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      2026 Prices for Drugs That Are Subject to Negotiations

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      The prices were made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, which granted the health secretary the authority to negotiate on behalf of Medicare.The Biden administration on Thursday announced the results of negotiations between Medicare and pharmaceutical companies over the prices of 10 costly or common medications. The new prices, which will take effect in 2026, are the maximum Medicare Part D plans and patients will pay for a one-month supply.1. Eliquis, for preventing strokes and blood clots, from Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer, $2312. Jardiance, for diabetes and heart failure, from Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly, $1973. Xarelto, for preventing strokes and blood clots, from Johnson & Johnson, $1974. Januvia, for diabetes, from Merck, $1135. Farxiga, for diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease, from AstraZeneca $1786. Entresto, for heart failure, from Novartis, $2957. Enbrel, for autoimmune conditions, from Amgen, $2,3558. Imbruvica, for blood cancers, from AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson, $9,3199. Stelara, for autoimmune conditions, from Johnson & Johnson, $4,69510. Fiasp and NovoLog insulin products, for diabetes, from Novo Nordisk, $119 More

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      RFK Jr. Sought a Meeting With Kamala Harris to Discuss a Cabinet Post

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate whose standing has dropped in the polls, sought a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss endorsing her in exchange for a promise of a cabinet post, according to two people briefed on the outreach who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.His effort has been unsuccessful. The news was first reported by The Washington Post.“We’ve reached out repeatedly through the highest level intermediaries,” Mr. Kennedy wrote in a text message on Wednesday night. “We’ve been told that they have no interest in talking with me.”There was little chance the Harris campaign would engage with Mr. Kennedy. Public and private polling has found that as he spent the summer attacking President Biden, he began to draw more support from voters otherwise predisposed to back former President Donald J. Trump. Now Ms. Harris does better in some surveys when Mr. Kennedy is included than when she is tested in a head-to-head matchup with Mr. Trump.Mr. Kennedy, long seen as a potential spoiler in the race, has slipped in polls and struggled to raise money, and he has appeared to consider potential off ramps as speculation has grown about whether he might drop out and, if so, whether he would endorse Ms. Harris or Mr. Trump.On Wednesday night, Mr. Kennedy wrote: “I’ve always argued that we should be willing to talk with each other across party lines. I’m willing to meet with leaders of both parties to discuss the possibility of a unity government.”The Post reported last month that Mr. Kennedy had held talks with Mr. Trump about a possible cabinet job, proposing a role in public health leadership, in exchange for his support. And in a leaked video of a phone call between the two men, Mr. Trump tried to cajole Mr. Kennedy to exit the race and endorse him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gwen Walz, la esposa calmada y ultracompetente de Tim Walz

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      [Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En 2006, durante su primera campaña para el Congreso, Tim Walz tenía previsto hablar en una cena de recaudación de fondos en Mankato, su ciudad natal en Minnesota. En ese momento, era un político desconocido que participaba en una campaña muy reñida contra un candidato titular que había ocupado el cargo durante seis mandatos. La cena le brindaba la oportunidad de hacer campaña en su distrito local del Partido Demócrata-Agrario-Laborista de Minnesota y aumentar los fondos de su campaña.Solo había un problema: Walz tenía laringitis.Mientras los invitados se servían la comida, se sorprendieron al ver que otra persona subía al escenario: Gwen Walz, la esposa de Walz.Estaba acostumbrada a hablar ante grandes grupos: al igual que su marido, Gwen Walz había sido profesora de una escuela pública durante más de una década. Los asistentes quedaron impresionados por su seguridad y claridad.“Hubo otros candidatos que hablaron, y ella fue la más elocuente del grupo”, dijo John Klaber, un residente de North Mankato que asistió a la recaudación de fondos hace casi dos décadas. “Todos miramos a nuestro alrededor y dijimos: ‘¿Por qué ella no se postula?”.La mayor parte del público estadounidense pudo ver por primera vez al gobernador Tim Walz la semana pasada en un mitin en Filadelfia junto a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris, quien ese mismo día había anunciado que era su compañero de fórmula. Al final de su discurso, el país también pudo ver por primera vez a la mujer con la que ha estado casado durante 30 años.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inflation Progress Cheers Biden and Democrats

