Fed Ends Stimulus Program With Economy Still On Shaky Ground

Enlarge / Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, chief executive officer Novo Nordisk A/S, during an interview at the company's headquarters in Bagsvaerd, Denmark, on Monday, June 12, 2023. (credit: Getty | Carsten Snejbjerg) After some persuasion from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the CEO of Novo Nordisk will testify before lawmakers later this year on the "outrageously high cost" of the company's diabetes and weight-loss drugs—Ozempic and Wegovy—in the US. CEO Lars Jørgensen will appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), which is chaired by Sanders, in early September.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Hardware manufacturer Asus has released updates patching multiple critical vulnerabilities that allow hackers to remotely take control of a range of router models with no authentication or interaction required of end users. The most critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-3080 is an authentication bypass flaw that can allow remote attackers to log into a device without authentication.

Enlarge (credit: MirageC | Moment) US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wants to put a warning label on social media platforms, alerting young users of potential mental health harms. "It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents," Murthy wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Monday. Murthy argued that a warning label is urgently needed because the "mental health crisis among young people is an emergency," and adolescents overusing social media can increase risks of anxiety and depression and negatively impact body image.

Enlarge / For an unreleased game, Star Citizen still has some really pretty ships (credit: RSI) At this point in Star Citizen's drawn-out, 11-plus-year development cycle, we're usually reminded of the game when it hits some crowdfunding microtransaction milestone or updates its increasingly convoluted alpha development roadmap. So last week's announcement that developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) has banned over 600 cheaters from its servers is a notable reminder that some people are actually enjoying—and exploiting—the unpolished alpha version of the game. Shortly after the May release of Star Citizen's Alpha 2.23.1 update, players started noticing that they could easily make extra money by storing a freight ship, selling their cargo, and then returning to the ship to find the cargo ready to be sold a second time.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Proton, the secure-minded email and productivity suite, is becoming a nonprofit foundation, but it doesn't want you to think about it in the way you think about other notable privacy and web foundations. "We believe that if we want to bring about large-scale change, Proton can’t be billionaire-subsidized (like Signal), Google-subsidized (like Mozilla), government-subsidized (like Tor), donation-subsidized (like Wikipedia), or even speculation-subsidized (like the plethora of crypto “foundations”)," Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote in a blog post announcing the transition.

Enlarge / Apple bragged about the thinness of the M4 iPad Pro; it's apparently a template for the company's designs going forward. (credit: Apple) Though Apple has a reputation for prioritizing thinness in its hardware designs, the company has actually spent the last few years learning to embrace a little extra size and/or weight in its hardware.