Good morning. Welcome back to us today. It's Thursday, September 15th. I'm Nailibutu.

An 11-hour deal averts a railroad strike. But in Minnesota, nurses are already there.

American workers are fed up. That's today's one big thing.

A major rail strike has been averted. That's the early morning statement from the White House.

Here's why this matters. Virtually everything in our country from food to gas and retail goods

relies on a nearly 140,000 mile rail network that expands across 49 states. But the tens of

thousands of freight workers and their unions appear to have reached an agreement.

Axios' Emily Pack has the breaking news. Good morning, Emily.

Hey, Naila. Emily first. What's the background here?

So the rail workers and the unions have been trying to hammer out this contract since 2019.

They took a little break for the pandemic, as we all did. And then they were right back at it

in 2021. And again, until last night, they were trying to close the deal. How much damage could

this have caused? Oh my gosh, Naila, this would have been really economically devastating,

especially for the United States in 2022 when we're just trying to combat the inflation

that we're all struggling with. And the supply chain crisis, the rails are absolutely critical

to the nation's supply chains. Emily, what world did the White House play in all of this?

The White House was very closely involved. They were there last night.

White House officials said, we just ordered dinner. This is still going on. We're still at the

table. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was in DC yesterday at the table leading the talks. Biden

was on the phone with union leaders and rail companies as well, trying to hammer out a deal.

What was the sticking point? The sticking point, Naila, was not really pay, but working conditions

on the rails, their issues regarding sick pay and time off. Workers complained about being

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