We know that women make less than men during the best of times—in 2018 women’s weekly wages were 81.1% that of men, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. During this recession not only were sectors with higher proportions of female employees disproportionately affected, but female employees have been disproportionately more likely to be laid off than their male counterparts. Women-owned businesses are also more likely to be in the healthcare, education, or retail sectors that have been so hard hit during COVID-19. Partially due to lower income overall, women also tend to have less buffer to weather financial storms.

This paints a dire picture for women’s mental health. We can readily empathize with financial strain, the fear that accompanies it and the catastrophic negative impact it can have on mental health. We may also appreciate that despite the reluctance we might frequently feel to get out of bed and go to work on a Monday morning, there is a well-established link between employment and mental health. We know that becoming unemployed is associated with depression and suicidality, and that gaining employment is associated with an improvement in mental health. Furthermore, in a socially distanced world in which women are substantially less able to receive household help or have contact with females outside their immediate household, there is a greater burden on the support that partners provide. Unfortunately, we know that within relationships, financial concerns are a major driver of conflict between partners, jeopardizing the support available to struggling mothers.

Millions of Americans are carrying on with their travel plans ahead of Thanksgiving weekend despite the CDC's urgent warnings to stay home as the number of daily cases and hospitalizations in the country continue to hit record highs.

Confirmed cases in the U.S. for the disease topped 12 million on Saturday as more than 193,000 new infections were recorded in the US on Friday. This broke the previous record for the largest single-day spike on Thursday - and over 82,000 patients are now hospitalized across the country.

Daily deaths also skyrocketed to 2,015, the highest number of fatalities per day since May during the initial peak of the virus, according to health data from Johns Hopkins University.

The alarming surge shows the nation is facing a second wave of the coronavirus this winter that could be more dangerous and widespread than the initial outbreak earlier this year.

'When you look at what's happening now, the rate of rise is dramatically different,' White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx told CNN. 'This is faster. It's broader. And what worries me, it could be longer.'

It has also sparked fears among health experts that Thanksgiving travel and holiday gatherings next week will only fuel the spread of the virus and prolong the length of the pandemic.

Cash-strapped renters nationwide say their landlords tried to skirt COVID-19 eviction moratoriums by changing locks, removing trash containers so waste piled up and – in one case – attempting to unbolt the front door right off an apartment.

They told state attorneys general that they were kicked out of their homes after landlords accused them of violating tenant rules, like smoking cigarettes inside their units or failing to take the hitches off of their mobile homes.

Like Heidi Stach, who lost her job due to the pandemic and fell behind on rent, they assumed they were protected. But Stach says her landlord found an end-run to Wisconsin’s eviction ban: Instead of starting a court process, he sent her a notice to vacate this summer because he was not renewing her lease.

Dear Prudence,
I am a professional woman who has been married for 16 years. My job is stressful, and I often work 12 hours or more. We have no children. At first things were wonderful, and my husband always seemed like a sweet, mild-mannered, caring man. Three years in, he was laid off because his company ran into financial trouble. Because I am a high-earner, I told him he didn’t need to go back to work as long as he kept the house up and did basic repair projects. He never went back to work, but he never kept the house up, either. We also hired housecleaners to visit every two weeks, but in between nothing got done. I asked him to go back to work. He didn’t. I strongly suspected he was having affairs a few years later, but he always denied it. I have no concrete proof, but he did many suspicious things like hiding months of phone bills and having midnight texts. Years later he voluntarily took two polygraph tests to save the marriage (we stopped having intimate relations five years ago mostly because I no longer admired, respected, or trusted him, and because of my resentment toward him on several levels). He failed the tests.

