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Nearly a year after the Biden administration gave Florida the green light to become the first state to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada — a longtime goal of politicians across the political spectrum, including President-elect Donald Trump — the program has yet to begin. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the FDA’s approval of his plan in January, calling it a victory over the drug industry, which opposes importation on the grounds that it would lead to a surge in counterfeit medications. A Florida health official familiar with the importation program told KFF Health News there was no planned date yet for the state to begin importing drugs. The official asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the program. Florida applied to create an importation program in November 2020, just months after the Trump administration gave states the option. DeSantis, a Republican, complained publicly for years about the pace of the federal approval process under the Biden administration and in 2022 filed suit against the FDA for what he called a “reckless delay .” Trump touted his administration’s move to bring medicines over the border in a preelection interview published last month by AARP , the advocacy group for older Americans, which supports allowing Americans to buy drugs from Canada. He vowed to “continue my efforts to protect Americans from unaffordable drug prices” in a second term. It’s not clear whether his second administration will or can do more to help Florida and other states set up programs, because it’s ultimately up to the states to act. Colorado is the only other state that has an importation plan pending with the FDA. DeSantis administration officials have refused for months to answer questions from KFF Health News about the program. Alecia Collins, deputy chief of staff for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, said in October that officials were traveling and unavailable. In mid-November, she said she still had no answers. DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern said he had been “slammed” since the first week of November and could not answer questions. FDA spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones said she could not answer whether Florida had submitted documents the agency requires before the state can start importing medicines. She referred all questions to the state. Drug companies typically sell medications for far less in Canada than in the United States, as a result of Canadian government price controls. But because of safety and efficacy concerns, federal law prohibits consumers from buying drugs from outside U.S. borders except in rare cases. Politicians ranging from conservatives such as DeSantis to liberals such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have long pushed for importing lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada. In 2000, Congress passed a law allowing states to import prescription drugs from north of the border, with the caveat that it could go forward only if the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services affirmed it was safe. That didn’t happen until 2020, when Trump’s HHS secretary, Alex Azar, made such a declaration. Since 2022, Azar has been chairman of the board at LifeScience Logistics, a Dallas-based company that Florida is paying millions of dollars to set up its drug importation program, including warehousing its medicines. Azar on Nov. 13 refused to answer questions from KFF Health News about drug importation, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak on the matter. Florida’s program would not directly assist consumers at the pharmacy. It’s instead aimed at lowering costs for the state Medicaid program and for the corrections and health departments. Matthew Baxter, a senior director at Ontario-based Methapharm Specialty Pharmaceuticals, which has contracted with LifeScience to export drugs, would not say whether Methapharm has sent any medicines over the border. The pharmaceutical industry and the Canadian government oppose U.S. drug importation. Drug companies say importation would increase the risk of counterfeit drugs appearing on U.S. pharmacy shelves, while the government in Ottawa has warned it won’t allow medicines to be exported if Canadians could experience shortages as a result. Florida’s predicted savings would also be relatively minor. DeSantis estimated the program would save state agencies up to $180 million in its first year. Florida’s annual Medicaid budget tops $30 billion. Florida identified 14 drugs, including for cancer and AIDS, that it would attempt to import from Canada for its state agencies. Camm Epstein, a health policy analyst in Saratoga Springs, New York, said drug importation is a seemingly simple concept that resonates with the public, which is why DeSantis and others have turned to the idea as a response to rising drug prices. “It riles up the crowd,” he said. “Who doesn’t want to pay lower drug costs?” But bringing drugs over the border is complicated because of the FDA’s many requirements, including finding companies to work with — a Canadian exporter and a U.S. importer — and following a process that ensures the drugs are authentic, Epstein said. “This was, at best, a boondoggle,” he said. Florida has spent tens of millions of dollars to stand up its drug importation program. The state has already paid LifeScience Logistics $50 million to set up a warehouse to store the medicines. DeSantis