Plus, dont blame the dogs in strollers.

Mr. Musk has ambitions to remake education, but his latest effort to open an elementary school in Texas appears to have faltered.

The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.

The president cited misleading statistics to insist, wrongly, that prices were coming down.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York attends a news conference at the North American College in Rome, May 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)2025-12-18T11:08:22Z VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Leo XIV on Thursday made his most important U.S. appointment to date, naming a fellow Chicagoan as the next archbishop of New York to lead one of the biggest U.S. archdioceses as it navigates relations with the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown.Bishop Ronald Hicks, the current bishop of Joliet, Illinois, replaces the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a prominent conservative figure in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. Hicks takes over after Dolan last week finalized a plan to establish a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who had sued the archdiocese.Dolan had submitted his resignation in February, as required when he turned 75. But the Vatican often waits to make important leadership changes in dioceses if there is lingering abuse litigation or other governance matters that need to be resolved by the outgoing bishop. The handover, though, represents a significant new chapter for the U.S. Catholic Church, which is forging a new era with the Chicago-born Leo as the first American pope. Leo and the U.S. hierarchy have already shown willingness to challenge the Trump administration on immigration and other issues, and Hicks is seen as very much a Leo-style bishop. A call for solidarity with immigrantsHicks, 58, grew up in South Holland, Illinois, a short distance from the suburban Chicago childhood home of Leo, the former Robert Prevost.Like Prevost, who spent 20 years as a missionary in Peru, Hicks worked for five years in El Salvador heading a church-run orphanage program that operated in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries.Taking a new position as archbishop of New York is an enormous responsibility, but I can honestly say that Bishop Hicks is up to the task, said the Rev. Eusebius Martis, who has known Hicks since the mid-1980s and worked with him at Mundelein Seminary, the Chicago archdiocesan seminary. He said New York was lucky to have him.He is a wonderful man, always thoughtful and attentive to the needs of seminarians, Martis, professor of sacramental theology at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of SantAnselmo, the Benedictine University in Rome, said in an email.In November, Hicks endorsed a special message from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning the Trump administrations immigration raids, which have targeted Chicago in particular.In a statement then urging Catholics to share the message, Hicks said it affirms our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters as it expresses our concerns, opposition, and hopes with clarity and conviction. It is grounded in the churchs enduring commitment to the Catholic social teaching of human dignity and a call for meaningful immigration reform.A similar hometownThough they both hail from Chicago, Hicks only met the future pope in 2024, when then-Cardinal Prevost visited one of Hicks parishes and took part in a question and answer conversation for the public.Hicks, who sat in the front pew, said he learned that day what sort of future pope Leo would be and said he liked what he saw both in his public remarks and then in their private conversation. Five minutes turned into 10 minutes and the 10 minutes turned into 15 and the 15 turned into 20, Hicks told local Chicago WGN-TV news after Leos May election. He said he recognized their shared backgrounds and priorities to build bridges. We grew up literally in the same radius, in the same neighborhood together. We played in the same parks, went swimming in the same pools, like the same pizza places.Hicks served as a parish priest in Chicago and dean of training at Mundelein Seminary before Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich made him vicar general of the archdiocese in 2015. Three years later, Hicks was made an auxiliary bishop, and in 2020 Pope Francis named him bishop of Joliet, serving around 520,000 Catholics in seven counties.Cupich, seen as a progressive in the U.S. church, has been a close adviser to both Francis and Leo, and Hicks appointment to such a prominent job likely could not have come without Cupichs endorsement. A pastor for New YorkThe New York archdiocese is among the largest in the nation, serving roughly 2.5 million Catholics in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City, as well as seven counties to the north. The gregarious Dolan is one of the most high-profile Catholic leaders in the United States and a prominent voice in the city.Dolan is widely viewed as conservative, writing a 2018 Wall Street Journal column headlined The Democrats Abandon Catholics. Yet in 2023, he also wrote a letter of welcome to a conference at Fordham University celebrating outreach programs aimed at LGBTQ+ Catholics, and he welcomed LGBTQ+ participation in the citys annual St. Patricks Day parade.Dolan has ties to the current Republican administration. As archbishop of New York, Dolan hosted the annual Al Smith white-tie dinner that raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities. It has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade lighthearted barbs ahead of Election Day, though in 2024 only Donald Trump participated since Democratic nominee Kamala Harris declined the invitation. Trump, who has long-standing connections to his native New York City, later had the cardinal pray at his inauguration and appointed Dolan to his new Religious Liberty Commission.Dolan was Trumps pick to succeed Pope Francis, though Dolan did criticize the president for sharing an AI-generated image of Trump, who is not a Catholic, dressed up as a pope before the May conclave that ultimately elected Leo.Dolan was named archbishop of New York by Pope Benedict XVI in February 2009 after serving as archbishop of Milwaukee. He was made cardinal in 2012 and headed the U.S. bishops conference from 2010-2013.A first task to oversee abuse settlementsIn one of his biggest first tasks, Hicks will have to oversee the implementation of the abuse settlement fund that Dolan finalized, which is to be paid for by reducing the archdiocesan budget and selling off assets. The aim is to cover settlements for most, if not all of the roughly 1,300 outstanding abuse claims against the archdiocese.Hicks is no stranger to managing the fallout of the abuse scandal, after the Joliet diocese under his predecessors and the rest of the Illinois church came under scathing criticism by the states attorney general in 2023.A five-year investigation found that 451 Catholic clergy abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019. Hicks had been appointed to lead the Joliet church in 2020. The attorney generals report was generally positive in recognizing the dioceses current child protection policies, but documented several cases where previous Joliet bishops moved known abusers around, disparaged victims and refused to accept responsibility for their role in enabling the abuse.___Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. NICOLE WINFIELD Winfield has been on the Vatican beat since 2001, covering the papacies of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and the Francis pontificate and traveling the world with them.

