Tag: All Content from Business Insider

By Allison McLellan, Indeed senior content writer, employer content marketing

A staggering 99% of 300 US hiring managers say sourcing qualified talent is a challenge, according to a recent Indeed-commissioned survey with Harris Poll¹, and over half of them have seen reductions in their recruiting personnel. With Indeed's new AI-powered Smart Sourcing tool, hiring managers can automatically receive a list of quality candidates who match the requirements of a job description.

Building on the Indeed Resume tool, which allows recruiters to search the 245 million resumes on Indeed, Smart Sourcing uses AI-powered algorithms to match active candidates to open roles, cutting back on time spent manually filtering through talent. Custom-generated messaging and collaboration tools can further streamline your workflow while maintaining an individualized approach to candidate communication. In fact, 90% of users agree that Smart Sourcing is the preferred product for sourcing quality talent.²

"Indeed has been invested in AI for a long time," Jason Kudrikow, Indeed senior talent strategy advisor, said. "Now, with the recent acceleration of large language models and generative AI technology, we're able to combine our enormous database of resumes with what we know employers are looking for in order to make smart matches — and help you connect with them faster."

Here are three ways Smart Sourcing can help you hire smarter and faster.

1. You're automatically matched with quality candidates

The Indeed-commissioned Harris Poll survey found that 74% of hiring managers would prefer to automatically match with qualified talent based on skills and relevant experiences instead of manually searching for them. Smart Sourcing's matched candidates does exactly that: Simply toggle between your jobs on Indeed via a drop-down menu to instantly view recommended candidates and then invite them to apply.

"As you accept or reject candidates, the Smart Sourcing AI will learn what you prefer over time," Kudrikow said. "It lets you curate your matched candidates' results like a Spotify playlist, tailored to your unique preferences."

You can still manually search and filter resumes or use automated recommendations to expedite the process. Matches are based on three things: The keyword relevancy of your job post, job seekers' resumes, job seekers' search activity on Indeed, and how recently job seekers have been on the site. This helps Indeed's matching algorithms present you with the most relevant candidates who are demonstrating interest in new opportunities.

Universal Health Services (UHS), a leading hospital and healthcare provider with 400 facilities across the US, Puerto Rico, and the UK, reported its candidate-response rate improved by 30% since using Smart Sourcing. "Smart Sourcing serves up appropriate candidates that tend to be more eager to respond and are active on Indeed. So we get both quality candidates that are a fit and a higher response rate than with another similar tool," said one director of recruiting at UHS.

In the survey, 70% of 1,107 US workers agree that companies who have contacted them in the past could have done a better job of reviewing their skills and experience beforehand. This lack of preparation, personalization, and attention to detail in recruiting can reflect poorly on your company.

That's why matched candidates include candidate highlights, a generative AI capability that analyzes and summarizes each resume. This can help suggest why the candidate could be a great fit for your role, or point out potential gaps in their experience. This accelerated evaluation enables you to make better-informed hiring decisions to preserve both your employer brand and the candidate experience.

Matched candidates you invite to apply are 17 times more likely to apply to your job than job seekers who only see it when searching on Indeed, and employers who use this feature when sponsoring their jobs hire 20% faster.^3,4

2. AI-powered messaging accelerates and personalizes candidate outreach

On average, employers contacting candidates through Indeed's resume search receive a positive response from a job seeker in just 10 hours.⁵ But, 95% of hiring managers believe that their productivity would be even better if administrative tasks like candidate outreach could be assisted by AI. Indeed's customizable AI-powered messages reduce the time and effort it takes to manually write, personalize, and proofread candidate communications.

This allows you to generate a customized message based on the content of the candidate's resume and your job posting. You can generate message variations by desired tone and refine the information before sending it."The AI-powered messages are very effective because they're personalized for each individual candidate. It's amazing how the AI pulls in the right pieces of a job description to describe the highlights of the job and uses information from a candidate's resume to say why it's a great fit," said the UHS recruiting director.

With a Professional Subscription, hiring managers gain the ability to automate post-outreach and follow-up with custom reminder messages. Message analytics track how your templates perform and provide actionable insights on candidate engagement, helping you maximize ROI.

3. Collaborative tools make the feedback process easier

Recruiting and hiring can be a complex task with work distributed across multiple people and platforms. To simplify the process, Smart Sourcing Professional Subscriptions allow you to invite collaborators to sourcing projects and accelerate the candidate feedback process with collaborative task management tools.

