressed in the unions’ favor.

“It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years,” said Biden in a statement. “These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned.”

The dispute was about staffing shortages and scheduling rules that union leaders said had brought their membership to a breaking point. The unions say the railroads have been requiring their members to be “on call” and ready to report to work on short notice as often as seven days a week. Leadership of the two unions had said their members would not accept a contract without changes to those work rules.

Biden described the deal as “also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come.”

It is an important victory for Biden, who faced nothing but bad choices if a deal had not been reached. Backing Congressional action sought by the business community to impose a contract on workers would have angered his supporters among the unions. Letting the work stoppage play out risked massive economic consequences just ahead of the midterm elections.

Railroad workers are governed by a different labor law than most workers, one that limits their freedom to strike and allows for more governmental intervention. In July, Biden issued an order that prevented a strike at that time and created a panel, known as a Presidential Emergency Board, to try to find a solution to the dispute.

It also imposed a 60-day cooling off period during which the unions could not strike and management could not lock out workers. That cooling off period was due to end early Friday.

Biden could not have ordered the railroads to keep operating once the cooling off period ended Friday. Only Congress could have acted to get the unions back to work if a strike had begun.

With a wide range of business groups calling on Congress to act, Republicans had prepared legislation that would have given railroad management the deal they wanted. But Democrats were opposed to taking such action.

A union source said that Democrats’ refusal to side with management had been a key to the talks.

“Senate leaderership not acting gave space for these negotiations,” said the union source. He said that Walsh had “hung in” with the union during the negotiations.

“it was a slog yesterday,” he said, with lots of back and forth.

“Our people were not going to give up,” said the source. “Our people would have gone on strike” if a deal was not reached by the Friday deadline.

The Association of American Railroads also praised the deal and thanked the Biden administration, as well as the unions themselves, for their role in reaching an agreement.

The pay raises and bonuses had been recommended by a presidential panel charged with trying to find a solution to the impasse in negotiations at that time.

Those terms were lucrative enough for most of the rail unions to agree to tentative deals in recent weeks, the engineers and conductors, who were faced with work and scheduling rules that did not apply to others, refused to sign on without relief on the scheduling issue.

Shares of the major freight railroads – Union Pacific

(UNP), CSX

(CSX) and Norfolk Southern

(NSC) – were between 1% and 3% higher in premarket trading on the news. Shares of Berkshire Hathaway

(BRKA), which owns the fourth national freight railroad, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, was narrowly higher as well.

The threat of the strike had already started to disrupt operations. Amtrak, whose 22,000-mile system is almost exclusively over freight rail lines outside of the Northeast Corridor, had already canceled all long-distance trains. Amtrak said it “is working to quickly restore canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate on first available departures.” It said it will provide update soon as information becomes available.

The railroads had already stopped accepting shipments of hazardous and security-related materials a week ago. And Wednesday some of the railroads had stopped accepting shipments of crops from the agricultural industry.

Customers of the railroads who had been braced to major problems expressed relief that a strike had been avoided.

“This is fantastic news for the economy,” said Eric Hoplin, CEO of the National Association of Wholesale Distributors, in an appearance on CNN’s New Day Thursday. “My phone has been ringing off the hook over the last 48 hours, talking to distribution leaders from across the country, who were spelling out what some of the catastrophic consequences could have been to America’s supply chain and the economy.”

The US economy avoided several economic blows, including a potential spike in gasoline prices that could have undone the 26% decline in prices at the pump over the last three months. Although refineries get most of their oil through pipelines and ship out most of the gasoline they produce the same way, they still needed railroad tank cars to deliver other materials to refine gasoline and to take away waste products.

Higher prices for food and cars and a shortage of consumer goods well into the holiday shopping season were likely if there had been a prolonged strike, according to business leaders and economists.

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Business

Railroad strike 2022: Intensifying efforts to avert crippling strike go overnight

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New York
CNN Business
 — 

Talks aimed at averting a freight railroad strike that could cripple US supply chains continued overnight into Thursday. If the strike goes ahead early Friday, it could send prices higher for goods from gasoline to food to cars.

Two rail unions, representing more than 50,000 engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews that make the trains run, are threatening the first rail strike in 30 years as of 12:01 am ET Friday. Union leaders and the railroads’ labor negotiators began meeting with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at his Washington, DC, office at 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

The talks were still underway 18 hours later at 3 a.m. ET Thursday, a Labor Department spokesman told CNN.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that “all parties need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues and come to an agreement. A shutdown of our freight rail system is unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people, and all parties must work to avoid just that.”

