DETROIT — Free agency technically began Thursday, but the Tigers could skip the preliminaries.

They finished the 2024 season with no free agents, so there are no early negotiations or decisions on qualifying offers to tend to. The one player with an option — a team option — is pitcher Casey Mize, but that is a mere formality.

The Tigers won’t exercise that $3.1 million option for 2025. Instead, they will pay Mize a $10,000 buyout and retain control. Mize can either re-sign or head to arbitration.

That’s not to say team president Scott Harris and his staff don’t have some decisions to make. They have until Monday to either reinstate or remove four players from the 60-day injured list to or from the 40-man roster.

The four players are shortstop Javier Báez (hip), right-handed pitchers Alex Faedo (shoulder), Sawyer Gipson-Long (Tommy John surgery) and Brendan White (elbow). Báez, Faedo and Gipson-Long are expected to be put back on the 40-man.

White, who debuted in 2023 but has struggled to stay healthy, could be designated for assignment.

Players currently on the 40-man roster who may be vulnerable include pitchers Ricky Vanasco and Bryan Sammons, and utility players Ryan Vilade and Bligh Madris.

The Tigers also have until Monday to add any potential minor-league free agents to the roster. They did so last year with pitcher Keider Montero. There are no obvious candidates this year, but here is a partial list of soon-to-be minor-league free agents:

Pitchers: Miguel Diaz, Wilkel Hernandez, Jake Higginbotham, Garrett Hill, Freddy Pacheco, Angel Reyes, Devin Sweet, Andrew Vasquez, Troy Watson, Adam Wolf.

Catchers: Eliezer Alfonso, Anthony Bemboom, Tomas Nido.

Infielder: Riley Unroe.

Outfielder: Oscar Mercado.

Andrea Castillo | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has promised that, if reelected, he will kick out millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Trump and his surrogates have offered sparse details for how he would carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history,” but have cemented the goal as a top priority. What is known: The strategy would rely on military troops, friendly state and local law enforcement, and wartime powers.

“No one’s off the table,” Tom Homan, Trump’s former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in July. “If you’re in the country illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.”

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said the administration would start by deporting immigrants who have committed crimes.

At a campaign rally earlier this month in Aurora, Colo., Trump said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 “to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.”

The ex-president went on to say that he would send “elite squads” of federal law enforcement officers to “hunt down, arrest and deport” every migrant gang member. Those who attempt to return to the U.S. would be served with 10-year prison sentences without parole, he said, adding that any migrant who kills a U.S. citizen or law enforcement officer would face the death penalty.

How many people would Trump go after?

It’s unclear.

In May, Trump told Time magazine he would target 15 million to 20 million people who he said are living illegally in the U.S. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center estimates the actual number to be about 11 million as of 2022. More than 2 million people have entered the country illegally since then.

“Let’s start with 1 million,” Vance told ABC News in August.

During his entire presidency, from January 2017 to January 2021, Trump deported about 1.5 million immigrants, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of federal figures — far fewer than the 2 million to 3 million he speculated about deporting in a 2016 interview as president-elect. The Biden administration is on pace to match Trump’s deportation numbers.

What powers would Trump invoke to justify deportations?

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 allows the president to arrest, imprison or deport immigrants from a country considered an enemy of the U.S. during wartime. Congress passed the law as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts — four laws that tightened restrictions on foreign-born Americans and limited criticism of the government, when the country was on the brink of war with France.

The law has been used three times in American history: during the War of 1812 and World War I and after the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.

During WWI, federal authorities placed 6,300 “enemy aliens” — many from Germany — into internment camps.

By the end of WWII, more than 31,000 people from Japan, Germany and Italy, as well as some Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, had been interned at camps and military facilities — in addition to the more than 100,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly relocated to the same camps and detained under different legal grounds, said Gabriel “Jack” Chin, a UC Davis professor who studies criminal and immigration law.

Chin said he isn’t convinced that Trump would make the Alien Enemies Act the cornerstone of his immigration policy because the U.S. is not in a declared war with another nation.

“It would have to rest on an argument that random immigration — that is to say immigration based on individual decisions of individual people — is the equivalent of an invasion from a nation-state,” he said. “And that would have to be based on an idea that foreigners as a group are a nation.”

Trump has also said he would deploy National Guard troops under the orders of sympathetic governors.

“If I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military,” he told Time.

Federal law limits the involvement of military troops in civilian law enforcement.

In 2018, Trump sent 5,800 active-duty troops to the southwestern border amid the arrival of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America. Initially the troops performed support work such as laying razor wire as a deterrent to crossing, but later the White House expanded their authority to allow them to use force and provide crowd control to protect border agents.

Last year, President Joe Biden sent 1,500 Army and Marine Corps troops to fill critical “capability gaps” at the border as the administration lifted the Title 42 border expulsions policy that Trump had invoked to turn away asylum seekers and other would-be immigrants as the COVID-19 pandemic raged.

Trump has promised to go further during a second term by recalling thousands of troops from overseas to be stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border. He has also explored using troops to assist with deportations and confronting civil unrest.

Is it legal?

Using the Alien Enemies Act, Trump could conduct rapid deportations without the typically required legal processes. He could also circumvent federal law to use military troops in a broader law enforcement capacity to carry out arrests and removals.

But speeding up the deportation process could come with catastrophic consequences, Chin said. Scores of U.S. citizens are already mistakenly deported.

“If the point of this was a roundup, U.S. citizens would be rounded up,” he said.

Katherine Yon Ebright, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, argued in an analysis of the law that courts would likely avoid opining on the presence or absence of an invasion, or whether the perpetrator of the alleged invasion is a foreign nation or government.

“The courts’ hesitance to weigh in on these questions heightens the risk that Trump will invoke the Alien Enemies Act despite its clear inapplicability,” she wrote. But she added that “courts may strike down an invocation of the Alien Enemies Act under modern due process and equal protection law, justiciable grounds for checking abusive presidential action.”

Tom Jawetz, deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security from 2021 to 2022, said courts tend to give deference to the president for executive determinations. But he said this one could be difficult to uphold.

“There could be opportunities for legal attack,” he said. “It sounds like they would be stretching it beyond its capacity, beyond what the text [of the law] would allow.”

Is it feasible?

Deporting millions of people would be expensive and logistically complex.

Former President Obama, who in 2013 oversaw the most deportations in a year when his administration kicked out 438,000 immigrants, relied on local police turning people over to federal immigration agents. Trump has said he would similarly rely on state and local law enforcement. But many state and local governments, including California, have since limited their cooperation with immigration agents.

Immigration courts are already overwhelmed, and more deportation cases would add to the backlog of 3.7 million cases. Lengthy delays in immigration court proceedings mean immigrants often wait years before their case is completed.

Among the rights afforded to immigrants is a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that prohibits them from being indefinitely detained if their country won’t accept them back. Countries including Venezuela and China have previously refused to cooperate with U.S. authorities on deportations.

How much would it cost?

It would cost at least $315 billion to deport the roughly 13 million people in the country illegally, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, a group that advocates for policies that welcome migrants. The deportation effort would require building hundreds of new detention facilities, as well as hiring hundreds of thousands of new immigration agents, judges and other staff.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s budget last year was about $9 billion. Significantly increasing its funding would require the backing of Congress — an uphill battle given current political divisions.

Jawetz said Trump could redirect funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense, like he did for construction of the border wall, and could also reassign personnel from other agencies to perform immigration enforcement tasks.

An analysis by CBS News found that it cost an estimated average of $19,599 to deport one person over the last five fiscal years after apprehension, detention, immigration court processes and transport out of the U.S. were taken into account. The average cost of repatriation only increases as more migrants arrive from distant countries such as Cameroon and China.

How are people preparing?

Mass deportation could rip apart deeply rooted families that include citizens and noncitizens, worsen labor shortages and lead to economic upset. Discussion of mass deportation alone would also sow fear in immigrant communities, as happened during Trump’s first term.

Jawetz said advocates for migrants are beginning to consider potential legal action. During Trump’s presidency, informal Signal and WhatsApp networks emerged across the country in which advocates and community members communicated real-time responses to policy changes they were seeing on the ground.

“We would hope and expect to see much of the same this time around” if Trump wins, the former Homeland Security counsel said. “If you think about it, just the level of anxiety people [would be] living under on a day-to-day basis over a period of years is pretty extraordinary.”

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jenny Gold | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Every week, Caitlin Scuttio stops by Target and piles her cart with pureed food pouches for her 4-year-old and twin 18-month-olds sons.

In goes a 24-pack of unsweetened applesauce. Then a 24-pack of the fruit and veggie blend. And finally, the yogurt pouches for her oldest son’s breakfast. “He’d eat six apple sauce pouches a day if I let him,” Scuttio said.

Total monthly pouch budget: $200.

“They have such a choke hold on my family. I can’t imagine our grocery list without it at this point,” she said. “We are definitely a pouch family.”

And they aren’t alone. Sales of food pouches — soft bags with plastic spouts for easy consumption — have increased 900% since 2010, overtaking jarred purees as the predominant baby food on the market. Parents generally spoon-feed jars of pureed foods for a few months in the first year of life when introducing solids, but pouches marketed to parents of toddlers and older children have prolonged pureed food eating by years.

While the occasional pouch can be part of a healthy diet, doctors and nutritionists are raising concerns that an overreliance on pouches can interfere with nutrition, long-term food preferences, dental hygiene and even speech and language development. And marketing practices can leave parents confused about what’s actually inside the packages.

“Pouches are highly processed foods,” said Dr. Steven Abrams, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. “They certainly serve as a quick snack, but we need to make sure that pouches don’t make up too much of a toddler’s diet. We want kids to learn to chew and eat foods like meat, and fruits and vegetables that are not processed.”

What’s inside varies greatly — some contain only fruit, while others have a mix of vegetables, grains, yogurt and even meat. Whereas many jarred foods contain a single ingredient like pureed peas or carrots, pouches are more often a blend that features a sweet fruit such as apple or pear as the primary ingredient.

A 2019 study found that infant and toddler food in pouches contained significantly more sugar per serving than foods available in other forms of packaging.

To be sure, there is not an epidemic of children who don’t know how to chew. But Dr. Mark Corkins, a pediatric gastroenterologist at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on nutrition, said he sometimes sees children who are so reliant on the smooth, sweet taste of pouches that they have developed food and texture aversions and refuse to eat regular fruits or vegetables.

“In the long run we’re going to pay for it,” he said.

Why are baby food pouches so popular?

Pouches are convenient: Unlike glass jars, they don’t shatter when dropped and toddlers can suck down the slurry without help from a caregiver.

“It is so dang hard to be a parent of young children in the U.S. Having [pouches] on an airplane, having them in the car — it is so convenient that I would never take that away from parents. I used pouches with my children,” said Bridget Young, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.

“The industry has gone from jars to pouches because it’s more cost-effective and convenient,” said Dr. Tanya Altmann, a pediatrician in Calabasas and author of the book What to Feed Your Baby. But it’s what’s inside that’s important, and “not all pouches are created equal.”

As a tool, she said, pouches “can be a contributor to a family’s nutrition,” but not a prime source. Those without added sugars or salt may even have advantages over other processed snacks.

Heidi Martinez, a mother of three in Pittsburg, Calif., said she always buys the pouches with at least one vegetable. As her oldest son goes through “picky stages, I like that he is still getting some kale and beets,” she said. “I don’t know that they’re actually healthier but I feel better about it.”

At the age of 7, he eats two to three pouches a day.

Manufacturers appeal to parents by marketing a pouch as “all natural,” “organic” or containing vegetables.

