• When it was time for my 5-year-old to start school, I knew the public school setting wasn't for him.
• We've decided to pay for his private school, but not for his college. 
• We don't know if he'll even attend college, and there are scholarships he can apply to. 

As we entered the kindergarten room on a tour of our local public school, the entire class was wearing headphones and engrossed in their tablets.

Seeing my eyebrows rise in surprise, the teacher said, "Don't worry, they're only on devices for 20 to 30 minutes each day."

"And how long are they outside for recess?" I asked.

"Half an hour per day," came the response.

I couldn't imagine my energetic son thriving in an environment where he had daily tablet time and only 30 minutes a day outside at such a young age. Like most 5-year-olds, he was constantly on the move exploring, making up games, and figuring out life by doing. At the time, he attended a play-based preschool where imagination and play led to learning and discoveries.

I knew that moving him into our local public school setting would be at odds with who he is naturally and would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. After talking with my husband, we decided to enroll him in a Montessori school, where he has flourished.

We are not paying for his college tuition

The notion of sending a child to private school isn't entirely out of the ordinary, but what usually surprises people is our decision to pay for his early education but not for college.

We arrived at our decision because we truly believe that by setting the groundwork for a love of learning early in life, our son will ultimately be more successful. He is an outside-the-box thinker, a hands-on learner, and thrives in smaller environments. Unfortunately, the local public school system prioritizes teaching to the standardized state test, continuously makes cutbacks to the arts and music programs, and has burgeoning class sizes with too few teachers.

Investing in his education during these crucial formative years makes more sense for our family than paying college tuition, which he may or may not even attend.

There are options when it comes to college

If he does attend college, there are ways to reduce the tuition price, from scholarships — over $100 million worth go unclaimed yearly—to work-study programs to attending a community college for the first couple of years. It is also naive to think that the educational landscape will look the same when he is 18. Gaining knowledge outside the traditional classroom setting is easier than ever before and is only becoming more accessible.

While we will not pay for his college education, we have set up a custodial account for him, which he will have complete control of upon turning 18. Each birthday and Christmas, we deposit $500 and any financial gifts from family into his account, which we invest in an index fund. We are not stipulating what he does with this money, which is why we opted for a custodial account rather than a 529 account, which must be used for higher education.

Even if we did decide to help him with college expenses, rising tuition costs would make our contributions negligible. We believe using the money now will have a more significant impact on his educational experience than saving it for later.

The yearly tuition cost for my son's school is $9,000, and while we are comfortably considered middle class with both of us working, we are not wealthy. Rather than getting caught up in the lifestyle creep, we continue to live much as we did when we made less money. From owning one paid-off car to cooking at home to buying clothes from thrift stores, we have enabled ourselves to save the extra money we have made over the past few years.

Putting that money toward our son's primary education was an easy decision for our family.

• Italian police raided some of LVMH's Dior suppliers that make luxury handbags.
• Italian prosecutors found Dior paid $57 to produce bags retailing for $2,780.
• Judges placed Dior and Armani units under judicial administration for one year.

Two Italian luxury giants pay just a small amount to produce handbags that retail for thousands of dollars, according to documents in a sweeping investigation of subcontractors.

Italian prosecutors in Milan investigated LVMH subsidiary Dior's use of third-party suppliers in recent months. Prosectors said these companies exploited workers to pump out bags for a small fraction of their store price.

According to documents examined by authorities, Dior paid a supplier $57 to produce bags that retail for about $2,780, Reuters reported last month. The costs do not include raw materials like leather.

The relevant unit of Dior did not adopt "appropriate measures to check the actual working conditions or the technical capabilities of the contracting companies," a prosecution document said, per Reuters.

In probes through March and April, investigators found evidence that workers were sleeping in the facility so bags could be produced around the clock, Reuters reported. They also tracked electricity consumption data, which showed work was being carried out during nights and holidays, per Reuters.

The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. Most of the workers were from China. Two were illegal immigrants, while another seven worked without required documentation.

The probe also said that safety devices on gluing or brushing machines were removed so that workers could operate them faster.

LVMH did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours. Court documents showed that Dior, a subsidiary of LVMH, submitted a memo highlighting its supply chain improvements, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The probe also extended to Giorgio Armani contractors, and the luxury company was accused of not properly overseeing its suppliers.

Armani paid contractors $99 per bag for products that sold for over $1,900 in stores, according to documents seen by Reuters. The company did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

Judges in Milan have ordered units of both companies to be placed under judicial administration for one year. They will be allowed to operate during the period, Reuters reported earlier this year.

A regular manufacturing practice

The prosecution said that violation of labor rules is a common industry practice that luxury giants rely on for higher profits.

