Colon cancer is killing more younger men and women than ever, new report finds
Erika Edwards and Jessica Herzberg – January 17, 2024
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Colorectal cancer is the deadliest cancer for men under age 50 — and the second deadliest cancer among women in the same age group, behind breast cancer.
The incidence of colon cancer has been rising for at least the last two decades, when it was the fourth-leading cause of cancer death for both men and women under 50.
Among men and women of all ages, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death. Prostate cancer is second for men, and breast cancer is second for women. Colorectal cancer is third, overall, for both sexes.
The diagnosis of late-stage colorectal cancer was a shock to Sierra Fuller, 33. (Courtesy Sierra Fuller )
Cancer is traditionally a disease among the elderly, although the percentage of new cases found in people 65 and older has fallen from 61% in 1995 to 58%. The decrease, attributed mainly to drops in prostate and smoking-related cancers, has occurred even though the proportion of people in that age group has grown from 13% to 17% in the general population.
In contrast, new diagnoses among adults ages 50 to 64 have increased since 1995, from 25% to 30%.
Rates of breast and endometrial cancer, as well as mouth and throat disease, have been on the rise. The report did not break down those diagnoses by age.
The findings reflect what cancer doctors have observed for years.
“For a couple of decades now, we have been noticing that the patients coming into our clinic seem to be younger and younger,” said Dr. Kimmie Ng, the director of the Young Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “What this report now cements for us is that these trends are real.” Ng was not involved with the new report.
Dr. William Dahut, the chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, said younger people tend to be diagnosed at later stages, when the cancer is more aggressive.
“So it’s not only having a colorectal cancer — it’s colorectal cancer that’s more difficult to treat, which is why we’re seeing these changes in mortality,” Dahut said.
The diagnosis of late-stage colorectal cancer was a shock to Sierra Fuller, 33, of Acton, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.
It was around Christmas 2021 when Fuller noticed blood in her stool when she went to the bathroom. With no family history of colon cancer, she figured the problem was most likely an annoying hemorrhoid.
Weeks later, the blood deposits worsened, and she started having abdominal pain.
Sierra Fuller and her husband. (Courtesy Sierra Fuller)
“It was a month from when I got the symptoms to when I sought help, and I realize that I was pushing it,” she said. Tests revealed she had stage 3b colorectal cancer. That usually means the cancer has started to spread through the colon and possibly to nearby lymph nodes, but not any farther, according to the American Cancer Society.
It was a blow to Fuller and her husband, who had just started talking about whether to try for a baby. They decided to freeze embryos before Fuller’s treatment protocol, which would include radiation, chemotherapy and surgery.
It is an example of how cancer uniquely affects young patients.
Sierra Fuller. (Courtesy Sierra Fuller)
“People younger than 65 are less likely to have health insurance and more likely to be juggling family and careers,” Dahut said in a news release announcing the new report. “Also, men and women diagnosed younger have a longer life expectancy in which to suffer treatment-related side effects, such as second cancers.”
Just over a year later, Fuller is cancer-free but must get regular scans and blood tests. She said that she feels good but that she is “always going to have that worry” that her cancer will return.
“If I have to go through this again, whatever that looks like, I’ll cross that bridge if it comes,” Fuller said.
Why is cancer rising in younger people?
Doctors do not know why cancer, especially colorectal cancer, is becoming more common in younger adults. Some hypothesize that increasing obesity rates, sedentary behavior and unhealthy diets could be playing roles.
“But honestly, the patients we’re seeing in clinic often do not fit that profile,” said Dr. Kimmie Ng, the director of the Young Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “A lot of them are triathletes and marathon runners. I mean, super healthy people.”
Ng suspects something in the environment may be behind the rise.
“What we suspect may be happening is that whatever combination of environmental factors is responsible for this, that it’s likely changing our microbiomes or our immune systems, leading us to become more susceptible to these cancers at a younger age,” Ng said.
How to protect against colorectal cancer
Colonoscopy screening is generally recommended starting at age 45. People with family histories of the illness may need to begin screening earlier.
A person whose parent was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 50, for example, would need to start screening at age 40, Dahut said.
However, only about a third of people diagnosed with colon cancer have some kind of family history or predisposition to the cancer.
Maintaining a healthy body weight and minimizing red meat in the diet may help reduce risk, Ng said.
Signs that could signal a problem, Ng said, include blood in the stool, abdominal pain, unintentional weight loss and changes in bowel habits.
“If it’s getting worse, if it’s not going away, you know, that’s when somebody really needs to start paying attention and talk to their primary care doctor about what’s happening,” she said.
Opinion: Abbott’s war on migration has led to another tragedy in Texas
Opinion by Alice Driver – January 16, 2024
Editor’s Note: Alice Driver is a writer who divides her time between Mexico and the US. Her latest book is “The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company.” Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and Oxford American. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.
On Friday, a woman and her two young children struggled to cross the Rio Grande’s unpredictable waters to get from Mexico to Eagle Pass, Texas. US Border Patrol agents tried to enter Shelby Park, which runs along the US side of the Rio Grande, to save the woman and her children. The agents reportedly reached out to Texas state officials about the emergency by phone but received no response.
Alice Driver – Luis_Garvan
Democratic US Rep. Henry Cuellar said in a statement late Saturday that US Border Patrol agents went to the park and asked to be allowed to render aid to the migrants, whom he identified as a mother and her two young children according to Mexican sources, but were denied entry.