But the advertising on the front of a pouch doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s inside. A green pouch advertised as broccoli-pear might turn out to be little more than pear puree. And a pouch labeled something like turkey dinner “might be apple sauce with a whisper of turkey,” Young said. “And there’s nothing wrong with apple sauce. But there is something wrong when you think you’re feeding your child turkey.”

Parents of picky eaters may be particularly vulnerable to this kind of marketing.

“It’s kind of the perfect storm, when the child is transitioning to solids and trying new foods,” said Fran Fleming-Milici, director of marketing initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut. “You’re not sure of the nutrition that the child is getting.

Martinez said the real appeal, however, is the pouch itself. She considers pouches to be in the same category as a smoothie or yogurt, but in an easy to-go form.

The slippery slope of sweet, smooth purees

The early years of a child’s life are crucial for developing lifelong healthy eating habits. Babies are born with a preference for sweet foods, said Jill Castle, a pediatric dietitian in Massachusetts and author of the book “Kids Thrive at Every Size.” Typically, a child must be repeatedly introduced to various foods to get them used to different textures and flavors, such as the taste of vegetables.

Fruit puree can disguise the taste of vegetables, reinforcing sweetness, Castle said.

If a child’s diet consists mostly of pouches, “when you actually give them chopped-up carrot and peas that roll around the plate, they’re not used to that at all,” and may refuse it, said Daisy Coyle, who researches pouches at the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia.

Ideally, lumpy textures should be introduced as early as possible so the child can learn to use their tongue and jaw to manipulate and swallow food, a process that requires 30 different muscles to work together, said Susan Greenberg, a speech pathologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “We think it’s a natural process, but it’s like learning to walk,” she said.

A variety of textures is also crucial to developing a child’s long-term food preferences. “If you prolong purees and don’t introduce lumpy foods by 10 months, we have evidence that by 15 months and even 7 years, it influences food acceptance,” Greenberg said.

The full sensory experience of eating food is also important, she added — getting messy, using spoons, fingers and tiny fists to squish food and smear on a highchair and face.

Dentists also have concerns about what pouches mean for oral hygiene. Dr. Francisco Ramos-Gomez, director of the UCLA Center for Children’s Oral Health, said the way purees such as apple sauce stick to the teeth is different from eating an actual apple, and it sits on a child’s teeth before being washed. This prolonged exposure increases the acidity of the mouth, erodes the teeth and causes cavities.

But it’s all a matter of moderation, Greenberg said. “Pouches are easy, and we live in a world that’s really busy these days. I think we can all agree that it’s not a bad thing. It just can’t replace the other things.”

Do toddlers really need their own special food?

By about 12 months old, typically developing children do not need pureed food. “It was always a goal to get kids off of purees by 9 months and get them onto table food,” Castle said. “By 1 year, you’re sitting at the table with your family, and you’re eating what the whole family is eating.”

Toddlers and young children can eat most anything that an adult can eat, as long as it’s cut or prepared in a way that’s appropriate for their eating skills and doesn’t make it a choking hazard.

But brands have invented a whole new, lucrative category of toddler foods, from pouches and teething crackers to bars and puffs, Fleming-Milici said.

The major pouch manufacturers — including Gerber, Plum Organics and Happy Family Organics — did not respond to requests for comment from The Times.

In the last 12 months, American families have spent more than $466 million on baby food pouches, according to data from the market research firm NIQ.

The “Wild West” of the baby food aisle

As opposed to the tightly regulated U.S. infant formula sector, baby and toddler foods do not have their own special marketing and production rules; they are subject to the same requirements as adult foods.

“The baby food market is like the Wild West,” Castle said.

The World Health Organization came up with its own nonbinding set of standards for baby food, which included limits on fat, sugar and sodium. It also requires clear labeling of ingredients and prohibits the use of health, nutrition and marketing claims on the packaging.

A study by Coyle earlier this year published in the journal Nutrients found 60% of the baby or toddler food products for sale at the top 10 grocery stores in the U.S. failed to meet the WHO nutritional recommendations. Almost all packages included at least one prohibited marketing claim, and some had as many as 11.

Earlier this year, the FDA recalled 3 million cinnamon applesauce pouches that contained extremely high levels of lead, after dozens of children across the United States were found to be suffering from lead poisoning. The FDA does not currently set heavy-metal limits or require baby food manufacturers to test for them.

“We really need to have some U.S.-based regulations, or decide we’re following the World Health Organization’s regulations. But there needs to be more tight control,” Castle said. “These are some of our youngest, most vulnerable members of our population.”

Instead of blaming families for overusing pouches, she said, new regulations, healthier ingredients that target key nutrients, and more transparent advertising are needed. “Even just having more pouches that are predominantly veggie based and less sweet would be a really positive change,” she said.

How to see through marketing pitches

To select the healthiest pouches, nutritionist Young recommends ignoring the advertising on the front of the package — including the name of the product.

Instead, flip to the back, where the ingredients are listed in order of how much is in the package, and look for pouches that list the veggies first. A pouch that lists apple first probably will be mostly applesauce.

Beth Saltz, a pediatric dietitian in Woodland Hills, said a general rule of thumb is to make sure that all of the ingredients listed could be sold in the grocery store. If the ingredients include things such as “organic tapioca starch” or “pea protein isolate,” or even natural coloring, you might reconsider.

“A little toddler does not need those,” she said.

This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed .

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Christi Carras | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

Former “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” staffers have filed employment discrimination, harassment and retaliation complaints against Sony Pictures Entertainment after the Culver City, California-based company allegedly laid off workers who spoke out against toxic working conditions.

Shelley Ballance Ellis, a former production executive on the game shows, and Monique Diaz, a former member of the series’ clearance and licensing department, each filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department on Thursday. They previously filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board over similar issues.

Sony Pictures denied that any of its decisions were retaliatory, attributing the layoffs to a broader reorganization.

“Sony Pictures Entertainment takes all allegations of discrimination very seriously,” the studio said in a statement. “Earlier this year there was a broad reorganization of our game show group that resulted in the elimination of several roles to address redundancies and evolving business needs of a 40+-year-old operation. Those eliminations were business efficiency decisions and not retaliatory.”

Ballance Ellis identifies herself in her complaint as the highest ranking Black production executive at “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune,” as well as the head of the shows’ clearance and licensing department for 26 years. She has accused Sony of terminating her and “every diverse person” on her team because they repeatedly raised concerns about discrimination in the workplace.

Diaz was among the employees who were laid off in April. She alleges in her complaint that her employment ended after she complained about being paid significantly less than a white employee who was newly hired into a less senior role.

According to the filing, the white staff member’s annual salary was $125,000 while Diaz was making $75,000. Sony allegedly raised Diaz’s annual salary to $113,000 following her protests.

“Both workers allege they and their colleagues were terminated because they objected to racial discrimination in the workplace, the massive pay inequity Ms. Diaz experienced, the glass ceiling and other bias Ms. Ballance Ellis faced as an older Black woman,” the ex-employees’ attorneys, Hillary Benham-Baker and Peter Romer-Friedman, said Thursday in a press release.

Ballance Ellis further alleges in her complaint that after she, Diaz and their colleagues were let go, Sony replaced them with mostly younger white employees.

In addition to pay inequities and discriminatory employment practices, Ballance Ellis and Diaz also say that they and their colleagues objected to footage of Southern plantations aired on “Wheel of Fortune”; racist remarks made in the workplace and in the “Wheel of Fortune” control room about Black women on the show; and racially biased “Jeopardy!” clues, among other offensive things.

Ballance Ellis added in her unfair labor practice charge that those experiences caused her and her colleagues emotional and psychological distress, as well as economic harm.

“The past few years have been a time of significant transition and internal reorienting for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, driven by a new leadership team who are profoundly dedicated to fostering a culture of inclusivity and respect,” Sony said in its statement. “We are anchored to these values as we usher in a new era for our game shows with tenacity and circumspection.”

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Max Kim, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

SEOUL, South Korea — You’d be hard pressed to find anyone here who had anticipated that Han Kang would be awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in literature, the world’s highest literary honor.

Although the South Korean novelist had already tallied up a number of other prestigious international accolades and is widely read here, she is 53, and the award traditionally favors writers in the twilight of their careers.

“I thought that she might win it one day, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon,” said Jeong Kwa-ri, a literary critic and former professor of Korean literature at Yonsei University, Han’s alma mater. “Most of the South Korean writers who have been seen as top contenders are in their 70s and 80s.”

Recognized last week by the Swedish Academy “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” Han is the first Asian woman to win the literature Nobel in its 123-year-old history and the second South Korean Nobel laureate. Then-President Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his diplomacy with North Korea.

Han has kept a low profile following the win, reportedly refusing a celebration her father planned, citing the wars still raging in Gaza and Ukraine. But the rest of the country has been abuzz with “Han Kang Syndrome.”

As of Tuesday, the country’s book retailers have reported more than 800,000 sales of Han’s works and expect to hit the 1 million mark by the end of the week. Stores, dealing with long lines, are rapidly selling out, and printing presses have been working around the clock to produce more.

Han, who was born in 1970 in the city of Gwangju, comes from a literary family. Her father is Han Sung-won, a famous novelist who has cheerfully noted that his daughter’s stature has eclipsed his own.

“It used to be that Han Kang was known as Han Sung-won’s daughter, but now I’ve become Han Sung-won, the father of Han Kang,” he said in an interview in 2016.

Many of Han’s novels are intimate portraits of violence inflicted on ordinary lives, spanning both South Korea’s long history of authoritarian rule and the feminist struggles of the present.

Among her best-known works in South Korea is “Human Acts,” a novel about the Chun Doo-hwan military dictatorship’s massacre of civilians in 1980 following pro-democracy protests in the city of Gwangju.

Public debate about the massacre has long been an irritant for South Korean conservatives, who have at times sought to downplay the government’s role or promoted conspiracy theories that the protests were an act of North Korean subterfuge.

Under the conservative administration of former President Park Geun-hye, the daughter of another military dictator, Han was placed on a blacklist in 2014, barring her from receiving government support, along with other creatives deemed to be ideologically undesirable.

Told through multiple perspectives, “Human Acts” draws inspiration from real-life figures, including Moon Jae-hak, a high school student who was shot to death by junta forces deployed to Gwangju.

“I was so happy that I thought my heart would stop,” Kim Kil-ja, Moon’s mother, said of Han’s Nobel in an interview with local media. “Her book has managed to spread the truth about the incident to the world.”

Han’s own recommendation for those just diving into her work is “We Do Not Part,” a novel that explores a civilian massacre the South Korean government committed on the island of Jeju in 1948, a period of anti-communist paranoia. The English translation of the novel, which won France’s Prix Médicis award last year, is due in January 2025.

But the most famous — and notorious — of Han’s oeuvre is “The Vegetarian,” a darkly surreal tale about a woman who spirals into madness after vowing to give up meat. Lauded as a parable about female resistance against patriarchal South Korean society, the novel won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, an honor shared by Han and her British translator, Deborah Smith.

But the award placed the book at the center of a fierce debate about literary translations. Critics said the award-winning English translation by Smith, who had only started learning Korean a few years earlier, not only committed basic errors — such as confusing the Korean word for “foot” with “arm” — but altered the text far beyond the acceptable parameters of translation.

“Translations of Korean literature have long suffered from many obstacles, with more ‘pure’ translations failing to find success,” Jeong, the literary critic, said.

The question has long preoccupied the country’s literary scene, which has watched South Korea’s film and television industries produce worldwide hits like “Parasite” or “Squid Game” while wondering why South Korean books have failed to capture the same level of global interest.

“As a result of that, there has been an increasing tendency in translation to overlook disfigurations of the original text in favor of conforming to foreign readers’ tastes,” Jeong said. “‘The Vegetarian’ is a prime example of that.”