If you need to continue the hiring process on your company's applicant tracking system (ATS), Indeed offers integrations with Workday, iCIMS, and Greenhouse that automatically transfer candidate information for you. You can also take your sourcing with you on the go with the Indeed Connect for Employers app. Once you've reached out to potential candidates, notifications let you know when they respond to an application invite or a message, allowing you to reply in real-time and keep the hiring process moving forward.

Getting started with Smart Sourcing

Smart Sourcing subscriptions are available starting today, and existing Indeed Resume subscriptions have transitioned to Smart Sourcing. Available in both Standard and Professional options, subscriptions include access to candidate search and filters, matching quality candidates to your job, and offering faster candidate connections.

"No one gets into talent attraction for the legwork," Kudikrow said. "Indeed is harnessing the power of AI to make it easier than ever to get your opportunities in front of qualified talent, fast, and focus on what makes the profession so rewarding — the human connection."

Learn more about how Smart Sourcing can help you make better hiring decisions.

This post was created by Indeed with Insider Studios.

Survey methodology: 

This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Indeed from February 12–20, 2024, among 1,107 employed adults, ages 18 and older, and 300 hiring managers (those with sole or primary decision making in the recruiting and hiring process) with 2,000+ employees. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the employee sample data is accurate to within +/– 2.6 percentage points and the hiring manager sample data is accurate to within +/— 5.6% using a 95% confidence level.

¹Harris Poll survey of U.S. hiring managers with 2,000+ employees (n=300) and employed adults, ages 18 and older (n=1107), conducted on behalf of Indeed, February 2024

²Indeed U.S. Survey, 2024 (n=300)

³Indeed data (U.S.), August 2023

⁴Indeed data (U.S.), 2023

⁵Indeed data (worldwide), 2023

• In 2000, the largest iceberg ever recorded — Iceberg B-15 — broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. 
• Underwater explorer and photographer Jill Heinerth dove inside B-15 and snapped photos of this hidden world.
• Today, nearly the entire Jamaica-sized iceberg has melted away. Heinerth's photos offer the first and last look inside it. 

In 2000, when an iceberg the size of Jamaica cleaved away from the Ross Ice Sheet in Antarctica, Jill Heinerth saw an opportunity to make history.

Heinerth is a professional underwater explorer, cave diver, and photographer. She's been diving in the most remote parts of Earth's oceans for 35 years. Her trip inside B-15 marked the first time anyone ever dove beneath an iceberg.

It's not uncommon for Heinerth to be among the first humans to venture inside these hidden places. But with B-15, she was also among the last.

When B-15 broke free, it was among the largest moving objects on the planet. Today, it's lost 99% of its size and only one piece remains — a chunk measuring roughly 40 square miles, smaller than Disney World.

Luckily, Heinerth and her dive team seized the opportunity to explore and photograph the inside of B-15 while it was still a behemoth 23 years ago. And they risked their lives to do it.

But for Heinerth, the work is worth the risk. "For me, diving in these icy environments is almost like documenting an endangered species," she said.

Through her underwater photography, she brings the story of these disappearing ice caves to the surface, aiding scientific discovery and raising awareness about the rapid progression of climate change.

Swimming in uncharted waters

To reach B15, Heinerth and her dive team sailed for 12 days across the tumultuous Southern Ocean, weathering 60-foot swells and knocking ice off the boat with baseball bats. When they finally reached their destination, even more dangers lay ahead.

"During the trip, we had many close calls," Heinerth said. She tells the full story of her three death-defying dives in a 2019 WBUR article.

On the initial dive, the team faced its first brush with danger. After descending through a long vertical crevasse in B15 all the way to the sea floor, 130 feet down, Heinerth spotted the entrance to a cave leading into the iceberg.

Once inside, Heinerth described it as "this dynamic environment that's beautiful. You see how the sea has sculpted the ice, like there's these great scallops that are carved by the hand of the sea," she told BI.

But suddenly, they heard a deep groaning sound.

Massive chunks of ice had fallen into the cave entrance, blocking their way out. Luckily, they found a way through and escaped with their lives, ready to return the next day.

During their second dive inside B15, they got caught in a powerful current sucking them deeper inside the iceberg. They couldn't fight it and instead rode the current through until eventually it took them to another exit on a completely different side of the iceberg.

But even that wouldn't prevent them from taking a third and final visit, when they faced the most dangerous dive of all. On that day, the powerful current hit again. This time, there was no backdoor to escape through, and the flow was so intense that even when they fought their way back to the cave entrance, they couldn't rise back up through the crevasse.

"On our very last dive in this environment, we were pinned down from the currents inside the ice and having difficulty getting out," she told BI. "Our one-hour dive turned into a three-hour flight for our lives."

