Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., April 29, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
The volatility in the bond market has had equity investors on their toes for months, but at what point will rising yields spoil stocks’ 2024 rally?
The answer is 5% on the 10-year Treasury yield, according to Goldman Sachs. In a new 19-page paper using market data since the 1980s, the Wall Street firm said when that threshold is reached, the correlation between bond yields and stocks turns negative.
“While there is no ‘magic number’, historically bond yields at around 5% is when higher yields become a clear problem for equities — that is the point where the correlation with bond yields is no longer decisively positive,” wrote a team of Goldman strategists led by Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist.
The benchmark 10-year yield jumped 5 basis points Tuesday to 4.67% after data showed employee compensation costs increased more than expected to start the year. It marked yet another danger sign about persistent inflation, which the market thinks will keep the Federal Reserve on hold until later this year before it starts to consider cutting rates. A basis point equals one-hundredth of a percentage point.
Goldman said investors are currently in the “optimism phase” of the cycle, where confidence — and complacency — grow, pushing valuations higher.
“Equity valuations are higher and the cycle is more mature so equity markets are very sensitive to moves in bond yields,” Goldman said. “They underperform with yields moving higher around news of overheating and higher inflation, while they outperform when the market prices Central Banks to cut interest rates.”
The 10-year Treasury yield, a key barometer for mortgage rates, auto loans and credit cards, has risen almost 80 basis points this year as the market adjusts to a higher-for-longer rate regime. The current rate on the Federal Reserve’s fed funds for overnight lending is 5.25%-5.50%.
After starting the year forecasting at least six reductions in interest rates, the market is now pricing in a 75% chance of just one rate cut, according to the CME Group’s widely followed FedWatch tracker that derives its probabilities from where 30-day fed funds futures are trading. The central bank’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee began its two-day meeting Tuesday.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has long stressed the impact of interest rates on all investments, saying higher rates exert a huge gravitational pull on asset values, lowering the present value of any future earnings.
Rising yields dent the appeal of risk assets as shorter-dated Treasury bills and longer-dated Treasury notes offer solid yields and a risk-free alternative to stocks.
A screen grab taken from a video provided by the Philippine Coast Guard showing Chinese Coast Guard ships firing water cannons against Philippines vessels near Scarborough Shoal, South China Sea, on April 30, 2024. Philippine Coast Guard
A video shows a Chinese ship colliding with a Philippine vessel while firing water cannons.
The Philippine Coast Guard says the vessel took damage from the attack.
The confrontation, inside the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone, is the latest between the two countries.
Chinese Coast Guard ships confronted a pair of Philippine vessels this week, harassing, ramming, and firing water cannons at them, according to Philippine authorities.
Official videos and other footage from media members show the latest flare-up between the two countries as China continues to defy international legal rulings on South China Sea territory and engagePhilippine vessels in Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
The Philippine Coast Guard shared video footage on Tuesday of the incident.
The footage shows Chinese vessels firing water cannons at a Philippine Coast Guard ship and a vessel of the country’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the BRP Bagacay and BRP Datu Bankaw, as the two vessels carried out a “legitimate maritimepatrol” near Scarborough Shoal, a contested area of the South China Sea inside the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone where China forcefully exerts control.
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In the released footage, two larger Chinese vessels surround one of the Philippine ships, firing water cannons from each side.
“During the patrol, the Philippine vessels encountered dangerous maneuvers and obstruction from four China Coast Guard vessels and six Chinese Maritime Militia vessels,” Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela said.
The latest confrontation resulted “in damage to the railing and canopy,” Tarriela added, including a picture for evidence. “This damage serves as evidence of the forceful water pressure used by the China Coast Guard in their harassment of the Philippine vessels.”
The National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea said in a statement that China’s behavior was “shocking and appalling” and that embedded press were able to witness and experience firsthand the “illegal, coercive, aggressive, and dangerous actions” of the Chinese side.
Local News5 journalist Gio Robles published videos to X from the incident showing scenes from aboard the Datu Bankaw.
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The Telegraph’s Asia correspondent Nicola Smith was aboard the Philippine Coast Guard ship Bagacay and wrote of the experience that as the Chinese ships hammered the vessel with their water cannons, “all you could hear was the thundering of the water and more frantic shouts of the crew.”
Smith said the ship’s canopy broke under the intense assault and that the Datu Bankaw suffered interior flooding and damage to the onboard radar.
China’s Coast Guard said in a post on the country’s Weibo social media platform that it had expelled the Philippine vessels for “intruding” in its waters “in accordance with the law.”
