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5 Americans flown out of Tehran in a prisoner swap deal with Iran
Five prisoners sought by the U.S. in a swap with Iran flew out of Tehran on Monday, officials said, part of a deal that saw nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets unfrozen.
Despite the deal, tensions are almost certain to remain high between the U.S. and Iran, which are locked in various disputes, including over Tehran's nuclear program. Iran says the program is peaceful, but it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels.
The planned exchange has unfolded amid a major American military buildup in the Persian Gulf, with the possibility of U.S. troops boarding and guarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all oil shipments pass.
Also read: Britain, France and Germany say they will keep their nuclear and missiles sanctions on Iran
Two people, including a senior Biden administration official, said that the prisoners left Tehran on Monday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the exchange was ongoing.
In addition to the five freed Americans, two U.S. family members flew out, according to the Biden administration official.
Flight-tracking data showed a Qatar Airways flight take off from Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, which has been used for exchanges in the past. Several of the former prisoners could be seen climbing the stairs to the flight in video released by Iranian media.
The plane was expected to land in Doha, Qatar. Meanwhile, Nour News, a website believed to be close to Iran's security apparatus, said two of the Iranian prisoners had arrived in Doha for the swap.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that the exchange would take place Monday after nearly $6 billion in once-frozen Iranian assets reached Qatar.
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"Fortunately Iran's frozen assets in South Korea were released and God willing today the assets will start to be fully controlled by the government and the nation," Kanaani said.
"On the subject of the prisoner swap, it will happen today and five prisoners, citizens of the Islamic Republic, will be released from the prisons in the U.S.," he added. "Five imprisoned citizens who were in Iran will be given to the U.S. side."
He said two of the Iranian prisoners will stay in the U.S.
Mohammad Reza Farzin, Iran's Central Bank chief, later came on state television to acknowledge the receipt of over 5.5 billion euros — $5.9 billion — in accounts in Qatar. Months ago, Iran had anticipated getting as much as $7 billion.
The planned exchange comes ahead of the convening of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York, where Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi will speak.
Also read: US military may put armed troops on commercial ships in Strait of Hormuz to stop Iran seizures
The deal has already opened U.S. President Joe Biden to fresh criticism from Republicans and others who say that the administration is helping boost the Iranian economy at a time when Iran poses a growing threat to American troops and Mideast allies. That could have implications in his reelection campaign as well.
On the U.S. side, Washington has said the planned swap includes Siamak Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges; Emad Sharghi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years; and Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence. All of their charges have been widely criticized by their families, activists and the U.S. government.
U.S. officials have so far declined to identify the fourth and fifth prisoner.
The five prisoners Iran has said it seeks are mostly held over allegedly trying to export banned material to Iran, such as dual use electronics that can be used by a military.
The two that Nour News said were in Doha were: Mehrdad Ansari, an Iranian sentenced to 63 months in prison in 2021 for obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles, electronic warfare, nuclear weapons and other military gear, and Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, an Iranian charged in 2021 over allegedly unlawfully exporting laboratory equipment to Iran.
The cash represents money South Korea owed Iran — but had not yet paid — for oil purchased before the U.S. imposed sanctions on such transactions in 2019.
The U.S. maintains that, once in Qatar, the money will be held in restricted accounts and will only be able to be used for humanitarian goods, such as medicine and food. Those transactions are currently allowed under American sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic over its advancing nuclear program.
Iranian government officials have largely concurred with that explanation, though some hard-liners have insisted, without providing evidence, that there would be no restrictions on how Tehran spends the money.
Iran and the U.S. have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Islamic Revolution. Their most recent major exchange happened in 2016, when Iran came to a deal with world powers to restrict its nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions.
The West accuses Iran of using foreign prisoners — including those with dual nationality — as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.
Negotiations over a major prisoner swap faltered after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal in 2018. From the following year on, a series of attacks and ship seizures attributed to Iran have raised tensions.
Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program now enriches closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. While the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to produce "several" bombs, months more would likely be needed to build a weapon and potentially miniaturize it to put it on a missile — if Iran decided to pursue one.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, and the U.S. intelligence community has kept its assessment that Iran is not pursuing an atomic bomb.
Iran has taken steps in recent months to settle some issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the advances in its program have led to fears of a wider regional conflagration as Israel, itself a nuclear power, has said it would not allow Tehran to develop the bomb. Israel bombed both Iraq and Syria to stop their nuclear programs, giving the threat more weight. It also is suspected in carrying out a series of killings targeting Iran's nuclear scientists.
Iran also supplies Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to target sites in Ukraine in its war on Kyiv, which remains another major dispute between Tehran and Washington
Special UN summit, protests, week of talk turn up heat on fossil fuels and global warming
The heat is about to be turned up on fossil fuels, the United States and President Joe Biden.
As a record-smashing and deadly hot summer draws to a close, the United Nations and the city that hosts it are focusing on climate change and the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that causes it. It features a special U.N. summit and a week of protests and talk-heavy events involving leaders from business, health, politics and the arts. Even a royal prince — William — is getting in on the action.
Also read: This summer was a global record breaker for the highest heat ever measured, meteorologists say
The annual Climate Week, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly, kicks off Sunday with tens of thousands of people expected in the “March to End Fossil Fuels” Manhattan rally, one of hundreds of worldwide protests.
This week “is the start of an incredible pressure cooker that we are all part of,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is coming from the top down, from that chief of the United Nations and now it is coming from bottom up in over 400 distributed actions across the world.”
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Much of the heat is coming from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is convening a new Climate Ambition Summit on Wednesday that has a special twist: Only leaders from nations that bring new and meaningful action will be allowed to speak. And the U.N. isn’t saying yet who will get that chance.
It won’t be Biden, who is speaking Tuesday at the U.N., the White House said. Nor will it be the leaders of China, the United Kingdom, Russia or France – all major players in the development and use of fossil fuels -- who won’t even be in New York.
Guterres has repeatedly aimed his criticism at fossil fuels, calling them “incompatible with human survival.” He and scientific reports out of the United Nations have emphasized that the only way to curb warming and meet international goals is to “phase out” fossil fuels.
Phase-out is a term that world leaders in past climate negotiations and meetings of large economic powers have refused to back, instead opting for watered-down phrases such as “phase down” of unabated coal, allowing fossil use if its emissions are somehow captured and stored. The president of the upcoming international climate negotiations in Dubai is an oil executive from the United Arab Emirates and will be speaking at Wednesday’s summit, though his dual role has upset activists and some scientists.
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“This really is an unprecedented soft power moment where the U.N. chief is throwing fossil fuels into the limelight and forcing heads of states to respond,” Su said. “Whether it’s yes or no, he’s at least forcing them to respond as to will you commit to no new fossil fuel development in line with climate science?”
But U.N. chiefs have little real power, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a climate scientist.
“They can talk. They can persuade. They can from time-to-time constructively criticize and that’s all the tools that he’s got,” Hare said. “The U.N. secretary-general has moral authority and he’s using that.”
Guterres “can shame leaders who show up with pitiful offers in terms of climate action,” said Power Shift Africa Director Mohamed Adow, a longtime climate diplomacy observer. “We’ve got to a point where we can no longer be able to afford the velvet glove diplomacy.”
Guterres will ask nations to accelerate their efforts to rid themselves of carbon-based energy, with the richest nations that can afford it going first and faster, and providing financial aid to the poorer nations that can’t afford it, said Selwin Hart, Guterres’ special adviser for climate action.
“We know the use of fossil fuels is the main cause of the climate crisis, coal, oil and gas,” Hart said Friday. “We need to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. But it must be just, fair and equitable.”
But the same 20 richest economies who promise to slice carbon emissions “are now issuing new oil and gas licensing at a time when the (International Energy Agency and the science-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has clearly stated that this is incompatible with the 1.5 degree (Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) goal of the Paris Agreement,” Hart said.
