New report on Big Pharma price gouging

I've long considered Big Pharma to be one of the three absolutely worst "Bigs" of all, along with Big Ag and Big Weapons.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday published the second part of its investigation into how prescription drug middlemen are marking up the prices of specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by hundreds—and in some cases, thousands—of percent, underscoring what advocates say is the need for urgent action by policymakers.

The FTC's second interim staff report on consolidated pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) found that the three largest of these middlemen—CVS Health's Caremark Rx, Cigna Group's Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx—"marked up two specialty generic cancer drugs by thousands of percent and then paid their affiliated pharmacies hundreds of millions of dollars of dispensing revenue in excess of estimated acquisition costs for each drug annually." - Common Dreams

The ultra-privileged have already blown through their carbon budget

Not that the rest of us can do much about it, at this time.

An Oxfam analysis published Friday shows that the richest 1% of the global population has already blown through its global carbon budget for 2025 — just 10 days into the New Year. The figures, which arrive amid catastrophic fires in Los Angeles that may turn out to be the costliest in U.S. history, highlight the disproportionate role of the ultra-wealthy in fueling a climate emergency that is causing devastation around the world.

Oxfam calculates that in order to keep critical climate goals in reach, each person on Earth must have a CO2 footprint of roughly 2.1 tons per year or less. On average, each person in the global 1% is burning through 76 tons of planet-warning carbon dioxide annually — or 0.209 per day — meaning it took them just over a week to reach their CO2 limit for the year

By contrast, the average person in the poorest 50% of humanity has an annual carbon footprint of 0.7 tons per year — well within the 2.1-ton budget compatible with a livable future. - Truthout

Relying on AI in healthcare invites disaster

More totally irresponsible, and dangerous, crap from the tech greedheads.

Every so often these days, a study comes out proclaiming that AI is better at diagnosing health problems than a human doctor. These studies are enticing because the healthcare system in America is woefully broken and everyone is searching for solutions. AI presents a potential opportunity to make doctors more efficient by doing a lot of administrative busywork for them and by doing so, giving them time to see more patients and therefore drive down the ultimate cost of care. There is also the possibility that real-time translation would help non-English speakers gain improved access. For tech companies, the opportunity to serve the healthcare industry could be quite lucrative.

In practice, however, it seems that we are not close to replacing doctors with artificial intelligence, or even really augmenting them. The Washington Post spoke with multiple experts including physicians to see how early tests of AI are going, and the results were not assuring...

The problem with tech optimists pushing AI into fields like healthcare is that it is not the same as making consumer software. We already know that Microsoft’s Copilot 365 assistant has bugs, but a small mistake in your PowerPoint presentation is not a big deal. Making mistakes in healthcare can kill people. Daneshjou told the Post she red-teamed ChatGPT with 80 others, including both computer scientists and physicians posing medical questions to ChatGPT, and found it offered dangerous responses twenty percent of the time. “Twenty percent problematic responses is not, to me, good enough for actual daily use in the health care system,” she said. - Gizmodo

Ending affirmative action is having dire effects

As you'll recall, because of a decision by the despicable Trump SCOTUS majority.

Gone, too, according to Hechinger Report findings, are dozens of public-university scholarships once reserved for students from underrepresented racial groups, amounting to at least $60 million, although the total is likely much higher. Government officials in Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin have ordered public colleges and universities in their states to end consideration of race in scholarship programs because of the court’s ruling.

It’s not just scholarships that have disappeared, another Hechinger Report review found. Also gone or under threat of disappearing in the year and a half since the court’s decision are scores of fellowships, pipeline programs and race-based mentoring opportunities, even though they weren’t mentioned in the court’s decision.

Although several schools are reporting substantial drops in the percentage of Black students entering this fall, we are still awaiting a fuller picture of what enrollment looks like for the first class since the decision, in part because much of the data is still unreported or unverified. - Hechinger Report

The Pentagon keeps getting more money and keeps failing audits

This is from a couple of weeks ago. It's since been signed into law, with a final price tag of $895B.

The U.S. House of Representatives has advanced the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a massive $883.7 billion defense budget, despite the Pentagon failing its seventh consecutive audit. The bill passed with bipartisan support, as 81 Democrats joined 200 Republicans to approve the measure...

This latest defense package has drawn significant criticism from lawmakers and advocacy groups who point to the Pentagon’s history of financial mismanagement, the influence of the military-industrial complex, and controversial provisions embedded within the bill.

The Pentagon has consistently failed to meet federal audit requirements since it was first legally obligated to do so in 2018. The Department of Defense (DOD) announced last month that it had failed its seventh audit in a row, continuing a trend that critics say highlights pervasive inefficiencies. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Pentagon suffers from “pervasive deficiencies in the department’s business processes, internal controls, financial reporting, and financial management systems.” - Nation of Change

The electric vehicle tax credit may be doomed

If so, I'll be a little surprised that the Big Three automakers didn't do more to save at least part of it.

And, with the doom-and-gloom Trump team of Merry Pranksters ready to swoop down on all things electric, there’s never been a better time to take advantage of federal tax incentives. Reports are widespread that the Trump transition team is planning to terminate the $7,500 consumer EV credit, an action publicly supported by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

If you find yourself imagining what it would be like to drive sustainably, now is the time to buy an EV. Go for it, bro.

There are many reasons for consumers like my brother to buy an EV right now. Buyers will save a bundle on fuel — home charging makes owning an EV reliable and affordable, and road trips in an EV are becoming easier. Electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions — nearly three quarters of the GHG emissions from a gasoline vehicle come from the tailpipe during vehicle operation, and the planet really can’t take many more internal combustion engines if it is to thrive. Then again, if financial considerations are your main focus, the EV tax credit that is fleetingly available will have real meaning for you. - CleanTechnica

The Arctic tundra is now a carbon source

Just what the climate needs.

According to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, tundra in the Arctic is becoming a net source of carbon dioxide, rather than the climate-beneficial carbon sink it has been for millennia.

This year was the second warmest in the Arctic, based on data dating back to 1900, the report said. Across the region, temperatures from October 2023 to September 2025 were 1.20 degrees Celsius above the average for 1991 to 2020, a press release from NOAA said. - EcoWatch