Controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has been performing thousands of dollars worth of surgery in Spain while under strict conditions on him operating in Australia.
One Australian family has paid $90,000 to fly their 20-year-old son to a Spanish hospital to have Dr Teo remove a tumor from his back.
Dr Teo was one of Australia’s most high-profile brain surgeons, and had been often referred to by patients as a “miracle worker” before he was placed under strict conditions by the NSW medical regulator last year because of concerns his practice was a risk to the public.
The conditions require Dr Teo to gain written approval from an approved neurosurgeon before he performs certain operations in Australia.
Those conditions do not extend beyond Australia, however, and it has emerged that Dr Teo has assisted in at least three surgeries in the last year in hospitals in Madrid and Alicante in Spain.
He has also been present at operations in South Africa.
Charlie Teo (left) performed surgery on Billy Baldwin in Madrid earlier this year, after strict conditions were placed under him in Australia. Credit: Supplied
Dr Teo, alongside other neurosurgeons operated on Billy Baldwin at the Hospital Universitario Fundacion Jimenez Diax in July this year, at the cost of $70,000.
Dr Teo had removed a brain tumor from Mr Baldwin when he was five-years-old.
His father Alasdair Baldwin said he had always had “complete faith” in Dr Teo.
“It’s just appalling that nowadays, in the so-called lucky country, you can’t choose your own surgeon because of a vendetta against him,” Mr Baldwin told Nine Radio last week.
“There’s a lot of other families in the same boat that aren’t as fortunate as us that can redraw money from their house.
Billy said: “There is not one human being I have more faith in than Dr Teo”.
“That’s our guy,” he said.
Charlie Teo was placed under strict conditions by the NSW medical regulator last year over concerns to public safety. Sam Ruttin Credit: News Corp Australia
The Medical Council of NSW is understood to be considering contacting Spanish authorities to alert them to the restrictions on the surgeon’s registration.
In August last year, the regulator said Dr Teo would be required to show he had explained the risks associated with any procedure to the patient and obtained informed financial consent, after it emerged patients were crowdsourcing in excess of $120,000 for operations.
At the time, Dr Teo said he accepted the council’s rulings.
“I feel extremely privileged to have helped more than 11,000 patients both here and overseas over the last 35 years in their journeys with all types of brain tumors,” he said last year.
This story was first published in The Conversation.
There’s nothing like the fresh eggs from your own hens, the more than 400,000 Australians who keep backyard chooks will tell you.
Unfortunately, it’s often not just freshness and flavor that set their eggs apart from those in the shops.
For more Food related news and videos check out Food >>
Our newly published research found backyard hens’ eggs contain, on average, more than 40 times the lead levels of commercially produced eggs.
Almost one in two hens in our Sydney study had significant lead levels in their blood.
Similarly, about half the eggs analyzed contained lead at levels that may pose a health concern for consumers.
Even low levels of lead exposure are considered harmful to human health, including among other effects, cardiovascular disease and decreased IQ and kidney function.
Chickens in an Australian backyard. File image. Credit: Thurtell/Getty Images
Indeed, the World Health Organization has stated there is no safe level of lead exposure.
So how do you know whether this is a likely problem in the eggs you’re getting from backyard hens? It depends on lead levels in your soil, which vary across our cities.
We mapped the areas of high and low risk for hens and their eggs in our biggest cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – and present these maps here.
Our research details lead poisoning of backyard chickens and explains what this means for urban gardening and food production.
In older homes close to city centers, contaminated soils can greatly increase people’s exposure to lead through eating eggs from backyard hens.
What did the study find?
Most lead gets into the hens as they scratch in the dirt and peck food from the ground.
We assessed trace metal contamination in backyard chickens and their eggs from garden soils across 55 Sydney homes. We also explored other possible sources of contamination such as animal drinking water and chicken feed.
Our data confirmed what we had anticipated from our analysis of more than 25,000 garden samples from Australia gardens collected via the VegeSafe program. Lead is the contaminant of most concern.
The amount of lead in the soil was significantly associated with lead concentrations in chicken blood and eggs. We found potential contamination from drinking water and commercial feed supplies in some samples but it is not a significant source of exposure.
