COTONOU, Benin — Opposition parties lost all parliamentary seats in an election in Benin weeks after a thwarted coup, according to provisional results announced by the electoral commission.
The legislative vote took place weeks after a deadly military takeover attempting to overthrow President Patrice Talon, which lasted a few hours before authorities announced it had been foiled. It was the latest in a series of recent coups across Africa — most following a similar pattern of disputed elections, constitutional upheaval, security crises and youth discontent.
Out of the five parties running in the Benin election, only the Republican Bloc and the Progressive Union for Renewal, both aligned with the president, won seats in the assembly, according to the provisional results announced Saturday evening. The Republican Bloc will have 49 lawmakers, and there will be 60 for the Progressive Union for Renewal.
According to the new electoral code, a party must obtain 20% of the national vote and 20% in each of the 24 electoral districts to be eligible for seat allocation.
The main opposition party, The Democrats, won around 16% of the vote, but failed to reach the 20% threshold and won’t have any lawmakers.
“These results confirm the struggle that (The Democrats) party has been waging for about two years,” said Guy Mitokpe, the spokesperson for The Democrats. “We denounced this electoral code, saying that it heavily favored parties aligned with the president. It’s an exclusionary electoral code. As proof, we won’t have a candidate in the presidential election, and we were excluded from the municipal elections.”
The voter turnout was 36.73%, the commission said. The results now have to be confirmed by the Constitutional Court.
Despite a history of coups following its independence from France in 1960, Benin has enjoyed relative calm in the past two decades. The country is set to elect a new president in April, and Talon, 67 is barred from running after a decade in office. His close ally, Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni, is seen as the front-runner to replace him, as the main opposition candidate was barred from running, for failing to meet the required endorsements.
Under Talon’s tenure, Benin experienced a period of economic growth, but critics accuse him of clamping down on political opposition and human rights.
Two upscale, see-and-be-seen Il Fornaio restaurants are ending their tenure, including the Palo Alto location — a prime spot for years for Silicon Valley power breakfasts and deal-making dinners.
After 36 years, that Cowper Street restaurant will shut its doors Sunday night. The Beverly Hills Il Fornaio closed a week ago after a 43-year run.
“Both locations were fixtures in their communities for the last four decades but unfortunately are closing as their leases conclude,” the company said in an announcement. The news was first reported by Palo Alto Online.
For the Palo Alto restaurant, the era from the 1990s through Dot-com 1.0 was a heady time, with tech titans huddled over tables and whispered talk of deals and the next new thing. David Packard. Steve Jobs (sometimes on in-line skates). John Doerr. Jim Barksdale. John Sculley. David Kelley. Guy Kawasaki.
A 1997 Mercury News squib called Reality Check summed up the scene that played out on early weekday mornings: “Price of buying a venture capitalist a power breakfast of juice, eggs and coffee at Il Fornaio in Palo Alto: $10. (Price does not include tax, tip or the VC gaining control of your company.)”
That Il Fornaio long ago stopped serving breakfast. The restaurant’s final hours of service will be noon to 9 p.m. today and Sunday at 520 Cowper St., Palo Alto.
“We are saddened that we will be saying goodbye to many of our wonderful employees, many of whom have been with us for decades, while some will be moving to our other locations in California,” the company statement read.
Founded as a baking school and retail bakery in Italy in the early 1970s, Il Fornaio launched its dining concept — chef-driven, white-tablecloth restaurants with a regional Italian focus — in the 1980s. The original, which opened in 1986, is still operating in Corte Madera, where the restaurant group is headquartered.
Il Fornaio still owns restaurants in more than a dozen California cities plus Las Vegas. Besides Corte Madera, the company’s other Northern and Central California locations are in San Jose, Santa Clara, Mountain View, Burlingame, Walnut Creek, Carmel, Sacramento and Roseville.
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — The European Union and the Mercosur bloc of South American countries formally signed a long-sought landmark free trade agreement on Saturday, capping more than a quarter-century of torturous negotiations to strengthen commercial ties in the face of rising protectionism and trade tensions around the world.
The signing ceremony in Paraguay’s humid capital of Asunción marks a major geopolitical victory for the EU in an age of American tariffs and surging Chinese exports, expanding the bloc’s foothold in a resource-rich region increasingly contested by Washington and Beijing.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who head’s the EU’s executive branch, said that “the geopolitical importance of this agreement cannot be overstated” amid revived skepticism about the benefits of free trade.
