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Anna's Daybreak News

_{Just facts, you think for yourself}

Wednesday, 5:28 AM

January 15, 2025

Good morning news friend! Follow the stories that shape the present and inspire the future. 📰🌟

Hegseth's Confirmation Hearing

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary, went through a four-hour confirmation hearing. Hegseth was questioned about his qualifications and allegations of excessive drinking and a 2017 sexual assault claim, which he denies.

Democratic Senators challenged Hegseth on his previous opposition to women in combat, in which he claimed he would support women in combat roles as long as standards remained high.

He stated he aims to reinvigorate a “warrior culture” within the Pentagon and rejected claims that contemporary diversity policies weaken military effectiveness.

Hegseth did not rule out firing General C.Q. Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if confirmed. Republican senators largely endorsed him, suggesting that Hegseth could secure the necessary 50 votes for confirmation.

Source: Read More

Biden's Last AI Push

President Joe Biden signed an executive order to boost artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the US. This order aims to expedite the construction of data centers and clean power facilities.

Federal agencies must now accelerate the development of AI infrastructure at government sites. They will also make federal locations available for data centers.

The Department of Energy reported that electricity demand from data centers has tripled in the past decade and may double or triple again by 2028. This could lead to data centers consuming up to 12% of the nation’s electricity.

Biden's rules require the Defense and Energy departments to select at least three sites for private AI data centers.

Source: Read More

Ukraine's Massive Drone Assault

Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks on Russia, striking multiple regions overnight. Local officials reported over 146 drones were used in the assault. The attacks reached up to 680 miles into Russian territory.

Key targets included military production facilities and oil storage sites in Bryansk, Saratov, Tula, and Tatarstan.

Ukraine also fired six US-made ATACMS and six British Storm Shadow missiles. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed they shot down all incoming missiles and the majority of drones.

Governor Roman Busargin noted damage to industrial sites in Saratov. Schools shifted to remote learning due to safety concerns. Last week, Ukraine also targeted an oil depot serving a Russian airbase, resulting in a large fire.

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Producer Prices Rise as Inflation Trends Downward

In December, US producer prices increased by 0.2%, a slowdown from November's 0.4% rise. Higher goods prices, particularly in energy, primarily drove this change. Year-on-year, producer prices rose by 3.3%, the highest increase since February 2023.

Core producer prices, excluding food and energy, also rose by 0.1%. This indicates a yearly increase of 3.3%. Despite these rises, the overall PPI growth was below economists' expectations of 0.3%.

Moreover, the US faced an $87 billion budget deficit in December, contributing to a $711 billion deficit for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. This is a 39% increase from $510 billion during the same period the previous year.

Furthermore, energy prices spiked by 3.5%, with gasoline jumping by 9.7%. Conversely, food prices declined by 0.1%. Economists expect consumer prices to rise by 0.3% for December.

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FTC Targets Drug Price Markups

The FTC revealed that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) made over $7.3 billion by inflating prices on life-saving drugs like those for cancer and HIV. PBMs act as intermediaries between drugmakers, pharmacies, and patients.

The report accuses CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum of driving up costs with markups between 2017 and 2022. PBMs negotiate drug discounts but keep a large portion as profits.

The FTC found that affiliated pharmacies of the three PBMs received 68% of specialty drug dispensing revenue in 2023, up from 54% in 2016. Markups exceeded $1,000 per prescription compared to unaffiliated pharmacies.

The FTC has sued the PBMs for allegedly prioritizing higher-priced drugs to maximize rebates and fees. CVS Health called the FTC’s findings misleading. Optum defended its role in reducing medication costs, while UnitedHealth did not comment.

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Mysterious Flashes Near Black Hole

Astronomers uncovered a possible explanation for strange brightness fluctuations from the supermassive black hole 1ES 1927+654, located 275 million light-years away. This black hole, about 1 million times the mass of the Sun, exhibited unusual behavior since 2018 when its luminosity surged nearly 20 times.

In June 2022, X-ray data from the ESA's XMM-Newton telescope revealed that the black hole's brightness varied by about 10% every 18 minutes. Researchers suggest that an orbiting white dwarf star, roughly 0.1 times the mass of the Sun, is moving closer to the black hole's event horizon.

This white dwarf resides within a sphere the size of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. As it nears the black hole, its outer material will be stripped away, but it may maintain enough momentum to avoid being consumed.

This phenomenon offers a unique opportunity to study extreme gravitational environments.

Source: Read More

“The first, and hardest, step to wisdom: avoid the standard assumption that people know what they want.”

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Baked with love,

Anna Eisenberg ❤️