Yet speeding to net zero emissions of carbon requires rapid and huge reshaping of the energy landscape that “could inflict serious harm on the economy,” American Energy Alliance President Thomas Pyle said last month.
Environmental activists calculate that five rich northern countries – the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway and the United Kingdom – that talk about cutting back emissions are responsible for more than half of the planned expansion of oil and gas drilling through 2050. The United States accounts for more than one-third.
So activists and protesters at Sunday’s march say they are aiming their frustration – and pressure - at Biden and America.
However, Biden has repeatedly trumpeted last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $375 billion to fight climate change, mostly on solar panels, energy efficiency, air pollution controls and emission-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-fueled power plants.
“They want to be seen as the good guys, but the fact is they have very little to back it up,” said Brandon Wu, policy director at ActionAid USA. He pointed to the new drilling plans and said the United States has failed to deliver on its promised climate-based financial aid to poor countries and has not increased its money pledges like other nations.
“How much carnage does the planet have to suffer for global leaders to act?” Su said. “We want President Biden and other major oil gas producers to phase out fossil fuels.”
US House of Representatives to open Biden impeachment inquiry
Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday he is directing a House committee to open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his family's business dealings, launching historic proceedings ahead of the 2024 election.
McCarthy said the House Oversight Committee's investigation so far has found a “culture of corruption” around the Biden family as Republicans probe the business dealings of Biden's son, Hunter Biden, from before the Democratic president took office.
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“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said outside the speaker's office at the Capitol. "That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.”
The announcement comes as the Republican leader faces mounting pressure from his right flank to take action against Biden while he also is struggling to pass legislation needed to avoid a federal government shutdown at the end of the month.
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An inquiry is step toward impeachment, and McCarthy essentially outlined potential charges. He is is planning to convene lawmakers behind closed doors multiple times this week, including for a meeting to discuss the Biden impeachment.
The Republican leader is once again at a political crossroads — trying to keep his most conservative lawmakers satisfied and prevent his own ouster. It’s a familiar political bind for McCarthy, who is juggling the impeachment inquiry and the government shutdown threat with no clear end game.
Also read: What's coming in impeachment: Public hearings, messaging
Government funding is to run out on Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, and Congress must pass new funding bills or risk a shutdown and the interruption of government services.
Biden’s White House has dismissed the impeachment push as politically motivated.
“Speaker McCarthy shouldn’t cave to the extreme, far-right members who are threatening to shut down the government unless they get a baseless, evidence-free impeachment of President Biden. The consequences for the American people are too serious,” White House spokesman Ian Sams has said.
The impeachment push comes as Trump, who was twice impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, faces more serious charges in court. Trump has been indicted four times this year, including for trying to overturn the 2020 election Biden won.
"This is a transparent effort to boost Donald Trump’s campaign by establishing a false moral equivalency between Trump — the four time-indicted former president" and Biden, who faces “zero evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
House Republicans are probing the business dealings of Hunter Biden but so far have not produced hard evidence linking them and the president. They have shown a few instances largely during the time the elder Biden was Barack Obama's vice president when he spoke by phone with his son and stopped by dinners his son was hosting with business partners.
An impeachment inquiry would provide more heft to the House investigation, especially as it battles in court for access to Biden family financial records.
Republicans contend the Justice Department has not fully probed the allegations against Hunter Biden, and say he received preferential treatment in what they call a sweetheart plea deal that recently collapsed. The Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor in that probe.
"We will go wherever the evidence takes us,” McCarthy said.
The White House has insisted Biden was not involved in his son’s business dealings. And Democrats on the Oversight Committee are stepping up to fight against what they view as unfounded claims against him ahead of the 2024 election.
Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman leading the Oversight Committee, is digging into the Biden family finances and is expected to seek banking records for Hunter Biden as the panel tries to follow the flow of money.
