Categoria: Uncategorized

By HALELUYA HADERO and FARNOUSH AMIRI (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. lawmakers grilled the CEO of TikTok over data security and harmful content Thursday, responding skeptically during a tense committee hearing to his assurances that the hugely popular video-sharing app prioritizes user safety and should not be banned.

Shou Zi Chew’s rare public appearance came at a crucial time for the company, which has 150 million American users but is under increasing pressure from U.S. officials. TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, have been swept up in a wider geopolitical battle between Beijing and Washington over trade and technology.

In a bipartisan effort to reign in the power of a major social media platform, Republican and Democratic lawmakers pressed Chew on a host of topics, ranging from TikTok’s content moderation practices, how the company plans to secure American data from Beijing, and its spying on journalists.

“Mr. Chew, you are here because the American people need the truth about the threat TikTok poses to our national and personal security,” Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, said in her opening statement.

Chew, a 40-year-old Singapore native, told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that TikTok prioritizes the safety of its young users and denied it’s a national security risk. He reiterated the company’s plan to protect U.S. user data by storing it on servers maintained and owned by the software giant Oracle.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.

TikTok has been dogged by claims that its Chinese ownership means user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government or that it could be used to promote narratives favorable to the country’s Communist leaders.

In 2019, the Guardian reported that TikTok was instructing its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square and images unfavorable to the Chinese government. The platform says it has since changed its moderation practices.

ByteDance admitted in December that it fired four employees last summer who accessed data on two journalists and people connected to them while attempting to uncover the source of a leaked report about the company.

For its part, TikTok has been trying to distance itself from its Chinese origins, saying 60% percent of ByteDance is owned by global institutional investors such as Carlyle Group.

“Ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns,” Chew said.

China has also said it would oppose any U.S. attempts to force ByteDance to sell the app.

In one of the most dramatic moments, Republican Rep. Kat Cammack played a TikTok video that showed a shooting gun with a caption that included the House committee holding the hearing, with the exact date before it was formally announced.

“You expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security, privacy and security of 150 million Americans where you can’t even protect the people in this room,” Cammack said.

TikTok spokesperson Ben Rathe said the company on Thursday removed the violent video aimed at the committee and banned the account that posted it.

Chew also noted the failure of U.S. social media companies to address the very concerns for which TikTok was being criticized.

“American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security,” he said. “Look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, just one example.”

As the Energy and Commerce committee questioned Chew, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was questioned about the threat TikTok poses at a separate committee hearing Thursday. Asked by Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican of Colorado, if the platform is a security threat to the United States, Blinken said: “I believe it is.”

“Shouldn’t a threat to United States security be banned?” Buck responded.

“It should be ended one way or another. But there are different ways of doing that,” Blinken responded.

Committee members also showed a host of TikTok videos that encouraged users to harm themselves and commit suicide. Many questioned why the platform’s Chinese counterpart, Douyin, does not carry the same controversial and potentially dangerous content as the American product.

Chew responded that it depends on the laws of the country where the app is operating. He said the company has about 40,000 moderators that track harmful content and an algorithm that flags material.

Wealth management firm Wedbush described the hearing as a “disaster” for TikTok that made a ban more likely if the social media platform doesn’t separate from its Chinese parent. Emile El Nems, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said a ban would benefit TikTok rivals YouTube, Instagram and Snap, “likely resulting in higher revenue share of the total advertising wallet.”

To avoid a ban, TikTok has been trying to sell officials on a $1.5 billion plan, Project Texas, which routes all U.S. user data to Oracle. Under the project, access to U.S. data is managed by U.S. employees through a separate entity called TikTok U.S. Data Security, which is run independently of ByteDance and monitored by outside observers.

As of October, all new U.S. user data was being stored inside the country. The company started deleting all historic U.S. user data from non-Oracle servers this month, in a process expected to be completed this year, Chew said.

Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw noted that regardless of what the company does to assure lawmakers it will protect U.S. user data, the Chinese government can still have significant influence over its parent company and ask it to turn over data through its national security laws.

Congress, the White House, U.S. armed forces and more than half of U.S. states have already banned the use of the app from official devices.

But wiping away all the data tracking associated with the platform might prove difficult. In a report released this month, the Cybersecurity company Feroot said so-called tracking pixels from ByteDance, which collect user information, were found on 30 U.S state websites, including some where the app has been banned.

