📌 Tax Cuts, Health & Wealth, More

The Senate is launching action on President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending cuts.

More than a month after House Republicans surprised Washington by advancing their framework for Trump’s $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts, Senate Republicans voted Thursday to start working on their version.

The largely party-line vote, 52-48, sets the stage for a potential Senate all-nighter Friday spilling into the weekend. But work on the multitrillion-dollar package is coming as markets at home and abroad are on edge in the aftermath of Trump’s vast tariffs scheme.

The Democrats don’t have the votes to stop the GOP plan but they intend to use procedural tools to prolong the process. They argue the Republicans are focusing on tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of programs and services millions rely on for help with health care, child care, and other everyday needs.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the party whip (pictured), said that without action tax cuts would expire, becoming a $4 trillion tax hike on Americans. “Republicans are focused on getting America back on track,” he said. Trump said the Senate plan had his “complete and total support.”

A 10-year study found Americans across all wealth levels were more likely to die younger than their European counterparts.

The findings were detailed in a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine by a team led by researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health.

The analysis compared data from over 73,000 adults in the US with regions of Europe aged 50–85 in 2010 to determine how wealth affects a person's chances of dying. The results revealed wealthier people tend to live longer, especially in the US, where the gap between the rich and poor is much larger than in Europe.

Comparison data showed at every wealth level in the US, mortality rates were higher than in Europe. The wealthiest Americans have shorter lifespans on average than the wealthiest Europeans, but in some cases, their survival rates were on par with poor Europeans in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

A researcher commented: ”Our previous work has shown that, while wealth inequality narrows after 65 across the US and Europe, in the US it narrows because the poorest Americans die sooner and in greater proportion.”

"If you look at other countries, there are better outcomes, and that means we can learn from them and improve," a researcher said. "It's not necessarily about spending more — it's about addressing the factors we're overlooking.”

The study noted how systemic cultural and behavioral factors, such as diet, smoking and social mobility, may also play a role. For example, smoking rates and living in rural areas — both linked to poorer health — were more common in the US.

The US Food and Drug Administration is suspending efforts to improve its bird flu testing of milk, cheese and pet food.

The decision was attributed by an email and a key source to massive staff cuts at the agency. The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, on Tuesday began firing 10,000 employees to comply with President Donald Trump's push to shrink the federal workforce.

The Interlaboratory Comparison Exercise for detecting Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza was set to launch later this month but was suspended on Thursday because of cuts to staff at the FDA’s Human Food Program that would have supported the scientific and testing needs of the program, the email said.

The email said the program “would have been critical to ensure confidence in the laboratory methods for food safety and animal health.” HHS did not immediately respond to questions about the suspension of the program and what, if any, impact it would have on FDA's bird flu testing efforts.

The FDA handles testing of consumer dairy products for bird flu, while the US Department of Agriculture tests bulk milk before it is sent for processing. An ongoing bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle has infected nearly 1,000 herds, according to USDA data.

The coordination effort would have served as quality assurance to ensure reliable results in the FDA's bird flu testing of dairy products and pet food, the key source said. Similar coordination programs at the FDA ensure reliability in testing for salmonella and other pathogens, the source said.

OpenAI's GPT-4.5 has passed the Turing Test, a benchmark for assessing whether a machine can exhibit human-like intelligence.

Researchers from UC San Diego announced the breakthrough, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of AI technology and its potential applications in society. The test, introduced by British mathematician Alan Turing in 1950, has long been regarded as a gold standard for evaluating machine intelligence.

Participants interacted with both a human and an AI model for five minutes before identifying which was which. GPT-4.5 was instructed to adopt specific personas. When it played the role of an introverted, geeky 19-year-old knowledgeable about internet culture, it was identified as human 73% of the time.

Without any persona instructions, GPT-4.5's success rate dropped significantly to 36%, highlighting the importance of tailored prompts in enhancing its conversational abilities.

The performance is a significant improvement over earlier models like ELIZA (23%) and even GPT-4 (below 50%), demonstrating how far AI has come in mimicking human-like interactions.

Cameron Jones, lead researcher at UC San Diego's Language and Cognition Lab, emphasized the results should be viewed as one piece of evidence among many regarding AI's capabilities. He still viewed the results as a remarkable achievement that “could potentially lead to automation of jobs, improved social engineering attacks, and more general societal disruption."

A simple approach to weight loss could make a bigger impact than constantly counting calories.

A study found that a 4:3 intermittent fasting schedule limiting calorie intake for three days a week and eating normally for the remaining four led to a 7.6% average weight loss over a year, compared to 5% with a traditional daily caloric restriction diet.

Researchers pointed out it‘s not a huge difference but it suggests that for some people varying diet restrictions might be more effective — and easier to stick to — than maintaining a daily calorie limit.

The team put 165 overweight or obese participants aged 18–60 through intermittent fasting (IMF) or a daily caloric restriction diet over 12 months, recommending exercise. The IMF group was told to restrict calorie intake to 80% on three days out of seven. The other group reduced their daily calorie intake by 34% daily.

Weight loss varied, but the IMF group averaged a 17-pound drop, compared to 11 pounds for the other group. Small improvements in health markers like blood pressure were also seen across both groups.

"A specific comprehensive program focusing on 4:3 IMF doesn‘t exist to our knowledge," said physical activity epidemiologist Danielle Ostendorf, from the University of Colorado. Ostendorf wants to devise the program for clinics and community programs to make it widely accessible.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for America‘s partners in NATO to up their defense spending to 5% of their GDP.

Rubio arrived in Brussels Thursday at a conference of NATO foreign ministers, at a time when the EU is frustrated with tariffs levied against them by President Donald Trump, what Trump plans to do about the war in Ukraine, and his relationship with Russia.

After a post on X, where he stated how much more the US wants NATO members to spend, he spoke at the gathering to first reaffirm the US still wants to be a part of the alliance, that "the United States is as active in NATO as it has ever been," and that Trump has made clear, he supports NATO. We‘re going to remain in NATO.”

Rubio went on to say the US wants NATO to be "stronger" and "more viable," and that "the only way NATO can get stronger and more viable is" for members to have "more capability." He noted that NATO nations are "rich countries who have the capability to do more.”

A full-scale ground war in the heart of Europe," Rubio said, is a reminder that "hard power is still necessary as a deterrent," and that the US wants other NATO members "committing and fulfilling a promise to reach up to 5% spending,” which includes the US.

Denver Moore, a WW II veteran in Ohio, is turning 104 on May 15 and has invited President Donald Trump to his birthday party.

“President Trump… I‘m gonna be 104 in May, and I‘m inviting you to my birthday party in Canal Fulton," he said in a TikTok video. "I got to vote for you again, and I hope I can vote for you some more.”

Moore lives at Danbury Senior Living facility in Massillon, a town just south of Cleveland. "So far, he‘s my favorite president," Moore said.

Moore grew up on a farm in Noble County, Ohio before he entered the service and spent three-and-a-half years in the US Army Air Corps. He then worked for the US Postal Service and raised three children with his late wife Thelma Lee, to whom he was married for 75 years before she died in 2022 at age 95.

The centenarian said the secret to living a long healthy life is staying physically active. “I was always active, doing something. I carried mail for 20 years, walking, and that was good. I grew up on a farm. We did everything. And if we didn‘t have anything to do, we created something.”