On Tuesday, Comer demanded the State Department produce documents about the work Biden did as vice president during the Obama administration to clean up corruption in Ukraine. Comer wants to understand the State Department's views of former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whom Biden and many Western allies wanted removed from office because of allegations of corruption.
This comes as federal government funding is set to run out on Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal fiscal year, and Congress must pass new funding bills or risk a shutdown and the interruption of government services.
Conservatives who power McCarty's majority want to slash spending, and the hard right is unwilling to approve spending levels the speaker negotiated with Biden earlier this year.
McCarthy is trying to float a 30-day stopgap measure to keep government running to Nov. 1, but conservatives are balking at what's called a continuing resolution, or CR, as they pursue cuts.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said late Monday exiting McCarthy's office she has “red lines" against any new money being spent for COVID-19 vaccines or mandates or Russia's war in Ukraine.
Another Republican, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a top Trump ally, is warning that McCarthy could face blowback from conservatives if he does not push hard for spending cuts.
At the start of the year, Gaetz and other Republicans secured agreements from McCarthy as he struggled to win their votes to become House speaker.
Under the House rules, McCarthy's opponents are able to call a vote at any time to try to oust the speaker from office.
Eileen Donahoe appointed US State Dept’s special envoy, coordinator for Digital Freedom
Eileen C Donahoe has been appointed as the US State Department’s special envoy and coordinator for Digital Freedom.
“I welcome the appointment of Dr Eileen Donahoe as the State Department’s special envoy and coordinator for Digital Freedom in the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy,” said US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken on Monday.
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The president’s appointment of Dr Donahoe reinforces the importance of digital freedom and values-based technology governance work as Administration and Department priorities, he said, adding that as Special Envoy and Coordinator, Dr Donahoe will leverage her deep technical knowledge and foreign policy experience to advance US priorities around online freedoms, digital inclusion, and information integrity.
“Dr Donahoe has built a distinguished career promoting human rights and digital freedom both within and outside of government and is uniquely qualified to lead in this role. She joins us from the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where she served as the Executive Director,” said Blinken.
Also read: All countries including Bangladesh should have free and fair elections: US State Dept
Dr Donahoe previously served as the first US ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
She was also Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with a special focus on Internet governance and digital security.
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“We are excited to welcome Dr. Donahue back to the State Department in this important leadership role,” Blinken said.
First lady Jill Biden tests positive for COVID-19, but President Biden's results negative so far
First lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 Monday but is experiencing only mild symptoms, her spokeswoman said.
President Joe Biden was tested for the virus following his wife's positive test, but his results were negative. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president would continue testing regularly and would be monitored for symptoms.
Jill Biden will remain at the couple's home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the time being, communications director Elizabeth Alexander said. The first lady had planned to start the new school year Tuesday at Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches English and writing.
Due to her condition, she was working with school officials to arrange substitute teachers for her classes, Alexander said.
The first lady had traveled with her husband to Florida on Saturday to inspect the damage from Hurricane Idalia. President Biden then spent part of the Labor Day weekend at the Delaware beach house before traveling Monday to a union event in Philadelphia and then back to the White House.
The Bidens both contracted COVID previously, last summer.
Election workers have gotten death threats and warnings they will be lynched, US government says
More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote.
Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and spreading conspiracy theories about election workers. Experts fear the 2024 election could be worse and want the federal government to do more to protect election workers.
The Justice Department created the Election Threats Task Force in 2021 led by its public integrity section, which investigates election crimes. John Keller, the unit's second in command, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the department hoped its prosecutions would deter others from threatening election workers.
Also read: All countries including Bangladesh should have free and fair elections: US State Dept
"This isn't going to be taken lightly. It's not going to be trivialized," he said. "Federal judges, the courts are taking misconduct seriously and the punishments are going to be commensurate with the seriousness of the conduct."
Two more men pleaded guilty Thursday to threatening election workers in Arizona and Georgia in separate cases. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would keep up the investigations, adding, "A functioning democracy requires that the public servants who administer our elections are able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives."
