• The H5N1 bird flu virus is spreading through US cattle herds for the first time.
• The mammal-to-mammal transmission has scientists worried the virus could mutate to spread between humans.
• Former surgeon general Jerome Adams fears the US is making the mistakes of 2020 all over again.

Bird flu is flying wild. In recent months the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has been spreading through US cattle herds for the first time ever.

The cow-to-cow transmission is the latest escalation in a global outbreak that began when the virus reemerged in Europe in 2020. It has since killed tens of millions of birds and more than 40,000 sea lions and seals in South America.

World Health Organization chief scientist Jeremy Farrar called this an "animal pandemic" on April 18.

Genetic fragments of the virus, discovered in grocery store milk on Tuesday, suggest the cattle outbreak is more widespread than officials believed, The Washington Post reported.

Experts told the Post that drinking pasteurized milk is probably still safe. Pasteurization deactivates pathogens, probably including H5N1, according to the Food and Drug Administration. However, no studies have specifically tested whether pasteurizing milk deactivates H5N1. According to the New York Times, the FDA is testing that now.

One human in Texas has tested positive for the virus after exposure to dairy cattle. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that person's only symptom was eye redness.

There has been no known human-to-human transmission. Still, future mutation could allow the virus to spread more easily to and between humans — a possibility of "great concern" to Farrar.

Dr. Jerome Adams, a former surgeon general and the director of health equity at Purdue University, is getting deja vu.

"If it keeps spreading in animals, then it is eventually going to cause problems for humans, either because we don't have food because they've got to start exterminating flocks, or because it starts to make a jump in humans," Adams, who served under former President Donald Trump and was on the administration's initial COVID-19 task force, told Business Insider. "The more it replicates, the more chances it has to mutate."

Though he agrees with the CDC's assessment that the current risk to humans is low, Adams fears the US is repeating many mistakes it made in the early days of COVID-19.

Weak messaging with no clear leaders

Who is in charge of an animal pandemic in the US? The CDC? The US Department of Agriculture? The FDA?

The answer is, sort of, all of them. That decentralized responsibility could be behind the lack of widespread, clear public messaging so far.

For example, Adams says he hasn't changed anything about his diet, since pasteurization and proper cooking procedures should kill any live virus present. But he isn't sure everyone is getting the message.

He compared it to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, when people distrusted a process they didn't understand.

"The public needs good consistent communication from the White House, from the USDA, helping reassure them what the process is to keep them safe," Adams said.

Rather than consumers, the people most at risk are agricultural workers or anyone with close or prolonged exposure to chickens or cattle. It's those groups who need strong, targeted guidance right now, Adams said.

Only testing the sick

So far, the USDA has only been testing cattle herds when an animal appears sick. That means asymptomatic spread could be flying under the radar.

"An animal can't tell you, 'Hey, I feel a little under the weather today.' So they're literally waiting until an animal is collapsing or showing fatigue or showing severe symptoms," Adams said. "We need a testing strategy that is proactive and allows true surveillance, and not reactive."

The USDA took a step forward on Wednesday, ordering that all lactating dairy cows must be tested for H5N1 before they're moved across state lines and that all positive test results must be reported.

New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci reported that same day that, until now, the USDA has not been keeping track of positive test results in cattle.

Election distraction

In late 2019 and early 2020, the big news story was the impeachment, and later acquittal, of President Trump. Now a different Trump trial is dominating the news.

And, as in 2020, this is an election year.

"The Biden administration, particularly the White House, has been incredibly quiet on this bird flu situation. Why? To me, it looks like they very much don't want to scare the public and spook the economy in an election year," Adams said.

Business vs. public health

Just like the lockdowns of COVID-19 were devastating for the restaurant and hospitality industries, a crackdown on avian flu can be devastating to the chicken industry.

The treatment for a bird flu outbreak is to kill all the chickens. Even before that, just testing the flock can slow down production.

"We're seeing the same tension between business interests and public health interests," Adams said.

What's more, many of the workers who handle chickens and cattle are undocumented immigrants. That can make them and their bosses hesitant to call in authorities over diseased animals.

Many vulnerable groups were hesitant to report illness in the early COVID days, too, including migrant workers and people who didn't have sick leave from work.

"My concern is we keep making the same mistakes over and over again," Adams said. "Because we keep focusing on the wrong things instead of focusing on the root causes."

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• The first-quarter GDP report surprised investors with disappointing growth, while consumer prices kept rising.
• The provides the backdrop for stagflation, which can't be combated with rate cuts.
• The 1970s offer a warning of what could happen if inflation spirals out of control.

