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  • How much should people worry about Covid’s newly-dominant XBB.1.5 variant? Our medical analyst explains | CNN

    How much should people worry about Covid’s newly-dominant XBB.1.5 variant? Our medical analyst explains | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A new Covid-19 variant, XBB.1.5, is spreading rapidly throughout the United States. In December 2022, the proportion of new Covid-19 infections due to this Omicron offshoot have increased from 4% to 18%, according to a January 6 release from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is projected to rise further still. In some parts of the country, it constitutes more than half of all new infections. According to the World Health Organization, XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of Omicron yet.

    What should people know about XBB.1.5? Do vaccines and treatments work against it? Can tests pick it up? Will hospitals become overwhelmed again? Should kids wear masks to school again? And could there be even more worrisome variants that emerge in the future?

    To guide us through these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, public health expert and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also author of “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”

    CNN: What should people know about the latest Covid-19 variant, XBB.1.5?

    Dr. Leana Wen: People should not be surprised that there is a new variant. The more viruses replicate, the more they mutate. Most mutations do not confer evolutionary advantage and won’t spread further, but some do.

    There are three key questions to ask about new variants. First, is it more contagious? Second, does it cause more serious disease? And third, is it more immune-evasive, meaning it undercuts the protection of existing vaccines and treatments?

    The mutations XBB.1.5 has acquired have made it more contagious. A more transmissible strain has the evolutionary advantage that it will spread faster than others, and therefore could displace other strains. This is a trend seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic — new, even more transmissible strains replacing their predecessors and becoming dominant.

    The good news is that, thus far, this strain does not appear to cause more severe disease. Like other Omicron descendants, it probably causes milder illness compared with the Delta variants that predated Omicron.

    There are some studies that suggest XBB.1.5 is more immune-evasive compared with previously dominant Omicron strains. Further research is underway to identify the degree of immune protection afforded by existing vaccines; the White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said that “data suggests that if you’ve been vaccinated, if you’ve gotten that updated bivalent booster, you’re still going to have a good amount of protection,” during an interview Friday with CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

    But even if it turns out these vaccines don’t hold up as well against infection with XBB.1.5, they will probably protect well against severe illness — which underscores the need for people to receive the updated booster if they are eligible.

    CNN: Can tests pick up this new variant?

    Wen: PCR tests definitely can, and there’s no reason to think that this variant won’t be picked up by rapid home antigen tests. If you have symptoms or are exposed to someone with the coronavirus, you should certainly get tested. The tests won’t show you which strain you picked up, but they should detect circulating variants.

    CNN: Do existing treatments work against XBB.1.5?

    Wen: Antiviral treatments like Paxlovid should work against XBB.1.5. Unfortunately, monoclonal antibody treatments probably don’t. In November, the US. Food and Drug Administration withdrew their authorization of the last remaining monoclonal antibody because of its lack of efficacy against new variants. And on January 6, the agency issued a statement that the preventive antibody Evusheld may be ineffective against XBB.1.5.

    On a policy level, it’s critical there are urgent investments into better treatments. There are many people vulnerable to severe outcomes due to Covid-19, and we need to have a wider range of effective treatments available for them.

    CNN: Could hospitals become overwhelmed again?

    Wen: Covid-19 infections could rise in the coming weeks due to a combination of this new variant and the fact that many people will have traveled and gathered over the holidays. I don’t think the surge will be nearly as bad as the initial Omicron wave in early 2022, though, because of the large proportion of Americans who have by this point already contracted Covid-19 and have some baseline immunity to it.

    If you have symptoms or are exposed to someone with the coronavirus, you should certainly get tested, says Dr. Leana Wen.

    Increasing booster rates, particularly among the elderly, will help blunt the rise in hospitalizations. It’s a major problem that only about a third of Americans ages 65 and older have received the updated bivalent booster, which has been shown in a recent study to reduce hospitalization by 73% in this age group.

    CNN: How much should people worry about XBB.1.5?

    Wen: It depends on the individual. There are many people who are not concerned about contracting Covid-19. They may be young and healthy and unlikely to become severely ill due to the coronavirus. Maybe they have just recovered from a previous infection and are protected against serious illness for several months. Or maybe the downside of continuing precautions is significant to them. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to proceed with their pre-pandemic routines, considering that XBB.1.5 is not likely to be the last variant of concern we see — and that it doesn’t appear to cause more severe disease.

    On the other hand, there are many people who are worried about becoming severely ill from Covid-19. People who are elderly or who have underlying health conditions should speak with their physician about their risk of severe illness due to Covid-19. If they are at high risk even after getting the bivalent booster, they should consider additional precautions to avoid infection while this highly transmissible variant is circulating. That includes asking others to take a rapid test prior to socializing and wearing a high-quality N95 or equivalent mask while in crowded indoor places.

    CNN: Some school districts are bringing back mask mandates. Should kids wear masks to schools again?

    Wen: This will depend on the family. If everyone is generally healthy, the parents or caregivers are going to work without a mask and all members are socializing freely with others outside of school, then it wouldn’t add much more protection to mask in the classroom.

    On the other hand, families that are still taking many precautions because of, for example, a severely immunocompromised household member might decide to all mask while in in crowded indoor spaces.

    My children have not been masking in school since the beginning of this school year, and I don’t currently plan for this to change. We would reconsider if a new variant emerges that causes much more severe disease, but that does not appear to be the case with XBB.1.5.

    CNN: Could there be even more worrisome variants that emerge in the future?

    Wen: Yes. This is the reason why genomic surveillance is so important. We need to identify and study new variants as they emerge. This is part of our “new normal”— there will be new variants that, from time to time, lead to surges of infections. The key is to make sure people are still protected against severe disease and to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. And we must make sure everyone makes use of the tools we have available, including vaccines.

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  • What to expect at work this year | CNN Business

    What to expect at work this year | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The pandemic has transformed work over the past three years in ways few expected. It normalized remote work, created a shortage of critical workers and drove home to organizations that employees’ mental health and need for a sane work-life balance are critical to retention and engagement.

    So what does 2023 likely hold for you at your job, regardless of your industry?

    There are welcome and unwelcome developments on tap, along with some potentially confusing ones, too.

    Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.

    Regardless of whether the United States slips into a recession, there will be more widespread job cuts than what we’ve seen happening so far in industries like tech, media and finance.

    “We’re starting to see more layoffs pick up in other industries. I do anticipate rising layoffs in most sectors,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

    But that shouldn’t be surprising, given that layoffs in 2021 and 2022 were at their lowest levels since 1993.

    That said, the job market has cooled a bit — but it’s still running hot, with a high level of job openings per job seeker.

    The overall slowdown in hiring is likely to continue, with employers more likely to reinstate performance-improvement plans for underperforming employees and performance-related layoffs, Challenger predicts.

    And, of course, should there be a real recession, the layoffs would cut much deeper.

    While there is still tension between executives and employees about how many days people should be physically present at work, hybrid work and work flexibility isn’t going away.

    “Today, the majority of employers (66%) are permitting hybrid working and an additional 9% give employees the option to work from home every day,” according to benefits consulting firm Mercer.

    Nevertheless, this may be the year employers start to actually enforce their minimum-days-in-the-office mandates, Challenger said.

    Just this week, for example, Disney CEO Bob Iger ordered employees to return to corporate offices four days a week beginning March 1.

    Front-line employees like retail workers, health care aides and security guards, whose jobs require them always to be on site, may be offered other forms of flexibility, said Emily Rose McRae, senior director of research at Gartner, a workplace consulting firm.

    That could include being given a regular schedule, as opposed to working “on demand,” where they don’t know their schedule in advance, McRae said. It also could mean getting more paid leave, or that front-line workers could opt out of working certain shifts or certain days.

    McRae said she sees more employers offering what she calls “proactive rest” options this year.

    The idea is to actively help people recover before becoming fully depleted not only by work, but by the upending of their lives from the pandemic and the social and political upheaval of the past few years.

    “The big shift is in recognizing our work force is in trouble,” McRae said.

    Proactive rest can take many forms. Some employers may offer days off — whether it’s a whole week or just one day a week for a set period of time. Or it could simply mean branding a given workday as a no-meeting day.

    Information technology professionals will continue to win the day at work when it comes to who gets the biggest raises and bonuses.

    “Most organizations are anticipating the talent market to remain as competitive, or more competitive, at least in the first half of this year,” said Tony Guadagni, a senior principal in Gartner’s HR practice. “They will do what they have to to attract that critical talent.”

    Employers’ projected increases for this year in terms of merit increases (3.9%) and total pay (4.3%) are the highest they’ve been in 15 years, according to workplace consulting firm Mercer. But given that inflation is still pacing higher than those levels, you may not feel the raise you get is making a huge difference in what you can afford — unless your skills are in high demand.

    It used to be difficult to figure out whether you were being paid competitively for your talents, since companies weren’t open about what they paid others and colleagues wouldn’t discuss their pay.

    But now that New York City, the state of California, and a handful of other states and localities have implemented pay transparency rules for job postings, it will be easier in 2023 to confirm you’re being paid fairly relative to your teammates, and to determine the salary range on offer if you’re looking for a new job.

    Still, these laws are very new, and companies have not been uniform in how they’re handling the new rules. Some recent job postings, for instance, have advertised unhelpfully wide pay ranges — think $50,000 to $200,000.

    Beyond the big benefits employers typically offer full-time staffers (e.g., subsidized health insurance, a 401(k) match, etc.), they also offer a range of secondary benefits or perks, such as tuition reimbursement, supplemental life insurance, a stipend for home office supplies or financial coaching.

    Gartner and Mercer are seeing more companies let employees decide how best to spend these perk dollars by letting them direct a fixed amount of money across the secondary benefits that are most important to them.

    Your organization may engage in “quiet hiring” this year, if it hasn’t already.

    It’s a misleading term, in that it is neither quiet nor does it involve actual hiring.

    Rather, your company will want to repurpose existing employees — possibly you, if you have relevant skills — for the employer’s highest priority projects this year.

    That could be a great opportunity if you hate being limited to the same tasks of your official job, or if you want to develop new skills and work with new people in your company.

    It also could be highly frustrating, especially if a company is simply putting everyone on rotation to make sure understaffed, critical tasks get done by anyone with the adequate skills to do so.

    Either way, “quiet hiring” may offer an initial taste of a broader trend likely to unfold over the next several years that could spell the end of “jobs” — and specifically job descriptions as we know them, according to consulting firm Deloitte.

    That’s because many employers want to transition away from being a jobs-based organization to a skills-based one so they can quickly adapt to change, address talent shortages and provide their workforce with opportunities to develop professionally, said Arthur Mazor, a principal global leader at Deloitte’s Human Capital Practice.

