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Revolut and other banking apps go down as Google Cloud suffers outage
Google Cloud is experiencing service disruptions in London, along with multiple banking apps including Revolut.
Oil up nearly 1% as US and Iran trade fresh strikes
Oil prices rose nearly 1% in early trade on Wednesday, extending the previous session's surge, as concerns over supply disruption intensified after the U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes overnight, dimming hopes for a quick easing of tensions in the Middle East.
Geopolitical disruption is moving faster than insurance programs
As clients reroute supply chains and change suppliers, coverage gaps are widening
Influencers, weed and disruptions stir controversy at U.S. Open
Social media influencers and other spectators are stirring controversy at this year’s U.S. Open, with viral videos, bright lights and other distractions prompting complaints from tennis fans and some of the sport’s biggest stars. The debate intensified during Naomi Osaka’s first-round match against Anastasia Zakharova, when people in a courtside suite were seen filming themselves […]
Federal science funding cuts push young U.S. researchers to consider moving abroad
Abrupt cuts to federal science funding are threatening the American research workforce. A new survey indicates that early career scientists face severe professional disruptions, pushing many to consider leaving the country or abandoning research entirely.
Somalis rethink trade routes as Houthis disrupt established shipping channels
Somali businesses are seeking alternative shipping routes due to disruptions and security concerns around the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Strait of Hormuz after Iran-backed Houthis captured a key port city and an island, sending thousands of Yemenis fleeing to...
Patriots scouting report: Christian Barmore is disruption personified
Previewing the Patriots defensive tackle heading into his sixth NFL season.
The big questions about who’s to blame for Starshield disruptions in Ukraine
So, who slowed down a crucial satellite communications system used by Ukraine, making the country more vulnerable to Russian attacks in recent days?
A Portland CPA on why community infrastructure is economic infrastructure
Portland is changing. Our population is aging, the cost of living continues to put pressure on families, and extreme weather and other disruptions are making resilience an increasingly important consideration for businesses and residents alike. These trends all raise the same question: Are we investing in the community infrastructure Portland needs?
Downtown Augusta businesses brace for more construction disruption
Another disruptive phase of Broad Street construction has begun, potentially affecting businesses that have been dealing with headaches for months.
At BRICS, India’s Modi warns geopolitical tensions and supply chain shocks threaten global stability
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned that rising geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions and climate crises are affecting people worldwide.
Health Policy Watch: African Union pushes for greater domestic spending on health amid reports of huge disruptions to HIV and TB services
The African Union held a special health summit on 21-22 July, primarily aimed at mobilising high-level political support for more domestic health spending.
Airbus probes A321neo flaw as repair plan eases disruption
Airbus and Italy's Leonardo are investigating a glitch at a privately held coatings firm that triggered a quality alert affecting 500 of the planemaker's best-selling A321neo jets, people familiar with the matter said.
Ukraine: Critical health supplies destroyed in ongoing Russian attacks
Ongoing and deadly Russian attacks across Ukraine are causing serious healthcare disruption, with more than $1.5 million-worth of medicines and supplies destroyed in four separate strikes on warehouses used by the UN there since July.
Martin Odegaard Praises Arsenal Fans After Naples Travel Chaos
Martin Odegaard thanked Arsenal's travelling fans after they helped make themselves heard in Naples despite widespread disruption to flights from the UK.
Health Officials: DOGE Disruptions Upended $112 Million Epidemiology Contract
The NIH gave a no-bid extension to a health care company after DOGE scrambled plans for open competition.
‘A lack of respect’: Repeated vandalism, disruptions from teens frustrate Canonsburg business owners
Business owners along Pike Street in Canonsburg say they are frustrated by what they describe as a growing problem involving a group of young teens.
Livingston residents, local business voice concerns about film production disruptions
Livingston residents and local businesses are voicing concerns after a film production crew recently took over downtown.While the movie is bringing revenue to t
Is Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MLCO) Undervalued Following Its REM Hotel Opening And Buyback?
Texas Capital Securities has zeroed in on Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MLCO) after highlighting drivers such as the REM hotel completion at City of Dreams Macau and a larger share repurchase program. Recent trading shows mixed momentum for Melco Resorts & Entertainment, with a 1-day share price return of 2.86% and a 7-day gain of 3.60%. These gains are offset by a 30-day share price decline of 6.90% and a 90-day drop of 20.73%, as the market weighs the impact of property disruptions against...
Business Uncertainty Drives Changes in C-Suite Strategy: Sentry
Economic uncertainty—fueled by shifting trade policies, geopolitical instability, and operational disruptions—is driving leaders to rethink planning, risk management, and long-term strategy, according to new research from Sentry Insurance. New data from a survey of more than 600 executives reveals that C-suite confidence has fallen sharply since the start of 2026, with 82% of U.S. executives … Continued
Super Fair is open at World Wide Technology Raceway
For the first time, Kessel Entertainment brings its Super Fair to the St. Louis area. Festivities at World Wide Technology Raceway kicked off Saturday with storm clouds causing minor disruption. Neverth
Tom Brady owns up to awkward FOX Sports mistake during Eagles-Rams broadcast
During a FOX Sports NFL broadcast, Tom Brady accidentally muted his own headset by dropping a research board on his talkback button, causing a brief communication disruption in the booth.
Business Group on Health taps BioRadar to boost workforce readiness for emerging threats
Biological threat intelligence is increasingly becoming a workforce and business issue, not just a public health concern. | Biological threat intelligence is increasingly becoming a workforce and business issue, not just a public health concern. Emerging threats—infectious disease outbreaks, pandemics and potential bioterrorism events—can cause workforce and operational disruptions.
Island businesses hit by ferry disruption to share £3m support package
CalMac's west coast ferry network was badly disrupted by breakdowns earlier this year.
Ranking Members Markey, Velázquez, American Small Businesses Fight Back Against Trump SBA’s Discriminatory Anti-Immigrant Lending Policies
More than 120 small businesses and organizations pen letter of support for Ranking Member Markey’s resolution striking down Trump’s ban on awarding SBA loans to green card holders Letter (PDF) (Washington, September 15) – Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today garnered additional support from Main Street small businesses for his Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to rescind the Trump administration’s discriminatory policy that bans green card holders from accessing essential Small Business Administration (SBA) loans. In a letter of support, more than 120 American small businesses and community organizations, led by Small Business Majority, applauded Ranking Member Markey’s efforts to overturn the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant lending ban and advocated for the passage of Ranking Member Markey’s CRA resolution in the Senate. House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY-7) is leading the resolution in the House of Representatives. The Trump administration’s green card holder ban is the most recent escalation of SBA’s draconian citizenship restrictions that are killing jobs and putting the American Dream further out of reach for entrepreneurs. In Fiscal Year 2025, Trump’s SBA made an estimated $5.5 billion in loans to green card holders, which supported more than 80,000 jobs nationwide. “The Trump administration’s continued attacks on American small businesses and jobs are anti-American, they’re discriminatory, and they’re dragging down our communities and our economy. Thanks to partners like Small Business Majority, countless small businesses, and community organizations, we are fighting back and holding them accountable,” said Ranking Member Markey. “I will not stop fighting to rescind this hateful policy that attacks American entrepreneurs and prevents them from pursuing the American Dream.” “Small businesses and organizations across the country are sending a clear message that the Trump administration's discriminatory lending rules are bad for business,” said Ranking Member Velázquez. “I want to thank Small Business Majority for leading this effort and amplifying the voices of the entrepreneurs who create jobs and strengthen our local economies. As Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, I will keep pushing to stop these attacks on the American Dream and ensure that every eligible entrepreneur can access the capital they need to succeed.” In the letter, the small businesses write, “Congress must reaffirm its commitment to serving those who are rightfully and legally entitled to accessing key government guaranteed loan programs in pursuit of the American Dream. Restoring access to responsible, government-guaranteed loans for such a critical segment of our economy will allow thousands of small businesses to access the capital they require to grow and invest in American communities. If Congress does not act to protect access to the very ideals that our country was founded upon by rewarding those who adhere strictly to legal immigration pathways, local economies, communities and Main Street will pay the price.” Ranking Member Markey’s CRA resolution follows his introduction of the Investing in the American Dream Act alongside Ranking Member Velázquez earlier this year. The Investing in the American Dream Act would roll back the SBA’s draconian lending restrictions and restore previous SBA lending policies for immigrant entrepreneurs lawfully in the U.S., including green card holders, refugees, and asylees. More than 100 organizations have called for the passage of the legislation and more than 60 Massachusetts state legislators have raised concerns about the impact of the citizenship restrictions in their local communities. Ranking Member Markey is fighting for small business owners and immigrants that rely on SBA loans to start and run their businesses, create jobs, and contribute to their communities. In July, Ranking Member Markey and Ranking Member Velázquez introduced a bicameral resolution to rescind the Trump administration’s policy that bans green card holders from accessing essential SBA loans to start and grow their businesses and invest in Main Streets nationwide. In May, Ranking Member Markey highlighted the significant contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country and condemned the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on immigrant communities at a Small Business Committee hearing. MIRA’s Elizabeth Sweet, who participated in Ranking Member Markey’s listening session earlier in May, provided testimony at the hearing. Also in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a listening session at the Urban College of Boston to hear directly from several Massachusetts immigrant small business owners, lenders, and chambers of commerce how President Trump’s cruel and callous anti-immigrant policies are hurting Main Streets in the Bay State. Earlier in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a press conference alongside Ranking Member Velázquez, Democratic lawmakers, and stakeholders to condemn the Trump administration’s harmful anti-immigrant lending policies and to introduce the Investing in the American Dream Act. In March, Ranking Member Markey released a comprehensive report detailing the harms to small business owners, workers, and consumers caused by the Trump administration’s ICE raids in communities across the country. In February, Ranking Member Markey introduced the Small Business ICE Disruption Fund Act, which would provide grants to small businesses that have been impacted by the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement actions on Main Streets across the United States. Earlier in February, Ranking Member Markey, Ranking Member Velázquez, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) sent a letter urging the SBA to rescind their lending rule change that bars legal permanent residents from receiving SBA loans. Previously, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez released a statement condemning the actions of the SBA after it announced that small businesses with legal permanent residents will be barred from receiving SBA loans. In December 2025, Ranking Member Markey and all Democratic members of the Senate Small Business Committee sent a letter to the SBA reiterating concerns with the SBA’s citizenship requirements and highlighting a drop in SBA lending volume. In September 2025, Ranking Member Markey heard directly from SBA lenders about the issues with the citizenship verification requirements. In July 2025, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez sent a letter to the SBA expressing serious concerns with the agency’s new, draconian citizenship verification requirements that require small businesses seeking SBA loans to be 100% owned by U.S. citizens, nationals, and legal permanent residents. ###
2026 US Open disruption caused by embarrassing social media influencers
The U.S. Open had an unusual disruption Tuesday when influencers were reportedly warned for staging a photoshoot with lights during Naomi Osaka's first-round match.
Zocdoc CEO: I’ve watched Walmart, IBM, and others try to ‘disrupt’ healthcare. Here’s why they failed
For too long, we have mistaken disruption for progress. Patients still struggle to find a doctor who takes their insurance.
