UAW strike stuns University of California, heading into fourth week

The UAW, a labor union started in Detroit to represent the rights of autoworkers, is leading a strike 2,400 miles away involving some 48,000 academic workers in 10 University of California cities — including Berkeley, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

The strike, believed to be the biggest organized labor action in the U.S. this year and the biggest in history involving higher education, began early on Nov. 14 after contract talks stalled on improving wages, job security and workplace protections.

It exceeds the size of the widespread UAW strike on General Motors that involved 46,000 workers at 55 sites in 10 states just three years ago and it clashed with final exams, forced some classes to go from in-person to virtual, and stopped laboratory research.

And it shows the potential influence the UAW has on shaping worker benefits well beyond traditional autoworkers.

"This is one of the most striking examples of a resurgence of the labor movement that we’ve seen," said Harley Shaiken, an emeritus professor at the University of California-Berkeley who specializes in labor and the global economy. "It's a bit like autoworkers sitting down at Flint 85 years ago, except on a college campus today. Workers then and student workers today, seeking to improve their lives through solidarity."

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The work these strikers do for the university and their impact is not trivial: “They perform experiments, write research grant proposals, and generate creative ideas that push the boundaries of their fields. Their hard work and dedication is a major reason why the school system received $3.7 billion in federal research contracts and grant revenue in fiscal year 2020," U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine, said in a 2021 letter to the UC president expressing support for the academic workers.

UAW officials pointed to past court battles that reflect a long-term union investment in protecting rights on college campuses.

Ray Curry, president of the UAW, told the Free Press in a statement Friday: "Our union has been a part of the fight for academic workers to have the legal right to bargain since the 1980s. We have laid the groundwork to establish that right through numerous court cases and strategic campaigns. We will continue to lead in this sector as we bargain innovative contracts that set the standard for workers in higher education.”

The intensity of this fight cannot be overstated, said Shaiken, whose grandfather, a Russian immigrant, moved from Ohio to Detroit to earn $5 a day at Ford’s Highland Park plant and spent most of his 33 years on the line at The Rouge.

"When they had a strike vote, over 36,000 voted, which is very high as a percentage, and 98% voted to strike. That kind of an outpouring is very significant," Shaiken said of academic workers at UC. "We’re seeing history being made, given the size of this strike and its location ... that will leave a lasting mark."

After 15 days on strike, the UAW units representing about 12,000 postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers reached tentative five-year agreements with the university. They vote whether to ratify Monday through Friday this week.

“We are proud to have reached agreements that address the soaring cost of living, and reflect the value of our contributions at UC,” said Neal Sweeney, 46, of Davis, who is president of UAW Local 5810.

Now, all eyes are on negotiations bargaining for 36,000 academic student employees and student researchers.

Lifeblood of the operation

The UAW-represented academic workers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Davis, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Riverside, Irvine and Merced do much of the research and teaching at the University of California.

UC has more than 800 research centers, institutes, laboratories, and programs that include five medical centers and three Department of Energy National Laboratories. Areas of study range from human cognition and the development of machine learning to the creation of disease-resistant crops and mitigation strategies for climate change, according to the UC website.

The academic workers on strike over the past three weeks have been postdoctoral scholars who do professional research, teaching assistants, academic student employees, graduate student researchers, academic researchers, readers, tutors and others.

"We're all bargaining to make the university more fair and equitable," Sweeney told the Free Press. "This is about making the university welcoming for working parents with more paid leave, child care benefits, job security."

The UAW has taken great pride in bargaining as a united front despite having separate contracts because there's strength in numbers, he said. "Classes are being canceled. Labs are shut down," he said.

Sweeney, a Birmingham, Michigan, native whose father worked on a GM assembly line in college, is both a postdoctoral scholar and an academic researcher in Santa Cruz, studying how stem cells may be used in late-stage eye diseases such as macular degeneration.

Until their tentative agreements are ratified, postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers plan to continue striking in support of the 36,000 other UAW-represented members still bargaining for a contract.

One ongoing snag is the short length of job appointments, which can create hardship for teaching assistants and tutors who need to sign housing leases but have a limited work commitment, said Kavitha Iyengar, 29, a Lansing native now living in Berkeley. She's a doctoral student in legal history who grades legal coursework while also serving as vice president of UAW Local 2865, which represents students who work as teaching assistants, tutors and readers.

"This is really the minutes-before-midnight phenomenon, when the end of classes, grading and exams facilitate compromise between parties which want an agreement," said William Gould IV, emeritus professor of law at Stanford University.

"If the union is successful in negotiating what objectively could be seen as real improvements in the areas of wages and rent supplements, in particular, this undoubtedly is going to resonate with other workers who are similarly situated," he said. "Particularly in this part of the country and in other geographical locations where the cost of living is so high compared to the rest of the country."

Gould, who wrote "For Labor to Build Upon" (Cambridge University Press, spring 2022), finds a lasting legacy of the U.S. Civil War is that democracy in the workforce is an essential part of societal democracy. He looks in his writing at the world of low-paying, gig-economy jobs that lack union protection.

Casino workers, beermakers, scientists

For many, the UAW is closely associated with America's automobile industry. Its name is officially the United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America.

But things have changed drastically for the union founded in 1935. Just under half of the estimated 400,000 dues-paying members come from outside the auto industry.

About 52% are hourly and salaried workers affiliated with auto suppliers and the Detroit Three — Ford Motor Co., General Motors or Stellantis, which builds Jeeps, Ram Trucks and Chrysler vehicles, according to May 2021 UAW data.

The UAW represents members who work in everything from casino gaming to beer production to farm equipment — as well as academics.

"It's going to where the action is," Gould said. "The action is increasingly in this world of the unorganized and the more vulnerable."

All members pay into the same strike fund, which gives the UAW leverage.

The UAW had nearly $841 million in strike funds, according to its Aug. 31, 2022, financial report. This is a pot of money, fed by member union dues, that pays a $400 stipend for workers going to the strike line instead of going to work.

Union leaders have compared the strike fund to having a strong military when preparing for war.

Not your father's labor union

Just two years ago, academic workers made up 20% of the UAW membership, or 80,000 of some 400,000 from public and private universities such as the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of California, Harvard University, Brown University, Boston College, the University of Washington, New York University, University of Connecticut and the New School in New York.

The UAW added Columbia University postdoctoral researchers last year, many working to eradicate cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes and other diseases.

A majority of academic workers in the UAW are based at the University of California, California State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, which specializes in clean energy, supercomputing and atomic structure.

“Sometimes there’s a bit of an eyebrow raise when you say UAW. People ask, ‘United Auto Workers?’ But we chose the UAW because it represents the most academic workers of any union in the country. And it bargains great contracts,” David Parsons, then-president of UAW Local 4121, representing graduate and undergraduate students and researchers at the University of Washington, said in 2019.

Anke Schennink, then-president of UAW Local 5810, which represents postdoctoral researchers on University of California campuses, said in 2019, "The UAW provides us access to labor lawyers, professional negotiators and training."

Organizing the UC system and higher ed overall was considered critical to the national UAW strategy.

UC officials praise success on negotiations so far as talks continue on the final two contracts.

“Our dedicated colleagues are vital to UC’s research activities and we are very pleased to have reached agreements that honor their many important contributions,” Letitia Silas, executive director of systemwide labor relations, said in a Nov. 29 news release from the UC Office of the President. “These agreements also uphold our tradition of supporting these employees with compensation and benefits packages that are among the best in the country.”

She noted that the other two UAW groups, graduate student researchers and academic student employees who work as teaching assistants and tutors and readers, remain in ongoing contact negotiations.

Supporting a family on $24,000

As a professor, Shaiken said he has seen tremendous sympathy for the striking workers. The average pay for graduate students in STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math at these prestigious California schools ranges from $38,000 to $45,000 a year while their peers in other fields earn about $24,000 annually on average, he noted.

"You cannot live on that," Shaiken said. "Here’s why we’re seeing ... 48,000 people paralyzing the university right now. Rents have skyrocketed in California. For these students, many don’t have a decent place to live or have to sacrifice other essentials. Costs have gone up and wages won’t cover it. That is something that has gotten a lot of good people angry."

Andy Ross, a literary agent based in Berkeley whose daughter attends college there, told the Free Press: "Students are back to taking classes on Zoom. Some professors are striking in solidarity. The other thing is that term papers and tests aren't being graded, which indicates how important these grad students are. Everything is falling apart without them.

"California is an expensive place to live. The grad students have been exploited for a long time."

At issue for union activists and supporters is the rapid growth or "bloat" of administrators with significantly higher salaries while wages for hard-working classroom workers and researchers have remained static and outdated, Shaiken said. "That has contributed to a lot of concern about what’s going on," he said.

Support for the strike also comes from the California Labor Federation, which represents 1.2 million workers in manufacturing, retail, construction, health care, delivery and other industries. Many of their members have refused to cross academic worker picket lines.

23% salary increase

Negotiators reached a deal for postdoctoral scholars who will vote on whether to ratify this week.

"The agreement reached will include the vast majority of postdocs getting a 20% to 23% salary increase," Sweeney said in a Zoom call with reporters Nov. 29. "This was a significant movement from the university. … That’s really what got us over the finish line."

In addition, postdoctoral scholars will get two-year appointments rather than just one year. It helps with job security and stability as well as cost reduction for international researchers required to apply for visas. Postdoc scholars who currently earn $54,500 a year will see their wage increase by $12,000 a year to $66,000, Sweeney said.

"That's very significant," he said.

An entry-level academic researcher in a junior specialist position currently making $49,000 would see compensation increase by $5,549 to $54,549 by July, Sweeney said.

Contract highlights of tentative agreements

Two of four UAW-represented local unions in California will vote this week on proposed contracts.