In an 18-minute address, President Trump said the economy was booming despite the publics consistent concerns about prices. Here are six takeaways from the speech.

Britains central bank reduced interest rates to 3.75 percent, a move that was welcomed by the government, which has been looking to lower the high cost of living.

We look at what President Trump is trying to achieve in Venezuela.

Nick Reiner, charged with murdering his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, spent much of his life battling drug addiction, an affliction that millions of Americans face.

Scientists have discovered the underwater ruins of huge stone structures erected by humans at least 7,000 years ago in the coastal waters of France, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.The submerged granite ruins near Sein Island, a Breton island in the Atlantic Ocean, are among the oldest large stone structures ever found in France, and may have inspired an ancient local legend about a city called Ys that vanished under the waves.The structures vary in size from small stone dams, which were probably fish traps, to large monoliths and slabs that protrude six feet from the seafloor and extend 400 feet in length, which perhaps once served as a protective seawall.Yves Fouquet, a geologist who works with the Society for Maritime Archaeology and Heritage (SAMM), first noticed hints of these long-lost megaliths in LiDAR data collected by the Litto3D program, a national initiative to create a precise 3D digital reconstruction of the entire French coastline. Fouquet and his colleagues confirmed the existence of the mysterious structures, and mapped out their locations, across dozens of dives carried out by ten SAMM divers between 2022 and 2024.The detailed analysis of these maps to redraw the underwater geological map of this area (faults, rock types) has made it possible to identify structures that did not appear natural to a geologist, Fouquet said in an email to 404 Media.Brittany, a peninsular region of northwest France, is home to the oldest megaliths in the nation and some of the earliest in Europe, which date back some 6,500 years. The team estimated that the submerged stone structures off Sein Island may predate these early megaliths in Brittany by about 500 years, based on their estimation of when the stones would have last been above sea level. But it will take more research to home in on the exact age of the megaliths.We plan to continue the exploration and carry out more detailed work to understand the architecture and precise the age of the structures, Fouquet said. The discovery of these stones opens a new window into the societies living in Brittany during the Mesolithic/Neolithic Transition, a period when hunter-gatherers began to shift toward settled lifestyles involving fishing, farming, and the construction of megaliths and other buildings.Photos of the structures in Figure 7 of the study. Image: SAMM, 2023The peoples who made these structures must have been both highly organized and relatively abundant in population in order to erect the stones. They were also sophisticated marine navigators, as the waters around Sein Island are notoriously dangerousprone to swells and strong currentswhich is one reason its underwater heritage has remained relatively poorly explored.Our results bear witness to the possible sedentary lifestyle of maritime hunter-gatherers on the coast of the extreme west of France from the 6th millennium onwards, said Fouquet and his colleagues in the study. The technical know-how to extract, transport, and erect monoliths and large slabs during the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition precedes by about 500 years the megalithic constructions in western France in the 5th millennium.The discovery raises new questions about the origins of these megalithics structures, which may have had a symbolic or religious resonance to these past peoples. the team added. This discovery in a high hydrodynamic environment opens up new perspectives for searching for traces of human settlement in Brittany along the submerged coastline of the period 60005000 years cal. BCE.The researchers also speculate about a possible link between these structures, and the prehistoric people who made them, and local legends about sunken cities that may date back thousands of years.Legends about sunken cities, compared with recent data on rising sea levels, shows that the stories of ancient submergences, passed down by oral tradition, could date back as far as 5,000 to 15,000 years, the team said, citing a 2022 study. This suggests that oral traditions that may have preserved significant events in memory that could well be worthy of scientific examination. These settlements described in legend reveal the profound symbolic significance of maritime prehistory, which should not be overlooked.In particular, the people of Brittany have long told tales of the lost city of Ys, a sunken settlement thought to be located in the Bay of Douarnenez, about six miles east of Sein Island. The sunken megaliths off Sein Island allow us to question the origin of the history of the city of Ys, not from the historical legends and their numerous additions, but from scientific findings that may be at the origin of this legend, the team said.Its extremely tantalizing to imagine that the long-hidden ruins of these peoples, who appear to have been expert seafarers and builders, are the source of tales that date back for untold generations in the region. But while the researchers raise the possibility of a link between the stones and the story, they cannot conclusively confirm the connection.Legend is legend, enriched by all the additions of human imagination over the centuries, Fouquet said in his email. Our discoveries are based on what can be scientifically proven.Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

The legislation, which would make thousands more permits available, is part of a package of City Council bills aimed at helping the citys vendors get on the right side of the law.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the social media and crypto company in which President Trump holds a large stake, said it would help develop a utility-scale fusion power plant.