Most ‘Disruptive’ Business Ideas Aren’t Disruptive. This 1-Minute Test Reveals Which Ones Are
Test a growth move by asking what an incumbent must sacrifice to match it. The answer shows whether your advantage can survive once competitors respond.
Mom-and-Pop Business Owners Grapple with Harsh Times
Report shows small business owners in NYS less optimistic about the economy. Taxes, inflation, labor costs and competition from larger businesses are major concerns right now, they say By Aaron Gifford [caption id=attachment_11067 align=alignright width=300] Ashley Ranslow is director for New York state at The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).[/caption] Owners of mom-and-pop businesses in New York state have been less optimistic lately than their peers in other parts of the country, a recent report indicates. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), based on a survey of 11,000 of its members in the Empire State, reported that taxes, inflation, labor costs and competition from larger businesses are major concerns right now. “Indeed, while taxes are a major problem in New York and the United States overall, New York small businesses notably are struggling more with the state’s onerous, multi-level tax burden,” Ashley Ranslow, NFIB’s director for New York state, said in the July report. Compared with surveys of business owners in other states, far fewer New York respondents rated their businesses as in excellent or good health. The report also said labor costs here are about 25% higher than the national average and are the “single most important problem” facing businesses. One respondent to the New York-specific survey complained that too much red tape, taxes and laws that restrict high-yielding companies have stifled their operation’s growth. Others said high disability and workers’ compensation insurance costs, alarming increases in utility rates and excessive building regulations are discouraging. Statewide, New York has a gross domestic product of $2.53 trillion (third in the nation, followed by Texas, $2.90 trillion; and California, $4.25 trillion), a per capita income of $90,500 (sixth) and an unemployment rate of 4.6% (34th). There are 2.4 million small businesses that employ 3.9 million people. [caption id=attachment_11112 align=alignright width=451] Member of the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce gather at one of the several functions the chamber organizes monthly. “Everyone in this business community encourages each other to shop local. Everyone just wants to see each other succeed,” says Megan Wilmot, the chamber director[/caption] “New York state boasts one of the largest, wealthiest and most diverse cities in the world — and that’s still only about half the state’s population,” the report said. “In other words, the state is both its iconic city and so much more — geographically, demographically, economically. But New York is not without its challenges, challenges that include notably high taxes and other weaknesses that impact the small business environment,” it said. The report includes an optimism index that compares responses from New York (NFIB) members with those of their peers in other states across several categories. This ranges from plans to increase employment to expectations for higher sales, to plans to increase inventory or expand. The scores for Empire State business owners were lower in most categories, but they did score higher than the national average in noting that they have current employment openings, and that they are hopeful that the economy will improve. “The metrics so far paint a picture of a state with a series of challenges for small businesses, from a slightly below national average Optimism Index to a more seriously below national business health to very substantially below national Employment Index. What is going on with businesses that are creating these differences?” the report stated. In Central New York, the regional labor force comprises nearly 398,000 workers. The median household income here is $71,463, and the gross domestic product for the region last year totaled $61.3 billion, according to the CenterState CEO economic development and research organization. About half of the region’s labor force works for small and mid-sized businesses, although the number of people employed in that sector has decreased by 7% since 2010, according to CenterState’s 2026 economic forecast report. “While record-high employment in large-scale enterprises provides a strong foundation for Central New York,” the report says, “the long-term health of communities depends on a thriving small business sector to serve as a stabilizer.” Area employers identify several barriers to Central New York’s anticipated growth, including lack of specialized or skilled workers, government regulations, unaffordable housing options and long-term construction disruptions. In the city of Syracuse, the number of jobs in retail trade decreased by 1,500 or 4.7% between July 2025 and this past July. By contrast, the number of jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector increased by 2.5% or 700 jobs, in the same annual period, according to the New York State Department of Labor. Still, there’s plenty of interest for new businesses across Central New York. U.S. Census figures show that the number of applications for new businesses in all four counties increased significantly in the past 20 years. In Cayuga County, there were 324 applications in 2005 compared to 470 last year. In Madison County, the number increased from 385 to 480; Onondaga County, from 2411 to 4132; and Oswego County, from 553 to 836. Downtown Cazenovia is exemplary of Madison County’s trend: In the past year, the village welcomed a bait shop, a thrift store, a vitamin infusion center, a pizzeria, a Pilates studio and an Italian restaurant. A candy store is scheduled to open on the main drag in the months ahead. Oswego’s list of interesting new businesses in the past year includes a bubble tea shop, a hot dog eatery in Fulton, a specialty grocery store that features New York state products in Mexico, a beauty and esthetics studio in Hannibal and a hardware and farm supply store in Sandy Creek. In Onondaga County, the Liverpool area has also enjoyed a steady stream of new shops and eateries in recent years. That suburban community is unique in that, unlike neighboring communities, most of the restaurants are family-owned and not part of a national chain. [caption id=attachment_11116 align=alignright width=300] Megan Wilmot is the executive director of the Greater Liverpool’s Chamber of Commerce.[/caption] Megan Wilmot, executive director of the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, said independent business owners in her community maintain a strong sense of pride in holding their own against national companies. The chamber helps boost morale with red carpet events, ribbon cuttings, coffee hours and five-year anniversary celebrations for participating businesses. “We have built such a strong community,” Wilmot said. “Everyone in this business community encourages each other to shop local. Everyone just wants to see each other succeed.” In Syracuse, the downtown retail occupancy rate last year was about 82%, a slight improvement from 2024, according to the Downtown Syracuse Committee’s most recent annual report. Buildings with the largest amount of vacant space included The Galleries, One Park Place, and Equitable Towers, though not all of those spaces are designated for retail use. New businesses that opened in downtown Syracuse last year: Better with Time Clothing, Dakshin Curry & Biriyani, Havana Tattoo Society, Milano Bean Café, Miss Daisy, Pausa Coffee, Sweets for Babe, The Society CNY and Yafah Beauty Studio. The Destiny USA mall’s occupancy rate decreased from 80% in 2023 to 72% by the end of 2024, according to Integra Realty Resources. That leaves more than a quarter of the mall’s retail space vacant. “Looking ahead, the retail market is expected to see minimal rent growth, with vacancy rates likely remaining stable in community and neighborhood centers but continuing to rise in enclosed malls,” Integra’s report said. “New construction activity is low and redevelopment plans for former malls like Shoppingtown and Great Northern are still in the planning stages. The proposed Micron chip plant may spur development, but challenges remain in finding co-developers for large-scale projects.” Nationally, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce expects that small businesses will remain resilient and see their sales and revenues eventually improve. That organization, in a recent national survey, found that 25% of small business owners expect the economy to improve in 2027, while 45% indicated that they plan to increase employment in the next 12 months. And 69% said they believe their small business is in good shape and 70% said they are comfortable with their current cash flow. Thirty-one percent of small businesses reported raising their prices in July and 28% are planning to raise their prices within the next three to four months, the report said. Twelve percent indicated that this is a good time to expand their business. “Small business owners voice optimism for future revenues and hiring,” the report said. “High costs continue to be a wet blanket on reinvestment.” The NFIB reported in July that Main Street, despite gas price hikes, “is OK … for now.” Its small business economics trend report said sales across the country have been strong compared to last year, but continued inflation and higher prices from mom-and-pop establishments are causing some “cracks” to show. “If costs stay this high for much longer, reduced investment will have a tangible economic impact,” the report said. “The status quo is OK, but the outlook? The outlook is uncertain.”
Statewide assessments demonstrate ELA and math recovery accelerate as science reaches record high
The Utah State Board of Education release 2025-2026 statewide assessment results in Utah show English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics recovery accelerating, and science results reaching record highs. The Big Picture The 2025–2026 Utah statewide assessment results demonstrate continuous multi-year academic growth following pandemic-related disruptions. Across all core subjects, student performance increased year-over-year, reflecting sustained multi-year gains.Most notably, Science performance has exceeded pre-pandemic baseline levels, while English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics are closing in on full recovery. Assessment results are available interactively […]
Psychological capital is a business advantage. Here’s why it matters
How can organizations navigate sustained disruption without worsening employee disengagement? Psychological capital begins to explain this.
Hormuz disruptions hitting small businesses hardest, UN trade agency warns
GENEVA, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz could push small and medium-sized businesses out of global supply chains, increasing economic concentration and weakening the resilience
SAP Shares Jump After Strong Quarter Reassures Investors of Cloud Business Resilience
Shares climbed after the group logged strong revenue figures, reassuring investors that growth at its cloud business remains healthy despite fears of AI disruption.
Scientists Report Continuing Harms to U.S. Science in Second-Year Survey
A survey of scientists across a variety of life sciences details how federal government policies have created ongoing disruptions to American research and the scientific workforce.
Under Trump, NIH funding disruptions have evolved. Here's what the numbers show
Stories of science funding being cut, labs shutting down and scientists losing jobs have flooded the media under Trump's administration. These six graphics show how those changes have affected U.S. biomedical research.