The Philippines, on the other hand, said the vessels “stood their ground and continued their maritime patrol. They were not deterred and will persist in carrying out their legitimate operations to support Filipino fishermen and ensure their safety.”
A Chinese Coast Guard ship fires a water cannon at Unaizah May 4, a Philippine Navy chartered vessel, conducting a routine resupply mission to troops stationed at Second Thomas Shoal, on March 05, 2024 in the South China Sea. Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
The video posted on X of a Chinese Coast Guard ship colliding with the Datu Bankaw while spraying it with water notably showed that the Chinese ship was “specifically targeting the Philippine ship’s navigation and communication equipment,” Tom Shugart, a former US Navy officer and current adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, wrote on social media.
“It’s aiming to do damage, not just ward off,” he said.
It’s the latest fight between the two countries as China continues to dominate disputed waters in the South China Sea, defying international law and asserting its dominance in the strategic waterway. Scarborough Shoal, which has a constant Chinese Coast Guard presence, but the Philippines continues to press its claims to this area.
There have been numerous Chinese attacks on Philippine ships. A recent one in March saw a Chinese water cannon destroy a Philippine ship’s windows and injure four sailors.
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The Philippine Coast Guard said Tuesday that China had reinstalled a roughly 1,200-foot floating barrier that “covers the entire entrance of the shoal, effectively restricting access to the area,” a prime fishing spot.
Join the greatest Hunters from across the Star Wars galaxy on the planet of Vespaara where high-stakes competitions are awaiting them in the Arena. Engage in thrilling third-person combat to dominate your opponents in a range of adventurous battlegrounds that evoke iconic Star Wars worlds. Mix and match teams, use skill, tactics and customize your Hunters to find a winning strategy and reap the spoils of victory in the all-new free-to-play game.
The Planet: Vespaara
You can find anything on Vespaara—as long as you’re willing to pay for it. Found at the planet’s southern pole, perpetually angled away from the sun, this rocky “oasis” lives in eternal twilight. With every hour considered “magic hour” it is the perfect location to put on the round-the-clock spectacle that the Arena hosts. What’s more, there’s an amazing year-round aurora effect in the sky that constantly shifts and reforms, appearing like a celestial audience of sinister red and purple eyes, always staring down. The show never ends.
The Hutt Ship
The centerpiece of the Arena complex is a one-of-a-kind custom-built command ship, the spherical emplacement hovers over the Arena, covered in advertisements for upcoming events and products.
Battlefields
Ewok Village – Based on the forrest moon of Endor, this map includes a faithful depiction of an important Ewok cultural site. This battlefield is full of detailed reproductions of authentic-looking Ewok dwellings and structures: it’s like you’re actually there amongst the trees and high-rise platforms where the fall of the Empire started.
Mos Espa Podrace – Hold on to your helmets because this battlefield is a wild ride! Evoking a recreated vista of Mos Espa—home of the famous Boonta Eve Classic Podrace—as its environment; Podrace is where the Arena owners have diverted their repulsor craft pod races to fly through this Tatooine-inspired map to add chaos.
Dune Sea Outpost – This arena recreates an abandoned trading outpost on Tatooine where all manner of scum and villainy in the universe once conducted nefarious business deals. Characterized by Mos Eisley architecture, it is now a prime location for smugglers to hide their stolen bounty.
Death Star Crossfire – Players will navigate the crossfire of these warring factions, as X-wings and TIE fighters swoop overhead past heavy fire from Turbolaser towers. Navigate devastating crash sites and classic Imperial interiors in this exciting new Arena experience!
Vandor Railyard – This new multi-modal map is set on an Imperial Railcrawler Facility, nestled deep in the mountains of Vandor. Players will not only be up against their foes, but they will also face the challenges of the steep cliffs, and you won’t want to be hit by the moving train passing through the map!
Game Modes
Squad Brawl – The first team to reach 20 eliminations wins in this all out assault mode
Dynamic Control – In this mode, teams compete to capture rotating Control Points.
Power Control – In this mode, Squads must control the majority of Control Points on the battlefield and hold them firmly.
Trophy Chase – Two teams aim to hold the Trophy Droid, named TR0-F33! The first Squad to reach 100% wins the game.
Classes
Damage – Inflicting a barrage of heavy attacks, Damage characters are their opponents’ biggest threat.
Support – Usually healing and helping out their squad during the match, Support characters are critical in keeping the battle going longer.
Tank – Hard to overpower, Tank characters always assert their dominace in the Arena as they take on opponents and keep their team from harm.
