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Biogen's Spinraza For Muscle Movement Disorder Shows Improved Motor Function In Infants, Toddlers - Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) 2024-03-06 21:17:00+00:00 - Loading... Loading... Biogen Inc BIIB released interim 6-month biomarker data from the initial 29 participants in the open-label RESPOND study. The Phase 4 study evaluates clinical outcomes and safety following treatment with SPINRAZA (nusinersen) over two years in infants and toddlers with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who have unmet clinical needs after treatment with Novartis AG’s NVS Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec). Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a disorder affecting the motor neurons-nerve cells that control voluntary muscle movement. These cells are located in the spinal cord. Also Read: Biogen Could Engage In $1B-$2B Deals To Fill Revenue Shortfall Gaps, Analyst Says. The new data show that plasma neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels, an objective biomarker of axonal injury and neurodegeneration, were reduced in nearly all study participants treated with SPINRAZA. Among participants with 2 SMN2 copies: All participants had elevated baseline NfL levels relative to healthy children of similar age. In infants (n=11) who were nine months or younger at the first SPINRAZA dose (mean baseline NfL: 148.3 pg/mL), NfL levels decreased by a mean of 70% from baseline. In children (n=11) over nine months of age at first SPINRAZA dose (mean baseline NfL: 121.8 pg/mL), NfL levels decreased by a mean of 78% from baseline. Among participants with 3 SMN2 copies: Baseline NfL levels were elevated in 2 of 3 children (mean: 60.6 pg/mL). NfL reductions were observed in those with elevated levels at baseline and remained stable in the participant without an elevated level at baseline. SPINRAZA is approved in more than 71 countries to treat infants, children, and adults with spinal muscular atrophy. More than 14,000 individuals have been treated with SPINRAZA worldwide. Biogen licensed the global rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialize SPINRAZA from Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc BIIB. Price Action: BIIB shares closed higher by 0.15% at $217.56 on Wednesday.
Do You Have Experience Working With Boeing? We Want to Hear From You. 2024-03-06 21:14:08+00:00 - Two fatal crashes. Quality concerns and production slowdowns. A loose panel that blew out during a flight. Boeing is an American institution that has contributed to the country’s place on the global stage. But it is also weathering a particularly difficult period. As business reporters at The New York Times, we have for years been covering Boeing and concerns over the quality of the planes it makes. We are planning more stories about the company’s future, its competitive position against its European rival Airbus, employee morale and whether enough is being done to improve quality and prevent incidents like the one this year in which a panel was ripped off a 737 Max 9 plane during an Alaska Airlines flight. We want to hear from people who work — or have worked — at Boeing or at companies, government agencies or other organizations that deal with Boeing about what the company is doing wrong or right. Tell us about your experiences below. We will not publish any part of your submission without following up with you again to get your permission. Tips are most useful when we can follow up with the people who submit them, but we also have secure ways to send confidential tips anonymously if you prefer.
New York Community Bank Raises $1 Billion in Emergency Cash 2024-03-06 21:12:45+00:00 - New York Community Bank, the midsize lender under pressure over its real estate loans and internal management, announced an overhaul on Wednesday that included more than $1 billion in emergency cash, the addition of former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to its board and the appointment of its third chief executive in a month. The deal was an attempt to shore up a bank that has lurched from shock to shock this year, and attracted the attention of regulators in Washington eager to avoid another banking crisis close to the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The investment of more than $1 billion includes cash from Mr. Mnuchin’s private equity firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, and Kenneth Griffin’s Citadel Global Equities, among others. The bank’s new chief executive, Joseph Otting, worked closely with Mr. Mnuchin in the past. He ran OneWest Bank, then owned by Mr. Mnuchin, for five years. He also oversaw the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the banking industry’s primary regulators, during the Trump administration.
Right-wing boycotters take aim at another brand: Doritos 2024-03-06 21:03:56+00:00 - By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Right-wing boycotters have set their sights on another major brand: Doritos. Conservatives online have been calling for a boycott of the popular chip brand, which is owned by PepsiCo, over its social media partnership with Spanish transgender influencer Samantha Hudson. Doritos Spain had worked with Hudson for a 50-second branded video called "Crunch Talks" featured on the 24-year-old singer's Instagram page, though the post has since been taken down, NBC News reported. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Representatives for Doritos, PepsiCo, and Hudson did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment. Advertisement On Tuesday, Doritos Spain announced it was cutting ties with Hudson because of comments she reportedly made that resurfaced online, Newsweek reported. Those comments included Hudson once mocking rape victims and — in a post from when she was 15 years old — saying she wanted to do "depraved" things to a 12-year-old girl, according to Rolling Stone. Hudson also gave a Spanish TV interview saying she advocated for "the abolition of the traditional monogamous nuclear family," as Rolling Stone translated. Hudson has apologized for her past posts since becoming famous, chalking them up to being an edgy teen. Advertisement "I don't remember having written such barbarities," she wrote, according to a Rolling Stone translation. "At that time, I dedicated myself to saying nonsense, the heavier the better, because I thought that 'dark humor' was funny." But it was too late for her partnership with Doritos. "We have ended the relationship and stopped all related campaign activity due to the comments," a spokesperson for Doritos Spain told Rolling Stone, adding that the company only became aware of Hudson's past comments after working with her. "We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence or sexism of any kind." Doritos clarified that Hudson's gender identity didn't factor into their decision to stop working with her. Advertisement Right-wing activists are flexing their power The hashtag #BoycottDoritos has been trending this week on X (formerly Twitter), with some users even calling for a boycott of all PepsiCo products. It's the latest example of conservative activists using the power of boycotts to put pressure on massive brands. Anti-trans critics blacklisted Target last year over its LGBTQ Pride-themed merchandise, which included "tuck-friendly" swimsuits for adults and t-shirts with the slogan "Trans people will always exist!" And many of the anti-Doritos posts on X this week have specifically referenced the Bud Light boycott last year when conservatives vowed to never again drink the beer after it partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Advertisement The beermaker's sales even dropped as a result but have since picked back up again, a potential sign that conservative boycotts aren't a death sentence for a brand. While brand boycotts are nothing new, experts previously told Business Insider that political polarization in the US, combined with culture wars and panic-stoking media coverage, have been gaining steam in recent years. Ultimately, brands are facing a choice between backing down or facing the firestorm.
