Nordstrom closes San Francisco store on grim note amid naked mannequins, empty display cases
Jessica Garrison – August 27, 2023
Nordstrom’s flagship store at the San Francisco Centre mall has closed its doors. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
Nordstrom’s San Francisco flagship, which for decades occupied crucial real estate at the San Francisco Centre mall on Market Street, closed its doors Sunday.
The last days of the high-end store known for its shoes and its service were grim; ABC7 on a recent visit captured images of empty display cases and stacks of naked mannequins and interviewed an employee — whose worn black sneakers were the only part of him in the shot to protect his identity — speaking darkly about crime in the city’s once-vibrant shopping district.
During the store’s last hours on Sunday afternoon, the pattern appeared to break. An employee answering the phone said they were too busy with customers to talk.
The store’s closing has prompted yet another round of hand-wringing about the future of downtown San Francisco. Since the pandemic sent tech workers home by the thousands, with some never to return, foot traffic in the area has plummeted. Stores have closed in droves. The retail vacancy rate in the city was 6% in the first quarter of 2023, the highest in the city since 2006, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate services firm.
In announcing the closure of Nordstrom this spring, Jamie Nordstrom, the company’s chief stores officer, said “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”
But critics of San Francisco’s political leaders have jumped on the closure as yet another result of the city’s progressive Democratic leadership.
Incidentally, the headquarters of X are just a few blocks west of the now-shuttered Nordstrom, and Chief Executive Elon Musk recently tweeted that he planned to stay. He took a dig at the city in making the announcement, though.
“The city is in a doom spiral, with one company after another left or leaving,” he said. “We will not. … San Francisco, beautiful San Francisco, though others forsake you, we will always be your friend.”
Though San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, has frequently been at odds with Musk in recent months, on this she expressed a similar sentiment.
After Nordstrom announced its closure in May, Breed held a news conference in Union Square to announce funding to revitalize some streets in the area.
Earlier this month, she also announced that the city was studying the idea of turning the struggling mall that Nordstrom is abandoning into a soccer stadium.
“We know we need to combat the issues around crime and public safety and affordability and transportation,” Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But I am optimistic about the future, because what we are seeing in San Francisco is something like nothing else before. We have the possibility to be whatever we want to be.”
Shocked customer outraged by company’s insensitive ‘hurricane sale’ offer: ‘Why would someone order [that]?’
Leo Collis – August 27, 2023
Hurricane Hilary has been causing chaos since forming off Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, submerging the town of Santa Rosalia in Mexico and leading many residents in California to evacuate their homes.
But one business saw this as an opportunity to push a “hurricane sale,” and customers were shocked at the brazen attempt to turn the disaster into profit.
In a post on Reddit, one user screenshotted an email app notification after receiving a message from Cromulent Records in California that promised 33% off LPs since SoCal customers were “trapped in the house.”
Photo Credit: u/jmoneyawyeah / Reddit
“Trapped in the house?” one user replied. “I was trapped in a house that succumbed to rising flood waters. Being ‘trapped’ is no fun. … Stick your sale up your money grubbing a**!”
“Why would someone order something to a house that might not exist in a week,” another added.
According to the Associated Press, one person in Mexico drowned in a vehicle swept away by an overflowing stream during severe rainfall, and 850 people were evacuated from the Baja coast by Mexico’s navy as Hurricane Hilary approached.
Meanwhile, many have seen their homes and livelihoods damaged in the heavy rain and flooding.
In California, Hilary arrived August 20, bringing unprecedented rainfall to the Death Valley National Park — an area known for drought. According to CBS, the 2.2 inches of rainfall that day alone was close to the area’s annual average of 2.24 inches. It broke the previous daily rainfall record in the area of 1.7 inches.
The BBC reported nearly 26 million people in southwestern United States were under flood watch, with Hilary later classified as a Category 1 storm as it swept north.
The impact of hurricanes are likely to become more severe as global heat levels rise. According to Earth Justice, rising temperatures make hurricanes more powerful as “storm systems draw their energy from warm ocean water.”
With that in mind, reducing the extent to which planet-heating pollution is released into the atmosphere will be vital to limiting the impact of future extreme weather events.
China’s $10 trillion hidden debt mountain could be the ‘ticking time bomb’ that Joe Biden warned of
Joseph Wilkins – August 27, 2023
The Chinese national flag flies behind security cameras on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 2012 on the 23rd anniversary of China’s crackdown of democracy protests in Beijing.ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images
China has faced many economic problems this year, from deflation and record youth unemployment to a property crisis.
But now, an even more worrisome threat is emerging: the colossal hidden debt of China’s local governments.
Some estimates put the liabilities of China’s local financing vehicles close to $10 trillion.
For some time now, markets have been buffeted almost on a daily basis by gloomy economic news filtering out of China.
The world’s second-largest economy is grappling with a raft of economic troubles — ranging from deflation to record youth unemployment, and a deepening property crisis — and its much-anticipated post-pandemic rebound has failed to materialize.