The Labor Department asked both management and labor not to comment on the state of the talks, and neither responded to a request for comment.

Nearly 30% of the nation’s freight moves on the nation’s railroads. Many vital sectors — including oil refining, agriculture, auto and other manufacturing, plus the imports of consumer goods — depend on the railroads to operate. While a short strike would have a limited effect, economists say a strike lasting a week or more could have severe economic consequences.

The railroads announced last Friday that they had stopped accepting shipments of hazardous material, including fertilizer, as well as security-related materials, due to concerns that trains will immediately stop wherever they are once the strike begins. On Wednesday many stopped accepting shipments of agricultural products.

Members of Union Pacific

(UNP) train crews were informed by the railroad late Tuesday that if they’re in the middle of a trip when the strike begins at 12:01 am EST Friday they should park and secure their train and wait for transportation.

Freight railroad Norfolk Southern

(NSC) is planning to use management employees to operate a limited number of trains in the event of a strike Friday. That could allow critical materials to reach their destinations, like chlorine to water treatment plants.

“We’ll have some capability. Not a very good capability, but we’ll have some if it comes to that,” Norfolk Southern spokesman Connor Spielmaker told CNN Business Wednesday. “How we’re going to utilize them is still being planned out.”

Spielmaker said the railroads still hope to reach a deal with the unions and avert such a situation. Freight railroads CSX, BNSF and Union Pacific declined to say if they’ll be using management employees to operate trains in the event of a strike.

The threat of the strike could snarl commutes across the country. Many Amtrak and local commuter trains travel on railways owned by freight companies. If striking engineers park their trans midroute Friday morning, commutes could be disrupted. Amtrak on Wednesday said it canceled all long-distance trains starting Thursday, and it announced 10 additional routes would be shut down Thursday evening. Amtrak said additional delays or cancellations are possible.

The effort to avert a strike is a major test for President Joe Biden and his White House, which has positioned itself as one of the most pro-labor administrations ever. At the same time, it also wants to avoid any potential shocks to the economy, especially with the midterm elections just seven weeks away.

Railroad workers are governed by a different labor law than most workers, one that limits their freedom to strike and allows for more governmental intervention. In July Biden issued an order that prevented a strike at that time and created a panel, known as a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), to try to find a solution to the dispute. It also imposed a 60-day cooling off period during which the unions could not strike and management could not lock out workers.

But Biden cannot order the railroads to keep operating once the cooling off period ends Friday. Only Congress can act to keep workers on the job if there is no deal. Sen. Richard Durbin, the second highest ranking member of the Democrats’ Senate leadership, told CNN this week that Congressional action is unlikely, despite business groups calling on Congress to act. The Senate is in recess on Friday, and many members of Congress are flying to London to attend Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.

The PEB’s recommendations called for workers to get an immediate 14% pay raise, plus back pay dating back to 2020. It also called for a 24% increase in pay during the five-year life of the contract from 2020 to 2024, and cash bonuses of $1,000 a year.

But it did not address the staffing shortages and scheduling rules that have become the key sticking point in the dispute. The engineers’ and conductors’ unions say the railroads are requiring their members to be “on call” and ready to report to work on short notice as often as seven days a week. Leadership of the two unions say their members would not accept a contract without changes to those work rules.

There are more than 50,000 other unions members at the railroads who maintain tracks, operate signals, dispatch trains and work as mechanics, among other jobs. But they are not subject to the same work rules, and those unions already accepted tentative deals with the railroads based on the PEB’s recommendations.

One of those unions, the Machinists, announced Wednesday that its members voted to reject its tentative labor deal. There are about 5,000 members of the union at the railroads working as locomotive machinists, track equipment mechanics and facility maintenance personnel.

Their rejection of the proposed contract is not an immediate setback in efforts to avoid the strike. The union said it will not go on strike before the end of the month, as it tries to reach a change in the tentative agreement that its members will accept. But it is a sign of the complexity the railroads are facing in reaching deals with a dozen different unions that are also acceptable to rank-and-file membership.

Two other unions, the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen and the Transportation Communications Union, which between them have 11,000 members, ratified deals on Wednesday.

– CNN’s Matt McFarland, Ali Zaslav, Kate Sullivan, Phil Mattingly, Maegan Vazquez and Andrew Millman contributed to this report

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US

Indiana law banning most abortions takes effect

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Washington
CNN
 — 

An Indiana law banning abortion at all stages of pregnancy with limited exceptions is now in effect, making Indiana the latest state to enact restrictions on the procedure after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The law was passed over the summer during a special session, when Indiana became the first state to pass a restrictive abortion law after the court’s decision.

