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Tag: epidemics and outbreaks

  • Not just casinos: Macao reimagines tourism post-pandemic | CNN

    Not just casinos: Macao reimagines tourism post-pandemic | CNN

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    Macao, China
    CNN
     — 

    Like many of his peers, Dan McAulay was furloughed from his job as a pilot during the pandemic.

    Being based in Macao, a city that had one of the world’s strictest approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, he found himself with a lot of time on his hands.

    McAulay and his wife, Rebeca Fellini, started learning how to distill alcohol as a lockdown hobby. And by the end of the nearly three years that Macao was a relative fortress, they had grown their pastime into a bona fide business – a gin brand called Owl Man, a play on the Chinese pronunciation of the city’s name “Ah Mahn.”

    Now, McAulay is back in the skies with Air Macau and Fellini manages the distillery’s day-to-day business.

    Even though their business was born during lockdown, they – like so many other businesses around the city – are pinning their hopes on the return of tourism.

    Macao, an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong, is the only place in China where gambling is legal.

    Often called the “Vegas of Asia,” in pre-pandemic times it wasn’t unusual to see a high-spending “whale” helicopter in and out of the city for a single afternoon at the craps table.

    As a result, the city’s primary economy is the casinos and the businesses supporting them, from hotels to spas to high-end shops.

    Macao only has about 600,000 residents – compared to seven million in Hong Kong – but brings in six times as much revenue as Las Vegas in a typical year.

    Before the pandemic, 80% of Macao’s government revenue came from the gaming industry. Big players like Wynn, Venetian and MGM all have a significant presence in the city.

    Covid threw that all into a tailspin. Nearly three years of intermittent lockdowns and blocked travel from the mainland and Hong Kong had a devastating effect on the city’s primary source of income.

    But it also provided time for innovation.

    “The government realized they can’t focus all their efforts on gaming and (tourists from) the mainland. Gastronomy is one of their big pushes,” explains McAulay.

    “Being the only distillery in Macao, it’s working out amazing for us. The hotels and casinos are encouraged to support local food and beverage companies. It has given us quite a strong start.”

    He isn’t the only entrepreneur who used the tourism slowdown to rethink his business model.

    Asai, who uses only his first name professionally, owns several Portuguese restaurants and cafes around the territory. As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is known for food traditions like egg tarts, African chicken and bacalao (codfish fritters).

    But Asai wants visitors to know there’s still an active, thriving Portuguese community in Macao – and they’re offering more than the usual favorites.

    Egg custard tarts, or pasteis de natas in Portuguese, are one of the most popular souvenirs from Macao, with long lines at establishments like Lord Stow’s and Margaret’s.

    Pasteis de Chaves is a small, trendy-looking cafe that wouldn’t be out of place in Brooklyn. Though it does sell egg tarts, its name comes from the signature offering – beef stuffed pastries that offer a savory complement to the sweet eggy ones.

    Across the road, Three Sardines is a romantic, dimly lit spot specializing in petiscos, a Portuguese equivalent of tapas with small plates like fried octopus and grilled peppers.

    “Competition is high for Portuguese restaurants, but many are localized twisted versions of Portuguese food,” says Asai, who has been in Macao for 18 years and stayed through the pandemic. “We try to offer more traditional and unique experiences. This is a niche and helped us survive the pandemic.”

    Chef Pedro Almeida behind the bar at Three Sardines.

    Now, he is one of many local business owners looking outward for the first time in several years as tourists slowly trickle back to Macao.

    Like Owl Man, Asai’s restaurant group has received government support as Macao diversifies its food and drink scene.

    For instance, he and head chef Pedro Almeida worked with the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) on a video to explain the origin of egg tarts and how they’re different in Macao and Portugal.

    As the first international tourists began returning to Macao in February 2023, it was clear that a lot had changed.

    Many small neighborhood restaurants closed during lockdown, and those that have reopened have had trouble staffing up after so many workers left the city permanently.

    But new attractions have opened as well, with casinos trying to diversify their offerings and become more family-friendly.

    The city’s first-ever outdoor zip line, ZipCity, opened at Taipa’s Lisboeta casino complex in January 2023. The timing worked out well, as mainland Chinese tourists flooded the city during Lunar New Year – a representative for the company says that ZipCity operated “at 90% capacity” during that holiday week.

    The ZipCity zipline is 338 meters (about 1,100 feet) long.

    Despite the pandemic, ongoing construction projects were still completed – if not necessarily on schedule.

    Popular Japanese immersive art experience TeamLab opened an outpost at the Venetian in June 2020, and a new British-themed resort, The Londoner, opened in 2021 complete with penthouse suites designed by David Beckham.

    Arguably the city’s most well-known landmark, the ruins of St. Paul’s Church, has been reinvigorated by a new on-site VR experience that enables visitors to see what the church looked like during different historical periods.

    The city is rolling out incentives to bring back those tourists, as well.

    People coming over via ferry from Hong Kong qualify for a buy-one-get-one free boat ticket if they’re staying at least one night in a hotel – an incentive to stay longer and not just make it a day trip.

    Most businesses and vendors in Macao, including taxi drivers, will accept Hong Kong dollars – while very few of their counterparts in Hong Kong will accept the Macanese pataca.

    Macao’s tourism authority also announced programs aimed at international travelers, including deals on package trips.

    On the ground, things look lively.

    Weekend ferries from Hong Kong have been selling out, and popular areas like Senado Square and the Guia Fortress – which is part of the city’s UNESCO-listed historical center – are thronged with visitors.

    That includes casinos as well. On a recent mid-week visit, tables at the MGM and Venetian casinos were full of both gamblers and gawkers.

    Macao dropped its mask mandate on February 26, with Hong Kong following suit a week later. However, many casino-goers still sported masks indoors once it became voluntary, perhaps due to the close quarters at blackjack tables.

    For now, though, tourism is mostly regional.

    According to data from Macao’s tourism authority, the majority of visitors arriving in January 2023 were from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

    In January 2019, 3.4 million tourists came to Macao, with most from mainland China. In January 2023, 1.4 million visited, most during the Lunar New Year holiday.

    Hometown airline Air Macau has been steadily ratcheting up capacity to add more flights from Singapore and Taipei, two of Macao’s biggest markets. More mainland China routes will return by March 26.

    Low-cost Asian carriers like Cambodia Airways and Thai Vietjet also brought back their pre-pandemic air links.

    “I think everyone expected (tourism) to bounce back, but talking to all our friends in the hotels and casinos, they’re saying their fourth quarter predictions have bounced back faster than they anticipated,” says McAulay, the Owl Man co-founder.

    “I think it’s re-energizing.”

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  • Chinese city proposes lockdowns for flu — and faces a backlash | CNN

    Chinese city proposes lockdowns for flu — and faces a backlash | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    A Chinese city has sparked a backlash on social media after saying it would consider the use of lockdowns in the event of an influenza outbreak.

    The city of Xi’an – a tourism hotspot in Shaanxi province that is home to the famous terracotta warriors – revealed an emergency response plan this week that would enable it to shut schools, businesses and “other crowded places” in the event of a severe flu epidemic.

    That prompted a mixture of anxiety and anger on China’s social media websites among many users who said the plan sounded uncomfortably similar to some of the strict zero-Covid measures China had implemented throughout the pandemic and which have only recently been abandoned.

    “Vaccinate the public rather than using such time to create a sense of panic,” one user wrote on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

    “How will people not panic given that Xi’an’s proposal to suspend work and business activities were issued without clear instruction on the national level to classify the disease?” asked another.

    While cases of Covid in China are falling, there has been a spike in flu cases across the country and some pharmacies are struggling to meet demand for flu remedies.

    However, Xi’an’s emergency response plan will not necessarily be used. Rather, it outlines how the city of almost 13 million people would respond to any future outbreak based on four levels of severity.

    At the first and highest level, it says, “the city can lock down infected areas, carry out traffic quarantines and suspend production and business activities. Shopping malls, theaters, libraries, museums, tourist attractions and other crowded places will also be closed.”

    “At this emergency level, schools and nurseries at all levels would be shut down and be made responsible for tracking students’ and infants’ health conditions.”

    The backlash comes as the central government in Beijing has emphasized the need to open the country back up following the removal of all Covid restrictions in January.

    Throughout the pandemic, China had enforced some of the world’s most severe Covid restrictions, including lockdowns that stretched into months in some cities. It was also one of the last countries in the world to end measures such as mass testing and strict border quarantine periods, even amid growing evidence of the damage being done to its economy.

    Xi’an itself was subject to a draconian lockdown between December 2021 and January 2022, with 13 million residents confined to their homes for weeks on end – and many left short of food and other essential supplies. Access to medical services was also affected. In an incident that shocked and angered the nation, a heavily pregnant woman was turned away from a hospital on New Year’s Day because she didn’t have a valid Covid-19 test, and suffered a miscarriage after she was finally admitted two hours later.

    Residents take nucleic acid tests in a closed community in Xi'an in January 2022.

    Shortly before China removed its pandemic era restrictions the country had been rocked by a series of demonstrations against its zero-Covid policy.

    Memories of being confined to their homes and of panic buying that in some areas led to food shortages remain fresh in people’s minds and the idea of a return to Covid-style measures appears to have hit a nerve.

    However, some voices called for calm.

    Epidemiologist Ben Cowling, from the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health, said he saw the rationale of the move.

    “I think it’s quite rational to make contingency plans. I wouldn’t expect a lockdown to be needed for flu, but presumably there are different response levels,” he said.

    One user on Weibo expressed a similar sentiment: “It is merely the revelation of a proposal, not putting it in place. It is quite normal to take precautions given this wave of flu is coming at us very strong.”

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  • The US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, outpacing expectations | CNN Business

    The US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, outpacing expectations | CNN Business

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    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    The US economy added 311,000 jobs in February, according to the latest monthly employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday.

    That’s a pullback from the blockbuster January jobs report, when a revised 504,000 positions were added, but shows the labor market is still emitting plenty of heat.

    The unemployment rate ticked up to 3.6% from 3.4%.

    February’s net job gains surpassed economists’ estimates for a more modest month, with only 205,000 to be added. Separately, downward revisions to December’s and January’s totals weren’t that drastic.

    While Friday’s report is a strong one, that’s actually bad news in the broader context of the Federal Reserve’s campaign to curb high inflation, said PNC Financial Services chief economist Gus Faucher.

    “It’s much hotter than the economy can run, and so this means the Fed is going to have to continue to hike interest rates,” he told CNN. “And that makes a recession more likely.”

    Barring a surprisingly low Consumer Price Index inflation report next week, Faucher said he expects the Fed to go forward with a half-point rate hike at its March 21-22 meeting, which would be a higher pace than the recent, more moderate quarter-point increase.

    The Fed has been battling for almost a year to slow the economy and crush the highest inflation in 40 years, but the labor market continues to defy those efforts.

