Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan will drop coverage of GLP-1 obesity drugs in fully insured large group commercial plans starting in January, a spokesperson said, citing consideration of their “efficacy, safety and access, and cost.” The insurer didn’t immediately respond to questions about how many patients will be affected or what the potential safety concerns were.

GLP-1s such as Novo’s Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound are exploding in popularity. But with list prices of $1,000 a month or more for a single user, insurers are balking at cost and trying to limit how widely they’re used. The US Medicare health program for the elderly doesn’t cover them for obesity at all, although it covers similar drugs for diabetes.

Some states’ Medicaid plans that cover low-income residents pay for GLP-1 drugs, but even that has been contentious. North Carolina’s health plan for state employees dropped coverage of the drugs for weight loss earlier this year after projecting a $1.5 billion loss by the end of the decade. Health plans offered through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace rarely cover the treatments for obesity, according to an analysis from health researcher KFF.

Novo is “disappointed” in the decision, a spokesperson said, “as it is contrary to actions that many throughout our country are taking – which is to expand coverage for these important medicines.” About half of all commercial insurance plans cover Wegovy, the spokesperson said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John K. Sherwood on Thursday said he’d approve the co-working company’s restructuring plan, clearing WeWork’s path to exiting bankruptcy under the ownership of its senior lenders.

“It’s been a little more than six months but it’s felt like a lifetime,” company attorney Steven Serajeddini said, referring to tough negotiations and various disputes WeWork navigated since it filed bankruptcy last year.

In the coming days, the company plans to execute all the financial contracts needed to fund the reorganization, attorney Ciara Foster told Sherwood.

The move marks WeWork’s final break with Neumann, who unsuccessfully made a last-minute bid to restructure the company under an alternate plan that was rejected by the company’s current managers and lenders.

Epic fall

The company struggled to bounce back from its epic fall nearly five years ago after a botched initial public offering. Under Neumann, WeWork was the fastest-growing co-working company in the world. The former CEO led the firm on an aggressive growth trajectory, taking on scores of long-term leases with landlords, fixing up office spaces, then renting it out to workers or companies on a shorter-term basis.

By 2019, WeWork was the largest private-sector tenant in both London and New York, among two of the largest office markets in the world. It was also gearing up for one of the decade’s most anticipated IPOs. Yet the company was burning through cash, with an unclear path to profitability.

Neumann’s bet proved ultimately disastrous for WeWork, as investors and board members grew concerned about the company’s corporate governance and aggressive growth strategies. Shortly after, the firm said it would delay its IPO and Neumann left the company.

New valuation

WeWork said its restructuring cuts its future rent obligations in half, or about $12 billion overall.

The restructured company will be worth between $665 million and $865 million when it leaves Chapter 11, the company said in court papers. That’s a fraction of the firm’s peak valuation of $47 billion.

WeWork secured creditors are taking substantial haircuts in the restructuring and are anticipated to get between 3 and 5 cents on the dollar depending on the debt they own, according to a court filing.

Lower-ranking bondholders are anticipated to receive 4 cents on the dollar under the restructuring, creditor attorney Kris Hansen said in court. Other unsecured creditors are expected to get back just 1 cent on the dollar, but would have wiped-out completely in a liquidation, he said.

WeWork said Thursday the restructuring marks the end of “substantial operating losses that characterized the company’s years of hypergrowth and subsequent contraction.”

Last year, when World’s 50 Best issued its first global ranking of hotels, only two properties in the US made the cut: the Equinox and Aman New York hotels, both in Manhattan.

Now Michelin has arrived stateside, in its second-ever presentation of “keys”—a new system from the eponymous tiremaker that’s doling out one, two or three key emblems, like its restaurant stars but to the world’s worthiest hotels.

Out of more than 1,000 luxury hotels across the country, 11 were awarded three keys. The winners were all in California and New York, from Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur to Single Thread Inn in Healdsburg and the Whitby Hotel in Midtown. Aman New York, echoing its position on World’s 50 Best, was also included; Equinox, meanwhile, received no keys at all.

Importantly, keys were only distributed to hotels in seven primary markets across the US where the Michelin Guide also reviews restaurants: New York City, California, Chicago, Florida, Colorado, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. Michelin says next year’s ceremony will expand to include more of the US.One key denotes a “special” stay, two make it “exceptional” and three reflect hotels that are “extraordinary.”

Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guide, has described the criteria for these awards in highly subjective terms. Earlier this month he told Bloomberg that these most exceptional properties will be judged based off “the experience” alone. Rather than requiring them to adhere to certain definitions—like having a spa, pool or minimum staff-to-guest ratios—the hotel experience “has to be memorable and singular in a way that will give people a feel for local character,” he explained. At the awards ceremony, he built upon that sentiment. “We’re not a checklist of amenities,” he said.

This is still an improvement over other ranking systems, which rely on already-published articles by outside media or complimentary stays to produce their results; by contrast, Michelin has committed to independently paying for its hotel reviewers to stay at each property. In an interview after the ceremony, Poullennec went further, adding that multiple inspectors stay at each hotel, sometimes multiple times, before assigning keys.

“We have boots on the grounds, inspectors working the field in every country, leaving no stone unturned and also looking for discoveries, new openings, in order to be fully up to date in their recommendation,” Poullennec said in remarks during the key presentation.

The intimate US ceremony, held at New York City’s Museum of Art and Design, is the second such presentation by Michelin this month, with the first-ever awards being handed out to French hotels on April 8, in Paris. At that event, 24 hotels were awarded three keys, including five of Paris’ 12 “palace” hotels. And more such ceremonies are coming: Awards will be announced in Spain next week and in Italy on May 7, before heading to Japan in July.

To some US hoteliers, Michelin’s recognition holds outsize importance. In background conversations leading up to the event, owners of several new independent hotels in major cities held hope that earning multiple keys could help them compete with better-established luxury brands such as Aman, Rosewood or Ritz-Carlton. That may be the case for the boutique London-based Firmdale Hotels, whose two New York hotels, the Whitby and the Crosby Street Hotel, both earned three keys.

Others in more remote locations expected that any honor could help them lure talent—places like Twin Farms in Barnard, Vermont, or Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee, for example. Unfortunately the prospect will have to wait.

It’s not that Michelin is the only designation that consumers can use to parse quality hotels. Walk into many of the key-awarded hotels, and you might see a Forbes’ five-star plaque—that honor was given to some 80 luxury hotels in the US in 2023, and American travel magazines dole out similar recognitions each year. But Michelin’s reputation spans much of the globe, in a way that the others do not.

“Our users say that when they are looking for places to stay, they will spend on average 10 hours on 10 different platforms to do so,” Poullennec said at the ceremony. “They’re at a loss. There is a demand for real recommendations and independent ones, that you can trust and go beyond brand labels, and that apply from one country to another—a global reference.”

Still, there are many skeptics. Michelin’s entry into the hotel market comes at a time when the company is looking for new revenue streams and attracting criticism for expanding its Michelin Dining Guides in a way that prioritizes destinations with big marketing budgets, even when they don’t have the restaurant quality to back it up.

The Atlanta Michelin Guide, for instance was sponsored by the local tourism board in a deal worth $1 million, but no restaurant in the city earned more than a single star. Its inclusion as one of the first destination in the hotel keys presentation will come as a surprise to luxury hotel afficcionados; the city is not widely known as a hub for luxury hotels, and only three hotels in the city were included, each with one key.

Pouillennec tells Bloomberg the overlap is because restaurant critics need places to sleep; that made it logistically feasible to prioritize these places. Although, as he told Bloomberg earlier in Paris, they’re not excluding the possibility of sponsored hotel guides in the future.

Also leading to skepticism about the awards is Michelin’s acquisition of Tablet Hotels, which took place in 2018 for an undisclosed sum; it’s a curated booking platform for luxury and boutique hotels that features some 6,000 hotels globally and around 950 properties in the US.

The technology gives Michelin a place where it can facilitate bookings for its recommended hotels, earn commissions from them, and also collect feedback from guests about their stays. As a result, some hoteliers have wondered whether Michelin has prioritized Tablet properties in its inspections; the company says reviews are completely independent and carried out by full-time employees, but adds that every hotel it recognizes is immediately bookable on its website.

“Nothing matters more than the independence of our recommendations,” Poullennec said.

