NEW YORK CITY, New York: Millions of Americans are beginning 2026 facing sharply higher health insurance bills after enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired, locking in premium increases that could force some households to drop coverage altogether.
The tax credits, first introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic and later extended by Democrats, had lowered insurance costs for most people who buy coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Their expiration comes after months of political deadlock in Washington, despite warnings from both parties that the issue could carry significant electoral consequences.
Democrats pushed unsuccessfully to extend the subsidies, even triggering a 43-day government shutdown over the issue. Some moderate Republicans urged action, while President Donald Trump floated — then abandoned — a potential compromise after opposition from conservative allies. With no agreement reached before the deadline, the credits expired at the start of the new year.
A House vote expected later in January could reopen the debate, but there is no guarantee that lawmakers will succeed in restoring the subsidies.
The lapse affects millions of Americans who do not receive health insurance through an employer and are ineligible for Medicaid or Medicare — including self-employed workers, small business owners, farmers, and ranchers. The timing also coincides with a midterm election year in which affordability, particularly healthcare costs, ranks among voters’ top concerns.
“It really bothers me that the middle class has moved from a squeeze to a full suffocation, and they continue just to pile on and leave it up to us,” said Katelin Provost, a 37-year-old single mother whose premiums are set to soar. “I’m incredibly disappointed that there hasn’t been more action.”
Costs Jump Sharply for Many Households
The expanded subsidies, introduced in 2021, allowed some lower-income enrollees to obtain coverage with no monthly premium, capped costs for higher earners at 8.5 percent of income, and broadened eligibility for middle-class households. Democrats later extended the program through the end of 2025.
With those credits gone, the impact is substantial. On average, more than 20 million subsidized Affordable Care Act enrollees are seeing premium increases of 114 percent in 2026, according to an analysis by KFF.
The higher premiums come amid broader increases in U.S. healthcare costs, which are also pushing up deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses.
Some enrollees are absorbing the added burden. Stan Clawson, a 49-year-old freelance filmmaker and adjunct professor in Salt Lake City, said his monthly premium will rise from just under US$350 to nearly $500. Clawson, who lives with paralysis from a spinal cord injury, said the increase is painful but unavoidable.
Others face far steeper hikes. The Provost said her premium is jumping from $85 a month to nearly $750.
Enrollment Fallout Still Uncertain
Health policy experts warn that higher premiums could lead many people — particularly younger and healthier enrollees — to abandon coverage, raising costs further for those who remain insured.
An analysis by the Urban Institute and the Commonwealth Fund last September projected that about 4.8 million Americans could lose coverage in 2026 due to the expiration of subsidies.
However, enrollment effects remain uncertain, as the deadline to select or change plans runs through Jan. 15 in most states.
Provost said she is hoping Congress revives the subsidies early this year. If not, she plans to drop her own coverage and keep insurance only for her four-year-old daughter.
Political Stalemate Continues
In December, the Senate rejected competing partisan proposals — a Democratic plan to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative centered on health savings accounts. In the House, four centrist Republicans joined Democrats to push for a vote on a three-year extension, though prospects for passage remain unclear.
For many Americans, the impasse feels detached from everyday realities.
“Both Republicans and Democrats have been saying for years, oh, we need to fix it. Then do it,” said Chad Bruns, a 58-year-old Affordable Care Act enrollee in Wisconsin. “They need to get to the root cause, and no political party ever does that.”
When schools shut down in 2020, the disruption was universal, but its effects were anything but equal. The grade a child was in when classrooms closed has become one of the strongest predictors of the academic and developmental gaps families and educators are seeing today.
Educators say the impact is still reverberating, not because students aren’t trying, but because expectations haven’t always kept pace with the developmental realities of pandemic-era learning.
“The hardest-hit grade levels are the youngest grades and key transition years such as ninth grade,” Executive Director of Advocacy and Networking at Instructional Empowerment Michelle Fitzgerald told HuffPost. These were moments in a child’s school journey “where foundational skills or major identity-forming transitions were supposed to take root,” she explained, but instead were interrupted or reshaped by remote learning.
As families continue to make sense of where their children stand, experts say one message is critical: The gaps children are showing today are developmental, not moral failings. They are not rooted in laziness or lack of effort, but in the timing of the disruption.
Below is a grade-by-grade look at what was lost, and what parents need to know now.
Early Elementary
For the youngest learners, the pandemic didn’t just interrupt academics, it interrupted the very skills that make school possible. Early childhood educators continue to see the consequences in classrooms today.
“Remote learning limited face-to-face phonics instruction, feedback from teachers and peer interactions — all essential for early learning development,” Fitzgerald said. Kindergarten through third-grade students also missed opportunities to develop self-regulation, perseverance and routines. Many, she noted, “may have inadvertently learned the wrong habits, which are hard to break.”
Rebecca Mannis, a learning specialist with a PhD in neuropsychology, said that grades first through third are when students typically master phonics, build reading stamina and develop decoding skills — critical foundations for later learning.
FatCamera via Getty Images
Early education years are foundational — and remote learning can disrupt the formation of those foundations.
“By fourth grade, there’s a shift toward using the information along with emerging critical thinking skills,” she explained. “Many children never completed the full ‘learning to read’ phase, which means today’s fourth, fifth and sixth-graders were pushed into ‘reading to learn’ without the necessary foundation.”
Math learning, too, suffered. Geillan Aly, PhD, founder of Compassionate Math, described tutoring a sixth-grader whose multiplication skills fell apart when she moved from two-digit to three-digit numbers.
“She learned to multiply during online learning by watching videos and figuring it out herself. It worked for simpler problems but failed for more complex calculations,” Aly said. “These are critical years in math development and the gaps aren’t just big—they’re the small, nuanced misunderstandings that compound over time.”
The Middle Grades
Middle school is often described as the bridge to high school independence, a time when students learn to manage schedules, juggle assignments, advocate for themselves and develop executive-functioning skills. When those years were disrupted, the impact was subtle but profound.
Parents often mistake these struggles for motivation problems, Fitzgerald said. “It’s not laziness,” she said. “Many students simply never practiced the organizational and executive-functioning skills that normally emerge in grades six through eight.” These include time management, note-taking, self-monitoring and collaborative problem-solving, skills that underpin later academic success.
Arts education, long recognized for fostering problem-solving and critical thinking, was also hit.
SDI Productions via Getty Images
Missing out on certain independence milestones can also negatively affect students.
Erik Fox-Jackson, program director and clinical professor of art education at Adelphi University, explained that well-run art classes promote metacognition — thinking about one’s own thinking and decision-making skills.
“That metacognition is crucial for becoming a critical thinker, and its absence during remote learning left gaps in student development,” he said.
Social-emotional learning also suffered. Kris Astle, an education strategist at SMART Technologies, a technology for K-12 classrooms, pointed out that middle school is a time when students develop identity, interpersonal skills and emotional regulation.
“Teachers notice students struggling to resolve conflicts independently, needing more guided support to stay on task, or hesitating to take academic risks,” Astle said. “These are quiet indicators of interrupted developmental progress.”
Teachers are reporting classrooms with wider variation than ever. “Some students are academically on track but struggle with self-regulation or teamwork, while others need academic reinforcement but demonstrate strong interpersonal skills,” Astle said. “The range of learning needs highlights gaps in equity and access.”
Late Elementary And Middle School
Niyoka McCoy, chief learning officer at Stride, an education company, emphasized that late-elementary and middle-school students face unique challenges.
“They were thrust out of an educational routine they relied on but didn’t yet have the maturity to handle remote learning,” McCoy said. “As a result, many students now struggle with focus, stamina and social interactions.”
Astleadded that executive function, attention and collaboration were particularly disrupted.
The pandemic also magnified inequities. Students with stable technology and strong home support maintained progress, while others fell behind, creating classrooms with wide disparities. “Adaptive learning tools and personalized instruction can help, but teachers can’t replace what was lost entirely,” Astle said.
Aly highlighted the ripple effect in math. “When foundational skills aren’t solid, students experience compounding difficulties as they encounter higher-level concepts,” she said. “Teachers are often left trying to plug holes while keeping pace with current standards — a nearly impossible task without intensive support.”
Mint Images via Getty Images
Students with stable technology and strong home support maintained academic progress amid the pandemic, while others fell behind, creating classrooms with wide disparities.
The Ninth-Grade Cliff
Ninth grade is a critical launchpad, shaping academic trajectories, access to advanced coursework and social identity. Remote learning at this stage had consequences that are still visible today.
“If courses are failed or standards are not learned to the intent and rigor, gaps are formed, some of which will be extremely difficult to overcome,” Fitzgerald said. Beyond academics, ninth grade is when students build social confidence, join clubs and form peer networks. “Instead of navigating bustling hallways, many students began high school alone, behind a screen,” she said.
This isolation had long-term effects. Teachers report higher levels of disengagement, inconsistent study habits and social anxiety among students who spent ninth grade remotely. “Students missed the scaffolding that helps them feel anchored in school life,” Fitzgerald said. “They are still learning how to be high school students years later.”
McCoy noted that these experiences can affect career preparation and college readiness.