The law provides exceptions to save the woman’s life, prevent any serious health risk to the woman, and for lethal fetal anomalies, up to 20 weeks post-fertilization. It also allows exceptions for some abortions if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest during the first 10 weeks post-fertilization.

Under the law, abortion clinics are no longer state-licensed facilities and cannot provide abortions. The law now requires that all abortions be performed in a licensed hospital, or an ambulatory outpatient surgical center majority owned by a licensed hospital.

Abortion providers who violate the law are subject to a criminal penalty of up to six years imprisonment and a fine of $10,000.

Medication abortion is already prohibited in the state after eight weeks of post-fertilization age.

Abortion providers and a nonprofit that operates a pregnancy resource center in the state filed a lawsuit last month, seeking to block the ban from taking effect.

They argue that the law “will infringe on Hoosiers’ right to privacy, violate Indiana’s guarantee of equal privileges and immunities, and violate the Constitution’s due course of law clause through its unconstitutionally vague language.”

“Hoosiers experiencing or at risk of pregnancy complications that may seriously and permanently impair their health—but that do not meet the limited exception for serious health risks set out in S.B. 1—will be forced to remain pregnant and to suffer serious and potentially life-long harms to their health,” they said in their complaint filed in Monroe Circuit Court on August 31.

“Even patients whose pregnancies should qualify for S.B. 1’s narrow Health or Life Exception may still be unable to obtain an abortion because physicians will credibly fear that they will be prosecuted for the exercise of their professional medical judgment if government officials disagree with their assessment of a patient’s condition.”

A hearing on plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Monday. Plaintiffs have also asked the court for a temporary restraining order.

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Business

Burger King has a plan to make you fall in love with the Whopper again

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New York
CNN Business
 — 

The past few years have been tough for Burger King.

Missteps during the pandemic caused the chain to lag behind competitors. Over the past few quarters, Burger King has been playing catch up, and now the company is hoping a major investment in restaurants and advertising will help spark growth and propel it ahead of its peers.

In the next two years, Burger King, which is owned by Restaurant Brands International

(QSR), is planning to invest $400 million in improving the brand — $250 million will go toward updating restaurant tech, kitchens and remodeling, and $150 million to advertising and digital products. Franchisees will also invest in improving the brand.

One key part of that plan? Reminding customers of what Burger King is all about: The Whopper.

“What we really want to do in the short term is reintroduce America’s love affair with the Whopper,” Tom Curtis, President of Burger King North America, told CNN Business. The plan is to make sure workers are well trained in making the best possible Whopper, and that kitchens support consistency and ease of preparation.

The fast food giant is also going to lean in to advertising its signature burger.

“I don’t think we’ve talked about it enough. I just don’t think we’ve celebrated it enough,” Curtis said. “And I’m looking forward to putting it back in its rightful place as our lead act.” Through advertising, Burger King wants to remind customers that the Whopper is flame-grilled and customizable. But some other tweaks could be in store as well, Curtis said.

The brand is “evaluating whether or not there are changes to the Whopper that could make it a better product,” he said. But the team also doesn’t want to risk messing with its best known offering. “[We’re] a little bit in the camp of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Curtis said.

During the pandemic, restaurants had to quickly adjust their business models to contend with disrupted supply chains, closed dining rooms and a spike in demand for delivery. Burger King didn’t adapt very well.

“Over the last few years during the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic … [Burger King US] didn’t do a great job of adjusting our business to the environment, ” RBI CEO Jose Cil told CNN Business. “We didn’t simplify.”

In the pandemic, many restaurants quickly slimmed down menus in order to simplify kitchen operations when delivery orders suddenly went through the roof. Workers scrambling to fill online orders could at least avoid complicated preparations.

But Burger King did the opposite.

“We, in fact, complicated things,” Cil said, “we added menu items … that were more difficult and not necessarily intuitive and typical for us to serve.”

Specifically Cil is talking about the Ch’King, a hand-breaded chicken sandwich that the chain introduced last year. The product “created a ton of bottlenecks operationally,” Cil said.

The issues set Burger King back as competitors advanced. In the second quarter of this year, sales at Burger King US restaurants open at least 13 months grew by just .4%. Sales at McDonald’s

(MCD) US restaurants open at least 13 months jumped 3.7% in that period.