Until lately, I generally ignored all my feelings and went about trying to have a good life. My husband will not discuss our issues because, he says, he clams up or needs time to think. I verbalize my needs and frustrations all the time. At one point he started snapping at me and rolling his eyes, but I firmly and strongly told him to stop, which he mostly has. I demanded that he get a job, and he finally works 25 hours a week making a small salary. He knows I no longer love him (in the least), but he won’t leave. We now live in separate bedrooms. We have been to two marriage counselors. I have told him I will go back if he is willing to discuss his unfaithfulness, which he still denies. He states the lie-detector tests are invalid. The house and everything we own are paid for by me alone. I need to divorce, but he will take everything I own, plus alimony. On the surface, he is a nice, charming, religious guy. None of our friends know about our marriage troubles, and they would be shocked to hear this. Advice, please.

—Trapped

Dr. Henry Walke, the CDC’s Covid-19 incident manager, said there is “no more important time than now for each and every American to redouble our efforts to watch our distance, wash our hands and, most importantly, wear a mask.”

“CDC is recommending against travel during the Thanksgiving period,” he said. “For Americans who decide to travel, CDC recommends doing so as safely as possible by following the same recommendations for everyday living.”

Walke added that the CDC is concerned “about the transportation hubs.” He said he’s worried people won’t be able to maintain social distancing while waiting in line, for example, to board buses and planes.

A group of researchers in Spain have been looking at how different regular activities affect your chances of catching the coronavirus, and there is some bad news: Walking the dog increases your odds of catching COVID by 78 percent.

I love to eat (ever since I got over my fear of eating). I tend to eat until I feel sick. Similar to how people test their alcohol consumption to see how much they can drink without puk­ing, I’ve tested how much food I can eat and still fuck. On nights I know I’m going to be having sex, of course I eat less, which is annoying but in the end it’s worth it, because you get to have sex and feel good and not bloated while having it. This — and the fact that you shaved for no reason — is why being flaked on sucks, especially for girls, because in antici­pation of hanging out, we ate just one piece of pizza instead of the regular four, and now it’s late and we’re hungry and we didn’t even get laid. Although not eating and then getting flaked on is still preferable to the times where we eat a shit­ load and then randomly get asked to hang out. This is most distressing because there is almost nothing in the world we wouldn’t drop to spend time with our crush. The only rea­son we will say no to a spontaneous hang is because it’s after dinner and we don’t feel hot. It will pain us to say no for this reason, but trust me, we will.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that most California counties will soon be in the state's most restrictive COVID-19 tier amid a surge in cases and that the state is considering a curfew.

"California is pulling an emergency brake," he said in announcing that 41 counties, which comprise over 94% of the state's population, will be in the purple tier, effective Tuesday. Last week, 13 counties were in the state's most restrictive tier.

“We are sounding the alarm,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is experiencing the fastest increase in cases we have seen yet -- faster than what we experienced at the outset of the pandemic or even this summer. The spread of COVID-19, if left unchecked, could quickly overwhelm our health care system and lead to catastrophic outcomes."

When counties are in the purple tier, indoor operations for places like museums, houses of worship, gyms and restaurants are not allowed. When counties move into the less restrictive red tier, they can resume indoor operations at several businesses -- but with modifications.

A few weeks ago, I was supposed to take my sons to an outdoor activity that ended up getting canceled due to weather. We found out about the cancellation when we were halfway there. Before I turned around, I texted my husband that we would be heading home and never got a text back. This wasn’t unusual, as he usually puts his phone on “do not disturb” while he’s working. When we got home, I opened the door to find my husband and his best friend, “Ryan,” completely naked, and having fairly rough sex on our dining room table. They had music blaring, so they didn’t hear us come in, and my sons and I were all in shock and just stood there for a good 30 to 60 seconds before I was able to shut the music off, and they realized what was going on and could cover up. Obviously, this is a bit of a chaotic situation.

