4722-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

In 1969, after interviewing hundreds of terminally ill patients, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying, a milestone text on how humans process permanent loss. Kübler-Ross’ description of those reactions — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — are now famous, but they were never meant to be an orderly progression of “stages.” There is no “correct,” linear way to grieve. Our reactions are complicated because people are complicated.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for taking in something like the looming existential threat of climate change. I’ve been listening to a lot of ’90s country music. One of my colleagues has substantially upped her sleep, while one of our Grist editors “stress bakes.” What we feel is what we feel, and it determines our reality — and importantly, our response, to the news. And that response is more important than ever.

What we need now is a major mobilization on climate change. That would require, in the words of the IPCC, “rapid and far-reaching transitions” in “all aspects of society.” We’re taking much more than just solar panels and reusable shopping bags here. After decades of delay, the scale of changes that are necessary will force us to rethink everything. To put in the changes necessary, we have to be able to connect our emotions to our actions. We have to process our grief. We have to somehow move through it, and we have to do all that together.

Last week, Scott Williams of Climate-KIC, a group affiliated with the European Union, wrote a short essay with the headline: “Do we need an IPCC special report for humans?” He explores what it would take to act on the U.N. report and asks provocative questions, like: “What does it mean when every coal mine town has no jobs in five years’ time? What does it mean when in ten years’ time if no airlines can fly over Europe? How do we feed our families if there’s an extended drought which causes mass crop failure? What is the point of putting away money into a pension fund if that fund is investing in a way that just makes things worse? And what are we going to do about it?”

For those of us dealing with climate grief, these questions are familiar. I get dozens of them every week, and I’m never sure exactly how to respond. My go-to reply is: Find a friend and talk about it. But in truth, although it works for me, I have no idea whether or not this is the right advice for everyone.

There are scant few people currently working on this. Kate Schapira, a climate activist in Rhode Island, has taken it upon herself to set up a Peanuts-style counseling booth each summer in a public park in Providence. Renee Lertzman, a psychologist and leader in this field, wrote a book on the subject calledEnvironmental Melancholia — but in interviews, she admits there’s much more to learn.

The best guide I’ve seen so far is Josh Fox’s impressively named documentary How to let go of the world and love all the things climate can’t change. In it, Fox speaks with climate activists as they come to grips with the literal dying of a world they thought would last forever, and dedicate their lives to the struggle, not knowing exactly what the end goal might be. Through that catharsis, the activists re-engage with their role in helping avert the largest crisis in human history — and wind up aiming to build a different, better world. But others, we know, remain disengaged — some, overtly hostile to change — even as the stakes continue to rise.

We’ll need more than this. We’ll need a comprehensive crash course on human psychology to deal with the massive changes we’re seeing; a guide to self-care for the most important decade in human history. We need to know how climate change will change us as social beings, how we can deal with grief, how to go about the process of imagining a new society. We will need to know not only how we can survive in this new world, but how we will live.

This is a necessarily messy process and it won’t be easy, but I’m not sure what could be more important.

(GRIST)

By Nick Miroff and

Josh Dawsey

October 17

The number of migrant parents entering the United States with children has surged to record levels in the three months since President Trump ended family separations at the border, dealing the administration a deepening crisis three weeks before the midterm elections.

Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record and an 80 percent increase from July, according to unpublished Department of Homeland Security statistics obtained by The Washington Post.

Large groups of 100 or more Central American parents and children have been crossing the Rio Grande and the deserts of Arizona to turn themselves in, and after citing a fear of return, the families are typically assigned a court date and released from custody.

“We’re getting hammered daily,” said one Border Patrol agent in South Texas who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

Having campaigned on a promise to stop illegal immigration and build a border wall, Trump now faces a spiraling enforcement challenge with no ready solutions. The soaring arrest numbers — and a new caravan of Central American migrants heading north — have left him in a furious state, White House aides say.

