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Rhode Island will now provide workplace accommodations for women experiencing menopause. The groundbreaking move makes the state the first ever to mandate any accommodations related to menopause by law. Effective June 24, 2025, the state’s Fair Employment Practices Act, which covers conditions relating to pregnancy, labor, and postpartum, added menopause to the list of conditions it covers. Under the amended act, reasonable accommodations for menopause or menopause-related conditions, including “the need to manage the effects of vasomotor symptoms,” such as hot flashes (one of the most common menopause symptoms), are included. The bill, however, did not provide more detail on what reasonable accommodations look like. Menopause is a difficult and personal subject that has been stigmatized in this country,” Senator Lori Urso (D-Dist. 8, Pawtucket), who introduced the legislation, earlier this year said in a press release. “But its high time we normalize it, especially for the benefit of women in the workplace.” Urso added that a lack of such protections contributes to the gender pay gap and causes women to lose leadership opportunities. Under Rhode Island’s Fair Employment Practices Act, the state already required employers with at least four employees to provide accommodations for pregnant persons and conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth. At least 31 states mandate such accommodationsa number that has been rising in recent years. All 50 states must require some accommodations for lactation, too, under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In 2022, the PUMP Act expanded those protections to include more industries, like nursing, education, truck and taxi drivers, and more. However, menopause accommodations have long been overlooked. That’s in spite of the fact that the normal, yet often uncomfortable, condition impacts nearly half the population. An estimated 85% of people experience symptoms such as mood swings, migraines, hot flashes, insomnia, anxiety, night sweats, and more during menopause. For some, those symptoms can be severe, however, until now, no state has legally acknowledged the condition in the workplace. The ACLU of Rhode Island spoke to the importance of the proposed legislation earlier in a press release prior to its passing. Menopause is a natural and common phase in the lives of millions of individuals, but its impact and symptoms can have profound and long-lasting effects on a persons health and daily life,” said Madalyn McGunagle, policy associate at the Rhode Island ACLU. McGunagle continued, “The ACLU of Rhode Island supports this bill, which would make explicit that employers must provide reasonable accommodations to employees experiencing menopause, just as the law currently requires accommodations for various pregnancy-related conditions. By extending protections to those experiencing menopause, we can ensure that they are given the necessary accommodations to continue performing their jobs effectively.” Unlike the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which was written in gender neutral language and covers transgender individuals, Rhode Island’s Fair Employment Practices Act does not include such language. Fast Company reached out to Senator Urso’s office to clarify whether menopause accommodations will include transgender individuals but did not hear back by the time of publication.
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Estée Laundry, the anonymous Instagram account and self-proclaimed beauty industry watchdog, is back after a two-year hiatus. Estée Laundrythe name a play on beauty giant Estée Lauderlaunched in 2018 to air out the beauty industrys dirty laundry, as the accounts bio once read. It posted regularly, and followers, or Laundrites, were encouraged to weigh in on daily beauty news and controversies. That continued until some members of the anonymous collective left, and the account ultimately went quiet in 2023. This month, however, a new post appeared asking followers, serious question, are there still any exciting beauty brands? In a recent interview with Business of Fashion, the beauty custodian described itself as a group of outsiders with ties to the beauty industry. Those ties remain strong enough to break news: the account was the first to share an internal memo announcing layoffs at Shiseido Americas last week. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Estée Laundry (@esteelaundry) Like its fashion industry counterpart Diet Prada, Estée Laundry grew its nearly 200,000-strong following by spotlighting industry-wide issues such as cultural appropriation, lack of diversity, and unsubstantiated product claims. Major brands that have found themselves in the crosshairs include millennial-favorite Glossier, Fenty Beauty, and the Kardashians, to name a few. In 2022, the account famously flagged former Estée Lauder Companies executive John Demseys Instagram post that included a racial epithet (which he swiftly deleted). Hows it OK for a beauty executive (responsible for the branding and direction of a company that claims to focus on diversity and inclusion) to post this? the account questioned. The executive was forced to resign less than a week later, The New York Times reported. Now, Estée Laundry is back and shifting gears. With the relaunch, the group is intentionally moving away from its vigilante roots and instead focusing on longform opinion pieces via a weekly Patreon newsletter, aptly named Laundry Service, for $8 a month. A representative told Business of Fashion, We think of ourselves as a beauty industry observer.