Writing for The Times in 2016, Charse Yun, a Korean American literary translator, acknowledged Smith’s “exquisite” sentences but said that the translation had “morphed into a ‘new creation.’”

“I find it hard to come up with an adequate analogy, but imagine the plain, contemporary style of Raymond Carver being garnished with the elaborate diction of Charles Dickens,” he wrote.

Defending her work in an essay for the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2018, Smith, who has translated two more of Han’s books, argued that, given the differences in any two languages, “there can be no such thing as a translation that is not ‘creative.’”

For many critics, the translation question is still an open one. But for better or worse, Han’s latest and most prestigious honor has now cemented the playbook for Korean literature’s global success.

Despite his doubts about Smith’s translation, Yun today sees plenty of reasons to be optimistic.

“The field was greatly opened and more people were able to access Korean literature,” Yun said of Han’s global rise.

“I’m just happy for my former students and other talented translators out there that now have an opportunity to bring other Korean voices to the field.”

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

DIXON, Calif. — Deep inside one of the world’s largest corn mazes, where the tri-tip sandwiches and soft-serve ice cream purchased at the concession stand have become but a memory and all that can be seen in any direction are dirt paths and dead-end walls of green plants whispering in the breeze, people tend to reveal themselves.

From humble beginnings with a not-very-impressive pumpkin patch two decades ago, a farming family in this Solano County town decided to move into the corn maze game, hoping to have some seasonal fun and earn a little extra cash. And then, fueled by corny ambition and creative use of Excel spreadsheets, the Cooley family of Dixon went big. Really big.

Their Cool Patch Pumpkins corn maze has caused traffic back-ups on Interstate 80. It has prompted a frenzy of 911 calls to the Solano County Sheriff’s Department from people who find themselves lost in the labyrinth. It has twice earned a Guinness World Record as the world’s largest corn maze. And in doing so, it has become “a big part” of the farm’s revenue, according to Tayler Cooley, despite the vast acreage the family farms year-round.

Over the years, the maze has also served as a towering 60-acre experiment in human psychology.

“You can learn a lot” about a person from how they behave in a corn maze, said Brett Herbst, who said he built the first one west of the Mississippi in 1996, and now has a company, the Maize, that designs and builds them each fall for farmers around the country. (Cool Patch is not one of his customers.)

Some people, it turns out, approach a hokey seasonal activity as they would an Olympic race: Speed is the goal. They grip their paper maps with tight fingers and fierce concentration. They blast around corners of corn, barely dodging small children. Woe to anyone in their group who wants to take a rest.

Others like to wander. They turn this way and that through the rustling 10-foot stalks, laughing when they get lost, and pausing for chats, snacks and selfies atop the four elevated bridges that connect different parts of the maze.

Sit quietly amongst the ears of corn, and it becomes easy to spot who is who:

“Guys, pick up the pace,” a young woman from UC Davis screamed at her companions as they ran by on a recent afternoon, explaining that they were racing against another group and could not pause to talk.

Contrast that with Amari Moore, 22, of Sacramento, who was taking a nice long break at one of the bridges. “I’m getting a little tired,” she said.

And then — and there is no nice way to put this — there are the cheaters. These are the people who, despairing of finding their way out honestly, simply smash and bash their way through the corn willy-nilly.

Or, those who lose all hope of escape and in their panic call 911 to plead for rescue from sheriff’s deputies. (The dispatchers tend to counsel waiting for help from on site — or taking the cheater’s route out.)

Mazes and labyrinths have been around for thousands of years. In Greek mythology, the Minotaur — with the head of a bull and body of a man — was imprisoned at the center of a labyrinth in Crete and ate anyone who couldn’t find their way out. Theseus managed to kill the Minotaur, but still needed help from a princess to escape.

The farm town of Dixon, population 19,000, made its mark in mazes about 20 years ago — about the time corn mazes began to take off across the U.S. thanks to new computer programming that helps farmers plot out massive labyrinths with a sinuous web of passageways.

Matt Cooley, a second-generation farmer of walnuts, tomatoes, sunflowers, wheat and alfalfa, decided to grow a few pumpkins for Halloween and sell them by the side of the road. Then, someone gave him the idea to create a maze.

The Cool Patch maze, which rises from the flatlands near Interstate 80 just before the Sacramento Valley rolls up into the Vaca Mountains, got ever larger and more creative. Tayler Cooley, Matt’s daughter-in-law, is the designer. Each year, it has a theme. This year, the words “A House Divided Shall Not Stand” are carved into the corn, along with “God Bless America.” Is it a comment on the coming election, and the country’s profoundly divided electorate?

“This year we encourage our visitors and society as a whole to band together for the greater good of our nation,” the Cooley family explains on the Cool Patch website.

In recent years, the farm has also become famous for a symbol that people can get behind no matter their political persuasion: the minions of the “Despicable Me” film franchise. In recent years, one of the farm’s employees, Juan Ramirez, has crafted giant minions out of hay bales that are visible from the freeway.

Some scholars think mazes embody paradoxes. And it may be a paradox of modern agriculture that the Cooleys’ farm is not the only one that now brings in a substantial portion of its income from a maze that sprouts for only a few weeks each autumn. (The corn from the maze is harvested in November, Tayler Cooley said, and becomes animal feed.)

Farming is a tough business, especially for small- and medium-sized farms, which can be rocked by the weather and fluctuations in commodities pricing and fuel costs.

When it comes to agritourism, corn mazes once lurked in the shadows of pumpkin patches, U-pick berry operations and apple orchard hayrides. But, perhaps because of those mythic roots and their ability to test the human psyche, they’ve exploded in popularity.

Herbst, founder of the Maize, said the first commercial corn maze he knows of was grown by a farmer in the early 1990s. Herbst built his own in 1996. These days, his company prepares maze designs for hundreds of farms. For an additional charge, his crew will carve out the maze.

“Corn maze has become a staple word for October, just like pumpkins,” he said.

In 2023, according to Guiness, a farmer in Quebec usurped Cool Patch for the title to world’s largest maze. But for the thousands of people who now view a trip to Dixon as one of their autumn rituals, it hardly matters.

“I grew up coming here,” said Becca Invanusich, 32, who was visiting on a recent Saturday from Santa Rosa with her fiance and two friends.

As a child, her maze style was to cheat: “I would just shoot right through it,” she said, gesturing to the rows of corn.

But as an adult, she said, she savors the mental challenge. Her group planned to solve the puzzle, no matter how long it took.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Andrea Chang | Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Fourth-grader Naiya White knows what you think about her twice-daily beauty regimen and her Sephora shopping trips.

“I heard all you guys were freaking out about 10-year-olds using skin care,” she says in a TikTok video posted last month, standing outside a Sephora store in Grand Junction, Colorado. “So let’s go pick some out!”

Moments later, White is making her way down the hot pink Glow Recipe aisle in an oversize Lilo & Stitch T-shirt and sparkly green eyeliner, ticking off her favorite products in rapid succession.

“I’d recommend this avocado cleanser; it’s nourishing and gentle,” she says, holding up a $28 tube of face wash. “The mist is also a yes — it makes your skin look super glowy and it’s hydrating. This moisturizer is also one of my favorites and it smells delicious. The hyaluronic Plum Plump balm is a great sleep mask for lips.”

In conclusion, she says with more than a hint of sass, “For all the cranky, musty, dusty adults out there who think little kids shouldn’t be using skin care … get it together!”

Naiya, 10, is part of a fast-growing army of preteens who are swarming into beauty stores around the country and buying up cleansers, moisturizers, toners, face masks and, in some cases, potent anti-wrinkle serums, exfoliants and peels that are intended to slow the aging process in much older consumers. They’re showing off their multi-hundred-dollar hauls and elaborate morning and nighttime routines on TikTok, where the catchphrase “Sephora Kids” has been hashtagged more than 11,000 times.

The obsession with skin care among Gen Alpha — typically defined as those born between 2010 and 2024 — is leading to a windfall of unexpected business for the booming $164 billion global skin-care industry, which historically has targeted women, not girls. But cosmetics brands and the retailers that carry their products are facing a delicate balancing act as they navigate the phenomenon and figure out how to market to a growing cohort of impressionable customers.

“I don’t want to see younger kids using active ingredients, using exfoliating products, because it’s just not necessary,” said Shai Eisenman, founder and chief executive of Bubble, one of the skin-care lines most coveted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers. “We have a responsibility as a brand, and that responsibility is not to sell as many products as possible.”

In June, cosmetics chain Ulta Beauty released an analysis of customer data that showed members of Gen Alpha become interested in beauty much earlier than their predecessors.

“While Gen Z females started experimenting with beauty products and services around age 13, Gen Alpha is eclipsing them by five years — starting at the average age of 8 for females and males,” the report said. “They also start more concretely defining what beauty means to them around the age of 11.”

The burgeoning skin-care trend, which Ulta Beauty began noticing in the last year, is “driven by the rise of new skincare rituals and trending products on TikTok,” a spokesperson said in a statement, adding that Gen Alpha overwhelmingly views skin care as a form of self-care and wellness.

Skin-care mania has divided millennial parents, many of whom grew up washing their faces in the shower with a bar of soap — if at all — and now are baffled by the multistep get-ready-with-me videos that their children are diligently following on social media.

Dermatologists and estheticians say the unease is more than just the usual hand-wringing of an older generation. They worry influencers are pushing children to splurge on products that in some cases could cause damage to sensitive young skin, and are concerned the craze is kick-starting an unhealthy fixation with physical appearance.

“A lot of tweens and teens are now using anti-aging products, so they’re starting way too young,” said Dr. Carol Cheng, a pediatric dermatologist and an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at UCLA. In recent months, she has seen some patients arrive for their appointments with “bags of products to make sure they’re optimizing what they’re doing.”

“They’re using things like vitamin C serums, salicylic acid, really expensive products that have actives that can actually harm their skin,” Cheng said, referring to active ingredients meant to address specific conditions such as wrinkles and dark spots. Such harsh chemicals, she added, can cause irritation, redness, burning, peeling and stinging.

At CatEye Beauty Skincare, a boutique day spa in San Diego, girls are bringing in pictures of Korean women with so-called glass skin — a Korean beauty trend that refers to a clear and luminous complexion — and saying, “I want my skin to look like this,” owner Catherine Noel said.

“I’ve had a couple girls come in with very wealthy parents and they wanted a pumpkin peel on their perfect face,” she said. “That would be something for a 35-year-old woman, not somebody who’s 12.”

Amid reports and videos of unsupervised Sephora Kids descending upon the stores en masse, wreaking havoc on product testers and harassing employees, longtime shoppers have taken to the retailer’s online community page to post complaints, including one thread proposing a ban on customers under 16.

“I know that Sephora has basically become the new Claire’s for kids, and buying Drunk Elephant products that are full of actives and retinoids that are harmful to [kids’] skin is the latest Gen Alpha trend, but the testers are getting destroyed,” one customer wrote. “Everything from kids mixing skincare and makeup testers together to make ‘smoothies’ to opening new makeup packages and using them.”

The backlash hasn’t stopped Ashley Paige, Naiya White’s mom, from taking her to Sephora and Ulta Beauty a couple of times a month and filming their excursions for the more than 40,000 people who follow their joint TikTok page, @sparkleandchaos.

“Any video Naiya and I make at Sephora or Ulta, people have something to say,” Paige, 37, said in an interview with The Times. “But I feel like a lot of adults forget what it’s like to be a child.”

The duo’s first video, posted in January, addressed the backlash head-on, with Naiya instructing fellow Sephora Kids on how to behave politely in the stores.