Ground cinnamon sold at discount stores is tainted with lead, FDA warns 2024-03-06 21:03:29+00:00 - Ground cinnamon sold by U.S. discount retailers is contaminated with high levels of lead and should be discarded, federal health officials said Wednesday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said cinnamon sold by stores including the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar contains lead at levels that could be unsafe for people, particularly children, with prolonged exposure to the spice. The agency urged suppliers to recall the products voluntarily. Cinnamon products included in the agency’s safety alert include the La Fiesta brand sold by La Superior and SuperMercados; Marcum brand sold by Save A Lot stores; MK brands sold by SF Supermarket; Swad brand sold by Patel Brothers; El Chilar brand sold by La Joya Morelense; and Supreme Tradition brand sold by Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores. “Removing the ground cinnamon products in this alert from the market will prevent them from contributing elevated amounts of lead to the diets of children,” the alert said. Consumers should not buy the products and should throw away any containers they have at home, the agency said. Dollar Tree and Family Dollar stores have removed the cinnamon from their store shelves, a company spokesperson said. Customers can return products to nearby stores for a refund. FDA officials launched what they called a “targeted survey” of cinnamon products sold in discount stores after an October 2023 recall of lead-tainted cinnamon applesauce pouches that sickened nearly 500 U.S. children. The ground cinnamon products in Wednesday’s notice had lead levels of 2.03 to 3.4 parts per million, far lower than the puree pouches, which contained 2,270 parts per million to 5,110 parts per million of lead. No illnesses or other health effects have been reported in connection with the new ground cinnamon alert, the FDA said. There is no safe level of lead exposure for humans. Long-term exposure of lead can cause problems, especially in growing children, including learning disabilities, behavioral difficulties and lower IQ. The FDA monitors foods for lead levels, but the U.S. government doesn’t broadly limit lead in food products. The agency sent a letter to all cinnamon manufacturers, processors, distributors and facility operators in the U.S. reminding them they’re required to prevent contamination from chemical hazards in food, including spices. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Ex-Google software engineer charged with stealing AI technology while working with Chinese companies 2024-03-06 20:56:04+00:00 - WASHINGTON (AP) — A former software engineer at Google has been charged with stealing artificial intelligence technology from the company while secretly working with two companies based in China, the Justice Department said Wednesday. Linwei Ding, a Chinese national, was arrested in Newark, California, on four counts of federal trade secret theft, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The case against Ding was being announced at an American Bar Association Conference in San Francisco by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who along with other law enforcement leaders has repeatedly warned about the threat of Chinese economic espionage and about the national security concerns posed by advancements in artificial intelligence. “Today’s charges are the latest illustration of the lengths affiliates of companies based in the People’s Republic of China are willing to go to steal American innovation,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “The theft of innovative technology and trade secrets from American companies can cost jobs and have devastating economic and national security consequences.” Justice Department leaders in recent weeks have been sounding alarms about how foreign adversaries could harness AI technologies to negatively affect the United States. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a speech last month that the administration’s multi-agency Disruptive Technology Strike Force would place AI enforcement at the top of its priority list, and Wray told business leaders at an event last week that AI and other emerging technologies had made it easier for adversaries to try to interfere with the American political process. An indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Northern District of California alleges that Ding, who was hired by Google in 2019 and had access to confidential information about the company’s supercomputing data centers, began uploading hundreds of files into a personal Google Cloud account two years ago. Within weeks of the theft starting, prosecutors say, Ding was offered the position of chief technology officer at an early-stage technology company in China that touted its use of AI technology. The indictment says Ding traveled to China and participated in investor meetings at the company and sought to raise capital for it. He also separately founded and served as chief executive of a China-based startup company that aspired to train “large AI models powered by supercomputing chips,” the indictment said. Prosecutors say Ding did not disclose either affiliation to Google. He resigned from the company on Dec. 26. Three days later, Google officials learned that he had presented as CEO of one of the Chinese companies at an investor conference in Beijing. Officials also reviewed surveillance showing that another employee had scanned Ding’s access badge at the building where he worked to make it look like Ding was there during times when he was actually in China, the indictment says. It was not immediately clear whether Ding, 38, had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
The US wants to boost affordable housing by using billions in unspent COVID aid 2024-03-06 20:48:58+00:00 - The US Treasury Department is making unused COVID funds available to support housing projects. The State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds has around $40 billion in unspent money, Reuters said. The Treasury will also step up efforts to understand the impact of climate risks on housing supply. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Advertisement Billions of unspent pandemic dollars have been made available for housing projects as the federal government steps up efforts to tackle the shortage of affordable homes. The US Treasury announced Tuesday that unused money from State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds can be deployed for housing projects, freeing up about $40 billion, Reuters calculated. These funds are eligible for developments that will house families earning 120% the area's median income, a jump from the prior 65% threshold. Otherwise, they can be spent on federal housing programs, or federally-supported initiatives to house essential workers. Meanwhile, leftover funds from the Emergency Rental Assistance program can be rerouted towards low-income housing initiatives, including land acquisition, pre-development, construction and rehabilitation. Advertisement The program primarily served to prevent COVID-era evictions. According to Reuters, around $6.9 billion was unused by June 30, 2023. "While the ERA program has already made more than 12.3 million household payments to keep renting families in their homes, these changes will build out the pipeline to bring additional rental units onto the market," the Treasury announcement said. The department also indefinitely extended backstop financing for a risk-sharing program between the Department of Housing and Urban Development and local financing agencies. The program will "dramatically" lower capital costs for low-risk developments, the Treasury said. Since the pandemic, US housing prices have sharply appreciated as homebuilders play catch-up with demand. High mortgage rates have kept homeowners off the market, decreasing the number of existing properties available for sale. Advertisement Meanwhile, the department is also taking a closer look at how climate risks may impact housing stability, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo outlined in a related blog post. "We are working with federal and state regulators studying rising insurance costs and decreasing insurance coverage so that we can understand the impact of lack of affordable insurance on housing supply in different parts of the country," he wrote. At the moment, the Treasury lacks granular data on where homeowners are being hit hardest, and where insurers are pulling back, he said.
'A clarion call': Democratic donors sound the alarm to Biden about strength of 'uncommitted' 2024-03-06 20:47:00+00:00 - A network of major Democratic donors is raising the alarm about Joe Biden’s performance in Michigan, calling the traction of “uncommitted” in last week’s Democratic presidential primary a “wake-up call” for the president in the critical battleground state. In a memo to donors shared with NBC News by a recipient, Way to Win, the network of deep-pocketed progressives, urged members to “not try to argue ourselves out of the fact that Michigan is a major warning signal that something needs to change” “Michigan’s 100,000+ uncommitted voters in 2024 are a siren, and a clarion call,” wrote Way to Win’s co-founders, Tory Gavito and Jenifer Fernandez Ancona. “The energy behind ‘uncommitted’ is not something that should be ignored, taken lightly, or dismissed as isolated to Michigan. Michigan 2024 is not an anomaly, just as Michigan 2016 was not.” While Biden won a resounding 81% of the vote in the Feb. 27 Democratic primary, about 13% voted “uncommitted,” largely over concerns about Biden’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza. On Super Tuesday, thousands more Democrats voted for either “uncommitted” or “no preference” in six other states. In Minnesota, “Uncommitted” received 19% of the overall vote, where activists mounted a last-minute campaign based on the Michigan blueprint and far surpassed their public goals. The “Listen to Minnesota” campaign noted that the strongest support for uncommitted came in areas with significant young voter turnout. “Tonight, Minnesota proved to the country that the ‘Uncommitted’ movement is not going away nor is it slowing down,” said Listen to Michigan campaign manager Layla Elabed