Transcript Harlan Krumholz: Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz.Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University. We’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. Our guest today is Jonathan Cohn of The Bulwark. But first, we like to check in on current or hot topics in health and healthcare. What do you have today, Harlan?Harlan Krumholz: Yeah, thanks, Howie.…
On January 12, 2026, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed Assembly Bill 4182 amending key sections of the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act (NJEERA). Originally enacted in 1968, NJEERA governs labor relations in the state’s public sector and established the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) to oversee collective bargaining and dispute resolution for public employees. This new legislation, which contains multiple pages of additional text, (1) implements a significant shift…
Quick Hits On December 19, 2025, Governor Hochul signed into law legislation amending New York’s General Business Law to restrict the use of an applicant’s/employee’s credit history in employment decisions, effective April 28, 2026. The new law prohibits employers from requesting or using credit reports for employees or job applicants unless they fall into specific exceptions, such as certain positions that will have regular access to trade secrets, and positions…
Quick Hits Workers in certain certified professions in Canada can now more easily obtain authorization to work in other jurisdictions. Labour mobility between the provinces and territories, and at the federal level, has reduced red-tape barriers to help qualified professionals work outside the province where they are licensed or regulated. These changes make it easier for employers to reach a larger labour pool while reducing delays and paperwork. Federal—Free Trade…
Collection No. 11 To confront pressing societal challenges, we need businesses focused on new ideas and new solutions—and old ideas executed in new ways. We talked with Yale SOM faculty and alumni about pushing limits, taking disciplined risks, and developing resilient ventures while sustaining a dual commitment to profit and purpose. Illustration by Eva Bee. Published January 21, 2026 ‘Tough Tech’ Requires a Different Kind of Venture Capital Katie Rae…
What is impact investing, and how does it differ from regular investing?Impact investing is about having an investment strategy that seeks to generate positive, measurable social or environmental outcomes. It seeks to create those returns across a spectrum: financial gain is part of it, on the investing side, and then the other part of it is purposeful, positive impact. That can encompass a whole set of things, ranging from climate…
Russia—for which constructing a stable security order in Eurasia remains the overriding priority—is uniquely positioned to serve as a catalyst for understanding between Beijing and New Delhi, both in bilateral conversations and through multilateral platforms, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Anton Bespalov. The past year has witnessed a notable thaw in relations between Eurasia’s two largest powers—China and India. The process symbolically began with Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi’s meeting…
The study, The Silicon Gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place, by Francisco W. Kerche, Professor Matthew Zook and Professor Mark Graham, published in Platforms and Society on Tuesday 20th January, analysed over 20 million ChatGPT queries. When AI learns from biased data, it amplifies those biases further and can broadcast them at scale. That is why we need more transparency and more independent scrutiny of how these systems make claims about people and places,…
What blows me away is the power of evolution: we don’t yet know how to design a really good biological quantum sensor from scratch, but by carefully steering the evolutionary process in bacteria, Nature found a way for us.First author Gabriel Abrahams, Department of Engineering ScienceIn the study, the researchers created a new class of biomolecules called magneto-sensitive fluorescent proteins (or MFPs), that can interact with magnetic fields and radio…
January 20th is a symbolically interesting date. US President Donald Trump has been in office for a year now. It's time to take stock. In this year, he has accomplished (and some might say "wrecked") more than many American presidents have accomplished in their entire terms. He has radically changed the parameters of global politics, breaking traditional intra-Western alliances, writes Oleg Barabanov. February will bring another symbolic date. According to…
19 January 2026By Alena WabitschIn 2025 Alena Wabitsch won the ECB’s Young Economist Prize with the research highlighted in this blog post. Applications for the 2026 Prize will be open soon. For more details, go to the dedicated webpage.The way central banks communicate has a profound impact on how people perceive monetary policy. But who delivers messages also matters. This ECB Blog post explains how the messenger can affect both the reach…
The Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout, to be completed by summer 2026, will equip Manchester students with future-ready skills and enable researchers to accelerate interdisciplinary discovery and analysis at scale. Through access and training, Manchester graduates will be well prepared for the modern workplace, where employers increasingly expect graduates to be confident users of AI technologies. Students will also be able to use Microsoft 365 Copilot to support their studies in line with the University’s policies on the…
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Court of Appeal rejected the argument that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) cannot apply absent evidence of interstate commerce, emphasizing that arbitration under the FAA is a matter of consent. Thus, the Court affirmed that an arbitration agreement is governed by the FAA when the parties expressly agree to its application. Tuufuli v. West Coast Dental Administrative Services, LLC, 2nd Appellate District, Case No. B338584. The…
