Nurses, home care clinicians plan large-scale strike in Boston
A sign points the way to Brigham and Women’s Hospital June 3, 2001 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
(BOSTON) — More than 4,000 nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and 450 Mass General Brigham home care clinicians are scheduling a strike Wednesday morning, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
The strike would be the largest nurse and healthcare professional strike in Massachusetts history, according to a Massachusetts Nurses Association press release.
“At both bargaining tables, the nurses and clinicians made significant efforts to compromise and offered to continue negotiating to avoid a strike,” the association wrote in a statement. “MGB refused to improve its proposals and declined opportunities to continue bargaining.”
The nurses’ strike, expected to begin at 7 a.m. Wednesday, is scheduled to last one day and be followed by a four-day lockout imposed by Mass General Brigham, the association said. Mass General Brigham home care clinicians plan to strike for seven days beginning at 8 a.m. on the same day, according to the union.
The union said it is seeking more competitive wage increases that keep pace with the rising cost of living, among other demands. It cited data from the MassINC Policy Center, which said the income needed to maintain a middle-class standard of living for a family of four in Massachusetts jumped 50% from 2020 to 2024.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital said in a statement that Brigham nurses are “among the highest compensated in the market.”
The hospital said it plans to continue providing high-quality patient care throughout the work stoppage.
Scott Sperling, Mass General Brigham board chair and co-CEO of a private equity firm, wrote to the association in an email on Sunday night, stating that s “substantial effort” has been made to find common ground, according to the association’s press release.
On Tuesday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey released a joint statement encouraging both sides to resume negotiations.
“A strike and lockout of this scale would cause serious disruption across the Greater Boston region, and the possibility that patient care could be impacted through diversions, delays, or other emergency measures is deeply concerning to the communities we represent,” the statement said.
The vast empty plains stretch to the horizon in Springfield, Colorado, the county seat of Baca County, on May 10, 2026. Baca County has received only .78 inches of rain since Jan. 1, 2026. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Farms all over the country are bracing for the impact of drought after months of little precipitation, experts told ABC News.
More than 60% of the continental United States has been under moderate drought or worse conditions since April 7, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The nation as a whole has experienced a dry, warm period that began in the early autumn of 2025 and has pushed into recent weeks, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told ABC News.
Long-term drought trends have put Midwest crops at risk
Farms in the Midwest that produce winter wheat have been especially impacted, Rippey said. The largest region that produces winter wheat — the Great Plains stretching from Montana to Texas — has been hit the hardest by drought as well as some spring freezes, Rippey added.
Up to 44% of this year’s winter wheat is rated as very poor to poor, according to the latest data from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), released on Tuesday. Nebraska is at the top of the list, with 82% of its winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor, but states like Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas are experiencing high rates of poor crop as well, according to the NASS.
While there was good moisture when the winter wheat was planted in the fall, extremely dry conditions from the beginning of March through the first half of May prevented optimal growing conditions, Brad Fuller, president of the Western Horizons Corporation and a consulting agronomist to many farms in Kansas, told ABC News.
Agriculture experts are expecting a 32% abandonment of winter wheat in the U.S. this year, according to the USDA’s Wheat Outlook. Such a high abandonment rate has only happened once since the Dust Bowl era in 1933 — in 2022 when drought conditions were at record highs, Riddey said.
The issues have also extended to the cattle industry due to poor rangeland and pasture conditions as a result of the dry conditions, Riddey said.
“A lot of the rangeland and pastures out in the middle section of the country are also in pretty rough shape heading into the key hay production season,” Riddey said.
Farmers in the Midwest are holding out hope for the spring-planted crops. But conditions were so dry in recent weeks that some growers skipped planting crops like corn or sorghum, Fuller said.
“We’ve had places in southwest Kansas that have gone well over 200 days without more than a half an inch of rain,” he said.
Farms in the West could be at risk as well
The West is facing dry, hot conditions in the near future, coming off “devastatingly” warm months in March and April, Riddey said. To exacerbate the situation, some reservoirs — especially Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the largest in the country — are experiencing low water levels due to the lack of snowpack during the winter.
These reservoirs are crucial for farms in the West that supply the rest of the country, Steven Fassnacht, a professor of snow hydrology at Colorado State University, told ABC News. About 75% of the nation’s lettuce and leafy greens are grown in California, according to the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture.
