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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Thursday, February 23rd. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, residents of East Palestine, Ohio, confront rail officials with their concerns, how Russia's invasion of Ukraine jump-started Europe's renewable energy plans, and why more older Americans are doing extreme sports.
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But first, as many as 23 million Americans are now living with Long COVID. That can mean ongoing fatigue, heart palpitations, brain fog and other disabling symptoms that last at least three months. But for some people, it's been drawn out for years. For as long as we've known about COVID, scientists have been racing to understand the long tail of infection and how different people respond to it.
Many patients say finding the right treatment is hard, and they've felt dismissed by a lot of doctors who've said this must be in their head. Dr. David Putrino, who treats Long COVID patients in New York, spoke about the condition in a recent interview with PBS Newshour.
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Dr. David Putrino: This is not a psychological illness. This is not a psychosomatic illness. This is an illness that has been caused by the body responding to a previously unknown virus
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Scientific American gets into the very latest research on Long COVID. Researchers say the fact that the most common, persistent symptoms are neurological is beginning to shape the way we think about treatment.
As with most medical mysteries, our understanding of Long COVID has been about identifying patterns and trying to apply rules that we've learned elsewhere. There are a few common patterns that have emerged so far. Some patients have viral particles that make it to their brain or other parts of their nervous system. There are cases where the virus seems to have triggered an autoimmune response that lasts long after the virus has cleared, causing the body to attack healthy cells. Some doctors working in specialized Long COVID clinics say these patterns show how COVID is behaving like other inflammatory or autoimmune diseases that affect the nervous system and, potentially, where there could be overlap in treatment.
Now, one aspect that we don't have a good handle on yet is why Long COVID seems to affect some people and not others. Being vaccinated against COVID reduces the danger, but it doesn't entirely prevent it.
Scientific American talked with one woman named Tara. She tested positive for COVID in March of 2020, and soon after, she became one of the first COVID long-haulers. She experienced tremors. She was sensitive to sound. She had what her husband nicknamed "goldfish brain." She just couldn't remember where she set things down around the house. Almost three years later, she says she still gets tired quickly. Her heart will race suddenly, and she spends most of her time off resting or seeing doctors.
There are only a few Long COVID clinics in the U.S. that pull in specialists from multiple disciplines. Tara's being treated at one of them at UCLA. It's meant seeing a neurologist, a pulmonologist, cardiologist, psychiatrist and trauma counselor, all working together to try to understand this disease. She has occasional flare-ups, which can take her out of work for weeks at a time, but she says she has tried various drugs and therapies that have helped. She credits her team of doctors with doing the necessary "detective work."
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Let's catch up you quickly on a few developing stories. Palestinian militants fired rockets, and Israel carried out air strikes this morning. This comes one day after at least 11 Palestinians were killed in a daytime Israeli raid in the West Bank. Israel claims it was targeting three people responsible for previous attacks. The Palestinian health ministry says over 100 people were wounded, and civilian bystanders were among the dead.
In the U.S., Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is visiting the site of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio today. We're also expecting to see a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Last night, CNN hosted a town hall for residents of East Palestine to speak directly with officials. Here's what one resident, Jim Stewart, said to the CEO of the rail operator Norfolk Southern, Alan Shaw.
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Jim Stewart: I don't feel safe in this town now. You took it away from me. You took us away from this. You seem like a sincere man. I'm not calling you names. I'm not. You know, your company stinks because they're not watching what's going on.
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Shaw apologized to residents on the panel and said the company plans to rip out the track where the train derailed and remove soil underneath.
And finally, we're keeping our eyes on a massive winter storm that's affecting a huge part of the United States today. As of this morning, hundreds of thousands of homes across the Midwest didn't have power, and more than 1700 flights have been canceled. Winter weather advisories have been issued in at least 29 states including in Southern California, where they're under a rare blizzard warning.
You can check the latest on the storm and all of these developing stories on the Apple News app.
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Europe recently hit a major milestone in renewable energy. Wind and solar now generate more power for the EU than coal and gas. And as Vox explains, this is a rare climate change success story about what countries can accomplish when there's enough political will.
The war in Ukraine has been a driving factor behind this shift. Russia has cut the majority of gas it supplies to Europe over the last year. Many countries have imposed sanctions on Russian imports, and Europe lacks the infrastructure to distribute gas from other parts of the world, like the United States. So, for much of 2022, gas prices spiked and swung dramatically. Fuel shortages were common. Meanwhile, renewable technology was getting cheaper and more advanced.
All of this propelled Europe to adopt renewable energy quickly. One analyst told Vox that solar energy in particular is on an "unstoppable" growth track. Many households and businesses installed rooftop solar last year as electricity costs went up. France has plans to build them over many parking lots in the country. Now, the EU is now on pace to double its solar capacity by 2026.
Vox estimates the U.S. is not very far behind Europe in adopting renewable energy, but Europe's pivot shows what's possible in a short timeframe.
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Have you ever run a marathon? Cool. Good job. How about seven? Okay, how about seven marathons in seven days across seven continents?
Jill Jamieson recently did exactly that, and she did it just in time to celebrate her 57th birthday. She spoke to a Fox affiliate in Washington D.C. before setting off:
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Jill Jamieson: Some of the other runners I have, you know, t-shirts older than them, so it'll be interesting to see how this all pans out.
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Jamieson is part of a growing set of Americans over the age of 50 who are pulling off extreme athletic feats. The Washington Post talked to her, a 54-year-old skateboarder, a bodybuilder who's in his late 80s, and a 67-year-old surfer for this story.
And it's not all anecdotal. There are some real numbers backing this trend up. Over the past decade, the number of people 60 and older registering for Ironman triathlons has quintupled.
Now, extreme sports are getting more popular across all age groups, but there are a few reasons why more older people are participating. Life expectancy is higher than it once was.
Some older athletes told the Post they got into their sport after a health scare or to simply to challenge preconceptions about aging.
As for Jamieson, the runner? She got a stomach bug during her trip, but she pushed through, and she finished all of the races… not totally unscathed though. She told the Post, "I did throw up on all seven continents." Next up for her is a marathon in April at the North Pole.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next from Town & Country about actor Brian Cox and his infamous "Succession" character Logan Roy ahead of the show's big return next month. So, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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