The unit has filed 14 cases and two have resulted in yearslong prison sentences, including a 2 1/2-year sentence Monday for Mark Rissi, an Iowa man charged with leaving a message threatening to "lynch" and "hang" an Arizona election official. He had been "inundated with misinformation" and now "feels horrible" about the messages he left, his lawyer Anthony Knowles said.
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A Texas man was given 3 1/2 years earlier this month after suggesting a "mass shooting of poll workers and election officials" last year, charges stated. In one message, the Justice Department said, the man wrote: "Someone needs to get these people AND their children. The children are the most important message to send." His lawyer did not return a message seeking comment.
One indictment unveiled in August was against a man accused of leaving an expletive-filled voicemail after the 2020 election for Tina Barton, a Republican who formerly was the clerk in Rochester Hills, Michigan, outside Detroit. According to the indictment, the person vowed that "a million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it" and "we'll … kill you."
Barton said it was just one of many threats that left her feeling deeply anxious.
"I'm really hopeful the charges will send a strong message, and we won't find ourselves in the same position after the next election," she said.
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Normally, the periods between elections are quiet for the workers who run voting systems around the U.S. But for many, that's no longer true, said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who has pushed back against conspiracy theories surrounding elections.
"I anticipate it will get worse as we end this year and go into the presidential election next year," Griswold said.
Griswold said the threats come in "waves," usually following social media posts by prominent figures about false claims the 2020 election was stolen or blog posts on far-right websites. While the nation is more informed about the threats to election workers, she worries that there haven't been enough prosecutions and states haven't taken enough action to protect workers.
"Do we have the best tools to get through the next period of time? Absolutely not," Griswold said.
Election officials note that there have been thousands of threats nationwide yet relatively few prosecutions. They say they understand the high bar to actually prosecute a case but that more could be done.
Liz Howard, a former Virginia election official now at the Brennan Center for Justice's elections and government program, called on the Justice Department to hire a senior adviser with existing relationships with election officials to improve outreach.
About 1 in 5 election workers know someone who left their election job for safety reasons and 73% of local election officials said harassment has increased, according to a Brennan Center survey published in April.
The task force has reviewed more than 2,000 reports of threats and harassment across the country since its inception, though most of those cases haven't brought charges from prosecutors who point to the high legal bar set by the Supreme Court for criminal prosecution. Communication must be considered a "true threat," one that crosses a line to a serious intent to hurt someone, in order to be a potential crime rather than free speech, Keller said.
"We are not criminalizing or frankly discouraging free speech by actions that we're taking from a law enforcement perspective," he said.
The task force's work is unfolding at a time when Trump and other Republicans have accused the Biden administration of using the Justice Department to target political opponents, although the task force itself hasn't been targeted publicly by Republicans.
Many GOP leaders have sharply criticized the federal prosecutions of Trump and of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump himself faces a federal indictment in Washington, D.C., and a state indictment in Georgia over his efforts to overturn 2020 election results. He has denied wrongdoing and said he was acting within the law. A series of federal and state investigations and dozens of lawsuits have not uncovered any evidence the election was rigged.
Trump is the front-runner for the GOP nomination for president in 2024 and continues in his speeches and online posts to argue the 2020 election was rigged.
For many election workers, the threats have been a major driving factor to leave the job, hollowing out the ranks of experience ahead of 2024, said Dokhi Fassihian, the deputy chief of strategy and program at Issue One, a nonpartisan reform group representing election officials.
About 1 in 5 election officials in 2024 will have begun service after the 2020 election, the Brennan Center survey found.
"Many are deciding it's just not worth it to stay," Fassihian said.
Biden administration to target drugs for price negotiations to lower Medicare costs
President Joe Biden's administration will announce on Tuesday the first prescription drugs being targeted by the U.S. government for price negotiations as part of an effort to lower Medicare costs.
