Category: Health – Happiness

‘Extremely dangerous’: Spike in illegal crossings at Canada-Vermont border has feds sounding alarm

USA Today

‘Extremely dangerous’: Spike in illegal crossings at Canada-Vermont border has feds sounding alarm

April Barton, Burlington Free Press February 27, 2023

President Joe Biden urges migrants to not come to US-Mexico border: ‘Stay where you are’

President Joe Biden unveiled new steps aimed at stemming historic migration as he plans to visit El Paso, Texas.

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Migrants passing into the U.S. by illegal means via Swanton, Vermont have escalated massively in recent months.

Between October and January, apprehensions and encounters at the Canadian border have jumped nearly 850% compared to the same four months a year ago, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Swanton sector.

During the month of January there were 367 encounters, more than the past 12 years of January totals combined, said Ryan Brissette in a press release for the Swanton border patrol.

The number of border patrol encounters in Swanton started to climb in July 2022. During the seven-month window through January 2023, there have been 2,070 instances of illegal crossings. In that same period, there were 258 the year prior and 225 the year before that.

Northern and Southern borders see uptick in rescues

The uptick is causing problems for officials, especially considering dangerously cold temperatures that have put border crossers’ and border control agents’ lives at risk. Brissette noted -4 degree temperatures and “life-saving aid” that was provided during encounters in Newport, Vermont, and Burke, New York.

More: Arizona will keep sending migrants where ‘they actually need to go’

“It cannot be stressed enough: not only is it unlawful to circumvent legal means of entry into the United States, but it is extremely dangerous, particularly in adverse weather conditions, which our Swanton Sector has in incredible abundance,” Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert N. Garcia said in a press release.

The southern border has also seen an increase in rescues, as the U.S. places a renewed emphasis on rescuing migrants and historically high numbers of immigrants seek asylum at U.S. borders.

The numbers at the southern border, the nation’s busiest corridor, show a sharp increase in border rescues, according to data released this month from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency overseeing Border Patrol:

  • 5,336 migrants rescued at southern border in fiscal year 2020.
  • 12,857 migrants rescued at southern border in fiscal year 2021.
  • 22,014 migrants rescued at southern border in fiscal year 2022, which ended in September.

In fiscal 2021, agents at the southern border tallied 568 migrant deaths, the highest ever recorded.

Most of the deaths (219) were attributed to “environmental exposure-heat” as people trek through blazing terrain in Arizona and Texas. Agents also counted 86 deaths as “water-related” as migrants try to cross canals or the swift-moving Rio Grande, which divides the U.S. and Mexico.

Immigration advocates and experts believe the border death toll is much higher, and the federal system for death data long failed to include many border deaths.

The Wall: ‘Mass disaster’ grows at the U.S.-Mexico border, but Washington doesn’t seem to care

Who is crossing the Vermont-Canadian border

There are no clear-cut answers as to why people are crossing as the circumstances differ for each person or group, said Steven Bansbach, a public affairs officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Many are being dropped off near the border by car and then proceeding across land on foot, he said.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/12838349/embed

Among the border crossers are family groups that include infants and children who are particularly vulnerable to the cold. Bansbach said many are crossing at night while cold and sleep deprived, all of which can be disorienting.

Border patrol usually detains, arrests and sends those apprehended back to where they came from, according to Bansbach.

Fact check: False claim that those in country illegally can become police officers in California

More: Rescues of asylum-seekers soar as Border Patrol ramps up efforts and more migrants arrive

Looking at the countries of origin of encounters involving the border patrol in Swanton, a vast majority are from Mexico. Among the 1,513 encounters from October through January, 945 originated from Mexico.

“They may be trying to find a path of least resistance to enter into the U.S.,” Bansbach surmised. “And they may know there’s a conundrum at the southwest border and so they may find that the northern border they may sneak across to have a better advantage.”

The U.S.’s southern border has been a point of contention, from border walls, to the separation of children and parents, to immigrants being caught up in political brinkmanship being shipped from southern states to northern ones, in some cases dropped off on a political opponent’s doorstep.

Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA Today

Study Shows Just 20 More Minutes of These Exercises Can Keep You out of the Hospital

Prevention

Study Shows Just 20 More Minutes of These Exercises Can Keep You out of the Hospital

Madeleine Haase – February 26, 2023

Study Shows Just 20 More Minutes of These Exercises Can Keep You out of the Hospital

New research shows that just 20 more minutes of exercise per day can lower your risk of being hospitalized in the future.

Researchers saw this association with nine health conditions.

Experts offer tips for getting more active.

We all know that exercise is important for your overall health—its benefits go beyond the physical, it’s even essential to your mental wellness. Now, a new study shows that adding 20 minutes more exercise to your day could lessen your likelihood of future hospitalization due to a serious medical condition.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, used data from 81,717 UK Biobank participants 42 to 78 years old. Participants wore an accelerometer, a type of fitness tracker, for one week (between June 1, 2013, and December 23, 2015) and researchers followed up with them over 7 years. Those participants with a medical history of a condition were excluded from the analysis specific to that condition—so, a person who already had gallbladder disease was excluded from the analysis for that specific condition.

Time spent in sedentary activity (like driving or watching television), light physical activity (like cooking or self-care), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (ie. walking the dog or jogging), and sleep were estimated using wearable cameras and time-use diaries among 152 individuals in normal living conditions.

After assessing the activity levels of the participants, researchers used a modeling technique to substitute 20 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for sedentary behavior. They found that adding only 20 minutes of physical activity proved to significantly reduce potential future hospitalizations.

Further driving the researchers’ point home, higher levels of physical activity were associated with lower risks of hospitalization for the following nine conditions: gallbladder disease, urinary tract infections, diabetes (both type 1 and type 2), venous thromboembolism, pneumonia, ischemic stroke, iron deficiency anemia, diverticular disease, and colon polyps. Increasing physical activity by only 20 minutes per day was linked to reductions in hospitalization ranging from 3.8% for colon polyps to 23% for diabetes.

Overall, these findings suggest that increasing physical activity by just 20 minutes a day can effectively reduce the risk of hospitalization across a broad range of medical conditions.

Why might exercise help lower the risk of hospitalization?

Exercise and increased physical activity can improve the overall ability to adapt to stressors and decrease frailty, says Dr. Johannes. “It may also reduce the risk of comorbidities, such as ischemic heart disease (coronary artery disease), diabetes, and deconditioning, which can complicate an illness.” Reducing the risk for comorbidities may mean that a medical concern, like a urinary tract infection or pneumonia, may be less severe and in turn, more treatable out of the hospital—therefore preventing hospitalization, he explains.

Since exercise has been associated with a lower risk of ischemic heart disease, it is not surprising that exercise and physical activity are associated with a lower risk of hospitalization due to stroke, which itself is often linked to heart disease, says Dr. Johannes. Exercise can often also improve diabetes management through increasing muscle sensitivity to insulin, so it is not surprising that it is associated with a lower risk of hospitalization due to diabetes complications, he adds.

However, Dr. Johannes explains, it’s important to keep in mind that some of the people who are prone to hospitalization for these certain conditions may have underlying issues that prevent them from being as active, meaning that their lack of physical activity is a result of their medical conditions rather than the other way around.

How can you increase your physical activity?

This study includes walking as moderate to vigorous exercise, so I think this is a great starting point, says Jimmy Johannes, M.D., pulmonologist and critical care medicine specialist at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center. “I generally recommend starting out with 10-15 minutes of walking per day, two to three days per week and gradually increasing the time, intensity, and days per week.” For those who have a difficult time fitting exercise into their daily routine, tracking steps with an activity tracker (like on a smartphone or a watch) can help motivate people to stay active by, for instance, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, he adds.

“I recommend getting at least 5,000 steps per day and ideally 7,500 steps or more per day. But in general, something is better than nothing,” says Dr. Johannes.

The bottom line

Exercise can improve strength, balance, energy, mood, cognition, and self-image, says Dr. Johannes. In regard to this new study’s findings, “I think this is more supporting evidence that increased physical activity is associated with better health outcomes. This study provides additional insights about the association between physical activity and lower risk of hospitalization for various conditions that are not typically linked with physical fitness, such as urinary tract infections, gallbladder disease, and pneumonia,” he explains.

At least 150-300 minutes per week is known to lead to a 30-40% reduction in mortality, says Meagan Wasfy, M.D., M.P.H., sports cardiologist from Mass General Brigham. “Exercise can help with risk factors such as blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels, weight management, and type 2 diabetes risk.”

Ultimately, higher levels of physical activity are linked to better long-term health outcomes and decreased risk of hospitalizations for a whole host of conditions across the board, says Dr. Wasfy.