    “Coming up on the one-year anniversary of the Fed’s first rate hike, we never thought we would see the economy churning out 311,000 more jobs this month,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist of FwdBonds, in a statement. “The party is on and the labor market is having a blast. The economy clearly is not landing, it is soaring.”

    The monthly job gains remain well above pre-pandemic norms, when roughly 180,000 jobs were added per month between 2010 and 2019, BLS data shows. However, the labor market remains tight and imbalances continue to persist in the ongoing recovery efforts from the devastating pandemic.

    Labor turnover data released earlier this week for January showed that there were 1.9 job openings for every person looking for one. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has frequently highlighted how the labor market remains short of pre-pandemic growth projections by more than 3 million people.

    The pandemic accelerated expected demographic trends (the aging out of the massive Baby Boom generation) with increased retirements; people also dropped out of the workforce for care-related needs and health concerns such as long Covid; and there were hundreds of thousands of workers who died from Covid.

    February’s employment report showed a 0.1 percentage point increase in the labor force participation rate to 62.5% — the highest its been since April 2020. However, it remains below pre-pandemic levels of 63.4%.

    Additionally, there was some upward movement in the jobless rate, which increased 0.2 percentage points to 3.6%.

    “Contributing to upward pressure here, there were more people looking for work,”said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.

    Industries with notable job gains included leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government and health care. After being crushed during the pandemic, the leisure and hospitality has been steadily adding back employees and trying to meet increased demand from consumers shifting their spending from goods to services.

    Average hourly earnings — a closely watched metric as the Fed seeks to evaluate the impact of rising wages on inflation — grew 0.2% month-on-month and were up 4.6% over the year before.

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  • Chinese city claims to have destroyed 1 billion pieces of personal data collected for Covid control | CNN

    Chinese city claims to have destroyed 1 billion pieces of personal data collected for Covid control | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    A Chinese city says it has destroyed a billion pieces of personal data collected during the pandemic, as local governments gradually dismantle their coronavirus surveillance and tracking systems after abandoning the country’s controversial zero-Covid policy.

    Wuxi, a manufacturing hub on China’s eastern coast and home to 7.5 million people, held a ceremony Thursday to dispose of Covid-related personal data, the city’s public security bureau said in a statement on social media.

    The one billion pieces of data were collected for purposes including Covid tests, contact tracing and the prevention of imported cases – and they were only the first batch of such data to be disposed, the statement said.

    China collects vast amounts of data on its citizens – from gathering their DNA and other biological samples to tracking their movements on a sprawling network of surveillance cameras and monitoring their digital footprints.

    But since the pandemic, state surveillance has pushed deeper into the private lives of Chinese citizens, resulting in unprecedented levels of data collection. Following the dismantling of zero-Covid restrictions, residents have grown concerned over the security of the huge amount of personal data stored by local governments, fearing potential data leaks or theft.

    Last July, it was revealed that a massive online database apparently containing the personal information of up to one billion Chinese citizens was left unsecured and publicly accessible for more than a year – until an anonymous user in a hack forum offered to sell the data and brought it to wider attention.

    In the statement, Wuxi officials said “third-party audit and notary officers” would be invited to take part in the deletion process, to ensure it cannot be restored. CNN cannot independently verify the destruction of the data.

    Wuxi also scrapped more than 40 local apps used for “digital epidemic prevention,” according to the statement.

    During the pandemic, Covid apps like these dictated social and economic life across China, controlling whether people could leave their homes, where they could travel, when businesses could open and where goods could be transported.

    But following the country’s abrupt exit from zero-Covid in December, most of these apps faded from daily life.

    On December 12, China scrapped a nationwide mobile tracking app that collected data on users’ travel movements. But many local pandemic apps run by the municipal or provincial governments, such as the ubiquitous Covid health code apps, have remained in place – although they are no longer in use.

    Wuxi claims to be the first municipality in China to have destroyed Covid-related personal data from citizens. On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, users called for other local governments to follow suit.

    Yan Chunshui, deputy head of Wuxi’s big data management bureau, said the disposal was meant to better protect citizens’ privacy, prevent data leaks and free up data storage space.

    Kendra Schaefer, the head of tech policy research at the Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said the data collection related to local-level Covid apps was often messy, and those apps were difficult and expensive to manage for local governments.

    “Considering the cost and difficulty managing such apps, coupled with concerns expressed by the public over data security and privacy – not to mention the political win local governments get by symbolically putting zero-Covid to bed – dismantling those systems is par for the course,” Schaefer said.

    In many cases, she added, the big data departments at local governments were overwhelmed dealing with Covid data, so scaling back simply makes sense economically.

    “Many cities have not yet deleted their Covid data – or have not done so publicly – not because I believe they intend to keep it, but because it simply hasn’t been that long since zero-Covid was halted,” Schaefer said.

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  • US agency assessment backing Covid lab leak theory raises more questions than answers — and backlash from China | CNN

    US agency assessment backing Covid lab leak theory raises more questions than answers — and backlash from China | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    The US Department of Energy’s assessment that Covid-19 most likely emerged due to a laboratory accident in China has reignited fierce debate and attention on the question of how the pandemic began.

    But the “low confidence” determination, made in a newly updated classified report, has raised more questions than answers, as the department has publicly provided no new evidence to back the claim. It’s also generated fierce pushback from China.

    “We urge the US to respect science and facts, stop politicizing this issue, stop its intelligence-led, politics-driven origins-tracing,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

    The Department of Energy assessment is part of a broader US effort in which intelligence agencies were asked by President Joe Biden in 2021 to examine the origins of the coronavirus, which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

    That overall assessment from the intelligence community was inconclusive, and then, as now, there has yet to be a decisive link established between the virus and a specific animal or other route – as China continues to stonewall international investigations into the origins of the virus.

    Four agencies and the National Intelligence Council assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans through natural exposure, while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory-related accident. Three other intelligence community elements were unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, according to a declassified version of the 2021 report.

    The majority of agencies remain undecided or lean toward the virus having a natural origin – a hypothesis also widely favored by scientists with expertize in the field. But the change from the US Department of Energy has now deepened the split in the intelligence community, especially as the director of the FBI this week commented publicly for the first time on his agency’s similar determination made with “medium confidence.”

    Intelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium or high confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means the information obtained is not reliable enough, or is too fragmented to make a more definitive judgment.

    And while the assessment and new commentary has pulled the theory back into the spotlight, neither agency has released evidence or information backing their determinations. That raises crucial questions about their basis – and shines the spotlight back on gaping, outstanding unknowns and need for further research.

    Hear FBI director remark on Covid lab leak theory

    Scientists largely believe the virus most likely emerged from a natural spillover from an infected animal to people, as many viruses before it, though they widely acknowledge the need for more research of all options. Many have also questioned the lack of data released to substantiate the latest claim.

    Virologist Thea Fischer, who in 2021 traveled to Wuhan as part of a World Health Organization (WHO) origins probe and remains a part of ongoing WHO tracing efforts, said it was “very important” that any new assessments related to the origin of the virus are documented by evidence.

    “(These are) strong accusations against a public research laboratory in China and can’t stand alone without substantial evidence,” said Fischer, a professor at the University of Copenhagen.

    “Hopefully they will share with the WHO soon so the evidence can be known and assessed by international health experts just as all other evidence concerning the pandemic origin.”

    A senior US intelligence official told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the new Department of Energy assessment, that the update to the assessment was conducted in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and in consultation with experts outside government.

    The idea that the virus could have emerged from a lab accident became more prominent as a spotlight was turned on coronavirus research being done at local facilities, such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was further enhanced amid a failure to find a “smoking gun” showing which animal could have passed the virus to people at Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market – the location linked to a number of early known cases – amid limitations to follow-up research.

    Some experts who have been closely involved in examining existing information, however, are skeptical of the new assessment giving the theory more weight.

    “Given that so much of the data we have points to a spillover event occurring at the Huanan market in late 2019 I doubt there’s anything very significant in it or new information that would change our current understanding,” said David Robertson, a professor in the University of Glasgow’s School of Infection and Immunity, who was involved in recent research with findings that supported the natural origin theory.

    He noted that locations of early human cases centered on the market, positive environmental samples, and confirmation that live animals susceptible to the virus were for sale there are among evidence supporting the natural origins theory – while there’s no data supporting a lab leak.

    “The extent of this evidence continually gets lost (in media discussion) … when in fact we know a lot about what happened, and arguably more than other outbreaks,” he said.

    Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus make a visit on February 3, 2021.

    Efforts to understand how the pandemic started have been further complicated by China’s lack of transparency – especially as the origin question spiraled into another point of bitter contention within rising US-China tensions of recent years.

    Beijing has blocked robust, long-term international field investigations and refused to allow a laboratory audit, which could bring clarity, and been reticent to share details and data around domestic research to uncover the cause. However, it repeatedly maintains that it has been transparent and cooperative with the WHO.

    Chinese officials carefully controlled the single WHO-backed investigation it did allow on the ground in 2021, citing disease control measures to restrict visiting experts to their hotel rooms for half their trip and to prevent them from sharing meals with their Chinese counterparts – cutting off an opportunity for more informal information sharing.

    Citing data protection, Beijing has also declined to allow its own investigatory measures, like testing stored blood samples from Wuhan or combing through hospital data for potential “patient zeros,” to be verified by researchers outside the country.

    China has fiercely denied that the virus emerged from a lab accident, and has repeatedly tried to assert it could have arrived in the country for the initial outbreak from elsewhere – including a US laboratory, without offering any evidence supporting the claim.

    But a top WHO official as recently as last month publicly called for “more cooperation and collaboration with our colleagues in China to advance studies that need to take place in China”– including studies of markets and farms that could have been involved.

    “These studies need to be conducted in China and we need cooperation from our colleagues there to advance our understandings,” WHO technical lead for Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said at a media briefing.

    When asked about the Department of Energy assessment by CNN, a WHO representative said the organization and its origins tracing advisory body “will keep examining all available scientific evidence that would help us advance the knowledge on the origin of SARS CoV 2 and we call on China and the scientific community to undertake necessary studies in that direction.”

    “Until we have more evidence all hypotheses are still on the table,” the representative said.

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  • ‘A form of resistance’: More Black families are choosing to homeschool their children | CNN

    ‘A form of resistance’: More Black families are choosing to homeschool their children | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Tracie Yorke grew concerned about the quality of education her son was receiving after his school moved to remote learning during the pandemic in 2020.

    Yorke, of Hyattsville, Maryland, described her fourth grader’s Zoom classes as chaotic – it looked as if teachers had not been trained in virtual instruction, she said.

    That summer, the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national racial reckoning. With only one Black teacher at the school and none past the fourth grade, Yorke said her son Tyce, who is now 13 years old, had no one he could relate to.

    “There was a lot of mayhem,” said Yorke. “I really realized, ‘I don’t think this environment is healthy for my child.’”

