Then Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley testifies before the Senate Committee on the Budget on Sept. 11, 2024. Anna Rose Layden | Getty Images News | Getty Images Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than…

Cornell researchers have developed a new vaccine platform that could provide more robust, longer-lasting protection from both COVID-19 and influenza, and broader immunity to different flu strains. In a study published Jan. 29 in Science Advances, researchers found no visible signs of illness in…

American consumers could soon face higher costs for a range of consumer products after President Trump's tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China went into effect on Tuesday. The 25% tax on imports from Canada and Mexico, plus an additional 10% tax on imports from China, will drive up the costs of an…

Two cases of measles have been confirmed in New York City so far this year, according to the New York City health department. Officials have not disclosed the ages or vaccination status of the two cases, but they are urging parents to vaccinate their children. The first case was reported earlier…

Leer en español It was meant to be a perfect reunion. Amelia Lofving, a designer, had just moved to Los Angeles. Her friend Jessica Brösche, a tattoo artist from Germany, was spending the winter in Mexico. The two planned to meet up in Tijuana, cross the border, and head to LA. Become a KPBS sponsor…

This is Work in Progress, a newsletter about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here. Six months. Five-hundred-seventy-six applications. Twenty-nine responses. Four interviews. And still, no job. When my younger brother rattled off these numbers to me in…

Russian servicemen stand with the Kremlin's Spasskaya tower and Saint Basil's cathedral before the Victory Day military parade rehearsal in central Moscow, on April 27, 2023. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images CNN — Foreign adversaries including Russia and China have recently directed their…

The World Health Organization said Thursday that its "investigation deepens" into a mystery illness suspected of killing more than 60 people in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo over the past five weeks, warning it was continuing to spread. The WHO said in a statement Thursday that, along…

On Friday, Americans across the country are participating in an economic boycott for 24 hours. Organized by the People’s Union USA, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization, the boycott quickly picked up steam across social media, with thousands of users sharing posts with related hashtags.…

As the bird flu outbreak continues gaining force in the US, a second company selling raw pet food issued a voluntary recall after cats from two different households in Oregon contracted H5N1 from the tainted meat earlier this month. Two more cats in different households in Washington state have…

I keep running up against this argument about LLMs and generative AI: It's just like a calculator; it makes work faster, but doesn't change anything about the work you're doing. This isn't anything new. I get the instinct to normalize this invention, to place it in a box with others that came…

Something’s been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it. We’re at this weird inflection point in software development. Every junior dev I talk to has Copilot or Claude or GPT running 24/7. They’re shipping code faster than ever. But when I dig deeper into their understanding of…

Our brains are full of plastic. This was the fun news I read earlier this week while picking up dinner take-out, packed in plastic containers, crammed in a plastic bag and accompanied by Styrofoam cups. Great, I thought, convenience culture is killing us. But is it? This is the problem with the slew…

You wake up to dark clouds outside, so you check the weather on your phone: a storm is coming. That weather app uses data from the National Weather Service, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a small organization which could see as much as 10% of its workforce cut this…

Feb 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday reported that measles cases so far this year had jumped to 93 from 14 a week ago, mainly driven by an outbreak in Texas. An outbreak in Gaines County, Texas, where cases have now risen to 57 from 22 on February 11, has…

Lauren Feiner is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform. Around a dozen current and former federal workers are behind a new…

[A brief editorial note: About 10 years ago, I began researching the Year of the Spy and some famous Reagan-era espionage cases. This post draws from that research. See also my previously published article about the NSA traitor Ronald Pelton.] Share Among the cadre of DOGE engineers now rooting…

Headworn tech from U-M startup could protect agricultural and industrial workers from airborne pathogens The Clack Research Group An air curtain shooting down from the brim of a hard hat can prevent 99.8% of aerosols from reaching a worker’s face. The technology, created by University of Michigan…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it is taking steps to optimize its workforce and reduce its spending — but is now trying to rescind the firing of some employees. J. David Ake/Getty Images The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it is trying to reverse the firing of staffers who worked on the…

