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Federal judge won’t block Medicare from negotiating drug prices

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

(CNN) — A federal court judge in Ohio denied Friday an attempt by the US Chamber of Commerce to immediately stop the Biden administration’s implementation of Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program.The ruling was the first time a federal court has weighed in on the multiple lawsuits filed against the controversial program.The chamber filed a lawsuit in June arguing that allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is unconstitutional for several reasons. It then asked for a preliminary injunction to halt the program by October 1, when drug makers have to agree to participate in the program.“As to Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, they have demonstrated neither a strong likelihood of success nor irreparable harm,” wrote Judge Michael Newman of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, in Dayton.“Any economic harm — which, on its own, is insufficient to satisfy this prong of a preliminary injunction analysis — will not occur for years in the futu...

1 dead, 1 in hospital after breaching whale capsizes boat in Australia

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

(CNN) — One man is dead and another in hospital after a boat reportedly struck by a whale capsized in waters off Sydney, Australia, early Saturday morning local time.Police responded to reports that two people were in the water just outside the headland past Botany Bay around 6 a.m. local time, said New South Wales Water Police Acting Superintendent Siobhan Munro.“When police arrived, the two male persons from a vessel were rescued,” Munro said, adding that one of them had “been confirmed as deceased.”“Early reports are that a whale may have breached near the boat or onto the boat,” she said.The vessel has been recovered and will undergo forensic testing, Munro added.The incident occurred on the first day of National Safe Boating Week in Australia, which runs from September 30 to October 6. A key focus of the initiative by Australia & New Zealand Safe Boating Education Group is lifejackets.CNN affiliate Channel 7 reported that it was unclear if the two men involved in the a...

Jack Osbourne goes hunting for ghosts in new Travel Channel series ‘Night of Terror’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

There are some crazy scary places all over this country. We don’t mean our Deco Drive office, but places like abandoned prisons and mansions.Jack Osbourne goes on ghost hunts inside these creepy places. His show, “Night of Terror” premieres on the Travel Channel on Sunday, and we have a sneak peek.Jack Osbourne: “Everything you shouldn’t do in a horror movie, we’re about to do.”Jack Osbourne is serving up a scary size of screams in his new show, “Night of Terror.”Jack Osbourne: “This season, I bring along friends and family to do ghost hunts. We go to some pretty crazy places.”Places like an insane asylum and an old prison.Jack Osbourne: “I’m bringing my mother, Sharon Osbourne, to a stately inn that hides a dark history of death.”But there was a real-life scare for the whole Osbourne gang, and it was all caught on camera with the premiere episode.Jack Osbourne: “Mom? Mom?”News anchor: &#...

Rising star Durand Jones gets personal on new album

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

Durand Jones wrote a letter to himself as a teenager, a letter to himself and to every kid growing up in the rural South. Jones didn’t drop the missive in the mail but laid it to wax — 12 songs that unfold, bloom and cry, on new LP “Wait Til I Get Over.”The singer and songwriter from tiny Hillaryville, Louisiana, thinks about everyone the letter is addressed to.“I think of that kid within me, still with me to this day, that kid that always wanted to do this,” Jones told the Herald from a tour van crossing the Canadian border. “I think of that kid and I tell him, tell myself, dream bigger than any dream anyone can have for you. Even if it’s just one nerdy kid out in the rural South, I just want them to know that if I can do it, they can too.”No one can do what Jones does, he’s a wonderfully unique artist, but his point is taken.“Wait Til I Get Over” looks back at Jones’ teen years of the 2000s growing up in Hillaryville. It’s full of honest admissions —  “That Feeling” is his ode to ...

Editorial: AI helping in the battle against retail theft

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

It’s no secret that retail theft has skyrocketed since the pandemic. We’ve all seen the alarming videos of criminal gangs attacking stores, cleaning out shelves and walking off with no apparent consequences.This year, U.S. merchants expect to report a stunning $100 billion in losses — a big increase over pre-pandemic levels.At this month’s convention for Ace Hardware, exhibitor Laura Freeman of Watcher Total Protection had talked herself hoarse by the end of the opening day. Aggrieved store owners crowded her booth to quiz her about her company’s security systems, which are augmented with artificial intelligence.AI is coming to the rescue of merchants, for better or worse. “We will see a lot more AI for shoplifter protection,” said Freeman. “You’ll see more and more where the system does the work.”The old days of dumb cameras recording thieves in action for review after the fact have given way to smart systems that can detect illegal activity as it happens and send instant text aler...