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In a California Town, Farmworkers Start From Scratch After Surprise Flood

The New York Times

In a California Town, Farmworkers Start From Scratch After Surprise Flood

Soumya Karlamangla and Viviana Hinojos – February 26, 2023

A teacher holds class on a playground at Planada Elementary School because classrooms in the building were flooded, in Planada, Calif. on Feb. 14, 2023. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
A teacher holds class on a playground at Planada Elementary School because classrooms in the building were flooded, in Planada, Calif. on Feb. 14, 2023. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

PLANADA, Calif. — Until the floodwaters came, until they rushed in and destroyed nearly everything, the little white house had been Cecilia Birrueta’s dream.

She and her husband bought the two-bedroom fixer-upper 13 years ago, their reward for decades of working minimum-wage jobs, first cleaning houses in Los Angeles and now milking cows and harvesting pistachios in California’s Central Valley.

The couple replaced the weathered wooden floors, installed a new stove and kitchen sink, and repainted the living room walls a warm burgundy. Here, they raised their three children, the oldest now at the University of California, Davis. They enjoyed tomatoes, peaches and figs from neighbors who worked on the nearby farms.

Birrueta and her husband felt content. Until last month. Until the floodwaters came.

A brutal set of atmospheric rivers in California unleashed a disaster in Planada, an agricultural community of 4,000 residents in the flatlands about an hour west of Yosemite National Park. During one storm in early January, a creek just outside of town burst through old farm levees and sent muddy water gushing into the streets.

For several days, the entire town looked like a lagoon. Weeks after record-breaking storms wreaked havoc across California and killed at least 21 people, some of the hardest-hit communities are still struggling to recover.

The flood ruined the two cars owned by Birrueta and her family and destroyed most of their clothes. The walls with the burgundy paint that she had carefully picked out had rotted through. Their house may need to be demolished.

Birrueta, her husband and their 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter had to move into a camp that typically houses migrant farmworkers, who arrive each spring with few belongings and the hope of building a life like the Birruetas had. There, 41 families from Planada are staying in long beige cabins and relying on space heaters for warmth because the camps lack furnaces.

“We came as immigrants, we started with nothing,” said Birrueta, 40, who was born in Mexico. “We bought a place of our own that we thought would be safe for our kids, and then we lost it. We lost everything.”

Nine miles east of Merced in California’s agricultural heartland, Planada’s wide streets are dotted with bungalows and lead to a central park shaded by towering spruce and elm trees. Less than 2 square miles, Planada was created in 1911 to be an idyllic, planned farming community — its name means “plain” in Spanish, a nod to its fertile, low-lying lands — but was eventually abandoned by its Los Angeles developers.

The quiet town, surrounded by almond orchards and cornfields, has since become a desirable place for farmworkers to settle with their families. When California farmworkers marched through Planada last summer on their way to the state Capitol in Sacramento, hundreds of children lined the streets to cheer them on.

The recent floods dealt a painful blow to a community in which more than one-third of households are impoverished. Planada is more than 90% Latino and overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking. Roughly one-fourth of the residents are estimated to be immigrants living in the country illegally, making them ineligible for some forms of disaster relief.

Agricultural workers in California are often on the front lines of catastrophes. They worked during the early, uncertain days of the COVID-19 pandemic, have endured record heat waves and toiled in the smoke-choked air that gets trapped in the Central Valley during wildfires.

During the recent floods, tens of thousands of farmworkers most likely lost wages because of water damage to California’s crops, compounding their already precarious financial situations, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers of America.

“The very workers who put food on our table are getting hot meals from the Salvation Army,” said De Loera-Brust. “Whether California is on fire or underwater, the farmworkers are always losing.”

On a recent morning in Planada, huge piles of furniture were stacked more than 6 feet high along the curb, as if standing guard in front of each home. Once cherished possessions had become trash: A child’s tricycle. A green velvet armchair. An engraved wooden crib.

When Birrueta returned to her home after evacuating Jan. 9, it had a sour smell inside, she said. A floral rug in her daughter’s room that had once been white and blue appeared black after being caked in mud. The girl rushed to grab her soaked toys, some of them recent Christmas gifts. Birrueta had to wrest them from her hands. They threw away her pink wooden dollhouse, a Build-a-Bear she called Rambo, her beloved collection of Dr. Seuss books.

“I don’t really know how to talk to my kids about it,” Birrueta said, choking up.

Birrueta applied for relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency but has yet to hear back. Although Planada is in a flood zone, most homeowners said they couldn’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for flood insurance. Besides, they said, so many years of severe heat and drought made wildfires seem a much greater concern than a deluge.

Maria Figueroa, a FEMA spokesperson, said the agency would provide, at most, $41,000 per flooded household. The funds are intended to jump-start recovery, not cover a full rebuild. “We’re not an insurance agency,” she said.

In 1910, Los Angeles real estate developer J. Harvey McCarthy decided Planada would be his “city beautiful,” a model community and an automobile stop along the road to Yosemite. “The town will be laid out similar to Paris,” The San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram reported at the time.

An infusion of money brought Planada a bank, hotel, school, church and its own newspaper, the Planada Enterprise, by the next year. But McCarthy eventually abandoned the community when he ran out of funds, leaving its settlers to pick up the pieces.

One thing wasn’t mentioned in advertisements for Planada: the floods. On Feb. 3, 1911, The Merced County Sun reported that during a 48-hour downpour, a creek overflowed its banks and that Planada was “under water.”

More than a century later, Maria Soto, 73, was sleeping when her grandson, who lives in the house behind hers, banged on her door around 2 a.m. A family member was driving a pickup truck through Planada to rescue their relatives, dozens of whom lived there.

Soto clambered onto the truck bed, and her feet dangled in the rising waters as they fled. When the engine stalled momentarily, she was frightened but didn’t tell anyone else that she didn’t know how to swim.

At her low-slung, peach-colored home, with an overgrown avocado tree out front and wind chimes hanging from the eaves, water breached the roof and poured down the walls.

Black patches of mold have begun to spread inside, so she is living at her daughter’s house next door while trying to scrape together money on her fixed income for the repairs.

“This is where I raised my children, and it’s always been dry,” said Soto, who in the late 1970s moved to Planada with her husband, who picked lettuce. “We weren’t prepared. No one was prepared.”

Disasters only exacerbate the health dangers that farmworkers face. Mold in flooded homes, for example, can prompt symptoms of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which are more common in low-income communities. Farmworkers often battle pesticide exposure and, even in good times, can only afford substandard housing.

“A small community like Planada, that has so many low-wage workers, you can only imagine the extent to which these problems were already existing,” said Edward Flores, an associate professor of sociology at University of California Merced and who co-wrote a new study revealing California farmworkers’ poor living conditions.

The flood’s impacts extend beyond inundated homes. Planada Elementary School lost 4,000 books as well as student desks, beanbag chairs and rugs. Hundreds of students had to be relocated to a nearby middle school.

“We were doing a really good job recovering from COVID,” said José L. González, superintendent of the Planada Elementary School District. “This just feels like we’re cut off at the knees again.”

Another major storm arrived this past week in California, bringing rain and snow, but Planada residents have been spared from further disaster.

Birrueta used to tuck sentimental items into suitcases that she stored in her son’s closet. Old photographs of relatives in Mexico, including of her father, who recently died. Socks she crocheted for her children when they were newborns. Pictures of her oldest daughter’s birthday celebrations, from an era before iPhones.

The floodwaters drenched those suitcases and everything inside. Still, Birrueta said she was grateful because her family safely escaped the floods and that they have a roof over their heads, albeit temporarily. Families can stay in the migrant camps until March 15, after which the county may provide other lodging.

Birrueta and her husband plan to rebuild their home in Planada.

“We started with nothing,” she said. “So in a way, we know how to start over again.”

Rail Industry Pushes Sensors Over Brakes After Ohio Train Crash

Bloomberg

Rail Industry Pushes Sensors Over Brakes After Ohio Train Crash

Thomas Black – February 26, 2023

(Bloomberg) — The train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals into a small Ohio town has revived a long-running debate about railroad safety — and some industry players think they have just the thing to resolve it.

The Feb. 3 crash of the Norfolk Southern Corp. train in East Palestine, Ohio, has renewed a push for railroads to adopt electronic brakes that could help prevent a malfunctioning train from endangering people and property. Electronically controlled pneumatic, or ECP, brakes have been touted for their capacity to bring trains to a halt in shorter distances and prevent dangerous pileups.

The Biden administration has blamed industry stonewalling for blocking regulations that would have mandated use of the systems on some trains — even though it isn’t clear that ECP brakes would’ve done much to mitigate an accident similar to the one in Ohio, and the proposed rules wouldn’t have applied to the train that crashed.

