FlashMobOfOne

Faced with high demand for GLP-1 drugs, some American cities and states that previously covered the cost of the weight-loss medication for low-income residents and public employees have now started to restrict or eliminate coverage.

The pullback stems from the dramatic increase in public spending on drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy in recent years.

Still, some legislators and healthcare providers argue that dropping coverage of the drugs might provide short-term relief for governments but will ultimately harm Medicaid recipients’ health. They argue that cities and states will then have to pay for more health problems related to obesity.

“Patients should have access to these therapies,” said Dr Matthew Klebanoff, a professor of internal medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine who has studied prior authorization policies for GLP-1 drugs. “It’s just very challenging right now for payers to be able to afford covering these medications for everyone who could benefit.”

Artist: stevesack.substack.com

Former Vice President Kamala Harris says she’s considering another presidential bid. She made the comments Friday during the National Action Network’s annual convention, where more than a half-dozen Democratic 2028 presidential prospects appeared. (AP Video: Ted Shaffrey)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump repeated his complaint about NATO after a closed-door meeting with the alliance’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday for discussions that had been expected to be aimed at soothing Trump’s anger with the military alliance over the Iran war.

Ahead of the private meeting, Trump had suggested the U.S. may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance after NATO member countries ignored his call to help as Iran effectively shut the the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, and sent gas prices soaring.

Afterward, he issued an all-caps comment on social media suggesting he remained aggrieved. “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,” Trump said in his post. The White House did not immediately offer any further updates.

It started with a tipoff. I was reporting on the trafficking and exploitation of migrant workers in the Gulf when a source I had known for more than a decade reached out. They told me that child sexual abuse trafficking in the US was surging. As the Covid pandemic pushed predators online, some were using Facebook and Instagram to buy and sell children.

It was 2021 and I was about to begin an investigation with Mei-Ling McNamara, a human rights journalist, that would lead to the tech company Meta losing a multimillion-pound court case in March this year. The company had not yet rebranded and was known as Facebook, and there had not been any reporting on how children were being trafficked on its platforms. Experts from anti-trafficking nonprofit organisations and an American law enforcement official talked me through the crimes they were seeing.

Much of the trafficking on Facebook and Instagram was happening in non-public areas of the platforms, such as Facebook Messenger and private Instagram accounts, I would learn later. Traffickers were searching for teens to target and groom, and to later advertise to sex buyers.

KITTERY, Maine (AP) — There are lots of questions about Graham Platner, a first-time Democratic candidate running for U.S. Senate in Maine. Now they are also part of a trivia game.

“What was the nature of the controversy of Graham’s tattoo he received while in the Marines?” an emcee recently asked at a local community center.

The answer? “It was claimed to be a Neo-Nazi tattoo (totenkopf).”

This was not a new way of delivering opposition research, but an official campaign event for Platner’s supporters. And it showed how the 41-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran has capitalized on voters’ willingness to forgive past transgressions and embrace a populist message.

Just before the holidays in 2025, Julie Hart felt stuck. A nagging problem she had struggled with for years left her ruminating all day and questioning nearly everything she had ever said, done or could do.

She was considering traditional therapy but decided instead to try single-session counseling. Rather than committing to weekly therapy sessions, she would get only 60 minutes to tackle the problem. It worked.

“It helped me get unstuck, is how I would describe it, in a very positive, meaningful and effective way,” said Hart, of Springfield, Virginia.

Hart joined what experts say is an increasing number of people who, at least for now, have decided to forgo the weeks, months or even years that traditional therapy implies in favor of a more targeted approach.

The therapy is what it sounds like: one session, typically an hour, where a counselor helps the client identify concrete steps toward relieving a specific problem. The intention is not to completely solve a problem, but rather to help clients walk away with a toolbox of strategies on how to approach it.

...kind of a bummer that I can't tell anyone in my family because half of them (including my parents) will look at me like an ATM whose job it is to set myself on fire in order to keep them warm.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that he will allow service members to carry personal weapons onto military installations, citing the Second Amendment and recent shootings at bases across the country.

In a video posted to X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo that will direct base commanders to allow requests for troops to carry privately owned firearms “with the presumption that it is necessary for personal protection.”

He said any denial of a service member’s request must be explained in detail and in writing.

“Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,” Hegseth said. “Unless you’re training or unless you are a military policeman, you couldn’t carry, you couldn’t bring your own firearm for your own personal protection onto post.”

Questions about why service members lacked access to weapons have often emerged following shootings on the nation’s military bases. Such shootings have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas’ Ford Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday submitted a budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2027 seeking $1.5 trillion in defense spending, a roughly 44% increase over 2026 levels, while proposing a 10% reduction in non-defense discretionary spending totaling $73 billion in cuts.

The proposed defense budget includes funding for Trump's Golden Dome missile defense system, a pay raise of 5% to 7% for military personnel and $65.8 billion for 34 new combat and support ships. The White House said the request "advances President Trump's delivery of peace through strength."

US supreme court justice Samuel Alito was reportedly taken to a hospital after becoming sick at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia in March, further fueling speculation that Donald Trump could have more chances to shape the land’s highest court through new appointments.

A CNN report said Alito was checked by medical staff and given fluids due to dehydration. He later returned to his home in Virginia that same night with his security detail. In the weeks since, Alito has resumed his duties, including participating in oral arguments.

The supreme court’s public information officer, Patricia McCabe, confirmed the incident and shared a statement with the Guardian that said, “On the evening of Friday, [20 March], Justice Alito felt ill during an event in Philadelphia. Out of an abundance of caution, he agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home.”

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to target Iran’s energy infrastructure, including the country’s desalination plants. Such a move — and Iran’s possible targeting of the plants of its Gulf Arab neighbors — could have devastating impacts across the water-starved Middle East.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said if a deal to end the war isn’t reached “shortly” and the Strait of Hormuz, where much oil passes via tankers, is not immediately reopened, “we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’”

The biggest danger, analysts warn, may not be what Trump could do to Iran, but how Tehran could retaliate. Iran relies on desalination for a small share of its water supply while Gulf Arab states depend on it for the vast majority.