California fast food and health care workers poised to win major salary increases


Fast food workers and their supporters march past the California state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on Aug. 16, 2022. Most fast food workers in California would get a $20 minimum wage under a new bill introduced in the state Legislature on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. The bill represents an agreement between labor unions and the fast food industry.

 (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

BY ADAM BEAM
September 11, 2023


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Nearly 1 million California workers are poised to win major salary increases after labor unions flexed their collective muscle in the state’s Democratic-led Legislature on Monday following a summer of high-profile strikes in the entertainment and hospitality industries.

Most of the state’s 500,000 fast food workers would be paid at least $20 per hour next year under a new bill aimed at ending a standoff between the industry and labor unions over wages and working conditions. About 455,000 health care workers — not doctors and nurses, but the people who do everything else at hospitals, dialysis clinics and other facilities — will see their salaries rise to at least $25 per hour over the next 10 years in a separate bill.

Both proposals must first pass the state Legislature and be signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. But the proposals have the blessing of both labor unions and industry groups, clearing the path for passage this week before lawmakers adjourn for the year.

An added bonus for voters: The November 2024 ballot will be a little less crowded. The fast food industry has agreed to withdraw its referendum on a fast food law that Newsom signed last year.

The bills, both introduced Monday, are just some of the impressive run of results for labor unions in the state Legislature this year. Also on Monday, the state Assembly voted to advance a proposal to give striking workers unemployment benefits — a policy change that could eventually benefit Hollywood actors and writers and Los Angeles-area hotel workers who have been on strike for much of this year.

“I think fast food cooks and cashiers have fundamentally changed the politics of wages in this country and have reshaped what working people believe is possible when they join together and take on corporate power and systemic racism,” said Mary Kay Henry, international president of the Service Employees International Union.

California’s minimum wage is already among the highest in the country at $15.50 per hour. The fast food bill would increase that minimum wage to $20 per hour for workers at restaurants in California that have at least 60 locations nationwide — with an exception for restaurants that make and sell their own bread, like Panera Bread.

The bill will affect about 500,000 fast food workers in California, according to the Service Employees International Union, which has been working to unionize fast food workers in the state. They include Ingrid Vilorio, who works at a Jack In The Box in the San Francisco Bay Area. She said the raise will help her family, who until recently was sharing a house with two other families to afford rent.

“A lot of us (in the fast-food industry) have to have two jobs to make ends meet. This will give us some breathing space,” said Vilorio, who also works as a nanny.

The $20 hourly wage would be a starting point. The nine-member Fast Food Council, which would include representatives from the restaurant industry and labor, would have the power to increase that minimum wage each year by up to 3.5% or the change in the U.S. consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, whichever is lower.

The wage increase for health care workers is more complicated. Their salaries will rise gradually over the next decade, depending on where they work. Workers for large health care facilities and dialysis clinics will see their pay jump to at least $23 per hour next year, increasing to $25 per hour by 2026. Workers at rural hospitals with lots of Medicaid patients would have their salaries increase to at least $18 per hour next year, with 3.5% increases each year until it reaches $25 per hour in 2033.

Workers at community clinics will see their salaries rise to at least $21 per hour in 2024 before peaking at $25 per hour in 2027. Salaries at all other covered health care facilities will increase to at least $21 per hour next year before reaching $25 per hour by 2028.

“Everyone in the healthcare sector understands that we have a workforce crisis, and that wages are the essential prerequisite for any solution,” said Tia Orr, executive director of the Service Employees International Union-California. “With this increase, more workers will join and stay in the healthcare workforce, and as a result Californians will be safer and better cared for.”

It’s unusual, but not unprecedented, for states to have minimum wages for specific industries. Minnesota lawmakers created a council to set wages for nursing home workers. In 2021, Colorado announced a $15 minimum wage for direct care workers in home and community-based services.

In California, most fast food workers are over 18 and the main providers for their family, according to Enrique Lopezlira, director of the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center’s Low Wage Work Program. Just over 75% of health care workers in California are women, and 76% are workers of color, according to a study published earlier this year by the UC Berkely Labor Center.

Hospitals support the bill in part because it “ensures that wages for health care workers are set by the state, creating greater equity for all of California’s health care workforce,” said Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association.

The fast food industry benefits by stopping two proposals they say would have made it much harder for restaurants to operate in California. Labor unions agreed to withdraw a bill that would have held big fast food corporations like McDonald’s liable for the misdeeds of their independent franchise operators in the state.

And Democrats in the state Legislature agreed to strip funding for the Industrial Welfare Commission, an agency that has the power to set wage and workplace standards for multiple industries.

“It provides meaningful wage increases for workers, while at the same time eliminates more significant — and potentially existential — threats, costs and regulatory burdens targeting local restaurants in California,” said Matt Haller, president and CEO of the International Franchise Association.
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Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez contributed from San Francisco.

California lawmakers approve the nation’s most sweeping emissions disclosure rules for big business


 State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, speaks at a news conference in Sacramento, Calif., on Jan. 21, 2020. California lawmakers approved legislation Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, requiring major companies to disclose a sweeping range of greenhouse gas emissions. The bill, introduced by Wiener, would make companies making more than $1 billion annually report their direct and indirect emissions. 

(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)Read More

A man pushes a stroller near the AES power plant in Redondo Beach, Calif., on Sept. 7, 2022. California lawmakers approved legislation Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, requiring major companies to disclose a sweeping range of greenhouse gas emissions. 