The railroad industry has found itself in a tight spot as the political furor around the accident grows, with former President Donald Trump turning up in East Palestine, and the derailment becoming a talking point on cable news and Capitol Hill. The episode has aggravated fears about the safety of sending chemicals and other hazardous materials over the rails, and raised the specter of new regulation at a time when railroads are coping with restive workers and annoyed customers.

Installing ECP brakes that the Biden administration and safety advocates favor would be expensive and cumbersome for a business beset by complaints about delays and lackluster service. The brakes need to be installed on each car to work properly — a daunting prospect for an industry with some 1.5 million cars on the tracks and little idle capacity.

A coalition that includes railcar makers, shippers and two large railroads say they have a different idea. They want to place sensors on railcars that could flag faulty equipment immediately to a train’s crew and others monitoring remotely. The system is being tested on 400 railcars and could be available commercially by the end of this year, according to the group, which calls itself RailPulse.

Such sensors could potentially catch problems like the overheated wheel bearing that likely caused the East Palestine wreck. Electronically controlled brakes, on the other hand, may not have even done much to mitigate the derailment if they were installed, based on a 2017 study by the National Academy of Sciences.

Notably, a sensor apparatus also would likely be much less expensive for the industry to put into place. RailPulse says its system would cost about $400 to $900 per railcar.

Smart Railcars

The use of remote sensing technology on the railroads isn’t entirely new. Currently, sensors known as wayside heat detectors placed along the tracks screen train cars for defects — and they sniffed out the trouble in Ohio. Wayside detectors were voluntarily adopted by railroads to reduce accidents; Norfolk Southern said it has nearly 1,000 of them.

According to a preliminary report by the National Safety Transportation Board, Norfolk Southern’s wayside detectors in Ohio were working, but caught the overheated wheel too late. The NTSB found that a wayside detector about 20 miles before the crash site measured the wheel bearing at 103 degrees Fahrenheit above ambient temperature — hot, but below a level that calls for the crew to stop and take a look.

However, the next detector, just ahead of the crash site, recorded a wheel temperature at 253 degrees above, a critical level. The sensor sounded an alarm, but it was too late. The wheel failed and caused 38 of the train’s 149 railcars to careen off the rails.

Sensors mounted directly on railcars could diagnose the issue sooner and buy critical time, backers say. Railcars will likely have multiple sensors in the near future that can detect anything from open doors to signs that equipment is in danger of failing, said David Shannon, general manager of RailPulse.

“Our objective is to make railcars smart,” Shannon said.

The group’s pilot program, which is testing five types of sensors, will be on 1,000 railcars by this summer, he said, and should be ready for real-world use by the end of this year. RailPulse plans to provide a subscription service to transmit the data to the cloud, and is counting on manufacturers to design the sensors the industry needs.

ECP Debate

Norfolk Southern was on the forefront of testing ECP brakes before the US Department of Transportation decided to require them on high hazard flammable trains in 2015. The company opposed the mandate because of cost, the brakes’ reliability and the inability to mix locomotives and railcars that didn’t have the system.

One of the biggest drawbacks of ECP brakes is that all the railcars on a train must have them or the system doesn’t work, making it impossible to phase in gradually. The rule followed a spate of derailments by trains shuttling crude oil from fracking hotspots where there were no pipelines to refineries.

As part of an infrastructure bill in 2015, Congress required the transportation department to justify the need for ECP braking. The National Academy of Sciences was ordered to examine computer modeling the department used to support its position that they had a significant safety advantage over conventional brakes.

After tests at a Norfolk Southern rail yard in Conway, Pennsylvania, and the New York Air Brake Facility in Watertown, New York, the academy said in a 2017 report that the department’s efforts to validate its modeling “do not instill sufficient confidence in DOT’s comparison of the estimated emergency performance of ECP braking systems” with other systems. That paved the way for the Trump administration to rescind the mandate.

In a Feb. 19 letter to Norfolk Southern Chief Executive Officer Alan Shaw, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg faulted the industry for opposing ECP brakes. “Rather than support these efforts to improve rail safety, Norfolk Southern and other rail companies spend millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulation,” Buttigieg wrote.

However, others in the federal government have pushed back on the idea that the ECP mandate would have prevented the Ohio crash.

“Some are saying the ECP (electronically controlled pneumatic) brake rule, if implemented, would’ve prevented this derailment. FALSE,” NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said in a Feb. 16 tweet. She went on to explain why the Norfolk Southern train wasn’t designated as high hazard flammable. “This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes.”

Uphill Battle

The prospect that regulators would swiftly put the electronic-braking rules in place following the Ohio crash is remote. To reinstate the mandate would be an uphill battle, a senior White House official acknowledged during a Feb. 17 briefing. The rulemaking process takes years and it would be difficult to pull off after Congress weighed in against the technology.

Similarly, persuading the entire railroad industry to go along with RailPulse’s sensors could be a tall order.

Workers are wary of new safety technologies that the industry touts, especially if they are aimed at replacing human inspections, said Mark Wallace, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. For the past five years, the railroads’ first priority has been profit, not safety, Wallace said. Operating profit margin for North American railroads increased to 39% last year from 34% in 2017.

“If you’re going to implement the technology, then you have to maintain the technology and you have to have somebody in place to make sure that it’s working properly,” he said.

Additionally, railcars are mostly owned by shippers and by leasing companies. Shippers are pushing to be able to track their freight cars just as they can for trailers on trucks, the railroads’ main competitor for freight. Some large railroads, including CSX Corp. and BNSF Railway, aren’t part of the coalition.

In Town Where Train Derailed, Lawyers Are Signing Up Clients in Droves

The New York Times

In Town Where Train Derailed, Lawyers Are Signing Up Clients in Droves

Campbell Robertson – February 25, 2023

A welcome sign on the outskirts of East Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 23, 2023. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times)
A welcome sign on the outskirts of East Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 23, 2023. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times)

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — In the three weeks since a freight train derailed in East Palestine and released more than 100,000 gallons of toxic chemicals, lawyers have poured into the little town, signing up clients, gathering evidence and already filing more than a dozen lawsuits in federal court on behalf of local residents.

They have held information sessions nearly everywhere a crowd can gather, including at a nearby Best Western, at the American Legion hall and in the packed cafeteria at East Palestine High School. Their message overall has been one of warning: It may be months, years or possibly even decades before the derailment’s ultimate effect on people’s health, property values or the soil and water becomes clear.

Further, the lawyers say, early moves by Norfolk Southern, the operator of the train, suggest that getting comprehensive answers from the company will not be easy.

Among a public that is deeply skeptical of official test results — Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, and other state and federal officials say they have not shown anything alarming so far — or camera-friendly efforts at reassurance, these warnings have resonated.

The distrust has been deepened by a sense that politicians are not being diligent enough in their response to the disaster; on Friday, President Joe Biden said that he had no plans to visit, although he pointed out that federal officials had arrived there within hours of the crash, and that he was “keeping very close tabs on” the situation.

“They get what’s happening,” Rene Rocha, a lawyer with supersize personal injury firm Morgan & Morgan, said during a state hearing about the derailment Thursday in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, just across the border from East Palestine.

Referring to residents there who had spoken at the hearing about headaches, coughs and other classic symptoms of chemical exposure, he added: “They see they’re not getting the truth from the politicians and the company. That leaves the lawyers.”

Norfolk Southern declined to comment Friday on matters involving litigation.

The huge scale of the chemical burn-off and the harrowing images of the fire, as well as the intense politicization of it all, have made the derailment in East Palestine among the most high-profile environmental disasters in the country in years.

Television cameras are still routine fixtures on the sidewalks of the town’s central street. On Friday night, Erin Brockovich, the famed environmental activist who years ago exposed corporate wrongdoing that polluted drinking water, spoke to a packed town hall at the East Palestine High School auditorium.

The event, billed as an “educational seminar” and organized by a law firm based out of Akron, Ohio, consisted mostly of a detailed presentation by Mikal Watts, a prominent Texas lawyer, about the potential health effects of the derailment and the legal landscape that plaintiffs would be facing. But it began with a short speech from Brockovich to the hundreds sitting in the auditorium and watching an overflow screen in the gym.

“You’re going to be told it’s safe, you’re going to be told not to worry: Well that’s just rubbish,” she said. Of the derailment in East Palestine, she said, “I’ve never seen anything in 30 years like this.”

To some local attorneys, the army that has descended on the town is exasperating. “Did they even know where East Palestine was prior to this accident?” fumed David Betras, a lawyer who has spent his career just up the road in Youngstown, Ohio, and is planning to file a suit on behalf of hundreds of local residents. “They come in with this star power. Like, ‘Oh, Erin’s gonna solve it.’”

On Thursday night, Steve and Kelly Davis sat down in a yet-to-be-opened wine bar a short walk from where the train cars left the tracks nearly three weeks earlier. Thousands of their bees had been found dead after the burn-off, thousands of dollars’ worth of boxes that had housed the bees were now in questionable condition and the reputation of the family honey business was in jeopardy.