Postdoctoral scholars, who do scientific research at the university, are being offered:

Implementation of a new salary scale by April 1, 2023, which will result in average salary increases of 8% for all.

Annual pay increases each October, with an increase of about 7.5% in the first year and 3.5% in each remaining year.

Annual experience-based pay increases of 3.7% for eligible postdocs.

Up to $2,500 annual reimbursement for child care expenses. Annual $100 increases in 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Effective Jan. 1, 2023, a new special Postdoc Paid Leave program of eight weeks of 100% paid family leave for all postdocs.

'29% salary increase'

Academic researchers, who make scientific discoveries in their fields of expertise, will vote this week on a proposed contract that includes:

Pay increases of 4.5% in the first year, 3.5% in the second, third and fourth years; and 4% in the fifth year.

Effective Jan. 1, 2023, eight weeks 100% pay for family care and bonding for eligible academic researchers.

Increased bereavement leave.

A typical academic researcher will receive 29% in salary increases (between scale and merit increases) over the life of the contract.

Both tentative agreements include:

New contract provision to address abusive conduct and a dispute resolution process.

Access to a pre-tax program to pay for transit costs and an e-bike purchase discount program.

UC agrees to attempt to negotiate reduced-fee or no-fee access to regional transit system(s).

Negotiations for postdoctoral scholars began in July 2021 and in May 2022 for academic researchers.

Academic researchers at UC joined the UAW in 2018, getting their first contract in 2019. Academic student employees formed in the late 1990s and won their first contract in 2000. Postdoctoral researchers formed around 2008 and won their first contract in 2010. Student researchers won recognition from the University of California in late 2021, and this will be their first contract.

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Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.

America is already feeling the consequences of a looming ...

New York CNN Business —

America’s freight railroads have already stopped accepting shipments of hazardous and other security-sensitive materials because of the looming threat of a strike Friday.

Union Pacific, one of the major national railroads whose operations would be halted by a strike, said the move is meant to “protect employees, customers, and the communities we serve.”

A statement from the railroad’s trade group said they needed to take this step in order to follow federal rules to “ensure that no such cargo is left on an unattended or unsecured train.”

But the unions representing the members of the train crew threatening to go on strike say the railroad’s new freight restrictions are designed to put pressure on Congress to block the unions from walking out. They said the move was “completely unnecessary” and “no more than corporate extortion.”

“The railroads are using shippers, consumers, and the supply chain of our nation as pawns in an effort to get our unions to cave into their contract demands,” said the unions’ statement. “Our unions will not cave into these scare tactics, and Congress must not cave into what can only be described as corporate terrorism.”

The statements show the rising stakes in the labor dispute that could lead to the first national railroad strike in 30 years as soon as this Friday. About 60,000 union members who work for the railroad are set to go on strike, including the engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews on each train. Even though 45,000 other union members belong to unions that have reached tentative deals with the railroads, a strike by engineers and conductors would bring the freight rail system, which carries nearly 30% of the nation’s freight, to a grinding halt.

It’s about the last thing the US economy needs as it struggles to get over several years of supply chain issues. A prolonged strike could mean some empty shelves in stores, temporary closures at factories that don’t have the parts they need to operate, and higher prices due to the limited availability of various consumer goods.

“While these actions are necessary, they do not mean a work stoppage is certain,” said the statement from Union Pacific. “What we want, and continue to push for, is a prompt resolution that provides historic wage increases to employees and allows the railroads to restore service as soon as possible, preventing further disruption to the struggling supply chain.”

Congress could avert strike

Labor law for railroad and airline employees is different from the law that controls labor relations for the vast majority of private sector workers. The Railway Labor Act, the nation’s oldest labor law, allows Congress to take action to keep workers on the job in case of a strike or a lockout of workers by management.

But it’s not clear that Congress could act quickly to find a bipartisan measure needed to win the votes to avert a strike, especially just weeks before crucial midterm elections.

In July, when a strike was first threatened, President Joe Biden used powers he had at that time to block a freight rail strike. That created a 60-day cooling off period during which a panel he appointed, known as a Presidential Emergency Board, or PEB, looked at the dispute and came up with a set of recommendations.

But that 60-day cooling off period ends at 12:01 am ET Friday, allowing the union to go on strike or the railroads to lockout the union members. Biden does not have the power to prevent a strike or lockout once again. Without a labor agreement or congressional action to impose a contract or extend the cooling off period, the national freight railroads will grind to a halt on Friday.

“The railroads show no intentions of reaching an agreement with our unions, but they cannot legally lock out our members until the end of the cooling-off period,” said the union in a statement. “Instead, they are locking out their customers beginning on Monday and further harming the supply chain in an effort to provoke congressional action.”

The US Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to both the Democrat and Republican leadership of both houses asking that Congress be prepared to act if the two sides can’t reach an agreement before Friday.

“We continue to believe that a voluntary agreement by all parties is the best outcome, but it is now clear that Congress may need to intervene,” said the letter. It urged Congress to impose a new contract based on the PEB’s recommendations upon the unions that have yet to reach a tentative agreement with the railroads. It did raise the possibility of extending the cooling off period rather than imposing a contract.

Strike would be about non-wage issues

The PEB’s proposals included an immediate 14% raise for 115,000 union members working for the railroad, including backpay back to 2020, and raises totaling of 24% over the five-year life of the contract from 2020 to 2024. The plan was good enough for eight of the 12 unions, which together represent about 45,000 railroad employees to agree to tentative labor agreement. The most recent agreements came over the weekend.

But four of the groups, including the two most significant unions that represent the engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews on each train, have refused to accept the PEB’s proposal so far.

Two of the unions -— those representing the train crew members – say their members would never ratify a contract that includes the current staffing levels and scheduling rules. They say the shortage of workers has meant their members need to be on call to report to work on short notice seven days a week, even on the days they’re not scheduled to work. Those rules do not apply to members of the unions who have reached tentative agreements.

The engineers and conductors unions include about half of the union members working for the railroads. And if they strike, even if the other unions all agree to stay on the job, the trains will not operate.

Railroad management says that the PEB considered the union’s demands on scheduling and were “expressly rejected.”

“It is critical that the remaining unions promptly reach agreements that provide pay increases to employees and prevent rail service disruptions,” said management’s statement. It said the deals with the remaining unions should be “based on the PEB’s recommendation.”

But the engineers’ and conductors’ unions are pushing their allies in Congress not to take any action to impose a labor deal on workers who have yet to reach a deal, or to extend the cooling off period. The unions say only a strike can resolve the issue, and if management wants to avoid a strike, it must agree to fix the work rules.

“Rather than gridlock the supply chain by denying shipments …. the railroads should work towards a fair settlement that our members, their employees, would ratify,” said the unions. “For that to happen, we must make improvements to the working conditions that have been on the bargaining table since negotiations began.”

US Labor Secretary Martin Walsh, who met with the two sides during mediated talks last week, again engaged the two sides on Sunday to push them to reach a resolution that averts any shutdown, according to a statement from a Labor Department spokesperson. He has also canceled a trip to Ireland to give a speech there due to the railroad labor talks.

“All parties need to stay at the table, bargain in good faith to resolve outstanding issues, and come to an agreement,” said the statement. “The fact that we are already seeing some impacts of contingency planning by railways again demonstrates that a shutdown of our freight rail system is an unacceptable outcome for our economy and the American people, and all parties must work to avoid that.”

– CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.

Railroad strike, and the economic damage it would cause, looms ...

New York CNN Business —

A freight railroad strike, and the economic upheaval it could cause, is getting closer and closer to reality.

While two more rail unions reached tentative agreements with railroad management on new contracts Tuesday, the two most important unions — representing the engineers and conductors who make up the two-person crews on each train — remain at loggerheads in negotiations. If they don’t resolve their differences, the first national rail strike in 30 years could start early Friday.

Those engineers and conductors unions represent roughly half of the more than 100,000 unionized workers at the nation’s major freight railroads. Without them on the job those trains will not run, nor will many commuter and Amtrak trains that run over freight rail lines. Indeed, Amtrak has already suspended some of its routes.

Unable to reach a deal Tuesday, the heads of the two unions and the negotiators for the railroads’ bargaining team are scheduled to meet with Labor Secretary Martin Walsh in Washington early Wednesday, according officials with each union and a Department of Labor spokesperson.

Administration officials have grown increasingly concerned about the possibility of a strike in recent days. President Joe Biden personally called rail unions and companies on Monday while visiting Boston in an attempt to avert a rail shut down, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

CNN reported earlier Tuesday that the White House is urgently discussing contingency plans, with agencies across the federal government working through how they could potentially use federal authority to keep critical supply chains operational as labor talks continue to sit at an impasse.

“The White House is working with other modes of transportation (including shippers, truckers, air freight) to see how they can step in and keep goods moving, in case of a rail shutdown,” a White House official told CNN on Tuesday.

But there are no alternatives to move the freight carried on rail. The American Trucking Associations issued a statement saying that it would require more than 460,000 additional long-haul trucks every day, which it said “is not possible based on equipment availability and an existing shortage of 80,000 drivers.” It called on Congress to act to keep the railroad workers on the job, saying the trucking system itself depends on sharing shipments with the railroads.

The railroads work under a unique labor law that allows the federal government to intervene to keep the workers on the job, rather than freely allowing a strike or a lockout of workers by management.

President Biden blocked a strike through executive action in July, which delayed the possibility of a strike for 60 days. He also appointed a panel, known as a Presidential Emergency Board, which came up with recommendations for a deal that has been accepted by most of the unions.

But not the engineers and conductors, who say scheduling rules that keep them “on call” virtually every day they’re not at work, as well as a staffing shortage, make their work lives intolerable. Those rules were not addressed by the emergency board. Without a change in those rules, the engineers and conductors say they’ll go on strike. The 60-day cooling off period is set to expire at 12:01 am ET Friday, so that threatened strike is looming.

