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The <keyword id="22407175" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="U-WIN" source="keywords">U-WIN</keyword> portal, a replication of the <keyword id="19897423" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="COVID-19" source="keywords">Covid-19</keyword> vaccine management system Co-WIN, is set for a pan-India launch likely by the end of August, aiming to maintain an electronic registry of routine immunisations, official sources said. Currently, U-WIN is in pilot mode across all states and Union Territories, except for West Bengal, which is yet to start uploading data, the sources told PTI, adding that it is still under consideration in the state. The U-WIN platform captures every <keyword id="19933690" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vaccination" source="keywords">vaccination</keyword> event for pregnant women and children under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP). Minister of Finance <keyword id="19916618" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nirmala-sitharaman" source="keywords">Nirmala Sitharaman</keyword> had announced in the interim Budget for 2024-2025 that U-WIN, along with intensified efforts under Mission Indradhanush, will be rolled out nationwide for managing <keyword id="21423640" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="immunisation" source="keywords">immunisation</keyword>. "The U-WIN will ensure timely administration of vaccine doses by digitally recording every vaccination event under the Universal Immunisation Programme among all pregnant women and children aged 0-5 years," an official told PTI. "The portal will target 2.9 crore pregnant women and 2.6 crore infants (0-1 years) annually by providing 11 vaccines against 12 vaccine preventable diseases -- diphtheria, measles, rubella, and tetanus through more than 1.2 crore vaccination sessions across the country," the official added. The platform generates a uniform QR-based, digitally verifiable e-vaccination certificate, similar to Covid vaccination certificate, which can be accessed anytime by the citizens through a single click. Vaccination records under UIP are being maintained manually as of now. So this will do away with the hassle of keeping a physical record, the officials explained. It will enable the digitisation of session planning, and updating vaccination status on a real-time basis, they added. "Also, there is no mechanism of individual tracking. There is also lack of awareness among beneficiaries about session location and date especially in urban areas and iniquity in immunisation coverage in states and UTs," another official said. "Besides, another major issue is that immunisation at private health facilities is not recorded," the official added. The U-WIN is going to be the single source of information for immunisation services which will record pregnancy details and outcome, newborn registration and immunisation at birth. It will update vaccination status, and delivery outcome, among others, on real time, the official said. As of July 9, 2024, the pilot has registered 5.33 crore beneficiaries on U-WIN. Over 83.55 lakh vaccination sessions have been digitally conducted, and 18.15 crore vaccine doses have been recorded. The platform aims to reduce zero-dose and left-out children through a name-based tracking mechanism and empower citizens with anytime, anywhere access to vaccination services, particularly benefiting migratory populations, the official said. "The U-WIN portal is likely to be launched pan <keyword id="19895063" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="India" source="keywords">India</keyword> in August end," the official stated. Citizens can self-register for vaccinations via the U-WIN web portal or its Android mobile application, select preferred vaccination centres, and schedule appointments. Automated SMS alerts inform citizens about registration confirmations, administered doses, and upcoming dose reminders, ensuring timely and age-appropriate vaccinations. It also facilitates the creation of Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) IDs for comprehensive health record maintenance. The U-WIN also supports the frontline workers to digitally record all vaccination events for children and pregnant women for complete, accurate and easy record maintenance, the official said.

Pan-India rollout of U-WIN to track routine immunisations likely by Aug end

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A new study found that teen girls' brains aged faster during the pandemic.</li><li>Researchers measured cortical thinning, a natural process that can be accelerated by stress.</li></ul>This week, a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2403200121">new scientific paper</a> sent a ripple through the world of child psychology.Researchers at the University of Washington published brain scans of teenagers taken three years apart, in 2018 and 2021.The team expected significant findings, since the second scans were taken after all of the kids had their lives suddenly upended and socially stunted by COVID lockdowns.They hypothesized that girls would be more impacted, because they're more reliant on peer relationships for emotional support than teen boys. But "we didn't expect it to be as dramatic a difference," lead author Dr. Neva Corrigan told Business Insider.The average acceleration for teen girls was 4.2 years, compared to 1.4 for boys.While more research is needed, the study offers a glimpse into the effects the pandemic had on brain development. It comes at a time when teen girls have seen a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-report-teen-girls-alarming-rates-sadness-hopelessness-sexual-violence-2023-2">sharp rise in sadness and hopelessness</a>, often attributed to social media use.<h2 id="c81b7065-67f7-4f59-9455-c4636815bed5">Isolation may have played a role</h2>The original intention of the study was to track typical adolescent brain development, Corrigan, who specializes in MRI data acquisition and analysis, told BI. In 2018, her team took MRI data from 160 adolescents ages 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17, and planned to follow up at a later date.But after the pandemic, "we realized that we could no longer call this typical development," Corrigan said. "These kids had undergone a huge change in their lives." Her team knew they had a unique opportunity to examine how aspects of the pandemic, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/public-teacher-homeschool-own-kids-2024-5">remote learning</a>, affected the brain.In 2021, about 130 of the subjects returned for more testing. The team measured cortical thinning, a natural process that usually begins in late childhood and is believed to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3791607/">improve cognitive performance</a>.The age acceleration was more than double the size in teen girls, and the regions most impacted were all related to social cognition, such as facial recognition and language comprehension.Because females generally rely more on <a target="_blank" href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17328705/">relationships for emotional support</a> than males, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-loneliness">loneliness</a> during the pandemic could have caused teen girls more stress, speeding up their cortical thinning.<h2 id="ca6c015e-1e33-410a-957c-fdee9576f795">Cortical thinning isn't always negative</h2>Corrigan said there's a lot we still don't know about cortical thinning, such as whether it's reversible.However, she said past studies have shown that accelerated cortical thinning can put people at higher risk for neurodegenerative disorders in old age, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.It can also increase the odds of developing psychiatric disorders such as depression or anxiety.At the same time, quicker brain aging isn't necessarily all bad. It's believed that the cortex thins to reduce the effect the environment has on brain development, Corrigan said. If the brain is less vulnerable to external stressors, "that could make these kids a little bit more resilient to stress," she said.<h2 id="47b59dfa-19bd-494b-98ab-6151b36b2682">There are still many unknowns</h2>Bradley S. Peterson, a pediatric psychiatrist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles who wasn't part of the study, told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/health/teen-brains-pandemic-girls.html">The New York Times</a> that it had some limitations. One was that the data came from different subsets of the group, rather than measuring each individual's brain changes.The study also didn't track the participants' individual habits, so it can't confirm if other elements of the pandemic, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/surgeon-general-social-media-warning-label-mental-health-crisis-children-2024-6">increased screen time</a>, contributed to quicker cortical thinning.Corrigan said the biggest takeaway for parents is to be mindful of the potential risks of their teens developing anxiety or depression. "Perhaps they can help stave that off by talking to their kids and providing emotional support for them."

Brain scans show teen girls aged 4 years faster than boys during COVID lockdowns. We asked the researcher what that means long-term.