Other countries including Denmark, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, along with the European Union, have already banned TikTok from government-issued devices.

A complete TikTok ban in the U.S. would risk political and popular backlash.

The company sent dozens of popular TikTokers to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby lawmakers to preserve the platform. And a dozen civil right and free speech organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and PEN America, have signed a letter opposing a wholesale TikTok ban, arguing it would set a “dangerous precedent for the restriction of speech.”

David Kennedy, a former government intelligence officer who runs the cybersecurity company TrustedSec, said he agrees with restricting TikTok access on government-issued phones but that a nationwide ban might be too extreme.

“We have Tesla in China, we have Microsoft in China, we have Apple in China. Are they going to start banning us now?” Kennedy said. “It could escalate very quickly.”

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Associated Press reporters Kelvin Chan in London and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed to this story.

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This story has been corrected to show Oracle is a software giant, not a server giant.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced the selection of Utah-based generic drug manufacturer Civica to produce low-cost insulin for California, an unprecedented move that makes good on his promise to put state government in direct competition with the brand-name drug companies that dominate the market.

“People should not be forced to go into debt to get lifesaving prescriptions,” Newsom said. “Californians will have access to some of the most inexpensive insulin available, helping them save thousands of dollars each year.”

The contract, with an initial cost of $50 million that Newsom and his fellow Democratic lawmakers approved last year, calls for Civica to manufacture state-branded insulin and make the lifesaving drug available to any Californian who needs it, regardless of insurance coverage, by mail order and at local pharmacies. But insulin is just the beginning. Newsom said the state will also look to produce the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone.

Allan Coukell, Civica’s senior vice president of public policy, told KHN that the nonprofit drugmaker is also in talks with the Newsom administration to potentially produce other generic medications, but he declined to elaborate, saying the company is focused on making cheap insulin widely available first.

“We are very excited about this partnership with the state of California,” Coukell said. “We’re not looking to have 100% of the market, but we do want 100% of people to have access to fair insulin prices.”

As insulin costs for consumers have soared, Democratic lawmakers and activists have called on the industry to rein in prices. Just weeks after President Joe Biden attacked Big Pharma for jacking up insulin prices, the three drugmakers that control the insulin market — Eli Lilly and Co., Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi — announced they would slash the list prices of some products.

Newsom, who has previously accused the pharmaceutical industry of gouging Californians with “sky-high prices,” argued that the launch of the state’s generic drug label, CalRx, will add competition and apply pressure on the industry. Administration officials declined to say when California’s insulin products would be available, but experts say it could be as soon as 2025. Coukell said the state-branded medication will still require approval from the FDA, which can take roughly 10 months.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which lobbies on behalf of brand-name companies, blasted California’s move. Reid Porter, senior director of state public affairs for PhRMA, said Newsom just “wants to score political points.”

“If the governor wants to impact what patients pay for insulins and other medicines meaningfully, he should expand his focus to others in the system that often make patients pay more than they do for medicines,” Porter said, blaming pharmaceutical go-between companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers, that negotiate with manufacturers on behalf of insurers for rebates and discounts on drugs.

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents pharmacy benefit managers argued in turn that it’s pharmaceutical companies that are to blame for high prices.

Drug pricing experts, however, say pharmacy benefit managers and drugmakers share the blame.

Newsom administration officials say that inflated insulin costs force some to pay as much as $300 per vial or $500 for a box of injectable pens, and that too many Californians with diabetes skip or ration their medication. Doing so can lead to blindness, amputations, and life-threatening conditions such as heart disease and kidney failure. Nearly 10% of California adults have diabetes.

Civica is developing three types of generic insulin, known as a biosimilar, which will be available both in vials and in injectable pens. They are expected to be interchangeable with brand-name products including Lantus, Humalog, and NovoLog. Coukell said the company would make the drug available for no more than $30 a vial, or $55 for five injectable pens.

Newsom said the state’s insulin will save many patients $2,000 to $4,000 a year, though critical questions about how California would get the products into the hands of consumers remain unanswered, including how it would persuade pharmacies, insurers, and retailers to distribute the drugs.

Last year, Newsom also secured $50 million in seed money to build a facility to manufacture insulin; Coukell said Civica is exploring building a plant in California.