    So instead of viewing you as a holder of Job X, your company is likely to view you as a person with an array of skills that can be deployed in many ways.

    Early adopters this year can be found across various industries, Mazor said — from software makers to auto manufacturers to financial services to health care.

    Even at companies that have not formalized a shift to being a skills-based organization, the change is happening anyway. Roughly 70% of workers say they’re already doing work outside of their job, according to Deloitte.

    One recent example, cited in Deloitte’s latest work report, comes from M&T Bank, a leading Small Business Administration lender. Its chief talent officer told the firm, “when the Paycheck Protection Program was rolled out during the pandemic, we had to stop thinking about jobs and start thinking about skills. … By focusing on skills versus jobs — and rapidly mobilizing talent in an agile way — we outperformed our peers.”

    It’s too early to determine exactly how this will play out for employees, in terms of incentives offered for switching to a new project or pinch-hitting for another department, how an employee’s work will be assessed and rewarded, and how much say they will get in the projects assigned.

    But done right, Mazor said, employees should have the opportunity to share on an internal database their skills and what areas they wish to develop before being matched with a new assignment.

    “This isn’t a clandestine effort. It involves worker input.”

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  • Why experts worry TikTok could add to mental health crisis among US teens | CNN Business

    Why experts worry TikTok could add to mental health crisis among US teens | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Jermone Yankey said he used to pull all-nighters when he was in college – not studying or partying, but scrolling on TikTok until the sun came up.

    “I saw me not putting the effort into my own life, rather just trying to live vicariously through what I’m seeing,” said 23-year old Yankey. He said he lost sleep, his grades suffered, and he fell out of touch with friends and himself.

    In 2021, he deleted the app. The positive impact, he said, was obvious. “It’s so great to be able to be sleeping again starting at midnight,” he said. “It’s great to be able to be up early and be more productive with the sun.”

    In recent months, TikTok has faced growing pressure from state and federal lawmakers over concerns about its ties to China through its parent company, ByteDance. But some lawmakers and researchers have also been scrutinizing the impact that the short-form video app may have on its youngest users.

    GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher, the incoming chairman of a new House select committee on China, recently called TikTok “digital fentanyl” for allegedly having a “corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America.” Indiana’s attorney general filed two suits against TikTok last month, including one alleging that the platform lures children onto the platform by falsely claiming it is friendly for users between 13 to 17 years old. And one study from a non-profit group claimed TikTok may surface potentially harmful content related to suicide and eating disorders to teenagers within minutes of them creating an account.

    TikTok is far from the only social platform to be scrutinized by lawmakers and mental health experts for its impact on teens. Top execs from several companies, including TikTok, have been grilled in Congress on the matter. And this week, Seattle Public Schools sued social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube alleging the platforms have been “causing a youth mental health crisis,” making it hard for the school system “to fulfill its educational mission.”

    But psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge said TikTok’s algorithm in particular is “very sophisticated” and “very sticky,” which keeps teens engaged on the platform longer. TikTok has amassed more than one billion global users. Those users spent an average of an hour and a half per day on the app in last year, more than any other social media platform, according to the digital analytics platform SensorTower.

    “A lot of teens describe the experience of going on TikTok and intending to spend 15 minutes and then they spend two hours and or more. That’s problematic because the more time a teen spends on social media, the more likely he or she is to be depressed. And that’s particularly true for at the extremes of use,” said Twenge.

    That may only compound a longer-term rise in mental health issues, partly fueled by technology. Psychologists say as smartphones and social media grew around 2012, so did the rate of depression among teens. Between 2004 and 2019 the rate of teen depression nearly doubled, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And for teen girls its worse. By 2019, one in four US girls have experienced clinical depression, according to Twenge.

    TikTok said it has tools to help users set limits for how long they spend on the app each day. TikTok also continues to roll out other safeguards for its users, including ways to filter out mature or “potentially problematic” videos and more parental controls.

    “One of our most important commitments is supporting the safety and well-being of teens, and we recognize this work is never finished. We continue to focus on robust safety protections for our community while also empowering parents with additional controls for their teen’s account through TikTok Family Pairing,” TikTok said in a statement to CNN.

    The company said between April and June of 2022 it removed 93.4% of videos on self-harm and suicide from the app before they were ever viewed. But teens say it’s not the most egregious videos that keep them engaged. It’s the content programmed to them in the “For You” section of the app.

    “It’s so curated to you,” said Angelica Faustino, an 18-year-old sophomore at the University at Buffalo, who says she spends 3 to 4 hours a day on TikTok.

    “There is a lot of body checking on TikTok – a lot of people showing off things about themselves that are maybe unachievable. You see if enough times you are like maybe I should be that way,” said Faustino.

    For all the concerns, however, there are signs that TikTok and other social networks can have a positive impact on younger users, too.

    The majority of teens say social media can be a space for connection and creativity, according to Pew Research. Eight in 10 teens ages 13-17 say social media makes them feel more connected to what’s going on in their friends lives and 71% say social media is a place they can be creative, according to Pew.

    And some in Gen Z, the generation that has been raised on TikTok, have found unique opportunities on the platform.

    Hannah Williams spends her time on TikTok running her business, Salary Transparent Street. She interviews everyday Americans about the salary they make at their jobs, providing pay transparency to her nearly 1 million followers.

    “I quit my job in May of 2022 to work on my social media page on Tik Tok full time because I saw a great opportunity to do something with my career,” said 26 year-old Williams.

    “I think it’s interesting that we can try to use social media to really impact the world for good,” she said, “and I’m hoping that’s what happens.”

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  • Damar Hamlin discharged after spending more than a week hospitalized due to a cardiac arrest | CNN

    Damar Hamlin discharged after spending more than a week hospitalized due to a cardiac arrest | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin has been discharged from a Buffalo medical center, his club said Wednesday, after more than a week of hospitalization due to a cardiac arrest he suffered during a “Monday Night Football” game this month.

    The 24-year-old Bills safety had been showing signs of accelerated improvement in the days leading up to his release from Buffalo General Medical Center in New York, hospital officials had said.

    “We have completed a series of tests and evaluations, and in consultation with the team physicians, we are confident that Damar can be safely discharged to continue his rehabilitation at home and with the Bills,” a physician leading Hamlin’s care in Buffalo, Dr. Jamie Nadler, said in a statement the Bills released Wednesday on Twitter.

    Hamlin initially was hospitalized in Cincinnati when his heart suddenly stopped after a tackle during a game against the host Cincinnati Bengals on January 2, but was transferred to the Buffalo facility Monday after doctors determined his critical condition had improved enough for the move.

    Doctors at the Buffalo hospital were trying to determine why Hamlin suffered the cardiac arrest, Kaleida Health, the group of hospitals that includes the Buffalo medical center, said before his discharge. That included whether pre-existing conditions played a role in the event, which shocked many around the country and prompted a huge outpouring of support for the second-year NFL player.

    On Tuesday, Hamlin went through “a comprehensive medical evaluation as well as a series of cardiac, neurological and vascular testing,” the Bills said on Twitter.

    No cause of Hamlin’s cardiac arrest has been publicly announced.

    “Special thank-you to Buffalo General it’s been nothing but love since arrival! Keep me in y’all prayers please!” Hamlin tweeted Tuesday.

    It will be up to Hamlin to decide when he will be around the team again while recovering, Bills coach Sean McDermott said Wednesday.

    “Grateful first and foremost that he is home with his parents and his brother, which is great,” McDermott told reporters Wednesday, as the Bills prepared to host the Miami Dolphins for a playoff game Sunday. No timetable for Hamlin’s return to professional football has been announced.

    “We’ll leave (when he’ll be around the team) up to him. His health is first and foremost in our mind as far as his situation goes and when he feels ready, we will welcome him back,” McDermott said.

    While in critical condition in Cincinnati, Hamlin was sedated and on a ventilator for days. On Friday morning the breathing tube was removed, and Hamlin began walking with some help by that afternoon, his doctors said Monday.

    The health care team focused on stabilizing Hamlin and upgraded his condition Monday because his organ systems were stable and he no longer needed intensive nursing or respiratory therapy, doctors said.

    “He’s certainly on what we consider a very normal to even accelerated trajectory from the life-threatening event that he underwent,” Dr. Timothy Pritts, chief of surgery at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said earlier this week. “He’s making great progress.”

    Normal recovery from a cardiac arrest can be measured in weeks to months, Pritts said Monday. Hamlin had been beating that timeline at each stage and is neurologically intact.

    When Hamlin collapsed seconds after an open-field tackle against a Bengals wide receiver, medical personnel rushed onto the field and administered CPR quickly – which helped save his life.

    Hamlin’s heart had stopped, and medical responders revived it twice before putting him into an ambulance and taking him to the hospital. The immediate actions of medical personnel were vital to “not just saving his life, but his neurological function,” said Pritts.

    The horrifying scene of Hamlin suddenly falling on his back after standing up following the tackle unsettled his teammates, the other players and millions of watching fans.

    The game was initially postponed and later cancelled by the NFL – a decision several former football players said was a sign of a shift in prioritizing players’ mental and physical health.

    Now, the Bills organization is encouraging people to learn the critical, life-saving skill of administering CPR.

    The team has pledged support for resources including CPR certifications, automated external defibrillator units and guidance for developing cardiac emergency response plans within the Buffalo community, according to the statement. “We encourage all our fans to continue showing your support and take the next step by obtaining CPR certification,” the Bills said.

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  • Meet the group protecting patients from protesters outside abortion clinics | CNN Politics

    Meet the group protecting patients from protesters outside abortion clinics | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, Planned Parenthood made a vow.

    “It is a dark day for our country, but this is far from over. We will not compromise on our bodies, our dignity or our freedom,” the organization said in a statement.

    But with more than a dozen states enacting complete or partial bans on abortion following the Supreme Court decision, abortion clinics, like those operated by Planned Parenthood, and the protests they attract have become an even more potent symbol of the country’s deep divisions over reproductive health.

    To minimize the effect these protests have on patients visiting Planned Parenthood clinics, the organization deploys volunteer clinic escorts to “help get patients to the door of our clinic with as little harassment from protesters and picketers as possible,” according to its website.

    The result is a defensive role on the front lines of America’s abortion debate.

    To understand the role and what it entails, we turned to Marian Starkey, a volunteer Planned Parenthood clinic escort in Maine who has been guiding patients past protesters at different locations since 2007.

    Our conversation, conducted over the phone in late December and lightly edited for flow and brevity, is below.

    LEBLANC: When you sign on for your clinic escort shift, what can the average day bring? I imagine every day is a little bit different.

