OraSure Reports a Cybersecurity Incident

 On or about March 27, 2024, OraSure Technologies (NASDAQ: OSUR) became aware of a cybersecurity incident in which an unauthorized third party gained access to Company data from certain information systems. Following detection of the incident, the Company initiated response protocols, commenced an investigation with the assistance of cybersecurity experts and external counsel, and notified law enforcement. The Company believes it has contained the incident and believes it has preserved the integrity of its core financial and operational systems.

Although the Company ascertained that certain files were exfiltrated, it is still investigating the extent of any sensitive information contained within the accessed systems, including any personal information. It is evaluating what, if any, regulatory and legal notifications are required as a result of this incident and will make such notifications as required based on its findings.

As of the date hereof, the incident has not had a material impact on the Company’s operations, financial systems, or its financial condition. The Company’s information systems are operational, and it does not anticipate that this incident will have a material impact on its financial condition and results of operations moving forward. While the Company believes it has contained the incident, it continues to investigate this matter to determine the full extent of the impact on the Company.

https://www.streetinsider.com/8K/OraSure+Technologies+%28OSUR%29+Reports+a+Cybersecurity+Incident/23062445.html

New way to generate human cartilage

 University of Montana researchers and their partners have found a new method to generate human cartilage of the head and neck.

Mark Grimes, a biology professor in UM's Division of Biological Sciences, said they have induced stem cells to become the cell type that normally makes up human craniofacial cartilage.

Stem cells can replicate themselves and also develop into different types of cells.

"The cells that normally give rise to this type of cartilage are called neural crest cells," Grimes said.

"We found a novel method for generating craniofacial organoids from neural crest cells."

Organoids are a simplified, miniature version of an organ that mimic the architecture and gene expression of the organ.

"Organoids are a good model for certain human tissues that we can study in ways that are not possible using tissue from human beings," he said.

Grimes said there is a critical unmet need for new methods to regenerate human cartilage for the 230,000 children born annually in the U.S. with craniofacial defects.

Growing cartilage in the laboratory also could lead to effective treatments to repair craniofacial cartilage damage due to injuries.

The researchers studied gene expression data at the RNA and protein level to reveal how cartilage cells arise from stem cells.

They revealed that stem cells communicate in the early stages to become elastic cartilage, which makes up human ears.

To accomplish this, the team used extensive analysis of biological markers and machine-learning pattern-recognition techniques to understand the cell signaling pathways involved when cells differentiate into cartilage.

It is difficult to reconstruct natural features such as a person's ears, nose or larynx with current plastic surgery techniques, and transplanted tissue is often rejected without immunosuppressants.

"To use patient-derived stem cells to generate craniofacial cartilage in the laboratory, you need to understand the human-specific differentiation mechanisms," Grimes said.

"Our aim is to develop a protocol for craniofacial cartilage generation for transplantation using human stem cells."

The research was published in the journal iScience. Besides Grimes, contributing UM authors include Lauren Foltz, Nagashree Avabhrath and Jean-Marc Lanchy. Other authors are Bradly Peterson of Missoula's Pathology Consultants of Western Montana and Tyler Levy, Anthony Possemato and Majd Ariss of Cell Signaling Technology of Danvers, Massachusetts.

Journal Reference:

1. Lauren Foltz, Nagashree Avabhrath, Jean-Marc Lanchy, Tyler Levy, Anthony Possemato, Majd Ariss, Bradley Peterson, Mark Grimes. Craniofacial Chondrogenesis in Organoids from Human Stem Cell-Derived Neural Crest Cells. iScience, 2024; 109585 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109585

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/04/240410161547.htm

How Iran Extends Its Power Via Allied Militant Groups

 As Israel braces for retaliation for an April 1 airstrike on Iran’s diplomatic buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, intelligence officials posed two possibilities: Iran might attack Israel directly, or it could lash out through the network of allied foreign militias it has supported and nurtured for decades. In either case, the militias, which have stepped up actions against Israel since the start of its war with the Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas in October, would be likely to escalate their aggression should Israel-Iran tensions provoke a broader regional conflagration.

Iran has been funding and arming militant groups abroad since soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as the nation’s new fundamentalist Shiite Muslim leaders sought to spread their mission to the rest of the region. They are nurtured by Iran’s Quds Force, a wing of the country’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that emerged from Iran’s 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Though Iran fought Iraq’s better armed, Western-backed forces to a standstill, the economic and human cost was devastating. Iran’s leaders have avoided open warfare since, preferring the deniability and lower casualty rates offered by the use of covert operations and proxy forces.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-13/iran-proxies-how-the-country-extends-its-power-via-allied-militant-groups

US Lawmakers Angry After Huawei Unveils Laptop With New Intel AI Chip

 Republican U.S. lawmakers on Friday criticized the Biden administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel AI chip.

