Crypto News: Red states versus blue cities

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Nashville Mayor John Cooper, a Democrat. Photographer: Stacy Kranitz for Bloomberg Businessweek

In red states across the South, Republican legislatures are increasingly interfering in the governance of Democratic cities by blocking liberal reforms and often dictating conservative policies in their place. Nowhere is the trend of states superseding cities more pronounced than in Nashville, and nowhere are the racial dynamics more glaring.

Earlier this year, Tennessee Republicans made national headlines by expelling two Black Democratic representatives from Nashville and Memphis—Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, respectively—for protesting gun violence on the statehouse floor, three days after a shooter killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school. (A third protesting Democrat, Representative Gloria Johnson, who's White, wasn't expelled.) Voters in Nashville and Memphis fought back successfully by reelecting Jones and Pearson to the statehouse in August. But that hasn't stopped state Republicans from imposing their political priorities on the city—often in ways that appear designed to intimidate or punish residents.

At one point this year, the encroachment even reached the level of street names, when two GOP lawmakers started an effort to rechristen a city street named for the late Democratic civil rights icon Representative John Lewis as "President Donald Trump Boulevard." The bill was later withdrawn.

Charlane Oliver, a Democratic state senator from Nashville, says that sort of racial provocation is embedded in the Tennessee Republicans' power play: an overwhelmingly White, conservative party overriding the democratically expressed preference of a multiracial urban community. "The old playbook has never really gone away," she says. "With the election of Donald Trump, the Southern strategy was reawakened." —Josh Green, Bloomberg Businessweek

The Cybertruck at a Tesla event in June 2022. Photographer: Nic Coury/Bloomberg

Between promoting plans to fight Mark Zuckerberg and his in-office workout regimen for the bout that may not actually happen, Elon Musk has been hyping Cybertruck, Tesla's Blade Runner-inspired pickup.

Early last month, Musk posted on X that he'd just driven a prototype around Austin, where Tesla will assemble the truck. A week later, the company announced the first one had been built, only to clarify days later that it was making "release candidates" that weren't yet ready for sale.

So when Musk posted a week ago about another drive in another prototype, one prominent fan seemed to have had it. "Enough with the hype," wrote James Locke, a Tesla owner who's tangled with the chief executive officer before. "Please announce the specs, pricing and new estimated delivery event date."

The impatience setting in among some Tesla devotees is understandable, considering the company has gone backwards in letting would-be customers know what to expect. When Musk first showed the Cybertruck almost four years ago, he said it would come in three configurations and start at $39,900. In October 2021, Tesla removed pricing and specs from its website.

Tesla did offer a couple kernels of information in its latest earnings release, saying Cybertruck will be less than 19 feet (5.8 meters) long with a more than 6-foot bed. But the quarterly update also contained a nugget that should give pause to those foreseeing a smooth launch. The Semi truck—Tesla's newest product, first delivered to PepsiCo Inc. late last year—was still only in pilot production at the end of June. —Dana Hull, Bloomberg News

Mexico says that it's the world's top destination for dental tourism and that up to 3 million people a year visit for low-cost medical care. Photographer: Alan Nakkash for Bloomberg Businessweek

Soon after sunrise, they begin streaming across the border, most on foot. Some of the hundreds in the crowd pull rolling suitcases and wear backpacks, others carry little more than a purse or shopping bag as they enter Los Algodones, a Mexican town just outside Yuma, Arizona. Awaiting them are scores of jaladores, or barkers, hawking the services that many have traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles to seek: "Hey buddy, optometría, farmacia, dental?"

Billboards lining the highway into the 1-square-mile outpost, tucked into the corner where Arizona, California and Mexico's Baja California state meet, proclaim it the "Dental Capital of the World." Also known as Molar City, the town of about 5,000 boasts some 350 dental offices. Over the past two decades, it's emerged as a go-to destination for people seeking relief from high out-of-pocket costs and long waits for dental care in the US and Canada. A filling costs just $50, a root canal sets you back roughly $250, and a crown goes for about $500—though most visitors are here for more intensive services.

Some 69 million US residents—about 20% of the population—lacked dental insurance in 2020, according to the National Association of Dental Plans, and even those with coverage typically must pay out of pocket for surgical procedures such as implants. Many older Americans lack dental benefits because they aren't covered by Medicare (though the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and the growing popularity of Medicare Advantage plans have helped). And Canada's national health-care system doesn't include dental coverage.

George Kyle, a truck driver from Saskatchewan, says he comes to Los Algodones every few years for dental work. On his first visit, he got a couple of cavities filled. Since then he's had most of his teeth pulled and replaced with implants. The trip from Canada to the Mexican border costs him less than $200 in diesel, easily offset by the low prices in Mexico. In Canada the care "would have been probably close to $9,000," he says. "Here it cost me $4,600 Canadian." —Kriston Capps, Bloomberg CityLab

$10,000

That's how much Indeed will pay to help transgender workers move to states where they feel safer.

"There's no evidence that any city that's lost a professional sports team any time over the last 40 years suffered economically,"

Brad Humphreys

Professor of economics at West Virginia University

Cities are facing lots of problems. Spending millions of dollars on a stadium might not be the best use of limited resources.

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