"It's not something sporadic that concerns single production lots, but a generalized and consolidated manufacturing method," said court documents seen by Reuters about the decision to place Dior under administration.

"The main problem is obviously people being mistreated: applying labour laws, so health and safety, hours, pay," Milan Court President Fabio Roia told Reuters earlier this year. "But there is also another huge problem: the unfair competition that pushes law-abiding firms off the market."

Last year, LVMH had 2,062 suppliers and subcontractors and undertook 1,725 audits, per its 2023 environmental and social responsibility report.

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault is the world's third richest person, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His daughter Delphine is the CEO of Dior.

• The stabbing of a Japanese mother and her son went viral in China after a local woman died protecting them.
• Her death ignited a clash between praise for the 55-year-old and a resurgence in anti-Japan posts.
• Tech giants finally intervened in a rare rebuke, deciding that the nationalism had gone too far.

It's no secret that people on Chinese social media dislike Japan.

The list of perceived grievances keeps growing, from the Rape of Nanking in World War II to fears of seafood in the Pacific Ocean being tainted by radioactive water from the Fukushima disaster.

That rhetoric was stoked again on June 24 when a knife-wielding man in Suzhou attacked a Japanese woman and her son at a school bus stop, injuring the pair.

But it was the third victim who seized the country's attention. School bus attendant Hu Youping, a 55-year-old Chinese woman, rushed to protect the two foreigners, suffering stab wounds herself.

She died later while receiving medical care, police said. They identified the suspect as an unemployed 52-year-old man with the surname Zhou, saying he'd only recently arrived in the city.

A whirlwind of emotion and debate ensued on social media. Hu was lauded as a hero — with some clamoring for the bus stop to be named after her — while anti-Japan hate speech swelled in posts and comments implying the attack was warranted.

As the two narratives intertwined, Chinese social media companies intervened in lockstep. It was clear the extremism had gone too far.

Tech giant Tencent published a statement on Saturday condemning the hate speech and said it would crack down on posts related to the Suzhou stabbing that "provoke extreme nationalism." Tencent runs WeChat, a super app that performs functions similar to WhatsApp and Facebook.

NetEase, a major gaming company, published a similar announcement, saying it observed posts calling for "resisting Japan and exterminating traitors" and accusing Hu of being a Japanese spy.

Douyin and Weibo, China's versions of TikTok and Twitter, publicly slammed accounts that they said "promote extreme xenophobia" and "cheered for criminal behavior in the name of patriotism."

The platforms said they took down thousands of posts and removed several dozen accounts.

China's uneasy balance with Japan

It's a rare rebuke of nationalism on these platforms, a hotbed for inflammatory posts like the 2022 calls to shoot down then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's plane when she visited Taiwan.

Though China's social media is heavily moderated, anti-Japanese rhetoric has been one of several popular nationalistic sentiments allowed to flourish in recent years.

As of Wednesday, the main hashtag for posts about the Japanese victims of the June knife attack was censored. However, discussion of Hu's death and her posthumous recognition for bravery are still allowed.

In recognition of Hu's actions, Japan's embassy in China flew its national flag at half-mast.

It's unclear if China's central government was directly involved in the crackdown. But social media firms in the country react sensitively to what the state deems acceptable, often simultaneously issuing announcements about undesirable posts.

China's Cyberspace Administration tasks social media platforms with self-regulating content and, on June 14, published a set of rules detailing how internet providers should censor violent content.

The anti-Japanese rhetoric also comes at an inconvenient time for Chinese officials hoping to bring in more business from Tokyo as the local economy struggles.

Suzhou, in eastern China's Jiangsu province, is one of the country's largest hubs for Japanese investment, with thousands of Japanese firms in the city.

On Tuesday, Chinese state media reported that Vice Premier He Lifeng had met with a trade delegation from Japan, saying his country welcomed Japanese companies and hoped they would expand.

Hu's death hung over the meeting, with officials on both sides pausing for a moment to honor her passing, The South China Morning Post reported.

• First a cold, then bad prep, and now jet lag.
• Biden's campaign has put forth a series of reasons trying to explain his bad debate performance.
• This comes as pressure has grown for Biden to step aside and make way for a replacement.

President Joe Biden has offered a new explanation for his disastrous debate performance — jet lag.

Giving a reason for his incoherent sentences, slurring and vacant expression on the June 27 CNN debate with former President Donald Trump, Biden said that he "nearly fell asleep on stage."

Speaking to donors at a fundraising event in Virginia on Tuesday, he added that he "wasn't very smart" about his use of time before the debate. "I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones," Biden said.

He added: "It's not an excuse but an explanation."

Other reasons for his poor performance

The jet lag explanation, however, deviates from the one his own campaign put out days ago.

