By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate committee on Wednesday approved the nomination of White House economic adviser Stephen Miran to the Fed’s board of governors, setting up a likely approval by the full Senate, which would make Miran the third Trump appointee to the seven-member board.

The White House has pushed for an expedited Senate approval of Miran, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to replace former Fed governor Adriana Kugler, who stepped down Aug. 1. Miran would, if approved, simply finish her term, which expires in January. He may be approved in time for the Fed’s meeting next week, when it is widely expected to reduce its key short-term interest rate.

Related Articles

Trump administration wants to cancel Biden-era rule that elevated conservation on public land

Teachers sue over Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying students are staying home

US homeland security chief and Belgian prime minister pledge joint efforts to tackle drug smuggling

Trump is upsetting the US allies needed to counter China

Harris says leaving reelection decision to Biden was ‘recklessness,’ but she defends his abilities

The committee voted to approve Miran on partisan lines, 13-11, with all Democrats voting against confirmation.

Miran’s nomination has raised concerns about the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics, particularly since he said during a hearing last week that he would keep his job as head of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers while on the Fed’s board, a historically unusual arrangement. Presidents have nominated members of their staffs to the Fed’s board before, but the nominees have always given up their White House jobs.

The vote comes a day after a federal court blocked Trump’s effort to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, who he has accused of mortgage fraud.

“The Federal Reserve was designed to make decisions free from political interference, guided by data and the long-term stability of our economy, not the political agenda of any one president,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said in a statement before the vote. “Donald Trump has made clear he wants to tear down that independence, just as he has with so many of the institutions that have kept our democracy and our economy strong.”

Miran said he would step down from his White House position if he is chosen for a longer term. Yet he can remain on the board after Kugler’s term ends in January, if no replacement is named. He has said in that case he would consider keeping his White House job even if he remains on the board after January, sparking fresh criticism from Democrats.

By TERRY CHEA, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Ryan Lee first played mahjong two years ago, he got hooked. He dug out sets of the classic Chinese tile game from his parents’ house and brought them to San Francisco, where he started hosting mahjong nights in his apartment.

The gatherings became so popular that the 25-year-old Chinese American began hosting pop-up mahjong parties in restaurants, bars and nightclubs around San Francisco.

Mahjong, invented in 19th century China, is gaining popularity with a new generation of players looking to get off their phones and socialize in the real world.

Lee’s Youth Luck Leisure (YLL) Mahjong Club now hosts bimonthly parties with up to 30 tables and 200 guests. They attract a diverse, young crowd drawn to the festive atmosphere, live DJs, custom cocktails and chance to meet new friends. Instructors are on hand to teach novices.

“A lot of people are just really intrigued even though they don’t really know how to play,” Lee said. “There’s a cultural component they’re trying to connect with. It’s kind of like a cultural nostalgia.”

Eventbrite reports there was a 179% increase in U.S. mahjong events on its platform from 2023 to 2024.

There’s been a 179% increase in mahjong events in the U.S. from 2023 to 2024, according to Eventbrite, a popular ticketing app. The event platform says Gen Z is also showing a growing interest in other “grannycore” activities such as baking workshops and needlework circles that happen offline.

In mahjong, four players draw and discard tiles with different suits, numbers and Chinese characters. The object is to build a winning hand of four sets of three and one pair.

“It’s a really tactile game, and it’s really a social game. It really easily builds community among people,” said Nicole Wong, a writer and audio producer in Oakland. “It’s a good way to unplug and not just be on your phone.”

Wong learned how to play when she visited her Chinese grandparents in New Zealand in 2009. Several years ago she found her parents’ mahjong table and game sets, and started hosting mahjong nights with her friends.

In 2019, she launched The Mahjong Project, an instructional guide and oral history project inspired by her family’s love of the game. That led her to publish “Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora,” an illustrated book that explores the game’s history, strategies, traditions and styles of play.

Related Articles

The ‘Mecca of ventriloquism’ is in Kentucky. Take a look inside, if you dare

A guide to earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles

Fall foliage tracker 2025: Where and when to go leaf peeping throughout the U.S.

Royal Caribbean plans for new class of ships, private destinations in Mexico and Nassau

TSA bans some hairstyling tools from suitcases: Which ones and why

“For the Asian American community, I think there’s interest in connecting to your heritage and your culture in a way that was not the case when I was growing up,” Wong said.

YLL Mahjong Club has held nearly 20 events in San Francisco since it started last year. Lee said it’s an opportunity to introduce people to the game as well as bring business to local restaurants, bars and food vendors. Lee’s sister started hosting similar events in Los Angeles. There are plans to expand to other U.S. cities.

