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The novel coronavirus has an unlikely victim — one of the world's most popular beers.

Corona has become the subject of memes and videos shared on social media as the toll from the virus climbs worldwide. Reports of an increase in online searches for "corona beer virus" and "beer coronavirus" show the Mexican beer hasn't been able to escape the association. The so-called purchase intent among adults in the U.S. has plunged to the lowest in two years, according to data from YouGov Plc.

The damage has become more severe in recent days as infections spread. Shares of Corona-maker Constellation Brands Inc. dived 8% this week in New York. Corona's buzz score—which tracks whether American adults aware of the brand have heard positive or negative things about it—has tumbled to 51 from a high of 75 at the beginning of the year, YouGov said.

Corona, which derives its name from the Sun's corona and has nothing to do with the virus, is the third-most popular beer in the U.S., according to YouGov rankings. Guinness is first and Heineken is second.

Another reason for the drop in purchase intent could be the perception of Corona as a summer beverage associated with beach holidays, YouGov business data journalist Graeme Bruce wrote in an article published Wednesday. It therefore has substantial seasonal fluctuations, he said

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Shares of Zoom Technologies Inc., a Beijing-based maker of mobile phone components with a market value of just $18 million, have more than doubled this week as investors bet on companies that could benefit if coronavirus fears push people to stay at home.

There's just one problem — its ticker is ZOOM, but investors may be thinking of California-based Zoom Video Communications, known for its online video-conferencing platform that could help people work and study from home. That company's ticker is ZM, and its shares have risen about 11% this week amid widespread market turmoil.

It's not the first time the wrong Zoom has surged, with Zoom Technologies shares soaring after Zoom Video's IPO last year.

Global stocks plunged to four-month lows, government debt yields sunk to unprecedented levels and crude oil extended declines as anxiety over the spread of the coronavirus deepened.

The S&P 500 tumbled 4.4% to close at the lowest levels of the day. It whipsawed investors earlier, turning lower late after California's governor said the state was monitoring 8,400 people for signs of the virus after they traveled to Asia. The decline of more than 10% since last Friday has the benchmark on pace for its worse week since the 2008 global financial crisis and helped push the index into what is known as a correction. The MSCI All-Country World Index fell to the lowest since October, while the Stoxx Europe 600 also entered a correction.

"Stocks and bonds say we're doomed," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG Union Bank. "Anyone who has a better idea for what lies ahead please let us know because right now the direction ahead for the economy is straight down."

The outbreak has the potential to become a pandemic and is at a decisive stage, the head of the World Health Organization said Thursday. The global economy is on course for its weakest year since the financial crisis as the virus damages demand in China and beyond, Bank of America predicted. Earlier, Goldman Sachs slashed its outlook for U.S. companies' profit growth to zero. Germany is examining potential stimulus measures to stem the economic impact. Saudi Arabia halted religious visits that draw millions.

Haven assets continued to be in demand, and the yen strengthened as yields on 10-year U.S. and Australian government bonds hit fresh record lows. Oil sank further. The pound reversed a gain after the U.K. told the European Union it could walk away from the negotiating table in June if progress isn't being made toward a trade deal.

Investors are pricing in a Federal Reserve easing in April followed by another rate cut in July, swaps data show, while bets for easing from Japan to Australia have also increased after the International Monetary Fund cut global growth forecasts.

Losses continue to mount as investors weigh each gloomy headline on the virus. U.S. health authorities on Wednesday said they found the first case of the illness that does not have ties to a known outbreak. Microsoft Corp. joined an expanding list of companies warning over the impact of the virus on operations.

"The way the market is going down, it's happening pretty quickly, but it's very difficult to say that it's over," said Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist for Wells Fargo Investment Institute. "Bottoming is a multistep process and you're probably still in step one."

Earnings keep rolling in from companies including: Baidu Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Dell Technologies Inc. on Thursday after the close of U.S. trading, and London Stock Exchange Group Plc on Friday.Here are some key events still to come this week:

• Japan industrial production, jobs, and retail sales figures are due on Friday.

These are the major moves in markets:

— With assistance from Luke Kawa and Claire Ballentine.

When Andrew Goetz and Matthew Malin set out to name their unisex beauty brand 16 years ago, they decided to follow in the tradition of successful companies like Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, with one pointed exception. They linked their surnames just as those firms had, but they used a plus sign. "We didn't even consider the ampersand," the latter half of Malin+Goetz says.

The plus sign spoke to everything on the duo's mood board, from an apothecary concept (echoing the crosses that mark pharmacies throughout Europe) to their balanced partnership both in business and in life. And it was the antithesis of &'s old-timey excess. "The plus sign is very modern," Goetz says, "and it was very important for the brand to be minimalist and contemporary." It was also important for the brand to stand out, which the symbol helped do back when Facebook was headquartered in a college dorm room.

That, however, has changed. "Now it's everywhere," Goetz says of the plus sign. "It's literally all over the place."

Most recently, the plus sign has become a sigil in the streaming wars (Apple TV+, Disney+, ESPN+). But that is just the latest sector to catch the fever, alongside industries ranging from fashion to food. There are plus-adorned handbags (Foley + Corinna), soaps (Etta + Billie), men's clothing lines (Mizzen+Main) and wines (++ Double Plus ++). The enthusiasm some brands have for the symbol can hardly be contained. Monica + Andy, for example, makes children's clothing that appeals to "you + your baby" and offers "events + classes" as well as "returns + exchanges." boon eat + drink sources "seasonal + sustainable" ingredients in California to make "simple + tasty" food every "friday + saturday." (Its proprietor, btw, also runs a "hotel + spa.")

From branding, it is a small jump to marketing materials. High-touch realtors now advertise "featured listings + off market opportunities," and event promoters for luxury brands promise "the full store shopping experience + of course fun activities." The plus sign has even developed new cachet in casual communication, as breezy shorthand for adding people to email chains ("+ Kirk and Cody") and calculated snark on social media, where Internet people wield it with the same flair as prepositional because. For example: "War is expensive, the most likely thing to bankrupt your nation-state, with highly unpredictable economic costs to future generations + it's immoral af."

As Goetz puts it, the plus sign "has become a new vernacular."

On TIME's behalf, Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch fielded a poll to her Twitter followers asking whether they use the plus sign as a substitute for words like and or as well as and why. More than 58% of 400 respondents said they do. Of them, roughly 54% said that aesthetics were at least part of the reason, while 43.5% said the draw was purely functional.

Functionally, McCulloch says, the plus sign can save time and space, especially when writing by hand. It can also serve as a "DIY graphic design element," both on labels and on platforms like Twitter that don't allow for other visual cues like italics or differently sized fonts. It can attract eyeballs and aid comprehension by creating whitespace. Also, McCulloch notes, a lot of people can't draw ampersands, while even people who sign their name with an "X" possess the skills necessary to successfully deploy the "+."