The proposed Department of Community Safety would send mental health teams to respond to 911 calls, rather than the police, according to Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdanis plans.

Jack Schlossberg, who is best known for his provocative social media presence and for being the grandson of John F. Kennedy, announced a run for U.S. Congress. Heres everything you need to know about the Democrat.Core Belief: Americans are sicker of gerontocracy than nepotismReason For Running: BoredDream Job: MrBeastRole In Fraternity: Social chairNotable Family Members: Cousin-in-law of Cheryl from Curb Your EnthusiasmSignature Issue: Jack Schlossberg for CongressBiggest Advantage: Born into one of the nations most powerful jawlinesHome District: TikTok Explore PageActive Curses: Kennedy family, Ra, Bambino, Hope diamondBackup Plan: PresidentThe post Political Profile: Jack Schlossberg appeared first on The Onion.

UNIVERSITY PARK, PAShedding light on the age-old mystery of how anyone could afford the gigantic structures, a study published Thursday in the Journal Of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology And Heritage Studies revealed that ancient Egyptians received significant help from their parents while building the pyramids. Though historians initially theorized that the civilization constructed the towering tombs of pharaohs with their own money, weve confirmed that their wealthy fathers gave them down payments for the limestone and even chipped in for utilities, said lead research archaeologist David Bell, adding that high interest rates and limited job opportunities made it difficult for ancient Egyptians to get into the pyramid market on their own. We also found evidence that their uncle let them use his barge to transport the stones down the Nile for free. However, having family involved caused issuestheir mother demanded she pick out the sarcophagus since she was paying for it. And, despite all the assistance, ancient Egyptians lied to their friends about financing the pyramids with money earned from their art projects. The study also found that once the ancient Egyptians finished building the pyramids, their parents paid for them to go to grad school.The post New Research Reveals Ancient Egyptians Received Significant Help From Parents While Building Pyramids appeared first on The Onion.

NAPERVILLE, ILScurrying into the alley as employees chased her with a broom, Aldi CEO Atty McGrath reportedly had to be shooed away Tuesday after she was seen rummaging through the dumpsters behind a local Whole Foods. We keep finding her rooting around our bins looking for food items she can stock her shelves with, said assistant manager Ed Ruiz, describing multiple occasions upon which team members had found the discount grocery chains top executive peeling the 365 labels off expired cans of beans or scraping mold off a carton of raspberries. I personally dont mind if our excess food can be used to feed hungry Aldi shoppers, but it becomes a safety issue when she starts approaching our customers and trying to sell them a bruised cantaloupe she scavenged for 39 cents a pound. Everyone can hear her banging around in the garbage and rattling on about sell-by dates being merely a suggestion. Were going to have to start locking the bins at night to keep her out. At press time, the CEOs of Dollar Tree and Dollar General had been spotted behind an Aldi dumpster in Cleveland wrestling over a package of broken clothes hangers.The post Aldi CEO Chased Off From Whole Foods Dumpsters appeared first on The Onion.

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Shoppers walk around the Somerset Collection mall, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Troy, Mich. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)2025-12-18T13:38:04Z WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. inflation slowed unexpectedly last month, the government said in a report that was delayed and likely distorted by the government shutdown. The Labor Department reported Thursday that its consumer price index rose 2.7% in November from a year earlier. Yet, year-over-year inflation remains well above the Federal Reserves 2% target, and Americans are complaining loudly about the high cost of living. The report was delayed eight days by the federal governments 43-day shutdown, which also prevented the Labor Department from compiling overall numbers for consumer prices and core inflation in October. Thursday report gave investors, businesses and policymakers their first look at CPI since the September numbers were released on Oct. 24.Consumers prices had risen 3% in September from a year earlier, and forecasters had expected the November CPI to match that year-over-year increase. Energy prices, driven up by sharply higher fuel oil prices, rose 4.2% in November. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose 2.6%, compared with a 3% year-over-year gain in September and the lowest since March 2021. U.S. inflation is still stubbornly high, partly because of President Donald Trumps decision to impose double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country on earth along with targeted tariffs on specific products like steel, aluminum and autos. The presidents tariffs have so far proved less inflationary than economists feared. But they do put upward pressure on prices and complicate matters at the Fed, which is trying to decide whether to keep cutting its benchmark interest rate to support a sputtering job market or whether to hold off until inflationary pressures ease. The central bank last week decided to reduce the rate for the third time this year, but Fed officials signaled that they expect just one cut in 2026. Kay Haigh, global co-head of fixed income and liquidity solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, warned that the November numbers were noisy ... The canceling of the October report makes month-on-month comparisons impossible, for example, while the truncated information-gathering process given the shutdown could have caused systematic biases in the data. The Fed will instead focus on the December CPI released in mid-January, just two weeks before its next meeting, as a more accurate bellwether for inflation.'Trump delivered a politically charged speech Wednesday carried live in prime time on network television, seeking to pin the blame for economic challenges on Democrats.The speech was a rehash of his recent messaging that has so far been unable to calm public anxiety about the cost of groceries, housing, utilities and other basic goods. Trump has promised an economic boom, yet inflation has stayed elevated and the job market has weakened sharply in the wake of his import taxes.