Unlike for humans, there are no guidelines for blood lead levels for chickens or other birds.
Levels of lead risk for backyard chickens across Sydney. Dark green dots indicate areas with safe lead levels. Light green and yellow dots are areas over the safe lead level. Orange and red dots indicate areas with high levels. Credit: Max M. Gillings, Mark Patrick Taylor/ The Conversation
Veterinary assessments and research indicate levels of 20 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) or more may harm their health.
Our analysis of 69 backyard chickens across the 55 participants’ homes showed 45 per cent had blood lead levels above 20µg/dL.
We analyzed eggs from the same birds. There are no food standards for trace metals in eggs in Australia or globally.
However, in the 19th Australian Total Diet Study, lead levels were less than 5µg/kg in a small sample of shop-bought eggs.
The average level of lead in eggs from the backyard chickens in our study was 301µg/kg. By comparison, it was 7.2µg/kg in the nine commercial free-range eggs we analyzed.
Map of Brisbane showing levels of lead risk for backyard chickens. Dark green dots indicate areas with safe lead levels. Light green and yellow dots are areas over the safe lead level. Orange and red dots indicate areas with high levels. Credit: Max M. Gillings, Mark Patrick Taylor/ The Conversation
International research indicates that eating one egg a day with a lead level of less than 100μg/kg would result in an estimated blood lead increase of less than 1μg/dL in children.
That’s around the level found in Australian children not living in areas affected by lead mines or smelters. The level of concern used in Australia for investigating exposure sources is 5µg/dL.
Some 51 per cent of the eggs we analyzed exceeded the 100µg/kg “food safety” threshold. To keep egg lead below 100μg/kg, our modeling of the relationship between lead in soil, chickens and eggs showed soil lead needs to be under 117mg/kg. This is much lower than the Australian residential guideline for soils of 300mg/kg.
To protect chicken health and keep their blood lead below 20µg/kg, soil concentrations need to be under 166mg/kg. Again, this is much lower than the guideline.
How did we map the risks across cities?
We used our garden soil trace metal database (more than 7,000 homes and 25,000 samples) to map the locations in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne most at risk from high lead values.
Deeper analysis of the data showed older homes were much more likely to have high lead levels across soils, chickens and their eggs.
This finding matches other studies that found older homes are most at risk of legacy contamination from the former use of lead-based paints, leaded petrol and lead pipes.
Map of Melbourne showing levels of lead risk for backyard chickens. Dark green dots indicate areas with safe lead levels. Light green and yellow dots are areas over the safe lead level. Orange and red dots indicate areas with high levels. Credit: Max M. Gillings, Mark Patrick Taylor/ The Conversation
What can backyard producers do about it?
These findings will come as a shock to many people who have turned to backyard food production.
It has been on the rise over the past decade, spurred on recently by soaring grocery prices.
People are turning to home-grown produce for other reasons, too.
They want to know where their food came from, enjoy the security of producing food with no added chemicals, and feel the closer connection to nature.
While urban gardening is a hugely important activity and should be encouraged, previous studies of contamination of Australian home garden soils and trace metal uptake into plants show it needs to be undertaken with caution.
A productive red hen perches above three eggs in a backyard chicken coop. Similar Images: Credit: SimplyCreativePhotography/Getty Images
Contaminants have built up in soils over the many years of our cities’ history. These legacy contaminants can enter our food chain via vegetables, honey bees and chickens.
Urban gardening exposure risks have typically focused on vegetables and fruits.
Limited attention has been paid to backyard chickens. The challenge of sampling and finding participants meant many previous studies have been smaller and have not always analyzed all possible exposure routes.
Mapping the risks of contamination in soils enables backyard gardeners and chicken keepers to consider what the findings may mean for them.
Particularly in older, inner-city locations, it would be prudent to get their soils tested.
People can do this at VegeSafe or through a commercial laboratory. Soils identified as a problem can be replaced and chickens kept to areas of known clean soil.
This article was co-authored by: Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, Macquarie University; Dorrit E Jacob – Professor, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University and Vladimir Strezov – Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University
Police called to remove wild turkey from apartment.
Police called to remove wild turkey from apartment.