For companies like Disney and Apple (which also tacked the symbol onto a new media product, Apple News+), there is a different kind of functional appeal. "The value of + is that it implies more, better, premium," explains Maria Cypher, creative director at naming company Catchword, "without being specific as to content, scale, or degree of premium-ness." It suggests customers will be getting something extra without making it at all clear what that extra thing might be. On top of that, Cypher notes, it bypasses red tape. "These media companies have to trademark globally, a monstrous task that innocent bystanders cannot begin to comprehend," she says, "and appending a + to an existing name is an easy way to square the circle."

For many, the aesthetic appeal of the plus sign is in its simplicity, which dovetails with a culture that fetishizes the raw, the elemental, the nostalgic — whether it is slow food or adult hide-and-seek. David Steele, one of the founders of the beloved, award-winning San Francisco restaurant Flour + Water, was also on the early side of the trend. When they decided to use the plus sign in 2008, before the restaurant opened, Steele had only seen it used by architecture firms. He liked it and told their graphic designers to draw it up. "I'd like to tell you that the plus sign represents inclusiveness," Steele says, "but the truth is it just looked f—ing cool."

The plus sign can indeed project open arms, thanks to uses like LGBTQ+. It has a clean medical patina, which the contact lens brand Bausch & Lomb capitalized on when rebranding as Bausch + Lomb in 2010. When Dove launched Men+Care the same year, onlookers suggested the plus sign might be conveying masculinity. Others link its appeal to the "x" used to denote collaboration among artists (a construction that is also hot in the branding world).

And the list goes on. It can channel the childlike charm of scratching initials into a tree or the high-tech efficiency of C++ brogrammers. It's hardly surprising to see it in the title of TechCrunch panel names. "The plus got a lot of traction through things like Google +," says Nancy Friedman, founder of branding consultancy Wordworking. Friedman once named a design firm Post + Beam. "They really liked the plus symbol," she says. It had a kind of "mathematical crispness" and a promise of an answer at the end of the equation.

In emails and tweets and texts, the plus sign gives off a "studied casualness," McCulloch says: "If the plus sign is traditionally used in handwritten notes because it's faster, it can still convey that ethos." The irony is, of course, that it's not actually faster to type "+" on a phone or computer than it is to type the word and. In electronic media, one might use "+" to save a couple characters, but it's also possible that "you're typing a plus sign because you want to be the type of person who types a plus sign," she says.

The symbol has become its own form of trendiness-signaling, much like jettisoning all the vowels from one's brand name or refusing to engage in that hackneyed ritual known as capitalization. Your mom might make a PB&J, but that artisanal coffee shop that provisions handcrafted food and beverage? They make a PB+J.

Over the past 16 years, Malin+Goetz has grown from one store to 15 located in countries around the world. Their $22 shampoos can be found in high-end hotels and gyms and the showers of your more fashionable friends. When asked how he would feel if he woke up tomorrow and every storefront and bottle contained an ampersand rather than a plus sign, Goetz says, "We'd be a law firm!"

As it happens, even law firms are dropping the fusty old ampersand like a broke client, explaining that they're "changing with the times." Last year, the American Bar Association Journal ran an op-ed lamenting how so many firms had forsaken the & and "announced their sleek new ampersand-less titles with the swagger of a smug middle-ager presenting a new trophy spouse." Often these professionals are just doing away with the symbols all together: Boies, Schiller & Flexner becomes Boies Schiller Flexner. But some younger, hipper boutique firms have even adopted the plus sign instead.

For Steele, who has watched the plus sign grow popular with a furrowed brow, this was something of a breaking point. After all, Flour + Water had chosen the symbol in part to be different, because it was the typographical equivalent of punk rock compared to the establishment's and or & (or, heaven forbid, 'n'). "Really? These white shoes are using the plus sign? Is it time for me to get a new angle on this?" he says of the first time he saw a law firm use it. "If I could redo the logo right now, I might." Cypher of Catchword says her firm was recently asked to develop "+" names for a client and advised against it, in part because it risked sounding derivative.

While 'n' appears to be going the way of Linens 'N Things, the ampersand is far from dead. Its baroque curls suit retro hipster establishments and the world has yet to witness the coming of Crate+Barrel or Bed, Bath + Beyond. But the plus sign suits the modern tendency toward narrow, nerd-chic sans serif fonts. The & feels more like embattled cursive writing.

Goetz is far too attached to the symbol to ever consider a redesign, however a la mode the plus sign might get. He too laments its ubiquity. ("As they say, imitation is the greatest form of annoyance.") But it has evolved from mere branding into a motif of his life. He takes pictures of the symbols wherever he sees them – whether it's on a computer screen or a street intersection viewed from above. He only half-jokingly describes "the rapture of the plus sign" as kind of guiding force, a bit of beauty that has been around, in some form or another, since the Romans were in charge.

"The world is filled with plus signs wherever you go. You just have to look for them," Goetz says. "And now you don't have to look that hard."

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Airlines are turning to some of the world's hardest-hitting disinfectants, capable of stopping everything from sexually transmitted diseases to the MRSA superbug, in the fight against the coronavirus.

Qantas Airways, Korean Air Lines and Singapore Airlines' Scoot unit are among carriers that helped evacuate people from the outbreak's epicenter, the Chinese city of Wuhan, and from a cruise ship off Japan. They've stepped up aircraft-cleaning efforts as a result, trying to ensure that planes used in rescue missions are safe to be put back into commercial use.

The standard vacuum-and-wipe cleanup on board has turned into hospital-grade sterilizations. How was this done? And are there any risks for passengers using the planes when they return to service? Here are some answers:

What cleaning products are used?

Qantas used Viraclean, a hospital-grade disinfectant made by Sydney-based Whiteley Corp. It's a pink, lemon-scented liquid that kills a range of bacteria and viruses including Hepatitis B and herpes simplex, according to the manufacturer. Surfaces heavily soiled with blood or sweat should be soaked with undiluted Viraclean. Gloves and eye protection are recommended, Whiteley says.

Korean Air opted for MD-125. That's a diluted version of D-125, a cleaning solution made by Microgen and used in industries from health care to poultry farming. The company says MD-125 acts against 142 bacteria and viruses, including salmonella, avian flu, HIV and measles.

How are the planes cleaned?

Qantas used the same Boeing Co. 747 on its two flights from Wuhan and another from Tokyo back to Australia. It was cleaned for 36 hours. Pillows, blankets, magazines and headphones were all thrown out, the airline said. The cabin was sprayed twice with disinfectant, which covered all the seats, floors, armrests, tray tables, overhead luggage bins and walls. The cabin was then wiped down. The plane's air filters, which are similar to those used in surgical theaters, were also replaced. The 747 was back on the Sydney-Santiago commercial route this week, according to data from flightaware.com.

Korean Air used one Boeing 747 on two flights from Wuhan, and an Airbus SE A330 for the third. As well as spraying and wiping down the cabin, cleaning teams replaced seat covers and dividing curtains near the galleys and disinfected the luggage hold, the airline said. The planes were only allowed back into service with the approval of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Korea.