“I heard they were about to ban testers because of us — that is not OK. Girls, clean up after yourselves,” she says in the video, which has been viewed more than 6 million times. “You need to be polite to all the people who work here, OK? You want a good rep, not a bad one.”

Industry professionals say an early introduction to skin care can be a positive thing if messaged correctly.

They’re steering young skin-care enthusiasts away from products with active ingredients and focusing instead on a minimalist approach centered on helping them develop healthy daily habits. The three basics, they say, are appropriate for any age: a gentle cleanser, a hydrating moisturizer and a good sunscreen.

That’s generally the protocol that Naiya follows, albeit with some extra steps.

“In the morning, I like to use my Bubble face wash and my Bubble Cloud Surf moisturizer and my Bubble tinted sunscreen,” Naiya said. Bubble launched in 2020 as a Gen Z-oriented brand, with eye-catching packaging in vibrant colors and bold fonts, and quickly caught on with preteens as well.

“At night is when I use my Evereden kids multivitamin face wash and Evereden kids multivitamin face cream — it smells floral-y,” Naiya continued. “Sometimes I use toner. I also use the Aquaphor balm under my eyes to help with puffiness and stuff.”

Gen Alpha already wields significant spending power and is expected to become an economic force in the coming years. Companies of all kinds are developing new products to appeal to the demographic, which is growing rapidly with more than 2.8 million children born globally every week. By the end of the year, they will number nearly 2 billion — the largest generation ever, according to McCrindle Research, which is credited with coining the term.

Ulta Beauty, which operates more than 1,400 stores in all 50 states, said that in response to greater interest among Gen Alpha, it has “expanded our offerings to include simplified, dermatologist-approved products designed for younger skin.” In its most recent fiscal year, total sales increased 9.8% to $11.2 billion, with skin care accounting for 19% of company revenue, up from 17% the year prior.

“We do not proactively promote skin care to Gen Alpha,” a spokesperson said. “As more younger shoppers engage with us, we focus on guiding them — and their parents — toward informed choices” including educational resources, ingredient-based guidance and age-specific training for store associates.

That said, beauty companies are routinely teaming up with entertainment brands and toy makers to release kid-friendly limited-edition collections.

Ulta Beauty this month launched two partnerships: an assortment of makeup, skin-care and hair-care items tied to the November release of Universal Pictures’ movie musical “Wicked,” as well as a separate collection with Mini Brands, featuring tiny $9.99 replicas of many of the chain’s bestselling products.

“All your favorite beauty brands are now cuter and more collectible than ever with Mini Brands x Ulta Beauty!” the retailer’s website says. “With over 68 different minis to collect, every unboxing is a fun surprise!”

Bubble used similar playful language in its recent rollout of Bubble Charms, “the CUTEST way to accessorize your Tell All Lip Balm.” The lip balm “comes with an adorbz keychain” and “will make your crush text u back,” the company says on its website.

In May, Bubble announced a collaboration with Pixar tied to the release of “Inside Out 2,” an animated film about the roiling emotions of puberty that grossed $1.6 billion worldwide at the box office. The products included in the limited-edition Pixar collection were safe for all ages, Eisenman said.

Today Bubble has about 50,000 brand ambassadors who help promote the company, participate in its product testing program and receive special discounts and freebies; 20,000 of them are 13 to 18 years old. On Bubble’s website and social media posts, the company routinely highlights which products and practices are suitable for kids.

“Just cuz you saw it on TikTok doesn’t mean it’s right for your face!” reads the caption in a Bubble Instagram post this year that featured a three-step skin-care routine for customers under 13. “Great skincare can be super simple.”

“A lot of younger kids are using products that are inappropriate,” Eisenman said. “For us, one of the most important elements is to be a good force and an educating source in this space.”

At CatEye Beauty, owner Noel added a “teen facial with skincare lesson” to her list of services in March. The $120, 45-minute treatment is designed for people 11 to 15 years old and includes a double cleanse, mild exfoliation and, if necessary, extractions to clear out clogged pores.

“They still have baby skin,” she said. “I don’t like this trend of young girls coming in and using very expensive products, especially since they’re made for adults.”

Gen Alpha’s love of skin care is even prompting consternation among Gen Z.

At Larchmont Beauty Center on a recent Friday afternoon, eighth-grader Maren and her friend, Shiri, stopped in to pick up a pack of hair bands. The two are on the border of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, but consider themselves members of the older generation.

“Our generation is a lot more chill,” she said. “I feel like millennials are full-face and we’re just like, some makeup. And then the people younger than us are like: skin care.”

Calling the trend “a little freaky,” 14-year-old Maren said she knows of kids “who are like 9, and they’re doing the same stuff I’m doing.”

“It’s insane that like a 9-year-old who has perfect skin is doing a 12-step skin-care routine.”

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Richard N. Velotta, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Within a few years, the Las Vegas Sphere won’t be the only Sphere in the world.

New York-based Sphere Entertainment Co. announced Tuesday that an agreement has been reached by the company with the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi, known as DCT Abu Dhabi, that a second Sphere will be built in the United Arab Emirates.

The company gave no indication when ground would be broken and when the new Sphere would open.

The company and DCT Abu Dhabi gave no cost estimate for the venue, which is expected to be comparable in size to the Las Vegas Sphere, which cost $2.3 billion after initial estimates of $1.2 billion ballooned over time.

The Abu Dhabi Sphere will be built as a partnership under a licensing agreement with Sphere Entertainment, but financial terms were not explained by the company.

Following the venue’s opening, Sphere Entertainment plans to maintain ongoing arrangements with DCT Abu Dhabi that are expected to include annual fees for creative and artistic content licensed by Sphere Entertainment, such as Sphere Experiences and the use of Sphere’s brand, patents, proprietary technology, and intellectual property and operational services related to venue operations and technology, as well as commercial and strategic advisory support.

Tourism to be elevated

“The vision for Sphere has always included a global network of venues, and today’s announcement is a significant milestone toward that goal,” James Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of Sphere Entertainment, said in an emailed release. “Sphere is redefining live entertainment and extending the reach of its transformative impact. We are proud to collaborate with DCT Abu Dhabi to develop Sphere in their city.”

The chairman of DCT Abu Dhabi said the partnership would elevate the UAE’s tourism and entertainment industries.

“Sphere Abu Dhabi will seamlessly integrate advanced technology with captivating storytelling, creating unforgettable memories for everyone who visits,” DCT Abu Dhabi Chairman H.E. Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak said in a release, adding that the partnership will make Abu Dhabi a “vibrant hub for culture and innovation. By embracing cutting-edge entertainment like Sphere, we’re not only elevating our global profile but also setting new standards in immersive experiences and cultural offerings.”

Sphere Las Vegas just observed its first anniversary after opening in late September 2023. The venue has dazzled thousands of visitors with live concerts featuring U2, Phish, Dead and Company and the Eagles and in December will launch a new residency with Afterlife’s “The End Of Genesys” featuring electronic dance music star Anyma.

Sphere also has regular showings of the film “Postcard from Earth” from director Daron Aronofsky and was host to UFC 306. For the second straight year, the Sphere will be a centerpiece with grandstands for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix in November. Visitors attending the film also get the Sphere Experience, demonstrations of the technology used by the venue.

Other Spheres envisioned

Dolan has long said that another Sphere would be built somewhere else.

Plans had been made to build one in London at the site of the 2012 Olympic Village. But nearby residents, fearing a late-night bombardment of bright lights and advertisements, approached the mayor’s office about stopping the project. London Mayor Sadiq Khan put the brakes on the project, but later said he was interested in pursuing construction. By then, it was too late and Dolan pulled the plug on a London Sphere.

There were various reports that Sphere Entertainment was negotiating with parties in South Korea and the United Arab Emirates for the next venue, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that the company confirmed the next project.

DCT Abu Dhabi, the organization driving the growth of Abu Dhabi’s culture and tourism sectors and promoting the city as a global destination, said Abu Dhabi had more than 24 million visitors in 2023. That compares with 40.8 million visitors to Southern Nevada that year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The United Arab Emirates is expanding its resort profile with casino gambling approved at the under-construction $3.9 billion Wynn Al Marjan Island resort on 115 acres in the Ras Al Khaimah emirate on the Arabian Gulf inlet of the Persian Gulf.

The Abu Dhabi Sphere will be about 142 miles from the Wynn property.

MGM Resorts International and Caesars Entertainment Inc. also have resorts in the United Arab Emirates that would be closer to the Sphere site.

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©2024 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Visit reviewjournal.com.. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Arthur Allen, KFF Health News

Most employers have little idea what the pharmacy benefit managers they hire do with the money they exchange for the medications used by their employees, according to a new KFF survey.

In KFF’s latest employer health benefits survey, company officials were asked how much of the rebates collected from drugmakers by pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, is returned to them. In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has tried to deflect criticism of high drug prices by saying much of that income is siphoned off by the PBMs, companies that manage patients’ drug benefits on behalf of employers and health plans.

PBM leaders say they save companies and patients billions of dollars annually by obtaining rebates from drugmakers that they pass along to employers. Drugmakers, meanwhile, say they raise their list prices so high in order to afford the rebates that PBMs demand in exchange for placing the drugs on formularies that make them available to patients.

Leaders of the three largest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Optum RX and Express Scripts — all testified in Congress in July that 95% to 98% of the rebates they collect from drugmakers flow to employers.

For KFF’s survey of 2,142 randomly selected companies, officials from those with 500 or more employees were asked how much of the rebates negotiated by PBMs returned to the company as savings. About 19% said they received most of the rebates, 27% said some, and 16% said little. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents didn’t know.

While a larger percentage of officials from the largest companies said they got most or some of the rebates, the answers — and their contrast with the testimony of PBM leaders — reflect the confusion or ignorance of employers about what their drug benefit managers do, said survey leader Gary Claxton, a senior vice president at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

“I don’t think they can ever know all the ways the money moves around because there are so many layers, between the wholesalers and the pharmacies and the manufacturers,” he said.

Critics say big PBMs — which are parts of conglomerates that include pharmacies, providers, and insurers — may conceal the size of their rebates by conducting negotiations through corporate-controlled rebate aggregators, or group purchasers, mostly based overseas in tax havens, that siphon off a percentage of the cash before it goes on the PBMs’ books.

PBMs also make money by encouraging or requiring patients to use affiliated specialty pharmacies, by skimping on payments to other pharmacies, and by collecting extra cash from drug companies through the federal 340B drug pricing program, which is aimed at lowering drug costs for low-income patients, said Antonio Ciaccia, CEO of 46brooklyn Research.

The KFF survey indicates how little employers understand the PBMs and their pricing policies. “Employers are generally frustrated by the lack of transparency into all the prices out there,” Claxton said. “They can’t actually know what’s true.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban started a company to undercut the PBMs by selling pharmaceuticals with transparent pricing policies. He tells Fortune 500 executives he meets, “You’re getting ripped off, you’re losing money because it’s not your core competency to understand how your PBM and health insurance contracts work,” Cuban told KFF Health News in an interview Tuesday.

Ciaccia, who has conducted PBM investigations for several states, said employers are not equipped to understand the behavior of the PBMs and often are surprised at how unregulated the PBM business is.

“You’d assume that employers want to pay less, that they would want to pay more attention,” he said. “But what I’ve learned is they are often underequipped, underresourced, and oftentimes not understanding the severity of the lack of oversight and accountability.”

Employers may assume the PBMs are acting in their best interest, but they don’t have a legal obligation to do so.

Prices can be all over the map, even those charged by the same PBM, Ciaccia said. In a Medicaid study he recently conducted, a PBM was billing employers anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000 for a month’s worth of imatinib, a cancer drug that can be bought as a generic for as little as $30.