“The demand is rising,” said Lee, a management consultant in business school. “It’s not just an interest to learn how to play mahjong, but to find a third space or another community to do things with.”

Joyce Yam, YLL Mahjong Club’s sponsorship manager, helps manage the San Francisco events, which sell out fast and have long waiting lists.

“We welcome people who have no experience at mahjong at all, and we have TA’s who teach the people how to play the game. And they love it so much that they keep coming back,” Yam said.

Ethan Vuong, a Florida native who lives in San Francisco, started playing with friends a couple years ago. He saw it as a way to connect with his Chinese heritage and make new friends. He’s a regular at Oakland’s Baba House and YLL Mahjong Club events, where he volunteers to teach newcomers.

“It’s not just a skill or mechanics-based game, it’s an expression of your personality,” Vuong said. “I just keep playing because I have this goal that I’m going to beat my grandma one day.”

At University Avenue and Wheeler Street, the Midway YMCA is sporting a new name and will soon welcome children and parents to a new stand-alone family center.

Built in 1949, the two-story building that previously housed the YMCA’s programs for school-aged children looked every bit its 76 years, according to YMCA officials, up until the day this spring when it was demolished.

“It was showing some age,” quipped Michelle Edgerton, the chief advancement officer for the YMCA of the North, in a phone interview Tuesday.

A new building sporting 12 classrooms, a small gym, a rooftop learning environment and services for parents, kids and tiny tots is expected to open by next fall, finally allowing all of the Midway YMCA’s family programming to land under one roof. Edgerton said the building, which will be located at 530 North Wheeler St., directly across the street from the YMCA parking lot, represents a $19 million, donor-driven investment in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood and the families living along the Green Line corridor.

Well-wishers on Monday attended a groundbreaking for the future Peter J. King Family Foundation Center for Child and Family Wellbeing, which is named after the Golden Valley-based foundation that contributed $5 million toward its construction.

Spanning 27,000 square feet, the center will host dedicated space for arts and culture programming, STEM and healthy living classes. It will serve 2,000 children and 6,000 family members annually, and offer teaching opportunities for student teachers enrolled in institutions of higher education.

Visitors on Monday also took in another rare site — the renaming of the entire Midway YMCA campus after longtime donor Richard Schulze, the founder and former chief executive officer of Best Buy.

Schulze, who grew up in the Midway going to the YMCA and graduating from nearby Central High School, was on hand to help unveil new exterior signage marking the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation Midway YMCA. In recent years, his foundation has donated $17 million of philanthropic support to YMCAs across the country, including financial gifts to support the new Peter J. King Family Center and another YMCA in South Florida.

“They have been involved for over 25 years, and in that time have just contributed wonderfully to the Y,” said Edgerton, who attended the dual renaming and groundbreaking on Monday alongside YMCA of the North President Glen Gunderson. “He really spoke wonderfully of the importance of the Y in his life, his family’s life and for the community.”

The YMCA of the North had once hoped to open a new facility in downtown St. Paul, but plans fell through during the pandemic.

“Since COVID, that was no longer an option,” Edgerton said. “We asked Mr. Schulze to transfer that support to the Midway Y. He did give some funding toward the building and the programming that takes place in the building, and offered up a match.”

Related Articles

Mayor wants 5.3 percent increase to St. Paul tax levy

St. Paul: Nicolle Newton, director of Planning and Economic Development, steps down

MN cleanup grants make way for housing, business in St. Paul, South St. Paul

St. Paul Brewing sues city over Hamm’s site rezoning plan

St. Paul watchdog group criticizes city’s use of tax-increment financing

CHICAGO — Gen Z is an easy target. Born between 1997 and 2012, they’ve been blamed for everything from the downfall of skinny jeans to the end of basic phone etiquette. And now, if headlines are to be believed, they’re destroying the wine industry too. Health-conscious, sober-curious and strapped for cash, they say, Gen Z barely drinks. And if they, do, they’re skipping wine in favor of hard seltzers, cocktails or cannabis infusions.

But is Gen Z truly to blame for wine’s decline? Or are they simply the most visible face of a broader cultural shift?

Statistics about Gen Z, wine and alcohol are murkier than headlines suggest. Much attention has been paid to reports that young adults drink less alcohol than older generations. However, recent data from drinks industry research group IWSR suggests Gen Z is catching up.

What’s clear is that alcohol consumption overall is trending downward, especially when it comes to wine. In 2024, global wine consumption fell to its lowest level in more than 60 years. Moderation in alcohol has become a cross-generational trend and Gen Z (currently aged 13-28) is coming of age in an increasingly different drinking culture than their parents or grandparents.