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

BY SOPHIE AUSTIN
 September 11, 2023

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Major corporations from oil and gas companies to retail giants would have to disclose their direct greenhouse gas emissions as well as those that come from activities like employee business travel under legislation passed Monday by California lawmakers, the most sweeping mandate of its kind in the nation.

The legislation would require thousands of public and private businesses that operate in California and make more than $1 billion annually to report their direct and indirect emissions. The goal is to increase transparency and nudge companies to evaluate how they can cut their emissions.

“We are out of time on addressing the climate crisis,” Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward said. “This will absolutely help us take a leap forward to be able to hold ourselves accountable.”

The legislation was one of the highest profile climate bills in California this year, racking support from major companies that include Patagonia and Apple, as well as Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations convention behind the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The bill would still need final approval by the state Senate before it can reach Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Lawmakers backing the bill say a large number of companies in the state already disclose some of their own emissions. But the bill is a controversial proposal that many other businesses and groups in the state oppose and say will be too burdensome.

Newsom declined to share his position on the bill when asked last month. His administration’s Department of Finance opposed it in July, saying it would likely cost the state money that isn’t included in the latest budget. Newsom has advanced California’s role as a trendsetter on climate policies by transitioning the state away from gas-powered vehicles and expanding wind and solar power. By 2030, the state has set out to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below what they were in 1990.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who introduced the disclosure bill, said in a statement that it would allow California to “once again lead the nation with this ambitious step to tackle the climate crisis and ensure corporate transparency.”

California has a lot of big companies that manufacture, export and sell everything from electronics to transportation equipment to food, and most every major company in the country does business in the state, which is home to about one in nine Americans. Newsom often boasts about the state’s status as one of the world’s largest economies.

The policy would require more than 5,300 companies to report their emissions, according to Ceres, a nonprofit policy group supporting the bill.

About 17 states, including California, have inventories requiring large polluters to disclose how much they emit, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California’s climate disclosure bill would be different because of all the indirect emissions companies would have to report. Additionally, companies would have to report based on how much money they make, not how much they emit.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rules that would make public companies disclose their emissions, up and down the supply chain. But the California bill would go beyond that, by mandating that both public and private companies report their direct and indirect emissions.

Companies would have to report indirect emissions including those released by transporting products and disposing waste. For example, a major retailer would have to report emissions from powering its own buildings, as well as those that come from delivering products from warehouses to stores.

Opponents of the bill say it is not feasible to accurately account for all of the mandated emissions from sources beyond what companies are directly responsible for.

“We’re dealing with information that’s either unreliable or unattainable,” said Brady Van Engelen, a policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber, which advocates for businesses across the state, is leading a coalition that includes the Western States Petroleum Association, the California Hospital Association and agricultural groups, in opposing the bill. They argue many companies don’t have enough resources or expertise to accurately report emissions and say the legislation could lead to higher prices for people buying their products.

Hundreds of companies in California already have to disclose their direct emissions through the state’s cap and trade program, said Danny Cullenward, a climate economist and fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. The decade-old program, which allows large emitters to buy allowances from the state to pollute and trade them with other companies, is one of the largest in the world.

Cullenward said the disclosure bill could lead to similar proposals in other states as federal regulators, faced with possible lawsuits in the future over disclosure mandates, “are going to be under pressure to not overreach.”

Supporters of the disclosure bill acknowledge it’s not a “perfect” solution that would guarantee flawless emissions reports. But they say it’s a starting point. California Environmental Voters, which supports the bill, says the legislation would put pressure on companies to move faster in lowering their emissions.

“Our state can’t just take 2023 off in terms of climate action,” said Mary Creasman, the group’s chief executive officer.

The California Air Resources Board would have to approve regulations by 2025 to implement the bill’s requirements. Companies would have to begin publicly disclosing their direct emissions annually in 2026 and start annually reporting their indirect emissions starting in 2027. Companies would have to hire independent auditors to verify their reported emissions releases. The state would not penalize companies for unintentional mistakes they make in reporting a portion of their indirect emissions.

A similar proposal introduced last year passed the state Senate but failed in the Assembly. Wiener, the San Francisco Democrat who introduced the legislation both years, has said proponents of the bill built a stronger coalition this year to have a better outcome.

A key committee in the state Assembly blocked legislation earlier this year that would have sped up the state’s timeline for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers are also weighing a bill that would require companies making more than $500 million annually to disclose how climate change could hurt them financially.
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Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin @sophieadanna

Music Review: Harmonica guru Lee Oskar’s all sunshine on funky instrumental album ‘She Said Mahalo’

This cover image released by Dreams We Share shows “She Said Mahalo” by Lee Oskar.

BY STEVEN WINE
September 11, 2023

On the instrumental album “She Said Mahalo,” Lee Oskar plays funk, reggae, a lullaby and more, all while using less than a dozen harmonicas. The harp virtuoso known for being a founding member of the rock-funk band War is front and center in a varied mix of arrangements that includes guitar, keys, winds, strings and buoyant percussion.

“She Said Mahalo,” serves up sunny music for mornings when words are too much to process. The warm tone of Oskar’s unhurried harp rides smooth grooves, and several tunes sound like TV or movie themes.

