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Walgreens to pay San Francisco $230 million for its role in opioid epidemic

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

(KRON) -- Walgreens will pay the City of San Francisco a $230 million settlement after city officials brought a suit against the pharmaceutical company. The settlement is the largest award provided to a local jurisdiction from an opioid defendant since the onset of the opioid epidemic. Holmes granted new prison date The announcement was made on the steps of San Francisco City Hall Wednesday morning. Payments from Walgreens will come in stages over the next eight years, completing in 2030. The first $57 million will be paid by June of 2024, according to San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu. A federal court found that Walgreens "substantially contributed" to the opioid epidemic, and has heavily impacted San Francisco, Chiu said. "Extremely dangerous and addictive opioids were marketed to patients as safe. We now know that was a blatant lie." -- David Chiu This resulted in millions of Americans ultimately becoming dependent on opioids. Walgreens is one of the largest pharmaceutica...

San Jose day care has dangerous lead levels in water

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

Recent reports ordered by the state reveal children at an East San Jose day care center are drinking lead-infected water. Kidango-Linda Vista Center is one of more than 14,000 licensed child care centers in California being ordered to test its drinking water for lead under Assembly Bill 2370. The law mandates that licensed child care facilities built before 2010 must test their water for lead levels. Tests revealed the child care center in the Alum Rock neighborhood has 120 times the amount of lead legally allowable at a licensed day care. Oakland police asking for public’s help in locating possible kidnap victim The Environmental Protection Agency has dictated that no amount of lead in water is safe for a child. The recommended quantity of lead in water is zero, but the EPA legally allows up to 15 parts per billion of water in public waterways. Licensed day cares are not permitted to have anything higher than five parts per billion (ppb), but data shows the Linda Vista Center...

How Progressives Won — and Lost — in Purple Pennsylvania

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

Progressive candidates in Pittsburgh won two key races on Tuesday. Reform candidate and chief public defender Matt Dugan ousted a longtime tough-on-crime incumbent to win the primary for district attorney in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County. State Rep. Sara Innamorato won the Democratic primary for Allegheny County executive. Both will advance to general elections in November. Dugan is currently running unopposed, and Innamorato will face Republican candidate Joseph Rockey. The wins add to a recent body of progressive success in a crucial swing state where Republicans have made inroads in recent years. Since 2018, progressives have surged in Pennsylvania races from Congress to state legislature and local government, picking up key seats in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia along the way. Conventional politics in swing states have typically shunned progressives in favor of moderate candidates. Tuesday’s results are evidence that candidates who prioritize issues facing working peop...

Prince Harry and Meghan pursued in their car by photographers; incident stirred memories of Diana

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, were pursued in their car by photographers after a charity event in New York, an incident that the mayor and the couple’s office described Wednesday as potentially dangerous and stirred memories of the 1997 car crash that killed Harry’s mother, Princess Diana.With the help of police, the couple was eventually able to switch to a taxi cab and be whisked away, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and did so on condition of anonymity.The cab driver, Sukhcharn Singh, instantly recognized his passengers when they scooted in. “They were following us the whole time,” he said of the paparazzi, though he said he wouldn’t call it a chase.The New York City police department confirmed the incident involving photographers and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex but said no injuries, collision or arrests took place after Meghan accepted an award from the Ms. Foundation.New York City Mayor Er...

Lanzan el Museo de la Mentira, un proyecto de verificación informativa en México

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO – El Museo de la Mentira, un proyecto virtual de verificación informativa en México, ilustra mediante inteligencia artificial (IA) la imagen mental de las noticias falsas que se crean los consumidores de este tipo de información.Coronavirus detectado por “bluetooth”, eutanasia en niños deprimidos, la decisión del director de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) de no vacunarse o la erupción de un volcán en Iztapalapa (en el este de la Ciudad de México) son algunas de las noticias falsas que Animal Político ha desmentido a través de “El Sabueso” -el espacio de “fact-check” de este medio mexicano- y que podrán ver ilustradas los visitantes de este museo.Animal Político, por su “vocación de servicio”, describió el director del medio, Daniel Moreno, desarrolló junto a Weber Shandwick (WS) y McCann México este museo virtual. Sentencian a más de 6 años de prisión a mexicana que mató al hombre que la ...

