Ozempic, Wegovy and other new weight-loss drugs have proved so good at helping users shed pounds, they’ve quickly become a multibillion-dollar industry.

The prescription-only medications have also been in consistently short supply, which is why they’ve grown increasingly popular — with scammers.

Online con artists are luring victims with discount offers of Ozempic and similar drugs with no prescription required. After they take the money, however, they deliver something their clients didn’t order — fake drugs, perhaps, or just the disappointment that comes when people realize they’ve been taken.

A new report by threat researchers at McAfee found 176,871 phishing emails and 449 malicious websites tied to offers of Ozempic, Wegovy and semaglutide, the generic name for these drugs, from January to April 2024. Phishing attempts were almost 200% higher during the period than they were from October to December, the internet security company reported.

In addition, the researchers found that scammers were creating fake profiles on Facebook so they could run weight-loss-drug swindles there. Others took hundreds of fake offers to Craigslist — including 207 of them in a single day in April.

Novo Nordisk originally developed the semaglutide it dubbed Ozempic as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes, but clinicians found that semaglutide could help people lose significant amounts of weight by suppressing appetite. The Food and Drug Administration approved Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy as a weight-loss drug in 2021; since then, it has approved an alternative drug, Eli Lilly’s Zepbound, which is based on its diabetes treatment Mounjaro.

Although Ozempic costs nearly $1,000 a month without insurance, the demand for these drugs has grown rapidly. Sales of Ozempic alone are projected to reach $11 billion this year, according to one analysis.

The combination of high prices and insufficient supply has proved irresistible to scammers.

Abhishek Karnik, head of threat research at McAfee, said the fraudsters typically have two types of victims: people who can’t get a prescription for Ozempic, and people who have a prescription but can’t find it at their local pharmacies.

The scams can be personalized and targeted at people who’ve shown some interest in weight-loss drugs, using information collected about them and their browsing habits, said Iskander Sanchez-Rola, director of privacy innovation for the internet security company Norton. The pitches may come through email or ads placed on search engines or websites, he said, including sites that are well-established and trustworthy.

“Anywhere a human can have their eyes on, they will be there,” Sanchez-Rola said of the scammers. Just because a website is legitimate, he added, that’s no guarantee that the ads there will be.

To pull off the scam, Karnik said, the fraudsters will often interact with the prospective buyer through a social media network or platform such as Telegram to win their trust. That could include offering over-the-top testimonials to their legitimacy and to the quality of the products. “You’ll have people claiming they had huge success with these drugs,” he said, “but none of it is true.”

Scam sellers may also pose as doctors or pharmacists, often from foreign countries, and claim they can sell Ozempic without having to examine you or see a prescription. That may seem sketchy, but many Americans have imported real medications such as insulin illicitly from Canada and Mexico for years because the prices are so much lower outside the U.S.

“One example on Facebook Marketplace included a ‘Doctor Melissa’ based in Canada who could provide Mounjaro and Ozempic without a prescription, with payment available through bitcoin, Zelle, Venmo and Cash App — all of which are nonstandard payment methods for prescription drugs and should be red flags for consumers,” McAfee said.

That sort of counterfeit shipment poses a significant health risk. For example, McAfee said, one person who used Ozempic to help manage her diabetes bought some injectors online after local pharmacies ran out, only to discover that the pens she received were filled with insulin. Had she not been tipped off by the flimsy packaging and different appearance, McAfee said, she could have injected herself with a fatal dose.

Another type of con, Sanchez-Rola said, is when the scammer will deliver a bottle of aspirin or some other drug you didn’t order, then make it so burdensome for you to obtain a refund that you give up.

How to detect Ozempic scams

The first rule, McAfee said, is never to buy one of these drugs without a prescription. After all, doing so is illegal in the United States.

Sticking to licensed pharmacies is wise too. You can check whether a California pharmacy is licensed at the State Board of Pharmacy website; for other states, consult the FDA’s website.

But scammers also target people who have prescriptions they can’t fill locally, as well as offering medications they tout as nonprescription alternatives that are just as good as Ozempic. And to make their products more attractive, they may use AI tools to produce eye-popping before-and-after images that are persuasively realistic.

Here are more red flags to look for before buying a weight-loss drug online:

Strikingly deep discounts. Fraud experts say that if a price looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Another thing to bear in mind, Sanchez-Rola said: “You didn’t find the best deal, the best deal found you, which is already a big red flag.”

