by Diane Herbst -- today show -- For three years, her young son suffered from increasing pain and other symptoms – with no answers from 17 doctors. “We saw so many doctors. We ended up in the ER at one point. I kept pushing,” the boy’s mom, Courtney, who did not wish to reveal her last name for privacy concerns, told Today. Earlier in the year, this frustrated mom turned to ChatGPT to input information from her son Alex’s medical records, including notes from his MRI. “I really spent the night on the (computer) … going through all these things,” she told Today. Courtney finally discovered a correct diagnosis from the artificial intelligence technology. When ChatGPT suggested that Alex, whose medical odyssey started at the age of 4, could be suffering from tethered cord syndrome, a rare neurological condition associated with spina bifida, “it made a lot of sense," she told Today.

Her hunch was confirmed by a pediatric neurosurgeon: After viewing Alex’s MRI, “she said point blank, ‘Here’s occula spinal bifida, and here’s where the spine is tethered,”’Courtney recalled to the outlet. With the diagnosis, Courtney felt "every emotion in the book, relief, validated, excitement for his future,” she told Today. Tethered cord syndrome is caused by tissue attachments limiting the movement of the spinal cord within the spinal column, causing abnormal stretching of the cord, according to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Dr. Holly Gilmer, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the Michigan Head & Spine Institute who treated Alex, told the outlet that the condition is hard to diagnose in young children “because they can’t speak.” Several weeks ago, Alex underwent surgery to repair his tethered cord syndrome and is still recovering, according to Today.

Story by Steve Mollman -- fortune.com -- The pandemic hit Airbnb hard. The company lost 80% of its business in March 2020, and people were questioning its ability to survive. Barely two months into the pandemic, it laid off about 1,900 people, or a quarter of its employees. Fast forward to today and not only did it weather the crisis, but in June Airbnb made its debut on the Fortune 500 list of top U.S. public companies by revenue, coming off its first-ever profitable year. \ The turnaround wasn’t easy. Airbnb had to completely reorganize itself. “We shuttered most of the divisions,” CEO Brian Chesky said on a Wednesday episode of The Social Radars podcast. That move was something Airbnb needed to do anyway, he said—as do many startups that have grown into larger organizations, he believes.

For a startup, he explained, it’s tempting to “divisionalize” in order to move faster, since decision-making can become a bottleneck at the top of the organization. But while that might work at first, he added, in the long run it can slow a company down. The problem that the pandemic forced him to face, he said, was that “we had this culture where everyone could do anything. People could own their own projects.” There were too many divisions, or “fiefdoms,” he said, such as ones focused on luxury, pro hosts, a magazine, transportation, and so on. Airbnb had followed a common line of thinking in Silicon Valley, he said. It goes like this: “Basically you share the values of the company, you democratize data, you hire smart people, and you assume that they’ll make the right decisions for the company.”

But, he added, “that is all wrong. It sounds great, and it’s right for some people, but it was wrong for us.” Chesky studied how Steve Jobs revamped a struggling Apple when he returned to the company he’d cofounded, noting how he “shuttered most of the divisions, and he went from a divisional structure to a functional structure.” Adopting a similar strategy, Chesky got rid of the unnecessary divisions at Airbnb. A few core ones would remain, but from then on, he said, “Everyone’s gonna work on everything together. There are no longer swim lanes. There’s one road map, and no one ships anything unless it’s on the roadmap. And then I’m gonna review every single thing in the company before it ships.”

by breakingdefense.com -- WASHINGTON — Human rights concerns have prompted the Biden administration to divert $85 million away from a larger foreign military financing (FMF) pot for Egypt and divvy it up between Taiwan and Lebanon, State Department officials announced today. In an email to Breaking Defense, an administration source confirmed that $55 million would be bound for Taiwan and $30 million for Lebanon. In total, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has notified Congress that Washington will provide Cairo with $1.215 billion in FMF from its fiscal 2022 budget, one State Department official told reporters. “Egypt is making specific and ongoing contributions to US national security priorities,” the official said. “Egypt is a strategic partner of the United States with a crucial voice in efforts to advance regional peace and security …. This decision in no way diminishes our commitment to advancing human rights in Egypt and around the world.”

A $1.3 billion FY22 pot included $980 million in funds that were not subject to human rights conditions, and another $320 million that had the conditions attached. From that second coffer, Blinken opted to “waive the certification requirements” due to “US national security interest” for $235 million of that total, the official explained. However, he was not able to do that with the remaining $85 million because it was subject to different statutory certification requirements aimed at ensuring that Egypt is making “clear and consistent progress in releasing political prisoners,” providing detainees with due process and preventing American citizens from being harassed. “That requirement on the $85 million may not be waived [and] the secretary determined that Egypt has not fulfilled those conditions,” the State Department official said. “Therefore, we are reprogramming $85 million [for] other priorities and other countries in consultation with the Congress.” “As we have done for decades, consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, we will continue to provide defensive articles and services necessary for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability,” an administration official wrote in a statement to Breaking Defense. “We will support Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities commensurate with the threat it faces.” That $55 million joins a $80 million military transfer to Taiwan that the Biden administration unveiled last month.

by middleeasteye.net — Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has blamed the floods in Libya that have left more than 5,000 people dead …