    STARKEY: To a degree. I mean, the difference really revolves around the public’s reaction to the protesters. Honestly, the protesters are pretty consistent. It’s generally the same people who show up every Friday.

    Friday is the procedure day at Planned Parenthood. And so that’s the day that the protesters are there. They usually arrive around 8:30 in the morning and, depending on the weather, they’ll stay until 11 o’clock or sometimes later if it’s nice out.

    They show up with massive signs that barely fit in their cars. They have to kind of squish them into the back seats of their cars when they leave at the end of the shift. The signs show fetuses in very advanced stages of development and pretty, pretty gruesome images, and they’re meant to shock and disturb patients and passersby, which they do.

    They show up and they do a little prayer to start off their day. And then the men – it’s always men – will take turns preaching throughout the morning. I’ve never, in the 15 or 16 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen a woman preach, always the dudes. Young ones, too.

    I mean, men as young as probably 19 or 20 sort of get on their soapbox and preach at passing traffic, at the patients entering the clinic. But mostly at us.

    STARKEY: Honestly, the patient traffic isn’t so heavy that there’s always somebody for them to be sort of focusing on. So they focus most of their attention on us greeters and try to learn personal information about us and then use that to sort of get under our skin.

    I mean, they all know my name. They know that my mom’s a midwife. I hear about that a lot – that, you know, she brings life into this world and I take it out.

    LEBLANC: Oh, wow.

    STARKEY: Yeah, so it can be pretty targeted. We have a non-engagement policy across the country, so we don’t speak with them; we try not to even acknowledge them with eye contact. And so we just kind of look right through them or look up and down the sidewalk to see what’s going on with patients and people passing by.

    And that doesn’t deter them from talking at us, but we don’t engage.

    LEBLANC: How is it that they’re learning personal information about the clinic escorts?

    STARKEY: The same way that we’re learning information about them, if I’m being honest. If they make the mistake of using each other’s names out on the sidewalk, then now we know their name.

    They coordinate with each other using a Facebook page, and so if you go to that page, you can see a lot of their activity, and it can actually be kind of useful to see what they’ve got cooking. They’ll sometimes reveal plans for future protest events that they wanna do.

    But it’s also a place to see their pictures, and so we can recognize who they are. And I imagine they do the same thing with us.

    LEBLANC: So your goal is to basically shield the people using Planned Parenthood’s facilities from as much protester activity as possible?

    STARKEY: Yeah, and to just keep the chaos to a minimum, if possible. Patients can’t tell when they turn the corner from the parking garage and start their walk down the sidewalk – they can’t tell who’s a protester and who isn’t and who’s on their side and who’s not.

    And so when they make their appointments over the phone, they’ve already been warned there are protesters. They’ve also been told that there are clinical volunteers who are wearing these bright pink vests.

    But I think sometimes that doesn’t even register for them because they’re just in such a state when they see what they have to walk through. So, you know, we’re just trying to keep things as calm as possible, and not engaging with them tends to be the best way to do that.

    People are in all sorts of different mental states when they arrive. A lot of times just the presence of the protesters will make them cry. They have to walk down almost an entire block to get from the corner where the parking garage is to the front door of the clinic. And so I’m sure that can feel like an eternity for patients when they’re already upset.

    And so a lot of times they’ll burst into tears or the partners that they’re with – their support person – will start screaming at the protesters.

    A lot of times the men are actually the targets of the abuse from the protesters. They have sort of standard lines that they shout at them, like “real men don’t kill their children” and “be a father” or “don’t kill your child,” that sort of thing.

    So yeah, it’s just chaos out there. It’s a circus.

    LEBLANC: Have you ever had someone come in that was so traumatized by the experience that they no longer want to go through with their procedure?

    STARKEY: I haven’t seen that happen. The protesters, we will hear them sometimes boast about all of the lives that they’ve saved through people changing their minds. I haven’t seen it happen. So I’m not sure what they’re referring to when they say that.

    I don’t know, maybe something’s happening behind the scenes that we’re not privy to. I’m not sure.

    We have had patients for sure who, if there weren’t greeters on the corner, would not have walked down the sidewalk by themselves, and they told us that.

    LEBLANC: You’ve been doing this a long time. I’m curious if you’ve noticed a change at all since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade?

    STARKEY: Honestly I don’t think so. The protesters seemed happy about it, but not overjoyed. They have told us over the years in their preaching, but also just kind of the one-sided conversations they have with us, that they’re not political people. That for them, the person in charge is Jesus Christ and they’re not all that interested in the laws of man and the elected officials that we have.

    What I have noticed that’s different is that people passing by are a lot angrier.

    The morning of the decision, a man came by and just screamed in the faces of the protesters: “You finally got what you wanted, now you can get out of here.” And they just kind of calmly explained to him, “Well, no, because abortion is still legal in Maine, so we still have work to do, and we’ll be out here regardless.”

    I had never before the Dobbs decision – I had never seen people passing by grab their signs and make off with them. And now that’s happened. I mean, I’ve probably seen that five or six times now.

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  • Uganda declares end of Ebola outbreak | CNN

    Uganda declares end of Ebola outbreak | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Ugandan authorities have officially declared the end of a recent Ebola outbreak after 42 consecutive days with no new cases.

    A formal declaration was made during a televised ceremony held in the central Mubende district, the epicenter of the outbreak, on Wednesday.

    According to the World Health Organisation, an Ebola outbreak is over if there are no new cases after 42 days, which is twice the incubation period.

    “Today, 11th January 2023 marks 113 days since the start of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda,​” said the health minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Ocero.

    “I urge the population to remain vigilant, implement the standard operating procedures and to report any person in the community that presents with Ebola-like symptoms,” she stressed.

    The outbreak, the eighth in Ugana’s history, killed 55 people, said Aceng Ocero. There were a total 143 confirmed cases and 22 probable cases, she added.

    Ugandan Red Cross workers in Mubende, the epicenter of the outbreak.

    To combat the outbreak, officials launched aggressive contact-tracing to track down relatives and friends who handled the bodies of victims or attended funerals.

    Some escaped from quarantine facilities, others traveled as far as the capital Kampala, and a few visited traditional healers and witchdoctors for treatment instead.

    Cases were eventually confirmed in nine districts, including Kampala, according to the health ministry.

    Contact tracers pictured on October 12.

    The Ebola virus is transmissible – but not as transmissible as some other infectious diseases, like Covid-19. It can spread from person to person through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids such as saliva, sweat, semen or feces, or through contaminated objects like bedding or needles.

    Ebola symptoms include fever, aches and pains, and fatigue, which then can progress to diarrhea, vomiting and unexplained bleeding.

    In 2012 an outbreak in the Kibaale district in the west of the country led to 17 deaths out of 24 confirmed cases, but was declared over in less than three months.

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  • Demi Lovato poster banned by advertising regulator for being offensive to Christians | CNN

    Demi Lovato poster banned by advertising regulator for being offensive to Christians | CNN

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Britain’s advertising regulator has banned a poster promoting Demi Lovato’s most recent album for being “likely to cause serious offence to Christians.”

    The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) launched an investigation into the poster, which was seen at multiple sites across London in August, after receiving complaints from four members of the public.

    The poster featured an image of the album cover under the headline “HOLY FVCK,” which is also the name of the album. The image showed Lovato sprawled across a large cushioned crucifix in a leather bondage-style outfit.

    Under the UK’s code for non-broadcast advertising, ads must be prepared with a “sense of responsibility” and must not contain anything likely to cause serious or widespread offense.

    According to the report published by the ASA Wednesday, the complainants “challenged whether the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence,” while some also suggested it was “irresponsibly placed” where children could see it.

    The watchdog investigated and upheld both aspects of the complaints, finding that both the language and the imagery used were likely to cause serious offense.

    Polydor Records, a division of Universal Music Group, argued that the posters, which appeared at six different sites and which were removed after four days, primarily included the artwork from the singer’s album, and denied that they were offensive.

    “We considered that the image of Ms Lovato bound up in a bondage-style outfit whilst lying on a mattress shaped like a crucifix, in a position with her legs bound to one side which was reminiscent of Christ on the cross, together with the reference to ‘holy fvck’, which in that context was likely to be viewed as linking sexuality to the sacred symbol of the crucifix and the crucifixion, was likely to cause serious offence to Christians,” the report said.

    Though misspelt, it would be clear to “most readers that the ad alluded to the expression ‘holy f**k’,” it added.

    The watchdog concluded that the poster breached the code, and ruled that it “must not appear again in the form complained of unless it was suitably targeted.”

    CNN has reached out to Polydor Records for comment.

    Lovato’s eighth studio album, which was released in August, deals with some difficult issues, including drug and alcohol addiction. One of the songs, “Skin of My Teeth,” was inspired by her health challenges following an 2018 overdose, which caused multiple strokes and brain damage. She said on the “Spout” podcast that she was sober throughout the creation of the album, something she is “so proud of.”

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  • New York City man who fatally struck Chinese woman with a rock sentenced to 20 years in prison | CNN

    New York City man who fatally struck Chinese woman with a rock sentenced to 20 years in prison | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A New York City man who fatally struck a 61-year-old Chinese woman with a rock in an unprovoked attack in November 2021 was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison.

    Elisaul Perez, 33, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in Queens County Criminal Court last month for the killing of Guiying Ma in Jackson Heights, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.

    Ma had been sweeping the sidewalk and street outside a friend’s home at about 8 a.m. on November 26, 2021, when Perez picked up a large rock and struck her in the head, the district attorney said. She fell and Perez then struck her in the head again, Katz said.

    Ma was taken to a hospital and had emergency surgery for severe head trauma and brain injuries but died from her injuries in February. Perez was arrested the day after the attack.

    The killing was one of a number of unprovoked attacks on Asian people in the last few years that experts said stemmed from anti-Asian bias connected to the Covid-19 pandemic. The New York Police Department created the Asian Hate Crime Task Force in 2020, and NYPD data shows there 133 anti-Asian bias incidents in 2021.

    In court Tuesday, Perez made no statement. When he walked into the courtroom, he acknowledged someone in the room and made a smirk at them, and when he exited in handcuffs he also looked back at this individual and frowned. Defense attorney David Strachan said he had nothing to note other than they relied on the promise Perez would be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

    Jennifer Wu, an attorney for Ma’s family, read a translated statement in court from Ma’s widower, Zhanxin Gao, saying that they felt at home in New York City prior to the attack.

    “The five years in New York that I lived here gave us a deep affection for the city,” she read. “We felt welcomed by the people here.”

    But the attack on his wife strained his relationship with his son and mother-in-law, and he has since moved back to China. Perez’s actions “took away the love of my life, the mother to my son … and took away, for me, my life in this country.”