Misleading claims. McAfee warns that overly rosy promises of results are a sign of a scam. Be especially wary if the site offers none of the usual disclaimers about side effects, possible negative reactions or details about how the product should be used.

Payment methods other than credit cards. Scammers prefer systems that act more like cash, such as Zelle, Cash App or gift cards, or are untraceable, such as cryptocurrency. Sanchez-Rola said sometimes scammers will also offer a credit card option that looks real, but it’s designed to display an error message when you try to use it so you’ll be forced to use a different, sketchier payment method.

A mix of 5-star and 1-star reviews. Sanchez-Rola said that fraudsters’ websites often try to bury the actual reviews posted by unhappy customers under a slew of bot-generated praise. If you see a lot of 5-star reviews that were posted within a short period of time, that’s a huge red flag, he said, especially if the reviews have no comments attached.

Deep discounts that expire soon. Con artists will try to override your reservations about a transaction by giving it a false sense of urgency.

Boilerplate company information. Scammers’ websites often provide phone numbers, addresses, contact information and descriptions that they copy from legitimate sites, Sanchez-Rola said. You should paste the phone number and other information into a Google search to see if they’re used by other, unrelated businesses — for example, he said, one scam site copied its physical address from an ice cream parlor, assuming that its customers wouldn’t bother to check.

Use security software that helps detect scams. McAfee and Norton, among other companies, offer programs that can alert you when you’re about to navigate to a suspicious website.

What to do if you’ve fallen for an Ozempic scam

If you’re fortunate enough to have used a credit card, you can dispute the charge and eventually obtain a refund. You can get similar results if you make your purchase using PayPal or Venmo with the buyer protection feature enabled.

If not — for example, if you used Zelle or paid with gift cards — you can at least report the fraud to try to protect other potential victims. The federal government has an online tool to help you find the right law enforcement agency to file your report with. You can also file a complaint with the FTC’s site and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center .

Beyond that, Sanchez-Rola said, if you were conned on a social network, you should report the fraudster’s profile to the network’s administrators. For example, Facebook explains how to report fraudulent Marketplace sellers in its help section, and TikTok walks through how to report a problematic account in its support section.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

California’s biggest utility sees power demand doubling by 2040, driven by artificial intelligence, electric cars and other efforts to electrify more of the economy, according to PG&E Corp.’s top executive.

PG&E is equipped to meet that surge in demand without significantly adding to its fleet of power plants, Chief Executive Officer Patti Poppe said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. That’s because the utility’s system isn’t running at its full potential.

“Our grid today is underutilized,” she said. “We built the grid big years ago, and now we get to utilize it.”

Utilization rates on PG&E’s grid are currently at around 45% and Poppe said she sees that growing to as much as 80%. While there will be “some new generation,” the CEO said better use of existing assets will be key to delivering more power without driving up costs.

Shares of PG&E fell 0.9% at 10:46 a.m. in New York. The stock has risen 1% this year.

Other parts of the US are also projecting massive increases in power demand, with the head of the grid operator in Texas estimating this week that power demand there would nearly double by 2030. A number of US power companies have also dramatically increased their projections of demand, though unlike PG&E, other companies are planning to build new plants.

Wildfires

Poppe has pledged to prevent catastrophic wildfires, which drove the utility into bankruptcy in 2019 after its equipment sparked some of the worst blazes in California history. More than 100 people died and thousands of homes were destroyed.

The utility says it has reduced ignitions tied to its equipment by 68% since 2017 by installing more weather monitoring stations, hardening poles, covering and burying power lines and preemptively cutting power during dry and windy weather.

–With assistance from Josh Saul.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

FORT HALL RESERVATION, Idaho — Myrna Broncho realized just how necessary an internet connection can be after she broke her leg.

In fall 2021, the 69-year-old climbed a ladder to the top of a shed in her pasture. The roof that protects her horses and cows needed to be fixed. So, drill in hand, she pushed down.

That’s when she slipped.

Broncho said her leg snapped between a pair of ladder rungs as she fell, “and my bone was sticking out, and the only thing was holding it was my sock.”

Broncho arm-crawled back to her house to reach her phone. She hadn’t thought to take it with her because, she said, “I never really dealt with phones.”

Broncho needed nine surgeries and rehabilitation that took months. Her hospital was more than two hours away in Salt Lake City and her home internet connection was vital for her to keep track of records and appointments, as well as communicate with her medical staff.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal lawmakers launched the Affordable Connectivity Program with the goal of connecting more people to their jobs, schools, and doctors. More than 23 million low-income households, including Broncho’s, eventually signed on. The program provided $30 monthly subsidies for internet bills, or $75 discounts in tribal or high-cost areas like Broncho’s.