The latest GDP and inflation readings were what investors were least eager to see, and could hint at serious trouble ahead.

"This was a worst of both worlds report – slower than expected growth, higher than expected inflation," wrote David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US.

First-quarter growth fell well behind estimates, rising at an annualized rate of 1.6%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Not only is that far under forecasts of 2.5%, but it also fails to live up to the 3.4% increase achieved in the fourth quarter.

While such a cooldown would usually bolster calls for interest rates to start easing, the report noted a hotter-than-expected rise in consumer prices as well. That puts serious limits on the Federal Reserve's ability to take action, as the central bank has made clear it needs inflation to climb lower before any rate cuts can happen. Stocks — which have long priced in those cuts — sold off sharply.

It's also bad news for the economy, as sputtering growth and higher prices are the key ingredients for stagflation, which is characterized by economic listlessness and stubbornly elevated inflation over a prolonged period. Such a scenario that can be even harder to combat than a recession, because of the dynamic outlined above: the Fed's hands are largely tied.

America's last dalliance with stagflation came in the 1970s. The precedent can offer a glimpse into how the US economic picture could unfold, and makes it clear why economists are desperate to avoid a re-run.

Early that decade, geopolitical disagreement prompted the OPEC coalition to restrict crude exports to the US, and energy prices rocketed in response. With additional help from high government spending and the dollar's de-coupling from gold, inflation surged into double digits, while the economy tumbled.

The period was so tumultuous that it undid long-standing macroeconomic theories, and required the Fed to step up its role in the economy. In order to finally reign things in, then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was forced to raise interest rates a staggering 20%, calming price highs but throwing the US into a deep recession. 

It's for this reason current analysts shudder at comparisons to the period 50 years ago, and why stagflationary forecasts bear weight. 

JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon is among those who have recently made allusions to the stagflationary 1970s, warning that markets have become too cheerful about the state of the economy.

"I worry it looks more like the '70s than we've seen before," the prominent bank chief said at the Economic Club of New York last week.

His point — one he's asserted on multiple occasions —  comes from the fact that fiscal spending has once again exploded, while the economy is poised to bear a number of inflation-drivers: from green industrialization to global remilitarization.

But stagflation remains a long shot. Despite sticky-high inflation, markets continue to price in at least one rate cut this year. Further, Barclays analysts led by Pooja Sriram pointed out after the GDP report that final sales to domestic purchasers rose by enough to suggest "demand conditions remain strong." 

Friday's personal consumption expenditures report — viewed as the Fed's main inflation bellwether — will offer investors a clearer picture of where inflation is headed. If it goes higher, the Fed will have little choice but to become more tighten policy, according to Donabedian.

"We are not far from all rate cuts being backed out of investor expectations. It forces Chair Powell into a hawkish tone for next week's FOMC meeting," he said.

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• Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst's new memoir was finished by her mother, April Simpkins. 
• Simpkins discussed Kryst's struggle with high-functioning depression before her death in 2022. 
• The term describes depression among people who maintain happy-looking, productive lives. 

A new memoir by former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst was released on Tuesday. "By the Time You Read This" was finished by her mother, April Simpkins, who said it was one of her daughter's final wishes. 

It explores Kryst's experience competing for Miss USA and Miss Universe, as well as Simpkins' journey after her daughter died by suicide in January 2022. 

"My life's purpose has changed, and I realize more clearly my life's mission to continue to shine a bright light on mental health and wellness," Simpkins wrote in the memoir.

Simpkins also discusses her daughter's struggle with high-functioning depression. The term, which is not an official medical diagnosis, describes depression among people who maintain, or even appear to thrive in, happy-looking, productive lives, experts told Business Insider.  

"Although successful and oftentimes leaders in their fields, these individuals are conducting their lives much like running a race with a weight belt carrying 100 extra pounds," John Huber, a psychologist at Mainstream Mental Health, told Healthline. 

Kryst was an attorney, reporter, and Miss USA titleholder 

Kryst won the Miss USA title in 2019 while representing North Carolina, and made the top 10 at Miss Universe that same year. She was also a complex-litigation attorney and worked as a host for Extra TV.

In a statement sent to BI after Kryst's death, Simpkins said that while her daughter's "life on this earth was short, it was filled with many beautiful memories." 

"We miss her laugh, her words of wisdom, her sense of humor, and mostly her hugs," she said. "We miss all of it, we miss all of her. Cheslie — to the world, you were a ball of sunshine wrapped in smiles."