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      After more than two years of being politically battered over soaring prices, Wednesday’s inflation report left many Democrats feeling victorious.Consumer prices rose 2.9 percent in the year through July, falling below 3 percent for the first time since 2021. The report keeps the Federal Reserve on track to cut interest rates next month, a move that could lift economic sentiment in the United States ahead of the November election.“We’ve won the battle against inflation,” Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council, wrote on X. “It’s time for the Fed to begin cutting rates.”Congressional Democrats were also using the report to push the Fed to cut aggressively.“Inflation is down,” Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said in a news release. “The price of gas or a new car have fallen over the last year. And many families can now breathe a bit easier. Now, we need to make sure that this relief is reaching all Americans.”Republicans have been hammering Democrats over inflation and are unlikely to let them off the hook. They continue to note that prices are up nearly 20 percent since President Biden took office and note that the labor market is showing signs of slowing.“Despite a small improvement in the rate of price increases, the damage from the Biden-Harris administration’s philosophy of ‘tax it, regulate it, and spend it’ is done and continues to plague the economy,” said Representative Jodey Arrington of Texas, the chairman of the House Budget Committee. “It’s hard to fathom how hardworking American families can survive another four years of the Biden-Harris failed economic agenda.”Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has pledged to crack down on corporate price gouging and is expected to lay out additional plans for lowering costs in a speech this week.Former President Donald J. Trump, her Republican opponent, will hold a rally in Pennsylvania this weekend with a focus on inflation, according to his campaign. He has claimed that the Biden administration’s spending policies have fueled record levels of inflation.“Under Kamala Harris, everything costs 20 percent more than it did under President Trump,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary. “America cannot afford another four years of Kamala’s failed economic policies.”While Mr. Biden cheered the inflation figures, he cautioned that the cost of living remained too expensive. He said large corporations had been sitting on record profits and failing to do enough to help.“We have more work to do to lower costs for hardworking Americans, but we are making real progress,” Mr. Biden said, while noting that wages have outpaced price increases for 17 months running. “Prices are still too high.” More

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      Ilhan Omar, a Vocal Critic of Israel and ‘Squad’ Member, Wins Her Primary

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      Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the progressive lightning rod whose unabated criticism of Israel has deepened the fissures in the Democratic Party over the war in Gaza, won her primary on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.While she prevailed, it has been a rocky summer for the “squad,” the ultraliberal faction of lawmakers in the House.Two other members of the group, Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York and Representative Cori Bush of Missouri, suffered primary defeats in June and August after pro-Israel groups spent millions trying to influence those contests.Ms. Omar, 41, who is seeking a fourth term in Congress, heavily outspent her three opponents, including Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis City Council member, who came within 2,500 votes of ousting her in the 2022 primary. Unlike several other primary contests, Ms. Omar’s race did not see a large amount of campaign spending originating outside the district.Midway through Donald J. Trump’s presidency in 2018, Ms. Omar was one of several women of color on the far left of the Democratic Party who were elected to the House. That group includes Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.Mr. Trump famously said in 2019 that Ms. Omar and those other three women should “go back” to their countries, though she was the only one not born in the United States.Ms. Omar, who was born in Somalia and is one of two Muslim women in the House, has faced backlash for her criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian beliefs.In 2023, Republicans in the House ousted Ms. Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee in a party-line vote over her past comments about Israel that had been widely condemned as antisemitic.While showing her support for pro-Palestinian protesters at a Columbia University encampment in April, Ms. Omar created a furor when she suggested that some Jewish students were “pro-genocide.” Her daughter had been one of several students who were suspended for participating in the encampment. More

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      Eric Hovde and Tammy Baldwin Will Face Off in Wisconsin in Key Senate Race

