February 2024 - Dual Cow

Biden Issues Executive Order to Restrict Personal Data Sales to China and Russia

Feb

Biden Issues Executive Order to Restrict Personal Data Sales to China and Russia

President Biden issued an executive order Wednesday seeking to restrict the sale of sensitive American data to China, Russia and four more countries, a first-of-its-kind attempt to keep personally identifying information from being obtained for blackmail, scams or other harm.The president asked the Justice Department to write rules restricting the sale of information about Americans’ locations, health and genetics to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as any entities linked to those countries. The restrictions would also cover financial information, biometric data and other types of information that could identify individuals and sensitive information related to…

Yellen Urges Israel to Restore Economic Ties to West Bank

Feb

By Jean Thompson

Investments and Business

Yellen Urges Israel to Restore Economic Ties to West Bank

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Tuesday that she had personally urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to increase commercial engagement with the West Bank, contending that doing so was important for the economic welfare of both Israelis and Palestinians.Ms. Yellen’s plea was outlined in a letter that she sent to Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday. It represented her most explicit public expression of concern about the economic consequences of the war between Israel and Hamas. In the letter, Ms. Yellen said, she warned about the consequences of the erosion of basic services in the West Bank and called…

Feb

By Jean Thompson

Health

Companies Were Big on CBD. Not Anymore.

Just below rows of energy and kombucha drinks at Westside Market, a deli in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, sit a few glass bottles of Vybes. The drink, which comes in flavors like strawberry lavender and blood orange lime, is made with cannabidiol, more commonly known as CBD.But a lack of federal rules and a mishmash of state regulations have made it impossible for Vybes to be distributed by a national retailer, like Target or Walmart. That has hindered the potential growth for the drink, said Jonathan Eppers, who left the technology industry to create Vybes in 2018.“For the first…

OpenAI Seeks to Dismiss Parts of The New York Times’s Lawsuit

Feb

By Jean Thompson

Science and Technology

OpenAI Seeks to Dismiss Parts of The New York Times’s Lawsuit

OpenAI filed a motion in federal court on Monday that seeks to dismiss some key elements of a lawsuit brought by The New York Times Company.The Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft on Dec. 27, accusing them of infringing on its copyrights by using millions of its articles to train A.I. technologies like the online chatbot ChatGPT. Chatbots now compete with the news outlet as a source of reliable information, the lawsuit said.In the motion, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the defendants argue that ChatGPT “is not in any way a substitute…

The F.T.C. Boosts Biden’s Fight Against Inflation

Feb

By Jean Thompson

Investments and Business

The F.T.C. Boosts Biden’s Fight Against Inflation

Kroger, Albertsons and the politics of inflation A paradox at the heart of the U.S. economy is that consumers are feeling squeezed even as growth indicators look strong — and are taking it out on President Biden’s approval ratings.So the White House probably cheered a move by the F.T.C. and several states on Monday to block Kroger’s $25 billion bid to buy Albertsons, arguing that the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history would raise prices and hit union workers’ bargaining power.The Biden administration has little influence over inflation, but it’s still getting heat. Consumers are spending the highest proportion of…

Can You Recycle Medical Devices Like Insulin Pens, Inhalers and Covid Tests?

Feb

By Jean Thompson

Health

Can You Recycle Medical Devices Like Insulin Pens, Inhalers and Covid Tests?

Most of the plastic in your medicine cabinet is high-quality, medical grade — and devilishly difficult to safely dispose of, let alone recycle.The sorting equipment at standard recycling centers typically can’t handle small items, and wishfully including them only prolongs the sorting process that then increases the recyclers’ costs without salvaging the plastic. Some at-home medical products, like needles that have come into contact with bodily fluids, should not even be relegated to household trash.Governments and big pharmacy chains offer some guidance. For example, New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has a map of collection boxes for safely disposing…