Bone Health Without the Hype
I am at the Australasian Menopause Society meeting and we had a fantastic lecture on Bone Health on Day 2, called, “Everything you need to know about bones - except the boring bits!” Spoiler alert, there were no boring bits. The lecture was given by Dr. Amanda Beech, who is a senior staff specialist in Obstetric Medicine and Endocrinology at the Royal Hospital for Women, where she is director of the Bone Density Unit. I want to summarize my top 10 take-aways for you. Share Osteoporosis is a disease of low bone mass, disruption of bone microarchitecture, and fragility of the skeleton. It is a silent disease…until someone develops a fracture. The diagnosis of osteoporosis is based on either fragility/minimal trauma fractures or a T-score of less than -2.5 on a DXA (Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry) or bone scan. It is important to recognize that about 50% of minimal trauma fractures occur when women have low bone mass (often referred to as osteopenia), but not osteoporosis. This tells us that bone strength is more complicated than a number on a DXA report. I am going to add a little here that wasn’t in the talk (one can only include so much in 25 minutes), as many women might read the above paragraph and think, “Shouldn’t we be treating everyone with low bone mass if this is when 50% of the fractures occur?” Many fractures happen for women with low bone mass because there are so many women with low bone mass –it is a statement about the population on a whole, not about the fracture risk of low bone mass. For you as an individual, bone density is only one component of fracture risk and many women with lower bone mass will not have a significantly elevated fracture risk. This is why individualized risk assessment matters. Subscribe We build bone in our teens and twenties, and by the time we are about thirty we have reached peak bone mass. This is why, when we discuss risk factors for osteoporosis, it is important to consider factors that might have affected us in our teens and twenties when we were actively building bone, such as nutritional restriction/energy imbalance. It is important to ask women about a history of eating disorders, and for those with such a history, getting a bone scan in perimenopause or at age 50 is likely warranted. (This image below isn’t from the talk, but is similar to one that was). Bone mass is relatively stable until about two years before the final menstrual period, and perimenopause marks a time of rapid bone loss for women. Using urinary markers of bone loss we know that the time of significantly accelerated bone loss starts about 1 year before the final period and ends about 2 years after the final period. The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) shows that over the menopause transition women lose an average of 10.6% of the bone at their lumbar spine and 9.1% at the femoral neck While this wasn’t covered in the lecture, I want to add that the rapid bone loss during perimenopause is clearly related to more than estradiol, because during this time estradiol levels can be erratic and not uniformly low. Bone loss during perimenopause is likely a multi-hormone event. For example, rising FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) tracks with bone loss better than estradiol, and there is evidence that FSH may act directly on bone. While decreased estrogen matters, there is clearly more going on. FSH and bone is an active area of research. Subscribe Screening for osteoporosis was recommended fairly broadly before age 65, and was taken from the “Practitioner’s Toolkit for Managing Menopause,” from Monash University. Here is a screenshot from the toolkit that was used as a slide: I am going to add a little bit more about body weight here for clarification. Low body mass (typically 152.1 lb): 0 points (risk neutral) 60–69 kg (132.3–152.1 lb): 3 points (adds some risk)
Rail passengers facing more disruption after power outage; UK house prices stagnate
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy
Hey all, Jason here. Money20/20 is still two weeks away, but I’ve already started packing (not procrastinating for once!). My calendar is already filling up with various sessions I want to catch, meetings, and of course happy hours, dinners, and other side events. If you’ll be in Vegas and want to catch up, let me know by replying to this email, and we can try to find a time amidst the chaos of the Venetian. A big if not totally unexpected piece of news dropped on Friday: the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group that represents smaller U.S. banks, filed a lawsuit against the OCC and Comptroller Jonathan Gould, arguing that the regulator’s move to grant trust bank charters to firms seeking to use them to conduct substantial non-fiduciary activities exceeds the authorities granted to the OCC by Congress. I haven’t had time to fully digest the legal filing or speak to folks in my network about it, but you can expect to see coverage and analysis on it in next week’s newsletter. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading The NerdCon agenda just dropped. It’s stacked. Partner content: Nubank built an AI-first bank. Chime built its own banking core. Figure and Valon are rebuilding the mortgage stack. At NerdCon, you’ll hear from the people behind those bets: what they chose, what they learned, and what they’re still figuring out. The agenda is live, with leaders from Nubank, Chime, OpenAI, Remitly, Mercury, Figure, Valon and more. Follow the mainstage conversations, bring the problem your team is wrestling with to a hands-on workshop, or pull up a chair at a roundtable. Pick your quests. Meet us in San Diego, November 18–20. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% with code FBW20. Explore the Agenda Things To Know & Other Good Reads Federal Reserve Board finalizes changes to enhance the transparency and public accountability of its stress test and reduce volatility in its stress test-related capital requirements (Federal Reserve Board of Governors) FDIC Announces Conclusion of Independent Monitorship (FDIC) Modernizing Financial Regulation: Initial Observations from eSLR (Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman) The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI (Fed Governor Christopher Waller) Financing the AI buildout (Brookings) Q3’26: Rules for Banks but Not for Crypto (Fintech Takes Banking) The Inevitability of Local Stablecoins (Lombard Notes) Delusions of AI Governance: The Human-in-the-Loop Comfort Blanket (Fintech Snark Tank) Stripe agrees to acquire Parafin to expand revenue opportunities for platforms and help small businesses grow (Stripe) Listen: Fighting Fraud in the Age of AI, with SEON’s Tamas Kadar (Fintech Business Weekly) How Americans’ Financial Health Is Faring In The “K-Shaped” Economy If there is one overarching theme across the economy and politics in the U.S. at the moment, it’s “affordability.” The term is vague enough to encompass a panoply of factors shaping Americans’ day-to-day lives: rising costs for the hallmarks of being “middle class,” including healthcare, housing, childcare, and education, inflation and rising interest rates, and a job market with the specter of AI hovering over it. At the same time, policy shifts under the Trump administration have resulted in reduced subsidies to those who get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and new restrictions on qualifying for Medicaid and SNAP, the impacts of which have yet to be fully felt. These factors are contributing to declining consumer confidence and general dissatisfaction with the economy, despite continuing GDP growth and stock market records. This divergence is encapsulated in the idea of the “K-shaped” economy, in which a small proportion of Americans have seen their wealth balloon, while the majority of American households struggle to preserve the lifestyle they have. Perhaps the greatest determinant of which branch of the “K” a household is on is whether their wealth and income are primarily derived from employment vs. from assets. Nearly two decades of low interest rates and, more recently, elevated rates of inflation have benefited asset owners, while those whose income is primarily or solely derived from labor have largely seen real purchasing power stagnate or decline. This is reflected in recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that labor share of U.S. GDP — the fraction of economic output that accrues to workers as compensation in exchange for their labor — dropped to just 52.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since the BLS began keeping records. In 1947, approximately 2/3rds of economic output accrued to workers; even as recently as 2001, labor’s share of GDP was 64.1%. Against this backdrop, we’ve seen the rise of more credit and credit-like products: cash advance apps, “no-fee” overdraft, earned wage access, and buy now pay later, which are often used as small-dollar short-term borrowing mechanisms to meet immediate consumption needs or pay other bills (eg utilities, cell phone, other debt payments). With the markers of a middle class existence and, increasingly, basic financial stability seemingly out of reach for many, it should be no surprise there’s been an increase in “financial nihilism,” something industry peers like Alex Johnson and Frank Rotman have discussed and analyzed the roots of. The explosion of gambling and gambling-adjacent products and services — often marketed under the guise of being an “investment” — is inextricably intertwined with the rise of financial nihilism. Crypto, sports betting, and, more recently, prediction markets offer an escape or even hope of sorts, like a contemporary, digital version of a scratch-off lottery ticket, while leaving the overwhelming number of people who use such products worse off. Share of Households That Are Financially “Vulnerable” Ticks Up The Financial Health Network’s 2026 Financial Health Pulse® report adds context on how American households are faring. (I linked to this report in last week’s newsletter, but wanted to take time to further unpack the data in the report this week.) The Financial Health Network publishes the report annually, providing insight into how Americans’ financial circumstances are changing over time. The 2026 report is derived from a survey fielded in April and May 2026. The report leverages survey responses to assess indicators of financial health across spending, saving, borrowing, and planning/protecting and to determine a zero to 100 “FinHealth” score. Those with scores between 0 and 39 are considered “Financially Vulnerable,” consumers with scores ranging between 40 and 79 are defined as “Financially Coping,” and those with scores of 80 to 100 are “Financially Healthy.” The report found that moderate improvements in 2025 were reversed, with the share of respondents considered financially “vulnerable” rebounding to 17%. The longitudinal data reflect the impact of pandemic-era programs, like expanded unemployment, cash stimulus payments, and pauses of federal student loan payments. The positive impacts of those programs, as reflected in the Financial Health Pulse reports, had largely disappeared by 2023. While pandemic-era inflation — to be fair, in part caused by the various support and stimulus measures — had come down from as high as 9% in 2022, it has rebounded since the start of Trump’s second term, with tariffs and energy market disruptions owing to the war in Iran pushing prices back up. Specific indicators in the survey that deteriorated from 2025 to 2026 include the share of respondents spending less than their income over the past 12 months, the share paying all bills on time over the past 12 months, the share that have a manageable amount or no debt, the share that are “moderately” or “very” confident their insurance is adequate to cover them in an emergency, and the share that “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that their household plans ahead financially. Unsurprisingly, lower- and moderate-income households are more likely to struggle to pay their bills on time and have any funds leftover to save. The share of low-income households whose income exceeded their spending dropped from 35% in 2025 to 31% in 2026, while the share of upper-income households whose income exceeded expenses remained unchanged at 63%. Households with student loans or revolving credit card debt reported having “a bit more” or “far more” debt than was manageable at rates far higher than those not carrying these types of debts. The share of those with student loan debt indicating their debt load was too high to manage increased from 50% in 2025 to 55% in 2026, while the share of those with revolving credit card debt saying the same ticked up from 51% in 2025 to 54% in 2026. Households that had student loans were markedly more likely to be financially “coping” or “vulnerable” vs. those without student loans. In 2026, 27% of households with student loans were considered financially vulnerable, a jump of 6% points vs. 2025. Households without student loans saw just a 1% point increase (not statistically significant) in those considered financially vulnerable. Households’ perception of the affordability of categories of goods and services paints a stark picture, with less than one-fourth considering higher education affordable, about a third deeming childcare affordable, and less than half viewing healthcare as affordable. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Democratic Senate Report Highlights How Iran Uses Tether to Evade U.S. Sanctions Iran uses stablecoins, specifically Tether, to evade sanctions, fund regional proxies, and to purchase military drones, a report released last week by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says. The report was authored by committee ranking member Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and the minority staff. Crypto and stablecoin proponents will often push back on criticism that criminals make use of these assets by arguing that, on an absolute dollar basis, far more illicit funds flow through traditional banking systems and payment rails than via crypto and stablecoins. And while that is likely true, it elides the reality presented in news story after news story: whether state actors — Russia, Iran, North Korea — or criminal groups, those looking to engage in illicit transactions increasingly favor stablecoins and, specifically, Tether (USDT). The report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released last week adds context to how Iran uses Tether has a lynchpin in its shadow banking system. The report analyzed 846 wallets that have been sanctioned or targeted for seizure, finding that 84% of them transacted exclusively or primarily in Tether. The ability to create near limitless, anonymous wallets and to move funds effectively instantaneously and irreversibly have made crypto a favored financial mechanism for bad actors. Stablecoins solved key drawbacks of bitcoin, namely, the original cryptocurrency’s highly volatile value in dollars. And while Tether (the company) has the technical ability to “freeze” or destroy funds, the company is often limited and reactive in its approach to doing so, the Senate report argues. Tether, which is nominally based in crypto-friendly El Salvador, “has stated that its compliance with OFAC sanctions is ‘voluntary’ and that it follows ‘OFAC guidelines,’” the Senate report says. Owing to these favorable attributes, Tether “became a primary cryptocurrency for Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and the Houthis beginning in 2023 and has expanded in scale since,” according to the report. Tether’s role in Iran’s shadow banking system, the report says, is enhanced by crypto exchanges like Bybit, Kyrrex, OKX, Gate, and Binance, and through “over the counter” exchanges and hawala networks. The consequences of these financial flows aren’t hypothetical. The Senate report links Tether as a funds transfer mechanism to Iranian proxies in the region, including Hizballah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Tether has also been used to make payments to secure components necessary to manufacture drones, the report says. The report concludes by arguing that “[s]tablecoin issuers with a significant nexus to the United States, particularly those that offer dollar-denominated stablecoins, should be subject to American sanctions law rather than being allowed to hide behind foreign jurisdictions.” Stablecoin issuers like Tether must be held accountable for repeated failures to prevent illicit finance and sanctions violations by law enforcement, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OFAC, the report argues. [Paying Subscriber Exclusive] OUSD Goes Live, Make Your Own Neobank, U.S. Sanctions Russia’s A7 Network As “Transnational Criminal Organization” OpenUSD, the stablecoin issued by the Open Standard consortium that includes Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, core providers, crypto firms, and numerous banks, went live last week. Social commerce platform Whop raised eyebrows in fintech by offering creators on its platform the ability to launch their own neobanks, which the company describes as “great businesses that are easy to run,” in just 15 minutes. And OFAC and FinCEN target Russia’s “shadow banking” A7 Network — more on these stories after the paywall.