“Students who missed these critical transition years may struggle with planning, time management and self-advocacy, all of which impact long-term success,” she said.
Academic Skills vs. Social-Emotional Skills
Much of the conversation about learning loss has focused on test scores, but experts emphasize that numbers tell only part of the story.
Mannis noted that reading inefficiencies persist because students never fully developed systematic decoding or comprehension strategies. Aly highlighted the gaps in math reasoning, where students may understand procedures but lack deep conceptual understanding.
Social-emotional skills were equally disrupted. Fitzgerald said that self-regulation, collaboration, persistence and organization are harder to replicate in virtual settings.
Fox-Jackson added that problem-solving, creativity and metacognitive awareness, often nurtured in the arts, simply don’t translate to a screen. “You can’t Zoom your way through trial and error,” he said.
Astle pointed out that technology can help bridge some gaps. Adaptive platforms, interactive lessons and AI-driven assessments allow teachers to personalize instruction and identify nuanced learning gaps. However, she stressed that “technology should extend human connection, not replace it. Emotional support, guidance and mentorship remain crucial.”
SolStock via Getty Images
Parents and the rest of their village can be srong allies by coaching and nurturing students through the educational “gaps” COVID gave them.
What Parents Can Do Now
Experts stress that these gaps are recoverable, but the approach matters.
“Parents need to coach and support their children,” Fitzgerald said. “This is about gaps, not laziness. Structure is particularly important for teens who missed the years when independence typically develops.”
Aly recommends explaining to children what happened during the COVID years and teaching them that the brain can change through effort. “Students can actively correct misconceptions if they understand how learning works,” she said.
Fox-Jackson advised embedding skill-building into meaningful, hands-on activities rather than worksheets. Examples include cooking together, tackling a building project, or engaging in community arts, experiences that naturally incorporate planning, persistence and reflection.
Technology can also be a helpful partner. Astle emphasized interactive platforms, AI-driven tools and adaptive learning systems that allow teachers to personalize instruction, build engagement and ensure every student’s voice is heard.
Tutoring and targeted interventions remain among the most effective strategies for students who missed critical years, McCoy said.
“The focus should be on steady improvement, growth and meeting students where they are,” she explained.
Pandemic learning loss is not a character flaw. Kids didn’t fall behind because they lacked ambition or effort; they missed critical developmental windows.
Understanding the timing of the disruption is the first step. Supporting slow, steady skill-building is the next. And extending empathy to students, teachers,and parents is equally critical.
“The story of pandemic learning loss isn’t just about what students missed,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s about what adults can help them rebuild.”
BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.
The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.
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BOSTON — A state appeals court has sided with a medical worker and voodoo worshipper who was fired by University of Massachusetts Medical Health Care after her request for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine was rejected.
The ruling, issued Monday by the state Court of Appeals, overturns a Superior Court ruling that rejected a lawsuit filed by Rachelle Jeune against UMass Medical over its denial of a religious exemption in October 2021 as part of her employment as a surgical technician.
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The Trump administration’s cuts to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state and local health departments had vastly uneven effects depending on the political leanings of a state, according to a KFF Health News analysis. Democratic-led states and select blue-leaning cities fought back in court and saw money for public health efforts restored — while GOP-led states sustained big losses.
The Department of Health and Human Services in late March canceled nearly 700 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants nationwide — together worth about $11 billion. Awarded during the covid-19 pandemic, they supported efforts to vaccinate people, reduce health disparities among demographic groups, upgrade antiquated systems for detecting infectious disease outbreaks, and hire community health workers.
Initially, grant cancellations hit blue and red states roughly evenly. Four of the five jurisdictions with the largest number of terminated grants were led by Democrats: California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
But after attorneys general and governors from about two dozen blue states sued in federal court and won an injunction, the balance flipped. Of the five states with the most canceled grants, four are led by Republicans: Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Ohio.
In blue states, nearly 80% of the CDC grant cuts have been restored, compared with fewer than 5% in red states, according to the KFF Health News analysis. Grant amounts reported in an HHS database known as the Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, or TAGGS, often don’t match what states confirmed. Instead, this analysis focused on the number of grants.
The divide is an example of the polarization that permeates health care issues, in which access to safety-net health programs, abortion rights, and the ability of public health officials to respond to disease threats diverge significantly depending on the political party in power.
In an emailed statement, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency “is committed to protecting the health of every American, regardless of politics or geography. These funds were provided in response to the COVID pandemic, which is long over. We will continue working with states to strengthen public health infrastructure and ensure communities have the tools they need to respond to outbreaks and keep people safe.”
The money in question wasn’t spent solely on covid-related activities, public health experts say; it was also used to bolster public health infrastructure and help contain many types of viruses and diseases, including the flu, measles, and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus.
“It really supported infrastructure across the board, particularly in how states respond to public health threats,” said Susan Kansagra, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
The Trump cutbacks came as the U.S. recorded its largest measles outbreak in over three decades and 266 pediatric deaths during the most recent flu season — the highest reported outside of a pandemic since 2004. Public health departments canceled vaccine clinics, laid off staff, and put contracts on hold, health officials said in interviews.
After its funding cuts were blocked in court, California retained every grant the Trump administration attempted to claw back, while Texas remains the state with the most grants terminated, with at least 30. As the CDC slashed grants in Texas, its measles outbreak spread across the U.S. and Mexico, sickening at least 4,500 people and killing at least 16.
Colorado, which joined the lawsuit, had 11 grant terminations at first, but then 10 were retained. Meanwhile, its neighboring states that didn’t sue — Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma — collectively lost 55 grants, with none retained.
In Jackson, Ohio, a half-dozen community health workers came to work one day in March to find the Trump administration had canceled their grant five months early, leaving the Jackson County Health Department half a million dollars short — and them without jobs.
“I had to lay off three employees in a single day, and I haven’t had to do that before. We don’t have those people doing outreach in Jackson County anymore,” Health Commissioner Kevin Aston said.
At one point, he said, the funding helped 11 Appalachian Ohio counties. Now it supports one.
Marsha Radabaugh, one employee who was reassigned, has scaled back her community health efforts: She’d been helping serve hot meals to homeless people and realized that many clients couldn’t read or write, so she brought forms for services such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to their encampment in a local park and helped fill them out.
“We would find them rehab places. We’d get out hygiene kits, blankets, tents, zero-degree sleeping bags, things like that,” she said. As a counselor, she’d also remind people “that they’re cared for, that they’re worthy of being a human — because, a lot of the time, they’re not treated that way.”
Sasha Johnson, who led the community health worker program, said people like Radabaugh “were basically a walking human 411,” offering aid to those in need.
Radabaugh also partnered with a food bank to deliver meals to homebound residents.
Aston said the abrupt way they lost the funds — which meant the county unexpectedly had to pay unemployment for more people — could have ruined the health district financially. Canceling funding midcycle, he said, “was really scary.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist and promoter of vaccine misinformation, has called the CDC a “cesspool of corruption.” At HHS, he has taken steps to undermine vaccination in the U.S. and abroad.
Federal CDC funding accounts for more than half of state and local health department budgets, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. States that President Donald Trump won in the 2024 election received a higher share of the $15 billion the CDC allocated in fiscal 2023 than those that Democrat Kamala Harris won, according to KFF.
The Trump administration’s nationwide CDC grant terminations reflect this. More than half were in states that Trump won in 2024, totaling at least 370 terminations before the court action, according to KFF Health News’ analysis.
The Columbus, Ohio, health department had received $6.2 million in CDC grants, but roughly half of it — $3 million — disappeared with the Trump cuts. The city laid off 11 people who worked on investigating infectious disease outbreaks in such places as schools and nursing homes, Columbus Health Commissioner Mysheika Roberts said.
She also said the city had planned to buy a new electronic health record system for easier access to patients’ hospital records — which could improve disease detection and provide better treatment for those infected — but that was put on ice.
“We’ve never had a grant midcycle just get pulled from us for no reason,” Roberts said. “This sense of uncertainty is stressful.”
Columbus did not receive its money directly from the CDC. Rather, the state gave the city some funds it received from the federal government. Ohio, led by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and a Republican attorney general, did not sue to block the funding cuts.
Columbus sued the federal government in April to keep its money, along with other Democratic-led municipalities in Republican-governed states: Harris County, Texas, home to Houston; the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee; and Kansas City, Missouri. A federal judge in June blocked those cuts.
As of mid-August, Columbus was awaiting the funds. Roberts said the city won’t rehire staff because the federal funding was expected to end in December.
Joe Grogan, a senior scholar at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Institute and former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council in Trump’s first term, said state and local agencies “are not entitled” to the federal money, which was awarded “to deal with an emergency” that has ended.
“We were throwing money out the door the last five years,” Grogan said of the federal government. “I don’t understand why there would ever be a controversy in unspent covid money coming back.”
Ken Gordon, Ohio Department of Health spokesperson, wrote in an email that the $250 million in grants lost had helped with, among other things, upgrading the disease reporting system and boosting public health laboratory testing.
Some of the canceled HHS funding wasn’t slated to end for years, including four grants to strengthen public health in Indian Country, a grant to a Minnesota nonprofit focused on reducing substance use disorders, and a few to universities about occupational safety, HIV, tuberculosis, and more.
