State environmental regulators have fined St. Paul’s Regions Hospital for improperly disposing of infectious medical waste at an east metro trash facility in 2024.

On several occasions last year, the hospital put blood-contaminated syringes, plastic bags, suction cannisters and laboratory collection tubes in the standard municipal waste system, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy in Newport contacted state environmental regulators when it received the items. The facility had to hire a contractor to separate the waste from other garbage and send it to a proper disposal site, officials said.

Regions Hospital operator HealthPartners confirmed the Newport facility received the waste.

The state fined Regions Hospital $100,000 for improperly disposing of the medical waste and ordered a series of corrective actions, which officials and HealthPartners said the hospital completed.

“We’re committed to ensuring infectious medical waste is disposed of properly,” HealthPartners said in a statement. “We took immediate action last year and continue to partner with Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy to improve sorting and disposal practices.”

Hospitals are supposed to send medical waste to a specially permitted disposal site. The restrictions are aimed at protecting public health and the environment.

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Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Tommy Tuberville recently introduced the Abolish TSA Act of 2025, effectively calling for the privatization of airport security.

Against the backdrop of DOGE and the elimination of longstanding institutions like the Department of Education and the U.S. Postal Service, it appears that if ever there was a time to get rid of the Transportation Security Administration, this is it.

Doing away with the TSA does not mean doing away with airport security, of course. The TSA oversees a workforce of over 60,000 people who screen on average 2.5 million people every day at federalized airports to keep the air system safe. They are funded in part by the September 11th Security Fee. What makes such a task so daunting is that nearly every passenger that the TSA encounters is harmless. Only a few bad actors every year pose any risk to the air system. They are well camouflaged among the largely benign pool of air travelers.

Adding to the complexity is that air travelers are apt to openly criticize the TSA for its efforts to protect the air system, claiming it is more theater than substance. Yet if you asked these people how security operations could be improved, they can offer no better solutions to what the TSA offers, except perhaps less screening.

There is a nugget of truth to what they are saying. Over-screening is indeed ubiquitous. Yet there is more to airport security than intercepting 10-ounce bottles of shampoo and 6-ounce tubes of toothpaste at checkpoints. It is about maintaining a complex network of security layers, many of which are invisible to flyers, which collectively provide a nearly impenetrable shield designed to keep bad actors from compromising the air-travel system.

The TSA relies heavily on technologies, the most visible of which are full body scanners and detection of threats in carry-on bags. The challenge with such technologies is that they are slow, creating bottlenecks at airport security checkpoints, which are viewed as an inconvenience rather than enhanced security.

People, not threat items, pose the biggest risk to the air system. That is why research was needed to create a program like TSA PreCheck, which defined a new paradigm for improving air system security while reducing passenger inconvenience. The foundation for this program is risk-based security, which aligns passenger risk with security procedure requirements. In essence, the more that the TSA knows about travelers, the better security resources can be aligned with their risk. Since most travelers pose little risk to the air system, this translates into an expedited screening experience available via TSA PreCheck dedicated lanes.

The most recent advance in reducing security resources and screening for most travelers is the use of biometrics like facial recognition to authenticate passenger identity. Ensuring that all travelers are who they claim to be is critical to keeping bad actors from infiltrating the air system. The introduction of Credential Authenticate Technology with facial recognition, labeled CAT-2, is a quantum leap forward to separate the mostly benign travelers from the sprinkling of bad actors.

Several lawmakers believe that facial recognition is a violation of personal privacy and civil liberties. But if you look at the social media accounts of those who criticize facial recognition, you will find more personal privacy violations there than anything occurring at airport security checkpoints.

So why is facial recognition so important? For one, it offers a pathway to an expanded version of TSA Precheck, which will provide certain travelers the opportunity to pass through airport security checkpoints like airline crew members. Many travelers would be willing to pay for this privilege and undergo the necessary background screening to qualify for such convenience. Elected officials may also be eligible, including those who object to its use.