The announcement is a significant step under the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed by Biden last year. The law requires the federal government for the first time to start negotiating directly with companies about the prices they charge for some of Medicare's most expensive drugs.
The process has drawn legal challenges from drugmakers and heavy criticism from Republicans in Congress. It's also a centerpiece of Biden's reelection pitch as he seeks a second term in office by touting his work to lower costs for Americans at a time when the country has struggled with inflation.
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Biden plans to deliver a speech on health care costs from the White House after the announcement. He'll be joined by Vice President Kamala Harris.
More than 52 million people who are either 65 or older or have certain severe disabilities or illnesses get prescription drug coverage through Medicare's Part D program, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS.
About 9% of Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and older said in 2021 that they did not fill a prescription or skipped a drug dose due to cost, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund, which studies health care issues.
CMS aims to negotiate the lowest maximum fair price for drugs on the list released Tuesday. That could help some patients who have coverage but still face big bills like high deductible payments when they get a prescription.
Currently, pharmacy benefit managers that run Medicare prescription plans negotiate rebates off a drug's price. Those rebates sometimes help reduce premiums customers pay for coverage. But they may not change what a patient spends at the pharmacy counter.
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The new drug price negotiations aim "to basically make drugs more affordable while also still allowing for profits to be made," said Gretchen Jacobson, who researches Medicare issues at Commonwealth.
Drug companies that refuse to be a part of the new negotiation process will be heavily taxed.
The pharmaceutical industry has been gearing up for months to fight these rules. Already, the plan faces several lawsuits, including complaints filed by drugmakers Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb and a key lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA.
PhRMA said in a federal court complaint filed earlier this year that the act forces drugmakers to agree to a "government-dictated price" under the threat of a heavy tax and gives too much price-setting authority to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
PhRMA representatives also have said pharmacy benefit managers can still restrict access to drugs with negotiated prices by moving the drugs to a tier of their formulary — a list of covered drugs — that would require higher out-of-pocket payments. Pharmacy benefit managers also could require patients to try other drugs first or seek approval before a prescription can be covered.
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Republican lawmakers also have blasted the Biden administration for its plan, saying companies might pull back on introducing new drugs that could be subjected to future haggling. They've also questioned whether the government knows enough to suggest prices for drugs.
CMS will start its negotiations on drugs for which it spends the most money. The drugs also must be ones that don't have generic competitors and are approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
CMS plans to meet this fall with drugmakers that have a drug on its list, and government officials say they also plan to hold patient-focused listening sessions. By February 2024, the government will make its first offer on a maximum fair price and then give drugmakers time to respond.
Any negotiated prices won't take hold until 2026. More drugs could be added to the program in the coming years.
Shootings kill 8 within a week in U.S., prompting renewed concern over gun violence
In the past week, several shootings in the U.S. states of Kentucky, Florida, and California have claimed eight lives, not including the shooters.
Most recently, on Sunday early morning, a shooting occurred at a restaurant in downtown Louisville, the U.S. state of Kentucky, killing one and injuring six.
No arrests have been made. Police are asking the public with information on the suspect or suspects to call their anonymous tip line, according to local media.
On Saturday afternoon, a racially motivated shooting at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, the U.S. state of Florida, left at least four people dead, including the shooter.
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The shooting happened blocks away from Edward Waters University, a historically black college.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said in a press conference that the victims -- two men and one woman -- were all black people.
The 21-year-old white gunman Ryan Palmeter lived in Clay County, Florida, with his parents.
He committed shooting with a high-powered rifle and a handgun, wearing a tactical vest, according to police. U.S. media reported Palmeter bought these weapons legally despite a past involuntary commitment for a mental health exam.
He left behind what the sheriff described as three manifestos outlining his "disgusting ideology of hate" and his motive for the attack.
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Palmeter, who shot himself after the attack, was believed to have acted alone, according to police.
"We must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America," U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday.
On Sunday evening, hundreds of people gathered at prayer vigils and in church for Jacksonville shooting victims.
