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A medical advocacy group on Tuesday sued the main U.S. health agencies over the sudden removal of websites containing public health information in response to an executive order by President Donald Trump targeting what his administration deemed to be “gender ideology extremism.” Doctors for America said in the lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., federal court, that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed “numerous” longstanding websites since the order. Those include a page on behavioral health risks among youth, which the lawsuit says is important for understanding health challenges faced by young people, including bullying and vaping; pages with data on the prevalence of HIV and associated risky behaviors; and a page on getting tested for HIV, which the lawsuit called “an important communication tool for physicians.” The liberal-leaning group also said in its lawsuit that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has removed pages recommending the inclusion of more women and underrepresented groups in clinical trials. “The removal of this information deprives researchers of access to information that is necessary for treating patients, for developing clinical studies that produce results that accurately reflect the effects treatments will have in clinical practice, and for developing practices and policies that protect the health of vulnerable populations and the country as a whole,” the lawsuit said. Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order on his first day back in office that the United States will recognize two sexes, male and female. On Jan. 29, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a memorandum instructing agencies to take down any public-facing materials that promote what they deem to be “gender ideology.” Tuesday’s lawsuit names the CDC, FDA, and their parent agency the Department of Health and Human Services as defendants. It asks the court to rule that OPM’s memorandum exceeded the agency’s authority and to order the websites to be put back online. HHS and the CDC declined to comment. The FDA and OPM did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Doctors for America was cofounded in 2008 by Vivek Murthy, who served as U.S. Surgeon General under Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden; Mandy Cohen, who served as CDC director under Biden; and Alice Chen, now a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles medical school. Brendan Pierson, Reuters
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E-Commerce
In the run-up to this weekend’s Super Bowl in New Orleans, fans couldn’t be more excited to see the Philadelphia Eagles face off against the Kansas City Chiefs, as the latter attempts to make Super Bowl history as the first team to win the championship three times in a row. With advertising prices hitting all-time highs, and an exciting halftime show featuring recent Grammy winner Kendrick Lamar scheduled, why are ticket sales plummeting? That’s right: Ticket prices for Super Bowl LIX are down 30% over this past week, or around 50% cheaper than last year. Currently, the cheapest seats are selling for somewhere between $3,057 to $4,300 before taxes on the secondary market, compared to a year ago, when they were selling for $9,365 on the secondary market. Here are the current ticket prices as of Monday night, according to USA Today: StubHub: $3,057 ($4,130 with fees) TickPick: $4,300 all-in SeatGeek: $3,414 ($4,620 with fees) Gametime: $3,374 ($4,527 with fees) Ticketmaster: $3,330 ($4,001 with fees) TicketSmarter: $3,613 ($4,697 with fees) Vivid Seats: $3,228 ($4,454 with fees) There are a few possible reasons for the low ticket sales. For one, New Orleans may not have the same pull for fans who wanted to party in Las Vegas last year when the Chiefs faced the San Francisco 49ers. Another reason is that New Orleans’s Caesars Superdome stadium has a lot more seats (74,000) than Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium (65,000), making last year’s seats harder to come by, and a result, more pricey (call it simple supply and demand). Finally, New Orleans is still reeling from last month’s terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured at least 35, when a man plowed his pickup truck into a crowd and opened fire. In response, local officials have created an enhanced security zone along Bourbon Street, and are shutting down and limiting traffic on roads near the stadium and cordoning off the area surrounding the Superdome. And according to NFL chief security officer Cathy Lanier, thousands of state, federal, and local law enforcement officers will be on the ground during the Super Bowl, the Associated Press reported.
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E-Commerce
The new year isnt getting off to a great start when it comes to employment in the tech industry. Tech giant Salesforce is reportedly getting ready to cut 1,000 roles at the company. The expected job cuts are just the latest in a line of layoffs already initiated by well-known companies in the technology sector, including Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Heres what you need to know. Salesforce to reportedly lay off over 1,000 employees Today, Bloomberg reported that Salesforce, the world’s top customer-relationship-management software company, will be cutting more than 1,000 positions at the company. The news came from an unnamed source and was not an official announcement from Salesforce. Nothing is known about which departments will be hit hardest by the cuts. However, a Bloomberg source said that any displaced workers will be allowed to apply for other positions at the company. We’ve reached out to Salesforce for comment. Its also worth noting that these cuts arent a net job reduction at Salesforce, as the company is also currently actively hiring salespeople to promote its AI offerings to customers. Salesforce reported having 73,000 employees as of January 2024, which means that a reduction of 1,000 personnel equates to fewer than 1% of its workforce. Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and more cut jobs Despite being fewer than seven weeks into the new year, many major tech companies have already announced plans to reduce their workforce in 2025. In mid-January, Facebook parent Meta Platforms announced it would cut about 5% of its 72,000-person workforce. A 5% reduction in staff equates to about 3,600 people, noted Bloomberg. Announcing the cuts in an internal memo, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, Ive decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster. Last month, Microsoft also laid off workers it deemed low performers, Business Insider reported. It’s unknown how many employees at the Redmond, Washington, company would lose their roles. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment. And Amazon in January also announced it would eliminate staff, Bloomberg reported, with dozens in its communications department being targeted. And its not just the big tech giants. Smaller tech companies have also announced layoffs since the new year began. Those companies include payments platform Stripe, which is eliminating 300 positions, and Placer.ai, the Israeli location analytics firm, which is laying off 150 workers. A repeat of 2022-2024? The large number of high-profile tech companies that have announced layoffs in the early days of 2025 has understandably given rise to anxieties of those in the industry who lived through the massive job cuts implemented by the industry between 2022 and 2024, when hundreds of thousands of tech workers lost their jobs. What workers now want to know is if 2025 will be a repeat of those years. At this point, thats impossible to answer. However, the 2022-2024 period of mass tech industry layoffs was generally spurred by overhiring during the pandemic years when many tech companies saw a rapid uptick in users and customers. In 2025, the greatest threats of job layoffs dont come from pandemic-induced overhiring as much as they do from the rising specter of AI and its ability to replace human workers. It remains to be seen whether AI will pose a serious risk to tech industry jobs this year. As for layoffs in the tech industry, layoffs tracking site Layoffs.fyi says that so far in 2025, 31 tech companies have laid off just over 7,000 employees. That compares to the 152,000 employees laid off across various companies in 2024 and the 264,000 and 165,000 laid off in 2023 and 2022, respectively.
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E-Commerce
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