A surge in flu cases is filling up New Hampshire hospitals and causing longer waits for some patients. “This is probably one of the most challenging and difficult flu seasons we've seen for many, many years,” said Steve Ahnen, president of the New Hampshire Hospital Association. “And again, those…

A NASA scientist has revealed the list of cities that could be in danger if an asteroid dubbed the "city killer" collides with Earth in 2032. Scientists have revealed where the asteroid could hit. Credit: MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images Astronomers discovered the asteroid, named YR4…

Summary Trump's tariffs fuel low growth fears on top of inflationFund managers' stagflation expectations rise, survey showsSome remain optimistic tariff hit on growth would be temporaryAnalysts warn about complacency towards Trump policies Feb 20 (Reuters) - Stubborn inflation and President Donald…

Back in 2021, the tech industry was booming. Fueled by generous government subsidies and the pandemic economy, tech companies went on a hiring spree, promising unlimited time off and upward growth opportunities at open offices where kombucha and cold brew flowed from taps. Flash forward to now, and…

SIgnal noise X is reportedly blocking links to secure Signal contact pages Signal has recently become a popular organizing tool among government workers. Kevin Purdy – Feb 17, 2025 10:49 AM | 73 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Width * Links * Subscribers only Learn more X,…

Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is now blocking links to "Signal.me," a URL used by the Signal encrypted messaging to share your account info with another person. According to BleepingComputer's tests and other users' reports, attempting to post Signal.me links via public posts, direct…

(Last updated 9:52 am CST February 16th, 2025) [Updated this post on 2/16/2025 to reflect changes in the process, and additional apps I install.] Because I regularly review Apple’s Mac laptops and desktops, I’ve developed a setup routine for to make them my own for the brief period I have them. It’s…

My mum died on a summer’s morning. When I walked out of the hospital, where I had spent the last several days and nights curled on a small couch next to her bed, I felt like a stray root of some ancient tree that had accidentally broken out of the earth and into foreign air – wholly unprepared for…

In this photo provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a lactating dairy cow stands in a pen after inoculation against bird flu at the National Animal Disease Center research facility in Ames, Iowa, on Monday, July 29, 2024. U.S. Department of Agriculture/AP The first study on the H5N1 bird…

Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch swears in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as Health and Human Services Secretary as his wife Cheryl Hines holds the Bible in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington. (Photo/Alex Brandon) Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free…

US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago 10 hours ago Brandon DrenonBBC News Getty Images The National Nuclear Security Administration is part of the Department of Energy The US government is trying to bring back nuclear safety employees it fired on Thursday, but…

The 26-year-old charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive officer in an ambush outside a Manhattan hotel in December has touted receiving support that has “transcended political, racial and even class divisions” in a rare public statement. “I am overwhelmed by – and grateful for –…

Companies Zoetis Inc Feb 14 (Reuters) - The Wyoming Department of Health said on Friday it has identified its first human case of H5N1 bird flu in the region, making it the third confirmed instance of hospitalization related to the infection in the United States. "The woman is hospitalized in…

A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.” “[A] key irony of automation is…

Tom Wilkinson, professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Southampton, says there is some truth to this age-old saying. When you get a respiratory viral infection, otherwise known as a cold, your immune system is activated, he explains. Your ability to fight it off depends on how strong…

The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead”. A new analysis by Hansen and colleagues concludes that both the impact of recent cuts in sun-blocking shipping pollution, which…

Record January warmth puzzles climate scientists 6 February 2025 Mark PoyntingClimate and environment researcher Reuters Last month's Los Angeles fires were one of the costliest disasters in US history Last month was the world's warmest January on record raising further questions about the pace of…

This first appeared in the Planet Money newsletter. You can sign up here. Last week, news spread that a Chinese AI company, DeepSeek, had built a cutting-edge chatbot at a fraction of the cost of its American competitors. It sent the stock prices of American tech companies plummeting. But Microsoft…