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Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success

At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)

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May 16 • 6:41 PM EDT • Politics • energymixweekender.substack.com
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EXCLUSIVE: Splitgate Developer 1047 Games is Working on a Spiritual Successor to Titanfall, Dubbed 'Empulse'

1047 Games' next game, dubbed 'Empulse,' appears to be a spiritual successor to Titanfall, Insider Gaming has learned.

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May 16 • 5:20 PM EDT • Technology • insider-gaming.com
'Pawn Stars' icon Rick Harrison says Trump tax policies change everything for small businesses

Rick Harrison of "Pawn Stars" told Fox News that workers at his Las Vegas businesses are seeing astronomical tax returns thanks to Trump's small business tax policies.

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May 16 • 4:25 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com
Colorado health officials confirm deadly hantavirus case

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — State and local health officials have confirmed a fatal case of hantavirus in Colorado. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said it is working with the Douglas County Health Department to investigate a confirmed case of hantavirus in a Douglas County adult that resulted in death. CDPHE said the […]

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May 16 • 3:23 PM EDT • Health • denvergazette.com
Research repository ArXiv will ban authors for a year if they let AI do all the work

ArXiv is doing more to crack down on the careless use of large language models in scientific papers.

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May 16 • 2:54 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com
Xabi Alonso to Chelsea: Former Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen coach agrees four-year contract to be head coach at Stamford Bridge

Xabi Alonso has been out of work since being sacked by Real Madrid earlier this year; Chelsea were looking for a permanent replacement for Liam Rosenior, who was let go after just four months in charge; Alonso had been linked with the Liverpool role but Arne Slot looks set to stay

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May 16 • 2:45 PM EDT • Sports • skysports.com
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How outbreaks at sea have been helping to shape the global health system since medieval times

Outbreaks at sea are one of the oldest problems in public health. From medieval plague quarantines to modern times, they have repeatedly tested the ability to control infectious disease – and have played a key role in shaping the international public health framework in place today.

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May 16 • 2:38 PM EDT • Health • pbs.org
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A new Ebola outbreak has already killed 87 people

Health officials are working to contain a new Ebola outbreak in the DRC of a virus strain with no known vaccine.

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May 16 • 2:37 PM EDT • Health • npr.org
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I used to email myself everything — these 5 Google Drive features fixed that

Drive features that fixed my messy workflow

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May 16 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • androidpolice.com
Nurse Practitioner Is Now the Hottest Job in Healthcare

Employers are clamoring for workers who can do doctor-like work but who are trained faster and can cost them less.

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May 16 • 12:00 PM EDT • Health • wsj.com
AI Is Forcing Businesses to Adapt. Here’s What Actually Works

Here are six ways founders can be defensive and AI-proof their revenue streams and future business growth.

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May 16 • 11:00 AM EDT • Business • inc.com
AMERICA 250: The Tavern, the Print Shop, and the Small Business Roots of America’s Founding - Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

By Karen Kerrigan – Long before America became a global economic powerhouse, local entrepreneurs and small business owners helped build the civic culture, communication networks, and spirit of independence that made our nation possible. As America marks its 250th anniversary, it is important to note that the nation’s founding was shaped not only in legislative […]

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May 16 • 10:38 AM EDT • Business • sbecouncil.org
Rich Eisen addresses NFL Network losing its schedule-release show
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May 16 • 9:45 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
A hospital worker felt healthy. Then he had 3 heart attacks in 4 days: "What have I done to myself?"

Tommy Bell thought he was in good shape. But a series of heart attacks painted a more complicated picture.

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May 16 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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The real reason exercise makes you stronger isn’t what you think

Exercise may be training your brain just as much as your body. Researchers discovered that certain brain cells stay highly active even after a workout ends, and those lingering signals appear to help the body build endurance over time. In experiments with mice, blocking these brain cells prevented improvements in stamina, even when the animals still exercised normally.

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May 16 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
After college, I failed to land a NYC job and became a barista

My dream is to live in New York City and work as a journalist, but there are no entry-level jobs, so I'm forced to be a barista. But I won't give up.

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May 16 • 7:07 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Flower business proves "life-giving" for Lily of the Valley florist

Andrea Patten started arranging and selling bouquets as Lily of the Valley Floral just for fun. But just a few months into the venture, she’s selling bouquets at a local grocery store regularly and has done special orders for holidays and events. Patten told WTIP that she’s always enjoyed working with flowers, but never saw...

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May 16 • 6:35 AM EDT • Business • wtip.org
Walmart's online grocery delivery boom is stretching store workers

A relatively small Walmart rule change caused a big stir, highlighting the tension the surging e-commerce business is creating for retail workers.

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May 16 • 5:44 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
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What CT health bills passed? Vaccines, hospitals, Medicaid rates and more

“Not increasing rates is impacting the workforce and access to care,” Rep. Jillian Gilchrest said. “The work’s not done.”

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May 16 • 5:31 AM EDT • Health • courant.com
DACA recipients are losing protections and work permits as renewal delays surge

Marco, 26, graduated from one of the country’s top medical schools last week. He found his calling after witnessing his grandmother battle cancer, and he sometimes worked up to 40 to 60 hours a week to afford his education.

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May 16 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com
World Health Organization Must Prioritize Workers, Experts Say

After Trump stopped funding the WHO, the agency retreated from occupational safety and health programs, putting millions of workers at risk as the planet warms, advocates contend. They hope its leaders change that when they meet next week.

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May 16 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • insideclimatenews.org
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New York doctor who survived Ebola says he fears for healthcare workers treating the virus
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May 15 • 11:34 PM EDT • Health • cbsnews.com
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Marc Benioff said Salesforce will spend $300M on Anthropic tokens

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he's able to work faster with AI agents and that the company is working on tech to make coding easier at Slack.