Brent Ewig, chief policy and government relations officer for the Association of Immunization Managers, said the cuts were “the predictable result of ‘boom, bust, panic, neglect’ funding” for public health.
The association represents 64 state, local, and territorial immunization programs, which Ewig said will be less prepared to respond to disease outbreaks, including measles.
“The system is blinking red,” Ewig said.
Methodology
KFF Health News’ analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants sought to answer four questions: 1) How many grants have been terminated in the U.S. under the Trump administration since March? 2) Which states saw the most grants cut? 3) What were the grants for? and 4) Did the grant terminations affect blue, red, and purple states differently? This follows a similar analysis by KFF Health News for an article on nationwide NIH grant terminations.
Our primary data source was a Department of Health and Human Services website showing grant terminations. We compared an initial list of grant terminations from April 3 with one from July 11 to determine how many grants had been restored. The USAspending.gov database helped us track grants by state.
To classify states politically, we followed the same steps from our April coverage of National Institutes of Health grant terminations. States were “blue” if Democrats had complete control of the state government or if the majority of voters favored Democratic presidential candidates in the last three elections (2016, 2020, 2024). “Red” states were classified similarly with respect to the Republican Party. “Purple” states had politically split state governments and/or were generally considered to be presidential election battleground states. The result was 25 red states, 17 blue states, and eight purple states. The District of Columbia was classified as blue using similar methods.
This analysis does not account for potential grant reinstatements in local jurisdictions where the funds were awarded indirectly rather than directly from the CDC; it accounts only for the recipients’ location, and excludes grants terminated from Compacts of Free Association states and other foreign entities that received grants directly from the CDC. At least 40 CDC grants were terminated that were meant for global health efforts or assisting public health activities in other nations following the Trump administration’s order for the CDC to withdraw support for the World Health Organization.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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Henry Larweh, Rachana Pradhan, Rae Ellen Bichell and KFF Health News
WASHINGTON — With two conservatives in dissent, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down a property-rights claim from Los Angeles landlords who say they lost millions from unpaid rent during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
Without comment, the justices said they would not hear an appeal from a coalition of apartment owners who said they rent “over 4,800 units” in “luxury apartment communities” to “predominantly high-income tenants.”
They sued the city seeking $20 million in damages from tenants who did not pay their rent during the pandemic emergency.
They contended that the city’s strict limits on evictions during that time had the effect of taking their private property in violation of the Constitution.
In the past, the court has repeatedly turned down claims that rent control laws are unconstitutional, even though they limit how much landlords can collect in rent.
But the L.A. landlords said their claim was different because the city had in effect taken use of their property, at least for a time. They cited the 5th Amendment’s clause that says “private property [shall not] be taken for public use without just compensation.”
“In March 2020, the city of Los Angeles adopted one of the most onerous eviction moratoria in the country, stripping property owners … of their right to exclude nonpaying tenants,” they told the court in GHP Management Corporation vs. City of Los Angeles. “The city pressed private property into public service, foisting the cost of its coronavirus response onto housing providers.”
“By August 2021, when [they] sued the City seeking just compensation for that physical taking, back rents owed by their unremovable tenants had ballooned to over $20 million,” they wrote.
A federal judge in Los Angeles and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 3-0 decision dismissed the landlords’ suit. Those judges cited the decades of precedent that allowed the regulation of property.
The court had considered the appeal since February, but only Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch voted to hear the case.
“I would grant review of the question whether a policy barring landlords from evicting tenants for the nonpayment of rent effects a physical taking under the Taking Clause,” Thomas said. “This case meets all of our usual criteria. … The Court nevertheless denies certiorari, leaving in place confusion on a significant issue, and leaving petitioners without a chance to obtain the relief to which they are likely entitled.”
The Los Angeles landlords asked the court to decide “whether an eviction moratorium depriving property owners of the fundamental right to exclude nonpaying tenants effects a physical taking.”
In February, the city attorney’s office urged the court to turn down the appeal.
“As a once-in-a-century pandemic shuttered its businesses and schools, the city of Los Angeles employed temporary, emergency measures to protect residential renters against eviction,” they wrote. The measure protected only those who could “prove COVID-19 related economic hardship,” and it “did not excuse any rent debt that an affected tenant accrued.”
The city argued that the landlords are seeking a “radical departure from precedent” in the area of property regulation.
“If a government takes property, it must pay for it,” the city attorneys said. “For more than a century, though, this court has recognized that governments do not appropriate property rights solely by virtue of regulating them.”
The city said the COVID emergency and the restriction on evictions ended in January 2023.
In reply, lawyers for the landlords said bans on evictions are becoming the “new normal.” They cited a Los Angeles County measure they said would “preclude evictions for non-paying tenants purportedly affected by the recent wildfires.”
Americans went to the polls under very different circumstances in 2020. CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett takes a look back ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in August as the American labor market continued to show resilience.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers posted 8 million vacancies in August, up from 7.7 million in July. Economists had expected openings to be virtually unchanged. Openings were up in construction and in state and local government.
Layoffs fell in August. But the number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their job prospects — slid to the lowest level since August 2020 when the economy was reeling from COVID-19 lockdowns.
Job openings have come down steadily since peaking at 12.2 million in March 2022, but they remain above where they stood before the coronavirus pandemic hit the American economy in early 2020. When the economy roared back with unexpected strength from COVID-19 lockdowns, companies scrambled to find enough workers to keep up with customer orders.
The overheating economy caused an outburst of inflation, and the Federal Reserve responded by raising its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Inflation has come down — from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.5% in August.
The economy proved surprisingly resilient in the face of the Fed hikes, averting a widely forecast recession. But the job market has gradually lost momentum. Hiring averaged just 116,000 net new jobs a month from June through August — the weakest three-month average since mid-2020.
When the Labor Department releases its jobs report for September on Friday, it is expected to show that employers added 143,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate remained at a low 4.2%, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.
The Fed, satisfied with the progress against inflation and worried about the cooling job market, last month cut its benchmark rate by a hefty half percentage point, the central bank’s first and biggest rate cut since March 2020.
“Job openings had a big gain, and while these numbers are volatile, it’s likely employers see falling interest rates spurring the economy and may want to staff up,” said Robert Frick, economist with the Navy Federal Credit Union.
NEW YORK (AP) — The company behind Tupperware, the plastic kitchenware that revolutionized food storage after World War II and became inextricably linked to the parties where women seeking a measure of financial independence and fun in midcentury America sold the colorful products, has filed for bankruptcy.
Tupperware Brands, the Orlando, Florida-based consumer goods company that produces the iconic line of containers, said it was seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling to revitalize its core business and failing to secure a tenable takeover offer.
Despite enjoying the same cultural ubiquity as Kleenex, Teflon and other brands whose trademarked names are eponymous with entire product categories, Tupperware has suffered from waning sales, rising competition and the limitations of the direct-to-consumer marketing model that once defined its success.
The company said Tuesday in its bankruptcy filing that consumers shifting away from direct sales, which make up the vast majority of its sales more than a quarter-century after the first Tupperware parties, has hit the storied business hard.
The company also cited growing public health and environmental concerns about plastic, internal inefficiencies that made it challenging to operate globally, and the “challenging microeconomic environment” of the last several years for its financial straits.
Tupperware said it planned to continue operating during the bankruptcy proceedings and would seek court approval for a sale “in order to protect” the brand.
Tupperware’s roots date to 1946. As the company tells it, chemist Earl Tupper found inspiration while creating molds at a plastics factory. He set out on a mission to create an airtight lid seal — similar to the one on a paint can — for a plastic container to help families save money on food waste.
The brand experienced explosive growth in the mid-20th century, particularly with the rise of direct sales through Tupperware parties. First held in 1948, the parties were promoted as a way for women to earn supplemental income by selling their friends and neighbors the lidded bowls for holding leftovers.
The system worked so well that Tupperware eventually removed its products from stores. It also led Tupper to appoint Brownie Wise, who came up with the house party idea, as a company executive, a position that was rare for a woman at the time.
In the decades that followed, the brand expanded to include canisters, beakers, cake dishes and all manner of implements, and became a staple in kitchens across America and eventually, abroad as well. A newspaper reporter who went undercover to work as a footman in Buckingham Palace captured pictures of the royal Tupperware on the breakfast table of Queen Elizabeth II.
The story behind the company also showed up on TV screens and on stage, with depictions in PBS’ 2004 film “Tupperware!” and the play “Sealed for Freshness.”
“For more than 70 years, Tupperware Brands has centered on a core purpose – to inspire women to cultivate the confidence they need to enrich their lives, nourish their families, and fuel communities around the world,” Tricia Stitzel, the company’s first female CEO, wrote as recently as 2018. “And we continue to make decisions, from our innovative products to our strategic growth strategy, which reflect this purpose.”
In the 2000s, Tupperware also diversified beyond its containers by acquiring beauty and personal care companies, most of them direct-selling brands like Avroy Shlain, Fuller Cosmetics, NaturCare, Nutrimetics and Nuvo.
Financial analysts, however, criticized Tupperware in recent years for sticking with the direct sales model and failing to evolve with the times, most notably the large number of women who work outside the home.
