The Full Belmonte, 8/18/2022
CVS, Walgreens and Walmart Must Pay $650.5 Million in Ohio Opioids Case
“A federal judge on Wednesday ordered three of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains — CVS, Walgreens and Walmart — to pay $650.5 million to two Ohio counties, ruling that the companies must be held accountable for their part in fueling the opioid epidemic.
The decision is a companion piece to a November jury verdict that found the companies had continued to dispense mass quantities of prescription painkillers over the years while ignoring flagrant signs that the pills were being abused.
The ruling is the first by a federal judge that assigns a firm money figure against the pharmacy chains for their roles in the opioid crisis. Here, the judge, Dan A. Polster of United States District Court in northern Ohio, who has overseen more than 3,000 cases in the opioid litigation, ruled that the pharmacies bore responsibility for one-third of the amount that Ohio’s hard-hit Lake and Trumbull counties need to address the continuing damage wrought by the epidemic.” Read more at New York Times
Plea Deal Requires Weisselberg to Testify at Trump Organization Trial
The chief financial officer of the former president’s business is expected to admit to 15 felonies on Thursday and to take the stand at the company’s trial.
Allen Weisselberg, right, is expected to plead guilty in a long-running tax scheme on Thursday.Credit...Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Allen H. Weisselberg, for decades one of Donald J. Trump’s most trusted executives, has reached a deal to plead guilty on Thursday and admit to participating in a long-running tax scheme at the former president’s family business — a serious blow to the company that could heighten its risk in an upcoming trial on related charges.
Mr. Weisselberg will have to admit to all 15 felonies that prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office accused him of, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And if he is called as a witness at the company’s trial in October, he will have to testify about his role in the scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish corporate perks, the people said.
But Mr. Weisselberg will not implicate Mr. Trump or his family if he takes the stand in that trial, the people said, and he has refused to cooperate with prosecutors in their broader investigation into Mr. Trump, who has not been accused of wrongdoing.” Read more at New York Times
“Former Vice President Mike Pence said he would give ‘due consideration’ to testifying before the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and criticized Republicans for attacking the FBI over the search of Trump’s Florida home.” Read more at Bloomberg
Photo: Scott Eisen/Getty Images
“WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday called on Republicans to stop attacking the nation’s top law enforcement agencies over the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald J. Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., home.
Congressional Republicans, including members of leadership, have reacted with fury to the Aug. 8 search, which is part of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified material. Some lawmakers have called to ‘defund’ or ‘destroy’ the F.B.I., even as more moderate voices have chastised their colleagues for their rhetoric.
Speaking at a political event in New Hampshire, Mr. Pence said that Republicans could hold the Justice Department and the F.B.I. accountable for their decisions ‘without attacking the rank-and-file law enforcement personnel.’” Read more at New York Times
© Associated Press / Ron Harris | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta in April.
Under microscopes, CDC and IRS to get overhauls
“The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Treasury secretary each issued announcements on Wednesday vowing to overhaul two prominent public-facing agencies that have long been criticized as myopic and hobbled by past practices.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky concurred with many scientists, lawmakers, state officials and members of the public when she conceded the agency she has led since 2021 did not ‘reliably’ meet its mission during the COVID-19 pandemic — and must change (The New York Times and The Hill). The coronavirus has killed more than a million people in the U.S., and deaths still average more than 400 a day.
Walensky’s prescriptions after an external review: faster CDC responses, less focus on publication of academic papers, improved and stable management, and clearer, simpler communication and public guidance.
‘My goal is a new, public health action-oriented culture at CDC that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, communication, and timeliness,’ she said.
Walensky, a former Harvard Medical School professor and infectious disease expert, appointed Mary Wakefield, a former Obama administration health official, to lead the agency’s reorganization and transition plan, which on Wednesday remained vaguely described.
Down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen took aim at the IRS soon after President Biden signed the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act that includes tax changes hotly criticized by the GOP.