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May 15 • 11:08 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
New Hawaiian law limits corporate spending on politics, other states work to follow suit

Hawaii’s Democratic Governor on Thursday signed into law a bill to stop corporations and "dark money" groups from spending unlimited amounts of money on politics.

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May 15 • 9:06 PM EDT • Politics • ktvu.com
North Dakota launches initiative focused on suicide prevention support and training for rural healthcare providers | Health and Human Services North Dakota

North Dakota is launching a new rural healthcare suicide prevention initiative aimed at strengthening follow-up care and closing critical gaps after suicide risk is identified. The effort follows recommendations from the North Dakota Suicide Fatality Review Commission and supports the Zero Suicide framework across rural and tribal healthcare systems.The initiative will support rural and tribal healthcare providers in implementing standardized suicide risk screening, follow-up care after suicide attempts and improved referral pathways into mental health and behavioral healthcare services.

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May 15 • 9:00 PM EDT • Health • hhs.nd.gov
OpenAI Bought Company That Offered A.I. Tools for Cloning Voices

The acquisition, Weights.gg, was a sort of social network for creating and sharing artificial intelligence algorithms.

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May 15 • 8:33 PM EDT • Technology • nytimes.com
Scientists discover hidden “brakes” that stop massive earthquakes

A mysterious underwater fault near Ecuador has been producing nearly identical magnitude 6 earthquakes every five to six years, baffling scientists for decades. Researchers now believe the fault contains hidden “brake zones” where seawater and unusual rock structures work together to stop quakes from becoming even larger. The discovery came from ultra-detailed seafloor recordings that captured how the fault behaves before and after major earthquakes.

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May 15 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
BIA Business Perspective: Smart tax policy can expand our workforce and economy

By Michael Skelton

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May 15 • 8:00 PM EDT • Business • unionleader.com
The Best of Small Business in Hawaiʻi 2026

Celebrating Small Business Success! Congratulations to this year’s Best of Small Business honorees. We’re proud to recognize the work you’re doing across

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May 15 • 7:48 PM EDT • Business • hawaiibusiness.com
Disruption in Science: Threats and Opportunities

Cincinnati Children’s 2026 Research Symposium explored how AI, exposome science, and innovative pediatric research are reshaping discovery, workforce strategy, and the future of medicine.

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May 15 • 7:05 PM EDT • Science • scienceblog.cincinnatichildrens.org
Hundreds of nurses at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital in Madison working to unionize

Hundreds of nurses at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital in Madison are working to unionize.

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May 15 • 6:23 PM EDT • Health • wpr.org
US moves to end job protections for hundreds of health department workers

President Donald Trump's administration on ​Friday moved to strip U.S. ‌Department of Health and Human Services workers of civil service ​job protections, according to ​an email reviewed by Reuters.

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May 15 • 4:34 PM EDT • Health • reuters.com
Helio and You: Seasons on Earth, Mars, and Beyond

Earth has four seasons - spring, summer, fall, and winter. Other planets can experience seasons, too, but they might be wildly different from the ones that we are used to. Find out about how seasons work and what role the Sun plays in causing them.

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May 15 • 4:30 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov
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Feature: Moore ’26 Keeps Busy with Double Science Major and Music

Luke Moore ’26 came to Kansas Wesleyan on a music scholarship. He’s graduating this weekend (May 16) with a double major in Chemistry and Physics. He’s as active on the music side as he is with his science activities — he’s played the cello for 10 years, including four years at Kansas Wesleyan. It’s common, he said, for scientists and musicians to share those interests. “I’ve spoken to plenty of musicians who would have done science if they weren’t musicians, and I’ve talked to plenty of scientists who would have done music if they weren’t scientists,” Mooresaid. He played the cello in the string orchestra, which he’s done since his first year, and as a junior and senior, sang in the Philharmonic Choir as a bass. He hadn’t sung in a choir since middle schoolin Garden City, but he found he really enjoys that aspect of his college career. Also as a junior, Moore helped re-activate the STEM Club as vice president. For two years, he helped build the club’s battlebot. Last year the bot came home from battles in Kansas City in pieces, lots of pieces. This year it came home with the first-place trophy. He’s helped make frozen nitrogen ice cream at Homecoming and other events and helped organize the STEM Club’s first gingerbread house competition for the holidays. Willing to get his hands – and face – dirty for science, he encouraged fellow musicians and scientists to smash him in the face with whipped cream pies on Pi Day (March 14) as a fundraiser for the STEM Club. His capstone project involved developing a metallic organic framework (MOF) that takes a methylene blue dye out of water. “I’m proud that I was able to design this project, and I was proud that I did end up making the MOF,” Moore said. The professors and attitudes at KWU have made all this possible. “I don’t actually have time for everything,” Moore said. “I have to prioritize things. Things inevitably fall through the cracks, but it’s hard for me to choose one over the other, because I like a lot of things. And I don’t want to not do music, and I don’t want to not do science.” Moore said that Kansas Wesleyan, as a smaller university, gives students the opportunity to try things. “If I were to want to be in a music ensemble, it would probably be a bit harder in a larger school. One nice thing about this school is that everyone’s involved in something,” he said. “Professors know that you have other things going on, and they are flexible and understanding.” Moore has applied to grad schools, with an goal of earning his Ph.D. and landing at a university big enough to allow for a small research team that also gives him an opportunity to teach. He’s off to a good start. Moore is receiving the award for Outstanding Research in the Math, Physics and Computer Studies Department at Commencement this year. Story by Jean Kozubowski

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May 15 • 4:27 PM EDT • Science • kwu.edu
General Catalyst posted VC rage bait and it worked, especially on a16z

Compulsive X user Andreessen himself couldn't resist responding, many, many times.