“The reality is that the decline at Tupperware is not new,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said in Wednesday commentary. “It is very difficult to see how the brand can get back to its glory days.”
The company’s sales improved some during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Americans were cooking and eating more at home. But overall sales have been in steady decline over the years due to rising competition from Rubbermaid, OXO and even takeout food containers that consumers recycle. Vintage Tupperware also remains in demand as a collectible.
Overall, sales for food storage supplies are up 18% compared to before the pandemic, according to figures from market research firm Circana. But despite that growth – and the ongoing popularity of food storage videos on social media – the troubles for Tupperware remained.
Saunders explained that many consumers have migrated to less expensive home storage brands they can find at Target and Walmart. Amazon, the king of online retailers, also has its own line.
Historically, Tupperware marketed its products as higher-quality durable items. But consumers who are looking for durability are interested in more sustainable materials, such as glass and stainless steel, said Jennifer Christ, manager of consumer and commercial research for the Freedonia Group, a market research company.
“There’s less brand loyalty than there used to be,” Christ said.
In the past few years, Tupperware tried a few things to expand its reach and attract new customers. It started selling its products on Amazon as well as in stores at Target and Macy’s. In 2019, the brand also launched a line made with sustainable materials and expanded it two years later.
But financial troubles continued to pile up.
Last year, the company sought additional financing as it warned investors about its ability to stay in business and its risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
The company received an additional non-compliance notice from the NYSE for failing to file its annual results with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year. Tupperware continued to warn about its ability to stay afloat in more recent months, with an August securities filing pointing to “significant liquidity challenges.”
Shares for the company have fallen 75% this year.
In Tuesday’s bankruptcy petition, Tupperware reported more than $1.2 billion in total debts and $679.5 million in total assets. It said Tupperware currently employs more than 5,450 employees across 41 countries and partners with over 465,000 consultants who sell products on a freelance basis in nearly 70 countries. Particularly in India, Tupperware was introduced as a way for women to own their own businesses.
Many Tupperware sellers market the products online, but many also make their sales during Tupperware parties at their homes or neighborhood gatherings. In the announcement of the filing, the company maintained that there were no current changes to Tupperware’s independent sales consultant agreements.
Tupperware also pointed to aims to “further advance Tupperware’s transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company,” possibly signaling a move toward increased reliance of sales on the brand’s website or perhaps more online-focused marketing, although the company did not provide exact specifics.
In a statement, Tupperware President and CEO Laurie Ann Goldman acknowledged Tupperware’s recent financial struggles and said that the bankruptcy process is meant to provide “essential flexibility” as the company pursues this transformation. The brand, she maintains, isn’t going anywhere.
“Whether you are a dedicated member of our Tupperware team, sell, cook with, or simply love our Tupperware products, you are a part of our Tupperware family,” Goldman said in a statement. “We plan to continue serving our valued customers with the high-quality products they love and trust throughout this process.”
The company’s bankruptcy filing, though, faces opposition from Tupperware’s new lenders, who want the petition dismissed or converted it to a Chapter 7 case, which would liquidate the company. Alternatively, they’re asking the court for permission to take action against the company, which could allow them to collect debt they’re owed.
Chris Stanislawski didn’t read much in his middle school English classes, but it never felt necessary. Students were given detailed chapter summaries for every novel they discussed, and teachers played audio of the books during class.
Much of the reading material at Garden City Middle School in Long Island was either abridged books, or online texts and printouts, he said.
“When you’re given a summary of the book telling you what you’re about to read in baby form, it kind of just ruins the whole story for you,” said Chris, 14. “Like, what’s the point of actually reading?”
In many English classrooms across America, assignments to read full-length novels are becoming less common. Some teachers focus instead on selected passages — a concession to perceptions of shorter attention spans, pressure to prepare for standardized tests and a sense that short-form content will prepare students for the modern, digital world.
The National Council of Teachers of English acknowledged the shift in a 2022 statement on media education, saying: “The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.”
The idea is not to remove books but to teach media literacy and add other texts that feel relevant to students, said Seth French, one of the statement’s co-authors. In the English class he taught before becoming a dean last year at Bentonville High School in Arkansas, students engaged with plays, poetry and articles but read just one book together as a class.
“At the end of the day, a lot of our students are not interested in some of these texts that they didn’t have a choice in,” he said.
The emphasis on shorter, digital texts does not sit well with everyone.
Deep reading is essential to strengthen circuits in the brain tied to critical thinking skills, background knowledge — and, most of all, empathy, said Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA specializing in dyslexia research.
“We must give our young an opportunity to understand who others are, not through little snapshots, but through immersion into the lives and thoughts and feelings of others,” Wolf said.
At Garden City Middle School, students are required to read several books in their entirety each year, including “Of Mice and Men” and “Romeo and Juliet,” Principal Matthew Samuelson said. Audio versions and summaries are provided as extra resources, he said.
For Chris, who has dyslexia, the audio didn’t make the reading feel more accessible. He just felt bored. He switched this fall to a Catholic school, which his mother feels will prepare him better for college.
Even outside school, students are reading less
There’s little data on how many books are assigned by schools. But in general, students are reading less. Federal data from last year shows only 14% of young teens say they read for fun daily, compared with 27% in 2012.
Teachers say the slide has its roots in the COVID-19 crisis.
“There was a trend, it happened when COVID hit, to stop reading full-length novels because students were in trauma; we were in a pandemic. The problem is we haven’t quite come back from that,” said Kristy Acevedo, who teaches English at a vocational high school in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
This year, she said she won’t accept that students are too distracted to read. She plans to teach time-management strategies and to use only paper and pencils for most of class time.
Other teachers say the trend stems from standardized testing and the influence of education technology. Digital platforms can deliver a complete English curriculum, with thousands of short passages aligned to state standards — all without having to assign an actual book.
“If admins and school districts are judged by their test scores, how are they going to improve their test scores? They’re going to mirror the test as much as possible,” said Karl Ubelhoer, a middle school special education teacher in Tabernacle, New Jersey.
For some students, it’s a struggle to read at all. Only around a third of fourth and eighth graders reached reading proficiency in the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, down significantly from 2019.
Leah van Belle, executive director of the Detroit literacy coalition 313Reads, said when her son read “Peter Pan” in late elementary school, it was too hard for most kids in the class. She laments that Detroit feels like “a book desert.” Her son’s school doesn’t even have a library.
Still, she said it makes sense for English classes to focus on shorter texts.
“As an adult, if I want to learn about a topic and research it, be it personal or professional, I’m using interactive digital text to do that,” she said.
Teachers fit books in with other ‘spinning plates’
Even in well-resourced schools, one thing is always in short supply: time.
Terri White, a teacher at South Windsor High School in Connecticut, no longer makes her honors ninth-grade English class read all of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” She assigns about a third of the book and a synopsis of the rest. They have to move on quickly because of pressure for teachers to cram more into the curriculum, she said.
“It’s like spinning plates, you know what I mean? Like it’s a circus,” she said.
She also assigns less homework because kids’ schedules are so packed with sports, clubs and other activities.
“I maintain rigor. But I’m more about helping students become stronger and more critical readers, writers and thinkers, while taking their social-emotional well-being into account,” she said.
In the long run, the synopsis approach harms students’ critical thinking skills, said Alden Jones, a literature professor at Emerson College in Boston. She assigns fewer books than she once did and gives more quizzes to make sure students do the reading.
“We don’t value the thinking time that we used to have. It’s all time we could be on our phone accomplishing tasks,” she said.
Will Higgins, an English teacher at Dartmouth High School in Massachusetts, said he still believes in teaching the classics, but demands on students’ time have made it necessary to cut back.
“We haven’t given up on ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ We haven’t given up on ‘Hamlet’ or ‘The Great Gatsby,’″ Higgins said. But he said they have given up assigning others like “A Tale of Two Cities.”
His school has had success encouraging reading through student-directed book clubs, where small groups pick a book and discuss it together. Contemporary authors like John Green and Jason Reynolds have been a big hit.
“It’s funny,” he said. “Many students are saying that it’s the first time in a long time they’ve read a full book.”
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
NEW YORK — Tupperware Brands, the company that revolutionized food storage decades ago, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Orlando, Florida-based Tupperware plans to continue operating during the bankruptcy proceedings and will seek court approval for a sale, “in order to protect its iconic brand,” the company said just before midnight on Tuesday.
The company is seeking bankruptcy protection amid growing struggles to revitalize its business. Tupperware sales growth improved some during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but overall sales have been in steady decline since 2018 due to rising competition. And financial troubles have continued to pile up for the company.
Doubts around Tupperware’s future have floated around for some time. Last year, the company sought additional financing as it warned investors about its ability to stay in business and its risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
The company received an additional non-compliance notice from the NYSE for failing to file its annual results with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year. And Tupperware had continued to warn about its ability to stay afloat in more recent months, with an August securities filing pointing to “significant liquidity challenges.”
In Tuesday’s bankruptcy petition, Tupperware reported more than $1.2 billion in total debts and $679.5 million in total assets. Shares for the company have fallen 75% this year and closed Tuesday at about 50 cents apiece.
