Purple Haze: LPA Mandate Poised to Continue Causing Confusion and Chaos for California Cannabis Licensees

It is not often that the government has the opportunity to regulate and oversee an entirely brand new market; and, in the case of California, when it legalized recreational cannabis for adult-use, it decided to mandate involvement of labor unions in the state’s emerging cannabis industry, through implementation of a Labor Peace Agreement (“LPA”) requirement. Because this fundamental choice by the state has posed headaches and dilemmas for licensees, cannabis…

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Employer Alert: Texas Reaches $1.4B Settlement Over Allegations of Violation of Biometric Information Privacy Law

Quick Hits Texas reached a $1.4 billion settlement with a social media company over technology that allegedly unlawfully captured the facial geometry of millions of users in the state. The settlement comes after a $650 million settlement for similar claims under Illinois law in 2021. The settlements point to a broader trend of increased scrutiny and enforcement of privacy laws concerning biometric information. On July 30, 2024, Texas Attorney General…

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Delivering on construction productivity is no longer optional

When it comes to creating a more sustainable future, the construction industry has a great role to play. On top of fulfilling critical economic and societal needs for offices, housing, hospitals, and infrastructure, the industry can help meet net-zero goals by 2050 by developing and executing the needed projects, including renewables, low-carbon activities, infrastructure, building insulation, and more.The construction industry could thus be on the brink of remarkable expansion: in…

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Historic fires trapped in Antarctic ice yield key information for climate models

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey tracked fire activity over the past 150 years by measuring carbon monoxide trapped in Antarctic ice. This gas is released, along with smoke and particulates, by wildfires, cooking and communal fires.The findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that biomass burning has been more variable since the 1800s than had been thought. The new…

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Uncover the Ageism Hiding in Your Organization

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Many companies have yet to tap into the growing “longevity economy” — the economic value of the over-50 population as consumers and workers. Businesses often overlook this demographic even though it holds about 80% of U.S. household wealth and is responsible for half of consumer spending.1 People who are 50-plus contribute $8.3 trillion annually to the U.S. economy, and that figure is expected to…

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Employers With 30 or More Employees in Minnesota Required to Provide Salary Ranges in Job Postings, Beginning in 2025

Quick Hits Effective January 1, 2025, all employers that have thirty or more employees in Minnesota will be required to provide salary ranges and a general description of benefits in job postings—seemingly, including Minnesota recruiting and staffing companies seeking workers to work for employers in other states. The law is silent as to general solicitations and positions with low base salaries but high potential commissions. Under Minn. Stat. 181.173, included…

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5 ways Copilot can help you start the school year

Microsoft Copilot can help you tackle many back-to-school tasks quickly and efficiently. Whether you need a starting point for a welcome back letter or enhancements to existing lesson plans, Copilot is ready to assist. As the new school year kicks off in many places across the northern hemisphere, hallways and classrooms buzz with the excitement of welcoming students back. Whether you’re beginning the new school year, starting a new term,…

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Savers are set to pay more than £10 billion in tax on interest – Here’s how to cut your bill

In the past few years, you’ve likely seen news stories about higher interest rates and how they might affect your finances. For example, if you’re a homeowner, you may have experienced a sharp increase in your monthly mortgage costs. Indeed, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average monthly cost of a new mortgage rose by 61% in the year to December 2022. Yet, while high interest rates…

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Turkish Challenge in Central Asia

Turkey has successfully promoted its own multilateral format, the Organisation of Turkic States, which has gradually grown from a platform for dialogue into a full-fledged organisation promoting close cooperation in a wide variety of areas. Turkey has set quite ambitious goals for itself — turning it into a Turkic-speaking analogue of the EU. Turkey seeks to implement the concept of “Great Turan”, uniting the Turkic peoples around itself under the…

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The key to accelerating AI development? Pragmatism plus imagination

While AI continues to influence the way we work in exciting new ways, it is crucial for organizations to apply guardrails to keep it safe. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey senior partners Alexander Sukharevsky and Lareina Yee dig into new research on AI adoption, with editorial director Roberta Fusaro. In our second segment, how do you muster the courage to talk about something uncomfortable at work? Senior partner Sherina Ebrahim has two tips.…

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Author Talks: A transformational approach to leadership

