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- [00:01]
Google AI Representative
This is a new era of American innovation. Google AI is helping Americans stay safe from scams, from real time scam detection on Pixel to proactive phishing blocking in Gmail. Learn more at G CO AmericanInnovation
- [00:18]
Luke Vargas
AI CEOs call on Congress to act fearing that criminals could use the tech to unleash biological weapons. Plus, after months of warnings, a flesh eating parasite is confirmed in US Livestock and and higher ed tries to get a grasp on pandemic learning loss.
- [00:35]
Douglas Belkin
The elite schools in the country have been bringing back the SAT and the act to try to give themselves one more tool or data point to figure out if kids are going to be able to do the work in College.
- [00:46]
Luke Vargas
It's Thursday, June 4th. I'm Luke Varkas for the Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of what's News, the top headlines and business stories Moving your world Today. President Trump has told his aides that he won't resume an all out war with Iran unless it kills American troops. Private comments that shed light on his reluctance to reignite the conflict, even if it means withstanding weeks or months of smaller flare ups. Speaking yesterday, following some of the most intense fighting since a ceasefire went into effect in early April, Trump told reporters he was willing to keep it in place. How do you define ceasefire?
- [01:28]
Douglas Belkin
Pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world, cease fires when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.
- [01:35]
Luke Vargas
While Trump has indicated that a pact to end the war could be closed, he said in a New York Post interview published yesterday that a US Blockade could last until September's Labor Day. Elsewhere in Washington, top AI executives and security experts are urging Congress to protect against biological threats posed by the technology, adding to mounting pressure on lawmakers to address its risks. Journal tech Policy reporter Amrith Ramkumar says that the leaders of OpenAI Anthropic and Google DeepMind are among the signatories of a letter calling for action.
- [02:08]
Amrith Ramkumar
In particular, these executives and researchers are worried about gene synthesis screening, which is when companies order synthetic DNA and rna, a key step to developing certain vaccines and biotech breakthroughs that can also be used to develop new pathogens and bioweapons.
- [02:24]
Luke Vargas
Amrin says that experts have been worried about that threat for some time, but because of recent breakthroughs within AI, the risk is rising dramatically. By potentially giving criminals the tools to
- [02:35]
Amrith Ramkumar
unleash new pathogens, many people see biological risks as the next frontier in protecting against AI threats. Congress is under pressure in general because lawmakers haven't passed any significant AI legislation. Earlier this week, President Trump signed an executive order largely focused on cybersecurity and model oversight of powerful tools before they're released. But a lot of experts say there's more to be done in the area of biology.
- [03:00]
Luke Vargas
President Trump previously revoked a Biden era screening framework for gene synthesis, while the White House last year promised to replace it with its own guidelines. A replacement policy has not yet been published. A White House official said the administration remains committed to balancing safety with innovation. A flesh eating screwworm has arrived in the US A calf in southern Texas has tested positive for the New World screwworm, the first detection of the deadly flyborne parasite in U.S. livestock since 1966. The finding creates a headache for U.S. ranchers and livestock producers. The American cattle herd is already at its smallest since the 1950s, according to USDA data, helping drive beef prices to record highs for U.S. consumers. Despite the alarming headline, the USDA says that human cases are uncommon and Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins food safety isn't at risk.
- [03:56]
Brooke Rollins
Top line this pest does not cause any sort of a food safety issue. It is not a disease, but simply an insect that feeds on living tissues. Once removed and cleaned, animals treated early enough, including the calf that we're talking about, the eight week old bovine, that calf and those animals, if they're treated early enough, will recover and are safe to enter the food supply system.
- [04:23]
Luke Vargas
The USDA isn't taking chances, though, setting up a more than 12 mile infection zone subject to stepped up surveillance. It said that severely infested animals would be removed from the food supply, but that producers won't need to cull their herds even if cases are found among their livestock. Shares of SpaceX are set to go on sale next week for $135 apiece in what could be the largest IPO in history. It's an unconventional IPO strategy. The companies usually set a price range that's then refined in meetings with investors. But reporter Becky Peterson says that SpaceX is used to doing things differently.
- [05:04]
Becky Peterson
The company said they're going to sell 555 million shares, which means they could raise $75 billion. And at that share price, the implied valuation for SpaceX is $1.75 trillion. That makes it one of the most valuable companies in the world. But more interesting to prospective investors is that it doesn't have the same RE as other companies at that level. The SpaceX valuation is almost 94 times its revenue for 2025 because the company brought in less than 19 billion if you compare that to the S&P 500, the aggregate company in that index had a multiple closer to 3.4.
- [05:45]
Luke Vargas
SpaceX is expected to start trading on the Nasdaq on June 12. Pattern day trading is back starting today. Robinhood Markets and other brokers are lifting restrictions on rapid fire stock and options trades dating back to 2001, after the SEC signed off on the move in April. Under the new rules, brokerages will need to monitor their customers trading throughout the day and alert them to any deficits. Shares of Broadcom are down sharply after hours following the chip maker's latest earnings, in which it reported an almost 50% jump in Q2 revenue but left its 2027 outlook unchanged. That GU guidance, which failed to live up to some investor expectations, appears to have paused a global tech surge, sending NASDAQ futures lower and triggering a retreat among other chip stocks. And oil prices are easing after Israel and Lebanon agreed to renew their ceasefire, potentially resolving what had become a sticking point in talks between the US And Iran to end the war. Coming up, we'll look at why college professors are urging schools to reinstate entrance exams and beyond that, what careers for college graduates could look like. Those stories after the break.
