At the beginning of 2020, Bobby Bounds was running a successful industrial painting company catering to the oil and gas sector in Midland, Texas. He had 12 employees, painting everything from storage tanks to pipes and valves.

Now he's been forced to close his doors and let his workers go. His business was a victim of the plunge in oil prices, caused by a severe dropoff in demand during the Covid-19 pandemic and price war sparked by Saudi Arabia and Russia. Immediately after the Dow crashed more than 2,000 points on March 9, Bound lost half a million dollars in active jobs.

Bobby Bounds has been forced to shut his industrial painting business in Midland, Texas because of the downturn in the energy market.

"It's kind of a slow death. You know, you start laying people off and finishing up the work you have and hoping the phone would ring," he said.

Read the full story by Pamela Boykoff and John Defterios and watch the video at CNN.com

Every morning, managers at Dealmed Medical Supplies meet to discuss which customers they can provide with face masks from their dwindling stock. On a recent morning, they decided a local hospital would get 10 boxes of masks fitted with N95 respirators, a total of about 200 masks. The hospital had requested 60 boxes. A request from a chain of dialysis centers also went on the "yes" pile.

Dealmed, an independent medical supplier based in the northeast, a supplier of face masks, gloves and other protective equipment for hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices, has seen skyrocketing demand for masks since the outbreak of novel corouavirus, the company says it hasn't received any new supplies. The Chinese factories that usually make them haven't shipped any new stock in two months, Dealmed President Michael Einhorn said.

We're absolutely going to run out, but we have contingency plans in place," Einhorn said. "We're trying to do the best we can for our customers."

Read the full story by Pamela Boykoff and Clare Sebastian at CNN.com

The listing on Amazon (AMZN) described it as a "4 in 1 Baby car seat and Stroller" and featured images of a popular brand called Doona, including a photo of the US President's daughter, Ivanka Trump, with hers. Listed for $299, this copycat  was $200 cheaper than a real Doona. It was also potentially dangerous for children. 

The car seat broke into pieces in a 30 mph crash test commissioned by CNN, failing to meet the basic standards set by US regulators. Video of the test shows the toddler dummy twisting as the car seat fractures and slides forward, with plastic pieces that have broken off it flying through the air. In an identical crash test scenario, an authentic Doona met federal requirements, with the car seat remaining in one piece and in place around the dummy.

Dr. Alisa Baer, a pediatrician and nationally certified child passenger safety instructor, reviewed the test results and said in a real crash such a car seat failure could put a child in "grave danger," and lead to injuries to a child's chest, neck or head, including a traumatic brain injury.

CNN bought the copycat Doona and had it crash-tested at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute as part of a months-long investigation into the sale of counterfeit and patent-infringing children's products on Amazon. Seven different business owners told CNN their products were being actively targeted by counterfeiters using Amazon's marketplace for third-party vendors. The businesses said Amazon put the onus on them to report suspicious listings and that this often amounted to a game of "whack-a-mole," in which new listings appeared almost as soon as flagged ones were taken down.

Read the full story by Pamela Boykoff and Clare Sebastian on CNN.com

Less than an hour from the glitzy casinos and high-rise hotels of Las Vegas, the miners at Mountain Pass are reviving an industry that nearly disappeared from American soil. This is the only mine in the country devoted to rare earths, elements essential to modern electronics. Rare earths are contained in everything from iPhones to wind turbines to Teslas.

"If there's going to be an American rare earths industry, it's gonna be led by us. We're it," said James Litinksy, the co-chairman of MP Materials, which owns the mine in Mountain Pass, California.

View the video, read the full story or listen to the podcast.

Norway has a solid reputation when it comes to gender equality. The country offers maternity leave and universal daycare; the prime minister is a woman and her cabinet members are mostly female; and Norway ranks high on international measures of gender equality. But when it comes to the private sector, Norway doesn't score so highly when it comes to gender parity in the workplace, especially at the top of the tree.

Today on The Indicator, we look at why are there so few female business leaders in Norway.

Japan was once one of the world's fastest-growing economies. But today, the country's population is shrinking, and growth remains sluggish after a 'lost decade' of slump. As part of a plan to revive the economy, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a new idea in 2013, involving an underused resource: women.

Women have always been a large part of the labor force in Japan, but their presence and progress has always been limited and regulated by cultural pressures. Traditionally, a lot of Japanese women left their jobs when they had kids. Abe's initiative was aimed at encouraging women back into the workforce. Economists had predicted that closing the gender employment gap could grow Japan's economy by 13%. Six years later — is it working?

Podcast for NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money. Story also aired on flagship program Morning Edition.

China's economy is changing fast and it's tough to keep up. We look at five common misconceptions about the world's second largest economy, with the help of China expert Nicholas R. Lardy from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Understanding how China's economy has shifted since the financial crisis and why it's slowing down may help shed light on what's going on in the current trade negotiations between China and the U.S..