Xbox’s Millennial C.E.O., Asha Sharma, Isn’t Playing Around
“I think the industry will require disruption,” said Asha Sharma, who has overseen layoffs and divested studios since inheriting Microsoft’s flailing video game division.
What Does the Science of Climate Change Really Look Like?
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series on how the Right should think about environmental and climate policy. Read Chris Barnard on Reclaiming Environmental Policy from the Left. More than a decade ago, the world’s governments negotiated and signed the Paris Climate Agreement, committing to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. In the following years, climate had immense cultural power. Greta Thunberg emerged. Fortune 500 companies established net-zero plans. The U.S. got the Inflation Reduction Act. Then the pendulum swung back. President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, speaking of green energy as a “scam” and carbon footprints as a “hoax” and on all matters of international policy emphasizing bilateral engagement and power over globalism and cooperation. The technology companies that had been at the forefront of net-zero pledges and green leadership discovered the importance of all-of-the-above power to their visions for artificial intelligence and began quietly postponing or removing their targets. On the left side of the political spectrum, rising concerns about inflation and cost pushed climate lower down in the stated priorities of voters and stump speeches of politicians. The moment is ripe for a reset on the politics of climate change and for conservatives especially to chart a course that acknowledges and addresses the real challenges in plausible ways. So what should we think about climate change as we enter a post-peak climate era? If it is neither an apocalypse nor a hoax, what will hold up as a durable view of climate change? And how does it project onto the concerns and priorities of the right-of-center’s emerging coalition? New to Commonplace_? Subscribe below to get the magazine in your inbox._ Subscribe A Solid Foundation As the politics and economics of climate careened over the past ten years, the physics carried on regardless. In 2015, the year the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted, the world emitted 41.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. By 2025, emissions had risen only 2.4%, to 42.2 gigatonnes, because falling emissions from land use offset increasing emissions from fossil fuels. But slow growth in annual emissions is not rapid decline, let alone net-zero, so carbon dioxide kept accumulating in the atmosphere, going from 399 to 426 parts per million. Global temperature kept rising too, from about 1.1 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 average in 2015, to 1.4 degrees above it in 2025. None of this should surprise anyone. Even most prominent skeptics, like the authors of the 2025 report commissioned by the Trump administration’s Department of Energy, accept the basic physics. Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere at industrial volumes accumulates and traps heat that would otherwise escape to space. That heat warms the upper ocean and increases temperatures at the surface. Increased ocean heat and melting of land ice cause sea levels to rise. Changes in the climate become noticeable to us as subtle shifts in temperature and precipitation, seasons arriving early or late, changes in the surrounding ecosystem, and weather extremes. The much more meaningful debate is not about whether these things are happening, but about what it all means for human societies. (While it is a proxy measure of overall risk, no one experiences global surface temperature.) This debate invokes at least three interesting questions: how much today’s warming is showing up in regional climate trends, how much more warming we should anticipate, and how extreme weather events can be understood in the context of climate change. Recent scientific advances give us new insights into each of these, but there is still much to learn. This is the context in which the next generation of conservative leaders will be the first to deal with significant climate change as a fact, not a forecast. It will be with them for their entire careers. Our evolving scientific picture of climate change will come from weather and climate records stretching further into the past, new kinds of observations in the present, better modeling tools for the future, and simply more time to observe the emergence of climate signals and their tangible effects on ecosystems and communities in the United States and around the world. The policy landscape will be shaped by not only the impacts of changes in the climate, but also by the ways in which societies respond and by the emergence of new technologies for both altering the trajectory of emissions and adapting to new climate realities. Global climate records now show the fingerprints of warming in different phenomena around much of the world. The IPCC, in its most recent assessment report, documents warming trends over all land regions, even as natural variability adds substantial variance to local trends. And the highest temperature extremes have become more intense and frequent, almost everywhere, since the 1950s. Scientists are highly confident that these changes are attributable to human influence. But confidence in detecting trends and attributing them to human influence degrades across heavy precipitation events; drought trends are heterogeneous and not attributable to human activity with great confidence. For hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe storms there is even less confidence in trends or their relationship to climate change. In general, a fair summary of the evidence is that for well-observed phenomena, like surface temperature or heavy rainfall, with a clear relationship to warming, our multidecadal observations are consistent with human influence overcoming natural variability over long time periods and extremes increasing. For regions that are sampled more sparsely, or phenomena with a higher noise-to-signal ratio, we will need to observe them longer to understand the magnitude of the climate signal or improve dynamical understanding using models and observations together. But for Climate For those who can’t wait, we also have new techniques that attempt to understand the role climate change has in influencing particular extreme events. When the climate is changing and disaster strikes, it is natural to ask whether that disaster was somehow “caused” by climate change. For scientists and policymakers acting in good faith, answering that question helps develop a more accurate picture of the problem, how it may be getting worse, and what preparations we should be making to respond to it. It may, at some point, give some weight to how liability is assigned by courts or adaptation funding is distributed by society. But how we ask this question is extremely important. It is easy to get the analysis wrong by discounting the role that meteorology plays. As meteorologist Theodore Shepherd explained in a clear 2016 review of climate attribution methods, “if a weather or climate event is truly extreme in the present climate, then perforce it requires unusual meteorological conditions, which means that climate change is at most a contributing factor.” Share Scientists have two ways to probe climate as a contributing factor, both of which have entered media coverage of extreme weather events. One asks a probabilistic question: How much more likely is a particular event (e.g., a temperature record over a particular area) amid global warming? The answer involves using historical records and computer simulations to estimate the likelihood of such an event in both a changed and a preindustrial climate. The findings are less about the specific event, and more about events of that nature. The other question is: How has the changed climate affected the specific event in question? Here, scientists try to understand what a similar event would have looked like in the preindustrial climate. This is sometimes called the storyline approach, where the story is the specific meteorological details of the event. These methods offer ways to test the intuition of scientists about real weather extremes. In late June and early July of 2021, a persistent high-pressure ridge, or heat dome, set up over the Pacific Northwest and an extraordinary heat wave affected the area from Oregon to British Columbia. For six days, it shattered temperature records across the region and hundreds died from heat-related causes, in an area where such high, and persistently high, temperatures were well outside of experience and many live without air conditioning. Scientists have studied its connection to climate change using multiple approaches. This specific event was created by a rare combination of meteorological factors, a strong high-pressure ridge created the conditions for extreme heat, which occurred on top of higher average temperatures in the region from global warming. Probabilistic analyses showed that climate change increased the likelihood of such an event by at least 8-fold to more than 100-fold. One standout example found that such an event had effectively zero probability of occurring in the preindustrial climate. The enormous range in these assessments reflects how hard it is to estimate probabilities of events at the tail of the historical record. Estimates of the effect on the temperature of the event are more clustered. A recent review paper documents how multiple methodologies have found a positive influence, roughly 1-2 degrees Celsius of an anomaly that exceeded 15 degrees, of climate change on the temperature magnitude of the event. Multiple studies have investigated and found some positive influence of climate change in other extreme events. Attribution studies found climate likely increased the heavy rainfall that accompanied Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and surrounding regions in 2024. The extensive fires that struck Los Angeles in 2025 illustrate how the causal chain can become messy, though. Studies do detect a positive influence of climate on the event’s likelihood, but while climate change likely contributed to underlying aridity, it would not have played a role in the heavy winds or land practices that preceded disaster. These event attribution studies will become more common for extreme, or damaging, weather events. They can be produced quickly, and often are reported before peer review. As the Pacific Northwest heatwave example shows, when multiple methods converge on a positive attribution, the finding should probably carry some weight even if you have to be careful about accepting the results from a single study. I expect that as climate change proceeds and the climate thus departs further from a preindustrial counterfactual, the influence will become more detectable across a variety of extreme events and more easily identified. This will be used to cast blame, but can also be used to inform how communities and society adapt to ongoing change. We May Still Be Surprised One positive development, insofar as less climate change is better, has been that our central estimates for future climate change should probably be revised downward. Mostly, that is because the high-end warmings that scientists regularly analyzed about ten to 20 years ago, driven by high emissions throughout the twenty-first century, now appear to be somewhere between unlikely and impossible. At one time, the upper end of mainstream climate projections extended well into 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century, which, models suggest, would have wrought enormous real-world damage. Current energy and policy trends now point toward 2.5 or 3 degrees. Damages and risks are commonly modeled as increasing steeply with more warming, so this is already a better-than-previously-expected outcome for the climate (which is independent of the physical response to emissions). But we should maintain a wide range for plausible outcomes and prepare for the possibility of being surprised. Emissions trajectories are subject to deep uncertainty, the physical climate response is still developing, and whatever change occurs in the climate will then be mediated through unpredictable economic, social, and political institutions. Over the past decade, the pace of warming surprised some keen observers and appeared to accelerate, though not yet outside the range of expectation provided by climate models. The reasons for that apparent acceleration are being actively studied (as was the apparent pause in warming from 1998 to 2012), but no single driver has emerged. Some blame it on the El Niño, variability which would have no bearing on climate. Some think it is a result of factories in East Asia and global shipping fleets cutting aerosol emissions, which in the strongest version of the argument would indicate higher climate sensitivity to carbon-dioxide emissions. Others are more measured, not yet ready to draw solid conclusions as to whether climate projections require revision. We will have to see. Long-Term Thinking Climate change asks us to think over long time scales. But the pace of human-driven warming is compressing a large global change into a century. Changing weather patterns and extreme events are already causing adjustment costs and damages and will do more. Adaptation will help, but it is not free. For some communities, these costs will erode livelihoods and well-being, and may force migration. Are we prepared for large-scale managed retreats in the United States? Thankfully, American wealth, geographical diversity, and moderate climates may leave us better prepared than many around the world. But wealthy countries can still suffer serious disruption from narrowly concentrated costs, even if they appear entirely manageable in aggregate. Readers of Commonplace are familiar with the challenges of rapidly adapting to economic forces. The displacement that came from the China Shock is barely perceptible in aggregate GDP and employment data, but it affected millions of people and those people were far less mobile than economic models tended to assume. Deindustrialization rippled through the nation with enormous effects for not only our economic vitality, but also our national security. The forces surrounding climate change may not be so different; the world gets richer and must accept some diffuse costs. Those may be modest overall, but cause all manner of unpredictable effects with which policymakers must cope. In the case of the China Shock, our faith in a growing pie served us poorly. We’ll need to do better on climate. Leave a comment
Controversy over Musk military system in Ukraine pitches relations with US into deeper crisis
The worst crisis in US-Ukraine relations since last year’s Oval Office meltdown is deteriorating further over a dispute about who ordered a disruption to a critical Ukrainian military system running on Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service.
Oil rises as risks of prolonged Mideast conflict heighten supply worries
Oil prices extended gains on Tuesday as risks of a prolonged conflict in the Middle East grew after Iran threatened to retaliate against any new U.S. attacks on its assets, heightening worries over supply disruption.