    Yihung Hsieh, a family friend and the owner of the Jackson Heights property, also spoke in court and said Gao used to be a happy man, but “the tragedy that happened to Ma hit him very hard,” Hsieh said.

    “When I sent video to him he can’t stop crying … the tears and painful memory couldn’t stop,” he said.

    Last year, Hsieh set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Ma’s medical expenses and posted updates about her health after the attack. Ma had come to New York from Liaoning, China, four years earlier, and her husband worked in a restaurant cleaning, Hsieh wrote. Their son and two grandchildren remained in China, he wrote.

    “She will be remembered as an outgoing, friendly and kind individual who took care of everyone, and insisted on giving to others even when she had very little to give,” Hsieh wrote in the post.

    Katz, the district attorney, said outside court she hoped the case brought closure to the victim’s family.

    “Today was about justice but it was also about closure for the Ma family,” she said. “We were pleased that they were involved, the family friends were involved, and that we were able to keep in constant communication with the family, and with the community that supported them so wholeheartedly.”

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  • NICU mom stays by her son’s side after his nurses leave to strike | CNN Business

    NICU mom stays by her son’s side after his nurses leave to strike | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Lora Ribas hasn’t left her son’s bedside in four days.

    Her one-year-old baby, Logan, has been in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) since he was born. For the past three and a half months, he’s been under the care of Mount Sinai Hospital where thousands of nurses are currently striking.

    Logan was born prematurely at 27 weeks and is on a ventilator because his lungs were underdeveloped.

    Mount Sinai’s NICU has been consistently understaffed even before the strike, Ribas said. But since Mount Sinai’s nurses began picketing Monday, new travel nurses have replaced Logan’s primary care nurses – nurses who don’t fully understand her son’s needs, she said.

    Ribas said she’s too scared to leave her son alone under the care of the new travel nurses. She took a leave from work to stay by his side.

    “It’s scary to think that I can’t even go to the bathroom without me being concerned,” Ribas told CNN.

    Although the travel nurses are trying to compensate, they “don’t really know my son” and are still learning where supplies are around the unit, Ribas said.

    They aren’t able to give him one-on-one care because of the staffing shortages, according to the mom, and she said the staffing levels are even lower at night.

    Two nurses currently working inside Mount Sinai Hospital told CNN Monday that additional traveling nurses have not shown up as expected on their floors to replace nurses that are striking, causing stress for patients and staff.

    Mount Sinai Health System did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    In preparation for the strike, Mount Sinai announced Friday it would transport newborns in its intensive care unit to other area hospitals. But the most critical babies – like Logan – have stayed in the hospital’s NICU unit. One NICU nurse at Mount Sinai who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity, said moving a NICU baby to another hospital can be a risky move.

    “It’s a big journey for a baby who’s never been outside the hospital,” she told CNN. “It’s not anything that we want to happen. We want our babies to stay.”

    The more critical the baby’s condition is, the more complicated a transfer to another hospital becomes, the nurse explained.

    “You would need at least a doctor or nurse practitioner, a respiratory therapist if the patient is on respiratory support and a transport nurse to work the pumps and administer medicine if needed,” she said.

    Ribas said her son’s primary nurses who are striking right now are heartbroken they had to leave him and have been calling her to check on his status.

    “He has really wonderful primary nurses,” she said. “They were in tears having to leave him because my baby suffered cardiac arrest two days before the strike happened, and so now I’m dealing with that plus the shortage of staff. Which is very scary.”

    The nurses strike at two private New York City hospitals – Montefiore and Mount Sinai – involving over 7,000 nurses entered its second day Tuesday. Montefiore said it was holding bargaining sessions Tuesday. Mount Sinai has no plans to do so, according to the nurses’ union.

    The sticking point continues to be enforcing safe staffing levels, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) union officials said.

    A pediatric oncology nurse at Mount Sinai who administers chemotherapy to children with cancer said it’s hard to leave her patients to strike, but she knows it’s in the best interest of their care.

    “We love these patients more than anything,” Melissa Perleoni said, “and it breaks our heart – at least it breaks my heart – to be out here but I have to do this for the future of their care.”

    Ribas said she hopes hospital management reaches a contract with the nurses soon.

    “The nurses are the heart of the NICU, and they do need to figure it out before it becomes a different situation – because every single minute, every hour, the babies are running a very, very high risk of even dying in here.”

    “There’s nothing that could bring your kid back. Nothing,” she said.

    – CNN’s Tami Luhby, Vanessa Yurkevich and Mark Morales contributed to this report

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  • Satellite images capture crowding at China’s crematoriums and funeral homes as Covid surge continues | CNN

    Satellite images capture crowding at China’s crematoriums and funeral homes as Covid surge continues | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Satellite images taken over a number of Chinese cities have captured crowding at crematoriums and funeral homes, as the country continues its battle with an unprecedented wave of Covid-19 infections following its dismantling of severe pandemic restrictions.

    The images – taken by Maxar in late December and early January and reviewed by CNN – show a funeral home on the outskirts of Beijing, which appears to have constructed a brand-new parking area, as well as lines of vehicles waiting outside of funeral homes in Kunming, Nanjing, Chengdu, Tangshan and Huzhou.

    The scene at the same home last week, showing more cars parked along streets near the entrance.

    China recently moved away from its strict zero-Covid approach to the virus, which had sparked mass unrest after more than two years of tight controls on citizens’ personal lives.

    China’s strict policy shielded its population from the kind of mass deaths seen in Western nations – a contrast repeatedly driven home by the Communist Party to illustrate the supposed superiority of its restrictions.

    Since those rules were lifted, people have regained freedom to travel around their country

    The satellite pictures are consistent with CNN’s reporting and witness accounts shared to social media concerning overcrowding in funeral homes and crematoriums.

    CNN has reported first-hand in Beijing on the makeshift facilities being used to store the deceased, as overworked staff try to keep up with the volume of crates containing yellow body bags, and families report waiting for days to bury or cremate their loved ones.

    A Tangshan City funeral home in January 2020, before the pandemic swept the country.

    The same home last week, where many more vehicles are parked.

    Meanwhile, China’s official Covid-19 death toll since it eased restrictions remains strikingly low – with only 37 deaths recorded since December 7.

    As reports of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes roll in, China is facing accusations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and US that it is under-representing the severity of its current outbreak, as top global health officials urge Beijing to share more data about the explosive spread.

    “We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing in Geneva Wednesday.

    “WHO is concerned about the risk to life in China and has reiterated the importance of vaccination, including booster doses, to protect against hospitalization, severe disease, and death,” he said.

    Speaking in more detail, WHO executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan said the numbers released by China “under-represent the true impact of the disease” in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.

    He acknowledged that many countries have seen lags in reporting hospital data, but pointed to China’s “narrow” definition of a Covid death as part of the issue.

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  • Seattle public schools sue social media companies for allegedly harming students’ mental health | CNN Business

    Seattle public schools sue social media companies for allegedly harming students’ mental health | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Seattle’s public school system on Friday filed a lawsuit against several Big Tech companies alleging their platforms have a negative impact on students’ mental health and claiming that has impeded the ability of its schools “to fulfill its educational mission.”

    The lawsuit was filed against the parent companies of some of the most popular social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube.

    The school district, which is the largest in the state of Washington with nearly 50,000 students, alleges in the suit that the companies “have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth” to maximize how much time users spend on their platforms in order to boost profits. The actions taken by the platforms, according to the suit, have “been a substantial factor in causing a youth mental health crisis, which has been marked by higher and higher proportions of youth struggling with anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, and suicidal ideation.”

    The school district said students experiencing anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues perform worse in school, are less likely to attend school, more likely to engage in substance use, and to act out. The district said it continues to take additional steps to train teachers and screen students for mental health symptoms who may need further support but it needs a comprehensive, long-term plan and funding amid the growing mental health crisis today’s “youth are experiencing at [the companies’] hands.”

    The school district is seeking unspecified monetary damages.

    The lawsuit comes more than a year after executives from social media platforms faced tough questions from lawmakers during a series of congressional hearings over how their platforms may direct younger users – and particularly teenage girls – to harmful content, damaging their mental health and body image. While a growing number of families have filed lawsuits against social media companies for their alleged impact on the mental health of their children, it’s unusual to see a school district take such a step.

    In a statement sent to CNN on Monday, Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety, said it continues to pour resources into ensuring its young users are safe online. She said the platforms have more than 30 tools to support teens and families, including supervision tools that let parents limit the amount of time their teens spend on Instagram, and age verification technology that helps teens have age-appropriate experiences.

    “We’ll continue to work closely with experts, policymakers and parents on these important issues,” she said.

    The other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    In the past year, a number of prominent social media platforms have introduced more tools and parental control options aimed at better protecting younger users amid mounting scrutiny.

    TikTok, which has faced pressure from lawmaker both for its potential impact on younger users and its ties to China, announced in July that it would introduce new ways to filter out mature or “potentially problematic” videos. The added safeguards allocate a “maturity score” to videos detected as potentially containing mature or complex themes. TikTok also rolled out a tool that aims to help people decide how much time they want to spend on the app.

    Snapchat, meanwhile, has introduced a parent guide and hub aimed at giving guardians more insight into how their teens use the app. That includes more information about who their kids have been talking to over the last week, without divulging the content of those conversations.

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  • Key takeaways from the New York nurses strike | CNN Business

    Key takeaways from the New York nurses strike | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The 7,000 nurses who went on strike in New York Monday say the 19% pay hike that hospital management offered them was never the main issue.

    “We are not out here for wages. We are out here because we want the patients’ safety,” said Lorena Vivas, a nurse at Mount Sinai for 19 years and member of the executive committee of the New York State Nurses Association, to a crowd of hundreds of strikers and their supporters in front of Mount Sinai Hospital.

    “When I’m in ICU, I’m supposed to have two patients. I have three to four. I have two or three nurses working 24 hours,” she said. “This has been going on even before the pandemic. We’ve negotiated for over four months. They’ve refused to listen to us.”

    Although seven hospitals spread across the city, including two owned by Mount Sinai elsewhere in Manhattan, have been able to reach tentative labor deals with the union, Mount Sinai and Montefiore Medical Center, which has three hospitals in the Bronx, were not able to reach deals before a Sunday night deadline. And so thousands of nurses went on strike with no end in sight.

    Union officials insist they can’t accept a deal if it won’t fix the staffing issue. They say that the nurses are at a breaking point.

    “We are sick and tired of the hospital only doing the bare minimum,” said Danny Fuentes, a union official who spoke to the crowd Monday. “Time and time again we are forced to take unsafe patient loads. We are humans and we are burnt out. And we are tired. And the hospital doesn’t seem to care. All they see are profits. We don’t want to be out here. We would much rather be with our patients. We need a fair contract to protect our patients.”