PBM contracts often guarantee discounts of certain percentage points for generics and brand-name drugs. But the contracts then contain five pages of exclusions, and “no employer will know what they mean,” Ciaccia said. “That person doesn’t have enough information to have an informed opinion.”

The KFF survey found that companies’ annual premiums for coverage of individual employees had increased from an average of $7,739 in 2021 to $8,951 this year, and $22,221 to $25,572 for families. Among employers’ greatest concerns was how to cover increasingly popular weight loss drugs that list at $2,000 a month or more.

Only 18% of respondents said their companies covered drugs such as Wegovy for weight loss. The largest group of employers offering such coverage — 28% — was those with 5,000 or more employees.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Arthur Allen, KFF Health News

OAKLAND, Calif. — The patient was in his 60s, an African American man with emphysema. The oximeter placed on his fingertip registered well above the 88% blood oxygen saturation level that signals an urgent risk of organ failure and death.

Yet his doctor, Noha Aboelata, believed the patient was sicker than the device showed. So she sent him for a lab test, which confirmed her suspicion that he needed supplemental oxygen at home.

Months later, in December 2020, Aboelata thought back to her patient as she read a New England Journal of Medicine article showing that pulse oximeters were three times as likely to miss dangerously low blood oxygen levels in Black patients as in white ones. At a time when Black Americans were dying of covid at high rates and hospitals struggled to find beds and oxygen for those needing them, the finding exposed one of the most blatant examples of institutional racism in American health care.

“I was like, ‘Were there other patients I missed?” said Aboelata, a family physician and the CEO of Oakland-based Roots Community Health. As she shared the article with colleagues, “there was so much anger and frustration because we had every reason to believe we could rely on this device, and it was systematically not working in the population that we served.”

State attorneys general and U.S. senators have pressed the FDA to take steps to eliminate pulse oximetry’s racial bias, which has caused delays in treatment and worse health outcomes, and more recently has raised concern about the reliability of hospital AI tools that draw on reams of data from the devices.

Aboelata’s clinic has sued producers and stores that sell oximeters, demanding they pull the devices or add safety warnings to the labels. Many of her patients rely on home oxygen, which requires accurate readings for Medicare to cover.

But getting rid of the devices, central to care for heart and lung diseases, sleep apnea, and other conditions, isn’t an option.

Since the 1990s, the convenient fingertip clamps have come to stand in for many uses of arterial blood gas readings, which are the gold standard for determining oxygen levels but dangerous if not done carefully. Makers of oximeters will sell around $3 billion of them this year because they are used in nearly every hospital, clinic, and long-term care facility. During the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Americans bought them for home use.

One of them was Walter Wilson, a 70-year-old businessman in San Jose who has had two kidney transplants since 2000. Wilson contracted covid last December but delayed visiting a doctor because his home pulse oximetry readings were in the normal range.

“I’m a dark-complected Black guy. I was very sick. Had the oximeter picked that up I would have gotten to the hospital sooner,” he said.

Wilson ended up back on dialysis after several years of good health. Now he’s looking to join a class action lawsuit against the device manufacturers.

“They’ve known for years that people with darker skin get bad readings,” he said, “but they tested them on healthy white people.”

After years of little action on the issue, the FDA in 2021 sent a safety warning to doctors about oximeters. It has also funded research to improve the devices and promised to issue new guidelines for how to make them.

But as the FDA polishes draft guidelines it had hoped to publish by Oct. 1, clinicians and scientists are unsure what to expect. The agency has indicated it will recommend that manufacturers test new oximeters on more people, including a large percentage with dark-pigmented skin.

Because of industry pushback, however, the guidance isn’t expected to ask device makers to test oximeters under real-world conditions, said Michael Lipnick, a University of California-San Francisco anesthesiologist and researcher.

Hospitalized people are often dehydrated, with restricted blood flow to their extremities. This condition, known as low perfusion — essentially, poor circulation — is particularly common with cardiovascular disease, which is more prevalent in Black patients.

Pigmentation and poor perfusion “work together to degrade pulse oximetry performance,” said Philip Bickler, who directs the Hypoxia Research Lab at UCSF. “During covid, Black patients showed up sicker because of all the barriers those patients face in accessing health care. They’re showing up on death’s door, and their perfusion is lower.”

The FDA guidance isn’t expected to require manufacturers to measure how well their devices perform in patients with poor perfusion. All this means that the FDA’s efforts could lead to devices that work in healthy dark-skinned adults but do “not fix the problem,” said Hugh Cassiere, who chairs a panel for the FDA’s Medical Devices Advisory Committee, at its February meeting.

A history of inaction

Although some recent industry-sponsored studies have shown that certain devices work across skin tones, research dating to the 1980s has found discrepancies in pulse oximetry. In 2005, Bickler and other scientists at the Hypoxia Lab published evidence that three leading devices consistently failed to detect hypoxemia in darkly pigmented patients — especially those who were severely oxygen-depleted. Noting that these readings could be crucial to directing treatment, the authors called for oximeters to carry warnings.

The FDA’s response was modest. Its regulatory pathway for pulse oximeters clears them for sale as long as they show “substantial equivalence” to devices already on the market. In a 2007 draft guidance document, the FDA suggested that tests of new oximeters could “include a sufficient number of subjects with dark skin pigmentation, e.g., 30%.” However, the final guidance, issued in 2013, recommended “at least 2 darkly pigmented subjects or 15% of your subject pool, whichever is larger.” The studies were required to have only 10 subjects. And the agency did not define “dark-pigmented.”

Testing the devices involves fitting patients with masks that control the gases they breathe, while simultaneously taking pulse oximetry readings and samples of arterial blood that are fed into a highly accurate measuring device, invented by the Hypoxia Lab’s late founder, John Severinghaus.

Bickler, who evinces the bemused skepticism of a seasoned car mechanic when discussing the scores of devices his lab has tested, said “you can’t always trust what the manufacturers say.”

Their data, he said, ranges from “completely inaccurate” to “obtained under absolutely ideal conditions, nothing like a real-world performance.”

During the pandemic, a medical charity approached the lab about donating thousands of oximeters to poor countries. The oximeters it had chosen “weren’t very good,” he said. After that, the lab set up its own ratings page, a kind of Consumer Reports for pulse oximeters.

According to its tests, some expensive devices don’t work; a few of the $35 gadgets are more effective than competitors costing $350. Over a third of the marketed devices the lab has tested don’t meet current FDA standards, according to the site.

To investigate whether real-world tests of oximeters are feasible, the FDA funded a UCSF study that has recruited about 200 intensive care unit patients. The data from the study is being prepared to undergo peer review for publication, Bickler said.

He said the lab did not warm the hands of patients in the study, which is the customary practice of manufacturers when they test their devices. Warming assures better circulation in the finger the device is attached to.

“It affects the signal-to-noise ratio,” Bickler said. “Remember when car radios had AM stations, and you’d get a lot of static? That’s what poor perfusion does — it causes noise, or static that can obscure a clear signal from the device.”

Hypoxia Lab scientists — and doctors in the real world — don’t warm patients’ hands. But “the industry people can’t agree on how to handle it,” he said.

Masimo, a company that says it has the most accurate pulse oximeters on the market, would happily comply with any FDA guidance, Daniel Cantillon, Masimo’s chief medical officer, said in an interview.

How much to fix the problem?

The very best devices, according to the Hypoxia Lab, cost $6,000 or more. That points to another problem.

With better accuracy, “you are going to reduce patient access to devices for a large proportion of the world that simply can’t afford them,” Lipnick said.

Even if the FDA can’t please everyone, its anticipated call for more people with darker skin in oximetry tests will “assure there’s real diversity in the development and testing of those devices before they come to market,” Lipnick said. “That bar has been too low for decades.”

It is difficult to assess harm to individuals from faulty oximeter readings, because these errors are often one factor in a chain of events. But studies at Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere indicated that patients whose oxygen depletion wasn’t noticed — possibly thousands of them — had delayed treatment and worse outcomes.

Already, Aboelata said, a few manufacturers — Zewa Medical Technology, Veridian Healthcare, and Gurin Products — have responded to the Roots Community Health lawsuit by including warnings about their devices’ limitations.

There’s not much she and other clinicians can do in daily practice, she said, other than establish a baseline reading with each new patient and be on the lookout for notable drops. Hospitals have other tools to check oxygen levels, but correct readings are critical for outpatient care, she said. In 2022, Connecticut enacted a law banning insurers from denying home oxygen or other services based solely on pulse oximetry readings.

But “adapting around the crappy device isn’t the solution,” said Theodore Iwashyna, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor who co-authored the New England Journal of Medicine article. “A less crappy device is the solution.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

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©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Morayo Ogunbayo, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Online pharmacies have risen in popularity over the years, especially for some Americans who feel their pharmaceutical needs have not been met by traditional methods. These pharmacies, however, can have hidden dangers.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration released a public safety alert at the beginning of the month, warning of an increase seen in pills laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine being sold by online pharmacies as legitimate medications.

The DEA found oxycodone, Xanax, Adderall, Viagra and other drugs from these pharmacies were laced with fentanyl and meth, which can lead to “harmful side effects, ineffective treatment, and even death.”

According to the DEA, many of these pharmacies are in India and the Dominican Republic, and attempt to make it seem like they are U.S.-based or FDA approved. However, they are actually working with drug traffickers to fulfill orders with “fake pills”

The administration’s Operation Press Your Luck, targeting these online companies, found 18 people deliberately preyed on Americans attempting to purchase legitimate medicine, saying they “exploited the online pharmacy market to sell counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine to unsuspecting victims.”

“These individuals sold millions of dangerous fake pills to victims in every U.S. state and the District of Columbia. The defendants did this to make money by driving addiction with deadly, highly addictive fentanyl,” DEA administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement about the operation.

The DEA identified nine online pharmacies they deemed fake and should be avoided. You can find them here.

If you have purchased from these pharmacies, the DEA said you should immediately stop taking the medication and report the incident to the agency.

If you plan on purchasing medicine online in the future, the DEA suggested you remain vigilant and have guidelines to keep yourself safe.

Possible red flags are suspiciously low prices, prices in a foreign currency, and medicine that arrives with a broken seal or no expiration date. The DEA also warns of sites that do not require a valid prescription or do not have a valid state pharmacy license.

Last, trust yourself and do not take any pills that look different from ones you have been prescribed by a health care provider.

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©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Kathleen Howley, Bankrate.com

Hurricanes Helene and Milton are certainly making this another record-setting year for weather. But it’s not just headline-making storms giving homeowners reason to worry. California, Arizona, Maine, New Hampshire and Florida all had their warmest summers ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), registering long streaks of days over 100°F .

Such extreme heat strains infrastructure, crops and power grids — leading to outages that leave people without air conditioning in dangerously high temperatures. There’s also the risk of wildfires in many regions of the U.S., with droughts worsening the danger.

“The climate is changing, and science tells us it’s going to continue to do so,” says Janet Ruiz, director of strategic communications for the Insurance Information Institute. Yet many Americans say they haven’t done anything to prepare their homes or their finances against the increasingly likely damage of natural disasters and extreme weather events, according to Bankrate’s 2024 Extreme Weather Survey.

As a homeowner, it’s important to be aware of not just the physical toll, but the financial implications of extreme weather on your residence — and the steps you can take to prepare and minimize your out-of-pocket costs.