The rapper, 36, on Tuesday tore into Drake on his new song “Euphoria,” marking the latest escalation of their ongoing feud. It’s a response to Drake’s own songs directed at Lamar, who in March rejected the idea that he and Drake are on the same level as rappers.
If the lyrics didn’t already make it clear enough that the song’s subject was Drake, the title itself is a not-so-subtle reference to the “First Person Shooter” rapper, who is a producer on the HBO series “Euphoria.”
‘Euphoria’ lyrics: Kendrick Lamar raps Drake is a ‘scam artist’ in diss track
In the song, Lamar raps about how the “famous actor we once knew is looking paranoid and now spiraling.” Drake famously began his career as an actor on “Degrassi: The Next Generation.”
Lamar goes on to call the subject of the track a “pathetic master manipulator” and a “habitual liar” who is “not a rap artist” but “a scam artist.” He says that he makes music “to electrify ’em,” while Drake makes music “to pacify ’em.”
“I’m the biggest hater. I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk,” he continues. “I hate the way that you dress. I hate the way that you sneak diss.”
“How many more fairytale stories about your life ’til we’ve had enough?” Lamar raps. “How many more Black features ’til you finally feel that you’re Black enough?”
Drake, who is biracial, was previously called out by Pusha T in a similarly vicious feud for a photo featuring him in blackface. After Pusha T used the picture as the cover for his diss track “The Story of Adidon,” Drake said the blackface photo was from 2007 when he was working on a “project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and type cast.” Pusha T also revealed Drake had a child, unbeknownst to the public at the time.
Lamar also seems to take a shot at Drake’s relationship with his son, Adonis. “I got a son to raise, but I can see you don’t know nothing about that,” he raps.
What to know about Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s beef
Lamar and Drake’s feud goes back more than a decade to 2013, when Lamar rapped on the Big Sean song “Control” about how he wanted to “murder” Drake and other prominent rappers.
Earlier this year, Lamar appeared on Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” and rejected the idea of there being a “big three” in rap, declaring on the track, “It’s just big me.” The lyric was a response to J. Cole referring to himself, Drake and Lamar as the “big three” on Drake’s 2023 track “First Person Shooter.”
Drake subsequently fired back with two diss tracks directed at Lamar, “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” “Taylor Made Freestyle” was later pulled from streaming services after Tupac Shakur’s estate threatened to sue over the use of a AI voice imitation. “The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult,” a cease-and-desist from the estate obtained by USA TODAY said.
Lamar references this on “Euphoria” by rapping that Shakur is turning “in his grave.”
J. Cole also responded to Lamar on the song “7 Minute Drill” in April, rapping, “He still doing shows but fell off like ‘The Simpsons.” He also rapped that Lamar is past his “prime.” But shortly after releasing the song, Cole apologized and said it was “lame” and “goofy” of him to do so.
“I ain’t gonna lie to y’all the past two days felt terrible,” he told the audience at the Dreamville Festival days later, going on to call Lamar as “one of the greatest.”
Listen to Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track ‘Euphoria’
Victoria Beckham is still walking on crutches as she continues to recover from a broken foot.
Taking to social media, the star, 50, posed in a white dressing gown as she prepared for a photoshoot for her own beauty band, revealing she is still healing from her recent accident.
She posed for a mirror selfie, leaning on a crutch in a pair of strappy heels.
Posh Spice suffered an injury at the gym in February and has been using crutches since.
Despite her injury, Beckham recently insisted she is happier than she’s ever been after turning 50 earlier this month.
DENVER — In the moments after Jamal Murray ended a series for the Denver Nuggets and ended a season for the Los Angeles Lakers, he bumped into his head coach Michael Malone and delivered maybe the understatement of the year.
He had just hit the shot that won yet another game for the Nuggets, his second such make of the first round. He did so with a strained left calf that limited him in nearly debilitating ways on Monday night at Ball Arena.
GO DEEPER
‘You’re going to hit the game-winning shot’: Jamal Murray’s teammates knew he would deliver in Game 2
But the sense of humor, which Murray has plenty of when he’s in the right mood, was as good as ever.
“It’s a good thing you played me tonight, coach,” Murray told Malone. “I don’t know if we win if I don’t play tonight.”
Jamal Murray has yet to be an NBA All-Star in his career. He’s never made an All-NBA team. And yet, how many guys are you taking over him in a playoff setting? That’s what you call a rhetorical question because the answer should universally be: Not many.