Now, the ACP is out of money.

In early May, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., challenged an effort to continue funding the program, saying during a commerce committee hearing that the program needed to be revamped.

“As is currently designed, ACP does a poor job of directing support to those who truly need it,” Thune said, adding that too many people who already had internet access used the subsidies.

There has been a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers first attempting and failing to attach funding to the must-pass Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization. Afterward, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., traveled to his home state to tell constituents in tiny White River Junction that Congress was still working toward a solution.

As the program funding dwindled, both Democrats and Republicans pushed for new legislative action with proposals trying to address concerns like the ones Thune raised.

On May 31, as the program ended, President Joe Biden’s administration continued to call on Congress to take action. Meanwhile, the administration announced that more than a dozen companies — including AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast — would offer low-cost plans to ACP enrollees, and the administration said those plans could affect as many as 10 million households.

According to a survey of participants released by the Federal Communications Commission, more than two-thirds of households had inconsistent or no internet connection before enrolling in the program.

Broncho had an internet connection before the subsidy, but on this reservation in rural southeastern Idaho, where she lives, about 40% of the 200 households enrolled in the program had no internet before the subsidy.

Nationwide, about 67% of nonurban residents reported having a broadband connection at home, compared with nearly 80% of urban residents, said John Horrigan, a national expert on technology adoption and senior fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. Horrigan reviewed the data collected by a 2022 Census survey.

The FCC said on May 31 that ending the program will affect about 3.4 million rural and more than 300,000 households in tribal areas.

The end of federal subsidies for internet bills will mean “a lot of families who will have to make the tough choice not to have internet anymore,” said Amber Hastings, an AmeriCorps member serving the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes on the reservation. Some of the families Hastings enrolled had to agree to a plan to pay off past-due bills before joining the program. “So they were already in a tough spot,” Hastings said.

Matthew Rantanen, director of technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association, said the ACP was “extremely valuable.”

“Society has converted everything online. You cannot be in this society, as a societal member, and operate without a connection to broadband,” Rantanen said. Not being connected, he said, keeps Indigenous communities and someone like “Myrna at a disadvantage.”

Rantanen, who advises tribes nationwide about building broadband infrastructure on their land, said benefits from the ACP’s subsidies were twofold: They helped individuals get connected and encouraged providers to build infrastructure.

“You can guarantee a return on investment,” he said, explaining that the subsidies ensured customers could pay for internet service.

Broncho used the money she had previously budgeted for her internet bill to pay down credit card debt and a loan she took out to pay for the headstones of her mother and brother.

As the ACP’s funds ran low, the program distributed only partial subsidies. So, in May, Broncho received a bill for $46.70. In June, she expected to pay the full cost.

When asked if she would keep her internet connection without the subsidy, Broncho said, “I’m going to try.” Then she added, “I’m going to have to” even if it means taking a lesser service.

Broncho said she uses the internet for shopping, watching shows, banking, and health care.

The internet, Broncho said, is “a necessity.”

(KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Federal authorities and Boeing are trying to figure out why a 737 Max 8 experienced a rare, unsafe back-and-forth roll during flight.

The oscillating motion is known as a Dutch roll, and one characteristic described by the Federal Aviation Administration is the nose of an aircraft making a figure-eight.

There were no injuries onboard Southwest Airlines flight 746 on May 25, according to the airline and a preliminary report by the FAA. The report said the crew “regained control,” and the plane safely landed.

But the aircraft suffered “substantial” damage and the FAA classified the incident as an “accident.” The FAA report said an inspection “revealed damage to the standby PCU,” or power control unit, which controls the rudder.

It is unclear if the damaged unit led to or was a result of the roll.

The plane has not flown since landing in Oakland, California after the incident, except to move it to a Boeing facility in Washington state. Boeing did not immediately comment to CNN.

Southwest told CNN it referred the incident to the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board and is participating in and supporting the investigation.

The incident occurred almost three weeks ago and was added to a FAA database this week. There were 175 passengers and six crew onboard, according to the airline.

CNN has reached out to the NTSB. It has not said whether it is investigating the incident.

In February, the FAA required airlines flying some 737 Max 8 and similar aircraft to inspect the rudder assembly for loose or missing nut, washer and bolt. It said the flaw would prevent the pilots from controlling the rudder using foot pedals. Authorities have not said if this condition and the Dutch roll last month are related.

