Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
AI might soon pop up at a grocery store near you — specifically, in your shopping cart.Instacart is aiming to roll out Cart Assistant, an AI agent that can help shoppers make decisions about what to buy when they start shopping, Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said during the company’s earnings call on Monday. Instacart is adding the AI tool to the websites it runs for retailers, as well as some of its Caper smart shopping carts.Sprouts Farmers Market plans to add the tech to Caper carts at its stores, Instacart said last week. The delivery service has been expanding the…
(Reuters) -The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has initiated the removal of the agency’s strictest “black box” warnings from hormone therapies given to women to treat menopause symptoms, according to the health regulator’s website.The FDA’s decision follows a comprehensive review of scientific literature, an expert panel in July, and a public comment period.The agency said it is working with drug manufacturers to update language in product labeling to remove references to risks of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and probable dementia.Hormone replacement therapy for menopause replenishes the hormones, primarily estrogen, that decline with menopause to relieve symptoms like hot flashes and…
Canada is no longer measles-free because of ongoing outbreaks, international health experts said Monday, as childhood vaccination rates fall and the highly contagious virus spreads across North and South America.The loss of the country’s measles elimination status comes more than a year after the highly contagious virus started spreading.Canada has logged 5,138 measles cases this year and two deaths. Both were babies who were exposed to the measles virus in the womb and born prematurely.Measles elimination is a symbolic designation, but it represents a hard-won battle against the infectious disease. It is earned when a country shows it stopped continuous…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hormone-based drugs used to treat hot flashes and other menopause symptoms will no longer carry a bold warning label about stroke, heart attack, dementia and other serious risks, the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday.U.S. health officials said they will remove the boxed warning from more than 20 pills, patches and creams containing hormones like estrogen and progestin, which are approved to ease disruptive symptoms like night sweats.The change has been supported by some doctors — including FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who has called the current label outdated and unnecessary. But some doctors worried that the process…
Canada has lost its measles elimination status, the country’s Public Health Agency announced Monday. It’s the first country in the Americas to do so since the pandemic, and it could serve as a warning sign for others.There are multiple criteria for losing an official measles elimination status, including declines in vaccination rates. The most significant factor is the ongoing spread of the same strain of the virus for a full year.Canada’s outbreak started in October 2024 in New Brunswick, a province on the country’s eastern seaboard. As of Monday, Canada’s health officials had tallied 5,138 measles cases since the outbreak…
Google Maps is adding new AI features, including a builder agent and an MCP server — a tool that connects AI assistants to Google Maps’ technical documentation — to help developers and users create interactive projects using Maps data and code. The company said it is using Gemini models across the board to power these features. Among these new tools, the builder agent is a tool that, just like many other coding tools, lets you describe the kind of interactive map-based prototype you want to build in text and creates one for you. For instance, you can type “create a…
In the wake of a measles outbreak in Canada that has infected thousands of people over the past year, an international health agency revoked the country’s measles-free status on Nov. 10, 2025.The Pan American Health Organization, which serves as the World Health Organization’s regional office for the Americas, made this announcement after the agency’s measles elimination commission met in Mexico City to review the latest public health data.As a global health epidemiologist who studies the spread of infectious diseases, this change in status does not surprise me. Measles is highly contagious, and a drop in childhood vaccination rates in Canada…
YouTube TV is offering subscribers a rebate as its fight with Disney drags on — with a few caveats.The Google-owned TV service said Sunday that it’s offering customers a $20 bill credit, partially reimbursing them for the sports and shows they’ve missed on Disney’s networks, like ESPN, in the last 11 days. This rebate takes off about a quarter of YouTube TV’s $83 a month price tag.”We know it’s been disappointing to lose Disney content, and we want you to know we deeply appreciate your patience,” YouTube TV said in an email to subscribers about the $20 bill credit. YouTube…
(Reuters) -MeiraGTx Holdings has signed a deal with Eli Lilly, potentially worth over $475 million, granting the pharma giant rights to its experimental gene therapy for a rare, inherited disorder that causes severe vision loss from birth.Shares of the gene therapy developer rose 12.5% to $9.55 in premarket trading on Monday after the news.Under the deal, MeiraGTx will get an upfront payment of $75 million and potentially over $400 million more in milestone payments. MeiraGTx is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on licensed products.This marks Lilly’s latest effort to tap the market for eye treatments and bolster its focus…
After helping several enterprises document how work actually happens, Scribe has raised $75 million at a $1.3 billion post-money valuation to roll out Scribe Optimize, a platform that maps workflows across the enterprise to reveal where automation and AI will actually yield returns — instead of becoming another sunk cost. The all-equity Series C round was led by StepStone, with participation from existing investors Amplify Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Tiger Global, Morado Ventures, and New York Life Ventures. The new funding comes over a year after Scribe raised its $25 million Series B, capital the five-year-old startup has largely not needed…