The past few years have been very exciting for those who want to believe. The U.S. government has released tantalizing videos and held several gripping hearings showing and discussing UFOs. People who always thought the government was hiding evidence of alien life from the general population saw it as proof that what theyve said was happening all along. Skeptics have made compelling arguments for why all these revelations could be anything but aliens.But this debate and humanitys obsession with aliens goes as far back as recorded history. In her book, First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens, 404 Medias science reporter and author of The Abstract newsletter Becky Ferreira delves deep into this history, what it teaches us about humans, and what the near and far future of the search for alien life looks like.I had a great time reading Beckys book and an even better time discussing it with her on the podcast. Its a great conversation that unpacks why these stories get so much attention, and a perspective on aliens in the news and pop culture thats rooted in history and science.Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.Become a paid subscriber for early access to these interview episodes and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

See the full news app on ProPublica.org.The post Look Up Where Your Generic Prescription Drugs Were Made appeared first on ProPublica.

To understand how risky drugs could end up in your medicine cabinet, ProPublica spent more than a year and a half investigating the Food and Drug Administrations oversight of the foreign factories that make generic medications and have been cited for violating critical quality standards.It quickly became clear through our reporting that patients and doctors dont reliably have the information they need to make informed decisions about the medicines they take or prescribe.ProPublica has created Rx Inspector, a tool that aims to help.You can look up your generic prescription drugs, and well guide you to the specific facility that made them. We were able to link more than 80% of generic prescription drug products in our database to a factory that made them using databases of label information, manufacturing facilities and location data that we sued the FDA for. Additionally, we included the history of FDA actions at those facilities based on a trove of inspection records we assembled.Keep in mind that if you turn up a troubling inspection report, it doesnt necessarily mean that your drug is compromised. Doctors and pharmacists advise that you not stop taking your medications. Instead, you should talk to your health care provider about any concerns.Look up your prescriptions using the tool here.Our ongoing reporting has focused on the safety of generic drugs, which represent the vast majority of all prescriptions filled in the United States. Thus, Rx Inspector does not include brand-name or over-the-counter drugs, at least for now. We excluded gases (like oxygen tanks) and intradermal route drugs (many of these were allergy tests for things like feline hair).ProPublica described the app and the methodology used to build it to the FDA, which did not comment. The agency previously told ProPublica that it doesnt reveal where drugs are made on inspection reports to protect what it deemed confidential commercial information.Heres how we did it:Getting Lists of Drugs and FacilitiesFirst, we needed to get a list of prescription drugs. We downloaded the National Drug Code product list from the FDA. A company that wants to make a generic must file an Abbreviated New Drug Application for approval. We used those ANDA numbers to filter our list to generic drugs only.We included biological drug products, such as insulin. We opted to include authorized generics, which are brand-name drugs that are marketed without the brand-name label, because we thought consumers may not know their generic is actually a brand-name drug.We then joined that list of drugs to the Structured Product Labeling database from DailyMed, a National Institutes of Health resource that contains information on more than 155,000 drug labels submitted to the FDA by companies. We used that data to get basic information about the drugs, like the form (pill, injectable, etc.), dose, color, imprints and more. In some, but not all, cases, it also contained identifiers or addresses that we could use to link to the agencys official list of manufacturing locations.We then matched the drugs to three different facility lists:The first and primary list comes from the FDAs Electronic Drug Registration and Listing System. That database contains the addresses of drugmakers factories. It also has two numeric identifiers: the FDA Establishment Identifier and a Dun & Bradstreet, or DUNS, number.The second facility list comes from a federal lawsuit we filed against the FDA for a list of manufacturer addresses connected to their ANDA numbers among other information. We received a partial list, which we used when we only had ANDA numbers for a drug.And finally, we have a list of historical facilities, which allows us to identify production sites and link to them via FEI number if other routes dont work.Joining Them TogetherIn October, we detailed our unsuccessful search for the original manufacturer of a popular cholesterol generic through a labyrinth of company names and complex databases that few consumers would even know exist. We decided we had to do something similar for nearly 47,000 drug products.Different datasets had varying identifiers, and we had to link multiple together to find the correct facilities. For example, if all we had was an ANDA number, we used the facility list we obtained from our lawsuit, which also was listed by ANDA. If we had an FEI, we could link it to the FDAs official list of facilities.Sometimes, we had neither. In cases where we did not have any useful identifiers, we searched the product labeling data for any manufacturing addresses and attempted to match them to our facility lists. We used both fuzzy text matching and geocoding to do this and then manually reviewed our matches.For repackaged or relabeled drugs, we traced back to the original label using the source NDC code.In total, we were able to match more than 39,250 products to a manufacturing facility.Getting the Inspection DataLinking up individual drugs was only half the battle. The next thing we did was acquire the FDAs inspection outcomes for facilities and join them back to our facility lists.We acquired data on FDA inspections from a variety of sources. First, we turned to the FDAs public inspections dashboard for inspections since 2008. We used only information related to drugs or biologics, excluding inspections related to food, cosmetics, tobacco, medical devices and veterinary products. This dashboard contained the dates and outcomes of inspections, as well as citations detailing any violations of federal code. We linked these reports back to a facility with a matching FEI number.That still only gave us limited information for inspections. For documents with more details, we needed whats known as a Form 483, which is where inspectors document problems they observe at a facility. Unfortunately, the FDA does not make all 483s public. We began by exporting those that have been published in the inspections dashboard, though we know this is incomplete.We also went directly to the FDA and asked for all the 483s that had already been released publicly. They delivered a trove of almost 40,000 documents.We linked the 483s to an inspection by extracting text from the documents using optical character recognition, connecting them to a facility using the FEI number and finding inspections of that facility within 10 days of the date of the letter. We were unable to link every 483 to an inspection because the FDAs public inspections data does not include every inspection the agency conducts.The FDA publishes warning letters that detail significant violation(s) of federal requirement(s). We obtained these from the FDAs website going back to 2020, filtered out the ones not related to drugs and connected the rest to a facility using the FEI number.Some facilities are outright banned from sending drugs to the U.S. market for a time, with exceptions for certain drugs as ProPublica detailed in reporting this year. The FDA calls this an import alert.We used the Internet Archives Wayback Machine to find hundreds of import alert lists published by the FDA over more than 15 years. The lists identified factories banned from shipping drugs to the United States because the FDA found manufacturing violations.We focused on 66-40 alerts, which call out drug manufacturing facilities that do not meet good manufacturing practice standards. We considered the published date on the alert as the start date. We are unable to tell when an alert was lifted and instead approximate it using the date we last see the facility on the list. Import alerts do not include FEI numbers to easily identify the facility in question, so we used the entity name and address to tie them back to a facility.We attempted to identify exemptions to import alerts by looking for strings like excluded from DWPE (detention without physical examination), then parse it manually to get a clean list of drugs.To support our research, we paid for access to Redica Systems, a quality and regulatory intelligence company with a vast collection of FDA inspection documents. We used Redicas database to spot-check our own work.We know that much of the data represented here is likely an undercount. Clerical errors could have resulted in missed connections. The FDA sometimes removes inspection outcomes from its dashboard, and our method of scraping through the Internet Archive is subject to availability. We were also limited in how completely we could obtain 483s, warning letters and import alerts. There may be additional communications between the company and the FDA that are not reflected in our database because they have not been made public.Still, this is the most comprehensive public list of FDA actions tied to drugs that has ever been assembled.The post How We Created a Tool That Tells You Where Your Generic Drugs Were Made appeared first on ProPublica.