The-CNN-Wire & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

That’s according to a lawsuit filed Thursday claiming Apple systematically paid thousands of women less than men. It alleges that on the printer in the Apple office in Sunnyvale where Jong worked was a W-2 tax form belonging to a male colleague who did the same job she did, Jong said.

“He was being paid almost $10,000 more than me,” said Jong, a training instructor in Apple’s marketing department.

Apple, valued at $3.3 trillion in the stock market, did not respond Thursday to requests for comment.

Jong, employed at the company for more than a decade, and another long-time Apple worker, Amina Salgado, an AppleCare manager, filed the lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court against the Cupertino iPhone and app store giant. It claims Apple underpaid more than 12,000 women in its engineering, marketing, and “AppleCare” warranty departments.

Jong and Salgado are seeking class-action status and a court order awarding back pay, with 10% interest, to the thousands of current and former female employees allegedly victimized by Apple’s pay practices over the past four years.

“Apple systematically paid women lower compensation than men with similar education and experience,” the lawsuit claimed.

The legal action puts a renewed spotlight on Silicon Valley’s male-dominated technology industry. Google in 2022 agreed to pay $118 million to up to 15,500 women to settle a years-long class-action lawsuit alleging the Mountain View company discriminated against female employees. Four plaintiffs accused Google, whose most-recent diversity report shows about a third of its workforce are women, of slotting female workers into lower salary levels than men, giving women lower-paying jobs, promoting women more slowly and less frequently, and generally paying female employees less than men for similar work. Apple’s most-recent report shows a similar gender breakdown.

This week’s lawsuit against Apple alleged that until late 2017, Apple asked potential hires about their previous pay, leading the company to put women on lower starting salaries than men for the same work. Jong, hired in 2013, was offered “essentially the same base salary that she had received at her prior job,” the lawsuit said. Salgado, brought on in 2012, later complained to Apple several times that she was being paid less because of her gender, and an investigation by a third-party company Apple hired confirmed the underpayment, according to the lawsuit. Apple raised Salgado’s salary, but refused to give her back pay “for the years during which she was paid less than men,” the lawsuit claimed.

After the new law took affect, Apple pivoted to asking applicants about their salary expectations, according to the lawsuit. Research indicates people’s stated salary expectations are typically only slightly higher than their previous pay, so Apple’s use of that information to set salaries “has had the effect of perpetuating past pay disparities and paying women less than men,” the lawsuit alleged.

Because Apple is required by law to keep records of wage rates and job classifications for all its California employees, it knew, or should have known, it was underpaying women, “yet took no action to remedy the inequality,” the lawsuit claimed.

Over time the pay disparity widens for female Apple workers because raises are based on a percentage of base salary, the lawsuit charged.

Apple also pays a premium to workers it deems to have “talent,” and according to the lawsuit, “more men are identified as having talent.”

The lawsuit also seeks an order barring Apple from paying women less than men for the same work.

That was one of the assessments and recommendations from economist Christopher Thornberg during a recent presentation at the San Jose State University Economic Summit at the college’s downtown campus.

Wide-ranging efforts must be conducted to rezone existing office sites so they can be replaced by residential units, Thornberg, economist and founding partner with Beacon Economics, said.

“How do you make housing more affordable? You build more housing,” Thornberg said, urging San Jose and its neighboring suburbs to intensify efforts to rezone wide swaths of commercial properties so housing can sprout on those sites.

“You need to start taking down these office buildings and putting up apartments,” Thornberg said.

However, Thornberg said he prefers “adaptive reuse” of existing office buildings rather than projects that bulldoze office structures. Too much demolition could create “dead zones” in urban areas, he stated in a PowerPoint display that was part of his demonstration.

Thornberg also disagreed with assessments that California is locked in a doom loop characterized by an exodus of corporations and a flight of its residents to rivals such as Texas, Arizona and Florida.

“California is not dead yet,” Thornberg said. “California is doing just fine.”

The Beacon Economics co-founder asserts that the South Bay economy is also in good shape, but like California, must navigate past some hazards to remain robust.

“San Jose is still big in tech but housing and labor shortages are obstacles,” Thornberg said.

In his PowerPoint display, Thornberg listed a few observations about the South Bay economy:

— Labor and housing costs could erode the South Bay’s competitiveness.

— The South Bay needs to find ways to grow its labor pool as a way to attract entrepreneurs.