She told IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig on Wednesday to take six months to come up with an $80 billion overhaul that will clear a backlog of unprocessed tax returns, improve taxpayer service, revamp antiquated technology, and hire and train thousands of new employees (The New York Times).
Yellen tasked Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo to work with Rettig to get it done. She said the plan must have metrics for its various areas of improvement so that Congress can hold the agency accountable.
Lawmakers from both parties have identified plenty of shortcomings at the CDC and the IRS over the years.
Michael Lewis, who wrote ‘The Premonition,’ about the CDC’s failures during the Trump administration as COVID-19 spread, told NPR early last year that his reporting showed ‘that the bigger picture is we as a society have allowed institutions like the CDC to become very politicized. And this is a larger pattern in the U.S. government. More and more jobs [are] being politicized, more and more people in these jobs being on shorter, tighter leashes.’
Perhaps emblematic of that condition, Walensky and Yellen are looking over the horizon. Democrats, led by Biden, tell voters that the federal government works to solve problems and improve Americans’ lives. At the same time, conservatives promise oversight of both agencies next year if the GOP gains majorities in either or both chambers.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an ophthalmologist, early this month released a video telling people to flout CDC guidance. ‘It's time for us to resist. They can't arrest all of us. They can't keep all of your kids home from school,’ he said on Twitter. ‘We don't have to accept the mandates, lockdowns and harmful policies of the petty tyrants and bureaucrats. We can simply say: ‘No, not again.’’
Looking beyond 2024, some Republicans who are contemplating presidential bids, including former President Trump, champion an executive order known as ‘Schedule F,’ which they say could cull the federal workforce and install personnel more attuned to GOP aims.
Bashing the IRS currently is a popular GOP midterm election theme, The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports. Ignoring Yellen’s denials, Republicans tell voters the Inflation Reduction Act’s increased funding for the IRS means middle-class Americans and small businesses will be audited and perhaps investigated by armed IRS agents.
Yellen, in her Wednesday memo, said the IRS would focus on cracking down on wealthy tax dodgers and big companies that have long evaded paying what they owe to the federal government. She also promised that middle-class households would not face more onerous scrutiny and that their audit rates would not rise.
‘These investments will not result in households earning $400,000 per year or less or small businesses seeing an increase in the chances that they are audited relative to historical levels,’ Yellen wrote. ‘Instead, they will allow the IRS to work to end the two-tiered tax system, where most Americans pay what they owe, but those at the top of the distribution often do not.’” Read more at The Hill
Former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Former President Donald Trump is considering releasing surveillance footageof FBI agents searching his Mar-a-Lago residence. Some of Trump's aides and allies have encouraged him to make some of the footage available to the public, believing it could send a jolt of energy through the Republican Party's base, a person close to Trump told CNN. However, others in Trump's orbit have cautioned that releasing the footage could backfire by providing people with a visual understanding of the sheer volume of materials that federal agents seized, including classified materials. Separately, Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, is expected to plead guilty today to a 15-year tax fraud scheme. He will likely serve about 100 days behind bars, a person familiar with the matter said.” Read more at CNN
Liz Cheney after her concession speech this week.Kim Raff for The New York Times
“Representative Liz Cheney, who lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger this week, said she was ‘thinking’ about running for president.” Read more at New York Times
“Research published by the CDC Wednesday offered new insight into ways the monkeypox virus may be spreading. While most cases in the current outbreak have been linked to sexual activity, some people have tested positive following close, nonsexual contact with others at crowded gatherings and events, according to the researchers. CDC guidance says ‘monkeypox can spread to anyone’ through close contact, which is often skin-to-skin, as well as intimate contact. The latest CDC data shows there are more than 13,500 total confirmed monkeypox cases in the US, with the highest number of cases in New York, California, and Florida.” Read more at CNN
Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director.Pool photo by J. Scott Applewhite
Three big mistakes
“The U.S. seemed ready for the monkeypox outbreak. It had vaccines and treatments that are effective and experts had studied the virus for decades.