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May 15 • 4:25 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com
Employees at some Hershey Entertainment and Resorts properties reach deal

HERSHEY, Pa. (WHTM) — Union workers at two Hershey Entertainment and Resorts properties agree on contracts, but negotiations continue as of Friday at three others, the company said. The two p…

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May 15 • 4:08 PM EDT • Entertainment • abc27.com
Sports tourism continues record-setting pace of economic impact in Huntsville

Records are made to be broken and Huntsville’s sports tourism industry is setting the pace. For the fourth straight year, local events teamed to post record-breaking economic impact numbers, according to a report released Wednesday by the Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau. And teamwork was cited as the key to the success as the […]

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May 15 • 4:00 PM EDT • Sports • huntsvillebusinessjournal.com
UnitedHealth’s AI push now includes employee tracking

UnitedHealth Group is pushing deeper into artificial intelligence—and tracking whether some employees are actually using it, Bloomberg writes. The health care giant is monitoring AI engagement among some Optum workers, including whether they make at least one daily query using tools such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot. The effort is part of a broader companywide […]

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May 15 • 3:47 PM EDT • Business • businessreport.com
WPI student graduates after 50 years in computer science

Kerry Lynn is graduating 50 years after when he was first supposed to from WPI. He got his degree in computer science when AI is taking over and making jobs for students difficult. He worked in the technology industry for years.

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May 15 • 3:39 PM EDT • Science • bostonglobe.com
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Public Health Response to Hantavirus: Key Takeaways

Learn about the hantavirus outbreak from the MV Hondius and the ongoing public health response — including the important work of state and local health departments.

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May 15 • 3:14 PM EDT • Health • astho.org
East Tennessee business to lay off more than 120 employees, move to North Carolina

The workers will be laid off effective July 13, the WARN Notice said.

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May 15 • 3:05 PM EDT • Business • wvlt.tv
Hayden Panettiere reflects on dating 30-year-old Milo Ventimiglia when she was 18, predicts her daughter will do the same

Hayden Panettiere is preparing for her 11-year-old daughter to date an older man after the actress dated her 30-year-old 'Heroes' costar Milo Ventimiglia when she was just 18.

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May 15 • 3:04 PM EDT • Entertainment • ew.com
Why Xi Took Trump Inside Zhongnanhai, China's Most Guarded Political Compound

Zhongnanhai, named after two lakes located within the compound, is not only a workplace but also the residence of China's senior leadership.

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May 15 • 2:42 PM EDT • Politics • ndtv.com
Grand jury indicts 2 petition circulators in 2024 signature-forgery case

A statewide grand jury has indicted two petition circulators on allegations that they forged signatures while gathering support for a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot. According to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the circulators — Cherell Long of Nevada and Martin Arellano of Texas — were working for a Colorado Springs–based canvassing firm […]

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May 15 • 2:41 PM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com
Santa Maria Business Expo brings public and businesses together Thursday

The Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce's 2026 Business Expo and Job Fair took place Thursday at the Santa Maria Fairpark, where attendees interacted with various business for networking and

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May 15 • 2:30 PM EDT • Business • santamariatimes.com
Dragon Nears Launch as Crew Works Biomedical Science and Spacewalk Preps

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a cargo-packed Dragon spacecraft atop, stands ready to launch to the International Space Station at 6:05 p.m. EDT today, weather permitting, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

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May 15 • 1:43 PM EDT • Science • nasa.gov
Florida city offers businesses year of free rent. How it works

Hialeah is offering businesses one year of free rent — if they're willing to move into a city-owned building.

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May 15 • 1:37 PM EDT • Business • usatoday.com
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ReHouse Architectural Salvage going out of business after 24 years

Retiring owner: ‘I feel terrible about it. But it’s a tough business and hard work.’

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May 15 • 1:02 PM EDT • Business • democratandchronicle.com
Katherine Tucker: Landrum, Business Consultant

Katherine Tucker is a business professional at Landrum, partnering with leaders across industries to strengthen organizations, support workforce strategy, and

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May 15 • 1:00 PM EDT • Business • huntsvillebusinessjournal.com
Q&A: Changing the basic conditions under which rural care is delivered

Dr. Hamad Husainy says America's rural providers are doing heroic work with outdated systems, fractured communication and too little support. Meaningful transformation is possible, he says, but will require more than new technology.

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May 15 • 11:44 AM EDT • Health • healthcareitnews.com
How a $4 Box of Crunch 'n Munch Taught Me a Lesson That's Shaped Every Startup I’ve Built

Some of the most important entrepreneurial lessons I've learned came when I was 19 working as a vendor at Fenway Park.

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May 15 • 11:27 AM EDT • Business • inc.com
Amazon shares major update on search for the next James Bond
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May 15 • 11:20 AM EDT • Entertainment • yahoo.com
How ESPN’s ‘Take Back Sports’ is Widening Access to Youth Sports | The Walt Disney Company

Learn how Disney and ESPN are working together so the next generation grows up with access to the benefits — and joy — of sports.

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May 15 • 11:10 AM EDT • Sports • thewaltdisneycompany.com
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Craig Bacon to lead U of A Department of Food Science

Having worked for Simmons Foods, Tyson Foods and Oscar Mayer, he brings an industry perspective to the university.

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May 15 • 11:10 AM EDT • Science • wattagnet.com
College to Boost Region’s Health Care Workforce with $3 Million Kenan Investment

Wake Tech is expanding the Boost student success model, a workforce development initiative designed to help students complete their degrees sooner, into nursing and other health care programs.

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May 15 • 10:57 AM EDT • Health • waketech.edu
MBAs are on sale: Business schools slash tuition by up to 50% as workers scramble to future-proof careers against AI

Save tens of thousands of dollars on an MBA while learning AI-specific skills.