Simpkins added that she "talked, FaceTimed, or texted" her daughter "all day, every day." 

"You were more than a daughter — you were my very best friend," Simpkins said. "Talking with you was one of the best parts of my day. Your smile and laugh were infectious. I love you baby girl with all my heart. I miss you desperately. I know one day we'll be together again. Until then, rest easy and in peace." 

Kryst worked pro bono with clients serving long sentences for low-level drug offenses. She helped free one client who had been sentenced to life in prison. She also spent years raising funds for the nonprofits Dress for Success and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and also used her platform to support Black Lives Matter.

In 2019, Kryst was part of a historic moment when Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, and Miss America all went to women of color. She told Business Insider at the time that being part of such a group was "surreal."

"I just think this is an important moment," she said. "And maybe people can carry this inspiration into other areas of their lives."

People in tech and entertainment may be vulnerable to high-functioning depression

About 8.4% of Americans 18 and over experience major depressive disorder any given year, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports. It's more common in women than men, and the medium age of onset is 32.5. 

Dr. Mimi Winsberg, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Brightside, told BI that clinicians think of depression on a spectrum from mild to severe, and also consider patients' level of functioning. Can they get out of bed? Go to work? Engage socially? 

"More often than not, severity correlates with a lower level of functioning, but some people can experience severe depression, even suicidal ideation, but continue to be high functioning in their outwardly facing lives," she said. 

Winsberg lives in San Francisco and has worked as Facebook's on-site psychiatrist. She says that high performers in the tech and entertainment industries may be compelled to hide their internal pain due to the "pressure to keep up public appearances, or an environment that does not culturally sanction depression or where lower levels of functioning are less acceptable." 

Getting help can be challenging since it "can involve acknowledging vulnerability and slowing down," Winsberg said. 

If you suspect a loved one is struggling — unstable moods, sleep, relationships, and substance abuse can be clues, though not always — encourage them to get care, Winsberg said.

"Good treatments are available, even online and from the comfort of your home," she added.

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• Anne Reynolds purchased a vacant lot in Hawaii in 2018 from a tax auction.
• A developer in Hawaii accidentally built a house on it instead of the neighboring lot.
• She wants the house to be removed and the flora and fauna to be restored. Instead she got sued.

Annaleine "Anne" Reynolds had big plans for a vacant lot she purchased in 2018. Unfortunately, she was beaten to the punch when a developer built a house in it.

Reynolds bought a one-acre plot of land in Hawaiian Paradise Park, a nearly 15,000-person subdivision on Hawaii's Big Island, for $22,500 at a tax auction. Now, a house — worth just over $500,000, according to Trulia — sits vacant on the land.

"It was so sad — I cried when I saw it," Reynolds told Business Insider. "It didn't look like that when I bought it."

Reynolds, who lives in California, had grand visions for the land and was disturbed when she found out that those plans are going to have to wait a little longer while everything gets sorted out in court.

But she's in court as a defendant.

"It feels like I did something wrong," she said.

According to documents verified by BI, Reynolds is being sued by the developer, Keaau Development Partnership LLC, on accusations of unjust enrichment and constructive trust.

Now she's fighting in court not only to maintain possession of her land, but also remove the house that sits on it and restore the flora and fauna.

How a mistake like this happened

Originally, Reynolds had plans to build a home for her two children on the property and also save space to host women's retreats.

Reynolds is an energy healer and a relationship coach, and for her, the perfect plot of land was more than just the view or the peace she felt from hearing the waves crashing.

"It needs to align with me with my zodiac sign, basically," she said. "Also, the position of the land in relation to the stars and north, south, east, and west coordinates, the sun rising and setting — all these things go into consideration."

Others view these one-acre plots differently.

Dana Kenny, principal broker of Savio Realty Ltd., has been selling property in Hawaii for over 40 years. He told BI that in Paradise Park, unless you're next to the ocean or the highway, every parcel looks indistinguishable.

"There are 8,000 one-acre lots in Paradise Park," Kenny said. "If I blindfolded you, and I drove you to Paradise Park and I put you on a street in front of a lot — I'll give you $10,000 if you could figure out where you were."

That may be how a mistake like this one happened.

Keaau Development Partnership could not be reached for comment, however, according to a court document prepared by the developer's lawyer, Peter Olson, the untouched plots in Paradise Park are identified by telephone poles. There are two lots between each telephone pole, and the wrong one was picked.

"The mistake was an accident and not intentional," the document reads. "It was discovered after construction was complete and during the process of selling."

The document also states that Keaau Development Partnership offered Reynolds an exchange of lots: She gets the undeveloped lot next door, and they keep the one with the already built house on it.