What saved their lives was when Heinerth remembered the burrows that fish make in the crevasse walls. Using these holes as climbing holds, she and the team slowly climbed their way against the current and eventually made it to the surface.

Then, just hours after they resurfaced, "The entire piece of ice that we'd just been inside of literally exploded and turned into a sea of slush ice as far as the eye could see," Heinerth said.

"I was just standing there, gobsmacked on the ship's rail. I realized that if we had been in the water, we'd be dead," she wrote for WBUR.

Documenting a disappearing world

Between moments spent fighting for her life, Heinerth managed to snap photos of B15's inner world. As a citizen scientist, she hopes that documenting these rapidly changing environments helps researchers better understand them.

"We are now living in a time of very clear existential threats — a time when we need an army of citizen scientists that can provide reflections, anecdotal evidence, but also data gathering streams," she said.

Over the last two decades, Antarctica has lost an average of 150 billion metric tons of ice per year, NASA reports. This rapid melting means iconic arctic species like humpback whales and emperor penguins are losing critical resources and habitat.

It also means sea levels are rising. "When [B15] broke off — when you have ice that moves from land to sea — that's going to change sea levels globally," Heinerth said. "And that's the thing we need to be concerned about."

Exploring the below-surface geomorphology (the shape and structure) of icebergs like B15 can help climatologists understand how quickly they're disappearing, she said. As they melt, water moves downward through cracks in the iceberg, carving out new caves and crevasses for intrepid folks like Heinerth to investigate.

Through her dive photography, she hopes to spread awareness about how quickly these hidden ice environments are changing.

"We're at the point where we need to make some climate interventions, and that is going to require political will. And it's going to require a global citizenry to be relatively educated about what we face in the very near future," Heinerth said.

Photos courtesy of Jill Heinerth. Learn more about her work at: www.IntoThePlanet.com

• Donald Trump is spending his day off of court thanking NFT buyers.
• The former president will host a reception at Mar-a-Lago for people who spent roughly $10,000 on digital collectibles.
• Trump gets little time away from Manhattan court during the week. 

Former President Donald Trump gets rare reprieves from his Manhattan criminal trial. He's spending one of them thanking buyers of his latest digital collectible series.

On Wednesday, Trump will host buyers who spent roughly $10,000 on the "Mugshot Edition" of the Trump digital trading cards at his private Mar-a-Lago resort. Wednesdays are typically an off day for Trump's trial, where he's facing charges of falsifying business records to cover up alleged hush money before the 2016 presidential election.

It's the latest example of how Trump has spent part of his time seeking a second term on private business interests. The former president previously appeared at a shoe-focused convention in Philadelphia to tout his officially licensed $199 shoes. (There was also a limited-edition gold $399 offering, which the company has said sold out.)

According to his most recent financial disclosure, Trump reported income of between $100,001 and $1 million from past NFT sales.

Like many Trump products over the years, he licenses his name and the respective companies handle the rest. Still, the deals underline a mixing of private interests and public service, a major feature of Trump's presidency. The largest deal of all, Trump's social media platform Truth, would be nowhere near as large without his backing.

In comparison, President Joe Biden spent part of his day in the key state of Wisconsin. While Biden's was official, he could also tout a $3.3 billion investment at the site of a mostly failed Trump-era project.

• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has decided against buying TikTok.
• That leaves a really tiny list of people who say they want to buy TikTok. Like, really tiny.
• What gives? Here are some theories.

Who's going to buy TikTok?

Not Eric Schmidt. The former Google CEO says he thought about buying the video platform — he doesn't say when he thought about it — but isn't thinking about it now.

OK. So the remaining bidders are … Steve Mnuchin?

Trump's former Treasury Secretary went on TV in March to announce that he'd like to buy the US version of TikTok if owner ByteDance is forced to divest it. But he doesn't have the money to do it or any technical or product chops. And the pitch he's been making since then leaves a lot of people … skeptical.

Anyone else?

[Crickets]

Yes, if you Google "potential TikTok buyers" you'll find a bunch of stories — Business Insider has written one, too — speculating about names. But almost all of these stories are the same. They list Mnuchin as well as Shark Tank host Kevin O'Leary, who also likes to go on TV and talk about buying TikTok.

And as far as (theoretical) public bidders, that's it. Everything else you read is more of an idea, at best: Earlier this year The Wall Street Journal reported that former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was at a conference and told OpenAI's Sam Altman he should help him buy TikTok. But we've never heard anything about that since.

Other theoretical bidders include Oracle, Walmart, and Microsoft because they either already work with TikTok or considered buying it during the Trump administration. For good measure, the stories usually list other Big Tech companies like Amazon or Apple. But there's zero reporting that indicates that any of the names in this paragraph are actually seriously considering a bid.