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s top public health agency relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines Thursday, dropping the recommendation that Americans quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others.
The changes, which come more than 2 1/2 years after the start of the pandemic, are driven by a recognition that an estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected, agency officials said.
“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from those of the last two years,” said the CDC’s Greta Massetti, an author of the guidelines.
The CDC recommendations apply to everyone in the US, but the changes could be particularly important for schools, which summarize classes this month in many parts of the country.
Perhaps the biggest education-related change is the end of the recommendation that schools do routine daily testing, although that practice can be reinstated in certain situations during a surge in infections, officials said.
The CDC also dropped a “test-to-stay” recommendation, which said students exposed to COVID-19 could regularly test — instead of quarantining at home — to keep attending school. With no quarantine recommendation anymore, the testing option disappeared too.
Masks continue to be recommended only in areas where community transmission is considered high, or if a person is considered at high risk of severe illness.
School districts across the US have scaled back their COVID-19 precautions in recent weeks even before the latest guidance was issued. Some have promised to return to pre-pandemic schooling.
Masks will be optional in most districts when classes resume this fall, and some of the nation’s largest districts have dialed back or eliminated COVID-19 testing requirements.
Public schools in Los Angeles are ending weekly COVID-19 tests, instead making at-home tests available to families, the district announced last week. Schools in North Carolina’s Wake County also dropped weekly testing.
Some others have moved away from test-to-stay programs that became unmanageable during surges of the omicron variant last school year.
The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s largest teachers unions, said it welcomes the guidance.
“Every educator and every parent starts every school year with great hope, and this year even more so,” President Randi Weingarten said. “After two years of uncertainty and disruption, we need as normal a year as possible so we can focus like a laser on what kids need.”
The new recommendations prioritize keeping children in school as much as possible, said Joseph Allen, director of Harvard University’s healthy building program. Previous isolation policies forced millions of students to stay home from school, he said, even though the virus poses a relatively low risk to young people.
“Entire classrooms of kids had to miss school if they were deemed a close contact,” he said. “The closed schools and learning disruption have been devastating.”
Others say the CDC is going too far in relaxing its guidelines.
Allowing students to return to school five days after infection, without proof of a negative COVID-19 test, could lead to outbreaks in schools, said Anne Sosin, a public health researcher at Dartmouth College. That could force entire schools to close temporarily if teachers get sick in large numbers, a dilemma that some schools faced last year.
“All of us want a stable school year, but wishful thinking is not the strategy for getting there,” she said. “If we want a return to normal in our schools, we have to invest in the conditions for that, not just drop everything haphazardly like we’re seeing across the country.”
The average numbers of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths have been relatively flat this summer, at around 100,000 cases a day and 300 to 400 deaths.
The CDC previously said that if people who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations come into close contact with a person who tests positive, they should stay home for at least five days. Now the agency says quarantining at home is not necessary, but it urges those people to wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested after five.
The agency continues to say that people who test positive should isolate themselves from others for at least five days, regardless of whether they were vaccinated. CDC officials advise that people can end isolation if they are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medication and they are without symptoms or the symptoms are improving.
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Binkley reported from Washington.
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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s new government announced on Thursday it plans to prevent development of a coal mine due to the potential impact on the nearby Great Barrier Reef.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said she intends to deny approval for the Central Queensland Coal Project to be excavated northwest of the Queensland state town of Rockhampton.
The minority Greens party has been pressing the center-left Labor Party government, which was elected in May, to refuse approvals of coal or gas projects, to help reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“Based on the information available to me at this stage, I believe that the project would be likely to have unacceptable impacts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and the values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and National Heritage Place,” Plibersek said in a statement.
The marine park manages the network of more than 2,500 reefs that cover 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles) of seabed off the northeast Australian coast. The World Heritage Area, designated by the United Nations and Australia’s National Heritage List, includes natural, historic and Indigenous places of outstanding significance to the nation.
UNESCO, the UN cultural organization, is considering downgrading the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status mainly because rising ocean temperatures are killing coral.
The mine’s proponents have 10 business days to respond to the proposed refusal before the minister makes her final decision.
The Greens welcomed the news and urged the minister to reject another 26 planned coal mines.