“The reality is that the decline at Tupperware is not new,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said in Wednesday commentary. “It is very difficult to see how the brand can get back to its glory days.”
Saunders explained that many consumers have been migrating to cheaper home storage brands — noting that competition has intensified over years, particularly with the rise of online platforms like Temu and retailers like Target also beefing up their own home storage and kichenware brands.
Tupperware’s roots date back to 1946. According to the company’s website, shortly after the Great Depression, chemist Earl Tupper found inspiration while creating molds at a plastics factory — setting out on a mission to create an airtight seal for a plastic container, similar to that on a paint can, to help families save money on food waste.
The brand experienced explosive growth in the mid 20th century — particularly with the rise of Tupperware parties, first held in 1948. Tupperware parties notably gave many women a chance to run their own businesses out of their homes, selling the products within social circles.
The system worked so well that Tupperware eventually removed its products from stores. And in Tuesday’s bankruptcy announcement, the company maintained that there were no current changes to Tupperware’s independent sales consultant agreements.
According to court documents published Tuesday, Tupperware currently employs more than 5,450 employees across 41 countries — and additionally partners with global sales force of over 465,000 consultants who sell products on a freelance basis in nearly 70 countries.
Tuesday’s announcement also pointed to aims to “further advance Tupperware’s transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company,” possibly signaling a move toward increased reliance of sales on the brand’s website or perhaps more online-focused marketing, although the company did not provide exact specifics.
In a statement, Tupperware President and CEO Laurie Ann Goldman acknowledged Tupperware’s recent financial struggles and said that the bankruptcy process is meant to provide “essential flexibility” as the company pursues this transformation. She also maintained that the brand wasn’t going anywhere.
“Whether you are a dedicated member of our Tupperware team, sell, cook with, or simply love our Tupperware products, you are a part of our Tupperware family,” Goldman said in a statement. “We plan to continue serving our valued customers with the high-quality products they love and trust throughout this process.”
Goldman, who previously served as CEO of Spanx, was appointed as Tupperware’s CEO in October 2023 — as part of larger leadership change ups. The company has appointed a new management team within the last year.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A union leader freed from prison Monday after serving time for her part in a strike against Cambodia’s biggest casino has vowed to continue the labor action until justice is done.
Chhim Sithar was sentenced in May 2023 to two years’ imprisonment for incitement to commit a felony, including time served before her conviction, in connection with the strike against the NagaWorld casino, the longest such labor action in the country’s history.
She had been leading a strike of hundreds of workers that began in December 2021 to protest mass layoffs and alleged union-busting at the casino in the capital, Phnom Penh, and was arrested and charged after a January 2022 demonstration of dismissed employees who were demanding to be rehired.
NagaWorld in late 2021 had fired 373 employees during financial struggles related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to The Associated Press at her home shortly after her release, Chhim Sithar vowed to continue leading the strike.
“About our advocacy fighting for union rights at NagaWorld, we will continue holding strike action until we get a solution. That’s the position we have determined since the first strike,” Chhim Sithar said, sitting on the floor surrounded by relatives.
“Unfortunately, as of today, after nearly three years, our workers have still not gotten justice. Therefore, as long as there’s no justice, our struggle continues,” she said.
After Chhim Sithar’s arrest, some dismissed workers continued to hold regular protests, appealing for her release and to get their jobs back. However, the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training announced in December 2022 that more than 200 others had accepted compensation under the labor law and dropped their demands.
“Despite relentless efforts by authorities to suppress the strike — including sexual harassment, physical assaults, and judicial harassment — the LRSU strike continues in Phnom Penh,” the Cambodian human rights organization LICADHO noted Monday.
NagaWorld is owned by a company controlled by the family of late Malaysian billionaire Chen Lip Keong. The company received its casino license in 1994 and the property is a huge integrated hotel-casino entertainment complex.
Previous labor union actions in Cambodia were usually at factories in outlying areas or in industrial estates in other provinces. The protest by the NagaWorld workers in the capital was unusually high-profile and drew police action that was sometimes violent.
Last year, the U.S. State Department named Chhim Sithar among 10 recipients of its annual Human Rights Defender Award. She was described by the then-U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia W. Patrick Murphy as “a courageous and tenacious labor union leader who peacefully advocates for the rights of Cambodian workers.”
Cambodia’s government has long been accused of using the judicial system to persecute critics and political opponents. Prime Minister Hun Manet succeeded his father last year after Hun Sen ruled for four decades, but there have been few signs of political liberalization.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise.
Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a 3 ½-year round-the-world voyage.
Bodin said Friday that they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried and every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.”
“We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen.
Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising.
It offers travelers the chance to buy a cabin and live at sea on a ship circumnavigating the globe. On its maiden voyage, it is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents. Cabins – billed as “villas” — start at $99,999, plus a monthly fee, for the operational life of the vessel, at least 15 years. Passengers can also sign up for segments of the voyage lasting weeks or months.
Marketing material, aimed at adventurous retirees and restless digital nomads, touts “the incredible opportunity to own a home on a floating paradise,” complete with a gym, spa, putting green, entertainment facilities, a business center and an “experiential culinary center.”
But first, the Odyssey has to get out of the dock.
It’s now at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, where the doomed RMS Titanic was built more than a century ago.
Villa Vie Residences’ marketing manager Sebastian Stokkendal said the company had been “humbled by the scale of what it takes to reactivate a 30-year-old vessel from a four-year layup.”
He said that after work on the rudder shafts, steel work and engine overhauls, the ship is almost ready to depart.
“We expect a very anticipated successful launch next week where we will head to Bremerhaven, Amsterdam, Lisbon, then across the Atlantic for our Caribbean segment,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.
In the meantime, the company has been paying living expenses for about 200 passengers. They are allowed onto the ship during the day and provided with meals and entertainment, but can’t stay overnight. The cruise line has paid for hotels in Belfast and in other European cities for those who want to explore more of Europe while they wait.
Passenger Holly Hennessey from Florida told the BBC she can’t leave Northern Ireland because of her shipmate – her cat, Captain.
She said that at first “I thought I’d go home, or the ship sent some people to the Canary Islands. And then I found out that because I have my cat with me, I can’t even leave.”
“I want to thank Belfast for being so welcoming to all of us,” she said.
Bodin and Canen – a Swede and an American who met when both lived in Hawaii — have used the time to travel to Italy, Croatia and Bodin’s hometown in Sweden, where they are awaiting news of the Odyssey.
Canen plans to run her Arizona-based auto-glass business from the ship. Bodin, a carpenter, is running a YouTube channel documenting the couple’s temporarily stalled journey.
Built in 1993 and operated under different names by several cruise lines over the years before being becalmed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Odyssey was bought by Villa Vie Residences in 2023.
The residential cruising business has proved a troubled one. MS The World, launched in 2002, is currently the only vessel of the type in operation. Another venture, Life at Sea, canceled its planned 3-year voyage late last year after failing to secure a ship.
Canen and Bodin put down a deposit on Life at Sea – they got their money back – and also gambled on Victoria Cruises, another stalled venture from which they are still seeking a refund.
But they are undeterred.
“We might be crazy, stupid, naive or resilient,” Bodin said. “I don’t know, you can put any label on it that you want.”
BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin gave up life on land to become seaborne nomads on a years-long cruise.
Months later, the couple has yet to spend a night at sea. Their ship, the Odyssey, is stuck in Belfast undergoing repair work that has postponed its scheduled May departure for a 3 ½-year round-the-world voyage.
Bodin said Friday that they have enjoyed their pit stop in the Northern Ireland capital, but “when we’d visited every pub and tried and every fish and chips place and listened to all the places that have Irish music, then we were ready to go elsewhere.”
“We’re ready to set sail, for sure,” added Canen.
Villa Vie Residences’ Odyssey is the latest venture in the tempest-tossed world of continuous cruising.
It offers travelers the chance to buy a cabin and live at sea on a ship circumnavigating the globe. On its maiden voyage, it is scheduled to visit 425 ports in 147 countries on seven continents. Cabins – billed as “villas” — start at $99,999, plus a monthly fee, for the operational life of the vessel, at least 15 years. Passengers can also sign up for segments of the voyage lasting weeks or months.
Marketing material, aimed at adventurous retirees and restless digital nomads, touts “the incredible opportunity to own a home on a floating paradise,” complete with a gym, spa, putting green, entertainment facilities, a business center and an “experiential culinary center.”
But first, the Odyssey has to get out of the dock.
It’s now at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, where the doomed RMS Titanic was built more than a century ago.
Villa Vie Residences’ marketing manager Sebastian Stokkendal said the company had been “humbled by the scale of what it takes to reactivate a 30-year-old vessel from a four-year layup.”
He said that after work on the rudder shafts, steel work and engine overhauls, the ship is almost ready to depart.
“We expect a very anticipated successful launch next week where we will head to Bremerhaven, Amsterdam, Lisbon, then across the Atlantic for our Caribbean segment,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.
In the meantime, the company has been paying living expenses for about 200 passengers. They are allowed onto the ship during the day and provided with meals and entertainment, but can’t stay overnight. The cruise line has paid for hotels in Belfast and in other European cities for those who want to explore more of Europe while they wait.