“Morning Rush” pairs a caffeinated rhythm with two classic Japanese instruments, shakuhachi and shamisen, courtesy of Oskar’s collaborations with “Sancho” Youichrou Suzuki and Mayo Higa respectively.

“Caribbean Love Song” achieves an island sensibility, as if the rhythm section was placed directly on the beach.

On “Funky Rhetoric,” the funk is more than rhetorical, and the tune’s put-your-hands-together beat sends Oskar’s high-C harp soaring.

The tempo slows on the title cut, with a string section providing a lovely counterpoint to the wistful melody. Oskar saves the best for last – the muscular “One-World Fist” — a slice of wonderfully weird Klezmer get-down.

In the physical edition of “She Said Mahalo,” liner notes include a narrative regarding each tune and a list of harmonicas played — along with paintings by Oskar that are as appealing as one of his solos — making for an enhanced listening experience.

“She Said Mahalo” will be released on Friday.

TIFF

'Dumb Money’ goes all in on the GameStop stock frenzy — and may come out a winner

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Paul Dano as Keith Gill in a scene from “Dumb Money.” (Claire Folger/Sony Pictures via AP)

 In this image from video provided by the House Financial Services Committee, Keith Gill, a GameStop investor, also known in social media forums as Roaring Kitty, testifies during a virtual hearing on GameStop in Washington, on Feb. 18, 2021. A new film based on the GameStop stock frenzy, “Dumb Money,” is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

(House Financial Services Committee via AP, File)

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Shailene Woodley, left, and Paul Dano in a scene from “Dumb Money.” (Claire Folger/Sony Pictures via AP)

BY JAKE COYLE

 September 11, 2023

TORONTO (AP) — Think of movies about the financial system and your mind is almost sure to go to Gordon Gekko and “Wall Street” or Leonardo DiCaprio’s gyrating Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

When Hollywood takes on Wall Street, it usually heads straight to the C-suite.

The protagonist of “Dumb Money,” though, is an amateur investor who trades out of his basement in Brockton, Massachusetts, with a bandana tied around his head and a Belgian beer in his hand.

This is Keith Gill (played in the film by Paul Dano), also known as Roaring Kitty. In 2021, Gill’s enthusiastic endorsement of GameStop stock helped fuel a viral trading frenzy that rocked Wall Street and humbled the hedge funds that has shorted the brick-and-mortar video game company.

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Now, Sony Pictures is betting that a David vs. Goliath story that played out on Reddit message boards can be a big-screen attraction, too. Like any investment, it carries some degree of risk.

“Dumb Money,” made for about $30 million, is charging into a still-fresh wound for some Wall Street power players; at least one executive portrayed in the film has reportedly threatened to sue.

The film, which opens in limited release Friday and expands in the next several weeks, will also have to sell itself without its colorful ensemble cast (including Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, America Ferrara, Anthony Ramos and Shailene Woodley) due to the actors strike. And then there’s the inherent challenge of making a dramatic narrative out of a revolution that occurred mainly on computer screens and smartphones.

Yet Craig Gillespie, director of the Tonya Harding black comedy “I, Tonya,” managed to corral a brash online movement into a remarkably rollicking and crowd-pleasing entertainment that’s already stoking some of the same energy that sent GameStop soaring. Ticket prices to the movie’s Toronto International Film Festival were driven past $900 on secondary seller websites.

“As much as it’s a really fun ride, ultimately I wanted to respect the frustration and the outrage that was happening,” says Gillespie.

There are many ironies surrounding “Dumb Money.” It will play in AMC Theaters, which followed GameStop as a meme stock, pumping up its share price at a time when movie theaters were reeling from the pandemic.

“I think we should go to AMC Theaters and we should bring stuff from Bed Bath and Beyond and carry Blackberries,” says Ben Mezrich, author of the book the film’s adapted from, “The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees.”

Mezrich, whose 2009 book about Mark Zuckerberg, “The Accidental Billionaire,” served as fodder for David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” immediately recognized the potential drama in the GameStop phenomenon. On the day the company’s stock surpassed $300 a share, he began plotting a book that could adapted into a movie.

“By the end of that day, I knew that this was something that I wanted to write and I could see it as a film,” says Mezrich. “That night, I wrote a 12-page proposal and treatment as both a movie and book idea. By the end of the week, we had a movie.”

“Dumb Money” proceeded at a ripped-from-the-headlines pace — fast enough that most of those involved making it failed to invest, themselves. Gillespie was able to follow the phenomenon thanks to his 24-year-old son, who had been involved with the subreddit Wall Street Bets.

“I got to live it through him,” says Gillespie. “That was a huge touchstone for me in terms of the emotionality of the film. That frustration, that outrage, all those emotions that were happening through this. I actually got in too late, myself. My son warned me: You got in too late.”

Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, two former Wall Street Journal reporters turned screenwriters, came on to write the script. For them it was a way to extend their interest in the power of internet populism — and they already had some experience turning digital-based stories into something human.

“We wrote a film about GamerGate a long time ago that didn’t get made,” says Blum. “The producer in that process was like, ‘Alright, let’s just go out and invent a new language of cinema.’ It has taken many years trying to figure out: How do you make a story like this cinematic?”

“Dumb Money” seamlessly juggles a wide spectrum of characters who invest in GameStop for various reasons — a Pittsburgh single-mother nurse (Ferrera), a GameStop employee (Ramos), a pair of in-debt college students (Myha’la Herrold and Talia Ryder) — while breezily synthesizing the complicated economic context.