In all, 124 hotels in the US were recognized with keys. Here is the full list of winners divided by market:

Three Keys

California

• The Beverly Hills Hotel, Dorchester Collection
• Post Ranch Inn, Big Sur
• SingleThread Inn, Healdsburg
• Hotel Bel-Air, Dorchester Collection, Los Angeles
• Auberge du Soleil, Auberge Resorts Collection, Rutherford
• Meadowood Napa Valley, St. Helena
• Canyon Ranch Woodside, Woodside

New York City

• Crosby Street Hotel
• The Whitby Hotel
• Aman New York
• Casa Cipriani New York

Two Keys

California

• L’Ermitage Beverly Hills
• The Maybourne Beverly Hills
• The Peninsula Beverly Hills
• Ventana Big Sur, an Alila Resort
• Bernardus Lodge & Spa, Carmel Valley
• The Stavrand, Guerneville
• Montage Healdsburg
• The Madrona, Healdsburg
• Montage Laguna Beach
• Rosewood Miramar Beach, Montecito
• Milliken Creek Inn & Spa, Napa
• Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco at Embarcadero
• The Battery, San Francisco
• Cavallo Point Lodge, Sausalito
• Pendry West Hollywood
• Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood
• North Block, Yountville
• Bardessono, Yountville

Chicago

• Pendry Chicago
• The Langham
• The Peninsula Chicago

Florida

• Mayfair House Hotel & Garden, Miami
• The Setai Miami Beach
• Faena Hotel Miami Beach
• Four Seasons Hotel at The Surf Club, Miami Beach

New York City

• The Fifth Avenue Hotel
• The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
• The Mark Hotel
• Hotel Barrière Fouquet’s New York
• Nine Orchard
• Pendry Manhattan West

Washington, D.C.

• Rosewood Washington, D.C.
• The Jefferson

One Key

Atlanta

• Stonehurst Place Atlanta
• The Candler Hotel Atlanta
• Hotel Clermont

California

• Four Seasons Resort Napa Valley, Calistoga
• Harbor House Inn, Elk
• Downtown LA Proper Hotel
• Soho Warehouse DTLA, Los Angeles
• The Aster, Los Angeles
• The Paramour Estate, Los Angeles
• The Prospect Hollywood, Los Angeles
• Stanly Ranch, Auberge Resorts Collection, Napa
• Pendry Newport Beach
• Dive Palm Springs
• Holiday House Palm Springs
• La Serena Villas, Palm Springs
• Sparrows Lodge, Palm Springs
• Rancho Caymus Inn, Rutherford
• 1 Hotel San Francisco
• Hotel Drisco, San Francisco
• Hotel San Luis Obispo
• San Luis Creek Lodge, San Luis Obispo
• El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel, Santa Barbara
• Casa Del Mar, Santa Monica
• Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows, Santa Monica
• Santa Monica Proper Hotel
• Shutters on the Beach, Santa Monica
• The Georgian, Santa Monica
• The Sea Ranch Lodge, Sea Ranch West
• Chamberlain West Hollywood
• Hotel 850 SVB, West Hollywood
• Palihouse West Hollywood
• Soho House Holloway, West Hollywood
• Sunset Tower Hotel, West Hollywood
• The Charlie, West Hollywood

Chicago

• Chicago Athletic Association
• Nobu Hotel Chicago
• The Gwen, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Michigan Avenue Chicago
• Viceroy Chicago
• Waldorf Astoria Chicago

Colorado

• Hotel Jerome, Auberge Resorts Collection, Aspen
• The Little Nell, Aspen
• Mollie Aspen
• Clayton Hotel & Members Club, Denver
• Four Seasons Denver
• The Crawford Hotel, Denver
• Sonnenalp Hotel, Vail
• Four Seasons Vail

Florida

• Mandarin Oriental Miami
• Mr. C Miami – Coconut Grove
• 1 Hotel South Beach, Miami Beach
• Esmé Miami Beach
• Hotel Greystone – Adults Only, Miami Beach
• The Betsy – South Beach, Miami Beach
• Ette Hotel, Orlando
• Lake Nona Wave Hotel, Orlando
• The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes
• Palihouse Hyde Park Village, Tampa
• The Tampa Edition

New York City

• 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn
• Ace Hotel Brooklyn
• Wythe Hotel, Brooklyn
• 1 Hotel Central Park
• Baccarat Hotel & Residences
• Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park
• Ritz-Carlton New York, NoMad
• The Beekman – A Thompson Hotel
• The Bowery Hotel
• The Greenwich Hotel
• The Hotel Chelsea
• The Lowell
• The Ludlow Hotel
• The Mercer
• The Peninsula New York
• The Wall Street Hotel
• Warren Street Hotel

Washington, D.C.