Nasdaq reports network disruption, US equities data feeds impacted
Nasdaq is experiencing a network disruption at its Carteret, New Jersey facility affecting US equities data feeds and causing intermittent data gaps.
Preparing for cascading climate risks
Arizona communities already understand that climate hazards rarely occur in isolation. Extreme heat can drive up electricity demand, drought can increase wildfire risk, and flooding can disrupt transportation, water systems, housing and local economies. Because these systems are connected, a disruption in one can quickly threaten public health and safety.
City Council approves grants to assist businesses located in construction zones
The pilot program uses $345,000 in American Rescue Plan funding to help small businesses survive disruptions.
Controversy over Musk military system in Ukraine pitches relations with US into deeper crisis
The worst crisis in US-Ukraine relations since last year’s Oval Office meltdown is deteriorating further over a dispute about who ordered a disruption to a critical Ukrainian military system running on Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service.
Jim Cramer Likes the Nat-Gas Liquids Business and Highlights This Stock
During the episode aired on September 28, Cramer mentioned Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD), as he was highlighting the disruptions and operational bottlenecks plaguing infrastructure in the Gulf. He remarked: And I like the nat-gas liquids business, which is just crushing it in America because all the problems in the Gulf. It’s Enterprise Product Partners, […]
Delta Announces Multiple Innovations for Corporate Travel Customers
Focus is on NDC strategy, dealing with disruptions and introducing new Delta Business site
Five Cybersecurity Areas for Review This Month » CBIA
Cybersecurity conversations often stay with IT until a disruption affects operations, reporting, customer relationships, or decision-making.
Wildfire Disruptions to the Tour de France Show How Climate Change Is Shaping Sports
Tadej Pogačar's fifth Tour de France victory came after last-minute course changes due to wildfires, underscoring how climate change is influencing major sporting events.
AI disruptions roil local Boston tech companies PTC, HubSpot
HubSpot is cutting jobs, PTC is getting bought out, and Amazon is shrinking its office.
Looking at the Ugly Side of the Paramount-Skydance Merger...And How I’d Fix It
A Message from Our Sponsor Certified Fresh with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, FX’s Adults is an ensemble comedy series about a group of twenty-somethings in New York leaning on each other to navigate love, work, friendship and family. Don’t sleep on “The Sitcom of the Moment” - Awards Buzz All Episodes now streaming on Hulu on Disney+. Watch The Teaser Trailer... (Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industr(Welcome to the “Most Important Story of the Week”, my bi-weekly strategy column analyzing the most important (but often not buzziest) news story of the last two weeks. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. Please subscribe.) Before we dive in, I wanted to congratulate Broadcast Now for being the first to report that Netflix’s How to Get to Heaven from Belfast has been cancelled. (I saw this in a write-up by Kasey Moore of Whats-On-Netflix.) More importantly, I wanted to note that, as of yesterday, none of the other trades had reported the news yet. I have half a guess that eventually one of them will report this. Anyways, it’s time to take a break from my deluge of streaming ratings reports to continue my analysis of the Paramount Skydance Warner Bros. Discovery (PSWbD) saga. As I noted last week, a lot of times when folks use the (sometimes cliched) “the good, the bad and the ugly” framing for an article, “the ugly” section is just more bad. Or very, very bad. In this case, yeah, I do think it’s ugly. In more than one way. Unfortunately, we’re only going to have time to tackle one of those ways today: the ugly pile of debt to finance this deal. (In a future article, I may cover the entire process for how it went down, which was very, very ugly.) Last issue, I explained why I liked this deal in a vacuum. Unfortunately, “vacuums” don’t exist outside of space. Let’s dive in. Subscribe Most Important Story of the Week - The Ugliness of the Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger More than one person sent me a note speculating that the big problem with Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros. Discovery is the “Warner Bros.” portion of the deal. In fact, that’s a take I read a lot about Warner Bros., ever since they caught Netflix’s, and then Paramount-Skydance’s, eye. In short, multiple companies (Time, AOL, AT&T, Discovery) have bought and then regretted buying Warner Bros. Since it’s nearing Halloween, you could almost say it’s like the folks think WB is cursed! It’s a haunted studio—like the town of Derry in movie studio form—and whoever takes possession of it will fall into misery! Yet...I just don’t like that story, because it doesn’t explain the “why” behind why those deals fell through. Especially when Warner Bros. has continued to succeed as a TV and film studio in the intervening two decades. Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter? Game of Thrones? Everything HBO? Considering it never fully owned a broadcast TV channel, this media company has done pretty well. So what went wrong? Well, in recent years, companies bought Warner Bros. instead of the other, smarter option. Explaining POCD (And Applying It to Mergers & Acquisitions) As I explained last issue, one of my favorite frameworks is the POCD tool for evaluating venture capital investments: People Opportunity Context Deal The bar to invest as a VC is high. (Or I might say “was” since cheap interest rates made life easier last decade.) You review a thousand prospectuses, get pitched by a hundred, and invest in the ten best, with the hopes that one of those ten would pay for the rest. That means every element of a deal needed to pay off: you needed the right people running the companies, who could capitalize on the right opportunity, in the context of an industry that was ripe for disruption. If you could then not overpay, you could make some money in a smart deal. The analogy isn’t perfect here, but close enough. For a merger or acquisition to work, you need the combined company (which is the opportunity) to make more than the price you need to pay (which is the deal). Note: the people and context still matter, but with M&A, it’s a little more straightforward: does the opportunity exceed the cost? And usually with Warner Bros., it hasn’t. If you want to find out the single biggest mistake made by the Warner Bros. suitors over the last few years (and my simple fix) become a paid subscriber. I’ll also touch on who I think Paramount-Skydance could (shockingly) consider buying next, TBD, and more. Sign up here.
Communities Deserve Access to Inclusive and Climate-Conscious Doula Care
Doula care can drastically improve the quality of care and birth experience for pregnant people facing the climate crisis’s increasing incidences of hurricanes, flooding, and extreme heat. The changing climate directly affects pregnancy health through discrete environmental disasters (such as wildfires, extreme heat, hurricanes, flooding, and droughts) and indirectly through long-term changes in the natural and social environment (such as air quality and forced migration). Environmental disasters can cause psychological distress for pregnant and post-pregnant people due to financial and personal loss, as well as the disruption of infrastructure that they rely on such as housing, health care, work, communication, and transportation. Potential adverse pregnancy outcomes include low birthweight, preterm birth, miscarriage, and neonatal mortality.
Navigating digestive disorders: tips and resources for managing gut health
For tens of millions of Americans, digestive issues and unpredictable gut health are far more than an occasional inconvenience—they are daily disruptions.
Business Group on Health taps BioRadar to boost workforce readiness for emerging threats
Biological threat intelligence is increasingly becoming a workforce and business issue, not just a public health concern. | Biological threat intelligence is increasingly becoming a workforce and business issue, not just a public health concern. Emerging threats—infectious disease outbreaks, pandemics and potential bioterrorism events—can cause workforce and operational disruptions.
Supply Chain Modernization Strengthens Business Resilience
STAMFORD, Conn., October 15, 2026--Companies worldwide are revamping supply chain strategies to sustain business continuity and maintain compliance amid persistent disruption, ISG says.
Guest Commentary: ‘New weather’ reality defies politics
The climate has caused more disruptions this summer. Liberal politicians will blame the fossil fuel industries for continuing to drive up greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere; conservatives will blame regulation and lack of…
The Cost of Cutting American Science: How Federal Cuts Diminish Public Health Capacity
Among the federal government’s many responsibilities is the work it does to protect public health. Federal agencies monitor our food supply to ensure safety, conduct research to better understand emerging health threats, provide funding for public health programs in communities and work to detect and respond to disease outbreaks. Americans rely on these efforts every day—in a 2024 online survey, 74% of respondents said that “if the federal government issued safety guidance about food you eat regularly,” they would follow it. Changes to Federal Public Health Capacity The Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the federal government have resulted in significant impacts on our nation’s public health capacity over the past 20 months, affecting the response to health concerns such as measles, Ebola and cyclosporiasis. Agencies with core public health, food safety and disease prevention responsibilities experienced large workforce decreases during the first year of the administration. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, the workforce in February 2026 was 26.7% smaller than in September 2024 before the start of the Trump administration. The Food and Drug Administration saw a similarly steep decline of 21.6%. Agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Food Safety and Inspection Service also experienced large workforce decreases. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); Changes can also be seen in crucial public health occupations. The number of federal food inspectors, for example, decreased by more than half between September 2024 and February 2026, going from 1,035 to 473. This is the lowest number of food inspectors employed by the federal government since at least 2005. By February 2026, there were also 33.3% fewer federal public health program specialists, whose work includes advising federal funding recipients on public health activities and analyzing the effectiveness of public health programs. Government’s capacity is diminished as employees with specialized knowledge and experience in protecting the public and responding to health risks depart, leaving agencies less prepared to carry out their public health missions. There also have been vacancies in critical high-level leadership positions at public health agencies, most notably at the CDC, which had a permanent Senate-confirmed director for less than a month between January 2025 and early August 2026. Although the CDC has previously been led by acting directors at the start of an administration, the nearly yearlong gap since the departure of the administration’s first permanent director in August 2025 is without precedent. As of August 2026, the FDA is also currently without a Senate-confirmed commissioner following the previous commissioner’s resignation in May 2026. Additionally, public health agencies are experiencing increased politicization of their leadership ranks. In agencies such as the CDC and Food Safety and Inspection Service, the number of individuals in the Senior Executive Service—the most senior career leaders in government—has declined significantly, while at the same time the number of political appointees has reached record levels. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); At the CDC, for example, the number of career SES decreased 42.9% between December 2024 and February 2026, while the number of non-Senate confirmed political appointees at the agency was six times larger than the agency’s historical average from 2009 and 2024. Knowledgeable career leaders are integral to the ability of public health agencies to carry out their work with scientific integrity and professional judgment, and rapid leadership turnover and increased politicization threaten agencies’ ability to make evidence-based decisions to protect our health. The upheaval and politicization in public health agencies have also negatively affected employee engagement. Strong employee engagement is crucial to the ability of agencies to carry out their mission and successfully provide essential services to the public. In the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service, the Department of Health and Human Services—which encompasses major public health agencies such as the CDC and FDA—had an employee engagement and satisfaction score of 20.4 out of 100, one of the lowest among large agencies. Only 2.8% of HHS employees indicated trust in their political leaders and only 8.7% reported confidence that they could report a suspected violation of law or regulation without retaliation. Employees at HHS also reported that the agency’s ability to provide services to the public had suffered. Nearly half of employees at HHS, 47.5%, said their work unit was worse at delivering quality services compared to its performance in 2024. In addition, 57.8% said their work unit was performing worse at fulfilling stakeholder needs. In addition to the work done within federal agencies, the federal government also distributes significant funding for public health and disease prevention work to state and local governments, nonprofits and small businesses—funding which has been significantly disrupted. At the CDC, for example, there was a 71.9% decrease in the amount of project grant funding issued in fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2024. The FDA also issued far less funding in fiscal year 2025—a 21.3% decrease from its fiscal year 2024 funding. Changes in federal funding include the ending of grants to community organizations that worked on HIV prevention and the cancellation of funding for research into improvements to patient safety and healthcare quality. These changes go beyond federal agencies to impact the broader public health ecosystem, including the state and local health departments responsible for much of the on-the-ground public health work in their communities. About 80% of the CDC’s domestic funding is directed towards state and local