She said no.

"The land was special to her," James DiPasquale, Reynolds' attorney, told BI. "Its placement was special to her, and she simply wants it back."

A complete restoration would take a great deal of time and money

In a motion for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order filed by DiPasquale, Reynolds requested that the already built home be removed, and that the land be restored to its "natural state prior to the wrongful construction."

That's easier said than done, according to Kenny.

"So you want me to tear the house down — so I tear the house down," he explained, theoretically. "Then I've got to rip up the slab. There's a water catchment system with a foundation for it — I've got to rip that up. Then I've got to dig into the ground and pull up the septic tank system and the leach field that was installed."

"I've got to remove the cinder that was laid out on top of the ground down to where the lot was bulldozed to the actual rock on the bottom," Kenny continued. "Then I've got to undo the bulldozer job. Now that's impossible, but let's say she says that's okay. She wants me to put the foliage and fauna back. Well, this is a one-acre lot. It's 135 feet wide, 325 feet deep. Where were the trees?"

Kenny estimates a project like that would cost close to $1 million to execute. The home only cost about $300,000 to build, but, as it stands now, Reynolds is footing the bill for the property taxes — since she owns it.

Property records show that the taxes on the lot grew from $299.20 in 2018, the year Reynolds purchased the property, to $2,019.60 in 2023. Taxes on the neighboring, undeveloped lot were $654.50 in 2023.

Reynolds just wants her land back

While not intentional, DiPasquale believes that this mistake could set a harmful precedent for matters like this in the future.

"Do I think that we're going to have a situation where developers start bullying and basically seeing random swaths of land and say, 'Hey, listen, I'm going to go ahead and try and develop it,' I doubt that's going to necessarily happen," he said. "But I think a more common violation would be something along the lines of encroachment, or basically claiming that they were unaware of where their boundary lines fell — they built well over into another property and they're basically just saying it was an accident."

Reynolds remembers the lush greens, beautiful flowers, and the proud Ohia Lehua trees that have since been removed from her land. Still, she's hopeful that one day they'll return as they once were.

"It felt like when you go into a sanctuary — it was really gorgeous and I could really feel the land it was just calling out to me," she said. "I know that for Hawaiians the land is sacred — there's a sanctity to the land, and it must be revered and respected. We showed the same reverence and respect for the land."

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• A UK warship on Wednesday destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile likely targeting a commercial ship.
• It marked the Royal Navy's first such kill since the Gulf War, according to a report.
• A 1991 engagement marked the first time ship-launched anti-air missiles successfully destroyed an enemy missile in naval combat.

A UK warship on Wednesday shot down a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis in Yemen, marking the Royal Navy's first such kill since the Gulf War more than 30 years ago.

The HMS Diamond, a Type 45 destroyer, used its advanced Sea Viper missile interceptors to down the deadly Houthi threat while the warship was protecting a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden, according to a new report.

US Central Command, or CENTCOM, said on Wednesday that a coalition vessel had "successfully engaged" an anti-ship ballistic missile over the Gulf of Aden earlier in the day, marking the first confirmed Houthi attack in over a week.

The missile was likely targeting the MV Yorktown, a US-flagged, owned, and operated merchant vessel with American and Greek crew members aboard, CENTCOM noted in a statement. There was no reported damage or injuries, it added.

The coalition vessel has since been identified as the Diamond by The Times, which reported new details of the engagement on Thursday. Grant Shapps, the UK defense secretary, confirmed the incident and told the outlet that it was the first time a missile was intercepted in combat by a Royal Navy warship since 1991.

During the Gulf War, the Type 42 destroyer HMS Gloucester used Sea Dart missiles to destroy an Iraqi silkworm anti-ship missile that was targeting an American warship. That engagement marked the first time anti-air missiles successfully destroyed an enemy missile threat during a battle at sea.

It is not immediately clear what type of missile the Houthis used on Wednesday. The rebels are confirmed to have employed a variety of missiles and drones of Iranian origin since they started attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden last year.

The UK Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to Business Insider's queries on the engagement.

The Diamond first deployed to the region in December as part of a US Navy-led task force that has been squaring off against relentless Houthi threats off the coast of Yemen. The warship spent several weeks back home earlier this year to receive maintenance and additional supplies, but it has since returned to the region.

During these deployments, the Diamond has used its Sea Viper missiles and 30mm gun to destroy a handful of Houthi drones on multiple occasions. Several other European warships have also destroyed Houthi threats in the air, alongside American vessels.