“Now we need an across-the-board moratorium on all new coal and gas projects,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said in a statement.
The proposed decision was announced after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would enshrine in law the government’s ambition to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. The bill passed 89 votes to 55.
The previous government’s target had been a reduction of between 26%-28%, set at the Paris climate conference in 2015.
A proposed Greens’ amendment that would have acknowledged no new coal, oil or gas projects could be started if Australia were to achieve its net-zero emissions target by 2050 was defeated on Thursday.
The government is confident that the bill will be passed by the Senate next month with support from all 12 Greens senators, who would prefer a 2030 target of a 75% reduction.
The apparently doomed mine would have been an open-cut operation that extracted up to 10 million metric tons (11 million US tons) of coal a year.
Australia may have seen the worst of the third Omicron wave but the nation’s top doctor has warned we’re not out of the woods just yet.
A downturn in Australia’s seven-day rolling average and hospitalizations suggests the country could be nearing peak Covid-19 infections sooner than expected.
Speaking to reporters in Canberra, chief medical officer Paul Kelly said he was “increasingly confident” cases had peaked.
Chief medical officer Paul Kelly is cautiously optimistic about the current wave. NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage Credit: News Corp Australia
“The actual data that we’re seeing, particularly from hospital admissions, are decreasing in all states over the last… week support that,” he said.
But he said the current wave would not be the last, stressing the need for governments to plan accordingly.
It follows a virtual meeting of state and territory leaders to discuss the national response to the virus.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters he was “hopeful” the wave had reached its peak but warned against the threat of complacency.
“We know that last summer there was another spike and we shouldn’t be complacent about this issue,” he said.
In June, the Albanese government agreed to extend a 50-50 public hospital funding agreement for an additional three months amid concerns of the third Omicron wave.
But with cases peaking earlier than expected, Mr Albanese remained coy on if the states were pushing for another extension beyond September.
“The update that national cabinet received today, I’m pleased to say, is consistent with what was envisaged when we met… after I came back from PIF,” he said.
“Our funding arrangements and big decisions that were made by the national cabinet then in terms of those dates are consistent with the advice that we received.”
On Wednesday, the government fused to be tied down on a time frame on the release of modeling used to guide decision making.
“We don’t want to see an uncoordinated release of modeling that potentially contradicts modeling released by other jurisdictions,” Health Minister Mr Butler said.
The Health Department estimates there are more than 325,000 active cases nationally.
More than 4800 people are in hospital receiving treatment, with 162 in intensive care and 39 on ventilators.
Jodie Hirst was a professional sports dietitian for 10 years before she felt drawn to the classroom.
Like many people during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2021, Ms Hirst reassessed her career and realized that she loved helping and inspiring people to learn.
Ms Hirst, a mother of two, is currently six months into a Masters of Teaching at Macquarie University.
“The transition from going back to university has been challenging but I am really enjoying it,” she said.
“I would love to inspire people to respect science and continue to want to learn in that field. I am hoping I can bring that into schools.”
Ms Hirst is taking part in New South Wales’ first mid-career teachers program to support people from other areas of the community to transition to teaching.
Bulli High School has more than 1,000 students and 70 teachers.(ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)
She is working as a para-professional — helping with paperwork, resource development and classroom activities — at Bulli High School, in the northern Illawarra region.
Principal Denise James said she was “a bit in awe” of mid-career teachers such as Ms Hirst.
“I think it’s phenomenal and I hope more people do it,” she said.
“It’s invigorating for students to know teachers’ stories and to know they have had this other life and are experts in other things. It brings a whole lot of possibilities.”
changing the world
Ms James hoped more people would come to look at teaching as a great career.
“I admire someone who is already performing very well in their own field who wants to become a teacher,” she said.
“We know that the better education they [students] get, the better the world is.
“Jodie [Hirst] is here as a para-professional learning from our science faculty, but Bulli High is also learning with Jodie.
Principal Denise James says the majority of teachers at Bulli High have decades of teaching experience.(ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)
“That is the beauty of this program — we are learning from her how science operates outside of our school, in the real world … and we are also being able to use her skills in classrooms.”
