The crown jewel of the three hotels of the Disneyland resort this yr will go under the knife to get an intensive renovation that refreshes every room, renovated an award -winning restaurant and adds an exclusive lounge for top rollers.

The Grand Californian Hotel & Spa from Disney will refresh all 1,019 rooms with latest carpets, upholstery, bed linen, decor and artistic endeavors. The hotel Disney Vacation Club Villas also get an update.

Disneyland will pursue a gradual approach to update the Grand Californian, whereby the hotel stays open throughout the work that is anticipated to have minor operational effects.

Disneyland to shut Napa rose for extensive revision

The handicraft motif of the 5-star hotel is maintained in every room that was commissioned by the local Impressionist Plin Air Painter with California wildflower accents and latest artistic endeavors.

The hotel decor was inspired by the pioneers of Arts & Crafts Movement Frank Lloyd Wright, Gustav Stickley and Greene & Greene-especially the six-story lobby, which recognizes the National Park Lodges in Yosemite and Yellowstone.

In 2017, Disneyland gave $ 22.9 million for the renovation of the Grand Californian with burnt-out rooms and a refreshing lobby, a pool and club level from the primary major renovation for the reason that hotel in 2001.

In the 2017 renovation, forest wallpapers, arts & crafts ceramics and repeated Redwood Forest and California Poppy design elements were introduced.

Disney's Grand will return it almost a Grand with the nightly room prices of 475 to 980 US dollars, so Tour plans.

Soak within the seventh inning

Ohtani's old team

Extra innings

WASHINGTON – Kyleigh Thurman was bleeding and in pain, but she didn't know her unlucky pregnancy could kill her.

Emergency room doctors at Ascension Seton Williamson Hospital in Texas gave her a pamphlet about miscarriages and advised her to “let nature take its course” before discharging her without treating her ectopic pregnancy.

When the 25-year-old returned three days later, still bleeding, doctors finally agreed to present her an injection to terminate the pregnancy. But it was too late. The fertilized egg growing in Thurman's fallopian tube would rupture it and destroy a part of her reproductive system.

According to a Complaint Thurman and the Center for Reproductive Rights last week, asking the federal government to analyze whether the hospital violated a federal law when staff initially refused to treat her in February 2023.

“I was just left helpless,” Thurman said. “I was just misled.”

Despite the Biden administration's public warning to hospitals to treat pregnant patients only in emergency situations, the facilities proceed to violate federal law. The issue got here under the administration's highlight after reports of improper treatment of ladies in emergency rooms emerged following the Supreme Court's ruling greater than two years ago striking down the constitutional right to abortion.

More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress looking for care in emergency rooms have been turned away or treated negligently since 2022, an Associated Press evaluation of investigations at federal hospitals found.

Two women – one in Florida and one in Texas – suffered miscarriages in public restrooms. In Arkansas, a girl went into septic shock and her fetus died after being sent home within the emergency room. At least 4 other women with ectopic pregnancies had trouble getting treatment, including a California woman who needed a blood transfusion after sitting in an emergency room waiting room for nine hours.

The White House says that despite state bans, hospitals must provide abortions when it’s essential to avoid wasting a girl's health. Texas challenged that policy, and earlier this summer the Supreme Court rejected to repair the issue.

Abortion bans make it difficult to take care of high-risk pregnancies

In Texas, doctors resist 99 years in prison if convicted of performing an illegal abortion. Medical and legal experts say the law makes it harder to make decisions about emergency pregnancy care.

Although terminating an ectopic pregnancy will not be considered an abortion under state law, the draconian penalties deter Texas doctors from treating these patients, argues the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“As much as hospitals and doctors are afraid of violating these state abortion bans, they also have to worry about violating federal law,” said Marc Hearron, a federal government attorney. Hospitals face federal investigation, heavy fines and the specter of having their Medicare funding cut off in the event that they violate federal law.

The organization filed two complaints with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service last week alleging that various Texas emergency rooms didn’t treat two patients with ectopic pregnancies, including Thurman.

Another Complaint says Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz, 25, lost a fallopian tube and most of an ovary after an Arlington, Texas, hospital sent her home without treatment for her ectopic pregnancy, despite the fact that a physician said discharge was “not in her best interest.”

“Doctors knew I needed an abortion, but these bans make it nearly impossible to get basic emergency care,” she said in a press release. “I am filing this complaint because women like me deserve justice and accountability from those who have hurt us.”

Definitely diagnosing an ectopic pregnancy might be difficult. Doctors can't at all times determine the situation of the pregnancy through an ultrasound, explained three different doctors consulted for this text. Hormone levels, bleeding, a positive pregnancy test and an ultrasound of an empty uterus all indicate an ectopic pregnancy.