Their son, on the verge of buying a house downtown, was suddenly getting a cold shoulder from the bank. No one had come to test their well water. And to top it all off, Steve Davis had developed a cough.

They had come to meet with Robert Till, a Texas-based investigator for the law firm of Cory Watson who for weeks has been meeting people at a table set up in the empty bar. Till has met with hundreds so far, he said, talking with people about their health conditions, learning how their businesses have been affected and asking whether they have cleaned their homes — and if they have held onto the cleaning materials, which he said would contain critical data about contamination.

“I’m putting you guys on for priority testing,” he told the Davises.

“For the water?” Steve Davis asked.

“For everything,” Till said.

The legal machinations are in their early stages. Cases might ultimately be consolidated as class-action or multidistrict litigation; most of the suits will almost surely end up bundled before one or several federal judges in an Ohio courtroom.

Norfolk Southern may offer some sort of resolution voluntarily, whether by setting up a compensation fund with an independent administrator, as BP did after the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or establishing a court-supervised medical monitoring program, where people could come for free testing related to possible health effects.

The company has already been paying $1,000 in “inconvenience compensation” to people who had to evacuate. Although Norfolk Southern insists that the payments do not curtail anyone’s right to sue, many are skeptical.

Lawyers point to certain moves made by the company — including a letter sent Thursday notifying plaintiffs’ attorneys that they had two days to inspect the rail cars before the cars were removed or destroyed — as signs that it would be combative.

There is no shortage of experience among the members of the plaintiff’s bar arriving in town: Train derailments are not unusual in the United States, nor are oil spills, chemical leaks or industrial accidents.

“It looks like these dadgum railroads would get it right after that many years and stop falling off the tracks, but they just can’t do it,” said Calvin Fayard Jr., a Louisiana lawyer who took the lead in a suit after a train carrying vinyl chloride — one of the substances that spilled and burned in East Palestine — derailed in a small Louisiana town in 1982.

As part of a $39 million settlement arising from the 1982 derailment, a commission was set up to monitor long-term health effects and oversee the decontamination of soil and water. That commission continued its work for more than 30 years, dissolving less than a decade ago, said Fayard, whose law partner has been in East Palestine talking with potential clients.

But a program of that magnitude is never a sure thing. After a train carrying vinyl chloride derailed in Paulsboro, New Jersey, in 2012, a federal judge ruled against any medical monitoring program and dismissed the suit; settlements were ultimately reached in state court.

No sooner had Till signed up the Davises as clients Thursday evening than another couple walked in, keeping him at work. The Davises stepped outside to talk with Michael McKim, the owner of the wine bar, which so far remains on track to open next month.

McKim had met Till in a hotel lobby during the town’s initial evacuation, and had been letting him use his place as an office ever since. This was all new to both couples.

“I feel like a baby seal in the middle of the ocean surrounded by great white sharks,” McKim said. But with as big a shark as Norfolk Southern as the defendant, he said, joining up with a law firm was his best chance. “It’s kind of nice to at least hang out with a shark that maybe understands.”

In Less Than a Decade, You Won’t Be Able To Afford a Home in These Cities

Go Banking Rates

In Less Than a Decade, You Won’t Be Able To Afford a Home in These Cities

Joel Anderson – February 25, 2023

dszc / iStock.com
dszc / iStock.com

Rising home values can quickly transition a reasonable housing market into the type of real estate monster that has consumed places like the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. While the idea of affordable housing in an urban center isn’t implausible for plenty of Americans living in some areas, that’s rapidly changing in many places.

See: 8 Places in California Where Home Prices Have Plummeted
Next: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000

GOBankingRates conducted a study to determine which major U.S. cities are on track to lose their label of affordability. GOBankingRates took the overall U.S. median home value and projected its growth over 10 years using Zillow’s September 2022-23 one-year forecast. This projection was then compared to the projections of 537 U.S. cities that currently have home prices below the national median of $356,026, with those surpassing the national median in the next 10 years (plus its projected growth rate over the same period) being deemed “not affordable.”

GOBankingRates notes that projecting into the future based on a single year’s growth rate might paint an unfair picture in markets where the current rate is an anomaly. Additionally, Zillow’s estimated home values don’t necessarily reflect the list prices or sale prices in each market.

Still, identifying the areas that are outpacing the national average for growth can help shed light on the cities where you should buy a home sooner rather than later. If you end up living in one of these cities 10 years down the line, you might want to check out other cities with more affordable housing.

will_snyder_ / Getty Images/iStockphoto
will_snyder_ / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Roseburg, Oregon
  • August 2022 home value: $321,807
  • One-year projected growth rate: 20.4%

Roseburg is in the Hundred Valleys of the Umpqua in southwestern Oregon, known for having seasonal, but pleasant, temperatures – never too hot or too cold. It sits 123 miles north of the California border.

kaceyb / Getty Images/iStockphoto
kaceyb / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2023
  • Projected home value: $387,456
  • U.S. median projected home value: $382,019
  • Difference in value: $5,437
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,059,967
Steven Liveoak / Shutterstock.com
Steven Liveoak / Shutterstock.com
Auburn, Alabama
  • August 2022 home value: $321,643
  • One-year projected growth rate: 19.4%

Auburn, in the eastern part of central Alabama, is just 35 miles west of Columbus, Georgia, and a 3 ½-hour drive from vacation spots along the Gulf of Mexico. Auburn University is the city’s largest employer, with about 7,100 people working there

disorderly / Getty Images/iStockphoto
disorderly / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2023
  • Projected home value: $384,042
  • U.S. median projected home value: $382,019
  • Difference in value: $2,023
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,894,163
DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto
DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Fayetteville, Arkansas
  • August 2022 home value: $307,909
  • One-year projected growth rate: 23.1%

Another college town, Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas. Bill and Hillary Clinton called Fayetteville home before he was elected the state’s governor, and then president of the United States, and the home they lived in is now a museum preserving memories of their time in the city.

Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2024
  • Projected home value: $466,593
  • U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
  • Difference in value: $18,485
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,460,384
SeanPavonePhoto / iStock.com
SeanPavonePhoto / iStock.com
Knoxville, Tennessee
  • August 2022 home value: $299,342
  • One-year projected growth rate: 23.1%

Knoxville, Tennessee sits at the foothills of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and is a diverse city known for celebrating its many different ethnicities in festivals and cultural events. This city of over 192,000 people is also home to the University of Tennessee and the Knoxville Ice Bears professional hockey team.

Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2024
  • Projected home value: $453,611
  • U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
  • Difference in value: $5,503
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,391,928
Patricia Elaine Thomas / Shutterstock.com
Patricia Elaine Thomas / Shutterstock.com
Dallas, Texas
  • August 2022 home value: $308,661
  • One-year projected growth rate: 22.4%

Dallas, with 1.3 million residents, is the third-largest city in Texas but also the ninth-largest in the United States. It boasts many firsts. The nation’s first planned shopping center (Highland Park Village Shopping Center) and convenience store (7-Eleven) opened in Dallas, and the frozen margarita and precursor to the microchip were invented there.

Trong Nguyen / Shutterstock.com
Trong Nguyen / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2024
  • Projected home value: $462,429
  • U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
  • Difference in value: $14,321
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,329,678
Chris Rubino / Shutterstock.com
Chris Rubino / Shutterstock.com
Tucson, Arizona
  • August 2022 home value: $307,232
  • One-year projected growth rate: 21.5%

Tucson is an hour north of the border with Mexico, and it lays claim to some of the best Mexican food in the U.S. Start on 12th Avenue in the city to begin your tour of what is called The Best 23 Miles of Mexican food.

Tim Roberts Photography / Shutterstock.com
Tim Roberts Photography / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2024
  • Projected home value: $453,544
  • U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
  • Difference in value: $5,436
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,153,918
chapin31 / iStock.com
chapin31 / iStock.com
Pueblo, Colorado
  • August 2022 home value: $291,995
  • One-year projected growth rate: 22.6%

A city of about 112,000 people, Pueblo is located along the Arkansas River in Colorado, which once was the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. The Colorado State Fair has been held in Pueblo since 1872.

J. Michael Jones / Shutterstock.com
J. Michael Jones / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2025
  • Projected home value: $538,080
  • U.S. median projected home value: $525,631
  • Difference in value: $12,449
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,240,166
Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
Fort Worth, Texas
  • August 2022 home value: $292,963
  • One-year projected growth rate: 22.4%

A city of about 920,000, Fort Worth grew by more than 175,000 people between the censuses of 2010 and 2020. Fun fact: 60 percent of America’s paper money is printed at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth.