Will Congress act to stop strike?

Unless the two sides reach an agreement, only Congressional action can prevent or end a strike. Richard Durbin, the second highest ranking member of the Democrats’ leadership in the Senate, told CNN that Democrats are not eager to take action ahead of the deadline to prevent a strike.

“I don’t think it’s likely we will intervene,” Durbin said. Avoiding a strike “depends on the parties in negotiations stepping up to the plate.”

Railroad management and numerous business groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Retail Federation, are calling on Congress to act to prevent a strike.

Widespread economic impact

Looming rail strike could raise gas prices 01:53 - Source: CNN

A strike would be a crippling blow to the US economy, which is still struggling with supply chain problems. Roughly 30% of the nation’s freight moves by rail. Among the problems could be:

Gasoline: Without freight railroads, oil refineries would have trouble producing their current volumes of gasoline, which could send gas prices higher, ending a string of three months of falling prices at the pump

Food: It could disrupt the nation’s food supplies , preventing recently harvested crops to move to food processors and disrupting the supply of fertilizer needed for upcoming plantings.

Consumer goods: According to the National Retail Federation, Any rail strike could have long-lasting negative effects on the import of goods for the holiday shopping season, causing shortages and higher prices.

Cars and trucks: Car prices have already hit record prices this year due to the limited supply of new vehicles caused by a shortage of computer chips and other parts. A rail strike would further choke supplies, cutting off the delivery of auto parts to auto assembly plants, which could force temporary shutdowns at some plants. It would also disrupt the flow of completed new cars and trucks, 75% of which move by rail.

The full economic impact would not be immediate, said Patrick Anderson, of Anderson Economic Group, which does economic impact estimates for work stoppages, although it would likely cost the economy tens of millions of dollars a day at the start.

“The costs will grow geometrically the longer the strike lasts,” he said. “After a week, you’d see real damage in the US economy.”

He said an estimate of $2 billion a day of economic damage from the railroad’s own trade group is “gross exaggeration” but that significant costs will spread throughout the economy. “If we reach a week-long strike, we’re in uncharted territory,” he added.

Not about pay

The emergency board recommended an immediate 14% raise for union members, including backpay for some of that raise going back to 2020. Workers also would receive a 24% raise over the five-year life of the contract, and $1,000 annual cash bonuses.

But the engineers and the conductors say the strike is not over pay; the work conditions and scheduling are driving their members to quit jobs, leaving the railroads with a staffing shortage that makes conditions for the remaining workers intolerable. The unions that have accepted the deal do not have the scheduling issues that the engineers and conductors face.

The railroads say that average compensation for their employees comes to $122,000 per year, including both pay and benefits. But the railroads themselves also have been very profitable, with several of them — Union Pacific (UNP), Norfolk Southern (NSC) and Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA)’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe — reporting record earnings.

Republicans want Congressional action

Some Republicans in Congress say they’re preparing legislation that would impose a contract on the engineers and conductors unions to force them to stay on the job.

“A rail worker strike would be catastrophic for America’s transportation system and our already-stressed supply chain,” said Sen. Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican and one of two senators who plan to introduce the legislation. (The other is Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi.)

Burr said the PEB recommendations, which form the basis of the contract his legislation would impose, “are a fair and appropriate solution to a years-long negotiation process, but labor unions are continuing to hold the entire nation’s rail system hostage as they demand more.”

Through their trade group, the Association of American Railroads, the railroads say the engineers and conductors unions’ demands to change the scheduling rules “should be dealt locally” and not through national bargaining. It pointed out that the unions” demand to have the change as part of the national contract was “expressly rejected” by the PEB.

For their part, the leadership of the engineers and conductors unions’ said their members would not ratify any deal that doesn’t include changes in the work rules. The two unions say they have already reduced what they are asking for in an effort to get the deal done.

The unions also say that a strike is the best way to get a deal that will win support of their members and improve the quality of rail service nationwide. They contend the railroads are counting on Congress to step in, which would eliminate for now the hiring of additional staff that union leadership says is needed.

- CNN’s Ali Zaslav and Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report

Chris Isidore Vanessa Yurkevich
Chris Isidore
Vanessa Yurkevich

Another supply chain crisis: Barge traffic halted on Mississippi River ...

New York CNN Business —

The lowest water levels in the Mississippi River in a decade, caused by a severe Midwest drought, have closed the vital channel to barge traffic at a crucial time of the year for the transport of crops from the nation’s heartland.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been dredging portions of the river for the past week in an attempt to deepen channels and get barge traffic moving again. But the closures have caused a massive tie-up in the nation’s already struggling supply chains.

The low water has also been responsible for eight barges running aground during the last week, according to a report from the US Coast Guard.

As of Friday, the Coast Guard reports that there are 144 vessels and 2,253 barges queued up and waiting to get through two stretches of the river where traffic has been halted – one near Memphis, the other just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. While the Coast Guard statement said it hopes to resume traffic again as soon as late Friday, it couldn’t say for certain when that would happen.

Barges idle while waiting for passage in the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Miss., on Tuesday. Thomas Berner/AP

“The Coast Guard, [Army Corps of Engineers] and river industry partners are working towards the goal of opening the waterway to restricted one-way traffic when it has been determined safe to do so,” said the Coast Guard’s statement.

Even when barges start moving once again, they’ll be forced to carry as much as 20% less cargo than normal in order to not ride too deep in the water. And rather than a single vessel moving between 30 to 40 barges at one time as they normally do, they’ve been forced to move no more than 25 barges on each trip due to the more narrow channels.

The combination of fewer barges per trip, and less cargo per barge, has cut the capacity of barges moving on the river by about 50% even before the recent river closures, said Mike Seyfert, CEO of the National Grain and Feed Association. And that has sent the rates that shippers are paying soaring.

“From what we hear from members, that has resulted in record levels of barge rates, and that’s being driven by the fact that there is limited traffic,” Seyfert said.

River barges are still a major method of moving cargo within the United States, especially for agricultural products.

About 5% of all freight in the United States moves on river barges when measured by the weight of the cargo and the distance traveled, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The shippers who use river barges have few, if any, affordable alternatives.

Most of the barge traffic moving south this time of year is carrying agricultural products. Many of those moving north are loaded with fertilizer that farmers will need for their next planting.

“This time of year, the river is crucial for moving product,” said Seyfert.

The region that feeds water into the Mississippi River has been hit especially hard by a regional drought since July, leading to sharply lower levels around Arkansas and Tennessee, according to data tracked by the US Geological Survey. The two highest levels of drought have recently expanded across the Midwest and the South, according to last week’s US Drought Monitor.

Compounding supply chain woes

This is just one more stumbling block for US supply chains that are still struggling to recover from disruptions since the start of the pandemic two and a half years ago. West Coast ports, where most of the nation’s imports arrive by container ship, are still congested, too.

And while a freight railroad strike was narrowly averted last month, even the freight railroads themselves admit they are providing substandard levels of service as they struggle with their own labor shortages.

The Mississippi is not the only river facing low water levels and posing economic problems for those who depend upon on those rivers.

Prolonged drought in the western United States has taken the reservoirs in the Colorado River basin to historically low levels. That water supply is crucial for both hydroelectric power and the supply of water needed by western states.

And in Germany, river levels fell on the Rhine River in August, limiting barge traffic there, including coal shipments needed to supply power plants.

US drought getting worse

There are few signs of relief for the low water levels on the Mississippi.

Another dry week across much of the Central and Southern US has led to “intensifying drought conditions across much of the Great Plains, Mississippi Valley, and Midwest,” according to the latest update from the US Drought Monitor.

“A very dry pattern during the past month” has led to significant degradation in crops and river levels, the summary noted.

Up to 57% of Arkansas is experiencing severe drought, the highest in five years; three months ago, it was less than 1%. To the north, the amount of Missouri judged to be in severe drought conditions has doubled each of the past two weeks and is now up to 30% of the state.

From European Union/Copernicus/Sentinel Hub/EO Browser From European Union/Copernicus/Sentinel Hub/EO Browser Use the slider to compare imagery taken of the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tennessee, on March 1, 2022, (left) and then again on October 2, 2022 (right). The images are natural color images - processed to resemble the actual color of the Earth -- taken by the Sentinel-2 satellite. From European Union/Copernicus/Sentinel Hub/EO Browser

These widespread drought conditions are also impacting other important tributaries to the Mississippi River. More than 70% of the Missouri River basin is facing drought conditions this week, meaning less water is entering the Mississippi River, further lowering its levels.

A University of Missouri weather station in Columbia, for example, reported just 6.46 inches of rain between June 2 and September 27, the Drought Monitor noted. That is more than 11 inches below normal and the driest such period for that location in 23 years.

No significant rain is expected over the next week in the Lower Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, and water levels are expected to drop further.

Chris Isidore Amanda Watts Judson Jones
Chris Isidore
Amanda Watts
Judson Jones

US public schools get a D+ for poor conditions, and experts say ...

CNN —

When it gets too hot in Denver and Baltimore classrooms, students are sent home because their schools don’t have air conditioning.

In Massachusetts, checking for rusty water leaking from a ceiling has become a “morning ritual.”

In California, a school’s cockroach infestation has gotten so bad that some students fear eating lunch.

While school infrastructure problems are a perennial challenge, national data and dismal stories from teachers suggest the crises are reaching an apex. Atrocious school conditions have even prompted some teachers this school year to go on strike.

How CNN found subpar school conditions CNN asked teachers about the conditions of their schools and received more than 250 responses from across the US. Some teachers spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.

“We’re getting to a critical stage now,” said Mike Pickens, executive director of the National Council on School Facilities. “The average age of a school building now is from 49 to 50 years” – the highest in memory. Some schools date back to World War II.