“You can't be 100 percent sure — that's the hard part,” said Kate Arnold, a Washington gynecologist. “They're literally time bombs. It's a pregnancy growing inside this thing that can only grow to a certain extent.”

John Seago, director of Texas Right to Life, said state law clearly protects doctors from prosecution in the event that they terminate an ectopic pregnancy, even when the doctor “makes an error” in diagnosis.

“Sending a woman home is totally unnecessary and totally dangerous,” Seago said.

But the state law has made doctors “absolutely” afraid to treat pregnant patients, says Hannah Gordon, an emergency physician who worked at a Dallas hospital until last yr.

“It will force doctors to create questionable scenarios for their patients, even if it is very dangerous,” Gordon said. She left Texas in hopes of becoming pregnant and was nervous concerning the care she would receive there.

Gordon recalled a pregnant patient in her emergency room in Dallas who had signs of an ectopic pregnancy. Because the gynecologists said they couldn't clearly diagnose the issue, they waited to terminate the pregnancy until the patient returned the subsequent day.

“It left a bad taste in my mouth,” Gordon said.

“Oh my God, I'm dying.”

When Thurman returned to Ascension Seton Williamson for a 3rd time, her gynecologist told her she would wish surgery to remove the ruptured fallopian tube. Thurman, who was still bleeding heavily, was reluctant to undergo the procedure. Losing the fallopian tube would put her fertility in danger.

However, her doctor told her that if she waited any longer, she would die.

“She came in and said, either you need a blood transfusion, or you need surgery, or you're going to bleed to death,” Thurman said through tears. “I just thought, 'Oh my God, I'm dying.'”

Ascension Seton Williamson declined to comment on Thurman's case, but said in a press release that the hospital is “committed to providing quality care to all who use our services.”

In Florida, a 15-week pregnant woman lost amniotic fluid for an hour within the emergency room at Broward Health Coral Springs, federal documents show. An ultrasound revealed that the patient's fetus was not surrounded by amniotic fluid, a dangerous situation that may result in serious infections.

The woman suffered a miscarriage in a public toilet that very same day after the emergency room doctor declared her condition “improved” and discharged her without consulting the hospital’s gynecologist.

Emergency personnel took her to a different hospital, where she was placed on a ventilator and discharged after six days.

Abortions after 15 weeks were illegal in Florida on the time. The medical director of obstetrics at Broward Health Coral Springs told an investigator that induction of labor in women with premature rupture of the membranes “has been the standard of care for some time, regardless of the heartbeat, because of the risk to the mother.”

The hospital declined to comment or share its policies with AP.

In one other case in Florida, a physician admitted that state law made emergency pregnancy care harder.

“Because of the new laws … staff can only intervene when the patient's health is in danger,” a physician at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, told an investigator looking into the hospital's refusal to supply an abortion to a pregnant woman whose water ruptured at 15 weeks, long before the fetus could survive.

Problems transcend states with abortion bans

In each states with and without abortion bans, serious violations occurred that endangered the health of the mother or her fetus, in line with the AP investigation.

In interviews with investigators, two hospitals in Idaho and Washington which are experiencing staff shortages admitted that they often sent pregnant patients to other hospitals.

A pregnant patient in an emergency room in Bakersfield, California, was examined quickly, but staff failed to acknowledge that she was affected by a uterine rupture. The delay, an investigator concluded, can have contributed to the infant's death.

According to the documents, doctors in emergency rooms in California, Nebraska, Arkansas and South Carolina failed to examine for a fetal heartbeat or discharged patients in mid-labor and left them to present birth at home or in an ambulance.

The shortage of nurses and doctors that hospitals have suffered because the Covid-19 outbreak, the issues in staffing ultrasound stations across the clock and latest abortion laws are making the emergency room a dangerous place for pregnant women, warned Dara Kass, an emergency physician and former official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“It is increasingly unsafe to be pregnant and seek medical help in an emergency room,” she said.

Originally published: August 12, 2024 at 9:45 am

In recent years, the town of Austin, Texas, has approved construction Thousands of windowless rooms in latest housing next to the University of Texas at Austin.

Most of those spaces are rented to UT students, leading to a Deterioration of their well-being.

The Austin City Council will finally make a choice in April 2024 voted to ban the development of windowless bedrooms.

As a Professor at UT's School of ArchitectureI consider this ban to be a late but welcome development. For 25 years, I even have given my students an project called “My Window,” where I ask them to attract a piece of the window of their bedroom. In 2021, some students told me they didn't have a window of their room.

I used to be shocked because as a practicing architect I had at all times assumed that windowless bedrooms were illegal. Some students began sharing photos of their rooms with me and recounting what dozens of scholars have described as their horrific experiences there.

Negative effects on mental health

A standard criticism is “disorganized circadian cycles” and the event of “depression and fatigue.” They attempt to avoid their rooms as much as possible. One student told me about “unbearable loneliness and claustrophobia caused by the four solid walls.” Another complained about waking up.with fear every morning.”