Trump has been receiving regular updates on the border numbers, telling senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that something has to change, according to senior administration officials.

Aides including Miller and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders have continually told the president that many of the children coming across the border are being smuggled illegally and that the United States is being taken advantage of. The president’s welling anger has left him pushing once more for a reinstatement of a family-separation policy in some form, which he believes is the only thing that has worked, despite the controversy it triggered.

[Trump administration weighs new family-separation effort at the border]

One senior official, also not authorized to speak to the media, conceded that the separations were halted to stanch political fury but ended up sending a “clear signal” that people could cross, adding, “Now we’re actually getting crushed.”

GOP strategists working on the midterms said that the separations coincided with the worst polling times of the presidency and that reinstituting separations would sag numbers for the Republicans, who are already struggling in many close races.

Trump continues to criticize Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and has asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to work with Mexico to make it tougher for Central American immigrants to cross its southern border, inserting the issue into ongoing trade negotiations.

A senior DHS official said Wednesday that Nielsen continues to take the lead role engaging with leaders from Central America on migration issues and has been in regular contact with the Mexican government and the transition team of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will take office Dec. 1.

Trump has been lashing out this week at the new caravan of 2,000 migrants, mostly from Honduras, who crossed into Guatemala on Monday, pushing past police roadblocks. On Tuesday, Trump threatened to cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador if their governments “allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States.”

In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump urged GOP candidates to campaign on the issue. “Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country,” he wrote. “Great Midterm issue for Republicans!”

The latest DHS figures show 107,212 members of “family units” were taken into custody during fiscal 2018, obliterating the previous high of 77,857 set in 2016.

The number of “unaccompanied alien children” and single adults apprehended remained essentially unchanged last month, another indication that more migrants who might have traveled alone in the past are now bringing children with them.

Katie Waldman, a DHS spokeswoman, said the agency did not have official numbers ready to publish, but “current trends indicate enforcement efforts against single adults entering illegally have been hugely successful.” However, she said, “the removal of actual family units, or those posing as family units, has been made virtually impossible by Congressional inaction — which will most likely result in record numbers of families arriving illegally in the United States this year.”

There have been several senior-level meetings at the White House about the numbers, administration officials say, at which Miller has channeled the president’s frustration.

Miller is pushing for a more aggressive stance, including changes at U.S. ports of entry that would make it tougher for asylum-seeking Central Americans to gain admission.

Another option under consideration, known as “binary choice,” would detain migrant families together and give parents a choice — stay in immigration jail with their child for months or years as their asylum case proceeds, or allow their child to be assigned to a government shelter while a relative or guardian can apply to gain custody.

Some DHS officials remain wary of the proposal and the potential blowback it could bring, and there is a lack of detention space to accommodate the record wave of parents and children coming across. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has about 3,300 detention beds at three “family residential centers,” but five times as many parents and children are crossing each month. The volume has overwhelmed Border Patrol stations and prompted mass releases.

Though the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas remains the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, Border Patrol agents in recent weeks have seen a new increase in southern Arizona. Bus-loads of migrant parents and children have been dropped off at churches and charities there by ICE, which has little detention space for families and pregnant women.

[Faced with migration ‘crisis,’ U.S. border chief finds no easy fix in Central America]

The latest DHS figures show U.S. agents made 396,579 arrests along the Mexico border during the government’s 2018 fiscal year, a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2017, when illegal migration dropped to a 56-year low.

Trump viewed the 2017 figures as a validation of his tough rhetoric on illegal immigration and had plans to campaign on the achievement this year. When border arrests jumped earlier this spring, he berated Nielsen and demanded swift action, furious to be losing ground on one of his core issues.

That led to the “zero tolerance” prosecution initiative this spring and the separation of at least 2,500 children from their parents, hundreds of whom were deported without their sons and daughters. The president issued an executive order June 20 ending the practice amid public outcry.