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May 15 • 10:25 AM EDT • Business • finance.yahoo.com
New Report Highlights AI's Growth Role » CBIA

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming a core tool for business growth, productivity, and competitiveness.

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May 15 • 9:17 AM EDT • Business • cbia.com
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Gemini's Spark agent has leaked, and it looks like it's gunning for Claude Cowork's throne

It could clean up your messy Gmail inbox or make changes to your Google Docs.

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May 15 • 8:57 AM EDT • Technology • androidauthority.com
Detroit’s Business of Food Summit brings chefs, food leaders together

The 2026 Business of Food Summit in Detroit is free to attend and features discussion panels and networking with food industry leaders.

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May 15 • 8:55 AM EDT • Business • freep.com
Andrew Abbott leaned into some science to get his season back on track

Andrew Abbott has been working closely with the Reds biomechanics team

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May 15 • 8:31 AM EDT • Science • fox19.com
Andrew Abbott leaned into some science to get his season back on track

Andrew Abbott locked in on the stick-figure graphic of himself. The world of biomechanics is very advanced. But with Abbott going through the worst rut of his big league career, he opened up to some new ideas to get himself back on track. He asked for some help, and he leaned into some sports science. He said the stick figures made it clear, and he credits biomechanics for helping him get his season back on track. Over his last three starts, he has allowed two total runs in 17 ⅔ innings. “There’s a photo of (me) last year and the year before on a graph, and this year is in a different color,” Abbott said. “You see where you are in comparison to that. Where the hands are at this moment, where your feet are, where the knee is, where your head is at, where your shoulders are at, it breaks it all down if you want it.” When Abbott saw his mechanics in this objective way, he recognized exactly what had been going wrong. “When my tempo, my feet and my hands are aligned, then normally my mechanics are sound,” Abbott said. “And when my mechanics are sound, my stuff behaves normally. The fastball is jumpy. I’m up in velo. My extension is better.” Abbott said that he started diving more into his biomechanics in the middle of April. The Reds have a biomechanics team, which works closely with pitching coach Derek Johnson and hitting coach Chris Valaika. Leading the group is biomecahnics manager Franky Mulloy. “I laugh every day,” Francona said. “When Franky starts talking, I start laughing. I remind him to know his audience.” Francona isn’t a scientist. The Reds’ manager jokes about his own comprehension of the data. But it’s easy for him to recognize the value that the biomechanics team is providing. “That’s why we got them,” Francona said. Abbott said that he had his first big biomechanics-oriented meeting in the middle of April. Behind the scenes, there was already a lot of communication going on within the Reds’ staff. “Franky calculates all the things, builds it into these graphs, and DJ gets them,” Abbott said. “They have their internal communication. Then, we go to them and ask what about this or that. The main thing for me is arm angle.” The data shows Abbott how his arm angle evolves from start to start. He hasn’t meant to change it. But just like all of us, our posture might be different from one day to the next. Pitchers’ arm angles can make minor shifts without the pitcher or even coaches noticing. But the data can’t miss a change like that. Abbott recognized that his arm angle had been moving around without him noticing. Now, he checks in with the data to make sure that his mechanics are in sync. “They get into these cool looking graphs,” Abbott said. “I can’t really describe them. I don’t know what they are. But for me, it’s a photo of a stick figure of myself.” The stick figure of his current positioning is superimposed over previous versions of himself. With that format, Abbott can compare his mechanics on any given day to what they were when he was pitching at his very best. “It was very noticeable from the moment I saw this year as black compared to two years ago and last year, it was very, very different,” Abbott said. “I could see with my eyes without having to ask any questions about the difference in the photos.” For any pitcher, there are a lot of moving pieces in your delivery. For Abbott to be the best version of himself, he needs his head, his arm, his hand, his knee and his feet to be on the right “tempo.” “Tempo is a word I’ve used a lot,” Abbott said. “Getting everything in certain areas working together.” He has been much better at that recently. The data backs that up, and so does Abbott’s ERA. The biomechanics data has also given the Reds’ staff and Abbott some better ideas for some training that he can do between starts. He has added drills to shore up areas of his body that Abbott needed to make stronger. “They make a plan based off what they see,” Abbott said. “If things start changing, we know what to revert back to.” Overall, Abbott says that he’s not a very analytical guy. There’s so much information out there, and he says that it’s important for him to not get too analytical when he breaks down his specific pitches. He has learned the value of being “analytical about mechanics.” And the way that the Reds presented that information to him made it easier for him to make the right adjustments without being overloaded by information. “It was a very simple fix,” Abbott said. “It took a long time to finally get there, feel the results and see it. But for the most part, it was very simple to apply it.”

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May 15 • 8:29 AM EDT • Science • charlieschalkboard.substack.com
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The Need for Political Science in a Politically Turbulent World

Political science majors and professors work to continue their academic pursuits in an ever-changing political landscape.

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May 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • uncmirror.com
Inaugural Mind-Body Science and Health lecture planned

The inaugural Distinguished Lectureship in Mind-Body Science and Health will be delivered by Wendy Berry Mendes, Yale University professor of psychology, on May 28 at the Mellon Institute. Mendes will discuss “Affect Contagion: Physiologic Synchrony among Strangers and Close Others,” from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the Mellon Institute Auditorium. The lectureship is sponsored by the Pittsburgh Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine Research Network, a joint project of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, and Pitt’s Center for Mind-Body Science and Health. RSVP as soon as possible to help plan for a reception following the lecture. This is a public event. Students, post-docs, and early-stage investigators are especially encouraged to attend.

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May 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • utimes.pitt.edu
How a little-known virus on a cruise ship put the world’s health security framework to the test

When the United Kingdom notified WHO on 2 May 2026 of a cluster of severe respiratory illness cases aboard a Netherlands-flagged cruise ship in the Atlantic, passengers from 23 countries were on board. Within days, cases of hantavirus (Andes strain) had been confirmed in the Netherlands, South Africa and Switzerland. The ship was still at sea.