But Ms James did warn that people’s expectations of teaching could sometimes differ from reality.
“You picture yourself in classrooms, you don’t realize that a lot of the work is happening alongside your colleagues in staff rooms in conversations and in meetings,” she said.
“So the paraprofessional role is a really great program.”
Along with 70 permanent teachers, the school relies on a pool of long-term temporary and casual teachers, who Ms James said it could not do without.
“We need the flexibility especially with a lot of illness in the world today,” she said.
Learning how to teach
Ms Hirst said she was looking forward to being able to increase the supply of science and technology teachers across the state.
“I’ll be teaching science, biology, chemistry and junior science … but I am relearning the content which is a part of the degree I am doing now, so learning the syllabus and how to teach that,” she said.
Jodie Hirst is transitioning from a career as a sports dietitian to being a secondary science teacher.(ABC Illawarra: Sarah Moss)
“Yes, I have a HECS debt now but with this mid-career transition, they [the Education Department] do provide some funding for the first six months of study, and then being employed three days a week at Bulli High, that’s going to help.”
Delivering group presentations in her former role as a consultant dietician for the Illawarra Academy of Sport helped give her the confidence to be at the front of the classroom.
“People were so motivated and generally interested that it became the favorite part of my job,” Ms Hirst said.
Professionals on the move
More than 4,000 new teachers have entered the workforce this year after gaining accreditation, according to the state’s Education Department, with at least 28 of them transitioning from other careers.
A productivity commission report in NSW recently investigated how to get more people from other careers into teaching.
NSW Minister for Education Sarah Mitchell saluted the program and was “excited to welcome a further 3,000 teachers by the end of the year”.
Professor Sue Bennett says there are different teaching strategies across different subject areas.(Supplied UOW: Paul Jones)
Professor Sue Bennett from the University of Wollongong said the extra teachers were much-needed.
“We’ve always had a group of people who have got significant experience in other roles… who want to make a change and they seek that pathway into the [teaching] profession,” Ms Bennett said.
“Around Australia there are universities and private providers that offer degrees in teaching with many variations available designed for people to find the right fit for them.”
The next round of applications for the mid-career program is open until September 11, with successful candidates due to commence studies in 2023.
President Joe Biden experienced a “rebound” Covid infection after taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid — and he’s not the only one.
Some patients who took Pfizer’s Paxlovid after contracting the coronavirus have reported the same phenomenon: Days after they finished a five-day course of the oral drug and felt better, their Covid symptoms or a positive test result returned.
Health experts say Paxlovid’s rebound effect doesn’t impact every patient or make it any less effective at its job, which is fighting severe illness from Covid. Still, like with so much about the pandemic, you might have some questions: How severe are rebound cases? Why do they happen? How common are they, and should you still feel comfortable taking the drug?
The answer to that last question is a resounding “yes,” doctors say. Here’s why, and what else you need to know about Paxlovid rebound cases:
Who can take Paxlovid?
In December 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration made Paxlovid available under an emergency use authorization to treat mild-to-moderate Covid cases in a specific group of eligible patients. You can get Paxlovid if you check all three of these boxes:
You tested positive for Covid
You’re at least 18 years old, or at least 12 years old and weigh at least 88 pounds
You have one or more risk factors for severe Covid
That includes patients 65 and older — such as Biden, 79 — or those with underlying conditions like cancer, diabetes or obesity. You may not be able to take Paxlovid if you take certain medications that can interact with the drug and cause serious side effects, according to the FDA.
You can obtain Paxlovid prescriptions from your healthcare provider or through the Biden administration’s “Test to Treat” program, which gives free Covid antiviral pills to patients who test positive at pharmacies across the country.
If you’re eligible, you should start taking Paxlovid as soon as possible after testing positive for Covid, and within five days of experiencing Covid symptoms. You’ll need to take three pills, twice a day, for five days.
Pfizer’s clinical trials last November suggest that Paxlovid does its job: The drug was 89% effective at preventing hospitalization among people who were at risk of developing severe illness.
Notably, that trial was conducted before Covid’s omicron variant emerged — but Pfizer said in January that Paxlovid still works against omicron, citing three laboratory-based studies. It appears to also work against omicron subvariants like BA.5, with no current data showing otherwise, according to Barbara Santevecchi, a clinical assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Florida’s College of Pharmacy.