Passenger Holly Hennessey from Florida told the BBC she can’t leave Northern Ireland because of her shipmate – her cat, Captain.
She said that at first “I thought I’d go home, or the ship sent some people to the Canary Islands. And then I found out that because I have my cat with me, I can’t even leave.”
“I want to thank Belfast for being so welcoming to all of us,” she said.
Bodin and Canen – a Swede and an American who met when both lived in Hawaii — have used the time to travel to Italy, Croatia and Bodin’s hometown in Sweden, where they are awaiting news of the Odyssey.
Canen plans to run her Arizona-based auto-glass business from the ship. Bodin, a carpenter, is running a YouTube channel documenting the couple’s temporarily stalled journey.
Built in 1993 and operated under different names by several cruise lines over the years before being becalmed by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Odyssey was bought by Villa Vie Residences in 2023.
The residential cruising business has proved a troubled one. MS The World, launched in 2002, is currently the only vessel of the type in operation. Another venture, Life at Sea, canceled its planned 3-year voyage late last year after failing to secure a ship.
Canen and Bodin put down a deposit on Life at Sea – they got their money back – and also gambled on Victoria Cruises, another stalled venture from which they are still seeking a refund.
But they are undeterred.
“We might be crazy, stupid, naive or resilient,” Bodin said. “I don’t know, you can put any label on it that you want.”
Opera Philadelphia is lowering all tickets to $11 under new general director Anthony Roth Costanzo, establishing a “pick your price” model aimed at widening the company’s audience.
Costanzo announced Tuesday the company has raised $7 million since June 1 when he replaced David Devan, who retired after 13 seasons. The money addressed debt and enabled the new model, in which people can pay more than the minimum if they want to.
“This is chapter one of a long-term turnaround story,” Costanzo said. “Creating a new place for opera in our current time requires risk. It doesn’t require doubling down on safe choices, and that’s going to mean that we have to enable failure.”
Costanzo, a 42-year-old countertenor with an active singing career on the world’s top stages, took over ahead of a 2024-25 season trimmed to nine performances, down from 30 in 2018-19, the last season before the coronavirus pandemic, and 16 in 2022-23. Tickets for this season originally were priced at $30-$300.
“Every dollar you spend over $11 helps to not only support the opera, but support the people who want to come to the opera,” Costanzo said. “It will certainly represent a decrease in income from ticket sales. But it will represent an increase in contributed revenue and I believe also in the future in foundation revenue and hopefully corporate revenue.”
Opera Philadelphia sold 14,211 tickets last season at an average of $85.77, resulting in 13% of the company’s revenue. In the 2022-23 season, 17,464 tickets were sold at an average of $78.32, also bringing in 13% of revenue.
This season’s schedule at the Academy of Music, which has about 1,800 full-view seats, includes three performances of Missy Mazzoli’s “The Listeners” beginning with its U.S. premiere on Sept. 25, two performances Joseph Bologne’s “The Anonymous Lover” starting Jan. 31 and four performances of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” opening April 25. The company scrapped its innovative season-opening festival as part of budget cutting.
Costanzo spoke with Henry Timms, the outgoing president of New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which since 2022 has relied on a choose-what-you-pay model starting at $5 for many events during its “Summer for the City” schedule.
Costanzo said the past model had been predicated on including popular titles such as Bizet’s “Carmen,” intended to spur ticket sales.
“We market to the people who can afford $150 tickets. That changes the feel of the marketing. It changes the demographics of who we market to and where we market,” Costanzo said. “Ticket price and selling tickets becomes a real focal point of how we create art form in our time. And I think that’s a shame. I think it limits us and hinders innovation and progress.”
WASHINGTON — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says senior Biden administration officials pressured Facebook to “censor” some COVID-19 content during the pandemic and vowed that the social media giant would push back if it faced such demands again.
In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg alleges that the officials, including those from the White House, “repeatedly pressured” Facebook for months to take down “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire.”
The officials “expressed a lot of frustration” when the company didn’t agree, he said in the letter.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote in the letter dated Aug. 26 and posted on the committee’s Facebook page and to its account on X.
The letter is the latest repudiation by Zuckerberg of efforts to target misinformation around the coronavirus pandemic during and after the 2020 presidential election, particularly as allegations have emerged that some posts were deleted or restricted wrongly.
“I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he said, without elaborating. “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
In response, the White House said in a statement that, “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety. Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”
Experts warn this year’s U.S. election could be swamped by misinformation on social media with the proliferation of artificial intelligence and other tools to produce false news stories and content that could mislead voters.
Facebook in early 2021 appended what Zuckerberg called labels with “credible information” to posts about COVID-19 vaccines. That’s after it moved in April 2020 — just as the virus had led to global shutdowns and radical changes in everyday life — to warn users who shared misinformation about COVID-19.
Conservatives have long derided Facebook and other major tech companies as favoring liberal priorities and accused them of censorship.
Zuckerberg has tried to change the company’s perception on the right, going on podcaster Joe Rogan’s show in 2022 and complimenting Republican nominee Donald Trump’s response to an assassination attempt as “badass.” He sent Monday’s letter to the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Jordan, is a longtime Trump ally.
Zuckerberg also said he would no longer donate money to widen election access for voters through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the company that runs the philanthropy for him and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
The couple previously donated $400 million to help local election offices prepare for voters in the 2020 presidential election, with funds used for protective equipment to prevent the spread of the coronavirus at polling sites, drive-thru voting locations and equipment to process mail ballots.
“I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other” despite analyses showing otherwise, he said. “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another – or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”
SINTRA, Portugal (AP) — The doorbell to Martinho de Almada Pimentel’s house is hard to find, and he likes it that way. It’s a long rope that, when pulled, rings a literal bell on the roof that lets him know someone is outside the mountainside mansion that his great-grandfather built in 1914 as a monument to privacy.
There’s precious little of that for Pimentel during this summer of “overtourism.”
Travelers idling in standstill traffic outside the sunwashed walls of Casa do Cipreste sometimes spot the bell and pull the string “because it’s funny,” he says. With the windows open, he can smell the car exhaust and hear the “tuk-tuk” of outsized scooters named for the sound they make. And he can sense the frustration of 5,000 visitors a day who are forced to queue around the house on the crawl up single-lane switchbacks to Pena Palace, the onetime retreat of King Ferdinand II.
“Now I’m more isolated than during COVID,” the soft-spoken Pimentel, who lives alone, said during an interview this month on the veranda. “Now I try to (not) go out. What I feel is: angry.”
This is a story of what it means to be visited in 2024, the first year in which global tourism is expected to set records since the coronavirus pandemic brought much of life on Earth to a halt. Wandering is surging, rather than leveling off, driven by lingering revenge travel, digital nomad campaigns and so-called golden visasblamed in part for skyrocketing housing prices.
Anyone paying attention during this summer of “overtourism” is familiar with the escalating consequences around the world: traffic jams in paradise. Reports of hospitality workers living in tents. And “anti-tourism” protests intended to shame visitors as they dine — or, as in Barcelona in July, douse them with water pistols.
The demonstrations are an example of locals using the power of their numbers and social media to issue destination leaders an ultimatum: Manage this issue better or we’ll scare away the tourists — who could spend their $11.1 trillion a year elsewhere. Housing prices, traffic and water management are on all of the checklists.
Cue the violins, you might grouse, for people like Pimentel who are well-off enough to live in places worth visiting. But it’s more than a problem for rich people.
“Not to be able to get an ambulance or to not be able to get my groceries is a rich people problem?” said Matthew Bedell, another resident of Sintra, which has no pharmacy or grocery store in the center of the UNESCO-designated district. “Those don’t feel like rich people problems to me.”
What is ‘overtourism,’ anyway?
The phrase itself generally describes the tipping point at which visitors and their cash stop benefitting residents and instead cause harm by degrading historic sites, overwhelming infrastructure and making life markedly more difficult for those who live there.
It’s a hashtag that gives a name to the protests and hostility that you’ve seen all summer. But look a little deeper and you’ll find knottier issues for locals and their leaders, none more universal than housing prices driven up by short-term rentals like Airbnb, from Spain to South Africa. Some locales are encouraging “quality tourism,” generally defined as more consideration by visitors toward residents and less drunken behavior, disruptive selfie-taking and other questionable choices.
Tourists visit the old center of Sintra, Portugal, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)
“Overtourism is arguably a social phenomenon, too,” according to an analysis for the World Trade Organization written by Joseph Martin Cheer of Western Sydney University and Marina Novelli of the University of Nottingham. In China and India, for example, they wrote, crowded places are more socially accepted. “This suggests that cultural expectations of personal space and expectations of exclusivity differ.”
In January, the United Nations’ tourism agency predicted that worldwide tourism would exceed the records set in 2019 by 2%. By the end of March, the agency reported, more than 285 million tourists had travelled internationally, about 20% more than the first quarter of 2023. Europe remained the most-visited destination. The World Travel & Tourism Council projected in April that 142 of 185 countries it analyzed would set records for tourism, set to generate $11.1 trillion globally and account for 330 million jobs.