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May 15 • 8:00 AM EDT • Health • who.int
VIDEO: Bill in the works to lower cost of youth sports

Many families are paying about $5,000 per child to get them involved in competitive sports outside of school, according to Sen. Chris Murphy.

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May 15 • 6:39 AM EDT • Sports • wfsb.com
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Art, but Make It Sports

The creator behind the viral meme account that pairs famous artwork with sports photography is stopping at Mia for his book tour.

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May 15 • 6:20 AM EDT • Sports • mspmag.com
EY AI leader says 3 engineering roles are converging

Dan Diasio, EY's consulting CTO of Americas, said that the work of data, software, and AI engineers is overlapping much more today.

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May 15 • 5:22 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Ray Mariano: Things I miss most in today's politics

I sure do miss the time when our leaders treated people with kindness and then actually tried to work across the aisle to move our nation forward.

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May 15 • 5:06 AM EDT • Politics • telegram.com
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Silicon Valley's latest binge-watch is a humanoid warehouse worker

Figure AI's livestream of a humanoid robot sorting packages drew millions of views, and showed the promise and limits of warehouse automation.

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May 15 • 5:03 AM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
Chartbook 449: Voldemort on Threadneedle street. The Bank of England and the "haunted house" of English politics.

Imagine the scene: In some Harry Potter version of 21st-century London, a group of deathless UK Treasury officials gathered from across the last century huddle over warm pints and glasses of Chardonnay. Around the table there are officials from the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1970s, 2022 and today. Inevitably, in May 2026, the subject of conversation is the disintegration of the current Labour government. Despite its huge majority in parliament, it has been reduced to tatters by catastrophic local election result. These exposed the fact that rather than having a government with a clear popular majority, the UK is like most other modern societies divided into 5 segments each of which commands between 26 and 16 percent of the vote. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership at Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street - where the Prime Minister and the Chancellor (Treasury Secretary) work - seem paralyzed. They are caught between mounting discontent over unfairness and the cost of living, and tough fiscal strictures that push them into making unpopular spending decisions. In the London pub, the Treasury officials from across the ages, can barely hide their satisfaction at the latest display of democratic politics caught in the vice-grip of financial logic. “Remember the mur d’argent and the banker’s ramp?” “Just like yesterday!” There are smirks around the table. Then the representative of 2026 pipes up: “One thing you have to say about the current lot (referring to the latest hapless Labour government), you don’t have to teach them about the bond market!” There is a murmur of ascent from the Treasury Mandarins. The trauma of the fiscal crisis of September-October 2022 sits deep. Back then, in the final stages of Tory decay, a ‘mini budget’ that challenged fiscal orthodoxy led to a brief but fierce panic in one of the oldest government bond markets in the world (aka gilt market). Now all you have to do is to mention the “bond market” to hush debate. [ Paul Mason@paulmasonnews In the name of public service, and as ex-economics editor of BBC Newsnight, I offer to do a zoom call, tonight, with any Labour MP who wants to understand why bond markets do not "fall into line" with governments. 1/ 3:57 PM · May 12, 2026 · 466K Views 224 Replies · 674 Reposts · 3.93K Likes ](https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2054229532404519082?s=20) “And the funny thing is”, the young man in the huddle continues, “they don’t even want to talk about … ”. There is a sudden hush. Significant looks are exchanged around the table. About? One of the senior figures puts down his glass with a decisive “clink”. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has entered their thoughts. Meanwhile, a few miles away in a grubby pub in Bloomsbury, two conspirators from the camp of Critical Macrofinance huddle over cans of low-alcohol IPA. They look at each other and blurt out loud: “The Bank!” “Everyone in the bloody Labour party is talking about the bond market. But why aren’t they even mentioning … the Bank of England!?” “Why is no one talking about Voldemort?” In Paul Mason’s blogpost, after much chest-thumping about basic fiscal logic, the basic point about the Bank of England is buried in the fine print at #3 in his list of suggestions as to what a radical Labour government might actually be able to do! [ Conflict & Democracy Down with the bond market! Down with gravity! It may seem unfair to focus on Labour MP Paula Barker for her off-the-cuff assertion that the bond market would have to “fall in line” with Andy Burnham, should he replace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But Burnham himself told the New Statesman that Labour had to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets… Read more 2 days ago · 100 likes · 3 comments · Paul Mason ](https://htsf.substack.com/p/down-with-the-bond-market-down-with?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) Back in Bloomsbury they shake their heads and ask: “Didn’t we learn anything from the Eurozone crisis?” Meanwhile, as if summoned to the conversation by some higher force, the “pink pages” announce: “The days of ultra-cheap government borrowing have come to an end” and Martin “Whizzard” Wolf publishes the graph of the season Look at the UK in 2026, perilously positioned on the upper edge of the pack. No wonder no one in London needs any lessons about the “bond market”. But, look again. Imagine how they feel in Rome. What is London’s nightmare in 2026? The nightmare is that you end up like Italy in the early 2010s during the Eurozone crisis. Once comfortably situated in the middle of the pack, watching with horror as your ten-year yields explode to 7 percent and “spreads” become a national nightmare. One of the largest economies in Europe, a founding member of the euro, stigmatized. But the message of the Italian experience is ambiguous. After all, the stigma didn’t last. In 2026, Italy borrows at rates lower not only than the UK but the US. The US, which, as everyone knows, enjoys the “exorbitant privilege” of being the issuer of reserve, safe asets. What kind of magic is this? How did Italy, in the space of fifteen years, go from being good, to bad and back again? Which brings us back to our dissident friends in their Bloombury boozer and their memories of the Eurozone crisis. Italy never was Britain - with its ongoing fiscal deficits. Without interest payments, on primary balance, from 2000 to 2020 Italy ran a tight fiscal ship. Even in 2008 it barely went into deficit and when it was being put on the rack in the early 20210s its primary surplus matched that of austere Germany. So, what happened? How did it end up stigmatized? Of course Italian politics didn’t help. Berlusconi was at the helm and he had legal issues. But amongst friends in the Bloomsbury pub, Berlusconi is a sideshow, the name we whisper to each other is “Trichet”. From 2004 to 2011 the ECB was headed by Jean-Claude Trichet, ex of the French Treasury, more German than the Germans. After 2009 as the news of the Greek fiscal disaster broke, the European bond markets wento into panic mode and Trichet began a brutal game of cat and mouse. Between 2009 and 2011, Trichet intervened in the bond market to help, only when he thought he had compliance with austerity. When he thought they were uncooperative, he withdrew. In the summer of 2011, he even made direct suggestions to his Italian counterparts in Rome, as to how Italy should be governed. It was this cat and mouse game that drove the bond markets crazy and exposed Italy to a violent squeeze. When Mario Draghi took over the ECB at the end of 2011 and declared “whatever it takes”, the pressure on Italy, gradually eased. It is that starring role that has made Draghi into the towering figure in European politics that he remains today. So now you see why voices in London hush when it comes to the Bank of England. “The bond market” isn’t an irresistible objective force like the weather or an avalanche. It can appear like that. But that depends on the way it is being handled, or not handled by the central bank. Which is why the silence about the Bank of England in London right now is so significant. If you think this all sounds a bit fishy, coming from a left-liberal