“Texas Military Department soldiers stated they would not grant (the Border Patrol) access to the migrants — even in the event of an emergency,” Cuellar said, adding that Mexican officials recovered three bodies on Saturday.
Texas officials deny mishandling the crisis. “TMD (Texas Military Department) was contacted by Border Patrol at approximately 9:00 pm on Friday in reference to a migrant distress situation. TMD had a unit in the vicinity of the boat ramp and actively searched the river with lights and night vision goggles. No migrants were observed,” the agency said in a statement to a local ABC affiliate.
But Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, suggested Gov. Greg Abbott bears direct responsibility for the tragedy. “Texas officials blocked US Border Patrol agents from doing their job and allowed two children to drown in the Rio Grande,” Castro said, an account confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security. “Governor Abbott’s inhumanity has no limit. Everyone who enables his cruelty has blood on their hands.”
To know that a young family is struggling to navigate cold, swift waters and to do nothing to prevent their deaths is cruel and evil.
But for Abbott it is more of the same: His policies take an unduly harsh line on immigration, even if it means putting the lives of innocent people at risk. The state of Texas should be held responsible for these deaths.
I’ve been an immigration writer for years, including at the Eagle Pass crossing, and I’ve seen heartless policies against people trying to enter the United States. Abbott’s are among the worst I’ve covered.
I’ve interviewed countless migrants very much like the woman who perished this weekend. If this mother and her two children had been saved, they might be applying for asylum and imagining a future together far from the harm and privation they likely experienced in their home country.
As The Atlantic explained in recent reporting, the mother and her children would face a backlog of asylum cases that grew to 1,009,625 in 2023, and they would wait an average of four years to get a hearing. Had they survived, I might be interviewing them today, as I have solicited the personal stories of hundreds of migrants along the US-Mexico border over the past decade.
The two children might be taking photos with the Polaroid camera that I carry around, and writing messages with the rainbow-colored markers I also keep at hand.
“What do you want me to write?” children often ask me, wide-eyed, when I tell them they can write or draw anything they want on their photos. They sometimes share messages like “I hope God grants me asylum” or “I hope I don’t get separated from my mom.” There is so much to learn from the stories of people fleeing war, famine, drought and the effects of climate change.
These are lessons, however, that appear to have been lost on Abbott. During his time in office, he has been on a warpath to criminalize and dehumanize migrants, spending more than $4.5 billion on Operation Lone Star since 2021, his ramped up effort to prevent border crossings, including by deploying floating razor wire barricades in the Rio Grande. And he has spent more than $100 million to send asylum seekers legally in the US to Democratic-run cities, usually without notice and without providing sufficient — if any — food or warm clothing for the journey.
Abbott’s policies seem not too dissimilar to the family separation initiative put into place by former President Donald Trump in that inflicting cruelty, pain and trauma appear to be tools to deter migration. Nevertheless, Operation Lone Star — like Trump’s family separation policies — appears to have had little effect on stemming migration. It would appear that the misery migrants have been fleeing for years is worse than even the cruel anti-immigration program that Abbott has devised.
On December 18, he signed into law SB 4, a measure that attempts to wrest the power the Constitution gives the federal government over immigration and put it in state hands. SB 4 made entering Texas illegally a statecrime. Abbott’s efforts to criminalize migration have included stringingconcertina wire and erecting anti-climb barriers along the border and installing an $850,000 floating barrier made of buoys separated by saw blades along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass.
Abbott has made Eagle Pass a focus of his immigration enforcement policies. But he has done so without the support of local authorities. Mayor Rolando Salinas questioned why Abbott closed Shelby Park, which is public, without his permission. “That is not a decision that we agreed to,” Salinas said. “This is not something that we wanted. This is not something that we asked for as a city.”
The confrontation between the US Border Patrol and the Texas National Guard troops and Texas Military Department represents a looming power struggle between Abbott and the Biden administration — one in which federal officials must assert their authority.
Even before the tragic deaths at Eagle Pass, the Biden administration appealed to the US Supreme Court about Texas blocking access to the border. Abbott’s power struggle with the Biden administration sets a dangerous precedent, one that shows wanton disregard for the lives of migrants.
By now, it should be clear to Abbott that ratcheting up cruelty is not a way to stem migration. Instead of militarizing the border, Texas and the federal government should instead invest in humane asylum policies that don’t heap tragedy upon people arriving to this country who have already experienced so much hardship and loss.
The ‘old American Dream died,’ Realtor details salary needed to buy a home, afford a middle class life in 2024
Kira Mautone – January 15, 2024
Americans now need to make $120K a year to afford a typical middle-class life and qualify to purchase a home, one expert discusses.
“I think most of us in America would define the middle class as somebody who can work a 40-hour-a-week career and can have the income to purchase the average home in America,” Freddie Smith, an Orlando realtor and TikTok creator, told Fox News Digital.
The TikToker, whose videos explore millennial and Gen Z struggles to afford a home and the general cost of living in today’s economic climate, dissected the common factors of living a middle-class existence.
“A lot of us grew up middle class, and we watched what middle class was in the 80s and 90s as millennials. And nowadays, what has moved the goalpost more than anything is the housing market,” the relator said.
Home in Summerville listed for $765,000.