— Artificial intelligence is not by itself a game changer. AI must become integrated into the larger South Bay economy to start having an impact.

“AI is incredibly important, but AI is not going to rejuvenate the Bay Area by itself,” Thornberg said.

Tech jobs have slumped in the Bay Area since February 2020, which was the final month before state and local government agencies imposed wide-ranging business and office shutdowns to combat the spread of the coronavirus, according to estimates from Beacon Economics that Thornberg presented.

Over the approximately four years from February 2020 through April 2024, here’s how tech industry job totals changed in selected regions, according to the Beacon Economics estimates:

— South Bay tech job fell 1.3%

— East Bay slipped lower by 0.5%

— San Francisco-San Mateo metro, down 2.5%

— California, up 1.6%

— United States, up 4.5%

Some major Silicon Valley rivals posted gains in tech jobs that were double-digit increases over the same period. The Texas cities of Austin and Dallas, and the Alabama city of Huntsville all posted gains of more than 10%. Utah’s Salt Lake City and North Carolina’s Durham managed percent increases in job totals that were nearly double digits.

The boom periods of Silicon Valley’s boom-and-bust cycle have always been fueled in large measure by tech workers who are relatively new to the industry. Thornberg believes that’s why plenty of housing must be available for tech’s new workforces.

“Tech hubs are rejuvenated by young people coming into them,” Thornberg said. “Where are they going to live?”

While the South Bay economy is in good shape, Thornberg warned that the region’s housing crunch could impede future growth.

“The limited housing supply is preventing the hip new tech companies from locating here,” Thornberg said.

Despite the obstacles and difficulties, Thornberg believes the respective economies of the South Bay and California are both in good shape.

Thornberg added that a recession is not on the horizon for the South Bay, California, or nationwide. He predicted that the national economy should grow over the next year at an annual pace of 2% to 3%.

The San Jose region, Thornberg maintains, remains the globe’s primary creator of tech jobs, in Thornberg’s view.

“There is no doubt that San Jose remains a Cadillac economy,” Thornberg said. “This is still the center of the tech world.”

WASHINGTON — A handful of lawmakers say they plan to press the issue of the threat to humans posed by generative artificial intelligence after a recent bipartisan Senate report largely sidestepped the matter.

“There’s been no action taken yet, no regulatory action taken yet, at least here in the United States, that would restrict the types of actions that could lead to existential, or health, or other serious consequences,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said in an interview. “And that’s something we’d like to see happen.”

Romney joined Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Angus King, I-Maine, in April to propose a framework that would establish federal oversight of so-called frontier AI models to guard against biological, chemical, cyber and nuclear threats.

Frontier AI models include ChatGPT by OpenAI, Claude 3 by Anthropic PBC and Gemini Ultra by Google LLC, which are capable of generating human-like responses when prompted, based on training with vast quantities of data.

The lawmakers said in a document explaining their proposal that it calls for a federal agency or coordinating body that would enforce new safeguards, “which would apply to only the very largest and most advanced models.”

“Such safeguards would be reevaluated on a recurring basis to anticipate evolving threat landscapes and technology,” they said.

AI systems’ potential threats were highlighted by a group of scientists, tech industry executives and academics in a May 2023 open letter advising that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” The signatories included top executives from OpenAI, Microsoft Corp., Google, Anthropic and others.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who holds a computer science degree and was one of the signatories of that letter, said he remains concerned about the existential risks.

He said that he and Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., sought to address one aspect in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill advanced by the House Armed Services Committee last month. The provision would require a human to be in the loop on any decision involving the launch of a nuclear weapon, to prevent autonomous AI systems from causing World War III.

Lieu, co-chair of the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, said in an interview that he and others have tried to address further risks. But he and his colleagues are still trying to grasp the depths of these perils, such as AI spitting out instructions to build a better chemical or a biological weapon.

“That is an issue we’re looking at now,” Lieu said. “How you want to prevent that is a whole different sort of issue that can get very complicated, so we’re still gathering data and trying to explore.”

There are several proposals to control and supervise advanced AI systems, though none have been fast-tracked in Congress.

In August 2023, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., proposed a licensing regime for advanced AI models that would be managed by a federal agency. Companies developing such AI models would be required to register with the agency, which would have authority to audit the models and issue licenses.

Policymaking pace

Experts studying technology and policy say that Congress and federal agencies should act before tech companies turn out AI systems with even more advanced capabilities.