Yet the U.S. response has fallen short. The country cannot use millions of vaccine doses it owns because they were not bottled for distribution. The available vaccines and medications remain out of reach for a vast majority of Americans — a result of poor communication by federal officials and of other bureaucratic barriers.
Monkeypox is not very deadly, so this is not a Covid-level catastrophe. But the flawed response suggests that, nearly three years after Covid first appeared, the U.S. is still unprepared for the next deadly pandemic.
The C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, acknowledged that much yesterday. She called for her agency to be overhauled after an external review found it had failed to respond quickly and clearly to Covid. She faulted the agency for acting too much like an academic institution that was focused on producing ‘data for publication’ instead of ‘data for action.’
‘For 75 years, C.D.C. and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,’ Walensky said.
In today’s newsletter, I want to explain three vulnerabilities that Covid, and now monkeypox, exposed: unclear communication, a fragmented public health system and a tendency for public officials to be reactive instead of proactive.
Unclear communication
During the early days of the Covid pandemic, a lot of criticism focused on Donald Trump. He downplayed the threat, pushed the U.S. to reopen quickly after an initial lockdown and made outright false statements about treatments.
Trump’s poor performance sometimes made it seem as if he was the sole reason the U.S. had struggled more than other countries in combating Covid. But he wasn’t; the broader public health system struggled, too. For its part, the C.D.C. said yesterday that its public guidance on Covid was ‘confusing and overwhelming.’
One memorable example was officials’ initial, monthslong refusal to recommend that the public wear masks — not because they thought masks were ineffective, but because they worried that public demand would cause a shortage of masks for health care workers.
Their hesitation represented what would become a pattern throughout the pandemic: a reluctance to communicate the truth clearly and directly. The resulting lack of clarity made it harder for Americans to act on expert advice. But it also damaged public trust, when people eventually found out they had been deceived.
Similar problems have emerged with monkeypox. Some public health officials have been reluctant to acknowledge that the virus is mostly spreading among gay and bisexual men, out of fear of stigmatizing this group. But about 95 percent of known U.S. cases are among men who have sex with men (not all of whom identify as gay or bisexual). Failing to acknowledge that makes it harder to target and advise the most at-risk group. (I went into more detail in a previous newsletter about who should take precautions and why.)
Effective public health messaging needs to be honest, said Ellen Carlin, a health security policy expert at Georgetown University. If officials do not trust the public with the truth, then the public will eventually stop trusting officials, too.
A monkeypox vaccination site in San Francisco this month.Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Fragmented systems
Another problem that made the U.S.’s Covid and monkeypox responses less effective: The American public health system is divided — among the federal government, 50 states, thousands of local governments and many more private organizations and workers both inside and outside the health care system.
We saw the results when the U.S. first started distributing Covid vaccines. Poor planning and communication between the layers of government, along with limited supply, made it harder for front-line officials to plan for how many shots they could get in arms. Similar problems have appeared with monkeypox vaccine distribution.
The C.D.C. is a key federal agency that is supposed to rise above this fragmentation and help coordinate the national response to disease outbreaks. But throughout the pandemic, as Walensky acknowledged, it has struggled. And it seems to be struggling with monkeypox, too.
Reactive, not proactive
Many of these problems could have been avoided with better pandemic preparedness. The federal government could have, for example, bulked up mask stockpiles or manufacturing before the pandemic, easing early concerns about shortages.
But the U.S. has underfunded public health for years, experts said. So when Covid first began to spread, officials suddenly had to shift limited resources to deal with a crisis that had caught them by surprise — making mistakes more likely. In the early days of the pandemic, experts often said that the plane was being built as it was being flown.
Covid has worsened the problem. “Health departments have lost a lot of staff and have been very burned out,” said Caitlin Rivers, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There’s just not a lot left to bring resources to their full potential.”
To address the gaps, the Biden administration has called for tens of billions more in funding for pandemic preparedness. Congress has so far ignored those proposals, in what seems like history repeating itself.
The bottom line
Nearly three years into Covid, the U.S. is still not ready for the next pandemic. The C.D.C. is moving to remedy some of the problems plaguing the country’s public health system. Those changes, along with the broader lessons from Covid and monkeypox, could be the difference between another deadly pandemic and a crisis averted.