“We choose fair trade over tariffs. We choose a productive long-term partnership over isolation,” she declared at the ceremony attended by the presidents of Mercosur members Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, and by the foreign minister of the trading bloc’s biggest economy, Brazil.
“We will join forces like never before, because we believe that this is the best way to make our people and our countries prosper.”
In creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones, the accord — pushed by South America’s renowned cattle-raising countries and Europe’s industrial sectors craving new markets for cars and machines — brings together a market of more than 700 million consumers that accounts for a quarter of global gross domestic product.
After decades of delay, the politically explosive deal still must clear one final hurdle: ratification by the European Parliament. Powerful protectionist lobbies on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly European farmers scared of the possible dumping of cheap South American agricultural imports, have long sought to scupper the agreement and could still stall its implementation.
Although the accord eliminates more than 90% tariffs on goods and services between the European and Mercosur markets, some tariffs will progressively be cut over 10-15 years and key farm products like beef will be limited by strict quotas in a bid to assuage European farmers’ fears.
Those quotas, as well as safeguard measures and generous EU subsidies to cash-strapped farmers, pushed agricultural powerhouse Italy across the line earlier this month. France, however, remains opposed to the accord.
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay (AP) — The European Union and the Mercosur bloc of South American countries formally signed a long-sought landmark free trade agreement on Saturday, capping over a quarter-century of torturous negotiations to strengthen commercial ties in the face of rising protectionism and trade tensions around the world.
The signing ceremony in Paraguay’s humid capital of Asunción marks a major geopolitical victory for the EU in an age of American tariffs and surging Chinese exports, expanding the bloc’s foothold in a resource-rich region increasingly contested by Washington and Beijing.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
That sun has provided him cheap power for 25 years, and this month he installed his fourth iteration of solar panels on his Vermont home. In an interview after he set up the new system, he said President Donald Trump’s stance against solar and other cheap green energy will hurt the GOP in this year’s elections as electricity bills rise.
Meanwhile, electricity prices are rising in the United States, and McKibben is counting on that to trigger political change.
“I think you’re starting to see that have a big political impact in the U.S. right now. My prediction would be that electric prices are going to be to the 2026 election what egg prices were to the 2024 election,” said McKibben, an author and founder of multiple environmental and activist groups. Everyday inflation hurt Democrats in the last presidential race, analysts said.
The Trump administration and a bipartisan group of governors on Friday tried to step up pressure on the operator of the nation’s largest electric grid to take urgent steps to boost power supplies in the mid-Atlantic and keep electricity bills from rising even higher.
“Ensuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump’s top priorities,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
“We can’t economically compete in a world where China gets a lot of cheap energy and we have to pay for really expensive energy,” McKibben told The Associated Press, just after he installed a new type of solar panels that can hang on balconies with little fuss.
When Trump took office in January 2025, the national average electricity cost was 15.94 cents per kilowatt-hour. By September it was up to 18.07 cents and then down slightly to 17.98 cents in October, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
That’s a 12.8% increase in 10 months. It rose more in 10 months than the previous two years. People in Maryland, New Jersey and Maine have seen electricity prices rise at a rate three times higher than the national average since October 2024.
At 900 kilowatt-hours per month, that means the average monthly electricity bill is about $18 more than in January 2025.
This week, Democrats on Capitol Hill blamed rising electric bills on Trump and his dislike of renewable energy.
“From his first day in office, he’s made it his mission to limit American’s access to cheap energy, all in the name of increasing profits for his friends in the fossil fuel industry. As a result, energy bills across the country have skyrocketed,” Illinois Rep. Sean Casten said at a Wednesday news conference.
“Donald Trump is the first president to intentionally raise the price of something that we all need,” Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, also a Democrat, said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “Nobody should be enthused about paying more for electricity, and this national solar ban is making everybody pay more. Clean is cheap and cheap is clean.”
McKibben has been sending excess electricity from his solar panels to the Vermont grid for years. Now he’s sending more.