Keynesian like myself, well, let me introduce you to Robin Brooks, who, to put it mildly, plays on a different quidditch team to me. Here, from the position of a fiscal hawk is Robin’s celebratory account of the Bank of England’s role since 2022; In October 2022, at the height of the bond market blow-up in the UK, something incredible happened. Governor Andrew Bailey told British pension funds the Bank of England would end its support program for the country’s fragile gilt market, drawing a line under how much help the central bank was willing to give to exposed pension funds and - implicitly - the government. By the end of that week, Kwasi Kwarteng - the finance minister - had resigned. Prime Minister Liz Truss would soon follow. This episode is so incredible because it contrasts with what happened in the Euro zone earlier that year. Bond markets in Spain and Italy were under pressure amid high inflation and rising interest rates. In the middle of this, Mario Draghi - Italy’s Prime Minister - resigned, compounding pressure on bond markets of high-debt countries on the Euro periphery. Unlike the Bank of England, the ECB caved. It bought Italian and Spanish government bonds in an effort to cap yields and introduced a new tool that signaled to markets it might do such caps more frequently going forward. Faced with pressure on bond markets, the ECB capitulated to political pressure from high-debt countries like Italy and Spain. The Bank of England stood its ground and toppled the Truss government. This kind of thing has long-lasting consequences. It means markets price a higher probability of yield caps in the Euro zone, which keeps Italian and Spanish yields artificially low, while markets feel free to push up UK yields without fear of central bank intervention. As I flagged in yesterday’s post, this means you really can’t compare UK yields to those of other high-debt countries. The UK looks worse, but only because its central bank isn’t interfering with markets. There’s more to this than just that 2022 episode. The Bank of England has also been much more aggressive in its quantitative tightening (QT) than other central banks. If one motivation for quantitative easing (QE) is to lower bond yields - especially longer-dated ones - then it stands to reason QT pushes yields up. The left chart above shows a four-quarter moving average of UK government debt issuance (black line) in percent of GDP and which sectors absorb this issuance, including the Bank of England (blue bars). The right chart above compares the Bank of England’s accumulation or run-off of government bonds (blue line) with that of other central banks, where this blue line is the same as the blue bars in the left chart. The Bank of England was quicker and more aggressive than other central banks in downsizing its bond holdings, so UK yields will have risen more than elsewhere also for this reason, not just because of Governor Andrew Bailey’s remarks in October 2022. Back in October 2025, after a conversation in New York with friends in British politics, my sense of dysphoria was such that I raised the issue of the Bank of England openly in the FT Since 2008, the UK has slid into a deep economic and political predicament. Growth has stagnated to a degree far worse even than in the 1970s. The Tory leadership’s wager on the Brexit referendum spectacularly backfired, leaving the UK isolated from Europe and at the mercy of its special relationship with the US, many of whose political class regard the UK as a basket case. After years of austerity, the Labour party lurched to the left and then back to the centre. The Tory party has been eclipsed by the populist nationalism of Reform. Any British government should be worrying first and foremost about how to restart growth. Instead, Keir Starmer is beset by shades of the gilt market panic triggered by the Liz Truss government in 2022. The debt level is higher than in recent years, but there is no cause for panic. UK debt is at far from critical levels and of long duration. Whether you want to “take back control” or launch progressive economic policy, a democracy dogged by fear of bond market vigilantes is unhealthy. In a country that is a monetary sovereign, this climate points to one thing: a disconnect between the government and the central bank. Since 1997, the independence of the Bank of England has become a sacred cow. But independence is what you make of it. And in the wake of the gilt market crisis of September 2022, relations between the Bank of England and the UK government need a reset. In normal times, there is no doubt that an inflation-targeting independent central bank can serve a country well. But since 2008, the UK and other advanced economies have not had the luxury of such simple problems. To their credit, central bankers around the world have not stood on orthodoxy. After 2008, the US Federal Reserve rescued the global banking system and, through quantitative easing, it stabilised the Treasury market in the face of huge deficits. In Europe, things were trickier. Both the Bank of England under Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet’s European Central Bank played cat and mouse with national governments. This was a high stakes wager that between 2010 and 2012 escalated bond market tension and triggered a disastrous turn to austerity. Shaken by the impact of those shocks, their successors, Mark Carney and Mario Draghi adopted a more protective stance (assuming you were not the government of Greece). Recall that Draghi’s legendary slogan, “Whatever it takes”, was uttered to face down the City of London’s bond vigilantes. In 2015, Draghi launched QE — financial repression by another name. In 2016, Carney used the authority of the Bank of England to stabilise markets following the vote for Brexit, an exemplary demonstration of how central banks can underpin democratic choice, even when those choices are wrong headed. All these were independent central bankers steeped in the best practice of the 1990s, who recognised that historic crises demanded radical action. It was the price surge of 2021-2023 that poisoned the atmosphere. Though the shock came mainly from the supply side, central banks ended up in the dock. Nowhere more so than in the UK. The Bank of England reacted with aggressive normalisation. Faced with a cost of living crisis, the governor called for workers to accept real wage cuts. In early 2022, as gas prices were at record levels and Russia’s army was poised to invade Ukraine, the Bank adopted a stringent programme of quantitative tightening, elevating interest rates. When the Truss government got itself in trouble, the Bank took almost a week to come to the rescue. Rather than enacting a charade of normality, it is time to recognise that in 2025 the UK faces a period of historic transition. To meet this challenge, what is needed is a new concordat with the Bank. This should not ignore inflationary pressures or the long-run trajectory of debt, but should affirm the priority of reviving investment-led growth. One could follow Donald Trump in demanding interest rate cuts. The Bank could shadow the ECB in its commitment to capping Eurozone yields. But the top priority should be to lay the ghost of September 2022. The Bank’s slowing of QT last month was a concession. An immediate and complete end would send the right signal. Such a concordat will not by itself restore sanity to politics, solve the housing problem or rebuild the NHS. But it would help to lift the fear of bond market crisis, which is paralysing the effort by democratic politicians to answer the fundamental questions facing the nation. Now, that call for a new concordat between government and Bank of Englands seems more urgent than ever. The problem is that in October 2025, Starmer still had some authority. Today the government is in tatters. And when you are the “under the harrow” - to echo a phrase of Montagu Norman’s from the 1920s - it is the worst possible time to consider institutional change. To make general arguments at a time of crisis can only seem like special pleading rather than a general argument for long-term change. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the other basic institutional reform that Britain urgently needs i.e. the abolition of the out-dated first past the post electoral system and its replacement by a moderated form of proportional representation. And thirdly - whilst we are saying the quiet parts out loud - Britain needs to reopen the question of EU membership. What the local election results of 2026 show is that this remains a key issue. And what they also show is that there is a clear majority that would favor a return. Until these basic features of Britain’s political economy are addressed the country will carry on its politics as though in a haunted house, governed by governments that lack actual majorities, conjuring up false constraints whilst ignoring the real ones. This one is for DG and MI. I love writing the newsletter. If you enjoy it too and fancy buying me a coffee once a month, you know what to do. Click below! Subscribe