China’s mounting economic woes prompted US President Joe Biden to call the Asian economy a “ticking time bomb”.
And now, a lesser-known, but no less ominous, economic threat is rearing its head: China’s colossal hidden-debt problem.
This mainly refers to a mountain of liabilities accumulated by the country’s local governments, mostly to fund regional infrastructure projects such as building roads and bridges. An analysis by the Chinese media outlet Caixin Global estimated the outstanding obligations of the so-called local government financing vehicles, or LGFVs, at close to a staggering $10 trillion.
The Chinese government deems such debt a form of off-the-books lending and as such, the market is opaque. Here, Insider demystifies the shadow sector and explains the significance of LGFVs to the wider Chinese economy.
What are China’s LGFVs?
These funding bodies were set up by China to facilitate financing for regional infrastructure projects. Originally established to support infrastructure projects such as highways, airports, and energy installations, the LGFVs were designed to provide funding outside of the official government constraints.
The notion of “hidden debt” was defined by China’s State Council in 2018 as any borrowing that does not form a part of on-budget government spending – in essence, off-the-books financing.
The LGFV sector has grown exponentially since the 2008 global financial crisis, when the Chinese government made efforts to ensure that the nation’s infrastructure and public services segments expand fast enough to sustain its remarkable economic growth, according to Bloomberg.
Figures from Bloomberg and the International Monetary Fund estimate the total value of LGFV debt as more than $9 trillion – not far from the Caixin assessment. The local governments’ bonds alone total at about $2 trillion, and any defaults would rock the Asian nation’s $60 trillion financial system, according to Bloomberg.
In 2023, the LGFVs’ hidden debt climbed above 50% of China’s GDP for the first time, IMF data show.
Why does this matter?
For months, China’s local administrations have struggled to turn their financing vehicles profitable – increasing pressure on the national government to prop up the ailing sector via costly interventions.
As risks tied to the sector mount, banks are unwilling to lend more, investors are turning their backs on bonds, and viable projects are harder to come by, according to several anonymous employees interviewed by Bloomberg.
As a result, the local governments have been struggling to generate enough income or raise funding to meet the costs of servicing their debt.
“The most important variable impacting China’s economic growth over the next two years will be the success or failure of local government debt restructuring,” Logan Wright, head of China markets research at Rhodium Group, told Bloomberg.
But Beijing has so far refrained from intervening in the sector, in a bid to encourage self-sufficiency.
Echoes of the property crisis
Although none of the LGFVs have actually defaulted on their debt yet, the mounting stress in the sector echoes the crisis in China’s real-estate industry, which began in 2021 and has reverberated around global markets ever since.
“A collapse in local government investment would be comparable to the economic impact of the crisis in the property market,” Wright told Bloomberg.
China’s enormous property sector accounts for about 30% of the country’s overall output. Headwinds faced by the sector include heavy debt burdens and sluggish demand for new properties. This was a contributing factor in stunting the nation’s second-quarter GDP growth, which came in at 6.3%, below forecasts of up to 7.1%.
Indeed, any turmoil originating from China’s mountainous hidden debt would send shockwaves across the global economy.
Experts are witnessing a strange new phenomenon in the demand for electric cars: ‘We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment’
Leo Collis – August 27, 2023
Huge price reductions and copious availability could provide a boost to the electric vehicle market, which has already seen record sales in 2023.
Cox Automotive reported Kelley Blue Book’s findings that June’s average transaction price for a new electric vehicle ($53,438) is down 20% from a peak of $66,390 in June 2022.
Kelley Blue Book tweeted about Tesla discounts as examples of falling EV prices in June.
As noted by the Financial Times, many of the price changes trace back to Tesla’s decision to slash its prices by up to $13,000 in January. This sparked a price war among manufacturers.
With Ford making the next big move by cutting the purchase price of its Mustang Mach-E, Tesla responded by making its Model S and Model X models cheaper in March.
Ford has made further price reductions, offering savings of between $6,079 and $9,979 on seven of its F-150 Lightning models, The New York Times reported in July. NYT Business
General Motors is also among the electric vehicle manufacturers making models more affordable, with price cuts to the Bolt model announced in June.
According to Cox Automotive, nearly 300,000 new electric vehicles were sold in the United States during the second quarter of 2023. That marked a record for any quarter and a nearly 50% boost from the same time last year.
Cost reductions for the raw materials needed to make batteries for electric cars, such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, have also allowed savings to be passed on to consumers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was among those to welcome the news, noting in a company earnings call that the lithium market had gone “absolutely insane there for a while.”
While there are positive signs in the electric vehicle market, supply is still far outstripping demand.
“The demand is not keeping up with production, which is the opposite story of a year ago,” Cox Automotive executive analyst Michelle Krebs told Grist. “We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment. Automakers are building more, but not enough consumers have come to the field.”
But Krebs also observed that availability isn’t such a bad thing when compared to the wider market.
