The Political Thread

[Grimoire Lenin]

Yeah and of the three frontrunners for the new leader, the youngest is 68.

 

[Chris]

Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company

The attack on Change Healthcare has upended the lives and work of patients, doctors and pharmacists due to outages in systems used for medical billing and insurance claims.

www.nbcnews.com

Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week.

Change Healthcare, a little-known but critical subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, detected the attack on Feb. 21. Since then, pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims.

Disruptions to co-pay assistance and coupon card processing at pharmacies, in particular, have highlighted key vulnerabilities in a system on which people’s lives depend.

 

[Chris]

'Rust' armorer found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in on-set shooting

Prosecutors told jurors that "Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez's negligence led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during closing arguments on Wednesday.

abcnews.go.com

"Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal on-set shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The jury deliberated for more than two hours on Wednesday before reaching a verdict.

Prosecutors told jurors that Gutierrez "repeatedly" failed to maintain proper firearm safety and that her negligence led to the death of Hutchins, while the defense countered that the 26-year-old is a "convenient scapegoat" during closing arguments in the trial on Wednesday.

 

[Chris]

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1235907160/alabama-lawmakers-pass-ivf-immunity-legislation

The Alabama State Legislature passed a bill Wednesday granting civil and criminal immunity for in vitro fertilization service providers and receivers.

The legislation is designed to allow patients and clinics to immediately restart IVF treatments in Alabama, without fear of legal repercussions if embryos are damaged or destroyed during the medical procedure or related services like embryo storage and shipment.

Many clinics paused IVF services last month after the procedure was thrown into uncertain legal territory by the state Supreme Court's ruling that frozen embryos are "children" with a constitutional right to life.

 

[Chris]

Profound Damage Found in Maine Gunman’s Brain, Possibly From Blasts

A laboratory found a pattern of cell damage that has been seen in veterans exposed to weapons blasts, and said it probably played a role in symptoms the gunman displayed before the shooting.

www.nytimes.com

A specialized laboratory examining the brain of the gunman who committed Maine’s deadliest mass shooting found profound brain damage of the kind that has been seen in veterans exposed to repeated blasts from weapons use.

The lab’s findings were included in an autopsy report that was compiled by the Maine chief medical examiner’s office and released by the gunman’s family.

The gunman, Robert Card, was a grenade instructor in the Army Reserve. In 2023, after eight years of being exposed to thousands of skull-shaking blasts on the training range, he began hearing voices and was stalked by paranoid delusions, his family said. He grew increasingly erratic and violent in the months before the October rampage in Lewiston, in which he killed 18 people and then himself.

 

[Chris]

Xcel Energy says its facilities may have started Texas’ largest wildfire in history

The cause of the Smokehouse Creek fire is still under investigation by Texas officials, but the utility company said it is also conducting its own review.

www.nbcnews.com

Xcel Energy facilities “appear to have been involved in an ignition” of a giant wildfire that’s been blazing across the Texas Panhandle since last month, the company said in a statement Thursday.

The cause of the Smokehouse Creek fire — the biggest in state history, burning well over 1 million acres — is still under investigation by Texas officials, but the utility company said it is also conducting its own review.

The company did not provide additional details on how it came to the determination, but said it was based on “currently available information.”

 

[Chris]

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/07/biden-building-port-in-gaza-to-deliver-aid-00145636

During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden will order the U.S. military to establish a temporary port in Gaza so more humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in need, three senior administration officials said Thursday.

The U.S. military has “unique capabilities” that allow it to construct a port or causeway without having to send forces to Gaza’s shores, said one of the officials. “We’re not planning for this to be an operation that would require U.S. boots on the ground,” said a second one. All were granted anonymity to preview the president’s announcement.

 

[Chris]

Sweden formally joins Nato military alliance

Sweden joins Nato, becoming the military alliance's second new member since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

www.bbc.com

Sweden has officially become the 32nd member of Nato after it completed its accession process in Washington.

The handover of documents took place at a ceremony two years after Sweden applied to join the military alliance following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that "unity and solidarity" would be Sweden's "guiding lights".

 

[Grimoire Lenin]

Russia in shambles bruh

 

[Chris]

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1236782758/state-of-the-union-address-biden-trump

President Biden didn't waste any time in his primetime State of the Union address drawing a sharp contrast with his likely 2024 presidential rival, former President Donald Trump.

Instead of a policy heavy laundry list speech, the president leaned into politics, and at times, shouted and amped up Democrats with some fiery rhetoric.

Early in his speech he derided Trump, without mentioning his name, chastising those who failed to heed the threat from Russian President Putin to Ukraine, and denouncing those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

 

[Chris]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/08/eli-lilly-alzheimers-donanemab-fda/

Eli Lilly said Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is subjecting a proposed Alzheimer’s drug to additional review, a surprise move that will delay regulatory action on a medication that was widely expected to be approved this month.

The FDA will hold an advisory committee meeting to scrutinize the safety and effectiveness of donanemab, a drug designed to attack a sticky substance in the brain known as amyloid beta, which has been linked to the debilitating Alzheimer’s disease that affects some 6 million Americans.

 

[Chris]

February jobs report: US economy adds 275,000 jobs, unemployment rate hits 3.9%

The February jobs report provides an update on the resiliency of the labor market ahead of the Federal Reserve's next policy decision on March 20.

finance.yahoo.com

The US economy created more new jobs than expected in February, while an increase in the unemployment rate for the first time in four months and downard revisions to job growth in prior months suggested signs of some softening in the US labor market.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday showed the labor market added 275,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in February, significantly more additions than the 200,000 expected by economists. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate increased to 3.9% from 3.7% in January. This marks the first move higher in the unemployment rate in four months as it now sits at its highest level seen in the last two years.

 

[Chris]

Pentagon Review Finds No Evidence of Alien Cover-Up

But the new report suggests that the public’s belief that the government is hiding what it knows will probably continue.

www.nytimes.com

In the 1960s, secret test flights of advanced government spy planes generated U.F.O. sightings. More recently, government and commercial drones, new kinds of satellites and errant weather balloons have led to a renaissance in unusual observations.

But, according to a new report, none of these sightings were of alien spacecraft.

A new congressionally mandated Pentagon report found no evidence that the government was covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and said there was no evidence that any U.F.O. sightings represented alien visitation to Earth.

 

[Chris]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/politics/trump-carroll-83-million-defamation-bond-appeal/index.html

Former President Donald Trump has posted a $91.63 million bond as he appeals the judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

The notice of Trump’s bond and appeal was made with the federal court in New York on Friday.

In January, a federal jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages as a result of Trump’s defamatory statements denying he raped her, saying she wasn’t his type, and accusing her of making up the allegation to boost sales of her book.

 

[Chris]

Live Updates: Biden’s Budget Underscores Divide With Republicans and Trump

The president’s $7.3 trillion budget for the next fiscal year proposes new spending on social programs to help the middle class that are offset by higher taxes on high earners and corporations.

www.nytimes.com

President Biden on Monday proposed a $7.3 trillion budget packed with tax increases on corporations and high earners, new spending on social programs and a wide range of efforts to combat high consumer costs like housing and college tuition.

The proposal includes only relatively small changes from the budget plan Mr. Biden submitted last year, which went nowhere in Congress, though it reiterates his call for lawmakers to spend about $100 billion to strengthen border security and deliver aid to Israel and Ukraine.