Key extreme weather statistics

• In 2023, there were 28 weather disasters with damage that each exceeded $1 billion in the U.S.
• Between 1980 and 2023, the U.S. had 376 weather and climate disasters with the overall damage costs reaching or exceeding $1 billion. The cumulative cost exceeded $2.7 trillion.
• About $20 billion is being spent each year on repairing homes following major disasters and minor storms, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
• Americans spend an average of $1,667 on emergency repair costs per household, according to the 2023 State of Home Spending report from the home services site Angi. That’s up from $419 in 2019.

Financial implications of extreme weather

Weather events have caused more than $1.1 trillion in damage in the last 10 years, the most of any decade on record, according to NOAA. While some of those repair costs have been covered by insurance policies, property owners still have to pay their deductibles first. There are often other items they might not have expected, like several nights in a hotel if they are fleeing a hurricane or tornado, and that they’ll have to cover out-of-pocket.

But Bankrate’s 2024 Extreme Weather Survey found that more than 1 in 4 (26%) U.S. homeowners say they are unprepared for the potential costs associated with extreme weather events in their area. And 43% have not taken any action to protect themselves against potential property damages from extreme weather events in the past five years — not even checking their insurance policies to see what is covered.

Among those who have taken precautions in the past five years to protect their property against extreme weather damage, 39% reviewed their homeowners or insurance policies to ensure they have proper coverage; 15% changed insurance carriers; and 13% increased their coverage or purchased additional coverage.

Extreme weather’s financial impact on your home

Extreme weather can have a range of ramifications for property owners, from immediate repairs to increasing maintenance to a gradual rise in energy and utility bills. As a homeowner, it’s important to understand the types of weather events that may hit the region where you live and, if possible, take steps to mitigate the fallout when possible. But as climate change makes extreme events more extreme, more and more regions are becoming vulnerable.

For example, Hurricane Helene likely caused $30.5 billion to $47.5 billion of property damage across 16 states, according to CoreLogic. That includes $20 billion and $30 billion in uninsured flood losses. In Florida, Hurricane Milton spawned tornadoes that wreaked havoc on the opposite coast from where the storm itself made landfall.

“The reality is that climate change presents a heightened threat to the financial well-being of (all) individuals and households, including homeowners,” says Mark Hamrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst.

Home insurance coverage and deductibles

With extreme weather events causing billions of dollars in damage, the cost of home insurance is soaring in many states as companies raise premiums to cover the rising (and increasingly likely) expense of rebuilding/repairing storm-damaged homes. In some cases, they are also limiting coverage while increasing deductibles — the amount the homeowner pays for an incident, before the coverage kicks in.

“Increasingly, private insurance carriers have been exiting markets where risk of natural disasters are seen as high. And where coverage has been available, the costs have been rising,” says Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.

This situation applies especially in states that are most severely impacted by extreme weather or natural disasters, like Florida, Louisiana, Texas and California. Across the United States, the average cost of homeowners insurance is $2,285 per year for $300,000 in dwelling coverage, based on October 2024 data. In Florida, the average is $5,527, in Texas it’s $3,916, and in California, where regulations cap the amount insurers can increase premiums, it’s $1,480.

While California sounds like a bargain, an increasing number of homeowners there are getting cancellation notices as major companies like Allstate announce they will exit the state or limit the issuance of new policies — the result of years of worsening wildfires.

Often, those homeowners then are forced to use the state’s FAIR Plan, which is more than twice as expensive as a standard policy and limits coverage to catastrophic loss. To get other coverage typically bundled into a home insurance policy, such as liability insurance, homeowners have to purchase add-ons, cafeteria-style.

Loss of property value from extreme weather

Another ramification of extreme weather for homeowners is the potential decline in property values. Of course, damaged homes can be repaired and sometimes even appreciate as a result. But in areas that are particularly hard hit by extreme weather events, the real estate market may start to decline — especially if homes sustain repeated damage, like those in the states affected by the one-two punch of hurricanes Helene and Milton in October. Reselling those homes may prove challenging.

In the worst-case scenario, if a once-expensive area tumbles drastically due to its “disaster-zone” rap, homeowners could end up underwater on their mortgages, unable to sell unless they come up with a bundle of cash to pay the difference between the home loan and the current property value.

In some cases, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides grants to state and local governments to purchase homes that have been repeatedly damaged, so the building can be demolished and the land returned to open space. The idea is: The local community gets public land and federal taxpayers save money by not having to pay to repeatedly repair the property through the federally subsidized National Flood Insurance Program.

But it’s not a quick fix. The average time from a natural disaster to a FEMA-funded “floodplain buyout” is five years, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Property damage and repair costs

Just one inch of floodwater can cause up to $25,000 in damage, according to FEMA. Homes with basements, especially if critical utilities like furnaces and water heaters are elevated off the floor, would see less damage, FEMA says.

Floods once were a danger mainly to island or ocean-front properties or homes in river basins. No longer. “When intense storm surge and flooding events like Hurricane Helene reach regions that are infrequently affected by natural hazards, we can expect to see damage to homes without flood insurance coverage,” says Jon Schneyer, director of catastrophe response at CoreLogic.

As extreme weather events become more frequent, spending on home maintenance and repair projects will tick upward, according to a forecast from the Joint Center for Housing Studies. Homeowners will spend $466 billion on remodeling through the 12 months ended June 2025, the Joint Center estimates That would be an increase of 3.6% from the end of 2024.

There are three aspects to protecting your home from extreme weather events. The first is insurance coverage; the second, physical preparation; the third, financial readiness.

Insuring your home

The first step should be shopping around to see if you have the best homeowners insurance coverage. While you’re doing that, you can check to see if your policy covers the most common type of natural disasters that occur in your region of the country.

Most homeowners insurance policies don’t cover flooding caused by weather events. But, damage from a broken water heater or leaking dishwasher typically is covered, as long as deferred maintenance or other negligence wasn’t a factor.

The average flood insurance policy is $800, with the cost lessening for homes that are not in federally declared flood zones. According to the Insurance Information Institute, only 1% of homeowners who experienced record flooding from Hurricane Helene had flood insurance.

To get coverage for a natural flood, speak to an agent who offers flood insurance as a separate policy. While the federal government is the biggest flood insurance provider through its National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), it doesn’t deal with the public directly. However, the NFIP website provides a search tool to find an agent.

Earthquake coverage is also a separate policy. Your current insurer may be able to add it at an additional charge — make sure to ask about deductibles and exclusions. You can also purchase it as a standalone policy. Call your state’s department of insurance to find a licensed provider.

Wildfire damage typically is covered by standard homeowner policies, but insurers in high-risk areas may exclude the coverage or set a separate deductible for wildfires. Check with your agent to find out.

Policies usually cover wildfire losses for both homes and personal belongings. They may even include garages and sheds under the “other structure coverage.” Also, coverage may include the cost of living elsewhere while your home is being rebuilt — check for your “loss of use” coverage.

Preparing your home

Emergency repair costs resulting from weather events can range from a few hundred dollars for minor damage to thousands of dollars for bigger projects.

As extreme weather becomes more common, it’s increasingly important for homeowners to prepare, with the goal of preventing costly damage, says the Insurance Information Institute’s Ruiz. “One way to mitigate risk is to build stronger homes and harden existing homes to help to withstand climate change,” she says.

If you start projects long before hurricane or wildfire seasons, contractors will be more available and more likely to offer you a better price. Make sure to get multiple bids, so you know you are getting the best deal.

If you’re doing it yourself, it will be easier to find what you need at the building supply store if you go before there’s a crush of frantic people who put their disaster prep off for too long.

Preparing for hurricanes

Install storm shutters — sometimes called hurricane shutters — to cover windows and skylights. In addition to preventing flying objects from penetrating your home and causing water damage.

If you don’t like the appearance of storm shutters, consider impact-resistant windows. But be prepared to pay more — perhaps more than triple the cost of hurricane shutters. And, while the windows are unlikely to shatter, a direct hit from a flying object could crack them.

If you live in an area of the country where hurricanes are a fact of life, make sure your roof is secured with hurricane straps. The straps are made of galvanized metal, and help to keep your roof attached to the walls of your house.

If you have any trees that could fall on your home, consider removing them or at least cutting them back. Also, when a storm is approaching, make sure to store or anchor patio furniture, trash cans, and barbecue grills to prevent them from becoming airborne. Make sure your neighbor does that too, so his grill doesn’t end up in your living room.

Preparing for a loss of electricity

Many types of extreme weather cause the loss of electricity. That’s when you will wish you had a generator. The easiest way to provide backup electricity is with a permanently installed one. You can power your whole house, or just key elements like your furnace, your kitchen and a few outlets in other rooms. No need to do anything — it will turn on automatically when a power loss occurs.

Before you invest thousands of dollars in a generator, make sure to compare different models, especially checking what they sound like when they are running. Some are quieter than others.

Lots of people have sump pumps to protect homes from rising groundwater. If you’re installing a generator, that’s one of the most important circuits to hook up.

Portable generators that are cheaper, but they require gasoline. Plus, you’ve got to drag them out when you need them and run extension cords to hook up the most important outlets.

Protecting your home from wildfires

If you live in regions where wildfires are a threat, the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends creating at least 30 feet of “defensible space” around your home. That means removing flammable vegetation and replacing it with noncombustible materials such as gravel, brick, or concrete.

Your roof is the most at-risk part of your home during a wildfire because of wind-blown embers, FEMA says. If you can, replace shingles of wood or low-quality asphalt with metal, typically aluminum, coated steel, copper or zinc.

It’s a good idea to keep gutters clean, or use gutter guards that keep leaves and other potentially flammable debris from clogging them. Also, cover attic vents and under-eave vents with metal wire mesh no larger than 1/8 inch to keep embers out.

Financial preparedness

Along with conducting home maintenance and having appropriate levels of insurance, it’s also critical to be financially prepared for extreme weather.

One way is to have an emergency savings fund. For home maintenance (including unexpected repairs), one common rule of thumb recommends setting aside at least 1%, and as much as 4 %, of your home’s value each year.

“Financial preparedness raises the need to have sufficient emergency savings, which is something most Americans have kept on their to-do list,” says Hamrick. “These funds must be liquid, or easy to get to, because they might be needed quickly and without much, if any, warning.”

But with more Americans struggling to pay their grocery and energy bills following years of elevated inflation, that’s becoming harder to do. As of May 2024, over 1 in 4 (27%) Americans say they have no emergency savings to fall back on, and as of January 2024, 32% say they have less in their emergency savings fund than they did a year ago, according to Bankrate’s 2024 Emergency Savings Report.

If you can’t keep a lot of cash in reserve, Plan B is to have a ready way to get cash should the worst happen. To that end: Consider a home equity loan or a HELOC (home equity line of credit) to help fund emergency repairs or extreme-weather-related needs. Earmarked for large, five-figure expenses, both these instruments let you borrow against the value of your residence — letting you use your home to fix your home, in effect. With HELOCs in particular, you can draw on the funds only when you have a need — like sudden damage on your home — and then pay interest just on the money you’ve used.

Admittedly, they aren’t free: Average home equity loan and line of credit rates are in the 8% to 9% range. Still, that’s a lot cheaper than many personal loan and credit card rates.

For that reason, “A home equity loan or line of credit would come into play more if you have a major repair and it’s not covered by insurance,” says Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst for Bankrate. Or if you expand the repair to make a major upgrade, improvement or addition to the home.

FAQ

What financial assistance programs are available for homeowners affected by natural disasters?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides financial assistance to affected individuals and households. However, don’t expect that aid to take the place of insurance. Unfortunately, the funds don’t come anywhere near the cost of rebuilding homes and replacing personal belongings, says the Insurance Information Institute’s Janet Ruiz.

Will my homeowner insurance cover all damage caused by a natural disaster?