But as schools get older and more desperate for repairs, the funding gap for public schools keeps getting worse.

“American Society of Civil Engineers gives the condition of America’s 100,000 public school buildings an overall grade of D+,” the National Education Association said late last year. “And no wonder – half our school buildings are half a century old.”

Now, everyone is paying the price for underfunded schools.

Students get sick, distracted or miss entire days of education when conditions turn abysmal. Parents sacrifice income to provide child care when classes suddenly get canceled.

Burnt-out teachers already stressed by the pandemic and school violence are pushed closer to leaving the profession.

Even those not directly connected to deteriorating schools will be impacted, Pickens said.

Without more investment in US public schools, he said, “we get further and further behind on the world stage.”

From Maryland to Colorado, students struggle to breathe in oppressively hot classrooms

In Baltimore, Marcia Turner is sick of her kids feeling sick at school.

“My children can’t even breathe in the school. It be so hot. One have asthma,” Turner told CNN affiliate WMAR.

Fourteen Baltimore schools don’t have any air conditioning, school district Chief Operating Officer Lynette Washington told CNN. Those students get sent home early when it’s too hot to learn – 85 degrees or higher in their classrooms, she said.

Stifling temperatures can impede students’ academic success. Researchers who looked at millions of test scores from American high schoolers found students tend to score lower when it’s a hot school year, according to a 2018 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

But air conditioning mitigated many of the negative effects, the researchers found.

The lack of air conditioning doesn’t just stymie students’ learning. It also hurts parents who can’t afford to leave work to take care of their children in the middle of the day.

“And I can’t get off because I’m just starting a job,” Turner told WMAR.

The Baltimore school district’s COO said she’s frustrated, too. About 65% of the city’s public schools are over 41 years old; more than a third are over 51 years old.

“We have such a backlog of infrastructure that has not been updated and upgraded in a consistent way. When they’re not upgraded toward the end of their life cycle, then we just hold onto them, and we just keep putting Band-Aids on them,” Washington said.

“We do not have the dollars. We do not have the resources.”

Five years ago, Baltimore had 75 public schools without air conditioning, Washington said. Installing AC in all those schools would cost $250 million – about five times the district’s entire annual infrastructure budget.

So Baltimore Public Schools is chipping away at the problem over years. Of the 14 schools that still lack air conditioning, six will have it in the next 24 months, Washington said. The other eight will be completely renovated – with air conditioning – or shuttered.

Why window AC units won't fix the problem For schools that don’t have air conditioning, window AC units aren’t a practical solution, said Baltimore Public Schools Chief Operating Officer Lynette Washington. “The challenge with these window air conditioning units is that they don’t meet what is called ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) standards because they do not provide the ventilation and fresh air intake required for classrooms,” she said. “The other challenge with the air conditioning box units is that they have a very short life cycle. So they may last for a year or two … (and) have to be consistently maintained and replaced. We don’t have the resources.”

Many states away in Colorado, more than 30 schools in Denver Public Schools had to send kids home early and four closed for full days this month due to the heat, the district said. Temperatures soared in Denver the first full week of September, with daily highs ranging from 97 to 99 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

“I can’t change the fact that it’s 88 degrees in the classroom,” said Sara, a teacher at McAuliffe International School, which had three days of early dismissal. “It gets really draining, physically and emotionally, to be kind of beat down by these factors, day in and day out.”

The middle school in Colorado’s largest school district has no air conditioning, said Trena Marsal, the district’s executive director of facility management. The infrastructure, she said, was never meant for higher temperatures.

“Our oldest building is (from) 1889,” she said.

Forty Denver public schools still lack AC, down from 55 in 2019, Marsal said. In 2020, Denver voters approved bonds to pay, in part, for the installation of air conditioning units in schools, including a two-year plan to air-condition McAuliffe, the school district said.

But supply chain problems delayed installations this summer, leaving the work at eight schools only partially completed.

So the district has heat mitigation liaisons, Marsal said. Portable cooling units are strategically placed during the day, and windows are opened at night, she said.

Opening windows, though, means “we basically daily get wasps and flies – and it’s always exciting when that happens,” Sara said.

In the heat of day, Sara said, conditions in classrooms can make older kids anxious.

“You have students, I’m sure, who are nervous about sweat stains or they sit down on a plastic chair and their butt gets sweaty,” she said. “It’s stuff as an adult we’re not as self-conscious about, but a teenager absolutely is.”

“I sweat, like, everywhere,” seventh grader Zmarra Fleming told CNN affiliate KUSA. “In the classrooms, it’s really hot. It’s, like, hot where the point is you can’t really breathe in there.”

McAuliffe International School student Zmarra Fleming said it was hard to breathe in her hot classroom. KUSA

But the immediate fix – early dismissal – caused transportation problems this month for some students. McAuliffe got out at 1:32 p.m., according to the school’s website, but Marsal said early buses weren’t requested.

“It’s very frustrating,” parent Stephanie Bates told KUSA. “I can’t imagine what parents who don’t have flexibility in their schedules do.”

Rusty water drips from classroom ceilings

Leaking water in classrooms and brown, stained ceiling tiles have made for a “morning ritual” among some teachers at Joseph G. Pyne Arts Magnet School in Lowell, Massachusetts.

“Outside my room, in the hallway, there’s several tiles that are stained brown like rusty, dirty water from leaks,” said Eric Kolifrath, a seventh and eighth grade science teacher. “Everyone on my floor, especially if it’s rained, we examine the ceiling to let the custodial staff know if we see new leaks.”

Eric Kolifrath says it's become a "morning ritual" to inspect for leaks on his floor of the school. Courtesy Eric Kolifrath

Last school year, a ceiling tile got so wet it “bowed out like a bowl,” Kolifrath said. So custodians wheeled in a 33-gallon trash bin to collect the water.

Another time, a leak sprang right above his classroom projector.

“That’s not a problem that my principal can fix,” Kolifrath said. “If she had a wand, she would wave it.”

That’s in part because Kolifrath’s school, which serves pre-K through eighth grade, and 28 others in the district are managed by the City of Lowell, which also looks after municipal buildings, City Manager Tom Golden said.

The setup is among the myriad ways American school buildings are maintained – which can lead to confusion over who’s responsible for repairs.

A browning ceiling tile hangs over a room this school year at Joseph G. Pyne Arts Magnet School in Lowell, Massachusetts. Courtesy Eric Kolifrath

Like many teachers nationwide, Kolifrath has crowdsourced financial support for his classroom.

The city is putting $2.3 million into all Lowell schools during the 2022-2023 school year and investing $389 million to build a new high school, Golden said.

The roof at J. G. Pyne was repaired last year, he said. But maintaining ceiling tiles “would be the responsibility of the custodians who work for the school department,” Golden said.

“With the number of buildings that we have, there are always going to be issues and challenges on a day-to-day basis, which our lands and buildings professionals will be out there to rectify.”

The school funding gap keeps getting worse

The money spent on fixing or building US public schools falls woefully short of what’s needed to get buildings up to standard, according to the latest “State of Our Schools” report by the 21st Century School Fund, the International WELL Building Institute and the National Council on School Facilities.

And the gap is widening. In 2016, public schools were underfunded by $46 billion a year (or $60 billion, when adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars), the report said. By 2021, that annual deficit had grown by $25 billion.

Where does funding for public school buildings come from? The funding sources and ratios vary across the country. But in general, “local school districts bear the heaviest responsibilities for school construction capital funding,” according to the 2021 “State of Our Schools” report. From fiscal years 2009 to 2019: Local school districts paid 77% of the costs for PK-12 capital projects. States paid 22% to districts for capital outlay and debt service. But state support is highly variable, with 11 states paying nothing to eight states paying over half the district-level capital costs. Public school districts got slightly more than 1% from federal funds for school construction.

“We have a gap of about $85 billion in our country from where we are to where we need to be to be current with codes and standards and the quality of education,” Pickens said. “In that, $57 billion is in capital improvements, and about $28 billion is in M&O – which is maintenance and operation.”

The trend is untenable as more American schools cross the half-century mark.

Even with regular maintenance, “about 50 years is a good place to (consider) replacing a school.” Pickens said.

But funding sources vary widely, and it can be hard to secure money for school improvements without raising taxes.

“Every state handles school facility improvements a little differently,” said John Heim, executive director of the National School Boards Association. But “it usually comes from property taxes.”

And that can put already-disadvantaged students in a more dire situation.

“It affects poor districts or those that have lower tax bases more than it does wealthier districts that have more tax base to call on,” Heim said.

“And so as things get more expensive, you’re going to see that gap continue to grow.”

As schools deteriorate, so do teachers’ and students’ performance

At Reading Memorial High School in Massachusetts, a longtime teacher runs up to seven fans in his classroom to try to compensate for the school’s lack of air conditioning.

But those efforts don’t prevent him or his students from fading as the day gets hotter.

“I don’t get the same caliber of work from them as I do during those cooler months when they’re actually comfortable,” he said.

“I find myself adjusting my lessons as the day goes on because I know I’m not going to have the energy or mental capacity to do what I did earlier in the day because I’m so uncomfortable.”

The temperature in his classroom can reach 100 degrees, and the humidity can make you “slip on the floor,” the teacher said.

That’s especially problematic because he has an autoimmune disease and has suffered dizzy spells that have forced him to leave the classroom to splash cold water on his face, he said.

HVAC preventative maintenance has been completed at all Reading Public Schools, the district said.

“We are committed to ensuring high quality air ventilation in all of our classrooms,” Superintendent Thomas Milaschewski told CNN in a statement.

The district “will continue to encourage staff to open windows, as feasible, to increase air flow in classrooms, and to bring students outside when weather permits,” the superintendent wrote.

But that brings little comfort to the veteran high school teacher – especially because the building’s central and main offices are air-conditioned, he said.