“Policymakers should begin to put in place today a regulatory framework to prepare for this future,” when highly capable systems are widely available around the world, Paul Scharre, executive vice president at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in a recent report. “Building an anticipatory regulatory framework is essential because of the disconnect in speeds between AI progress and the policymaking process, the difficulty in predicting the capabilities of new AI systems for specific tasks, and the speed with which AI models proliferate today, absent regulation.

“Waiting to regulate frontier AI systems until concrete harms materialize will almost certainly result in regulation being too late,” said Scharre, a former Pentagon official who helped prepare the Defense Department’s policies on the use of autonomous weapons systems.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who led a monthslong effort of briefings with dozens of tech industry executives, civil society groups and experts, last month issued a bipartisan policy road map on AI legislation.

The road map and associated material mentioned existential risks just once — it noted some participants in one briefing were “quite concerned about the possibilities for AI systems to cause severe harm,” while others were more optimistic.

The report directed various congressional committees to address legislation on AI through their normal legislative processes.

One reason the risks may be downplayed is that some in the tech industry say fears of existential risks from AI are overblown.

IBM, for example, has urged lawmakers to stay away from licensing and federal oversight for advanced AI systems.

Chris Padilla, IBM’s vice president for government and regulatory affairs, last week recounted for reporters the stance of Chief Privacy and Trust Officer Christina Montgomery, who told participants at a Schumer briefing that she didn’t think AI is an existential risk to humanity and that the U.S. doesn’t need a government licensing regime.

IBM has advocated an open-source approach, which would allow experts and developers around the world to see how AI models are designed and built and what data is ingested by them, Padilla said.

A large community of AI developers peering into algorithms that power the AI systems can potentially identify dangers and threats better than a single company scrutinizing its own product, Padilla said. That approach differs widely, however, from OpenAI and Microsoft, which uses OpenAI’s models, that are advocating proprietary AI systems that are not subject to public scrutiny.

Padilla and Daniela Combe, vice president for emerging technologies at IBM, compared the company’s open-source approach to the widespread use of Linux operating system that runs on IBM’s mainframe computers. Microsoft declined to comment on the idea.

Instead of licensing and regulatory oversight of AI models, the government should hold developers and users of AI systems legally liable for harms they cause, Padilla said. “The main way that our CEO suggested this happen is through legal liability, basically, through the courts,” he said.

Padilla spoke to reporters before as many as 100 IBM executives traveled last week to Washington to meet with lawmakers on AI legislation. IBM and its subsidiaries spent $5.6 million lobbying Congress last year on a variety of issues that included AI, according to data from OpenSecrets.org.

The issue isn’t likely to be resolved soon, as Padilla and others say legislation this year is doubtful.

At least one key lawmaker agreed. Asked whether his AI proposal is likely to turn into legislation and pass this year, Romney said it may not.

“It’s unlikely this year because we move as slow as molasses,” he said. “Particularly in an election year.”

___

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Being small and almost imperceptible is one of the many advances in modern hearing aids. They also work much better, typically come with a smartphone app and are able to stream sound, including music and spoken words, from your smartphone. And they are often a lot less expensive, thanks to a 2022 FDA rule change allowing people with mild to moderate hearing loss to purchase “over the counter” hearing aids.

When I had my hearing tested in 2021, the audiologist said I didn’t need hearing aids. But a re-test two years later showed mild to moderate loss, especially in the higher frequencies. My doctor told me that hearing aids were optional, but I decided to give them a try. Many OTC hearing aids come with a generous return policy, and I opted to go to Costco, which lets you return them for up to six months.

Get professional advice

As is probably obvious, I am not a hearing or medical expert so any advice I give is purely from my tech background. I highly recommend you consult a doctor, audiologist or a licensed hearing aid dispenser before making any decisions or purchases.

Costco is one of many places you can go for hearing aids. Many medical clinics and hearing doctor’s offices also sell them as do audiologists. You can also buy them from some drug stores, including Walgreens and CVS and online from places like Jabra.com, Hear.com, HearingDirect.com and many other sites. You can even get them from Amazon.com.

Costco hearing aids

My doctor recommended Costco and that’s where I went. Since I only tried Costco and the hearing aids I purchased from them, I am not in a position to give a comparative review. All I can report is my experience there and with the Jabra Enhance Pro 20 hearing aids I purchased there for $1,650. Costco also offers other brands, starting at $1,499. The licensed hearing aid dispenser at Costco told me that all of the brands were very similar, but I chose Jabra mainly because I knew the company offers good phone support, even though Costco offers free in-store support. Costco’s actual price varies by state and model so don’t just go by what you see on their website.