Sydney, Aug 15 (The Conversation): The <keyword id="19896311" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="World-Health-Organization" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="World Health Organization" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="World Health Organization">World Health Organization</keyword> (<keyword id="19895006" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="WHO" source="keywords">WHO</keyword>) has declared <keyword id="20965747" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="mpox" source="keywords">mpox</keyword> a public health emergency of international concern, after rising cases in the <keyword id="22796094" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo" source="keywords">Democratic Republic of the Congo</keyword> and the potential for further spread. This now triggers a coordinated international response to an extraordinary event and the mobilisation of resources, such as vaccines and diagnostic testing, to curb the spread of this infectious disease. But WHO has not declared mpox a <keyword id="19913581" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pandemic" source="keywords">pandemic</keyword>. Rather, the measures it has triggered are designed to prevent it from becoming one. <h2>What triggered this latest alert?</h2> Mpox, once known as monkeypox, is a viral infection closely related to <keyword id="22362924" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="smallpox" source="keywords">smallpox</keyword>. Initial symptoms include a fever, headache, swelling of the lymph nodes and muscle ache. A typical rash follows, mainly on the face, hands and feet. The spread of mpox through certain African countries led the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to declare earlier this week mpox a public health emergency of continental security. This is the first time the organisation has issued such an alert since it was established in 2017. The situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa has been particularly worrying for more than a year. There are two types or clades of mpox. Clade II, which originates in west Africa, is less severe. It has a fatality rate of up to 1 per cent (in other words, roughly one in 100 are expected to die from it). But clade I, from central Africa, has a fatality rate of up to 10 per cent (up to one in ten die). This compares to a 0.7 per cent fatality rate for the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is seeing large epidemics of the more deadly clade I mpox. Mpox is endemic in some parts of central and west Africa, where the virus exists in animals and can spread to humans. Outbreaks have been increasing, with more human-to-human spread, since 2017. This is partly due to very low levels of immunity to the mpox virus, which is related to the virus that causes smallpox. Mass vaccination against smallpox ceased more than 40 years ago globally, resulting in minimal immunity in populations today against mpox. The WHO designation announced this week relates to the clade I. Not only does this have a higher fatality rate, it has new mutations that enhance spread between people. These changes, and the global lack of immunity to mpox, makes the world's population vulnerable to the virus. <h2>There are two different epidemics</h2> In 2022, an epidemic of mpox swept through non-endemic countries, including beyond Africa. This was a variant of clade II originating from Nigeria, called clade IIb. This was sexually transmitted, predominantly affecting men who have sex with men, and had a low fatality rate. That epidemic peaked in 2022, with vaccines made available to people at risk in high-income countries, but there has been an uptick in 2024. At the same time, large clade I epidemics were occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but with far less attention. Vaccines were not available there, even in 2023, when there were 14,626 cases and 654 deaths. Mortality was 4.5 per cent, and higher in children. In fact, most cases and deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been children. This means most transmission there is non-sexual and is likely to have occurred through close contact or respiratory aerosols. However, in 2023 an <keyword id="20877025" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="outbreak" source="keywords">outbreak</keyword> in a non-endemic part of the country, South Kivu in the east, appeared to be by sexual transmission, indicating more than one epidemic and different transmission modes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By mid-2024, there were already more cases in the country than all of 2023 - more than 15,600 cases and 537 deaths. Testing capacity is low in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, most cases are not confirmed by lab testing, and the data we have are from a small sample of genomic sequences from the Kamituga region of South Kivu. This show mutations to the clade I virus around September 2023, to a variant termed clade Ib, which is more readily transmissible between people. We do not have much data to compare these viruses with the viruses causing cases in the rest of the country. <h2>Mpox is spreading internationally</h2> In the past month, the virus has spread to countries that share a border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Rwanda and Burundi. It has also spread to other east African countries, such as Kenya and Uganda. None of these countries have had mpox cases previously. In an interconnected, mobile world, cases may spread to other continents, as mpox did in 2018 from Nigeria to the United Kingdom and other countries. A few travel-related cases between 2018 and 2019 may have led to the large multi-country 2022 clade IIb epidemic. <h2>We have vaccines, but not where they are needed</h2> As the mpox virus and smallpox viruses are related (they are both orthopoxviruses), smallpox vaccines offer protection against mpox. These vaccines were used to control the 2022 clade IIb epidemic. However, most of the world has never been vaccinated, and has no immunity to mpox. The newer <keyword id="19959412" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vaccine" source="keywords">vaccine</keyword> (called Jynneos in some countries and Imvamune or Imvanex in others) is effective. However, supplies are limited, and vaccine is scarce in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. WHO's declaration of mpox as a public health emergency of international concern will help mobilise vaccines to where they are needed. The Africa Centres for Disease Control had already begun negotiations to secure 2,00,000 doses of vaccine, which is a fraction of what is required to control the epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. <h2>What happens now?</h2> Ultimately, a serious epidemic anywhere in the world is a concern for all of us, as it can spread globally through travel, as we saw with the COVID pandemic. Controlling it at the source is the best measure, and WHO's latest declaration will help mobilise the required resources. Surveillance for spread of this more serious version of mpox is also essential, bearing in mind that many countries do not have the capacity for widespread testing. So we'll have to rely on "suspected cases", based on a clinical definition, to keep track of the epidemic. Open-source epidemic intelligence - such as using AI to monitor trends in rash and fever illness - can also be used as an early warning system in countries with weak health systems or delayed reporting of cases. A further complication is that 20-30 per cent of people with mpox may simultaneously have chickenpox, an unrelated infection that also causes a rash. So an initial diagnosis of chickenpox (which is easier to test for) does not rule out mpox. Effective communication and tackling push-back against public health measures and disinformation is also key. We saw how important this was during the COVID pandemic. Now, WHO will coordinate the global mpox response, focusing on equity in disease prevention and access to diagnostics and vaccines. It is up to individual countries to do their best to comply with the International Health Regulations, and the protocols for how such a global emergency are managed.

WHO has declared mpox a global health emergency. What happens next?