As his dog, Birke, stood watch, McKibben, who refers to his home nestled in the Green Mountains of Vermont as a “museum of solar technology” got his new panels up and running in about 10 minutes. This type of panel from the California-based firm Bright Saver is often referred to as plug-in solar. Though it’s not yet widely available in the U.S., McKibben pointed to the style’s popularity in Europe and Australia.
“Americans spend three or four times as much money as Australians or Europeans to put solar panels on the roof. We have an absurdly overcomplicated permitting system that’s unlike anything else on the rest of the planet,” McKibben said.
McKibben said Australians can obtain three hours of free electricity each day through a government program because the country has built so many solar panels.
“And I’m almost certain that that’s an argument that every single person in America would understand,” he said. “I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t say: ‘I’d like three free hours of electricity.’”
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Swinhart reported from Vermont. Borenstein reported from Washington. Matthew Daly contributed to this report from Washington.
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At a time when productivity means optimizing every second and screens blur the line between work and home, some people are slowing down and disconnecting by looking to communication devices from the past.
“I feel as though my pen pals are my friends. I don’t think of them much differently than if I were chatting with a friend on the phone, in a coffee shop or at another person’s house,” said Melissa Bobbitt, 42, a devoted letter-writer who corresponds with about a dozen people from her home in Claremont, California, and has had up to 40 pen pals at one time. “Focusing on one person and really reading what they are saying, and sharing what’s on your heart is almost like a therapy session.”
Ink, paper and other tools that once were the only way to send a message from afar are continuing to bring people together from around the world. Below, some of them explain the appeal of snail mail and give recommendations for getting started.
In a society shaped by constant availability, hands-on hobbies like writing letters and scrapbooking require focus and patience. The act of picking up a pen, sealing an envelope with wax and laying out pages may yield aesthetically pleasing results, but it also creates a space for reflection.
Stephania Kontopanos, a 21-year-old student in Chicago, said it can be hard to put her phone and computer away, especially when it seems all of her friends and peers are on social media and her classes and personal life revolve around being online.
“There are times when I’m with my friends and at dinner, I’ll realize we are all on our phones,” Kontopanos said, adding that she tries to put her phone down at those moments.
Kontopanos also unplugs consciously by sending postcards to her family and friends, scrapbooking, and junk journaling, which involves repurposing everyday materials like tickets and receipts to document memories or ideas. She says going to the post office has become an activity she does with her mother back home in Kansas and includes sharing stories with the postal workers, people she would not have routinely encountered.
Nostalgia can foster community
Writing and sending letters is nostalgic for KiKi Klassen, who lives in Ontario, Canada. The 28-year-old says it helps her feel more connected to her late mother, who was a member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents mail carriers and other postal employees.
In October 2024, Klassen launched the Lucky Duck Mail Club, a subscription-based monthly mail service that sends participants a piece of her art, an inspiring quote and message. She says her membership includes more than 1,000 people across, at most, 36 countries.
“When I sit down, I’m forced to reflect and choose my words carefully,” Klassen said. “It also lends itself to vulnerability because it is easier to write down how you are feeling. I’ve had people write me back and I’ve cried hearing so many touching stories. I think for a lot of people paper creates a safe space. You write it down, send it off and don’t really think about it after.”
For Bobbitt, who has corresponded by mail for years, there is a “grand excitement” when she opens her mailbox and finds something that is not a bill or advertisement. “If we all filled each other’s mailboxes with letters, we would all be kinder and, at the very least, won’t dread checking our mailboxes,” she said.
Bobbitt says she first joined a pen pal club in second or third grade and later was connected to more writers through Postcrossing, an online project that partners people around the world to send and receive postcards. She says some of the postcards turned into letters as friendships grew between her and some other regular writers.
It’s a similar feeling of connection that inspired DJ Robert Owoyele, 34, to create CAYA, a monthly “analog gathering” in Dallas. Owoyele launched the event less than a year ago and has since organized evenings with letter writing, coloring, vinyl listening sessions and other activities.
“We live in a digital age that fosters a false sense of connection, but I think true connection happens in person,” he said. “When we are able to touch or see something, we are more connected to it naturally. These analog activities are a representation of that.”
While writing letters and engaging in other vintage pursuits might seem accessible, it is not always easy to get involved. For many people, carving out time to slow down can feel like another obligation in a schedule filled with to-dos.