DHS officials have seen a particularly large increase this year in families arriving from Guatemala, where smuggling guides have been encouraging migrants to bring children with them to avoid deportation.

[Hunger, not violence, fuels Guatemala migration surge, U.S. says]

Courts have limited the amount of time minors can be held in immigration jails to 20 days, so many parents who arrive with children are fitted with ankle monitoring bracelets and given a court appointment that may be several months away.

Administration officials blame this “catch and release” model for the growing number of families arriving at the border, proposing to end it by expanding family detention space and changing rules that limit their ability to hold children in long-term custody.

Agents along the border say the family migration surge has continued this month.

“If October is any indication of what’s to come, Fiscal Year 2019 is going to be a very busy year,” Manuel Padilla Jr., chief of the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector in South Texas, said on Twitter. Agents in the sector, the busiest for illegal crossings, arrested more than 1,900 people last weekend alone, according to Padilla.

(The Washington Post)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/19/2018 4:25:34 PM
	SevereStudios.com / AP GOOD GRIEF If you’re suffering from climate grief, you’re not alone By Eric Holthaus on Oct 15, 2018 Last week’s U.N. climate report gave a terrifyingly clear picture of a world on the brink of locking in catastrophe. It told us what was needed and the horrors that awaited if we failed to mobilize. As a scientific report, it was dazzling. But it didn’t tell us how to process, cope, and adapt our lives to the grief of that overwhelming knowledge. In 1969, after interviewing hundreds of terminally ill patients, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying, a milestone text on how humans process permanent loss. Kübler-Ross’ description of those reactions — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — are now famous, but they were never meant to be an orderly progression of “stages.” There is no “correct,” linear way to grieve. Our reactions are complicated because people are complicated. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for taking in something like the looming existential threat of climate change. I’ve been listening to a lot of ’90s country music. One of my colleagues has substantially upped her sleep, while one of our Grist editors “stress bakes.” What we feel is what we feel, and it determines our reality — and importantly, our response, to the news. And that response is more important than ever. What we need now is a major mobilization on climate change. That would require, in the words of the IPCC, “rapid and far-reaching transitions” in “all aspects of society.” We’re taking much more than just solar panels and reusable shopping bags here. After decades of delay, the scale of changes that are necessary will force us to rethink everything. To put in the changes necessary, we have to be able to connect our emotions to our actions. We have to process our grief. We have to somehow move through it, and we have to do all that together. Last week, Scott Williams of Climate-KIC, a group affiliated with the European Union, wrote a short essay with the headline: “Do we need an IPCC special report for humans?” He explores what it would take to act on the U.N. report and asks provocative questions, like: “What does it mean when every coal mine town has no jobs in five years’ time? What does it mean when in ten years’ time if no airlines can fly over Europe? How do we feed our families if there’s an extended drought which causes mass crop failure? What is the point of putting away money into a pension fund if that fund is investing in a way that just makes things worse? And what are we going to do about it?” For those of us dealing with climate grief, these questions are familiar. I get dozens of them every week, and I’m never sure exactly how to respond. My go-to reply is: Find a friend and talk about it. But in truth, although it works for me, I have no idea whether or not this is the right advice for everyone. There are scant few people currently working on this. Kate Schapira, a climate activist in Rhode Island, has taken it upon herself to set up a Peanuts-style counseling booth each summer in a public park in Providence. Renee Lertzman, a psychologist and leader in this field, wrote a book on the subject calledEnvironmental Melancholia — but in interviews, she admits there’s much more to learn. The best guide I’ve seen so far is Josh Fox’s impressively named documentary How to let go of the world and love all the things climate can’t change. In it, Fox speaks with climate activists as they come to grips with the literal dying of a world they thought would last forever, and dedicate their lives to the struggle, not knowing exactly what the end goal might be. Through that catharsis, the activists re-engage with their role in helping avert the largest crisis in human history — and wind up aiming to build a different, better world. But others, we know, remain disengaged — some, overtly hostile to change — even as the stakes continue to rise. We’ll need more than this. We’ll need a comprehensive crash course on human psychology to deal with the massive changes we’re seeing; a guide to self-care for the most important decade in human history. We need to know how climate change will change us as social beings, how we can deal with grief, how to go about the process of imagining a new society. We will need to know not only how we can survive in this new world, but how we will live. This is a necessarily messy process and it won’t be easy, but I’m not sure what could be more important. (GRIST)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/19/2018 5:06:55 PM
