Author: Reporter

Sales of Yizhuan Automobile Co.’s trash trucks picked up after China ended anti-virus controls in December, but their growth is in low gear as managers struggle to rebuild business lost during the pandemic. China’s economy rebounded at the start of 2023, but after a good first quarter, factory output and consumer spending are weakening. An official survey in April found a record 1 in 5 young workers in cities were unemployed. Yizhuan’s sales are up only by single-digit percentages from last year’s depressed level, according to its deputy general manager, Yu Xiongli. The 300-employee company is in Hubei province,...

The first years of the pandemic saw a huge decline in high school students having sex, according to a government survey. Teen sex was already becoming less and less common before COVID-19. About three decades ago, more than half of teens said they’d had sex, according to a large government survey conducted every two years. By 2019, the share was 38%. In 2021, 30% of teens said they had ever had sex. That was the sharpest drop ever recorded by the survey. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the end of April released reports analyzing the latest...

Teens have long been vital to filling out the summertime staffs of restaurants, ice cream stands, amusement parks and camps. Now, thanks to one of the tightest labor markets in decades, they have even more sway, with an array of jobs to choose from at ever higher wages. To ease the labor crunch, some states are moving to roll back restrictions to let teens work more hours and, in some cases, more hazardous jobs — much to the chagrin of labor rights groups, who see it as a troubling trend. Economists say there are other ways to expand the...

CASA of Lexington has tried just about everything to find volunteers to serve as advocates for abused and neglected children with the Kentucky nonprofit. Since 2020, it has hired someone to focus on recruiting volunteers, added in-person and virtual outreach events and options to complete the required 30-hour training, and printed information on fans to hand out in churches, Melynda Milburn Jamison, its executive director, said. She even visited a men’s-only barbecue to make a quick 10-minute pitch. The result? In 2022, CASA of Lexington had 62 new volunteers complete training, short of its target of 80. Only two...