    Union officials appeared to be winning the public relations battle in this fight, with cars and trucks honking their horns in support of the strikers throughout the day. And the union officials were getting overwhelming cheers from crowd as well with their position that they were fighting to put patients over profits.

    Mount Sinai called the strike “reckless” and Montefiore called it a “sad day for New York City.” Both hospitals insisted that they would be able to provide the patient care needed with temporary “traveling” nurses brought in to serve patients and by shifting some workers from other duties in the hospital.

    But ambulances are being sent to other hospitals in the city and elective surgical procedures are being postponed. Mount Sinai announced last week it had started to transfer newborns in its neonatal intensive care unit to other hospitals due to concerns about the quality of their care during a strike.

    The overall effect on the New York hospital system appear to be minor so far, according to a city official.

    It appeared Monday neither side was likely to budge off their bargaining position in the near term. While the union and Montefiore are due back at the bargaining table Monday afternoon, no new talks are scheduled as of midday for Mount Sinai.

    Both hospitals insist they’re doing what they can to improve staffing. The union says Mount Sinai and Montefiore have severe staffing problems and need to do more than the others to improve patient care and work conditions.

    Both hospitals called on the union to take an offer of binding arbitration to settle the dispute proposed late Sunday by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Although Hochul made a proposal more to management’s liking than the union, the union trotted out a bevy of elected and union officials from around the state on Monday’s rally to support their position.

    – CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich and Tami Luhby contributed to this report

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  • Damar Hamlin is showing continued progress and expects to be released from the hospital in the coming days, source says | CNN

    Damar Hamlin is showing continued progress and expects to be released from the hospital in the coming days, source says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has shown continued progress with his recovery after his cardiac arrest and on-field collapse, and expects to be released from the hospital in the coming days, a source told CNN.

    Six days after 24-year-old Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, the NFL star on Sunday posted a photo of himself on social media that shows him sitting up in his hospital bed and making a heart sign with his hands while wearing a number 3 hat and a “Love for Damar” shirt.

    Hamlin tweeted more than a dozen times reacting to the Bills 35-22 win over the New England Patriots Sunday, and expressed his desire to be out on the field with his teammates.

    “It’s GameDay & There’s Nothing I Want More Than To Be Running Out That Tunnel With My Brothers,” he wrote.

    Hamlin also watched from his hospital bed Sunday as teams across the NFL honored him during the last games of the regular season, with players, coaches and fans expressing their support with T-shirts, signs and jersey patches featuring his name and his number 3.

    At the Bills’ Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, several of Hamlin’s teammates took the field waving flags with his name and jersey number while many in the audience raised heart-shaped signs to pay tribute to the football player.

    The day before, the Bills tweeted that Hamlin continues to breathe on his own and his neurological function is excellent, but he was still in critical condition, citing his doctors.

    Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle during the first quarter of the Bills’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals last Monday night. He was rushed from the field in an ambulance, leaving players crying and embracing, and unleashing an outpouring of support from fans and others across the country.

    The game was initially postponed, then later canceled by the NFL.

    Fans sign a poster with messages of support for Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin outside Highmark Stadium Sunday.

    Before Sunday’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Bengals, the medical staff who rushed to Hamlin’s aid were honored at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium – the same field where Hamlin suffered the cardiac arrest.

    At New York’s Highmark Stadium, Buffalo Bills wide receiver John Brown gave a game ball to assistant athletic trainer Denny Kellington, the man credited with saving Hamlin’s life by administering critical CPR to the football player – who doctors say lost his pulse on the field had to be immediately revived through resuscitation and defibrillation.

    The immediate response of Kellington and other medical personnel was vital to “not just saving his life, but his neurological function,” Dr. Timothy Pritts, one of Hamlin’s doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, has said.

    Hamlin was sedated after being taken to the hospital. Doctors announced Thursday that he had started to awaken and he appears neurologically intact, while still critically ill and on a ventilator.

    “Did we win?” was Hamlin’s first question upon awakening, according to Pritts, who said he scribbled the question on a clipboard.

    On Friday, the Bills said Hamlin’s breathing tube was removed overnight and he had spoken to his teammates via video.

    Following the victory over the Patriots on Sunday, Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White said Hamlin texted members of the team prior to Sunday’s game, saying, “I’m thinking about y’all, I’m sorry that I did that to y’all.”

    “For him to check on us when he is the person that’s going through what he’s going through – that just shows what type of person he is.”

    White said incident Monday’s incident still haunts the six-year NFL veteran.

    “To see everything transpire, from the hit, to him getting up, to him falling, to everything – it’s just something that I can’t … unsee. Every time I close my eyes it replays. I tried watching tv and every time the tv goes to commercial, that’s the only thing that comes to my mind,” White said.

    During Sunday’s Bills game, the public address announcer read a statement of support for Hamlin and received a roar from the crowd, which included fans in a sea of blue and red who held up signs of support for Hamlin saying “BILLI3VE,” “All the heart for #3,” “Love for Damar,” “Did we win” and “Thank You Medical Staff!”

    Several of Hamlin’s teammates, including Josh Allen and Kaiir Elam, took the field waving flags with Hamlin’s name and jersey No. 3.

    Then the game began with a bang.

    Bills returner Nyhiem Hines took the opening kickoff for a 96-yard touchdown, sending the crowd into euphoria and prompted Hamlin to tweet, “OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

    Hines said the team needed this win after the events of the past week.

    “As a community, I feel like we needed this win. I feel like my brothers in that locker room, we needed some great energy and some great vibes. And we had to win this,” Hines said.

    Other teams around the league also paid tribute to Hamlin Sunday.

    In Cincinnati, Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins, who was involved in the play where Hamlin was injured, wore a “Love for Damar” t-shirt during pregame warmups.

    Prior to the start of the game, the stadium’s announcer read a statement that asked fans for a moment of support for Hamlin, his family and the first responders.

    The fans in Cincinnati, many with signs supporting Hamlin, cheered loudly. The television broadcast also showed Bengals coach Zac Taylor wearing a “Love for Damar” hoodie during the tribute.

    Ahead of the Chargers-Broncos game, Broncos Quarterback Russell Wilson and Chargers safety Derwin James met at midfield, both wearing No. 3, and led a moment of support for Hamlin.

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  • Nurses at Mount Sinai Morningside and West reach tentative agreement as more than 7,000 nurses still due to strike | CNN Business

    Nurses at Mount Sinai Morningside and West reach tentative agreement as more than 7,000 nurses still due to strike | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Mount Sinai Morningside and West hospital reached a tentative agreement with the state nursing union on a new contract Sunday, avoiding a strike Monday morning, according to a news release from the union.

    Nurses at two other area hospitals, Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Bronx, are still due to strike after not reaching agreements.

    Both hospitals are back at the bargaining table with New York State Nurses Association nurses today – if a tentative agreement is not reached, then approximately 3,625 nurses at Mount Sinai and approximately 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Bronx will strike at 6 a.m. Monday. The union said during a news conference Sunday morning that negotiations could go into the early morning.

    The new tentative agreement at Morningside and West brings the anticipated number of nurses to strike down from 8,700 to about 7,125. The tentative agreement improves staffing, protects benefits and increases salaries over three years.

    That brings seven of the 12 New York hospitals in negotiations to reach tentative agreements or new contracts.

    “The time is now to settle fair contracts that help nurses deliver the care that all New Yorkers deserve. We are fighting to improve patient care and will do whatever it takes to win,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said in a statement Sunday.

    New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital is continuing to move infants out of intensive care units to other area hospitals, is diverting ambulances to other facilities and postponing elective surgeries and heart surgeries ahead of a planned nursing strike Monday.

    In a statement late Saturday, the hospital said it has been negotiating “in good faith” with the nursing union on a new contract. Mount Sinai has agreed to meet with NYSNA nurses after walking out on a bargaining session Thursday, the union said Sunday.

    A Mount Sinai spokesperson told CNN on Saturday the hospital system is actively bargaining with the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses under separate union agreements.

    But if agreements aren’t reached at several New York City area hospitals, thousands of nurses will strike on Monday morning.

    The hospital said Sunday its current wage offer “is identical” to ratified agreements at NewYork-Presbyterian and Maimonides – and would increase a Mount Sinai nurse’s base salary by 19.1 percent over three years.

    “But NYSNA’s inconsistent bargaining, unwillingness to accept this offer, and insistence on moving forward with a strike has left us no choice but to take significant actions to care for our patients,” the hospital statement said.

    Seven neonatal intensive care unit infants were safely transferred Saturday to partner hospitals in New York City, a hospital spokesperson told CNN on Sunday. Another six will be transferred Sunday from the NICUs at Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai West, the spokesperson said.

    “In addition, we have transferred close to 100 patients from the affected hospitals – The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside – to unaffected hospitals within the Mount Sinai system and partner hospitals in NYC and we continue to safely discharge patients who were schedule to go home.” All elective surgeries have been postponed, the spokesperson said.

    The NYSNA hit back Saturday at comments from Mount Sinai, which said Friday it was transferring infants in its neonatal intensive care units to other area hospitals because of the strike notice, adding the hospital was dismayed by the union’s “reckless” actions.

    “As a labor and delivery nurse who helps mothers to bring babies into this world, I find it outrageous that Mount Sinai would compromise care for our NICU babies in any way. We already have NICU nurses caring for twice as many sick babies as they should,” Matt Allen, the union’s regional director, said.

    “It’s unconscionable that Mount Sinai refuses to address unsafe staffing in our NICU and other units of the hospital but is now stirring fears about our NICU babies in contract negotiations,” he added.

    In a statement Saturday, the NYSNA said nurses at BronxCare and The Brooklyn Hospital Center reached tentative agreements that will improve safe staffing levels and enforcement, increase wages by 7%, 6%, and 5% annually during their three-year contract, and retain their healthcare benefits.

    On Saturday, nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian announced they had agreed to ratify their deal, but it was a close vote – 57% nurses voted yes and 43% were against.

    “Voting on whether to ratify a contract is a key component of union democracy. Just like in any democracy, there is rarely 100 percent consensus,” Hagans said in a statement.

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  • LinkedIn is having a moment thanks to a wave of layoffs | CNN Business

    LinkedIn is having a moment thanks to a wave of layoffs | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    In a normal year at this time, a typical LinkedIn feed might be full of posts about year-end reflections on leadership and professional goals and suggested lifehacks for the year ahead — possibly with a few posts from CMOs offering tips on brand strategy, for good measure.

    Those posts are still there. But mixed in are many others about job hunts, offers of support for laid off friends and colleagues, and advice for coping with career hurdles in an uncertain economic environment.