Smith explained how, just a few years ago, $60-$70K a year would have been sufficient to qualify for a home.
With the average cost of a house being around $400K-$420K in 2024, people’s salaries would need to be around $120K a year for people to even qualify, Smith explained.
The realtor highlights how this wage-to-housing gap has forced many people to rent for a longer period.
“Rent prices are taking up 30-40% of people’s income, making it harder for them to save for a house. So it’s this perpetual cycle that is keeping people out of the middle class,” he explains, noting this trend has been continuing at a rapid pace over the last few years.
Smith also explained how a $120K salary, even without children, becomes a far lower number when confronted with the crippling debt most Americans are facing today.
“Most people are carrying student loan debt, which is at an all-time high, and the average payment in the country is $500 a month for your college degree. [There are] some people I’m seeing in my comment section saying ‘$500, I wish, it was $1,200 a month for me’,” said Smith.
Credit card debt is also at a record high in America, and while Smith acknowledges that reckless spending could be a factor, he has learned from many Americans commenting on his posts that many are forced to use their cards for groceries because they ran out of money.
According to DQYDJ, the average American income in 2023 was roughly $69K a year, with only 18.8% percent of Americans reaching $100K or more a year. According to the same source, the top 10 percent of individual earnings started at $135,605 a year.
The middle class is in a segmented state, Smith argues, largely determined by how much debt one finds themselves in.
“If you are someone who bought a house before 2020 and you have it paid off or you have a 3% interest rate, you are not burdened by the housing costs like the 2024 adults are now,” the relator said, explaining how debt, especially college debt, housing costs and childcare are burdening millennials and Gen Zers starting their lives.
A sign outside a home for sale in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Home prices in the US climbed for a fifth month as buyers competed for deals in the least affordable market in decades.
“People are spending about $1,200 to $1,500 a month on daycare, and I’ve even heard it as much as $3,000-$4,000. So when you add in somebody who’s renting for $2,500, $2,000 for daycare, $1,000 for two college loans, just that alone, you need $100,000 as an income just for that,” said Smith.
For slightly older individuals who had a chance to pay off their debt and have grown-up children, $70K remains a comfortable middle-class wage to them.
“‘These millennials are whining. These Gen Zers just work harder.’ If you bought your house before and don’t have those other payments, that’s really the three-layered cake. Housing, college [debt] and daycare” explained Smith, highlighting these three factors greatly determine your middle-class placement.
As a result of high housing costs, many young people are choosing to stay at home with their families to save funds. Smith explains how he is seeing communal living go even further in Florida, where separate families are choosing to live under one roof.
“Many families [with] 3 or 4 adults and [say] five children, they all split a big house, and they all take care of each other. You can see that they have a lot of toys and they’re pooling their money,” Smith detailed.
A house is for sale in Arlington, Virginia, July 13, 2023.
The TikToker enumerates how millennials and older Gen Zers had a “difficult” hand dealt to them. Younger Gen Zers, however, have a lot of “opportunity” to “crush in today’s economy” if they plan carefully to avoid debt and make smart financial choices.
“The millennials, they’re the pinched generation where college essentially stopped working for most. The debt piled up, and the old American dream died, and we got left holding the bag,” he said.
The creator said that through posting on TikTok, he has learned a tremendous amount about the everyday struggles real Americans are facing through his comment section.
“People in America, real society, are sharing all this with me. And I’m learning at a rapid pace from all different individuals. It’s not just googling it, or asking 100 college students what they think. It’s thousands and thousands of people sharing what’s going on,” said Smith.
The realtor discussed how there is a “bigger conversation” around an evolving American Dream that we’re likely to see take place over the next few years.
“We’re basically redefining the American dream from top to bottom, like the way that we see work and work-life balance,” said the creator, explaining how the idea of owning a home might grow old alongside past generations.
“I don’t even know if millennials and Gen Zers want to follow that path of buying a house and living in it for 40 years and staying at the same job for 40 years. I don’t think creatively, work-life balance wise, is also what our long-term play is,” he said.
“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, someone who is blatantly saying, If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator:” Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong fears for America’s future
Paul Brannigan – January 15, 2024
Billie Joe Armstrong.
Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong has spoken about his fears for the direction American politics is taking, and warns that the prospect of an autocratic government in the US is “at our doorstep”.
Armstrong’s band will release their 14th studio album ‘SAVIORS’ on Friday, June 19, and, in a new interview with Vulture, the 51-year-old vocalist/guitarist talks about how the album’s first single, The American Dream Is Killing Me, released back in October last year, deals with the “overwhelming” anxieties that come with being “an over-stressed American”.
“Our politics are so divided and polarized right now,” says Armstrong. “We had an insurrection. We have homeless people in the street. We have so many issues, and they come onto your algorithm feed at such a pace. It just stresses you out, the anxiety of being an American and how it becomes so overwhelming.”
Reflecting on how his band’s new record shares some of the DNA of 2004’s American Idiot album, Armstrong notes, “I think it was easier to satirize George Bush because we didn’t have social media. It was before all the tech bros came in. Now you have these billionaires who would rather shoot a rocket into space than deal with the infrastructure we have here.”
Looking ahead, Armstrong admits that he is concerned by the current political landscape in America.