Kontopanos says she decided it was important for her to reprioritize her time. “The older I get, the more I realize how much time had been wasted on my phone,” she said. Creating space to explore allowed her to discover the hobbies she loved doing enough to make them a priority, she said.
There are many hobbies to consider, some of which don’t require expensive tools or hours of free time. Frequenting spaces where communities centered around these hobbies gather can be a way to learn about the different activities. For example, participating in typewriter clubs such as Type Pals, attending events like the Los Angeles Printers Fair hosted by the International Printing Museum in California, and engaging with social media communities like the Wax Seal Guild on Instagram and The Calligraphy Hub on Facebook.
Klassen says that based on posts she’s seeing on her social media feeds, reviving vintage writing instruments and small tactile pleasures might be on the verge of becoming trendy.
“The girls are going analog in 2026,” she said.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Very few people embody the spirit of the West quite like George Eidsness.
From his upbringing in northeastern North Dakota to building Transwest automotive group into a diverse group of businesses, Eidsness hasn’t forgotten the simple rules that make the Western way of life so special.
And after more than 70 years of unrelenting hard work and a “fix-anything-with-a-pocket-knife” type of resilience, Eidsness has earned the honor of being named the 2026 Citizen of the West from the National Western Stock Show.
George Eidsness, who has been honored with The Citizen of the West award by the National Western Stock Show, poses for a portrait on his ranch, the Flying E Ranch in Fort Lupton on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)
The award “recognizes those who embody the spirit and determination of the Western pioneer — a true representative of the Western lifestyle, ideals, agricultural heritage and traditions,” according to the stock show’s website.
“It’s pretty humbling,” Eidsness said. “Like a friend of mine said, ‘You’re walking in pretty tall cotton.’ A lot of great people before me have received it, and to be put in a class with them is a real honor.”
Raised on a wheat farm near Brocket, N.D., that spirit was instilled in him at a young age. He took it with him to the University of North Dakota, where he earned a degree in business, then to Fargo, N.D., where he spent 17 years wearing a number of different hats at a local dealership.
In 1990, he and his wife, Barbara, bought Transwest Trucks, a Commerce City dealership that had been in business for just 18 months at the time. In the 35 years since, Transwest has grown exponentially, now with 25 locations across the western United States and Canada. Its dealerships specialize in service, sales and parts for the heavy-duty truck, trailer, automotive and recreational vehicle industries.
As Transwest began to quickly expand, Eidsness and his wife decided they needed a little room to stretch their legs as well — both professionally and personally.
In 1996, Eidsness acquired Steamboat Lake Outfitters and the Flying E Ranch.
“We were going to build a new house in town (Westminster), but decided that city life wasn’t really what we wanted,” Eidsness said. “We wanted to be out in the country and had an opportunity to buy an 80-acre parcel of land near Fort Lupton.”
Since buying that 80-acre parcel, Eidsness added another 65 acres, completing the property he has called home for nearly three decades.
The Flying E has an indoor rodeo arena on the property that the former owner would lease out for team penning events. When the transaction went down, one was already on the books, scheduled for after Eidsness closed on the property.
Team penning is a timed event in which a team of three sort three numbered cattle out of a head of 30 and place them in a pen on the opposite end of the arena.
“I stood around for most of the day watching the sport,” Eidsness said. “I finally saddled up a horse and tried it out and I was kind of hooked on it after that.”
A third-place finish that day launched the next chapter of Eidsness’s life: nearly 20 years traveling across the West competing in various team penning events. He also produced countless events at the Flying E and helped produce shows at National Western.
“I met a lot of great people,” Eidsness said. “Many of them are still friends today.”
The Code of the West sits in a window in George Eidsness’ office, who has been honored with The Citizen of the West award by the National Western Stock Show, at his Transwest dealership in Brighton on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)
In 2023, Eidsness was inducted into the U.S. Team Penning Hall of Fame.
Eidness credits that spirit of the West for getting him where he is today. It wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of hard work and a strong moral compass, he said. The guiding light for that moral compass: the Code of the West. While technically a set of unwritten rules, the code is agreed upon as:
Live each day with courage.
Take pride in your work.
Always finish what you started.
Do what has to be done.
Be tough, but fair.
When you make a promise, keep it.
Ride for the brand.
Talk less and say more.