    Yorke decided to homeschool Tyce, and has done so for the last three years. She has put together a curriculum that meets his specific needs and can teach him about race and African American history without the risk of politicians intervening.

    While homeschooling isn’t new, advocates say a growing number of Black parents are educating their children at home so they can exercise more control over what they are taught and how they are treated. Many made the switch to homeschooling during the pandemic, but interest is growing as national debates over teaching systemic racism and Black history in the classroom continue, advocates say.

    Sherri Mehta and her older son Caleb work on an assignment at their home in Laurel, Mayland. She first turned to homeschooling in 2020.

    In the last few years, lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have called on schools to remove critical race theory – a concept that legal scholars say acknowledges that racism is both systemic and institutional in American society – from their curriculums. (Educators argue that critical race theory itself is generally not included in the grade school curriculum.) There have also been widespread efforts by lawmakers, parents and school boards to ban books about race, gender and sexuality. And most recently, Florida’s Department of Education rejected an Advanced Placement African American studies course.

    According to census data, the number of Black households homeschooling their children jumped from 3.3.% at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to 16.1% by the fall of that year. That jump was the largest of any racial group. Meanwhile, the proportion of homeschooled children in the US overall nearly doubled from 2.8% before the pandemic to 5.4% in the 2020-21 school year, according to the US Department of Education. The data may not present a complete count of families because every state regulates and tracks homeschooling differently.

    Cheryl Fields-Smith, a professor in elementary education at the University of Georgia, cited several reasons why more Black families are choosing to homeschool, including the disproportionate rates of discipline against Black students, the resegregation of schools, the denied access to gifted education in Black and brown communities, and bullying compounded by school safety concerns.

    Fields-Smith said while these issues are often researched in isolation, many Black families are having to face them all at the same time. So they are developing learning routines that fit their children’s needs and forming homeschooling co-op groups with other families to teach their children together and socialize them, Fields-Smith said.

    “I conceptualize it as a form of resistance,” Fields-Smith told CNN. “Instead of accepting the status quo, families are resisting what’s happening in their schools.”

    Some families say they chose to homeschool because they were living in majority White school districts and wanted to teach their children to have confidence in their Black identity. Others expressed a desire to shield their children from the nation’s polarizing racial climate.

    Sherri Mehta, of Laurel, Maryland, said she first turned to homeschooling in 2020 to help her young son who wasn’t doing well with remote learning as a kindergartner.

    Sherri Mehta watches Caleb practice the piano.

    Gabriel Mehta stands on the stairs while his brother Caleb lounges on a bean bag chair during a break between lessons.

    Mehta said she was also becoming concerned about her two children facing a “cultural gap” or racism because they were not around teachers who looked like them in their school district. And she saw few Black children included in the school’s gifted program.

    With homeschooling, Mehta said she and her husband can split the responsibilities of teaching different subjects, teaching the truth about Black history and slavery, and can rely on co-op groups for hands-on learning, such as woodworking.

    Mehta said she doesn’t want her children to experience the same racial trauma she experienced in public school. She recalled growing up in Richmond, Virginia, and competing against sports teams with names such as the Rebels and the Confederates.

    “There is a sort of innocence lost and I just think my kids are deserving of something different,” Mehta said. “They’ll face racism. It’s not going away. But having the experience they have now of being surrounded by this nurturing of their entire being, I think what they have now will help them face challenges as they get older.”

    The Mehta family poses for a portrait in front of their Maryland home.

    Carlos Birdsong, of Charlotte, North Carolina, said he wanted his two daughters to have “a greater sense of cultural identity” amid the political divisiveness in the country.

    “We moved here from South Carolina to this area because these public schools were supposedly good,” Birdsong said. “The charter schools in our area are mostly White. The private schools are White. They are very good schools, but they may not be the best fit because they’re majority White,” he said.

    Some families who homeschool are driven by their own experiences with traditional schooling or because they want to emphasize religious training in their instruction.

    Aurora Bean, a mother of three from Matawan, New Jersey, began homeschooling her children four years ago because she was uncomfortable with schools discussing gender identity issues at a young age and wanted to be able to teach her children about their faith. She was also opposed to the Covid-19 vaccine requirements many schools introduced during the pandemic.

    She supplements her children’s learning with coursework provided through Acellus Academy, an online K-12 private school that offers classes in Spanish, history and other subjects. Bean said she has embraced the freedom homeschooling provides, including the ability for her family to spend several months traveling the world as part of a Christian discipleship training program later this year.

    “It’s so important for my kids to see beyond our nice neighborhood,” Bean said. “It’s important for them to see the other side of things, more of the world, less of the privilege.”

    Khari, 5, practices reading with his mother, Aurora Bean.

    Bean begins each day by teaching her family about devotion and their faith. Most mornings she wakes up before the kids to have time to herself and to read the Bible.

    Many families have leaned on support groups and virtual education providers such as Outschool – which Yorke uses – to help them navigate teaching their children at home.

    Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman and Fields-Smith created the group Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars in 2020 to help families who want to homeschool but don’t know where to start. Ali-Coleman, now the organization’s sole owner and managing director, said she had homeschooled her daughter, Khari, off and on for years. And Khari was later able to attend the University of San Francisco on a full scholarship, she said.

    Families who homeschool come from all socioeconomic backgrounds, Ali-Coleman and Fields-Smith say.

    “When I homeschooled, I was not upper-middle-class, married – although I live with my partner who is my daughter’s father – Christian or politically conservative,” Ali-Coleman told CNN.

    She advises parents who want to homeschool to start with a mission statement spelling out their goals, and she holds virtual teach-ins to help families navigate challenges. Ali-Coleman said some families turn to homeschooling because institutional schoolwork isn’t challenging enough.
    “We’re now seeing the way people are speaking out loud about how they have a problem with the way we’re teaching history,” Ali-Coleman said.

    Ali-Coleman also said homeschooling requires parents to adjust their thinking and potentially change what they do to earn money. While homeschooling, she worked jobs that offered her flexibility, she said.

    “This gig economy that is now more formalized is something homeschooling parents have been doing for ages,” she said. “You have to think ‘what are the unique needs of your family and what are the support systems you need to create?’ I never want to give the impression that it’s easy. It’s always based on what the unique needs of the family are. Adjustments are definitely required and that’s something that you need to go in knowing.”

    Bean holds her son, Khari, in her arms while they look at a map of the world. The book they were reading mentioned Paris so she asked him if he could point to it on a map.

    Back in Maryland, the Yorkes explore Black history all year as part of Tyce’s curriculum. Last year, he studied Amharic, an Ethiopian language not offered in most schools and took a course on “Blacks in Comics” through a local Black homeschool co-op. This year, he took a class on astronomy that highlighted African and Black contributions to the field.

    “I’ve always had concerns about educating a young Black boy, with the perceptions and stereotypes and coming off of George Floyd,” Yorke said. “I want to be able to discuss race in the classroom.”

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  • Hong Kong scraps mask mandate after nearly three years | CNN

    Hong Kong scraps mask mandate after nearly three years | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Hong Kong, one of the last major international cities requiring face masks, on Tuesday announced it will end its controversial mandate nearly three years after it was enacted to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

    The mandate, enforced through fines that could reach more than $1,000, had required facial coverings in all public spaces including outdoors, indoors and public transport. At one point, it had even been mandatory while exercising outside.

    The rule came into effect on July 15, 2020, though the vast majority of people in the city had begun wearing masks months earlier as reports of coronavirus infections spread, leading to panic buying and shortages as early as January that year.

    The mandate will be fully lifted on Wednesday, the city’s leader John Lee said at a news briefing Tuesday.

    “We are now returning to normalcy,” Lee said, as the Asian financial hub launches a major push to welcome back business travelers and tourists.

    Hong Kong has rolled back several other major controls in recent months, most notably mandatory quarantine for all international arrivals, in a move anticipated to boost tourism.

    Speaking at the same news briefing, Health Secretary Lo Mau-chung said that with the lifting of the mask mandate, “We have now removed all epidemic restrictions.”

    “I’m looking forward to seeing a smile on everyone’s face now,” he said. However, he added, there are still some recommendations in place to wear masks at “high risk” areas such as elderly care homes and hospitals.

    Most other places in Asia have either fully or partially eased their mask mandates in recent months, including South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

    The World Health Organization still recommends health workers wear masks, with Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead of WHO’s Covid response, warning that the virus was “circulating pretty much unchecked around the world at the moment.”

    This is a developing story.

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  • US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin | CNN Politics

    US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US Department of Energy has assessed that the Covid-19 pandemic most likely came from a laboratory leak in China, according to a newly updated classified intelligence report.

    Two sources said that the Department of Energy assessed in the intelligence report that it had “low confidence” the Covid-19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan.

    Intelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium or high confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means that the information obtained is not reliable enough or too fragmented to make a more definitive analytic judgment or that there is not enough information available to draw a more robust conclusion.

    The latest assessment further adds to the divide in the US government over whether the Covid-19 pandemic began in China in 2019 as the result of a lab leak or whether it emerged naturally. The various intelligence agencies have been split on the matter for years. In 2021, the intelligence community declassified a report that showed four agencies in the intelligence community had assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans naturally in the wild, while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident.

    Three other intelligence community elements were unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, the report said.

    The Wall Street Journal first reported on the new assessment from the Department of Energy. A senior US intelligence official told the Journal that the update to the intelligence assessment was conducted in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and in consultation with experts outside government.

    A Department of Energy spokesperson told CNN in a statement: “The Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”

    The Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence is one of 18 government agencies that make up the intelligence community, which are under the umbrella of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

    The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

    The latest intelligence assessment was provided to Congress as Republicans on Capitol Hill have been pushing for further investigation into the lab leak theory, while accusing the Biden administration of playing down its possibility.

    A spokesperson for House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said in a statement that the committee was “reviewing the classified information provided” by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a letter requesting information earlier this month.

    One of the sources said that the new assessment from the Department of Energy is similar to information from a House Republican Intelligence Committee report released last year on the origins of the virus.

    National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the intelligence community remains divided on the matter, while noting that President Joe Biden has put resources into getting to the bottom of the origin question.

    “Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question,” Sullivan told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”

    Sullivan said Biden had directed the national laboratories, which are part of the Department of Energy, to be brought into the assessment.

    In May 2020, researchers at the government-backed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory issued a classified report that found it was possible that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, which came at a time when that line of inquiry was considered taboo.

    The US began exploring the possibility that Covid-19 spread in a laboratory as early as April 2020, though the intelligence community has noted repeatedly that a lack of cooperation from Beijing has made it difficult to get to the bottom of the question.

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  • Covid shrunk the restaurant industry. That’s not changing anytime soon | CNN Business

    Covid shrunk the restaurant industry. That’s not changing anytime soon | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    It’s never been easy to operate a restaurant, and in recent years it’s been even harder.

    In 2020, Covid restrictions ground the nation’s bustling restaurant industry to a halt. Since then, there have been significant signs of a rebound: Dining rooms have reopened and customers have returned to cafes, fine-dining establishments and fast food joints.