Christopher Boswell / Shutterstock.com
Christopher Boswell / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2025
  • Projected home value: $537,226
  • U.S. median projected home value: $525,631
  • Difference in value: $11,595
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,211,195
Susilyn / Shutterstock.com
Susilyn / Shutterstock.com
Lakeland, Florida
  • August 2022 home value: $263,818
  • One-year projected growth rate: 25.6%

Lakeland is located along Interstate 4 between Tampa and Florida. It’s name is appropriate. Lakeland has 38 named lakes within its 74.4 square miles.

Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2026
  • Projected home value: $656,543
  • U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
  • Difference in value: $39,978
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,577,513
Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
Daytona Beach, Florida
  • August 2022 home value: $258,118
  • One-year projected growth rate: 25.5%

Daytona Beach is known as the home of the Daytona International Speedway and the Daytona 500, but even amateur drivers have a spot in the city. Visitors are allowed to drive – slowly – along designated areas of the 23-mile-long white-sand beaches.

Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2026
  • Projected home value: $640,314
  • U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
  • Difference in value: $23,749
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,501,817
Arizona: 3.00% APY
Arizona: 3.00% APY
Yuma, Arizona
  • August 2022 home value: $266,546
  • One-year projected growth rate: 24.1%

Yuma has about 95,000 residents, and there’s a good many of them help to put some of the food on your table. According to the city’s tourism website, Yuma is the “winter vegetable capital of the world” and produces 91% of the leafy greens served in North America each winter. Instead of watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, you can watch the Iceberg Lettuce Drop.

Ken Lund / Flickr.com
Ken Lund / Flickr.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2026
  • Projected home value: $632,207
  • U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
  • Difference in value: $15,642
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,309,351
Brian Stansberry / Wikimedia Commons
Brian Stansberry / Wikimedia Commons
Crossville, Tennessee
  • August 2022 home value: $262,886
  • One-year projected growth rate: 24.1%

In 12,000-resident Crossville, residents can test their physical and mental skills. Known as the Golf Capital of Tennessee, it has nine courses. And, Crossville is the headquarters of the United States Chess Federation, too.

Swarmcatcher / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Swarmcatcher / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2026
  • Projected home value: $623,526
  • U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
  • Difference in value: $6,961
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,277,641
B Brown / Shutterstock.com
B Brown / Shutterstock.com
Pocatello, Idaho
  • August 2022 home value: $289,072
  • One-year projected growth rate: 21.6%

Pocatello is in the southeastern portion of Idaho at an altitude of 4,448 feet. Home of Idaho State University, the city is along the Oregon Trail, in the western foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Ric Schafer / Shutterstock.com
Ric Schafer / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2026
  • Projected home value: $632,034
  • U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
  • Difference in value: $15,469
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,043,345
virsuziglis / Getty Images/iStockphoto
virsuziglis / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Jacksonville, Florida
  • August 2022 home value: $281,915
  • One-year projected growth rate: 21.8%

At 840 square miles, Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental United States in terms of land mass. About 950,000 people live in the city – almost twice the amount of residents of Florida’s second-largest city in terms of population, Miami.

Ron_Thomas / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Ron_Thomas / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2026
  • Projected home value: $620,451
  • U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
  • Difference in value: $3,886
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,025,774
Ocala, Fla
Ocala, Fla
Ocala, Florida
  • August 2022 home value: $230,684
  • One-year projected growth rate: 25.6%

Ocala, the first town in Marion County in the early 1840s, has preserved much of its past in the Ocala Historic Downtown Square. Boutiques, restaurants, galleries and more fill the spaces. About 64,000 people live in Ocala.

Michael Warren / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Michael Warren / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2028
  • Projected home value: $905,639
  • U.S. median projected home value: $848,350
  • Difference in value: $57,289
  • 2032 projected home value: $2,253,792
Lorraine Boogich / Getty Images
Lorraine Boogich / Getty Images
Cookeville, Tennessee
  • August 2022 home value: $262,204
  • One-year projected growth rate: 22.4%

Incorporated in 1903, Cookeville sits almost midway between two of Tennessee’s biggest cities – 101 miles west of Knoxville and 79 miles east of Nashville. Fun fact: According to the local visitor’s bureau, Cookeville is within a day’s drive of 75% of the nation’s population.

ESB / Shutterstock.com
ESB / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2028
  • Projected home value: $881,714
  • U.S. median projected home value: $848,350
  • Difference in value: $33,364
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,979,035
Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
Athens, Georgia
  • August 2022 home value: $279,410
  • One-year projected growth rate: 20.3%

Athens, with a population of 127,300, is 60 miles northeast of Atlanta. The home of the University of Georgia, the city is beaming with pride. Their beloved Bulldogs won the College Football Playoff national championship following the 2021 season – their first since 1980.

Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2029
  • Projected home value: $1,018,829
  • U.S. median projected home value: $995,115
  • Difference in value: $23,714
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,773,774
Manuela Durson / Shutterstock.com
Manuela Durson / Shutterstock.com
Klamath Falls, Oregon
  • August 2022 home value: $280,201
  • One-year projected growth rate: 19.9%

Klamath Falls is in the south-central part of Oregon, just north of the California border. The city has a population of nearly 22,000, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The Klamath Falls website reports the city has the highest concentration of bald eagles in the Pacific Northwest.

Oregon: 66.67 Hours a Month to Afford
Oregon: 66.67 Hours a Month to Afford
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2029
  • Projected home value: $998,169
  • U.S. median projected home value: $995,115
  • Difference in value: $3,054
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,720,527
Sean Pavone/iStockPhoto
Sean Pavone/iStockPhoto
Savannah, Georgia
  • August 2022 home value: $246,657
  • One-year projected growth rate: 22%

Savannah’s history dates to 1733, and it became the first city in the 13th colony – Georgia – which was named for King George II of England. Today, visitors are drawn by its period architecture, art and boutiques

SeanPavonePhoto / iStock.com
SeanPavonePhoto / iStock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2030
  • Projected home value: $1,210,520
  • U.S. median projected home value: $1,167,270
  • Difference in value: $43,250
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,801,738
Shutterstock.com
Shutterstock.com
Huntsville, Alabama
  • August 2022 home value: $266,033
  • One-year projected growth rate: 20.6%

The city is named after John Hunt, who settled there in 1805. It grew rapidly from 2010 to 2020 – from 180,000 to 215,000 people – and is a bustling area for the technology, space and defense industries. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command are located in Huntsville.

Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2030
  • Projected home value: $1,190,458
  • U.S. median projected home value: $1,167,270
  • Difference in value: $23,188
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,731,445
DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto
DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Clarksville, Tennessee
  • August 2022 home value: $270,758
  • One-year projected growth rate: 20%

Clarksville is about an hour’s drive north of Nashville and is located just south of the Kentucky border. About 167,000 people live there, and the average age of residents is 29, the city reports.

Google Maps
Google Maps
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2031
  • Projected home value: $1,397,052
  • U.S. median projected home value: $1,369,207
  • Difference in value: $27,845
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,676,462
ivanastar / Getty Images/iStockphoto
ivanastar / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • August 2022 home value: $289,262
  • One-year projected growth rate: 19%

About 565,000 people live in Albuquerque, and what does it mean if one of them asks you “red or green”? You’re being asked whether you want red or green chiles in your New Mexican fare. Reply “Christmas” if you want both.

photoBeard / Getty Images/iStockphoto
photoBeard / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
  • Year: 2031
  • Projected home value: $1,384,248
  • U.S. median projected home value: $1,369,207
  • Difference in value: $15,041
  • 2032 projected home value: $1,647,256

Jordan Rosenfeld contributed to the reporting for this article.

Methodology: GOBankingRates took the overall U.S. median home value and projected its growth over 10 years using Zillow’s September 2022-23 one-year forecast. This projection was then compared to the projections of 537 U.S. cities that currently have home prices below the national median, with those surpassing the national median in the next 10 years (plus its projected growth rate over the same period) being deemed “not affordable.” For each “not affordable” city over the next decade, GOBankingRates found the following factors: (1) year the city will become “not affordable”; (2) projected home value for that year; (3) US average projected home value for that year; and (4) the difference in value between factors (2) and (3). NOTE: GOBankingRates does not expect growth in home value to stay stagnant at one current rate for the next decade, but using these constant figures gives us an idea where certain markets are heading without unforeseen market disruptors in the future. All data used to conduct this study was compiled and verified on October 11, 2022.

Researchers Have Pinpointed One Type of Exercise That Makes People Live Longer—It’s Not What You May Think

Trail Runner

Researchers Have Pinpointed One Type of Exercise That Makes People Live Longer—It’s Not What You May Think

Ali Pattillo – February 24, 2023

If you’re looking to reboot your health this year, you might sign up for your first triathlon, kickstart a meditation habit, or cut down on ultra-processed foods. But the latest science suggests the best way to improve long-term health isn’t physical, it’s social: connection.