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Raju Narisetti speaks with McKinsey senior partners Dana Maor, Kurt Strovink, and Ramesh Srinivasan and senior partner emeritus Hans-Werner Kaas about their new book, The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out (Portfolio/Penguin Group, USA, September 2024). Through the lens of CEOs who have mastered invaluable leadership lessons and insights from McKinsey’s Bower Forum and other CEO…

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Advanced MRI scans help identify one in three concussion patients with ‘hidden disease’

Around one in 200 people in Europe every year will suffer concussion. In the UK, more than 1 million people attend Emergency Departments annually with a recent head injury. It is the most common form of brain injury worldwide.When a patient in the UK presents at an Emergency Department with head injury, they are assessed according to the NICE head injury guidelines. Depending on their symptoms, they may be referred…

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When Subordinates Sabotage You

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Contrapower harassment, a seldom-discussed form of workplace harassment, turns traditional power dynamics on its head. This scenario, in which individuals with less authority target those in higher positions, challenges the notion that only those in power can be harassers and…

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Ninth Circuit Holds a Second Medical Opinion Is Not Necessary to Challenge an Employee’s Entitlement to FMLA Leave

Quick Hits In Perez v. Barrick Goldstrike Mines, Inc., the Ninth Circuit joined the Second, Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits in holding that an employer’s right to obtain a second opinion is permissive, not mandatory, under the FMLA. A jury may consider an employer’s nonmedical evidence in determining whether an employee had a “serious health condition” under the FMLA. Background In Perez v. Barrick Goldstrike Mines, Inc., the Ninth Circuit…

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AI Frontiers Lab: Collaborating to build technology responsibly

Microsoft Research is the research arm of Microsoft, pushing the frontier of computer science and related fields for the last 33 years. Our research team, alongside our policy and engineering teams, informs our approach to Responsible AI. One of our leading researchers is Ece Kamar, who runs the AI Frontiers lab within Microsoft Research. Ece has worked in different labs within the Microsoft Research ecosystem for the past 14 years…

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Leadership Lessons from the Vice Presidential Picks

This commentary originally appeared in Time. Having studied leadership across sectors for nearly a half century, I’ve found that power sharing at the top is often harder than delegation and execution down the hierarchy of command. Leadership partnerships across sectors that work well have a secret recipe—which Kamala Harris seemed to understand but which Donald Trump seems to have missed, given their recent selections of running mate. Barack Obama and…

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Building an engineering culture and resilient technology

The pace of change in technology has created many opportunities—and raised as many challenges. Overcoming the challenges to grasp the opportunities requires tools and processes that nurture an engineering culture, build stable foundations for resilient technology operations, and manage complex cloud costs. Driving this shift requires modern technology leaders to expand from their traditional role as “guardians of IT” to become closer partners with the business. So says David Pedreira,…

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BRP Cards Expiration and UKVI Account Factsheet – Action Required

In an effort to introduce a fully digital immigration system, the UK Government has announced that Biometric Residence Permits (BRP) and Biometric Residence Cards (BRC) will be phased out, and that as of January 1, 2025, they will no longer be in circulation. To address some concerns for employees and our clients, we have created the following Fact Sheet: All UK BRP/BRC cards have an expiration date of December 31,…

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Massachusetts Adopts Pay Transparency and Reporting Requirements

Quick Hits On July 31, 2024, Governor Maura Healey signed into law legislation requiring Massachusetts employers with twenty-five or more employees to disclose pay ranges. Employers with one hundred or more employees and subject to EEO-1 reporting obligations will be required to report aggregated wage data by race, ethnicity, sex, and job category annually as a supplement to the EEO-1 report to the state. Compliance failures could result in penalties…

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New OpenAI feature for developers launches on Azure

We are thrilled to announce the launch of OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4o Next. We are thrilled to announce the launch of OpenAI’s latest model on Azure. This new model, officially named GPT-4o-2024-08-06, brings innovative features designed to elevate developer experiences on Azure. Specifically, the new model focuses on enhancing productivity through Structured Outputs, like JSON Schemas, for the new GPT-4o and GPT-4o mini models.  Azure OpenAI Service Build your own…

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The Rasht-Caspian Railway and the Cycle of ‘Combined Transport’ in the International North–South Transport Corridor