“A year ago, the average EV price was above the average luxury vehicle price. Today, as inventory and availability build, EV prices are moving closer to the industry average,” Krebs added.
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This all-new tiny but powerful truck proves that bigger isn’t always better: ‘A truck that actually makes sense’
Jeremiah Budin – August 27, 2023
We don’t normally think of trucks as being adorable, but one brand-new electric mini-truck from a Texas-based company is exactly that — and it’s great for the environment.
The Vanish, made by Texas-based company AYRO, is set to hit the market soon with a price of $33,990, and it’s about to embark on a statewide tour to prove its functionality and efficiency.
The AYRO Vanish most closely resembles a version of a Japanese kei truck, a type of small vehicle that is popular throughout Asia and is growing in popularity in the United States. While American-made pickup trucks currently subscribe to the “bigger is better” maxim, the increasing popularity of kei trucks shows that that is not always the case globally.
The Vanish has a hauling capacity of 1,200 pounds, nearly identical to that of a new Ford F-150 with an even longer bed. Meanwhile, AYRO says that it should have a 50% lower operating cost compared to a gas-powered pickup truck.
The truck can be configured into a flatbed, pickup bed, or food box. It will only be able to travel up to 25 miles per hour, so using it for long-distance hauls is out, but it should be more than capable of performing urban and utility work.
Electrek’s commenters were highly impressed by the tiny truck.
“Pickup trucks have gotten too big. This is a nice change,” wrote one commenter. “Those big monsters use too much fuel and are hard to maneuver and park. The trucks from the 1990s were a much better size than offerings from GM, Ford, and RAM today.”
“If the bed can carry the same loads (if not more), then hopefully it’ll make some people rethink the whole oversized pickup scenario,” wrote another. “Years ago I drove an Isuzu diesel pickup not too dissimilar to this and it could handle the loads quite nicely. Served its purpose with nothing to complain about.”
“Wow, a truck that actually makes sense!” wrote a third.
An ‘obscene’ number of kids are losing Medicaid coverage
Tami Luhby – August 26, 2023
For months, Evangelina Hernandez watched helplessly as her autistic twin sons regressed – their screaming, biting and scratching worsening. The Wichita, Kansas, resident couldn’t afford the $3,000 monthly tab for their 10 prescriptions or their doctor visits without Medicaid.
The toddlers, along with three of their sisters, lost their health insurance in May, swept up in the state’s eligibility review of all its Medicaid enrollees. Hernandez said she only received the renewal packet a day before it was due and mailed it back right away. She also called KanCare, the state’s Medicaid program, and filled out another application over the phone, certain that the kids remained eligible.
Yet, every time she inquired about the children’s coverage, she was told the renewal was still being processed. And though her partner works for an airplane manufacturer, the family can’t afford the health insurance plan offered by his employer.
“My kids are suffering. You can see it,” said Hernandez, who along with her infant daughter, remained on Medicaid thanks to coverage provisions for low-income, postpartum mothers and babies. “The medication they’re on, I can’t afford it.”
Just over a week ago, Hernandez got the call she had been waiting for: The kids’ coverage was reinstated. However, the pharmacy told her it could not immediately fill her sons’ prescriptions because it had to get their new enrollee information – and even then, she could only pick up the medication for one son because there were errors in her other son’s file.
The delays have consequences. Once they start taking the medications again, it will take about a month before their behavior starts to improve, she said.
All across the US, hundreds of thousands of children are being kicked off of Medicaid, even though experts say the vast majority continue to qualify. They are among the more than 87 million people in Medicaid and several million more in the Children’s Health Insurance Program who are having their eligibility checked and are facing possible termination of coverage for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
States regained the ability to start winnowing their Medicaid rolls of residents whom they deem no longer qualify on April 1, when a pandemic relief program expired. Since then, at least 5.4 million people have lost their benefits, according to KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Not every state breaks down their terminations by age. But in the 15 states that do, at least 1.1 million youngsters have been dropped, according to KFF. That includes Texas, where nearly half a million non-disabled children lost coverage between April and the end of July, accounting for 81% of the total disenrolled. In Kansas, Idaho and Missouri, kids make up at least half of those losing benefits.
As many as 6.7 million children are at risk of having their benefits terminated during the so-called unwinding process, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. Roughly three-quarters of them are expected to remain eligible for Medicaid but will likely lose coverage because of administrative issues, such as their parents not submitting the necessary paperwork or errors made by state Medicaid agencies.
This could lead to a doubling of the uninsured rate among children, said Joan Alker, the center’s executive director, noting that Medicaid covers about half of kids in the US.
“Children have an incredible amount at stake here,” she said. “We continue to be extremely worried as we see what’s happening around the country.”
Overall, nearly three-quarters of adults and children who have lost coverage were dropped for so-called procedural reasons, according to KFF. This typically happens when enrollees do not complete the renewal form, often because it may have been sent to an old address, it was difficult to understand or it wasn’t returned by the deadline.
