Help wanted: Key posts overseeing the financial health of Social Security and Medicare have been vacant for more than three years, leaving the programs without independent accountability in the face of dire predictions about approaching insolvency. Gridlock has become the norm in Washington D.C. and hundreds of senior government jobs remain unfilled. For beneficiaries and taxpayers the lack of “public trustees” for Social Security and Medicare means a loss of outside supervision over bedrock middle-class programs. Read the full story.
Whale, then: SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. says attendance at its 12 parks is up 9% for the year so far in a turnaround for a company that struggled after the release of a documentary critical of whale captivity five years ago. The company says in a filing today that preliminary results show total attendance so far this year was up by 1.4 million visitors compared to the first three quarters of last year. Revenue is expected to be up by $90 million for the first three-quarters of 2018 compared to the same period last year. Read the full story.
Vaporized: Food and Drug Administration inspectors seized more than 1,000 pages of documents at e-cigarette maker Juul Labs’ headquarters in San Francisco last week, part of the agency’s battle against an epidemic of youth vaping, Bloomberg reports. The surprise inspection sought information on sales and marketing practices of the company’s devices, which have become wildly popular among underage users. The FDA had requested similar information from Juul in April. Read the full story.