    Some LinkedIn users affected by recent layoffs have formed groups on the site aimed at providing assistance, coordinating around signing exit paperwork and aiding with connections for new jobs. One LinkedIn group of employees affected by the November layoffs at Facebook-parent Meta, for example, now has more than 200 members. Even bosses who are doing the laying off have turned to LinkedIn to explain themselves and seek support or advice, as one marketing CEO did in a post alongside a tearful selfie last year (to mixed results).

    If the first year of the pandemic was marked by widespread layoffs in lower paying retail and services jobs, the past few months have been defined by something different: the prospect of a white-collar recession. Even as the overall job market remains strong, there has been a wave of recent layoffs in the tech and media industries — which just so happen to make up a core part of LinkedIn’s user base. Suddenly, the normally staid professional network has become both a vital lifeline for recently laid off workers and a surprisingly lively social platform.

    The LinkedIn mobile app was downloaded an estimated 58.4 million times worldwide in 2022 across the Google Play and Apple app stores, up 10% from the prior year, according to research firm Sensor Tower.

    The number of posts on LinkedIn mentioning “open to work” were up 22% during November compared to the same period in the prior year, according to data provided by the company. LinkedIn says it also saw a steady increase in the rate of users adding connections last year compared to the year prior, a sign that users were more active on the platform.

    The uptick in use appears to have been good for LinkedIn’s business. The platform posted 17% year-over-year revenue growth in the three months ended in September, according to parent company Microsoft’s most recent earnings report. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts in the October earnings call that LinkedIn was seeing “record engagement” among its 875 million members, with growth accelerating especially in international markets.

    Some of LinkedIn’s momentum may predate the wave of layoffs. “There’s been an uptick in [LinkedIn use] since the pandemic,” said Jennifer Grygiel, an associate professor and social media expert at Syracuse University. “You had to do social distancing and we were quarantining and people were working remotely so there was a shift in real-life networking possibilities.”

    LinkedIn rose to the occasion — and now it may be rising to another one.

    Even apart from the layoffs, the social media landscape has been through a volatile year. Facebook and Instagram have been criticized by users for racing to turn their services into TikTok. TikTok has been criticized over concerns that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. And after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter late last year, the platform has been criticized for morphing into a possible haven for its most incendiary users.

    But LinkedIn remains, as ever, LinkedIn — and at this moment, with fears of a looming recession and career concerns top of mind, LinkedIn may be just what the digital world needs.

    Grygiel said many people working in media or academia are likely now looking for somewhere to build and engage in professional communities other than Twitter. And while upstart Twitter alternatives like Mastodon have experienced a surge in growth, they still don’t have the same sort of network effect that comes with a legacy platform’s broad user base.

    LinkedIn in recent years has leaned into courting influencers who regularly post content to the site, potentially giving users more reasons to visit. And the platform has been growing its “learning” section, which provides video courses taught by various industry experts and which the company says experienced a 17% increase in hours spent as of November compared to the year prior. But lately it appears users have more than enough reason to use LinkedIn amid a wave of thousands of layoffs.

    Perhaps the clearest and most public examples of LinkedIn’s new centrality came from rival social networks like Twitter.

    In the wake of Twitter’s November mass layoffs — in which half the company was terminated, followed by additional firings and exits — many former and remaining employees took to LinkedIn, rather than the platform they had built, to seek support, community and new opportunities.

    One group of Twitter employees created a spreadsheet of laid-off workers from the company alongside recruiters hiring for other firms, and used LinkedIn to help facilitate sign-ups. Another pair of former Twitter employees set up a system to connect job hunters with recruitment professionals open to volunteering to provide free resume review and interview prep services, which they promoted through LinkedIn.

    “We completely understand how the job-hunting process can be scary and overwhelming … While we can’t guarantee where your next opportunity will be or when it will come, we can offer guidance, so you will be ready for that opportunity when it arrives,” Darnell Gilet, a former Twitter senior technical recruiter who helped coordinate the effort, said in a LinkedIn post.

    Gilet, who was affected by the mass layoffs at Twitter in November following Elon Musk’s takeover, told CNN last month that around 28 different recruiters and talent acquisition professionals had agreed to participate in the system, and that he himself had spoken to nearly two dozen job seekers since shortly after he was laid off to offer advice and support. He said LinkedIn seemed like the obvious place to promote the service.

    “Chaos creates opportunity for somebody, right?” Gilet said. “People are getting laid off and you have this recession that’s looming, the ideal place … that would have the greatest growth opportunity from that would be a platform that’s focused on careers like LinkedIn. So it makes perfect sense.”

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  • Amid negotiation gridlock between Mount Sinai Hospital and the nursing union, newborns in intensive care are caught in the middle, one nurse says | CNN Business

    Amid negotiation gridlock between Mount Sinai Hospital and the nursing union, newborns in intensive care are caught in the middle, one nurse says | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Crucial union negotiations between Mount Sinai Hospital and the New York State Nurses Association appear to be at a standstill and both parties say the other is refusing to return to the bargaining table.

    As the impasse continues between the hospital and union, the most vulnerable patients – newborns in Mount Sinai’s neonatal intensive care unit – are caught between the opposing sides, causing worry among families, one Mount Sinai nurse, who declined to provide her name out of fear of repercussions, told CNN.

    With thousands of New York nurses poised to strike early Monday morning, one of Manhattan’s famed hospitals announced Friday it would transport newborns in its intensive care unit to other area hospitals in preparation for the strike.

    A Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson confirmed to CNN Friday that neonatal intensive care unit infants would be transferred to other area hospitals because of the strike notice.

    “We are seeking a resolution [to the strike.] The impact is great,” the spokesperson told CNN.

    A NICU nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital told CNN that families of patients in the unit have been deeply concerned about moving their sick infants from one hospital to another. Moving the babies to a different facility can be “very stressful” for a NICU patient, the nurse said, as well as the parents.

    “They’ve asked us all week what’s going to happen to their babies, and what’s going to happen next week,” the nurse said.

    “It’s a big journey for a baby who’s never been outside the hospital,” she told CNN. “It’s not anything that we want to happen. We want our babies to stay. We want to be taking care of them. And it’s kind of shocking, and actually a little infuriating, that the hospital is letting it get to this point.”

    The more critical the baby’s condition is, the more complicated and riskier a transfer to another hospital becomes, the nurse explained.

    “You would need at least a doctor or nurse practitioner, a respiratory therapist if the patient is on respiratory support and a transport nurse to work the pumps and administer medicine if needed,” she said.

    The nurses who care for the sick infants often grow close to the families and develop a trusting relationship with them, especially because some babies spend weeks or even months in the NICU, the nurse told CNN.

    “They’re comfortable leaving their babies with us when they aren’t able to be there,” she said. “We keep in contact with the families after their babies have gone home – so we really do develop a close bond to these families.”

    “We treat our babies in the hospital like they’re our own kids. We’re very protective of them,” she added.

    New York State Nurses Association President Nancy Hagans has said the goal of the negotiations is to improve patient care and staffing, get fair wages and to recruit and retain nurses.

    Negotiations between the health system and the nurse’s union have been ongoing since September, a Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson told CNN Saturday, but low staffing levels have afflicted the NICU unit for years, the nurse told CNN.

    “For over three years now, we’ve been understaffed,” she said.

    The number of patients in the unit surges and falls regularly, according to the nurse, but as patient levels rise, staffing levels stay the same. The unit can surge to 64 patients, she said.

    “You feel like you’re not actually giving your all to your patients,” she said. “You’re really pulled very thin.”

    Paying close attention to infant patients is especially important, according to the nurse, because unlike other patients – even small children – they can’t verbalize pain or discomfort.

    “You really have to be on top of their vital signs and general assessment. And when you’re not able to spend as much time as you need to with them, some things do get missed,” she said. “And it’s very unfortunate.”

    CNN has reached out to the hospital regarding the nurse’s comments on low staffing.

    More than 8,700 nurses are prepared to strike Monday morning if tentative contract agreements are not reached at several hospitals, Hagans, the union president, said at a virtual news conference Saturday morning.

    As of Saturday, negotiations across New York’s hospitals were continuing at Montefiore Bronx and the Mount Sinai Morningside and West campuses, according to the nurse’s union.

    But the president of the nurse’s union told reporters Saturday the main Mount Sinai Hospital complex left the bargaining table late Thursday and no further bargaining sessions have been scheduled since.

    A Mount Sinai Health System spokesperson told CNN that hospital management is “waiting for the union to come back to us” to resume negotiations.

    The hospital said it put forth a deal at Thursday evening’s bargaining session was the same one the union agreed to for nurses at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Tentative agreements have also been reached with union nurses at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island.

    Mount Sinai also said it has offered a 19.1% compounded pay raise over three years, which is the same offer other hospital systems in the city have made.

    The NICU nurse at Mount Sinai said that nurses in her unit don’t want to strike and are hoping that they can come to an agreement with the hospital before Sunday night.

    “It truly breaks our heart having to strike and leave our patients, but unfortunately you have to do some drastic things sometimes,” she told CNN.

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  • Lawmakers are trying to ban TikTok. That won’t be easy — it’s part of our culture now | CNN

    Lawmakers are trying to ban TikTok. That won’t be easy — it’s part of our culture now | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Gabby Beckford’s plan to visit the British Virgin Islands started with a flurry of searches on what to wear, eat and do in between exploring the islands’ pristine beaches and sapphire waters.

    But instead of using Google or other search engines, she turned to TikTok.

    “On TikTok, I can search what restaurants to go to, I can see what people ate and their reaction to the food,” says Beckford, 27, who’s visiting the British territory in the Caribbean this week. “I can see what they’re wearing, what the weather’s like.”

    Beckford, a travel content creator who splits her time between Seattle and Washington, DC, says TikTok has become a lifeline for her and many other users. She says the short-form video platform is much more than cat videos and posts by “influencers.”

    To her it’s a one-stop shop for a wide range of content, from mental health advice to product reviews, all presented in bite-sized clips that don’t require plowing through blocks of text.

    “It’s visual,” she says. “I can tell who posted the content, and whether it’s done with me in mind.”

    Beckford’s devotion to TikTok illustrates why US lawmakers and others, who view the platform as a security threat because of its parent company’s roots in China, will have a challenge trying to scrub it from Americans’ digital lives.

    In recent weeks more than a dozen US states and the US House of Representatives have banned TikTok from government devices. One US congressman, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, called it “digital fentanyl” because of its addictive nature among young users and believes it should be blocked across the United States. Some universities also are restricting access to the app.

    But with more than 1 billion global users, TikTok may be too entrenched in our culture to be shut down. It was the most-downloaded app in the United States last year, and its users say its platform is much more than teens watching viral dance or cute animal videos. It’s become a critical tool for content creators, small business owners and many others who have made TikTok an integral part of their lives.