California’s move, though never previously tried by a state government, could be blunted by recent industry decisions to lower insulin prices. In March, Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi vowed to cut prices, with Lilly offering a vial at $25 per month, Novo Nordisk promising major reductions that would bring the price of a particular generic vial to $48, and Sanofi pegging one vial at $64.

The governor’s office said it will cost the state $30 per vial to manufacture and distribute insulin and it will be sold at that price. Doing so, the administration argues, “will prevent the egregious cost-shifting that happens in traditional pharmaceutical price games.”

Drug pricing experts said generic production in California could further lower costs for insulin, and benefit people with high-deductible health insurance plans or no insurance.

“This is an extraordinary move in the pharmaceutical industry, not just for insulin but potentially for all kinds of drugs,” said Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California College of the Law-San Francisco. “It’s a very difficult industry to disrupt, but California is poised to do just that.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced the selection of Utah-based generic drug manufacturer Civica to produce low-cost insulin for California, an unprecedented move that makes good on his promise to put state government in direct competition with the brand-name drug companies that dominate the market.

“People should not be forced to go into debt to get lifesaving prescriptions,” Newsom said. “Californians will have access to some of the most inexpensive insulin available, helping them save thousands of dollars each year.”

The contract, with an initial cost of $50 million that Newsom and his fellow Democratic lawmakers approved last year, calls for Civica to manufacture state-branded insulin and make the lifesaving drug available to any Californian who needs it, regardless of insurance coverage, by mail order and at local pharmacies. But insulin is just the beginning. Newsom said the state will also look to produce the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone.

Allan Coukell, Civica’s senior vice president of public policy, told KHN that the nonprofit drugmaker is also in talks with the Newsom administration to potentially produce other generic medications, but he declined to elaborate, saying the company is focused on making cheap insulin widely available first.

“We are very excited about this partnership with the state of California,” Coukell said. “We’re not looking to have 100% of the market, but we do want 100% of people to have access to fair insulin prices.”

As insulin costs for consumers have soared, Democratic lawmakers and activists have called on the industry to rein in prices. Just weeks after President Joe Biden attacked Big Pharma for jacking up insulin prices, the three drugmakers that control the insulin market — Eli Lilly and Co., Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi — announced they would slash the list prices of some products.

Newsom, who has previously accused the pharmaceutical industry of gouging Californians with “sky-high prices,” argued that the launch of the state’s generic drug label, CalRx, will add competition and apply pressure on the industry. Administration officials declined to say when California’s insulin products would be available, but experts say it could be as soon as 2025. Coukell said the state-branded medication will still require approval from the FDA, which can take roughly 10 months.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which lobbies on behalf of brand-name companies, blasted California’s move. Reid Porter, senior director of state public affairs for PhRMA, said Newsom just “wants to score political points.”

“If the governor wants to impact what patients pay for insulins and other medicines meaningfully, he should expand his focus to others in the system that often make patients pay more than they do for medicines,” Porter said, blaming pharmaceutical go-between companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers, that negotiate with manufacturers on behalf of insurers for rebates and discounts on drugs.

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents pharmacy benefit managers argued in turn that it’s pharmaceutical companies that are to blame for high prices.

Drug pricing experts, however, say pharmacy benefit managers and drugmakers share the blame.

Newsom administration officials say that inflated insulin costs force some to pay as much as $300 per vial or $500 for a box of injectable pens, and that too many Californians with diabetes skip or ration their medication. Doing so can lead to blindness, amputations, and life-threatening conditions such as heart disease and kidney failure. Nearly 10% of California adults have diabetes.

Civica is developing three types of generic insulin, known as a biosimilar, which will be available both in vials and in injectable pens. They are expected to be interchangeable with brand-name products including Lantus, Humalog, and NovoLog. Coukell said the company would make the drug available for no more than $30 a vial, or $55 for five injectable pens.

Newsom said the state’s insulin will save many patients $2,000 to $4,000 a year, though critical questions about how California would get the products into the hands of consumers remain unanswered, including how it would persuade pharmacies, insurers, and retailers to distribute the drugs.

Last year, Newsom also secured $50 million in seed money to build a facility to manufacture insulin; Coukell said Civica is exploring building a plant in California.