My first experience at the Costco hearing center was to take a free hearing test in a soundproof room. The test was very comprehensive, and the results were almost identical to tests taken at Stanford and Palo Alto Medical Foundation. The test confirmed mild to moderate loss, which made me a candidate for hearing aids. They had to order the hearing aids and I returned in a few weeks to have them configured.

The configuration process involved further testing and, after connecting my hearing aids via Bluetooth to his desktop computer, the technician programmed them for my hearing and usage preferences. At that point I installed the Jabra app on my phone so that I could further customize them for different situations such as restaurants, when going for walks, watching TV or listening to music or spoken word through a Bluetooth connection to my phone.

Lost, replaced and reconfigured

One nice thing about Costco is that they offer loss protection — one replacement per ear. Unfortunately, I had to take them up on that after both hearing aids fell out when I removed a KN95 mask in a parking lot. Because the hearing aids are comfortable and my hearing loss isn’t severe, I didn’t notice they fell out until 2 hours later. I returned to that parking lot and used the Jabra app to locate the one hearing aid I was able to find on the ground. I never did find the other one, but Costco did replace the one I lost at no charge. I have since learned this is a common problem, so I purchased a 10-pack of Okupan Mask Extenders/Ear Savers for $12.99 that go around the neck instead of the ear lobes.

When the replacement hearing aid arrived I they both had to be re-configured, but this time the technician did a better job by configuring the buttons on the hearing aids to give me more control over the volume and making other adjustments that improve how they work with speech and other sounds along with audio streaming from my phone.

Service matters

One of the things that I have learned from my three months of on and off hearing aid usage is that it’s not just about the hardware, but the service and the app that comes with the product. Depending on which technician you get to work with, I found Costco to be extremely helpful. I’m sure that’s also the case if you buy them from a reputable audiologist.

Some online companies, including Jabra.com, offer not just phone or video support but remote configuration support with the ability of their audiologists and technicians to remotely adjust your hearing aids. Although I’ve had questions answered by Java phone support, I haven’t had the need for remote configuration because Costco does that in-person but, wherever you get your hearing aids, do look for a vendor that offers this type of support.

Comes with an App

The Jabra Enhance Pro app, like many other heading aid apps, allows me to adjust the volume level and the left-right balance and select different programs such as noise filter, speech clarity, “all-around” for typical usage scenarios and a “hear in noise” setting for restaurants and other noisy locations. There is also a Sound Enhancer setting which allows you to adjust noise reduction and wind noise reduction as well as an equalizer that lets you adjust the bass, midrange and treble. You can also set favorites. I’ve created settings for extra bass and what I call “mild noise” for different situations.

When you stream music or voice, it automatically switches to an audio streaming mode with the option to focus primarily on streaming or “hear all” which reduces external noise reduction. The music quality is not as good as most decent earbuds or headphones but it’s very convenient to be able to privately listen to streaming audio whenever you want.  For those who are almost always wearing hearing aids during waking hours, it means you never have to worry about bringing earbuds or headphones with you. I have put my headphones over the hearring aids, which greatly enhances the audio quality for music. For podcasts, audio books and radio newscasts, streaming directly to the hearing aids are more than adequate.

Not quite “groovy“

I’m not claiming that these hearing aids make me any cooler or, as my generation used to say, “groovy”, but they are definitely not my grandfather’s hearing aids. If you hear what I’m saying.

Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist. Contact him at larry@larrymagid.com.

”Survey says” looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographic locations while noting these grades are best seen as a mix of artful interpretation and data.

Buzz: The pay gap between California’s upper and lower halves of the pay scale is larger than any other state.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at some federal jobs data for May 2023, tracking two noteworthy slices of wages by state – the 75th and 25th percentiles, or the medians of the top half and bottom half of salaries. This spread offers clues about uneven paychecks across a state.

Topline

There’s a 146% difference between what California bosses typically paid in the top half of salaries versus the bottom half. That’s the No. 1 chasm among the states and well above 108% nationally.

After California came Massachusetts and New York at 144%, then Maryland at 142%. The smallest gap was in Maine at 81%, then South Dakota at 82%, Iowa at 84%, and North Dakota at 85%.

And this measure of income inequality in California’s two big economic rivals? Texas ranked No. 8 at 128% and Florida was No. 32 at 100%.

The details

How did we get to this gap?

Well, California homes still sell (slowly), our roads are filled with new vehicles, and our shopping centers are busy because many bosses in the Golden State pay really well.

