Plus: Judge lets newspapers sue OpenAI, and we know who's in Avengers: Doomsday
That's a marvel of a cheese
Marvel, as we all know, sponsors Schreiber mozzarella string cheese. The idea being that the string cheese is, if you squint a little, just almost exactly the same as Spider-Man's webs! Pretty cool, right?
And speaking of Marvel, they're featured in today's cheddlines:
(Yep, because sure, the $SPX ( ▼ 0.33% ) is down 3% this year, but you know what? I sneakily checked mine yesterday, and it wasn't half as bad as I was expecting. It's up quite a lot from the lows, and on that basis, why not dip your toe in the water? Just be prepared for it to be a little… cold.)
The Department of Health and Human Services is laying off 10,000 people as part of a major restructuring. The layoffs will cut particularly deep at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims rates of chronic disease rose under the Biden administration. Now he wants to "do more with less." That includes creating a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America, but Kennedy did not outline any specifics on how he would reduce rates of diabetes, heart disease or any other conditions.
"In the middle of worsening nationwide outbreaks of bird flu and measles, not to mention a fentanyl epidemic, Trump is wrecking vital health agencies with the precision of a bull in a china shop," Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat who has been a leader on health issues in Congress, told the New York Times.
The CDC right now handles H.I.V. and AIDS, tobacco, maternal health and the distribution of vaccines for children. Kennedy has said he wants it to return to its "core mission" of fighting infectious disease. But…
"Converting C.D.C. to an agency solely focused on infectious diseases takes us back to 1948," said Dr. Anand Parekh, the chief medical adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. "Without realizing that in 2025, the leading causes of death are noncommunicable disease."
Kennedy, meanwhile, has cast the restructuring as a way to cut through stubborn bureaucracy.
"When I arrived, I found that over half of our employees don't even come to work," he said in a YouTube video. "H.H.S. has more than 100 communications offices and more than 40 I.T. departments and dozens of procurement offices and nine H.R. departments. In many cases, they don't even talk to each other. They're mainly operating in silos."
"We're going to consolidate all of these departments and make them accountable to you, the American taxpayer and the American patient," he said. "These goals will honor the aspirations of the vast majority of existing H.H.S. employees who actually yearn to make America healthy."
I don't like bureaucracy but I also don't like diabetes and heart disease. So: I'm torn. How do you feel about the cuts?
In a landmark case that could set significant legal precedents for the intersection of AI and copyright law, a federal judge in New York has allowed a copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times and other newspapers against OpenAI and Microsoft to move forward.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the accusation from prominent media organizations that OpenAI and Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.16% ) have infringed upon their copyrights by using their content to train AI chatbots without permission. This practice, the plaintiffs argue, constitutes "widespread theft" of their work, presenting a significant threat to their business and the value of the billions of dollars worth of journalistic content they produce.
On the other hand as Pablo Picasso once said, "great artists steal."
OpenAI reiterated its commitment to building AI models using publicly available data, asserting a grounding in fair use, while Microsoft declined to comment on the ongoing legal proceedings.
This case could have far-reaching implications for the future of AI development, particularly in how AI companies access and use data to train their models.
President Trump will impose a 25 percent tariff on all imported cars and car parts, a move intended to bolster U.S. manufacturing but which might also lead to significant repercussions for consumers and international relations.
The president's decision is positioned as a strategy to return car manufacturing jobs to America. Scheduled to take effect on April 3, the tariffs will apply to both completed vehicles and components used in manufacturing within the U.S. This broad application means the tariffs will impact both foreign brands and U.S. giants like Ford $F ( ▼ 3.88% ) and General Motors $GM ( ▼ 7.36% ) that have production facilities abroad. Their stock was down on the announcement. Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 0.39% ) also saw a modest fall in its stock but makes all its cars (if not its parts) in America, so potentially gets a leg up from the policy.
However, the decision arrives not without contention and concern. Nearly half of all vehicles and about 60 percent of auto parts sold in the U.S. are imported. Introduction of such tariffs could significantly inflate the prices of cars and trucks, which have already been escalating due to inflation, potentially squeezing American consumers even further. Moreover, President Trump has hinted at more tariffs soon, promising they will be "very fair and very nice," adding another layer of complexity to an already turbulent global trade landscape.
The stock market $SPX ( ▼ 0.33% ) fell a bit but not by a ton, so this seems like a wait-and-see situation.
Robinhood $HOOD ( ▼ 1.65% ) , the financial services platform beloved by millennials for demystifying stock trading, is launching a fully online banking platform.
True to its revolutionary ethos, Robinhood Banking is designed for the digital age, stripping away the traditional confines and inconveniences of brick-and-mortar banks.
The news will frustrate bank robbers, of course.
He's more annoyed than he looks.
Perhaps the most intriguing — and novel — feature is the promise of physical cash deliveries "right to your doorstep." While specifics are still under wraps, we're betting it means more delivery drivers are going to get robbed. Or maybe the drivers will abscond with your money. Or maybe they'll switch to drones. We don't know!
The firm is offering 4% interest on savings, and also introducing Robinhood Strategies, a new wealth management platform. Robin Hood, as we know, robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. This could present a branding problem if the poor become rich through the company's advice. What then? Do they have to rob themselves? Or will the drones do it for them?
In an event that can only be described as a marvel (ahem) of marketing ingenuity and fan engagement, Marvel Studios $DIS ( ▼ 0.33% ) pushed the boundaries of anticipation to new heights with the cast reveal for its upcoming blockbuster, "Avengers: Doomsday."
Over the course of five and a half hours, fans were glued to a livestream, waiting eagerly as paint dried the studio unveiled the cast one chair at a time. Yes, you read that right, five and a half hours dedicated to revealing the names of 27 actors.
The reveal strategy was simple yet excruciating…ly suspenseful. Starting at 8 a.m. PT, a camera panned ever so slowly to the right, revealing the back of a new chair adorned with the name of a cast member every 15 minutes or so. Yet it hooked more than 100,000 fans at any given moment and a staggering total of over 9 million views on X. Marvel, it turns out, knows exactly how to keep its audience hooked. Just like Cheddar's Need2Know newsletter!
Okay. Here's the list:
Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Wyatt Russell as John Walker, Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Kelsey Grammer, Florence Pugh, Lewis Pullman, Danny Ramirez, David Harbour, Winston Duke, and of course, Robert Downey, Jr.
—Thanks, People! That didn't need to take five and a half hours, after all!
Marvel's reveal might have taken its sweet time, but it has successfully set the stage for "Avengers: Doomsday," opening up in theaters May 1, 2026. I can't wait. Okay, I can wait. I lied.