Some people, however, may not return their forms because they know they earn too much to qualify or they obtained coverage elsewhere, such as from an employer.
In Idaho, there were 211,000 youngsters in the state’s Medicaid and CHIP programs in February – accounting for about half of the state’s total enrollees.
But more than 55,000 children had their insurance terminated in the first four months of the unwinding.
“An obscene number of kids are losing their Medicaid,” said Hillarie Hagen, a health policy associate at Idaho Voices for Children.
Among those processed were 33,000 children in families whom the state believes are no longer eligible. Nearly 23,000 of them were dropped for procedural reasons, Hagen said.
Also of great concern is that enrollment in Idaho’s CHIP program has fallen by 16,000 kids during the same period. Hagen expected the number to rise since CHIP has a higher income threshold than Medicaid so some children should have shifted over automatically.
One main reason why so many children – and adults – are losing coverage is because Idaho is focusing initially on households that it knows earn too much or who haven’t responded to the state in the last few years, said Shane Leach, welfare administrator for the state’s Department of Health and Welfare. Idaho continued to check enrollees’ eligibility during the pandemic, though it did not drop those who no longer qualified until now.
The department issues two rounds of notices, sends text messages and posts information in an online portal to let families know they need to return their renewal forms. Even if they miss the deadline, they can regain their coverage, he said.
“If anybody feels that they’re eligible, then reach out and reapply,” Leach said.
Children have higher income limits
Many parents may not realize that even though they don’t qualify for Medicaid anymore, their children may still be eligible because the household income limit for kids to remain covered is higher, said Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director of KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. This is especially true in the 10 states – including Kansas, Florida and Texas – that have not approved the expansion of Medicaid benefits to low-income adults.
Advocates are urging parents to complete and submit the renewal documents even if they think they earn too much to qualify themselves.
In some other cases, children are possibly being dropped because their state is applying the wrong income threshold to them.
In Florida, for instance, parents in a family of four must earn less than $8,520 annually to qualify, but children ages 1 to 5 are eligible if their household income is no more than $43,500, and those ages 6 to 18 can keep their coverage if their family earns less than $41,400, said Lynn Hearn, a staff attorney with the Florida Health Justice Project, an advocacy group.
Children’s enrollment in Medicaid dropped by roughly 154,000 kids, or 5.7%, between May and July, according to a Georgetown analysis of state data. The state does not break down terminations by age.
Hearn and her colleagues have had success in restoring some children’s coverage by appealing to the state and pointing out that the family’s income is less than the eligibility threshold for kids.
Another concern is that youngsters are not being automatically referred to the state’s CHIP program, Florida KidCare, Hearn said.
“I have yet to see a case where the referral happened timely and accurately,” she said.
When asked about the advocates’ concerns, Florida’s Department of Children and Families referred CNN to a fact sheet listing the state’s outreach efforts and enrollee support, including that it has more than 2,700 employees processing cases and assisting participants.
Restoring benefits can be complicated
Once a family loses coverage, regaining it can be frustrating and time-consuming. Tanya Harris spent weeks calling Florida’s Department of Children and Families, waiting on hold for hours at a time, to restore her kids’ insurance.
The Jacksonville resident only learned in late June that they would be cut off after she called the insurer that contracts with Florida to provide her family’s Medicaid benefits. She needed to discuss her 17-year-old daughter’s upcoming spinal surgery. Harris quickly filled out the renewal paperwork on the state’s online portal but was stuck in processing limbo for well over a month.
Tanya Harris, left, spent hours on hold with Florida’s Medicaid agency to restore her children’s coverage. – Courtesy Tanya Harris
Harris, who is on long-term disability from her employer as she battles several health conditions, spoke to multiple supervisors and uploaded verifications of her and her husband’s income and address over and over again.
Though the family regained Medicaid coverage in early August, their headaches aren’t over. Some doctors won’t see the kids until they receive their new insurance information, which Harris hopes will be settled next week. And she’s still not able to get some of their medications.
Meanwhile, her 6-year-old son, who has a severe peanut allergy, cannot sit with his classmates at lunch at his new school until his doctor sends in a medicine authorization form for his EpiPen.
“It was just devastating,” Harris said of the coverage loss. “The kids didn’t get the care that they need.”
Engaging parents
Some advocates are trying to take advantage of the start of the school year to alert parents to the importance of submitting their renewal documents.
In Kansas, where nearly 46,000 youngsters have been disenrolled so far, multiple groups are setting up tables at back-to-school events, working with school nurses and doing outreach through early childhood organizations, said Heather Braum, a health policy adviser at Kansas Action for Children.
KanCare reaches out to enrollees at least four times before their renewal is due to encourage them to return the needed paperwork, said Matt Lara, communications director for the state’s Department of Health and Environment. The agency also paused procedural terminations in May and June to give folks more time to send in their packets, as well as hired extra staff to work in the call center and help process renewals.
However, more should be done to improve the system and make sure eligible children maintain their coverage, Braum said.
