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Alzheimer’s drug that can slow disease gets backing from FDA advisers

WASHINGTON (AP) — A closely watched Alzheimer’s drug from Eli Lilly won the backing of federal health advisers on Monday, setting the stage for the treatment’s expected approval for people with mild dementia caused by the brain-robbing disease. Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously that the drug’s ability to modestly slow the disease outweighs its risks, including side effects like brain swelling and bleeding that will have to be monitored. “I thought the evidence was very strong in the trial showing the effectiveness of the drug,” said panel member Dean ...

AI ‘gold rush’ for chatbot training data could run out of human-written text

(AP) — Artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT could soon run out of what keeps making them smarter — the tens of trillions of words people have written and shared online. A new study released Thursday by research group Epoch AI projects that tech companies will exhaust the supply of publicly available training data for AI language models by roughly the turn of the decade -- sometime between 2026 and 2032. Comparing it to a “literal gold rush” that depletes finite natural resources, Tamay Besiroglu, an author of the study, said the AI field might face challenges in ...

IRS decides people who got money from Norfolk Southern after Ohio derailment won’t be taxed on it

Most people who received money from Norfolk Southern in the wake of last year’s fiery train derailment in eastern Ohio won’t have to pay taxes on millions of dollars in aid payments after all. The Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that it had decided that most of the payments people who live near East Palestine, Ohio, received to help them pay for temporary housing or replace their belongings aren’t taxable because the Feb. 3, 2023, derailment that forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes qualified as “an event of a catastrophic nature.” The railroad ...

CEOs got hefty pay raises in 2023, widening the gap with the workers they oversee

NEW YORK (AP) — The typical compensation package for chief executives who run companies in the S&P 500 jumped nearly 13% last year, easily surpassing the gains for workers at a time when inflation was putting considerable pressure on Americans’ budgets. The median pay package for CEOs rose to $16.3 million, up 12.6%, according to data analyzed for The Associated Press by Equilar. Meanwhile, wages and benefits netted by private-sector workers rose 4.1% through 2023. At half the companies in AP’s annual pay survey, it would take the worker at the middle of the company’s pay scale ...