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Last Friday, a federal judge axed a Biden-era rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would have prohibited consumer credit reporting agencies from including certain medical debts on consumer credit reports. The CFPB rule amended a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulatory exception that allowed creditors to obtain and use information on medical debts. The rule had been finalized shortly before the Biden administration left office and was set to take effect on March 15. However, legal challenges delayed its start date. The rule prohibited creditors from considering medical information when determining credit eligibility and restricted credit reporting agencies from including certain types of medical debt information in consumer credit reports. Medical debt will stay on credit reports On July 11, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan of the Eastern District Court in Texas reversed the Biden-era rule. In his opinion, Jordan, a Trump appointee, said that the court found that rule exceeded the CFPB’s authority under the FCRA. The federal lawsuit was filed on January 7, the same day the Biden-era rule had been finalized. In the legal complaint, the Cornerstone Credit Union League and the Consumer Data Industry Association asserted that the rule violated the law and that only Congress had the authority to make such changes. The Trump-era CFPB, along with acting director Russell Vought, joined the lawsuit on April 30, with the agency asking the court to vacate the rule. In response to the ruling, Senate Democrats led by Raphael Warnock of Georgia wrote a letter to Vought asking for an explanation about the reversal. Medical debt collections information is often inaccurate, and studies show that it is not useful in determining a consumers ability to repay other debts,” the senators wrote. Fast Company reached out to CFPB for comment. Court order impacts millions of Americans with medical debt CFPB research found that a medical bill on a credit report isn’t a good indicator of a person’s ability to repay a loan. Research also showed that medical debt on credit reports contributed to mortgage application denials for loans that consumers would have been able to afford. In its January announcement, the CFPB stated that the rule would remove an estimated $49 billion in medical bills from credit reports and affect approximately 15 million Americans. It added that people with medical debt on their credit reports could see an average boost of 20 points on their score. However, now that the rule has been reversed, debt will remain on consumer credit reports, and creditors are still allowed to consider medical debt when making credit decisions.
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Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey is back with a new app that tracks sun exposure and vitamin D levels. Sun Day uses location-based data to show the current UV index, the days high, and additional details like cloud cover, sunrise, and sunset times. Users can choose their skin type from six options and indicate their clothing, such as “light (shorts & t-shirt)”, then manually toggle when theyre in or out of the sun. Based on this input, the app calculates how long you can safely expose your skin before it begins to burn. That’s an especially helpful feature for those like Dorsey, who mentioned in an X thread that he does not actually use sunscreen. no— jack (@jack) July 13, 2025 The app also tracks a users estimated vitamin D intake while outdoors. After tapping the Track UV exposure button to start a session, the app shows how much vitamin D was absorbed once the session ends. In future updates, additional factors like height, weight, and actual vitamin D blood levels may be included to improve the apps accuracy. This marks the second new app Dorsey has launched in a week. But this one may especially appeal to Gen Z, whose tanning obsession has sparked a trend of tracking UV exposure to optimize time spent basking in the sun. @ella_fitzgerald99 SPF on, just chasing the sun before my shift #UK #sun #tanning #spring #fyp Sun Is Shining – Bob Marley & The Wailers In 2025, the importance of sunscreen isnt lost on most. Google searches for best anti-ageing sunscreen and UV damage prevention have more than doubled over the past two years. Yet on TikTok and Instagram, tanning is back in vogue. Girls flaunt their bikini strap marks, share their tanning routines, and even create sun tattoos (aka skin damage). Some are faking it using blush, bronzer, or spray tans to mimic the sunkissed, or sunburnt, look. Others track the UV index to find the best time to tan. @.addison9600 TANNING SEASON LOADING ~~~ #tanning #uv #uvindex #tan #darktan #tanningoil #tanninglotion #highuv #sunscreen #hot #niceweather #warmair #swimming #ocean #flowers #tropical #graphs #math #graph #funny #viral #makemefamous #microinfluencer #screenrecord #popularvideo #trend #sound #audio #audios #fyp #imjustagirl #addison original sound – gyusboo A new survey from the American Academy of Dermatology found that over a fifth of young adults prioritize getting a tan over protecting their skin. One in four say its worth looking great now, even if it means looking worse later (just five sunburns more than doubles your risk of developing melanoma). For those looking to chase (or avoid) the sun, Sun Day isnt yet available in the App Store. However, a TestFlight beta is open to iOS users, and the code is available on GitHub.
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E-Commerce
If you didnt make the list for Blue Origins recent sub-orbital jaunt to space, why not treat yourself to a consolation prize here on Earth for a fraction of the cost? On Wednesday, Sothebys will auction off a chunk of rock believed to have originated on Mars for an anticipated two to four million dollars a steal relative to the $28 million you would have dropped to experience a few fleeting minutes of zero gravity with Katy Perry. The meteorite, dubbed NWA 16788, is thought to be the biggest piece of the red planet present here on Earth. The reddish hunk of rock was discovered by a meteorite hunter in the remote sand dunes of Northern Niger in November 2023 and in geological terms is known as an olivine-microgabbroic shergottite. Most Martian meteorites that fall to Earth are categorized as shergottites, named after a meteorite that fell in Sherghati, India in 1865. The meteorite weighs 54 pounds and contains a kind of glass known as maskelynite, which forms when feldspar in the rock was exposed to extreme pressure and heat, likely from an asteroid impact that knocked it off the Martian surface to begin with. Beyond the space glass, the rock is mostly made up of pyroxene and olivine, common meteorite minerals that are also present in the layer of the Earths crust known as the upper mantle. Based on its condition and lack of weathering, NWA 16788 appears to be a relative newcomer to planet Earth, found not long after it traveled through space to the Sahara. NWA 16788 is covered in a reddish-brown fusion crust giving it an unmistakable Martian hue, the Sothebys posting states. Regmaglypts, or surface depressions formed by frictional heating during rapid descent through Earths atmosphere, are also visible on the surface of the meteorite. Chipping away at Martian mysteries Out of the more than 77,000 meteorites logged so far, only 400 have their origins on Mars. To confirm the rocks Martian origins, a lab compared its chemical makeup with atmospheric data collected by NASAs Viking probe, which landed on the surface of Mars in 1976. That mission, which sent a pair of identical spacecraft to study the Martian surface, collected information on the red planet that remains valuable today. Almost everything about Viking was the first time we had ever tried it, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Curator of Planetary Science Matt Shindell said in a retrospective on Vikings impact. NASA had never landed on another planet. They had never built a miniature laboratory. No one had ever built a computer that could withstand any of the stresses that Viking was under. The engineers had to design things that were never done before. The record-setting Martian meteorite isnt the only artifact Sothebys will auction off that would be more appropriate in a natural history museum. The auction house will also host the sale of a Jurassic-age juvenile ceratosaurus skeleton for an estimated $6 million and a T-rex foot from the late Cretaceous for a starting bid of $300,000. The fossils were excavated in Wyoming and Montana, respectively. If dinosaur fossils and far-flung space rocks are too rich for your blood, a Neolithic stone axe found in France will also pop up for sale on Wednesday for a modest starting bid of $5,500. If you do end up springing for the meteorite, know that your bragging rights are very secure your rock will be 70% larger than the next-largest known piece of Mars on our planet.
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