- [06:59]
Google AI Representative
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- [07:32]
Luke Vargas
The fallout from pandemic learning loss is now hitting higher education around the world and schools are responding, citing a severe preparation deficit among students. Professors from the University of California wanted to bring back entrance exams and the Journal's Douglas Belkin joins me now with more on this story. Doug, what is going on here since the pandemic?
- [07:55]
Douglas Belkin
The decline in learning and just the learning loss in general across the spectrum, from the youngest kids through high school and into college has been significant. And these kids who were at home often being educated online are now entering college and their study skills are generally not up to snuff. And the pandemic learning loss is a big chunk of it. You know, the phones came online and I think in 2012 and things began to fall apart at that point has accelerated that even more academic integrity is really is just a lot of cheating in schools across the country. Kids aren't doing the work and as a result, they haven't learned as much when they enter college.
- [08:34]
Luke Vargas
Right. So tell us more, Doug, about what these 1100 University of California math and science professors actually want to see here entrance exams. I guess back in the picture, maybe raising the caliber of people coming into their classrooms, but that doesn't necessarily fix the underlying situation.
- [08:51]
Douglas Belkin
Right? So to step back just a bit. The pressure to get rid of the sats and the acts had been building for years before the pandemic because it tracks with demographics. Race and class really play a significant part in how well you do in this exam. And so when the pandemic came, schools jettisoned it full force. What happened is it turned out to be a pretty good predictor of how well students were going to do, especially since grade inflation in schools has been so dramatic that even if a kid is graduating with A's or A's and B's, it doesn't tell admissions officers that much about their acumen anymore. So the elite schools in the country have been bringing back the SAT and the ACT to try to give themselves one more tool, a data point to figure out if kids are going to be able to do the work in college. The professors at UCLA say this is showing up in math. The kids haven't been tested. They're not prepared. And there's a big gap in some classes between those who are prepared and those who are not.
- [09:50]
Luke Vargas
And as a result, these University of California professors say, sort of dragging down the overall experience on campus and complicating the work that they have to do.
- [09:58]
Douglas Belkin
There's two buckets it falls into at UC San Diego, the percentage of kids who have to take remedial classes, which goes back all the way to elementary school and middle school. Math, in some cases, has risen from about 0.5% of the freshman class to about 9%. And then when the kids get into the STEM classes, the level of prep preparation is really disparate. So you end up with professors who are trying to bridge these learning gaps in class, which ends up slowing down the progress they can make and the amount of the curriculum they can cover.
- [10:27]
Luke Vargas
We should note, Doug, that in response to this letter from professors, the University of California's Academic Senate Chair said it's going to examine admissions policies and requirements. So maybe we see something come out of that. But more broadly, are we seeing any other signs about how academia is responding to these concerns?
- [10:45]
Douglas Belkin
This is the $64,000 question. Across the education spectrum now, from elementary school through college, if kids aren't plugged in, engaged, and focused, then they're not going to learn as much, and they're just not. And so the gaps are significant. There's a lot of experimentation right now going on about how best to teach and reach these kids at different levels. You know, in the K12 system, there was a big push on individualized tutoring. And the hope was that. That if you sat a student next to a teacher or a mentor or tutor, they could pull them up. So that's been helping. There's been a lot of experimentation of getting rid of phones in classrooms. There's been a lot of experimentation of using blue books for college exams and even oral examinations so that kids can't cheat on these examinations. We just saw Princeton University update their honor code so that students will now be monitored by professors in classrooms because there was concern about cheating there. So it's sort of all over the map, and there's not been a good silver bullet. One of the more interesting issues we're seeing is schools just incorporating AI wholesale, and, you know, the results aren't in yet.
- [11:49]
Luke Vargas
I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas Belkin, who covers higher education for us. Doug, a pleasure. Thanks so much.
- [11:56]
Douglas Belkin
Thank you.
- [11:59]
Luke Vargas
And finally, as AI reshapes the world of work, new research from LinkedIn shows that the current cohort of grads entering the workforce are likely to have double the amount of jobs in their lifetime.
- [12:11]
Callum Borchers
LinkedIn predicts people entering the workforce today are going to have twice as many jobs over the course of their careers as people who started out 15 years. That's partly because people are just working longer and longer. But the big thing, of course, is artificial intelligence.
- [12:26]
Luke Vargas
That's Wall Street Journal on the clock columnist Callum Borchers, who says that given the unknowable impact of AI, it's hard to imagine there won't be a seismic effect on Gen Z's careers. But there are ways to get ahead.
- [12:39]
Callum Borchers
The best thing we can do might be to hone foundational skills. And this is big. Get really good at articulating how we can use them in a range of roles. We're going to have to be able to explain how the abilities we develop in the past are transferable. Reflective people are going to be better at this, and they're the ones who will have an edge. There are ways to practice reflection. One is to create a personal one sheet. One other exercise, too, is to fill out the soft skills and technical skills sections of your LinkedIn profile. I know a lot of us leave these fields blank, but LinkedIn tells me that recruiters are actually filtering job candidates more and more by the skills listed in their bios.
- [13:18]
Luke Vargas
And that's it for what's news for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Michael Cosmides. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.
- [13:43]
Douglas Belkin
In moments of seismic change through crisis and transformation, it is our real world experience that delivers FTI consulting experts with impact.