"Retail sales for January also came in much stronger than expected, suggesting the economy was slowing less than it had appeared just a month earlier, a picture that was confirmed by data on personal spending, which represents almost 70 percent of gross domestic product. Continuing progress on inflation depends on lowering demand and moderating economic activity, and the retail sales and spending data suggest that progress on reducing aggregate demand may have stalled. Whether or not subsequent data confirm the setback in progress last month, the FOMC will do what is needed to reduce inflation to the Committee's 2 percent objective over time. It is possible there may be some bumps on that path, but I assure you, the FOMC's dual mandate objectives will be achieved." more »

"An NIH-funded team of researchers, led by Drs .Jochen Buck and Lonny Levin at Weill Cornell Medicine, pn and fertility. Their findings appeared in Nature Communications on February 14, 2023. A variety of tests in mice didn’t identify any potential safety issues with TDI-11861. The team then treated male mice with a single dose of TDI-11861 before allowing them to mate with females. The treated mice showed no differences in mating behavior from untreated mice. But the sperm from treated mice lost the ability to move on their own. Sperm remained immobile after being deposited in the female reproductive tract..." "Men produce several million sperm per day — about 1,000 per second. To prevent pregnancy, all of these need to be stopped from reaching an egg." more »

The Takeaway: More than a year after the federal surprise-billing law took effect, patients can still get hammered by surprise bills resulting from health plans’ limited provider networks and ambiguities about what is considered emergency medical care. The loopholes are out there, and patients ... are just discovering them. Washington state Rep. Marcus Riccelli, chair of the House Health Care and Wellness Committee, said he will ask the state’s public and private insurers what steps they could take to avoid provider network gaps and out-of-network billing surprises like this. He said he will also review whether there is a loophole in state law that needs to be closed by the legislature. Fiedler said policymakers need to consider addressing what looks like a major gap in the new laws protecting consumers from surprise bills, since it’s possible that other insurers across the country have similar contracts with hospitals. “Potentially this is a significant loophole, and it’s not what lawmakers were aiming for,” he said. Congress might have to fix the problem, since the federal agencies that administer the No Surprises Act may not have authority to do anything about it. more »

Jo Freeman Reviews: After publishing his last book in 1921, based on memories and interviews with civil rights icon C.T. Vivian, Steve Fiffer wanted to do more like it. He felt that many lesser-known people had stories that needed to be told. His publisher concurred. It does help to start with an interested publisher. At that time it was NewSouth books. By the time the book came out in November 2022, NewSouth had become an imprint of the University of Georgia Press.     more »