after Tuesday’s results. Polls show former President Donald Trump leading Biden nationally and in many battleground states as the war in Gaza has heightened dissent for Biden among young people, Muslim and progressive voters inside the Democratic Party. In a tight race — Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,00 votes in 2016 — even a relatively small number of voters staying home or voting third party could be decisive. Like some Michigan Democrats, Way to Win, which has moved more than $300 million in political contributions since its founding in response to Trump’s election, urged Biden to change course on Gaza, elevate Vice President Kamala Harris and do more to curb third-party candidates. Voters cast their ballots Tuesday in Andover, Minn. Leila Navidi / Star Tribune via Getty Images “Biden is the nominee and we are 100% behind the Biden-Harris ticket and are doing everything in our power to help inspire and mobilize the multiracial and multigenerational coalition we need to win,” Gavito said in a statement to NBC News when asked about the memo. “We wrote this memo because we need to unify our winning coalition, and that has to start now.” Anxious Democrats note that 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton was caught off guard when Bernie Sanders beat her in Michigan’s primary that year, despite polls showing her ahead, but her team nonetheless headed into the general election thinking Michigan’s and other Great Lakes states were safe. The Biden campaign, however, has been working to reassure fellow Democrats that they are clear-eyed about their challenges and working to address them. The campaign opened its first field office in Michigan on Monday, and the president is expected to launch a campaign swing through battleground states after Thursday’s State of the Union address. “We’ve got energy heading into November. But we also have work to do,” Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., said at an office opening in Lansing. “We’re not going to deny that some people sat their vote out. We want to bring them back in the fold. Joe Biden was made for this moment of listening, bringing people in, leading with heart, compassion and grace.” A voting site in Dearborn, Mich., on Feb. 27. Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu via Getty Images And Harris over the weekend notably went further than Biden, rhetorically at least, in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, as she wages a behind-the-scenes push for other administration officials to speak more forcefully about the humanitarian situation there. “The President believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans. He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He’s working tirelessly to that end,” Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt told NBC News. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who has not been shy about voicing her concerns to Biden’s high command, said the November election will come down to which party can get more of their voters to the polls. “It’s going to be a turnout election,” she said on NBC News’ "Meet the Press." Dingell, who lived in Dearborn, a Democratic city with a large Muslim population where “uncommitted” earned 57% of the primary vote, said that while overall turnout for “uncommitted” was not much higher than the norm, the war in Gaza is visceral for many. “It is one issue that needs to be paid attention to. I got a lot of people that are hurting in my district, and in the district that I used to represent,” she said. “ I have families that have lost 40 members of one family. ... They’re going to be an important group in November, but there’s a lot of other groups that we have to make sure turn out.” By moving Michigan’s presidential primary up into its new early voting window, Biden advisers hoped to highlight his strength among key voting coalitions: Black voters, union workers and suburban women. The strength of the “uncommitted” protest vote there, though, instead highlighted the challenges Biden faces with other key groups whose turnout — or lack thereof — could be significant in November: young voters, progressives and Muslim and Arab Americans. On college campuses and downtowns, protests against the war in Gaza have been fierce and frequent, often portraying Biden as a villain and dubbing him “Genocide Joe.” A sign encourages voters to vote 'uncommitted' in Dearborn, Mich., on Feb. 27. Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu via Getty Images Kevin Tolbert, the chair of the 12th Congressional District Democrats, which includes part of Dearborn and Detroit, said there could be lasting damage from that kind of rhetoric. “I don’t know if people can forget in November what they heard here in late February, and it takes a lot of work,” Tolbert said. “I’d love to see more of the Biden campaign here. This is ground zero.” To be sure, Democrats note Trump faces his own challenges uniting his party and is unlikely to do the kind of conciliatory outreach that Biden’s team will. Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC, did intensive research on disaffected voters — those who disapprove of both Biden and Trump — in key states. In Michigan, that group was primarily female, independent and lived in the Detroit region or near Grand Rapids, where support for Trump challenger Nikki Haley was higher than the statewide margin. “If just a handful of those Haley voters vote for Biden, which isn’t a stretch, Trump’s math in Michigan gets really tight,” said the super PAC’s leader, Steve Schale. The Biden campaign likewise pointed to what they called “soft” support for Trump in suburban areas, while they were buoyed by strong Black support in places like Southfield, just outside Detroit. Despite strong uncommitted support in some places, like Dearborn, the statewide turnout for “uncommitted” was only marginally higher than the historical norm for Democratic presidents running for re-election. They also noted that Biden’s vote share in Michigan was three times the turnout for the last noncompetitive state primary, in 2012. And there were six other states on Super Tuesday that had "uncommitted" or similar options, and they gained little traction outside Minnesota and Massachusetts. Biden's team acknowledged, though, that the campaign has work to do to ensure the kind of strong support from young voters that they saw in 2020. An adviser noted that the campaign brought on a full-time Youth Engagement Director in January, which they said was the earliest for a major presidential campaign, and that team is already expanding. And Biden allies note that he has dominated the primaries that have been held so far, earning 81% to 97% of the vote when his name was on the ballot and even getting 61% as a write-in in New Hampshire. “There has been senior officials that have gone to Michigan, as recently as earlier this month, to hear directly from the Muslim and Arab American community," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. "And we understand how personal this is, how this moment is incredibly painful. And we’re going to continue to have those conversations.”
Amid Louisiana’s crawfish shortage, governor issues disaster declaration 2024-03-06 20:36:12+00:00 - BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Amid a crawfish shortage in Louisiana, the nation’s top producer of the crustaceans that are a staple in Gulf Coast seafood boils, Gov. Jeff Landry issued a disaster declaration for the impacted industry Wednesday. Last year’s drought, extreme heat, saltwater intrusion on the Mississippi River and a hard winter freeze in the Bayou State have devastated this year’s crawfish harvest and led to significant price hikes for those purchasing “mudbugs.” Landry says the shortage is not only affecting Louisiana’s economy but also “our way of life.” “All 365,000 crawfish acres in Louisiana have been affected by these conditions,” Landry said in a written statement Wednesday. “That is why I am issuing a disaster declaration. The crawfish industry needs all the support it can get right now.” Landry’s disaster declaration, which is the legal underpinning that assists in securing federal resources, comes shortly after a request from Louisiana’s congressional delegation seeking to unlock federal aid to help farmers back in their home state. During a typical year, Louisiana generates anywhere from 175 million to 200 million pounds of crawfish — contributing $500 million to the state’s economy annually, according to the governor’s office. However, amid severe drought in 2023 and extreme heat, typically one of the wettest states in the country saw some of its driest conditions. As a result, the weather dried out the soil where crawfish burrow to lay eggs. The Louisiana State University’s Agriculture Center estimates the potential losses to the state’s crawfish industry to be nearly $140 million. “Louisiana’s crawfish industry is more than an economic driver for our state — it is a deep part of our cultural heritage,” said Mike Strain, commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. Crawfish, which have been harvested commercially in the state since at least the 1800s, are usually plentiful in Louisiana during the late winter and through the spring. The tail meat, fresh or frozen, of the tiny lobster-like crustaceans are used in a variety of dishes, including crawfish etouffee, gumbos and po-boys. But the most popular way to serve them is boiled with corn and potatoes and a variety of seasonings. Crawfish boils, which see pounds of the freshly cooked crustaceans poured onto communal tables, are popular during Carnival season and during Lent, when many in heavily Catholic south Louisiana seek alternatives to meat. However, this year Strain said some Mardi Gras celebrations continued without chowing down on crawfish, which were scarce and unaffordable for many. Around this time last year, the cost for a pound of boiled crawfish was between $3 to $5. Now, restaurants across the state are selling them for $10 to $12 per pound, as reported by The Advocate. In a letter last week to United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Strain said: “For the first time in many years, due to sustained drought in 2023 and freezing temperatures in early 2024, crawfish are simply unavailable.”
Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company 2024-03-06 20:31:00+00:00 - Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week. Change Healthcare, a little-known but critical subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, detected the attack on Feb. 21. Since then, pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims. Disruptions to co-pay assistance and coupon card processing at pharmacies, in particular, have highlighted key vulnerabilities in a system on which people’s lives depend. Ronda Miller, 54, said she and her husband rely on a discount card to afford his insulin — he has type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure. But when she attempted to pick up his medication at her pharmacy in Deadwood, South Dakota, on Feb. 22, the card could not be processed. Without it, the medications would cost hundreds of dollars. “When you are diabetic, whether it’s type 1 or type 2, without insulin they’re going to die,” Miller said. Change Healthcare’s technology is involved in transactions throughout the industry — beyond those involving United Healthcare insurance. The company says it completes 15 billion transactions per year, amounting to $1.5 trillion in health claims. On its website, Change said the hack affected 21 parts of its business, including many that providers use to receive payments, get reimbursed by insurers and process patients’ insurance eligibility. “Anything that requires interaction between health plans, a pharmacy, a facility, an office has been disrupted,” said Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, president of the American Medical Association. “That has far-reaching implications, whether you’re on routine, standard medications, whether you rely on a rebate program from a pharmaceutical company, whether you’re just trying to get clearance to have routine elective surgery.” UnitedHealth Group said in a statement after the cyberattack that it took “immediate action to disconnect Change Healthcare’s systems to prevent further impact” and that the services would “remain offline until we are certain we can turn them back on safely.” On Tuesday, the company said that a new network connecting pharmacies to benefit managers could come online as soon as Thursday. Laura Lester, who owns Marion Family Pharmacy in Marion, Virginia, said the biggest effect in her community has been to patients who can’t afford their medications without co-pay assistance cards. “We’ve got people walking away from diabetes medicines, antipsychotics, ADHD medications,” she said. “We had one woman yesterday who had to pay $1,100 out of pocket because the co-pay card wasn’t working,” Lester added. The patient needed the medication for her irritable bowel syndrome, she said. Even patients who don’t use co-pay assistance have faced immense challenges. Donna Hamlet, a 73-year-old breast cancer patient at Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, takes a medication called IBRANCE that would cost her around $16,000 per month without insurance. But on Feb. 23, she said, a pharmacist told her they couldn’t process her refill through insurance because of the cyberattack. Without the drug, Hamlet said, “the cancer would fill up my body and I guess I would die.” After four or five days of phone calls, she got her prescription filled via OptumRx, a UnitedHealth Group pharmacy benefit manager. Nathan Walcker, CEO of the Florida institute treating Hamlet, estimates that $350 million worth of the practice’s charges have been affected by billing delays due to the cyberattack. But Walcker said he worries most about patients who can’t get prior authorizations processed — many insurance companies require this for cancer treatments, which can cost up to $100,000 per course. “We have no ability today to even know if we have a prior authorization in hand for a new patient,” he said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday encouraged Medicare and Medicaid programs to remove or relax prior authorizations during the outage, and to consider giving health providers advanced funding. Hospitals can submit accelerated payment requests, CMS said, and Medicare providers struggling to submit claims can send paper versions and may be eligible for exceptions or extensions. UnitedHealth Group said that as of Tuesday, around 90% of claims were “flowing uninterrupted,” with pharmacy claims “flowing at near-normal levels,” thanks to temporary fixes or systems coming back online. The company has encouraged health care providers to switch to an Optum system to expedite the process of submitting claims and receiving payments. Meanwhile, the new network connection that the company expects on Thursday should address “the majority of the coupon volume” managed by Change Healthcare, it said. Optum is also offering temporary loans to medical practices, but providers say they’re insufficient. Dr. Christine Meyer, who owns an internal medicine practice in Exton, Pennsylvania, said her office submits up to $600,000 per month in claims but was only offered a monthly loan of $4,000. Amid the sudden halt in revenue, Meyer said, the small offer was “an emotional slap in the face.” Her practice is manually submitting some claims to insurance websites, she said, and her staff printed around 1,000 paper claims and FedExed them to Medicare. “The next thing I have to do is start to cut expenses, stop buying supplies and vaccines, then reduce our staff, then reduce our hours and then, God forbid, the unthinkable: just shut our doors,” Meyer said. Doctors, pharmacists and industry experts say the hack has exposed major vulnerabilities in the health sector, particularly given Change Healthcare’s dominance. “How do you have a system where it has this big of a leak and almost two weeks later, you’re leaving the small pharmacy owners to try to figure out a solution?” said Dr. Mayank Amin, the owner of Skippack Pharmacy in Skippack, Pennsylvania. Amin said he and his staff have spent hours calling insurance companies to find out patients’ eligibility manually, one at a time. The work has kept him up until 2 a.m every night, he said. Amin even plans to pick up free samples of a blood-thinner medication tomorrow from a local doctor’s office to distribute to a patient. “What do I get out of this? Zero profit, but the feeling that you’re able to help somebody who relies on you,” he said. Ronda Miller said her pharmacy in South Dakota gave her husband a free box of his diabetes medication for now, and his doctor also provided a sample. But for families like hers, she said, the disruption has meant “playing with people’s lives.” Change Healthcare said the perpetrator of the cyberattack “represented itself to us as ALPHV/Blackcat.” Alphv was involved in the attack on MGM Resorts last year, costing the company $100 million. It is developed and maintained by a group of Russian-speaking cybercriminals. In total last year, victims of cybercrime sent a record $1 billion in extortion payments to ransomware criminals, according to Chainalysis, a company that tracks cryptocurrency payments. UnitedHealthcare did not answer questions about whether it paid a ransom. But experts at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future and the cryptocurrency analytics company Tenable pointed to a bitcoin wallet that received a payment of more than $22 million on Friday. The companies say the wallet, which was viewed by NBC News, belonged to Alphv. Wired first reported the news. The sum has since been dolled out, mostly in $3.2 million portions that the two companies have not been able to trace fully. Alphv’s site on the dark web claims it is no longer operational. Eric Noonan, a cybersecurity expert and the CEO of CyberSheath, said that if UnitedHealth did pay a ransom, “it’s a terrible precedent because what it now does is say this is a viable market.” Change Healthcare was “a very attractive target,” Noonan added, because it runs critical infrastructure and the attack has had visible consequences. Noonan said UnitedHealth needs to address whether patients’ personal information has been compromised. Thus far, the company has said only that its teams are “actively engaged and working to understand the impact.” Noonan also called for the federal government to require mandatory minimum cybersecurity for all critical infrastructure sectors, including health care. “Americans I think are somewhat defenseless in this regard, because they’re relying on the companies to implement the right levels of cybersecurity, and that’s largely not happening,” he said.
'So darn easy': IRS' free Direct File pilot program already a hit with early users 2024-03-06 20:29:00+00:00 - Texan Dixie Warden is quick to say she’s “not a numbers girl.” But as the first user of the government’s new free electronic tax return filing system, Warden reports she completed her taxes this year in about an hour using the program. “I don’t want to call myself a dummy, but this is taxes for dummies right here,” Warden said. The program asked her simple questions about her tax status, provided definitions for tax lingo such as adjusted gross income and a chatbot was on hand to answer her questions. The project, known as Direct File and launched by the IRS on a limited basis in 12 states this tax season, is in its pilot phase. Starting this week, it is available for eligible users to start their returns at any time after earlier being available only during certain hours. If it is successful and scaled up for the general public’s use, the program could drastically change how Americans file their taxes and how much money they spend completing them. That is, if the agency can see the program through its development in spite of threats to its funding. Warden, a 37-year-old IRS employee from Kyle, Texas, says she saved nearly $400 this tax season by filing her tax return directly to the government from her home laptop instead of paying one of the commercial tax prep services used by millions of people. Individual taxpayers pay an average of $140 preparing their tax returns each year. Warden has worked for the IRS in a variety of roles for the past 16 years, but she is not a tax expert. She’s currently a human relations specialist. “The way that it was laid out was just so darn easy to understand and I just see it being helpful for so many millions of people,” she said. While Warden’s praise of the program might seem natural given her employer, a broader test is under way now as people around the country give it a try. The rollout The IRS began its pilot program in fits and starts in 12 states, around timed windows, for people who have very simple W-2s, an employee’s wage and tax statement. The agency estimates that hundreds of thousands of mostly lower-income taxpayers will participate in the program during the 2024 filing season. The slow introduction is in part meant to avoid a repeat of the disastrous rollout of the Obama administration’s health insurance program under the Affordable Care Act in 2013, which was rife with website crashes and glitches. The IRS initially invited government workers to use the program and Warden was the very first. Now members of the public are starting to participate. Derek Wheeler, director of the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic at the University of Florida’s Law School, said his clinic has referred less than a dozen clients to the Direct File system. Florida is one of the 12 states participating in the pilot. So are New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming, Arizona, Massachusetts, California and New York. “The benefit of a program like this, that is simple for users, is immense,” Wheeler told The Associated Press. His legal clinic has partnered with the IRS and selectively identifies clients who may be eligible to submit their taxes through the program. The blowback The IRS faces intense blowback from private tax preparation companies that have made billions from charging people to use their software and have spent millions lobbying Congress on the issue. One of their biggest criticisms is that free tax prep services already exist for people of all income brackets and developing the Direct File system will end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Several organizations offer free online tax preparation assistance to taxpayers under certain income limits. Also, fillable forms are available online on the IRS website, but the forms are complicated and taxpayers still have to calculate their tax liability. A Government Accountability Office report from April 2022 found that while 70% of taxpayers were eligible for the IRS’s existing free-filing program, only 3% of taxpayers actually use the service. Critics include Grover Norquist, president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, who says the agency is “better off not wasting taxpayer money on Direct File” and should promote the programs that are already available. He also argues the IRS did not receive explicit authority from Congress to create the program. The IRS was tasked with looking into how to create a “direct file” system as part of the money it received from the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. It gave the IRS nine months and $15 million to report on how such a program would work. The IRS published its feasibility report last May and estimated that annual costs for new program would range from $64 million for 5 million users to $249 million for 25 million users. “They didn’t get the authorization for the pilot program and Congress has said, ‘Nobody authorized this. This is a violation of the law,’” Norquist said. IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel insisted during a recent House hearing that the agency has both “a responsibility and an authority to offer taxpayers different approaches for how to meet their tax obligation.” The future of free-for-all filing Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, says free-filing tax options in the United States do not measure up to what other nations offer their citizens. For instance, Germany, Japan, Britain and other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries all offer taxpayers some form of pre-populated tax document to approve, sign and return. “This is not a problem we have solved yet,” she said. “The U.S. does have a markedly complex income tax system, but it’s very clear that if this could be done in other countries it’s something that should be done here.” Wheeler, at the University of Florida, adds that “having as many options as possible for people to file their taxes is important and brings us closer to other countries that send their taxpayers pre-populated forms.” “We may never get to that point, but this is a start.” For the program to continue to grow, it will need continued funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $80 billion for the IRS. House Republicans are trying to claw back some of the money. They built a $1.4 billion reduction to the IRS into the debt ceiling and budget cuts package passed by Congress last summer. A separate agreement will take an additional $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years to divert to other nondefense programs. Warden says she hopes she’ll be able to use the program again next tax season, and that it will be expanded for others. “I never had the confidence to do my own taxes,” she said. But after using Direct File, she said, “I feel foolish for paying all that money every year.”