On January 14, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the 2026 threshold for applying the size-of-parties test of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act will increase from $126.4 million to $133.9 million. Deals that exceed this $133.9 million threshold may need to be reported to the FTC and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) depending on the size of the parties to the transaction as measured by the volume of their…
Quick Hits The California Civil Rights Department’s preliminary pay data reporting templates for the 2025 pay reporting cycle show three new columns on both the payroll employee and the labor contractor employee reports: (1) Exemption Status; (2) Employment Type; and (3) Total Annual Weeks Worked. The preliminary templates show that these new columns are not required fields for the 2025 pay data reporting. The preliminary templates and FAQs are subject…
This year, YC has partnered with nearly two dozen companies to offer students who attend YC events a suite of free credits for AI devtools.The YC AI Student Starter Pack includes over $20,000 in cloud credits on Azure and AWS, over $5,000 in credits for GPT/Claude/Grok, and generous credits for AI devtools in voice, browser automation, web search, video generation, databases, web crawling, and more. We’re especially happy that 14…
On January 16, the Valdai Discussion Club’s Moscow venue hosted the presentation of the new Valdai Paper, “Turkey in the Context of Transforming International Relations and the New Eurasian Geopolitics.” Discussion moderator Anton Bespalov described Turkey as a classic example of a middle power—influential in its region, capable of projecting power outward, and skilfully balancing between greater powers. He emphasized that Russia shares Turkey’s ongoing search for identity, which arises…
A decade-long study led by Penguin Watch, at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, has uncovered a record shift in the breeding season of Antarctic penguins, likely in response to climate change. These changes threaten to disrupt penguins’ access to food and increase interspecies competition. The results have been published today (20 January - World Penguin Awareness Day) in the Journal of Animal Ecology. Chinstrap penguin with its…
16 January 2026By Benjamin Böninghausen and Andreea Liliana VladuThe euro area yield curve steepened significantly in 2025 as long-term and especially very long-term interest rates increased. This ECB Blog post dissects what happened and explores key drivers behind the unusually strong shift.Over the course of 2025, many debtors in the euro area faced the phenomenon that borrowing over longer time periods has become more costly relative to borrowing over the…
Quick Hits The legal landscape of employment arbitration continues to evolve as plaintiffs’ attorneys mount new challenges, particularly in light of laws like the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA). Employers can avoid pitfalls by staying informed on the latest issues and carefully crafting and regularly evaluating their arbitration agreements to maintain effectiveness and enforceability. The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) promotes the use of arbitration…
In Rizzuto v. Hamilton Wentworth Catholic District School Board, 2025 ONCA 773 (Rizzuto), the Court of Appeal for Ontario affirmed the dismissal of a negligence claim arising from a schoolyard bullying incident (the Incident). Although the trial judge found several shortcomings in how earlier bullying was addressed, the court was “unable to conclude more supervision or disciplinary measures would have deterred or prevented the incident.” Without a causal link between…
How the iron bar formed is currently a mystery, the authors say. They will need further, more detailed observations to unravel what is going on. There are two potential scenarios: the iron bar may reveal something new about how the ejection of the nebula by the parent star progressed, or the iron might be an arc of plasma resulting from the vaporisation of particles of iron dust embedded in the…
Quick Hits Employees may use FMLA leave to attend medical appointments related to serious health conditions for themselves or for a qualifying family member. FMLA leave also covers reasonable travel to and from such appointments. Medical certifications need not include an estimate of travel time to be complete and sufficient. Using FMLA Leave for Medical Appointments The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take up to twelve work…
An uptick in performance in recent fundraising In this bulletin we provide our view on positive trends in the Canadian private equity market, discuss liquidity options being used in the current environment, and share three critical points that clients should keep in mind when negotiating private equity deals in 2026. The start of 2025 saw a positive development in a subdued Canadian private equity environment. During the first five months…
Quick Hits CBP recently proposed changes to its Visa Waiver Program and Electronic System for Travel Authorization and invited public comment through February 9, 2026. Proposed changes include moving to a mobile-only application (the ESTA mobile app) and requiring extensive new data, including social media information and family member details. Enhanced vetting and security changes include adding required applicant biometric uploads (i.e., a photograph of the applicant’s face or a…
The most recent amendments to Ontario’s Construction Act are now effective (as of January 1, 2026). The most significant implication of these amendments are to the administration of the statutory holdback and the requirement for the annual release of holdback going forward for construction projects in Ontario. The amendments were introduced through Building Ontario for You Act (Budget Measures) (Bill 216). An overview of key amendments under Bill 216 is set…
15 January 2026By Pietro Bellamio, Catarina De Melo Branco, Julika Herzberg, Małgorzata Osiewicz, Sofia Papadopoulos, Eva Pereira, Dimitra Theleriti and Caroline WillekeThe ESCB has strengthened its climate indicators, introducing new breakdowns of sustainable bonds, data on how inflation affects banks’ carbon intensity metrics, and improved data and models assessing physical risks. This ECB Blog post offers a quick overview of the enhancements.Statistical climate indicators are continuously evolving. The European System…