“We don’t need Margot Robbie in a bathtub explaining complex financial concepts,” says Angelo, referencing 2015’s “The Big Short.”

The meme-stuffed grammar of the film owes much to the frenetic, inundating experience of social media, but it also works as a surprisingly accurate portrait of the pandemic. You may be surprised how affectingly, and empoweringly, the film uses the then-ubiquitous TikToks of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.”

“It was a time when people were feeling very small. They feel small, they feel powerless, they feel that the system is rigged,” says Angelo. “And this was an opportunity to feel big and find power in numbers.”

Gill, himself, dropped out of the spotlight as fast he entered it. His last tweet from his “Roaring Kitty” account was posted in 2021, of sleeping kittens. His investments, originally about $50,000 (much of his young family’s savings) when GameStop was going for about $5 a share, at one point reached $48 million in value.

The filmmakers attempted to reach Gill but ultimately respected his privacy and had no direct contact with him. Gill has said little publicly since testifying before Congress in 2021. Lawmakers were then probing whether the rally had violated regulations of market manipulation.

Gill maintained that he advocated for GameStop “for educational purposes only, and that my aggressive style of investing was unlikely to be suitable for most folks.” He simply believed in the company.

“In short,” Gill said, “I like the stock.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

JAKE COYLE

Thailand’s LGBTQ+ community draws tourists from China looking to be themselves

A gay Chinese couple looks at a facility during a condominium tour in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. LGBTQ+ people from China who are frequently scorned and ostracized at home are coming to Thailand in droves. They’re drawn by the freedom to be themselves. Bangkok is only a 5-hour flight from Beijing, and Thailand’s tourism authorities actively promote its status as among the most open to LGBTQ+ people in the region.

Owen Zhu, center, a gay real estate agent in Bangkok who sells houses to Chinese clients, shows a facility to his gay customers, right, in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. Zhu said many are also coming to stay. He estimated some 2/3 of his clients are LGBTQ+, many of whom buy apartments to live in part- or full-time.

People walk along a rainbow-colored walkway outside a Bangkok mall during Pride celebrations on Sunday, June 4, 2023. LGBTQ+ people from China who are frequently scorned and ostracized at home are coming to Thailand in droves. They’re drawn by the freedom to be themselves. Bangkok is only a 5-hour flight from Beijing, and Thailand’s tourism authorities actively promote its status as among the most open to LGBTQ+ people in the region.

(AP Photo/Donna Edwards)

A procession of people dressed in vibrant outfits wait their turn to walk the rainbow carpet at the end of the Pride parade in Bangkok on Sunday, June 4, 2023. LGBTQ+ people from China who are frequently scorned and ostracized at home are coming to Thailand in droves. They’re drawn by the freedom to be themselves. Bangkok is only a 5-hour flight from Beijing, and Thailand’s tourism authorities actively promote its status as among the most open to LGBTQ+ people in the region.

Owen Zhu, right, a gay real estate agent, and his friend, sit in gay bar Silver Sand, before its show in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. Zhu, who sells houses to Chinese clients, said many are also coming to stay. He estimated some 2/3 of his clients are LGBTQ+, many of whom buy apartments to live in part- or full-time.

A gay Chinese couple watches the city view of Bangkok during a condominium tour in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. LGBTQ+ people from China who are frequently scorned and ostracized at home are coming to Thailand in droves. They’re drawn by the freedom to be themselves. Bangkok is only a 5-hour flight from Beijing, and Thailand’s tourism authorities actively promote its status as among the most open to LGBTQ+ people in the region.

A gay Chinese visitor looks at a Show Unit room in a condominium building in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. LGBTQ+ people from China who are frequently scorned and ostracized at home are coming to Thailand in droves. They’re drawn by the freedom to be themselves. Bangkok is only a 5-hour flight from Beijing, and Thailand’s tourism authorities actively promote its status as among the most open to LGBTQ+ people in the region.(

AP Photos/Sakchai Lalit

BY YUCHENG TANG
September 10, 2023

BANGKOK (AP) — Xinyu Wen traveled to Thailand in June, planning a two-week vacation around Bangkok’s Pride parade.

Instead, the 28-year-old stayed a month and a half, as her experience at the parade gave rise to discussions and discoveries in the Thai capital’s thriving LBGTQ+ community.

LGBTQ+ people from China, frequently scorned and ostracized at home, are coming to Thailand in droves, drawn by the freedom to be themselves. When Wen walked along the parade on the streets in Bangkok, “I felt like I was in a big party or a huge amusement park. We could forget all upsetting things and feel fun-filled,” she said.

Bangkok is only a 5-hour flight from Beijing, and Thailand’s tourism authorities actively promote its status as among the most open to LGBTQ+ people in the region.

Wen got interested in Thailand when her friend sent her a photo of rainbow-colored, Pride-themed ice cream being sold on the streets.

“I wanted to go to Thailand to take a look,” she said.

Wen describes herself as queer, which she says means that her partners can be any gender and she can be any gender. At home, Wen said she regularly gets judgmental stares on the street for wearing her hair short like a man’s, and was once asked by her barber: “What happened to your life?”