Remember that some things aren’t for sale.
Know where to draw the line.
“It’s unique, I think, the Western culture,” Eidsness said. “The way people have learned to be responsible, to take care of their peers, to do the jobs that they’re supposed to do, and the lifestyle that’s expected. It is very important to try and keep that culture going. If we were to lose that part, the country we live in would not be the same.”
Eidsness has also incorporated the code into running Transwest, displaying it in his company’s buildings to remind employees of what Transwest represents.
“How they conduct themselves, how they treat others. It’s something that we adhere to,” Eidsness said. … “It’s important to maintain that culture of who we are and how we want to run our business.”
Even more important to Eidsness than embodying that spirit himself is passing it forward to the younger generations.
“We need more people embodying that spirit,” Eidsness said. “We can find more. And probably more importantly, we can make more.”
When asked how to make more, his answer was direct and confident.
“Education and leadership,” he said.
That’s why he’s long supported groups that introduce children to agriculture and educate them on it, such as 4H and Future Farmers of America.
“It’s certainly something that you don’t have to be born into,” Eidsness said. “You can be introduced to it at a later age and you can learn it. A lot of people who came from a different culture went to work on farms and ranches and businesses and learned the lifestyle and the work involved with it and eventually became part of that culture.”
That’s also why he has been a longtime supporter and sponsor of the National Western Stock Show. And the stock show will be returning the favor, celebrating Eidsness as the 47th Citizen of the West at the stock show’s annual award dinner on Jan. 12. Proceeds from the event support the National Western Scholarship Trust, which awards 100 scholarships to students attending colleges and universities in Colorado and Wyoming for studies in agricultural science, rural medicine or veterinary medicine.
For tickets, contact Rachel Melia at 303-299-5560 or RMelia@NationalWestern.com.
“Walking in tall cotton”
As the 47th honoree, Eidsness joins a long list of distinguished Westerners who came before him, including a former vice president of the United States (Dick Cheney), a former Supreme Court yustice (Byron White) and a founder of major league soccer (Philip Anschutz).
2025: Sharon Magness Blake
2024: Gen. Ralph E. “Ed” Eberhart
2023: Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead
2022: Ron Williams
2020: Marcy & Bruce Benson
2019: Robert “Bob” Tointon
2018: Tony Frank, DVM, PhD
2017: John Malone, PhD
2016: Michael J. Sullivan
2015: Philip F. Anschutz
AP Photo/William J. Smith
Associate Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White in his office in Washington, DC, Apr. 17, 1963.
Excessive speeding was so common on parallel one-way streets passing a massive electronics plant that Indianapolis residents used to refer to the pair as a “racetrack” akin to the city’s famous Motor Speedway a few miles west.
Originally two-way thoroughfares, Michigan and New York streets switched to opposite one-way routes in the 1970s to help thousands of RCA workers swiftly travel to and from their shifts building televisions or pressing vinyl records. But after the RCA plant closed in 1995, the suddenly barren roads grew even more enticing for lead-footed drivers — until last year, when city officials finally converted them back to two-way streets.
“The opening and conversion of those streets has just been transformative for how people think about that corridor,” said James Taylor, who runs a nearby community center.
Embracing the oft-repeated slogan that “paint is cheap,” transportation planners across the U.S. — particularly in midsize cities — have been turning their unidirectional streets back to multidirectional ones. They view the step as one of the easiest ways to improve safety and make downtowns more alluring to shoppers, restaurant patrons and would-be residents.
Dave Amos, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at California Polytechnic State University, said almost no major streets in the U.S. originated as one-way routes. Two-way streets were the standard, before mass migration to the suburbs prioritized faster commutes over downtown walkability.
“One-way streets are designed for moving cars quickly and efficiently,” Amos said. “So when you have that as your goal, pedestrians and cyclists almost by design are secondary, which makes them more vulnerable.”
But the propensity to speed isn’t the only reason one-way streets are viewed as less safe.
Wade Walker, an engineer with Kittelson & Associates who has worked on street conversion projects in Lakeland, Florida; Lynchburg, Virginia; and Chattanooga, Tennessee, said there is a misperception that one-way streets are safer because people on foot only have to look one direction to see the incoming traffic. The confusion arises when one-way streets combine with two-way streets to form a city grid, he said.
