White House says prescription drug deals will produce billions in savings for taxpayers, seniors

WASHINGTON (AP) — Taxpayers are expected to save billions after the Biden administration inked deals with pharmaceutical companies to knock down the lists prices for 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs.

But how much older Americans can expect to save when they fill a prescription at their local pharmacy remains unclear, since the list cost isn't the final price people pay.

After months of negotiations with manufacturers, list prices will be reduced by hundreds — in some cases, thousands — of dollars for 30-day supplies of popular drugs used by millions of people on Medicare, including blood thinners, diabetes drugs and blood cancer medications. The reductions, which range between 38% and 79%, take effect in 2026.

“I've been waiting for this moment for a long long time," President Joe Biden said Thursday, during his first policy-oriented appearance with Vice President Kamala Harris since leaving the presidential race. “We pay more for prescription drugs, it’s not hyperbole, than any advanced nation in the world."

Taxpayers spend more than $50 billion yearly on the 10 drugs, which include popular blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia.

___

As Gaza death toll passes 40,000, corpses are buried in yards, streets, tiered graves

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tiers of graves are stacked deep underground in a bloated Gaza cemetery, where Sa’di Baraka spends his days hacking at the earth, making room for more dead.

“Sometimes we make graves on top of graves,” he said.

Baraka and his solemn corps of volunteer gravediggers in the Deir al-Balah cemetery start at sunrise, digging new trenches or reopening existing ones. The dead can sometimes come from kilometers (miles) away, stretches of Gaza where burial grounds are destroyed or unreachable.

The cemetery is 70 years old. A quarter of its graves are new.

The death toll in Gaza since the beginning of the 10-month-old Israel-Hamas war has passed 40,000, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The count does not distinguish civilians from militants.

___

Mediators hold new Gaza cease-fire talks and hope to head off a wider war

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — International mediators held a new round of talks Thursday aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war and securing the release of scores of hostages, with a potential deal seen as the best hope of heading off an even larger regional conflict.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt met with an Israeli delegation in Qatar as the Palestinian death toll from the more than 10-month-old war climbed past 40,000, according to Gaza health authorities. Hamas, which didn't participate directly in Thursday's talks, accuses Israel of adding new demands to a previous proposal that had U.S. and international support and to which Hamas had agreed in principle.

White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby called the talks an important step and said they’re expected to run into Friday. He said a lot of work remains given the complexity of the agreement and that negotiators were focusing on its implementation.

A cease-fire in Gaza would likely calm tensions across the region. Diplomats hope it would persuade Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah to hold off on retaliating for the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and of Hamas' top political leader in an explosion in Tehran.

Kirby said that Iran has made preparations and could attack soon with little to no warning — and that its rhetoric should be taken seriously.

___

US colleges revise rules on free speech in hopes of containing anti-war demonstrations

NEW YORK (AP) — As students return to colleges across the United States, administrators are bracing for a resurgence in activism against the war in Gaza, and some schools are adopting rules to limit the kind of protests that swept campuses last spring.

While the summer break provided a respite in student demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war, it also gave both student protesters and higher education officials a chance to regroup and strategize for the fall semester.

The stakes remain high. At Columbia University, President Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday after coming under heavy scrutiny for her handling of the demonstrations at the campus in New York City, where the wave of pro-Palestinian tent encampments began last spring.

Some of the new rules imposed by universities include banning encampments, limiting the duration of demonstrations, allowing protests only in designated spaces and restricting campus access to those with university identification. Critics say some of the measures will curtail free speech.

The American Association of University Professors issued a statement Wednesday condemning “overly restrictive policies” that could discourage free expression. Many of the new policies require protesters to register well in advance and strictly limit the locations where gatherings can be held, as well as setting new limits on the use of amplified sound and signage.

___

Venezuela's opposition faces setback after countries suggest repeat of presidential election

SAO PAULO (AP) — Venezuela’s opposition was dealt a blow Thursday when countries that had been pressuring President Nicolás Maduro to release vote tallies backing his claim to victory in last month’s presidential election began suggesting a repeat of the contest instead.

The proposal from the leftist governments of Brazil and Colombia, both Maduro allies, came less than three weeks after the results of the highly anticipated election came into question when the main opposition coalition revealed it has proof that its candidate defeated the president by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

The opposition categorically rejected any plan to redo the election.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, during a virtual news conference with Argentine media, said that repeating the July 28 presidential election would be “an insult” to the people, and she asked if a second election were held and Maduro still didn’t accept the results, “do we go for a third one?”