And sure, there are most definitely lots of bigcos out there who have a room full of McKinsey-esque strategery people gaming out potential bids for TikTok. Because it's their job to do that. But it really is striking that there isn't a single credible buyer who has raised their hand in public, or has been reported to be mulling a deal, for real.

What gives? I have some theories. They are not mutually exclusive.

1. The reason we're not hearing about a serious bidder is because there is no serious bidder because no one wants to waste time on a deal that could never come to pass. Maybe the US courts will overturn the law forcing ByteDance to divest US TikTok. Maybe ByteDance will simply refuse to sell even if the law is upheld. Maybe Donald Trump, who says he's against a TikTok ban (now) gets elected in the fall and becomes president in January, when the forced sale or ban is supposed to happen, and finds a way to ignore the law.
2. The reason we're not hearing about a serious bidder is because no one knows what a forced sale of US TikTok would really look like. What would a US bidder be buying? ByteDance has already said, in its suit challenging the law, that even if it wanted to sell, the Chinese government wouldn't allow it to sell crucial parts of TikTok — notably its recommendation engine. So that leaves what — a brand name and a user base that could easily leave?
3. The reason that we're not hearing about a serious bidder is because it's impossible to imagine a serious bidder — a Big Tech company with the resources and talent to actually operate a US TikTok — actually getting antitrust approval to buy a giant tech platform. Not in the Biden administration, at least. And if they're hoping to get it done in the Trump administration? Well … see above.
4. The reason we're not hearing about serious bidders is because serious bidders don't go on TV and talk about how they're going to buy TikTok. They do all the work quietly, with a small team, and keep the whole thing buttoned up until they're ready to announce it. Which means there's no reason to read a story like this. Fortunately, this one is over.

• Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has once again had her prison time shortened.
• She got a few more months trimmed off for a new projected release date of August 16, 2032.
• She was originally sentenced to 11.25 years, but soon after reporting to prison her projected release date moved up 2 years.

Elizabeth Holmes' prison time is getting shorter, again.

The 40-year-old Theranos founder is now projected to be released a few months earlier. Her projected release date is now August 16, 2032, a change from her previously listed December 29 projected release for later that same year, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records.

NBC News first reported the development.

Holmes was sentenced to 11.25 years in prison in 2022 after being found guilty on four counts of fraud and conspiracy following a monthslong trial that gripped Silicon Valley. She reported to a federal women's prison in Bryan, Texas, in May 2023 to begin her sentence.

Her prison time had previously been shortened by roughly two years, shortly after she reported to the minimum-security compound.

Attorneys for Holmes did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment ahead of publication. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said it could not comment on the release plans of any specific individual in its custody "for privacy, safety, and security reasons" but said prison time could be affected by factors like good conduct or completion of rehabilitation programs or activities.

Holmes has also been ordered to pay more than $452 million in restitution as part of her sentence. Her attorneys have objected to the restitution payments and said she would be financially unable to pay it.

Holmes was seen as a Silicon Valley success story for years while at the helm of her now-defunct blood-testing startup Theranos, which promised to revolutionize healthcare by performing hundreds of tests with a single drop of blood. Behind closed doors, however, Theranos' proprietary technology didn't work and the company leaned on third-party devices to run its blood tests. Prosecutors alleged that Holmes defrauded investors, doctors, and patients by concealing this for years before a blockbuster Wall Street Journal exposé uncovered the fraud in 2015.

Holmes pleaded not guilty to the charges, and her attorneys argued during the course of her trial that while she made mistakes, none were crimes.

"I am devastated by my failings," she said at a sentencing hearing in November 2022. "Every day for the past few years I have felt deep pain for what people went through because I failed them."

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AI's impact on the economy should be a top of mind concern.
• "I have a fear that we just won't take that one seriously enough going forward," he said Tuesday during a panel. 
• Research suggests AI has the potential to affect millions of jobs and lead to lower wages.

AI has the potential to wreak havoc on the upcoming election season.

But when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was asked for his thoughts on how the spread of AI-generated misinformation may affect elections, the tech leader appeared to be more concerned about another issue: AI's impact on the economy.

"The thing I'm most worried about right now is, the sort of, the speed and magnitude of the socioeconomic change may have, and what the impacts on what that will be," Altman said Tuesday during a Brooking's Institute panel about AI and geopolitics.

Altman said the discussions around AI's effect on the economy — like how the technology may lead to mass job replacement — died down this year compared to last. He said he worries what could happen if people don't take those concerns seriously.

