NATION IN BRIEF

CDC moves forward on datasharing — without Congress

WASHINGTON — In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s mpox outbreak, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen is updating the agency’s data-sharing strategy for the next two years — with a focus on what the agency can do without congressional help.

Republicans have been reluctant to hand more power to the CDC after the pandemic, with that distrust contributing to a number of issues, including a failure to reauthorize the 2006 pandemic preparedness law, which expired last September.

The new policies outlined in the 2024-2025 public health data strategy do not necessarily require congressional authorities, instead focusing on encouraging partnerships between hospitals and local public health systems.

“I am being super practical about this. I love you, Congress, and we work with you very closely, but I am working with the assumption that there is not going to be some major new supplemental package of dollars coming our way this year,” Cohen said at the Kaiser Permanente Health Action Summit in Washington on Thursday.

While the CDC has made advances in data-sharing following COVID-19 and the mpox outbreak, public health officials argue more is needed to modernize the public health agency’s information technology systems.

During 2023, more than 11,000 health care facilities adopted electronic case reporting at the CDC’S request. Electronic case reporting helps move data quickly from hospitals and other facilities to public health agencies, to alert them about potential threats and monitor disease spread.

The new data-sharing strategy aims to further expand the number of facilities using both electronic case reporting and the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, or TEFCA, to enable data-sharing with health care systems and providers.

TSA found more than 1,500 firearms on airline passengers in first 3 months of 2024

More than 1,500 firearms were found on travelers screened at airport security checkpoints across the country in the first three months of the year, according to federal officials.

Roughly 93% of the guns found by security officials were loaded, the Transportation Security Administration announced in a news release Thursday.

The TSA screened more than 206 million travelers in the first quarter of 2024, which stretches from January 1 to March 31. TSA officers found 1,503 firearms, which amounts to about 16.5 guns found each day across the nation’s airports, which is slightly down for the same time period last year when officers found 16.8 firearms per day or 7.9 firearms per one million passengers, according to the news release.

“While it is certainly promising that the rate of passengers bringing firearms to the checkpoint has decreased, one firearm at the checkpoint is too many,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in the news release. “The demand for air travel is as strong as ever and security is always our number one priority. Every time we discover a firearm at the checkpoint, the security screening process is slowed down for all.”

People can travel with firearms, but they need to properly pack and check their baggage, Pekoske said. The baggage with the firearms must also be declared to the airline at the ticket counter and should be packed unloaded in a hardsided case.

Apple plans to overhaul entire Mac line with Ai-focused M4 chips

Apple Inc., aiming to boost sluggish computer sales, is preparing to overhaul its entire Mac line with a new family of in-house processors designed to highlight artificial intelligence.

The company, which released its first Macs with M3 chips five months ago, is already nearing production of the next generation — the M4 processor — according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new chip will come in at least three main varieties, and Apple is looking to update every Mac model with it, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been announced.

The new Macs are underway at a critical time. After peaking in 2022, Mac sales fell 27% in the last fiscal year, which ended in September. In the holiday period, revenue from the computer line was flat. Apple attempted to breathe new life into the Mac business with an M3-focused launch event last October, but those chips didn’t bring major performance improvements over the M2 from the prior year.

Apple also is playing catchup in AI, where it’s seen as a laggard to Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other tech peers. The new chips are part of a broader push to weave AI capabilities into all its products.

Apple is aiming to release the updated computers beginning late this year and extending into early next year. There will be new imacs, a low-end 14-inch Macbook Pro, high-end 14-inch and 16-inch Macbook Pros, and Mac minis — all with M4 chips. But the company’s plans could change. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.

Apple shares gained more than 2% to $171.20 as of 1:12 p.m. in New York on Thursday. They had been down 13% this year through Wednesday’s close.

The move will mark a quick refresh schedule for the imac and Macbook Pro, as both lines were just updated in October. The Mac mini was last upgraded in January 2023.

Apple is then planning to follow up with more M4 Macs throughout 2025. That includes updates to the 13-inch and 15inch Macbook Air by the spring, the Mac Studio around the middle of the year, and the Mac Pro later in 2025. The Macbook Air received the M3 chip last month, while the Mac Studio and Mac Pro were updated with M2 processors last year.

Amazon hit with $525 million jury verdict in patent case brought by Chicago tech firm

Amazon Web Services must pay $525 million to Chicagobased tech company Kove for infringing upon three of the company’s patents, a federal jury decided Wednesday.

The patent case, which was heard in federal court in Chicago, centered around datastorage patents held by Kove.

The technology in question enables the search of “vast quantities of data in a very efficient way” to “find exactly what you’re looking for,” said Renato Mariotti, an attorney for Kove.

The jury found Amazon Web Services had infringed upon Kove’s patents, though it did not do so willfully.

In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Duncan Neasham said the company disagreed with the verdict and intends to appeal. “We thank the jury, which also acknowledged that AWS did not willfully infringe on patents,” Neasham said.

In its original complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in 2018, Kove argued its technology “became essential” to Amazon Web Services “as the volume of data stored on its cloud grew exponentially and its cloud storage business faced limitations on the ability to store and retrieve massive amounts of data.”

Kove also filed suit against Google for allegedly infringing upon its patents in a case that is still ongoing in Illinois.

Hormel settles price-fixing suits for $11 million

Hormel Foods will pay more than $11 million to settle class-action lawsuits alleging the company worked with other pork producers to illegally fix prices and overcharge customers, according to court records.

The proposed settlements, filed in federal court in Minneapolis last week, will see the Austin, Minnesota-based food company end the litigation without admitting fault.

Hormel will pay $2.4 million to institutional customers like restaurants and delis; $4.8 million to wholesalers and other direct purchasers; and $4.4 million to consumers, if a federal judge approves the agreements.

Source: Tribune News Service