“We are on the brink of an autocratic government, or someone who is blatantly saying ‘If I’m president again, I’m going to be a dictator’,” he says. “What’s that Maya Angelou quote? When people tell you who they are, believe them. [Actually, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time’] It’s this exaggeration that became what can actually happen. It’s based on a cult of personality. America is not supposed to be about the cult of personality; we’re supposed to be about a group of people who are making laws that would make the American people’s lives easier and affordable. Getting good jobs, getting good health care, protecting people from corporations taking advantage of them. I feel like we are completely lost on that, the real American ideal.
Media: Russia receiving military-linked goods from Finnish companies
Dinara Khalilova – January 15, 2024
Over 20 Finnish companies managed or owned by Russians have been exporting high technology and other goods that can be used in the military industry to Russia, according to an investigation by Finland’s public broadcaster YLE Published on January 15th.
The investigation revealed that at least nine customers of the Finnish companies have direct links to the Russian military sector and intelligence agencies such as Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
These are small logistics firms operating mostly in southeastern Finland, near major logistics hubs, YLE wrote. At least four of them are already subjects of criminal investigations.
A Russian-linked company operating in Lappeenranta has sent to Russia “numerous packages” with sensors, diesel engines, fuel pumps, and transmission equipment, which experts have classified as critical supplies in warfare, according to the investigation.
According to Russian public procurement data, two of the firm’s clients have ties to the FSB, with one of the clients posting a letter on their website thanking the FSB for good cooperation.
Similar components were reportedly found in destroyed Russian weapons and vehicles in Ukraine, but not all of them were subjected to Western sanctions, which has made it easier to export them to Russia.
Other products exported to Russia by the Finnish companies include equipment for military research, product development, and intelligence activities, as well as engine parts and electronics, the media outlet wrote.
It is not clear, though, whether the Russian military has specifically used the goods exported from the Finnish companies covered in the investigation.
According to YLE, some goods were exported from Finland to Russia through Uzbekistan, which Russia has reportedly used to evade Western sanctions.
Following the outbreak of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Western countries imposed extensive sanctions against Russia, banning imports of electronics and other goods critical for the production of high-tech weapons like missiles or drones.
In spite of these restrictions, Moscow continues to acquire dual-use goods via third-party countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, or China.
Chicago scrambles to shelter migrants in dangerous cold as Texas’ governor refuses to stop drop-offs
Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN – January 15, 2024
Hoping to halt migrant drop-offs as extreme weather plagues Chicago, Illinois’ Democratic governor warned in a letter Friday to his GOP counterpart in Texas that sending migrants now to the Windy City could cost lives, adding to the already deadly toll of the migrant crisis.
“While action is pending at the federal level, I plead with you for mercy for the thousands of people who are powerless to speak for themselves,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker wrote. “Please, while winter is threatening vulnerable people’s lives, suspend your transports and do not send more people to our state.”
“Your callousness, sending buses and planes full of migrants in this weather, is now life-threatening to every one of the arrivals,” he continued. “Hundreds of children’s and families’ health and survival are at risk due to your actions.”
Instead, however, Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration has doubled down on its mission since 2022 to dispatch migrants north from Texas via bus and plane to cities led by Democrats, including Chicago, New York and Denver, to “provide support to our overrun and overwhelmed border communities,” his spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris told CNN Friday, noting, “Governor Pritzker was all too proud to call Illinois ’the most welcoming state in the nation’ until Governor Abbott began transporting migrants to Chicago.”
Chicago’s wind chill is forecast to plummet by Tuesday morning to 32 below zero – cold so extreme it could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as few as 10 minutes, according to CNN Weather. For those unaccustomed to such bone-chilling cold – including migrants who often arrive with only the clothes on their back – it can be a life-or-death challenge.
Chicago shelters lately have been so full, incoming migrants were kept at a designated “landing zone,” with minimal access to food and sanitation and only parked Chicago Transit Authority buses for temporary heat.
There had been about 140 migrants on those buses, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Friday, down from a high of more than 300, though as of Sunday, there were no longer any migrants awaiting placement in shelters at the landing zone location, according to the city.
As to whether conditions at the landing zone were acceptable, Johnson said, “Look, that’s a good question, you know. It’s certainly not acceptable for the (Texas) governor to send people to the city of Chicago, but we’re meeting the moment.”
Over the last few weeks, mayors of New York, Chicago and Denver have been irked by “rogue buses” from Texas dropping off migrants by the thousands and tried in their own jurisdictions to slow the surge by enacting mandates and requirements for bus operators to coordinate arrivals under the threat of impound, fines and even jail time.
Meanwhile in New York, homeless migrants starting Tuesday will be subject to a new 11 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew at four respite centers managed by the city’s Emergency Management Department, a spokesperson for City Hall told CNN on Monday.
Migrants get food Friday outside Chicago’s migrant landing zone. – Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
In November, Chicago implemented a 60-day shelter stay policy based on migrants’ arrival dates so as not overcrowd the shelter system and to provide asylum-seekers services while they set up long-term housing. But due to the harsh weather, city officials suspended that limit and made some exceptions to the policy, Johnson said Friday.
‘Do his job and secure the border’
As for Abbott’s position, “instead of complaining about migrants sent from Texas, where we are also preparing to experience severe winter weather across the state, Governor Pritzker should call on his party leader to finally do his job and secure the border – something he continues refusing to do,” his spokesperson Mahaleris told CNN in the Friday statement.