Burger King recently retired the Ch’King, replacing it with the Royal Crispy Chicken sandwich.

The Ch’King “was a great product that was difficult or challenging for teams to execute on,” Curtis said. “The best thing for the guest is great flavor and consistency. So our Royal Crispy Chicken, which we just launched, offers both.”

As Burger King continues to work on other menu innovations, it will have to balance ease of execution with items that excite customers, Curtis added.

To help boost sales and restaurant traffic, Burger King is making other improvements, including making restaurants look more modern.

The chain plans to remodel about 800 restaurants over the next two years.

The idea is to have consistent branding, but with customized layouts that make sense for the environment, Curtis said. A Burger King in a city might be smaller, with a higher focus on digital ordering. In a rural town, it might have more seating.

Burger King has already started updating its image. The brand changed its logo last year, switched packaging, uniforms and signage to the new look. A few years ago, it shared what remodeled restaurants might look like: triple-lane drive-thrus, burger pickup lockers and takeout counters.

The company also wants to make make it easier for customers to use the chain’s mobile app, revamp its rewards program by offering customized digital deals, and make delivery and to-go orders more convenient.

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US

Columbia University acknowledges submitting inaccurate data for consideration in college rankings

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CNN Business
 — 

Columbia University said that it relied on “outdated and/or incorrect methodologies” in submitting data to U.S. News & World Report for consideration in the publication’s 2021 college rankings, according to a statement released by the university Friday.

“The Columbia undergraduate experience is and always has been centered around small classes taught by highly accomplished faculty. That fact is unchanged. But anything less than complete accuracy in the data that we report – regardless of the size or the reason – is inconsistent with the standards of excellence to which Columbia holds itself,” the statement reads. “We deeply regret the deficiencies in our prior reporting and are committed to doing better.”

In February, Columbia Mathematics Professor Michael Thaddeus questioned the Ivy League school’s rise in rankings from 18th place, on its debut in 1988, to 2nd place in 2021. In a statement posted on Columbia University’s Department of Mathematics’ website, Thaddeus noted that “few other top-tier universities have also improved their standings, but none has matched Columbia’s extraordinary rise.”

Thaddeus pointed to data submitted by the university to U.S. News & World Report in questioning Columbia’s seemingly meteoric rise in rankings.

“Can we be sure that the data accurately reflect the reality of life within the university?” Thaddeus rhetorically asked. “Regrettably, the answer is no.”

The math professor then tabulated data on “undergraduate class size, percentage of faculty with terminal degrees, percentage of faculty who are full-time, and student-faculty ratio” submitted by Columbia University to U.S. News & World Report and compares the data “with figures computed by other means, drawing on information made public by Columbia elsewhere.”

In his findings, Thaddeus said there were “discrepancies sometimes quite large” which seemed to always work in Columbia’s favor.

In response to Thaddeus’ findings, Columbia University Provost Mary Boyce said in a June statement that the university would “refrain from submitting data to U.S. News and World Report” for consideration in the publication’s 2022 undergraduate college rankings.

“On two of the metrics questioned by our faculty member [Thaddeus], class size and faculty with terminal degrees, we determined we had previously relied on outdated and/or incorrect methodologies. We have changed those methodologies for current and future data submissions, as reflected in the newly posted Common Data Sets,” Boyce noted in June.

Boyce said starting Fall 2022, the university would start participating in the Common Data Set (CDS) Initiative, “a collaborative effort among data providers in the higher education community and publishers” to provide accurate information to students seeking information on institutions of higher education, according to the initiative’s website.

The CDS Initiative, represented by U.S. News & World Report, the College Board and educational services company Peterson’s, was launched in 1997 to provide institutions of higher education with “a set of standards and definitions of data items rather than a survey instrument or set of data represented in a database.”

U.S. News Chief Data Strategist Robert Morse told CNN Monday that schools report most of the information for their Best Colleges rankings directly to U.S. News.

“Each year, U.S. News sends an extensive questionnaire to all accredited four-year colleges and universities,” he explained. “U.S. News, a founding member of the Common Data Set initiative, incorporates questions from the CDS and proprietary questions on this survey. U.S. News relies on schools to accurately report their data.”

Coupled with the commitment of participating in the CDS Initiative, Boyce also announced the launch of a new webpage providing detailed context and analysis of the Columbia University undergraduate experience.