partners—meaning that cuts to CDC funding can ultimately result in cuts to state and local public health capacity. Federal agencies also provide expertise and assistance to state and local health agencies as they deal with particular health challenges, but workforce cuts have resulted in fewer federal employees available to help. The Impact of Changes to Public Health Capacity These changes to federal public health capacity are not abstract concerns. Disrupted programs, reduced funding and lost expertise at public health agencies across all levels of government threaten the public’s physical well-being and safety. In some cases, this has already led to harm. The most immediate impacts of federal cuts were seen in interruptions to ongoing public health programs and crisis responses. In one instance, when CDC grants were canceled during the 2025 Texas measles outbreak—the most severe measles outbreak in 25 years—public health officials in Lubbock, Texas were forced to pause parts of their measles response work supported by the frozen funding. Lubbock’s director of public health further said that a lack of available CDC experts to reach out to for advice “definitely” impacted the department’s response to the measles crisis. Cuts to federal funding also forced Dallas County Health and Human Services to cut staff and cancel 50 community vaccination clinics during the outbreak. Public health work outside of major outbreak responses was also disrupted. For example, in April 2025, the Milwaukee Public Health Department was unexpectedly unable to reach experts on lead poisoning due to firings at the CDC when responding to concerns about lead contamination in Milwaukee public schools. Due to federal workforce cuts, several programs at the CDC, including Alzheimer’s and epilepsy programs, have also become trapped in limbo—existing on paper, but without the staff necessary to operate. More recent crises reveal how federal cuts have weakened the public health infrastructure needed to prevent and respond to dangerous new outbreaks. Internationally, cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development eliminated funding for disease testing and contact tracing abroad, which delayed detection of and responses to the 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While international outbreaks may seem far removed, the unchecked spread of disease in any country can quickly pose a danger to economic well-being, security and health around the world. Within the United States, public health cuts inhibited responses to the summer 2026 outbreak of the food-borne parasite cyclospora. At the federal level, cuts to funding for lab equipment and for CDC staff with expertise in parasitic infections—including 9 out of 11 staff members at the lab responsible for identifying parasitic outbreaks in 2025— contributed to the largest reporting delay in outbreak cases at the CDC in 15 years. Conflicting communications from the FDA about the source of the outbreak, which followed cuts to the agency’s communications department, additionally led to confusion among the public about how to best avoid infection. At the same time, cuts to HHS funding and support for local and state public health slowed some health departments’ responses to the crisis. The exact costs of these delays, constraints and confusion in public health responses are difficult to estimate. However, their message is clear: federal cuts have already made containing threats to public health even more of a challenge. Conclusion Protecting public health—from food safety to disease prevention—is one of the federal government’s most important missions. Dramatic and haphazard cuts to federal agencies and funding have already disrupted the public health system, impacting the response to challenges such as measles, lead poisoning and cyclosporiasis. The U.S. public health system needed improvement before these disruptions. Since 2022, federal leadership and coordination in response to public health outbreaks has been on the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List of areas in need of attention to improve government effectiveness and efficiency. Recent cuts only compound these concerns. The chaotic dismantling of government and resulting disruptions to crucial functions like public health and disease prevention highlight the need for meaningful reform and concrete policy proposals to reimagine how government can better serve the public and be more effective, responsive and accountable. To learn more about the impact of federal cuts to public health and science more broadly, visit The Cost of Cutting American Science. Learn more For more information on the Partnership for Public Service’s government reform initiative, visit Government for a New Era. View here In line with The Cost of Cutting American Science, federal workforce data in this brief is as of February 2026
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Closing health workforce gaps for emergency response: the Western Pacific steps up
Over 100 health emergency experts from 56 institutions across 21 countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region who are part of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) concluded their annual regional partners’ meeting with a commitment to bridge gaps in emergency workforce capacities and advance regional emergency readiness and resilience.Co-hosted by WHO and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency in the Republic of Korea, the two-day event aimed to strengthen the Region’s collective ability to detect, prepare for and respond to health emergencies.Partners mapped capacities and priority technical gaps across the Region — including cybersecurity and critical infrastructure resilience; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and environmental health; biological emergencies, nuclear emergencies, and nuclear and radiological security.The result: a renewed commitment to close these gaps by working together through shared expertise and coordinated action. Advancing the Global Health Emergency CorpsReflective of regional solidarity and partnerships in action, GOARN – which is coordinated globally by WHO - enables a stronger, better-connected emergency health workforce that is ready to surge wherever and whenever requested by WHO Member States.This year alone, GOARN partners across the Western Pacific have supported nine experts on six missions - from measles outbreaks in Viet Nam to HIV outbreak response in Fiji - providing surge support in epidemiology, surveillance and clinical case management.Photo: Participants at the Global Alert and Response Network (GOARN) Partners Meeting 2026. Credit: KDCA/Shin Dong Myoung“GOARN partners across the Western Pacific and globally have repeatedly demonstrated the power of what we can do collectively, when we join forces, share expertise and build on each other’s strengths,” noted Dr Gina Samaan, WHO Regional Emergency Director for the Western Pacific, in her opening remarks at the gathering. “Let us continue to forge long-term partnerships grounded in mutual respect that will protect the Region for generations to come. We are smarter, faster and infinitely stronger when we work together,” she added.Reiterating Dr Samaan's call, Dr Seung-kwan Lim, Commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, emphasized the value of GOARN: “The Republic of Korea is pleased to stand alongside our regional partners in building an emergency workforce that is ready and resilient. GOARN turns national expertise into regional readiness - catalysing national strengths into collective resilience.”GOARN advances the Global Health Security Action Framework (GHEC) initiative by “convening, connecting and capacitating” regional leaders and surge workforce – “the three Cs”. Years of GOARN leadership and outbreak response training programmes have cultivated a deep bench of fit-for-purpose, seasoned outbreak response experts and forged an alumni network of emergency leaders worldwide. The Western Pacific network alone has now grown to 94 partner institutions across 19 countries. Photo: Participants at the Global Alert and Response Network (GOARN) Partners Meeting 2026. Credit: KDCA/Shin Dong Myoung Putting partnerships into practiceDuring the Regional Partners’ Meeting, health experts identified and catalogued the technical expertise currently available across the Western Pacific Region, so that the right skills could be better matched quickly to needs wherever emergencies occur.Three priority areas emerged for further strengthening:Cybersecurity and critical infrastructure resilience - protecting essential systems, including healthcare networks, from digital disruptions.Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and environmental health - reflecting the ongoing nexus between climate change and health.Biological emergencies, nuclear emergencies, and nuclear and radiological security - requiring specialized technical capability that remains limited across many national response systems.Meeting participants reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening workforce capacities in the Region, with a particular focus on these three areas, and to working collectively to better prepare the Western Pacific for the next health emergency.Photo: Dr Gina Samaan, WHO Regional Emergency Director for the Western Pacific, delivers opening remarks at the Global Alert and Response Network (GOARN) Partners Meeting 2026. Credit: KDCA/Shin Dong Myoung“GOARN is truly turning preparedness into action - giving our Region the surge capacity it needs for fast, coordinated response when it matters most - and building more resilient health systems along the way,” said Dr Samaan. “As health emergencies mount in this age of permacrisis, emergency preparedness and response must be woven into the fabric of health. This is not an option, but an imperative as we seek to achieve health for all.”____ About GOARNThe Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), coordinated by the World Health Organization since 2000, strengthens global health security by advancing preparedness for and response to public health emergencies. The network brings together more than 390 institutions, including national public health agencies, technical organizations and nongovernmental partners, to support coordinated international action during outbreaks and other health emergencies. There are 94 GOARN partners in the Western Pacific Region (as of August 2026), accounting for approximately 25% of global partners. For more information and media interviews, please contact: WHO Western Pacific Communications: wprocom@who.intAra Johannes: johannesa@who.int
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Ranking Members Markey, Velázquez Push to Roll Back Trump Administration’s Discriminatory SBA Lending Policy that Blocks Immigrant Entrepreneurs from Pursuing the American Dream
Bicameral resolution would rescind Trump administration policy banning green card holders from accessing SBA loans Resolution Text (PDF) | One-Pager (PDF) (Washington, July 23) – Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY-7) today introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to rescind the Trump administration’s policy that bans green card holders from accessing essential Small Business Administration (SBA) loans to start and grow their businesses and invest in Main Streets nationwide. Trump’s SBA restrictions buck decades of precedent, attacking immigrant small business owners who are lawfully in the U.S. with no justification. The Trump administration’s green card holder ban is the most recent escalation of SBA’s draconian citizenship restrictions that are killing jobs and putting the American Dream further out of reach for entrepreneurs. In Fiscal Year 2025, the SBA made an estimated $5.7 billion in loans to green card holders, which supported more than 80,000 American jobs. Ranking Member Markey’s introduction of the CRA resolution follows his introduction of the Investing in the American Dream Act alongside Ranking Member Velázquez earlier this year. The Investing in the American Dream Act would roll back the SBA’s draconian lending restrictions and restore previous SBA lending policies for immigrant entrepreneurs lawfully in the U.S., including green card holders, refugees, and asylees. More than 100 organizations have called for the passage of the legislation and over 60 Massachusetts state legislators have raised concerns about the impact of the citizenship restrictions in their local communities. “Once again, Donald Trump is shutting hardworking immigrants out of the American Dream with his discriminatory and dangerous policies, fear tactics, and violent rhetoric. The anti-small business lending requirements implemented by Trump’s SBA won’t Make America Great Again—they are Making America Hate Again,” said Ranking Member Markey. “I am fighting every single day to roll back Trump’s brazen attempt to steal the American Dream from entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country who enrich our communities, strengthen our Main Streets, and create jobs in the United States.” “Starting and owning your own business is one of the pillars of the American Dream. Under the Trump Administration, the SBA has sought to deny immigrant small business owners and entrepreneurs that dream by preventing them from accessing the capital they need to grow and scale their businesses. Not only is this policy cruel, but it is also self-defeating and holds our country back economically. As Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, I will do everything in my power to reverse this terrible policy,” said Ranking Member Velázquez. Massachusetts state legislators applauded Ranking Member Markey’s actions and emphasized the critical contributions of green card holders to Bay State communities and the Commonwealth’s economy. "Green card holders are our neighbors, workers, entrepreneurs, and taxpayers,” said Massachusetts State Senator Adam Gómez (D-Springfield), Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses. “They open restaurants, launch small businesses, create jobs, and contribute every day to the economic strength of Massachusetts. Denying lawful permanent residents access to SBA loan programs doesn't make our economy stronger—it makes it harder for small businesses to succeed. I support this resolution because opportunity should never be limited by unnecessary barriers that prevent hardworking people from investing in their communities and pursuing the American dream." “Senator Markey’s CRA Resolution provides a valuable moment for our federal leaders to show their commitment to small businesses and the American Dream,” said Massachusetts State Representative Andy X. Vargas (D-Haverhill), House Chair of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Businesses. “The SBA’s recent policy restricting lawful residents from accessing the popular 7(a) and 504 programs has shut out some of the most entrepreneurial and hard-working members of our community from much-need capital. In Massachusetts, these programs have invested millions of dollars into small