Scoot, a low-cost carrier owned by Singapore Airlines, sprayed a mist of "industrial-grade disinfectant" throughout the cabin — a process known as fogging.

What about the future?

It might be possible to disinfect the inside of a plane without any chemicals at all. ACT.Global, whose cleaning system has been used in hotels and on cruise ships, developed a spray-on film that allows a plane cabin to essentially clean itself — for 12 continuous months. When the transparent coating is exposed to light, a photo-catalytic reaction occurs that kills microbes and purifies the air, according to the Danish company. Chief Technical Officer Christopher Lüscher said the product, which is called Premium Purity, has tested effective against coronavirus strains.

What's being done right now?

Many airlines have stepped up normal cleaning procedures to limit the risk of contamination.

Singapore Airlines removed hot towels on some services and took away some of the shared reading material that's usually found in the back of seats. After each flight, meal trays and television screens are disinfected, while headsets, headrest covers, pillow covers and blankets are all changed, the company said. The cabin air filter system has similar performance to those used in hospital operating rooms, according to the airline.

Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., perhaps the airline outside mainland China most affected by the health crisis, says it is disinfecting all cabin surfaces after each flight, including baby bassinets. Any plane with a confirmed coronavirus case is cleaned and disinfected again, Cathay said. Hot towels, pillows, blankets and magazines are no longer provided on flights to and from China, while inflight duty-free sales have been suspended. Korean Air has removed pillows and blankets on flights to mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mongolia.

–With assistance from Sanjit Das.

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Like many people of her generation, Shelbi Orme, 27, is an ardent environmentalist. On her YouTube channel, where she calls herself "Shelbizleee" (rhymes with Twizzle), she shares tips with her 200,000-plus subscribers about how to live more sustainably, like catching shower water in a bucket as it is heating up and using it to water plants.

But when it came to creating less trash, Orme hit obstacles. She strove to show her followers how to be zero waste, by making sure nothing she consumed ended up in a landfill, but found it all but impossible. Many of the products she hoped to recycle would end up in a landfill, she discovered—only half of all packaging and paper products are recycled. Living the type of comfortable life to which most Americans are accustomed, Orme kept ending up with things that wouldn't be recycled in most places, like bottle caps that fall out of the recycling stream and the flimsy plastic bags that hold food like tortillas.

Recycling became even more difficult after China said in January 2018 that it would stop accepting many types of recycling the U.S. had long sent. Cities that had been paid for their recycling soon were paying for recycling pickup, and faced with a national annual loss of $400 million in revenue, either stopped collecting recycling or sent what they had to the incinerator. More than 60 cities and towns ended their curbside recycling programs, including Kennebunkport, Maine, which was faced with $150,000 in extra costs after China implemented what it called the "National Sword" policy.

So Orme gave up on zero waste. "It's not your fault," she told viewers in a video in 2018, advising them to try to be "low-impact" instead. Her fans—makeup artists and teens living far from organic grocery stores—had been writing in saying they felt guilty about their inability to be zero waste. "A lot of those things, truthfully, are completely out of your control," she said. "The infrastructure from the companies is not set up for you to make these decisions."

Now, some elected officials are trying to change that. For too long, they say, the burden of recycling has fallen on consumers. Companies tell their customers to recycle plastic bags or throw yogurt containers in the correct recycling bin, without trying to make sure the products they sell are easily recyclable in the first place. Then, cities and towns have to sort through the recycling to remove potential contaminants like chips bags or greasy pizza boxes. Only 9% of plastic products are recycled.

That's why a growing chorus of cities and towns across the U.S. now support laws that would force the companies who make products pay for the cost of recycling or disposing of these products when consumers are done with them. These laws, called extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging bills, shift those costs from consumers and cities to the companies selling the products in the first place. States including New York, Massachusetts, and Washington are considering EPR-for-packaging bills, and Maine seems poised to pass one in the next few months. Maine's legislature already passed a law last year directing the state's Department of Environmental Protection to draft legislation to establish an extended producer responsibility law for packaging in the state. "Governments can no longer ignore the fact that the recycling system is not working," says Scott Cassel, chief executive of the Product Stewardship Institute, a Massachusetts-based environmental group supporting these EPR laws.

Support for Maine's law comes from many towns in the state whose recycling costs went up so much that they're struggling to keep their programs going. The town of Windham, Maine, which never had to pay for recycling pickup before, now has to pay $35 a ton for recycling; if the recycling is more than 25% contaminated with things that can't be recycled, the town has to pay $130 a ton, and the load ends up in the landfill, says David Nadeau, a town councilor. Since people "wish-cycle," and throw things in the recycling that contaminate the bins, the town is increasingly finding that recycling is significantly more expensive than just putting everything in a landfill.

One of the big problems facing towns in Maine and across the country is this sort of contamination. Some plastic and paper packaging can be recycled, but only if it isn't also combined with other things like food waste, metal, and non-recyclable plastic. Most recycling facilities use automated Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions to separate plastic from paper from metal, but plastic bags and plastic film (like dry cleaner bags) can gum up the equipment and shut down the plant. The cost of operating these facilities has only grown as buyers of recycled plastic demand less and less contamination. To help sort through materials, many recycling facilities are adding workers, which increases costs.

Windham hired interns to go around town educating people on what is and isn't recyclable, but the town doesn't have the money to do that year-round. What would be simpler, says Nadeau, is if products were more easily recyclable. "If the burden of making it simple doesn't come to the manufacturer," he says, "this isn't going to work."

Maine's bill, An Act to Support and Increase the Recycling of Packaging, would create a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) comprised of companies with more than $1 million in annual revenue or that sold material weighing more than one ton in Maine. The organization would charge the companies based on the weight of packaging they sell in the state, and those fees would go to cities and towns to help pay for recycling. If a package is easily recyclable, a producer pays a lower fee. If it isn't, the producer pays a higher fee. The PRO can also advise companies on how to lower their costs, by informing them what types of packaging are causing problems for recyclers says Sarah Nichols, the Sustainable Maine director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, which helped craft the bill. Black plastic is extremely difficult to recycle, for instance, because many of the optical sorters at recycling centers can't see it, but many companies simply aren't aware of that, she says. Maine will hold a public hearing on the bill on February 26.

The U.S. is one of the only developed countries without EPR bills addressing packaging. Germany enacted a "producer pays" law in 1991, and manufacturers have to collect, sort, and recycle packaging after consumers finish with it; similar laws were expanded to the whole European Union in 1994. Dozens of other countries, including Brazil, Estonia, Japan, Turkey, and South Africa now have EPR laws for packaging. And there are EPR laws for some products in the U.S.—Cassel counts 119 EPR laws in 60 jurisdictions, encompassing 14 different products, including paint and carpets.

Once producers have to pay for the cost of recycling, they'll start to make products more easily recyclable, says Heidi Sanborn, the executive director of the National Stewardship Action Council, which advocates for a circular economy, in which all products are reused rather than trashed. In Belgium, for instance, after EPR-for-packaging laws were introduced, manufacturers hired three full-time designers to help them redesign packages so that they were more recyclable.