“I cannot think of many professions where people have graduate degrees or have a license where they would tolerate something like this,” the teacher said. “I don’t understand where the disconnect is, where you want your teachers to be the best that they can possibly be but you’re not even making them comfortable.”

Kids miss entire school days because some buildings don’t have heat

While nonexistent air conditioning can hinder students at the beginning and end of the school year, the opposite problem can have even greater consequences.

“We tend to have to close schools down more for heating issues than for cooling issues,” said Washington, the Baltimore school district COO. “Wintertime goes from December all the way up until March.”

Baltimore teachers have reported classrooms as cold as 40 degrees. More than a third of the schools’ boilers are over 20 years old. Some pipes were installed when Harry Truman was President.

Beyond that, one elementary school had no running water for more than two weeks last winter, according to a school district memo.

“The district is severely underfunded,” Washington said.

“Baltimore’s already taxed at a higher rate than the surrounding counties,” she said. But “Baltimore city has a low tax base. We have a disproportionate share of households that live below the poverty line. And so if we’re just depending on property taxes, we might not get there at all.”

She hopes the state will increase funding for Baltimore city schools “so that we won’t continue to have the infrastructure challenges that we’re having.”

If not, Washington said, “I cannot guarantee that our students will have the learning environments that they deserve and that they need to be successful.”

Why this year may be even more challenging

Fallout from the pandemic could make infrastructure problems harder to fix this year, Pickens said.

Some school districts haven’t been able to complete projects due to supply chain shortages or an increase in the cost of raw materials, he said. And remote or hybrid learning during the pandemic means some parts of schools may have been neglected.

A demonstrator in Columbus, Ohio, rallies in support of teachers at a Columbus Education Association protest in August. Barbara J. Perenic/Columbus Dispatch/USA Today Network

“We’ve had two years of less use than we had,” Pickens said. “And because students were not in buildings, we probably did not continue the maintenance and operation and capital improvements of those school buildings because students weren’t in them.”

Inflation this year could also be getting in the way of school improvements, Heim said.

“If we’re talking about an improvement that was to be made for the 2022-2023 school year, that bid process probably would have taken place back in January, February,” Heim said.

“That’s when we were seeing those incredibly high building costs. And it’s also when we were experiencing all those supply chain issues. So … schools may not have been able to get the projects done in time or weren’t able to do as much because of the supply chain issues and inflation issues.”

Cockroaches make lunch a scary scene, teacher says

Schools that aren’t well-maintained can attract unwelcome visitors. Around one school building, cockroaches have occupied corners, carpets, sinks and sticky glue insect traps, an Oakley, California, high school teacher said.

The bugs can be seen every day, inside and outside the school. They grow as long as 2 inches and seem to have multiplied after school resumed in-person learning last year, the teacher said.

The infestation at Freedom High School is so bad it inspired an Instagram account. The teacher verified the cockroach photos were taken at the school and shared some personal ones from the last week of August. The teacher submitted work orders about the cockroaches in recent years but didn’t report them directly to the administration, they said.

Dead cockroaches lie inside and outside a bug trap at Freedom High School in Oakley, California. Provided to CNN

Liberty Union High School District Superintendent Eric Volta recognized Freedom High School in the social media photos, he said. The district sprays schools for pests quarterly, he said, and if there are additional needs, pest services are requested.

“We fog, we spray, we bait, we trap. We do whatever we need to do to try to correct the issue,” Volta said. “We’ve been having triple-digit temperatures out here, and these things are coming up out of wherever they are just looking for water.”

A big concern is cockroaches shed, leaving the teacher wary of eating in most places. Some students haven’t wanted school lunches because of the roaches, the teacher said.

But all kitchens and snack bars go through health inspections. So Volta is not worried about the pests in eating areas, he said.

“I guess this is something that probably most teachers deal with,” the teacher said.

While cockroaches might not be in every school, “there’s these problems that you have that are constant, but that you just go on teaching and doing what you have to do, knowing that you almost have no control over the situation,” the teacher said.

“I can keep stepping on cockroaches and killing them, but there’s always more. The problem just sort of needs to be addressed instead of just putting Band-Aids on it.”

The consequences of inaction … and possible solutions

And if America keeps underfunding public schools, the impact could last generations, said Mary Kusler, the National Education Association’s senior director for advocacy.

“It’s really setting up a continued structural imbalance between the haves and the have-nots … unless we step up and push to ensure that a child’s ZIP code does not determine the education they receive,” she said.

Increasing funding for school infrastructure would “improve a lot of things in our country, including putting out into the workforce a more vibrant and more educated workforce,” said Pickens, the director of the National Council on School Facilities.

“Also, by improving schools, somebody has to do the work on a school building. We’re putting people to work. We’re getting taxes from those people, from the labor. We’re increasing jobs. All of those things are factors in providing funds for school buildings.”

Teachers and supporters rally in 2019 in Annapolis, Maryland. Baltimore union members asked for fans to be donated to cool sweltering classrooms without air-conditioning. Susan Walsh/AP

It’s in everyone’s best interest to ensure students in poorer communities have schools in which they can thrive – even if local tax revenues aren’t as plush as those in wealthier communities, said Heim, the director of the National School Boards Association.

“I think it comes down to having good formulas that can compensate for that. I think states are reevaluating those all the time,” Heim said.

“But that’s what it comes down to: affordability and helping those poorer districts with their facilities.”

That doesn’t mean wealthier school districts with state-of-the-art buildings should have anything taken away, Kusler said.

“The issue isn’t that they deserve less. The issue is actually that all of our kids deserve more,” she said.

“Ultimately, we are about creating the next generation of leaders in this country. And they will come from all over the country. Therefore, we need to make sure all of them have access to the education that they deserve.”

Christina Zdanowicz Holly Yan
Christina Zdanowicz
Holly Yan

China's summer of extreme heat and rainfall highlights threats of ...

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 —

Towns and farmlands inundated by floods, homes and roads buried by landslides, crops withering under scorching heat, hazmat-suited Covid workers collapsing from heatstroke.

Since summer began, scenes of devastation and misery have been playing out across China as the world’s most populous nation grapples with an unrelenting torrent of extreme weather emergencies.

Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent. Now, like much of the world, China is reeling from its impact.

Since the country’s rainy season started in May, heavy rainstorms have brought severe flooding and landslides to large swathes of southern China, killing dozens of people, displacing millions and causing economic losses running into billions of yuan.

In June, extreme rainfall broke “historical records” in coastal Fujian province, and parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. At the same time, a heat wave began to envelop northern China, pushing temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

That heat wave has now engulfed half the country, affecting more than 900 million people – or about 64% of the population. All but two northeastern provinces in China have issued high-temperature warnings, with 84 cities issuing their highest-level red alerts last Wednesday.

In recent weeks, a total of 71 national weather stations across China have logged temperatures that smashed records. Four cities – three in the central province of Hebei and one in Yunnan in the southwest – saw temperatures reaching 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit), according to the National Climate Center.

People queue at a Covid testing site in Beijing on June 13. NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images/FILE

The stifling heat has coincided with a surge in Covid cases, making government mandated mass testing all the more excruciating for residents – including the elderly – who must wait in long lines under the sun. It has also become a dangerous task for health workers who, as part of the government’s zero-Covid policy, are required to spend long hours outdoors covered head to toe in airtight PPE equipment as they administer the tests.

Several videos of Covid workers collapsing on the ground from heatstroke have gone viral on social media.

The heat wave has also caused power shortages in some regions and hit the country’s crop production, threatening to further push up food prices.

And the worst might be still to come, according to Yao Wenguang, a Ministry of Water Resources official overseeing flood and drought prevention.

“It is predicted that from July to August, there will be more extreme weather events in China, and regional flood conditions and drought conditions will be heavier than usual,” Yao told state-run Xinhua news agency last month.

Counting the costs

China is a “sensitive area” that has been significantly affected by climate change, with temperatures rising faster than the global average, according to the country’s latest Blue Book on Climate Change, published by the China Meteorological Administration last August.

Between 1951 and 2020, China’s annual average surface temperature was rising at a pace of 0.26 degrees Celsius per decade, the report said. Sea levels around China’s coastlines rose faster than the global average from 1980 to 2020, according to the report.

The changing climate can make extreme weather events – such as summer floods, which China has grappled with for centuries – more frequent and intense, said Johnny Chan, an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at the City University of Hong Kong.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, potentially leading to heavier rainstorms, while global warming can alter atmospheric circulation, which can contribute to extreme weather such as heat waves, Chan said.

“We should be really concerned, because these extreme weather events actually affect the most underprivileged, disadvantaged and vulnerable parts of the population – those in the rural areas, or those who don’t have air conditioning or live in very crowded conditions,” Chan said.

Residents spend their time in an air-raid shelter to escape summer heat amid a heat wave warning in Nanjing, Jiangsu province on July 12. China Daily/Reuters

For China, the sheer size of its population and economy means the scale of damage caused by extreme weather events is often massive.

Tropical cyclones, floods and droughts are estimated to cost China about $238 billion annually – the highest in the Asia Pacific region and nearly three times the estimated loss suffered by India or Japan, according to a report released last year by the World Meteorological Organization.

Heat wave-related mortality in China rose by a factor of four from 1990 to 2019, reaching 26,800 deaths in 2019, according to a Lancet study published in 2020.

New reality

Meanwhile, many Chinese are only just beginning to realize that climate change will affect them personally.

In 2019, researchers found that compared to other countries, public concerns over global warming and climate change in China were “relatively low.”

The Chinese government has promised to bring greenhouse gases to a peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

For many Chinese, the dangers of extreme weather fueled by climate change hit home last summer, when devastating floods killed 380 people in the central city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan province.