Strengthening relationship ties by exercising what experts call “social fitness” is the most influential brain and body hack. Like weight training staves off bone density loss as you age, social fitness counters the downstream effects of chronic stress.

“Not exercising your social fitness is hazardous to your health,” says Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Waldinger directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted. According to the psychiatrist, who recently summed up eighty-plus years of data in his book The Good Life (January 2023, Simon & Schuster), the formula for health and happiness hinges on positive relationships.

“If you regularly feel isolated and lonely, it can be as dangerous as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or being obese,” Waldinger cautions.

But even though humans are wired to connect, exercising social fitness can be tricky. There’s no clear roadmap for building–or maintaining–a solid social life.

“Like unused muscles, neglected relationships atrophy,” Waldinger says.

Luckily, Waldinger’s data points to actionable exercises we can all use to supercharge our social fitness.

Studying the Good Life

In 1938, amid the worst economic depression in American history, researchers rounded up 268 Harvard sophomores to better understand how early psychosocial and biological factors influence life outcomes. For over eighty years, a team–now led by Waldinger–has tracked the students and their families, following them through marriages, careers, births, diseases, and deaths. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents who were part of another study focused on juvenile delinquency and resilience were incorporated into the Harvard study.

The researchers check in with participants every two years, posing thousands of questions on topics like mood and life satisfaction. Every five years, they take physiological measurements including brain scans and blood work. As of 2023, the ongoing study is still tracking all living members of the original participant set and over 500 members of their offspring. The trove of data provides an unparalleled window into what makes up a good life.

RELATED: Trail Running Might Be the Secret to Happiness – Here’s How You Can Maximize It.

When Waldinger first joined the study as a young psychiatrist at Harvard, he had an inkling that conventional measures of success like achievement, status, and awards were mere distractions on the path to real happiness. As he delved deeper in the data, hundreds of subjects confirmed this suspicion. Across the study, neither wealth nor social class were correlated with happiness levels or longevity. Positive relationships, on the other hand, were consistently linked to happier, longer lives.

Other large-scale data reinforces this link between connection and longevity. One systematic research review from 2010, including over 300,000 participants, suggests people with strong social ties are 50 percent more likely to survive over a given period than those with weak ties. Loneliness and social isolation are associated with immune dysfunction and may even spike the risk of heart attack or stroke by an estimated 30 percent. To help prevent these negative health outcomes, it’s essential to foster social fitness.

What Is Social Fitness?

Scientists have been studying humans’ social psychology in formal labs and universities for over a century, but the idea of flexing your “social muscle,” like you would a bicep or quad, didn’t emerge until 2011. That’s when social neuroscientists John and Stephanie Cacioppo shared results from testing a 10-hour social fitness training program with the U.S. military. The team found that social fitness exercises such as doing someone a favor or practicing conflict resolution reduced loneliness and boosted well-being in soldiers.

While scientists and philosophers had linked positive relationships and optimal health for decades, the Cacioppos and their research team were among the first to suggest positive relationships could be analogous to physical fitness. And just like you can’t remain physically fit without exercising, social fitness–the ability to cultivate and maintain positive relationships– withers without consistent effort.

Social Fitness and the Loneliness Epidemic

When the first Harvard study subjects were in their 80s, Waldinger and his team asked them to look back on their lives and share what they were proudest of. Nearly everyone talked about relationships.

“Almost all said: I was a good parent or a good mentor. I had a good marriage or I was a good friend,” Waldinger recalls. “Almost nobody said: I made a lot of money, I won these awards, or I got to be the chief executive of my organization.”

The team went on to ask subjects: Who could you call in the middle of the night, if you were sick or scared? Some people rattled off a long list. Others couldn’t list anyone.

“That’s real loneliness–this sense that nobody in the world has my back,” Waldinger says. “The costs of that are huge. It makes us feel unloved and unsafe, and eventually breaks down our health.”

In 2023, at the most technologically connected moment in human history, people report feeling farther apart than ever. Forty percent of older adults in the U.S. report chronic loneliness. Add in pandemic-related lockdowns and loneliness has hit record highs, culminating in what Vivek Murthy, physician, and former United States surgeon general classifies as a loneliness epidemic.

“When you lose emotional and social fitness, you lose everything,” says Emily Anhalt, a clinical psychologist, co-founder of Coa, a gym for mental health, and expert on emotional fitness who is not involved in the Harvard Study. “Everything in life is going to feel better if you feel connected to other people to get through the tough things and enjoy the good things.”

Like prescribing a dose of time outside, some physicians go as far to say that encouraging social interactions has the potential to have a healing effect on patients. Emerging data suggests cancer patients have higher chances of survival if they feel satisfied by their levels of social support. Some experts even liken social connection to a vital sign–that measuring people’s loneliness levels hints at general health as accurately as blood pressure or pulse.

RELATED: Women-Only Trail Running Groups Are Key to Growing Female Participation in Trail and Ultrarunning

A Social Cure

To combat widespread loneliness and reap the positive benefits of social connection, it may seem like we’re all supposed to be extroverts or party animals. That’s a common misconception.

Humans are social creatures, but we’re not all social butterflies. Loneliness is a subjective experience. It’s not about the quantity of friends or family you have, but how fulfilling those relationships feel. The antidote to loneliness for some may entail a vast social network, while a few close relationships work for others.

Anhalt says people should treat social fitness proactively. Rather than wait until they feel isolated, people should regularly nurture their social life, which elevates mental well-being by default.

“Our culture’s way of thinking about mental health is very reactive–we make people feel like they have to wait until things are falling apart to get support.” To Anhalt, that’s like waiting until you have early signs of heart disease to do cardio. “I want to help people think about working on their mental health more like going to the gym and less like going to the doctor.”

To exercise your social fitness, try this training plan outlined by Waldinger in his new book, The Good Life:

Map Your Social Universe

To kickstart social fitness, start with self-reflection. Like completing a basic strength training circuit to pinpoint weak muscle groups, the following mental exercises can reveal your shaky social muscles. First, in a journal or notes app, outline how you are devoting your time weekly, and to who. Then ask yourself: What am I giving and what am I receiving? Am I having enough fun with loved ones? Am I getting enough emotional support? Waldinger suggests taking this comprehensive social evaluation annually, maybe every new year or birthday.

Strengthen Keystones of Support

Rather than aim for a total social rehaul, focus on improving the valued relationships you already have. An easy way to do this is by asking loved ones: Is there anything I can do better in our relationship? Can I communicate differently, or should we spend more time together? Based on their answers, tailor your communication or quality time to benefit your inner circle.

Build Routine

A great way to level up–and maintain–healthy relationships is by scheduling regular contact, virtual or in-person. Pencil in a weekly coffee date with a mentor or plan a monthly Zoom call with high school friends. Remove some of the logistical barriers that make connecting feel like a chore. There’s no exact rep of weekly social interactions to hit. For some, one or two a week will suffice, while others may want to schedule daily opportunities for connection. Reflecting on how these interactions make you feel–energized or drained–can help you find your sweet spot.

Create New Connections

One exercise to keep your social muscles in good shape is by expanding your network. But making friends in adulthood isn’t as easy as it once was on the playground or soccer pitch. A surefire way to connect with someone new? Get involved in something you care about. If you love cross country skiing in winter, join a local club. If you enjoy getting your hands dirty outside, volunteer at a local community garden. These activities provide an immediate conversation starter with those who have similar interests. If you’re worried that no one would enjoy your company, volunteer your time to those who may be lonely like the elderly. Forging new connections at an older age may feel impossible– like running a marathon after years spent jogging 5Ks– but the effort leads to major benefits. Friendship shapes mental health and in turn, our physical well-being.

RELATED: Local Running Stores And The Power Of Community

Do Emotional Push-Ups

And here’s a bonus tip from Anhalt: Do “emotional push-ups.” These include striking up conversations with strangers, saying thank you, or accepting compliments without deflection. Start small–Practice one or two emotional push-ups weekly. While there’s no shortcut to social fitness, regularly flexing your social muscles will add up to stronger relationships over time.

Ukrainian soldiers with life-changing war injuries posed for portraits saying they are ‘living monuments’ of a brutal war

Insider

Ukrainian soldiers with life-changing war injuries posed for portraits saying they are ‘living monuments’ of a brutal war

Mia Jankowicz – February 24, 2023

A photo by Marta Syrko of Ukrainian soldier Sasha, whose lower legs were amputated. Sasha, lying on his side and propped up by one elbow, is naked except for a strip of cream cloth over his loin, and looks down. He is muscular, has multiple tattoos and is bathed in a pearly, blue-and-cream light.
Oleksandr lost both his lower legs to a Russian missile.Marta Syrko
  • Ukrainian photographer Marta Syrko has asked war-injured soldiers to sit for her.
  • Oleksandr, who lost his lower legs, said he wanted to show that injured bodies can be powerful.
  • The pictures, both stark and tender, are a reminder of the human cost of Putin’s war.