Some types of recyclables, like paper and thick plastic like milk jugs, are easy to sell to contractors who can find a place to recycle them into material that can be used again. But flimsier plastic like cutlery, juice boxes, and bubble wrap, are more difficult to turn into other products. Right now, though, Sanborn says, packaging manufacturers in the U.S. pay the same cost, regardless of what they use to make their product: absolutely nothing. If they were charged based on how difficult it is to recycle their product, they might change its ingredients. EPR, she says, is a more effective strategy than trying to ban certain types of plastics, like straws or bags, or charging consumers extra for those products. "If you want to reduce pollution without more regulation," she says, "you make the producer pay."

Unsurprisingly, producers have opposed past attempts to make them pay for recycling. A California bill that would have required producers to recycle waste generated from their products was tabled last year; a group representing producers, Californians for Recycling and the Environment, spent more than $2 million lobbying against it last year, according to campaign finance data. A bill introduced in Washington last year was turned into a "study bill" so that the state had to perform a study on EPR before passing any legislation; ten members of the Washington Senate committee considering the bill had received campaign contributions from the American Chemistry Council, which represents manufacturers of plastic products, according to campaign finance data. A bill in Connecticut also met opposition from the waste hauling industry.

Manufacturers even created an industry group, Ameripen, to oppose EPR legislation, according to Cassel. (Ameripen said it would be "premature" to comment on any pending legislation in response to TIME's request for comment.) At the national level, four Congressional Democrats introduced an EPR bill called Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act earlier this month, but it has little chance of passing a divided Congress. Ameripen and other anti-EPR organizations try to sow doubt and raise irrelevant questions, says Cassel, who likens the strategy to trying to create static on a radio so that a message can't be heard clearly. "They are very successful at creating that static," he says.

Maine's law, too, faces strong industry opposition. Ameripen submitted testimony on Maine's 2019 bill that directed the state Department of Environmental Protection to establish an EPR program. The industry group argued that the legislation wouldn't reduce costs to taxpayers or incentivize producers to change their packaging. "We urge the Committee to avoid approaches, such as EPR, that merely shift costs and do not change consumer behavior," Ameripen wrote. The Plastics Industry Association also submitted testimony, saying that EPR laws "burden producers with the responsibility of implementing a collection system for their products" even though producers of packaging are not in the business of waste management. It further elaborated, in a statement to TIME, that every EPR proposal introduced has been "flawed," and that the title of the bill introduced to Congress, the "Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2020," "suggests that it is more interested in garnering headlines than it is in finding solution." The Consumer Technology Association claimed, in testimony submitted in Maine, that a state-to-state patchwork of EPR laws creates inefficiencies and costs the electronics industry hundreds of millions of dollars. The association did not reply to TIME's request for comment.

Some producers agree that pollution is a problem, but want to be allowed to take care of it themselves. "Our specific concerns have to do with the heavy-handedness of the regulatory approach," says Terry Webber, the executive director for packaging at The American Forest & Paper Association, which also opposed the Maine bill. Around 68% of paper products were recovered for recycling in 2018, because paper-product manufacturers have invested in making recycling easier, he says. They did that without government intervention. There is a market for recycled paper, and companies break it down to fiber to create new boxes and other products. "The success we have achieved with recycling has been because of the free markets," he says.

But there aren't markets for some types of packaging, including many plastics. In many cases, it's much cheaper to make virgin plastic than it is to turn recycled plastic into a usable product. And even if plastic coffee pods or chip bags are labeled "recyclable," there's a big chance they're not getting recycled, according to a report from Greenpeace released on February 18. Only plastics labeled #1 and #2 (which include most soda and water bottles, milk jugs, and shampoo bottles) are easily recyclable, the report found. Those labelled 3-7 (such as yogurt or cottage cheese containers and clamshell containers that hold produce) "cannot be legitimately claimed as recyclable in the U.S.," Greenpeace concluded, because few companies collect and recycle them into new material. Yet most people assume that anything with a recycling symbol on it gets recycled, which, research suggests, convinces them to buy more of it. In other words, recycling labeling can actually create more waste

The Maine bill would help create a more robust market for recyclables in Maine, says Kevin Roche, the CEO of Ecomaine, which provides solid waste and recycling services to 70 communities in the state. Once materials such as Styrofoam and straws and plastic lids stop ending up in the waste stream, Ecomaine will have lower contamination rates, and be able to sell its recycled plastics, he says. "We want there to be an incentive for a producer to package something in a readily recyclable container," Roche says.

The impact of the bill could go far beyond Maine. There's a history of EPR laws starting local and spreading nationally. After Oregon passed an EPR bill for paint in 2009, nine states followed with similar legislation. After the National Stewardship Action Council convinced Alameda, a county in California, to pass an ordinance requiring drug companies pay to design and operate a program that takes back unused drugs in 2014, other counties soon followed suit. "Everyone said to me, 'You'll never get the pharmaceutical industry to pay to take back drugs,'" says Sanborn, of the National Stewardship Action Council. "That was the hardest, but we did it, and it paves the way for the rest to come a lot easier."

Cities across Maine say EPR is one of the only solutions left for their recycling woes. Portland, Maine's most populous city, started a "Pay As You Throw" program in 1999, requiring residents to buy and dispose of their trash in city-branded trash bags that cost more than regular bags. The program incentivized recycling and made people consider how much they were throwing away, says Troy Moon, Portland's sustainability coordinator—waste disposal went down 60% since then and recycling grew 600%. But plastic bags and plastic film and Styrofoam are still gumming up the city's recycling bins, Moon says. Portland banned the sale and distribution of plastic straws and now requires customers to pay five cents for single-use bags. It banned Styrofoam takeout containers and encourages residents to bring their own mugs to coffee shops to be filled. But it's still paying $200,000 a year more than it did before China banned the import of most recycling. No matter what Portland does, the waste keeps flowing.

There's only so much individual consumers can do. They've learned, over decades, to make recycling a habit. But there are some obstacles keeping recycling from working the way it should. It's time, Moon, for companies to pitch in. "Without EPR, there's no incentive for manufacturers to reduce the amount of recycling," he says. "If they have skin in the game, they are apt to take it more seriously."

(NEW YORK) — Amazon wants to kill the supermarket checkout line.

The online retailing giant is opening its first cashier-less supermarket, where shoppers can grab milk or eggs and walk out without waiting in line or ever opening their wallets. It's the latest sign that Amazon is serious about shaking up the $800 billion grocery industry.

At the new store, which opened Tuesday in Amazon's hometown of Seattle, shoppers scan a smartphone app to enter the store. Cameras and sensors track what's taken off shelves. Items are charged to an Amazon account after leaving.

"I love the convenience of literally grabbing and going" said Art Kuniyuki, a payroll and benefits manager from Seattle, who spent $15 on Barilla pasta, Dove chocolate and other groceries shortly after the store opened.