Ryan is like an uncle to my kids, has dinner at our house several times a week, has occasionally lived with us, and he and my husband actually work together. My husband and I are planning on staying together and are still trying to figure a lot of things out. Here’s the problem: My younger son (6) is pretty oblivious and thought Uncle Ryan was wrestling with his dad. My middle son (9) is very confused about the mechanics of what we saw (we’ve had the sex talk with him, but in hindsight, we made the mistake of only talking about heterosexual sex). My older son (12) is having a very difficult time. My middle son has a lot of questions that I’m not really sure how to answer, and I’m not sure how much detail I should be going into, and who should be leading this conversation (me? my husband? a doctor?). I’ve been getting phone calls home from my older son’s school. Ever since the incident, he has apparently been making derogatory remarks about gay people, using slurs, and is also refusing to speak to his father (they were previously pretty close). The school is threatening to expel him. We’re on the waitlist for individual and family therapy, but I was wondering if you guys had any advice about what to do with my two older sons?

—What Now?

Sandy Kretschmer imagines her son Henry returning home from college, dropping his bags and then giving her a big hug. But she knows the reality of this homecoming may be a lot different.

"I'll probably have a mask on, and he'll have a mask on when I hug him," she says.

Henry plans to take a COVID-19 test a few days before he leaves Iowa State University where he's a junior, and he'll self-quarantine until he heads home to Chicago.

"There are students who are choosing to stay in the dorms because they have family members who are high risk," she says.

She recommends students take another test when they get home, and in the meantime, they should stay masked up after they return home and keep 6 feet away from other family members.

Scientists have developed a new interactive map that shows the risk of contracting coronavirus anywhere in the US in real-time.

The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool tells Americans their odds of encountering at least one person with the virus in every county at an event with a crowd size ranging from 10 people to 5,000 people.

This means you can assess the risk of one coronavirus-positive individual being at a 10-person dinner party, a Thanksgiving gathering with 25 guests, a 100-person wedding or a concert with 1,000 attendees.

Public health experts are sounding the alarm about the trajectory of the pandemic in the United States as the coronavirus spreads through the country largely unabated and officials muse aloud about the possibility of fresh lockdowns.

“Our hospitals are full,” Megan Ranney, an emergency medicine professor at Brown University, said in an interview. “Our workers are getting sick. And it is simply overwhelming the system.”

The rapid rise in hospitalizations could foreshadow a long period of rising deaths, said Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration. Although improvements in care have pushed the mortality rate below 1 percent in the United States, 1,549 people died of the virus Wednesday, the highest toll since April.

Frieden tweeted that the United States has entered “the exponential phase” of virus spread and that the situation will worsen significantly before it improves. But he emphasized that policy decisions have an impact, and throwing in the towel is the wrong solution.

“If people on the whole just go to the store one less time a week, you could substantially reduce spread,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.”

The holiday season, meanwhile, is a looming danger that Ranney expects will lead to a “deadly” spike in infections. The virus’s prevalence across the country means that this is the worst time for people to increase their risk of transmission by attending family-centric celebrations, she said.

Oh snap!

Jaws dropped when a massive dinosaur-like alligator was caught prowling the lawn of a Florida golf club during Tropical Storm Eta.

The mammoth emerald beast, with legs longer than a dog’s and a hulking, meaty torso, was caught on video taking a stroll through the Valencia Golf & Country Club in Naples as the downgraded hurricane battered Florida’s Gulf coast Wednesday.

Even if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to zero, global temperatures may continue to rise for centuries afterward, according to a scientific study published Thursday.

"The world is already past a point of no return for global warming," the study authors report in the British journal Scientific Reports. The only way to stop the warming, they say, is that "enormous amounts of carbon dioxide have to be extracted from the atmosphere."

The burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to increase and sea levels to rise.

The scientists modeled the effect of greenhouse gas emission reductions on changes in the Earth's climate from 1850 to 2500 and created projections of global temperature and sea level rises.

There's many a woman who, after a dreadful first date or a bout of office mansplaining, has uttered the words ‘I hate men’.

I have often heard friends say that very thing. In fact, at some point in her life, I bet practically every woman has said it.

But if pressed on the point, many would add that, of course, they don’t really hate the opposite sex. After all, we have men in our lives we don’t hate — a brother, a father, a best friend.

So when a woman stands up and insists she really does hate men, it causes something of a stir.