(The Center Square) – House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has opened an investigation into the Federal Emergency Management Agency over reports that it discriminated against supporters of Donald Trump. Comer said whistleblower reports suggest anti-Trump discrimination is rampant and has been going on for years. “[O]n the condition of anonymity, a FEMA official stated that the practice avoiding ‘white or conservative-dominated’ areas is an ‘open secret at the agency that has been going on for years,’” Comer said in a letter to FEMA. The investigation comes after FEMA fired one of its hurricane response supervisors after news went viral that she told her workers to avoid “Trump houses.” However, that employee has publicly said she was only following orders and acting according to the culture at FEMA. Comer and more than two dozen Republican lawmakers sent a letter to FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell demanding documentation, from internal policies to spending figures to incident reports. Lawmakers have pointed toward more anonymous sources backing up the fired employee’s claims. “Additionally, another whistleblower contacted the Committee during the hearing," the letter said. "This individual informed the Committee that a FEMA contractor warned a disabled veteran’s family in Georgia to remove Trump campaign materials from their home because FEMA supervisors viewed Trump supporters as domestic terrorists. At a hearing this week, U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., pointed to 35 of his constituents who shared similar stories with him. Lawmakers grilled Criswell over the discrimination reports at the hearing as well as FEMA’s recent focus on Diversity Equity and Inclusion efforts, something FEMA named as its number one goal in its latest strategic report. Lawmakers also raised concerns about the agency spending hundreds of millions of dollars on helping migrants. Defenders of FEMA have said the migrant funds do not take directly from disaster relief, while critics insist it shows missplaced priorities for the emergency relief agency. “In the fiscal year of 2023, FEMA spent nearly a billion dollars, $789 million, to shelter illegals in the United States,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., said at the hearing, as The Center Square previously reported . “This past year it was $641 million, and this money is largely distributed through NGOs...and this was to house illegal aliens," she added. "Not Americans, who by the way all that money, that comes from Americans bank accounts when they write their checks to pay their taxes." At the hearing this week, Criswell also said she will request the Inspector General investigate the question of political discrimination at FEMA. She also said she does not think this fired employee is indicative of a broader problem in the agency but is looking into it. Criswell said FEMA workers went back to the homes that were skipped over by the fired employee and promised to ensure it doesn't happen again. “The Committee is in the process of investigating these claims,” the Oversight letter said. “If they are true, they would corroborate concerns that political discrimination extends beyond [the fired FEMA employee]. Furthermore, they suggest an apparent culture, whether sanctioned or not, within FEMA to politically discriminate against disaster survivors, specifically those who support President-elect Donald Trump.”Scott Bessent a credible, safe pick for Treasury: experts
MIAMI — As her students finished their online exam, Arlet Lara got up to make a . Her 16-year-old son found her on the kitchen floor. First, he called Dad in a panic. Then 911. “I had a stroke and my life made a 180-degree turn,” Lara told the Miami Herald, recalling the medical scare she experienced in May 2020 in the early months of the COVID pandemic. “The stroke affected my left side of the body,” the North Miami woman and former high school math teacher said. Lara, an avid runner and gym goer, couldn’t even walk. “It was hard,” the 50-year-old mom said. After years of rehabilitation therapy and a foot surgery, Lara can walk again. But she still struggles with moving. This summer, she became the first patient in South Florida to get an implant of a new and only FDA-approved nerve stimulation device designed to help ischemic stroke survivors regain movement in their arms and hands. This first procedure was at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Lara’s rehab was at at the Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, part of a partnership between Jackson Health System and UHealth. Every year, thousands in the United States , with one occurring every 40 seconds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of strokes are ischemic, often caused by blood clots that obstruct blood flow to the brain. For survivors, most of whom are left with some level of disability, the Vivistim Paired VNS System, the device implanted in Lara’s chest, could be a game changer in recovery, said Dr. Robert Starke, a UHealth neurosurgeon and interventional neuroradiologist. He also serves as co-director of endovascular neurosurgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital, part of Miami-Dade’s public hospital system. Arlet Lara, the first patient in South Florida to get an FDA-approved nerve stimulation implant, right, runs into her rehabilitation neurology physician Dr. Gemayaret Alvarez, before her physical therapy appointment on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, at Lynn Rehabilitation Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The implant is designed to help stroke survivors regain function in their arms. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS) Arlet Lara, the first patient in South Florida to get an FDA-approved nerve stimulation implant designed to help stroke survivors regain function in their arms, goes through exercises while her therapist activates the device during her physical therapy appointment on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, at Lynn Rehabilitation Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The activation works as positive reinforcement to her muscles when she completes the exercise correctly. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS) Arlet Lara, the first patient in South Florida to get an FDA-approved nerve stimulation implant, does an exercise while Neil Batungbakal, rehabilitation therapist, activates the implant with the black trigger during her physical therapy appointment on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, at Lynn Rehabilitation Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The implant is designed to help stroke survivors regain function in their arms. The activation works as positive reinforcement to her muscles when she completes the exercise correctly. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS) Arlet Lara, the first patient in South Florida to get an FDA- approved nerve stimulation implant, does an exercise while Neil Batungbakal, rehabilitation therapist, activates the implant with the black trigger during her physical therapy appointment on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, at Lynn Rehabilitation Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Arlet Lara, the first patient in South Florida to get an FDA-approved nerve stimulation implant, right, runs into her rehabilitation neurology physician Dr. Gemayaret Alvarez, before her physical therapy appointment on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, at Lynn Rehabilitation Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The implant is designed to help stroke survivors regain function in their arms. (Alie Skowronski/Miami Herald/TNS) The Vivistim Paired VNS System is a small pacemaker-like device implanted in the upper chest and neck area. Patients can go home the same day. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 to be used alongside post-ischemic stroke rehabilitation therapy to treat moderate to severe mobility issues in hands and arms. Lara’s occupational therapist can activate the device during rehabilitation sessions to electrically stimulate the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain down to the abdomen and regulates various parts of the body’s nervous system. The electrical stimulation rewires the brain to improve a stroke survivor’s ability to move their arms and hands. Lara also has a magnet she can use to activate the device when she wants to practice at home. Her therapy consists of repetitive tasks, including coloring, pinching cubes and grabbing and releasing cylindrical shapes. After several weeks of rehabilitation therapy with the device, Lara has seen improvement. “Little by little, I’m noticing that my hand is getting stronger. I am already able to brush my teeth with the left hand,” she told the Miami Herald in September. Since then, Lara has finished the initial six-week Vivitism therapy program, and is continuing to use the device in her rehabilitation therapy. She continues to improve and can now eat better with her left hand and can brush her hair with less difficulty, according to her occupational therapist, Neil Batungbakal. Lara learned about the device through an online group for stroke survivors and contacted the company to inquire. She then connected them with her Jackson medical team. Now a year later, the device is available to Jackson patients. So far, four patients have received the implant at Jackson. Starke sees the device as an opportunity to help bring survivors one step closer to regaining full mobility. Strokes are a leading cause of disability worldwide. While most stroke survivors can usually recover some function through treatment and rehabilitation, they tend to hit a “major plateau” after the first six months of recovery, he said. Vivistim, when paired with rehabilitation therapy, could change that. Jackson Health said results of a clinical trial published in the peer-reviewed medical journal in 2021 showed that the device, “when paired with high-repetition, task-specific occupational or physical therapy, helps generate two to three times more hand and arm function for stroke survivors than rehabilitation therapy alone.” The device has even shown to benefit patients 20 years from their original stroke, according to Starke. “So now a lot of these patients that had strokes 10-15 years ago that thought that they would never be able to use their arm in any sort of real functional way are now able to have a real meaningful function, which is pretty tremendous,” Starke said. Vivistim’s vagus-nerve stimulation technology by researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas’ Texas Biomedical Device Center and is being sold commercially by Austin-based MicroTransponder, a company started by university graduates. Similar devices are used to . For Lara, the device is a new tool to help her recovery journey. “Everything becomes a challenge so we are working with small things every day because I want to get back as many functions as possible,” Lara said. Patients interested in Vivistim should speak with their doctor to check their eligibility. The FDA said patients should make sure to discuss any prior medical history, including concurrent forms of brain stimulation, current diathermy treatment, previous brain surgery, depression, respiratory diseases and disorders such as asthma, and cardiac abnormalities. “Adverse events included but were not limited to dysphonia (difficulty speaking), bruising, falling, general hoarseness, general pain, hoarseness after surgery, low mood, muscle pain, fracture, headache, rash, dizziness, throat irritation, urinary tract infection and fatigue,” the FDA said. MicroTransponder says the device is “covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance with prior authorization on a case-by-case basis.”