But at the Bangkok Pride parade in June, Wen noticed people confidently wore what they wanted. She was excited to be able to express herself publicly and finally drop her guard. More than that, she said she was also impressed by the protest element to the event, in which people carried signs written in traditional Chinese with slogans like “China has no LGBTQ” and “Freedom is what we deserve.”

“I felt a mixed feeling, touched but sad,” she said.

Ahead of her trip, she read up on the situation in Thailand, finding reports that showed there is still widespread discrimination, especially in the workplace. Thailand does not recognize same-sex unions or marriages, which also means they’re barred from adopting children, and other legal processes that straight couples have access to.

Wen arrived at the parade somewhat skeptical. But she ended up finding it empowering.

“Although I initially had a critical attitude toward the parade in Bangkok because discrimination against LGBTQ individuals hasn’t disappeared, I still felt inspired because the neglected groups and the suppressed feelings matter here.”

Thailand Tourism Authority official Apichai Chatchalermkit said in an Aug. 9 article in The Nation newspaper that LGBTQ+ tourists are considered “high-potential” as they tend to spend more and travel more frequently than other visitors.

“Using a photo of LGBTQ+ individuals in tourism advertisements is considered as offering a warm welcome without discrimination,” he said.

Thailand doesn’t keep figures on LGBTQ+ tourists. But through mid-August, it has counted 2.2 million Chinese tourists out of an overall 16 million.

Owen Zhu, a gay real estate agent in Bangkok who sells houses to Chinese clients, said many are also coming to stay. He estimated some 2/3 of his clients are LGBTQ+, many of whom buy apartments to live in part- or full-time.

“Among Chinese gay people, Thailand is called gay’s heaven,” he said, noting that there are many chat groups where gay men from China coordinate trips to Thailand and share information about parties and tickets to events.

Being gay is not illegal in China, though other Asian countries have strict laws around homosexuality — such as Malaysia, which announced in August that anyone in possession of an LGBTQ+-themed watch could be jailed for 3 years. But LGBTQ+ people in China face other pressures to conform that can make the free expression of their identities difficult.

As a lesbian in her conservative province in central China, Jade Yang was talked into marrying a gay man at her parents’ request so that both of them could keep up appearances.

The 28-year-old, who works in the television industry, first visited Thailand four years ago and remembers being shocked to hear people talk casually about their same-sex partners. Yang disliked lying to her cousins and friends about the marriage and moved to Thailand in February, saying she wanted to distance herself from her hometown.

Now, she said, she can date the women she likes and focus on her studies and career without worrying about how to act as a straight woman.

“I wasted a lot of time over the past three years,” she said. “After coming here, I feel the world is so big for me to explore. I have also learned I should not deny the way I am so easily, and love myself better.”

At the Silver Sand gay bar in Bangkok, owner Adisak Wongwaikankha said about 30% of his customers are LGBTQ+ people from China, and that number has been growing.

He operates a bar on the ground floor and a drag show on the second floor.

“Most of our Chinese customers come with excitement and curiosity,” he said.

Another draw for tourists, inside and outside the LGBTQ+ community, is Thailand’s loose enforcement of prostitution laws and renowned nightclub shows.

Eros Li first came to Thailand in February to check out the nightlife and the massage parlors, many of which offer sex services. The 42-year-old returned two months later, saying that, while there are some spas in China where similar sex services are on offer, they are less accessible and there is a risk of being arrested.

“The LGBTQ community in Thailand is lively and open. I received many messages on gay dating apps every day, which made me happy,” Li said.
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Elon Musk’s refusal to have Starlink support Ukraine attack in Crimea raises questions for Pentagon

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition, March 9, 2020, in Washington. Musk’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch a surprise attack on Russian forces in Crimea last September has raised questions for the Pentagon. The Air Force’s top civilian leader, Frank Kendall, says the military may need to be more explicit in future defense contracts that services or products it purchases could be used in war.

 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

BY TARA COPP
September 11, 2023

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (AP) — SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch a surprise attack on Russian forces in Crimea last September has raised questions as to whether the U.S. military needs to be more explicit in future contracts that services or products it purchases could be used in war, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday.

Excerpts of a new biography of Musk published by The Washington Post last week revealed that the Ukrainians in September 2022 had asked for the Starlink support to attack Russian naval vessels based at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Musk had refused due to concerns that Russia would launch a nuclear attack in response. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and claims it as its territory.

Musk was not on a military contract when he refused the Crimea request; he’d been providing terminals to Ukraine for free in response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. However, in the months since, the U.S. military has funded and officially contracted with Starlink for continued support. The Pentagon has not disclosed the terms or cost of that contract, citing operational security.

But the Pentagon is reliant on SpaceX for far more than the Ukraine response, and the uncertainty that Musk or any other commercial vendor could refuse to provide services in a future conflict has led space systems military planners to reconsider what needs to be explicitly laid out in future agreements, Kendall said during a roundtable with reporters at the Air Force Association convention at National Harbor, Maryland, on Monday.

“If we’re going to rely upon commercial architectures or commercial systems for operational use, then we have to have some assurances that they’re going to be available,” Kendall said. “We have to have that. Otherwise they are a convenience and maybe an economy in peacetime, but they’re not something we can rely upon in wartime.”

SpaceX also has the contract to help the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command develop a rocket ship that would quickly move military cargo into a conflict zone or disaster zone, which could alleviate the military’s reliance on slower aircraft or ships. While not specifying SpaceX, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, said, “American industry has to be clear-eyed on the full spectrum of what it could be used for.”