Meanwhile, shortly after the Diamond's engagement on Wednesday, which ended a period of relative calm in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that lasted a little more than a week, US forces destroyed four drones over Yemen.

CENTCOM said it was determined that the Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile and drones presented "an imminent threat to US, coalition, and merchant vessels in the region."

"These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US, coalition, and merchant vessels," CENTCOM added.

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• Billionaire investor Barry Sternlicht's Nantucket beach house has been demolished due to erosion.
• Strict zoning rules and unstable land make it unlikely that Sternlicht will be allowed to rebuild.
• The ongoing erosion is causing property values to fall on parts of the exclusive island.

Billionaire investor Barry Sternlicht's Nantucket beach house is officially no more.

Excavators demolished the home on Hummock Pond Road this week after a series of storms severely eroded the property. The town had approved its demolition last month.

Sternlicht, who Forbes reports is worth $3.8 billion, originally purchased 289 Hummock Pond Road for $610,000 in 2010 in a foreclosure sale, according to property records. The home changed hands between two Sternlicht-linked trusts in 2016, the year he got divorced, for $1.6 million. Then, in 2019, he purchased 287 Hummock Pond Road for $1.3 million.

In 2020, hurricanes eroded the properties, and the town ordered one of the two homes on the land demolished, according to a Vanity Fair story published at the time. The other home was moved onto steel girders, where it sat until it was razed this week.

A representative for Sternlicht told Business Insider the house was to be demolished but did not provide further comment.

The Nantucket Current reported that there was nowhere else on the lot, which is surrounded by water, to move the home after so much of the land was swept away by rising sea levels. Shelly Lockwood, a real-estate agent on Nantucket, told Business Insider that the land was too unstable to hold the equipment needed to move the house elsewhere on the island and that, due to strict zoning rules, it's unlikely Sternlicht will be allowed to rebuild on the property.

The tony island of Nantucket is a favorite among billionaires like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Blackstone leader Steve Schwarzman. Sternlicht's neighbor is James Pallota, the investor and former Celtics minority owner. Pallota also owns a nearly 3-acre lot further inland with an assessed value of about $7 million.

But property values on what was once some of the most valuable spits of coastal properties are now falling because of the erosion caused by storms and rising sea levels.

"It's crazy," Lockwood said about the properties. "They are dropping into the ocean."

On nearby Sheep Pond Road, a home that was once listed for $2.3 million in September ended up selling for $600,000 in February.

"I'd like to think that it'll be there for a while, but I was definitely aware of the risk of any particular storm causing a problem in the future," the owner, Brendan Maddigan, told The Boston Globe.

Another home on that street had its price cut in half, from $3 million to $1.5 million, after three months on the market.

"Prices are going to have to start dropping. It's becoming more and more obvious that there is no value there. You are taking a big risk," Lockwood said. "If your portfolio can stand the loss, then have fun and enjoy the beachfront home — just don't expect it to be here next year."

Nantucket real-estate attorney Steven Cohen counts at least "five or six hot spots" for erosion around the island that threaten existing structures, including the local airport. He estimates one or two homes every year have to be moved or demolished because of the phenomenon, which threatens nearly every aspect of life on the island.

"Erosion takes out houses, roads, infrastructure, sewer beds, even airport runways," he told Business Insider. "The town is trying to figure out what to do."

Despite the island's propensity for natural destruction, the town has strict rules regarding what structures owners can take down.

Many homeowners on Nantucket who want to rebuild can't just knock down the homes on their properties. Instead, they must move them. Some offer up the structures for free to those willing to take them off their lots.

The "demolition delay" rule, as it's known, was initially implemented for environmental reasons, Cohen said. Island officials were concerned about an overflow of materials clogging local dumps.

Under the rule, owners who want to tear down an existing home must advertise it in the local paper for 30 days. They are not required to offer the house for free, but in practice, many owners offer it for free to incentivize its removal.

Though it began with green aspirations, the rule has become a cornerstone of affordable housing on the island. Families with access to land but without the means to afford astronomical building costs often snap up the homes. Many structures are also bought by the nonprofit Housing Nantucket, which converts them into income-restricted rentals for the island's year-round workforce.

But when owners who experience heavy erosion wait too long, the land around the homes can no longer support removal — as was the case for Sternlicht.

"The owners didn't do anything fast enough — they've known these houses are going in the drink," Lockwood said. "It was at a point of no return."

Do you live in Nantucket and have a story about the effects of climate change on the island? Reach out to the reporters via Mberg@businessinsider.com or Dlatu@businessinsider.com.

