Consumer prices are soaring at their highest annual pace in almost 40 years. Some progressives such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren blame corporate profiteering, but most economists scoff.
Lockdowns are so strict and so prolonged in the Chinese city that residents have taken to social media to complain and joke about a lack of basic supplies.
The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases topped 280,000 this week as the omicron variant spreads rapidly across the country, according to Johns Hopkins University's tracker.
Community leaders saw early in the pandemic that the city's residents of color were being hit hard by COVID-19. They worked with data analysts to show just how hard, where and why.
Hiring slowed sharply last month, even as the unemployment rate fell to 4.2%. Data from the Labor Department suggest the economy was losing steam even before the appearance of a new COVID-19 variant.
Scientists may not know for a couple weeks yet how risky the new coronavirus variant will be to public health. But getting out front now about what is known helps dispel misinformation, they say.