Rescuers help evacuate stranded residents at the entry to an expressway in flood-hit Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province on July 23, 2021. Cai Yang/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images/FILE

Last July, the city of 12 million was pelted with what its water station called a “once in a thousand years” downpour, but local authorities were ill-prepared and failed to heed the five consecutive red alerts for torrential rain – which should have prompted authorities to halt gatherings and suspend classes and businesses. Flood water gushed into the tunnels of the city’s subway system, trapping hundreds of passengers and killing 12 of them in a tragedy that gripped the nation.

See aftermath of devastating floods in China 01:21 - Source: CNN

Liu Junyan, climate and energy project leader for Greenpeace East Asia, said the Zhengzhou flooding was a wake-up call for the Chinese government and public.

“The central government and local governments started to be aware that climate change is such an enormous threat to society and its sustainable development,” she said, adding that she has noticed more discussions about climate change and extreme weather in China’s traditional and social media.

Since last summer, many Chinese cities have improved their emergency response systems for extreme rainfall. In May, authorities in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou suspended schools, advised residents to work from home, closed construction sites and suspended public transportation in parts of the city following alerts for torrential rains.

This June, the Chinese government released a new policy document to improve its response to climate change, which it said was not only creating long-term challenges but also made the country more vulnerable to “sudden and extreme” events.

“Climate change has already brought serious adverse impacts to China’s natural ecological system, and has continued to spread and penetrate into economy and society,” the government said in its national climate change adaptation strategy.

It vowed to make China a “climate-resilient society” by 2035, by building a nationwide system to monitor and assess climate risks, and by boosting early warning capabilities.

Liu said the policy document is a “very big and ambitious” piece of guidance for local governments, but it lacks details on implementation.

“The impact of climate change can be very localized and its threat to vulnerable communities can be very different from place to place,” she said. “Local governments still need to develop more detailed and tangible plans to implement this grand strategy.”

Twitter layoffs: Elon Musk's Twitter cuts jobs across the company ...

CNN Business —

Twitter on Friday laid off thousands of employees in departments across the company, in a severe round of cost cutting that could potentially upend how one of the world’s most influential platforms operates one week after it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk.

Numerous Twitter employees began posting on the platform Thursday night and Friday morning that they had already been locked out of their company email accounts ahead of the planned layoff notification. Some also shared blue hearts and salute emojis indicating they were out at the company.

By Friday morning, Twitter employees from departments including ethical AI, marketing and communication, search, public policy, wellness and other teams had tweeted about having been let go. Members of the curation team, which help elevate reliable information on the platform, including about elections, were also laid off, according to employee posts.

“Just got remotely logged out of my work laptop and removed from Slack,” one Twitter employee said on the platform. “So sad it had to end this way.”

Another employee said that she and other members of Twitter’s human rights team had been laid off. The employee added that she is proud of the team’s work “to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders.”

Simon Balmain, a former Twitter senior community manager who was laid off Friday, said in an interview with CNN that he lost access to Slack, email and other internal systems around 8 hours before receiving an email Friday morning officially notifying him that he’d been fired. He added that the lay off email “still didn’t provide any details really” about why he’d been let go.

“The waves of annoyance and frustration and all that stuff are absolutely mitigated by the extreme solidarity we’ve seen from people that are in the company, people that are in the same position, people that left the company in years gone by,” Balmain said. “It’s like a giant support network, which has been absolutely amazing.”

One Twitter employee who was laid off told CNN Friday that some workers are relieved to have been let go. “For me, being safe would’ve been punishment,” the employee said.

While Twitter employees were posting about being laid off, Musk on Friday appeared for a friendly interview at an investor conference and spoke about making cheaper electric vehicles and his ambitions to go to Mars. During the interview, Musk said of Twitter, “I tried to get out of the deal,” but then added, “I think there is a tremendous amount of potential … and I think it could be one of the most valuable companies in the world.”

The interviewer said that Musk had laid off “half of Twitter” and Musk nodded, although he did not comment on the remark.

(In a series of tweets Friday evening, Yoel Roth, head of Twitter’s trust and safety team, confirmed overall headcount was cut by roughly 50%. The layoffs eliminated 15% of the company’s trust and safety team, leading to reductions in customer service but little change to content moderation, according to Roth. )

In his interview, Musk appeared to frame the sweeping layoffs as necessary for a company that, like other social media firms, was experiencing “revenue challenges” prior to his acquisition as advertisers rethink spending amid recession fears.

Musk also said “a number of major advertisers have stopped spending on Twitter” in the days since the acquisition was completed.

Elon Musk spoke at an investment conference Friday morning as employees at Twitter, which he now owns, were receiving notifications that they had been laid off from the company. Baron Capital

Twitter had about 7,500 workers prior to Musk’s takeover, meaning roughly 3,700 employees were laid off. The cuts come as Musk attempts to improve the company’s bottom line after taking out significant debt financing to fund his $44 billion acquisition.

The email sent Thursday evening notified employees that they would receive a notice by 12 p.m. ET Friday that informs them of their employment status.

“If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email,” a copy of the email obtained by CNN said. “If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.”

The email added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”

The email concluded acknowledging that it will be “an incredibly challenging experience to go through” for the workforce.

Several Twitter employees on Thursday night filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Twitter is in violation of the federal and California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) after laying off some employees already. The complaint was later amended to acknowledge that while several of the plaintiffs did ultimately receive sufficient notice of their termination under the WARN Act, Twitter still allegedly failed to give sufficient notice in the case of some employees.

The WARN Act requires that an employer with more than 100 employees must provide 60 days’ advanced written notice prior to a mass layoff “affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment.”

“Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has made clear that he believes complying with federal labor laws is ‘trivial,’” Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement to CNN. “We have filed this federal complaint to ensure that Twitter be held accountable to our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly signing away their rights.”

WARN notices were filed by Twitter on Friday for nearly 1,000 impacted employees at the company’s various California offices.

Separately, other labor lawyers told CNN Friday they had begun receiving inquiries from Twitter employees questioning whether their terminations may have been unlawfully discriminatory or retaliatory.

“Former Twitter employees have reached out to us regarding their layoffs and their circumstances, and so we’re looking at all the issues — beyond appropriate notice — and to make sure the employee wasn’t laid off due to their membership in a protected category,” said Chauniqua Young, a partner at the law firm Outten & Golden.

Beyond the potential for lawsuits arising from the layoffs, other legal experts say Musk’s handling of the cuts may well create further problems for him down the road — whether in terms of attracting future talent or by keeping remaining workers satisfied.

“Once you treat people like this, they remember that,” said Terri Gerstein, a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute. “Of the people remaining, it is a certainty that none of them feel secure in their job, and I would be shocked if the remaining people were not updating their resumes right now or talking with each other about starting a union.”

Musk started his tenure at Twitter by firing CEO Parag Agrawal and two other executives, according to two people familiar with the decision.

And in less than a week since Musk acquired the company, its C-suite appears to have almost entirely cleared out, through a mix of firings and resignations. Musk has also dissolved Twitter’s former board of directors.

Many staffers on Friday summed up their feelings with a hashtag, #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense play on one previously often used by Twitter employees.

- Brian Fung and Shawn Nottingham contributed to this report

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Clare Duffy

Industries hit hardest by coronavirus in the US include retail ...

Grant Suneson

24/7 Wall Street

The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, which has been designated a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, is having a devastating impact on the U.S. economy. After peaking at 29,000 in February, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 21,000 by mid-March – a nearly 30% drop. On March 16, the Dow fell by nearly 3,000 points, the largest single-day drop in history.

As the U.S. tries to stem the spread of the virus and contain the outbreak, life is slowly grinding to a halt – and with it much of the economy. While all industries have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, some bear the brunt of the downturn much more than others. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed industry publications and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine the U.S. industries being devastated most by the outbreak.

The restaurant industry is one of the most exposed industries to major upheaval as a result of the pandemic, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended avoiding groups of over 50 people. Some cities and states have told restaurants to switch to takeout only. Millions of jobs in the sector could either be lost or severely impacted by the outbreak.

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Some American workers have already been laid off or furloughed, and more job cuts are likely. As people start to socially distance themselves, those in white collar jobs will more easily be able to work from home, while hourly workers in sectors like hospitality and retail may be let go as their companies get less business. This further jeopardizes some of the least financially secure workers in the country – jobs in these fields are often part-time and typically pay low wages.

Gambling

Much of the nation's $261 billion casino gaming industry has been shuttered because of measures taken to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and other major gaming destinations have been closed, and some staff members have been furloughed or laid off. All casinos in Massachusetts and Illinois were ordered to close for two weeks, and Maryland's casinos, racetracks, and other betting facilities were ordered to close indefinitely.

The novel coronavirus also hit the U.S. just before the beginning of one of the industry's biggest events – the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. During the 2019 tournament, Americans wagered an estimated $8.5 billion on games. With the NBA, NHL, European soccer, and nearly every other major sporting event canceled for the foreseeable future, the sports betting industry has essentially dried up.

Sports books in Las Vegas typically handle $500 million worth of bets in a given month. Though some UFC events are still ongoing as of March 16, Joe Asher, CEO of sports bookmaker William Hill, told Sports Illustrated that the entire sports betting industry will have "pretty much zero revenue" until sporting events resume. This could take at least six weeks.

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Airlines

The airline industry will likely be especially hard hit by the pandemic, as international and even domestic flights are restricted. The International Air Transport Association projected that the U.S. and Canadian airline industry could lose as much as $21.1 billion in revenue. The worldwide industry could see a decline in passenger revenue of nearly 20% under the extensive spread scenario, which would result in an estimated $113 billion in lost revenue. The CAPA - Centre for Aviation said most airlines in the world will likely go bankrupt by the end of May 2020.