Local media reported Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for the GOP nomination for president, was loudly booed as he addressed the vigil. He signed a bill in April to allow anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida to carry one without a permit.
The shooting date coincides with the fifth anniversary of a racist crime in Jacksonville, when another gunman opened fire during a video game tournament, killing two people before fatally shooting himself.
The shooting also coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, a landmark civil rights event in the U.S. capital.
Read: Authorities say 4 people dead in shooting at California biker bar
Another shooting took place on Wednesday evening, in which retired Ventura police sergeant John Snowling, 59, shot dead three people and himself and injured six, at a historic biker bar in Trabuco Canyon, 90 km south of downtown Los Angeles.
Among the wounded was the shooter's wife Marie Snowling, who was his intended target, officials have said. Marie's dining companion was found shot dead on the scene.
When sheriff's deputies arrived minutes after the shooting began, Snowling began shooting at the deputies, who then returned fire and killed him, police said.
Marie Snowling filed for divorce in December 2022. Under California community property laws, she would have been in line for half of John Snowling's pension accrued during their years of marriage.
Gun violence has been a divisive and deadly issue in U.S. society for long. Deaths from gun-related injuries have been on successive increase in the United States since 2004, with 2021 hitting a record high of 48,830, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Aug. 1, more than 25,000 people had died from gun violence in the United States this year, which is an average of roughly 118 deaths each day, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Among the deaths, 879 were teens and 170 were children.
Global inflation pressures could become harder to manage in coming years, research suggests
Rising trade barriers. Aging populations. A broad transition from carbon-spewing fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The prevalence of such trends across the world could intensify global inflation pressures in the coming years and make it harder for the Federal Reserve and other central banks to meet their inflation targets.
That concern was a theme sounded in several high-profile speeches and economic studies presented Friday and Saturday at the Fed’s annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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For decades, the global economy had been moving toward greater integration, with goods flowing more freely between the United States and its trading partners. Lower-wage production overseas allowed Americans to enjoy inexpensive goods and kept inflation low, though at the expense of many U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Since the pandemic, though, that trend has shown signs of reversing. Multinational corporations have been shifting their supply chains away from China. They are seeking instead to produce more items — particularly semiconductors, crucial for the production of autos and electronic goods — in the United States, with the encouragement of massive subsidies by the Biden administration.
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At the same time, large-scale investments in renewable energies could prove disruptive, at least temporarily, by increasing government borrowing and demand for raw materials, thereby heightening inflation. Much of the world's population is aging, and older people are less likely to keep working. Those trends could act as supply shocks, similar to the shortages of goods and labor that accelerated inflation during the rebound from the pandemic recession.
“The new environment sets the stage for larger relative price shocks than we saw before the pandemic,” Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, said in a speech Friday. “If we face both higher investment needs and greater supply constraints, we are likely to see stronger price pressures in markets like commodities — especially for the metals and minerals that are crucial for green technologies.”
This would complicate the work of the ECB, the Fed and other central banks whose mandates are to keep price increases in check. Nearly all central banks are still struggling to curb the high inflation that intensified starting in early 2021 and has only partly subsided.
“We are living in this world in which we could expect to have more and maybe bigger supply shocks,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said in an interview. “All of these things tend to make it harder to produce stuff and make it more costly. And that is definitely the configuration that central banks dislike the most.”
The shifting patterns in global trade patterns sparked the most attention during Saturday's discussions at the Jackson Hole conference. A paper presented by Laura Alfaro, an economist at Harvard Business School, found that after decades of growth, China's share of U.S. imports fell 5% from 2017 to 2022. Her research attributed the decline to tariffs imposed by the United States and the efforts of large U.S. companies to find other sources of goods and parts after China's pandemic shutdowns disrupted its output.
Those imports came largely from such other countries as Vietnam, Mexico and Taiwan, which have better relations with the United States than does China — a trend known as “friendshoring.”