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This was the first year that women over the age of 28 were allowed to compete at Miss USA.</li><li>But none of the contestants over the previous age limit reached the top 20 of Miss USA 2024.</li></ul>It could have been a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/miss-usa-pageant-contestants-making-history-2024-8">historic Miss USA</a>. This was the first year in the pageant's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/miss-usa-winners">seven-decade history</a> that women over 28 were allowed to compete.A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/miss-usa-pageant-contestant-photos-2024-8">groundbreaking group of contestants</a> arrived at The Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles this week to begin preliminary competitions.Among them was Miss Arizona K Johnson, a 41-year-old who finally made it to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/miss-usa">Miss USA</a> after aging out under the previous system. There was also Miss Indiana Stephanie Sullivan, a 33-year-old mother of three boys, and Miss North Dakota Codi Miller, a 31-year-old returning to the national stage after competing at Miss Teen USA in 2009. Bailey Anne Kennedy, 31, was also the first transgender woman to win the Miss Maryland pageant.But during the finals on Sunday night, not one of their names was called in the top 20.<div type="image" title="Miss Indiana 2024 Stephanie Sullivan" height="3000" width="2000" msid="112275604" hostid="261" sizebytes="276520"></div>In fact, not a single contestant who had placed in the competition was over 27.When Miss USA announced it was eliminating the age limit, past contestants told Business Insider they thought it would be a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-miss-usa-contestants-age-limit-change-2024-1">challenging change for the competition</a>."How do you compare someone who's just entering adulthood to someone who has lived 20 years in their adulthood?" Miss USA 2020 Asya Branch told BI in February."Before we knew who Miss USA was, we knew what her job was and her role in society," she added. "Now, I think the organization should redefine what that means and what they're looking for. We don't know what that looks like because this is a completely new world."<div type="image" title="Miss Arizona 2024 K Johnson" height="577" width="769" msid="112275605" hostid="261" sizebytes="45674"></div>Miss Montana 2020 Merissa Underwood told BI that she thought the rule change was a "total cash grab.""It's capitalism under the guise of progression," she added. "I really think it's to bring in more contestants at the state level."Miss USA president and CEO Laylah Rose told BI at the time that lifting the age limit was about <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/miss-usa-pageant-scandals-queens-laylah-rose-organization-2024-7">keeping the pageant relevant</a>."We're really proving that we're inclusive," Rose said. "We can start running for a marathon at 45, we can pick up a hobby at 50, we can go back to school at 65. So why would we limit a woman and tell her that she can or cannot do something?"Miss USA 2003 Susie Castillo also celebrated the rule change. She told BI that she thought it would be a "game changer" for the pageant.But for Miss USA 2024, at least, it was business as usual. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-miss-usa-michigan-us-army-officer-2024-8">Miss Michigan Alma Cooper</a>, a 22-year-old US Army officer, was crowned the winner. Representatives for Miss USA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Miss USA lifted its age limit for this year's pageant. None of the older women made it to the top 20.

It may not feel like it yet, but the housing market's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/housing-market-ice-age-higher-home-prices-fewer-sales-inventory-2023-5">Ice Age</a> is finally thawing.Would-be buyers and sellers have found themselves stuck over the past couple of years. For-sale signs stood frozen in front yards as home shoppers balked at prices. Wild swings in mortgage rates discouraged almost everyone from venturing out into the market. Many <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/economy-housing-market-mortgage-buying-car-interest-rates-new-jobs-2024-3">felt as if they had no option but to stay put</a>. But when I talk to housing experts these days, they speak cautiously of a shift in the weather, a warming in store for American real estate.Green shoots are popping up everywhere. The typical borrowing rate for a 30-year home loan is near the lowest it's been in two years, which could nudge more sellers to emerge from hibernation. The pool of available homes on the market is larger than at any point since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the median home price nationwide is up by 3% to 5% compared with a year ago, that's actually within the range that economists typically look for in a well-balanced market. If things keep trending this way, we should expect to see this coming spring, the time of year when transactions typically pick up, that more people are ready to get moving again.Would this mean we're back to normal? Definitely not. Things may be more stable than they were during the peak of the home-trading frenzy or the depths of the slowdown, but that doesn't mean the housing market's problems are solved. It'll be hard for both buyers and sellers to shake off the pessimism of the past few years, especially when budgets are stretched so thin and home prices remain so high. That reality shouldn't obscure the encouraging signals, though. As I wrote earlier this year, a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/denmark-mortgage-rates-lock-in-effect-home-buying-selling-easier-2024-5">gummed-up housing market</a> — the Ice Age I was talking about — is good for nobody. In half a year's time, we may be looking at a healthier one.There's a tendency to look at housing in binary terms: Is it a better time to be a seller or a buyer? But a lot of people fall into both camps; most sellers have to turn around and purchase another home to live in. Recently, this fact of life has created what Skylar Olsen, Zillow's chief economist, calls the "musical chairs" problem: People can't jump up and find a new home if their neighbors aren't making similar moves, so everyone's stuck in their seats.A big reason Americans find themselves trapped in place is what's known as the "lock-in effect." When mortgage rates hit multidecade lows during the pandemic, millions of people were able to snag or refinance their way into cheaper monthly costs. But starting in the spring of 2022, the rate for a typical mortgage soared, more than doubling from those pandemic-era lows. While it's come down from a two-decade peak last October, the prevailing loan terms are still about twice as expensive as they were back in 2021, which means a buyer could have to pay hundreds of dollars more each month toward interest than they would have a few years ago. A lot of people don't want to give up a good deal, so they don't make a change unless they absolutely have to. One paper from the Federal Housing Finance Agency suggested that the lock-in effect prevented a whopping 1.3 million home sales between mid-2022 and the end of 2023. A mere 2.5% of America's housing stock traded hands in the first eight