NoneNational Geographic released its annual "Pictures of the Year" issue this week, showcasing 20 photographs — out of some 2.3 million in contention — that depict striking scenes of nature, wildlife and human connection to the world. Here are CNBC's picks of the best of the best. 24/7 San Diego news stream: Watch NBC 7 free wherever you are Atka Bay, Antarctica With "a lot of persistence and even more luck," Bertie Gregory managed to capture the moment a young emperor penguin jumped off a 50-foot cliff for its first swim. Emperor penguins have been increasingly moving from low-lying ice to higher, more permanent ice shelves as climate change changes their environment, according to National Geographic. Money Report CNBC Daily Open: Expectations can be an irrational thing. Just look at Nvidia Friday's big stock stories: What's likely to move the market in the next trading session These chicks, whose parents left them a month earlier, are learning to hunt on their own, it said. Konstanz, Germany At Germany's University of Konstanz, photographer Ingo Arndt closely watched an ant colony that would normally be hidden in the forest. She was there to capture this hatchling crack open its cocoon with its jaws, after which adult females helped to break it free from the rest of the cocoon. "To take this picture, it was necessary to work under controlled conditions in a laboratory. I built a mini-wood ant nest there, and so I was able to take this picture with a lot of patience," said Arndt. Nanyuki, Kenya In January, scientists at the BioRescue project transferred a southern white rhino embryo into a southern white rhino female. But before the pregnancy was confirmed, the rhino died from a bacterial infection. The scientists later discovered the 70-day-old fetus. Still, scientists are hopeful that that the successful impregnation may help efforts to save the Northern white rhino, which is on the brink of extinction. Only two are left, according to National Geographic. It's a story Ami Vitale has been covering for the past 15 years. "Realizing how close we are to losing not just the rhino, but countless other species, instilled in me a deep sense of urgency and a recognition of our shared responsibility," she said. "It is my hope that this work will help raise awareness of the urgent challenges facing our planet." Backlit by the stars Concan, Texas With 10 million bats, the Frio Bat Cave is home to one of the world's largest colonies, though its numbers can sometimes double in the summer. These Mexican free-tailed bats leave the cave at sunset to feed, primarily on moths, in a nightly ritual which can take up to three hours. With dozens of bats emerging from the cave every second, Babak Tafreshi said, he got this shot by using a 30-second exposure with multiple soft flashes to reveal the bats, which were also backlit by the constellations of Orion and Taurus in the night sky. "I learned so much about the bats on this project. How smart they are, how incredibly accurate their flight path is. How productive they are to the ecosystem and to the local farmers and Texas economy," he told CNBC Travel . When cold and warm collide Fanning Springs State Park, Florida This photograph was taken on an early winter morning at a point where warm spring water was converging with the dark, cold water of the Suwannee River. Photographer Jason Gulley said he put on a drysuit, hopped in the water and waited motionlessly to photograph the fish as they danced between the warm and cold temperatures. "It was years of experience with springs on the Suwannee River that let me know I would have unique and visually stunning conditions that morning," Gulley told CNBC Travel. "The advantage of shooting in my figurative backyard is that I've had years to learn how different water levels, seasons and weather affect the environment." Fuel from the sun Jülich, Germany Made using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, solar synthetic fluid may one day power trucks, ships, and planes without the need to retrofit their engines, according to National Geographic. In June, Swiss company Synhelion opened the world's first industrial-scale plant to produce the energy alternative. "The photo tries to represent abstractly the fuel produced by two simple and fundamental elements: air and sun. I took the shot in an improvised studio in the company's facility using a mirror to support the drops of fuel, and a gradient light that would evoke the sun and the sky," said photographer Davide Monteleone. 'I felt and heard a rumble' Antigua, Guatemala The one-day hike up Fuego's dormant twin, Acatenango, to take this shot — carrying 45 pounds of camera gear — was one of the most difficult Peter Fisher said he's ever done. But a well-timed break to catch his breath proved to be a serendipitous moment. "About 30 seconds after I stopped, I felt and heard a rumble, then saw lava spew into the sky. The timing couldn't have been more perfect," he told CNBC. "The sun had just set, so you could still see the silhouettes of the other climbers, and if I had kept climbing, the perspective shift would've made their bodies disappear into the dark volcanic ash surrounding them." Fisher said a friend climbing with him added "a nice pop of light in the foreground" with a flashlight. He said it was "one of those moments you can't plan for and everything comes together just right." To see more of National Geographic's "Pictures of the Year 2024," visit NatGeo.com/Photos . Also on CNBC Marriott CEO says business is solid amid corporate layoffs Thailand legalizing same-sex marriage is likely to bring a flood of tourists Bookings for Disney's first cruise in Asia open soon. Here's how much it costs
U.S. Cardiac Arrhythmia Monitoring Devices Market to See Rapid Expansion Over the Next Decade 2024-2032Team India will have their task cut out when they come on day three of the fourth Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). After a chaotic final hour on day two at the iconic venue that saw India lose three wickets, a lot relies on Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja, especially with the tourists still trailing by 310 runs. Australia, meanwhile, will hope to continue to plot India's slide in this game and have the runs to play with as well. Steve Smith's classy 140 combined with the top three scoring half-centuries put the hosts in the box seat. With cloud cover also expected in Melbourne on day three, the home side's bowling unit should enjoy bowling.Kolpack: A major league meltdown for Bison in VermillionThe US State and Treasury departments said they hit Georgian Dream party founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili with penalties “for undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation”, according to a statement. The designation of Mr Ivanishvili is the latest in a series of sanctions the US has placed on Georgian politicians and others this year. Those sanctions include freezes on assets and properties those targeted may have in US jurisdictions or that might enter US jurisdictions as well as travel bans on the targets and members of their families. “We strongly condemn Georgian Dream’s actions under Ivanishvili’s leadership, including its ongoing and violent repression of Georgian citizens, protesters, members of the media, human rights activists, and opposition figures,” the State Department said in a statement. “The United States is committed to promoting accountability for those undermining democracy and human rights in Georgia.” Mr Ivanishvili is a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia and served briefly as Georgia’s prime minister. In 2012, he founded Georgian Dream, Georgia’s longtime ruling party. Critics have accused Georgian Dream of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted towards Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBT+ rights, prompting the European Union to suspend Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely. In October, Georgian Dream won another term in a divisive parliamentary election that has led to more mass protests. Last month, the country’s prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, announced a four-year suspension of talks on Georgia’s bid to join the European Union, fuelling further public outrage.
Arsenal overcome battling Ipswich as Kai Havertz proves worth again