Fewer Venezuelan arrivals lead to drop in illegal entries to US after pandemic asylum limits

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A 98% drop in Venezuelans arriving at the U.S. southern border has help lead to a steep decline in migrants crossing illegally from Mexico since pandemic-related asylum limits expired last week, U.S. officials said Wednesday.The Border Patrol has stopped migrants an average of 4,400 times a day since Friday, when a public-health rule known as Title 42 ended. The average includes the less than 4,000 migrants each of the last two days, said Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant homeland security secretary for border and immigration policy. That’s down from a daily average of more than 10,000 in the four days leading to the end of Title 42.“We continue to see encouraging signs that the measures we have put in place are working,” Nuñez-Neto told reporters, adding on a cautious note, “It is still too soon to draw any firm conclusions here about where these trends will go in the coming days and weeks.”The Biden administration has been promoting a carrot-and-stick strategy that...

Philadelphia mayoral primary returned Democrats to familiar themes of crime, inequality

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

Democrat Cherelle Parker turned back challenges from the left Tuesday to win Philadelphia’s mayoral primary, a contest that serves as the nation’s latest barometer of the mood of big cities in dealing with issues such as crime, poverty and inequality.Her primary win in the heavily Democratic city puts Parker on track to become the first woman elected mayor of Philadelphia. It is the latest local election to represent a clash between moderates and progressives on concerns such as policing and education and to show the power of union support in big city politics.In Chicago, progressive Democrat Brandon Johnson began serving as mayor this week, promising the city will “grow by rerouting the rivers of prosperity to the base of disinvestment.” In Los Angeles, new Democratic Mayor Karen Bass wants to spend more than $1 billion to get unhoused people into shelter and treatment programs.And in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Allegheny County’s top public defender, Matt Dugan, ran some 11 perce...

Blue Jays’ Jay Jackson says was tipping pitches against Aaron Judge

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

TORONTO (AP) — Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Jay Jackson says he believes he was tipping his pitches when New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge homered against him Monday night.That at-bat was quickly scrutinized when cameras caught Judge taking unusual glances toward the first-base line moments before Jackson delivered. Many questioned whether someone on the Yankees was signaling to the 2022 AL MVP an indication of which pitch Jackson was about to throw, based on either sign stealing or pitch tipping.Jackson told The Athletic on Wednesday that he believes a Yankees coach was able to see which grip he was using while holding the ball in his glove, and that coach relayed the info to Judge, helping him hit a 462-foot home run. Jackson was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday, and Toronto recalled right-hander Thomas Hatch from the Bisons.There is no prohibition on teammates or coaches using the naked eye to study pitchers and relay that info to batters. When the 2017 Houston Astros...

CNN names Kaitlan Collins to fill prime-time vacancy in Chris Cuomo’s old slot

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN said Kaitlan Collins will host a new hourlong show at the center of the prime-time lineup, filling a slot left vacant since the firing of Chris Cuomo and as the network’s ratings are at a low ebb.Collins will begin regularly hosting the 9 p.m. Eastern show next month, the network said Wednesday, making the announcement during a Warner Discovery sales presentation to advertisers.The ex-White House correspondent moderated CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump last week, but was generally held blameless for criticism the event received.“She is a smart and gifted journalist who we’ve all seen hold lawmakers and newsmakers accountable,” CNN Chairman Chris Licht said in a memo to staff members. “She pushes politicians off their talking points, gets real answers — and as everyone who’s worked with her knows — breaks a lot of news.”It’s the biggest move by Licht, who became CNN’s leader last year, to put his imprint on the...

South Africa minister denies extensive ANC corruption at power utility, concedes ‘naughty’ few

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 10:37:01 GMT

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A senior South African government minister denied Wednesday there was extensive corruption within the ruling African Nations Congress party in relation to the country’s financially-crippled power utility, although he did concede a “few” might have engaged in “naughty activity.”Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan was answering questions from lawmakers in Parliament at a hearing focusing on the graft at the state-owned national electricity supplier that has contributed to Africa’s most developed country facing a power crisis and daily blackouts. It has raised fears that the electricity supply could collapse.“You can’t put everything on the shoulders of the ANC,” Gordhan said in relation to what’s accepted as rampant corruption and mismanagement at national electricity company Eskom. “There are within the ANC very honest, dedicated activists who want the public interests to be primary and who want this country to work, and ...