How common are rebound cases, and what are they like?
Some people who take Paxlovid test negative for Covid after finishing their five-day treatment, but then test positive or experience symptoms again two to eight days later, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Roughly 5% of the tens of thousands of Paxlovid users have experienced rebound cases so far, White House Covid response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said at a news conference last month. They appear to be very mild: A June CDC study found that less than 1% of patients taking Paxlovid were admitted to the hospital or emergency department for Covid in the five to 15 days after they finished the treatment.
Patients also appear to recover from rebound cases without any additional Covid treatment, the CDC says.
A UC San Diego School of Medicine study released in June identified “insufficient drug exposure” as the most likely cause. In that scenario, Paxlovid stops the virus in its tracks for five days, but doesn’t stick around long enough to purge the infection entirely — allowing the virus to temporarily replicate again once the drug is gone.
Dr. Davey Smith, the study’s senior author and an infectious disease specialist at UCSD Health, hypothesizes that some people may metabolize Paxlovid more quickly, or that the drug might need to be taken for more than five days to fully clear the virus in every patient . But there’s no clinical data to back that up yet, he says.
“We don’t know if it’s safe or efficacious to do double the amount of time of Paxlovid, doing two courses,” Smith tells CNBC Make It. “That’s getting too far out over your skis without the clinical research to guide it.”
If you experience a rebound case, you do need to reenter quarantine until you test negative again. The CDC advises isolating for at least five more days before checking the agency’s current isolation guidelines. You should also wear a mask for 10 days after rebound symptoms begin, the CDC advises.
YREKA, Calif. (AP) — At least two people have died from a raging California blaze that was among several threatening thousands of homes Monday in the Western US
Two bodies were found inside a charred vehicle Sunday in the driveway of a home near the remote community of Klamath River, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The names of the victims and other details weren’t immediately released.
The McKinney Fire in Northern California near the state line with Oregon exploded in size to nearly 87 square miles (225 square kilometers) after erupting Friday in the Klamath National Forest, firefighting officials said. It is California’s largest wildfire of the year so far and officials have not yet determined the cause.
Gusty winds from a thunderstorm powered the blaze of a few hundred acres into a massive conflagration while lightning caused a couple of smaller blazes nearby, including one near the community of Seiad Valley, fire officials said.
On Monday, heavy rain helped dampen the fire but it still threatened structures after torching more than 100, ranging from homes to greenhouses, fire and sheriff’s officials said.
About 2,500 people remained under evacuation orders.
“If you get an order, that means go. This fire behavior, as you’ll hear, is incredible. Don’t try to fight it. Don’t try to stick around,” Siskiyou County Office of Emergency Services Director Bryan Schenone said at a community meeting Monday evening.
Stormy and cloudy weather helped fire crews attack the blaze, and bulldozers had managed to ring the town of Yreka, fire officials said.
As of Monday, the blaze was about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) from the town of around 7,500 people.
Valerie Linfoot’s son, a fire dispatcher, called to tell her their family home of three decades in Klamath River had burned. Linfoot said her husband de ella worked as a US Forest Service firefighter for years and the family did everything they could to prepare their house for a wildfire — including installing a metal roof and trimming trees and tall grasses around the property.
“It was as safe as we could make it, and it was just so dry and so hot and the fire was going so fast,” Linfoot told the Bay Area News Group. She said her neighbors have also lost homes.
“It’s a beautiful place. And from what I’ve seen, it’s just decimated. It’s absolutely destroyed,” she told the news group.
In northwestern Montana, winds picked up Monday afternoon on a fire burning in forested land west of Flathead Lake, forcing fire managers to ground all aircraft and leading the Lake County Sheriff’s Office to start evacuating residents on the northeastern corner of the fire.
The fire was putting up a lot of smoke, creating visibility problems for aircraft, said Sara Rouse, a spokesperson for the fire management team.
The fire, which started Friday afternoon near the town of Elmo on the Flathead Indian Reservation, measured 20 square miles (52 square kilometers), fire officials said.