“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue transporting migrants to sanctuary cities to help our local partners respond to this Biden-made crisis,” he added.
Chicago Transit Authority warming buses sit at the migrant landing zone during extreme, cold temperatures on Friday. – Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images
Over the weekend, the bodies of three migrants – a woman and two children – were recovered by Mexican authorities after they drowned in the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, very recently the epicenter of the migrant crisis and an area where state authorities have blocked the US Border Patrol from accessing miles of the US-Mexico divide, officials said.
The Biden administration on Friday complained to the US Supreme Court about the state blocking Border Patrol from a city park along the river and asked the high court to quickly intervene. The state on Saturday told the high court it was “working promptly” to ensure Border Patrol has access to a boat ramp at Shelby Park.
The White House called the recent migrant deaths “tragic” and characterized Abbott’s directives on the border as “political stunts,” Angelo Fernández Hernández, White House assistant press secretary said Sunday.
“While we continue to gather facts about the circumstances of these tragic deaths, one thing is clear: Gov. Abbott’s political stunts are cruel, inhumane, and dangerous. US Border Patrol must have access to the border to enforce our laws,” Fernández Hernández told CNN in a statement.
CNN’s Andy Rose, Rosa Flores, Gloria Pazmino, Whitney Wild and meteorologist Allison Chinchar contributed to this report.
Toy manufacturers’ shift from China is no child’s play
Richa Naidu – January 15, 2024
An undated handout photo of the Aequs toy manufacturing facility in Belgaum
LONDON (Reuters) – Toy makers grappling with surging costs in China are finding no easy options when it comes to shifting production to cheaper centres elsewhere.
Six years ago, monopoly maker Hasbro approached Indian durable goods and aerospace supplier Aequs to sub-contract.
“They said if you can get into toy manufacturing, now we’re looking to shift millions of dollars worth of product from China to India,” Rohit Hegde, Aequs’ head of consumer verticals, told Reuters. “We said: as long as we can get at least about $100 million of business in the next few years, we can definitely invest in it.”
Fast forward to today and Aequs makes dozens of types of toys for Hasbro and others including Spin Master in two 350,000-square-foot facilities in Belgaum, India.
But Hegde and other manufacturers acknowledge that India and other countries cannot match China for efficiency, limiting companies’ efforts to shift to lower cost bases and raising the risk of higher toy prices in future if the bulk of production remains in China.
“We don’t have the port facilities (in India) that China does. We don’t have the road facilities that China does. They have been doing this for the last 30 years, their efficiency levels are much better than ours,” Hedge said.
Still, for toy manufacturers including Hasbro and Barbie doll maker Mattel, the risks of relying on China for most of their production were highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Chinese ports struggled to export goods and were periodically shut down, leaving shipments stranded.
Soaring labour costs in China had already been driving manufacturers across industries to diversify production geographically.
A report by Rhodium Group last September showed that total announced U.S. and European greenfield investment into India shot up by $65 billion or 400% between 2021 and 2022, while investment into China dropped to less than $20 billion in 2022, from a peak of $120 billion in 2018. Mexico, Vietnam and Malaysia also drew some of this redirected capital.
Yet toymakers are struggling to shift production even as other industries succeed.
As of the first seven months of last year, mainland China still made 79% of toys sold in the United States and Europe, versus 82% in 2019, according to U.S. and European Union import data provided to Reuters by S&P Global Market Intelligence’s trade data service Panjiva.
In comparison, mainland China in 2019 accounted for 35% of U.S. and EU apparel imports. This reduced to just 30% in the year to July 31, with India and Mexico the biggest beneficiaries.
“Is it easy to re-shore away from mainland China? No, it isn’t. That goes double for toys,” S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Chris Rogers said. “It’s more complicated because they’re highly seasonal — you’re asking a partner to sit on inventory for most of the year. Toy makers also have to be doubly rigorous on safety, sourcing and making sure workers are treated well.”
While China’s minimum wage varies from between 1,420 yuan per month to 2,690 yuan per month ($198.52-$376.08), in India unskilled and semi-skilled workers can be secured for between 9,000 Indian rupees and 15,000 Indian rupees a month ($108.04- $180.06), according to central bank estimates.
But setting up to source from other countries can take 18 months if a company is buying product from a contract manufacturer, and up to three years if a firm is building a new factory from scratch, Rogers said.
Toys to be sold in the autumn go into production starting in May and are then stored or shipped.
‘MORE REASONABLE COST’
Hasbro began addressing its outsized dependence on China as an operational risk in its annual report in 2018, while Mattel has reportedly been shifting away from China since 2007, when it had to recall millions of toys tainted with lead paint. Efforts across the industry have ramped up since the pandemic.
Hasbro did not respond to a request for comment, while Mattel declined to comment for this story.
Spiralling Chinese wages are helping push up toy prices. In the UK, for instance, prices rose by about 8% in the first six months of 2022, according to Circana, formerly known as NPD. The risk for consumers is that prices will keep on rising sharply if manufacturers can’t cut costs by moving to cheaper production centres.
Though U.S. duties on Chinese toys are currently negligible, that could also change as some Republican politicians have called for revoking China’s “permanent normal trade relations” status. Such a move could raise the price of toys in the United States by more than a fifth, according to the National Retail Federation.
“We are all looking at derisking China,” said Nic Aldridge, managing director at Bandai UK, the maker of Tamagotchi virtual pets. “Raw materials costs have gone up a lot in China, we’re looking for places where we could get a more reasonable cost.”