United Airlines said it was bracing for a $1.5 billion revenue drop in March 2020 compared to March 2019. It also plans to cut capacity in half for April and May. Other U.S. airlines are planning similar actions, as well as freezing hiring and asking employees to take unpaid leave. In what may be a sign of things to come, Norwegian Airlines laid off 90% of staff on March 16. As of 2018, there were over 445,000 workers in the airline industry. A group representing many of the country's largest airlines asked the government for $25 billion in grants and $25 billion in low or no-interest loans.

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Hotels

The U.S. hotel industry employs over 1.6 million Americans, making it the ninth-largest sector in the U.S. in terms of total workers. But as people have stayed home, demand for hotels has declined sharply. In the first week of March, there was an 11.6% decline in revenue per room available in U.S. hotels compared to the same week of 2019, according to hotel research firm STR.

In response, hotels in New York City, Seattle, Knoxville, Tennessee, and more have begun to lay off dozens of workers. Hotel workers in major tourist destinations have been told to brace for job losses as well. The hotel chain Marriott just announced plans to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Industry groups urged Congress to pass a supplemental aid package to help hotels through the pandemic.

Movie theaters

It's been some time now that health officials nationwide have urged social distancing, and movie theaters felt the impact of that recommendation. Now that the CDC has requested that Americans avoid gathering in groups of 50 or more, movie theaters have no choice but close down. U.S. box office revenue for the weekend of March 13-15 came in at just over $54 million, the lowest since September 2000. For context, no weekend box office in 2020 pulled in less than $80 million.

The effects could stretch for months, as blockbusters like "Mulan," "A Quiet Place Part II," "Fast 9," and the latest James Bond film, "No Time to Die," were slated to be released in the coming weeks, but all these releases were pushed back. Over 100 theaters have closed, and more are expected to follow suit. Major theater chain AMC has announced the closure of all U.S. theaters. Regal announced it would close all of its theaters until further notice, more than 500 in total, leaving over 25,000 employees without work.

Live sports

The postponement or suspension of sports leagues like the NBA, NHL, XFL, and more have created a huge vacuum not just for the leagues and players, but also the wide-ranging ecosystem that has cropped up around them. FiveThirtyEight estimates that, since about 21% of the NBA season remained when games were halted, the league stands to lose $350 million-$450 million from ticket sales alone if those games are not played – and that does not even include lost playoff revenues.

The league could also lose up to $200 million in non-ticket revenue, from sources like parking, concessions, merchandise, and more. Still, many NBA franchises – along with their owners and star players – have committed millions of dollars to ensure that arena staff hourly workers are paid during the pandemic. There are an estimated 300 staff workers in a 20,000-seat arena, like those that host NBA games.

The NHL does not make as much as the NBA but could lose a larger share of its expected yearly revenue. Because the league does not draw as many TV viewers, it relies more heavily on ticket sales. The MLB could be affected as well, as it will not begin games until mid-May, at the earliest.

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Cruises

After a luxury Diamond Princess ship became the first large outbreak cluster outside China, with at least 634 confirmed COVID-19 infections among passengers and crew and two deaths, the cruise industry has taken a huge hit. More recently, a Grand Princess cruise docking in Oakland resulted in 28 cases of the disease. As of March 16, there were at least seven cruise ships in limbo because passengers tested positive or were showing symptoms of the virus and no country was willing to take them in.

Shares of three major cruise companies – Royal Caribbean, Carnival Corp., and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings – dropped over 50% in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Industry group Cruise Lines International Association said the cruise industry contributes $53 billion to the U.S. economy every year. The White House has made clear it intends to help the industry weather the financial difficulty with some sort of relief bill.

Shipping

A supply management survey found that three out of every four American businesses experienced a disruption to some part of their supply line due to the irregularities in the shipping industry stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. China is one of the world's foremost shipping hubs, but COVID-19 has forced the country to close ports and send factory workers home. The International Chamber of Shipping said the pandemic has cost the worldwide industry around $350 million per week.

The outbreak has affected everyone in this highly globalized industry, and Americans are no exception. In January, North American transport volume was down 9.4% compared to the same month of 2019. There are over 225,000 Americans working in the freight transportation industry, and the disruption has jeopardized over billions in wages for these workers.

Film production

Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks announced that he tested positive for the coronavirus. Consequently, production of the film he was shooting at the time was shut down. Hanks' film was one of a dozens of films and TV shows that halted production – either out of caution or because a cast or crew member had symptoms, tested positive, or came into contact with someone who did. These films likely would have likely contributed billions of dollars to the U.S. box office and economy in other ways.

Each time a production shuts down, it puts hundreds of crew members and cast out of work. Movies often have well over 500 crew members, including drivers, lighting technicians, directors, production assistants, camera operators, and more. Some of the larger films that have extensive visual effects have thousands of people credited. There are over 220,000 Americans working in the film production industry.

Automakers

As the COVID-19 pandemic lingers, the demand for cars is decreasing. Workers who are concerned about their job security and try to save their money for emergency use are less likely to buy a car. This jeopardizes the jobs of the nearly 1.3 million Americans who work in new and used car dealerships. Researchers have predicted that American auto sales could decline year-over-year by as much as 20% in 2020. The shares of General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler have all lost over 25% of their value since the beginning of March.

Automakers have also faced serious supply chain disruptions as parts imports from China have become much more difficult as the country grapples with the disease. Four out of every five cars made in the world rely on parts manufactured in China.

Oil and gas

As people continue to work from home and avoid travel, the demand for oil and gas has plummeted. The International Energy Agency projects a decline in demand of 90,000 barrels of oil in 2020 compared to 2019. Prior to the pandemic, the IEA projected an increase in demand of over 800,000 barrels. The effects on the oil industry have been especially dire because China, the world's top energy consumer, was the first to be hit as the source of the outbreak. The price of oil has been in an unprecedented freefall, selling for under $30 per barrel as of March 16.

Retail

The U.S. retail industry has been devastated by the coronavirus outbreak, and a number of stores have already had to close their doors. Apple has closed all stores outside of China until at least March 27, and other major retailers in fashion, sporting goods stores, and tech have made similar announcements, with more coming in every day.

Urban Outfitters, Nike, and other companies have announced plans to pay workers at least in the short term for lost wages. This is good news for the employees, many of whom are among the lowest-paid American workers, but it will, of course, mean the companies' bottom lines will take a hit. One Jefferies analyst told CNBC, "With stores accounting for 75% of sales for most retailers, we anticipate massive EPS [earnings per share] declines for 1Q, especially as most retailers appear to be paying employees during the 2 week closures."

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Tech

Many Chinese factories in locked-down areas have closed operations since late January. This has had a major impact on the ability of many American tech companies to continue producing their products regularly. Production of video game consoles, smartphones, and smartwatches are all predicted to drop by over 10%. Apple could lose as much as $67 billion because of an iPhone shortage. Graphics card producer Nvidia lowered its projected earnings for the first quarter of 2020 by $100 million, saying the pandemic is disrupting its supply chain.

Apple, Samsung, and Google all closed corporate offices and factories in China. Many major tech companies are headquartered in and around Seattle – one of the areas hardest hit by the virus. Microsoft said it would continue to pay its 4,500 hourly employees, even as it sent many workers home.

Conventions

As mass gatherings of people have been declared unsafe, many of the massive conventions that draw thousands of attendees from across the globe have been canceled. The cancellations of tech conferences like E3, SXSW, and more have likely cost local economies over $1.1 billion. In 2019 alone, SXSW's full-time and seasonal workers had an economic impact of over $150 million on the Austin, Texas, economy, according to consulting firm Greyhill Advisors and SXSW.

The cancellation of the E3 conference has also cost the video game industry its biggest week of the year. New games and consoles are often unveiled at the event, which usually hosts over 65,000 guests a year. Facebook and Google also had to scrap their own conventions. This moratorium on large gatherings could devastate the 55,000-person industry of convention and trade show organizers in the U.S.

Food service

Between full- and limited-service restaurants, caterers, buffets, and more, well over 10 million Americans work in the food service industry. Major cities have ordered restaurants to only offer takeout options as a preventive measure. This could jeopardize billions in wages for employees, many of whom are hourly workers. Chinese restaurants have been particularly hard hit over unfounded stigmas related to the outbreak.

Nation's Restaurant News reported that in Seattle, restaurants were expected to lose 20% of sales in the first week of March. By March 16, a dozen states had imposed restrictions on restaurants hosting dine-in customers. On the weekend of March 14, restaurants in most of America's major cities reported a decline in occupancy of anywhere from 30%-64%. Research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that over 600 food service industry job cuts were directly related to the pandemic, and that 7.4 million jobs in the sector could either be cut or severely impacted.

Theme parks

Large theme parks have stopped welcoming guests in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, closing a massive industry for the foreseeable future. Disney is by far the largest theme park operator in the world, with six parks – all of which were shuttered initially as the outbreak spread. Disney reported over $26.2 billion revenue from its parks in fiscal 2019. Dividing this evenly throughout the year would mean the company could lose revenue of around $500 million per week that its parks were closed, assuming the same earnings this year.

Other prominent parks have been affected as well. All SeaWorld parks are closed; Six Flags temporarily closed 10 of its parks; and Universal Studios closed its Orlando and Hollywood parks through the end of March. Nationwide, there are nearly 200,000 people who work at theme parks, many of whom could be out of work throughout the worst of the coronavirus outbreak.

Gyms

Gyms were already facing challenges from home exercise companies like Peloton, and social distancing recommendations and the fear of the spread of the coronavirus have further added to the challenges large gyms and group fitness classes face. Gyms and boutique fitness classes have ballooned into a $94 billion industry that is now in jeopardy.

Equinox had to close its gyms in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and Barry's Bootcamp cut capacity in half. In Los Angeles, the mayor ordered all gyms to be closed. Gold's Gym and Orangetheory shuttered all corporate-owned locations. Planet Fitness stock lost 48% of its market value.