• Eaton DC
• Pendry Washington DC – The Wharf
• Riggs Washington DC
• The Dupont Circle Hotel
• The Hay-Adams Hotel

Seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster is mulling a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing as it looks to restructure its debt, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Red Lobster has been getting advice from law firm King & Spalding, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. The dining chain is considering a possible Chapter 11 filing to shed some long-term contracts and renegotiate a swath of leases, the people said.

Red Lobster’s cash flows have been weighed down by onerous leases and labor costs, among other issues. Restructuring discussions are ongoing and a final decision hasn’t been made, they said. Filing for bankruptcy would allow the company to keep operating while it works on a debt-cutting plan.

Messages left with Red Lobster and King & Spalding were not returned.

Red Lobster traces its roots to a single restaurant in Lakeland, Florida in 1968, according to its website. The company introduced its popular cheese-flavored biscuits in 1992, and Red Lobster now boasts hundreds of locations across the US and Canada, along with international franchises.

The restaurant chain has gone through multiple owners and management changes in recent years. Thai Union Group Plc, which took control of the company in 2021, this year wrote down its stake in Red Lobster and said the company’s “ongoing financial requirements no longer align with Thai Union’s capital allocation priorities.”

Fortress Investment Group is a key lender to Red Lobster and is among those involved in current debt negotiations, the people said.

A representative with Fortress declined to comment.

Golden Gate Capital took over Orlando, Florida-based Red Lobster from Darden Restaurants through a leveraged buyout in 2014. Thai Union owned 25% of the chain before buying Golden Gate’s stake in 2021.

Consumers are spending less on nonessential items and seeking more affordable options, Chief Financial Officer Manmohan Mahajan said on a call with investors. Mahajan also said the company saw a weaker-than-normal respiratory season.

Walgreens has been finding ways to help increase cash flow as part of a broader strategy to invest more money into its pharmacy and health-care businesses. Last quarter, Chief Executive Officer Tim Wentworth slashed the dividend almost in half, and earlier this month he announced a strategic review of the business beginning in April to set the troubled drugstore chain on a path to growth.

In a statement, Wentworth said that the company was on track to achieving $1 billion in cost savings this year.

Walgreens lowered the top end of its forecast range for full-year adjusted earnings to $3.20 to $3.35 a share. In addition to the tough retail landscape, the drugstore chain said earnings would be hurt by the sale of $992 million worth of Cencora Inc. shares in February. Its earlier outlook was $3.20 to $3.50 a share.

Shares fell 1% at 10:08 a.m. in New York. The stock has fallen 20% this year while the S&P 500 index has gained 10%.

The US health-care unit, which includes VillageMD, posted revenue of $2.2 billion for the quarter — beating analysts’ average estimate of $2 billion. The chain attributed the result to the acquisition of Summit Health by VillageMD.

But it could take time for it to reach its full potential, Edward D. Jones analyst John Boylan said in a note. “We continue to believe that the new CEO should help Walgreens return to predictable growth, but we are uncertain when that might occur,” he said, calling it “a mixed quarter” that wasn’t “entirely unexpected.”

The retail pharmacy unit posted revenue of $28.9 billion — above analysts’ estimates of $28.1 billion — driven by branded drug inflation. The drugstore chain’s international business saw sales of $6 billion — ahead of analysts’ expectations of $5.84 billion. Walgreens abandoned plans for a $6 billion-plus sale of its international Boots chain in 2022 after failing to get the desired value, but a potential sale is back on the table, Bloomberg News reported in December.

Excluding a $5.8 billion impairment charge related to primary-care provider VillageMD, adjusted earnings for the quarter beat expectations at $1.20 a share, while analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated 82 cents. Revenue in the period was $37.1 billion, beating Wall Street’s expectation of $35.9 billion.