    But there are fewer US restaurants today than in 2019. It’s not clear when —if ever — they’re coming back.

    Last year, there were about 631,000 restaurants in the United States, according to data from Technomic, a restaurant research firm. That’s roughly 72,000 fewer than in 2019, when there were 703,000 restaurants in the country.

    That number could fall even further this year, to about 630,000 locations, according to Technomic, which doesn’t foresee the number of restaurants in the US returning to pre-Covid levels even by 2026.

    Sit-down restaurants, especially, are at a disadvantage as delivery and takeout remain popular. And with inflation still high, some potential customers are avoiding restaurants to save money. Meanwhile, restaurant operators are seeing their own costs, like rent and ingredients, rise, and say it’s hard to hire staff.

    With conditions so tough, some restaurant owners are advising newcomers to steer clear of the industry altogether.

    If someone were to ask David Nayfeld, chef and co-owner of the San Francisco restaurants Che Fico and Che Fico Alimentari, whether to open a new restaurant right now, his answer would be no.

    “I would say it is not a good time to go open a restaurant if you are not a seasoned and incredibly durable operator,” he said. Especially now, when restaurant operators need experience and deep pockets in order to succeed, he added.

    Even Nayfeld, himself an industry veteran who has worked at the famed Eleven Madison Park, is struggling. The pandemic led to “a really devastating few years that we’re still working our way out of,” he said.

    Some have argued that the contraction is a painful but necessary correction.

    “The narrative back pre-pandemic was that we were over-saturated … too many restaurants chasing too few consumer dollars,” said David Henkes, senior principal at Technomic.

    A restaurant stands empty and closed in Brooklyn, New York in 2020.

    Indeed, before the pandemic, the number of restaurants was growing between half a percent and one percent each year, he said, adding that the recent decline served to “reset” the size of the market. Without those hurdles, however, that decrease would likely have happened more slowly, he noted.

    Daniel Jacobs, a chef and restaurant owner, has seen his own network of restaurants shrink over the past few years.

    Prior to the pandemic, he and his business partner Dan Van Rite operated three restaurants and a bakery, plus a catering operation and restaurant consulting business. Today, they are left with two Milwaukee restaurants, DanDan and EsterEv.

    “Closing a restaurant is an incredibly difficult decision to make,” Jacobs said. “We did our best during the pandemic to try and keep our teams together … at some point, you just gotta call it.”

    Daniel Jacobs, chef and restaurant owner, and his business partner Dan Van Rite, in 2017.

    The rise of takeout and delivery during the pandemic helped multiple restaurants survive the pandemic.

    DanDan, a Chinese American restaurant, had offered takeout for years. The restaurant “had that customer confidence that we were going to deliver quality products,” he said.

    EsterEv is a tasting-menu-only restaurant within a restaurant (functionally, a dining room located inside DanDan) open only on weekends, and “definitely wouldn’t have [made it] if we had to pay rent on a space,” Jacobs said.

    The trend toward delivery and takeout has stuck, with restaurants reporting higher levels of off-premise orders. According to Revenue Management Solutions, a restaurant consultancy, delivery was up 11.4% in fast food and fast casual restaurants in January compared to last year.

    “We increasingly like to get our food on the go,” said David Portalatin, food service industry advisor for the NPD Group, a market research firm. “We’re still a more home-centric society.”

    Plus, sit-down restaurants tend to be more expensive, which could drive cash-strapped customers away, said Portalatin. Even with rising grocery prices, eating at home is generally less expensive than dining out, and restaurants last year saw their foot traffic dip.

    Full-service restaurants are also more labor intensive. That’s a problem right now, as restaurant owners report having a hard time hiring staff.

    Job openings in accommodation and food services rose by 409,000 in December, the largest increase by sector for the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in February.

    Demand for workers marks a turnaround from early in the pandemic, when restaurants let go of millions of staffers. Some employees also left of their own volition during the pandemic, afraid of getting sick with Covid-19 or tired of dealing with grueling conditions and rude customers.

    People walk in front of a restaurant closed near Times Square on January 24, 2023 in New York City.

    Today, some of those workers haven’t returned, leaving operators struggling to restaff.

    “Fundamentally, the labor situation is one where … there’s just not enough supply of qualified workers,” Henkes said. “And restaurants are particularly vulnerable, because it’s never been the industry of choice for a lot of people.”

    Some restaurants, Henkes said, “are very cognizant that they need to improve the working experience and what they’re offering to employees,” he said. “But doing that at scale for an industry is very hard.”

    And, of course, some major employers are not interested in higher wages for workers.

    Chipotle, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s and KFC-owner Yum Brands, for example, have each donated $1 million to Save Local Restaurants, a coalition opposing a California law that could set minimum wage up to $22 an hour and codify working conditions for fast-food employees in the state.

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  • Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’ | CNN

    Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’ | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get news about destinations opening, inspiration for future adventures, plus the latest in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.


    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    A surprisingly large number of Japanese say that travel is no longer a priority for them.

    A survey done last year by global intelligence company Morning Consult showed that 35% of Japanese respondents said they were unwilling to travel again, the highest number of any country.

    Tetsu Nakamura, a professor at Tamagawa University and a tourism behavior and psychology specialist, says the results are not at all surprising.

    “In 2019, even before the pandemic, (Japanese) people who traveled abroad at least once a year made up about 10% of the population,” says Nakamura.

    According a study Nakamura did back in 2016, there are what he calls “passivists,” those who say they want to travel abroad but won’t, and “denialists” – people who show no interest in traveling abroad and won’t.

    Together, these two groups comprise around 70% of respondents in his pre-pandemic study, with “denialists” comprising roughly 30% of them.

    Despite Japan having the world’s most powerful passport, fewer than 20% of Japanese people actually have passports in the first place, according to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    For some of these “never travelers,” domestic trips within Japan are enough.

    “Many Japanese feel like overseas travel is time-consuming even before they step foot on foreign land, that it takes a lot of time, skill and planning,” says Nakamura.

    Hiroo Ishida, 25, a caregiver from Chiba Prefecture and motorcycle enthusiast with a love for Harley Davidson bikes, says this resonates with him.

    “I have some desire to go to the US, mostly because in Western media shown in Japan, that’s the place to go to for motorcyclists, but I most likely won’t go because just planning it is an inconvenience. Japan is abundant with destinations that motorcyclists find attractive,” says Ishida.

    His last trip abroad was a field trip to Guam in high school; he’s never felt the urge to go overseas since, he adds.

    Kotaro Toriumi, a Japanese aviation and travel analyst, says the thought of complicated travel procedures abroad due to the pandemic and the risk of infection hinders people from seeking overseas travel.

    Further, he claims that the pandemic has altered the “Japanese mindset.”

    “People who used to travel … are now afraid to go abroad because of the risk of infection, but are fine traveling domestically. I think they are realizing more and more that there are many attractive tourist spots within Japan and people can have fun without going abroad,” says Toriumi.

    The analyst notes that people who say they “never want to travel again” may simply be reluctant to travel soon until the pandemic is fully over.

    Thanks to travel vouchers and other post-pandemic incentives, many Japanese are choosing to explore local destinations like Kiyomizu-dera Temple in Kyoto.

    The cost of travel is also a consideration.

    The yen is at its weakest in decades, and many Japanese workers haven’t had a raise in 30 years.

    Less disposable income means young people may be more inclined to stay at home or explore nearby locations.

    “Compared to the older generations, they are less likely to go abroad since they don’t have much money. Besides, many young people find online entertainment or smartphone games more enjoyable than traveling abroad,” explained Toriumi. “Many elderly people would like to travel abroad again after Covid settles down.”

    Aki Fukuyama, 87, is a “half-retired” financial executive of a hospitality conglomerate. He has had many golf trips overseas and wishes to go again but cites his health and age as the main reasons why he isn’t likely to make another international trip.

    “I frequently went (abroad) until about 15 or 20 years ago,” he said. “It doesn’t help that most of my friends have passed away. I plan on traveling domestically, maybe somewhere close by, if someone invites me.”

    Yuma Kase says that she enjoys exploring the world. She's pictured here on a visit to Paris.

    Nakamura’s studies show that positive attitudes win over external pressure to refrain from heading abroad, so people that have always liked to travel wouldn’t let social conformity get in the way.

    “People who have always had positive views regarding overseas travel try to do so as soon as they get the chance,” says Nakamura. “This is true for both before and after the pandemic. Those we see going abroad now are those people…they can’t wait to go back (abroad).”

    Yuma Kase, 25, is a Tokyo-based finance worker who says she loves visiting new countries and interacting with people from different backgrounds.

    “Preparing to go to a foreign country is part of the journey and excitement, I feel. Knowing that I have to practice what to say when I get there or do some research about cultural differences is something that I look forward to,” Kase says.

    But her love of exploring isn’t genetic. Her mother hates to travel and likes to stick to a fixed daily routine. “The farthest my mother has been to in 2022 was an outlet mall,” laughs Kase.

    According to the latest data from the Japan National Tourism Organization, the number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 86.2% in 2022, with around 2.7 million people compared to the 20 million figure in 2019.

    “Those who only used to go because it was cheap or don’t particularly like to travel…they are not traveling now,” says Toriumi.

    Top: The Shinjuku district of Tokyo at night. Photo via Adobe Stock.

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  • Millions of children are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage starting in April | CNN Politics

    Millions of children are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage starting in April | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The majority of American children now receive their health insurance through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.

    But that could change starting this spring. As many as 6.7 million children are at risk of losing that coverage once states restart their reviews of recipients’ eligibility, according to Georgetown.

    Medicaid enrollment ballooned during the pandemic thanks to an early Covid-19 pandemic relief provision passed by Congress that barred states from involuntarily disenrolling beneficiaries in exchange for higher federal matching funds. But lawmakers voted late last year to end that continuous enrollment provision on April 1, freeing states to start winnowing ineligible recipients.

    More than 42 million children were covered by Medicaid and CHIP as of August, up 17.5% from February 2020, just before the pandemic started.

    Ten states plus the District of Columbia have more than 60% of their children insured through the public programs, according to Georgetown. New Mexico leads the nation with more than three-quarters of its kids covered by Medicaid and CHIP.

    By contrast, fewer than a quarter of children in Utah are enrolled in the programs.

    The number of children who gained Medicaid and CHIP coverage during the pandemic varied by state. Indiana had the largest surge, with a nearly 45% increase. Wyoming, North Dakota, Missouri and Georgia saw their child enrollment grow by roughly a third.

    On the flip side, Vermont experienced less than an 8% growth in child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP.

    More than 83 million people, including more than 34 million children, were covered by Medicaid as of August. And another 4 million children were enrolled in Medicaid financed by CHIP. All will have their eligibility reviewed, and in some cases, the children will continue to qualify even if their parents do not.

