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President Donald Trump’s tax-cut package cleared its final hurdle in the U.S. Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the massive bill and sent it to him to sign into law. The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown, make his 2017 tax cuts permanent and deliver new tax breaks that he promised during his 2024 campaign. It also cuts health and food safety net programs and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Despite concerns over the 869-page bill’s price tag and its hit to healthcare programs, Republicans largely lined up in support, with only two of the House’s 220 Republicans voting against it. The bill has already cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by the narrowest possible margin. Republicans said the legislation will lower taxes for Americans across the income spectrum and spur economic growth. Republican Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina described the bill as bringing “Historic tax relief for working families. Massive investment to secure our nation’s borders. Capturing generational savings. Slashing waste, fraud and abuse in government programs so that they may run more efficiently.” Every Democrat in Congress voted against it, blasting the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that would leave millions uninsured. “The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an eight-hour, 46-minute speech that was the longest in the chamber’s history. Trump kept up the pressure throughout, cajoling and threatening lawmakers as he pressed them to send him the legislation by the July 4 Independence Day holiday. “FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” he wrote on social media. Marathon weekend Republicans raced to meet that deadline, working through last weekend and holding all-night debates in the House and the Senate. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday in 51-50 vote in that saw Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote. According to the CBO, the bill would lower tax revenues by $4.5 trillion over 10 years and cut spending by $1.1 trillion. Those spending cuts largely come from Medicaid, the health program that covers 71 million low-income Americans. The bill would tighten enrollment standards, institute a work requirement and clamp down on a funding mechanism used by states to boost federal payments – changes that would leave nearly 12 million people uninsured, according to the CBO. Republicans added $50 billion for rural health providers to address concerns that those cutbacks would force them out of business. Nonpartisan analysts have found that the wealthiest Americans would see the biggest benefits from the bill, while lower-income people would effectively see their incomes drop as the safety-net cuts would outweigh their tax cuts. The increased debt load created by the bill would also effectively transfer money from younger to older generations, analysts say. Ratings firm Moody’s downgraded US debt in May, citing the mounting debt, and some foreign investors say the bill is making US Treasury bonds less attractive. On the other side of the ledger, the bill staves off tax increases that were due to hit most Americans at the end of this year, when Trump’s 2017 individual and business tax cuts were due to expire. Those cuts are now made permanent, while tax breaks for parents and businesses are expanded. The bill also sets up new tax breaks for tipped income, overtime pay, seniors and auto loans, fulfilling Trump campaign promises. The final version of the bill includes more substantial tax cuts and more aggressive healthcare cuts than an initial version that passed the House in May. During deliberations in the Senate, Republicans also dropped a provision that would have banned state-level regulations on artificial intelligence, and a “retaliatory tax” on foreign investment that had spurred alarm on Wall Street. Bo Erickson, Richard Cowan, and David Morgan, Reuters Writing by Andy Sullivan.
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Scientists have developed a revolutionary new AI tool which, according to a new study, may become crucial in lung cancer screening and treatment.The study, published in the journal npj Precision Oncology, explored the capabilities of a new device, developed by a team at Northwestern Medicine. The device is called iSeg, which comes from its ability to perform tumor segmentation (online or mapping tumors). The traditional process of tumor segmentation is complex and poses challenges for doctors. It can also take multiple doctors visits, several scans, and a great deal of time. In one study, manual segmentation required 12 scans and took doctors seven hours to complete the manual tumor mapping. Other AI tools have been developed for cancer screenings, however, those tools used static images. iSeg uses 3D imagery for a deeper understanding of the tumor, including how it moves as a patient breathesan important factor in determining treatment plans. iSeg’s clearer mapping also means it exposes areas that doctors may miss while using manual segmentation. In the study, after the AI was trained, iSeg was shown scans it had never seen, and was tasked with outlining tumors. When compared to outlines drawn by physicians, iSeg matched experts’ drawings, but it also flagged additional areas that doctors couldnt see. Interestingly, those areas turned out to be critical, as they are often linked to more serious diagnoses and worse outcomes if overlooked. Were one step closer to cancer treatments that are even more precise than any of us imagined just a decade ago, said Dr. Mohamed Abazeed, senior author of the study, and chair and professor of radiation oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The goal of this technology is to give our doctors better tools, added Abazeed. Other experts say AI technology is important when it comes to lung cancer patients, not only because it can save lives, but also because it may help close care gaps that lead to underdiagnosing for certain groups due to socioeconomic factors. Pulmonologist Stephen Kuperberg, MPH 24, and David Christiani, Elkan Blout Professor of Environmental Genetics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explained in a June commentary that cancer screening rates are lower among high-risk patients from Black and Latinx neighborhoods. The underlying reasons for poor uptake within this population are complex, including structural racism and social and cultural factors,” they wrote, urging the “vital need” for more AI tools which can help with “optimal data collection.” Currently, the glaring gap in early detection leads to higher mortality from the disease for those groups. They added, AI technologies will transform reporting, collecting, and processing population data, whether in public datasets and repositories or within institutions, paving the way for discovery and methodology development in lung cancer detection.
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The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage fell for the fifth straight week to its lowest level since early April, an encouraging sign for potential buyers who have wrestled with rising home prices. The long-term rate fell to 6.67% from 6.77% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.95%. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, fell to 5.80% from 5.89% last week. A year ago, it was 6.25%, Freddie Mac said. High mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers and reduce their purchasing power. Thats helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump that dates back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic. Last year, sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. Theyve remained sluggish so far this year, as many prospective homebuyers have been discouraged by elevated mortgage rates and home prices that have continued to climb, albeit more slowly. High borrowing costs are also putting pressure on the new home market. Last week, the government reported that sales of new U.S. homes fell nearly 14% in May from the previous month. Recent data suggests sales could pick up in the coming months, especially with the recent decline in mortgage rates. A seasonally adjusted index of pending U.S. home sales rose 1.8% in May from the previous month and increased 1.1% from May last year, the National Association of Realtors said last week. Theres usually a month or two lag between a contract signing and when the sale is finalized, which makes pending home sales a bellwether for future completed home sales. Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserves interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors expectations for the economy and inflation. The key barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.33% at midday Thursday, down from 4.58% just a few weeks ago. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has remained relatively close to its high so far this year of just above 7%, set in mid-January. The 30-year rates low point this year was in early April when it briefly dipped to 6.62%. Mortgage rates have now fallen five weeks in a row, reflecting the recent pullback in bond yields. The recent decline in mortgage rates appears to have encouraged some home shoppers. Last week, mortgage applications rose 2.7% from a week earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Economists generally expect mortgage rates to stay relatively stable in the coming months, with forecasts calling for the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain in a range between 6% and 7% this year. Matt Ott, AP business writer
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