Called Amazon Go Grocery, the new store is an expansion of its 2-year-old chain of 25 Amazon Go convenience stores. It's 10,400 square feet — more than five times the size of the convenience stores — and stocks much more beyond the sodas and sandwiches found at Amazon Go.

Cameron Janes, who helps oversee Amazon's physical stores, said the technology had to be tweaked to account for how people squeeze tomatoes to test for ripeness or rummage through avocados to find just the right one. Nothing at the store is weighed. One blood orange goes for 53 cents; a banana is 19 cents.

Amazon is not new to groceries. It made a splash in 2017 when it bought Whole Foods and its 500 stores. It's also been expanding its online grocery delivery service. But it's still far behind rival Walmart, the nation's largest grocer, which has more than 4,700 stores. Walmart's online grocery service has also been popular with customers, who buy online and then drive to a store to pick up their order.

Amazon also plans to open another type of grocery store in Los Angeles sometime this year, but the company said it won't use the cashier-less technology at that location and has kept other details under wraps. The company declined to say if it plans to open more Amazon Go Grocery stores, and said there are no plans to bring the technology to Whole Foods stores.

Much of the fruits and vegetables come from the same suppliers at Whole Foods, Janes said. And it has products from the Whole Foods store brand 365, such as organic oatmeal and bagged baby carrots. But it also sells Oreos, Cheez-Its and other stuff banned from the natural grocer.

Families can shop together with just one phone scanning everyone in. Anything they grab and leave the store with will be added to the tab of the person who signed them in. But shoppers shouldn't help out a stranger reaching for the top shelf: Amazon warns that grabbing an item for someone else means you'll be charged for it if they walk out with it.

Hoping to catch up to Amazon, other retailers and startups are racing to bring similar cashier-less technology to stores. Earlier this month, 7-Eleven said it is testing a cashier-less store for employees inside its offices in Irving, Texas.

But cashier-less stores have come under scrutiny from lawmakers and advocates who say they discriminate against low-income people who may not have a credit card or bank account. Amazon has since let customers pay with cash at its convenience stores, and the company said shoppers can do the same at the grocery store by alerting a worker to let them in through the turnstile.

The stores also eliminates the job of cashiers. Janes declined to say exactly how many people the store employs, only saying it is "several dozen." Workers greet customers and walk around aisles restocking shelves. One employee stands by the alcohol section to check IDs of shoppers who want wine or beer.

While cashier-less stores remove the annoyance of waiting in line to pay, it also kills some joys of the supermarket. There's no one to bag groceries. Instead, Amazon gives out reusable bags so shoppers can fill them as they shop. And there's no deli counter, butcher or fishmonger. Instead, sliced ham, steaks and salmon fillets are already packaged and found in refrigerated shelves.

"Just walk out technology is kind of cool, in theory," said David Bishop, a partner at retail consultancy Brick Meets Click, but he said shoppers decide where to shop based on other factors besides how quickly they can get in and out of the store. Bishop said those who want thinly sliced ham may skip Amazon Go Grocery and walk two blocks away to the Kroger-owned QFC supermarket, which is about five times the size.

Still, Bishop said, it's hard for the grocery industry to ignore Amazon, which has the cash and technology to experiment with groceries. "They're not giving up," he said of Amazon.

(NEW YORK) —— Disney CEO Bob Iger, who steered the company through successful purchases of Star Wars, Marvel and Fox's entertainment businesses, is stepping down immediately, the company said in a surprise announcement Tuesday.

The Walt Disney Co. named as his replacement Bob Chapek, most recently chairman of Disney's parks, experiences and products business.

Iger will remain executive chairman through the end of his contract Dec. 31, 2021.

"I will continue to conduct the company's creative endeavors while also leading the board," Iger said on a conference call with reporters and analysts.

His most recent coup was orchestrating a $71 billion acquisition of Fox's entertainment assets and launching the Disney Plus streaming service in November. That service gained nearly 29 million paid subscribers in less than three months.

In a statement, Iger said it was an "optimal time" for him to step down.

"Did not see this coming — Wowza," tweeted LightShed media analyst Rich Greenfield.

Iger became chief executive of Disney in 2005 after a shareholder revolt by Roy E. Disney led to the ouster of longtime chief Michael Eisner. Iger steered Disney through successful acquisitions of Lucasfilms, Marvel, Pixar and other brands that became big moneymakers for Disney.

Iger, a former weatherman, joined broadcaster ABC in 1974, 22 years before Disney bought the network.

At ABC, Iger developed such successful programs as "Home Improvement," "The Drew Carey Show," and "America's Funniest Home Videos" and was instrumental in launching the quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." He was also criticized for cancelling well-regarded but expensive shows such as "Twin Peaks," "China Beach," and "thirtysomething."

Iger, 69, was the second-highest paid CEO in 2018, as calculated by The Associated Press and Equilar, an executive data firm. He earned $65.6 million. The top earner was Discovery's David Zaslav who earned $129.5 million.

Susan Arnold, the independent lead director of the Disney board said succession planning had been ongoing for several years.

Chapek, 60, is only the seventh CEO in Disney history. Chapek was head of the parks, experiences and products division since it was created in 2018. He was previously head of parks and resorts and before that president of consumer products.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped more than 1,000 points Monday in the worst day for the stock market in two years as investors worry that the spread of a viral outbreak that began in China will weaken global economic growth.

Traders sought safety in U.S. government bonds, gold and high-dividend stocks like utilities and real estate. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to the lowest level in more than three years.

Technology stocks accounted for much of the broad market slide, which wiped out all of the Dow's and S&P 500's gains for the year.

More than 79,000 people worldwide have been infected by the new coronavirus. China, where the virus originated, still has the majority of cases and deaths. The rapid spread to other countries is raising anxiety about the threat the outbreak poses to the global economy.

"Stock markets around the world are beginning to price in what bond markets have been telling us for weeks – that global growth is likely to be impacted in a meaningful way due to fears of the coronavirus," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.

The Dow lost 1,031.61 points, or 3.6%, to 27,960.80. At its low point, it was down 1,079 points.

The S&P 500 index skidded 111.86 points, or 3.4%, to 3,225.89. The Nasdaq dropped 355.31 points, or 3.7%, to 9,221.28 – it's biggest loss since December 2018.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller company stocks gave up 50.50 points, or 3%, to 1,628.10.

Investors looking for safe harbors bid up prices for U.S. government bonds and gold. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell sharply, to 1.37% from 1.47% late Friday. It was at 1.90% at the start of the year. Gold prices jumped 1.7%.

Crude oil prices slid 3.7%. Aside from air travel, the virus poses an economic threat to global shipping.

Benchmark crude oil fell $1.95 to settle at $51.43 a barrel. Brent crude oil, the international standard, dropped $2.20 to close at $56.30 a barrel.

The slump in U.S. indexes followed a sell-off in markets overseas as a surge in cases of the disease in South Korea and Europe rattled investors.

Germany's DAX slid 4% and Italy's benchmark index dropped 5.4%. South Korea's Kospi shed 3.9% and markets in Asia fell broadly.