Cockerton: It’s time to re-envision foster care in America

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

“When a child goes into foster care, the government is looking after its greatest asset.”– Poet Lemn SissayOr is it?Here in America, where the government spends $30 billion annually on foster care, nearly 25,000 young people “age out” of foster care every year without family and community connections. These kids are thus placed at high risk of becoming the next generation of poor and homeless Americans.Twenty-five thousand young people “aging out” annually. Add to that the 450,000 children living in foster care. Kids in the foster care pipeline who are at risk of not reunifying with their families, languishing in the system, and “aging out” to homelessness, teen parenting, incarceration, and unemployment.This is a public health crisis that calls for visionary leadership, swift action, and widespread investment in foster care innovation.Who better to lead us forward than nationally recognized leaders who have lived in foster care and know firsthand what kids and families ...

Carpenter: Jones Act, offshore wind opportunity for Mass.

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

President Biden’s recent shipyard visit for the inaugural steel-cutting of a critical vessel that will join the growing U.S. flagged offshore wind fleet underscores that America is on the verge of something historic: the dawn of the American offshore wind industry, and with it a generational opportunity for clean energy and American jobs, built on an American supply chain that benefits workers. And the Jones Act – the “buy American” law requiring vessels moving cargo between points in the U.S. to be owned, built, and crewed by Americans – is playing a critical role in making U.S. offshore wind production a reality in Massachusetts and elsewhere.Of the 32 active U.S. offshore wind development leases, 29 are on the East Coast and 10 are in New England. Massachusetts has three active projects – Vineyard Wind, Commonwealth Wind, and SouthCoast Wind – and three Massachusetts utilities already have purchase agreements to buy power from Vineyard Wind.Supporting these projects requires the ...

Lowry: Skipping the debates working for Trump

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

Woody Allen said 90% of life is showing up. Donald Trump is proving that he overshot the mark considerably.The former president has paid no discernible price for skipping the Republican debates. Arguably, he’s been winning them by diminishing the rest of the field through his absence, while his polling has held steady or gone up a little.The latest forum, at the Reagan Library, will not be long remembered, or perhaps remembered at all.The candidates tended either to overpromise about what they’d do as president in frenzied, rapid-fire fashion, or to talk over one another in squabbles difficult to watch or listen to.If Trump was hoping that, if he failed to show, his opponents would tear at each other in pursuit of marginal advantage in the race for second, third or fourth place, it hardly could have gone better.In fact, it went so swimmingly that one of Trump’s advisors took the opportunity to announce that he won’t show up for the third debate, scheduled for...

Dear Abby: Co-worker moves up, reader stays put

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

Dear Abby: I applied to be a supervisor at the company where I work. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job. One of my co-workers, who held the same position I did (though with significantly fewer years of experience at the company), was given the job instead. Initially, I tried to shrug it off and continued working as usual. Unfortunately, I find I am no longer able to do that.Since this co-worker is now my boss, I sometimes receive dictation/instruction from them, which makes me uncomfortable. I have begun to feel jealous — I’ll acknowledge that. I have worked here for 10 years now, and the fact that I haven’t been able to move into a higher position has weighed me down. For financial reasons, I can’t resign. Somehow, I have to make this new reality work. How do I rid myself of these feelings of jealousy and learn to proceed with my new boss? — Stuck at Work in the WestDear Stuck: One way to do that would be to remind yourself regularly why you are...

One dead in Mira Mesa house fire

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:43:52 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- One person was killed in a house fire Friday in the Mira Mesa neighborhood, authorities said.The blaze occurred around 6:30 p.m. in the 11000 block of Eridanus Court, Mark Reece, a battalion chief with San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD), told FOX 5.Firefighters battled a heavy fire in the second floor bedroom of a two-story home, per SDFD. When they extinguished the fire, first responders found a deceased person. Smugglers damage trucks waiting to cross US border Thanh Nguyen lives in the home, but he was at work when the fire happened. He says his wife called him to rush home when the fire happened.Nguyen said four other tenants live in the home, as well as his wife and five-year-old daughter. He confirmed one of the tenants, who Nguyen said had just got back from the hospital Friday, died in the fire.Another tenant said the tenant who died had a walker and couldn't walk too well. The fire is currently under investigation.