Bandai still mostly manufactures in mainland China but some of its products are made in Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam. It is looking at India and Thailand as additional locations, Aldridge said.
MGA Entertainment, maker of LOL Surprise and Bratz dolls, has found infrastructure outside China to be a road-block to diversifying sourcing to countries like India and Vietnam, even as its exports from China last holiday season dropped versus the year before.
India accounted for only 1% of U.S. and EU toy imports over the past five years, according to Panjiva’s data.
“The issue in India is really the gridlock of moving even from one state to another. There are so many crazy regulations,” MGA Entertainment CEO Isaac Larian told Reuters.
“(But) the infrastructure is getting better and better as these countries realize the opportunity they have to take business away from China and they are investing,” he said.
(Reporting by Richa Naidu. Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar and Casey Hall; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Virginia county finds 4,000 misreported 2020 votes, shorting Biden
Julia Mueller – January 15, 2024
Virginia county finds 4,000 misreported 2020 votes, shorting Biden
Election officials in Virginia’s Prince William County have acknowledged roughly 4,000 votes were misreported in former President Trump’s favor during the 2020 presidential election, when President Joe Biden went on to win the state.
A release from the county’s Office of Elections announced Trump incorrectly received 2,327 extra votes, while Biden was shorted 1,648 votes.
The U.S. Senate candidates for the state in both parties received too few votes, and a Republican House candidate who won his race was shorted just less than 300 votes.
“The reporting errors were presumably a consequence of the results tapes not being programmed to a format that was compatible with state reporting requirements. Attempts to correct this issue appear to have created errors,” said Eric Olsen, director of elections for the county.
The errors “did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error,” Olsen added.
Biden ultimately won Virginia by more than 450,000 votes, and the misreporting issues did not meet the 1 percent threshold to trigger a recount, according to the Prince William County office.
The insights about the misreported figures stem from a case involving the county’s former registrar, Michele White, who was charged in 2022 with corrupt conduct, making a false statement and neglect of duty relating to the 2020 election. Those charges have since been dropped, the Associated Press reports.
Olsen, in his statement, stressed that Virginians should have faith in the state’s election systems, and spotlighted that improvements have been made to correct the process for future contests.
“Mistakes are unfortunate but require diligence and innovation to correct. They do not reflect a purposeful attempt to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and the investigation into this matter ended with that conclusion.”
Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is going viral – just the way she wants it
Grace Yarrow – January 15, 2024
WASHINGTON — In summer 2021, about 50 Democrats from the Texas House arrived at the nation’s capital — absconding from Austin in a plot to block Republicans from passing a bill that would impose tighter restrictions on voting access.
Buzzing with excitement, the lawmakers took their places in front of reporters, with senior members and leadership moving toward the center to field questions. But Jasmine Crockett — a freshman from Dallas — stepped away from the group to take a call. She held up her phone to film her own live interview with a TV station, the dome of the Capitol building peeking out behind her.
That interview would be one of many that Crockett would take while camped out in Washington to discuss the Democrats’ quorum break, in a move that would raise the little-known lawmaker’s profile as she became an unofficial spokesperson for the dramatic political spectacle.
“There were people in leadership from my understanding that were not a fan of a freshman being a bit of a face of some of this,” Crockett said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.
Nonetheless, she accepted as many interviews as she could fit into her schedule, carrying two phones and a laptop to handle the crush of inquiries she received.
“I did not expect the world to pay attention,” Crockett said.
But she wanted them to.
Crockett, 42, didn’t get into politics to wait her turn. While she says she may have ruffled some feathers among her caucus peers at the time, her decision to grab the spotlight catapulted her career and provided the foundation for her to run for Congress the following year.
Crockett, who was elected to Congress in 2022 after serving one term in the Texas House, is shown in her Washington office Jan. 4, 2023. Credit: Michael A. McCoy for The Texas Tribune
Now a freshman in the U.S. House representing the Dallas-based 30th Congressional District, Crockett is once again finding her voice, seeking out moments to go viral and trying to make a name for herself in a deeper pool filled with bigger fish.
Her unfiltered musings and barbs while in Congress have helped her amass one of the largest social media followings in the Texas delegation, with an online audience of nearly a quarter of a million people on both X and Instagram. Her online reach is bigger than every other Texas Democrat, with the exception of Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who has served a decade longer than Crockett has. And she’s been crowdsourcing the name for a new podcast, she’s considering.
Crockett got her first taste of going viral during a September hearing of the House Oversight Committee, which garnered media attention because of the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Crockett took aim at former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, holding up printed photos from his indictment showing boxes of classified documents in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom.
“These are our national secrets, looks like, in the shitter to me,” Crockett said in a clip that was shared on Reddit and Tiktok. One fan edit of the moment set to music, created by a 16-year-old fan, raked in over 8 million views on TikTok.
Crockett spoke about the virality of the moment on CNN, saying younger Democrats are looking for their elected leaders to “push back” against GOP talking points. Actor Mark Hamill, of Luke Skywalker fame, reposted the video on X, supporting Crockett: “Omg is an understatement!”
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin, another freshman Democrat who sits beside Crockett in the Oversight Committee, said he often struggles to keep a straight face during Crockett’s speeches.