Murray’s put up 50-point heaters in the postseason. His playoff run last spring was instrumental to the Nuggets winning their first title in franchise history. Whatever Murray is during the regular season, he’s cemented himself as one of the all-time playoff risers in the history of basketball. And in no way should the previous sentence be a controversial statement.
Monday night added to his lore. When Murray dribbled twice to his left and stepped back on one foot to shake Lakers guard Austin Reaves, we all knew what was about to happen. The 15-footer was pure. It gave Denver a 108-106 win at Ball Arena. It gave the Nuggets a 4-1 series win. It gave Denver a much-needed respite before a series with the Minnesota Timberwolves that promises to be a grueling one.
“In truth, we were all banged up,” Malone said. “We didn’t know who we were going to have available to finish this game.”
In a Game 3 win in Los Angeles, backup point guard Reggie Jackson sprained his ankle, an injury that put him on crutches and in a protective boot during Denver’s off day at its Santa Monica hotel. In the first half of Monday night’s Game 5, starting shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope sprained his ankle bad enough that he left the game twice during the remainder of the first half. He came back in the second half, gutted through it, and made multiple big shots.
Murray strained his calf in the second half of Game 4, Denver’s lone loss of the series. He began Monday as questionable to play. So Murray arrived at Ball Arena earlier than normal to receive treatment, try to stretch and loosen the calf, and make a decision as to whether he would be able to play. Calf strains are by nature a tricky and dangerous injury. They are soft tissue injuries that heal slowly. More importantly, they typically lead to more serious ailments, such as Achilles injuries.
In past playoffs, the 2019 NBA Finals series featuring the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors changed when then-Warriors forward Kevin Durant returned from a calf strain and ended up rupturing his Achilles. In 2021, a second-round series featuring the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Clippers turned, in part, when then-Jazz point guard Mike Conley strained his calf. In this current postseason, the Milwaukee Bucks haven’t had Giannis Antetokounmpo in a first-round matchup against the Indiana Pacers because of a strained calf he suffered toward the end of the regular season.
These examples serve to tell the story of why the Nuggets themselves didn’t want Murray to play on Monday night. And on the surface, the reasoning was sound. With a 3-1 lead heading into Game 5, if Denver defeated the Lakers without Murray that would give the point guard seven days to heal. If not? Then the hope would be that Murray would be ready to go in Thursday night’s Game 6 in Los Angeles.
“I came in a little earlier just to get some treatment, and I did feel like I could play,” Murray said. “They told me no. I didn’t say no. I didn’t want to leave my teammates out there. I didn’t want to hang them out to dry. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I didn’t everything that I could in order to be on the floor tonight.”
Monday night wasn’t the first time this season that Murray played in a game against Denver’s advice. Toward the end of the regular season, the Nuggets wanted to sit Murray against the Utah Jazz to protect against Murray’s left knee soreness. The Utah game was the front end of a back-to-back, a road game, with the Nuggets then facing the Timberwolves back at Ball Arena the next night. On the team flight to Salt Lake City, Murray approached Malone and begged him to play. He did so and turned in a big fourth quarter to propel the Nuggets over the Jazz, and played the following night, a win over Minnesota.
Murray is an honest and raw human being. He’s passionate and will let you know exactly what he’s thinking. Malone is a good fit for him because he’s open to honest and sometimes harsh and emotional conversation. This was a key on Monday night. The worry, of course, was that Murray would play in Game 5 and injure the calf, and that’s something the Nuggets didn’t want. But Murray wasn’t going to sit out of a playoff game, not if he could help it. So, he and Malone had that talk. And then Murray and Malone and the training staff had that talk. They laid out a plan, and Murray suited up and got ready to play.
“I knew he was going to play, to be honest,” Denver star Nikola Jokić said. “Without talking to him, I knew he wants to play and that he wants to be in the big games. Even though he didn’t shoot his best, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Murray was 13 of 28 from the field on Monday night, while making five of his 10 3-point attempts. He scored a game-high 32 points, including making gargantuan shots down the stretch outside of the game-winner. He dunked on LeBron James, who was amazing in his own right, and flexed in front of him. He sliced through the defense at will in the final five minutes.
He wasn’t anywhere close to 100 percent.
From the opening possessions, it was clear Murray couldn’t explode off the dribble the way he wanted. It was clear that he didn’t have his usual first step. The Nuggets wanted to limit his minutes as much as they could, but he ended up playing 40 on Monday night. Ironically, that may have been the best thing for Murray, because playing kept the calf warm and loose, and Murray played and shot the ball better as the game progressed.