With every bottle of prescription medication comes an implied promise: The drugs are safe and effective and meet strict standards set by the Food and Drug Administration.But the agency known as one of the worlds toughest regulators provides only intermittent oversight of the foreign factories where generic drugs are made. And when investigators turn up mold, filthy equipment and contaminants in those facilities, the FDA keeps the names of the drugs they make secret.Consumers often have no way of knowing if the medications they are taking came from factories that used dirty water, were infested by insects or birds, or were outright banned from shipping drugs to the U.S., but then granted special exemptions to do so anyway.Today, ProPublica is launching Rx Inspector, a first-of-its-kind database that provides answers to what the FDA wont tell us: where our generics are coming from and the track records of the factories that made them. The information is harder to find than you may think.Labels on pill bottles often list a distributor or repackager rather than the actual manufacturer and some have no information at all. When ProPublica asked our readers to send in photos of their pill bottles, they flooded our inbox with pictures proving just how difficult that information is to come by.Even though generic drugs make up 90% of prescriptions dispensed in the U.S., the FDA only provides piecemeal information about them. Its scattered across different websites with no easy way to link drugs to their manufacturers, factory locations and regulatory track records. Over many months, our journalists connected that data. In one case, ProPublica had to sue the FDA in federal court and received a partial list of factory locations.You can use this app to connect your own medication to the manufacturer that made it, to the specific factory where it was made and to any FDA inspection reports and serious compliance violations linked to that facility that ProPublica has obtained.For example, you can enter your drug name and any information on the label of your pill bottle about the company that may have made it. If you dont have a company name, you can enter the color of your pills, or any markings on them, details that can lead you to information for your specific drug. From there, you can learn the name of the actual manufacturer (not the company that simply repackaged or distributed it). And you can also see the address for the factory that produced it.If the factory has been inspected by the FDA, well show you the inspection reports and any subsequent warning letters. We didnt have access to every inspection report, so you may only see summary information that includes the dates of the inspections and any findings.For pharmacists and others particularly knowledgeable about drugs, weve added an advanced search option so that you can enter key information, such as the National Drug Code, and quickly pull up manufacturing and regulatory details.Finally, this app will allow you to learn more about individual drugmakers overall by providing a way to search for their factories. By entering a company name, you can see when those factories were last inspected and whether the FDA took any action in recent years.Keep in mind that if you turn up a troubling inspection report, it doesnt necessarily mean that your drug is compromised. Doctors and pharmacists advise that you not stop taking your medications. Instead, you should talk to your health care provider about any concerns.ProPublica described the app and the methodology used to build it to the FDA, which did not comment. The agency previously told ProPublica that it doesnt reveal where drugs are made on inspection reports to protect what it deemed confidential commercial information.Our data is incomplete in places. The FDA, for example, hasnt released all of its inspection reports. And though the agency provided ProPublica with a list of medications and the factories that made them, some locations were missing. Well add more details as they become available.But this app provides the most detailed look yet at the makers of Americas generic drugs and whether theyve met manufacturing standards meant to keep us safe.The post Rx Inspector: ProPublicas New Tool Provides Drug Info the FDA Wont appeared first on ProPublica.