	Tornadoes are spinning up farther east in US, study finds October 17, 2018 by Seth Borenstein In this April 30, 2014, file photo, Dustin Shaw lifts debris as he searches through what is left of his sister's house at Parkwood Meadows neighborhood after a tornado in Vilonia, Ark. A new study finds that tornado activity is generally shifting eastward to areas just east of the Mississippi River that are more vulnerable such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. And it's going down in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston, File) Over the past few decades tornadoes have been shifting—decreasing in Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas but spinning up more in states along the Mississippi River and farther east, a new study shows. Scientists aren't quite certain why. Tornado activity is increasing most in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and parts of Ohio and Michigan, according to a study in Wednesday's journal Climate and Atmospheric Science. There has been a slight decrease in the Great Plains, with the biggest drop in central and eastern Texas. Even with the decline, Texas still gets the most tornadoes of any state. The shift could be deadly because the area with increasing tornado activity is bigger and home to more people, said study lead author Victor Gensini, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Northern Illinois University. Also more people live in vulnerable mobile homes and tornadoes are more likely to happen at night in those places, he said. Even though Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma get many more tornadoes, the four deadliest states for tornadoes are Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "More folks are generally at risk because of that eastward shift," Gensini said. Because tornadoes sometimes go undercounted, especially in the past and in less populous areas, scientists don't like to study trends by using counts of tornadoes. Gensini and tornado scientist Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Lab looked at "significant tornado parameters," a measurement of the key ingredients of tornado conditions. It looks at differences between wind speed and direction at different altitudes, how unstable the air is and humidity. The more of those three ingredients, the more likely tornadoes will form. The increases in this measurement mirrored slightly smaller increases found in number of twisters. The study looked at changes since 1979. Everywhere east of the Mississippi, except the west coast of Florida, is seeing some increase in tornado activity. The biggest increase occurred in states bordering the Mississippi River. Overall there is a slight increase in tornado activity, but it's not too much and not nearly like what's happening in the east, Gensini said. Why is this happening? This April 30, 2017, file photo, provided by the Warren County Emergency Management Agency shows what looks like a tornado that approached Vicksburg, Miss. A new study finds that tornado activity is generally shifting eastward to areas just east of the Mississippi River that are more vulnerable such as Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. And it's going down in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. (Jerry Briggs/Warren County Fire Department via Warren County EMA via AP, File) "We don't know," Gensini said. "This is super consistent with climate change." As the Great Plains dry out, there's less moisture to have the type of storms that spawn tornadoes, Gensini said. Tornadoes form along the "dry line" where there are more thunderstorms because there's dry air to the west and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to the east. That dry line is moving east. "This is what you would expect in a climate change scenario, we just have no way of confirming it at the moment," Gensini said. Gensini said unless there are specific detailed studies, he and others cannot say this is caused by global warming, just that it looks like what is expected. Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor Paul Markowski, who wasn't part of the research, praised the study as careful and well done. (phys.org)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/19/2018 5:40:30 PM