There's one signature on OpenAI's clapback against Elon Musk that people are buzzing about 2024-03-06 20:19:20+00:00 - By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview OpenAI's response to Elon Musk's lawsuit is turning heads — in part because of one of the names attached to it. The ChatGPT developer fired back at Musk's allegations that OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft violates the company's original mission as an open-source nonprofit. A blistering blog post published Tuesday disputed Musk's accusations, and included some snapshots of emails between the Tesla CEO and OpenAI executives suggesting Musk actually supported OpenAI's commercialization. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. The post was signed by five people along with "OpenAI" itself — but Ilya Sutskever is the name that is generating buzz online. It's the first public glimpse of Sutskever's involvement in OpenAI in months. Last year, Sutskever, the company's chief data scientist, was one of the board members who voted to fire OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman; he was reportedly the one who delivered the news to Altman over a Google Meet call. Advertisement Sutskever quickly reversed his position on the ouster, even adding his name to a letter calling for Altman's return and the resignation of the board. That was after the company's employees threatened to quit en masse. "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions," he said at the time. "I never intended to harm OpenAI." After Altman's return, Sutskever was removed from OpenAI's board, with his future at the company uncertain. At the time, Altman said he harbored "zero ill will" toward the man who fired him, describing Sutskever as a "a guiding light of the field and a gem of a human being." Advertisement "While Ilya will no longer serve on the board, we hope to continue our working relationship and are discussing how he can continue his work at OpenAI," Altman said in the message to the company's staff. Sutskever has not posted on X, formerly Twitter, since shortly after Altman's return last year. His LinkedIn profile reflects his status as the company's cofounder and chief scientist, but does not mention his former board position. OpenAI did not return a request for comment on Sutskever's role at the company before publication. In light of Sutskever's seemingly-nebulous position, Musk offered for the former board member to come work at his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI. Musk, a cofounder of OpenAI who left in 2018, had previously described Sutskever as the "linchpin" of the company's success. Advertisement After OpenAI's board fired Altman, Musk defended Sutskever on X , writing, "Ilya has a good moral compass and does not seek power. He would not take such drastic action unless he felt it was absolutely necessary." Sutskever figures prominently in OpenAI's response to the Musk lawsuit, which includes several email exchanges between Musk, Sutskever, Altman, and Greg Brockman, another OpenAI cofounder. Tuesday's response notes that Sutskever had told Musk in a 2018 email that OpenAI was not committed to a open-source model, a statement that Musk apparently acknowledged at the time. "Elon understood the mission did not imply open-sourcing," says the response. Given Sutskever's role in drafting OpenAI's response to the lawsuit, it is unlikely that Musk's offer of employment still stands.
John Walker, Tech Executive Who Popularized AutoCAD, Dies at 74 2024-03-06 20:17:39+00:00 - John Walker, a groundbreaking, if reclusive, technology entrepreneur and polymath who was a founder and chief executive of Autodesk, the company that brought the ubiquitous AutoCAD software program to the design and architecture masses, died on Feb. 2 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He was 74. His death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of head injuries he suffered in a fall at home, his wife, Roxie Walker, said. His death was not widely reported at the time. Mr. Walker was well known in tech circles, not just for his triumphs in business but also for his outsize skills as a programmer — he was credited with developing an early prototype of the computer virus — and as a voluble writer who filled his personal site, Fourmilab, with free-ranging musings on topics as diverse as cryptography, nanotechnology and consciousness studies. Although he had little taste for publicity, he became a prominent tech mogul of the 1980s and early ’90s as a founder of Autodesk Inc., once described as “a theocracy of hackers,” which grew to become the sixth-largest personal computer software company in the world.
Oscar Mayer is launching a plant-based hot dog 2024-03-06 20:08:00+00:00 - An iconic American sausage maker is about to offer a meat-free option. Oscar Mayer announced Wednesday the launch of plant-based NotHotDogs and NotSausages. It's a joint venture between Oscar Mayer parent Kraft Heinz and TheNotCompany, a Chile-based food-tech company backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The venture is called The Kraft Heinz Not Company, stylized as TheKraftHeinzNotCo. "Oscar Mayer NotHotDogs and NotSausages offer the savory and smoky experience that brand fans have known and loved for more than 140 years," the brand said in a release. An analysis cited by Kraft forecasts the meat-alternative market to more than double by 2030. However, many meatless hot dogs and dinner sausages currently on offer have failed to capture consumers due to flavor and texture concerns, Kraft said. “We know people are hungry for plant-based meat options from brands they know and trust,” said Lucho Lopez-May, CEO of The Kraft Heinz Not Company, in a release. “In launching the joint venture’s first product in the plant-based meat category, we saw an opportunity to satisfy these consumer cravings, leveraging NotCo’s revolutionary AI technology and the power, equity, and legacy of the Oscar Mayer brand.” In addition to a traditional hot dog, flavors on offer from the new lineup include Bratwurst and Italian sausage. The new products may contain less saturated fat and cholesterol than a traditional Oscar Mayer beef product, but may contain more sodium, as well as more protein. In a follow-up statement to NBC News, the company said ingredients included in the new product lineup include bamboo fiber, mushroom, pea protein and acerola cherry, also known as Barbados cherry or West Indian cherry. Kraft Heinz and Not Co have already launched plant-based cheese slices, mayo, and mac & cheese products.