months this year, according to Redfin, the lowest rate in at least three decades and 31% lower than in 2019.The recent drop in the typical rate for a 30-year loan — from about 7.2% in early May to 6.1% in early October — won't erase the lock-in effect, but it's an encouraging sign for buyers who have been grasping for anything that could ease the burden on their wallets. Even after a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-rate-increase-since-federal-reserve-cut-interest-rates-housing-2024-10">uptick in the last few days</a> following the unexpectedly strong jobs report, more interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, which signaled last month that it was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fed-rate-cut-explained-inflation-labor-market-conditions-outlook-recession-2024-9">turning its focus away from battling inflation</a>, could further bring down mortgage rates, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/mortgages/how-does-fed-impact-mortgage-rates">though there's not a direct connection between the two</a>. Fannie Mae, for instance, predicts the rate for a typical home loan could end next year at 5.7%. That'd be within spitting distance of what the experts at John Burns Research and Consulting, a housing-research firm, call the "magic mortgage rate." Among homeowners and renters who said they planned to use a mortgage to purchase their next home, 47% told the firm in September that they'd be willing to sign up for a rate between 5% and 5.49%. Even if rates continue their downward trajectory, changes in mortgage payments typically take about six months to show up in home-sales activity, Ralph McLaughlin, a senior economist at Realtor.com, told me. So movement now could set the stage for a stronger uptick in sales next spring. Fannie Mae has also predicted that the total number of sales will be up by 10% in 2025 compared with this year, with most of that increase coming in the second half of the year.<div type="image" title="house for sale sign" height="1414" width="2121" msid="114076822" hostid="261" sizebytes="84578"></div>While mortgage-rate movement can be a helpful guide for future activity, to get a full picture of what's actually happening in the real-estate market, you need to look at two data points: inventory, or the number of available homes on the market, and new listings, or the number of homes hitting the market. Olsen, the Zillow economist, likens inventory to a swimming pool and new listings to the spigot that keeps water flowing — as with any pool, too full or too empty is a problem. A balanced market is one in which there are enough new homes to meet the demand from buyers, but not so many that prices plummet. We're still a long way from refilling the pool of homes on the market: Inventory in September was down by about 23% from pre-pandemic levels, according to Realtor.com. But there is clear improvement taking place here, too. The number of active listings in September was up by 34% from the same month a year ago, increasing to its highest level since April 2020. The number of homes newly listed for sale in September was also up by 11.6% from last year. By slowing down home sales, higher rates have given inventory time to build back up from pandemic lows — homes are lingering on the market longer with fewer buyers, so the pool's water level has steadily climbed.More homes to choose from, lower mortgage rates — that's a "powerful combination," said Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors' chief economist, adding that sales should move higher in the coming months as a result. Buyers can take heart in another data point, which is that far fewer homes are being snapped up as soon as they hit the market. According to the housing-data firm Altos Research, there were about half as many "immediate sales" in late September as there were in 2022. "It looks like that frenzy is finally gone," Altos' president, Mike Simonsen, said in a recent video update. The baseline expectation for the spring, the Redfin economist Chen Zhao told me, is a modest uptick in sales and new listings. Most economists don't expect mortgage rates to fall dramatically, meaning sellers will slowly start to reenter the market as they decide it's time to make a change. New listings this year increased by about 5% a month on average compared with the same months in 2023 — you might expect to see that climb a little next year, Zhao told me, to maybe 10% year-over-year growth. The total number of homes on the market each month tended to be about 10% or 15% higher than last year, but you might see that rise to 20% or 25% when you compare 2025 with this year. This is the housing's version of a soft landing; there won't be dancing in the streets, but it would be a marked improvement from the past couple of years."Even though the housing market is recovering, the recovery is going to be very slow," Zhao told me. "We're not going to see anything like the activity that we saw in 2021 or 2020 — or even 2019, 2018 — for a while."Still, if buyers are feeling better about their prospects, that should grease the wheels of America's housing market.It is important to note that forecasts are just forecasts. There's a lot that could change in the next year. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4">strength of the job market</a> is a big question mark — people won't move if they don't feel sure about their next paycheck. There are huge regional differences to consider here, too. Builders have finished a lot more new housing in Sun Belt states in the lower half of the US, for example, which has made it harder for homeowners there to sell at their desired prices than for their counterparts in the Midwest or the Northeast. Affordability is still a huge pain point. An August survey by Fannie Mae suggested consumers were feeling remarkably optimistic about the future of mortgage rates, but only 17% of respondents said it was a good time to buy a home. Any one of these issues could chill the market and slow America's exit from the Ice Age.That said, it's impossible to ignore the signs of a shift underway. Mortgage rates are a key piece of the equation. I'll also be keeping a close eye on inventory and the pace of new listings hitting the market, which should heat back up starting around February and March. But all this focus on the numbers can obscure the simple fact that people have to move for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with a few digits and a percent sign.I recently spoke with Mark Palim, the chief economist at Fannie Mae, who left me with a salient piece of advice: "Leave timing the bond market to the hedge-fund guys." In other words, trying to predict mortgage rates — and buying or selling a home accordingly — is a fool's errand. Budgets matter, absolutely, and monthly payments are a crucial consideration for any buyer. But buyers and sellers should remember that their home isn't just an investment vehicle or a bet on where the economy is headed. At the end of the day, you have to live in it."All sorts of things can happen," Palim told me. "Rates may move. Home prices may go up, home prices may go down. But would you be happy living there for a while? Does it meet your needs?"<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/james-rodriguez">James Rodriguez</a> is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Discourse team.

