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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

Egg freezing has become a growing topic of discussion in China, where officials alarmed by the country’s first population decline in six decades are trying to boost the birth rate even as young people are increasingly putting off marriage and childbearing or avoiding it altogether.

But unmarried women are legally barred from undergoing the procedure in mainland China, prompting some to do it elsewhere at a much greater cost in a bid to extend their reproductive window.

Amid concerns that its working-age population is falling too quickly, China has made other moves aimed at increasing the birth rate. In 2016 it amended its decadeslong “one-child policy” to allow all couples to have a second child, and in 2021 the limit was raised to three.

But the policy shift has not increased the birth rate as expected, with young people citing the high cost of raising children, work stress and a reluctance to bring babies into a highly competitive society as reasons for their resistance to getting married and starting families. The country had a record-low fertility rate of 1.09 last year, state media reported in August.

Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, is a natural choice for many mainland Chinese women seeking to freeze their eggs because of its geographical proximity, shared language and high-quality health care.

Dr. Ng Hung Yu, a clinical professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Hong Kong, said his hospital had received a growing number of egg-freezing inquiries since opening its services to single women from mainland China without any health issues.

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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world

For one of the biggest moments of his life, Eric Bochene wore a faded white t-shirt and sat in an empty, green-walled conference room, straining to hear the volume from the computer. He grimaced as the virtual conference technology glitched. And he frequently voiced his frustration with his situation.

Bochene pleaded guilty in late August to a federal criminal charge for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack. But he didn't stand in a courtroom. His lawyer wasn't standing next to Bochene. Instead the attorney was on a separate virtual conference connection. And Bochene wasn't permitted to choose his own outfit.

Though he was pleading guilty to only a misdemeanor charge, Bochene was required to appear remotely for his hearing from a holding room in the Broome County jail in Binghamton, NY. He wore his jail outfit, sitting beneath fluorescent lights, because Bochene isn't a typical Jan. 6 defendant.

Bochene is one of a growing number of U.S. Capitol riot defendants who absconded and became fugitives after their arrests or initial court appearances.

The prosecution related to the Jan. 6, 2021 siege is the largest in American history, with approximately 1,100 criminal defendants from nearly every state. Though more than 600 of those defendants have pleaded guilty and dozens more have gone to trial, at least six became – or were — fugitives over the course of this summer. Some are still wanted by the FBI. Eric Bochene was one of them

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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

Two people have been detained in China after allegedly damaging a section of the Great Wall in the northern Shanxi province with an excavator, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Authorities in Youyu County said they received a report on August 24 that a gap in the wall was created in Yangqianhe Township, CCTV reported.

After an investigation, police found a 38-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman had used an excavator to breach the wall in order to create a shortcut to pass through, causing “irreversible” damage to the integrity and safety of that portion of the wall, the broadcaster said.

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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world

Four astronauts have returned home from a six-month stay on the International Space Station, making a splashdown landing aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule off the coast of Florida on Monday.

The astronauts, members of the Crew-6 mission run jointly by NASA and SpaceX, departed the space station on Sunday at 7:05 am ET. The crew spent the day aboard the 13-foot-wide Crew Dragon vehicle as it maneuvered through Earth’s orbit and toward its target landing site off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, where they landed after midnight ET.

The Crew Dragon capsule was traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometers per hour), and as it began the final leg of its descent, the spacecraft’s exterior heated up to about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,900 degrees Celsius) while it sliced back into the thickest part of Earth’s atmosphere. Inside the spacecraft cabin, the passengers were protected by a heat shield and the temperature should’ve stayed at comfortable temperatures well below 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius).

The group spent six months on board the orbiting laboratory after launching to the station in March. Over the past week, the Crew-6 astronauts worked to welcome and hand over operations to Crew-7 team members, who arrived at the space station on August 27.

During their stay, the Crew-6 astronauts also hosted the Axiom Mission 2 crew, a group of one former NASA astronaut and three paying customers that included an American businessman and two astronauts from Saudi Arabia. That flight was part of a plan to fly tourists and other paying customers regularly to the International Space Station, as NASA has sought to increase the amount of commercial activity in low-Earth orbit.

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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world

Former Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell is receiving hospice care treatment at home, a representative confirmed to CBS News Sunday.

The artist — whose band is known for hits including "All Star" and "Walkin' on the Sun" — is being cared for by his fiancé, according to representative Robert Hayes.

Harwell was previously diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease.

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William W. Chip, who served as the senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security Secretary during the Trump administration, is the only agent listed for Black America for Immigration Reform. In fact, the registration address he put on the group’s form appears to be his D.C. home. A tax attorney for decades, Chip is a contributor to the Center for Immigration Studies — one of the leading think tanks that advocates for restricting immigration — where he has routinely written about how more immigration could harm Black Americans.

The nonprofit he has helped launch is an attempt to further mainstream that idea, one critics of the argument say is merely an underhanded, if not misleading attempt to try and derail comprehensive reform efforts. In an interview, Chip said that he was merely organizing the group for two Black colleagues on the Center for Immigration Studies board of directors.

The new nonprofit is in the early stages, but the plan is to soon apply for 501(c)(3) status and get a website up and running. The group isn’t initially planning to lobby, Chip said, but it wants to highlight research suggesting less-educated immigrant workers harm less-educated U.S.-born counterparts. Their emphasis will be on Black workers, who they argue face increased competition for jobs. They want to use this argument to push forward restrictionist immigration policies, including requiring businesses to use E-Verify, an online government system that allows employers to check someone’s employment eligibility, as well as efforts to cut back on legal immigration.