“Kids’ medical care in so many situations can be very time sensitive – where they’re getting therapies and treatments and prescriptions,” she said. “If it gets delayed, it can have a permanent impact on their lives. Outcomes can be very different. And that’s inexcusable to me.”
Mystery land buyers around California Air Force base revealed
Tom Palmer – August 26, 2023
(NewsNation) – New reports shed light on nearly $1 billion in land purchases by a mysterious company near a California Air Force base that raised national security concerns.
Since 2018, a group called “Flannery Associates” invested more than $800 million on almost 54,000 acres of agriculture-zoned land surrounding the Travis Air Force base in Solano County, California, public records show.
Despite early speculation China was behind the purchases — amid concerns that companies with ties to China have been ramping up efforts to buy American farmland — legal representation for Flannery has maintained the group is controlled by U.S. citizens, with 97% of its capital coming from U.S.-based investors.
However, after eight months of investigation, federal officials were not able to confirm or deny this to be true, and were not able to determine exactly who was backing the company.
Now, reports from The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle reveal Flannery is comprised of a group of ultra-wealthy Silicon Valley investors acquiring vast parcels of land northeast of San Francisco with the mission to build a new California city “from scratch.”
According to the reports, the investors’ plan for the land involves creating a new urban center that could accommodate the growing demands of the tech industry and provide a fresh environment for innovation and economic growth.
The goal, according to the reports, is to establish a new city that caters to the needs of Silicon Valley tech companies and professionals, potentially alleviating some of the challenges posed by congestion, housing shortages and high costs of living in the Bay Area.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that these land acquisitions have been met with a mix of excitement and concern from local communities and government officials.
Democratic California Rep. John Garamendi called developments around Travis Air Force Base a critical national security issue.
“The fact they chose to buy all three sides of the Travis Air Force Base even raises immediate questions about national security,” Garamendi said.
To pull off the project, according to the Times, the company will have to use the state’s initiative system to get Solano County residents to vote on it.
Garamendi said utilizing an initiative means they’re going to override the local protections that are in place for Travis Air Force Base.
According to Garamendi, the area is “heavily impacted by some very severe restrictions that prevent development and other kinds of activities that would somehow degrade or harm Travis Air Force Base.”
The Air Force’s Foreign Investment Risk Review office is currently investigating Flannery Associates. Garamendi says there are valid concerns that Flannery’s land acquisitions could be tied to foreign enemies.
“Wherever the money is coming from,” he said, “the underlying problem of securing Travis Air Force Base remains.”
Garamendi also said the “organization has been just playing nasty,” referring to farmers in the area being targeted in a lawsuit from the group.
“Please understand that this group spent five years secretly and in my estimation, using strong-arm techniques that would best be associated with monsters to acquire the land,” he said.
Garamendi said he’s been in contact with the families of farmers who handed over their land to Flannery, saying they didn’t want to sell in the first place.
Since no California laws require them to sell, the land was bargained for by both parties at a much higher price. But now, Flannery is suing those families for $510 million, accusing them of conspiring together to inflate the value of the land.
“It’s a suit designed to force the farmers to lawyer up, spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyering and maybe at the end of the day, bankrupt themselves,” Garamendi said. “In fact, that has happened to at least one family that I know of and I’ve heard rumors that another family simply said, ‘We can’t afford the lawyers.’”
NewsNation correspondent Emily Finn contributed to this article.
The ‘curse of 35’: In China, millennials are already too old for some employers
Berry Wang and Jessie Yeung – August 26, 2023
When Han lost her job as an interface designer in Beijing in February, she figured her 10 years of experience meant she wouldn’t need to look long for alternative work.
But with the job hunt dragging on, she’s beginning to worry. She’s sent off hundreds of job applications – and been invited to only four interviews.
Out of options in her chosen profession, she has turned to part-time jobs to make ends meet, working as a food delivery driver – where she was “lucky to earn 20 yuan ($2.8)” a day – and as a shopping guide, which she gave up after developing acute appendicitis, she says from standing too long.
“I tried every possible job, but they were either too energy-consuming or paid too little,” she said. “It’s difficult to maintain basic life every day, it seems.”
The root of Han’s problem, she believes, is that she has simply become too old in the eyes of many would-be employers. She is 34 years old.
Han, who CNN is identifying by only her last name due to privacy concerns, is among the many millennial workers in China who fear they have succumbed to the “curse of 35.”
The term was originally coined on social media to describe rumored lay-offs of older workers by major tech companies, but it has since become so widespread it is referenced even by advisers to China’s ruling Communist Party.
Anyone who doubts the curse’s potency need only look at the countless online job listings and recruitment sites that state explicitly that candidates should be no older than that age, which many experts don’t even consider middle-aged.
Or look on social media; in June, a traveler’s complaint that hostels in Beijing commonly turn away customers older than 35 sparked heated debate, as did a recruitment drive by a Taoist temple in June when it said new monks must be “under 35 years old.”