businesses owned by green card holders, supporting thousands of jobs. This should not be a partisan issue. People who worked hard, have legal status, and contribute so much to their communities via employment and economic impact don’t deserve to be in the crosshairs for political purposes. The Senator’s resolution is a step forward in restoring access to the American Dream that small business owners across the country deserve.” Several small business advocates and stakeholders voiced their support for Ranking Member Markey’s efforts to roll back Trump SBA’s discriminatory lending rules. “Immigrant-owned businesses are the foundation of the American economy. They power our neighborhoods, provide essential services, and employ our loved ones. Yet, systemic hurdles like the Small Business Administration’s citizenship restrictions unfairly block their path to prosperity," said Elizabeth Sweet, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. "We applaud Senator Markey’s continued leadership and look forward to a future where immigrant entrepreneurs can share their ingenuity without arbitrary restrictions that hold us all back.” “Independent restaurants have always been built by people willing to work hard, take risks, and invest in their communities. When lawfully authorized entrepreneurs lose access to the financing they need to start or grow a business, we all lose. These are the businesses creating jobs, filling storefronts, and strengthening our neighborhoods. Access to capital should help good businesses succeed, and that’s exactly what restoring these SBA loan programs would do,” said Jen Ziskin, Executive Director of Massachusetts Restaurants United. “At the Latino Economic Development Corporation, we see firsthand that access to capital transforms lives, creates jobs, and strengthens neighborhoods. Many of the entrepreneurs we serve are lawful permanent residents who have invested their savings, opened businesses, and employ local residents. Restricting access to SBA financing doesn’t just impact business owners, it limits economic opportunity for entire communities. Main Street succeeds when every qualified entrepreneur has a fair chance to grow,” said Andrew Melendez, CEO and Founder of the Latino Economic Development Corporation. "Immigrants and immigrant-owned businesses are the heart and soul of small business communities in cities and towns throughout the Commonwealth, and across America. Limiting access to these SBA loans not only sends the wrong message about immigration, it will have significant negative economic impact on our small business ecosystem,” said Keith Mahoney, Vice President of Public Affairs at the Boston Foundation. “The SBA’s recent policy changes that prevent Legal Permanent Residents, and other non-citizens from participating in any of the SBA’s valuable programs are changes that are unwelcome, immoral, and antithetical to our purpose, our mission, and our vision for Massachusetts communities and businesses. Immigrant entrepreneurs and others have expressed concern that Common Capital will ‘report them to ICE,’ so loan demand has decreased. There is no valid reason for excluding Legal Permanent Residents and other noncitizens who are lawfully present in the U.S. from accessing the SBA’s programs. Immigrant entrepreneurs start businesses, they create jobs, they support their families and their communities. Our government should be in the business of encouraging their full participation in our economy,” said Raymond Lanza-Weil, President of Common Capital. "ECCHO-Latino now represents over 400 educators and 300 microbusinesses across Massachusetts, where immigrants make up 60% of the childcare workforce. When a green card holder is ready to grow her business—from expanding her home child care to opening a center—she shouldn't be turned away by local banks simply because of federal citizenship rules. Blocking access to SBA loans kills opportunity and deepens our state's childcare crisis. ECCHO-Latino strongly supports Senator Markey and Representative Velázquez in passing this resolution to put Main Street first," said Harold Antonio Blanco, Co-Founder & Executive Director of ECCHO-Latino Inc. "This is exactly how political ideology ruins an economy. Washington has taken lawful, tax-paying entrepreneurs who live in our communities, invest in America, and hire American workers, and declared their businesses ineligible for critical financing simply because a green card holder owns even a fraction of the company. Using policies ostensibly aimed at illegal immigration to punish lawful permanent residents is nothing short of ideological overreach and economic self-sabotage. The SBA exists to help viable small businesses grow, rather than imposing nativist tests that ignore an entrepreneur’s credit history, business plan, or ability to create jobs. When the federal government closes the door on qualified entrepreneurs, they’re also closing the door on American entrepreneurship and on American workers, while handing future companies, jobs, innovation, and investment to our competitors. America should be competing to attract people who want to invest and build here, not creating arbitrary barriers that drive their talent and capital elsewhere,” said Javier Palomarez, President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). "The U.S. Small Business Administration's decision to prohibit legal permanent residents, including green card holders, from accessing SBA-backed loans has the potential for disastrous consequences that could reverberate throughout America's economy for years to come. After all, immigrants are twice as likely to start small businesses as U.S.-born individuals. Congress must overturn rules requiring the SBA to block legal permanent residents from accessing lending resources because so many of the entrepreneurs who drive job creation in this country were born outside the United States," said John Arensemeyer, Founder and CEO of Small Business Majority. “NCRC supports the Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn SBA’s citizenship restrictions that bar green-card holders from receiving the 7(a) and 504 loans. When qualified entrepreneurs are denied access to SBA loans, all of Main Street gets hurt. Communities lose jobs. Neighborhoods lose services. Local economies lose the opportunity to build wealth and shrink disparities,” said Jesse Van Tol, President & CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). “We cannot afford to have the American Dream out of reach for hard-working, immigrant small business owners.” “Asian Americans and Asian immigrants have been integral in building local economies. They create businesses, jobs, and opportunities in communities across the country that benefit everyone. Lawful permanent residents pay taxes, invest in their communities, and strengthen Main Street, yet the SBA's discriminatory citizenship restrictions unfairly deny them access to the same tools that help small businesses grow and succeed. We applaud congressional leaders for advancing this resolution to overturn the latest restrictions on SBA lending for green card holders, and we urge lawmakers to also pass the Investing in the American Dream Act to fully restore access to SBA loan programs for all eligible people in the United States. Ensuring that immigrant-owned small businesses have a fair opportunity to access capital is essential to building a stronger, more inclusive economy that works for all,” said Joanna Derman, Director of Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights and National Security at Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). "Immigrant-owned businesses often turn to SBA 7(a) and 504 loans because they face higher denial rates from traditional lenders,” said Imani Augustus, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Opportunity. "These programs provide the capital they need to expand operations, hire workers, and invest in their businesses. Reversing the ban on lawful permanent residents is a critical first step toward ensuring these financing tools are accessible to everyone strengthening their communities through entrepreneurship. We applaud this action and urge Congress to fully restore access by passing the Investing in the American Dream Act.” "Last year, nearly 5,700 SBA loans worth $5.7 billion went to businesses owned by green card holders, supporting more than 80,000 jobs. These are entrepreneurs who have put down roots here, hired their neighbors, and invested in the communities they call home. Barring them from capital doesn't protect Main Street—it starves it. What should matter is the strength of a business and its potential to grow, not the immigration status of its owner. This resolution doesn’t eliminate all the citizenship restrictions in SBA’s policy change, but it’s a step toward restoring a commonsense principle that stood for more than 30 years," said Howard Wial, Director of Research at ICIC. "I'm encouraged to see Congress moving to reopen access to capital for green card holders, a key tool for small business survival. Green card holders accounted for an estimated 5,700 SBA loans in Fiscal Year 2025, worth $5.7 billion and supporting more than 80,000 jobs across the country. That capital is often what keeps a business operating through its toughest stretches when cash flow gets tight. When qualified entrepreneurs lose access to that capital over their immigration status rather than their ability to repay a loan, it's the local economy that pays the price,” said Small Business for America's Future Co-Chair Shaundell Newsome, Founder of Sumnu Marketing. “Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and entrepreneurs —including green card holders — take risks every day to build businesses, create jobs, and strengthen communities. SBA loan programs should be administered with clear, consistent standards that safeguard public resources while ensuring these programs remain focused on supporting eligible entrepreneurs and job creators. This resolution responds to the opportunity to support all entrepreneurs and preserve the integrity of federally supported lending programs. We applaud the introduction of this resolution and remain committed to policies that strengthen small businesses, promote economic growth, and maintain confidence in these vital lending programs,” said Carolina Martinez, CEO of CAMEO Network. “National CAPACD wholeheartedly supports the introduction of this resolution aimed at overturning the SBA's misguided policy prohibiting immigrants from accessing the 7(a) and 504 loan programs. As a coalition, we are committed to creating systems, organizations, and societies that are fair and just. We believe we and our economy are stronger when we uplift our rich and diverse communities. Access to capital helps small businesses create jobs, build wealth, and strengthen neighborhoods. Restoring this pathway is an important first step toward ensuring immigrant entrepreneurs can continue to grow their businesses and contribute positively to our economy as a whole. We urge Congress to build on this momentum by passing the Investing in the American Dream Act, which would fully restore fair access to safe and affordable credit and uphold our commitment to a fair economy that works for everyone,” said Seema Agnani, CEO of National CAPACD. Ranking Member Markey is fighting for small business owners and immigrants that rely on SBA loans to start and run their businesses, create jobs, and contribute to their communities. In May, Ranking Member Markey highlighted the significant contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in Massachusetts and across the country and condemned the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on immigrant communities at a Small Business Committee hearing. MIRA’s Elizabeth Sweet, who participated in Ranking Member Markey’s listening session earlier in May, provided testimony at the hearing. Also in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a listening session at the Urban College of Boston to hear directly from several Massachusetts immigrant small business owners, lenders, and chambers of commerce how President Trump’s cruel and callous anti-immigrant policies are hurting Main Streets in the Bay State. Earlier in May, Ranking Member Markey hosted a press conference alongside Ranking Member Velázquez, Democratic lawmakers, and stakeholders to condemn the Trump administration’s harmful anti-immigrant lending policies and to introduce the Investing in the American Dream Act. In March, Ranking Member Markey released a comprehensive report detailing the harms to small business owners, workers, and consumers caused by the Trump administration’s ICE raids in communities across the country. In February, Ranking Member Markey introduced the Small Business ICE Disruption Fund Act, which would provide grants to small businesses that have been impacted by the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement actions on Main Streets across the United States. Earlier in February, Ranking Member Markey, Ranking Member Velázquez, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) sent a letter urging the SBA to rescind their lending rule change that bars legal permanent residents from receiving SBA loans. Previously, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez released a statement condemning the actions of the SBA after it announced that small businesses with legal permanent residents will be barred from receiving SBA loans. In December 2025, Ranking Member Markey and all Democratic members of the Senate Small Business Committee sent a letter to the SBA reiterating concerns with the SBA’s citizenship requirements and highlighting a drop in SBA lending volume. In September 2025, Ranking Member Markey heard directly from SBA lenders about the issues with the citizenship verification requirements. In July 2025, Ranking Members Markey and Velázquez sent a letter to the SBA expressing serious concerns with the agency’s new, draconian citizenship verification requirements that require small businesses seeking SBA loans to be 100% owned by U.S. citizens, nationals, and legal permanent residents. SBA has not responded to the letter. ###
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The Cost of Cutting American Science: How Federal Cuts Diminish Public Health Capacity