noted the costs in his 2022 lawsuit against the FDA. “Plaintiffs have paid their retained importer and distributor over $24 million thus far — and increasing at the rate of $1.2 million every month — even though not a single prescription pill has been imported, relabeled, or distributed, solely because of the FDA’s idleness,” the state said in its suit. Florida’s delay may be due to operational challenges, Epstein said. “Predictably, even if they turned on the spigot there would be no flow, because Canada was not going to permit for the supply,” he said. Colorado and Florida are among at least nine states that have passed laws allowing for Canadian drug importation. Colorado’s 2022 application to the FDA is still pending. In December 2023, Colorado officials released a report noting the state was unable to find a drugmaker willing to sell it medicines from Canada. ( KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.) ©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Topgolf breaks ground in Woodbury; set to open late next yearThe for ( ) stock headed into a new percentile Friday, as it got a lift from 69 to 74. IBD's unique RS Rating identifies technical performance by showing how a stock's price action over the last 52 weeks compares to that of the other stocks in our database. Over 100 years of market history shows that the market's biggest winners often have an RS Rating north of 80 in the early stages of their moves. See if Abercrombie & Fitch stock can continue to rebound and hit that benchmark. Is Abercrombie & Fitch A Buy? Abercrombie & Fitch stock reclaimed its 50-day moving average on Friday. The retail stock is not currently in a proper buying range. See if the stock forms a new pattern or follow-on buying opportunity like a or pullback to the 50-day or 10-week line. The young adult retailer showed 127% earnings growth last quarter. Revenue gains came in at 21%. Keep an eye out for the company's next round of numbers on or around Nov. 26. Abercrombie & Fitch stock earns the No. 3 rank among its peers in the Retail-Apparel/Shoes/Accessories industry group. ( ) is the top-ranked stock within the group.
For more than a decade, the United States has sought to keep out of Syria's political debacle, seeing no viable partner. Islamist rebels' toppling of strongman Bashar al-Assad has forced a change of tune -- and a debate over just what US interests are. Donald Trump, who returns to the White House in little more than a month, on the eve of Assad's fall called Syria "a mess" and stated in his plain-speaking style that the United States should not be involved. Joe Biden's administration, after putting Syria on the backburner in a turbulent region, has offered a tacit rebuttal by stating that clear US interests are at stake -- including preventing Syria from fragmenting and avoiding a resurgence of the Islamic State extremist group. Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump's and Biden's statements could be combined and "together they make a kind of decent policy." The United States needs to address real concerns about the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda but "as far as getting involved in arranging the politics of Syria, I think that no good can come from it," Cook said. Since the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States has walked a fine line on Syria that critics often derided as a non-policy. The United States questioned the legitimacy of Assad, demanding accountability for brutality in one of the 21st century's deadliest wars, but stopped short of prioritizing his departure due to suspicions about the main rebels. The Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has now led Assad's ouster, traces its roots to Syria's Al-Qaeda branch and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States. Since Obama's time, the United States instead has allied itself in Syria with a smaller fighting force of the Kurdish minority -- over strenuous objections of neighboring Turkey, which backs HTS -- with a narrow mission to counter the Islamic State group. Some 900 US troops remain in Syria. Assad fell in a lighting surprise offensive as his protector Russia is bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine and after Israel's military heavily degraded Assad's other key supporters -- Iran and Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Robert Ford, the last US ambassador to Syria, helped spearhead the terrorist designation of HTS in 2012 but said that the group since then has not attacked US or Western targets and has instead fought Al-Qaeda and Islamic State forces. Ford also pointed with hope to post-victory statements by rebel chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, including welcoming international monitoring of any chemical weapons that are discovered. "Can you imagine Osama bin Laden saying that?" said Ford, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. "I'm not saying 'trust Jolani.' He's obviously authoritarian. He's obviously an Islamist who doesn't believe that Christians have an equal right to power as Muslims. But I sure as hell want to test him on some of these things," Ford said. He said that the United States should encourage HTS, as well as other Syrian actors, to reach out and reassure the country's diverse communities including Christians, Kurds and Alawites -- the sect of the secular-oriented Assad. Beyond that, Washington should take a back-seat and let Syrians sort out their future, he said. "We should learn from the experience in Iraq that trying to impose exiles on a population traumatized by a brutal dictatorship and war is not a recipe for success," Ford said. Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday offered US recognition to a future government that is "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian." Trump in his first term, at the urging of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, abruptly said he would pull troops out of Syria. He backtracked after intense criticism at home and appeals from French President Emmanuel Macron, who pointed to the risk of Islamic State filling the vacuum. Trump has not indicated how he would change Syria policy this time. But he has shown no reluctance in the past to negotiate with foreign adversaries on the US blacklist, from Afghanistan's Taliban to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said there was no legal restriction on US contact with designated terrorists, although he indicated there was no direct dialogue with HTS. Natasha Hall, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Syria could face "devastating economic and humanitarian consequences" unless the United States reconsiders the terrorist designation of HTS, which impedes aid groups. "That said," she said, "if there isn't sort of an established framework for negotiations and good behavior now, before that designation is lifted, that could potentially also be a major mistake down the line for Syria's future." sct/sms
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My Special Aflac Duck® lands in the Sacramento Valley(TNS) — St. Peter Middle School students Solomon Baker and Maddie Bur don't have cell phones yet, but they're already thinking about healthy screen time habits. "Nowadays, everybody has a phone and everyone has access to social media, so we should probably know what happens when you're on it too much," Bur said. Gustavus Adolphus College and St. Peter High School students helped spark the conversation even more when they hosted the Digital Wellbeing program for seventh graders Monday. The discussion had both Gusties and high schoolers involved with the Project 4 Teens program talk to the kids about phone usage and other topics, Gustavus student Kelley Brennan said. "One big thing that we wanted to highlight was obviously giving them ideas of what they can do besides looking at their phone. I think sometimes it's hard for them to come up with ideas," she said, naming baking and reading as examples. "Then we went into some small group conversations trying to get them to reflect more on what are the positives, the negatives of their phone use, how that impacts their mental health, their social health, their physical health even just because it is all connected." Brennan said they wanted to get the kids thinking and processing about how phone use really does impact their lives. Gustavus Dean of Students and Digital Wellbeing Coordinator Charlie Potts said the program has been at the college for a number of years, where they would talk to college students about topics such as phone use and social media. The program has been successful so far. "But what we found at the college is that not a lot of our students had intentional or meaningful educational opportunities around it in K-12," Potts said. "We realized that, boy wouldn't it be cool if we got to students earlier. Our students, we do surveys every year, and they're indicating that they were about 11, between 11- and 12-years-old when they got their first smartphones ... but they didn't have those conversations until they were getting to college." Thanks to a grant from the Mankato Clinic Foundation, this is the first year they are introducing the program to younger students. "I think it's such a formative age with sort of setting habits, setting behaviors, and then also it is sort of this crucial time in thinking about mental health, thinking about the way that you're going to treat your body, the way you're going to treat each other and so it just felt like a really opportune time," he said. St. Peter Project 4 Teens Advisor Dani Roehrkasse said the topic of Digital Wellbeing ties in with the program, which exists in schools throughout the region. "Because we talk about consent, we talk about healthy relationships, we talk about just being healthy substance wise, so I think it's just a really good connection," she said. "We're already talking about well-being and being healthy, things to improve every part of your life." St. Peter High School sophomores Lyric Ruble and Jacob Horstmann assisted Project 4 Teens in talking to kids on Monday. Both said the students were engaged in the conversation. "I definitely think it's about developing healthy habits for the kids early on so they can continue those habits as they get into high school and that can hopefully promote their academic well-being," Horstmann said. Ruble added that just starting the conversation is important. "Getting them to kind of talk about it. A lot of them don't think about it on a daily basis. I think just going home and being able to bring these ideas of how they can make healthy choices and manage their digital well-being as they grow up, like Jacob said, starting young I think is really important."Google and Meta urge Australia to postpone bill banning social media for children