Indeed, even the Chinese government rules out candidates above 35 for many of its civil servant positions – a policy challenged by a lawmaker at last year’s annual gathering of China’s parliament and top political advisory body.
A job fair in Congjiang, China, on August 20, 2020. – Stringer/AFP/Getty Images
“Invisible age discrimination for 35-year-olds has always existed in the workplace,” lawmaker Jiang Shengnan told the gathering, reported state-run China Youth Daily. “It’s a huge waste of talent to reject candidates for their age.”
Even top academics and officials have acknowledged the issue. In a 2022 report by the state-run paper People’s Daily, a professor at the government-run Central Party School – which educates Chinese Communist Party cadres – referred to the curse as a “common phenomenon in the mass labor market” and blamed it for causing widespread public anxiety.
This year, the state-run news agency Xinhua proposed what it saw as a possible solution – special policies favoring workers above 35, along with financial assistance and regulations against ageism.
For many among China’s hundreds of millions of millennials, solutions can’t come fast enough. With China still struggling to recover from the economic damage of the pandemic and signs its growth is slowing, unemployment has become a pressing concern for many. Nationally, the official jobless rate surged to a near-record high of 6.1% last year, and while the end of lockdown brought some relief, it remains at 5.2%.
Leaders or bust
The issue has been brought to the fore in part by the rise of China’s tech industry and its notorious “996 culture” – working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
It’s an uncompromising schedule that’s even harder for older employees with families to attend to, but it’s a common expectation in the country’s highly competitive – and relatively young – tech sector.
Experts also point out that young workers hired straight from school tend to be cheaper, though others suggest the preference is not only about keeping expenditure low.
A 2021 Xinhua report reasoned that employees who hadn’t been promoted to management levels by 35 may be perceived as less successful, thus more susceptible to layoffs.
The Central Party School professor made this point in his report last year, saying: “Generally speaking, most employees with 10 years of experience will become leaders or team managers if their abilities are really good. In other words, the ’35-year-old threshold’ is not about age itself, but a measure of work ability for employers.”
But these limits mean many people find themselves like Han, the Beijing resident: overqualified, educated, experienced, and struggling to keep themselves afloat with gig work.
This is especially true as more and more people pursue masters’ and PhD degrees in the hopes of gaining an edge in the crowded job market – thus ironically delaying their entry into the old job market.
The content creator Tao Chen in a video posted on Chinese social media. – Douyin
One content creator, Tao Chen, gained nationwide attention in March after posting about his experience online. After graduating from the prestigious Sichuan University with a master’s degree in philosophy, he was laid off from a journalism job, then embarked on a string of failed business projects. At 38 years old, with few other prospects, he became a food delivery driver – eventually giving up that job too because the income wasn’t enough to make ends meet.
“Although I had really good work experience and a master’s degree, I’m really uncompetitive after 35 years old,” Tao Chen said in his Douyin video. More than 98% of his job applications were unanswered, while the rest found he was “unfit” for the role.
“I almost had a mental breakdown,” he said.
New twist on an old story
For many Chinese women, the “curse” builds upon and further compounds the entrenched gender discrimination that has long plagued the workplace.
Female workers in this age range often say they face pressures from employers reluctant to pay maternity leave. They report missing out on promotions because their employer fears they will take a long stint off, or worse – they might not get employed in the first place.
“Seeing this age, many companies aren’t willing to recruit you,” said Han, the Beijing resident. “They prefer the young ones. After all, I might get married and have kids in their eyes. Even though I tell them I do not intend to get married, they wouldn’t believe it.”
When 35-year-old Shenzhen resident Liu returned to her job at a bioengineering firm after a six-month maternity leave, she was expecting to join a new project. Instead, she said, she was abruptly laid off and her position given to a fresh graduate.
Months later, she has yet to find another job. Liu, who requested a pseudonym for privacy reasons, believes it was her maternity leave that prompted her dismissal.
“They are very realistic. When I don’t need you, I replace you with cheaper labor,” she said.
Men can be affected, too. Liu remembers witnessing a male colleague who had just become a father being given what she called inappropriate assignments, like being sent on a business trip immediately after the birth.
She said she had also seen millennial and middle-aged employees being singled out for embarrassment by being asked to raise their hands in meetings if they were over 30 or by not being invited to company parties.
Liu suspects the biggest motivation for employers is simply their bottom line. “Many companies consider cost efficiency,” Liu said. “They think my salary is higher than new graduates, so they’d rather choose the graduates.”
‘I can see through their tricks’
Experts say the best way to guard against both ageism and gender inequality is through legal reform.
Yiran Zhang, assistant professor at Cornell Law School, said that while China’s labor law prohibited discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, gender, and religious belief, it does not do so on the grounds of age.
And even in areas where some protection was offered – such as for mothers taking maternity leave – enforcement of the law is weak, and gender discrimination remains common, she said.
Employees who do successfully sue their employer may only receive low damages, disincentivizing some from pursuing legal action, Zhang added.