“She can speak so directly to people and bring humor to the table in a way that makes folks want to listen. And that’s what we need right now,” Casar said.
For her online followers, Crockett provides gleeful narration about the unfolding drama within the majority party, such as her updates on X about “SPEAKERGATE,” the fallout from the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Recently, she’s chronicled on X the expulsion of New York Republican George Santos, who was booted from the House following a searing ethics report detailing misuses of campaign funds. “Maybe a cat fight if Santos spills tea during debate, today,” Crockett posted before the expulsion vote.
Her posts — often interspersed with popcorn or eyeball emojis — are told as though she’s recapping an episode of reality television to a friend: “Welcome to preschool … I mean our prestigious congress (darn autocorrect).”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said that Crockett’s unique voice has proved to be an effective communication tool and that her expertise as an attorney is often on display.
He described her style as a combination of a lawyer’s “sharp analysis and lucid exposition” and a “Texan’s folksy and intimate manner.”
“Always a fighter”
Gwen Crockett said her daughter was a sharp-witted speaker from a young age.
In high school, Crockett participated in speech competitions. While in a production of “Little Shop of Horrors” at Rhodes College, a professor took notice of Crockett’s talent for public speaking and invited her to participate in a mock trial organization, where she first found her legal voice.
“I think that’s when it hit her that she wanted to become a lawyer,” Gwen Crockett said.
While at Rhodes College, Crockett was one of only 18 Black students and received threatening, anonymous racist mail.
“That was the first time that I felt helpless and felt targeted as a Black person,” she said. Crockett was paired with a Black female lawyer to help investigate who was sending the threats in the mail. Crockett now calls that lawyer her “saving grace” and another factor in her decision to pursue a legal career.
Jasmine Crockett studied at the Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law and the University of Houston Law Center. After law school, she moved to Texarkana to be a public defender and later opened her own civil rights and criminal defense law firm.
She said her time representing thousands of Texans in court has given her firsthand experience with inequities in the justice system. Adam Bazaldua, a Dallas City Council member, said Crockett is “always a fighter for the most vulnerable.”
Crockett represented thousands of Texans’ cases and handled high-profile lawsuits involving police brutality and other cases involving racial injustice. In 2020, as she campaigned for a seat in the state House, she took on the cases of protesters arrested in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Then-state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, holds a bag that reads, “Protect Black People” at a joint press conference with the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland and the Texas Legislature Democrats in Alexandria, Va. on July 16, 2021. Credit: Eric Lee
Activist Rachel Gonzales wrote Crockett’s phone number on her stomach when she protested an incident of police brutality in Texas outside the state Capitol in Austin.
“I knew that she would be the first person to show up and fight if needed,” Gonzales said.
During those protests, Crockett consistently posted information for constituents on social media, according to her former chief of staff, Karrol Rimal. Receiving hundreds of calls, Crockett organized other attorneys to help advocate for protesters.
“She never loses sight of the people,” Rimal said.
Crockett was elected to the Texas House in 2020, quickly becoming an outspoken figure in the Legislature. During her first legislative session, she filed 75 solo bills and co-authored another 110, three of which became law.
“Many freshmen, they just kind of sit there. They don’t say a whole lot because they’re trying to learn,” said former Texas Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont. “But for her, the learning curve was very short. I mean, she jumped right in.”
Then-state Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, speaks at a Texas House Progressive Caucus at the Capitol on Sept. 20, 2021. Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune
Those who worked with Crockett pointed to the quorum break trip as her breakout moment.
“I think there was maybe some jealousy. She got a lot of national attention. She really was a lightning rod,” said state Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, who sat next to Crockett in the state House.
Although the Democrats were ultimately unable to stop the Republican elections bill from becoming law, they boosted the national conversation around voter disenfranchisement.
Crockett touted her leadership in the quorum break when she campaigned for the U.S. House in 2022.
She now represents the seat that recently deceased Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson had held since 1993. After announcing her retirement, Johnson quickly encouraged Crockett to run.
Crockett said she hoped to carry forward Johnson’s legacy.
“Around 9 am, my predecessor, who hand picked me to succeed her, passed away and all of a sudden, like many of my plans this year, my plan to end on a high note, came crashing down,” Crockett said in a post last Sunday on X where she also said she had just done a media hit on MSNBC. “I appreciate the calls and texts and just pray that she’s resting easy. When I’m feeling a lil lost, I’ll always lean in and see if I can hear your voice, Congresswoman.”
U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, talks to Jasmine Crockett at Crockett’s election night watch party for a congressional seat in Dallas on May 24, 2022. Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
“Pragmatic progressive”
Being outspoken and online naturally makes way for comparisons to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a third-term representative who has attained near-celebrity status as the face of the progressive movement.
But Crockett, unlike Casar of Austin, is not a member of the “Squad,” a well-known group of congressional progressives who regularly garner national media attention and GOP condemnation.
Crockett draws a strong line between herself and those progressives. She says her “pragmatic progressive” policy goals make her more willing to work with the business community, in situations where members of the Squad may be less willing to compromise.
But Crockett said she and Ocasio-Cortez have a common goal of using social media to meet constituents “where they are.”
“I think some of us younger members are trying to better educate voters,” Crockett said.