"GPT- 4 didn't have this huge detectable impact on the economy, and so people were kind of like, "Oh well, we were too worried about that, and that's not a problem," Altman said on the panel, referring to the language model that powers ChatGPT. "I have a fear that we just won't take that one seriously enough going forward, and it's a massive, massive issue."

Altman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider before publication when asked why he thinks it would be an issue.

New research is revealing the extent to which AI can disrupt the economy. An International Monetary Fund study from earlier this year found that AI may impact roughly 60% of jobs in "advanced economies." Roughly half of those jobs can be automated, the IMF wrote, which could lead to less hiring and lower wages. In turn, nearly 12 million US workers may need to switch jobs by 2030, a separate McKinsey study found.

Workers seem to be already feeling the effects of AI on their jobs. Some CEOs say they've replaced their staff with an AI chatbot, and some professionals have said they've lost work to tools like ChatGPT.

AI doesn't spell doom and gloom for all workers. Those optimistic about AI say knowing how to use the technology can help employees save time and boost productivity. They can even move up the corporate ladder and make more money.

But Altman said he is still worried about AI's potential on the labor market. Last year, he told CNBC in an interview that he's a "little bit scared" of ChatGPT, warning his company's creation could "eliminate" many jobs.

"I think if I said I were not, you should either not trust me, or be very unhappy I'm in this job," Altman said.

• Jennifer Pace has been declared the winner of the GOP primary in Indiana's 7th district.
• There's just one problem: she died two months ago.
• Republicans are expected to convene to choose someone else to run in the solidly Democratic seat.

On Tuesday, Republicans in Indiana nominated a woman who has been dead for two months to take on incumbent Democratic Rep. André Carson.

Public relations specialist Jennifer Pace won a crowded primary in the state's 7th congressional district with more than 31% of the vote, according to Decision Desk HQ. But according to several reports, Pace — who also ran for the seat in 2022 — died of a heart attack in early March.

According to a Ballotpedia candidate survey, Pace's platform included limiting government interference, parental rights, and addressing inflation.

"My parents instilled that limiting government overreach has always been the Republican way to protect individual freedom, rights and equality of which I'm committed to doing," Pace wrote in the survey.

It remains unclear who will actually be the GOP nominee in the Indianapolis-based House seat. Under state law, local precinct committee members meet to select a new nominee when the current nominee dies.

But it's also somewhat beside the point — Carson, who's served in the House since 2008, has won with more than 60% of the vote since 2016.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened.

In fact, there are several instances of dead candidates winning not just primaries, but general elections.

Two famous examples include Rep. Nick Begich in 1972 and Gov. Mel Carnahan in 2000, both of whom won elections in their respective states of Alaska and Missouri after dying in plane crashes.

• Longevity clinics aim to fight diseases before they take hold.
• A longevity physical typically takes about eight hours and costs more than $10,000.
• This article is part of "Trends in Healthcare," a series about the innovations and industry leaders shaping patient care.

If you want to look and feel young, the longevity industry can be something of a rabbit hole. There's no shortage of things you can try at home or find on vacation: luxury spas, online supplement services, biological-age tests, microbiome-focused juicers.

There's also a growing set of medical clinics taking emerging longevity research into a doctor's-office setting. These longevity clinics are practicing medicine in reverse: Take apparently healthy people and figure out what's going to be wrong with them if business continues as usual. Some call the trend "medicine 3.0."

The very first longevity clinic, Human Longevity, was set up in San Diego 10 years ago. Its cofounder J. Craig Venter, a biochemist who was among the first scientists to map the human genome, says that while everyone wants to have control over their lifespan and wellness, without gathering more precise information about how people are changing over time, preventive care can only go so far.

"You can exercise, you can eat a healthy diet, but I contend you could eat 10 pounds of kale a day and still have a tumor that you don't know about," he told Business Insider. "My view is you can tell me whether you feel healthy; I can tell you whether you're actually healthy."

Each longevity clinic operates a little bit differently, but it's all high-end concierge medicine aimed at understanding how your body changes through time. Longevity clinics' survey indicators include genetics, gut health, physical strength and fitness, cognition, body scans, and blood work. It's an executive physical on (figurative) steroids.

Venter said an MRI scan at Human Longevity identified a case of prostate cancer that his regular doctors missed. "If I hadn't discovered it when I did, I would've died sometime in the last five years," he said.

Most longevity clinics require an initial visit that takes about six to eight hours for all the testing, scans, and interviews.

"Longevity is very simple and straightforward," Venter said. "If we can keep you from dying prematurely from heart disease or cancer, as examples, because they're the two biggest killers of men and women of all races, you'll live a longer, healthier life."