Merrick Garland isn’t to blame for delays in Trump’s election interference case 2024-03-06 19:56:13+00:00 - After the Supreme Court delayed consideration of Donald Trump’s immunity claim until April, some liberals directed considerable outrage not just at the court, but also at a member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. Such attacks act as if the delay were Attorney General Merrick Garland’s fault instead of justices like Clarence Thomas. These criticisms are misplaced. The Justice Department, before and after Garland’s delayed confirmation, started investigating key figures in the election interference case against Trump in 2021. And accusations of delay ignore the real-world obstacles that special counsel Jack Smith, his team and their predecessors had to navigate carefully — lest the whole case fall apart in court. The department took overt investigative steps against three of the six alleged co-conspirators identified in Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment in 2021, long before Garland appointed Smith to the case. Days after a New York Times report on Jeffrey Clark’s role in Jan. 6, on Jan. 25, 2021, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced an investigation into “whether any former or current DOJ official engaged in an improper attempt to have DOJ seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election.” The IG investigators remained involved when FBI agents seized Clark’s phone June 23, 2022. The department had already, a month earlier, obtained a warrant for one of Clark’s private email accounts and would obtain a second one the following day. The August 2023 indictment of Trump describes Clark as co-conspirator 4. Those often-ignored early moves against Trump’s co-conspirators go unmentioned in reports that claim Garland delayed the investigation. In April 2021 — on Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s first day on the job — the Justice Department obtained a warrant to seize Rudy Giuliani’s phones. That wasn’t a warrant for Jan. 6; it sought evidence that Trump’s lawyer was doing the bidding of Ukrainians when he convinced Trump to fire Marie Yovanovitch in 2019. But the DOJ used the special master review that Giuliani demanded to look at all the communications seized, not just those relating to Ukraine. In September 2021, the judge in that case granted prosecutors’ request to do the privilege review of materials seized from Giuliani’s devices on all files that post-dated Jan. 1, 2018, irrespective of subject. (The special master even prioritized the devices that were used through 2021.) Giuliani himself has described those materials as including all his Jan. 6-related communications. A privilege log he released last year shows pages and pages of communications turned over to the FBI — and available to anyone who had obtained a probable cause warrant for Jan. 6 — by Jan. 19, 2022. There are more than 40 mentions of Giuliani’s actions as co-conspirator 1 in Trump’s indictment, as well as a reference to a document known to have been available on the devices seized in April 2021. And in September 2021, prosecutor Molly Gaston — one of two lead prosecutors on the Jan. 6 case against Trump — subpoenaed associates of Sidney Powell as part of an investigation into her fundraising off false claims of voter fraud. Just one paragraph in the Trump indictment describes Powell’s actions, as co-conspirator 3, in the conspiracies charged against the former president. But that paragraph focuses on a topic related to the subpoenas sent out in 2021: Powell’s relentless attacks on Dominion Systems in lawsuits. Those often ignored early moves against Trump’s co-conspirators — and other investigative developments, such as the purported cooperation of Jan. 6 defendant Brandon Straka, investigative steps implicating Roger Stone, and the prosecution of Alex Jones’ sidekick — go unmentioned in reports that claim Garland delayed the investigation. For good reason: Most happened where reporters and pundits weren’t looking. But the popular narratives attributing delay to Garland also ignore several factors that did take time. Consider the impact Covid had on all prosecutions, nationwide, in 2021. A year of pandemic measures created a backlog that delayed not just trials, but also court hearings and grand jury investigations. It took 14 months to bring the first Jan. 6 defendant to trial, even though that defendant was identified to the FBI before the attack. The conspiracy indictment of the several rioters who first broke into the Senate chamber — whose GoPro video prosecutors may use to show Trump’s direct influence on rioters at his trial — had to be delayed from April to September 2021 because of Covid challenges. Investigating Trump was like investigating a very corrupt law firm. Plus, investigating Trump was like investigating a very corrupt law firm. According to a filing from Jack Smith, “at least 25 witnesses withheld information, communications, and documents based on assertions of the attorney-client privilege under circumstances where the privilege holder appears to be the defendant or his 2020 presidential campaign.” Some of these witnesses are obvious — and central to the plot to steal the election: Giuliani, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro were all described as co-conspirators. Several lawyers worked for Giuliani — people such as Christina Bobb and Jenna Ellis. Others worked for the campaign, or participated in state-level conspiracies or lawsuits. Regardless of the witnesses’ level of involvement, the Justice Department had no choice: Such privileges must be protected or prosecutors risk blowing the entire case. This process could add much as a year to the investigation of any lawyer’s communications. Even for witnesses who weren’t lawyers, Trump’s executive privilege claims created delays. For example, the Justice Department’s fight to secure former Vice President Mike Pence's testimony started no later than July 2022, well before Smith’s appointment, with Pence’s top aides. It continued at least until April 2023, when Pence testified. Even seemingly obvious actions Trump took, such as the tweet he sent targeting Pence while rioters were storming the Capitol, required working through such privilege challenges to prove that Trump, and not someone else, sent the tweet. Finally, Trump’s co-conspirators plotted their attack on encrypted apps. At a minimum, Trump’s associates planned their activities on Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, HushMail, and ProtonMail. Barring fully cooperative witnesses, such communications require investigators to seize phones, often one after another, to reconstruct communications. The delays created by Covid, use of encryption, attorney-client and executive privilege claims were unavoidable, even for the most obvious evidence. Take the tweet Trump sent at 2:24 p.m. Jan. 6: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage.” It was right there in public! But to present that in court first required the exploitation of at least two phones, nine months of fights over executive privilege, a 23-day stall from Twitter and two sets of interviews with at least eight different top aides. One delay that was unnecessary was caused by some of the people who most loudly blamed Garland: the Jan. 6 Committee. DOJ first asked the committee for witness transcripts in April 2022. That June, prosecutors in the trial of leaders of the Proud Boys agreed to reschedule their trial from August until December because the committee would not release transcripts until September. The prosecutors were vindicated when those transcripts finally came out in December, after three additional months of delay and jury selection had already started. Twice during the trial, prosecutors learned that witnesses had told the committee something they hadn’t told the FBI; in one instance, a committee transcript revealed an attorney conflict that threatened prosecutors’ reliance on testimony from their most important cooperating witness. Given that court filings suggest Smith will treat the Proud Boys akin to co-conspirators when this case finally goes to trial, those are the kinds of unnecessary screw-ups that could jeopardize Trump’s trial itself. Garland’s record as attorney general is far from flawless: Robert Hur was a poor choice to be special counsel in the Biden documents investigation. But criticizing him for the timeline of the Trump election interference case is unwarranted. Naysayers will complain that we all saw it happen in public, and they’re right. But behind every one of those public acts lies a chain of evidence without which Trump would win the case, the hunt for which started well before Smith came along.