As U.S. military investment in space has increased in recent years, concerns have revolved around how to indemnify commercial vendors from liability in case something goes wrong in a launch and whether the U.S. military has an obligation to defend those firms’ assets, such as their satellites or ground stations, if they are providing military support in a conflict.

Until Musk’s refusal in Ukraine, there had not been a focus on whether there needed to be language saying a firm providing military support in war had to agree that that support could be used in combat.

“We acquire technology, we acquire services, required platforms to serve the Air Force mission, or in this case, the Department of the Air Force,” said Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics. “So that is an expectation, that it is going to be used for Air Force purposes, which will include, when necessary, to be used to support combat operations.”

STORM DANIEL

Flooding in Libya leaves 2,000 people feared dead and more missing after storm collapsed dams

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In this photo provided by the Libyan government, cars and rubble sit in a street in Derna, Libya, on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, after it was flooded by heavy rains. Mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in Libya that broke dams swept away entire neighborhoods and wrecked homes in multiple coastal towns in the east of the North African nation. As many as 2,000 people were feared dead one of the country’s leaders said. (Libyan government via AP)Read More

In this photo provided by the Libyan government, a car sits partly suspended in trees after being carried by floodwaters in Derna, Libya, on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in Libya that broke dams and swept away entire neighborhoods and wrecked homes in multiple coastal towns in the east of the North African nation. As many as 2,000 people were feared dead one of the country’s leaders said. (Libyan government handout via AP)

In this photo provided by the Libyan government, a seaside road is collapsed after heavy flooding in Derna, Libya, on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in Libya that broke dams and swept away entire neighborhoods and wrecked homes in multiple coastal towns in the east of the North African nation. (Libyan government via AP)

In this photo provided by the Libyan government, muddied seawaters caused by heavy flooding are visible off the coast of the city of Derna, Libya, on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. Mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in Libya that broke dams and swept away entire neighborhoods and wrecked homes in multiple coastal towns in the east of the North African nation. (Libyan government via AP)

BY SAMY MAGDY
September 11, 2023

CAIRO (AP) — Mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in Libya that broke dams and swept away entire neighborhoods in multiple coastal towns in the east of the North African nation. As many as 2,000 people were feared dead, one of the country’s leaders said Monday.

The destruction appeared greatest in Derna, a city formerly held by Islamic extremists in the chaos that has gripped Libya for more than a decade and left it with crumbling and inadequate infrastructure. Libya remains divided between two rival administrations, one in the east and one in the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.

The confirmed death toll from the weekend flooding stood at 61 as of late Monday, according to health authorities. But the tally did not include Derna, which had become inaccessible, and many of the thousands missing there were believed carried away by waters after two upstream dams burst.

Video by residents of the city posted online showed major devastation. Entire residential areas were erased along a river that runs down from the mountains through the city center. Multistory apartment buildings that once stood well back from the river were partially collapsed into the mud.

In a phone interview with station Monday, Prime Minister Ossama Hamad of the east Libyan government said 2,000 were feared dead in Derna and thousands were believed missing. He said Derna has been declared a disaster zone.

Ahmed al-Mosmari, a spokesman for the country’s armed forces based in the east, told a news conference that the death toll in Derna had surpassed 2,000. He said there were between 5,000 and 6,000 reported missing. Al-Mosmari attributed the catastrophe to the collapse of two nearby dams, causing a lethal flash flood.

Since a 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed long-time ruler Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has lacked a central government and the resulting lawlessness has meant dwindling investment in the country’s roads and public services and also minimal regulation of private building. The country is now split between rival governments in the east and west, each backed by an array of militias.

Derna itself, along with the city of Sirte, was controlled by extremist groups for years, at one point by those who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, until forces loyal to the east-based government expelled them in 2018.

At least 46 people were reported dead in the eastern town of Bayda, Abdel-Rahim Mazek, head of the town’s main medical center said. Another seven people were reported dead in the coastal town of Susa in northeastern Libya, according to the Ambulance and Emergency Authority. Seven others were reported dead in the towns of Shahatt and Omar al-Mokhtar, said Ossama Abduljaleel, health minister. One person was reported dead Sunday in the town of Marj.

The Libyan Red Crescent said three of its workers had died while helping families in Derna. Earlier, the group said it lost contact with one of its workers as he attempted to help a stuck family in Bayda. Dozens of others were reported missing, and authorities fear they could have died in the floods that destroyed homes and other properties in several towns in eastern Libya, according to local media.

In Derna, local media said the situation was catastrophic with no electricity or communications.

Essam Abu Zeriba, the interior minister of the east Libya government, said more than 5,000 people were expected to be missing in Derna. He said many of the victims were swept away towards the Mediterranean.

“The situation is tragic,” he declared in a telephone interview on the Saudi-owned satellite news channel Al-Arabiya. He urged urged local and international agencies to rush to help the city.

Georgette Gagnon, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, said early reports showed that dozens of villages and towns were “severely affected ... with widespread flooding, damage to infrastructure, and loss of life.”

“I am deeply saddened by the severe impact of (storm) Daniel on the country ... I call on all local, national, and international partners to join hands to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the people in eastern Libya,” she wrote on X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

In a post on X, the U.S. Embassy in Libya said it was in contact with both the U.N. and Libyan authorities and was determining how to deliver aid to the most affected areas.