In July, U.S. News & World Report unranked Columbia University “from a number of rankings in the 2022 edition of Best Colleges (first published September 2021)” saying that the university “failed to respond to multiple U.S. News requests that the university substantiate certain data it previously submitted,” according to a blog post by U.S. News. It is unclear whether Thaddeus’ publication of his investigation into the data that Columbia presented to U.S. News & World Report may have contributed to the university being unranked.

In Friday’s statement, Boyce said the university posted two Common Data Sets, one for the Columbia College and Columbia Engineering, and one for Columbia General Studies.

“The information included in the two Common Data Sets reflects the University’s work in recent months to review our data collection processes, following questions raised by a faculty member regarding the accuracy of certain data the University submitted to U.S. News and World Report in 2021 for its ranking of undergraduate universities,” Boyce said.

“U.S. News publishes annual rankings for more than 11,500 schools and hundreds of individual programs as part of the Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools, Best Online Programs, Best Global Universities and Best High Schools rankings,” Morse said in a statement Monday.

“To produce the rankings, U.S. News collects tens of thousands of data points from the schools themselves and other sources, including the U.S. Department of Education, state and local governments and higher education associations. A very small proportion of the total number of schools that are ranked – typically less than 0.1% each year – inform U.S. News that they have misreported data that were used to calculate their school’s ranking.”

U.S. News & World Report released a breakdown of how their publication calculated the 2022-2023 Best Colleges Rankings in an article Monday.

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Science

Thwaites ‘doomsday glacier’ is holding on ‘by its fingernails,’ scientists say

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CNN
 — 

Antarctica’s so-called “doomsday glacier” – nicknamed because of its high risk of collapse and threat to global sea level – has the potential to rapidly retreat in the coming years, scientists say, amplifying concerns over the extreme sea level rise that would accompany its potential demise.

The Thwaites Glacier, capable of raising sea level by several feet, is eroding along its underwater base as the planet warms. In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists mapped the glacier’s historical retreat, hoping to learn from its past what the glacier will likely do in the future.

They found that at some point in the past two centuries, the base of the glacier dislodged from the seabed and retreated at a rate of 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) per year. That’s twice the rate that scientists have observed in the past decade or so.

That swift disintegration possibly occurred “as recently as the mid-20th century,” Alastair Graham, the study’s lead author and a marine geophysicist at the University of South Florida, said in a news release.

It suggests the Thwaites has the capability to undergo a rapid retreat in the near future, once it recedes past a seabed ridge that is helping to keep it in check.

“Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future – even from one year to the next – once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed,” Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist and one of the study’s co-authors from the British Antarctic Survey, said in the release.

The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, is one of the widest on Earth and is larger than the state of Florida. But it’s just a faction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which holds enough ice to raise sea level by up to 16 feet, according to NASA.

As the climate crisis has accelerated, this region has been closely monitored because of its rapid melting and its capacity for widespread coastal destruction.

The Thwaites Glacier itself has concerned scientists for decades. As early as 1973, researchers questioned whether it was at high risk of collapse. Nearly a decade later, they found that – because the glacier is grounded to a seabed, rather than to dry land – warm ocean currents could melt the glacier from underneath, causing it to destabilize from below.

It was because of that research that scientists began calling the region around the Thwaites the “weak underbelly of the West Antarctic ice sheet.”

In the 21st century, researchers began documenting the Thwaites’ rapid retreat in an alarming series of studies.

In 2001, satellite data showed the grounding line was receding by around 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) per year. In 2020, scientists found evidence that warm water was indeed flowing across the base of the glacier, melting it from underneath.

And then in 2021, a study showed the Thwaites Ice Shelf, which helps to stabilize the glacier and hold the ice back from flowing freely into the ocean, could shatter within five years.

“From the satellite data, we’re seeing these big fractures spreading across the ice shelf surface, essentially weakening the fabric of the ice; kind of a bit like a windscreen crack,” Peter Davis, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN in 2021. “It’s slowly spreading across the ice shelf and eventually it’s going to fracture into lots of different pieces.”

Monday’s findings, which suggest the Thwaites is capable of receding at a much faster pace than recently thought, were documented on a 20-hour mission in extreme conditions that mapped an underwater area the size of Houston, according to a news release.

Graham said that this research “was truly a once in a lifetime mission,” but that the team hopes to return soon to gather samples from the seabed so they can determine when the previous rapid retreats occurred. That could help scientists predict future changes to the “doomsday glacier,” which scientists had previously assumed would be slow to undergo change – something Graham said this study disproves.

“Just a small kick to the Thwaites could lead to a big response,” Graham said.

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