Human Longevity says among 1,000 "asymptomatic" patients who visited its clinic, roughly 40% had some kind of non-life-threatening condition requiring long-term medical attention or monitoring, like a heart issue, or genetic predisposition to cancer or diabetes. Another 14% identified a pressing health issue that needed more immediate attention. Human Longevity's well-heeled clients pay about $25,000 for the complete workup.

A next-level executive physical with a price tag to match

Over the past few years, other clinics have been popping up around the world, with similarly eye-popping price tags. Each has a slightly different take on how to practice longevity medicine, but they're built around the same core concepts. Disease prevention is key to healthy aging, and knowing how your genes interact with your environment and habits can change your life.

Peter Attia, a longevity doctor in Texas, might have the best-known longevity-medicine practice, though he stresses he's not accepting new clients. (His pricing is rumored to be between $90,000 and $150,000 per year.) There's also Tony Robbins' and Peter Diamandis' Fountain Life ($3,000 to $19,500), with locations in New York, Florida, and Texas; Biograph ($7,000 to $14,500) in San Mateo, California; and Chi Longevity, which opened last year in Singapore and costs $11,100 for a 10-month program. There is no regulatory body or accreditation system for longevity clinics.

Craig McGee, a Chi Longevity cofounder, says that what separates these offerings from a longevity spa or a retreat is the medical attention, with an emphasis on testing and observation over time.

"It's not just you come for a week, you have the experience, and then you pay your invoice," he said.

At Chi, like at other longevity clinics, patients are offered a dashboard with personalized recommendations for exercise, sleep, and medications. They're set up with a health coach for diet advice. And they may use fitness and health trackers, as well as a continuous glucose monitor to watch their blood sugar. Then about six months later they come back, retest, and see how well it's all working.

Currently, Chi uses five different biological age tests to assess how well its clients are weathering time, but Dr. Andrea Maier, one of the cofounders at Chi, says she wishes there were even more well-validated biological age tests she could use.

"I would love to have 10, 15, or 20," she said. "Every organ is aging at a different pace, and every organ, I would say, deserves a different clock."

From graying biohackers who arrive taking more than 20 different supplements a day, and wondering how well its all working, to younger folks just hoping to optimize their routines, Maier says Chi aims to give clients new routines they can actually enjoy, making them feel better inside and out.

"We have many clients who are biologically younger after the interventions," she said. "Many of our clients have more happiness, including me. I'm getting fitter and fitter, which is great."

Longevity clinics for all?

If you're wondering whether this kind of treatment could ever be attainable for anyone who's not a billionaire, the answer seems to be: maybe.

A public longevity clinic opened in Singapore in August for clinical trials. And there's a free option that's been connected to the largest Israeli hospital in Tel Aviv since May 2023.

Good luck getting in, though. Both were flooded with interest and have long waitlists.

• Three former students have filed suit, saying a SoCal school district failed to protect them from "rampant" sexual abuse.
• The lawsuit comes after Business Insider revealed decades of sexual misconduct by educators at Rosemead High.
• Former students across the nation are raising fresh abuse allegations, sparking probes and resignations.

A group of sexual abuse survivors have filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying their high school district failed to protect them from predatory teachers for years.

The lawsuit, filed by three former students at Rosemead High, claims that district officials created a "toxic" culture on campus where "sexual abuse by educators is rampant." Administrators failed to properly supervise employees, the lawsuit claims, and repeatedly "ignored and concealed the sexual abuse of minor students."

The plaintiffs in the suit, which cites Business Insider's investigation of sexual misconduct at the Southern California high school, include a pair of former students BI previously identified as L. and Clara. L. said she had a yearslong sexual relationship with her tennis coach Wing Chan while she was a student, while Clara said she was groped and sexually harassed by social science teacher Alex Rai for much of her senior year. A third woman, identified only as a Jane Doe, said she was sexually harassed and groped by her track coach, Eduardo Escobar, as a freshman.

Escobar, who resigned in 2008 following a district investigation of his conduct with multiple female students, denied sexually harassing and groping students but said "it was probably my fault that I didn't put enough distance between me and the athletes."

The lawsuit follows the resignation of multiple Rosemead teachers and the launch of a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

"Our office has litigated against school districts for years. I've never seen another situation where, from top to bottom, the staff is trained in a way that violates the law," said attorney Michael Carrillo, who brought the case. "It's about protecting the interests of the school district over protecting children." In 2019, Carrillo secured a $5 million verdict against a teacher and the El Monte Union High School District (EMUHSD), which oversees Rosemead High, in a sexual misconduct case involving a teacher at another school.