Researchers at The University of Manchester are calling for stronger, coordinated partnerships to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking, warning that gaps between organisations risk leaving victims and survivors without consistent protection and support.Their appeal comes in a new review commissioned by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), which examines how organisations across the city region work together to identify, safeguard and support people affected by modern slavery and human trafficking.…
By emphasising dignity, sovereignty, and national interest, Georgia seeks to navigate an increasingly multipolar and unstable international system. Whether this recalibration will enhance the country’s resilience or deepen its geopolitical vulnerabilities remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that Georgia has entered a new stage in which identity, pragmatism, and geopolitical calculation play a far more central role in shaping its strategic choices than in previous periods, writes Archil Sikharulidze.…
Quick Hits New York Assembly Bill A9452 seeks to amend the newly enacted Trapped at Work Act, which prohibits stay or pay agreements that require employees to repay training expenses if they leave their job. The proposed chapter amendments would narrow the scope of the original law to apply specifically to employees, excluding independent contractors and other workers from the prohibitions on reimbursement agreements. The amendments would also allow employers…
In VanMar Constructors ON 1028 Inc. v Travelers Insurance Company of Canada, 2025 ONSC 6959, the Ontario Superior Court found that a performance bond action by a contractor was commenced after expiry of the bond limitation period, and dismissed the action. While the facts were straightforward, the court's analysis provides important guidance on the interpretation and enforcement of limitation periods under performance bonds. Background VanMar Constructors ON 1028 Inc. (VanMar)…
In this bonus episode, Howie and Harlan are joined by Ania Jastreboff, a Yale School of Medicine endocrinologist and an expert on the science of obesity. They discuss her new book, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, which reframes obesity as a treatable disease rooted in biology—not a failure of willpower. Show notes: Ania Jastreboff and Oprah Winfrey: Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like To Be Free Yale Obesity…
For many years, I lived in the Indian city of Chennai where the summer temperatures can reach up to 44°C. With a population of 4.5 million, this coastal city is humid and hot.Its suburbs are home to 600 Hindu temples and there’s a wildlife reserve called Guindy national park in the heart of the city. Trees line some of the streets but green parks are few and far between –…
Professor Erin Saupe. Credit: Charlie Rex. The findings, published this week in Science, provide new insight towards understanding patterns of biodiversity distribution throughout Earth history to the present day, and highlight which modern species may be more at risk of extinction due to climate change.The researchers analysed over 300,000 fossils for over 12,000 genera of marine invertebrates, combining these with reconstructions of continental arrangements at different times in the past.…
Dr Federica Fedorczyk, Institute for Ethics in AI Over the past few weeks, Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, has been in the eye of the storm for creating sexualised images of children and women without their consent in response to simple user requests.The mechanism is extremely straightforward. Users can upload a picture and ask Grok to remove the clothes of the person depicted, leaving them in underwear, bikinis, transparent attire,…
Quick Hits Employers must submit separation information through the NJDOL’s Employer Access portal. Previously, employers provided separation information to the NJDOL via a designated email address. Employers may want to register now for portal access and use it to make all timely separation submissions, despite some ambiguity about what separation-related information the NJDOL requires employers to provide. What the 2022 UCL Amendments Require The 2022 amendments to New Jersey’s Unemployment…
On January 1, 2026, the European Union (EU) formally launched the world’s first carbon border levy. After a transitional period of over two years and a flurry of additional legislation required to operationalize the levy in late 2025, the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Measure (CBAM) is now in full force. Critics have disparaged CBAM for the costs imposed on producers outside of the EU and labelled it as a protectionist…
A major new study from The University of Manchester has found little evidence that social media use or video gaming are causing mental health problems in young teenagers, challenging one of the most widespread concerns among parents and teachers today.The research - published in the Journal of Public Health - is based on the experiences of more than 25,000 pupils across Greater Manchester, and is one of the largest and…
Quick Hits USCIS will place a hold on all pending benefit requests filed by or for foreign nationals who are citizens of or were born in countries listed in Presidential Proclamation 10998, issued in December 2025. USCIS will also re-review approved benefit requests of foreign nationals impacted by Presidential Procalamation 10998 who were approved on or after January 20, 2021, an expansion of scope from its December 2, 2025, memorandum.…
Artificial intelligence is making its mark across all sectors, including in the workplace. In the past year, AI-powered smart glasses have evolved from being a novelty to becoming the focus of serious pilot programs. Meta’s Ray-Ban lineup has introduced enhanced AI features, fuelling enterprise trials even amid ongoing privacy debates. Meanwhile, the augmented reality landscape is shifting: Microsoft has paused development of new HoloLens hardware, while Google, collaborating with XREAL,…