Amina Mohammed grew up in Nigeria with four sisters.

"We had very strong women on my father's side in the village. In the background it was always about equality, it was always about rights," Mohammed said.

When she became Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations in 2017, she drew up a list of 17 sustainable development goals for 2020 -- one of those was gender equality.

"How is it that women don't have equal pay for equal work. There are women who can do the jobs that men are doing and can do it even better. And I think that when we bring our skills into a boardroom, onto a factory line, into the media, things change," she said.

CNN spoke to Mohammed about her zero tolerance policy toward gender inequality, and work to empower women around the world.

View the full story at CNN.com 

In the first years after the September 11 terror attacks, administrators at Guam's A.B. Won Pat International Airport put up memorial banners to honor members of the military from the island and neighboring US territories who died in Washington's war on terror.

The names have added up -- by the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, the airport installed a digital memorial so they could list them all.

"It became so overwhelming that it took over the entire east ticket lobby and we had no remaining wall space," says Rolenda Faasuamalie, marketing director at the airport. "These are our brothers and our nephews and our sons and sisters."

View the full story by  Ivan Watson, Pamela Boykoff, Paul Devitt and Joshua Berlinger at CNN.com

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Nearly 10 months ago, Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines and turned the country into a battlefield in his war on drugs. Since then, the murder rate has dramatically risen. This is the story of Santo Niño, an inner-city neighborhood in Metro Manila where some of the most shocking killings have taken place.

View the full interactive report by Pamela Boykoff, Euan McKirdy and Will Ripley on CNN.com

He needed help.

It was 2012 and he had just returned to Hong Kong, smuggled in illegally by boat.

The man -- who goes by the court-assigned pseudonym ZN -- says he had spent four years, working seven days a week in a Hong Kong cell phone store, sleeping on the floor and suffering beatings at the hands of his employer. Then his boss sent him back to his native Pakistan without a cent in pay. When he demanded his money, he says, his boss' associates back in Pakistan threatened to kill him and his family.

So he came back, determined to get his money.

View the full story by Pamela Boykoff and Alexandra Field at CNN.com

On the night of her sister's wedding, Zuberah ran for her life.

Her parents had taken to chaining her to the house by her feet, but tonight was different. The house was full of guests, and she was free to move around.

While her parents were distracted, she ran into town and found a lawyer. She told him that after fleeing one abusive marriage arranged by her parents, they were forcing her to marry again.

If she refused, she believed they would kill her. 

Seethe full story by Pamela Boykoff, Alexandra Field and Sophia Saifi at CNN.com

Edgar Matobato's days are spent -- for now, at least -- in a verdant, bucolic compound some way outside Manila.

Chickens, ubiquitous in the rural Philippines, scratch in the dirt and there is a sizable supply of food stacked up on the porch of one of the small structures that make up the compound.

It's a far cry from his nightmarish former life as a self-described death squad lieutenant in the southern city of Davao...

See the full story by Euan McKirdy, Pamela Boykoff and Will Ripley at CNN.com

When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared a military and economic "separation" from the United States last week, many Filipinos saw his announcement as more than just diplomatic posturing. They saw it as a threat to their jobs.

His comments sent a shudder through industries that rely heavily on the U.S. market, particularly the big business of handling call center work and other tasks for American companies...,

See the full story by Pamela Boykoff at CNNMoney.com

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It has been more than 64 years since Mount Ijen last erupted, but the volcano is still very much alive, and it is being mined by some of the toughest men in the world...

See the full story at CNN.com or experience it in virtual reality on Facebook. 

"When I woke up I didn't know that I was in China."

Lan remembers the night that changed her whole life.

While preparing for university along the border in northern Vietnam, a friend she met online asked her to a group dinner. When she was tired and wanted to go home, the people asked her to stay and talk and have a drink.

Next thing she knew, she had been smuggled across the border to China...

See the full story by Pamela Boykoff and Alexandra Field at CNN.com

Yu Yanhua hasn't been back to her apartment in days.

She's been too frightened, she says, after at least four dissidents of Chinese origin were arrested or simply disappeared from Thailand in the last four months... only to resurface back in China in the custody of the government.

Yu is a pro-democracy activist who fled to Thailand last year to escape government repression in China....

See the full story by Pamela Boykoff, Ivan Watson, Judy Kwon and Kocha Olarn at CNN.com

At just 10 years old, Mizba Ahmed and her family fled persecution in Myanmar.

Boarding a smuggler's boat bound for Australia, she never imagined that instead of finding a better life, she'd end up spending 18 months in detention on the isolated Pacific island of Nauru.

"Nauru is the worst place I've ever seen for children," the 12-year old said....

See the full story by Pamela Boykoff and Ivan Watson at CNN.com