Not necessarily. Flood-related damage is not typically covered by homeowners’ insurance: You need to purchase a separate flood policy. But insurance may cover other types of disasters including wind, hail, lightning strikes and wildfires. Talk to your insurance agent to see exactly what is covered and whether it’s for full replacement value (which accounts for inflation and appreciation).

How can I protect my financial records during a natural disaster?

It’s a good idea to collect vital documents and information, including numbers for bank accounts and insurance policies, and store them in a safe spot such as a fireproof or waterproof box. Even better, use a phone scanning app to capture documents and save them to your cloud storage, but remember that connectivity can be a challenge immediately after a natural disaster. It’s also a good idea to have some cash on hand in case electricity outages knock out your local ATMs or stores’ credit card scanners.

Visit Bankrate online at bankrate.com.

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©2024 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Patrick Clarke, TravelPulse (TNS)

Travelers searching for America’s safest cities may want to head to New England this holiday season.

The experts at WalletHub recently compared more than 180 cities across the U.S., analyzing more than 40 key indicators of safety, such as traffic fatalities and assaults per capita, unemployment rate, natural disaster risk level and the percentage of the population that’s uninsured to determine which locales are the safest to visit in 2024.

Vermont was the big winner, with South Burlington and Burlington ranking first and fourth, respectively. Meanwhile, Warwick, Rhode Island ranks third, with Portland, Maine also making the top 10 at number nine.

South Burlington ranks first for financial security, a category that accounts for 20 of the 100 points and considers a variety of factors like poverty rate, unemployment, job security and retirement plan access, among other things.

According to WalletHub, Warwick — a city just south of Providence — boasts the fewest thefts per 1,000 residents and the second-fewest assaults per capita.

Casper, Wyoming, and Boise, Idaho, rank second and fifth, respectively, while other top 10 safest cities include Yonkers, New York (sixth); Cedar Rapids, Iowa (seventh); Columbia, Maryland (eighth) and Virginia Beach, Virginia (10th).

Columbia — a suburban destination just outside of Baltimore — ranks first for home and community safety, a category that accounts for 60 of the 100 points.

Factors examined in this area include the presence of terrorist attacks; the number of mass shootings; murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita; forcible rapes and hate crimes per capita, among other safety indicators.

The 10 most safe US cities

1. South Burlington, Vermont2. Casper, Wyoming3. Warwick, Rhode Island4. Burlington, Vermont5. Boise, Idaho6. Yonkers, New York7. Cedar Rapids, Iowa8. Columbia, Maryland9. Portland, Maine10. Virginia Beach, Virginia

Memphis, Tennessee, has the unfortunate distinction of being the least safe city in the country, based on WalletHub’s research, ranking 180th for home and community safety and 181st for financial security.

Memphis is tied for the most traffic fatalities and assaults per capita and has the lowest percentage of households with emergency savings.

Other poor-performing places include Detroit; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana; Baltimore; Cleveland; Oakland, California; Philadelphia and San Bernardino, California.

Detroit has the highest unemployment rate of any city that WalletHub examined and is tied for the most assaults per capita.

Houston, which ranks 171st out of 182 cities, has the highest natural disaster risk level while Washington, D.C., ranks top five in terms of hate crimes per capita.

The 10 least safe US cities

1. Memphis, Tennessee2. Detroit, Michigan3. Fort Lauderdale, Florida4. Baton Rouge, Louisiana5. New Orleans, Louisiana6. Baltimore, Maryland7. Cleveland, Ohio8. Oakland, California9. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania10. San Bernardino, California

©2024 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Simone Jasper, The Charlotte Observer

A couple’s wedding night turned “tragic” when the groom was shot to death in front of his bride, loved ones told news outlets.

Tyrek Burton, 37, was outside a North Carolina wedding venue when he was killed during a possible road-rage incident late Saturday, Oct. 12, the Greensboro Police Department wrote in a news release and told TV stations.

“It was supposed to be one of the happiest moments of his life, and it turned into something tragic,” the groom’s sister, Brittany Burton, told WGHP.

Police responded just before 9 p.m. to a reported shooting at an event center. At the scene, they found Tyrek Burton in the parking lot with life-threatening injuries. Crews worked to save the man, who later died, officers said.

“It was shocking,” Nysheria Holloway, his sister-in-law, told WRAL. “It was terrible.”

The groom had only been married to Holloway’s sister, Kiara, for about seven hours before his death, TV stations reported.

Relatives told news outlets that Burton left his reception for a short time before being followed by a driver who accused the groom of cutting him off. He was shot to death in front of his new wife, WXII reported.

Tyrek Burton is remembered in news reports as a hard-working father to four daughters. He had dated his wife for more than a decade.

“He was nothing but good and I demand justice,” Carolyn Burton, the groom’s mother, told WFMY. “I demand it. I don’t want to wait years for it. He doesn’t deserve what he got.”

As of Oct. 14, police said they were conducting a homicide investigation and didn’t share details about potential suspects. Officers ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 336-373-1000.

Police and Facebook users believed to be the groom’s mom and sister didn’t immediately share additional information with McClatchy News on Oct. 16.

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©2024 The Charlotte Observer. Visit at charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Christopher Vondracek | (TNS) The Minnesota Star Tribune

The dogs were tired. The small army of press stalking him needed to put down cameras. And Gov. Tim Walz was fiddling with removing shells from his gun.

Nothing could’ve prepared us for the political bombshell that came next.

As the governor on this idyllic October morning southwest of Sleepy Eye fussed with the firearm, two dozen blaze orange-vested reporters watching, our own Minnesota Star Tribune photojournalist Anthony Soufflé asked Walz if he owned the gun.

“This is mine,” the 60-year-old responded.

And then Walz, who in his first year in Congress de-throned former Rep. Collin Peterson as the top-shot for Democrats in the Congressional Shootout of clay pigeons, dispensed a dad joke that would’ve landed well on the gingham tablecloth of the farmhouses he represented for a dozen years in Washington D.C.

“Borrowing a gun is like borrowing underwear,” Walz said, to chuckles from the press.

And, then … well, actually that was it.

Walz talked about his semiautomatic shotgun, a Beretta A-400, mentioned he liked the more forgiving recoil on his shoulders, and then — flipping up the shotgun, shells removed — walked along the tall grass back to the farmsite where he sat on a pick-up, ate venison sticks and talked hunting dogs.

Little did any of us know, however, at that moment, buzzing over the internet around the world, the biggest news event of the day, perhaps an October Surprise, for this vice presidential candidate was, at least in the eyes of the internet, already hatched.

Walz didn’t know how to use his gun.

A CBS reporter standing next to me had managed to dispatch to X a roughly 30-second clip of Walz un-jamming a gun, and within seconds, the rapacious reviews came pouring in accusing “Tampon Timmy” of more rural cosplay, of being caught redhanded lip-synching at the Super Bowl. As if a Holiday Inn guest had just been handed a stethoscope ahead of surgery.

I, standing in the field, didn’t know any of this at the time. But when I returned to Minneapolis that night, while my wife and sister-in-law made dinner and peppered me with questions, I opened up my phone to check in on reactions to my story and, instead, saw a piece from the Daily Mail in London.

“Tim Walz roasted over pheasant hunting stunt,” read the headline.

Huh? I scanned the story.

Was it the underwear joke? Nope.

The fact that he’d hadn’t shot a bird? Too timid.

No, according to trolls on the internet, Walz inelegantly un-loaded his shotgun shells.

But there were other “hot takes” on the day’s big event.

A Trump campaign page had shared what they called “another angle of Tim Walz fumbling around for his gun” and noted, “Tampon has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.”

Even Rep. Brad Finstad, the southern Minnesota congressman who represents not only Walz’s old district but also hunted in the same county as the governor Saturday morning, put out a photo of himself with two pheasants he shot on X, saying, “Great day for pheasant hunting in Brown County where we typically hunt with our shotguns.”

Was the insinuation that the governor hadn’t even brought his gun?

Sure enough, yes. All across the internet, people had interpreted a still photograph of the governor arriving in the motorcade and walking up to the DNR officer to get his license checked as evidence that Walz had never even picked up a shotgun, had simply done a blaze orange vogue.

Look, I’m the paper’s agriculture reporter. Corn, soybeans, occasionally cultivated wild rice. It’s a good gig. Sometimes, due to scheduling conflicts on our politics team, I get to fill-in on the other commodity: power. I’ve seen turkeys (not) pardoned in a gilded room at the Capitol. I’ve interviewed senators about flooding in southern Minnesota. Last August, I sat on a rainy stage for 30 minutes chatting with Royce White, the GOP Senate candidate, outside the Star Tribune booth at the State Fair. (I lost a beloved vintage blazer!)

And in some ways, lamenting the social juggernaut of misinformation is a little passé. To borrow an agricultural film metaphor, we are not in Kansas anymore.

But the internet is complicating our democracy. Two weekends ago, I sat on a patio overlooking the Root River in lovely Lanesboro when I overheard a patron insist to a table next to us that the government had orchestrated the tragic hurricane in the U.S. to take out conservative voters.

Even back in August, I had two dear friends insist to me that, actually, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance did alight onto a monologue about romantic relationships with couches in his memoir (he didn’t).

These are smart people. Well-intentioned people. We’ve just been overwhelmed by the medium. I’m not a hunter. I went to graduate school for literature. We are in need of rhetorical flotation devices to keep us afloat in the floods.

So here’s what actually happened last Saturday morning.

First-off, there might not be a Casey’s or Kwik Trip between the Twin Cities and New Ulm that carries a blaze orange stocking cap. That’s a missed opportunity. Because I searched nearly nearly every single one on my pre-dawn ride down from Minneapolis Saturday morning to the appointed meeting-place on a gravel road to get wanded by Secret Service.

Second, hunting is the most Downton Abbey thing we do in American politics. It’s not the foxes and hounds and horses and bugle calls. But it is a little silly. How can you shoot a bird with 20 reporters, 15 staffers, and 5 social media influencers in tow?

Still, I get it. There is a romantic showmanship to the day. The prairie presents well. And you got to dress warmly, which my east coast colleagues — in hoodies and sneakers — didn’t. So we sat there seemingly an eternity before, right before 9 a.m., Walz’s motorcade arrived, and the governor got smiling to walk over and get his pheasant credentials checked by the DNR officer.

Then, yes, we did do a bit of “fake-news.” One of the photographers requested views of faces of the hunting party — consisting of Walz, the president of Pheasants Forever, a local landowner, and a Nobles County hunter. So, for a performative few minutes, without taking any shots, the group walked toward the mobile media row, holding guns.

Then, finally, around 9:09 a.m., or so, according to the time-stamp on my phone, the actual hunting started.

Quickly enough, as we walked toward some increasingly tall-grass, a fluttering ball of might — a rooster — flew out of the grass.

“Rooster! Rooster!”

Bam. The bird fell.

Walz called out “Nice shot.”

Much to the disappointment of the huddled press, the Nobles County hunter, Scott Rall, had downed the bird. But Rall’s intrepid dogs couldn’t actually find the pheasant in the cover. We searched for a while and kept moving.

Over the next 60 minutes or so, with my phone increasingly teetering toward battery doom, we climbed through thickets, tripped over buried logs. The hunters communicated with each other wonderfully in a ridiculous situation. When a hen flew out, they’d call out “Hen! Hen!”, a hunter’s version of “stand down.” When the dogs excitedly dove up-and-down in the grass, Walz prepped everyone to get ready for a bird.

Yes, he didn’t take a shot. Would that have played better or worse with undecideds in Pennsylvania? I don’t know. There may’ve been chances. Mostly hens flew out. In one moment, a rooster emerged, but the bird was quite young. Maybe other hunters would’ve pulled the trigger. A journalist from an outdoors magazine next to me told another outdoors reporter: “I would’ve blasted it.”