    Avid TikTok users tell CNN they’re not spending sleepless nights worrying about the app’s ties to China and whether it poses security risks.

    They are more concerned about what they say would be lost in a world without TikTok: business income, entrepreneurial opportunities and a platform – built around short, creative and informational videos – where they can express themselves and connect with others.

    TikTok has exploded in numerous ways since its international debut in 2017. It now hosts videos on almost every topic under the sun.

    Khamyra Sykes, 16, shares short comedy skits and lifestyle content with her 560,000 TikTok followers. She uses the platform to make money by partnering with clothing brands and doing political ads – like a get-out-and-vote clip for the recent midterm election.

    The Atlanta-area resident sometimes cross-posts her TikTok videos on Instagram, where she has 1.5 million followers. Like many other teens, Sykes also watches a lot of TikTok content. Some days, she says she falls asleep to TikTok videos – anything with cuddly puppies or tasty-looking recipes.

    Brands consider TikTok key to social media marketing, she says, and many consider the size of creators’ followings and their engagement numbers when signing promotional deals.

    Khamyra Sykes, 16, says brands consider creators' TikTok reach and engagement a key metric of social media success.

    “If Tiktok was banned in the US, I would lose out on a large part of my fanbase and also brand deals,” Sykes says. “Banning TikTok will cause a huge job loss for creators who depend solely on TikTok for their livelihood, and will have a devastating impact on small businesses that use it for marketing and sales.”

    Saman Movassaghi Gonzalez, an immigration attorney in Miramar, Florida, uses TikTok to market her law practice to her 83,000 followers. Her short videos offer a light take on an otherwise heavy subject: In one, an image of her morphs into a fiery superhero who takes flight. “Me on my way to get my client out of immigration deportation/removal proceedings,” the caption reads.

    “It’s entertaining and catchy, so it works in getting people’s attention in a short period of time,” Gonzalez tells CNN.

    Sometimes, she breaks into dances as informative captions with immigration facts scroll on the screen. The 42-year-old says she’s gained some clients though the app, and checks it hourly to stay on top of messages.

    “It fits my personality. There are so many options to showcase who you are through the app, whether it’s short clips, skits or dances,” Gonzalez says. “And I love spreading information to people while trying to make it fun and entertaining.”

    Immigration attorney Saman Movassaghi Gonzalez uses TikTok to explain immigration policies. Sometimes, she breaks out into a dance with informative captions in the background.

    Like Facebook and Instagram before it, TikTok has become deeply embedded in American culture.

    The platform has created bestsellers and hit songs. Millions turn to it for wellness tips and fashion advice. CNN and other media outlets post news clips on TikTok. Rihanna introduced her new baby to the world on TikTok. Some believe Madonna used TikTok to make a recent statement about her sexuality. TikTok has launched countless careers, dance trends and memes.

    The app is especially popular with young people. A majority of its users are Gen Z, and a third of them are under 19, says Saif Shahin, an assistant professor of digital culture at Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

    But – ask any parent of a teenager – some adults feel the app consumes too much of young people’s attention.

    “While most social media apps tend to be addictive, none is more so than TikTok,” Shahin says. “Every day, users spend an average of an hour and a half on TikTok, which is nearly double the average time spent on Facebook or Instagram.”

    A girl is holding her smartphone with the logo of the short video app TikTok in her hands.

    Can the Chinese government get your data from TikTok? Analyst weighs in

    This popularity, experts say, can be a double-edged sword. For example, public health experts have used TikTok to convey important messages during the coronavirus pandemic. The White House has even hosted TikTok influencers for briefings on the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and other pressing topics.

    But researchers found TikTok’s search engine has spread misinformation about the pandemic, abortion, school shootings and other topics.

    And while TikTok provides resources on mental health, Shahin says it and other social media platforms can heighten attention deficiency, anxiety and depression.

    “TikTok has changed some aspects of our lives negatively … it has shortened our attention span and allows for the proliferation of misinformation,” says Cristina Ferraz, founder of Houston-based marketing agency Thirty6five.

    “If TikTok were to go away, it would remove one of the free sources of joy, connection and entertainment still available to anyone, anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection,” Ferraz adds. “However, it would also remove access to a platform known to create space for bullying and illicit activities for Gen Z.”

    TikTok has made a number of announcements in recent years in an effort to ease concerns about its content, including adding controls to help parents restrict what their children can see on the app.

    “TikTok is loved by millions of Americans who use the platform to learn, grow their businesses, and connect with creative content that brings them joy,” a TikTok spokesperson told CNN last month.

    In response to concerns about national security, TikTok has said the Chinese Communist Party has no control over its platform and that ByteDance is a private company which is owned mostly by global institutional investors – including Americans.

    Taccara and Yinka Lawanson, a couple who go by Ling and Lamb on TikTok, have 3.7 million followers on the platform. When they first joined, they referred to it as “the fast food of social media.”

    “It was the app you could go to and feel that you have the creative freedom to be yourself … goofy, playful with no one judging you,” they said in an email to CNN. “It was the app that in 60 seconds or less allowed the user the opportunity to go viral and become a star – which other platforms did not offer at the time.”

    The thirtysomething Connecticut couple – she grew up in the US and he’s from Nigeria – share short musings about daily life, including their cultural differences from growing up on opposite sides of the world. Like all social media platforms, they say, TikTok has its pros and cons.

    Taccara and Yinka Lawanson, who go by Ling and Lamb on social media, say it's up to individuals to determine the positives and negatives of specific apps based on their needs.

    “It’s up to each individual to decide what apps are positive or negative for the purpose in which they are looking to use the app, or what they are looking to get out of it,” they say. “For us, we don’t really have negative viewpoints of TikTok, as it has allowed us the opportunity to build and grow a great community of people around the world.”

    Phillip Calvert, a Milwaukee resident who goes by PhilWaukee on TikTok, downloaded the app when he lived in Shanghai, China, in 2018. He didn’t have much choice – he says social media platforms such as Instagram were blocked in the country.

    Now that Calvert has moved back to the United States, he’s glad he got an early introduction to TikTok.

    “People don’t even ask me for my Instagram anymore, they ask me for my TikTok,” he says. Calvert believes the app, with its steady diet of digestible videos, has become Gen Z’s alternative to television.

    “The other day, I asked my 15-year-old cousin to watch TV until I return. He told me, ‘Why would I watch TV when I have TikTok?’ ” he says.

    Milwaukee resident Phillip Calvert downloaded TikTok when he lived in Shanghai, China. He didn't have much choice -- other social media platforms were blocked in the country.

    Calvert, who’s in his 30s, earns income by posting travel videos and other content to TikTok. He says he earned his first TikTok payment from a Black History Month partnership.

    He’s trying to grow his TikTok following and checks the platform several times a day.

    “I don’t wake up in the middle of the night to check it, because I’m on it until the middle of the night,” he says. “If I had to give up all social media and keep one, I’d choose TikTok because it’s the newest, and it’s fascinating to see where this is going.”

    All the content creators CNN spoke to say that losing TikTok would be a major setback for their brands.

    Calvert is hoping the pushback against his favorite social app will have the opposite effect.

    “Sometimes when you take something and you vilify it, it gets bigger and better,” he says.

    But the creators also agree that if they’re barred from TikTok, they won’t spend too much time mourning. They’ll move on to the next shiny social platform.

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  • What the return of Chinese tourists means for the global economy | CNN Business

    What the return of Chinese tourists means for the global economy | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    In the years before Covid, China was the world’s most important source of international travelers. Its 155 million tourists spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars beyond its borders in 2019.

    That largesse fell precipitously over the past three years as the country essentially closed its borders. But, as China prepares to reopen on Sunday, millions of tourists are poised to return to the world stage, raising hopes of a rebound for the global hospitality industry.

    Although international travel may not return immediately to pre-pandemic levels, companies, industries and countries that rely on Chinese tourists will get a boost in 2023, according to analysts.

    China averaged about 12 million outbound air passengers per month in 2019, but those numbers fell 95% during the Covid years, according to Steve Saxon, a partner in McKinsey’s Shenzhen office. He predicts that figure will recover to about 6 million per month by the summer, driven by the pent-up wanderlust of young, wealthy Chinese like Emmy Lu, who works for an advertising company in Beijing.

    “I’m so happy [about the reopening]! ” Lu told CNN. “Because of the pandemic, I could only wander around the country for the past years. It was difficult.”

    “It’s just that I’ve been stuck inside the country for a little too long. I’m really looking forward to the lifting of the restrictions, so that I can go somewhere for fun! ” the 30-year-old said, adding that she wanted to visit Japan and Europe the most.

    As China announced last month it would no longer subject inbound travelers to quarantine starting January 8, including residents returning from trips abroad, searches for international flights and accommodations immediately hit a three-year high on Trip.com

    (TCOM)    .

    Bookings for overseas travel during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, which falls between January 21 and January 27 this year, have soared by 540% from a year ago, according to data from the Chinese travel site. Average spending per booking jumped 32%.

    The top destinations are in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong. The United States and the United Kingdom also ranked among the top 10.

    “The rapid buildup in … [bank] deposits over the past year suggests that households in China have accumulated significant cash holdings,” said Alex Loo, a macro strategist for TD Securities, adding that frequent lockdowns have likely led to restraints on household spending.

    There could be “revenge spending” by Chinese consumers, mirroring what happened in many developed markets when they reopened early last year, he said.

    That’s good news for many economies battered by the pandemic.

    “We estimate that Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore would benefit the most if China’s travel service imports were to return to 2019 levels,” said Goldman Sachs analysts。

    Hong Kong — the world’s most visited city with just under 56 million arrivals in 2019, most of them from mainland China — could see an estimated 7.6% boost to its GDP as exports and tourism income increase, they said. Thailand’s GDP may be boosted by 2.9%, while Singapore would get a lift of 1.2%.

    Elsewhere in the world, Cambodia, Mauritius, Malaysia, Taiwan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, South Korea and Philippines are also likely to benefit from the return of Chinese tourists, according to research by Capital Economics.

    Hong Kong has suffered particularly acutely from the closure of its border with mainland China. The city’s pillar industries of tourism and real estate have been hit hard. The financial hub expects GDP to have contracted by 3.2% in 2022.

    The city government announced Thursday that up to 60,000 people would be allowed to cross the border daily each way, starting Sunday.

    Several other Southeast Asian countries reliant on tourism have kept entry rules relatively relaxed for Chinese tourists, despite the record Covid-19 outbreak that has swept through China in recent weeks. They include Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.

    “This is one of the opportunities that we can accelerate economic recovery,” Thailand’s health minister said this week.