President Trump promised active duty troops a $1,776 check from revenue raised by tariffs, without acknowledging that the Supreme Court is weighing the legality of the powers used to impose the levies.

A paramilitary attack in April was one of the most brutal of Sudans civil war. Now, hunger is spreading as Western aid cuts have reduced U.N. rations.

The Silicon Valley college town has changed drastically as Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and other tech founders have scooped up multiple properties.

Despite sky-high inflation, water and energy cuts and prospects for a deal with the U. S. dimming, President Masoud Pezeshkian has apparently thrown up his hands.

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Brian Walshe, center, stands with his lawyers Kelli Porges and Larry Tipton as they listen to the jury announce the guilty verdict of first degree murder of his wife Ana in 2023 by a Norfolk Superior Court jury in Dedham, Mass., on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool)2025-12-18T04:52:03Z BOSTON (AP) A Boston-area man was sentenced Thursday to life in a Massachusetts state prison for the grisly murder of his wife, who disappeared nearly three years ago and whose body has never been found. Brian Walshe was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the killing of Ana Walshe. The sentence carries no possibility of parole.He pleaded guilty in November to misleading police and illegally disposing of a body after admitting he had dismembered her body and disposed of it in dumpster. He said he did so only after panicking when he found she had died in bed. Ana Walshe, a real estate agent who immigrated from Serbia, was last seen early Jan. 1, 2023, after a New Years Eve dinner at the couples home. During the trial, prosecutors leaned heavily on digital evidence found on devices connected to Walshe, including online searches for dismemberment and best ways to dispose of a body, how long before a body starts to smell and hacksaw best tool to dismember. Investigators also found searches on a laptop that included how long for someone missing to inherit, how long missing to be dead, and can you throw away body parts, prosecutors told the jury. Surveillance video also showed a man resembling Walshe throwing what appeared to be heavy trash bags into a dumpster not far from the couples home. A subsequent search of a trash processing facility near his mothers home uncovered bags containing a hatchet, hammer, sheers, hacksaw, towels and a protective Tyvek suit, cleaning agents, a Prada purse, boots like the ones Ana Walshe was last seen wearing and a COVID-19 vaccination card with her name. Stay up to date with the news and the best of AP by following our WhatsApp channel. Follow on Prosecutors told the jury that the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory examined some of the items and found Ana and Brian Walshes DNA on the Tyvek suit and Ana Walshes DNA on the hatchet, hacksaw and other items. Prosecutors floated several possible motives for the killing. An insurance executive testified that Brian Walshe was the sole beneficiary of Ana Walshes $1 million life insurance policy, suggesting a financial motive. But prosecutors also portrayed a marriage that was falling apart; Brian Walshe was confined at their home in the affluent coastal community of Cohasset, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Boston, awaiting sentencing on an art fraud case. Ana Walshe meanwhile commuted from their home to Washington, D.C., where she worked. The year before she died, his wife had started an affair, details of which were shared in court by her boyfriend William Fastow. Brian Walshes attorney denied that his client knew about the affair.In his opening, Walshes attorney, Larry Tipton, argued it was not a murder case but what he called a sudden unexplained death. He said the couple loved each other and were planning for the future.But Walshes defense never called a witness and Brian Walshe declined to testify.When initially questioned by investigators, Walshe said his wife had been called to Washington on New Years Day for a work emergency. But witnesses testified there was no evidence Ana Walshe took a ride service to the airport or boarded a flight. Walshe didnt contact her employer until Jan. 4.The couples three young children are in state custody. ___Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. MICHAEL CASEY Casey writes about the environment, housing and inequality for The Associated Press. He lives in Boston. twitter mailto PATRICK WHITTLE Whittle is an Associated Press reporter based in Portland, Maine. He focuses on the environment and oceans. twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 18 December 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-03810-1Unexpected behaviours in G proteins could be exploited to design next-generation opioid drugs that provide stronger, longer-lasting pain relief.

Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chairman, ordered the report months ago but is now said to believe that its release would be counterproductive for the party.

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani chose Sherif Soliman, a veteran of municipal government and the chief financial officer of the City University of New York, to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

New Yorkers in the so-called missing middle, who may make too much for food benefits, say its still hard to find enough money for groceries.

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2025-12-18T16:46:39Z STATESVILLE, N.C. (AP) Authorities say a business jet crashed while landing at a regional airport in Statesville, North Carolina, erupting in a large fire.The Federal Aviation Administration said a Cessna C550 crashed while landing at Statesville Regional Airport around 10:20 a.m. Thursday. The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are investigating.Video from WSOC-TV showed first responders rushing onto the runway as flames burned near scattered wreckage from the plane.The airport says on its website that Statesville Regional Airport provides corporate aviation facilities for Fortune 500 companies and several NASCAR teams.Statesville is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Charlotte. Officials have not said whether there were injuries.

Proposed new rules would pull all federal financing from hospitals that continue to provide gender treatments for adolescents.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in Brussels, where the leaders had gathered, that without the money, his country would have to reduce its drone production significantly.

Data collection issues skewed the latest Consumer Price Index report, economists warned, clouding the picture for the Federal Reserve as it also grapples with a cooling labor market.

Kristin Cabot was caught on camera with her boss at a concert. The video went viral. Soon she was drowning in the vitriol of strangers.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a news conference on the Autism report by the CDC at the Hubert Humphrey Building Auditorium in Washington, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)2025-12-18T16:11:14Z WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday unveiled a series of regulatory actions designed to effectively ban gender-affirming care for minors, building on broader Trump administration restrictions on transgender Americans.The sweeping proposals the most significant moves this administration has taken so far to restrict the use of puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical interventions for transgender children include cutting off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children and prohibiting federal Medicaid dollars from being used to fund such procedures. This is not medicine, it is malpractice, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said of gender-affirming procedures on children in a news conference on Thursday. Sex-rejecting procedures rob children of their futures. Kennedy also announced Thursday that the HHS Office of Civil Rights will propose a rule excluding gender dysphoria from the definition of a disability.In a related move, the Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to a dozen companies that market chest-binding vests and other equipment used by people with gender dysphoria. Manufacturers include GenderBender LLC of Carson, California and TomboyX of Seattle. The FDA letters state that chest binders can only be legally marketed for FDA-approved medical uses, such as recovery after mastectomy surgery. Proposed rules would threaten youth gender-affirming care in states where it remains legal Medicaid programs in slightly less than half of states currently cover gender-affirming care. At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care. The Supreme Courts recent decision upholding Tennessees ban means most other state laws are likely to remain in place.Thursdays announcements would imperil access in nearly two dozen states where drug treatments and surgical procedures remain legal and funded by Medicaid, which includes federal and state dollars.The proposals announced by Kennedy and his deputies are not final or legally binding. The federal government must go through a lengthy rulemaking process, including periods of public comment and document rewrites, before the restrictions becoming permanent. They are also likely to face legal challenges.But the proposed rules will likely further intimidate health care providers from offering gender-affirming care to children and many hospitals have already ceased such care in anticipation of federal action.Nearly all U.S. hospitals participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, the federal governments largest health plans that cover seniors, the disabled and low-income Americans. Losing access to those payments would imperil most U.S. hospitals and medical providers. The same funding restrictions would apply to a smaller health program when it comes to care for people under the age of 19, the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, according to a federal notice posted Thursday morning. Moves contradict advice from medical organizations and transgender advocatesDr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, on Thursday called transgender treatments a Band-Aid on a much deeper pathology, and suggested children with gender dysphoria are confused, lost and need help. Polling shows many Americans agree with the administrations view of the issue. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey conducted earlier this year found that about half of U.S. adults approved of how Trump was handling transgender issues.Chloe Cole, a conservative activist known for speaking about her gender-transition reversal, spoke at the news conference to express appreciation. She said cries for help from her and others in her situation, have finally been heard. But the approach contradicts the recommendations of most major U.S. medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, which has urged states not to restrict care for gender dysphoria.Advocates for transgender children strongly refuted the administrations claims about gender-affirming care and said Thursdays moves would put lives at risk. In an effort to strongarm hospitals into participating in the administrations anti-LGBTQ agenda, the Trump Administration is forcing health care systems to choose between providing lifesaving care for LGBTQ+ young people and accepting crucial federal funding, Dr. Jamila Perritt, a Washington-based OB/GYN and president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement. This is a lose-lose situation where lives are inevitably on the line. Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president at The Trevor Project, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization for LBGTQ+ youth, called the changes a one-size-fits-all mandate from the federal government on a decision that should be between a doctor and patient. The multitude of efforts we are seeing from federal legislators to strip transgender and nonbinary youth of the health care they need is deeply troubling, he said. Actions build on a larger effort to restrict transgender rights The announcements build on a wave of actions President Donald Trump, his administration and Republicans in Congress have taken to target the rights of transgender people nationwide.On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order that declared the federal government would recognize only two immutable sexes: male and female. He also has signed orders aimed at cutting off federal support for gender transitions for people under age 19 and barring transgender athletes from participating in girls and womens sports. On Wednesday, a bill that would open transgender health care providers to prison time if they treat people under the age of 18 passed the U.S. House and heads to the Senate. Another bill under consideration in the House on Thursday aims to ban Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care for children. Young people who persistently identify as a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth are first evaluated by a team of professionals. Some may try a social transition, involving changing a hairstyle or pronouns. Some may later also receive hormone-blocking drugs that delay puberty, followed by testosterone or estrogen to bring about the desired physical changes in patients. Surgery is rare for minors.___Shastri reported from Milwaukee. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill contributed to this report. ALI SWENSON Swenson covers politics and the information landscape for The Associated Press. She is based in New York. twitter MATTHEW PERRONE Perrone covers the intersection of medicine, business and health policy. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto DEVI SHASTRI Shastri is a public health reporter for The Associated Press, based in Milwaukee. She covers housing access, the social safety net, medical misinformation and other topics that influence the health of communities broadly. twitter mailto