California’s move, though never previously tried by a state government, could be blunted by recent industry decisions to lower insulin prices. In March, Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi vowed to cut prices, with Lilly offering a vial at $25 per month, Novo Nordisk promising major reductions that would bring the price of a particular generic vial to $48, and Sanofi pegging one vial at $64.

The governor’s office said it will cost the state $30 per vial to manufacture and distribute insulin and it will be sold at that price. Doing so, the administration argues, “will prevent the egregious cost-shifting that happens in traditional pharmaceutical price games.”

Drug pricing experts said generic production in California could further lower costs for insulin, and benefit people with high-deductible health insurance plans or no insurance.

“This is an extraordinary move in the pharmaceutical industry, not just for insulin but potentially for all kinds of drugs,” said Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California College of the Law-San Francisco. “It’s a very difficult industry to disrupt, but California is poised to do just that.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details).

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced the selection of Utah-based generic drug manufacturer Civica to produce low-cost insulin for California, an unprecedented move that makes good on his promise to put state government in direct competition with the brand-name drug companies that dominate the market.

“People should not be forced to go into debt to get lifesaving prescriptions,” Newsom said. “Californians will have access to some of the most inexpensive insulin available, helping them save thousands of dollars each year.”

The contract, with an initial cost of $50 million that Newsom and his fellow Democratic lawmakers approved last year, calls for Civica to manufacture state-branded insulin and make the lifesaving drug available to any Californian who needs it, regardless of insurance coverage, by mail order and at local pharmacies. But insulin is just the beginning. Newsom said the state will also look to produce the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone.

Allan Coukell, Civica’s senior vice president of public policy, told KHN that the nonprofit drugmaker is also in talks with the Newsom administration to potentially produce other generic medications, but he declined to elaborate, saying the company is focused on making cheap insulin widely available first.

“We are very excited about this partnership with the state of California,” Coukell said. “We’re not looking to have 100% of the market, but we do want 100% of people to have access to fair insulin prices.”

As insulin costs for consumers have soared, Democratic lawmakers and activists have called on the industry to rein in prices. Just weeks after President Joe Biden attacked Big Pharma for jacking up insulin prices, the three drugmakers that control the insulin market — Eli Lilly and Co., Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi — announced they would slash the list prices of some products.

Newsom, who has previously accused the pharmaceutical industry of gouging Californians with “sky-high prices,” argued that the launch of the state’s generic drug label, CalRx, will add competition and apply pressure on the industry. Administration officials declined to say when California’s insulin products would be available, but experts say it could be as soon as 2025. Coukell said the state-branded medication will still require approval from the FDA, which can take roughly 10 months.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which lobbies on behalf of brand-name companies, blasted California’s move. Reid Porter, senior director of state public affairs for PhRMA, said Newsom just “wants to score political points.”

“If the governor wants to impact what patients pay for insulins and other medicines meaningfully, he should expand his focus to others in the system that often make patients pay more than they do for medicines,” Porter said, blaming pharmaceutical go-between companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers, that negotiate with manufacturers on behalf of insurers for rebates and discounts on drugs.

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents pharmacy benefit managers argued in turn that it’s pharmaceutical companies that are to blame for high prices.

Drug pricing experts, however, say pharmacy benefit managers and drugmakers share the blame.

Newsom administration officials say that inflated insulin costs force some to pay as much as $300 per vial or $500 for a box of injectable pens, and that too many Californians with diabetes skip or ration their medication. Doing so can lead to blindness, amputations, and life-threatening conditions such as heart disease and kidney failure. Nearly 10% of California adults have diabetes.

Civica is developing three types of generic insulin, known as a biosimilar, which will be available both in vials and in injectable pens. They are expected to be interchangeable with brand-name products including Lantus, Humalog, and NovoLog. Coukell said the company would make the drug available for no more than $30 a vial, or $55 for five injectable pens.

Newsom said the state’s insulin will save many patients $2,000 to $4,000 a year, though critical questions about how California would get the products into the hands of consumers remain unanswered, including how it would persuade pharmacies, insurers, and retailers to distribute the drugs.

Last year, Newsom also secured $50 million in seed money to build a facility to manufacture insulin; Coukell said Civica is exploring building a plant in California.

California’s move, though never previously tried by a state government, could be blunted by recent industry decisions to lower insulin prices. In March, Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi vowed to cut prices, with Lilly offering a vial at $25 per month, Novo Nordisk promising major reductions that would bring the price of a particular generic vial to $48, and Sanofi pegging one vial at $64.