    “If they’re getting the message that they’re losing their own coverage, a lot of times a parent understandably thinks that their child is also losing coverage,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.

    A total of roughly 15 million people could be dropped from Medicaid when the continuous enrollment requirement ends, according to an analysis the Department of Health and Human Services released in August. About 8.2 million folks would no longer qualify, but 6.8 million people would be terminated even though they are still eligible, the department estimated.

    When states reevaluate families’ eligibility, they need to look separately at adults and children, Alker said. Officials should work with pediatricians, schools, child care centers and others to explain the situation to parents and make sure the children retain coverage if they continue to qualify.

    Nearly three-quarters of the children projected to be dropped will remain eligible for Medicaid but will likely lose coverage because of administrative issues, such as their parents not submitting the necessary paperwork or procedural errors, according to Georgetown.

    Although states have 14 months to complete the unwinding process, some will look to do so more quickly.

    “My concern is that a large number of children could become uninsured in states that do not take their time and pay particular attention to the unique needs of children,” Alker said.

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  • Chinese savers stashed away $2.6 trillion last year but property crash will cool ‘revenge spending’ | CNN Business

    Chinese savers stashed away $2.6 trillion last year but property crash will cool ‘revenge spending’ | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Even for a famously frugal nation, Chinese people saved a lot last year. Stuck at home due to Covid restrictions, they socked away a record $2.6 trillion.

    Now that life is returning to normal, hopes are high that consumers will spend with a vengeance, providing a much-needed boost to the world’s second largest economy, the impact of which would be felt around the world.

    Household savings at banks surged by a record high of 17.84 trillion yuan ($2.6 trillion) in 2022, up 80% from 2021, according to the People’s Bank of China. That’s more than one third of households’ total income. Before the pandemic, people saved about a fifth of their income.

    With pandemic controls lifted, Chinese shoppers appeared to be enjoying their freedom to spend. Hotel bookings, movie tickets and restaurant sales all boomed during the recent holiday season.

    The reawakening of the Chinese consumer will be an “exciting story” for global investors in 2023, said Swetha Ramachandran and Jian Shi Cortesi, investment directors at GAM Investments, a global asset management firm based in Zurich.

    “Chinese consumers are now going into reopening with strong household balance sheets,” they said, adding that Chinese companies exposed to discretionary spending and global luxury brands stand to gain significantly from the trend.

    More than 300 million travelers spent a total of $56 billion over the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday through January 27, up 30% from a year ago, according to the cultural and tourism ministry. According to the State Tax Administration, sales from consumer-facing businesses were 12% higher than pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

    Bookings for hotels soared more than 10 fold at some of the hottest tourist attractions, such as the cities of Xi’an and Luoyang, according to online travel agency Tongcheng Travel. Xi’an’s Terracotta Army museum was so crowded that visitors complained on social media they could only see other people’s heads rather than the statues.

    Restaurants reported higher sales than before the pandemic and were unprepared for the increased demand, according to a national survey published by the China Cuisine Association last week. More than a third of respondents said they were “extremely” short-staffed during the holiday.

    China’s box office receipts climbed to more than $1.5 billion last month, the best January on record, according to the China Film Administration. That’s mainly thanks to an extraordinary holiday week, when moviegoers paid 129 million visits to cinemas.

    Passengers prepare to check in at Daxing International airport in Beijing on January 19, 2023.

    The recovery in consumption has already lifted the Chinese economy.

    Last week, the Caixin/S&P Global services purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which tracks activity in the services sector, expanded in January for the first time in five months. That’s mainly because travel and consumer spending bounced back.

    The index, which mainly covers smaller, private businesses, mirrored the results of an earlier government PMI survey. The data added to evidence of a rapid rebound in economic activity, analysts said.

    The boom has fueled business confidence. After seeing record sales in many stores, Xiabuxiabu, one of China’s largest hot pot chains, opened 34 new stores last month in the country, the company said.

    Global luxury giants are also hopeful Chinese shoppers will come back. LVMH said in January that it was “confident” and “optimistic” that China’s luxury market would bounce back this year. LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault said its stores in France are ready to welcome Chinese shoppers as more travel restrictions are eased.

    Burberry

    (BBRYF)     said last month that it’s seeing “very promising” signs in China, according to Reuters.

    There’s one conspicuous laggard in consumption, however.

    Property sales by China’s 100 largest developers dropped 32% in January, according to data compiled by China Real Estate Information, a property research firm. In the nation’s 30 largest cities, property sales were only 60% of the 2022 level.

    Chinese households have been reluctant to buy homes for more than a year, as Covid curbs, falling home prices and rising unemployment discouraged prospective buyers. Mortgage protests that erupted in dozens of cities last year further dented buyers’ confidence.

    Despite a flurry of stimulus measures, the slump has shown no sign of improvement. By December, new home prices had fallen by 16 straight months, according to the most recent government statistics.

    Since real estate accounts for 70% of household wealth in China, “revenge spending” will be limited, analysts said.

    “The property industry remains the biggest drag on China’s economy,” said Raymond Yeung, chief economist for Greater China at ANZ Research, adding that the high youth jobless rate and asset price deflation will constrain China’s consumption recovery.

    BNP Paribas says “revenge spending” in China is set to happen, although it will be on a smaller scale than in Western economies such as in the United States.

    “The removal of Covid restrictions should unleash pent-up demand, and we expect the biggest driver of the recovery in 2023 to be consumption,” its analysts said.

    They expect household consumption growth to rebound to 9.5% in 2023 from about 3% in 2022, fueling annual GDP growth of more than 5%.

    Morgan Stanley analysts expect to see some “revenge spending” mostly from household with stable incomes.

    Those households include employees from the export sector, a rare bright spot in the Chinese economy during the pandemic years, business owners with steady earnings or those living off payouts from asset holdings.

    “We see a mini-rebound as early as in the first quarter of 2023,” they said, adding that the recovery in consumption could pick up in the second half of this year, but would still be lower than the pre-Covid level.

    They’re expecting household consumption growth to rebound to 8.5% in 2023, contributing to full-year economic growth of 5.7%.

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  • Apple is the only US tech giant to have avoided significant layoffs. Will it last? | CNN Business

    Apple is the only US tech giant to have avoided significant layoffs. Will it last? | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    In less than three months, four of the big five US tech companies have cut tens of thousands of employees combined, shattering myths about the industry’s seemingly unstoppable growth in the process.

    But there has been one notable exception: Apple.

    To date, Apple

    (AAPL)     has not announced any substantial cuts, thanks in part to slower headcount growth than some of its peers during the pandemic and continued demand for its core products. Some analysts think more modest cost cuts could be coming, however.

    The iPhone maker is set to report earnings results for the final three months of 2022 on Thursday after the bell. It is expected to post a rare year-over-year decline in revenue.

    While these expectations show the strain Apple’s business is under, Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives said in a note this week that pent-up demand for upgrading iPhones remains strong. “Apple will likely cut some costs around the edges, but we do not expect mass layoffs from Cupertino this week,” Ives wrote.

    Tom Forte, a senior research analyst at DA Davison, agreed there will be staff reductions, but likely not as drastic as those at other large tech companies. “Apple will cut headcount,” he said in a recent interview on Bloomberg TV, but suggested the cuts would come through attrition or reductions at the retail level.

    “While they haven’t done so yet, like everyone else, they will adjust their headcount for the current level of demand,” he said.

    Fueled by a surge in demand for digital products earlier in the pandemic, Big Tech went on a massive hiring spree.

    Amazon

    (AMZN)     and Meta each doubled their headcount between the third quarter in 2019 and the third quarter 2022, according to data shared in the companies’ securities filings. Alphabet, meanwhile, grew its headcount 64% during that time, and Microsoft grew its staff by more than 50% over approximately the same period.

    Apple, by comparison, grew its headcount by a more modest 20%. As of September 2022, Apple said it had approximately 164,000 full-time employees.

    Many tech CEOs, with varying degrees of remorse, have blamed over-hiring in the early days of the pandemic for the mass layoffs now. As pandemic restrictions eased last year, the demand for digital services shifted back toward pre-pandemic levels. Inflation pinched consumer and business spending, and rising interest rates evaporated the easy money tech companies had tapped into. And one-by-one, amid the whiplash, household names in Silicon Valley began announcing widespread layoffs to adjust to the new environment.

    While Apple has not announced layoffs, its business has been strained in other ways. Like other Big Tech companies, it has faced threats of antitrust action in the United States and EU. Earlier this month, Apple also said CEO Tim Cook had agreed to a massive pay cut this year, following a shareholder vote on his compensation package after its stock fell about 27% in 2022.

    As consumer spending tightened, global smartphone shipments plunged 18% in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to market research firm Canalys. Apple’s business also faced supply chain hurdles linked to China’s Covid lockdowns and unrest that hit a key production site in Zhengzhou, China late last year.

    Still, Apple’s business is weathering the downturn better than some of its fellow tech giants. In its most-recent earnings report, the company reported sales grew 8% year-over-year and that the company hit a September quarter revenue record for iPhone.

    Thursday’s earnings results will show whether Apple can keep defying gravity.

    “Apple continues to innovate with high-quality, industry-leading products supported by a powerful digital platform,” analysts at Monness, Crespi and Hardt wrote in an investor note Tuesday. “However, regulatory headwinds persist and we believe the darkest days of this downturn are ahead of us.”

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  • Offices are more than 50% filled for the first time since the pandemic started | CNN Business

    Offices are more than 50% filled for the first time since the pandemic started | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Nearly three years after the pandemic began, American offices are finally more than halfway filled again as workers have gradually returned to the office.

    Office occupancy across 10 major US cities crossed 50.4% of pre-pandemic levels for the first time since early 2020, according to security swipe tracker Kastle Systems. That marks the first time occupancy has crossed the 50% mark since March 2020, when many offices sent workers home because of Covid.

    Workers still aren’t coming back to the office consistently or every day: Last week’s data showed that Friday was the lowest day of occupancy and Tuesday was the highest. Kastle noted that all 10 cities that it tracks “have now reached occupancy rates above 40%.”

    Major companies have begun to crack down on employees who are reluctant to return. Disney is ordering corporate employees to return to offices four days a week beginning March 1. Starbucks

    (SBUX)     also recently instituted a three-days-a-week office schedule.

    Apple

    (AAPL)     has also called for its corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week, sparking tensions with some of its staffers. Snapchat’s parent company recently asked workers to return to the office 80% of the time, or the equivalent of four days a week, beginning this month.

    However, Amazon

    (AMZN)     CEO Andy Jassy isn’t looking to force the company’s workers back into the office anytime soon, saying in September that it “doesn’t have a plan to require people to come back.”

    Dozens of YouTube contractors are going on strike Friday to protest what they describe as unreasonable return-to-office policies that could force many of them to relocate from other states.

    The protest involves more than 40 contractors for YouTube Music, according to the Alphabet Workers Union, which is backing the strike. The contractors work for a third-party company called Cognizant, and they are calling for the firm and YouTube-parent Google to revise the in-office policies to be more flexible.