Over the weekend, Libyans shared footage on social media showing flooded houses and roads in many areas across eastern Libya. They pleaded for help as floods besieged people inside their homes and in their vehicles.

Ossama Hamad, the prime minister of the east Libya government, declared Derna a disaster zone after heavy rainfall and floods destroyed much of the city which is located in the delta of the small Wadi Derna on Libya’s east coast. The prime minister also announced three days of mourning and ordered flags across the country to be lowered to half-staff.

Controlling eastern and western Libya, Cmdr. Khalifa Hifter deployed troops to help residents in Benghazi and other eastern towns. Ahmed al-Mosmari, a spokesperson for Hifter’s forces, said they lost contact with five troops who were helping besieged families in Bayda.

Foreign governments sent messages of support on Monday evening. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, said his country would send humanitarian assistance and search-and-rescue teams to eastern Libya, according to the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency.

Turkey, which supports the country’s Tripoli-based government in the west, also expressed condolences, along with neighboring Algeria and Egypt, and also Iraq.

Storm Daniel is expected to arrive in parts of west Egypt on Monday, and the country’s meteorological authorities warned about possible rain and bad weather.

7 people have died in storms in southern China and 70 crocodiles are reported to be on the loose


Fire-fighters drain out water following heavy rainstorms in Hong Kong, Friday, Sept. 8, 2023.

 Rain pouring onto Hong Kong and southern China overnight flooded city streets and some subway stations, halting transportation and forcing schools to close Friday. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)Photos

 September 11, 2023

BEIJING (AP) — Rainstorms battering southern China have killed at least seven people and allowed dozens of crocodiles to escape from a farm.

Nearby residents were advised to stay at home after more than 70 crocodiles escaped in Maoming, a city near the coast in western Guangdong province, according to Chinese media reports.

An emergency official was quoted as saying that 69 adult crocodiles and six juveniles had escaped. Some have been captured, but the operation was difficult because of the depth of a lake they are in, the media reports said.

No injuries have been reported.

2 dead in Hong Kong amid extreme rain and flash floods that also struck southern China

Hong Kong closes schools as torrential rain floods streets, subway station

Floods from Tropical Storm Haikui kill 2 and displace thousands in China’s Fujian province

Further west, seven people died and three are missing after multiple landslides in the city of Yulin in the Guangxi region, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Monday. Heavy rain on Sunday and Monday triggered the landslides.

The rain caused flash floods in Hong Kong last week, killing two people. Parts of the city were flooded again following a heavy downpour Monday. Puddles of water and debris could still be seen.

Hong Kong leader John Lee said the government would set up an emergency assistance fund to help those affected by the floods.

Over 100 VIPs attend UN screening of documentary on Russia’s siege of Ukrainian city of Mariupol



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Associated Press journalist Mstyslav Chernov delivers a video message from the field in Ukraine before the screening of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” at the United Nations headquarters, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023. 

An explosion erupts from an apartment building after a Russian army tank fired on it in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 11, 2022. The United States and Britain have invited ambassadors, journalists and others to a U.N. screening of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” which follows a trio of Associated Press journalists during Russia’s siege of the Ukrainian port city in the early days of the war. The Monday evening screening comes a week before world leaders arrive for their annual meeting at the U.N. General Assembly, where the 18-month war in Ukraine is expected to be in the spotlight. 

 workers try to save the life of Marina Yatsko’s 18 month-old son Kirill, who was fatally wounded by shelling, at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022. The United States and Britain have invited ambassadors, journalists and others to a U.N. screening of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” which follows a trio of Associated Press journalists during Russia’s siege of the Ukrainian port city in the early days of the war. The Monday evening screening comes a week before world leaders arrive for their annual meeting at the U.N. General Assembly, where the 18-month war in Ukraine is expected to be in the spotlight. 

 Serhii, father of teenager Iliya, cries on his son’s lifeless body lying on a stretcher at a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. The United States and Britain have invited ambassadors, journalists and others to a U.N. screening of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” which follows a trio of Associated Press journalists during Russia’s siege of the Ukrainian port city in the early days of the war. The Monday evening screening comes a week before world leaders arrive for their annual meeting at the U.N. General Assembly, where the 18-month war in Ukraine is expected to be in the spotlight. 

(AP Photos/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

September 11, 2023Share

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than a hundred ambassadors, journalists and representatives of a broad spectrum of society watched a U.N. screening Monday evening of the award-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” which follows a trio of Associated Press journalists during Russia’s relentless siege of the Ukrainian port city in the early days of the war.

U.K. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, who co-hosted the screening, said the film is important because “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens what the U.N. stands for: an international order where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries is fundamental.”

“We want to reaffirm our commitment to U.N. values, and that’s why we’ve chosen to show this very important documentary,” she said in welcoming the the audience at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The screening comes at the start of the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly and a week before world leaders arrive for their annual meeting, where the more than 18-month war in Ukraine is expected to be in the spotlight — especially with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scheduled to speak in person for the first time.

The harrowing documentary, which was produced by the AP and the PBS series “Frontline,” is culled from 30 hours of footage AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov and his colleagues shot in Mariupol following Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and its siege of the city.