The governor’s office said it will cost the state $30 per vial to manufacture and distribute insulin and it will be sold at that price. Doing so, the administration argues, “will prevent the egregious cost-shifting that happens in traditional pharmaceutical price games.”

Drug pricing experts said generic production in California could further lower costs for insulin, and benefit people with high-deductible health insurance plans or no insurance.

“This is an extraordinary move in the pharmaceutical industry, not just for insulin but potentially for all kinds of drugs,” said Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California College of the Law-San Francisco. “It’s a very difficult industry to disrupt, but California is poised to do just that.”

This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details).

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine on Saturday, the day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.

Putin visited an art school and a children’s center that are part of a project to develop a historical park on the site of an ancient Greek colony, Russian state news agencies said.

The ICC accused him Friday of bearing personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion of the neighboring country that started almost 13 months ago.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded that Russia withdraw from the peninsula as well as the areas it has occupied since last year.

Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed Friday the importance of holding Crimea.

“Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he said, referring to Crimea’s largest city. “We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.”

Putin took a plane to travel the 1,821 kilometers (1,132 miles) from Moscow to Sevastopol, where he took the wheel of the car that transported him around the city, according to Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.

The ICC’s arrest warrant was the first issued against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow — and welcomed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough. However, the chances of Putin facing trial at the ICC are highly unlikely because Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.

Despite the court’s action and its implication’s for Putin, the United Nations and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Saturday that a wartime deal that allowed grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia was extended, although neither said for how long.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov tweeted that the deal had been renewed for 120 days, the period that Ukraine, Turkey and the U.N. wanted. But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian news agency Tass that Moscow agreed to a 60-day extension.

Russia and Ukraine are both major global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other affordable food products that developing nations depend on. They signed separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey last year to allow food to leave Ukraine’s blockaded ports.

Russia has complained that shipments of its fertilizers — which its deal was supposed to facilitate — are not getting to global markets. The country briefly pulled out of the agreement in November before rejoining and agreeing to a 120-day renewal.

Putin signed a law Saturday that imposes stiff fines for discrediting or spreading misleading information about volunteers or mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. The law calls for a fining individuals 50,000 rubles ($660) for a first offense and up to 15 years in prison for repeated offenses.

The measure mirrors one passed in the early days of the war that applied to speaking negatively about soldiers or the Russian military in general.

Fighters from the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company known for fierce tactics, have taken key roles in Ukraine, particularly in Russia’s grinding campaign to seize the eastern Donetsk province town of Bakhmut.

In Ukraine, authorities reported widespread Russian attacks between Friday night and Saturday morning. Writing on Telegram, the Ukrainian air force command said 11 out of 16 drones were shot down during attacks that targeted the capital, Kyiv, and the western Lviv province, among other areas.

The head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko, said Ukrainian air defenses shot down all drones heading for the capital. Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi said Saturday that three of six drones were shot down, with the other three hitting a district that borders Poland.

According to the Ukrainian air force, the attacks were carried out from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov and Russia’s Bryansk province, which also borders Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military reported that between Friday morning and Saturday morning, Russian forces launched 34 airstrikes, one missile strike and 57 rounds of anti-aircraft fire. It said falling debris hit southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, damaging seven houses and a kindergarten.

Russia is still concentrating the bulk of its offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east, focusing attacks on Bakhmut and other parts of Donetsk province.

Regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said one person was killed and three wounded when 11 towns and villages in the province were shelled Friday.

Further west, Russian rockets hit a residential area overnight in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional capital of the partially occupied province of the same name. No casualties were reported, but houses were damaged, Anatoliy Kurtev of the Zaporizhzhia City Council said.

British military officials said Saturday that Russia was likely to expand mandatory conscription to replenish its troops fighting in Ukraine. The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest analysis that deputies in the Russian Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, introduced a bill to change the draft ages for men to 21-30, from the current 18-27.

The ministry said many Russian men ages 18-21 claim exemptions from military service because they are enrolled in higher education institutions. The wider age range would mean they would have to serve eventually. British officials said the law would likely pass and take effect in January 2024.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

By KEN SWEET, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, CHRIS MEGERIAN and CATHY BUSSEWITZ (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden insisted Monday that the nation’s banking system was safe, seeking to project calm after the collapse of two banks stirred fears of a broader upheaval and prompted regulators to offer emergency loans to banks to stave off additional failures.