Though she routinely tussles with the GOP — she called them “assholes” in a September interview and again in December — Crockett also says she knows the importance of finding common ground with colleagues across the aisle.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, walks through the U.S. Capitol on the second day the 118th Congress on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Michael A. McCoy for The Texas Tribune
She’s found an unlikely ally in Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who Crockett calls her “best partner” in the Senate. The senior senator has promoted the STRIP Act, a bicameral and bipartisan bill that decriminalizes fentanyl testing strips. The bill is still awaiting committee action.
Cornyn said it was a “no-brainer” to collaborate with Crockett on legislation he said would benefit Texans.
“I think she’s been very approachable,” Cornyn said. “It’s not easy to get things done or bills passed in either of the two houses, especially if you don’t have a dance partner. So I offered to be her dance partner.”
Crockett introduced the companion legislation in the House with Rep. Lance Gooden of Terrell, who Crockett said is a trusted colleague and a dear friend.
“We argue and fight each time we are together, but we also hug and laugh equally as often,” Gooden said in a statement.
Crockett is running for reelection, and has drawn two primary challengers, Jarred Davis and Jrmar “JJ” Jefferson. But she said she has no intentions to stay in Congress long term.
She’ll spend the coming months campaigning both for herself and working to clinch a Democratic majority in the House due to her role as the caucus leadership representative from the freshman class, a fundraising position and an honor bestowed onto her by her freshman colleagues. She’s the first Black woman in that position, which she said adds even more pressure.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, casts her first vote on the House floor on the first day of the 118th Congress on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Michael A. McCoy for The Texas Tribune
“I have to make sure this opportunity and door stays open for those that come behind me. Leadership in the Democratic caucus is about money. It’s a money game,” Crockett said.
Olivia Julianna, a 21-year-old Texan with over a million followers on social media, said Crockett’s rhetoric appeals to young people on social media, in contrast with other politicians’ “jargony” or “unattainable” speech.
The Gen Z political activist said Crockett regularly “steals the show” in Congress.
“That’s why people respect her so much, because she says what a lot of people are thinking, but they don’t have the platform to say,” Julianna said.
Disclosure: The University of Houston has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism.
Davos: Global crises set to dominate gathering of business leaders
Faisal Islam – Economics editor – January 15, 2024
A woman takes a picture in front of a screen displaying AI-generated artwork
Just a week ago, the expectation about the latest gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was of a line being drawn under three years of pandemic, lockdown and Ukraine war energy shocks.
Inflation is falling, and 2024 was set to be the year that central banks start cutting interest rates, including here in the UK. In three years of different rolling, merging global crises, the world economy has been in the shadow of massive geopolitical shifts.
The events of the past few days shows that the “polycrisis” is far from over.
Perhaps the most telling development has been the ability of the Houthis to use relatively cheap drones and armaments to cause havoc with world trade. Air strikes on the Houthis in Yemen were carried out explicitly to keep the currents of trade and economic recovery flowing through the straits leading to the Suez Canal.
But oil prices jumped on Friday because the risk of a wider confrontation in the region has also gone up. In three months the crisis in Gaza has led to RAF jets attacking targets in Aden. What will be happening three months from now?
As it happens, this sort of fundamental diplomatic challenge is made for the World Economic Forum. Launched in 1971, and held every year in the Alpine ski resort of Davos, the conference puts together the world’s top business people and politicians, as well as key players from charity and academia.
Where else would the Israeli president, Saudi foreign minister and Qatari prime minister be present in the same space at the same time, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Premier Li Qiang?
Expectations are low surrounding the grim situation in the Middle East, but this is the sort of place where constructive and unexpected conversations can take place discreetly.
There had been a whiff of decay about Davos since the pandemic. G7 leader appearances were getting rarer. Rishi Sunak hasn’t been and isn’t going this week. In a huge year for elections across the globe the US delegation this year is particularly thin. Republicans in particular view the event with some suspicion.
The Republican Party’s Ron DeSantis, a potential presidential candidate, last year called Davos a “threat to freedom” run by China. The Florida governor said any policies emerging from the forum were “dead on arrival” in his state. The view in Davos is that he thought that such rhetoric would play well in the presidential primaries which also start this week.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is attending, and will be mindful of “Ukraine fatigue” reaching Washington DC and becoming prevalent in developing countries.
Security is always tight at the Davos gathering
For the UK, some in the business community appear ready to go beyond a curious interest in the Labour Party in this election year.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will be competing for the attention of UK business leaders and international investors.
If business investors are worried about Labour’s economic plans, for example for extra investment spending, the World Economic Forum is exactly where it may, or may not surface. I recall then-opposition leader David Cameron’s parade of meetings with world leaders, just before he became prime minister in 2010.
There has been a backlash against some of the corporate do-gooding typical of the event, especially the recent focus by investors on companies’ environmental and social policies.
Put brutally, the world of the past two years has seen massive returns for hydrocarbon extractors, carbon emitters and arms companies.
The optimism will come from a hope that disturbed geopolitics can somehow settle without a further energy shock.
Artificial intelligence will be everywhere, with the ChatGPT-creating Open AI boss Sam Altman being paraded to the world’s business and political leaders by Microsoft, which is now vying with Apple to be the world’s biggest company.
So at the start of a delicate year of disorder and uncertainty in global politics and diplomacy, and question marks about economic recovery from years of such crisis, it is difficult to imagine a better moment for a gathering like the World Economic Forum this week.
The task is to travel towards the light at the end of the tunnel. It will not be easy.