“I was moving well enough to play,” Murray said. “But jumping was the biggest thing for me. That was the toughest challenge, leaving the ground, even on my jump shot. So I went to a deeper gather before I shot the ball, because I wanted to put as little stress on my calf as possible.”
Deep into Monday night, Malone talked about the question the Nuggets faced. Did they want to sit Murray? Or did they want to put their chips in the middle of the table, and go all in on trying to end the series with the Lakers? It was a collaborative conversation, but eventually, the Nuggets settled on the latter. The prize was a win in Game 5, nearly a week of rest and the fact that Murray didn’t hurt himself further.
And now, the Nuggets and Wolves get to the series many have been waiting for.
“The bigger the moment, the bigger Jamal Murray shines,” Malone said. “He’s one tough cookie.”
Galaxy cluster, left, with ring of dark matter visible, right. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)
Explorations in dark matter are advancing with new experimental techniques designed to detect axions, leveraging advanced technology and interdisciplinary collaboration to uncover the secrets of this elusive component of the cosmos.
A ghost is haunting our universe. This has been known in astronomy and cosmology for decades. Observations suggest that about 85% of all the matter in the universe is mysterious and invisible. These two qualities are reflected in its name: dark matter.
Several experiments have aimed to unveil what it’s made of, but despite decades of searching, scientists have come up short. Now our new experiment, under construction at Yale University in the US, is offering a new tactic.
Dark matter has been around the universe since the beginning of time, pulling stars and galaxies together. Invisible and subtle, it doesn’t seem to interact with light or any other kind of matter. In fact, it has to be something completely new.
Let’s take the neutron, for instance. It makes up the atomic nucleus along with the proton. Despite being neutral overall, the theory states that it it made up of three charged constituent particles called quarks. Because of this, we would expect some parts of the neutron to be charged positively and others negatively –this would mean it was having what physicists call an electric dipole moment.
Yet, many attempts to measure it have come with the same outcome: it is too small to be detected. Another ghost. And we are not talking about instrumental inadequacies, but a parameter that has to be smaller than one part in ten billion. It is so tiny that people wonder if it could be zero altogether.
In physics, however, the mathematical zero is always a strong statement. In the late 70s, particle physicists Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn (and later, Frank Wilczek and Steven Weinberg) tried to accommodate theory and evidence.
They suggested that, maybe, the parameter is not zero. Rather it is a dynamical quantity that slowly lost its charge, evolving to zero, after the Big Bang. Theoretical calculations show that, if such an event happened, it must have left behind a multitude of light, sneaky particles.
These were dubbed “axions” after a detergent brand because they could “clear up” the neutron problem. And even more. If axions were created in the early universe, they have been hanging around since then. Most importantly, their properties check all the boxes expected for dark matter. For these reasons, axions have become one of the favorite candidate particles for dark matter.
Axions would only interact with other particles weakly. However, this means they would still interact a bit. The invisible axions could even transform into ordinary particles, including – ironically – photons, the very essence of light. This may happen in particular circumstances, like in the presence of a magnetic field. This is a godsend for experimental physicists.
Experimental Design
Many experiments are trying to evoke the axion-ghost in the controlled environment of a lab. Some aim to convert light into axions, for instance, and then axions back into light on the other side of a wall.
At present, the most sensitive approach targets the halo of dark matter permeating the galaxy (and consequently, Earth) with a device called a haloscope. It is a conductive cavity immersed in a strong magnetic field; the former captures the dark matter surrounding us (assuming it is axions), while the latter induces the conversion into light. The result is an electromagnetic signal appearing inside the cavity, oscillating with a characteristic frequency depending on the axion mass.
The system works like a receiving radio. It needs to be properly adjusted to intercept the frequency we are interested in. Practically, the dimensions of the cavity are changed to accommodate different characteristic frequencies. If the frequencies of the axion and the cavity do not match, it is just like tuning a radio on the wrong channel.
The powerful magnet is moved to the lab at Yale. Credit: Yale University
Unfortunately, the channel we are looking for cannot be predicted in advance. We have no choice but to scan all the potential frequencies. It is like picking a radio station in a sea of white noise – a needle in a haystack – with an old radio that needs to be bigger or smaller every time we turn the frequency knob.
Yet, those are not the only challenges. Cosmology points to tens of gigahertz as the latest, promising frontier for axion search. As higher frequencies require smaller cavities, exploring that region would require cavities too small to capture a meaningful amount of signal.
Metamaterials are composite materials with global properties that differ from their constituents – they are more than the sum of their parts. A cavity filled with conductive rods gets a characteristic frequency as if it were one million times smaller, while barely changing its volume. That is exactly what we need. Plus, the rods provide a built-in, easy-adjustable tuning system.