The Housing Ice Age is thawing

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Warren Buffett wrote to Bernard Arnault after the LVMH CEO raised his job's retirement age to 80.</li><li>The investor suggested that the luxury tycoon should have lifted it, Bloomberg reported.</li></ul>After <a target="_blank" href="https://businessinsider.com/who-is-bernard-arnault-owner-louis-vuitton-lvmh-net-worth">Bernard Arnault</a> raised the retirement age for his job to 80 from 75 in 2022, Warren Buffett wrote to the luxury tycoon suggesting he should have hiked it.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-lvmh-bernard-arnault">Bloomberg reported this week</a> that the famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO wrote a letter to the LVMH CEO "telling him he made a mistake by setting the new age limit so low."Buffett, 93, might be proved right. Arnault, 75, doesn't expect to retire anytime soon. "I don't think he'll ever stop," one of his sons told Bloomberg.Like Buffett, Arnault reportedly loves what he does, takes pride in building one of the world's largest companies, and feels a duty to protect its legacy and continuity when he hands it off to the next generation.The two men have plenty more in common. They both rank among the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bernard-arnault-quotes-french-billionaire-2019-7">world's richest people</a>, with fortunes in excess of $100 billion, and they're both running public companies into old age.Moreover, they've built sprawling conglomerates that are home to dozens of independent, autonomous subsidiaries. LVMH's brands include Louis Vuitton, Moët &amp; Chandon, Hennessy, Christian Dior, Sephora, and Tiffany &amp; Co. Berkshire's businesses include Geico, Dairy Queen, Duracell, and Jazwares, the maker of Squishmallows.Close followers of Buffett won't be surprised to learn of Buffett's comment to Arnault. The Berkshire chief's opinion has long been that great managers are like fine wines — they only improve with age."Buffett's view is that high-quality people like those on his board and running his companies get better with time and experience and so should not face mandatory retirement," Larry Cunningham, a professor emeritus of law at George Washington University who wrote the book "Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values," told Business Insider.Indeed, only one of Berkshire's 14 directors is younger than 60, and six are older than 70, per the company's most recent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/meet01/2024proxystmt.pdf">proxy filing</a>. Charlie Munger, Tom Murphy, Walter Scott, and David "Sandy" Gottesman all sat on the board into their 90s.Buffett "has often joked that his death is far in the future," Cunningham said. The author noted that the investor <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/full-transcript-billionaire-investor-warren-buffett-speaks-with-cnbcs-becky-quick-on-squawk-box-today.html">once quipped</a> to CNBC that 103 was the "yardstick" for retirement at Berkshire, as one of his top lieutenants, known as Mrs. B, stepped down at that age.Buffett has also joked that he might give Methuselah — the biblical figure who supposedly lived to 969 — a run for his money."On the other hand, he joked at this year's meeting about his own age, that he reads the mortality tables and knows his time is short," Cunningham added.Buffett has set the high-water mark for CEO longevity, and his letter to Arnault signals that he thinks the LVMH boss can handle a lot more wear before he needs replacing.

