A Georgia couple says an unexpected decision to leave their tour group and visit Mount Everest may have saved their lives during Nepal’s deadly flooding.

Mita and Hemant Parikh, from Suwanee, Georgia, were on a long-planned pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, one of Hinduism’s holiest destinations, when they made an unplanned change to their travel itinerary.

When they eventually returned to their hotel, they found it destroyed. Several families and all of the guides traveling with the group remain missing.

The Parikhs were among 47 travelers from the United States, Australia and other countries taking part in the pilgrimage. Seven guides were accompanying the group.

Their choice to make a separate trip to Lhasa and Everest Base Camp—places that were not included in the original tour—would ultimately change the course of their lives.

‘That’s what we talk to each other every single day,’ Mita told CBS Atlanta. ‘Why did we decide this way?’

The couple had spent 15 years preparing for the spiritual journey.

‘Everybody has a bucket list, but this bucket list, you don’t choose it,’ Mita said. A deeply religious woman, she described her faith and a higher power as the forces that guided her toward the trip.

Hemant proposed the detour after being drawn to the possibility of seeing Mount Everest, despite knowing he would never try to climb the world’s highest mountain.

‘Mount Everest is the highest peak in the world, and I said, at least, I cannot climb, but I can go and see from a distance,’ he explained.

Under normal circumstances, the added cost and disruption might have persuaded them to stay with their original plans. This time, however, they did not hesitate.

‘Usually we argue, or tickets are expensive – no, let’s not go,’ Mita recalled. ‘But I don’t know why we both agreed.’

Once they had viewed Everest, the Parikhs intended to rejoin their fellow travelers with the separate guide who had led them to the mountain viewpoint.

Instead, they returned to a scene of devastation after the catastrophic flooding struck.

The hotel where they had been staying had been completely washed away by the floodwaters, and the restless couple could no longer reach their fellow travelers.

What had begun as a spontaneous sightseeing excursion had separated them from the group just as flooding swept through the region.

Mita said the experience has left her haunted by those they left behind.

‘As soon as I close my eyes, I see Kailash, and I see the people,’ she added ‘I don’t know what happened.’

Hemant, meanwhile, said he continues to struggle with the question of why they survived when so many others remain missing.

‘I ask myself why?’ he said. ‘And I don’t have an answer.’

For Mita, the unanswered question has become inescapable.

‘That’s what keeps me awake,’ she said. ‘Why? Why God chose us to live. So there has to be some purpose, right?’

The flooding has caused widespread destruction across Nepal, devastating homes, roads and other infrastructure.

At least 1,400 people have died, while more than 6,000 remain missing, according to officials. At least 85 of those reported missing are US citizens.

A Florida couple said they were attacked and pepper-sprayed by two women after briefly stepping into the road while walking to work.

Felyz Rodriguez, who is transgender, and Davin Lopez were walking in northwest Miami-Dade on Sunday when they briefly left the sidewalk. The couple told NBC Miami that two women in a car confronted them and allegedly began hurling abuse.

The encounter quickly escalated. In video shared online, the driver—who was wearing bright green booty shorts—can be seen scuffling with Rodriguez in the street and pulling her hair.

Rodriguez was eventually thrown to the ground after becoming caught in the vehicle’s open door.

The couple said the confrontation began as a road-rage incident after the women became angry that they were walking in the street.

“They were like, guys, get out of the road, idiots,” Lopez said, describing the moments before the alleged attack.

Lopez acknowledged making a “hand gesture” toward the vehicle after the women shouted at them. He said the driver then made an abrupt U-turn and sped back toward the couple.

Rodriguez began filming with her phone. In the footage, Lopez walks in front of her and asks the women in the car, “Why the f–k y’all bothering us?”

The couple said both women then got out of the vehicle and attacked them.

“Next thing you know, one gets out and starts pepper spraying me,” Lopez said.

The sound of pepper spray being discharged can be heard in the recording as Rodriguez filmed the car and captured its license plate.

A separate video recorded by a nearby resident captured the violent confrontation at a corner close to the resident’s home.

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“There is a girl in a car trying to run over a guy at the corner of my house,” the resident can be heard telling authorities during a phone call.

Rodriguez said she tried not to escalate the situation, even after one of the women pulled her hair.

“She yanks me. I’m trying my best to not put my hands on anybody because, instead of trying to make it worse, I’m trying to de-escalate it.”

Rodriguez said she was being assaulted beside the open driver’s-side door when the second woman got behind the wheel and began reversing.

The video shows Rodriguez becoming entangled in the open door before being thrown onto the pavement.

“Oh my god! Oh my god!” the resident recording the incident can be heard shouting in fear as the vehicle reverses into Rodriguez.

Investigators said Rodriguez and Lopez suffered bruises, cuts and swelling. The two women then left the scene, according to the couple.

“It was all unprovoked; we’re just walking,” Rodriguez said.

“It’s just sad, honestly, just thinking about it, it confuses me, I’m confused, I’m distraught, I’m just traumatized at this point honestly.”