Students and graduates at a college job and internship fair in Suqian, China, on August 9, 2023. – Costfoto/NurPhoto/Getty Images
“A large amount of age discrimination is intersectionality – discrimination of age, gender, pregnancy, and caregiving duties,” said the assistant professor.
Zhang and other experts noted there had been attempts in the past to legislate against age discrimination, with some politicians seeing it as a priority to lift the falling birth rate, but so far these have failed to pass in parliament.
Some small progress came earlier this year, when several provinces and regions relaxed age restrictions for civil servant jobs, raising the limit from 35 to 40, state media reported.
Meanwhile, Liu – the former project manager in Shenzhen – now hopes to make a living as a content creator so she doesn’t have to return to a traditional workplace riddled with ageism and discrimination.
“I have been in both big companies and small companies, I can see through their tricks,” she said. “I just want to run away from there.”
California high-speed rail project looks to build Central Valley train fleet
Vanessa Arredondo – August 26, 2023
The Road 27 grade separation in Madera County was built to take traffic over the existing BNSF rail and future high-speed rail lines. (California High-Speed Rail Authority)
California’s high-speed rail project is working to secure its fleet of trains as it looks to stay on track to open an initial segment in the Central Valley.
The High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors on Thursday approved a plan to screen prospective vendors to manufacture and maintain the electrified high-speed trains, which are planned to operate at speeds of about 220 mph.
“The project is continuing to make progress with our commitment unwavering as we remain active and aggressive in moving the project forward while actively pursuing federal funding,” authority spokesperson Micah Flores wrote in an email.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has adopted a scaled-down blueprint for the bullet train that proposes building a 171-mile starter segment in the Central Valley — connecting Bakersfield to Merced. Officials are looking to begin operating in 2030, but that timeline could stretch out to 2033, according to an agency progress report from earlier this year.
“This is an aggressive schedule, as we still have much to do including the extensions north and south to Merced and Bakersfield, track, systems and trainset procurement,” Flores said.
A 700 foot bullet train bridge across Road 27, between Road 27 and Club Drive, and the BNSF main line in Madera County. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
Newsom adopted the plan for a starter system in the Central Valley in a bid to garner public support for construction of the more expensive passages in the Bay Area and Southern California.
Officials expect to receive bids from potential manufacturers in November and will review applications by the first quarter of 2024.
The High-Speed Rail Authority aims to obtain at least 10 trainsets that can operate at 220 mph and reach speeds up to 242 mph. The goal would be to produce two prototypes by 2028 for testing and trial runs.
“These trainsets ensure that we are procuring the latest generation of high-speed trains for this first-in-the-nation project,” agency Chief Executive Brian Kelly said in a release. “We look forward to working with members of the industry as we strive to develop a market for high-speed trains in the United States.”
There are 30 active high-speed rail construction sites in the Central Valley, according to the agency. Nearly 422 miles, from the Los Angeles Basin to the Bay Area, have been environmentally cleared for the project.
Construction began in 2015, about seven years after voters approved initial funding. The project has long been troubled, however, and it faces significant funding gaps. Earlier this year, an official estimate showed projected ridership has dropped by 25%.
The authority estimates that trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco would shuttle 31 million riders per year.
With coronavirus on the upswing in California, new vaccine coming sooner than expected
Rong-Gong Lin II – August 26, 2023
With an uptick of coronavirus cases in the Southland, a member of the medical staff at MLK Community Hospital wears a mask while being framed by a sculpture titled “Pieces Together” by Lawrence Argent in Watts on Aug. 17. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
With coronavirus cases increasingly on the upswing across California and the nation, an updated COVID-19 vaccine is expected to come out even earlier than expected.
Coronavirus transmission has been rising this summer and hospitalizations, while still low, have recently started to tick up as well.
In Los Angeles County, COVID-19 levels have risen for the fifth consecutive week, with the number of newly reported infections likely growing because of travel, the back-to-school season and new Omicron subvariants, health officials said.
New outbreaks are up at L.A. County’s nursing homes, and one Hollywood studio temporarily imposed a mask mandate after several employees were infected. Nationally, there were 12,613 weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week that ended Aug. 12 — double the number from the start of this summer, but just one-third of the level seen at this time last year.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said this year’s updated version of the COVID-19 vaccine is likely to come out by the middle of next month, a bit earlier than the late September timeline previously announced by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The earlier-than-expected arrival became apparent after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scheduled a Sept. 12 meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a likely indication that the vaccine would become available shortly afterward.
The latest version of the vaccine is designed against the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, unofficially known as Kraken. Unlike last year’s formulation, a bivalent vaccine that was designed against both the ancestral coronavirus strain and the BA.5/BA.4 Omicron subvariants that were circulating at the time, the upcoming vaccine will be monovalent, specifically designed against XBB.1.5.
Kraken, dominant as of this spring, has seen other upstart subvariants rise to compete against it, such as XBB.1.16 (unofficially refered to as Arcturus) and EG.5 (also known as Eris). The differences between these subvariants are relatively minor, and it’s expected the new vaccine will be effective against all three.