South Korea is now on its highest alert for infectious diseases after cases there spiked. Italy reported a sharp rise in cases and a dozen towns in the northern, more industrial part of that country are under quarantine. The nation now has the biggest outbreak in Europe, prompting officials to cancel Venice's famed Carnival, along with soccer matches and other public gatherings.

There are also more cases of the virus being reported in the Middle East as it spreads to Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait, among others.

The viral outbreak threatens to crimp global economic growth and hurt profits and revenue for a wide range of businesses. Companies from technology giant Apple to athletic gear maker Nike have already warned about a hit to their bottom lines. Airlines and other companies that depend on travelers are facing pain from cancelled plans and shuttered locations.

Technology companies were among the worst hit by the sell-off. Apple, which depends on China for a lot of business, slid 4.8%. Microsoft dropped 4.3%. Banks were also big losers. JPMorgan Chase fell 2.7% and Bank of America slid 4.7%.

Airlines and cruise ship operators also slumped. American Airlines lost 8.5%, Delta Air Lines dropped 6.3%, Carnival skidded 9.4% and Royal Caribbean Cruises tumbled 9%.

Gilead Sciences climbed 4.6% and was among the few bright spots. The biotechnology company is testing a potential drug to treat the new coronavirus. Bleach-maker Clorox was also a standout, rising 1.5%.

Utilities and real estate companies held up better than most sectors. Investors tend to favor those industries, which carry high dividends and hold up relatively well during periods of turmoil, when they're feeling fearful.

The rotation into defensive sectors has made utilities and real estate the biggest gainers this year, while technology stocks have lost ground.

"The yields have been moving lower all year, so that's providing a tail wind for utilities, for real estate," said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird. "In the face of this heightened uncertainty, especially if it's centered overseas, tech is going to bear some of the brunt of that because it's been so popular, because it's done so well, and because it has so much exposure to Asia."

In the eyes of some analysts, Monday's tank job for stocks means they're just catching up to the bond market, where fear has been dominant for months.

U.S. government bonds are seen as some of the safest possible investments, and investors have been piling into them throughout 2020, even as stocks overcame stumbles to set more record highs. The 10-year yield on Monday was near its intraday record low of 1.325% set in July 2016, according to Tradeweb. The 30-year Treasury yield fell further after setting its own record low, down to 1.83% from 1.92% late Friday.

Traders are increasingly certain that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at least once in 2020 to help prop up the economy. They're pricing in a nearly 95% probability of a cut this year, according to CME Group. A month ago, they saw only a 68% probability.

Of course, some analysts say stocks have been rising in recent weeks precisely because of the drop in yields. Bonds are offering less in interest after the Federal Reserve lowered rates three times last year — the first such cuts in more than a decade — and amid low inflation. When bonds are paying such meager amounts, many investors say there's little real competition other than stocks for their money.

The view has become so hardened that "There Is No Alternative," or TINA, has become a popular acronym on Wall Street. Even with Monday's sharp drops, the S&P 500 is still within 4.2% of its record set earlier this month.

In other commodities trading Monday, wholesale gasoline fell 4 cents to $1.61 per gallon, heating oil declined 8 cents to $1.61 per gallon and natural gas fell 8 cents to $1.83 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Gold rose $27.80 to $1,672.40 per ounce, silver rose 35 cents to $18.87 per ounce and copper fell 3 cents to $2.59 per pound.

The dollar fell to 110.74 Japanese yen from 111.62 yen on Friday. The euro weakened to $1.0842 from $1.0858.

___

AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

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(CHICAGO) — Debris has been found in the fuel tanks of 70% of grounded Boeing 737 Max jets that have been inspected by the company, Boeing confirmed on Saturday.

Inspectors found the debris in 35 out of about 50 jets that were inspected. They are among 400 built in the past year that Boeing hasn't been able to deliver to airline customers.

Boeing temporarily halted production last month because the planes were grounded after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.

Although debris hasn't been linked to those crashes, metal shavings, tools and other objects left in planes during assembly can raise the risk of electrical short-circuiting and fires. On Tuesday the company had said debris was found in "several" planes but it did not give a precise number.

The debris was discovered during maintenance on parked planes, and Boeing said it immediately made corrections in its production system to prevent a recurrence. Those steps include more inspections before fuel tanks are sealed.

"This is unacceptable and won't be tolerated on any Boeing aircraft when it's delivered to the customer," the company said in a statement Saturday.

Boeing previously said the issue does not change the company's belief that the Federal Aviation Administration will certify the plane to fly again this summer.

A Boeing spokesman cautioned against applying the 70% to all 400 jets, saying there's no way to know how many have the same problem until they're all inspected.

An FAA spokesman said the agency knows that Boeing is inspecting undelivered Max planes and said the agency has increased surveillance.

The number of planes with debris was reported Friday night by The Wall Street Journal.

Max jets were grounded around the world last March. Boeing is testing updated flight control software that will replace a system that has been implicated as a cause of the crashes. The system activated before the crashes based on faulty signals from sensors outside the planes. It pushed the noses of the aircraft down, triggering spirals that pilots were unable to stop.

While investigators examining the Max accidents have not pointed to production problems at the assembly plant near Seattle, Boeing has faced concerns about debris left in other finished planes including the 787 Dreamliner, which is built in South Carolina.

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Liu Zi'ao was awaiting surgery in a Wuhan hospital to treat the tumor pressing on his spinal cord when, suddenly, he was told to leave. The novel coronavirus had plunged the central Chinese city's health-care system into crisis, and all resources were being diverted to contain it.

In the month since, the 25-year-old former acupuncturist has been turned away from hospital after hospital as he seeks treatment. Because his right leg has atrophied, he'll need an ambulance to pick him up if one agrees to admit him. But there are few spare ambulances, hospital beds or doctors at the epicenter of the outbreak that's infected over 75,000 people.

He's been downing Oxycontin — addictive, powerful opioids — to manage his excruciating chronic pain, but the pills are running out. "I don't know what I will do," said Liu.

Liu is one of a growing number of Chinese patients with urgent medical conditions unrelated to the coronavirus epidemic who have become collateral damage as China struggles to gain control of an outbreak that's now claimed over 2,000 lives.

In Hubei, the province of 60 million that Wuhan is the capital of, medical facilities are still facing severe shortages in dealing with the surge in virus patients. Almost all medical personnel, equipment and resources have been channeled into fighting the outbreak, leaving other patients in limbo.

Chris Wang's 56-year-old father has kidney failure and requires dialysis twice a week. But his usual sessions at the Third People's Hospital of Hubei have been canceled because the hospital, and its rooms equipped with dialysis machines, have been commandeered by government officials in charge of the outbreak response, he said.

"It's understandable that the government needs the hospital beds for virus patients, but it doesn't make sense to take the dialysis rooms because these patients can die if they don't get dialysis on time," said Wang.

A woman who answered the hospital's hotline said it can't admit dialysis patients at the moment because the hospital has been taken over for coronavirus treatment.