Budget 2024: UK taxes head for highest level since 1948 despite Hunt’s NI cut 2024-03-06 19:49:00+00:00 - Britain will go into the next general election with taxes at their highest level since 1948 despite Jeremy Hunt’s 2p budget cut in national insurance contributions – with the threat of a fresh squeeze on public spending to come after polling day. The chancellor used a combination of higher borrowing and a range of stealth taxes to fund a £14bn giveaway package and said his ambition was to phase out NICs for employees and the self-employed altogether. But the lack of any real surprises in the budget – other than an increase in the child benefit threshold to £60,000 – appeared to reduce significantly the prospect of a snap general election in May, when the UK will still officially be in recession. Many Conservative MPs had hoped for a headline-grabbing budget that would finally leave people feeling better off and help to close the gap with Labour in the polls, acting as a launchpad for the election later this year. However, living standards remain squeezed and millions of people face being dragged into higher tax bands, while the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) showed that incomes are likely to remain below their level at the last general election, in 2019, at the end of this parliament. Hunt’s heavily trailed 2p cut in national insurance will be funded by scrapping non-dom rules – a flagship Labour policy – and other revenue-raising measures that will push taxation to the highest level since the second world war. “We will continue to cut national insurance contributions as we have done today so we truly make work pay,” Hunt told MPs. “We stick to our plan with a budget for long-term growth; it delivers more investment, more jobs, better public services and lower taxes.” Labour, however, accused the Conservatives of having overseen 14 years of economic failure. Sir Keir Starmer, the party leader, called the budget “the last desperate act of a party that has failed”. He added: “An economy smaller than when the prime minister entered Downing Street – the textbook definition of decline – that is their record. I mean, after 14 years, who do they actually think feels better off?” Experts said the £900-a-year tax cut for the average worker from the NICs cuts in the budget and last year’s autumn statement would be dwarfed by tax increases previously announced. Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, said: “Come the election, tax revenues will be 3.9% of national income, or around £100bn, higher than at the time of the last election. This remains a parliament of record tax rises.” Hunt raised money through a number of small tax increases, on vaping, tobacco, holiday home lets, business class flights and non-doms. That allowed him to meet his fiscal rule – to reduce debt as a share of GDP in five years’ time – by what the OBR described as the “historically modest margin” of £9bn. Hunt also announced the extension of a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which had led to reports of a “heated” row with Douglas Ross, the Tory leader in Scotland. Hunt’s decision to axe the tax breaks for foreign nationals who live in the UK and who do not pay UK tax on their overseas income and gains is a significant U-turn that mirrors Labour policy and blows a hole in the opposition’s spending plans. The chancellor said this was because he believed “those with the broadest shoulders should pay their fair share”. Labour had planned to use the £2.7bn raised from scrapping non-dom status for public services including the NHS, leaving the party facing a choice of dropping plans or finding money elsewhere. Starmer said Labour would back the national insurance cut, leaving him the option of raising other taxes to pay for his spending plans, or dropping them altogether. The decision to prioritise tax cuts will, however, mean imposing a tougher austerity drive on government departments at a time when public services are crumbling, with elevated NHS waiting lists and councils facing bankruptcy. Heralding a fresh austerity drive pencilled in for after the election, the government’s economic and spending watchdog, the OBR, said Hunt’s plans meant funding for non-ringfenced government departments – including local government and prison services – was on track to fall by 2.3% per year. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The chancellor said the tax cuts were part of a plan to create a high-wage, high-skill economy – and that the sort of growth that would lead to higher living standards could not come from “unlimited migration”. Yet the OBR said it had raised its 2028-9 forecast for net migration from 245,000 to 315,000 a year since last November’s autumn statement. Noting that the medium-term outlook for the economy remained challenging, the OBR said: “One of the biggest changes to our economy forecast is an increase in the size and growth of the UK population. But higher and rising levels of inactivity offset its impact on the overall size of the workforce, leaving our forecast for the level of GDP in five years virtually unchanged from the autumn, and the level of GDP per person slightly lower.” The OBR revised up its growth forecast for 2024 from 0.7% to 0.8% and its estimate for 2025 from 1.4% to 1.9%, but pencilled in unchanged or slightly lower growth figures for the following three years. Despite the cumulative 4p off NICs announced in the budget and the autumn statement, the OBR said taxes as a share of national output would still be at a postwar record at the end of its five-year forecast. Tax was 33.1% of gross domestic product before the Covid 19 pandemic but is on course to be 37.1% of GDP by 2028-29. Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said: “The tax cuts announced today to sweeten the government’s election pitch rely on the prospect of a sour £19bn of post-election tax rises, and the fiscal fiction that another £19bn of cuts to public services can be delivered in a spending review that the Treasury today confirmed will not take place until after polling day. “For all that, the big picture has not changed at all with this budget. Britain remains a country where taxes are heading up, not down – rising by the equivalent of £3,900 per household – and where incomes are set to remain below their level at the last general election when voters return to the polls.” “This didn’t feel like a pre-election budget,” Tory former minister Stephen Hammond said. “Pretty much everything had been trailed. There were no rabbits today, so from a purely political point of view, I think this still plays back into the narrative that it’s an autumn election.” Hunt briefed Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund – which had warned against budget tax cuts – about his plans. An IMF spokesperson said Georgieva “acknowledged the UK authorities’ efforts to navigate complex economic challenges through policies to support growth while stabilising debt. IMF staff will be analysing the announced policies in greater detail, but the aim to continue the fiscal consolidation pursued since November 2022 to reduce inflation and stabilise debt is welcome.”
Microsoft engineer sounds alarm on AI image-generator to US officials and company’s board 2024-03-06 19:48:03+00:00 - A Microsoft engineer is sounding alarms about offensive and harmful imagery he says is too easily made by the company’s artificial intelligence image-generator tool, sending letters on Wednesday to U.S. regulators and the tech giant’s board of directors urging them to take action. Shane Jones told The Associated Press that he considers himself a whistleblower and that he also met last month with U.S. Senate staffers to share his concerns. The Federal Trade Commission confirmed it received his letter Wednesday but declined further comment. Microsoft said it is committed to addressing employee concerns about company policies and that it appreciates Jones’ “effort in studying and testing our latest technology to further enhance its safety.” It said it had recommended he use the company’s own “robust internal reporting channels” to investigate and address the problems. CNBC was first to report about the letters. Jones, a principal software engineering lead, said he has spent three months trying to address his safety concerns about Microsoft’s Copilot Designer, a tool that can generate novel images from written prompts. The tool is derived from another AI image-generator, DALL-E 3, made by Microsoft’s close business partner OpenAI. “One of the most concerning risks with Copilot Designer is when the product generates images that add harmful content despite a benign request from the user,” he said in his letter addressed to FTC Chair Lina Khan. “For example, when using just the prompt, ‘car accident’, Copilot Designer has a tendency to randomly include an inappropriate, sexually objectified image of a woman in some of the pictures it creates.” Other harmful content involves violence as well as “political bias, underaged drinking and drug use, misuse of corporate trademarks and copyrights, conspiracy theories, and religion to name a few,” he told the FTC. His letter to Microsoft urges the company to take it off the market until it is safer. This is not the first time Jones has publicly aired his concerns. He said Microsoft at first advised him to take his findings directly to OpenAI, so he did. He also publicly posted a letter to OpenAI on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn in December, leading a manager to inform him that Microsoft’s legal team “demanded that I delete the post, which I reluctantly did,” according to his letter to the board. In addition to the U.S. Senate’s Commerce Committee, Jones has brought his concerns to the state attorney general in Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered. Jones told the AP that while the “core issue” is with OpenAI’s DALL-E model, those who use OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate AI images won’t get the same harmful outputs because the two companies overlay their products with different safeguards. “Many of the issues with Copilot Designer are already addressed with ChatGPT’s own safeguards,” he said via text. A number of impressive AI image-generators first came on the scene in 2022, including the second generation of OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. That — and the subsequent release of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT — sparked public fascination that put commercial pressure on tech giants such as Microsoft and Google to release their own versions. But without effective safeguards, the technology poses dangers, including the ease with which users can generate harmful “deepfake” images of political figures, war zones or nonconsensual nudity that falsely appear to show real people with recognizable faces. Google has temporarily suspended its Gemini chatbot’s ability to generate images of people following outrage over how it was depicting race and ethnicity, such as by putting people of color in Nazi-era military uniforms.
Super Tuesday was a reminder of a major GOP vulnerability: MAGA misogyny 2024-03-06 19:42:18+00:00 - One Donald Trump supporter in Texas told Fox News she “wouldn’t vote for a woman” as president and suggested that Nikki Haley is “probably menopausal.” Another Trump supporter told NBC News in North Carolina that he wouldn’t vote for Haley because she’s a woman, saying “a woman’s not gonna be a good president” because “she’s got no balls to scratch. She’s just gonna scratch her head.” Republicans' Super Tuesday voters really helped to put the MAGA movement’s toxic masculinity on full display. This kind of grotesque bigotry that has come to characterize the movement is, I believe, a major vulnerability for Trump’s chances this fall. Trump’s performance of what he believes manhood to be is integral to his political persona. He’s crass, arrogant, ignorant, misogynistic and has a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way. And this performative bravado is part of what has excited his supporters for years. But there’s a clear argument to be made that these traits make for a poor leader. The Biden campaign would do well to diagnose and, when appropriate, mock Trump’s hypermasculinity in no uncertain terms. First lady Jill Biden took a shot at it last weekend, calling out Trump’s misogyny at an event launching the “Women for Biden-Harris” organization in Arizona. Unlike President Joe Biden, the first lady said, Trump has “spent a lifetime tearing [women] down and devaluing our existence.” She went on to say Trump “mocks women’s bodies, disrespects our accomplishments and brags about assault. Now he’s bragging about killing Roe v. Wade.” That’s a powerful message to women about rejecting misogyny. And the Biden-Harris campaign should take this messaging to men, a voting group that arguably needs to hear it more than any other. If the Biden-Harris campaign wants to win re-election this November, I’m increasingly convinced they need to make a mockery of the hypermasculine id that’s driving today's Republican Party. Through its embrace of “trad wives” (women who conform to stereotypical gender roles) and its constant attacks on women’s bodily autonomy, the MAGA movement has put forth its expectations for what it means to be a man in today’s America. (Spoiler alert: Domination is a major feature.) It's no coincidence that a deep-seated misogyny is also at the core of the political platforms of authoritarians around the globe who are imposing their illiberal wills on their countries, from Argentinian President Javier Milei to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Misogyny is integral to fascism; the fight against hypermasculinity and the fight for democracy are one and the same — these are lessons the Biden campaign should be eager to teach. Hypermasculinity is like racism: You’re not going to solve it by talking around it. The campaign should host panel discussions and lectures on the subject with campus and community organizations. They should tap influencers who can speak to the paranoia and thirst for power that fuels hypermasculinity. A decade ago, I led a college organization that helped Black students at Arizona State University navigate the struggles of attending a predominantly white institution. A great deal of our programming, from reading groups to lecture series, was focused on training young Black men to reject hypermasculine ideals with the understanding that they’d be freer, happier, more sociable people as a result. And in part because of that experience, I and others are far less vulnerable to such political appeals. We know the people trying to reach us in that way are, in one way or another, using us for their personal benefit. This kind of programming would be a good model for the Biden campaign to follow in the coming months. It could make American men less vulnerable to Trump’s appeals, and it’d have long-term benefits for the health of our democracy, too.