LVMH boss Bernard Arnault raised his job's retirement age to 80. Warren Buffett told him that age limit was too low.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists predicted how climate hazards will worsen in nearly 1,000 major cities by 2100.</li><li>Heat waves, energy demand, and mosquito-borne diseases will spike as global temperatures rise.</li></ul>Monthlong heat waves. Skyrocketing energy demand. Greater risks of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/west-nile-triple-e-mosquito-virus-diseases-us-2024-9">mosquito-borne diseases</a>.These are the climate hazards that people living in nearly 1,000 of the world's largest cities will continue to face as global average temperatures rise through the end of the century, a new analysis by the World Resources Institute, an environmental-research group, found. And the impacts won't be felt equally. People living in low-income cities in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Indonesia face the greatest threats.The findings come as <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-summer-2024-hottest-record-globally-and-europe">2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record</a>, and billions of people are expected to move into urban areas in the coming decades. More than half the world's population, or 4.4 billion people, lives in cities. By 2050, city dwellers are forecast to make up two-thirds of humanity, with the vast majority of that growth in Africa and Asia. Some 2 billion people currently live in the cities that WRI studied, from Seattle and Rio de Janeiro to Johannesburg and Bengaluru, India."Most climate modeling looks at hazards, exposure, and risks at a national scale because that's where a lot of policymaking and international agreements are focused," Eric Mackres, the senior manager of data and tools at the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and a coauthor of the study, said. "But that's disconnected from where people live. We wanted to put more localized information in the hands of those decision-makers so they're informed about the risks that they are likely to experience."<h2 id="c108ac2f-66b9-4462-bb7a-b51785a2b482">Local climate hazards</h2>To make predictions at a city level, Mackres said WRI built on global climate modeling done by hundreds of other researchers. These models contain daily information — both historical data and projections through 2100 — on air temperature, humidity, and precipitation. WRI used that data to make its own projections about the length and frequency of heat waves, how often people will need to cool their homes and workplaces, and the number of days with optimal temperatures for mosquitoes in cities with at least half a million people. WRI compared how those local hazards are expected to change as global average temperatures rise from 1.5 degrees Celsius to 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — a threshold scientists say the world is likely to cross by 2100.The world has warmed by about 1.2 degrees so far compared with mid-1800s levels, and the consequences are playing out around the world.<div type="image" title="A graph shows how long heat waves will last in seven regions around the world under 1.5 degrees of global warming compared to preindustrial levels." height="1080" width="1080" msid="113493288" hostid="261" sizebytes="66672"></div>In Bengaluru, India's fifth-most-populous city, extreme heat has caused severe water shortages and surging energy demand. Under 1.5 degrees of warming, heat waves could last about 13 days on average and stretch to nearly 38 days as global temperatures rise, WRI found. Bengaluru last year <a target="_blank" href="https://wri-india.org/news/release-bengalurus-first-ever-climate-action-plan-launched">launched its first climate-action plan</a>, which includes planting trees and expanding green spaces to help cool down urban centers.An enormous outbreak of dengue fever is underway in Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, peak days for transmission of mosquito-borne illnesses could increase from 69 to 118 a year, WRI found. The city is investing in vaccines, and community health workers are hunting down places that help mosquitoes breed, including standing water, to reduce risks.Meanwhile, places that haven't had to consider cooling strategies are now being forced to, including the US Pacific Northwest. Seattle was once the least-air-conditioned city. Now it ranks second behind San Francisco after a series of deadly heat waves prompted residents to install AC. The trend is playing out in cities that are already hot, too, like Tehran, Iran, and Marrakech, Morocco, and spiking energy demand along the way. If that demand is met with fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal, it could exacerbate the climate crisis, WRI said.WRI noted that there are limitations to its research, in part because there are a lot of unknowns about the future. National governments and cities can slow the climate crisis and protect people from its impacts, including by shifting away from fossil fuels and investing in infrastructure that's more resilient to heat and storms."Our findings are not a foregone conclusion," Mackres said. "These are choices we have between 1.5 and 3 degrees of warming, and none are out of the realm of possibility. It's really important that national decision-makers understand the impacts on cities and the actions that cities can take to both reduce climate change and to adapt to what's coming."<a target="_blank" href="https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/19141193/">You can explore the data for your city here.</a>

A new tool shows what the climate crisis could feel like in your city

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The RNC adopted Trump's platform, consisting of 20 key issues he'd prioritize as president.</li><li>The platform says it would "end inflation" and preserve Social Security and Medicare. </li></ul>Americans got some new insight into the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-us-economy-would-look-like-with-trump-biden-presidency-2024-5">issues former President Donald Trump would prioritize</a> should he win the presidential election.Trump's campaign <a target="_blank" href="https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/c0155701-c251-456c-b69a-db3b33061f88">announced</a> on Monday that the Republican National Committee adopted the former president's platform for the Republican Party. Consisting of <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.nucleusfiles.com/be/beb1a388-1d88-4389-a67d-c1e2d7f8bedf/2024-gop-platform-july-7-final.pdf">20 principles</a>, the platform is a clear outline for voters of what Trump is thinking as the country inches toward the November election."America needs determined Republican Leadership at every level of Government to address the core threats to our very survival: Our disastrously Open Border, our weakened Economy, crippling restrictions on American Energy Production, our depleted Military, attacks on the American System of Justice, and much more," the platform's preamble says."To make clear our commitment, we offer to the American people the 2024 GOP Platform to Make America Great Again! It is a forward-looking Agenda that begins with the following twenty promises that we will accomplish very quickly when we win the White House and Republican Majorities in the House and Senate," it continues.The platform addresses a range of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/peak-boomer-scared-to-retire-working-depleted-savings-social-security-2024-4">economic issues</a>, including a pledge to "end inflation" and "make America affordable again." It also says it would <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-retirement-of-peak-boomers-could-affect-economy-social-security-2024-4">preserve Social Security</a> and Medicare benefits without any cuts and not raise the retirement age.The platform says the GOP would address inflation by ending illegal immigration and lifting restrictions on American energy production, which it says would allow access to more affordable energy. Still, the president has limited power to actually address overall prices, with the issue primarily in the hands of the Federal Reserve.During the first debate between Trump and President Joe Biden at the end of June, the two candidates <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biden-presidential-debate-economic-plans-social-security-taxes-inflation-2024-6">clashed with each other</a> over who was to blame for the high prices Americans continue to face. Trump <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/first-presidential-debate-2024-fact-check/">falsely</a> claimed that Biden inherited "the greatest economy in the history of our country," adding: "If I'm given another four years, I will be the best. I think I'll be the best. Nobody's ever created an economy like us."Prior administrations, like former President Bill Clinton, had greater economic growth than Trump, and Biden has overseen a lower unemployment rate than Trump.On the issue of Social Security, Biden said he would ensure the program's strength by making "the very wealthy begin to pay their fair share right now," while Trump said during the debate that Biden was planning to "destroy" the program. The latest Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees report found that the program would only be able to <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/when-will-social-security-benefits-run-out-retirement-crisis-boomers-2024-5">pay out full benefits for the next 11 years</a>, after which 83% of the benefits will be available.The Biden administration has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/21/fact-sheet-80-of-house-republicans-release-plan-targeting-medicare-social-security-and-the-affordable-care-act-raising-costs-and-cutting-taxes-for-the-wealthy/">previously said</a> that Republican lawmakers planned to cut Social Security and Medicare, but Trump himself has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/raising-social-security-retirement-age-trump-bashes-republican-lawmakers-cpac-2023-3">pushed back on GOP discussion</a> to alter the programs or raise the retirement age.The platform says that "Trump has made absolutely clear that he will not cut one penny from Medicare or Social Security. American Citizens work hard their whole lives, contributing to Social Security and Medicare. These programs are promises to our Seniors, ensuring they can live their golden years with dignity."The platform also addresses immigration, abortion, and ending "left-wing gender insanity" like keeping "men out of women's sports." The RNC is expected to take a final vote on the platform next week.