“It may not be that Gen Z is drinking less,” says Ting Ting Shi, 25, a sommelier at Miru, the Japanese restaurant at the St. Regis Chicago. “But they’re probably drinking less often,” she says.

For a lot of younger people, drinking tends to be more intentional than habitual, she describes. It’s more likely to be focused on specific occasions, she explains, a Friday night out, for instance, rather than a routine glass of wine with dinner or beer after work each night. And for many Gen Z drinkers, wine isn’t an obvious choice yet.

The choice overload effect

More than any other generation, Gen Z has been inundated with options, explains Olivia Gardner, 22, a recent graduate of DePaul University and server at Homeslice, the Lincoln Park pizzeria and bar.

When her parents were Gardner’s age, besides beer and liquor, they may have considered boxed wines or wine coolers, she says. Today, she and her peers face aisle after aisle of different flavored seltzers, beers and ready-to-drink cocktails.

“There are 16 different stores around you and DoorDash will deliver it all to your door,” she adds. With so many fast, easy choices, wine doesn’t often register as the most approachable or inviting choice.

Health and intentionality

Health is a driving force in this cultural shift surrounding alcohol. Gen Z came of age just as wellness culture entered the mainstream, and as drinking was increasingly framed in terms of mindfulness, balance and control. Sobriety and sober-curious lifestyles, once considered uncommon or taboo, are celebrated.

Ting Ting Shi, the sommelier at the restaurant Miru, 401 E. Wacker Drive in Chicago, walks through the dining room there on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

It’s a generation with an innately “health-first mindset,” explains Daisy Siders, 26, a sommelier at RPM Italian in River North. “We drink, but we’re conscious, even overly conscious about the effects of alcohol on our bodies,” she says.

It’s somewhat of a Gen Z cliché, she admits, but “we close out our bar tabs (after each round) because we want to keep track of how much we’re drinking and spending.”

The crossroads of values and affordability

The wine industry has rushed to court younger drinkers, shaking off its stuffy, elitist reputation with appeals to perceived millennial and Gen Z values like authenticity, sustainability or emotional connection. Gen Z often favors products that align with their ideals, says Shi, but “overwhelmingly, I would argue that cost has been the biggest driver in Gen Z drinking habits.”

That reality isn’t unique to Gen Z, but rather a reflection of where they are in life. “As a younger demographic, we have less purchasing power,” says Shi. “And especially with so much talk about inflation and tariffs, it’s impossible not to be price conscious.”

Wine, in time

It shouldn’t be a surprise that many young Americans aren’t instinctively drawn to wine. In a country where wine culture is still relatively young, wine hasn’t been the obvious entry point for any generation of Americans.

“It’s really a familiarity thing,” says Shi. “Most young people know more about a margarita or an espresso martini than they do about sauvignon blanc or chardonnay.”

But Gen Z has so much potential to grow into an appreciation for wine, explains Jill Zimorski, a master sommelier and adjunct professor at DePaul University’s School of Hospitality and Sports Business, who describes herself as “an elderly millennial.”

Gen Z drinkers may not exhibit the confidence to navigate wine yet, but they’ve grown up in “a much more evolved wine culture than previous generations of Americans,” she says. More than any previous generation, Gen Z Americans are likely to have been raised by wine-drinking parents. “They’re already light years ahead of previous generations,” she says.

Ting Ting Shi, right, the sommelier at the restaurant Miru, 401 E. Wacker Drive in Chicago, talks to diners on the terrace there on Wednesday, July 23, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

With time, career growth and more disposable income, their interest in wine is likely to deepen. “Our incline might not be as linear, but I do think we’ll get there eventually,” says Gardner, who took several of Zimorski’s courses.

After all, there’s a universality to what draws curious people to wine. Beyond its appeal as a beverage, wine offers a cultural and historical depth to explore. “The education journey never ends,” says Shi. “There are always more stories to tell, more places and techniques to learn about.”

But as Gen Z embarks on their journey, they ask for patience too.

“Older generations can be harsh” to younger wine drinkers, Siders says. “There’s still a lot of snobbery and gatekeeping, and it’s very much a ‘go out and figure it out yourself’ kind of culture.”

Despite the negative hype, there’s a lot to celebrate. With a new generation of moderate drinkers comes a greater consciousness of responsible alcohol consumption, and hopefully, a higher appreciation for better quality products, ethics and sustainability.

“Who knows,” Zimorski says. “Gen Z might actually be the saviors of wine culture.”