The Biden campaign source said that he was suffering from a cold during the debate. That Biden had a cold going into the big night, The Wall Street Journal reported, which did explain his hoarse voice and coughing.

But post-debate, Biden critics and supporters alike have been speculating on whether his advanced age might kill the Democratic ticket's chances of winning in 2024.

And on that front, the Biden camp has been willing to admit the obvious — the president is old.

When asked at a White House press conference whether "Biden's cognitive decline" was "an episode or a condition," his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that he was not a young man and "he's a little slower than he used to be."

Biden himself said at a post-debate campaign event in North Carolina on Friday: "Folks, I might not walk as easily or talk as smoothly as I used to. I might not debate as well as I used to.

"But what I do know is how to tell the truth," he added.

The Biden blame game

Multiple media reports indicate that the blame game continues behind the scenes, with several parties speculating that Biden's top aides failed to adequately prepare him for the big showdown with Trump.

His family has, behind closed doors, argued that the top aides who prepped Biden should be demoted or fired, per Politico. They pointed fingers at Biden's senior advisor, Anita Dunn; her husband, Bob Bauer, Biden's personal attorney; and Biden's former chief of staff, Ron Klain.

Three anonymous sources told Politico that the Biden family criticized these three aides — all of whom helped train Biden for the CNN debate — for not preparing him well enough to go on the offensive.

Donors have also weighed in. Democratic megadonor John Morgon said Biden needs to eliminate his "cabal," which includes Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.

"I think he has misplaced trust in these three people, and I believe he has from the inception," Morgan told Politico.

Another longtime Democratic donor, Whitney Tilson, wrote on X that he felt "deceived" by Biden's poor showing.

"If the man I saw at the debate is the real Joe Biden right now, then it would be a waste of my time and money to support him because he has almost no chance of beating Trump," Tilson wrote.

Anxiety grows within the Democratic Party's ranks

Despite the multiple reasons given for the debate performance, Democrats are getting anxious.

Elected Democrats previously loyal to Biden have raised fresh doubts about the president's capabilities to run for a second term and are adding to the voices asking him to step aside.

A House Democratic aide told Reuters that 25 Democrats were preparing to call Biden to quit the race. Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett was the first of them, calling the president to step aside on Tuesday.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday also revealed anxiety in the party, with one in three Democrats saying Biden should quit the race in favor of a replacement.

Several names have been floated — including Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and more.

Representatives for Biden didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Gov. Gavin Newsom has brushed aside calls for him to replace President Joe Biden on the ballot.
• But the California Gov. has some fans in China, and they want him to step up.
• One user said that Newsom is good looking and is "really suitable to be president." 

Gov. Gavin Newsom might have maintained his support for President Joe Biden, but Newsom's Chinese fans think it's time for him to lead his country.

"The California governor is really suitable to be president. He's so handsome," one user wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Saturday.

Some said that Newsom's speaking style reminded them of former President Bill Clinton and that the California Democrat had a "bright future" ahead of him.

"Biden should have voluntarily stepped aside a long time ago. But even then, Newsom is waiting in the wings and has been playing a critical role in the Democratic Party," a user named Zheng Jun said in a Weibo post on the same day. "When the opportunity arises, he will be best prepared to seize it."

The goodwill for Newsom appears to stem from his last trip to China, which took place in October. During his trip, Newsom spent a week visiting Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, as well as the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu.

Following his visit, Newsom said in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that he didn't want the US-China bilateral relationship to deteriorate because the two countries are "interdependent."

"Divorce is not an option. We have to define the terms of the future. We have to live together across our differences," Newsom told Amanpour.

Representatives for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

To be sure, the support for Newsom on Weibo wasn't unanimous. Some believed that, given his record running California, Newsom would be a disastrous replacement candidate.

"If Newsom becomes President, the US will be even more screwed. Just look at at the homeless people and illegal immigrants running around San Francisco and Los Angeles," one user wrote in a comment to Zheng Jun's post.

"Throw in those high taxes and the US will eventually turn into a place that exploits the middle class while raising homeless people," the comment added.

Dealing with homelessness in California has been a significant priority for Newsom. The Golden State has long housed a disproportionate share of the nation's homeless population.

According to a study by the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco, the state makes up less than 12% of the nation's total population but is home to 30% of people experiencing homelessness.

Rumblings of a potential Newsom ticket have grown after Biden's disastrous performance at last week's presidential debate. The 81-year-old's exchanges with his GOP rival, former President Donald Trump was riddled with gaffes and stumbles.

Newsom, for his part, has continued to brush aside calls for him to replace Biden on the ballot.

"You don't turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?" Newsom told MSNBC's Alex Wagner on Thursday. "The president has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment."