Speaker 1: Strange News Daily. It's a production of I heart Media.
Speaker 1: In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
Speaker 1: a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
Speaker 1: news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
Speaker 1: to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
Speaker 1: These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan,
Speaker 1: and this is the Strange News Daily, our first story today.
Speaker 1: A US federal grand jury has just returned an indictment
Speaker 1: against Wiki leaks founder Julian Assage. The indictment accuses him
Speaker 1: of working with hacking groups to target and publish sensitive information.
Speaker 1: The second superseding indictment alleges Julian Assange recruited and intentionally
Speaker 1: worked with hackers from hacking groups like Anonymous and Lull's
Speaker 1: sec to provide wiki leaks with documents back in twelve
Speaker 1: as Sane provided the leader of lull SEK with a
Speaker 1: list of specific mail document databases, and PDF targets for
Speaker 1: the group to hack, at least according to the indictment.
Speaker 1: The indictment adds that Wiki leaks later published information obtained
Speaker 1: from a data breach of an American intelligence company by
Speaker 1: a hacker affiliated with lull Sec and Anonymous, and this
Speaker 1: hacker said that Assange had indirectly asked him to hack
Speaker 1: the company. The indictment specifically states quote to obtain information
Speaker 1: to release on the Wiki leaks website, A Sane recruited
Speaker 1: sources and predicted the success of Wiki Leaks impart upon
Speaker 1: the recruitment of sources to illegally circumvent legal safeguards on information,
Speaker 1: including classification restrictions and computer and network restrictions. The Justice
Speaker 1: Department has said that this newest indictment does not add
Speaker 1: charges to the eighteen count indictment already filed against Assange
Speaker 1: in May of twenty nineteen, but it does, however, broaden
Speaker 1: the scope of the conspiracy surrounding alleged computer intrusions with
Speaker 1: which A. Solange was previously charged. That superseding indictment accused
Speaker 1: A Solange of working with former Army intelligence analysts Chelsea
Speaker 1: Manning to obtain and publicly released hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: pages of classified information, including the names of US operatives.
Speaker 1: For a time, Julian Assange wasn't popping up in the
Speaker 1: news very often, as he was holed up in the
Speaker 1: Ecuadorian embassy in London. Fighting extradition charges. However, now that
Speaker 1: Assange has been removed from the embassy and incarcerated in
Speaker 1: the UK, many say it's only a matter of time
Speaker 1: before he ultimately extradited to the United States. Our second
Speaker 1: story takes place in the United States, and there's another
Speaker 1: legal ruling that may be confusing to some of our
Speaker 1: international listeners. You see, hospitals in the US will no
Speaker 1: longer be able to use secret pricing list. Yes, it
Speaker 1: sounds confusing, but many patients in the US go to
Speaker 1: the doctor or a hospital with no idea how much
Speaker 1: a given treatment, procedure, or associated equipment and services will cost. Recently,
Speaker 1: a federal judge has held up a policy by the
Speaker 1: Trump administration that requires hospitals and health insurers to publish
Speaker 1: their negotiated prices for health services. These numbers are almost
Speaker 1: always kept secret. This Polly see as part of a
Speaker 1: larger push by the current administration to improve transparency and healthcare.
Speaker 1: Insurers and health providers usually negotiate deals and costs behind
Speaker 1: closed doors, which means that patients in this country rarely
Speaker 1: know how much something will cost until after the fact.
Speaker 1: Administration officials say more price transparency will lead to lower
Speaker 1: and more predictable prices in the health industry. This is
Speaker 1: an important point. The health industry in the U s
Speaker 1: is inarguably broken, and there are huge ranges and what
Speaker 1: insurers pay for services. For example, something as simple as
Speaker 1: a blood test can cost anywhere from around ten or
Speaker 1: eleven dollars to one thousand. For a more topical example,
Speaker 1: how about coronavirus test. They can range anywhere from twenty
Speaker 1: seven dollars to two thousand, three hundred and fifteen. In
Speaker 1: a lawsuit filed by the American Hospital Association, they argued
Speaker 1: the administration did not have the legal authority to require
Speaker 1: the publication of negotiative prices. They argued that the publication
Speaker 1: of these prices could have adverse effects. But this Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the judge in the case, when Carl Nichols, disagreed. In
Speaker 1: his decision, he found that hospitals were attacking transparency measures generally,
Speaker 1: and that they were doing so in a bid to
Speaker 1: limit patients insight into medical prices overall. In his statement,
Speaker 1: he writes, hospitals may be affected by market changes and
Speaker 1: need to respond to a market where consumers are more empowered.
Speaker 1: That's not enough reason to make this rule unlawful. Nichols
Speaker 1: was appointed to the d C District Court last year.
Speaker 1: He also rejected the hospitals other arguments that new rules
Speaker 1: would create overwhelming administrative burdens and that increased transparency might
Speaker 1: actually drive up prices. He also added quote traditional economic
Speaker 1: analysis suggested to the agency that informed customers would put
Speaker 1: pressure on providers to lower costs and increase the quality
Speaker 1: of care. The effects of price transparency policies remain unsettled
Speaker 1: amongst health economists, industry insiders, and policy wonks. The current
Speaker 1: US administration argues that published prices will help empower individual
Speaker 1: patients as well as employers, since employers buy health insurance
Speaker 1: for their workers, and that this can create market pressure
Speaker 1: to discourage over charging or price gouging. But research on
Speaker 1: price transparency has not shown any large scale effects. The
Speaker 1: research is still limited, but take for example, a study
Speaker 1: of a new Hampshire law that required published prices for
Speaker 1: common services. It showed that transparency lead to very very
Speaker 1: modest price reductions, and research from other fields, including things
Speaker 1: as varied as Danish concrete or Chile and gasoline, found
Speaker 1: that publishing negotiative prices can sometimes backfire, and markets where
Speaker 1: there aren't many competitors, so it'll just lead to a
Speaker 1: reason prices. Nichols said that the evidence in the record
Speaker 1: is not definitive. Improving the transparency can lower prices, but
Speaker 1: that it was more persuasive than a decades old case
Speaker 1: study involving Danish ready mixed concrete contracts. Oh the shade there.