District superintendent Edward Zuniga declined to comment. Chan, who for the past 15 years has worked at the LA County Probation Department, did not respond to requests for comment. Rai, who resigned in 2022 following a district investigation into his relationships with Clara and other female students, did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the district has opened an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct involving at least one current Rosemead High educator in the wake of BI's reporting. Special education teacher Edwin Reyes Villegas was put on leave in October, documents show; two people interviewed as part of the investigation said Villegas's relationship with a female student in 2022 was the focal point of the inquiry. Villegas did not respond to requests for comment.

Former Rosemead choir director David Pitts was also placed on leave in October from his job at nearby Gabrielino High School, after parents and community members complained to administrators about his conduct with students. As BI reported, Pitts established a relationship with his former piano accompanist, Cindy, that included shoulder massages and intimate conversations when she was a student and became sexual soon after she graduated.

Gabrielino's head of human resources, Ross Perry, said he expected the investigation of Pitts to conclude "before the end of the school year," but declined to answer other questions. Pitts didn't respond to requests for comment.

A group of current Rosemead students, meanwhile, have met regularly with administrators for the past 18 months to discuss an anti-grooming curriculum they hope will be implemented districtwide. The group has dubbed itself the Ceanothus Council Against Child Grooming, named after a native California shrub known for its resilience. Students didn't hide their frustration during an emotional school board meeting in October, when an alum, Kristy, spoke publicly for the first time about her experience having a sexual relationship with a teacher.

BI is only identifying Cindy and Kristy by their first names.

"The district is only willing to do as much as it takes to postulate the idea of transparency or reform," said Sofia Hernandez, the school board's student representative, who is a member of the Ceanothus group. "We ask EMUHSD to make a clear and explicit effort towards transparency, towards actual efforts to educate teachers and students. We ask for the bare minimum."

Ripple effects across the nation

BI's coverage of sexual abuse in schools has prompted many other former students to take action across the country.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, an alum of Broad Run High School, who asked to go by their middle name, Lee, had spent the decade since they graduated in 2012 grappling with how to come forward about their experience being sexually abused.

Lee said they were groomed by their marching band instructor, William Riddell, for a sexual relationship that began during their junior year. Riddell would drive Lee to his parents' house, where he used the basement to give private music lessons. But it wasn't until another of Riddell's students died by suicide in 2012 that Lee began to question the relationship. A school staffer later told Lee that investigators had discovered inappropriate text messages Riddell sent their classmate. "That's when everything shattered for me," Lee said. "I realized that I was not special."

After speaking to BI about their experience, Lee couldn't shake the feeling that something needed to be done. They connected with others who had witnessed Riddell's behavior with teenagers and spoke with a Fairfax County Police detective. Then things began to snowball.

In February, Lee met with a prosecutor from the Virginia Attorney's General office, a meeting invitation shows. The prosecutor shared that they'd executed a search warrant at Riddell's home and discovered extensive child pornography, Lee recalled, including a digital folder with Lee's name on it.

On March 30, Riddell was arrested on multiple counts of reproduction and possession of child pornography; Riddell was released on bond earlier this week and a preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled for July.

Spokespeople for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and the Fairfax County Police Department declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation. Neither Riddell nor his attorney responded to requests for comment.

"Part of me feels validated. It's something I've been saying for 10 years," Lee said. "But if this had been addressed 10 years ago, maybe others wouldn't have been hurt."

In St. Louis County, Missouri, a former student of journalism teacher Erin Sucher O'Grady, who asked to go by only an initial, B., decided to report the instructor's sexual relationship with another student after seeing a BI call-out seeking such tips. She reported to district officials that her classmate had been groomed for sex by Sucher O'Grady, an award winning teacher at Clayton High School, when she was a student in the early 2010s. The relationship had gnawed at B. for years.

In late 2022, district officials opened an investigation of Sucher O'Grady, documents show. In January 2023, assistant superintendent Tony Arnold confirmed that the district had substantiated multiple policy violations by the teacher, including her communications with students. Sucher O'Grady resigned as part of a separation agreement and admitted no liability; she declined to discuss the district's investigation.

B. said that BI's reporting on sexual abuse in public schools was "instrumental to me deciding that something should be done" about her former teacher.

Back in Southern California, when another former high school student, who asked to go by only an initial, K., got in touch with BI in February of last year, she was wracked by doubt. After reading about how a Rosemead High journalism teacher, Eric Burgess, had groomed multiple teenage girls for sex, she'd begun to unpack her relationship with her Laguna Beach High School English teacher David Brobeck, which she said became sexual after she graduated in the late 2010s.