Regardless, about an hour into the hunt, I was quite relieved the governor didn’t fire his shotgun. A rooster sprung up in the opposite direction, clearing over the heads of the pursuing press corps. Everyone, with cameras, ducked. Everyone, that is, except me. I tried following the bird with my cellphone camera. When I turned, Walz — who’d called out “don’t shoot” — was clutching his gun upright. Then he broke the nervous laughter.

“Every vice president joke there ever was was about to be made right there,” Walz said.

The joke was probably his best shot of the day.

Then we kept hunting. And hunting. Which for the reporters meant, walking. And walking. I was reminded of the apocryphal Mark Twain quote that “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” Then, my phone died. Fortunately, I had a laptop in my backpack, so I recharged my phone so that, about an hour later, I was able to record the governor just as he was removing his shotgun shells … and apparently ending his political career.

Then, we walked back to the farmsite. The social media influencers awaited. The Diet Mountain Dew needed to be swigged. One influencer asked the governor his favorite food. Another talked about restoring the country to “sanity.” I mostly just wanted to get on the road to internet and some beef jerky. But we had to wait for a security phalanx rolling a half-dozen cars deep, security against physical threats.

Bringing gun-toting hunters around with a vice presidential candidate in this political environment certainly could be scary. But really the most dangerous place, apparently, was just opening up your phone.

©2024 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Patrick Clarke | (TNS) TravelPulse

Two devastating hurricanes thrashed the Southeast with high winds and heavy rainfall in the past couple of weeks, reminding travelers of the importance of protecting their travel investment with a solid insurance plan.

Unlike auto, renters and other insurances, Americans aren’t forced to invest in travel insurance, but the benefits can be immense.

This peak Atlantic hurricane season only serves as a reminder.

After all, travelers can secure a reassuring travel insurance policy for just a small percentage of their total trip cost. According to NerdWallet, the average cost of travel insurance in 2024 is between 6% and 7% percent of your total trip expenses.

Still, tropical storms and hurricanes are extremely fluid and it’s never wise to wait until a troubling forecast to pay for protection. It’s often too late after a storm has been named or identified.

However, travelers can purchase a Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) policy that will provide added flexibility in the event of trip cancellations or disruptions.

The only thing worse than missing out on your dream vacation or having it impacted is having to foot the bill for an underwhelming experience. That’s where travel insurance comes in to quickly reimburse you for those expenses so you can plan for the next getaway uninhibited.

If you’re not sure where to begin, consider reputable or even an award-winning travel insurance provider that is constantly evolving by launching new tools to make purchasing the right policy, filing claims and more even easier.

“If you’re planning a getaway this year, we recommend adding a travel insurance plan to your packing list,” said Daniel Durazo, director of external communications at Allianz Partners USA. “Whether it’s a flight delay or lost luggage, a travel insurance policy may reimburse you for covered losses associated with a covered travel delay or baggage loss that could otherwise spoil a cherished trip.”

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©2024 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Meredith Deeds | (TNS) The Minnesota Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS — Some Minnesota falls are better than others. Some are more colorful, crisp and cool, while others are just cold. Then there are those “second summers” that creep deep into fall, only to be replaced by, well, winter.

This year feels like the latter, but even if the frost hasn’t covered the pumpkins yet, I’m still going to work in as many fall flavors as I can. I’ll just shift from my normal autumnal fare of hot and hearty comfort foods to something a little lighter, like a salad.

Although the summer tomato season has passed, that doesn’t mean we have to pass on salads. There are plenty of fall ingredients we can toss with a delicious dressing and some greens. One of my favorites is apples.

Here in Minnesota, we know a good apple when we sink our teeth into one. Even though we’re famous for the ever-popular Honeycrisp, this time of year, grocery store produce sections are packed with many different varieties of local apples.

First Kiss, Zestar, SweeTango and many more apple varieties are easy to find and delicious when added to a green salad.

In this week’s recipe, any one of these would be welcomed, tossed along with crisp romaine in a creamy honey-mustard dressing. Nutty cubes of Gruyère cheese are added, along with crunchy toasted hazelnuts. The result is a complex salad, packed with interesting textures and flavors.

I would serve this salad alongside any simple roasted meat or poultry.

Or, if you’d like to transform this salad into more of a main dish, you could certainly add a handful or two of shredded chicken to the mix.

No matter what kind of fall we’re in store for this year, don’t let it stop you from enjoying the flavors of the season.

Romaine, Apple, Hazelnut and Gruyère Salad with Creamy Honey-Mustard Dressing

Serves 4.

There’s no better way to celebrate than with this flavorful autumnal salad. From Meredith Deeds.

For the dressing:

• 3 tbsp. heavy cream
• 2 tbsp. cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 tbsp. whole grain Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

For the salad:

• 8 c. chopped romaine lettuce
• 1 medium crisp apple, cored and thinly sliced
• 4 oz. cubed Gruyère
• ½ c. roughly chopped toasted, skinned hazelnuts

Directions

Prepare the dressing: In a small bowl, combine the cream, vinegar, whole grain mustard, Dijon mustard, honey, salt and pepper. Whisk in olive oil and set aside.

Prepare the salad: In a medium bowl, add romaine lettuce, apples and 6 tablespoons dressing. Toss to coat. Add more dressing, if desired. Transfer to serving platter or plates. Scatter the Gruyère and hazelnuts over the top. Serve immediately.

©2024 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Lynn O’Rourke Hayes | (TNS) FamilyTravel.com

The classic road trip remains a popular way to explore. Here are five ways to hit the open road while learning along the way.

Colo-Road Trips (Colorado)

The Colorado Tourism Office makes it easy for road-trippers to explore the state’s 26 Scenic & Historic Byways. Their microsite includes an interactive map that enables travelers to explore options by region, interest or season. Travelers seeking inspiration can also access insider tips, music playlists and side-trip suggestions within more than 150 Colo-Road Trip itineraries, making multi-day adventures easy to plan. The flexible itineraries offer suggestions for historic attractions, active adventures and cultural opportunities. Visitors to the site can also peruse for picnic, dining, hiking and lodging suggestions.

For more: www.colorado.com

California dreaming

For majestic coastal scenery and seaside breezes, pile in the car for a trip up (or down) California’s western shore. Begin in ultra-hip Santa Monica and wind your way north past the Hearst Castle. Push farther north to Carmel and then on to the storied city by the bay, San Francisco. Other road trip options in this sun-drenched state include a taco tour and an itinerary that features the best surf spots. Or, uncover the bizarre attractions you’ll find in the California desert by following the state’s Amazing Desert Oddities itinerary.

For more: www.visitcalifornia.com

The Beartooth Highway (Montana and Wyoming)

Visitors who travel this extraordinary byway experience the visual trifecta of Montana, Wyoming and Yellowstone Park, home to the Absaroka and Beartooth mountains. The windy, cliff-hugging 68-mile stretch introduces road explorers to one of the most diverse ecosystems accessible by auto. It’s also the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies. Stunningly beautiful, the All-American Road showcases wide, high alpine plateaus painted with patches of ice blue glacial lakes, forested valleys, waterfalls and wildlife. Plan for many stops so the driver can take in the long views, too!

For more: www.redlodge.com

Seward Highway (Alaska)

The road that connects Anchorage to Seward is a 127-mile treasure trove of natural beauty, wildlife and stories of adventure, endurance and rugged ingenuity. Take a day or several to explore the region that has earned three-fold recognition as a Forest Service Scenic Byway, an Alaskan Scenic Byway and an All-American Road. The drive begins at the base of the Chugach Mountains, hugs the scenic shores of Turnagain Arm and winds through mining towns, national forests and fishing villages as you imagine how explorers, fur traders and gold prospectors might have fared back in the day. Expect waterfalls, glaciers, eagles, moose and some good bear stories. Download the Alaska app to browse points of interest on a map and access a collection of audio guides.

For more: www.alaska.org

Route 66

The western half of historic Route 66 makes for an iconic road trip. Travel from the seaside city of Santa Monica, California, to Williams, Arizona – the Gateway to the Grand Canyon – and on to Adrian, Texas, the midpoint on the famous route. (The full itinerary stretches 2,400 miles across two-thirds of the continent, ending in Chicago.) More than 250 Route 66 buildings, districts and road segments are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Along the way, you and your family will marvel at the wide-open spaces, the changing landscape and the rich history to be found as you follow the path of the original Mother Road.

For more: www.nps.gov

(Lynn O’Rourke Hayes (LOHayes.com) is an author, family travel expert and enthusiastic explorer.  Gather more travel intel on Twitter @lohayes, Facebook, or via FamilyTravel.com)

©2024 FamilyTravel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Hamilton Cain | (TNS) The Minnesota Star Tribune

Painter Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) chronicled the Black Migration out of the South in a series of 60 panels whose tempera colors and spiked diagonals depict fear and resolve. Aaron Robertson revisits that demographic surge in his elegant, vigorous debut, “The Black Utopians.”

Tackling the challenges of racial empowerment from the angle of Black communities that withdrew from the burdens of integration, weaving memoir with accounts of both self-determination and political machinations, showcasing obscure figures and celebrating their legacies, Robertson’s work arrives just in time for book prize season!

Robertson’s linchpin is the hamlet of Promise Land, Tenn., founded amid the hopeful upswell of Reconstruction. As a child he joined his grandparents on summer vacations there, driving from Detroit for a couple of weeks with extended relations, a pocket of black tranquility somehow beyond the wingspan of white America.

From personal recollections, he segues to the history of other utopias, from Beulah Land in South Carolina to activist congregations in Detroit and Houston. He bridges his chapters with tender letters from his father, Doe, a former ex-con who was often walled off (literally) from his son. Raw yet poetic, these letters evoke the plights and alienation of the incarcerated. The author dodges the pitfalls of nostalgia and sentimentality; his anecdotes crackle with immediacy.

His eye on pacing and detail, he charts the intellectual odysseys of his cast, upending our expectations. The fiery scion of a prominent African American family in Detroit, Albert Cleage Jr. took a more militant stance than his elders, building the Shrine of the Black Madonna and expanding into bookstores and various businesses with the flair of a born entrepreneur. He eventually changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman in the 1970s, a dash of radical chic that fuels the middle of “Utopians.” We glimpse the rise of Islamism within urban neighborhoods, as Malcolm X demands bloody confrontation.

Artist Glanton Dowdell, another Detroit native, slogged through early poverty and prison, living by street smarts.

“He and the other black boys watched the hustlers at Eastern Market ply their trade and became their informal apprentices,” Robertson writes. “They carried grocery bags, cleaned around the stands, loaded produce and scrapped with immigrant boys over turf..” A manslaughter charge sent him to the big house, where he funneled his despair into art that lent gravitas to his people’s suffering. Robinson’s portrait of Dowdell is a revelation unto itself.

Jaramogi (as Robertson calls him) recognized that Black Nationalism was fomenting its own institutions and hierarchies, taking on the contours of an industry. He embraced the shift, investing in Beulah Land, an idyllic farm. Robertson walks a tightrope here: His heart belongs to the white-hot entropy of the movement while his skeptic’s head questions the efficacy of separatism, such as the Shrine’s communal mandates.

“In the Shrine, renegade desires always flowered,” he opines. “The safeguarding of the individual was sacred and necessary, too. It was the individual who stood discretely on the riverbank, watching the baptism of others from afar.”

It’s easy to imagine the author as that riverbank observer, of the flow but not in it. Layered and probing, studded with germane autobiography, “The Black Utopians” is an extraordinary achievement in narrative nonfiction.

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The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America

By: Aaron Robertson.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 382 pages, $30.

©2024 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.