Speaker 1: This hospital rule is part of the administration's bid to
Speaker 1: control health costs through transparency. It's an effort that's become
Speaker 1: a health policy priority for the current president. The hospital
Speaker 1: rule was preceded by an Executive Order on Price Transparency
Speaker 1: and Healthcare, unveiled at a White House event where patients
Speaker 1: spoke about their experiences with surprise medical bills. In most cases,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, these are not pleasant surprises. Alex
Speaker 1: has Are, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services,
Speaker 1: applauds the court's decisions with today's when we will continue
Speaker 1: delivering on the President's promise to give patients easy access
Speaker 1: to healthcare prices. Especially when patients are seeking needed care
Speaker 1: during a public health emergency, is more important than ever
Speaker 1: that they have ready access to the actual prices of
Speaker 1: healthcare services. The Hospital Association plans to appeal this decision,
Speaker 1: Melinda Hatton, a senior vice president and general counsel of
Speaker 1: the association, said the proposal does nothing to help patients
Speaker 1: understand their out of pocket cost. It also imposes significant
Speaker 1: burdens on hospitals at a time when resources are stretched thin.
Speaker 1: There was, in this decision no conversation about single payer healthcare.
Speaker 1: This price transparency rule is scheduled to go into effect
Speaker 1: in January of next year. Our third story today, you've
Speaker 1: probably heard of the company Honeywell. Despite its name, it's
Speaker 1: best known for making control systems for homes or businesses
Speaker 1: or planes. Recently, they've claimed an additional accolade, saying that
Speaker 1: they have built the world's most powerful quantum computer. Other
Speaker 1: researchers are still skeptical about this claim, but for Honeywell itself,
Speaker 1: this is a step toward integrating quantum computing into everyday operations.
Speaker 1: Honeywell measured its computer's capabilities using an IBM crafted metric
Speaker 1: called quantum volume. Quantum volume takes into account the number
Speaker 1: of quantum bits or you know, hilariously called cubits that
Speaker 1: every computer has, and it looks at the error rate
Speaker 1: of the computer how long this system can spend calculating
Speaker 1: before the cubit stopped working, and a couple of other
Speaker 1: crucial properties. Measuring quantum volume involves running about two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty different algorithms on a computer. Tony Utly, the
Speaker 1: president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions, says that Honeywell's quantum computer
Speaker 1: has a volume of sixty four that's twice as high
Speaker 1: as the next quantum volume to be recorded, which was
Speaker 1: measured in an IBM quantum computer. Like other quantum computers,
Speaker 1: this one might eventually be useful for calculations that deal
Speaker 1: with gigantic amounts of data. Utly says, there are three
Speaker 1: classes of problems that we are focused on right now, optimization,
Speaker 1: machine learning, and chemistry and material science. We can do
Speaker 1: those problems shrunk down to a size that fits our
Speaker 1: quantum computer today, and then as we increase the quantum volume,
Speaker 1: will be able to do those problems at bigger scales. However,
Speaker 1: it's important to note this particular computer is not yet
Speaker 1: able to perform calculations that would give a classical computer trouble.
Speaker 1: That's a feat called quantum supreme to see. First claimed
Speaker 1: by Google in October of last year, Google's Sycamore quantum
Speaker 1: computer used fifty three cubits to achieve quantum supremacy, while
Speaker 1: Honeywell's machine so far only has six cubits. Having the
Speaker 1: highest quantum volume may mean that Honeywell's cubits are remarkably
Speaker 1: accurate and can calculate for a long time, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily make it the most powerful quantum computer out there.
Speaker 1: Scott Aronson at the University of Texas at Austin tends
Speaker 1: to agree with this statement, saying quantum volume is not
Speaker 1: the worst measure, but what I personally care about much
Speaker 1: more than that or any other invented measure, is what
Speaker 1: you can actually do with the device that's hard for
Speaker 1: a classical computer to simulate. He adds, by the ladder measure,
Speaker 1: the Honeywell device is not even close to the best
Speaker 1: out there. Utly admits that Honeywell's device can't yet do
Speaker 1: anything that's impossible for a classical computer, but he says
Speaker 1: this is an important step to board quantum computers that
Speaker 1: are practically useful. He sums it up with an appeal
Speaker 1: towards the future, saying Honeywell is in a lot of
Speaker 1: industries that we know are going to be profoundly impacted
Speaker 1: by quantum computing. To be able to eventually insert this
Speaker 1: technology into our own work, we need to prepare now
Speaker 1: prescient or preposterous. It seems that's up to the future
Speaker 1: to tell. That's all for now, we've been asking you
Speaker 1: to chime in with suggestions for stories you think your
Speaker 1: fellow listeners might enjoy, to hit us with your best
Speaker 1: or worst dad jokes, and to let us know what's
Speaker 1: going on in your neck of the Global woods. Tell
Speaker 1: us all about it hashtag Strange Daily on Twitter, or
Speaker 1: reach out to me directly. I'm at Ben Bullin HSW
Speaker 1: on Twitter or at Ben Bullen on Instagram. Thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Dylan Fagan, our research associate
Speaker 1: Sam T. Garden, most importantly, thanks to you. I'm Ben Bullin.
Speaker 1: We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, stay Strange, h