Read more: Persistent inflation, rising interest rates will weigh on global economy, OECD predicts
Despite all the changes, U.S. imports reached an all-time high in 2022, suggesting that overall trade has remained high.
“We are not deglobalizing yet,” Alfaro said. “We are seeing a looming ‘Great Reallocation' " as trade patterns shift.
She noted that there are also tentative signs of “reshoring” — the return of some production to the United States. Alfaro said the United States is importing more parts and unfinished goods than it did before the pandemic, evidence that more final assembly is occurring domestically. And the decline of U.S. manufacturing jobs, she said, appears to have bottomed out.
Yet Alfaro cautioned that these changes bring downsides as well: In the past five years, the cost of goods from Vietnam has increased about 10% and from Mexico about 3%, adding to inflationary pressures.
In addition, she said, China has boosted its investment in factories in Vietnam and Mexico. Moreover, other countries that ship goods to the United States also import parts from China. Those developments suggest that the United States hasn't necessarily reduced its economic ties with China.
Read more: UK inflation falls to lowest level in over a year but food prices keep decline in check
At the same time, some global trends could work in the other direction and cool inflation in the coming years. One such factor is weakening growth in China, the world's second-largest economy after the United States. With its economy struggling, China will buy less oil, minerals and other commodities, a trend that should put downward pressure on the global costs of those goods.
Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan, said during a discussion Saturday that while China's sputtering growth is “disappointing," it stems mainly from rising defaults in its bloated property sector, rather than changes to trade patterns.
Ueda also criticized the increased use of subsidies to support domestic manufacturing, as the United States had done in the past two years.
“The widespread use of industrial policy globally could just lead to inefficient factories,” Ueda said, because they wouldn't necessarily be located in the most cost-effective sites.
Read more: Economists wary about finance minister’s 6 percent inflation target for FY24
And Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, defended globalization and also denounced rising subsidies and trade barriers. Global trade, she asserted, often restrains inflation and has helped significantly reduce poverty.
“Predictable trade," she said, "is a source of disinflationary pressure, reduced market volatility and increased economic activity. ...Economic fragmentation would be painful.”
3 US Marines killed, 20 injured in an aircraft crash in Australia during a training exercise
A United States Marine Corps aircraft crashed on a north Australian island Sunday, killing three Marines and injuring 20 during a multination training exercise officials said.
Three had been confirmed dead on Melville Island and five of the 23 on board were flown in serious condition 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the mainland city of Darwin for hospital treatment after the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft crashed around 9:30 a.m. local time, a statement from the Marines said.
“Recovery efforts are ongoing,” the statement said, adding the cause of the crash was under investigation.
Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft had been deployed to return from the remote location with the rest of the injured, Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy said.
One of the injured was undergoing surgery at the Royal Darwin Hospital, Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said around six hours after the crash..
Read: PM mourns loss of lives in China aircraft crash
Some were critically injured and were being triaged on arrival at Darwin's airport, she said.
"We acknowledge that this is a terrible incident,” Fyles said. “The Northern Territory government stands by to offer whatever assistance is required."
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said only Americans were injured in the crash when happened during Exercise Predators Run, which involves the militaries of the United States, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.
“The initial reports suggest that the incident involves just U.S. defense force personnel,” Albanese said.
“Our focus as a government and as the department of defense is very much on incident response and on making sure that every support and assistance is given at this difficult time,” he added.
Melville is part of the Tiwi Islands, which along with Darwin are the focus of the exercise that involves 2,500 troops.
Read: Light aircraft crashes in Russia
The Osprey that crashed was one of two that had flown from Darwin to Melville on Sunday, Murphy said.
Around 150 U.S. Marines are currently based in Darwin and up to 2,500 rotate through the city every year.
The U.S. military was also taking part in a multination military exercise in July when four Australia personnel were killed in an army MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crash off the northeast Australian coast.
Read more: 2 killed as aircraft crashes during pesticide spray in Pakistan