Weekslong

Across the West, crops rotted for the second summer in a row this year because of a weekslong shutdown of visa processing for seasonal farm workers caused by State Department computer problems.

This summer, Yining, a city in the Xinjiang region of far-western China, celebrated a boom of Chinese tourists seeking a sunny respite from Covid worries in their hometowns. Now Yining is under its own grueling, weekslong pandemic lockdown, with residents calling for help over limited food, difficulty getting medicines and drastic shortages of sanitary pads for women.