Climate helps fuel inflation
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
“Extreme weather, worsened by climate change, is a hidden cause of inflation — pushing up prices of everything from food and clothing to electronics, Axios Closer co-author Hope King writes.
Why it matters: Heavy rainfall, flooding, heat waves and droughts erode agriculture, infrastructure and workers' ability to stay on the job — all of which lead to supply-chain breakdowns and worker shortages.
Chip and solar-panel factories in one of China's key manufacturing regions just shut down, as the country tries to ration power during a 60-year-record heat wave.
Dairy and meat prices in Europe are rising, as droughts zap lands meant for grazing and growing grain for feed.
In the U.S., wheat fields in Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska — and cotton harvests in Texas — have been withering due to drought.
Between the lines: Workers facing more strenuous conditions tend to command a higher wage, says Solomon Hsiang, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley.
If companies have to pay more to protect them or install new equipment like air conditioning in warehouses, ‘someone's got to pay.’
Threat level: Long-lasting heat waves like the ones in the U.S. and China are expected to become more common.” Read more at Axios
“The US dollar’s relentless climb is blowing a hole in the finances of developing nations, fueling inflation, deepening poverty and fanning unrest. Worldwide, 36 currencies have lost at least a 10th of their value this year, and policy makers are, collectively, burning through the equivalent of more than $2 billion of foreign reserves every weekday to prop up them up.” Read more at Bloomberg
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
“A new large-scale Oxford University study finds that people who've had COVID face increased risk of neurological and psychiatric issues — brain fog, psychosis, seizures, dementia — for up to two years after infection.
The study found anxiety and depression are more common after COVID, though typically subside within two months of infection, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.
Why it matters: The study, published yesterday in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, is the ‘first to attempt to examine some of the heterogeneity of persistent neurological and psychiatric aspects of COVID-19 in a large dataset,’ an accompanying editorial says.” Read more at Axios
Graphic: MSNBC
“Former President Trump has bombarded supporters with more than 100 emails asking for money based on the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago — with lucrative results, The Washington Post reports:
Contributions to Trump's PAC topped $1 million a day for at least two days after the search — up from a typical $200,000-$300,000.
Between the lines: Trump's emails perform better when they’re connected to high-profile news events, especially episodes that make Trump supporters feel under attack, The Post notes.” Read more at Axios
“LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — As a potential power broker, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will use his first visit to Ukraine since the war started nearly six months ago to seek ways to expand the export of grain from Europe’s breadbasket to the world’s needy. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will use his visit to focus on containing the volatile situation at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hosting both men Thursday far away from the front lines, in the western city of Lviv, where diplomatic efforts to help end the war will also be on the agenda.
Meanwhile, the screams of incoming shells still overpowered the whispers of diplomacy. At least 11 people were killed and 40 wounded in a series of massive Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
The late Wednesday attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killed at least seven people, wounded 20 others and damaged residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, authorities said.” Read more at AP News
“Seven people were killed and 20 others wounded in a Russian rocket attack on an apartment building in northeastern Ukraine today, officials in the region said. ‘This is an act of intimidation, genocide,’ Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, emphasizing there was ‘no justification’ for the strike. This comes as Russia is suffering heavy losses among troops in Ukraine, but the true number of casualties has not been disclosed. Russia is also dealing with a population crisis: statistics show the country's population shrank by an average of 86,000 people per month between January and May, a record. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin this week revived a Soviet-era ‘Mother Heroine’ award for women with more than 10 children. The award is a payment of 1 million rubles ($16,500) for Russian mothers once their 10th child turns 1.”