The city unveiled the expansion plan for O’Hare International Airport in 2018, vowing to transform the aging hub into a global showcase. Six years later, the project is way behind schedule, projected to be billions over budget and still stuck.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a progressive with less than a year in office, is embroiled in contentious talks to tame costs with the airport’s main partners, United Airlines Holdings Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. The city’s options include using cheaper materials and tweaking the design of the project, said people familiar with the matter.

The delays are threatening to deliver another blow to the third-largest US city as airports serving New York, Dallas-Fort Worth and Los Angeles have charged ahead with upgrades. At stake is the biggest part of O’Hare’s revamp: two satellite concourses and a glittering new Global Terminal designed by star architect Jeanne Gang that will bring domestic and international flights under one roof, facilitating passenger connections.

“If Chicago doesn’t proceed with the investment, then the concern is they just won’t have the facilities and they’ll just stagnate,” said Seth Lehman, a senior director at Fitch Ratings. “That’s not good for trying to build your economic base.”

While the current terminal, which is also used by Delta Air Lines Inc., has already been upgraded, the Global Terminal and satellite concourses are $2 billion over budget as costs for everything from labor to construction materials have increased in the wake of the pandemic, said the people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.

United and American, which both use O’Hare as a hub and together account for the lion’s share of the traffic, are on the hook for a large chunk of the escalating expenses.

In a statement, the Chicago city government said it presented an updated “on-budget plan” to the airlines last month with new proposed cost cuts. The savings are achieved “chiefly by removing project scope not required by the 2018” agreement, it said. Details of the changes will be made public in the coming weeks.

In a letter to the city seen by Bloomberg, however, United and American said the savings of $1.5 billion were based on “unilaterally prepared new cost estimates” by the Chicago Department of Aviation. The carriers said the city’s budget outlines “lack credibility” because they don’t offer details on how the savings are achieved or have received construction bids or pricing for the project. The airlines also say the city’s estimates “leave zero margin for error,” according to the letter.

Gang’s architectural studio declined to comment. Her concept for the Global Terminal calls for wood-clad roof pleats, a dramatic six-pointed glass skylight and a form that evokes the branching Chicago River when seen from the air.

Transportation Hub

Chicago’s role as a transportation crossroads has long propelled the city’s rise. In the 19th century, it offered a water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River and later grew into the largest US rail hub. For most of the late 20th century, O’Hare ranked as the world’s busiest airport.

Nowadays, however, some parts of O’Hare are “veritable museum pieces,” said Joseph Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at Chicago’s DePaul University. “The standard for global airports is going up and we’ve fallen behind.”

Gleaming hubs from Beijing to Dubai have left American airports feeling outdated, but O’Hare is at risk of lagging its US peers as well. Even New York’s LaGuardia Airport, which Joe Biden compared to “a third-world country” when he was vice president, has been transformed by an $8 billion overhaul.

In Chicago, O’Hare’s 2018 expansion plan called for a 25% increase in capacity. Then came the pandemic, which devastated US airlines. They made it through thanks to billions of dollars in federal aid, but uncertainty swirled around the future of commercial aviation – hardly an ideal environment for an ambitious airport revamp.

Now, with air travel surpassing pre-pandemic levels, the urgency at O’Hare is increasing. While all parties plan to stick to the capacity increase, the goal for completing the overall airport revamp has slipped to 2032 – six years after the initial target.

United and American have wrangled with Chicago before. They sued the city in 2011 to block part of a runway overhaul, saying officials had forged ahead without their approval. (The parties ultimately agreed to a scaled-back plan.)

The current O’Hare upgrade is hardly the only big airport project with cost overruns and delays. Last year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey increased its funding authorization for renovating John F. Kennedy International Airport by $1 billion because of similar cost pressures. Similar risks loom over any big construction job, whether it’s the ongoing improvements at Los Angeles International or Dallas Fort Worth International’s plans to build a new terminal.

But in Chicago, talks between the airlines and the city grew so acrimonious last year that some lawmakers and civic leaders worried they’d fall apart.

United bought land in Denver last year, fueling speculation the company would move its headquarters out of Chicago, although Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby has ruled that out for now.

Meanwhile, negotiators in Chicago are looking for savings in the O’Hare project.