But officials are closely watching another subvariant that has raised more questions: BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola, after an asteroid.
In a CDC risk assessment, the agency said that Pirola “may be more capable of causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received COVID-19 vaccines.”
The effectiveness of the upcoming vaccine against Pirola is still being evaluated, the CDC said Wednesday, but the agency still expects the new version will be effective at reducing severe disease and hospitalization.
“At this point, there is no evidence that this variant is causing more severe illness. That assessment may change as additional scientific data are developed,” the agency added.
Unlike more recently identified subvariants, which might have one or two mutations that distinguish them from earlier versions, Pirola has 36 distinct mutations from XBB.1.5, “which is making people raise their eyebrows,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious-disease expert.
“BA.2.86,” he said, “is so different that people worry that the vaccine in the fall won’t be a perfect match — but nevertheless, it will still protect people against serious disease.”
“And who knows if it’s even going to become ruler of the roost? It really hasn’t taken off so far that we know,” Chin-Hong added. “But again, sequencing always lags and not a ton of people are doing sequencing anymore around the world.”
Very few cases of Pirola have been identified in the U.S. thus far, and the subvariant has yet to be detected in Los Angeles County. But in some parts of Europe, Pirola now makes up perhaps 1% to 2% of cases, and the fact that it’s on more than one continent suggests it is spreading, Chin-Hong said.
Still, those infected with the Pirola subvariant have so far experienced generally mild symptoms, Chin-Hong said. Based on what’s currently known, if Pirola does become dominant, “at some point, it may fuel another round of transmission, and may find people who are ‘no-vids”’ — people who have never been infected — “or people who are more vulnerable to getting ill,” Chin-Hong said.
Regardless of the new mutations in Pirola, Chin-Hong said, the anti-COVID therapeutic drugs Paxlovid and remdesivir should remain effective.
Generally speaking, Chin-Hong said many people who have been infected with the coronavirus this summer did not require hospitalization, likely because they were vaccinated, had been previously infected, or both. Even those COVID-19 patients who have been hospitalized, Chin-Hong said, are generally requiring shorter stays than earlier in the pandemic.
Still, those who are being hospitalized tend to be older and those who haven’t received a COVID-19 booster shot in the past year — meaning they are not considered “up to date.”
Areas of the country that are seeing particularly notable increases in new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations are in the South, CDC data show. In California, there were 1,930 new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations for the week that ended Aug. 12. That’s more than a 60% increase from the start of the summer, but still relatively low historically.
Coronavirus-positive hospitalizations are also increasing in L.A. County. For the week that ended Aug. 19, there were an average of 422 such patients in hospitals per day, a nearly 30% increase from the prior week.
Coronavirus levels in L.A. County wastewater are at about 28% of the peak seen last winter, during the region’s last significant spike. That concentration has been increasing since early July, when coronavirus levels were at about 8% of this past winter’s peak.
“While hospitalizations are increasing, the current levels are still far lower than what was seen in 2022 during the summer peak, when there was an average of 1,287 COVID patients hospitalized each day,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.
There were 39 new coronavirus outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities in L.A. County for the most recent week of data available, up from 20 the prior week. “While resulting hospitalizations and deaths among skilled nursing facility residents are lower than at other points during the pandemic, nonetheless, increased transmission of COVID-19 at nursing homes carries heightened risk for frail elderly,” officials said.
In a blog post, Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego, said that recent trends underscore how “the pandemic isn’t over.”
Topol described the recent increase in transmission as a “wavelet” that could pick up steam but is more likely related to waning immunity and behavior than the latest subvariants.
“The fact that the inexorable evolution of the virus continues — to find new hosts and repeat hosts —cannot be ignored,” he wrote.
“At the moment there’s no reason for alarm. … What we’ll see in the weeks ahead is whether BA.2.86 takes hold or not. If it does, that will pose a new challenge, and make the ‘updated’ booster shots considerably less helpful than what was conceived when XBB.1.5 was selected as the target,” Topol wrote.
People who are infected with COVID-19 should stay home for at least five days following their first onset of symptoms or first positive test, whichever comes first, L.A. County health officials said.
County health officials urged people at high risk, and those who spend time with them, to consider precautions against infection, such as wearing a mask in crowded indoor settings, especially those with poor ventilation, and on public transit.
It’s also important to test for an infection when symptomatic or after an exposure to someone with COVID-19, staying home when sick, and seeking anti-COVID drugs if infected.
Californians who don’t have insurance or are having a hard time getting a prescription for anti-COVID medication can make a free phone or video appointment through the state’s COVID-19 telehealth service, reachable through sesamecare.com/covidcaor by calling (833) 686-5051.
L.A. County has similar free telehealth services, which are accessible at (833) 540-0473. Free at-home COVID tests also can still be picked up at county libraries and vaccination sites operated by the county Department of Public Health, as well as at many food banks and senior centers.