“Your deposits will be there when you need them,” Biden said.

Despite the message from the White House, investors continued to dump shares in bank stocks. Shares of First Republic Bank plunged more than 70% even after the bank said it was accessing emergency funding from the Federal Reserve as well as additional funds from JPMorgan Chase.

U.S. regulators closed the Silicon Valley Bank on Friday after depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. It was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only the 2008 failure of Washington Mutual. New York-based Signature Bank also collapsed in the third-largest failure in the U.S.

Speaking from the White House shortly before a trip to the West Coast, the president said he would seek to hold those responsible accountable, and he pressed for better oversight and regulation of larger banks. He promised that no losses would be borne by taxpayers.

“We must get the full accounting of what happened,” he said. “Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe.”

Biden also said the managers of the banks should be fired.

“If the bank is taken over by the FDIC, the people running the bank should not work there anymore,” he said, referring to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the agency responsible for ensuring the stability of the banking system.

Michele Barry, a teacher who was at Silicon Valley Bank on Monday, said members of the FDIC and bank employees were available to answer questions.

Barry, who also runs an after-school program for children, wanted to make sure that her four employees would be paid. She was told that all checks from Friday would be honored, along with her automatic payments.

Barry left enough in her account to cover the payments, but she transferred the bulk of her money over to another bank. She said Biden’s reassurance was helpful.

“I’m from South Africa. Chances are if this happened in South Africa, nobody would insure your money,” she said.

International regulators also had to step in to ease investor fears. The Bank of England and U.K. Treasury said they had facilitated the sale of a Silicon Valley Bank subsidiary in London to HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank. The deal protected 6.7 billion pounds ($8.1 billion) of deposits.

Under the plan announced by U.S. regulators, depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, including those whose holdings exceed the $250,000 insurance limit, will be able to access their money on Monday. Under a new Fed program, banks can post those securities as collateral and borrow from the emergency facility.

The Treasury has set aside $25 billion to offset any losses incurred. Fed officials said, however, that they do not expect to have to use any of that money, given that the securities posted as collateral have a very low risk of default.

New York bank regulators took possession of Signature Bank on Sunday, ousting its leaders and handing day-to-day control over to the FDIC as part of a move in which the federal government agreed to guarantee full deposits — even those over the $250,000 threshold.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul described the decision by the state Department of Financial Services as aimed at holding off a bigger crisis involving more banks.

“Our view was to make sure that the entire banking community here in New York was stable, that we can project calm,” Hochul said in a news conference Monday.

She said a high volume of withdrawals that began last week continued with online transactions through the weekend. The bank was open Monday under the name of Signature Bridge Bank.

Signature, which was founded more than two decades ago, has about 40 offices across the country and says it focuses on banking for privately owned businesses, their owners and senior managers.

Though Sunday’s steps marked the most extensive government intervention in the banking system since the 2008 financial crisis, the actions were relatively limited compared with 15 years ago.

The two failed banks themselves have not been rescued, and taxpayer money has not been provided to them.

Some prominent Silicon Valley executives feared that if Washington did not rescue their failed bank, customers would make runs on other financial institutions in the coming days. Stock prices plunged over the last few days at other banks that cater to technology companies, such as First Republic and PacWest Bank.

Among the bank’s customers are a range of companies, including many California wineries that rely on Silicon Valley Bank for loans, and technology startups devoted to combating climate change.

Tiffany Dufu, founder and CEO of The Cru, a New York-based career coaching platform and community for women, had her money tied up at Silicon Valley Bank.

She said in video on LinkedIn that she had to pay employees out of her personal account. With two teenagers to support who will be heading to college, she said she was relieved to hear that the government intends to make depositors whole.

“Small businesses and early stage startups don’t have a lot of access to leverage in a situation like this, and we’re often in a very vulnerable position, particularly when we have to fight so hard to get the wires into your bank account to begin with, particularly for me, as a Black female founder,” Dufu said.

___ Rugaber and Megerian reported from Washington. Sweet and Bussewitz reported from New York. Associated Press writers Hope Yen in Washington; Michelle Chapman in New York; Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.