Trump's new platform pledges to 'end inflation' and maintain the retirement age to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Welcome back! We're a little over halfway through the Olympics, but there have already been some incredible photos. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paris-olympics-best-photos-viral-2024-8">Here are some of the best</a>.In today's big story, interest-rate cuts are almost certainly coming, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-market-unemployment-outlook-fed-rate-cuts-layoffs-hiring-cuts-2024-8">but the relief won't be felt immediately</a>. It begs the question: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-unemployment-interest-rates-economy-recession-soft-landing-2024-8">Are the chances of a soft landing doomed</a>?What's on deck:<ul><li>Markets: Hedge funds' July report cards are in, including an update from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/july-hedge-fund-performance-jain-global-citadel-millennium-2024-8">the new kid on the block</a>.</li><li>Tech: One man's apprehensive journey to push the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-artificial-intelligence-michal-kosinski-predict-facial-recognition-2024-7">boundaries of what AI is capable of</a>.</li><li>Business: Life isn't perfect, so maybe it's time <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/consumerism-capitalism-optimization-culture-live-medium-average-good-enough-2024-8">we all embrace being average</a>.</li></ul>But first, oh boy.If this was forwarded to you, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3 id="7fa5f018-5b05-4a37-a8dc-d3f89138bcb3">The big story</h3><h2 id="5fd547b9-ec52-41fc-8e08-4f4b27dd8097">Crash landing</h2><div type="image" title="Jerome Powell in front of a bar and line graph" height="1500" width="2000" msid="112294401" hostid="261" sizebytes="283498"></div>Our bend-don't-break economy might finally have reached its limit.After a year of resiliency in the face of high interest rates, the cracks are showing in the US economy.July unemployment data released Friday <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-rate-job-growth-july-labor-market-economic-data-2024-7">came in unexpectedly high</a>. The US added 61,000 fewer jobs than expected, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, its highest level since October 2021.Investors were already on edge from a rise in jobless claims and weak manufacturing data on Thursday, so it wasn't long <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-selloff-today-jobs-report-recession-unemployment-tech-earnings-2024-8">before the market started melting down</a>. Dismal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-stock-amzn-quarterly-earnings-call-report-live-updates-2024-7">tech earnings</a> certainly didn't help.There is a silver lining to the market's pain: Rate cuts are almost guaranteed for September. In recent days, the question has shifted from "if" to "how much," as some speculate the Fed could make a half-point cut instead of the standard quarter-point reduction.But it's not a silver bullet, and the rate cut's effect will take time to make its way through the economy. Relief will eventually be felt in the job market, but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-market-unemployment-outlook-fed-rate-cuts-layoffs-hiring-cuts-2024-8">it won't be immediate</a>.That means those looking for jobs, or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4">stuck in ones they're unhappy with</a>, will have to wait a bit longer.<div type="image" title="Ice cube with dollar sign melts." height="900" width="1800" msid="112294396" hostid="261" sizebytes="95448"></div>In the meantime, things could get worse. Like, a lot worse.A recession indicator with an almost spotless record <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sahm-rule-recession-outlook-indicator-triggered-unemployment-rate-jobs-report-2024-8">went off on Friday</a>. The Sahm Rule is triggered when unemployment's three-month moving average moves 50 basis points above its 12-month low.Still, Claudia Sahm, the former Fed official who created the rule, told Business Insider's Madison Hoff she doesn't believe we're in a recession, but acknowledged that "things are slowing down.""It definitely should be a wake up call to policymakers," she added.The slowdown is evident across industries.Amazon warned last week about the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-worried-about-economy-bad-sign-for-consumers-inflation-jobs-2024-8">erosion of consumers' spending power</a>, previously a key factor in the economy's resiliency. McDonald's has experienced something similar, acknowledging last week that its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-expensive-prices-too-high-fast-food-restaurant-falling-sales-2024-7">prices are too high</a> for some customers. And Big Tech keeps investing in AI despite <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-amazon-alphabet-spend-big-ai-investors-concerned-roi-2024-8">no one knowing if it will pay off</a>.The result is the economy's chances of the long-discussed soft landing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-unemployment-interest-rates-economy-recession-soft-landing-2024-8">potentially being ruined</a>.When things go bad, people tend to point fingers. And plenty of economists are looking in the Fed's direction.They feel the central bank didn't act fast enough. Central banks in Switzerland, Canada, and the UK have already started easing their policies.Remember that these are some of the same experts who have waffled on the future of the economy for more than a year, predicting everything from a full-blown recession to a Goldilocks situation.But if things do turn sour, it's a fitting bookend to what has been a difficult few years for the Fed. Its inaction in raising rates caused inflation to spike in the first place, and its hesitancy to provide relief could send us into a recession.<h3 id="77f31a4c-8462-4e3d-a71f-838cb79493fb">News brief</h3><h2 id="1fcd294b-3f53-425f-9f20-4093e8623b59">Your Monday headline catchup</h2>A quick recap of the top news from over the weekend:<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/markets-japan-rate-hike-yen-fx-carry-trade-stock-futures-2024-8">Global stock markets are sliding as Japan suffers biggest fall since 1987</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-electric-vehicles-elon-musk-endorsement-2024-8">Trump says he has 'no choice' but to support electric vehicles because Elon Musk 'endorsed me very strongly.'</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/frontier-airlines-pilot-arrested-on-board-aircraft-in-houston-2024-8">Frontier Airlines pilot arrested and escorted off aircraft by police in Houston</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-miss-usa-michigan-us-army-officer-2024-8">The new Miss USA is a US Army officer from Michigan</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-company-headquarters-hq-tesla-chevron-charles-schwab-california-economy-2024-8">Tesla, Charles Schwab — and now Chevron. Texas is having a moment as companies leave California</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="8120060b-ae66-48dc-b149-f0489a30ffa2">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="Bobby Jain" height="500" width="1000" msid="112294406" hostid="261" sizebytes="47558"></div><ol><li>Bobby Jain's hedge fund wraps its first month slightly down. The high-profile Jain Global, which started trading on July 1 with $5.3 billion, ended the month down roughly 0.65%, according to people with knowledge of the firm's results. Bigger funds like Citadel and Millennium eked out small gains. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/july-hedge-fund-performance-jain-global-citadel-millennium-2024-8">Check out how some of the Street's biggest funds did</a>.</li><li>This Gen Xer is on FIRE. Jordan Grumet felt burnt out at his job as a primary-care doctor when he discovered the "financially independent, retire early" movement. He shared the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/financial-independence-retire-early-genx-stop-working-millions-saving-2024-8">FIRE strategies he used</a> to retire at 45 and grow his savings to over $6 million.</li><li>From Wall Street to Paris. Justin Best, an investment banking analyst at Union Square Advisors, just won a gold medal in rowing at the Summer Olympics. He explained how he balanced <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investment-banker-justin-best-won-olympic-gold-shares-his-secrets-2024-8">100-hour workweeks and training for the biggest games in the world</a>.</li></ol><h2 id="f4b54806-7f81-450c-ba32-92560d4fae9b">3 things in tech</h2><div type="image" title="An AI figure scanning a phone displaying an individual figure" height="2393" width="3208" msid="112294403" hostid="261" sizebytes="2232038"></div><ol><li>The Oppenheimer of AI. Michal Kosinski is a pioneer at the intersection of AI and facial recognition. But he's inheriting a troubled science that could easily be weaponized against certain groups of people. Kosinski is warning the world about the risks of his tech — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-artificial-intelligence-michal-kosinski-predict-facial-recognition-2024-7">all while he's building it</a>.</li><li>Nvidia is on an acquisition spree. The firm has made <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-mergers-and-acquisition-startup-buying-spree-ftc-investigation-2024-8">four acquisition deals so far this year</a>, matching its 2020 total. But thanks in part to some regulatory scrutiny, a few of this year's deals have yet to close. Experts said while AI M&amp;A is slowing down, it's showing no signs of stopping.</li><li>Meta's AI kept impersonating a reporter — and gave his real phone number out to strangers. Rob Price kept getting added to random Spanish-language WhatsApp chats because of a quirk of Meta's AI. His investigation led to more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-tells-strangers-it-owns-my-phone-number-whatsapp-2024-8">questions about the "black box" nature</a> of generative AI.</li></ol><h2 id="9260fa45-d397-4b3c-b4f8-4bb193976216">3 things in business</h2><div type="image" title="A trophy surrounded by confetti labeled &quot;Most Average&quot;" height="1500" width="2000" msid="112294408" hostid="261" sizebytes="79686"></div><ol><li>Life-maxxing is making you miserable. In a world that teaches you to always be optimizing, it's hard to resist striving for perfection. But a lot of us could be happier if we quit the rat race altogether and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/consumerism-capitalism-optimization-culture-live-medium-average-good-enough-2024-8">focused on being good enough</a> rather than being the best.</li><li>Corporate America has an old people problem. Like the US government, the corporate world is dealing with a gerontocracy crisis: Aging business leaders refuse to step aside, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-corporate-gerontocracy-aging-ceos-retirement-succession-replacement-2024-8">putting their businesses at risk</a>. Corporate America is scrambling to figure out how CEOs can take a page out of President Joe Biden's book and step aside.</li><li>"Sweaty startups" break a sweat. These blue-collar businesses, often in unglamorous or laborious fields like septic services or pest control, used to be a moneymaking haven for entrepreneurs. Now <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sweaty-startups-hurt-by-competition-slower-spending-interest-rates-2024-8">competition is rising</a>, and some startup owners say it's getting harder to turn a profit.</li></ol><h2 id="1ad7b482-3f4b-44b4-81b6-a864aa386478">In other news</h2><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-netflix-openai-executives-host-kamala-harris-fundraiser-2024-8">Google, Netflix, and OpenAI execs are hosting a fundraiser for Kamala Harris</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-doj-investigation-runai-big-tech-crackdown-antitrust-acquisition-competition-2024-8">Even Nvidia can't escape the government's crackdown on Big Tech</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ravin-jesuthasan-why-companies-enforce-rto-mandates-future-of-work-2024-8">A future-of-work expert explains why some companies are willing to risk losing talent to get workers back to the office</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-favorite-work-perk-having-own-desk-to-decorate-2024-7">Assigned desks are now a work perk — and Gen Zers are making themselves right at home</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/several-top-news-sites-shun-openai-searchgpt-search-engine-2024-8">The New York Times and other top news sites block OpenAI's new SearchGPT web crawling bot</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="9f5d80ac-3466-429f-a50a-2ffbb70c65ff">What's happening today</h2><ul><li>Fortune 500 ranking of world's largest corporations released.</li><li>First batch of Chinese G60 Starlink satellites reportedly launches today. The endeavor is in direct competition with the US's Elon Musk-backed Starlink.</li></ul>The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