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Construction

As the coronavirus devastates the U.S. economy, companies will likely pull back on expansion, leaving a huge gap in the construction industry. Two large airlines, Delta and United, each announced plans to reduce capital investment by $2 billion each as a result of the pandemic's economic impact. Companies in many other sectors are expected to follow suit.

Smaller construction companies may have to lay off workers as their supply of equipment and parts from China is disrupted. There are an estimated 7.6 million Americans working in the construction sector who could be affected by these changes.

Transportation

With Americans working from home and staying in instead of visiting bars and restaurants, ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft are seeing their potential ridership dissipate. Both companies announced they would stop letting different users share the same car.

Uber has pledged financial assistance to drivers who are quarantined and not able to work, though this would likely not impact most of the estimated 900,000 U.S. drivers. Many drivers are reporting 50% declines in income as fewer people use ride sharing services. Uber's stock has also cratered, going from over $40 per share in February to less than $19 as of March 17.

24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

Major foreign aid groups suspend work in Afghanistan after Taliban ...

CNN —

At least half a dozen major foreign aid groups have said they are temporarily suspending their operations in Afghanistan after the Taliban barred female employees of non-governmental organizations from coming to work.

“We cannot effectively reach children, women and men in desperate need in Afghanistan without our female staff,” aid organizations Save the Children, Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE International said in a joint statement Sunday.

“Whilst we gain clarity on this announcement, we are suspending our programmes, demanding that men and women can equally continue our lifesaving assistance in Afghanistan,” said the statement, which was signed by the heads of the three NGOs.

Another aid group, the International Rescue Committee, said that of the more than 8,000 people it employs in Afghanistan, more than 3,000 are women. “If we are not allowed to employ women, we are not able to deliver to those in need,” it said in a statement on Sunday, announcing it was pausing operations in the country.

Afghanaid also suspended its work in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s move, while Islamic Relief said it had been forced to “temporarily suspend non-lifesaving activities in Afghanistan.”

The Taliban administration in Afghanistan has ordered all local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to stop their female employees from coming to work, according to a letter by the Ministry of Economy sent to all licensed NGOs.

David Wright, chief operating officer for Save the Children International, told CNN on Monday that the organization was unable to “reach tens of thousands of vulnerable mothers and children right across the country” because of the ban.

“We can’t get out to work because we need our female colleagues to help us get access to women and children. You can’t access young mothers or young children in education if you don’t have female staff, because it’s not appropriate in Afghanistan to have all-male staff dealing with young women or children,” he said.

The ministry in the letter – whose validity its spokesman Abdul Rahman Habib confirmed to CNN – cites as reasons for the decision the non-observation of Islamic dress rules and other laws and regulations of the Islamic Emirate.

“Lately there have been serious complaints regarding not observing the Islamic hijab and other Islamic Emirate’s laws and regulations,” the letter said, adding that as a result “guidance is given to suspend work of all female employees of National and international non-governmental organizations.”

The new restrictions mark yet another step in the Taliban’s brutal crackdown on the freedoms of Afghan women, following the hardline Islamist group’s takeover of the country in August 2021.

Although the Taliban have repeatedly claimed they will protect the rights of girls and women, they have in fact done the opposite, stripping away the hard-won freedoms for which women have fought tirelessly over the past two decades.

“The supreme leader is doing whatever he can… to make women as powerless as possible, even if there are other factions that say otherwise,” Afghan human rights activist Pashtana Durrani told CNN on Sunday.

“The Taliban don’t care. They want women to be as limited as possible, especially the supreme leader,” she added.

Earlier this week, the Taliban government suspended university education for all female students in Afghanistan.

In a televised news conference on Thursday, the Taliban’s higher education minister said they had banned women from universities for not observing Islamic dress rules and other “Islamic values,” citing female students traveling without a male guardian. The move sparked outrage among women in Afghanistan.

A group of women took to the streets in the city of Herat on Saturday to protest the university ban. Video footage circulating on social media showed Taliban officials using a water cannon to disperse the female protesters. Girls could be seen running from the water cannon and chanting “cowards” at officials.

Some of the Taliban’s most striking restrictions have been around education, with girls also barred from returning to secondary schools in March. The move devastated many students and their families, who described to CNN their dashed dreams of becoming doctors, teachers or engineers.

The United Nations on Saturday condemned the Taliban’s announcement.

“Women must be enabled to play a critical role in all aspects of life, including the humanitarian response. Banning women from work would violate the most fundamental rights of women, as well as be a clear breach of humanitarian principles,” the UN statement read.

UNICEF said the order was an “egregious rollback of rights for girls and women (that) will have sweeping consequences on the provision of health, nutrition and education services for children.”

Amnesty International called for the ban to “be reversed immediately” and for the Taliban to “stop misusing their power.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Sunday it was particularly concerned about the future of Afghanistan’s healthcare system and female patients.

The ICRC said that it supports 45 health structures in Afghanistan, including hospitals and medical schools. Among others, it pays the salaries of 10,483 health workers – 33% of whom are women.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also condemned the move Saturday. “Deeply concerned that the Taliban’s ban on women delivering humanitarian aid in Afghanistan will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions,” he wrote on Twitter. “Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world. This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”

“It poses mortal risks to millions who depend on life-saving assistance. Taliban ignoring their most basic responsibilities to their people,” West tweeted.

“Those organizations operative in Afghanistan are obliged to comply with the laws and regulations of our country,” he tweeted Sunday, adding, “We do not permit anyone to state irresponsible words or make threats about the decisions or officials of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the title of humanitarian aid.”

Chris Liakos Ehsan Popalzai Sahar Akbarzai Mohammed Tawfeeq Ivana Kottasová

Chinese homebuyers refuse to pay mortgages on unfinished ...

Hong Kong CNN Business —

China’s real estate crisis is escalating, raising concerns about growing risks in the banking system.

Desperate homebuyers across dozens of cities are refusing to pay mortgages on unfinished homes, according to state media reports and economists at international banks.

In China, real estate firms are allowed to sell homes before completing them, and customers have to start repaying mortgages before they are in possession of the new property. These funds are used to finance construction by the developers.

The payment boycott comes as a growing number of projects have been delayed or stalled by a cash crunch that saw giant developer Evergrande default on its debt last year and several other companies seek protection from creditors. Home prices are also falling, meaning buyers may be locked into a property that is now worth less than they agreed to pay.

Analysts fear that a payment strike among homebuyers could lead to further defaults by developers, placing additional strain on China’s banks at a time when the world’s second largest economy is struggling to recover from a sharp Covid-related slowdown.

“Presales are the most common way of selling homes in China, so the stakes there are high,” Nomura analysts said in a research report on Thursday.

At least seven major lenders, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (IDCBF), China Construction Bank (CICHF), and Agricultural Bank of China (ACGBF), said Thursday that they believed the risks were manageable, adding that they were monitoring the situation closely. Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities were holding emergency talks with banks.

According to multiple state media reports and data compiled by Shanghai-based research firm China Real Estate Information Corporation (CRIC), buyers across 18 provinces and 47 cities have stopped making payments since the end of June.

Tianmu News, a state-owned digital media outlet, said Thursday that buyers of homes at 100 unfinished projects or more had jointly announced they would stop paying their mortgages. These projects are scattered across central, southern and eastern China. One media report estimated 46,000 homebuyers were involved at just 14 of those projects.

“The number is still growing,” the Tianmu report said, citing statistics it had obtained from some buyers.

Nomura analysts estimate that developers delivered only around 60% of homes they pre-sold between 2013 and 2020, while China’s outstanding mortgage loans rose by 26.3 trillion yuan ($3.9 trillion) in the same period.

Experts say trouble has been brewing for a while, and it could lead to financial and social unrest.

Country Garden's Fengming Haishang residential development in Shanghai. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Citi analysts said that the boycott could boost bad debts at Chinese banks by $83 billion, and cause social instability at a time when the country is already grappling with rising protests over the deteriorating health of small, rural banks.

ANZ’s senior China economist Betty Wang believes the scale of the problem is much bigger. She estimates that 1.5 trillion yuan ($223 billion) of mortgage loans, or 4% of banks’ total outstanding mortgage loans, could be affected by the movement.

“What concerns us is if more home buyers cease payment, the spreading trend will not only threaten the health of the financial system but also create social issues amid the current economic downturn,” she wrote in a report on Thursday.

New home prices in 70 cities fell for a ninth straight month in May, according to recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics. Property sales have also slumped, as buyers back away from the market amid rising uncertainty about their jobs and income.

The trouble in China’s real estate sector began in 2020, when Beijing started cracking down on easy credit for property firms, which has resulted in a cash crunch for many major developers.

Evergrande, the country’s most indebted real state firm, was labeled a defaulter last fall and is undergoing debt restructuring. The developer still has many property projects across the country that are not finished yet, according to company filings.

The real estate sector accounts for as much as 30% of China’s GDP.

According to the Tianmu report, buyers of an Evergrande project in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province, fired “the first shot” in the current repayment protest.

“The Evergrande Longting project in Jingdezhen must fully resume work before October 20, 2022,” they wrote in an open letter on June 30, published on the internet and widely circulated by media. “If not, all the owners who have not paid off their loans will stop repaying the mortgage,” the letter read, adding that any loss should be borne by banks, local governments, and the developer.

In an editorial on Wednesday, the state-owned Securities Times warned that if more buyers suspend mortgage repayments, the property market could take another deep hit and the financial system could suffer a systemic crisis.

“We must beware of the risk spreading from the repayment suspension for unfinished homes,” the paper said.

Homebuyers are “the most innocent,” because they are just desperate and have no way out, it said. But if the problem is not solved, it will cause further damage.

“Although financial institutions have real estate as collateral, the undelivered projects can only become bad debts. When bad debts increase, it may cause systemic financial risks,” it added.