Tourists queue to visit the interior of the 19th century Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)
Aside from the money, there’s been trouble in paradise this year, with Spain playing a starring role in everything from water management problems to skyrocketing housing prices and drunken tourist drama.
Protests erupted across the country as early as March, when graffiti in Malaga reportedly urged tourists to “go f——— home.” Thousands of protesters demonstrated in Spain’s Canary Islands against visitors and construction that was overwhelming water services and jacking up housing prices. In Barcelona, protesters shamed and squirted water at people presumed to be visitors as they dined al fresco in touristy Las Ramblas.
In Japan, where tourist arrivals fueled by the weak yen were expected to set a new record in 2024, Kyoto banned tourists from certain alleys. The government set limits on people climbing Mount Fuji. And in Fujikawaguchiko, a town that offers some of the best views of the mountain’s perfect cone, leaders erected a large black screen in a parking lot to deter tourists from overcrowding the site. The tourists apparently struck back by cutting holes in the screen at eye level.
Air travel, meanwhile, only got more miserable, the U.S. government reported in July. UNESCO has warned of potential damage to protected areas. And Fodor’s “ No List 2024 ” urged people to reconsider visiting suffering hotspots, including sites in Greece and Vietnam, as well as areas with water management problems in California, India and Thailand.
Tourists queue to catch a shuttle bus from the gate up to the the 19th century Pena Palace, in Sintra, Portugal, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)
Tourism is surging and shifting so quickly, in fact, that some experts say the very term “overtourism” is outdated.
Michael O’Regan, a lecturer on tourism and events at Glasgow Caledonian University, argues that “overtourism” has become a buzzword that doesn’t reflect the fact that the experience depends largely on the success or failure of crowd management. It’s true that many of the demonstrations aren’t aimed at the tourists themselves, but at the leaders who allow the locals who should benefit to become the ones who pay.
“There’s been backlash against the business models on which modern tourism has been built and the lack of response by politicians,” he said in an interview. Tourism “came back quicker than we expected,” he allows, but tourists aren’t the problem. “There’s a global fight for tourists. We can’t ignore that. … So what happens when we get too many tourists? Destinations need to do more research.”
Of visitors vs being visited
Virpi Makela can describe exactly what happens in her corner of Sintra.
Incoming guests at Casa do Valle, her hillside bed-and-breakfast near the village center, call Makela in anguish because they cannot figure out how to find her property amid Sintra’s “disorganized” traffic rules that seem to change without notice.
“There’s a pillar in the middle of the road that goes up and down and you can’t go forward because you ruin your car. So you have to somehow come down but you can’t turn around, so you have to back down the road,” says Makela, a resident of Portugal for 36 years. “And then people get so frustrated they come to our road, which also has a sign that says `authorized vehicles only.’ And they block everything.”
A poster hanging from a balcony reads “Sintra: A traffic jam in paradise”, in Sintra, Portugal, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)
Traffic crawls through a narrow street where a poster on the wall of a house reads in Portuguese “Chaotic traffic harms everyone, residents and visitors”, in Sintra, Portugal, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)
Nobody disputes the idea that the tourism boom in Portugal needs better management. The WTTC predicted in April that the country’s tourism sector will grow this year by 24% over 2019 levels, create 126,000 more jobs since then and account for about 20% of the national economy. Housing prices already were pushing an increasing number of people out of the property market, driven upward in part by a growing influx of foreign investors and tourists seeking short-term rentals.
To respond, Lisbon announced plans to halve the number of tuk-tuks allowed to ferry tourists though the city and built more parking spaces for them after residents complained that they are blocking traffic.
A 40-minute train ride to the west, Sintra’s municipality has invested in more parking lots outside town and youth housing at lower prices near the center, the mayor’s office said.
More than 3 million people every year visit the mountains and castles of Sintra, long one of Portugal’s wealthiest regions for its cool microclimate and scenery. Sintra City Hall also said via email that fewer tickets are now sold to the nearby historic sites. Pena Palace, for example, began this year to permit less than half the 12,000 tickets per day sold there in the past.
It’s not enough, say residents, who have organized into QSintra, an association that’s challenging City Hall to “put residents first” with better communication, to start. They also want to know the government’s plan for managing guests at a new hotel being constructed to increase the number of overnight stays, and more limits on the number of cars and visitors allowed.
“We’re not against tourists,” reads the group’s manifesto. “We’re against the pandemonium that (local leaders) cannot resolve.”
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Associated Press reporters Helena Alves in Lisbon and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report. Laurie Kellman writes about global affairs for AP’s Trends + Culture team. Follow her at http://x.com/APLaurieKellman
Ahead of Taylor Swift’s July 14, 2023, concert in Denver, Aditi Desai, chief marketing officer at the Food Bank of the Rockies, got an unusual call. The billionaire pop star wanted to donate tens of thousands of meals to the nonprofit — a philanthropic effort she had repeated, much like her favorite songs, as she traverses the country on her 52-city Eras Tour.
“I was shocked and then thrilled by the news,” Desai said. “When (Swift’s representatives) shared the news, they were so kind, letting us know that Taylor wanted to express her gratitude for the work we do in our community every day.”
Since last March, Swift has donated the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of meals to help feed the growing number of Americans grappling with rising food and housing costs. She chooses to give without celebrity fanfare, and the gifts have been welcomed. But food bank operators say they have provided only temporary relief, as food insecurity has been spiking and federal government COVID-19 aid has ended.
“We got so much support during COVID,” said Jessica Sund, director of development and communications at Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota, which received funding from Swift. “That really helped us not have a horrible situation. But the numbers we’re seeing are so much higher now because of inflation and cost of living, and all of that support is gone.”
Swift’s support has been meaningful, food bank operators say, especially in drawing attention to their crucial service for low- and mid-income people. But food banks, collectively, require billions of dollars in funding per year, said Kyle Waide, CEO of Atlanta Community Food Bank, who is chair of the National Council for Feeding America and whose Georgia food bank is a Swift grantee.
The annual funding shortfall between what is needed in food assistance and what is provided by the federal government is roughly $33 billion, according to Feeding America, a network of food banks, pantries, and local meal programs.
“At a macro level, food banks are certainly facing lots of pressure right now, mainly because of just the extraordinary level of demand that’s out in the community,” Waide said.
Typically, according to Feeding America, food banks rely on individual and corporate donations, contributions from local farmers and retailers, and federal aid programs to sustain operations.
The self-described “tortured poet,” who has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, has a history of supporting emergency relief causes. Swift’s charitable fund at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee was set up to respond to flooding that struck the region in 2010. She gave $1 million to the community foundation’s Tennessee Emergency Response Fund last year.
Food banks fortunate enough to receive a slice of her wealth have praised the pop star for highlighting their efforts to reduce hunger amid inflation, rising food and energy costs, and increased demand for their services. At least 49 million Americans rely on food from food banks and other charities. Young people, who make up a large portion of Swift’s audience, are increasingly affected by food insecurity. More than half of those ages 18 to 34 said rising food costs were chief among their biggest financial worries.
Swift’s public relations team declined to comment about her food bank donations. Grantees said they were asked not to disclose the amount of the gifts. However, Desai said the contribution allowed the food bank to purchase enough food for 75,000 meals. Typically, the food bank can provide about three meals for every $1 donated, she said.
Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota was able to purchase 30,000 meals with its donation, according to Jessica Sund, the organization’s director of development and communications. Food banks can purchase anywhere from two to 10 meals per dollar donated, she said.
“It really does range dramatically from food bank to food bank,” Sund said.
At Channel One, it usually costs about $8 million a year to keep shelves stocked with enough food to support roughly 300,000 visits from people in 14 counties.
Swift’s gifts seem to amount to a tiny percentage of the revenue earned from the tour and her personal wealth. Nevertheless, many of her food bank grantees consider the exposure that she gives them priceless.
Her donation provided the kind of media attention that Food Bank of the Rockies could never afford, Desai said. “We saw rapid increases in ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ on the social media post announcing the gift, with exponentially more engagement than we typically receive,” Desai said.
Some food banks said they saw a bump in small donations in response to the press coverage. It was short-lived, and most continue to be challenged by high demand for their services as more Americans struggle to make ends meet.
Channel One is seeing an increase in individuals and families reaching out for the first time as they realize they can no longer afford to buy food on their own, Sund said. Currently, the organization receives 10,000 visits to its on-site food shelf in Rochester, Minnesota, which is roughly a 50 percent increase from last year, she said.
Sund and other food bank leaders point to inflation and the lack of affordable housing as contributing to increased demand. The end of government pandemic relief funding has exacerbated these issues, they said. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit program for low-income families. Lawmakers allowed the policy to expire at the end of 2021. Similarly, temporary benefit increases for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expired in March 2023.
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley also received a gift from Swift during the U.S. leg of her tour. The organization had heard that Swift was donating to food banks and reached out to her press team about a month ahead of her performances in Santa Clara last July, said Shobana Gubbi, chief philanthropy officer at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
“A day before the concert, they just called us,” she said.
Gubbi declined to provide further details about the donation, saying only that the organization was grateful for the gift and for Swift “shining a light” on food insecurity. However, the situation on the ground has not greatly improved. The Silicon Valley region has been deeply affected by layoffs within the tech sector that have resulted in less giving, even from those who are still employed, Gubbi said. People are fearful about job security and are giving less; and when those donations decline, it also means less money from corporate matches, Gubbi added.