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      Eric Hovde, a wealthy businessman, won the Republican nomination for Senate in Wisconsin on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, setting up a key race this fall with Senator Tammy Baldwin, the Democratic incumbent.The race was called with just 4 percent of the vote counted, with Mr. Hovde holding large leads on his challengers: Charles Barman, a construction superintendent, and Rejani Raveendran, a nurse and midwife studying at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.Ms. Baldwin’s seat is one of more than a half-dozen held by Democrats that Republicans are targeting this year. To regain control of the Senate, Republicans need to flip just one or two — depending on whether the party wins the presidency — and they are almost guaranteed to pick up one seat in West Virginia, where Senator Joe Manchin III is not running for re-election.Mr. Hovde, the multimillionaire founder of H Bancorp and the chief executive of a real estate development company, has had several false starts in his political career. He financed a failed Senate campaign in 2012 with $5.8 million from his personal fortune before ultimately losing the Republican primary. He later considered other runs for Senate and governor, but decided against them.Senator Tammy Baldwin during a campaign event in Richland Center, Wis., in June.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Hovde is one of several Republican Senate candidates this year who are in a position to self-fund their campaigns, allowing the party to devote more of its resources elsewhere. Mr. Hovde has so far pumped at least $13 million of his own money into the campaign.He has presented his wealth as a positive, saying it means he doesn’t need “special-interest money” and can be more independent, and pledging to donate his Senate salary to charity if he is elected.Ms. Baldwin, who was uncontested in the Democratic primary, has sought to cast him as out of touch with regular Americans, and as a carpetbagger because he owns property in California and has split his time between there and Wisconsin. He has been registered to vote in Wisconsin since 2012.He also drew criticism this year for suggesting that “almost nobody in a nursing home” is mentally competent to vote, saying he had gained expertise regarding nursing homes because the bank he owns lends to them.Like several of her fellow Democratic Senate candidates, Ms. Baldwin — who has the advantage of incumbency, even though Wisconsin is a competitive state — appears to be running ahead of her party’s presidential ticket. A New York Times/Siena College poll this month found her leading Mr. Hovde by eight percentage points, outstripping Vice President Kamala Harris’s four-point lead over Donald J. Trump in Wisconsin.Chris Cameron More

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      Hunter Biden Sought State Department Help for Burisma

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      After President Biden dropped his re-election bid, his administration released records showing that while he was vice president, his son solicited U.S. government assistance.Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice president, according to newly released records and interviews.The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member.Embassy officials appear to have been uneasy with the request from the son of the sitting vice president on behalf of a foreign company.“I want to be careful about promising too much,” wrote a Commerce Department official based in the U.S. Embassy in Rome who was tasked with responding.“This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves, U.S.G. should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the D.O.C. Advocacy Center,” the official wrote. Those acronyms refer to the United States government and a Department of Commerce program that supports American companies that seek business with foreign governments.Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Mr. Biden, said his client “asked various people,” including the U.S. ambassador to Italy at the time, John R. Phillips, whether they could arrange an introduction between Burisma and the president of the Tuscany region of Italy, where Burisma was pursuing a geothermal project.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Transfers and Pay Cuts: Pregnant Officers Accuse Border Agency of Discrimination

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      Under a $45 million settlement, Customs and Border Protection agreed to adjust its policy around pregnancy. Some women say the agency has instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation.When Roberta Gabaldon was ready to share news of her pregnancy with her colleagues at Customs and Border Protection in 2015, she brought in pink and blue doughnuts with a sign that read: “Pink and blue. Pink and blue. Somebody’s pregnant, guess who?”But her palpable excitement, particularly after a miscarriage months earlier, quickly dissipated.“My boss came into my office and he’s like: ‘You have to leave. You have to get a note about your pregnancy, and you have to go on light duty,’” Ms. Gabaldon, an agriculture specialist in the El Paso office, recalled, describing how she was told she needed to be reassigned to a post with fewer responsibilities regardless of whether she or her doctor believed it was necessary.Her experience reflects that of hundreds of female employees at the agency who have filed suit against Customs and Border Protection, saying that since at least 2016, they were denied equal treatment once they disclosed they were expecting. No matter the physical demands of their jobs, many were transferred to another post, typically centered on administrative or secretarial work and usually unrelated to what skills they had developed in their existing roles. The policy, they say, hurt their opportunities for advancement, and others add that they weathered pay cuts because light duty meant no more overtime.But under a $45 million settlement reached on Monday, Customs and Border Protection agreed to adjust a practice that some employees say has instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation as women try to hide their pregnancies at work for as long as possible.The agreement, which is not final until the end of September, requires C.B.P. to draft a new policy for pregnant women, and lawyers representing the women will monitor the agency’s compliance for three years. C.B.P. will also be required to train all managers and supervisors about the rights of pregnant employees.C.B.P. declined to answer questions about its policy toward pregnant women as described in the lawsuit and in interviews, citing its practice of not commenting on pending litigation. The terms of the settlement agreement state that the agency does not admit wrongdoing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More