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• Ukraine is urged to use its $61 billion US aid package carefully as some experts say future aid is uncertain.
• Political divisiveness and the upcoming US elections could complicate the passage of further aid.
• Experts suggest Ukraine use aid to build defenses and negotiate with Russia to prevent further losses.

War experts are advising Ukraine to use its latest $61 billion US aid package cautiously as there is always the possibility that American aid could again be derailed by politics.

"Every fight over every next increment has gotten increasingly contentious and increasingly long," said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to the months-long deliberation of the most recent package for Ukraine that passed in the Senate on Wednesday and past assistance debates. "I think that the plan should be what if there is no more money."

During a Defense Priorities Wednesday discussion panel, experts such as Kelly Grieco, a Stimson Center senior fellow, weighed in, saying that "everyone involved in this conflict should treat this aid package as though it's the last one and plan accordingly, because that could be."

The upcoming US presidential election, in which the presumed Republican candidate is far less supportive of Ukraine, as well as the continued divisiveness of the Ukraine security assistance discussion between the political parties in Congress, could complicate the passage of future aid for Ukraine, which has not been brought up yet but almost certainly will as the war drags on.

"It's uncertain who's going to be in office in January," Kavanagh said, further remarking that there is "certainly no appetite for starting the fight over January 2025 now."

With the US aid that was just approved, some conflict analysts assess that Ukraine's next steps to make the most of the new assistance should include building up defenses and exploring the possibility of negotiating with Russia.

"I think Ukraine can win this war. It cannot win militarily in any way, it can win politically, though," Grieco said. "It can actually gain a political victory by not allowing Putin to achieve his main goal, which is to subjugate Ukraine," she said, noting that "Ukraine can remain a viable state and an independent state from Russia."

Both Grieco and Kavanagh emphasized the importance of Ukraine showing up to the negotiating table and using diplomacy with Russia to prevent further land losses.

Other experts, as well as Ukrainian officials, are critical of calls for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and have said that Vladimir Putin would demand the "demilitarization" of Ukraine in order to take advantage of it.

Experts of the Washington-based Institute of the Study of War said in a March report that they continue to "assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains his maximalist objectives in Ukraine, which are tantamount to complete Ukrainian and Western capitulation, and that Russia has no interest in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine."

ISW has challenged the notion that the war is '"unwinnable" for Ukraine, calling that a Russian information operation.

Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba has said that Russia cannot be trusted, a reality he says is proven by its documented failures to live up to past negotiations.

He reminded the world last November in a statement on social media that "Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022." Kuleba said no one can seriously expect the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia.

The challenge is that six months of delayed assistance have put Ukraine in a difficult position, one that may not immediately be rectified by the coming aid.

During the panel discussion Wednesday, Kavanagh argued that starting negotiations will also buy Ukraine time as it's expected that the approved US aid will not be flowing in all at once. "The reality is that politics is involved, which means that things won't be perfect and there will be delays," she said.

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By Premkumar Balasubramanian, senior vice president, chief technical officer, Hitachi Digital Services

Too often, discussions about generative AI revolve around the tasks it can perform rather than the business objectives it can support. To assess the value of investments in generative AI models, companies must first develop their knowledge of the tools' potential for financial impact. 

Hitachi Digital Services provides organizations with the expert guidance they need to select appropriate use cases, models that are relevant across multiple dimensions, and a structured methodology to take those use cases from concept to production. We partner with customers to build models that are trained to produce data customized for specific industry use cases that meet their business outcome, accuracy, cost, and responsibility criteria.

And, through our Hitachi Application Reliability Centers (HARC), we help organizations evaluate the resulting ROI on the basis of quantifiable metrics for reliability, observability, and impact on their financial operations. Here's why adopting AI can help companies meet their operational and financial goals.

Converting AI to ROI by protecting business assets

Achieving a strong ROI starts with recognizing that unlocking data's value depends on defining its structure and ensuring that the tools you use will support your financial and business performance targets. Your models must be trained meticulously to capture a comprehensive understanding of the business assets they're protecting and the operational behaviors they're intended to manage. 

With a rich and growing library of accelerators under our RO2.ai (Reliable, Observable, and Optimal AI) framework, Hitachi Digital Services helps organizations identify the right use case for the desired business outcome. We then help pair each use case with the right AI strategy, including the applicability of generative AI. Our decades of industry experience give us the expertise you need to build and train specific AI models for your specific use cases. While AI applicability to a use case can potentially be tested using proofs of concept, landing your use cases in production to achieve meaningful business value requires a meticulous methodology that takes into account factors such as responsible AI, AI observability, and cost management through FinOps for AI. HARC encompasses a set of tools, frameworks, and methodologies designed to help productionize applicable AI use cases.