The United States placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for violating Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing's technological advances. Placement on the list means the company's suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it.

One such license, issued by the Trump administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners had urged the Biden administration to revoke that license, but many grudgingly accepted that it would expire later this year and not be renewed.

Huawei's unveiling Thursday of its first AI-enabled laptop, the MateBook X Pro powered by Intel's new Core Ultra 9 processor, shocked and angered them, because it suggested to them that the Commerce Department had approved shipments of the new chip to Huawei.

“One of the greatest mysteries in Washington, DC is why the Department of Commerce continues to allow U.S. technology to be shipped to Huawei" Republican Congressman Michael Gallagher, who chairs the House of Representatives select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters.

A source familiar with the matter said the chips were shipped under a preexisting license. They are not covered by recent broad-cased restrictions on AI chip shipments to China, the source and another person said.

The Commerce Department and Intel declined to comment. Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The reaction is a sign of growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to thwart Huawei's rise, nearly five years after it was added to a trade restriction list.

In August, it shocked the world with a new phone powered by a sophisticated chip manufactured by sanctioned Chinese chipmaker SMIC, becoming a symbol of China's technological resurgence despite Washington's ongoing efforts to cripple its capacity to produce advanced semiconductors.

At a Senate subcommittee hearing this week, Kevin Kurland, an export enforcement official, said Washington's restrictions on Huawei have had a "significant impact" on it access to U.S. technology. He also stressed that the goal was not necessarily to stop Huawei from growing but to keep it from misusing U.S. technology for "malign activities."

But the remarks did little to stem frustration among Republican China hawks following the news about Huawei's new laptop.

"These approvals must stop," Republican congressman Michael McCaul said in a statement to Reuters. "Two years ago, I was told licenses to Huawei would stop. Today, it doesn’t seem as though the policy has changed."

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2024-04-12/us-lawmakers-angry-after-huawei-unveils-laptop-with-new-intel-ai-chip

Hunter Biden Loses Bid to Dismiss Firearms Case Over ‘Bias’

 

• Claims charging decision was based on politics
• Trump-appointed judge ruled Hunter Biden didn’t have evidence

President Joe Biden’s son failed to provide evidence that the US government’s decision to charge him with firearm-related offenses was tainted by outside influence from Donald Trump or his allies in Congress, a judge ruled.

Hunter Biden’s motion to dismiss the charges was denied Friday by US District Judge Maryellen Noreika in Delaware, the latest setback for the president’s son as his father campaigns for reelection.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-13/hunter-biden-loses-bid-to-dismiss-firearms-case-over-bias-claim

U.S. Steel shareholders approve $14.9 bln buyout by Nippon Steel

 U.S. Steel shareholders have voted to approve the proposed $14.9 billion acquisition by Japan's Nippon Steel, taking the merger one step closer towards completion even as political opposition to the deal mounts, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/NIPPON-STEEL-CORPORATION-6491235/news/U-S-Steel-shareholders-approve-14-9-bln-buyout-by-Nippon-Steel-Bloomberg-reports-46426204/

Google Begins Blocking News From California Outlets Over State Bill

 Google has temporarily blocked access to California-based news outlets for some state residents, as the search giant escalates its battle with the state over a landmark bill which would force tech giants to pay online publishers for their content.

In doing so, the company has revived a political tactic used repeatedly by the tech industry to try and derail similar legislation in places like Canada and Australia which require online platforms to pay outlets for articles featured on their websites, Politico reports.

"We have long said that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism," said Google's VP for global news partnership, Jaffer Zaidi, in a Friday blog post. According to Zaidi, the bill could "result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers."

Sacramento is hosting the latest round of a global fight over the journalism industry’s future in the digital age, and California’s battle has taken on additional resonance because the state is home to tech titans. Advocates for such legislation argue companies like Google and Meta have helped decimate already flagging newsroom revenues through their control over digital advertising, and outlets deserve compensation for content that users may see on their platforms for free.

The companies counter that these laws could stifle vital sources of information — and they’ve fought back by attempting to preview what they say that would look like. -Politico

In Canada, Google similarly threatened to block content before reaching a deal with the government last November, three weeks before the 'Online News Act' came into effect. The company agreed to make annual payments to news outlets in the range of $100 million.

Meta, meanwhile, has completely removed news content from its social feed in Canada, and has threatened to do the same in California - where the company has lobbied heavily against the measures currently under consideration in the state legislature. The company has spent over $1 million to run an ad campaign decrying the bill as a "link tax," a phrase Zaidi used in his blog post.

According to state Sen. Ben Allen (D), "Newspaper publishers and the journalists provide a really important service as a part of [Google’s] broader business model, and meanwhile they’re going bankrupt and you guys have record profits."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/google-begins-blocking-news-california-outlets-over-state-bill