    New Zealand has also waived testing requirements for Chinese visitors, who were the second largest source of tourist revenue for the country before the pandemic.

    But other governments are more cautious. So far, nearly a dozen countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea, have mandated testing.

    The European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its members states to require a negative Covid test for visitors from China before arrival.

    There is clearly “conflict” between the tourism authorities and the political and health officials in some countries, said Saxon, who leads McKinsey’s travel practice in Asia.

    Airlines and airports have already blasted the EU’s recommendations for testing requirements.

    The International Air Transport Association, the airline industry’s global lobby group, together with airports represented by ACI Europe as well as Airlines for Europe, issued a joint statement on Thursday, calling the EU move “regrettable” and “a knee-jerk reaction.”

    But they welcomed the additional recommendation to test wastewater as a way of identifying new variants of the disease, saying it should be an alternative to testing passengers.

    Besides restrictions, it will take time for international travel to fully rebound because many Chinese must renew their passports and apply for visas again, according to analysts.

    Lu from Beijing said she was still considering her travel plans, taking into consideration the various testing requirements and the high price of flying.

    “The restrictions are normal, because everyone wants to protect people in their own country,” she said. “I’ll wait and see if some policies will be eased.”

    Liu Chaonan, a 24-year-old in Shenzhen, said she had initially wanted to go to the Philippines to celebrate the Chinese New Year, but didn’t have time to apply for the visa. So she switched to Thailand, which offers quick and easy electronic permits.

    “Time is short and I need to leave in about 10 days. People may choose some visa-friendly places and countries to travel to,” she said, adding that she plans to learn scuba diving and wants to buy cosmetics. Her total budget for the trip could exceed 10,000 yuan ($1,460).

    Saxon said he expected China’s outbound international travel to fully recover by the year end.

    “Generally, individuals are pragmatic and countries will welcome Chinese tourists due to their spending power,” he said, adding that countries may remove restrictions quickly when the Covid situation improves in China.

    “It will take time for international tourism to get going, but it will come rushing back, when it happens.”

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  • America capped off an extraordinary year for job growth, adding 223,000 positions in December | CNN Business

    America capped off an extraordinary year for job growth, adding 223,000 positions in December | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    The US economy added 223,000 jobs in December, according to the monthly employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, capping a year of extraordinary job growth and marking the second-best year for the labor market in records that go back to 1939.

    The unemployment rate fell back to a record low of 3.5% from a revised 3.6% in November.

    Economists were expecting 200,000 job gains for the last month of the year, according to Refinitiv. December’s job total is lower than the downwardly revised 256,000 jobs added in November.

    Including last month’s gains, which are subject to revision, the economy added about 4.5 million jobs in 2022. That’s the second-highest-ever total, after the 6.7 million jobs added in 2021 — a boomerang from 2020’s 9.3 million job losses.

    The labor market slowed in 2022, compared to the previous year’s tear. December’s jobs total represents the lowest monthly gains in two years.

    Those latest gains come following months of jumbo interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve in its attempt to cool off the economy after inflation last year hit its highest level since the 1980s. Those efforts have, so far, remained mostly elusive.

    That means the Fed is entering 2023 looking for a considerably softer and looser labor market — notably, increased labor participation, a better alignment of job seekers to open positions, and lower levels of wage growth.

    “This is about the best report one could hope for, given a still very hot US labor market,” said Joe Brusuelas, principal and chief economist for RSM US.

    Wall Street responded positively to Friday’s jobs data, with the Dow rising by almost 500 points by mid-morning — mostly a reaction to the slower pace of wage growth. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% over the previous month and 4.6% annually. That’s compared to 0.4% month-on-month growth in November and 4.8% annual growth.

    The December report showed that the labor force participation rate, an estimation of the active workforce and people looking for work, ticked up to 62.3% from 62.2%.

    Labor force participation rates have been on a decline — largely due to demographic changes and aging Baby Boomers — since hitting a high of 67.3% in early 2000, and had fallen to 63.3% in the month before the onset of the pandemic. The participation rate has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, vexing economists and the Fed, while also contributing to an imbalance of worker supply and demand.

    “The labor market is moving in the right direction for the Federal Reserve, according to the December employment report, but is not there yet,” Gus Faucher, senior economist for PNC Financial services said in a statement. “Job growth is slowing to a more sustainable pace, and wage growth is softening as demand in the job market slackens somewhat.”

    However, with job growth well above pre-pandemic levels, when job gains averaged 164,000 in 2019, and the unemployment rate returning to a 50-year low, there is little indication that there will be enough of a boost in the labor force to help cool off the job market, he said.

    Some of the largest monthly gains were in industries such as leisure and hospitality, health care, and accommodation and food services, which all were hit hard during the pandemic. There were also notable monthly job losses in technology and interest-rate-sensitive sectors that surged during the pandemic and are now rebalancing as consumers shift spending toward services.

    Industries such as information, finance and professional and business services, shed jobs between November and December.

    The losses seen in areas such as professional and business services are likely an effect of the waves of mass layoffs hitting the tech industry, said Ken Kim, a senior economist at KPMG.

    “We are seeing a little bit of spread to other areas,” he said.

    In addition to Friday’s strong jobs numbers, several other pieces of jobs data released this week continue to reflect a healthy labor market. Wednesday’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report showed that the number of available jobs remained steady at 10.5 million in November. It also showed that quits, layoffs and hires didn’t really show any major signs of cooling that month.

    ADP’s private-sector employment report on Thursday also showed a robust labor market, with 235,000 jobs added in the private sector during December, well exceeding expectations of 150,000.

    And Thursday’s weekly jobless claims fell by 21,000 to 204,000 for the week ending November 26, while continuing claims decreased to 1.69 million from 1.72 million to 1.61 million.

    —CNN’s Matt Egan contributed to this report.

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  • Idaho suspect in student murders thoroughly cleaned vehicle, also seen wearing surgical gloves multiple times outside family home, source says | CNN

    Idaho suspect in student murders thoroughly cleaned vehicle, also seen wearing surgical gloves multiple times outside family home, source says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November had thoroughly cleaned the interior and exterior of his car and was also seen wearing surgical gloves multiple times before being apprehended, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

    Bryan Kohberger, 28, is currently the sole suspect in the gruesome stabbings of students Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, who were found dead inside their off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13.

    Kohberger, who was pursuing a PhD in criminal justice at Washington State University at the time of the killings, “cleaned his car, inside and outside, not missing an inch,” according to the law enforcement source.

    The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was briefed on observations made by investigators during four days of surveillance leading up to Kohberger’s arrest at his family’s Pennsylvania home on December 30.

    As Kohberger now remains behind bars in Idaho awaiting his January 12 status hearing, new details have emerged elucidating some of the suspect’s movements in the days leading up to his arrest.

    A surveillance team assigned to Kohberger was tasked with two missions, according to multiple law enforcement sources: keep eyes on Kohberger so they could arrest him as soon as a warrant was issued, and try to obtain an object that would yield a DNA sample from Kohberger, which could then be compared to DNA evidence found at the crime scene.

    Kohberger was seen multiple times outside the Pennsylvania home wearing surgical gloves, according to the law enforcement source.

    In one instance prior to Kohberger’s arrest, authorities observed him leaving his family home around 4 a.m. and putting trash bags in the neighbors’ garbage bins, according to the source. At that point, agents recovered garbage from the Kohberger family’s trash bins and what was observed being placed into the neighbors’ bins, the source said.

    The recovered items were sent to the Idaho State Lab, per the source.

    Last Friday, a Pennsylvania State Police SWAT team then moved in on the Kohberger family home, breaking down the door and windows in what is known as a “dynamic entry” – a tactic used in rare cases to arrest “high risk” suspects, the source added.

    On Thursday, Kohberger had his initial court appearance in Idaho after he was booked into the Latah County jail Wednesday night following his extradition from Pennsylvania.

    Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He did not enter a plea at the hearing.

    Steve Goncalves, whose daughter Kaylee was among those killed, he told CNN’s JIm Sciutto in an interview that aired Friday morning.

    “Nobody understands exactly why but he was stalking them, he was hunting them,” Goncalves said. “He was a person looking for an opportunity and it just happened to be in that house. And that’s hard to take.

    “She had her phone right next to her and she couldn’t call 911. So these were just girls that went to sleep that night and a coward, you know, a hunter that went out and he picked his little opponent that was girls, that’s probably why the house was targeted.”

    Goncalves was in the courtroom for Kohberger’s appearance.

    “He knows I want him to look me in the eye. So he didn’t. He didn’t give me that opportunity,” Goncalves said. “He’s scared to look at me in the eyes and start to understand what’s about to happen to him. You know, he picked the wrong family.”

    Authorities spent nearly two months investigating before they were able to name publicly a suspect, a task that grabbed national attention and rattled the victims’ loved ones as well as the community – which had not recorded a murder in years.

    Still, the public’s view of the case remains mired with questions. As of late Thursday, it remains unclear what motivated the killings. It’s also unclear how the suspect entered the house after authorities said there was no sign of forced entry or why two roommates who were inside the residence at the time of the killings survived the attacks.

    Here’s how investigators narrowed the search to Kohberger:

    • DNA: Trash recovered from Kohberger’s family home revealed that the “DNA profile obtained from the trash” matched a tan leather knife sheath found “laying on the bed” of one of the victims, according to a probable cause affidavit released Thursday. The DNA recovered from the trash “identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father” of the suspect whose DNA was found on the sheath. “At least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father,” the affidavit said.
    • Phone records: Authorities found the suspect’s phone was near the victims’ Moscow, Idaho, home at least a dozen times between June 2022 to the present day, according to the affidavit. The records also reveal Kohberger’s phone was near the crime scene hours after the murders that morning between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m, the document says. The killings were not reported to authorities until just before noon.
    • A white sedan: A Hyundai Elantra was seen near the victims’ home around the time of their killings. Officers at Washington State University identified a white Elantra and later learned it was registered to Kohberger. The same car was also found at the suspect’s Pennsylvania family home when he was arrested last Friday. The suspect’s university is about a 10-minute drive from the Idaho crime scene.

    One of two roommates who were not harmed in the attacks said she saw a masked man dressed in black inside the house on the morning of the killings, according to the probable cause affidavit.

    Identified as D.M. in the court document, the roommate said she “heard crying” in the house that morning and also heard a man’s voice say, ‘It’s OK, I’m going to help you.’” D.M. said she then saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her,” the affidavit continued.

    “D.M. described the figure as 5’ 10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows,” the affidavit says. “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase.’

    “The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. D.M. locked herself in her room after seeing the male,” the document says, adding the roommate did not recognize the male.

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