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company that makes AI agents to rapidly track down targets. The company claims the skip tracing AI agents help agencies find people of interest and map out their family and other associates more quickly. According to the procurement records, the companys services were specifically for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the part of ICE that identifies, arrests, and deports people.The contract comes as ICE is spending millions of dollars, and plans to spend tens of millions more, on skip tracing services more broadly. The practice involves ICE paying bounty hunters to use digital tools and physically stalk immigrants to verify their addresses, then report that information to ICE so the agency can act.The contractor, AI Solutions 87, claims on its website that its agents deliver rapid acceleration in finding persons of interest and mapping their entire network. It says the AI agents map out a targets services, locations, friends, family, and associates.Do you know anything else about the technology ICE is using? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.The website does not detail how exactly its AI agents work or what large language model, if any, they are based on. Typically AI agents are customized versions of commercially available AI tools, such as ChatGPT, that can go onto the wider internet and perform tasks for the user, such as generating sales leads or drafting emails. In this case, AI Solutions 87 is advertising its AI agents for locating people.On Tuesday, ICE contracted with AI Solutions 87 for $636,500, according to public procurement records. The record says the contract is specifically for skip tracing services for ICEs ERO, the agencys main deportation arm. Another procurement record says AI Solutions 87 is providing ICE with skip tracing services nationwide.AI Solutions 87 did not respond to a request for comment on how its AI agents work. ICE did not respond to a request for comment on whether the agency specifically bought AI Solutions 87s AI agent product.Screenshot from AI Solutions 87's website.In October, the Intercept reported on ICEs intention to use bounty hunters or skip tracers to find targets. The skip tracing industry usually works on insurance fraud or finding people who skipped bail. Private investigators and skip tracers 404 Media spoke to had mixed reactions to ICEs plan of using private industry in this context, with one being concerned and another saying they would do the work.In November, 404 Media reported ICE had allocated as much as $180 million to pay these bounty hunters and private investigators. Those procurement records said ICE was seeking assistance with a docket size of 1.5 million. The agency would give vendors batches of 50,000 last known addresses of aliens residing in the U.S., with the bounty hunters then verifying the peoples addresses or current location, and giving that information to ICEs ERO. In the records, ICE said contractors should start with online research or commercial data before conducting physical surveillance.It is not clear how exactly AI Solutions 87s AI agent tool would fit into that model, but AI agents are generally used to speed up or handle repetitive tasks. Skip tracing, broadly, can be monotonous work, according to conversations with multiple members of the skip tracing and private investigator industry.In November, 404 Media found one contractor recruited people on LinkedIn to physically track immigrants on ICEs behalf for $300. The project aimed to pay former law enforcement and military officers, with no indication that those being recruited were licensed private investigators, and instead was open to people who were essentially members of the general public.ICE has spent at least $11.6 million on skip tracing services since October, according to 404 Medias review of procurement records. That includes large federal contractors like B.I. Incorporated and SOS International LLC, and companies focused on recovering assets like Global Recovery Group LLC.AI Solutions 87 is registered to a residential building in West Bend, Wisconsin. AI Solutions 87 shares that address with two other companies called DC Gravity LLC and SDNexus Dataops LLC formed this May, according to incorporation records. Greg Behm, who is listed as an officer for each of those companies, did not respond to a request for comment.

Nature, Published online: 18 December 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04107-zThe COVID-19 pandemic, Ebola, mpox and AIDS all show the importance of strengthening Africa-wide surveillance and response systems that protect everyone.

The transportation department said the new rules were intended to make roads safer, but theres no data to suggest that immigrants cause more truck accidents.

The inability to find a credible counter to the Affordable Care Act has long bedeviled Republicans and cost them at the polls. Its threatening to do so again next year.

Frdric Pchier, an anesthesiologist, was found guilty of poisoning 30 patients, of whom 12 died.