We are currently building the setup, which will be ready to take data in a few years. The technology is promising. Its development is the result of the collaboration among solid-state physicists, electrical engineers, particle physicists, and even mathematicians.
Despite being so elusive, axions are fuelling progress that no ghost will ever take away.
Written by Andrea Gallo Rosso, Postdoctoral Fellow of Physics, Stockholm University.
Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation.
Citing rising breast cancer rates in young women, an expert panel on Tuesday recommended starting regular mammography screening at age 40, reversing longstanding and controversial guidance that most women wait until 50.
The panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, finalized a draft recommendation made public last year. The group issues influential advice on preventive health, and its recommendations usually are widely adopted in the United States.
In 2009, the task force raised the age for starting routine mammograms to 50 from 40, sparking wide controversy. At the time, researchers were concerned that earlier screening would do more harm than good, leading to unnecessary treatment in younger women, including alarming findings that lead to anxiety-producing procedures that are invasive but ultimately unnecessary.
But now breast cancer rates among women in their 40s are on the rise, increasing by 2 percent a year between 2015 and 2019, said Dr. John Wong, vice chair of the task force. The panel continues to recommend screening every two years for women at average risk of breast cancer, though many patients and providers prefer annual screening.
“There is clear evidence that starting screening every other year at age 40 provides sufficient benefit that we should recommend it for all women in this country to help them live longer and have a better quality of life,” said Dr. Wong, a primary care clinician at Tufts Medical Center who is the director of comparative effectiveness research for the Tufts Clinical Translational Science Institute.
The recommendations have come under harsh criticism from some women’s health advocates, including Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, who say the advice does not go far enough.
In a letter to the task force in June, they said that the guidance continued to “fall short of the science, create coverage gaps, generate uncertainty for women and their providers, and exacerbate health disparities.”
Weighing in again on a hotly debated topic, the task force also said there was not enough evidence to endorse extra scans, such as ultrasounds or magnetic resonance imaging, for women with dense breast tissue.
That means that insurers do not have to provide full coverage of additional screening for these women, whose cancers can be missed by mammograms alone and who are at higher risk for breast cancer to begin with. About half of all women aged 40 and older fall into this category.
In recent years, more mammography providers have been required by law to inform women when they have dense breast tissue and to tell them that mammography may be an insufficient screening tool for them.
Beginning in September, all mammography centers in the United States will be required to give patients that information.
Doctors often prescribe additional or “supplementary” scans for these patients. But these patients frequently find they have to pay all or some of the charges themselves, even when the additional tests are performed as part of preventive care, which under law should be offered without cost.
Medicare, the government health plan for older Americans, does not cover the additional scans. In the private insurance market, coverage is scattershot, depending on state laws, the type of plan and the plan’s design, among other factors.
The task force sets the standards for what preventive care services must be covered by law by health insurers at no cost to patients.
The panel’s decision not to endorse the extra scans has significant implications for patients, said Robert Traynham, a spokesman for AHIP, the association that represents health insurance companies.
“What that means for coverage is that there is no mandate to cover these specific screenings for women with dense breasts at zero-dollar cost-sharing,” he said.
While some employers may choose to have their health insurance plans do so, it is not required by law, Mr. Traynham said.
Kathleen Costello, a retiree in Southern California who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 when she was 59, said she was convinced that mammograms missed her cancer for many years.
She underwent screening annually, and every year she received a letter saying that she was cancer-free. The letters also told her that she had dense breast tissue and that additional screening was available but not covered by insurance.
Six months after an all-clear mammogram in 2016, she told her doctor that her right breast felt stiff. The doctor ordered a mammogram and an ultrasound.
“In 30 seconds, the ultrasound found the cancer,” Ms. Costello said in an interview, adding that she knew because “the technician blanched and left the room.”
The mass was four centimeters in size, Ms. Costello added: “It’s hard for me to accept that it grew in six months from undetectable to four centimeters.”
But Dr. Wong, of the task force, said there was no scientific evidence to prove that supplemental imaging, by either M.R.I. or ultrasound, reduces breast cancer progression and extends life for women with dense breast tissue.
There is ample evidence, on the other hand, that supplemental screenings may lead to frequent false-positive findings and to biopsies, contributing to stress and unnecessary invasive procedures.
“It’s tragic,” Dr. Wong said. “We are as frustrated as women are. They deserve to know whether supplemental screenings would be helpful.”