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May 15 • 3:04 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com
A chemical found in fish could help reinvent your sunscreen

It’s been over 25 years since the FDA approved a new ingredient for sunscreen in the United States. But a molecule called gadusol found in fish and coral reefs is a promising candidate. It absorbs U.V. rays — acting like a built-in sunscreen for fish. But there’s a big hurdle if scientists want to turn gadusol into human sunscreen: They’d need to make a lot of it. A new study out this week in the journal Trends in Biotechnology takes us a big step closer. Their solution? Using the bacteria best known for making your stomach hurt: e. Coli. Interested in more science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

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May 15 • 3:00 AM EDT • Science • npr.org
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Exploring the heavens: Vatican Observatory brings science to students - The Leaven Catholic Newspaper

“It was really eye-opening to see all of the work that is being done at the Vatican in terms of science and research.”

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May 15 • 1:01 AM EDT • Science • theleaven.org
California Academy of Sciences chief Scott Sampson resigns

The departure follows layoffs of 53 workers earlier this year at the Golden Gate Park museum.

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May 14 • 9:47 PM EDT • Science • sfstandard.com
Two Johns Hopkins researchers elected to National Academy of Sciences

Ulrich Mueller, Erika Pearce recognized for their groundbreaking work on hearing loss and immune metabolism, respectively

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May 14 • 9:05 PM EDT • Science • hub.jhu.edu
Business of law: case studies

Examples of the most innovative work and legal services for clients in the Asia-Pacific region

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May 14 • 8:00 PM EDT • Business • ft.com
2026 Observer Sports All-Commencement teams

Jeremiyah Love and Hannah Hidalgo take home Athlete of the Year honors to lead the All-Commencement teams.

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May 14 • 8:00 PM EDT • Sports • ndsmcobserver.com
FOX NFL’s Loaded 2026 Regular Season Schedule Features Most Windows of Any Network

FOX NFL’s Loaded 2026 Regular Season Schedule Features Most Windows of Any Network

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May 14 • 7:59 PM EDT • Sports • foxsports.com
KTIV launches Matrix Midwest sports network

Matrix Midwest, a sports network launched by Gray Media, will debut Friday, May 15, on channel 4.7.

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May 14 • 7:50 PM EDT • Sports • ktiv.com
Georgia woman works through injuries as health insurance costs soar

This story is available through The Current GA. Carry Smith yawned as she fastened the driver’s side seat belt in her 2002 Toyota Sequoia. On a Sunday in early May, Smith headed to one of her four part-time jobs in Chatham County, part of her seven-day work week. Two years earlier, Smith suffered life-threatening injuries […]

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May 14 • 7:36 PM EDT • Health • georgiarecorder.com
Apple's iPhone 18 Modem Switch Comes With a Quiet Privacy Benefit

Rumors suggest Apple plans to expand Apple-designed modems to the entire iPhone 18 lineup, ending support for Qualcomm modems. The transition will bring speed and efficiency improvements, along with a little-known privacy benefit. In iOS 26.3, Apple added a Limit Precise Location setting that cuts down on the amount of location data that's available to mobile networks, improving user privacy.