When there’s less surface water, farmers in California will turn to groundwater, Amanda Fencl, director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News. But overuse of groundwater can decrease the water quality and lower the groundwater table, causing the land above it to sink. Overuse of groundwater can also alter the soil moisture, making it drier and lower, Fassnacht said.
Lake Mead could reach a record-low level of 1,036 feet of elevation in 2026, according to the 24-month study released by the Bureau of Reclamation last week. Lake Powell is also projected to drop to a new record-low level in the coming months, surpassing the previous record of around 3,520 feet set in 2023, Cody Moser, senior hydrologist at the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center, said during a webinar on May 7. The Colorado River basin as a whole is currently sitting at 49% of storage of its historic average, Riddey said.
“There are a lot of pieces of pie for that limited Western water,” Riddey said.
Small, family-run farms would be most impacted by water shortages, Fencl said. They may be faced with having to take certain crops out of production or changing which crops they decide to harvest.
Drought conditions typically lead to lower yields and loss in profits, Fencl added.
What will climate conditions be like in the near future?
While it has been raining in the Midwest in recent days, it’s not nearly enough to make up for the dry conditions over the last eight months, Riddey said.
“It’s not going to recover from just a couple of rain events,” he said. “It will take some time.”
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Monsoon season is expected to start in early July and last through August and September. After that, the development of El Niño conditions in October will bring more drought relief into the fall, winter and spring of 2027, Riddey said.
“All indications are we should see a pretty active monsoon that could provide some relief, but we have to get between now and monsoon onset,” he said.
Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court at the Ted Weiss Federal Building on July 09, 2025 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(WINNFIELD, La.) — A Georgian immigrant who officials said died last week in Immigrant and Customs Enforcement custody is the 50th person to die in ICE detention during the second Trump administration.
Mamuka Artmeladze, 43, died on June 4 at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, according to an agency notification sent to lawmakers.
In the notification, ICE officials said that Artmeladze was found unresponsive and was transported to a local medical center.
“Despite lifesaving efforts, at approximately 11:22 p.m., an onsite physician at Winn Parish Medical Center pronounced Artmeladze deceased,” ICE said. “His official cause of death is currently pending an autopsy.”
ICE said that Artmeladze was taken into custody in February in New Orleans during an operation “targeting commercial vehicle drivers who posed public safety risks.”
“ICE took him into custody after officials determined he had no lawful status to remain in the United States,” the agency said.
The increase in ICE deaths comes amid scrutiny from lawmakers and immigrant advocates about the conditions at detention centers during the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown.
According to an ABC News analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data and the number of detainee deaths provided to Congress from ICE, the first 14 months of the second Trump administration represent the most deadly period for the federal detention system in recent years — with the exception of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic contributed to detention deaths.
Last week, ICE ended a policy that required the agency to report the deaths of former detainees that occurred within 30 days of their release from federal custody.
The policy, issued during the Biden administration, directed the agency to review and report all detainee fatalities, including those that occurred up to a month following release.
The Hookers’ boat, “Soulmate,” is seen in Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, April 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Cadaver dogs are heading to help with the search for Lynette Hooker, an American woman who’s missing in the Bahamas, according to police.
The K-9 team from the U.S. Coast Guard will be on the ground in Hope Town on Wednesday morning, Advardo Dames, assistant commissioner of the Royal Bahamas Police, told ABC News.
Lynette Hooker has been missing since she went overboard on a dinghy on the evening of April 4.
When the 55-year-old Michigan woman and her husband, Brian Hooker, departed Hope Town on the Abaco Islands for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay, bad weather caused her to fall off the dinghy, her husband told authorities.
Brian Hooker, 58, was arrested on April 8 and questioned by police. He was released on Monday without charges.
Brian Hooker told ABC News on Tuesday that he’s staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
He said he was planning “to go back to the boat, and then hire or beg people to help me go find some areas to search.”
Brian Hooker’s attorney did not allow him to answer questions about what happened the night his wife went overboard due to the pending investigation.
When asked if there was anything he wishes he’d done differently, Brian Hooker was emotional, saying, “I will always think there was something I could have done differently. My one job, my one job was to look out for her, and that has not happened. And I’m gonna keep looking out for her now, the best I can.”
ABC News’ Brian Andrews contributed to this report.