The state’s 75th percentile pay – the mid-point of the upper half – ranked No. 3 in the U.S. at $93,250 a year. Nationally, that pay is $70,035. So Golden State bosses pay 33% better for the higher-pay work.

Topping California were Massachusetts at $98,110 and Washington at $95,180. The lowest was Mississippi at $55,870, Arkansas at $58,900, and South Dakota at $59,980.

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By the way, Texas was No. 22 at $72,640 and Florida, No. 30 at $67,600.

Yet, many California jobs don’t pay well – thus the huge have-versus-have-not divide.

Wages at the 25th percentile – mid-point of the lower half – in California ranked No. 7 at $37,890 vs. $35,030 nationally. So, for the lower-salaries worker, Golden State bosses pay only 8% better than US peers.

Tops? Washington at $43,370, Massachusetts at $40,130, and Colorado at $38,830. Lows? Mississippi at $27,910, Louisiana at $28,900, and West Virginia at $29,260.

And Texas was No. 41 at $31,920 and Florida, No. 32 at $33,730.

Bottom line

Whenever you wonder who can afford California, don’t forget that some people can – as this math shows.

However, while California pay level for the upper half may seem generous – it does not go very far in the Golden State. For example, ponder those paychecks as fuel for house hunting.

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The California Association of Realtors estimated buyers needed a $208,000 household income to qualify to buy the median priced home in the spring of 2023 – when this wage data was tabulated.

That’s more than double the 75th percentile wage. Yes, a household with two jobs paying more than what three-quarters of Californians make doesn’t cut it.

And that why’s the Realtors math says only 16% of households could “afford” to buy.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

The multiyear investment aimed to close the digital divide by building the largest “middle-mile” and “last-mile” high-speed broadband internet project in the nation.

However, with the state facing a record $44.9 billion budget deficit this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to cut $2 billion for the program he previously championed.

California lawmakers must not backtrack on that commitment. We must continue this investment and reconsider a state bond, as the Legislature did in 2021, to fully fund and complete the unfinished work.

I was invited to speak at the July 2021 bill-signing ceremony of Senate Bill 156 with Newsom at Traver Joint Elementary School in rural Tulare County. The landmark package included $3.25 billion to build an open-access, state-owned “middle-mile” network, $2 billion for “last-mile” broadband connections to homes and businesses, and $750 million for a Loan Loss Reserve Fund to help local governments and nonprofits secure financing for additional broadband infrastructure.

The California Department of Technology quickly went to work to map the 10,000 miles of broadband fiber infrastructure, known as the Statewide Middle Mile Network Map, after receiving public input from across the state.

But due to inflation and increasing construction costs, the original funding would only allow the state to finish 7,800 of the promised 10,000 miles. Last August, the Department of Technology placed the remaining miles in a “Phase 2” portion of the plan, subject to future funding. Digital equity organizations soon raised alarm over the plan that delayed investments in low-income communities such as portions of South Los Angeles, East Oakland, the Central and Coachella Valleys, and even in my own county of Monterey.

In response, the Newsom administration pledged support to fully fund all 10,000 miles and placed an additional $1.5 billion into his January proposed budget. Of that $1.5 billion, $250 million would be included in the next fiscal year’s budget and the remaining $1.25 billion in the 2025-26 budget. Many saw this move as the governor keeping his pledge to get all the promised work across the finish line.

However, when Newsom’s May revision of the budget was released, the $1.5 billion was completely removed, to the dismay of many across the state. Additional broadband funding was reduced for last-mile projects and the loan loss reserve, for a total $2 billion in reductions.

This is an unacceptable regression considering that over 2 million Californians remain unconnected to the internet. Even among those with access, 15.4 million Californians are still stuck in one-provider monopolies, many of whom are from lower-income, Latino, African American, tribal and rural communities.

As if that were not compelling enough, the federal Affordable Connectivity Program that provided a $30 to $75 monthly subsidy to 2.9 million Californians ended last month, making the mission of providing universal access to high-speed broadband only more daunting.

As a former state assemblymember who served during severe budget deficits after the Great Recession, I certainly understand that this year’s budget situation is a very difficult one. But California made a promise to expand broadband for all, and we must complete the full 10,000 miles as quickly as possible and not leave unconnected and underconnected communities waiting.

Luis A. Alejo is a Monterey county supervisor, former state assemblymember and a board member of the California Middle Mile Advisory Committee and the California State Association of Counties.