	Russia liquidates nearly all its holdings of US debt & invests money in gold Published time: 18 Oct, 2018 12:34 Edited time: 18 Oct, 2018 15:46 © Sputnik / Natalia Seliverstova The Central Bank of Russia has continued getting rid of US Treasury bonds in August. The share of Russian investments in American debt is getting close to zero. Russian investments in US securities as of August have fallen to just $14 billion. Back in 2011, Russia was one of the largest holders of US debt with a $180 billion investment. The reason is not only about politics and US sanctions against Russia, a broker at Otkritie bank Timur Nigmatullin told RIA Novosti. The US Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates, which makes American bonds cheaper, he said.“Russia has almost dropped out of the list of holders of US government debt, being the 54th largest holder.” Read more Dollar monopoly slips as China & Japan dump US Treasuries “A further sale of US Treasury bonds by Russia will most likely be compensated by buying gold and opening short-term deposits at banks,” he said. The share of precious metals in the country's foreign reserves has reached a record 18 percent, closely approaching the share of dollar investments. The largest investors in US debt, China and Japan, have also cut their holdings. Chinese holdings of US sovereign debt dropped to $1.165 trillion in August, from $1.171 trillion in July, marking the third consecutive month of declines. Japan has slashed its holdings of US securities to $1.029 trillion in August, the lowest since October 2011. The reason for holding money in US bonds is global trade, which is still dominated by the dollar, director of macroeconomic analysis at Expert RA Anton Tabah told Izvestia daily. So, countries are forced to have a lot of dollars in cash, and US bonds are the best option for that. India and Turkey have followed Russia's lead. Turkey has dropped out of the top-30 list of holders of American debt, while India has been liquidating its investment for five consecutive months to $140 billion in August. (RT)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/19/2018 6:19:21 PM
	Record number of families crossing U.S. border as Trump threatens new crackdown The Washington Post joined agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection on a patrol along the border near McAllen, TX. (Video: Jon Gerberg/Photo: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) By Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey October 17 The number of migrant parents entering the United States with children has surged to record levels in the three months since President Trump ended family separations at the border, dealing the administration a deepening crisis three weeks before the midterm elections. Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record and an 80 percent increase from July, according to unpublished Department of Homeland Security statistics obtained by The Washington Post. Large groups of 100 or more Central American parents and children have been crossing the Rio Grande and the deserts of Arizona to turn themselves in, and after citing a fear of return, the families are typically assigned a court date and released from custody. “We’re getting hammered daily,” said one Border Patrol agent in South Texas who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. Having campaigned on a promise to stop illegal immigration and build a border wall, Trump now faces a spiraling enforcement challenge with no ready solutions. The soaring arrest numbers — and a new caravan of Central American migrants heading north — have left him in a furious state, White House aides say. Trump has been receiving regular updates on the border numbers, telling senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly that something has to change, according to senior administration officials. Aides including Miller and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders have continually told the president that many of the children coming across the border are being smuggled illegally and that the United States is being taken advantage of. The president’s welling anger has left him pushing once more for a reinstatement of a family-separation policy in some form, which he believes is the only thing that has worked, despite the controversy it triggered. [Trump administration weighs new family-separation effort at the border] One senior official, also not authorized to speak to the media, conceded that the separations were halted to stanch political fury but ended up sending a “clear signal” that people could cross, adding, “Now we’re actually getting crushed.” GOP strategists working on the midterms said that the separations coincided with the worst polling times of the presidency and that reinstituting separations would sag numbers for the Republicans, who are already struggling in many close races. Trump continues to criticize Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and has asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to work with Mexico to make it tougher for Central American immigrants to cross its southern border, inserting the issue into ongoing trade negotiations. A senior DHS official said Wednesday that Nielsen continues to take the lead role engaging with leaders from Central America on migration issues and has been in regular contact with the Mexican government and the transition team of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who will take office Dec. 1. Trump has been lashing out this week at the new caravan of 2,000 migrants, mostly from Honduras, who crossed into Guatemala on Monday, pushing past police roadblocks. On Tuesday, Trump threatened to cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador if their governments “allow their