To further support optimal financial operations for your company, your generative AI models must be trained to encompass operational and information technology priorities and perspectives. For this reason, Hitachi Digital Services strongly advocates building an AI strategy that uses federated quantized models to deliver volume, speed, and accuracy advantages keyed to specific use cases for the best ROI. Federation is a strategy that pairs specific models and use cases instead of attempting to create a one-size-fits-all solution, which can become cost-prohibitive over the long run. 

Trained to flag and fix problems before they occur

Taken in the abstract, these technological explanations can sound to the uninitiated more like science fiction than business strategy. To understand how these ideas translate to real-world use, consider predictive maintenance use cases that are often implemented by organizations across domains such as fleet management, automotive, and plant floors. 

Hitachi has worked in partnership with many organizations to develop predictive maintenance capabilities that enable them to more efficiently service fleet vehicles, predict and prevent manufacturing equipment outages, and improve the resilience of electrical grids. The next step in these organizations' digital transformation is to train sophisticated AI models that, when integrated into a company's operational and information technology platforms, can predict failures and prescribe the steps necessary to complete repairs preemptively before breakdowns occur. 

To accomplish this effectively, enterprises need a methodology that can help them not only determine how generative AI technology will work for them, but also deploy and manage it at scale. HARC applies reliability engineering principles and model observability to ensure that new models operate reliably across different dimensions, accurately provide results, remain available, and respond faster.

By focusing on the development of federated, quantized models, HARC delivers multiple advantages in size, speed, and accuracy to its customers. For example, companies can:

From purpose-built models to organization-wide transformation

Hitachi Digital Services has implemented solutions across a broad spectrum of use cases. By integrating operational and information technologies with generative AI, the company has created models for transportation diagnostics, power substation design, accelerated decision-making in private equity, and knowledge management, among other areas of business concern. 

Because the use cases for today's organizations are so diverse, it's essential to isolate the elements that can deliver the maximum ROI and train models to those objectives. Generative AI can and will ultimately have an organization-wide impact, but by developing purpose-built models attuned to specific use cases, companies can realize their strongest potential for achieving maximum long-term benefits. 

Learn more about how Hitachi Digital Services uses AI to empower informed decision-making.

This post was created by Hitachi Digital Services with Insider Studios.

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• CEO Doug McMillon started at Walmart 40 years ago earning $6.50 an hour on the loading docks.
• He told the Stratechery podcast that employees often ask his advice for moving up the ranks.
• McMillon's top tips: do your job well, be a good teammate, and help solve new challenges.

Doug McMillon is a rare phenomenon in modern business.

Not only does his career span a remarkable four decades with the same company, he's on the short list of CEOs who started on the very bottom rung of the corporate ladder.

From earning $6.50 an hour unloading Walmart trucks in 1984, McMillon has spent the past decade in the top job of the largest company in the world.

He now earns over $25 million per year overseeing a global operation of 2.1 million employees, more than 10,000 retail stores, and annual sales of $648 billion.

One question McMillon says he's often asked is how to rise through the ranks like he did.

In an interview with the Stratechery Podcast, he offered three tips:

Do your job well

"Don't take your current job for granted," he said. "The next job doesn't come if you don't do the one you've got well."

McMillon said he wrote a memo in the early 1990s asking to work with a division that was exploring how to adapt retail to the internet age.

"The answer that I got back was, 'Go back to work young man. You've got a lot to learn about retail.' So I did and it turned out great," he said.

Help your team

"Be a great teammate — you learn how to lead, you learn how to influence by the way you interact with your peers," he said. "Treat them well, help them, help them do a better job."

McMillon recalled visiting a store in South Dakota during the pandemic in 2020 where the manager had hired 40 bartenders and waiters who had just lost their jobs.

That store manager's decision to hire so many workers in a tough spot ultimately helped the company better fulfill the surge of online orders that followed.

"It was pretty dramatic and I think the team did a fantastic job," McMillon said.

Step up for new challenges

"Volunteer for something extra, volunteer for something hard," McMillon said.

He added that part of why he had opportunities to advance was because he would offer to step in for his boss in meetings while they were traveling or otherwise busy.

"I became a low risk promotion because people had already seen me do the job," he said.

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• The baby-boomer "time bomb" is finally upon us, economists say.
• All boomers will be at least 65 soon, the generation's point of "peak burden" on the economy.
• Future generations can take solace in the fact that no boomer-size generations are in the making.