But medical organizations like the American College of Radiology endorse supplemental screening for women with dense breast tissue. There is research showing that ultrasound in conjunction with mammography does detect additional cancers in patients with dense tissue, said Dr. Stamatia Destounis, chair of the college’s breast imaging commission.
For women with dense breasts who are at average risk of breast cancer, recent research indicates that M.R.I. is the best supplemental scan, Dr. Destounis said, “with far better cancer detection and more favorable positive predictive values.”
The college also recommends annual screening for women at average cancer risk, rather than screening every two years as recommended by the panel. The radiologists group is pressing for a recommendation that all women should be assessed for breast cancer risk before age 25, so that women at high risk can start screening even before they turn 40.
Growing evidence shows that Black, Jewish and other minority women develop breast cancer and die from it before age 50 more frequently than do white women, Dr. Destounis noted.
Trans men who have not had mastectomies must continue to be screened for breast cancer, she added, and trans women, whose hormone use puts them at greater risk for breast cancer than the average man, should discuss screening with their doctor.
While the panel’s advice to start screening at age 40 is “an improvement,” Dr. Destounis said, the final recommendations “do not go far enough to save women’s lives.”
US stocks hit pause on Tuesday as investors marked time ahead of the Federal Reserve’s rate decision, with earnings from Amazon (AMZN) on deck to test prospects for a further Big Tech-fueled rally.
Futures on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (^NDX) slipped roughly 0.1% after closing with small gains. Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) futures wavered below the flatline.
Stocks are set to end their worst month of 2024, as a brutal mid-April stretch means the major indexes are set to end the month with losses. But investors are looking to continue making headway on a rebound that has pervaded over the last week.
Thus far, anticipation over the Fed’s next move is battling for attention with better-than-expected quarterly results, with surprises from the likes of Paramount (PARA) and Tesla (TSLA) playing their part.
Investors are bracing for policymakers to hold interest rates at historically elevated levels at the Fed’s two-day meeting, set to start on Tuesday. The prospect of rate cuts has retreated dramatically since the start of the year, helping drive up Treasury yields — a familiar systemic problem for stocks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury (^TNX) held near six-month highs around 4.63% early Tuesday.
Amazon’s results after the bell will be closely watched after Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet’s (GOOG, GOOGL) stellar earnings lifted hopes for a “Magnificent Seven” boost this season. So far, Big Tech results have both impressed Wall Street and revealed its impatience with heavy AI spending.
You don’t see this too often, but Restaurant Brands’ (QSR) Burger King chain had a better quarter of sales than arch rival McDonald’s (MCD).
Burger King revealed this morning a 3.9% same-store sales increase in the first quarter, outpacing McDonald’s 2.5% gain.
Restaurant Brands has been very aggressive on marketing for BK this year, especially with its new (and cheap) snack wraps. So, maybe BK has won back market share amongst a consumer searching for deals.
Full watch below on what Restaurant Brands is up to with executive chairman Patrick Doyle and CEO Josh Kobza.
Fast analysis: McDonald’s joins the price hike commentary
McDonald’s (MCD) highlighting “strategic” menu price increases in the US for the first quarter.
It’s unclear from the company’s supplementary release if the price hikes impacted store traffic.
But the company’s US comparable sales only rose 2.5%, so it’s safe to infer the company did see some pushback on the prices from diners.
More on the quarter from Yahoo Finance senior reporter Brooke DiPalma here.
Fast analysis: Molson Coors also calls out price hikes
Similar to Coca-Cola (KO) this morning, fellow beverage giant Molson Coors (TAP) had a strong quarter on the back of price hikes sticking.
Molson Coors said pricing increased by 4.4% in the quarter, no small feat in the ultra-competitive beer industry.
Interestingly, volume for Coors Light rose by a double-digit percentage.
You read that correctly…Coors Light.
Fast analysis: Coca-Cola earnings reveal one point on inflation
We saw it with PepsiCo (PEP) earnings last week, and we see it again with Coca-Cola (KO) results this morning: big food players are still pushing through price increases on consumers (memo to the Fed).
Coca-Cola noted that “price/mix” in the first quarter grew a hearty 13%.
Keep an eye on Yahoo Finance senior reporter Brooke DiPalma on our platform today — she will be speaking with Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey for added intel on the results.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s gruesome recounting of how she killed her dog may have also killed something else: her hopes to be Donald Trump’s running mate.
In Trump’s orbit, Noem’s decision to disclose in her forthcoming memoir that she once shot and killed a family dog is being seen as pure political self-immolation—part of a series of “lapses in judgment” and a sign of “desperation that President Trump especially doesn’t like,” according to a over a half-dozen GOP sources who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity to detail confidential conversations.