The Moose Fire in Idaho has burned more than 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) in the Salmon-Challis National Forest while threatening homes, mining operations and fisheries near the town of Salmon. It was 23% contained Monday.
And a wildfire raging in northwestern Nebraska led to evacuations and destroyed or damaged several homes near the small city of Gering. The Carter Canyon Fire began Saturday as two separate fires that merged. It was about 30% contained by early Monday.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Saturday, allowing him more flexibility to make emergency response and recovery effort decisions and to tap federal aid.
Scientists have said climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
The US Forest service shut down a 110-mile (177-kilometer) section of the famed Pacific Crest Trail in Northern California and southern Oregon. Sixty hikers in that area were helped to evacuate on Saturday, according to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon, which aided in the effort.
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Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; and Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
In the summer of 2015-16, one of the most catastrophic mangrove diebacks ever recorded globally occurred in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Key points:
Low sea levels caused by severe El Niño events are thought to have caused the mass mangrove deaths
Scientists say it is likely too late for the mangroves to recover
A $30 million fishing industry is expected to be impacted
Some 40 million mangroves died across more than 2,000 kilometers of coastline, releasing nearly 1 million tonnes of carbon — equivalent to 1,000 jumbo jets flying back from Sydney to Paris.
After six years of searching for answers, scientists have formally identified what is causing the mass destruction. They hope the discovery will help predict and possibly prevent future events.
Valuable mangroves ‘died of thirst’
Areas affected by severe mangrove dieback in late 2015 (grey shaded) along the gulf. Aerial surveys (red lines) were undertaken in 2016.(Supplied: NC Duke)
Mangrove ecologist and senior research scientist at James Cook University (JCU) Norman Duke was behind the discovery.
Dr Duke found that unusually low sea levels caused by severe El Niño events meant mangrove trees “essentially died of thirst”.
“The key factor responsible for this catastrophe appears to have been the sudden 40-centimetre drop in sea level that lasted for about six months, coinciding with no rainfall, killing vast areas of mangroves,” he said.
Author assisting with data analysis and JCU researcher Adam Canning said the study’s evidence for sea-level drop being the cause was found in the discovery of an earlier mass dieback in 1982, observed in satellite imagery.
Hundreds of kilometers of mangroves along the coast of Karumba have turned a ghostly white.(Supplied: James Cook University)
“The 1982 dieback also coincided with an unusually extreme drop in sea level during another very severe El Niño event. We know from satellite data that the mangroves took at least 15 years to recover from that dieback,” Dr Canning said.
“Now they are caught in a vicious collapse and recovery cycle because of repeated pressure from climate change — the question remains when or if they will recover.”
Economic impact
Mangroves are valuable coastal ecosystems providing buffer shorelines against rising sea levels, protection against erosion, abundant carbon sinks, shelter for animals, nursery habitats, and food for marine life.
The destruction of mangroves can lead to a loss of fisheries, increased flooding, increased coastal damage from cyclones, and increased salinity of coastal soils and water supplies.
Mangroves stripped of foliage along a small tidal channel near the Robinson River.(Supplied: Dr Norman Duke)
In the gulf, the mangrove dieback threatens a $30 million fishing industry, Dr Duke said.
“The fishing industry relies on these mangroves, including for redleg banana prawns, mudcrabs and fin fish,” he said.
“When the El Niño of 2015-16 struck, redleg banana prawn fishers reported their lowest-ever catches.”
Dr Duke said it was unlikely the gulf’s mangroves would recover due to the growing intensity of El Nino events.
“Our research reveals the presence of a previously unrecognized ‘collapse-recovery cycle’ of mangroves along gulf shorelines,” he said.
Images of different sections of foreshore taken months apart show the extent of mangrove dieback in the NT.(Supplied: NC Duke)
Before and after the loss of a section of mangroves in the Gulf of Carpentaria.(Supplied: Dr Norman Duke)
“The threat of future El Niño-driven sea level drops appears imminent, as evidence points to a link between climate change and severe El Niño and La Niña events.
“Indeed, El Niño and La Niña have become more deadly over the last 50 years, and the long-term damage they inflict is expected to escalate.