Last summer, 26-year-old Oleksandr was resting in a trench.

Exactly six months earlier, he had been working as a barista while he trained in graphic design. But after Russia invaded, he became a leader in a mortar batallion.

He was exhausted. The safest place to rest would have been under tree cover along with his squad, but there was no more room there. So he drifted off in the trench.

The next thing he knew he was buried in soil, his legs in excruciating pain. After his friends had scrabbled through the earth, they laid him on his front, not wanting him to glimpse his legs.

It was August 24, Ukraine’s independence day, and Ukrainians suspected Russia would seek grim trophies.

Oleksandr’s lower legs were later amputated.

He told Insider he accepted his injuries “from the first moment” the missile hit him. (He spoke to Insider through an interpreter.)

So when photographer Marta Syrko asked Oleksandr to sit for her, he felt he could send a message with his body: among other things, to show the world the carnage Putin is inflicting and the cost of defending his country.

‘We need an artist, not just a photographer’

One of Syrko’s main subjects is bodies. A skim through her Instagram feed shows the human form in all its glory, from an advertising-perfect washboard stomach to the soft millefeuille creases of her grandmother’s skin.

After Russia’s invasion, however, more and more people were returning to her hometown of Lviv with life-changing wounds.

So she approached a rehabilitation clinic near the city to ask if any of the soldiers — whose bodies had been radically transformed by war — would let her take portraits of them.

Four men agreed, three of whom lost limbs and one who received serious burns.

A black-and-white photo by Marta Syrko of Sergiy, Ukrainian soldier who lost his left lower leg. He is sitting up in a chair, mostly unclothed with tattoos on his torso, and his prosthesis visible. He looks down at a baby swaddled in a white cloth that partially covers him. Part of the foreground is blurred.
Serhii agreed to become one of Syrko’s “Heroes.”Marta Syrko

Among the soldiers was Serhii, pictured above cradling his second child, who had his leg torn off in the shockwave of a blast near Izyum, in Kharkhiv Oblast.

Another, Stanislav, also lost a leg last summer, in Bakhmut — one of the most fiercely contested cities in the entirety of Russia’s bloody war.

Syrko said she was inspired by the classical statues she saw in museums like the Louvre.

Foundational for Western art history, they, too, through wear and tear, are often missing limbs.

A photo by Marta Syrko, of Ilya, Ukrainian soldier who was badly burned. A top-down view shows his bare white legs, one bent sideways at the knee, and his lower arms, both partially burned. He wears a red cloth and sits on a grey floor with dark blue paint marks.
Illya Pylypenko received severe burns in a tank.Marta Syrko

Later, Neopalymi, a charity devoted to treating and rehabilitating people with severe burns, approached Syrko with a request. They asked her to photograph Illya Pylypenko, a soldier who had burns on much of his body after his tank caught fire.

Syrko’s unflinching photos of Pylypenko show how his face, in particular, was transformed.

A photo portrait by artist Marta Syrko of Ukrainian soldier Ilya, who was badly burned. Ilya is seen topless in a three-quarter view, chin in hand, looking ahead. Skin on his hand and arm, and much of his face, is badly damaged with red-colored burns on his otherwise white skin.
A photo portrait by artist Marta Syrko of Ukrainian soldier Ilya, who was badly burned. Ilya is seen topless in a three-quarter view, chin in hand, looking ahead. Skin on his hand and arm, and much of his face, is badly damaged with red-colored burns on his otherwise white skin.

Neopalymi, a burns rehabilitation center, asked Syrko to photograph Illya Pylypenko.Marta Syrko

Maksym Turkevych, Neopalymi’s CEO, told Insider in an email that the project needed “an artist, not just a photographer.”

‘We don’t know what to say. How to behave.’

Syrko’s work has many fans, but she said she’s had occasional comments from people who say she’s exploiting disabled people through her work.

Asked about this, Syrko — who is able-bodied — said her aim is to make a real and complex discussion happen.

“It’s a hard question for Ukrainians now, because we don’t know how to act near them,” she said. “We don’t know what to say, how to behave. And so that’s why we have to discuss it.”

A photo by Marta Syrko of Stanislav, Ukrainian soldier whose right lower leg was amputated. He is seen bathed in golden light through wet glass, wearing a cloth round his waist, sitting on the floor. One knee is up, while his amputated leg rests on the ground. Stanlislav rests his forehead on his arm, propped on his raised knee.
Stanislav also lost his lower leg.Marta Syrko

For Oleksandr, the decision to become a “monument” for Syrko’s photos, as he put it, was a deliberate choice that he embraced.

He liked Syrko’s thinking about statues, saying in an Instagram post that people like him are “living monuments, who have been close-up witnesses to war.”

A closely-cropped black-and-white-photograph by Ukrainian photographer Marta Syrko, showing soldier Serhii and his son. Serhii is seated and unclothed except for long bands of white cloth, under which his tattoos can be seen. He looks down at his baby son in his arms. In the lower half of the picture, his prosthetic lower leg is visible.
Serhii, pictured here with his son, lost part of his leg near Izyum.Marta Syrko

But public attitudes can be disappointing, even though he was injured defending their homeland, he said. People “look away, and they break into lively talk when ‘monuments’ walk past.”

Society, he said, stops seeing these bodies as beautiful.

“I wanted to become something that would inspire others like me to feel that people are looking at them not with shame, but with exaltation!” he wrote.

This was Neopalymi’s goal, too. “The main reason for us to do it is to show the society that there is a beauty in it, and that they should not be scared or disgusted by this,” said Turkevych, the CEO.

A photo by Marta Syrko of Ilya, Ukrainian soldier who was burned in combat. A closely-cropped overhead view of his hand, red with burn marks, as well as part of his thigh, other hand, and a swathe of red cloth.
Syrko’s unflinching images of Illya show the effects of his burns.Marta Syrko

With a 122,000-strong Instagram following, Syrko said she had conversations with her subjects about the exposure the pictures could bring.

“I told them that they are probably going to be a little bit popular,” she said. And so they turned out to be — her pictures have been shared by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Twitter account, and by newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

Oleksandr told Insider, laughing, about his surprise when he arrived at the studio and realized that Syrko wanted him to pose nearly nude.

But he quickly got comfortable. “Marta’s the kind of person with whom you can feel comfortable and free,” he said.

Rebuilding an accessible Ukraine

Oleksandr spoke to Insider from the US, where thanks to a partnership with Ukrainian organization Without Restrictions, he has been undergoing intensive rehabilitation.

There, he’s learning to walk and run on high-tech prostheses. But for some weeks before he flew out, he was using a wheelchair.

A photo by Marta Syrko of Stanislav, Ukrainian soldier whose right lower leg was amputated. He appears to have been photographed through gauzy white fabric, seated on the floor with his right knee up, arm resting on it. Mostly unclothed, his waist is wrapped in white fabric.
Syrko photographed Stanislav in her contemplative artistic style.Marta Syrko

While the Ukrainian government has not confirmed exact numbers of casualties, the number of people with life-changing injuries — whether civilian or soldiers — is likely to make accessibility a key concern for the country’s future.

It’s a realization echoed by disability organizations supporting relief efforts in Ukraine, who at a joint conference last year issued the Riga Declaration, a document calling for the country’s rebuilding to employ universal design principles.

“A lot of cities are in a rebuilding phase,” Syrko said, envisioning a new, post-war Ukraine. “We can start to build it from zero — why can’t we do it correctly?”

What’s the best way to leave your house to your heirs?

Next Avenue

What’s the best way to leave your house to your heirs?

Carmen Cusido – February 24, 2023

The most important thing is to determine whether to transfer the home during your lifetime or after death.
Time passes and estate plans need updating — decide now what you want to do with the family home after you are gone — and then write it down and update as necessary. ISTOCK

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org.

Francesca Maresca, 54, of Highland Park, New Jersey, had spoken in passing to her father, John, about whether he had an updated will. It was only when he died at 89 of congestive heart failure in September 2020 that she and her sister, Catherine, learned that he kept their late mother’s name on the deed to the family home and they, rather than their stepmother, had inherited the house.

The sisters sold their childhood home soon after the deed was transferred to them. “There was no squabbling over things,” Maresca said. “I recognize that’s rare.”

Indeed, homeowners who die before they decide and document what they want to do with their property can leave their relatives with a legacy no one wants: a protracted legal fight over what to do with the family home and the possibility of a substantial tax liability.

What is at stake?

Much is at stake. Cerulli Associates, a research and analytics firm in Boston, estimates that $84.4 trillion in personal wealth will be transferred from one generation to the next between now and 2045.