While writing about immigration for the Center for Immigration studies for nearly two decades, Chip did not hide his views on race. During 2021, he posted a series of inflammatory posts on Twitter, now known as X, including one tweet that questioned whether Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who killed George Floyd, was racially motivated.

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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he would ask parliament this week to dismiss Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov and to replace him with Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s main privatisation fund.

The announcement on Sunday, made in Zelenskyy’s nightly video address to the nation, sets the stage for the biggest shake-up of Ukraine’s defence establishment during the war.

Reznikov, who was named defence minister in November 2021, has helped secure billions of dollars of Western military aid to assist the war effort, but has been dogged by graft allegations surrounding his ministry that he described as smears.

“I’ve decided to replace the Minister of Defense of Ukraine. Oleksii Reznikov has been through more than 550 days of full-scale war,” Zelenskyy said.

“I believe the ministry needs new approaches and other formats of interaction with both the military and society as a whole.”

The change of defence minister must be approved by parliament, but is likely to be supported by a majority of lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada. Zelenskyy said he expected parliament to approve Umerov’s appointment.

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Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu pinned the GOP's underperformance in recent elections on former President Donald Trump, saying “the Trump brand just doesn’t work.”

“It’s about the former president more than anything,” Sununu said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’ve had school board members, Republican school board members, that have lost their seat because they felt like they had to constantly answer for being a Trump Republican,” Sununu said.

Trump’s negative influence on elections, Sununu argued, bleeds into local elections at all levels.

“It isn’t just the federal seats. It’s the governorships, the school boards, the congressional seats, all of them, especially in a place like New Hampshire where we can kind of get back and forth. We’re very independent minded. The Trump brand doesn’t work,” Sununu said. “It just doesn’t.”

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submitted 1 year ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

Russia's diplomats were once a key part of President Putin's foreign policy strategy. But that has all changed.

In the years leading up to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomats lost their authority, their role reduced to echoing the Kremlin's aggressive rhetoric.

BBC Russian asks former diplomats, as well as ex-Kremlin and White House insiders, how Russian diplomacy broke down.

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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/politics@lemmy.world

A group of state lawmakers object to a resolution passed in Mount Dora. The resolution implements the "Safe Place" initiative in the city.

This is a program that allows businesses to request to be designated a safe place for members of the LGBTQ+ community and people who are victims of hate crimes. Those businesses would get a sticker or badge that they can display. Sign up for our Newsletters

A group of state senators and representatives sent the city a letter accusing it of enacting a dangerous policy that could cost businesses money. The lawmakers sent the letter on Monday inviting city officials to their meeting Tuesday morning. The letter also said they're considering all legislative, legal and executive options. You can read the full letter from the delegation here.

"It's politicizing public safety in a way that's never happened here in Lake County," said Anthony Sabatini, chairman of the Lake County Republican Party.

They said the program was "negligent, irresponsible, and divisive at best," and that the move could bring economic harm, pointing to recent controversies that have impacted major companies.

"The funny part about the letter is it talks about that this could be divisive to our county. But it's an all-inclusive type of initiative. So I'm not sure how that's divisive," said Mayor Crissy Stile.

Stile says the resolution passed was not just for members of the LGBTQ+ community. The resolution says the program is for anyone who is a victim of a hate crime.

Note: Mount Dora is a city located about 30 miles NW of Orlando.

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Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who also served in Congress and as secretary of the Department of Energy in the Clinton administration, has died, according to the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, the organization founded by Richardson to promote international peace and dialogue. He was 75.

Richardson began his career as a congressional staffer, before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico and running unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1982, he was elected to New Mexico's newly formed 3rd congressional district. Richardson served in the House until 1997 when he was appointed by President Bill Clinton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He later served as Secretary of Energy from 1998 to 2000.

He was elected governor of New Mexico in 2002. His accomplishments as governor, according to the Richardson Center, included improving the state’s job numbers and boosting economic development by bringing the movie industry to New Mexico, which resulted in more than 140 major film and TV productions. He also built a light-rail system from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, and partnered with Virgin Galactic to build a commercial spaceport.

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Home prices weakened month to month, according to Black Knight. While still gaining, which they usually do at this time of year, the gains fell below their 25-year average. This after significantly outdoing their historical averages from February through June. It’s a signal that a slowdown in prices may be underway again.

Behind the cooling off: mortgage rates. They rose sharply last summer and fall, causing prices to drop. They then came down for much of the winter and a bit of the spring, causing home prices to turn higher again. Now rates are back over 7% again, hitting 20-year-plus highs in August.

Add to that, new listings rose from July to August, atypical for that period of the year. Some sellers may be trying to cash in on these historically high prices. Active inventory, however, is about 48% below the levels seen from 2017 to 2019.

“While the uptick in new listings is good news for home shoppers, inventory remains persistently low, even with record-high mortgage rates putting a damper on demand,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com.

The jump in home prices since the start of the Covid pandemic, combined with much higher mortgage rates has crushed affordability.

It now takes roughly 38% of the median household income to make the monthly payment on the median-priced home purchase, according to Black Knight. That makes homeownership the least affordable it’s been since 1984.

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