Our bend-don't-break economy is reaching its limit

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Welcome back! We're a little over halfway through the Olympics, but there have already been some incredible photos. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/paris-olympics-best-photos-viral-2024-8">Here are some of the best</a>.In today's big story, interest-rate cuts are almost certainly coming, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-market-unemployment-outlook-fed-rate-cuts-layoffs-hiring-cuts-2024-8">but the relief won't be felt immediately</a>. It begs the question: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-unemployment-interest-rates-economy-recession-soft-landing-2024-8">Are the chances of a soft landing doomed</a>?What's on deck:<ul><li>Markets: Hedge funds' July report cards are in, including an update from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/july-hedge-fund-performance-jain-global-citadel-millennium-2024-8">the new kid on the block</a>.</li><li>Tech: One man's apprehensive journey to push the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-artificial-intelligence-michal-kosinski-predict-facial-recognition-2024-7">boundaries of what AI is capable of</a>.</li><li>Business: Life isn't perfect, so maybe it's time <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/consumerism-capitalism-optimization-culture-live-medium-average-good-enough-2024-8">we all embrace being average</a>.</li></ul>But first, oh boy.If this was forwarded to you, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3 id="7fa5f018-5b05-4a37-a8dc-d3f89138bcb3">The big story</h3><h2 id="5fd547b9-ec52-41fc-8e08-4f4b27dd8097">Crash landing</h2><div type="image" title="Jerome Powell in front of a bar and line graph" height="1500" width="2000" msid="112293932" hostid="261" sizebytes="283498"></div>Our bend-don't-break economy might finally have reached its limit.After a year of resiliency in the face of high interest rates, the cracks are showing in the US economy.July unemployment data released Friday <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-rate-job-growth-july-labor-market-economic-data-2024-7">came in unexpectedly high</a>. The US added 61,000 fewer jobs than expected, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, its highest level since October 2021.Investors were already on edge from a rise in jobless claims and weak manufacturing data on Thursday, so it wasn't long <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-selloff-today-jobs-report-recession-unemployment-tech-earnings-2024-8">before the market started melting down</a>. Dismal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-stock-amzn-quarterly-earnings-call-report-live-updates-2024-7">tech earnings</a> certainly didn't help.There is a silver lining to the market's pain: Rate cuts are almost guaranteed for September. In recent days, the question has shifted from "if" to "how much," as some speculate the Fed could make a half-point cut instead of the standard quarter-point reduction.But it's not a silver bullet, and the rate cut's effect will take time to make its way through the economy. Relief will eventually be felt in the job market, but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/job-market-unemployment-outlook-fed-rate-cuts-layoffs-hiring-cuts-2024-8">it won't be immediate</a>.That means those looking for jobs, or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4">stuck in ones they're unhappy with</a>, will have to wait a bit longer.<div type="image" title="Ice cube with dollar sign melts." height="900" width="1800" msid="112293929" hostid="261" sizebytes="95448"></div>In the meantime, things could get worse. Like, a lot worse.A recession indicator with an almost spotless record <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sahm-rule-recession-outlook-indicator-triggered-unemployment-rate-jobs-report-2024-8">went off on Friday</a>. The Sahm Rule is triggered when unemployment's three-month moving average moves 50 basis points above its 12-month low.Still, Claudia Sahm, the former Fed official who created the rule, told Business Insider's Madison Hoff she doesn't believe we're in a recession, but acknowledged that "things are slowing down.""It definitely should be a wake up call to policymakers," she added.The slowdown is evident across industries.Amazon warned last week about the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-worried-about-economy-bad-sign-for-consumers-inflation-jobs-2024-8">erosion of consumers' spending power</a>, previously a key factor in the economy's resiliency. McDonald's has experienced something similar, acknowledging last week that its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-expensive-prices-too-high-fast-food-restaurant-falling-sales-2024-7">prices are too high</a> for some customers. And Big Tech keeps investing in AI despite <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-amazon-alphabet-spend-big-ai-investors-concerned-roi-2024-8">no one knowing if it will pay off</a>.The result is the economy's chances of the long-discussed soft landing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-unemployment-interest-rates-economy-recession-soft-landing-2024-8">potentially being ruined</a>.When things go bad, people tend to point fingers. And plenty of economists are looking in the Fed's direction.They feel the central bank didn't act fast enough. Central banks in Switzerland, Canada, and the UK have already started easing their policies.Remember that these are some of the same experts who have waffled on the future of the economy for more than a year, predicting everything from a full-blown recession to a Goldilocks situation.But if things do turn sour, it's a fitting bookend to what has been a difficult few years for the Fed. Its inaction in raising rates caused inflation to spike in the first place, and its hesitancy to provide relief could send us into a recession.<h3 id="77f31a4c-8462-4e3d-a71f-838cb79493fb">News brief</h3><h2 id="1fcd294b-3f53-425f-9f20-4093e8623b59">Your Monday headline catchup</h2>A quick recap of the top news from over the weekend:<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/markets-japan-rate-hike-yen-fx-carry-trade-stock-futures-2024-8">Global stock markets are sliding as Japan suffers biggest fall since 1987</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-electric-vehicles-elon-musk-endorsement-2024-8">Trump says he has 'no choice' but to support electric vehicles because Elon Musk 'endorsed me very strongly.'</a></li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/frontier-airlines-pilot-arrested-on-board-aircraft-in-houston-2024-8">Frontier Airlines pilot arrested and escorted off aircraft by police in Houston</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-miss-usa-michigan-us-army-officer-2024-8">The new Miss USA is a US Army officer from Michigan</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-company-headquarters-hq-tesla-chevron-charles-schwab-california-economy-2024-8">Tesla, Charles Schwab — and now Chevron. Texas is having a moment as companies leave California</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="8120060b-ae66-48dc-b149-f0489a30ffa2">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="Bobby Jain" height="500" width="1000" msid="112293934" hostid="261" sizebytes="47558"></div><ol><li>Bobby Jain's hedge fund wraps its first month slightly down. The high-profile Jain Global, which started trading on July 1 with $5.3 billion, ended the month down roughly 0.65%, according to people with knowledge of the firm's results. Bigger funds like Citadel and Millennium eked out small gains. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/july-hedge-fund-performance-jain-global-citadel-millennium-2024-8">Check out how some of the Street's biggest funds did</a>.</li><li>This Gen Xer is on FIRE. Jordan Grumet felt burnt out at his job as a primary-care doctor when he discovered the "financially independent, retire early" movement. He shared the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/financial-independence-retire-early-genx-stop-working-millions-saving-2024-8">FIRE strategies he used</a> to retire at 45 and grow his savings to over $6 million.</li><li>From Wall Street to Paris. Justin Best, an investment banking analyst at Union Square Advisors, just won a gold medal in rowing at the Summer Olympics. He explained how he balanced <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investment-banker-justin-best-won-olympic-gold-shares-his-secrets-2024-8">100-hour workweeks and training for the biggest games in the world</a>.</li></ol><h2 id="f4b54806-7f81-450c-ba32-92560d4fae9b">3 things in tech</h2><div type="image" title="An AI figure scanning a phone displaying an individual figure" height="2393" width="3208" msid="112293927" hostid="261" sizebytes="2232038"></div><ol><li>The Oppenheimer of AI. Michal Kosinski is a pioneer at the intersection of AI and facial recognition. But he's inheriting a troubled science that could easily be weaponized against certain groups of people. Kosinski is warning the world about the risks of his tech — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-artificial-intelligence-michal-kosinski-predict-facial-recognition-2024-7">all while he's building it</a>.</li><li>Nvidia is on an acquisition spree. The firm has made <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-mergers-and-acquisition-startup-buying-spree-ftc-investigation-2024-8">four acquisition deals so far this year</a>, matching its 2020 total. But thanks in part to some regulatory scrutiny, a few of this year's deals have yet to close. Experts said while AI M&amp;A is slowing down, it's showing no signs of stopping.</li><li>Meta's AI kept impersonating a reporter — and gave his real phone number out to strangers. Rob Price kept getting added to random Spanish-language WhatsApp chats because of a quirk of Meta's AI. His investigation led to more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-tells-strangers-it-owns-my-phone-number-whatsapp-2024-8">questions about the "black box" nature</a> of generative AI.</li></ol><h2 id="9260fa45-d397-4b3c-b4f8-4bb193976216">3 things in business</h2><div type="image" title="A trophy surrounded by confetti labeled &quot;Most Average&quot;" height="1500" width="2000" msid="112293925" hostid="261" sizebytes="79686"></div><ol><li>Life-maxxing is making you miserable. In a world that teaches you to always be optimizing, it's hard to resist striving for perfection. But a lot of us could be happier if we quit the rat race altogether and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/consumerism-capitalism-optimization-culture-live-medium-average-good-enough-2024-8">focused on being good enough</a> rather than being the best.</li><li>Corporate America has an old people problem. Like the US government, the corporate world is dealing with a gerontocracy crisis: Aging business leaders refuse to step aside, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-corporate-gerontocracy-aging-ceos-retirement-succession-replacement-2024-8">putting their businesses at risk</a>. Corporate America is scrambling to figure out how CEOs can take a page out of President Joe Biden's book and step aside.</li><li>"Sweaty startups" break a sweat. These blue-collar businesses, often in unglamorous or laborious fields like septic services or pest control, used to be a moneymaking haven for entrepreneurs. Now <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sweaty-startups-hurt-by-competition-slower-spending-interest-rates-2024-8">competition is rising</a>, and some startup owners say it's getting harder to turn a profit.</li></ol><h2 id="1ad7b482-3f4b-44b4-81b6-a864aa386478">In other news</h2><ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-netflix-openai-executives-host-kamala-harris-fundraiser-2024-8">Google, Netflix, and OpenAI execs are hosting a fundraiser for Kamala Harris</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-doj-investigation-runai-big-tech-crackdown-antitrust-acquisition-competition-2024-8">Even Nvidia can't escape the government's crackdown on Big Tech</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ravin-jesuthasan-why-companies-enforce-rto-mandates-future-of-work-2024-8">A future-of-work expert explains why some companies are willing to risk losing talent to get workers back to the office</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-favorite-work-perk-having-own-desk-to-decorate-2024-7">Assigned desks are now a work perk — and Gen Zers are making themselves right at home</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/several-top-news-sites-shun-openai-searchgpt-search-engine-2024-8">The New York Times and other top news sites block OpenAI's new SearchGPT web crawling bot</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="9f5d80ac-3466-429f-a50a-2ffbb70c65ff">What's happening today</h2><ul><li>Fortune 500 ranking of world's largest corporations released.</li><li>First batch of Chinese G60 Starlink satellites reportedly launches today. The endeavor is in direct competition with the US's Elon Musk-backed Starlink.</li></ul>The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

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