While most marked in devastated Hubei, where the novel coronavirus first took hold, a shortage of non-virus medical care is also emerging across China — even in its most prosperous cities.

This crisis puts a spotlight on a health-care system that was already uneven, with care in rural areas lagging that of big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. In recent years, China has embarked on an ambitious overhaul of its medical system in a bid to drag down drug costs and waiting time, but the current epidemic brings those persistent inequalities into sharp relief.

Over 23,000 doctors and nurses have been sent from hospitals around the country to Hubei to shore up the virus response at the epicenter, leaving some hospitals with fewer medical staff in provinces like Guangdong and Jiangsu.

And a fear of exposing medical staff to the highly infectious pathogen is causing some hospitals to turn away all new patients in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, even if those patients need urgent care for cancer or renal failure.

There is no comprehensive data on how many patients are in this quandary, and it is difficult to estimate how many preventable deaths have resulted from the abrupt withdrawal of non-virus medical care since the disease's spread began.

Still, interviews with doctors, patients and social media discussion point to an emerging crisis that could leave a deadly trail even after the outbreak ebbs. The epidemic, which has shut down large swathes of China's economy, is extracting untold human suffering across the country.

Pawn Sacrificed

Posts from desperate patients begging for help and accounts of citizens taking their own lives because they could not get medical care are trending on social media in China, where anger is already simmering over the government's slow initial response to the outbreak.

On Sunday, Wuhan designated six hospitals for patients in critical condition unrelated to the virus, and another 15 hospitals that can take emergency non-virus cases. In the city of 11 million people, 46 hospitals with nearly 19,000 beds are devoted to virus care, with converted stadiums, office buildings and schools also providing thousands more beds for infected patients.

National health officials have also publicly urged local hospitals throughout the country not to neglect patients unrelated to the outbreak.

But resources, especially in Hubei province, are stretched thin.

Wuhan Union, where Liu Zi'ao was hospitalized before the outbreak, is one of the six that's supposed to be taking critical patients unrelated to the virus, but a doctor there says the hospital is already overwhelmed and does not have enough physicians.

All junior doctors in his department have been sent to the frontline to treat infected patients, and he is also on call for virus work, said the doctor, who did not want to give his name as he was not authorized to speak publicly.

"It's impossible to care fully for patients in need now. Those with milder symptoms can talk to doctors online, but critical cases which need surgery — there's really no way out," said the doctor. "What can we do?"

Wuhan Union's head of communications did not answer multiple phone calls. Health authorities in Wuhan and Hubei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A deep exhaustion has taken hold among medical professionals on the ground, hundreds of whom have been infected themselves while caring for patients. A shortage of medical equipment and protective gear has meant that many work without adequate safeguards.

The death of Li Wenliang, one of the doctors in Wuhan who was censured by officials after raising an early warning on the virus, ignited a wave of grief and anger across China earlier this month.

One doctor in Wuhan who specializes in treating diabetes patients became infected with the virus in January. She believes she contracted it after treating diabetes patients who work at the wet market where the pathogen is suspected to have originated.

"Sacrificing non-virus care for the moment is the only option in a situation where there are no good options," she said, declining to give her name as she was not authorized to speak publicly. "Wuhan is losing a pawn to save a castle and that's the only thing that's feasible because the virus is just too infectious."

Patients Turned Away

Outside of Hubei province, fear of the virus' spread has meant that some top-tier public hospitals in other parts of China are turning patients away. In some hospitals, most non-urgent surgeries have been postponed, according to doctors.

There's also been a drop in patients themselves going to hospitals, even in parts of China where there aren't widespread infections, according to doctors working in cities like Shenzhen and Zhongshan. The new coronavirus is seemingly more infectious than SARS, which claimed almost 800 lives globally 17 years ago.

In Shanghai, a 75 year-old man who gave his surname as Zhong is suffering from a tumor in his abdomen and multiple cysts in his liver. His feet are too swollen to fit into his shoes, he has no appetite, and he needs to go to the toilet dozens of times a day. While a doctor that saw him on Feb. 7 suggested immediate surgery, five top-tier hospitals in the city have since refused to take him out of fear of the virus' spread.

"We've tried everything that ordinary people can possibly do but still he cannot be admitted to a hospital," said Zhong's daughter, who declined to give her name out of fear of reprisal. "Seeing my father suffer at home makes my heart ache."

Some hospitals are now trying to expand the use of online platforms to help non-virus patients. Beijing's municipal health committee on Saturday ordered all patients, except for emergency cases or those with fevers, to register online and secure appointment slots before visiting hospitals in person.

Wuhan Tongji hospital has developed an app that is available on Android smartphones through which doctors can advise patients and suggest drugs they should buy from online pharmacies.

For those with conditions beyond the remit of online consultations, there are few options besides hoping that the outbreak comes under control and medical resources can be freed up again. While additional cases of new infections in Hubei seem to be on a downward trajectory, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was cited by state TV has saying that the epidemic is on a "positive trend," it is unclear if a turning point in the outbreak has been reached.

For Liu Zi'ao, the 25-year-old with a spinal cord tumor, there is nothing to do but wait.

"No hospital will take me although I have been calling different hospitals for weeks," he said. "For now, I can only stay at home and wait. But I don't even know what I am waiting for."

While a wave of employee activism marked by walk-outs and protests has rippled through Silicon Valley the past few years, Oracle Corp. glided along unscathed.

Now, a symbol of tech's old guard is facing the stirrings of a worker uprising as well. People left their desks Thursday at Oracle offices around the world to protest Chairman Larry Ellison's fundraiser a day earlier for President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. The protest, called No Ethics/No Work, involved about 300 employees walking out of their offices or stopping work at remote locations at noon local time and devoting the rest of the day to volunteering or civic engagement, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Ellison drew employee ire that most didn't know existed at Oracle. News of the fundraiser for Trump's re-election campaign at Ellison's home in Rancho Mirage, California, spurred a petition at Change.org from some of the company's 136,000 employees. The workers argued the chairman's public support for Trump violated Oracle's diversity, inclusion and ethics policies, and harmed the image of the world's second-largest software maker.

The petition had more than 8,000 signatures as of Thursday afternoon, though it was open to the public and anyone could sign it. Organizers demanded that Oracle and Ellison give money to support a humanitarian cause such as climate change, denounce the Trump administration and commit to diversifying the company's board.

Employees at Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. started mobilizing more than two years ago over a variety of issues, including law enforcement and military contracts, the gender pay gap and the treatment of contract workers.

Thursday's activism at Oracle, a database stalwart founded in 1977, showed cultural differences from the younger companies like Google. Some Oracle workers who participated in the "log off" used vacation time for the protest, the people said. Many had asked the company's human resources officials whether they would be targeted for participating and didn't receive a response before the protest, so they took the precaution of participating on their own time, the people said.

Others who supported the action, but were leery about the company's potential response, chose to donate money to charitable groups that oppose Trump administration policies rather than leave work, the people said.