Since the major part of Iran’s trade with Russia takes place with the western, more densely populated part of this country, including the cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Rostov and the North Caucasus, the main route of trade and transit between the two countries necessarily passes through the Republic of Azerbaijan. Given these circumstances, the lack of a direct rail route has had a very negative impact on the…

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Improving Access to Drugs: The Critical Role of Supply Chain Risk

Medical criticality refers to the clinical value of a drug. Life-saving drugs should always be considered high criticality (e.g. insulin, blood thinners, antibiotics for the treatment of sepsis, etc.), while drugs that improve lifestyle tend to be low in medical criticality. Other criticality factors include the number of people dependent on the drug and whether good substitutes exist. The other dimension, supply chain risk, captures the likelihood of mismatches between supply and…

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Gen AI’s next inflection point: From employee experimentation to organizational transformation

After nearly two years of debate, the verdict is in: generative AI (gen AI) is here to stay, and its business potential is massive. We’ve already witnessed an exponential rate of gen-AI-related innovation, which promises to accelerate automation and enhance productivity, innovation, and the quality of work, as well as the employee and customer experience. The companies that fail to act and adapt now will likely struggle to catch up…

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OFCCP Encourages Contractors to Use Apprenticeship Programs to Hire Veterans

Quick Hits OFCCP updated its guidance on protected veterans hiring obligations and affirmative action policies encouraging contractors to provide apprenticeship opportunities to protected veterans. OFCCP said protected veterans must be provided equal opportunity to participate in apprenticeship opportunities and that providing such opportunities can help contractors meet their obligations to recruit and hire protected veterans. The guidance comes after OFCCP set the national veteran hiring benchmark at 5.2 percent on…

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New Azure Data Box capabilities to accelerate offline data migration

Azure Data Box offline data transfer solution allows you send petabytes of data into Azure Storage in a quick, inexpensive, and reliable manner. Azure Data Box offline data transfer solution allows you send petabytes of data into Azure Storage in a quick, inexpensive, and reliable manner. The secure data transfer is accelerated by hardware transfer devices that enable offline data ingestion to Azure. We’re excited to announce several new service…

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The loneliest job? How top CEOs manage dilemmas and vulnerability

For many leaders, assuming the role of CEO is a key career goal and the culmination of decades of hard work. The CEO role is also among the most challenging and demanding positions in any organization—particularly during times of uncertainty and upheaval.About 100 CEOs have passed through the McKinsey Center for CEO Excellence (MCCE) leadership program since it launched in mid-2022 (for more information on the MCCE, see sidebar, “About…

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DHS Updates STEM Designated Degree Program List for 24-Month STEM OPT Extensions

Quick Hits DHS recently added Environmental/Natural Resources Economics to the STEM list of qualifying fields of study. More F-1 nonimmigrant students will be eligible for the twenty-four-month extension of their post-completion OPT. The STEM Designated Degree Program List is “a complete list of fields of study that DHS considers to be science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) fields of study for purposes of the 24-month STEM optional practical training extension.”…

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What the World Could Learn from America’s Immigration Backlash—100 Years Ago

Immigration will be a central issue in the upcoming US presidential election, just as it motivated the recent snap elections in France. After all, the number of migrants rose 27 percent to 281 million globally in 2020, compared with 2010, according to United Nations estimates. The number of individuals displaced by natural disasters could surge to 1.2 billion by 2050, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. Beyond the…

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Protecting the public from abusive AI-generated content 

AI-generated deepfakes are realistic, easy for nearly anyone to make, and increasingly being used for fraud, abuse, and manipulation – especially to target kids and seniors. While the tech sector and non-profit groups have taken recent steps to address this problem, it has become apparent that our laws will also need to evolve to combat deepfake fraud. In short, we need new laws to help stop bad actors from using…

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Managing uncertainty in the silicon carbide wafer market

Over the past few years, silicon carbide (SiC) has emerged as an attractive alternative to silicon as a semiconductor base material because it offers improved performance, most notably realized in applications requiring high power. Although various industrial devices now incorporate SiC, the majority of emerging demand will come from applications in electric-vehicle (EV) powertrains in the form of metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs).In an October 2023 article, McKinsey estimated that the…