citizens, or others, to journey through their borders and up to the United States.” In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump urged GOP candidates to campaign on the issue. “Hard to believe that with thousands of people from South of the Border, walking unimpeded toward our country in the form of large Caravans, that the Democrats won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country,” he wrote. “Great Midterm issue for Republicans!” The latest DHS figures show 107,212 members of “family units” were taken into custody during fiscal 2018, obliterating the previous high of 77,857 set in 2016. The number of “unaccompanied alien children” and single adults apprehended remained essentially unchanged last month, another indication that more migrants who might have traveled alone in the past are now bringing children with them. Katie Waldman, a DHS spokeswoman, said the agency did not have official numbers ready to publish, but “current trends indicate enforcement efforts against single adults entering illegally have been hugely successful.” However, she said, “the removal of actual family units, or those posing as family units, has been made virtually impossible by Congressional inaction — which will most likely result in record numbers of families arriving illegally in the United States this year.” There have been several senior-level meetings at the White House about the numbers, administration officials say, at which Miller has channeled the president’s frustration. Miller is pushing for a more aggressive stance, including changes at U.S. ports of entry that would make it tougher for asylum-seeking Central Americans to gain admission. Another option under consideration, known as “binary choice,” would detain migrant families together and give parents a choice — stay in immigration jail with their child for months or years as their asylum case proceeds, or allow their child to be assigned to a government shelter while a relative or guardian can apply to gain custody. Some DHS officials remain wary of the proposal and the potential blowback it could bring, and there is a lack of detention space to accommodate the record wave of parents and children coming across. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has about 3,300 detention beds at three “family residential centers,” but five times as many parents and children are crossing each month. The volume has overwhelmed Border Patrol stations and prompted mass releases. Though the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas remains the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, Border Patrol agents in recent weeks have seen a new increase in southern Arizona. Bus-loads of migrant parents and children have been dropped off at churches and charities there by ICE, which has little detention space for families and pregnant women. [Faced with migration ‘crisis,’ U.S. border chief finds no easy fix in Central America] The latest DHS figures show U.S. agents made 396,579 arrests along the Mexico border during the government’s 2018 fiscal year, a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2017, when illegal migration dropped to a 56-year low. Trump viewed the 2017 figures as a validation of his tough rhetoric on illegal immigration and had plans to campaign on the achievement this year. When border arrests jumped earlier this spring, he berated Nielsen and demanded swift action, furious to be losing ground on one of his core issues. That led to the “zero tolerance” prosecution initiative this spring and the separation of at least 2,500 children from their parents, hundreds of whom were deported without their sons and daughters. The president issued an executive order June 20 ending the practice amid public outcry. DHS officials have seen a particularly large increase this year in families arriving from Guatemala, where smuggling guides have been encouraging migrants to bring children with them to avoid deportation. [Hunger, not violence, fuels Guatemala migration surge, U.S. says] Courts have limited the amount of time minors can be held in immigration jails to 20 days, so many parents who arrive with children are fitted with ankle monitoring bracelets and given a court appointment that may be several months away. Administration officials blame this “catch and release” model for the growing number of families arriving at the border, proposing to end it by expanding family detention space and changing rules that limit their ability to hold children in long-term custody. Agents along the border say the family migration surge has continued this month. “If October is any indication of what’s to come, Fiscal Year 2019 is going to be a very busy year,” Manuel Padilla Jr., chief of the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector in South Texas, said on Twitter. Agents in the sector, the busiest for illegal crossings, arrested more than 1,900 people last weekend alone, according to Padilla. (The Washington Post)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 10/20/2018 11:45:40 AM