Among the federal government’s many responsibilities is the work it does to protect public health. Federal agencies monitor our food supply to ensure safety, conduct research to better understand emerging health threats, provide funding for public health programs in communities and work to detect and respond to disease outbreaks. Americans rely on these efforts every day—in a 2024 online survey, 74% of respondents said that “if the federal government issued safety guidance about food you eat regularly,” they would follow it. Changes to Federal Public Health Capacity The Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the federal government have resulted in significant impacts on our nation’s public health capacity over the past 20 months, affecting the response to health concerns such as measles, Ebola and cyclosporiasis. Agencies with core public health, food safety and disease prevention responsibilities experienced large workforce decreases during the first year of the administration. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, the workforce in February 2026 was 26.7% smaller than in September 2024 before the start of the Trump administration. The Food and Drug Administration saw a similarly steep decline of 21.6%. Agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and Food Safety and Inspection Service also experienced large workforce decreases. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); Changes can also be seen in crucial public health occupations. The number of federal food inspectors, for example, decreased by more than half between September 2024 and February 2026, going from 1,035 to 473. This is the lowest number of food inspectors employed by the federal government since at least 2005. By February 2026, there were also 33.3% fewer federal public health program specialists, whose work includes advising federal funding recipients on public health activities and analyzing the effectiveness of public health programs. Government’s capacity is diminished as employees with specialized knowledge and experience in protecting the public and responding to health risks depart, leaving agencies less prepared to carry out their public health missions. There also have been vacancies in critical high-level leadership positions at public health agencies, most notably at the CDC, which had a permanent Senate-confirmed director for less than a month between January 2025 and early August 2026. Although the CDC has previously been led by acting directors at the start of an administration, the nearly yearlong gap since the departure of the administration’s first permanent director in August 2025 is without precedent. As of August 2026, the FDA is also currently without a Senate-confirmed commissioner following the previous commissioner’s resignation in May 2026. Additionally, public health agencies are experiencing increased politicization of their leadership ranks. In agencies such as the CDC and Food Safety and Inspection Service, the number of individuals in the Senior Executive Service—the most senior career leaders in government—has declined significantly, while at the same time the number of political appointees has reached record levels. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); At the CDC, for example, the number of career SES decreased 42.9% between December 2024 and February 2026, while the number of non-Senate confirmed political appointees at the agency was six times larger than the agency’s historical average from 2009 and 2024. Knowledgeable career leaders are integral to the ability of public health agencies to carry out their work with scientific integrity and professional judgment, and rapid leadership turnover and increased politicization threaten agencies’ ability to make evidence-based decisions to protect our health. The upheaval and politicization in public health agencies have also negatively affected employee engagement. Strong employee engagement is crucial to the ability of agencies to carry out their mission and successfully provide essential services to the public. In the 2025 Public Service Viewpoint Survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service, the Department of Health and Human Services—which encompasses major public health agencies such as the CDC and FDA—had an employee engagement and satisfaction score of 20.4 out of 100, one of the lowest among large agencies. Only 2.8% of HHS employees indicated trust in their political leaders and only 8.7% reported confidence that they could report a suspected violation of law or regulation without retaliation. Employees at HHS also reported that the agency’s ability to provide services to the public had suffered. Nearly half of employees at HHS, 47.5%, said their work unit was worse at delivering quality services compared to its performance in 2024. In addition, 57.8% said their work unit was performing worse at fulfilling stakeholder needs. In addition to the work done within federal agencies, the federal government also distributes significant funding for public health and disease prevention work to state and local governments, nonprofits and small businesses—funding which has been significantly disrupted. At the CDC, for example, there was a 71.9% decrease in the amount of project grant funding issued in fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2024. The FDA also issued far less funding in fiscal year 2025—a 21.3% decrease from its fiscal year 2024 funding. Changes in federal funding include the ending of grants to community organizations that worked on HIV prevention and the cancellation of funding for research into improvements to patient safety and healthcare quality. These changes go beyond federal agencies to impact the broader public health ecosystem, including the state and local health departments responsible for much of the on-the-ground public health work in their communities. About 80% of the CDC’s domestic funding is directed towards state and local partners—meaning that cuts to CDC funding can ultimately result in cuts to state and local public health capacity. Federal agencies also provide expertise and assistance to state and local health agencies as they deal with particular health challenges, but workforce cuts have resulted in fewer federal employees available to help. The Impact of Changes to Public Health Capacity These changes to federal public health capacity are not abstract concerns. Disrupted programs, reduced funding and lost expertise at public health agencies across all levels of government threaten the public’s physical well-being and safety. In some cases, this has already led to harm. The most immediate impacts of federal cuts were seen in interruptions to ongoing public health programs and crisis responses. In one instance, when CDC grants were canceled during the 2025 Texas measles outbreak—the most severe measles outbreak in 25 years—public health officials in Lubbock, Texas were forced to pause parts of their measles response work supported by the frozen funding. Lubbock’s director of public health further said that a lack of available CDC experts to reach out to for advice “definitely” impacted the department’s response to the measles crisis. Cuts to federal funding also forced Dallas County Health and Human Services to cut staff and cancel 50 community vaccination clinics during the outbreak. Public health work outside of major outbreak responses was also disrupted. For example, in April 2025, the Milwaukee Public Health Department was unexpectedly unable to reach experts on lead poisoning due to firings at the CDC when responding to concerns about lead contamination in Milwaukee public schools. Due to federal workforce cuts, several programs at the CDC, including Alzheimer’s and epilepsy programs, have also become trapped in limbo—existing on paper, but without the staff necessary to operate. More recent crises reveal how federal cuts have weakened the public health infrastructure needed to prevent and respond to dangerous new outbreaks. Internationally, cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development eliminated funding for disease testing and contact tracing abroad, which delayed detection of and responses to the 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While international outbreaks may seem far removed, the unchecked spread of disease in any country can quickly pose a danger to economic well-being, security and health around the world. Within the United States, public health cuts inhibited responses to the summer 2026 outbreak of the food-borne parasite cyclospora. At the federal level, cuts to funding for lab equipment and for CDC staff with expertise in parasitic infections—including 9 out of 11 staff members at the lab responsible for identifying parasitic outbreaks in 2025— contributed to the largest reporting delay in outbreak cases at the CDC in 15 years. Conflicting communications from the FDA about the source of the outbreak, which followed cuts to the agency’s communications department, additionally led to confusion among the public about how to best avoid infection. At the same time, cuts to HHS funding and support for local and state public health slowed some health departments’ responses to the crisis. The exact costs of these delays, constraints and confusion in public health responses are difficult to estimate. However, their message is clear: federal cuts have already made containing threats to public health even more of a challenge. Conclusion Protecting public health—from food safety to disease prevention—is one of the federal government’s most important missions. Dramatic and haphazard cuts to federal agencies and funding have already disrupted the public health system, impacting the response to challenges such as measles, lead poisoning and cyclosporiasis. The U.S. public health system needed improvement before these disruptions. Since 2022, federal leadership and coordination in response to public health outbreaks has been on the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List of areas in need of attention to improve government effectiveness and efficiency. Recent cuts only compound these concerns. The chaotic dismantling of government and resulting disruptions to crucial functions like public health and disease prevention highlight the need for meaningful reform and concrete policy proposals to reimagine how government can better serve the public and be more effective, responsive and accountable. To learn more about the impact of federal cuts to public health and science more broadly, visit The Cost of Cutting American Science. Learn more For more information on the Partnership for Public Service’s government reform initiative, visit Government for a New Era. View here In line with The Cost of Cutting American Science, federal workforce data in this brief is as of February 2026
Business Chief Opens Speaker Applications for CXO Summit 2026
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WHO joins Pre-COP31 to advance climate action that delivers for people’s health
The World Health Organization (WHO) is joining Pacific leaders, governments and partners at Pre-COP31 in Fiji from 5 to 8 October to advance health priorities in climate action and strengthen the Pacific voice ahead of the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).COP31, to be held next month in Antalya, Türkiye, marks an important step for global climate and health action. Health is one of the 10 priority themes of the COP31 Action Agenda, “Dynamic and Resilient Health Systems”, and a dedicated Health Day will take place on 9 November, the first day of COP31. The inclusion of health reflects growing global recognition that climate action and health are closely connected. The climate crisis is affecting population health globally. Across the WHO Western Pacific Region, which includes Pacific island countries and areas, the consequences of climate change include extreme heat, cyclones, floods, rising sea levels, food and water insecurity, infectious diseases and disruptions to essential health services. The Pacific in particular faces additional challenges. A recent review of 76 hospitals in 14 Pacific island countries found that 62% of health facilities are located within 500 metres of the sea or a river, leaving them particularly exposed to flooding, storm surges and sea-level rise.Bringing Pacific priorities to the global climate agendaThe Pacific Pre-COP31 provides an important opportunity for Pacific countries and partners to consolidate regional priorities and bring the experiences and leadership of Pacific communities into global climate discussions.Pacific countries have been advancing practical approaches to protect health in a changing climate, including strengthening climate-resilient health systems, improving preparedness for extreme weather events, building resilient health infrastructure and mobilizing climate finance for health. “This Pre-COP is an important moment for the Pacific, bringing global climate discussions to a region that has long been at the forefront of the climate crisis. It provides an opportunity for Pacific countries and areas to set their priorities, experiences and leadership on the global stage, and to ensure that the realities of Pacific communities are genuinely reflected in the decisions made on climate action,” said Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific.Throughout this week, WHO will co-convene and participate in high-level discussions and events focused on climate and health, climate resilience, adaptation, financing and implementation. “Climate finance is essential for resilient and healthy Pacific communities,” emphasized Dr Mark Jacobs, WHO Representative to the South Pacific and Director of Pacific Technical Support. “We must ensure that financing reaches the people, communities and essential services most exposed to climate risks, supporting locally defined priorities and investments.”WHO will work with partners to strengthen the integration of health considerations across climate policies and investments, including national climate plans and resilience initiatives.Health as a driver of climate actionAmid the risks to health and pressures on health systems, well-strategized and implemented climate action can deliver significant health benefits. Investments in clean energy, sustainable transport, resilient infrastructure, food systems and nature-based solutions have proven to reduce health risks while contributing to climate mitigation and adaptation.“Climate action is truly an investment in health. Cleaner energy, healthier food systems and climate-resilient health services can protect lives while building stronger communities. We now need to turn these opportunities into action and make health a core part of climate investments,” said Dr Sandro Demaio, Director and Head of Office, WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region. “These benefits demonstrate that climate action is not only about reducing future risks. It is also an opportunity to improve lives today while building healthier, safer and more resilient societies.”At COP31 next month, WHO will also support the Health Pavilion, which will bring together the global health community and partners to advance health and equity within climate negotiations. With COP31 poised to move health higher on the global climate agenda, WHO will continue working with countries and partners across the Western Pacific Region and globally to strengthen climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems, and ensure that climate action protects and improves people’s health.____________________Media contactsElizabeth Bennett, WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region, elizabeth.bennett@who.intJulia Dongwhan Shin, WHO Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region, dong.shin@who.intWHO Western Pacific Communications, wprocom@who.int
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