Seattle Real Estate Spotlight, July 17, 2014

The ‘Oracle of Omaha’ reissued caution at the annual shareholder meeting. Warren Buffett cautioned the tens of thousands of shareholders who packed an arena for his annual meeting that artificial intelligence scams could become “the growth industry of all time.”Doubling down on his cautionary words from last year, Buffett told the throngs he recently came face to face with the downside of AI.

As workplace health and wellness programs multiply, overwhelmed employees need help connecting the dots. The cost of healthcare is reaching a breaking point. The average employer’s healthcare spending is expected to rise by 8.5% this year, well above inflation—and that doesn’t even include the costs associated with health-related absenteeism and lost productivity, estimated on their own to be north of $575 billion annually.

Wealthy non-filers are a major contributor to the country’s tax gap, the agency says. But new funding from the IRA will help change that. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) last week released an annual update on its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Strategic Operating Plan. The guide was originally published in April 2023 and outlines the agency’s plans to improve tax administration services following the passage of the IRA in 2022, which will provide the IRS with tens of billions in additional funding over the next decade.

A University of Massachusetts professor is behind the lawsuit and wants to release the browser extension. Do social media users have the right to control what they see—or don’t see—on their feeds? A lawsuit filed against Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is arguing that a federal law often used to shield internet companies from liability also allows people to use external tools to take control of their feed—even if that means shutting it off entirely.

Deepwater exploration in Namibia will be a topic of huge interest at the Offshore Technology Conference. As Big Oil returns this week to the industry’s annual showcase for offshore energy projects and equipment in Houston, deepwater discoveries off Guyana, Namibia and the U. S. Gulf Coast will take the spotlight.

Potentially contaminated nuts were shipped to distribution warehouses in four states across the South, according to the FDA. Hormel Foods Sales, LLC has issued a recall for some of its Planters nuts products due to fears that the products could be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, according to a recall notice posted on the U.