Most of it — more than $53 trillion — will come from baby boomers, people born between 1945 and 1964; another $15.8 trillion from people born before 1945. Primary residences represent more than 70% of that wealth, according to one estimate.

Members of Generation X — people born between 1965 and 1980 — stand to inherit the greatest portion of that transfer — $29.6 trillion over the next 25 years, including $8.9 trillion in the next 10 years, according to Cerulli. The millennial generation, which consists of people born from 1981 to 1996, are expected to inherit more than $27 trillion by 2045.

Such sums suggest why it is important for people to waste no time in deciding how they wish to distribute their assets — particularly their homes.

Weigh your options

You can transfer a home or other property while you’re still alive, but Lazaro Cardenas, an estate lawyer in Freehold, New Jersey, said a drawback in doing so is that if your heirs are sued or otherwise get in trouble with the law, the property can be seized if it’s not adequately insured.

Additionally, by selling their house to their child or children, parents will lose the mortgage-interest deduction on their income tax return.

However, selling your house can generate cash that you may need for nursing care and other medical expenses late in life.

“If you bequeath the property in your will, one of the benefits is you can maintain control of your home until you die,” said Cardenas, a partner at Patel & Cardenas. “The drawback is that end-of-life care becomes expensive and usually is not covered by insurance.”

See: $3,000 a week? The enormous cost of care for elderly loved ones that nobody warns you about.

Cardenas added that if you apply for Medicaid to cover end-of-life expenses, the agency could consider your house as your asset if you sold it to your heirs within the previous five years.

“One solution is to sell your property to your child but create a deed that states you’re allowed to live in the house until you die, even if your child or children are now owners,” Cardenas said.

Don’t miss: ‘I feel heartbroken’: My father refinanced my late mother’s house, even though she wanted it to be divided among all the family. What recourse do I have?

Consider a trust

Another option is to place the property in a trust. That way, when you die, the property passes to the trust and the trustee then owns the home. The benefit here is the heir does not have to go to probate court after the last parent dies, Cardenas explained.

“Ultimately, you can leave your property to a child, all your children or none,” he added. “However, in a state like New Jersey, you cannot disinherit your spouse.”

Robert “Bob” Keebler, a Certified Public Accountant based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with clients all over the world, advises parents to get ahead of potential arguments and create separate trusts for each child if there’s a lot of money involved.

“Lawyers bring CPAs in to get the math right so that there’s a clear delineation of what a client wants to accomplish from an economic standpoint,” Keebler said.

Potential hazards

He gave an example of a case he worked on where a man wanted his business to go to one of his children and the other child to inherit an equal amount of property.

“In this case, Child A must pay a little bit into the business so that it’s mathematically equal to what Child B gets,” Keebler added.

Other cases, though, are more complicated. For instance, children from a first marriage may have an issue with a stepparent or that stepparent’s children inheriting assets.

“As CPAs, we’re doing the tax work and projections on the settlements to defuse the situation with the least amount of tax for the group taken as a whole,” Keebler said. “We have clients who we help while they’re alive, but I sometimes get brought in after someone dies, when people start to understand what’s going to whom.”

The most important thing a person needs to determine is whether to gift their assets during their lifetime or after death.

The benefits of giving

“There are benefits to giving gifts during your lifetime,” Keebler said. “This is where you need to lay out a balance sheet and your goals and work with your accountants to structure your estate best.”

He added that giving real estate to your heirs while you are still alive can reduce the tax they will have to pay.

Inheriting money or other assets can bring up a lot of emotions, even when there are wills and trusts in place.

Jacquette M. Timmons, the president and CEO of Sterling Investment Management in New York City, said there’s often a sense of overwhelming responsibility from someone who inherits a home or a large sum of money. “There’s a sense of grief; you wouldn’t have this house or money if the person had not died,” she said. “Many want to ensure they’re a good steward of what they’re left with.”

Timmons advises her clients to wait at least a year before they make a big decision, like selling a home. “Time and distance bring clarity,” she said. “But I recognize that waiting before deciding is a privilege that few have.”

Instead of emphasizing death when working on wills and trusts, Timmons encourages her clients to view these legal documents as leaving a legacy.

Also see: What happens to my youngest daughter’s share of my estate if I die before she’s 18?

Leave a legal love letter

“When someone has invested the time to put together an estate plan and say what their wishes are, that’s an incredible gift for the people left behind,” Timmons said. “They don’t have to worry about piecing things together. They can leave their loved ones with a full road map of what they’d like done. To me, that’s a love letter you’re leaving someone.”

In Maresca’s case, she and her sister spent two months cleaning their inherited home in Saddle River, New Jersey. They donated most of its contents. The three-bedroom, one-bathroom house went on the market in November 2021, and the sisters had 40 offers.

“We decided in about 10 minutes” Maresca said. “We went with the least amount of work; the investor who made a cash offer.” After the sale closed on Dec. 21, they split the proceeds evenly.

Maresca said the experience taught her the importance of communicating her wishes to her teenage son and establishing a trust in his name.

Carmen Cusido earned a bachelor’s from Rutgers University and a master’s degree from the Columbia School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Oprah Daily, Refinery29, Health, NBC, CNN, NPR, Cosmopolitan, and other publications. 

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org, Twin Cities Public Television.

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U.S. Man’s Death Suggests Deadly Tick Virus Is Spreading to New Regions

Gizmodo

U.S. Man’s Death Suggests Deadly Tick Virus Is Spreading to New Regions

Ed Cara – February 24, 2023

The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to spread several infectious diseases, including the Heartland virus.
The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to spread several infectious diseases, including the Heartland virus.

A rare but sometimes fatal tickborne infection may be expanding its range in the U.S., local and federal health officials warn in a report this week. They say that a case of Heartland virus led to a man’s death in 2021. The infection is thought to have been caught in either Virginia or Maryland—a region of the country where the virus hasn’t been spotted in humans until now.

The report was published online Thursday in Emerging Infectious Diseases by officials with the Virginia Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The man was in his late 60s and visited an emergency room in November 2021 with symptoms of fever, diarrhea, aches, and general discomfort. He didn’t appear to have any tick bites, but given his symptoms and the fact that he spent time between two homes in rural Virginia and Maryland, his doctors suspected a tickborne infection and sent him home with antibiotics. Unfortunately, two days later, he returned to the ER with new symptoms, including confusion and unsteady gait, and he was then admitted to the hospital.

The man’s health continued to worsen, and he was soon sent to a specialized care center. Despite testing for various germs, doctors couldn’t find the source of his illness. He eventually developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare but life-threatening condition in which the body’s white blood cells attack the organs. His lungs and liver started to fail, and he developed cardiac arrest. He was then placed in palliative care. Thirteen days after his symptoms began, he died.

Doctors still suspected that he had contracted an infection spread by insects or ticks. Given the possibility of an ongoing threat to the public, officials with the Virginia Department of Health launched an investigation. They sent blood samples to the CDC for more extensive testing and went to the man’s homes in eastern Maryland and central Virginia the following summer to collect ticks in the area. The CDC testing finally revealed that he was infected with the Heartland virus, and a subsequent autopsy determined that he had died from complications of the infection.

Heartland virus was discovered in 2009 by doctors at the Heartland Regional Medical Center in northwestern Missouri. It’s known to be spread by the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), which is commonly found throughout the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Many known cases of Heartland virus have led to hospitalization and death, but it’s only been sporadically documented in humans. Around 50 cases have been reported in over a dozen states to date, including Kentucky, Indiana, and as far north as New York.

Maryland and Virginia are within the tick’s expected range, but this case of Heartland appears to be the first ever traced back to either state. Because of the larger tick population found at the man’s home in Virginia, the report authors believe he caught it there. Interestingly enough, they failed to find the virus inside ticks at either location. But that doesn’t rule out its presence in these areas, they wrote, particularly because the virus seems to circulate in ticks at very low levels. They further suspect that the man caught the infection from larval ticks, since adults typically become inactive by late October (when he was likely bit). That could also explain why he didn’t notice the initial bite, given their smaller size, and why doctors failed to find any evidence by the time he felt sick roughly two weeks later, since any bite could have healed by then.

Especially compared to much more common tickborne diseases like Lyme disease, Heartland virus is a very rare danger to humans. But it is possible that we’re missing many milder cases of Heartland or that these infections are misdiagnosed as other tickborne diseases because they tend to share common symptoms, the authors say. And thanks in part to climate change, ticks generally are expanding their distribution throughout the U.S., which will make all of the many diseases they carry a bigger threat to worry about.

“Because tick ranges are increasing overall, incidence of previously regional tickborne infections, such as [Heartland virus], likely will continue to increase,” they wrote.

More: An Emerging Virus Has Now Been Spotted in Georgia’s Ticks