Some employees received a warning Thursday when trying to access the protest organizers' website from a work computer: "Access to this site may not be permitted by the Oracle Acceptable Use Policy. However, if user is authorized and has legitimate business reason to access the requested site, then click below to access. Your access will be logged."

Oracle, however, said the message was an error that was corrected.

"The site was not intentionally blocked by Oracle," said spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger. "It was temporarily blocked by a 'false positive' from our McAfee network security and anti-virus software. Once we were notified by employees of this issue, our security team conducted a review, determined that there was no actual security threat, and then whitelisted the site."

Organizers said the protest participation at Oracle's headquarters in Redwood City, California, seemed more muted than in other locations, such as New York City and Austin, Texas, which have more young workers.

The organizers hope Thursday's action is the first effort to voice concerns about the company's policies, and employees will continue to feel motivated to speak out, one of the people said.

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Friends and family often tell Amanda D'Esterre that hectic work schedules are "just the way it is." But D'Esterre likes to push back. "That shouldn't be normal. I know it is, but it really shouldn't be. Take time for yourself."

D'Esterre, 29, knows first-hand that "the hustle" can take a toll. Her mother worked as a high-powered financial executive, a position which gave her mother a sense of purpose and the family financial comfort, but also involved long hours and lengthy commutes. It also left D'Esterre deciding, while she was young, that these rewards alone wouldn't be enough for her.

"In my mind, I was like — I never want to do that," she says. "I don't think work is that important or worthwhile. I'd rather spend time with my family and friends and have a life outside of work."

D'Esterre, now working as a case manager, is among many younger adults who are rethinking how they prioritize their careers compared to other parts of their lives. Yes, plenty of Millennials and Gen Zers have embraced so-called "hustle culture," putting in long hours at work while they're still young in hopes of accelerating their careers. Past generations behaved similarly. What's different now, experts say, is that today's young workers are increasingly focused on the "life" part of "work-life balance." A 2015 study from the Center for Work and Family at Boston College found that only 20% of Millennials said they would want to advance their careers if doing so meant losing personal or family time. Whereas previous generations seem to have been more willing to sacrifice their personal lives for jobs, says study co-author Brad Harrington, Millennials appear to be putting a "stake in the ground" to say "I do not want to have a job that's all-encompassing, I do want to have the ability to work more flexibly than might have been the case in the past."

But at the same time, technological developments have made it harder for Millennials and Gen Zers to detach from work — their grandparents didn't have to worry about that 11 p.m. email from the boss. Indeed, modern workplace connectivity has employees of all ages rethinking their relationship to their job. So if you're looking to reset your work-life balance, these expert tips can help.

Identify what matters — and who

The phrase "work-life balance" could be causing more harm than good, says Stewart Friedman, the director of Wharton's Work/Life Integration Project and author of Parents Who Lead. It suggests work and life are in opposition to each other, he argues, and that it's necessary to take from one to give time to the other. Instead, Friedman says that workers should reconsider how different parts of their lives affect one another other.

Friedman recommends that people think about what's really important to them, and what they want their lives to look like far in the future. Next, Friedman says, they should identify which people in their life are most important to them — whether it's their boss, spouse, child or closest friends. Workers should try to be "conscious of what's really important to me, who's really important to me," says Friedman. "How can I create a life that I want to live, and who is going to support me in that, and how do I enlist them? You have to make it happen for yourself."

With this all in mind, says Friedman, workers should take some time to think about how all their relationships with these individuals impact each other. For instance, a boss might want an employee to stay late to complete a project, but that could mean the employee missing their child's bedtime routine. But instead of marching into the boss's office to demand more time off, Friedman says that the employee should open up a dialogue about why it will likely leave them stressed and distracted the next day if their child is upset, and come up with an alternative way to get the project done — such as coming in early the next morning.

Friedman says that people who are most successful at finding solutions are willing to experiment until they discover ones that work. Ultimately, says Friedman, people who go through this thought process tend to shift their attention away from the workplace. He adds that research shows that workers who try out new solutions to build harmony between their work and personal lives actually receive better performance ratings from colleagues, and tend to feel better about their lives overall. Of course, how receptive employers and managers are to this strategy will vary.

Don't forget your own wellbeing

If you want to succeed at work, it's important to play the long game, says Bryan Robinson, a psychotherapist and the author of #Chill: Turn Off Your Job and Turn On Your Life. Although working very hard might give you a boost in the short term, he believes that young people tend to underestimate the long-term consequences of workaholism. Robinson says his younger patients often exhibit the consequences of a workplace culture that seems to require employees to "produce and move faster."

"Everything is quick, fast, let's-get-it-done. We know for a fact that will burn you out," says Robinson. "The body will push back."

Robinson urges workers who feel like the job is taking over their life to regain their focus on the here and now. Workers should ask themselves the following questions, he says: Are they taking care of their body's basic needs? Are they tired, hungry, lonely, or angry? Are they maintaining boundaries in their lives, or do they find it difficult to stop working even on vacation?

Finally, Robinson argues that it's important to find tools to keep calm during even the most hectic workdays, such as taking a few moments during the day to meditate. That could be as simple as pausing to listen to the sounds of your environment — your breath, bird sounds, or even the clacking of computer keys in your office. Another simple technique is to concentrate on a person, place, spiritual figure or pet that makes you feel calm.

"A lot of people think, 'if I have to balance my life, I won't be as productive, or I won't be as successful.' But it's the exact opposite," says Robinson. If you regularly pay attention to the present moment, he says, "you basically are teaching your mind that you don't have to be rushing and hurrying. And you start to feel more up to whatever the challenge is or whatever the obstacles are. You're able to figure out a way around them."

Reconsider what's normal

Kathleen Gerson, a professor of sociology at NYU, argues that offering tips to establish "work-life balance" can be a trap, because it can imply the burden falls solely on workers to manage their lives. Instead, she argues that employers need to ensure their workers are able to have a healthy attitude towards their careers, and that workers need to advocate for better treatment.

Part of the work-life balance question, after all, comes down to benefits. Unlike many other high-income countries, Americans are not guaranteed paid family leave or even paid sick leave. Even when Americans are guaranteed vacation days, many of them don't take all of their allotted time off; according to one study, 55% of workers left some of their vacation days unused in 2018. Gerson says that her research has found many workers don't take time off because they're afraid of negative repercussions at work. Employers, she says, often send "subtle message that, yes, these [benefits] are available, but if you take them, we will wonder about your commitment to your job."

Gerson says that history has shown that legislation can have a powerful affect on work culture — unemployment benefits and the 40-hour workweek were the result of legislation passed during the Great Depression, after all. She believes that a national requirement for businesses to provide leave would benefit all workers by changing what's considered table stakes for workers.

"We can only change [norms] if we have collective policies that apply to everybody and that we all agree on and that people use. And that's how norms begin to change. Nobody would say today, 'how dare you take unemployment insurance,'" says Gerson. "When we don't have national policies, then it penalizes the employers who do try, because they're then competing with employers who are not bound by the same rules. There needs to be a level playing field for organizations just the way there needs to be a level playing field for workers."