When I learned that windowless bedrooms were being in-built Austin, I started advocating for his or her ban. I asked the town council to take motion letters And in editorials. I read up on the subject and shared my views with architects, professors and students at various locations.

Students also mobilized. In spring 2023, they marched a survey to match students' experiences of living in rooms with and without windows. Students who lived in rooms without windows performed worse in all categories well-known scale that measures well-being.

In September 2023 [letter to Austin’s City Council]762 students called for a ban on windowless rooms. “Our city’s negligence in defending its citizens is being used as a weapon by developers to maximize profits,” they wrote. They also identified that windowless rooms are illegal in cities like New York City and Madrid.

Not legal elsewhere

In fact, windowless bedrooms are illegal in New York City – as in major cities all over the world. A percentage of the room's floor area, laid out in each city's constructing code, determines the minimum window size. In New York City, every bedroom is required to have a window area no less than 10% the scale of the ground area of ​​the room; in Madrid 12%; and in Mexico City 15%.

In Austin, the number was 0% until the recent ban.

Why? There's a straightforward reason for this: Austin, like most cities within the US, follows the International Building Code, and that code has a glaring gap. It is lighting area states: “Every space intended for human occupancy shall be provided with natural light via exterior glazed openings in accordance with Section 1204.2 or with artificial light in accordance with Section 1204.3.”

The code then goes into great detail concerning the specific requirements for every situation. But the word “or” leaves the door open for some developers to interpret the code to make natural light optional.

To protect themselves from these developers, cities like Chicago and Washington, DC, have closed the loophole by simply replacing “or” with “and” of their adopted codes. Austin is finally doing just that. The recently approved The code revision bans windowless Bedroom when it comes into force on May 20, 2024.

Profit comes first

Unfortunately, developers have already taken advantage of the loophole and built hundreds of windowless bedrooms that can soon now not be legal to construct, but will still be legally allowed to rent out.

Windowless rooms haven’t led to lower rents for college students in Austin. Additionally, during my two-year campaign to ban windowless spaces, no developer spoke in favor of it before the Austin City Council.

They built them quietly while they might, because student dormitories are what they’re very profitableand much more so when windowless rooms are allowed.

How come? This is because a bulky constructing with interior spaces distant from the façade can occupy more interior space with a smaller proportion of exterior partitions, that are costlier to construct than interior partitions.

A vulnerable population

Namratha Thrikutam, a UT architecture student, sums up the plight of her fellow students living in windowless spaces: “Students are a population that developers know they can exploit.”

“We don't have that much money. We don't have that much reputation in the world. We don’t have that much experience with the things we’ve been through, so it’s very easy to take advantage of us,” she says said the Daily Texanthe official newspaper of UT Austin.

Attracted by the proximity to campus, students in windowless rooms try to come back to terms with it with lush room decoration, circadian LED lighting, mental therapy or medication.

For example a Exchange student from Spain who had unknowingly rented a windowless room contacted me and asked for help. She told me that since she was illegal in her hometown of Barcelona, ​​it never occurred to her that the room she rented before arriving in Austin is perhaps windowless.

She described her anxiety and deteriorating mental health after just just a few days in her unit. When I wrote to their property manager on their behalf and asked for a room with a window, they replied: “We do not promise windows in any of our rooms. Like other buildings in the Austin area, no windows are promised.” Shockingly, the leases also make no mention of no windows.

Similar to immigrants in New York City Tenement houses within the 1850s, UT students were left to fend for themselves. Austin has failed them by approving the development of hundreds of windowless housing units.

UT, a top public universityhas let her down Not enough university accommodation is provided and by remaining silent in the course of the campaign to ban windowless rooms. The university's position is predicated on the indisputable fact that West Campus “falls under the jurisdiction of the City of Austin,” in line with a press release obtained by The Conversation.

My viewpoint is: Yes, but these are your students asking for help.

And architects have failed students by voluntarily designing windowless rooms. The architects ignored one in every of them Core Guidelines from the American Institute of Architects: “to consider the physical, mental and emotional impact of a building on its occupants.”

Changes sought

The experiences of scholars living in windowless rooms in Austin should function a cautionary tale to authorities who control constructing codes. If windowless rooms are already illegal in your city, stick to it. If they don't, ban them as soon as possible. If not, students and other vulnerable populations reminiscent of immigrants, seniors and low-income people would at all times be a possible goal for developers.

In the meantime, and to guard these populations, I’m working with other concerned architects across the U.S. to shut the gap on the source by amending the International Building Code directly, reasonably than expecting every city to shut it through an area change to its codes . like Austin just did.

It's a slow and bureaucratic process, but ultimately the message must be clear: natural light in buildings must be a human right, not a developer's alternative.