    The strike was first reported by Axios, which said the contractors voted to strike after receiving orders to report to an office in Austin starting on Monday. Google declined to comment.

    According to the Alphabet Workers Union, roughly a quarter of the striking workers are based outside of Texas, and a majority of the contractors had been initially hired as remote workers.

    “On average, YouTube music workers are paid $19 an hour and cannot afford the relocation, travel or childcare costs associated with in-person work,” the group said on its Facebook page. “The upcoming return to office date threatens the livelihoods of workers who do not live in the Austin area.”

    With a global labor shortage and a stubbornly high number of job openings, forcing people back into the office could backfire. Leaders who require workers to be on site for more days than staffers prefer — and who threaten them with pay cuts or termination if they don’t comply — may be creating a longer-term problem, workplace experts say.

    Many leaders’ arguments for coming in to work are now focused on the need to preserve company culture, collaboration and mentoring of younger workers.

    Face time is important, but workplace research shows that neither culture nor collaboration are necessarily optimized just by having employees spend 40 hours a week in the same building. It also shows that when employees and teams are allowed to schedule their in-person versus remote time, it can boost engagement, morale and retention.

    – CNN’s Jeanne Sahadi contributed to this report.

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  • Tracking the opioid crisis: Inside the DEA’s secret lab | CNN

    Tracking the opioid crisis: Inside the DEA’s secret lab | CNN

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    Watch CNN Films’ “American Pain” at 9 p.m. ET Sunday, February 5.



    CNN
     — 

    Sitting among the warehouses of Dulles, Virginia, is one of the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s forensic labs. It’s one of eight across the country where scientists analyze illegal drugs and try to stay ahead of what’s driving deadly overdoses.

    Starting in the late 1990s with overprescribing of prescription narcotics, the opioid epidemic has continued to plague the United States for decades. What has changed is the type of drugs that have killed more than half a million people during the past 20 years.

    CNN was granted rare access to the secret lab where the DEA tests seized illicit drugs to understand what’s coming next.

    “The market is constantly changing, so we are trying to do everything we can from a science base to keep up with that,” Scott Oulton, deputy assistant administrator of the DEA’s Office of Forensic Sciences, told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

    Holding a white bag of fentanyl precursor powder – one of the chemicals used to make the opioid – Oulton explained that the illicitly made painkiller continues to be a dominant presence in the drugs officials are finding.

    “This kilogram can be converted into fentanyl to make approximately 800 grams,” he said. “So it doesn’t take that much material, it’s fairly cheap, it’s inexpensive to obtain.”

    Fentanyl is the deadliest drug in the United States, and it’s often found in combination with other illicit drugs, including cocaine and heroin. But increasingly, fentanyl is showing up in illicit pills disguised as common prescription drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, even Adderall.

    Users buying drugs on the street that look like prescription pills may end up with a highly potent, potentially deadly drug they never intended to take.

    “Over 99% of what we see are fake. They contain fentanyl,” Oulton says of the pills that the agency is seizing.

    The 800 grams of fentanyl that Oulton held could be turned into 400,000 to 500,000 potentially lethal pills.

    As more and more of these lethal pills circulate, the opioid epidemic is reaching more of the population.

    Deena Loudon of Olney, Maryland, is among those living with its effects.

    “I truly love sharing Matthew with the world,” Loudon says as she flips through pictures of her son.

    One of her favorite memories is Matthew playing hockey – what Loudon calls his happy place.

    Matthew Loudon's mom says he turned to drugs after struggling with anxiety.

    But she also recalls his struggles with anxiety, which led him to turn to drugs. He started dabbling in them in the 10th grade. By the following year, his grades began to fall, and he couldn’t keep them high enough to stay in hockey.

    “He was using Xanax to help self-medicate himself and I think to help get rid of some of that angst so he could live somewhat of a normal life,” Loudon said.

    Matthew was always honest, almost to a fault, Loudon says. “He told me he tried everything. Like everything. Heroin, meth, crack, you name it, cocaine, whatever – until I guess he found what made him feel the best, and it was Xanax.”

    And as much as a mother can worry, Loudon says, Matthew always tried to reassure her. “I know what I’m doing,” he would tell her.

    She had heard about fentanyl showing up in pills in their area.

    “But you don’t ever think it’s going to happen to you,” Loudon said.

    She said they even had a conversation about fentanyl the day before he died. “I was sort of naive, wanting to stick my head in the sand and thinking ‘I bet he does know what he’s doing.’ ”

    On November 3, 2020, she found 21-year-old Matthew on the floor of their basement.

    Matthew’s autopsy report lists his cause of death as fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl intoxication.

    “I don’t say he overdosed. I say he died from fentanyl poisoning. … Truthfully, like, at the end of the day, to me, he was murdered, right? Because he asked for one thing. They gave him something different. And it took his life.”

    For a parent, she said, the hardest thing is burying their child. It’s a pain she speaks out about in hopes of keeping other families safe.

    “It’s Russian roulette,” she warns them. “You never know what you’re gonna get.”

    The number of pills the DEA has seized skyrocketed in just three years, from 2.2 million in 2019 to 50.6 million in 2022.

    The sheer volume of pills has been one of the biggest challenges for the DEA’s lab, Oulton says. As the fentanyl threat continues to grow, the Virginia facility is expanding to accommodate the analysis needed.

    The lab can test for something as simple as the presence of fentanyl, but something called the purity of the pill also offers important insight. This means how much fentanyl is actually in one of these illicit pills.

    “Lately, we’ve been seeing a purity increase over the last year, where we used to say roughly four out of the 10 seizures that we were receiving would contain a lethal dose of greater than 2 milligrams. As of October last year, we started reporting that we’ve seen an uptick. Now we’re saying that six out of 10 of the seizures that we’re receiving contain over 2 milligrams,” Oulton said.

    He says they’re finding an average of 2.3 milligrams of fentanyl in each pill.

    Two milligrams may be the cutoff for what is considered lethal, but Oulton says that doesn’t necessarily mean a pill with 1.99 milligrams of fentanyl can’t be deadly.

    “One pill can kill” is his warning.

    “The message I would like to send out is, don’t take it,” he said. “Don’t take the chance. It’s not worth your life.”

    Oulton says he and his team are constantly finding new and different drugs and substances in pills – things they’ve never seen before.

    One machine in the lab is almost the equivalent of an MRI in a medical office, showing the structure and detail of a pill.

    “We will do what we call structural elucidation to determine that this is a different version of a fentanyl that’s got a new compound and molecule that’s been added to it,” Oulton said.

    They’ve seen “hundreds and hundreds of unique combinations,” he said.

    “We’ll see one that contains fentanyl, one with fentanyl and xylazine, one with fentanyl and caffeine, one with fentanyl and acetaminophen, and you don’t know what you’re getting.”

    Xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer, poses a unique problem. It’s not an opioid, so even when it’s mixed with fentanyl, drugs designed to reverse an opioid overdose may not work.

    Narcan or naloxone, one of the more common overdose-reversing drugs, has become increasingly necessary as the prevalence and potency of illicit drugs increases. About 1.2 million doses of naloxone were dispensed by retail pharmacies in 2021, according to data published by the American Medical Association – nearly nine times more than were dispensed five years earlier.

    Oulton wants to be clear: The problem Isn’t with pills prescribed by your doctor and dispensed by a pharmacy – it’s the pills on the illicit market.

    Those, Matthew’s mother warns, are easy to get.

    “The first pills [Matthew] got was in high school. And it was just flipping out, floating around, and it was easy for him to get his hands on,” she said.

    Loudon’s message for parents now: Keep your eyes open.

    “Just be mindful of what your children are doing. You just just have to keep your eyes open. And even sometimes, when you keep your eyes open, you can miss some of the warning signs, but I think a parent knows their child best, so just keep talking.”

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  • Dead chickens and decomposing bodies: Inside South Africa’s power blackout ‘pandemic’ | CNN

    Dead chickens and decomposing bodies: Inside South Africa’s power blackout ‘pandemic’ | CNN

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    Johannesburg, South Africa
    CNN
     — 

    Car crashes, opportunistic criminals, rotting food, decomposing bodies, bankrupt businesses, and water shortages. Welcome to life under South Africa’s power blackouts.

    Last week the grim extent of the outages was laid bare when South Africans were advised to bury dead loved ones within four days.

    In a public statement, the South African Funeral Practitioners Association warned that bodies in mortuaries were rapidly decomposing because of the unrelenting electricity outages, putting huge pressure on funeral parlors struggling to process corpses.

    The situation is so bad that the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is considering declaring a national disaster, similar to one in 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic, which had a devastating effect on the country’s economy.

    Last week scores of supporters from the Democratic Alliance opposition party marched under heavy security through the streets of Johannesburg and Cape Town to voice their frustrations over the persistent blackouts.

    Known locally as loadshedding, widespread electricity blackouts are carried out multiple times a day by state-owned energy utility Eskom to avoid the total collapse of the grid.

    Shortages on the electricity system unbalance the network, and Eskom has stated that controlled outages are necessary to ensure reserve margins are maintained, and the system remains stable.

    While the country has been experiencing on-off power outages for years, since September 2022 scheduled blackouts have become routine, affecting every part of South African society.

    For some people, not having access to reliable power can be the difference between life and death.

    Before she died in October 2022, Lis Van Os needed oxygen for 17 hours a day. Her stationary oxygen machine required mains power, making periods of loadshedding extremely stressful, particularly when power did not return as scheduled, her family said.

    Her daughter Karin McDonald was forced to explore backup options such as inverters and a back up oxygen mobile tank, which only lasted short periods.

    “Towards the end (of her life) power outages created a lot of anxiety for everyone,” she said.

    South Africans experienced more than twice as many power cuts in 2022 than in any other year. And things are set to get worse in 2023.

    Even simple daily tasks need to be arranged around loadshedding schedules, including meal planning, travel times, work that requires internet connectivity.

    From preparing baby formula to keeping fans running during the summer heat, not having access to mains power is makes daily life challenging for South Africans.

    Maneo Motsamai, a domestic worker in Johannesburg, says the outages prevents her from simple tasks such as cooking.

    “I boil water to cook mealie meal (maize porridge) and the power goes. I can’t eat, it’s a waste. I can’t cope like that,” Motsamai told CNN.

    Pump stations can’t provide water and many small businesses without access to backup power are having to close shop and lay off employees, according to people CNN spoke to.

    Thando Makhubu runs Soweto Creamery, an ice cream shop in Jabulani, Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. His family pooled small welfare grants they received during the Covid-19 pandemic to set up the business, but are now feeling the pressure from power outages.

    In early January, the shop was without power for 72 hours, when electricity did not return as scheduled. Thando was forced to shell out money for diesel to power their generator and prevent all his stock melting. He says the outages are costly and destroying their hopes of expanding.