“Everyone around Trump is talking about this,” said a MAGA operative.
“Haven’t seen a more public suicide than Jim Jones at Jonestown,” another Trumpworld source told The Daily Beast.
For years, Noem has been seen as a rising star in Republican politics, thanks to her combative, unabashedly MAGA image. She routinely appears in news reports as one of Trump’s top contenders for his vice-presidential slot in 2024.
At this point, though, even Republicans may agree that by deeply offending a bipartisan constituency—pet lovers—Noem isn’t just politically incorrect but politically incompetent.
In a startling revelation from her new memoir No Going Back, set to be published next month, Noem details the shocking end of her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket.
Noem recounts she killed the dog, who lived on the family’s farm in South Dakota, because of its “aggressive personality” and lack of hunting skills. She also writes that Cricket escaped her truck and attacked a group of chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.” This was the final straw.
“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket was simply “untrainable,” “worthless as a hunting dog,” and “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.” It was then, she says, she realized “I had to put her down.”
But Noem did the dirty work herself, leading Cricket to a gravel pit and then shooting the dog.
Donald Trump listens as Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at a rally in Ohio in March 2024.
KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images
This graphic and shocking excerpt has been poorly received by many, including those in Trumpworld, and it may have sunk whatever hopes she had to be Trump’s running mate.
The Trumpworld source added that Noem had “a very slight shot before” of being Trump’s running mate but that it is “less than zero now.”
“A vice president is chosen to solve problems and add real value. A proven gaffe machine does neither,” a source close to the Trump campaign told The Daily Beast.
Not only that, but a MAGA operative said Noem’s chances at a Cabinet position could also be toast. Her involvement with the Trump campaign at all could be limited going forward, too.
Operatives around Trump “are fixated on the ads that would run if she were anywhere involved with President Trump’s campaign, regarding the dog,” the Trump operative said. “I mean, this stuff is devastating. There’s nothing more popular in politics than dogs, and she killed one—and she continues to talk about it… That’s what’s baffling and shows out-of-control judgment.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Noem also did not respond to a request for comment.
Indeed, amid all the blowback, Noem has refused to apologize. She wrote in subsequent posts on X that she “understands” why people might be upset but that “tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.”
The governor also tried to spin the execution as an example of how she doesn’t “shy away from tough challenges.”
“Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle,” Noem said on X. “Even if it’s hard and painful. I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor.”
The widespread and swift backlash to Noem’s bizarre and off-putting story within Trumpworld is an exception to the general rule that Trump’s most trusted allies typically are protected when a bad news cycle comes for them after a self-inflicted wound.
Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and director of public affairs at the Department of State under Trump, said Noem may have carved out a new category for herself in the lexicon of political blunders.
“For Kristi Noem, it’s hard to even call this an unforced error,” Bartlett said, “because she deliberately told this story from something she thought would be a position of strength.”
A Trump-aligned strategist called Noem’s decision “one of the worst PR handlings I’ve ever seen.”
“In America we love beer, baseball, and dogs. It’s bipartisan,” the strategist said. “And to think that Donald Trump would think you’re tough ’cause you killed a dog? It’s the weirdest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
The canine blow-up has also raised questions about who is advising Noem, or whether she listens to any sound political advice at all.
“They just don’t know how to handle this,” another veteran GOP strategist said of Noem’s team. “Confirming it yourself, and doing so in a book—this wasn’t a slip of the tongue—it shows kind of a string of bad judgment along the way.”
“What she put in the book is the most positive version of this story she could possibly have,” the strategist added. “Think of it that way.”
Noem’s main champion in Trumpworld has long been Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager in 2016. Several Republicans who spoke with The Daily Beast said Noem’s account of shooting the puppy may well blow back on Lewandowski, who insisted in a Monday talk radio interview in New Hampshire that Noem was “still in the top three” contenders for Trump’s VP pick.
Lewandowski did not return a request for comment.
What’s made matters worse for Noem is that she has aggressively maneuvered to put herself in the VP conversation—magnifying the scrutiny on her missteps not just by Trump’s top lieutenants but by others who are angling for the No. 2 spot, too.
“She’s sort of put herself in the VP-or-bust bucket,” the MAGA operative said, “and that’s a really bad place to be.”
Bartlett said Noem may have fallen into a trap in her “misguided attempt” to project “some sort of Midwesternly strength.”
“Connecting with rural America to show strength and hard decisions could have been a true asset,” Bartlett said, “but shooting a puppy never is.”