"I had a big crush on him, and I think other girls did, too," K. explained. "I'd just say he was handsome, and everyone thought it was funny."

K. recalled being drawn to Brobeck's charm and reputation as one of the school's most popular teachers. After graduation, K. would return to the school to run at the track. One day, Brobeck requested that she add him on Instagram. Their conversations quickly became sexual, K. said, and Brobeck confided that he'd always liked her as a student. Then he kissed her.

In August 2023, K. reported the relationship to the Laguna Beach Unified School District, which hired the private investigative firm Nicole Miller and Associates — the same firm that investigated Burgess at Rosemead in 2019 — to investigate Brobeck. Brobeck resigned in March of this year and will receive $80,000 in severance per the terms of his confidential agreement with the district, in which he admitted no wrongdoing; Brobeck declined to comment for this story.

At least one educator named in BI's nationwide investigation of sexual misconduct in schools is no longer around students. After leaving a job as PE teacher in the Lake Washington School District outside of Seattle, Scott Nelson was coaching basketball in the Issaquah school district. He'd resigned from the Lake Washington district in early 2023 following a district investigation that had identified a "pattern of inappropriate behavior" with students.

After BI's story appeared in December, Issaquah officials read his disciplinary file from Lake Washington for the first time. Nelson told BI he was soon informed that he would not be coaching again this year.

An Issaquah school district spokesperson said Nelson was a volunteer coach and that he did not disclose any of the allegations in his personnel file when he applied to work there. "We chose to rescind the opportunity to volunteer as a result of the failure to disclose the investigation," the spokesperson said.

Nelson described the documents as a "total misrepresentation of my career" and denied sexually harassing students. He said he is appealing the decision and wants to continue coaching.

"The HR person said it was too risky, so we don't want you to coach anymore," he said. "I told her, 'Look, if I had issues like this, do you really think I'd get involved in a school again?'"

Lax federal oversight

BI's reporting identified several states that lack the so-called "Pass the Trash" laws that the federal Department of Education has called on them to implement. In 16 states, school districts require only a criminal background check, with no further backgrounding of past misconduct allegations, which often do not generate legal proceedings.

Yet the federal Department of Education appears to have no plans to change the status quo. A department spokesperson said the federal law forbidding school employees from providing a recommendation for a teacher they have probable cause to believe engaged in sexual misconduct with a student "prohibits the Department from mandating, directing, or controlling specific state or local measures responsive to this provision."

After initially agreeing to discuss BI's findings, the spokesperson declined to make anyone available for an interview. In a written statement, the spokesperson said, "Education leaders have a responsibility for ensuring students' well-being in schools and that parents feel confident that their child is safe in school. Failing to remove known predators from schools is not only unacceptable, it is against the law."

Matt Drange graduated from Rosemead High in 2007.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Special Victims Bureau is investigating sexual abuse at Rosemead High. The investigators can be reached through the Temple City station or by calling (562) 946-7960.

• China is grappling with a retirement crisis as its population ages.
• According to OECD data, people over the age of 60 account for 13% of the country's workforce. 
• China is anticipating another 300 million people to reach retirement age in the next 10 years.

China is going through a retirement crisis, with a significant portion of older people finding that they can't afford to stop working. 

Citing data from the OECD, Reuters reported on Tuesday that of the 734 million people working in China, 94 million, or 13%, are over the age of 60, the retirement age for men in China. That rivals the share of workers who are of retirement age in the US, where 10%-15% are aged 60 or older.

The proportion of older people in the workforce has risen dramatically in the last few years, up from just 8% recorded in 2020. That's largely due to China's rapidly aging population, with officials anticipating 300 million people to reach retirement age over the next 10 years, according to OECD data. That's nearly half of China's workforce and not much smaller than the entire US population.

The demographic imbalance has put a huge strain on government benefits, especially considering China's high youth unemployment rate, meaning less money is added to the pool of available resources to keep people afloat in retirement. 

Monthly pensions in urban areas range from 3,000 yuan to 6,000 yuan, Reuters reported, which is equivalent to $415-$830 dollars in the US. Pension payments, at a minimum, are 123 yuan a month, the equivalent of $17. 

The situation mirrors some of what is going on in the US, with an aging population and a growing number of older people being forced to work past retirement age in order to keep paying the bills. 

Over 30 million baby boomers are nearing retirement without enough saved and over half of Americans over the age of 65 make less than $30,000 a year, according to 2022 Census data.

Meanwhile, 38% of older Americans would live under the poverty line if it weren't for Social Security payments, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found, though the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees said in a recent report that the program will only be able to pay out full benefits for the next 11 years or so.