It documents fighting in the streets, the crushing strain on Mariupol’s residents and medical teams, and attacks that killed pregnant women, children and others. The siege, which ended on May 20, 2022, with the surrender of a small group of outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal steel plant, left the city in ruins and an estimated 25,000 people dead, though the toll is likely higher.

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the other co-host, said “20 Days in Mariupol” documents “the horrors of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war of aggression.”

“We’re here tonight to bear witness, to bear witness to these horrors and to reaffirm our commitment to justice and peace,” she said. “We must continue to hold Russia to account for its atrocities. We must continue to support the Ukrainian people in their time of need.”

The AP’s reporting from Mariupol drew the Kremlin’s ire, with its U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, falsely claiming during a Security Council meeting in the siege’s early days that photos showing the aftermath of a missile strike on a maternity hospital were staged.

“I wish the entire Russian mission were here to watch this film,” said Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya, who attended Monday’s screening.

Kyslytsya said he believes the documentary is so powerful and important that it will still be shown 50 years from now.

AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Julie Pace called the documentary “a testament to the power and impact of eyewitness journalism,” stressing that without it, “the world would not have known the atrocities that took place.”

“To have the film screened at the United Nations as the U.N. General Assembly gets underway underscores the importance of fact-based journalism on a global scale,” she said. “It’s crucial that we safeguard both the ability of a free press to cover the world’s most important stories and the public’s ability to view this type of fact-based reporting.”

“20 Days in Mariupol” won the Sundance Global Audience Award for Best Documentary and several other prizes. Chernov was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service along with photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, producer Vasilisa Stepanenko and Paris-based correspondent Lori Hinnant for their “courageous reporting” on Mariupol.

Chernov delivered a video welcome from the field in Ukraine, wearing a helmet and telling the audience that he sometimes feels powerless as a journalist because he can’t change things.

“I can only make sure that as many people as possible will see what I saw … know about what happened in Mariupol and will never forget about it,” he said. “What was happening in Mariupol is happening right now to other Ukrainian cities, in this moment, and it unfortunately will be happening tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, until the war is stopped.”

Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of “Frontline,” called it “deeply meaningful” to have the opportunity to screen the documentary at the United Nations. She said the producers continue to share the film around the world to give audiences the opportunity to “bear witness to the atrocities that Ukrainians have endured.”
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For more AP coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/ukraine

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS
UN says Colombia’s coca crop at all-time high as officials promote new drug policies


Police patrol a coca field as hired farmers uproot coca shrubs as part of a manual eradication campaign of illegal crops in San Miguel on Colombia’s southern border with Ecuador, Aug. 15, 2012. Coca cultivation reached an all-time high in Colombia in 2012, the U.N. said in a Sept. 2023 report, as the administration of President Gustavo Petro struggles to reduce poverty in remote areas and contain armed groups that are profiting from the cocaine trade. 

(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)

BY MANUEL RUEDA
September 11, 2023

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Coca cultivation reached an all-time high in Colombia last year, the U.N. said, as the administration of President Gustavo Petro struggles to reduce poverty in remote areas and contain armed groups that are profiting from the cocaine trade.

The new findings on coca growing were published over the weekend by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, which said 230,000 hectares (nearly 570,000 acres) of farmland in Colombia were planted with coca in 2022, a 13% increase from the previous year.

The South American nation is the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, which is made from coca leaves. Colombia provides 90% of the cocaine sold in the United States each year.

Colombia’s government said Monday that the amount of land planted with coca is increasing at a slower pace than in previous years. It hopes new programs that provide greater economic incentives for farmers to adopt legal crops will help reduce cocaine production in coming years.


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“We are flattening the curve,” Justice Minister Nestor Osuna said at a news conference, referring to the 13% annual increase in land planted with coca. He noted coca cultivation in Colombia rose more than 40% from 2020 to 2021.

On Saturday, President Gustavo Petro, whose government has decreased coca eradication targets, criticized U.S.-led efforts to fight drug production by eradicating coca crops, calling the approach a failure.

Speaking at a Latin American conference on drug policy organized by his administration, Petro urged Colombia’s neighbors to change their approach to drug policy. He said drug use should be approached as a “public health problem” and not a military problem.

“We have to end the disastrous policy that blames farmers (for cocaine production) and doesn’t ask why in some societies people consume drugs until they kill themselves,” he said. “Drugs are replacing the lack of affection and loneliness.”

According to the annual U.N. report, coca cultivation in Colombia expanded the most in border areas, where cocaine is easy to transport and export, specially the province of Putumayo, along Colombia’s southern border with Ecuador.

U.N. officials said coca production had diminished in Colombia’s interior due to decreases in the price for coca leaf, saying that is presenting officials with an opportunity to enroll farmers in crop substitution projects.

“We have to work on strengthening legal economies” in isolated areas “and not just attacking illicit economies,” said Leonardo Correa, the regional coordinator for the U.N.’s coca monitoring system.

Colombia’s coca crop went down slightly from 2017 to 2020, following a peace deal between the government and the country’s biggest rebel movement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. But planting has risen since then as smaller armed groups that profit from the drug trade take over territory that was abandoned by FARC fighters.

The justice minister said Colombia plans to tackle cocaine production by improving education, health and infrastructure in a handful of areas that are teeming with coca crops.

“The success of our drug policy should be measured in terms of the reduction of violent crime, and the reduction of poverty in those regions where coca is cultivated,” Osuna said.