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Hybrid Work: Surprising Lessons From Gen Z

What does Gen Z really want from hybrid work? This brief video shares advice for leaders on how to turn Gen Z’s preferences into overall culture improvements. MIT Sloan Management Review August 06, 2024 Reading Time: 1 min  subscribe-icon Subscribe Share [embedded content] Many stereotypes and anecdotes surround Generation Z’s supposed work styles: Maybe you’ve heard “They don’t like to work very hard” or “They don’t want to come into…

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Olympic Thrills to Patent Skills: Understanding Apparatus and Method Claims

This year’s Olympic Games have already been packed with compelling storylines.  These storylines include the somewhat controversial opening ceremony to Yusuf “hold my beer” Dikec winning hearts and the silver medal in pistol shooting, and Simone Biles clinching her tenth gold medal (with more possibly on the way).  Adding to the Olympic headlines, on August 4, USA’s Noah Lyles added to the Olympic headlines by edging past Kishane Thompson, from…

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OSH Law Primer, Part VIII: The Intersection of Employment Law and Safety Issues

The first article in this series provided a general overview of the OSH Act and OSHA; the second article examined OSHA’s rulemaking process; the third article reviewed an employer’s duty to comply with standards; the fourth article discussed the general duty clause; the fifth article addressed OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements; the sixth article covered employees’ and employers’ respective rights; the seventh article addressed whistleblower issues. In this, the eighth article in…

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How EdTech Firm Coursera Is Incorporating GenAI into Its Products and Services

Brian Kenny Since ChatGPT appeared on the scene back in the fall of 2022, newsfeeds have been flooded with claims that generative AI is going to change the world, so if you're suffering from a bit of GenAI fatigue, I get it, but even if it's not readily apparent to you in your day-to-day work, AI is steadily increasing its presence in a lot of workplaces. According to a CompTIA…

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China: the increase in US import tariffs is first and foremost a political issue

These measures come on top of a long list of tariff and non-tariff barriers imposed since the trade war broke out between the two countries in 2018. The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a research organisation, estimates that 66% of Chinese exports to the US were already subject to customs duties averaging 19.3% before these latest announcements. The signing of the Phase 1 agreement and the election of Joe Biden…

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The Downside of Employee Recognition

Employee recognition programs have long been touted as a key driver of engagement and retention. However, as organizations strive to create cultures of appreciation, it's crucial to understand that not all recognition efforts yield positive results. In fact, some well-intentioned programs can backfire, leading to unintended consequences that may harm employee morale and productivity. Let’s explore some of the potential pitfalls of recognition programs as well as innovative approaches to…

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‘Far from clear’ new Alzheimer’s drugs will make a difference at a population level, say researchers

Writing in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, the team from Cambridge Public Health argue that substantial challenges including the risk-benefit ratio, limited eligibility and high cost of roll-out will limit any benefits of these treatments.Alzheimer’s disease is often quoted as causing 70% of the 55 million cases of dementia worldwide, though the definition of what constitutes the disease is hotly debated. One characteristic of Alzheimer’s is…

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Beating ‘Not Invented Here’ Syndrome

Topics Frontiers An MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology is reshaping the practice of management. More in this series Andrew Baker/Ikon Images When I was managing director of the German subsidiary of U.S.-headquartered SC Johnson, I witnessed “not invented here” (NIH) syndrome in action. The larger company paid scant attention to an innovative air freshener product successfully launched by an Asian subsidiary, apparently due in part to bias toward innovations…

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A new way of thinking about the economy could help protect the Amazon, and help its people thrive

A group of conservationists from Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, the US and the UK say that current conservation and development efforts will never sustain or scale without systemic changes in how economies are designed.Despite extensive destruction of the Amazon in the name of economic development, Amazonian communities have seen little improvement in income, life expectancy, and education. The researchers have proposed a new model and associated policy changes that could…

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Start spreading the news: New York City travel and tourism are back

As the travel industry began to recover in 2021, we expressed our view that the enduring allure of New York would continue to draw visitors back to the city. That projection is well on track, as more than 62 million people visited New York City in 2023, representing 93 percent of 2019 levels. The city now expects to exceed prepandemic visitor numbers by 2025.Although travelers are back, their mindsets and behaviors…

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