“An explosion erupted inside a mosque during evening prayers on Wednesdayin Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 21 people and injuring 33 others. The explosion, which injured several children, took place in the north of the capital, according to health care organization Emergency. Officials do not yet know who was responsible or the motivation behind the blast. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed there were dead and wounded civilians but did not say how many. He tweeted that the Taliban government ‘strongly condemns’ the explosion, and vowed the perpetrators of ‘such crimes will be caught and punished for their heinous deeds.’” Read more at CNN
“Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong will plead guilty in the city’s largest national security case, local media reported, after being detained for more than a year without a trial date under a law drafted by China.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Haitian gangs are buying unprecedented quantities of high-powered rifles at shops in Florida and smuggling them out of the US, fueling a wave of violence that’s destabilizing the Caribbean nation, US law-enforcement officials said.” Read more at Bloomberg
“China has vowed to ensure unmarried mothers receive maternity benefits, as the world’s second-largest economy revamps a slew of policies in a bid to boost its falling birthrate.” Read more at Bloomberg
Sweden’s right-wing opposition may be on the way to unseat Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democratic government, as it holds a narrow lead in a poll published less than four weeks before general elections.” Read more at Bloomberg
“As record-breaking temperatures arrived earlier this year and lingered longer, the Indian subcontinent is facing the possibility that punishing heat may be the new normal. Pakistan’s Jacobabad district is one of the few places in the world to have breached the so-called wet-bulb temperature threshold of 35C — the combination of heat and humidity that’s considered the theoretical limit for survival and roughly equivalent to a heat index of 160F. With governments struggling to put in place funds and plans, our team of reporters takes a look at how communities are cobbling together their own coping strategies.” Read more at Bloomberg
A patient being treated for heatstroke at a government hospital in Jacobabad, Pakistan. Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg
“The Japanese government is trying to encourage its young people to drink more alcohol as moves toward a healthier lifestyle have led to a steep decline in the tax take from alcohol sales. Beer consumption has been especially curtailed, with sales down 20 percent and per capita drinking down almost 10 percent.
The National Tax Agency has launched the ‘Sake Viva!’ campaign to come up with ways to promote alcoholic drink consumption among 20 to 39-year-olds.
Tax officials in part blame the coronavirus pandemic for freeing workers from office rituals. ‘As working from home made strides to a certain extent during the COVID-19 crisis, many people may have come to question whether they need to continue the habit of drinking with colleagues to deepen communication,’ one official told the Japan Times.
As the Guardian reports, the health ministry has asked that promotions include a reminder to only drink the ‘appropriate amount’ of alcohol (which a recent Lancet study suggests should be none for those under 40).” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Buyers of electric vehicles may become eligible for a significant tax credit once again due to the newly signed Inflation Reduction Act. The previous tax credit offered $7,500 for new electric vehicle buyers until their automaker hit a 200,000 limit in tax credits. Now, automakers no longer have a 200,000 limit. But in order to be eligible for as much as $7,500, the vehicles -- and many of their components -- must be assembled in North America. The new law, which fully takes effect on January 1, 2023, also imposes new restrictions on the price of vehicles, as well as limits on the income of the buyer. Under the new system, the MSRP of a pickup or SUV must not be over $80,000, and other vehicles like sedans must not surpass $55,000. Also, a buyer's income must not exceed $150,000 if single or $300,000 if married.” Read more at CNN
“A Texas school district pulled over 40 books, including the Bible, from shelves amid a review. The decision came amid an uptick in book bans in schools and libraries across the country. The American Library Association, which tracks book challenges and bans, reported a more than doubling of challenges in 2021 from 2020, with actual numbers likely being much higher.” Read more at USA Today
via University of Michigan Library
A fake Galileo
“The University of Michigan Library had described a manuscript from Galileo Galilei as ‘one of the great treasures i’n its collection. On Wednesday, the university announced that the document — which purported to document his 1610 discovery of moons orbiting Jupiter — was a 20th-century forgery.
Nick Wilding, an expert on forgeries who is working on a Galileo biography, first noticed that something seemed off. One clue: The ink at the top and the bottom of the page were remarkably similar, even though the two sections were supposedly written months apart. From there, he traced the manuscript to a Detroit businessman, an archbishop of Pisa and finally a notorious counterfeiter in Milan.” Read more at New York Times