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The chairs of two Senate committees that oversee health policy, concerned that companies are “increasing their profits” at the expense of patients, are examining the practices of a data analytics firm that partners with large insurers to cut payments to providers of health services.The company, MultiPlan, recommends fair payments for medical care, but the company and insurers can collect higher fees when payments are lower. This business model could “give rise to an improper conflict of interest,” the chairmen of the two committees, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, wrote in a letter to the company's CEO published Tuesday.The senators invited MultiPlan to meet with committee staff to discuss a New York Times investigation last month that found the company's pricin...

Competing strains on U.S. global power emerged at a security conference Sunday, where China accused the United States of stoking tensions around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought greater support for his country in difficulty.These scenes played out at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security forum in Singapore that has long been a barometer of the highs and lows of U.S.-China relations.This year, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Chinese Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun held talks, something the two countries' top defense officials have not always done in this meeting. But Admiral Dong made clear that China remains antagonistic to U.S. influence and alliance-building across Asia, particularly American support for Taiwan...

When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last year that his company would release an artificial intelligence system, Jeffrey Emanuel had reservations.Mr. Emanuel, a part-time hacker and full-time AI enthusiast, had tinkered with "closed" AI models, including those from OpenAI, meaning the systems' underlying code was not accessible or editable. When Zuckerberg introduced Meta's artificial intelligence system by invitation to only a handful of academics, Emanuel was worried that the technology would remain limited to only a small circle of people.But in a release last summer of an updated AI system, Zuckerberg made the code “open source” so it could be freely copied, modified and reused by anyone.Mr. Emanuel, the founder of blockchain start-up Pastel Network, has been sold. He said...

A day after President Biden called on Israel and Hamas to reach a truce, declaring it was "time for this war to end," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday reiterated that Israel will not agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza as long as Hamas still retains governmental and military power.In his statement, Netanyahu did not explicitly endorse or reject the proposed ceasefire plan that Biden laid out in an unusually detailed speech on Friday. Two Israeli officials confirmed that Biden's proposal corresponded to an Israeli ceasefire proposal that had been given the green light by Israel's war cabinet. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.But the timing of Netanyahu's remarks, which came first thing the next morning, appeared to...

House Republicans on Tuesday accused officials at the National Institutes of Health of orchestrating “a conspiracy at the highest levels” of the agency to hide public documents related to the origins of the Covid pandemic. And lawmakers vowed to expand an investigation that uncovered emails in which top health officials spoke openly about trying to evade federal records laws.The latest allegations — which come just days before a House committee is expected to publicly question Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a former top NIH official — represent one front in a growing push by lawmakers to connect American research groups and the country's leading medical research agency with the onset of the Covid pandemic.So far this push has produced no evidence that American scientists or health officials ha...

Russian forces struck several Ukraine energy facilities with drones and missiles Saturday morning, in a major airstrike that targeted cities across the country, including some near borders with NATO members.The Ukrainian air force said that Russia fired 53 missiles on its territory, that it shot down two-thirds of them, and that some were heading towards the western regions of Zakarpattia and Lviv, which border Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, countries that part of NATO. The Polish military said its fighter planes and those of other allies were scrambled to protect their borders in case a Russian weapon crossed them, as has happened in the past.Saturday's attack was Russia's sixth attack on energy facilities in Ukraine since March, part of a broader campaign apparently aimed at cutt...

When Frank Pine Googled a link to a news article two months ago, he came across AI-generated paragraphs on the topic at the top of his results. To see what he wanted, he had to scroll further.This experience bothered Mr. Pine, executive director of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing, which own 68 newspapers across the country. Now, those paragraphs scare him.In May, Google announced that AI-generated summaries, which pull together content from news sites and blogs on the searched topic, would be made available to everyone in the United States. And this change has made Pine and many other publishing executives fear that paragraphs pose a major danger to their fragile business model by dramatically reducing the amount of traffic to their sites from Google.“It could stifle the origina...

A day after President Biden called on Israel and Hamas to reach a truce, declaring it was "time for this war to end," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday reiterated that Israel will not agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza as long as Hamas still retains governmental and military power.In his statement, Netanyahu did not explicitly endorse or reject the proposed ceasefire plan that Biden laid out in an unusually detailed speech on Friday. Two Israeli officials confirmed that Biden's proposal corresponded to an Israeli ceasefire proposal that had been given the green light by Israel's war cabinet. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.But the timing of Netanyahu's remarks, which came first thing the next morning, appeared to...

Take a moment to imagine a small gray rock sitting in the palm of your hand. It's quiet, smooth and otherwise unremarkable.Are you bored already? If so, that's exactly the point.Most people will eventually lose interest in a dull piece of granite. So there's a theory circulating online that if you adopt the qualities of a stone, becoming impassive and bland, then you will repel the argumentative, antagonistic people in your life who crave conflict.It's called the "grey rock" method, and over the last decade it has spread across social media, including among TikTok influencers, who have shared strategies for channeling their inner rock. It also came up in a recent episode of the reality show "Vanderpump Rules," when a cast member, Ariana Madix, said that using the techni...

Arnaud Gaudillat, a history teacher in France, recalled breaking down in tears as he watched television coverage of the flames that swept through Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019. “We could do nothing but watch it burn,” he said.Now, five years later, as hundreds of architects, engineers and metalworkers race to finish rebuilding the cathedral's roof coverings and electrical cables by the end of the year, Gaudillat will not stand on the sidelines. He will build his Notre-Dame. One made up of 4,383 Lego pieces.Lego, the world's largest toy company, launched a model of Notre-Dame Cathedral on Saturday, complete with rose windows, bell towers and a central spire surrounded by statues. The set, designed for adults, will be part of the company's collection of sets based on architectu...