    Bongi Monjanaga, who runs a startup cleaning services company operating across Johannesburg, says the outages affect every part of her fledgling business, such as operating electric cleaning equipment, entering and leaving premises when security gates aren’t functioning, and having internet to invoice clients and complete online tax compliance documents.

    “I find myself in this pool of misery when I’m just trying to start up. I’m just trying to grow,” she says.

    The escalation of power outages is also deeply worrying for South Africa’s food security, driving up prices, and placing an even greater strain on stretched household budgets.

    With modern farming practices ever more reliant on electricity for crop irrigation, processing, and storage, loadshedding is having a huge impact on agricultural output.

    Gys Olivier, a farmer from Hertzogville in Free State province, in east-central South Africa, says he and other farmers in the area have been forced to throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of seed potatoes due to disruptions to the ‘cold chain’ – (the process of keeping produce refrigerated throughout the supply chain.)

    There is also less demand from growers due to water shortages, with pump stations reliant on electricity to operate.

    Protests against power blackouts in South Africa

    “We have done everything we can to make sure there is food on the table for a very good price, but it’s become so capital-intensive to farm,” Olivier says.

    Meanwhile livestock and poultry are dying before they even get to the slaughterhouse.

    A gruesome video circulating on social media shows workers removing 50,000 dead broiler chickens from a farm in North West province, the birds suffocated when power outages caused ventilation systems to stop. The financial damage to the farmer was around ZAR1.6m ($93,300) according to local media reports.

    South Africa is notorious for high crime rates, and loadshedding is making it worse as home security systems fail when the power goes out, giving criminals a field day inside unsecured properties.
    Policing also becomes harder, with officers unable to reach crime scenes fast enough due to congestion when traffic lights are off.

    Tumelo Mogodiseng, General Secretary of the South African Policing Union (SAPU), describes the load-shedding as “a pandemic.”

    He says his members’ lives are now more at risk, with officers unable to see potentially dangerous situations in the darkness, and police stations, many of which don’t have backup power systems, at risk of attack from criminals during blackouts.

    “Police are dying every day in this country. If this is happening in the daylight, what happens when there is no light for them to see at night?”

    Mogodiseng also worries that crimes are going unreported, with citizens fearful of leaving their houses during outages and traveling in the darkness. “Communities won’t travel to police stations to open cases because they are afraid,” he told CNN.

    Gareth Newham, who runs the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, says that it’s hard to get solid data on the impact outages are having on crime. While anecdotal evidence suggests criminals are exploiting outages, the recent escalation of loadshedding has coincided with the Christmas holidays, when crime rates typically spike.

    His biggest concern is that continued loadshedding or a temporary grid collapse could lead to a repeat of the coordinated civil unrest, rioting, and looting in parts of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces 18 months ago.

    “A complete breakdown in the grid could be the trigger for local level gangs getting more power, and we could see a similar kind of violence to that we saw in July 2021.”

    Under the ruling African National Congress (ANC), in charge since 1994, Eskom has become synonymous with corruption, crime, and mismanagement.

    Last year a judge-led inquiry into graft under the former president, Jacob Zuma, found that there were grounds to prosecute several former Eskom executives.

    The government has failed to build new power stations to keep up with increased demand, and warnings from energy experts on looming supply shortages across the past two decades have gone ignored.

    A 2019 report by the South African Institution of Civil Engineering shows skilled engineers have been leaving the country in droves.

    Despite spending billions of USD on two huge coal power stations, neither works properly.

    Older plants are dilapidated due to a lack of maintenance, and organized crime steals vital coal supplies and cable from the rail lines going from mines to power stations.

    South Africa's opposition party Democratic Alliance protests onto headquarters of ruling ANC against power blackouts in the country

    Renewable energy companies say they are desperate to supply to the grid, but the government has been slow to cut red tape and streamline regulatory processes that would reduce the time frame for environmental authorisations, registration of new projects and grid connection approvals.

    Legal challenges against the government and Eskom are stacking up. Several political parties and trade unions say they will take the government and state utility to court for not upholding their duty to provide electricity.

    With no end in sight to the outages, South Africans are desperate for alternative energy sources, but even they are out of the reach of many citizens.

    Thando Makhubu says he was shocked by the cost to power his ice cream business off-grid. “We were quoted R100,000 ($5,945) and that excluded the solar panels.”

    Karin McDonald, who runs a swimming school, similarly found the upfront costs of solar prohibitive. “We received quotes for solar for the business and house and were not looking at anything less than half a million rand ($29,500) which is a major life decision to make,” she said.

    There is also a long wait for solar. “I know a solar provider that had 40 requests just last week, all for big solar projects, ” said Angus Williamson, a cattle farmer from KwaZulu-Natal province.

    As they come to terms with their new reality, many South Africans are finding it hard to stay optimistic.

    “The light at the end of the tunnel is a train heading in our direction,” said Williamson.

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  • Biden intends to end Covid-19 and public health emergencies on May 11 | CNN Politics

    Biden intends to end Covid-19 and public health emergencies on May 11 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden intends to end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies on May 11, the White House said Monday.

    The White House, in a statement of administration policy announcing opposition to two Republican measures to end the emergencies, said the national emergency and public health emergency authorities declared in response to the pandemic would each be extended one final time to May 11.

    “This wind down would align with the Administration’s previous commitments to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to termination of the (public health emergency),” the statement said.

    The statement added, “To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19. They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19.”

    The statement came in response to a pair of measures before the House that would end the public health emergency and the Covid-19 national emergency.

    The White House weighed in because House Democrats were concerned about voting against the Republican legislation to end the public health emergency that is coming to the floor this week without a plan from the Biden administration, a senior Democratic aide told CNN.

    “Democrats were concerned about the optics of voting against Republicans winding down the public health emergency, absent an understanding of whether and how we intended to do so from the White House,” the aide said. “As soon as we saw this bill, it obviously concerns the White House. So, it was important for them to weigh in.”

    The administration argues that the bills are unnecessary because it intends to end the emergencies anyway. The White House also noted the passage of the measures ahead of May 11 would have unintended consequences, such as disrupting the administration’s plans for ending certain policies that are authorized by the emergencies.

    The White House said it would extend the Covid-19 emergencies one final time in order to ensure an orderly wind-down of key authorities that states, health care providers and patients have relied on throughout the pandemic.

    A White House official pointed to a successful vaccination campaign and reductions in Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a rationale for lifting the emergency declarations. The official said a final extension will allow for a smooth transition for health care providers and patients and noted that health care facilities have already begun preparing for that transition.

    The administration is actively reviewing flexible policies that were authorized under the public health emergency to determine which can remain in place after it is lifted on May 11.

    The aide told CNN that it will be up to every member to decide what is best for their district and how they will vote on the legislation this week. Declaring an end to the public health emergency will also end the border restriction known as Title 42, which will also likely set up a showdown on Capitol Hill.

    The public health emergency has enabled the government to provide many Americans with Covid-19 tests, treatments and vaccines at no charge, as well as offer enhanced social safety net benefits, to help the nation cope with the pandemic and minimize its impact.

    “People will have to start paying some money for things they didn’t have to pay for during the emergency,” said Jen Kates, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “That’s the main thing people will start to notice.”

    Most Americans covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance plans have been able to obtain Covid-19 tests and vaccines at no cost during the pandemic. Those covered by Medicare and private insurance have been able to get up to eight at-home tests per month from retailers at no charge. Medicaid also picks up the cost of at-home tests, though coverage can vary by state.

    Those covered by Medicare and Medicaid have also had certain therapeutic treatments, such as monoclonal antibodies, fully covered.

    Once the emergency ends, Medicare beneficiaries generally will face out-of-pocket costs for at-home testing and all treatment. However, vaccines will continue to be covered at no cost, as will testing ordered by a health care provider.

    State Medicaid programs will have to continue covering Covid-19 tests ordered by a physician and vaccines at no charge. But enrollees may face out-of-pocket costs for treatments.

    Those with private insurance could face charges for lab tests, even if they are ordered by a provider. Vaccinations will continue to be free for those with private insurance who go to in-network providers, but going to an out-of-network providers could incur charges.

    Covid-19 vaccinations will be free for those with insurance even when the public health emergency ends because of various federal laws, including the Affordable Care Act and pandemic-era measures, the Inflation Reduction Act and a 2020 relief package.

    Americans with private insurance have not been charged for monoclonal antibody treatment since they were prepaid by the federal government, though patients may be charged for the office visit or administration of the treatment. But that is not tied to the public health emergency, and the free treatments will be available until the federal supply is exhausted. The government has already run out of some of the treatments so those with private insurance may already be picking up some of the cost.

    The uninsured had been able to access no-cost testing, treatments and vaccines through a different pandemic relief program. However, the federal funding ran out in the spring of 2022, making it more difficult for those without coverage to obtain free services.

    The federal government has been preparing to shift Covid-19 care to the commercial market since last year, in part because Congress has not authorized additional funding to purchase additional vaccines, treatments and tests.

    Pfizer and Moderna have already announced that the commercial prices of their Covid-19 vaccines will likely be between $82 and $130 per dose – about three to four times what the federal government has paid, according to Kaiser.

    The public health emergency has also meant additional funds for hospitals, which have been receiving a 20% increase in Medicare’s payment rate for treating Covid-19 patients.

    Also, Medicare Advantage plans have been required to bill enrollees affected by the emergency and receiving care at out-of-network facilities the same as if they were at in-network facilities.

    This will end once the public health emergency expires.

    But several of the most meaningful enhancements to public assistance programs are no longer tied to the public health emergency. Congress severed the connection in December as part of its fiscal year 2023 government funding package.

    Most notably, states will now be able to start processing Medicaid redeterminations and disenrolling residents who no longer qualify, starting April 1. They have 14 months to review the eligibility of their beneficiaries.

    As part of a Covid-19 relief package passed in March 2020, states were barred from kicking people off Medicaid during the public health emergency in exchange for additional federal matching funds. Medicaid enrollment has skyrocketed to a record 90 million people since then, and millions are expected to lose coverage once states began culling the rolls.

    A total of roughly 15 million people could be dropped from Medicaid when the continuous enrollment requirement ends, according to an analysis the Department of Health and Human Services released in August. About 8.2 million folks would no longer qualify, but 6.8 million people would be terminated even though they are still eligible, the department estimated.

    Many who are disenrolled from Medicaid, however could qualify for other coverage.

    Food stamp recipients had been receiving a boost during the public health emergency. Congress increased food stamp benefits to the maximum for their family size in a 2020 pandemic relief package.

    The Biden administration expanded the boost in the spring of 2021 so that households already receiving the maximum amount and those who received only a small monthly benefit get a supplement of at least $95 a month.

    This extra assistance will end as of March, though several states have already stopped providing it.

    Congress, however, extended one set of pandemic flexibilities as part of the government funding package.