In response, Second Harvest is tightening its budget and keeping staff small, she said. The rations of food have also been downsized; rather than providing gallons of milk, the bank is now handing out half gallons and giving meats, eggs, and dairy on alternating weeks, she said. Some weeks people receive meats, and on others they may only get dairy and eggs, Gubbi explained. The organization is currently serving 500,000 people a month, roughly the same as during the peak of the pandemic.
“At the moment we are having a lot of challenges in terms of getting support from the community,” she said.
_________
Stephanie Beasley is a senior writer at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Ahead of Taylor Swift’s July 14, 2023, concert in Denver, Aditi Desai, chief marketing officer at the Food Bank of the Rockies, got an unusual call. The billionaire pop star wanted to donate tens of thousands of meals to the nonprofit — a philanthropic effort she had repeated, much like her favorite songs, as she traverses the country on her 52-city Eras Tour.
“I was shocked and then thrilled by the news,” Desai said. “When (Swift’s representatives) shared the news, they were so kind, letting us know that Taylor wanted to express her gratitude for the work we do in our community every day.”
Since last March, Swift has donated the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of meals to help feed the growing number of Americans grappling with rising food and housing costs. She chooses to give without celebrity fanfare, and the gifts have been welcomed. But food bank operators say they have provided only temporary relief, as food insecurity has been spiking and federal government COVID-19 aid has ended.
“We got so much support during COVID,” said Jessica Sund, director of development and communications at Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota, which received funding from Swift. “That really helped us not have a horrible situation. But the numbers we’re seeing are so much higher now because of inflation and cost of living, and all of that support is gone.”
Swift’s support has been meaningful, food bank operators say, especially in drawing attention to their crucial service for low- and mid-income people. But food banks, collectively, require billions of dollars in funding per year, said Kyle Waide, CEO of Atlanta Community Food Bank, who is chair of the National Council for Feeding America and whose Georgia food bank is a Swift grantee.
The annual funding shortfall between what is needed in food assistance and what is provided by the federal government is roughly $33 billion, according to Feeding America, a network of food banks, pantries, and local meal programs.
“At a macro level, food banks are certainly facing lots of pressure right now, mainly because of just the extraordinary level of demand that’s out in the community,” Waide said.
Typically, according to Feeding America, food banks rely on individual and corporate donations, contributions from local farmers and retailers, and federal aid programs to sustain operations.
The self-described “tortured poet,” who has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, has a history of supporting emergency relief causes. Swift’s charitable fund at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee was set up to respond to flooding that struck the region in 2010. She gave $1 million to the community foundation’s Tennessee Emergency Response Fund last year.
Food banks fortunate enough to receive a slice of her wealth have praised the pop star for highlighting their efforts to reduce hunger amid inflation, rising food and energy costs, and increased demand for their services. At least 49 million Americans rely on food from food banks and other charities. Young people, who make up a large portion of Swift’s audience, are increasingly affected by food insecurity. More than half of those ages 18 to 34 said rising food costs were chief among their biggest financial worries.
Swift’s public relations team declined to comment about her food bank donations. Grantees said they were asked not to disclose the amount of the gifts. However, Desai said the contribution allowed the food bank to purchase enough food for 75,000 meals. Typically, the food bank can provide about three meals for every $1 donated, she said.
Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota was able to purchase 30,000 meals with its donation, according to Jessica Sund, the organization’s director of development and communications. Food banks can purchase anywhere from two to 10 meals per dollar donated, she said.
“It really does range dramatically from food bank to food bank,” Sund said.
At Channel One, it usually costs about $8 million a year to keep shelves stocked with enough food to support roughly 300,000 visits from people in 14 counties.
Swift’s gifts seem to amount to a tiny percentage of the revenue earned from the tour and her personal wealth. Nevertheless, many of her food bank grantees consider the exposure that she gives them priceless.
Her donation provided the kind of media attention that Food Bank of the Rockies could never afford, Desai said. “We saw rapid increases in ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ on the social media post announcing the gift, with exponentially more engagement than we typically receive,” Desai said.
Some food banks said they saw a bump in small donations in response to the press coverage. It was short-lived, and most continue to be challenged by high demand for their services as more Americans struggle to make ends meet.
Channel One is seeing an increase in individuals and families reaching out for the first time as they realize they can no longer afford to buy food on their own, Sund said. Currently, the organization receives 10,000 visits to its on-site food shelf in Rochester, Minnesota, which is roughly a 50 percent increase from last year, she said.
Sund and other food bank leaders point to inflation and the lack of affordable housing as contributing to increased demand. The end of government pandemic relief funding has exacerbated these issues, they said. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit program for low-income families. Lawmakers allowed the policy to expire at the end of 2021. Similarly, temporary benefit increases for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expired in March 2023.
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley also received a gift from Swift during the U.S. leg of her tour. The organization had heard that Swift was donating to food banks and reached out to her press team about a month ahead of her performances in Santa Clara last July, said Shobana Gubbi, chief philanthropy officer at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
“A day before the concert, they just called us,” she said.
Gubbi declined to provide further details about the donation, saying only that the organization was grateful for the gift and for Swift “shining a light” on food insecurity. However, the situation on the ground has not greatly improved. The Silicon Valley region has been deeply affected by layoffs within the tech sector that have resulted in less giving, even from those who are still employed, Gubbi said. People are fearful about job security and are giving less; and when those donations decline, it also means less money from corporate matches, Gubbi added.
In response, Second Harvest is tightening its budget and keeping staff small, she said. The rations of food have also been downsized; rather than providing gallons of milk, the bank is now handing out half gallons and giving meats, eggs, and dairy on alternating weeks, she said. Some weeks people receive meats, and on others they may only get dairy and eggs, Gubbi explained. The organization is currently serving 500,000 people a month, roughly the same as during the peak of the pandemic.
“At the moment we are having a lot of challenges in terms of getting support from the community,” she said.
_________
Stephanie Beasley is a senior writer at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) — With its reindeer sleigh rides, camel racing and stunning landscapes with room to roam, Mongolia is hoping to woo visitors who are truly looking to get away from it all.
Like most countries, its tourism industry was devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has launched a “Welcome to MonGOlia” campaign to win people back. The government has added flights and streamlined the visa process, offering visa-free visits for many countries.
At least 437,000 foreign tourists visited in the first seven months of this year, up 25% over the same period last year, including increasing numbers from Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Visitors from South Korea nearly doubled, thanks in part to the under-four-hour flight.
Despite the gains, Mongolia’s government is still short of its goal of 1 million visitors per year from 2023-2025 to the land of Genghis Khan, which encompassed much of Eurasia in its 13th-century heyday and is now a landlocked nation located between Russia and China.
With a population of 3.3 million people, about half of them living in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, there’s plenty of open space for the adventure tourist to explore, said Egjimaa Battsooj, who works for a tour company. Its customized itineraries include horseback trips and camping excursions with the possibility of staying in gers, the felt-covered dwellings still used by Mongolia’s herders.
There’s little chance of running across private property, so few places are off-limits, she said.
“You don’t need to open a gate, you don’t need to have permission from anyone,” she said, sitting in front of a map of Mongolia with routes marked out with pins and strands of yarn.
“We are kind of like the last truly nomad culture on the whole planet,” she added.
Lonely Planet named Mongolia its top destination in its Best in Travel 2024 report. The pope’s visit to Mongolia last year also helped focus attention on the country. Its breakdancers became stars at last year’s Asian Games. And some local bands have developed a global following, like The Hu, a folk-metal band that incorporates traditional Mongolian instruments and throat singing with modern rock.
Still, many people know little about Mongolia. American tourist Michael John said he knew some of the history about Genghis Khan and had seen a documentary on eagles used by hunters before deciding to stop in Ulaanbaatar as part of a longer vacation.
“It was a great opportunity to learn more,” the 40-year-old said.
Tourism accounted for 7.2% of Mongolia’s gross domestic product and 7.6% of its employment in 2019 before collapsing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank. But the organization noted “substantial growth potential” for Mongolia to exploit, with “diverse nature and stunning sceneries” and sports and adventure tourism possibilities.
Mongolia tourism ads focus on those themes, with beautiful views of frozen lakes in winter for skating and fishing, the Northern Lights and events like reindeer sledding and riding, camel racing and hiking.
Munkhjargal Dayan offers rides on two-humped Bactrian camels, traditional archery and the opportunity to have eagles trained for hunting perch on a visitor’s arm.
“We want to show tourists coming from other countries that we have such a way of life in Mongolia,” he said, waiting for customers by a giant statue of Genghis Kahn on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar.
Outside the lively capital, getting around can be difficult in summer as the steppes become waterlogged, and there is limited infrastructure, a shortage of accommodation and a deficit of skilled labor in tourism destinations.
It is also easy for foreigners to get lost, with few signs in English, said Dutch tourist Jasper Koning. Nevertheless, he said he was thoroughly enjoying his trip.
“The weather is super, the scenery is more than super, it’s clean, the people are friendly,” he said.