Options under discussion include tweaking parts of Gang’s Global Terminal and the two satellite concourses, which are being designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, said people familiar with the matter. Changes to the order in which the various parts of the project will be built are on the table, while the city is also considering the use of cheaper materials, the people said.

A big concern for the airlines is avoiding any major disruptions to passenger experience, the people said. The carriers also want to make sure that the new concourses and the underground tunnels linking them to existing terminals start operating simultaneously, the people said. Having to ferry passengers around on buses would be an awkward stopgap.

Congressional Delegation

Amid these tensions, Illinois lawmakers including Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, as well as Representative Chuy Garcia, have sought intervention from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“The airlines are now trying to deal directly with the city to reach a side agreement,” Durbin said in an interview earlier this year. “We need a third party, in this case the secretary of transportation, to be the arbiter.”

The Department of Transportation is aware of the request “and remains engaged,” a spokesperson said.

O’Hare’s renovation is financed by city-issued bonds supported by landing fees, terminal rent and other charges paid by airlines, rather than by taxpayer dollars.

The funding model implies that any cost overruns could be passed along to travelers, making O’Hare a less appealing connection hub – a key concern given that more than half of United and American passengers flying into Chicago are in transit.

Already, O’Hare’s cost per enplaned passenger, a key yardstick for airlines, is among the nation’s highest, and more than twice that of other Midwestern airports in Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul, according to Fitch. The latter two hubs are significant bases for Delta, and a major increase in O’Hare’s costs would put United and American at a disadvantage and potentially make Chicago a less important hub.

“If this project continues at its unsustainable rate, ticket prices will increase for passengers and more airlines could simply decide to reroute their flights through airports like Dallas, Charlotte, Denver, and elsewhere,” said Jack Lavin, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. “The impact on O’Hare, and subsequently Chicagoland, could be devastating.”

With assistance from Mary Schlangenstein, Miranda Davis, Daniela Sirtori-Cortina and Shelby Knowles.

An unidentified participant in the March 13 event asked executives for the annual cost of providing pup cups (a dollop of whipped cream also known as a puppuccino) for customers’ canines, as well as water for customers in general — a service that baristas usually offer for free. Chief Executive Officer Laxman Narasimhan and Chief Financial Officer Rachel Ruggeri jumped to defend the practice. They did not, however, bark out a cost estimate.

“There are specific offerings, like a pup cup, for example, that we believe complement the broader experience that we offer,” said Ruggeri. Narasimhan added that the CFO is a pet lover who’s involved in pet adoption, according to a transcript.

Pet ownership soared during the pandemic as those stuck at home sought companionship. While the pet craze has moderated, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimates people spend an average of almost $1,400 a year in the US caring for their dogs. That includes almost $100 on toys and treats — making freebies a treat for humans, too.

Narasimhan said employees at several locations in China are working to bring pet owners together — part of the broader idea that the coffee shops are a “third place” that’s different from home and work, for social interaction.

“We’re not just a third place for people,” Narasimhan said. “We also bring together people who are pet owners and their pets because they’re also really family members for our customers. So we’re proud of it and we intend to continue doing it.”

United Flight 2477, with 160 passengers and six crew, had just landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport about 8 a.m. local time Friday when it veered into the grass on a turn. No one was injured, and passengers left the plane on a set of stairs before being bused to the terminal, the airline said.

The incident follows the mid-air loss of a tire from a United Boeing 777-200 Thursday, just after the plane took off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan, and an engine fire on a United flight from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this week.

The plane in the Houston-to-Florida flight had to make an emergency landing after one of its engines burst into flames 10 minutes after takeoff. The 21-year-old aircraft was also a 737 — but an earlier version than the Max, according to FlightRadar24.

Boeing shares fell as much as 1.4% after the United incident on Friday. The stock declined 0.8% as of 11:07 a.m. in New York, continuing a drop that’s the worst among members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate Friday’s incident, which involved a Boeing 737 Max 8. The 777 headed to Osaka had 249 people on board. It diverted to Los Angeles International Airport and landed without incident. The tire that plummeted down damaged at least one car in an airport parking lot.

The agency is using letters to target 125,000 cases of taxpayers with incomes of more than $400,000 who didn’t file returns between the years 2017 and 2021, according to a Thursday announcement. Letters to non-filers are set to go out this week.