“Under these circumstances, the potential for the mangroves to recover is understandably low.
Protecting future ecosystems
Dr Duke said closer monitoring was key to preventing future mass diebacks. He said regular aerial surveys were a place to start.
“Tropical mangroves need much greater protection, and more effective maintenance with regular health checks from dedicated national shoreline monitoring,” he said.
Mangroves have died along a 2,000km stretch of coastline in the Gulf of Carpentaria.(Supplied: NC Duke)
“Our aerial surveys of more than 10,000 kilometers of north Australian coastlines have made a start.
“We’ve recorded environmental conditions and drivers of shoreline change for north-western Australia, eastern Cape York Peninsula, Torres Strait Islands and, of course, the Gulf of Carpentaria.
“As the climate continues to change, it’s vital to keep a close eye on our changing shoreline wetlands and to ensure we’re better prepared next time another El Niño disaster strikes.”
YREKA, Calif. (AP) — Two bodies were found inside a charred vehicle in a driveway in the wildfire zone of a raging California blaze that was among several threatening thousands of homes Monday in the western US, officials said. Hot and gusty weather and lightning storms threatened to increase the danger that the fires will keep growing,
The McKinney Fire in Northern California near the state line with Oregon exploded in size to nearly 87 square miles (225 square km) after erupting Friday in the Klamath National Forest, firefighting officials said. It is California’s largest wildfire of the year so far and officials have not determined the cause.
The vehicle and the bodies were found Sunday morning in the driveway of a residence near the remote community of Klamath River, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
Nearly 5,000 Northern California homes and other structures were threatened and an unknown number of buildings have burned, said Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson for the US Forest Service.
The smoky blaze cast an eerie, orange-brown hue in one neighborhood where a brick chimney stood surrounded by rubble and scorched vehicles on Sunday. Flames torched trees along State Route 96 and raced through hillsides in sight of homes.
Valerie Linfoot’s son, a fire dispatcher, called to tell her their family home of three decades in Klamath River had burned. Linfoot said her husband de ella worked as a US Forest Service firefighter for years and the family did everything they could to prepare their house for a wildfire — including installing a metal roof and trimming trees and tall grasses around the property.
“It was as safe as we could make it, and it was just so dry and so hot and the fire was going so fast,” Linfoot told the Bay Area News Group. She said her neighbors have also lost homes.
“It’s a beautiful place. And from what I’ve seen, it’s just decimated. It’s absolutely destroyed,” she told the news group.
Firefighting crews on the ground were trying to prevent the blaze from moving closer to the town of Yreka, population about 7,500. The blaze was about four miles (6.4 kilometers) away as of Monday.
A second, smaller fire in the region that was sparked by dry lightning Saturday threatened the tiny California community of Seiad.
Freeman said “there has been significant damage and loss along the Highway 96 corridor” that runs parallel to the Klamath River and is one of the few roads in and out of the region.
She added: “But just how much damage is still being assessed.”
Erratic storms were expected to move through Northern California again on Monday with lightning that threatened to spark new fires in bone dry vegetation, forecasters said. A day earlier, thunderstorms caused flash flooding that damaged roads in Death Valley National Park and in mountains east of Los Angeles.
In northwestern Montana, a fire on the Flathead Indian Reservation that started in grasslands near the town of Elmo on Friday and moved into forested areas had grown to 20 square miles (52 square km) by Monday, fire officials said. Residents of about 20 homes were told to be prepared to evacuate.
The Moose Fire in Idaho has burned more than 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) in the Salmon-Challis National Forest while threatening homes, mining operations and fisheries near the town of Salmon. It was 23% contained Monday.
And a wildfire raging in northwestern Nebraska led to evacuations and destroyed or damaged several homes near the small city of Gering. The Carter Canyon Fire began Saturday as two separate fires that merged. It was about 30% contained by early Monday.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Saturday, allowing him more flexibility to make emergency response and recovery effort decisions and to tap federal aid.
Scientists have said climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
The US Forest service shut down a 110-mile (177 km) section of the famed Pacific Crest Trail in Northern California and southern Oregon and dozens of hikers in that area were urged to abandon their treks and head to the nearest towns.
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Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; and Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho contributed to this report.