Rodriguez questioned whether the attack was a “hate crime.”

“Is it a hate crime, is it something personal, or is it simply you have nothing to do?” Rodriguez told the outlet.

Lopez wrote on Facebook Monday that “hopefully they are able to catch these females for causing us distress and emotional/physical damage.”

“People like this who think it’s okay to just antagonize, provoke and ATTACK ANYONE just out of boredom should pay serious consequences… and we gonna make sure of it,” he wrote.

When families cannot secure reliable, affordable child care, the consequences often reach far beyond the home. Parents may be forced to miss shifts, lose jobs or step away from the workforce altogether, reducing household income while creating costs for employers and taxpayers. A new ReadyNation report estimates that the child care shortage now drains roughly $122 billion from the U.S. economy each year.

Families bear the largest share of that impact, losing more than $5,500 per parent annually — over $78 billion nationwide — when care is unavailable or insufficient. Businesses lose an estimated $1,640 per working parent, or about $23 billion a year, through missed revenue and the expense of recruiting replacements. Government revenue also suffers, with approximately $21 billion in lost income and sales tax collections, equivalent to about $1,470 per working parent, as reduced earnings lead to lower spending.

“We conducted this analysis four years ago, and the situation was already bad. Now it is worse,” said Sandra Bishop, chief research officer at the bipartisan nonprofit Council for a Stronger America, which includes ReadyNation and two other organizations. Without meaningful policy changes, she warned, the economic damage from the child care crisis will continue to grow.

The latest estimate is more than twice the $57 billion in annual economic losses identified in the group’s 2018 study, underscoring how sharply the child care crisis has intensified.

“The effects were broader and more severe,” Bishop said. More parents reported disruptions at work, including leaving jobs or being dismissed. In some cases, she noted, the number of affected workers had doubled since the earlier study.

Even the $122 billion figure may understate the true cost, Bishop said. The analysis focused only on families with children younger than three, although child care challenges frequently continue well beyond the toddler years.

The report found that 85% of primary caregivers said child care problems had reduced their working hours or productivity. Nearly two-thirds, or 64%, said they had arrived late to work during the previous three months. Fifty-eight percent had missed an entire workday, while 53% said they had been distracted on the job. The strain has also changed parents’ employment decisions: 33% moved from full-time to part-time work, 26% quit a job and 23% said they had been fired because of child care difficulties.

Those disruptions are unfolding as the nation continues to face a labor shortage. More than 11 million jobs were open at the end of last year, and the rate at which workers quit remained higher than before the pandemic. For companies in many industries, attracting and retaining qualified employees remains a major obstacle.

Contec Inc., a manufacturing company in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has experienced that challenge firsthand. The company has struggled to fill positions and has lost employees who could not find workable child care arrangements.

Founder and CEO Jack McBride said the company tries to adjust schedules when employees need a different shift to care for their children. Contec has also told former workers who left because of child care problems that their positions will remain available if they are able to secure care — a reflection of how urgently the company needs staff.

Demand for Contec’s cleaning and disinfectant products stayed strong throughout the pandemic. With more employees, the company could increase production and sales, but for now it is relying heavily on existing workers and paying “a ton” in overtime. McBride said he would consider partnering with other businesses on child care, though operating an on-site center would not be financially practical for Contec on its own.

The company is preparing to introduce three months of paid child care leave for both parents beginning this summer. The benefit is designed to give new parents time to bond with their children while helping cover some of the expenses during those early months. McBride has also been working with local leaders in Spartanburg to promote the importance of early childhood education.

As child care expenses continue to rise, more employers are offering pre-tax dependent care spending accounts. Data from the human resources association World at Work, which surveyed more than 800 organizations of varying sizes, showed a 6% increase in the availability of these accounts from 2021 to last year. However, most employers do not contribute directly, keeping their costs relatively low. The tax benefit can still help families, though the accounts were capped at $5,000 in 2022 — below the median price of child care.

World at Work found that 49% of employers provide child care information and referral services. Only 10% offer on-site or nearby centers, up from 7% in 2016 but below the 12% peak recorded in 2020 and 2021. Just 9% provide child care subsidies or discounts, a figure that has changed little since 2016.

The problem is particularly difficult for small businesses, which often lack the resources to offer extensive benefits. In one survey, more than half of small-business owners said their employees faced child care problems during the pandemic. Eight in 10 supported congressional action to expand access to affordable care.

Child care centers and home-based providers nationwide have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, federal funding that helped stabilize the industry during the height of the pandemic is scheduled to begin expiring later this year. Child care experts and business owners fear the loss of that support could push even more providers and workers out of the field.

The United States spends about $2,400 per child from infancy through age five on early education and child care. By comparison, European Union countries spend an average of nearly $4,700 per child, while some invest three times as much.

“From a business perspective, I see this as a long-term competitiveness issue,” McBride said. He argued that the United States lacks the educational culture and investment found in some other countries, warning that the gap could eventually make it harder for the nation to compete globally.