	127 cases of polio-like illness under investigation, CDC says By Susan Scutti, CNN Oct 18, 2018 Updated Oct 18, 2018 In 2014, Lydia Pilarowski was diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis. While some children never fully recover from AFM, Lydia has improved steadily over the last four years. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of 127 patients under investigation for acute flaccid myelitisthis year. Of these, 62 have been confirmed by the CDC, and the remainder continue to be investigated, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the agency's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. noting that the confirmed cases are in 22 states. Acute flaccid myelitis, also called AFM, is a rare but serious condition that affects the nervous system and causes the muscles and reflexes to suddenly become weak, she said Tuesday. Specifically, the disease affects the area of the spinal cord called gray matter. Because the symptoms are similar, AFM is often confused with polio, a crippling and potentially fatal disease that is caused by a virus. The overall rate of AFM is fewer than one in a million, she said. An average age of 4 The average age of the patients in all confirmed cases over the past five years is just 4 years old, and more than 90% of the cases overall occur in children 18 and younger, according to analysis of cases reported in recent years. Though AFM has not claimed any lives this year, there was one death in 2017. "CDC has been actively investigating AFM, testing specimens and monitoring disease since 2014, when we first saw an increase in cases," Messonnier said. "Most AFM cases occur in the late summer and fall,." which she referred to as "seasonal clustering." No geographic clustering has been found and there is no other "unifying factor to explain the peaks," she added. While AFM is not unique to the US, Messonnier said, "no one else has seen seasonal clustering every other year." "We have not been able to find a cause for the majority of these AFM cases," she said. "Right now, we know that poliovirus is not the cause of these AFM cases. CDC has tested every stool specimen from every AFM patient. None of the specimens have tested positive for poliovirus." AFM may be caused by other viruses, including enterovirus, environmental toxins and a condition in which the body's immune system attacks and destroys tissue that it mistakes for foreign material, Messonnier said: "This is a mystery so far, and we haven't solved it yet, so we have to be thinking broadly." More broadly, she noted, "there is a lot we don't know about AFM." For example, the CDC doesn't know who may be at higher risk for developing AFM or why some are at higher risk, she said. The public health agency also does not fully understand long-term consequences or why some patients recover quickly while others continue to experience weakness. 'On track' with previous years On Monday, CNN reached out to health departments in every state and received responses from 48 states plus the District of Columbia. CNN found 47 confirmed cases and 49 more that were suspected or being investigated, for a total of 96 cases in 30 states in 2018. Fifteen states said they'd confirmed cases this year. Asked about the discrepancy between the CDC's report of 22 states versus CNN's report of 30 states with cases, Messonnier said, "the 22 states that we're reporting are the states that have confirmed cases. There's going to be a delay, a lag in the timing of some of these reports." The CDC is not saying how many states have patients under investigation, only that it's more than 22. She added that confirmation of each case requires a review of MRI images and symptoms, "so there is going to be a bit of a lag as we confirm those things." States are reporting their cases to the CDC, Messonnier said. Although it is too early to understand how the current season compares to previous ones, she noted, the nation is "on track with what was seen in 2014 and 2016" and will probably have the same number of cases. The CDC received information on 33 confirmed cases of AFM across 16 states in 2017, 149 cases in 39 states In 2016, 22 across 17 states in 2015 and 120 across 34 states in 2014. "This is a pretty dramatic disease," Messonnier said. With the sudden onset of weakness, patients are "generally seeking medical care" and being evaluated by neurologists, infectious disease doctors and pediatricians. "We think the majority of cases are coming to our attention." The CDC urges parents to be aware of this illness and to seek medical care right away if family members develop sudden weakness or loss of muscle tone in the arms or legs. The agency also said it will post case count updates on its website every week now, a change from the monthly updates it had been giving. "As we work to better understand what's causing AFM, parents can help protect their children by washing your hands, staying up to date on recommended vaccines and using insect repellent to prevent mosquito bites," Messonnier said. CNN's Ben Tinker, Jacqueline Howard, Debra Goldschmidt, Naomi Thomas, Keenan Willard and Mimi Hsin Hsuan Sun contributed to this report. (mtstandard.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Menu

Forums

Tornadoes are spinning up farther east in US, study finds

October 17, 2018 by Seth Borenstein

Russia liquidates nearly all its holdings of US debt & invests money in gold

127 cases of polio-like illness under investigation, CDC says

An average age of 4

'On track' with previous years

Like us on Facebook!