Chancellor to raise UK government borrowing to fund budget measures – OBR 2024-03-06 19:34:00+00:00 - The chancellor will raise government borrowing to help fund a 2p cut in national insurance contributions from April, according to an assessment of the spring budget by the Treasury’s independent forecaster. The Office for Budget Responsibility said the chief measures to pay for Jeremy Hunt’s budget measures, including the cut in national insurance and a reduction in capital gains tax, would come from an average extra £8bn of borrowing in each of the years to 2028-29. Under a third of Hunt’s cumulative tax cuts over the next five years are funded by stealth tax rises, and the rest by extra borrowing, analysts at the Resolution Foundation said. “The chancellor has delivered a second dollop of pre-election tax cuts, borrowing more and taxing the likes of non-doms, vapes and energy companies to do so,” said Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the thinktank. The Resolution Foundation added that the chancellor was also relying on steep cuts across many Whitehall departments and tax rises in several years’ time that were unlikely to take place to pay for the tax cuts that will take effect next month. Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said Hunt was expecting the public to believe “a pie-in-the-sky promise to increase fuel duties – this time we mean it, promise! – and a set of post-election spending plans that still imply substantial cuts to funding of many public services, which are clearly struggling with their current level of funding”. The OBR said the chancellor was able to increase borrowing after a £13bn average gain from lower debt interest costs. A crackdown on tax avoidance will also be attempted to help balance the books after Hunt said HMRC would gather a further £4.5bn over the five years in taxes that would otherwise go unpaid. OBR forecasts showed that underlying debt, which excludes Bank of England borrowing, will be 91.7% of GDP in 2024-25, rising to 93.2% in 2026-27 before falling to 92.9% in 2028-29. Hunt said: “Our underlying debt is therefore on track to fall as a share of GDP, meeting our fiscal rule. We continue to have the second lowest level of government debt in the G7, lower than Japan, France or the US.” Inflation was expected to fall below the Bank of England’s 2% target within the next few months – from 4% now – reversing a 1% fall in inflation-adjusted household incomes last year to a 1% increase this year, the OBR said. House prices were expected to begin climbing again in 2024 after a year of stagnation, and the national insurance tax cut would encourage the equivalent of almost 200,000 people back into the workforce. Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR, said the government’s financial position remained challenging due to high debt, subdued economic growth and the highest interest rates for over a decade. The OBR’s updated forecasts suggested the UK economy would grow slightly faster than expected this year and next, compared with November’s forecasts. After entering recession at the end of 2023, the economy is expected to grow by 0.8% this year and 1.9% in 2025. That is slightly stronger than the 0.7% and 1.4% growth rate expected by the OBR in November. Growth is then forecast to be 2% in 2026 before dipping to 1.8% and 1.7% in 2027 and 2028. Stephen Millard, deputy director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR), said the forecasts for GDP were optimistic and flattered the UK’s prospects. “The OBR expects growth of 1.9% next year and this helps to bring down the deficit and debt-to-GDP ratios,” he said. “However, NIESR expects something nearer 1%, meaning that the chancellor’s forecasts for the debt and deficit to GDP ratios will likely prove to be overoptimistic.” Douglas McWilliams, co-chair of the Growth Commission, a right-of-centre thinktank, said the OBR’s figures showed that the chancellor’s plans were given a lift by higher migration, which gave a boost to GDP but reduced GDP per capita. “If you listened to the chancellor, you might have thought that the budget was for more growth, less migration, more people working and lower taxes. But the OBR spills the beans – slower growth in GDP per capita, more migration, lower participation rates and higher, not lower, taxes,” he said.
The Guardian view on the budget: plans to placate backbench critics, not meet the nation’s needs | Editorial 2024-03-06 19:24:00+00:00 - Insanity is said to be doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If that is the case, then Jeremy Hunt resorting to arguments that an economy can cut its way to growth may well be judged to be mad. Mr Hunt insisted during his hour-long budget speech that his policies were working when they are not. Is it any surprise voters aren’t listening? The audience for Mr Hunt’s austerity-infused oration in parliament was behind him. If he had voters in mind, the chancellor would have made good on Rishi Sunak’s 2022 pledge for crowd-pleasing income tax cuts. Instead, he sought to nullify the arguments of backbench critics by reducing national insurance by 2p, and playing to the gallery by quoting a discredited rightwing economic theory – the Laffer curve – that says lower tax rates for the rich will lead to higher tax revenues. This might get some favourable headlines in Tory-supporting newspapers for a day. But his policy of freezing tax thresholds quickly exposed the chancellor’s intention of raising taxes to their highest level since 1948. Mr Hunt is not squeezing the wealthy to pay for tax cuts. It will be the 7 million people who will pay tax for the first time, or join the higher tax band, who will shell out. This is while cuts are being made to many frontline services. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said real-terms spending on non-NHS services will be £17bn lower by the end of the decade. Even on the terms by which the Conservative party won a landslide victory in 2019, it has failed. The Tories had claimed to be the party of the NHS. But there is little in the budget for the 7.6 million patients waiting for hospital treatment. Britain’s government stood on a manifesto to reduce regional inequality. Mr Hunt’s policy to level up Britain did not lavish attention on neglected parts of the country but rather on wealthy home counties and the citadel of high finance, Canary Wharf. The jolt of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on the heels of the shock of the pandemic, provided an opportunity to fix a broken society. But the Conservative party has been more preoccupied with factionalism than by reform of the British state. The upshot has been that GDP per capita has grown slowly at a time when there are ever louder calls to tackle poverty, deal with an ageing society and invest in a green transition. Instead, the government will be borrowing more – and spending less. Mr Hunt’s proposal to revive the economy is to reduce public investment by £20bn more than he planned last November. The very opposite is needed. Britain requires a shift towards a prolonged period of investment growth – to raise productivity and living standards. The so-called Reagan question – “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” – haunts Conservatives as an election approaches. Households, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will be worse off on average. Sir Keir Starmer rightly chided the Tories for filching Labour policies on dentistry, the cost of living and taxing non-doms. He said that, by adopting the “intellectual triumphs for social democracy”, the Tories were living in Labour’s world. However, the budget was also about laying traps for Sir Keir in an attempt to cast the opposition as profligate. An incoming Labour government needs a fiscal framework that prioritises high and stable public investment focused on voters’ needs. An era is ending in British politics, and the sooner the better. Labour must come up with something substantial to replace it, for all our sakes.