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E-Commerce
When top U.S. and Chinese officials meet in Stockholm, they are almost certain to agree to at least leaving tariffs at the current levels while working toward a meeting between their presidents later this year for a more lasting trade deal between the world’s two largest economies, analysts say.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng are set to hold talks Monday for the third time this year this round in the Swedish capital, nearly four months after President Donald Trump upset global trade with his sweeping tariff proposal, including an import tax that shot up to 145% on Chinese goods.“We have the confines of a deal with China,” Trump said Friday before leaving for Scotland.Bessent told MSNBC on Wednesday that the two countries after talks in Geneva and London have reached a “status quo,” with the U.S. taxing imported goods from China at 30% and China responding with a 10% tariff, on top of tariffs prior to the start of Trump’s second term.“Now we can move on to discussing other matters in terms of bringing the economic relationship into balance,” Bessent said. He was referring to the U.S. running a $295.5 billion trade deficit last year. The U.S. seeks an agreement that would enable it to export more to China and shift the Chinese economy more toward domestic consumer spending.The Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing hopes “there will be more consensus and cooperation and less misperception” coming out of the talks.With an eye on a possible leaders’ summit, Stockholm could provide some answers as to the timeline and viability of that particular goal ahead of a possible meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.“The meeting will be important in starting to set the stage for a fall meeting between Trump and Xi,” said Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator and now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Beijing will likely insist on detailed preparations before they agree to a leaders’ meeting.”In Stockholm, the two sides are likely to focus on commercial announcements to be made at a leaders’ summit as well as agreements to address “major irritants,” such as China’s industrial overcapacity and its lack of control over chemicals used to make fentanyl, also to be announced when Xi and Trump should meet, Cutler said.Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said Stockholm could be the first real opportunity for the two governments to address structural reform issues including market access in China for U.S. companies.What businesses will be seeking coming out of Stockholm would largely be “the atmosphere” how the two sides characterize the discussions. They will also look for clues about a possible leaders’ summit because any real deal will hinge on the two presidents meeting each other, he said. Fentanyl-related tariffs are likely a focus for China In Stockholm, Beijing will likely demand the removal of the 20% fentanyl-related tariff that Trump imposed earlier this year, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based Stimson Center.This round of the U.S.-China trade dispute began with fentanyl, when Trump in February imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese goods, citing that China failed to curb the outflow of the chemicals used to make the drug. The following month, Trump added another 10% tax for the same reason. Beijing retaliated with extra duties on some U.S. goods, including coal, liquefied natural gas, and farm products such as beef, chicken, pork and soy.In Geneva, both sides climbed down from three-digit tariffs rolled out following Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, but the U.S. kept the 20% “fentanyl” tariffs, in addition to the 10% baseline rate to which China responded by keeping the same 10% rate on U.S. products. These across-the-board duties were unchanged when the two sides met in London a month later to negotiate over non-tariff measures such as export controls on critical products.The Chinese government has long protested that American politicians blame China for the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. but argued the root problem lies with the U.S. itself. Washington says Beijing is not doing enough to regulate precursor chemicals that flow out of China into the hands of drug dealers.In July, China placed two fentanyl ingredients under enhanced control, a move seen as in response to U.S. pressure and signaling goodwill.Gabriel Wildau, managing director at the consultancy Teneo, said he doesn’t expect any tariff to go away in Stockholm but that tariff relief could be part of a final trade deal.“It’s possible that Trump would cancel the 20% tariff that he has explicitly linked with fentanyl, but I would expect the final tariff level on China to be at least as high as the 15-20% rate contained in the recent deals with Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam,” Wildau said. U.S. wants China to dump less, buy less oil from Russia and Iran China’s industrial overcapacity is as much a headache for the United States as it is for the European Union. Even Beijing has acknowledged the problem but suggested it might be difficult to address.America’s trade imbalance with China has decreased from a peak of $418 billion in 2018, according to the Census Bureau. But China has found new markets for its goods and as the world’s dominant manufacturer ran a global trade surplus approaching $1 trillion last year somewhat larger than the size of the U.S. overall trade deficit in 2024. And China’s emergence as a manufacturer of electric vehicles and other emerging technologies has suddenly made it more of a financial and geopolitical threat for those same industries based in the U.S., Europe, Japan and South Korea.“Some enterprises, especially manufacturing enterprises, feel more deeply that China’s manufacturing capabilities are too strong, and Chinese people are too hardworking. Factories run 24 hours a day,” Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Thursday when hosting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Beijing. “Some people think this will cause some new problems in the balance of supply and demand in world production.”“We see this problem too,” Li said.Bessent also said the Stockholm talks could address Chinese purchases of Russian and Iranian oil. However, Wildau of Teneo said China could demand some U.S. security concessions in exchange, such as a reduced U.S. military presence in East Asia and scaled-back diplomatic support for Taiwan and the Philippines. This would likely face political pushback in Washington.The Stockholm talks will be “geared towards building a trade agreement based around Chinese purchase commitments and pledges of investment in the U.S. in exchange for partial relief from U.S. tariffs and export controls,” Wildau said.He doubts there will be a grand deal. Instead, he predicts “a more limited agreement based around fentanyl.”“That,” he said, “is probably the preferred outcome for China hawks in the Trump administration, who worry that an overeager Trump might offer too much to Xi.” Didi Tang and Josh Boak, Associated Press Associated Press writer Paul Wiseman contributed to this report
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