    More Medicare enrollees are able to get care via telehealth during the public health emergency. The service is no longer limited just to those living in rural areas. They can conduct the telehealth visit at home, rather than having to travel to a health care facility. Plus, beneficiaries can use smartphones and receive a wider array of services via telehealth.

    These will now continue through 2024.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • This budget airline is making record profits | CNN Business

    This budget airline is making record profits | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Ryanair expects it will be able to charge higher prices for flights over Easter and the summer, thanks to strong demand from American and Asian tourists and less competition from rivals.

    The low-cost European carrier told customers in an earnings statement on Monday to “book early” before cheaper tickets sell out. It reported record profit for the three months to December 31, after increasing airfares by 14% compared to their pre-pandemic level.

    “The return of Asian traffic to Europe and a particularly strong transatlantic marketplace driven by a very strong dollar will see robust demand both through the Easter and into the summer of 2023 for short-haul flights across Europe,” CEO Michael O’Leary said in a video posted to the company’s website.

    The collapse of rival airlines during the pandemic and cuts by competitors to fleets and passenger capacity would also underpin Ryanair’s strong traffic numbers “hopefully at higher fares,” O’Leary said.

    The Dublin-based airline has emerged from the coronavirus pandemic in a strong position, even as several of its competitors went bankrupt or needed government-backed bailouts. The latest casualty was small UK regional carrier Flybe, which filed for bankruptcy and ceased trading over the weekend.

    Ryanair has also managed to avoid the staff shortages that have plagued rivals, leaving it well positioned to take advantage of a swift recovery in air travel following the pandemic.

    “We’re seeing very strong market share gains in most of our major markets like Italy, Poland, Ireland and Spain where competitors have removed significant capacity or are retreating from competition with us,” O’Leary said.

    Passenger numbers for the quarter through December climbed to a record 38.4 million. That’s 7% higher than the same quarter in 2019 before the pandemic hit. Fares for the quarter were higher than in 2019 “because of a very strong Christmas and New Year period,” according to O’Leary.

    The airline posted its highest ever third-quarter profit, earning €211 million ($230 million) for the three months through December compared to a loss of €96 million ($105 million) for the same period in 2021.

    That beat its previous record in 2017 of €106 million ($115.5 million), according to Reuters, and was more than double the result for the comparable quarter in 2019.

    The Irish airline expects to carry 168 million passengers in the 12 months through March 2023, 13% higher than the year before the coronavirus, which was its previous record. It expects that number to grow to 185 million passengers over the 12 months to March 2024.

    The airline said its growth forecast was based on the delivery of 124 “Gamechanger” Boeing

    (BA)     737 aircraft for the summer peak, but warned that some of those deliveries could “slip.”

    Ryanair has in the past been openly critical of Boeing’s “inability to meet its delivery schedule.”

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  • Trump takes aim at DeSantis in first major campaign swing, says he’s trying to ‘rewrite history’ on his Covid-19 record | CNN Politics

    Trump takes aim at DeSantis in first major campaign swing, says he’s trying to ‘rewrite history’ on his Covid-19 record | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump took aim at Ron DeSantis Saturday, claiming the Florida governor and his team are “trying to rewrite history” regarding their Covid-19 pandemic response, and called the potential presidential run by his GOP rival “very disloyal.”

    “There are Republican governors that did not close their states,” Trump told reporters while aboard his plane. “Florida was closed for a long period of time.”

    “They’re trying to rewrite history,” he added. CNN has reached out to DeSantis for comment.

    In March 2020, the Florida governor issued an executive order closing bars and nightclubs, urging people to follow US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to limit gatherings on beaches to no more than 10 people. By that September, DeSantis signed an order clearing restaurants and bars to fully open, which drew criticism from public health officials due to the Covid-19 spike that fall.

    Trump defended his management of the pandemic, saying he left decisions to governors.

    “I had governors that decided not to close a thing and that was up to them,” he said. The former president also took aim at DeSantis’ shifting posture on vaccines, saying the Florida governor had “changed his tune a lot.”

    That claim comes after DeSantis called on state lawmakers this month to make permanent existing penalties for companies that require all employees get the Covid-19 vaccination.

    The rivalry with Trump hangs over every move DeSantis makes. Their relationship traces back to the governor’s 2018 primary campaign, when an endorsement from Trump helped the little-known congressman win the nomination. A viral ad featuring DeSantis and his family, including two young children, highlighted his allegiance to Trump.

    But as talk of 2024 swirled in recent months, as Trump again declared his presidential candidacy, and DeSantis won re-election in a 19-point landslide in November, the pair grew increasingly at odds. Before and after the midterm election, Trump derided DeSantis as an “average governor” and mocked him with the would-be nickname, “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

    On Saturday, during his first major campaign swing to New Hampshire and South Carolina, Trump took credit again for helping elevate DeSantis during his 2018 bid for governor, saying “Ron would have not been governor if it wasn’t for me.”

    “So when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal,” Trump said.

    While taking aim at DeSantis, Trump told reporters aboard his plane that Nikki Haley – who served as his ambassador to the United Nations – called him in recent days to inform him that she is considering launching a 2024 presidential bid.

    “I talked to her for a little while, I said, ‘Look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run,’” Trump said. “She’s publicly said that ‘I would never run against my president, he was a great president.’”

    Trump said he told Haley that she “should do it.”

    Haley, who recently relocated her top aides to Charleston, is said to be weighing the timing of a campaign launch at this point, not wanting to be the first one to take on Trump by herself. In 2021, she said she would not challenge Trump if he ran again for the White House in 2024.

    CNN has reached out to Haley for comment.

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  • Opinion: The rare bipartisan opportunity House Republicans should take advantage of | CNN

    Opinion: The rare bipartisan opportunity House Republicans should take advantage of | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He is also a former senior policy adviser to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on Twitter. The views expressed in this piece are his own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    With only a thin and fractious majority in the House, the GOP is facing two years of struggling to set any kind of positive agenda. But one thing every elected Republican would agree on is the need to scrutinize the Biden administration.

    Courtesy Patrick T. Brown

    Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has already been hard at work, firing off letters demanding answers to pointed questions on border photo ops, President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, presidential visitor logs, remote work among top federal employees and Hunter Biden.

    This is, of course, business as usual. The party that doesn’t control the White House will always seek to score political points on possible bureaucratic scandals. In return, Democrats’ instinctive reaction might be to circle up the wagons and seek to stonewall or downplay as many of these efforts as possible.

    But one area of focus for the Oversight Committee deserves to be taken seriously, not just as a political point-scoring operation, but as an earnest attempt to improve how government works. A genuine bipartisan commitment can and should be made to evaluate the extent of fraud in the pandemic-era safety net measures. A better understanding of where the system failed would not only shine a light on how some funds were misspent but also lay the groundwork for better administration of safety-net benefits, in ways applicable and valuable even outside of the unique circumstances of a global pandemic.

    Recall that as the initial wave of coronavirus cases hit US shores, economists feared we could be headed for an economic meltdown. People stopped going about their daily lives, stay-at-home orders went into effect and businesses responded by laying off workers left and right. The unemployment rate spiked to 14.7% in April 2020, the highest level in the post-World War II era.

    Congress wanted to provide aid as quickly as possible; there simply wasn’t time to sit around and construct the ideal policies. As part of the frenetic response, the federal government used the often-clunky unemployment insurance systems run by states to try to backstop households’ finances.

    Fraud became an issue due to a number of factors, according to a June 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office, including unclear federal guidance, ill-equipped state offices and a relaxation of normal eligibility rules. It didn’t help that 32 states run their unemployment insurance systems on outdated infrastructure, often developed in the 1970s and 1980s, according to that same report. These systems make it difficult for states to have the flexibility and responsiveness necessary to run benefit programs efficiently – even when there isn’t a global pandemic.

    The underlying structure of unemployment insurance may have been an issue as well – the federal government provides support and technical assistance, while states determine eligibility and ensure accurate payments. The jerry-rigged systems in many states couldn’t handle the surge of applicants and a newly created unemployment insurance program relied on self-certification. Without any requirements to prove lost income, the program opened the door to bad actors.

    But some of the headlines about the amount of fraud in pandemic assistance are likely overblown. One widely-repeated claim about the ubiquity of fraud was advanced not by a disinterested party but by a company that sells ID verification systems. The GAO report estimates the amount of unemployment insurance fraud is likely over $60 billion (or about 7% of total $878 billion spent), although the true amount may not be knowable.

    $60 billion sounds like a lot of money, but some could argue the result justified the leaky process. Research by the Brookings Institution found that the expanded unemployment benefits delivered the most aid to lower-income workers, stabilizing the broader economy by keeping consumption stable. At the peak of Covid’s impact, millions of workers every week were applying for unemployment insurance; if excessive concern about fraud had prevented rolling out the federal expansion of benefits, it could have taken a lot longer for the economy to recover.

    But with the worst of the pandemic in the rear-view mirror, cracking down on people who abused the system and making it harder for future scammers to do the same is an appropriate area for the Oversight Committee to focus on. A full, bipartisan Congressional inquiry could spotlight the weaknesses of the current system and where it was taken advantage of in order to lay the groundwork for future efforts to improve the way benefits are disbursed.

    Not doing so would allow distrust around government programs to fester. Some voters who hear stories about fraudsters taking advantage of pandemic-era assistance – especially blatant examples of people who listed their name as “N/A” or claimed that they owned nonexistent farms – may lose faith in government’s ability to function properly. Knowing that the expanded assistance helped the economy does nothing to change or address the fact that some people took advantage of loopholes in the system.

    Some initial steps have been taken to address this lingering concern. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which was created as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in 2020, has provided publicly available data on how emergency pandemic funds were spent. Last summer, Congress passed bipartisan bills extending the statute of limitations to prosecute individuals who committed fraud through the Paycheck Protection Program or the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program. And Democrats, such as Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who previously served as the chair of a subcommittee on the coronavirus response, have rightly pointed out that small business aid during the pandemic was also plagued by fraud and improper payments.

    Yet more could be done. A GAO report in October 2021 made six recommendations about how the Department of Labor could stem fraud in unemployment insurance programs, but a recent follow-up found the department had not implemented any of them. The deluge of cases has left investigators overwhelmed, and Congress could beef up funding for the agents that investigate pandemic fraud.

    Last year, the Biden administration announced initial steps to combat fraud and identity theft in pandemic relief, but it hasn’t made a priority of supporting bills like the one introduced in 2021 by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, which would have modernized the unemployment insurance program. Helping states develop better systems of determining eligibility and automating basic safeguards could make it easier to keep scammers out and make sure the truly deserving get the benefits they need.

    Republicans are right to put the spotlight on those who took advantage of pandemic-era programs. Democrats should join them. Getting benefits into the hands of people who merit them and keeping them out of the hands of people who don’t should be something both parties agree on. Amid all the other controversies that take up political oxygen, a concerted effort to crack down on wrongdoing and improve how our social safety net functions could be a welcome breath of bipartisan air.

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