A time bomb has been ticking in the US.

It's the baby boomers, who as they age are approaching their "peak burden" years in regard to their drag on the economy and the resources of younger generations.

Boomers have already gotten tons of flak from younger people over the economy they've left Gen Zers, millennials, and Generation X to inherit. By the end of this year, all boomers — defined by the US Census Bureau as being born from 1946 to 1964 — will be 60 or older.

This means the youngest boomers are rapidly approaching retirement, and a bigger retirement population means more of a drag on the US economy, a burden that Barclays senior economist Jonathan Millar expects to stretch on for the next 20 years. 

"The peak burden," Millar told Business Insider, is when essentially all living baby boomers have hit retirement. "And we're getting there."

The date could fall sometime around 2029, when the youngest boomers will be 65, according to a Census Bureau report.

A population time bomb

It isn't the boomers' fault they were born. They didn't choose to be a mammoth-size generation that's left the US with a big and probably expensive retirement-age population.

And it isn't the case that baby boomers will derail economic growth nearly as much as, say, a full-blown recession, according to Dean Baker, an economist who described the baby boomers as a "time bomb" in a 1998 paper.

"Yes, it does create strains, but the idea was just some horrible catastrophe that loomed on the horizon," he said of the public dialogue on aging boomers. "It was really just craziness."

Still, the consequences of an aging population are real — and it's expected to weigh on the US over the coming decades. Older people are just one of the many factors weighing on Japan's economy, for instance, with people over 65 making up more than 25% of the overall population.

Baby boomers have already weighed on the US economy, and the cohort risks being a bigger drag in the coming years, Millar said.

Boomers are taking up the housing supply

Boomers are taking up a disproportionately large share of the housing supply compared with previous generations. That has been a pain for other homebuyers, as lower housing inventory has helped push up home prices.

The housing market saw its worst year of sales since 1995 in 2023, according to the National Association of Realtors. Existing homeowners have had little incentive to downsize their homes, many of which are fully paid off or financed at ultralow rates.

"It probably means we're headed for five or six years where baby boomers contribute to very strong housing demand, and we're going to have high house prices as a result," Millar warned.

Boomers also appear to be hogging the larger homes that millennials would otherwise be flocking to as they start families. In 2022, empty-nester baby boomers owned 28% of large homes in the US, a Redfin analysis found, double the share of millennial families.

Boomers are contributing to the labor shortage

The US has more open jobs than available workers. That gap is likely to widen as more boomers leave the workforce.

As of January, the Chamber of Commerce estimated that the economy was still down about 1.7 million workers compared with before the coronavirus pandemic. The labor market, meanwhile, is staring at 9.5 million job openings.

The labor shortage could eventually spell trouble for the economy, as a low supply of workers pushes up wages, which can stoke inflation.

Boomer retirees are also still demanding goods and services in the economy. If they aren't contributing anything in labor, that demand is also inherently inflationary, Millar added.

Boomers are a risk to the stock market

Retirees, who are less tolerant of stock-market volatility, also pose a downside risk to stocks. Boomers are more likely to sell if the US economy tips into a recession. That's a problem, considering that analysis by Rosenberg Research found people 55 and older account for 80% of stock-market ownership in the US.

"Retirees don't have the luxury to buy and hold through a market downturn," the economist David Rosenberg said in a recent note. "If a downturn does materialize, demographically induced selling is a force that could exacerbate the spiral powerfully, with the effects ricocheting into consumer spending."

Boomers will drain Social Security

Finally, boomers are set to collect a large amount in Social Security payments. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is expected to be depleted in 2033, a year earlier than previously expected, the Social Security Administration said in a new report.

Politicians are averse to raising taxes or slashing spending on social programs, Millar noted, and are unlikely to let payments lapse. Instead, they'll most likely pay for the program by taking on more debt to keep funding retirees through old age.

"Any way you slice it, this is a burden on current and future generations of taxpayers," Millar added.

The silver lining is that there doesn't appear to be a baby-boomer redux in the making, Baker said. Millennials are a large generation, but after that, Gen Z and Alpha look to be much smaller, meaning there won't be a similar time bomb ticking for the economy.

"I think it's very unlikely that we're going to see another population boom like we had in the post-World War II years," Baker said. "If there's some set of events that lead to that, it's nothing I can see on the horizon."

Correction: February 5, 2024 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly described data from the National Association of Realtors. It found the housing market to have had its worst sales in 2023 since 1995, not ever.

This story was originally published in February 2024.

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