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May 14 • 7:23 PM EDT • Technology • macrumors.com
Business owner runs antique empire 30 years after 'retirement' along I-80

Miriam Simpson did office work for 30 years. When she retired, she and her husband built the Platte Valley Antique Mall, so she could pursue her passions.

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May 14 • 6:37 PM EDT • Business • 1011now.com
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Business resistance forming to Allegheny County’s paid parental leave proposal

A proposal by Allegheny County health officials to mandate 18 weeks of paid parental leave would increase time off for many working mothers and fathers in the county, but some business owners and their representatives argue it would come at too great a cost. The Allegheny County Board of Health

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May 14 • 5:19 PM EDT • Business • triblive.com
OpenAI says Codex is coming to your phone

The update gives users enhanced flexibility over how they can manage their workflows.

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May 14 • 4:58 PM EDT • Technology • techcrunch.com
Governors’ Policy Actions in Rural Health Workforce

Rural Health Transformation Program Insights (Download) Governors play a critical role in shaping the health workforce, using levers such as budget proposals, executive authority, and cross-agency coordination to recruit, train, and regulate workers. States face workforce shortages, particularly in rural areas, which reduce access to healthcare, impact health outcomes and harm local economies. The Health […]

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May 14 • 4:41 PM EDT • Health • nga.org
Opportunities at SWCTE: health science students are filling the gap

Working with 36 local businesses, SWCTE's health science students are getting professional experience.

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May 14 • 4:31 PM EDT • Science • thedickinsonpress.com
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Great Lakes Sports & Entertainment Network to air Loons games this weekend

Fans can tune into the new Great Lakes Sports & Entertainment Network on Friday, May 15, Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17 to watch the three final games of the series.

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May 14 • 3:22 PM EDT • Sports • wnem.com
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Great Lakes Sports & Entertainment Network to air Loons games this weekend

Fans can tune into the new Great Lakes Sports & Entertainment Network on Friday, May 15, Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17 to watch the three final games of the series.

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May 14 • 3:22 PM EDT • Entertainment • wnem.com
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Google launches a gorgeous new landing page for the upcoming Googlebook

The dust is just beginning to settle from The Android Show and the massive Googlebook announcement, and Google is beginning the work of building hype for the fall hardware launch. If you were...

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May 14 • 3:17 PM EDT • Technology • chromeunboxed.com
Great Lakes Sports & Entertainment Network to air Loons games this weekend

The Great Lakes Loons will play the West Michigan Whitecaps at Dow Diamond Thursday through Sunday, and there’s a new way to watch.

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May 14 • 3:14 PM EDT • Entertainment • wnem.com
Great Lakes Sports & Entertainment Network to air Loons games this weekend

The Great Lakes Loons will play the West Michigan Whitecaps at Dow Diamond Thursday through Sunday, and there’s a new way to watch.

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May 14 • 3:14 PM EDT • Sports • wnem.com
Employee misconduct is becoming harder for companies to ignore

Rising workplace misconduct is becoming a growing concern for employers, with new research suggesting the problem may be rooted in shifting attitudes toward ethics and accountability, Inc. writes. A U.K. fraud prevention survey found notable tolerance for behaviors like expense fraud, moonlighting for competitors and even selling company login credentials, while a separate U.S. survey […]

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May 14 • 2:53 PM EDT • Business • businessreport.com
New Hartford Fireworks Return in July

The Town of New Hartford will celebrate Independence Day weekend with a fireworks display for the first time in more than 20 years.

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May 14 • 2:39 PM EDT • Entertainment • wktv.com
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Senate passes John Kennedy resolution to halt senators’ pay during government shutdowns

The resolution follows several lengthy shutdown that left federal workers without pay for weeks.

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May 14 • 2:35 PM EDT • Politics • nola.com
Zero-day exploit completely defeats default Windows 11 BitLocker protections

It's not entirely clear how the exploit works. Microsoft says it's investigating.

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May 14 • 2:32 PM EDT • Technology • arstechnica.com
Claude For Small Business Shows Where White-Collar AI Is Heading

Claude for Small Business is another sign that the AI market is moving toward AI and agents embedded in systems focused on serving the needs of daily work.

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May 14 • 2:21 PM EDT • Business • forbes.com
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South Korea’s Antitrust Agency Raids Petrochemical Firms in Price-Fixing Probe

South Korea’s competition regulator has begun on-site inspections at four of the country’s leading petrochemical companies as part of an investigation

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May 14 • 2:20 PM EDT • Business • pymnts.com
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‘Gemini Spark’ is Google’s upcoming AI agent in the Gemini app

In the ramp up to I/O 2026, Google has been working on adding a more advanced agent. It now looks like it will be branded as “Gemini Spark.”

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May 14 • 1:21 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5google.com
When Businesspeople Run Government, the Government Doesn't Become a Business

Central planning from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump, and others reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes private markets work.

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May 14 • 1:10 PM EDT • Business • yahoo.com
WV-based business reaches millions of new customers overseas with Coupang

J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works produces salt from ancient underground reservoir J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, a 14-employee family business in Malden, West Virginia that produces signature culinary salts, is expanding internationally for the first time by selling its products in Asia through Coupang, a U.S.-based technology company and international retailer. Nancy Bruns, a descendant of the original family […]

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May 14 • 12:58 PM EDT • Business • aboutcoupang.com
Evaluating the Business Case for AI in Patent Practice

Legal organizations that treat AI as a capital allocation, workflow design, and practice-management discipline will be positioned to generate real advantage.

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May 14 • 12:15 PM EDT • Business • ipwatchdog.com