The IRS called the hundreds of millions of dollars expected a “conservative estimate.” The taxpayers targeted have an economic activity of more than $100 billion, according to the agency.

The IRS is broadly focused on closing the tax gap, or the difference between what is owed and what is paid, by targeting high-net-worth individuals. The Democrats’ tax-and-climate law provided tens of billions of dollars in funds to the agency, which allowed for increased enforcement efforts. Large partnerships and corporate jet users are other areas where the IRS is looking to recoup the money it is owed.

About 25,000 non-filer cases targeted in this campaign involve incomes of more than $1 million. The IRS has W-2 and 1099 forms from third parties that note who these high-income non-filers are. About 20,000 to 40,000 letters are set to go out each week, beginning with the highest earners, the IRS said.

People who don’t comply with the IRS’s initial CP-59 notices will receive follow-up notices and higher penalties, in addition to owing interest. For people who continue to not file, the IRS can file a substitute return based on income and won’t include deductions or exemptions that it doesn’t know. Criminal prosecution is also a possibility for continued noncompliance.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said during a press call that the agency had to rebuild its capacity to institute compliance efforts on non-filers after the pandemic. The IRS resumed automated collection notices at the end of last year after an almost two-year pause because of a processing backlog and lack of staff.

The agency now has more than 5,000 new customer service and account managers, hired through the 2022 funding, Werfel said.

The difference between this non-filer effort and those in the past is the emphasis on high-income people, Werfel said. For people with income lower than $400,000, the IRS is more focused on helping them file returns because they are more likely eligible for a refund, he said.

“We’re going to use all the enforcement dollars enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act to increase scrutiny on those earning more than $400,000,” Werfel said.

(Bloomberg) — America’s largest association of dermatologists is considering scrapping its diversity and inclusion initiatives, threatening to end programs designed to improve representation in one of the least diverse specialties in medicine.

A group of doctors raised a resolution to end the American Academy of Dermatology’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The proposal, to be debated at the organization’s upcoming annual meeting, cited unease around the politicization of DEI and raised antisemitism as a concern. The resolution did not specify ways that the dermatology association’s DEI program may have exacerbated antisemitism in its ranks.

The proposal comes amid a broader retreat on diversity initiatives across corporate America as conservative groups intensify their attacks on DEI. It appears to follow an anti-DEI playbook laid out by billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who has been fighting against DEI at Harvard University and other elite colleges following arguments over antisemitism on campus.

AAD’s diversity program offers mentorship to medical students from underrepresented backgrounds. The organization, based in Rosemont, also has a partnership with Johnson & Johnson to more than double the number of dermatology residents from underrepresented backgrounds by 2027.

Dermatology is the second-least diverse specialty in medicine, behind orthopedic surgery, according to a study published in 2020. While Black and Hispanic people make up roughly 14% and 20% of the US population respectively, studies show only about 3% of US dermatologists are Black and about 4% are Hispanic.

The lack of diversity has serious health consequences. Black Americans, for example, are often diagnosed with skin cancers at a later stage and have lower survival rates. Dermatology education is also part of the problem. Diseases that manifest themselves on skin can look different depending on a person’s skin tone, yet less than 5% of images in general medical textbooks include examples of diseases on darker complexions, according to a 2018 study.

While 9 out of 10 of America’s 13,200 skin doctors are part of the AAD, resolutions are voted on by a 24-person board of directors.

At least two other resolutions have been introduced in response, supporting the existing DEI program. One, introduced by Dina Strachan, a New York City board-certified dermatologist, proposes creating a task force on antisemitism, racism, anti-Arab bias and Islamophobia.

The anti-DEI proposal is “making a bad faith slanderous allegation without any examples” and has “no suggestions,” Strachan said in an interview.

New York-based dermatologist Brian Raphael, who introduced the anti-DEI proposal, said his resolution was being misunderstood. His intent was to work with the AAD “to adopt an even more inclusive policy in its place, one that promotes the end of racism and hate speech,” Raphael said in a statement.

The resolution said that since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, there have been “instances where the DEI movement has been perceived as being filled with antisemitism, weaponizing the concept against Jews by labeling them as ‘oppressors’ and allegedly justifying extreme hate speech and violence.”

Johnson & Johnson didn’t respond to a request for comment.

–With assistance from Annie Massa.