Business Bigwigs

UnitedHealth, the largest health insurance company in the US, is facing serious allegations over AI in their decision-making process. A lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Minnesota claims that use of a flawed AI algorithm that allegedly overrides doctors’ judgments has led to patients being prematurely removed from rehabilitation programs, forcing them to deplete their life savings for…

Conagra Brands have been ordered to pay over $7 million to a woman burned by exploding cooking spray. Tammy Reese of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, suffered severe injuries in 2017 when a can of Conagra-made Swell cooking spray ignited and caused burns while she was working in a social club kitchen. The ruling, issued on Monday, is the first among several pending cases involving burn victims…

Inflation is an economic phenomenon that affects everyone, but its intricacies are complex and often poorly explained. Here are five insights to help in understanding inflation: Defined: Inflation refers to the general increase in the price of goods and services over time. It shrinks the purchasing power of money, meaning that a fixed amount of money buys fewer goods and services as prices rise.…

The Paris 2024 Olympics are at the center of a financial investigation and scandal as the official headquarters are raided for evidence. Organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympics revealed on Thursday that their headquarters were subject to a surprise raid by the nation’s financial prosecutor on Wednesday, with event management firms also coming under scrutiny. This operation is part of an ongoing…

All Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboard models are being recalled due to serious safety concerns, as announced by federal regulators. Onewheel skateboards are manufactured by California-based Future Motion. As the name suggests, they have a single, self-balancing wheel with a small deck to stand on to either side of it. The successor to toys like hoverboards, they’re surprisingly popular…

Google Maps led a man to drive off a collapsed bridge and die, alleges a lawsuit in North Carolina. Philip Paxson drowned in his Jeep on September 30, 2022, when he followed Google Maps’ directions down an unfamiliar road, and drove off a broken bridge into Snow Creek outside Hickory, North Carolina. He was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party, after dark. The bridge, which was…

Tony Downs Food Company has agreed to pay $300,000 in penalties over issues of child labor in their plants. An investigation uncovered the employment of children as young as 13 in hazardous working conditions, including operating meat grinders and other equipment during overnight shifts and exceeding the legal limits on work hours. As part of a consent order with the Minnesota Department of Labor…

Data privacy in the automobile industry is terrible, reveals a recent study by the Mozilla Foundation. The study reveals that cars have poor data privacy, with many major manufacturers admitting they may be selling personal information collected from their vehicles. What’s even more alarming is that half of these manufacturers are willing to share this data with government or law enforcement…

Salary requirements may soon change, making more workers eligible for overtime benefits. The Biden administration has introduced a new rule that seeks to extend overtime pay eligibility to an additional 3.6 million U.S. workers, marking one of the most substantial increases in decades. The proposed regulation, presented by the Department of Labor, aims to mandate overtime pay for salaried…

Subway, the sandwich chain, is being sold to equity firm Roark Capital in a $9.6 billion deal expected to expand the chain. Subway made the announcement on Thursday, a bare-bones announcement that doesn’t reveal any details of the pending deal. Roark specializes in franchised restaurants, and already has their fingers in two holding companies which between them own Arby’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Jimmy…

The auto industry is facing a conflict between union labor, management, and the transition to electric vehicles. And President Biden is asking everyone to remember that livelihoods are on the line. On Monday, the president said in a press statement that the auto industry must keep focused on providing “good jobs that can support a family,” as it pivots towards electric vehicles and increased…

Yeezy shoe sales will go to support an anti-hate group, as Adidas kicks back against their former partner. In October of last year, Adidas ended their years-long partnership with rapper Kanye “Ye” West over his anti-Semitic statements, including threatening to go ‘”death [sic] con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” on Twitter, which got him banned (his ban has since been rolled back by Elon Musk). Adidas, a…

Disney Company will be raising their prices for ad-free Disney+ and Hulu, hoping to drive viewers back to ad-supported content. According to Disney’s reports of their fiscal third quarter, which ended July 1, Disney+ is losing subscribers and revenue. This is the streaming service’s third straight quarter of declines in the U.S., Canada, and India, with 300,000 fewer subscribers than last quarter…

Rebranding Twitter as X is never going to catch on, despite Elon Musk’s recent and half-hearted efforts. Elon Musk has some kind of obsession with the letter X. He owns SpaceX, and there’s a Tesla Model X. He even named his son X Æ A-12 (pronounced either Ecks-aye-eye or Ecks-Ash, depending which parent you ask) and usually calls him just X. Now he wants people to stop calling Twitter Twitter,…

Chinese livestreamers are using TikTok as a sales platform, targeting American consumers for goods from cosmetics to alternative medicines. TikTok faces possible bans in the United States and Europe over privacy concerns, but that hasn’t slowed down the public’s use of the Chinese-owned platform one bit. In the past few months, livestreaming e-commerce has taken off on the platform. This sort of…

Deceptive practices by Bank of America against hundreds of thousands of customers have resulted in over $250 million in penalties. On Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a statement about their findings against the second-largest bank in the nation. According to them, the bank has a history of charging multiple overdraft fees, $35 a pop, for the same failed…

Threads is a new rival to Twitter, about to be debuted by Facebook’s parent company Meta. The new listing for the Threads app, which appeared recently on Apple’s App Store, bills it as a “text-based conversation app” linked to Instagram. “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” it said. Threads, and a…