Trending News Today Live Updates on November 26, 2024 : The Spencer Stare: Royal fans obsessed with William, Charlotte, and George’s striking resemblance to DianaBefore President-elect Donald Trump can move “aggressively” to kill workforce protections for thousands of federal employees, as he has promised, he could face a vigorous court challenge. He’ll be ready. But so will his opponents. Trump will return to the White House better prepared than during his first term, and with the backing of a Republican-controlled Congress and a generally friendly Supreme Court majority. Potentially, critics of his workforce policies could have a tough fight in all three branches of government.A long-awaited appeal for convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh was filed Tuesday in the South Carolina Supreme Court. In the 132-plus page brief, Murdaugh’s lawyers lay out two main prongs of attack they say should be grounds for granting Murdaugh a new trial: First, they allege that former Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill, a state official, improperly swayed one or more jurors to vote to find Murdaugh guilty. Hill’s intrusion denied Murdaugh “infected the trial with unfairness” and denied him his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, they argue. Second, they allege that the extensive information about Murdaugh’s financial crimes that state Judge Clifton Newman allowed the jury to hear about from 10 witnesses unfairly prejudiced the jury against Murdaugh (Murdaugh had not pleaded guilty to the crimes at that point). Those 10 witnesses testified “over a span of six days” about various Murdaugh financial crimes that involved 19 victims, the brief said. The brief also attacks various evidence offered by prosecution witnesses. The brief was submitted to the State Supreme Court nearly two years after the five-week Murdaugh murder trial, which began in January 2023 and ended in early March of that year. The trial was followed by millions on television, social media and mainstream media. The delay was caused in part by the time it took to prepare a 6,000-page transcript of the three-week trial and by an appeal Murdaugh’s lawyers made to the S.C. Court of Appeals on the alleged jury tampering issue. Normally, appeals in non-death penalty murder cases are first heard by the Court of Appeals. But in this case, Murdaugh’s attorneys sought and received permission from the Supreme Court to appeal directly to the high court. The State Attorney General’s office now has 30 days to file a reply. However, due to the holidays, and the complexity of the issues, the Supreme Court will probably grant an extension if prosecutors request one. The filing i s the latest move in a case that shocked and riveted South Carolina and the world with its unexpected twists and fatal blend of violence, family dysfunction, big money and white collar crime. Murdaugh was convicted in March 2023 of murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul in what prosecutors argued was a cold-blooded attempt to distract suspicion from the looming threat of public disclosure that the attorney had stolen millions of dollars from his clients and his family’s 110-year-old law firm. His trial and conviction was a stunning downfall for a fourth-generation member of a prominent South Carolina legal and political family. The murders took place on June 7, 2021, at the dog kennels on the Murdaugh 1,700-acre family estate, called Moselle, just after nightfall, in rural Colleton County. Maggie was killed with an assault rifle; Paul, by a shotgun. No weapons were ever recovered. Murdaugh, 56, who is serving two life sentences for murder in a S.C. prison, claims he is innocent and that someone else did the killing. The appeal comes almost two years after Mardaugh was sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. The delay was partly due to a pause put on the normal appeals process while his attorneys attempted to win Murdaugh a new trial following bombshell allegations that Becky Hill, the clerk of court who served on his trial, tampered with the jury. That attempt failed. Hill, who gained a small measure of celebrity during the trial, was accused of encouraging the jury to doubt Murdaugh’s testimony, pressuring the jury to reach a quick verdict and working to ensure a juror who had indicated that she was not convinced of Murdaugh’s guilt be dismissed. After the trial, she published a book based on her insider’s position at the trial, a position in which she oversaw the jury and had confidential conversations with the judge. Her goal, Murdaugh’s attorneys argued, was to ensure Murdaugh’s conviction in order to drive sales of the book she planned to write about the trial. The book was published in August 2023 and later withdrawn from publication after she admitted plagiarizing passages from a BBC’s reporter’s article. At a hearing last January before former South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal, Hill denied the charges against her. While Toal found Hill “not completely credible,” she declined to grant Murdaugh a new trial, arguing that the state supreme court did not have the authority to grant a “a new trial in a very lengthy trial such as this on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity-influenced clerk of court But the controversy over Hill’s actions has not died down. Hill resigned from her position as the elected clerk of court and has been facing ethics and criminal investigations into jury tampering and allegations that she abused her position for financial gain . Defense lawyers on Murdaugh’s brief include Dick Harpootlian, Jim Griffin, Phil Barber, Andrew Hand and Maggie Fox. This story was originally published December 10, 2024, 4:37 PM.
"Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: he's willing to go to jail," Tom Homan said of Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post/Getty , who was tapped to serve as the "border czar" in 's upcoming administration, has already threatened a liberal lawmaker with incarceration if he resists Trump's mass deportation plan. Homan, 62, is a former Border Patrol agent who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump's first term. Though he will not be an official Cabinet member in Trump's new administration, he "will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin," according to the president-elect. Related: On Monday, Nov. 25, Homan issued a threat against Denver Mayor Mike Johnston after the Democratic leader in his city when Trump takes office and called on others to join him in protesting mass immigrant round-ups. "Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: he's willing to go to jail," Homan told Fox News host . "I'm willing to put him in jail." Johnston has said that he's " " of going to jail for pushing back against the Trump administration's immigration policies, though he hopes it wouldn't come to that. Related: Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock As a sanctuary city, Denver has been accommodating to immigrants in terms of jobs and legal aid, but Trump put a target on the metropolitan area when he called the nearby city of Aurora a "war zone" and claimed that Venezuelan gangs were taking over apartment buildings. “I don’t know what the hell is going on in Denver, but we’re going to go in and we’re going to go and we’re going to fix it," Homan told Hannity. "If you don’t want to fix it, if you don’t want to protect his communities, President Trump and ICE will.” Homan said that if cities or states are noncompliant with new immigration and deportation policy, from them. Related: Johnston is not the only politician to oppose the upcoming Trump administration's deportation plans. California Gov. and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have both taken a similar approach and have vowed to protect their cities' people. "If you come for my people, you come through me," Pritzker said.A graffiti attack has been condemned as the latest hate crime designed to strike fear into Jewish communities, as leaders worry about how the attacks could escalate. or signup to continue reading The overnight incident in Sydney's eastern suburbs is an "abhorrent anti-Semitic hate crime" following similar incidents across the country, the prime minister says. Graffiti including 'Kill Israiel' (sic) was sprayed on buildings and footpaths in Woollahra, a suburb known for its Jewish community, in the early hours of Wednesday. A car, believed to be stolen, which the perpetrators drove to the scene was set on fire on Magney Street, NSW police said. Resources have been increased as officers follow all leads, Commissioner Karen Webb told reporters. "What happened last night is disgusting, and there's no place for hate of this nature in Sydney or anywhere in Australia," she said. Premier Chris Minns said it was a hate crime. "A violent act of destruction, clearly anti-Semitic, designed to strike fear into the community that lives in this part of Sydney," he told reporters. The perpetrators, believed to be two males of slim build, aged between 15 and 20, wore face coverings and dark clothing. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was an "anti-Semitic attack". "This isn't an attack on a government, this is an attack on people because they happen to be Jewish," he told ABC radio. "This is a hate crime, it's as simple as that." Mr Albanese said the perpetrators committed "abhorrent criminal behaviour". "This does not change anything that is occurring on the ground in the Middle East," he said. "This is an attack against their fellow Australians." Foreign Minister Penny Wong said acts of hate had no place in Australia and anti-Semitism was condemned wherever it occurred. "Australian Jewish communities have a right to be and feel safe," she said on social media. The attack comes after the Adass Israel Synagogue at Ripponlea in Melbourne's southeast was set alight in a pre-dawn attack on Friday while a number of people were inside. Australian Federal Police have set up a special operation in response to the "likely" act of terrorism, which will investigate threats, violence and hatred towards the Jewish community and parliamentarians. It will also investigate Wednesday's attack, the second recent incident in Woollahra after buildings and vehicles were targeted in November. A ute was set on fire, and multiple cars, a restaurant and other buildings were graffitied with anti-Israel messages. Two men are in custody, charged over that attack. Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said it was designed to terrorise Jewish Australians. "The Jewish community again wakes to scenes of terror and devastation," he said. "How long will this continue and with what horrors will it end?" DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. WEEKLY Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. WEEKLY Love footy? We've got all the action covered. WEEKLY Every Saturday and Tuesday, explore destinations deals, tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe. WEEKLY Going out or staying in? Find out what's on. WEEKDAYS Sharp. Close to the ground. Digging deep. Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs, politics and more. 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