Facial recognition would also be an important enhancement for Screening at Speed, permitting flyers to be screened in real-time. Investments by the TSA in such a futuristic security screening model is the next quantum leap forward to improve security while minimizing passenger inconvenience.

Lee says that airlines should provide their own security. Such a hodge-podge of protocols would be far less secure than what the TSA currently provides. Privatizing airport security is an option, which the TSA already offers through its Screening Partnership Program. However, the TSA, not the private-sector companies, set security standards and performance benchmarks.

On any given day, at any given airport, the TSA may not execute its security tactics in the optimal manner. What it does get right are its security strategies, which work toward giving flyers what they want and deserve: a seamless process that protects them and the air system in the most nonintrusive way. That is why the TSA is needed today, and for the foreseeable future.

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has researched risk-based aviation security for more than 25 years, providing the technical foundations for TSA PreCheck. This piece was originally published by The Hill.

Your addictive doomscrolling on X, TikTok or Instagram may also be the latest nexus for millions of dollars in secret political corruption.

Over the last month, the problem has come into sharp relief. Newly surfaced documents show that more than 500 social media creators were part of a covert electioneering effort by Democratic donors to shape the presidential election in favor of Kamala Harris.

Payments went to party members with online followings but also to non-political influencers — people known for comedy posts, travel vlogs or cooking YouTubes — in exchange for “positive, specific pro-Kamala content” meant to create the appearance of a groundswell of support for the former vice president.

Meanwhile, a similar pay-to-post effort among conservative influencers publicly unraveled. The goal was to publish messages in opposition to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to remove sugary soda beverages from eligible SNAP food stamp benefits.

Influencers were allegedly offered money to denounce soda restrictions as “an overreach that unfairly targets consumer choice” and encouraged to post pictures of President Donald Trump enjoying Coca-Cola products. After right-leaning reporter Nick Sortor pointed out the near-identical messages on several prominent accounts, posts came down and at least one of the influencers apologized: “That was dumb of me. Massive egg on my face. In all seriousness, it won’t happen again.”

In both schemes, on the left and the right, those creating the content made little to no effort to disclose that payments could be involved. For ordinary users stumbling on the posts and videos, what they saw would have seemed entirely organic.

In the influencers’ defense, they didn’t break any rules — because none exist.

We used to demand minimal levels of transparency for paid endorsements. In the 1970s, the U.S. enacted a series of reforms requiring new disclosures for those seeking to shape elections. Television, radio and print ads for political campaigns must specify the sponsors, and billboards or pamphlets sent by mail also feature small-print reminders of the groups responsible.

Social media, however, is the Wild West of advocacy. Although influencers are generally required by the Federal Trade Commission to disclose paid endorsements for products, politics are a different matter. Most election-related communications fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Election Commission. But the FEC commissioners debated the issue without resolving the problem. A proposal floated in December 2023 to enact basic rules for influencers made no headway.

There was a momentary push in 2017 for stricter social media disclosures in the political realm. The discovery of foreign influence campaigns aimed at the 2016 presidential election set off alarm bells. As a result, the major tech platforms began working to track and close so-called sock puppet accounts operated by the Russian and Chinese government. Yet few reforms were institutionalized, and as more and more Americans get their news from social media, the problem remains largely unchecked.

That has left the entire social media landscape vulnerable to hidden manipulation, where money from interest groups or corporations or even rich individuals can silently shape what appears to be authentic discourse. This corrosion of reality undermines the very foundation of democratic deliberation.

Democracy requires a minimal level of shared facts and good-faith engagement. Secret payments in support of candidates or causes destroy both, corrupting the “marketplace of ideas,” where the best arguments are supposed to naturally rise to prominence through competition. If genuine public sentiment becomes indistinguishable from manufactured opinion, we lose our collective ability to recognize the truth and make informed decisions. Everything from local zoning decisions to soda bans to presidential elections can be skewed.

Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously noted that “sunlight is … the best disinfectant.” Transparency in political influencing requires regulatory action. The Federal Election Commission must act and establish clear disclosure requirements for paid political communications on social media. Congress should expand the definition of electioneering and political-payola disclosure to include influencer content. Platforms must implement more robust paid content and disclosure tools.

Most importantly, we as citizens must demand reform. We should support influencers who voluntarily disclose their financial relationships and conflicts of interests, and question those who don’t.

If we fail to address the growing influence of secret money in the digital public square, the risk is dire: We will surrender our collective decision-making ability and our democracy to whoever can afford to purchase the most compelling voices.

Lee Fang is an independent journalist. He publishes an investigative newsletter at leefang.com. He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and BARBARA ORTUTAY

Apple’s revenue for the fiscal second quarter topped Wall Street’s expectations, but investors are waiting to hear what CEO Tim Cook has to say about the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and economic uncertainty on its business.

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The Cupertino, California-based company earned $24.78 billion, or $1.65 per share, in the first three months of the year, up 4.8% from $23.64 billion, or $1.53 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue rose 5.1% to $95.36 billion from $90.75 billion.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $1.62 per share on revenue of $94.19 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.

The numbers for the January-March period provide a snapshot of how Apple was faring before President Trump’s unveiling of sweeping tariffs in April that rattled the financial markets amid fears a trade war would reignite inflation and shove the U.S. economy into a recession.

Apple’s reliance on Chinese factories to make its iPhones and other devices thrust the technology trendsetter into the crosshairs of Trump’s trade war. The exposure caused Apple’s stock price to plunge 23% shortly after the president announced the severity of the reciprocal tariffs, temporarily erasing $773 billion in shareholder wealth in the process.

Most of those losses have since been recovered after Trump temporarily exempted iPhones and other electronics from the reciprocal tariffs, but Apple’s stock remains down by nearly 5% since the April fusillade of tariffs.

Besides the trade war, Apple has been hurt by its inability to live up to its own hype surrounding artificial intelligence features on the iPhone 16 lineup that came out last fall.

The technology wasn’t ready when the iPhone 16 went on sale. Some AI features have rolled out in parts of the world as part of software updates, but Apple still hasn’t been able to live up to its original promise to make Siri smarter and more versatile. The missteps prompted Apple to pull advertising campaigns promoting AI breakthroughs on the iPhone, although the company still intends to release more features powered by the technology at some point.

Apple had been counting on its late entry into the AI craze to revive demand for the iPhone after last year’s sales dipped 2% from 2023’s levels. Apple said Wednesday that its phone sales climbed 1.9% to $46.84 billion for the first three months of the year. Wall Street had expected iPhone sales of $45.62 billion.

When Trump initially indicated his 145% tariffs on Chinese-made goods would apply to the iPhone, U.S. consumers rushed to stores to buy new devices rather than risk prices spiking higher after the duties began driving up costs. But the flurry of panic buying won’t show up until Apple reports its results for the April-June quarter this summer.

Trump’s trade war has ramped up the pressure on Cook to work the same diplomatic sleight of hand that enabled the iPhone to avoid being stung by the China tariffs that the president imposed during his first administration.

Cook signaled his intention remain on good terms with Trump by arranging private meetings with him and personally donating $1 million to the president’s second inauguration ceremony before sitting on the dais when Trump was sworn into office on January 20. Apple subsequently announced plans to invest $500 billion in the U.S. while hiring 20,000 workers during the next four years.

Trump’s trade war also is prompting a push to Apple to shift all the production of the iPhones that it sells in the U.S. from China to India, where the company has been building up its supply chain for the past seven years, according to a recent story in the Financial Times. But the complicated logistics of making such a huge move likely couldn’t be completed until next year, at the earliest, leaving Apple vulnerable to the vagaries of Trump’s trade war.

Apple’s stock fell $5.81, or 2.7%, to $207.51 in after-hours trading.