Trump backs off proposal to slash prescription drug prices by linking them to foreign countries
 
WASHINGTON — Former President Trump is backing off his support for a controversial drug pricing plan that struck fear into the hearts of pharmaceutical executives during his first term.
 
Trump in 2020 signed an executive order to make sure that Medicare didn’t pay more for physician-administered drugs than other developed countries. The aggressive policy could have slashed more than $10 billion per year from the pharmaceutical industry’s bottom line. The Biden administration ultimately rescinded the policy following a court order that stopped the program from going into effect.
 
In June 2023, Trump’s campaign released a video and statement indicating that the policy could make a comeback during a second Trump term, and said that, “On Day One, President Trump will sign an Executive Order to end global freeloading on American consumers once and for all.”  
 
That is no longer the case, according to a statement by a Trump campaign spokesperson.  
 
“There is no push to renew the most favored nations drug pricing policy. President Trump has promised to lower drug costs for Americans, like he did in his first term,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said in an email to STAT on Friday. The campaign video on the topic has been removed from the campaign’s website, though a transcript and press release remains.  
 
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Leavitt pointed to another Trump campaign proposal to create a presidential commission “of independent minds who are not bought and paid for by Big Pharma” to investigate a rise in chronic illness.  
 
Trump also proposed banning regulators from taking jobs with companies “they deal with and regulate, such as Big Pharma.” Trump in his last administration hired former pharmaceutical company executives for prominent health care positions.
 
Otherwise, the Trump campaign has not provided details about measures that would lower drug costs for consumers.  
 
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Marist Poll: Most New Yorkers want Adams to resign
 
Seven out of ten New York City adults think Mayor Eric Adams should resign, and just 26 percent approve of the job he’s doing. Two-thirds believe he has done something illegal.
 
The devastating numbers from a Marist Poll released Friday are the latest sign of just how dire the situation has become for Adams, who was indicted on federal bribery charges last month and whose administration has been caught up in numerous other criminal investigations.
 
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There are no silver linings for the mayor. Democrats disapprove of him just as much as Republicans and independent voters. While Black New Yorkers were key to electing Adams as the city’s second-ever Black mayor in 2021, now just 38 percent approve of the job he’s doing.
 
Adams’ unpopularity is not new. He was 17 points underwater in a Marist poll taken last November. Adams’ 28 percent approval rating in a December Quinnipiac University poll was at the time the lowest among any New York City mayor since such polling started nearly 30 years ago.
 
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Adams has resisted calls for his resignation, saying he will “step up” rather than step down. He pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, arguing there was no quid-pro-quo bribery scheme.
 
Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove a mayor, but has so far pushed Adams to force out controversial appointees caught up in probes, rather than focusing on the mayor himself.
 
Hochul would have support from New Yorkers if she does decide to move against Adams. The Marist Poll found 63 percent of city adults think she should begin the process of removing him, while 36 percent are against it.
 
The poll also took a look at former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been laying the groundwork for a comeback run after he resigned under pressure in 2021. A slight majority of city voters would prefer he stays out of a mayoral race, with 55 percent opposed to him running.
 
But Cuomo may also find encouragement in some of the numbers. Some 48 percent of Democrats want him to run for mayor, and a majority of Black voters — 54 percent — support a City Hall run.

Donald Trump exhorte Israël à cibler les installations nucléaires iraniennes
 
L’Iran a tiré mardi quelque deux cents missiles vers Israël, en riposte à l’assassinat de Hassan Nasrallah, et à la mort, le 31 juillet, d’Ismaïl Haniyeh, le chef du Hamas, dans une explosion à Téhéran imputée à Israël. Cette deuxième attaque iranienne directe contre le territoire israélien depuis avril a entraîné des menaces croisées de représailles entre Israël et l’Iran.
 
Alors que le président des Etats-Unis, Joe Biden, a estimé vendredi qu’Israël devait « envisager d’autres options » que de viser des sites pétroliers en Iran, Donald Trump voit les choses autrement.
 
Au cours d’un discours de campagne à Fayetteville, en Caroline du Nord, vendredi, l’ancien président républicain, candidat à l’élection de novembre, a prôné des frappes israéliennes sur les installations nucléaires iraniennes. « Je pense que [Biden] s’est trompé. N’est-ce pas ce qu’il faut viser ? », a-t-il lancé, ajoutant qu’il fallait « s’attaquer d’abord au nucléaire et s’occuper du reste plus tard ».

Someone really has been killing geese in Springfield, Ohio – but it wasn’t Haitian immigrants
 
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Brian Comer of Springfield was issued a citation last month for shooting two geese at a golf course, according to Clark County Municipal Court filings first reported by Texas-based investigative journalist Steven Monacelli. A witness told an officer ahead of Comer’s citation that he saw a “white male, in his late fifties or early sixties” riding a lawnmower before getting off and shooting two geese with a shotgun, the court filings reveal.
 
 

Trump also repeated the claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets during his debate against Kamala Harris on September 10. Debate moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump, stating the claim was unfounded, but the former president doubled down.
 
Trump and Vance’s claims have been repeatedly debunked by Springfield’s police department, city officials and Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine. Local officials have also made it clear that Haitian immigrants who recently arrived in the city did so legally. Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck had even told a Vance staffer directly on September 9 that the pet-eating rumors were not true when he called to verify, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
“He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” Heck told the WSJ. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
 
Vance still shared the conspiracy theory on X to his 1.9 million followers and did not remove the post even after his staffer was told there was no truth to them. He then tried to prove the claims by pointing to a police report from one resident that alleged her cat may have been stolen by her Haitian neighbors.
 
The cat, Miss Sassy, was hiding in the basement the whole time, her owner Anna Kilgore told the WSJ. Kilgore apologized to her neighbors for the mix-up with the help of a translation app, she told the outlet.