In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden expressed support for new elections in comments to reporters that the White House later appeared to back away from.

___

Matthew Perry's assistant among 5 people, including 2 doctors, charged in 'Friends' star's death

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Five people including his personal assistant and two doctors have been charged in connection with Matthew Perry's death in what prosecutors called a “broad underground criminal network” dedicated to getting the “Friends” star the powerful surgical anesthetic that killed him.

The doctors preyed on Perry's history of addiction in the final months of his life last year to provide him with ketamine in amounts they knew were dangerous, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said as he announced the charges Thursday.

“They knew what they were doing was wrong,” Estrada said. "They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry. But they did it anyway.”

One doctor even wrote in a text message, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets find out," according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

Perry died in October due to a ketamine overdose and prosecutors said he received several injections on the day he died from his live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who found Perry dead later that day and was the first to talk to investigators.

___

FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday gave his second news conference in as many weeks as he adjusts to a newly energized Democratic ticket ahead of next week's Democratic National Convention.

At his New Jersey golf club, the Republican nominee blended falsehoods about the economy with misleading statements and deeply personal attacks about his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. ... When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. ... Harris and Biden blew it all up.”

THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.

___

TikTok compares itself to foreign-owned American news outlets as it fights forced sale or ban

TikTok on Thursday pushed back against U.S. government arguments that the popular social media platform is not shielded by the First Amendment, comparing its platform to prominent American media organizations owned by foreign entities.

Last month, the Justice Department argued in a legal brief filed in a Washington federal appeals court that neither TikTok's China-based parent company, ByteDance, nor the platform's global and U.S. arms — TikTok Ltd. and TikTok Inc. — were entitled to First Amendment protections because they are “foreign organizations operating abroad” or owned by one.

TikTok attorneys have made the First Amendment a key part of their legal challenge to the federal law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to an approved buyer or face a ban.

On Thursday, they argued in a court document that TikTok’s U.S. arm doesn’t forfeit its constitutional rights because it is owned by a foreign entity. They drew a parallel between TikTok and well-known news outlets such as Politico and Business Insider, both of which are owned by German publisher Axel Springer SE. They also cited Fortune, a business magazine owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon.

“Surely the American companies that publish Politico, Fortune, and Business Insider do not lose First Amendment protection because they have foreign ownership,” the TikTok attorneys wrote, arguing that “no precedent” supports what they called “the government’s dramatic rewriting of what counts as protected speech.”

___

US shoppers sharply boosted spending at retailers in July despite higher prices

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans stepped up their spending at retailers last month by the most in a year and a half, easing concerns that the economy might be weakening under the pressure of higher prices and elevated interest rates.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail sales jumped 1% from June to July, the biggest such increase since January 2023, after having declined slightly the previous month. Auto dealers, electronics and appliance stores and grocery stores all reported strong sales gains.

The July retail sales data provided reassurance that the U.S. economy, while slowing under the pressure of high interest rates, remains resilient. It showed that America’s consumers, the primary driver of economic growth, are still willing to spend.

The prospect of a still-growing economy is likely to be promoted by Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, which is preparing to roll out policies Friday to ban “price gouging" on groceries. On Wednesday, her opponent, former President Donald Trump slammed the economic record of the Biden-Harris administration, though he wildly inflated cost increases on food and monthly mortgage payments.

Other economic data released Thursday was also mostly positive, including a report on first-time applications for unemployment benefits. The figures show that businesses are mainly holding onto their workers and not increasing layoffs.

___

Ukraine gambled on an incursion deep into Russian territory. The bold move changed the battlefield

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's stunning incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region was a bold gamble for the country's military commanders, who committed their limited resources to a risky assault on a nuclear-armed enemy with no assurance of success.

After the first signs of progress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke his silence and spelled out Kyiv’s daily advances to his war-weary public. By Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said they controlled 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of enemy territory, including at least 74 settlements and hundreds of Russian prisoners of war.

But a week after it began, the overall aim of the daring operation is still unclear: Will Ukraine dig in and keep the conquered territory, advance further into Russian territory or pull back?

What is clear is that the incursion has changed the battlefield. The shock of Ukraine’s thunder run revealed chinks in the armor of its powerful adversary. The attack also risked aggravating Ukraine’s own weaknesses by extending the front line and committing new troops at a time when military leaders are short on manpower.

To conduct the Kursk operation, Kyiv deployed battalions drawn from multiple brigades, some of which were pulled from the hottest parts of the front line, where Russia’s advance has continued unabated. So far, Moscow’s overall strategic advantage is intact.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024