Pedestrians crossing a signalized intersection of two-way streets can expect to encounter vehicles in a certain sequence: those turning left on green, traveling straight, and turning right on red. But when one-way streets are included, there are 16 potential sequences depending on the type and direction of the roads that intersect, Walker said.
“It’s not the number of conflicts, it’s the way those conflicts occur,” he said.
One way to divide a community
Louisville, Kentucky, about two hours south of Indianapolis, has been restoring one-way streets to their original two-way footprints. The state is leading an ongoing project to reconvert a stretch along Main Street that passes such landmarks as the Louisville Slugger Museum, the KFC Yum! Center arena, and a minor-league baseball stadium.
One of the city’s biggest redesigns is happening this year in the predominantly Black western part of the city, where many roads changed to one-way routes in the 1970s to feed a new interstate bridge over the Ohio River. However, it decimated neighborhoods and cut off the once-thriving community from downtown.
“All those mom-and-pop shops and local businesses over time kind of faded because that connectivity got taken away,” said Michael King, the city’s assistant director of transportation planning. “It just feels more like, ‘This is a road to get me through here pretty quickly.’”
Within three years after some of Chattanooga’s two-way streets were transformed into unidirectional ones, business vacancies skyrocketed and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga became “landlocked” to prevent students from having to cross a dangerous road, Walker said.
In 2022, almost two decades after the road was redesigned, he returned to find the college campus had expanded across it and business construction had surged.
Converting streets and skeptics
When Lynchburg, Virginia launched a long-discussed plan to change its downtown Main Street back to two ways, Rodney Taylor voiced concerns that it would doom his restaurant by blocking delivery vehicles. After the city completed the section in 2021, he acknowledged the fears were unfounded.
“An important thing to do is to admit when you’re wrong,” he said. “And I was just flat-out wrong.”
Many residents also changed their tune in Austin, Texas, when the city began reconverting some of the one-way streets in its urban core, said Adam Greenfield, executive director with Safe Streets Austin.
“It just worked,” said Greenfield, who is now lobbying the city to do away with all its one-way streets. “That’s what you’ll find with these conversions — they’ll be done and then instantly people will be like, ‘Why didn’t we do this 20 years ago?’”
After Chicago went the opposite direction last year and suddenly changed some of its two-way streets to one-way in the busy West Loop restaurant district, a politician representing an adjacent area got numerous calls from confused constituents.
“Even if this was the right move to make these streets one-way, it certainly doesn’t make sense to not ask the opinion of the neighbors,” Alderman Bill Conway said.
Opportunity in Indianapolis
Now that Indianapolis has finished the redesigns for Michigan and New York streets, there are 10 other conversions on tap next, said Mark St. John, chief engineer for the city’s Department of Public Works. The total cost for those projects is estimated at $60 million, with around $25 million of that from a 2023 federal grant.
James Taylor, who runs the community center near the old RCA plant, said it is too early to know the full impact. Some business owners, however, have signaled construction plans along the redesigned streets, which Taylor says still feel a little strange.
“I’ve been driving around that neighborhood for 30 years,” he said. “It’s all kind of familiar, but you’re coming at it from a whole different perspective.”
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A convenience store at the center of a deadly stabbing will no longer operate in downtown Raleigh.
According to Empire Properties on Friday, Taz’s Supermarket closed its doors this week after the Raleigh developer purchased several historic buildings on East Hargett and South Wilmington streets, which included the supermarket.
“The corner had been underutilized for decades, with virtually no maintenance, care or financial investment to stave off deterioration,” the developer said in a statement.
Empire Properties said it is working with the City of Raleigh on a development plan that will include a six-story, mixed-use building on the non-historic Wilmington Street sites. The company said the goal is to restore the last building on the Wilmington Street side back to a contributing structure.
According to Empire Properties, the investment is expected to exceed $9 million once completed.
U.S. regulators have granted a five-week extension for Tesla to respond to allegations that its vehicles have broken traffic laws while operating in what the electric automaker calls “full self-driving” mode.
An investigation of Tesla’s full-self driving feature was opened in October after the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration said it had collected dozens of reports of the cars running red lights or driving on the wrong side of the road, sometimes crashing into other vehicles and causing injuries.
The investigation covered 2.9 million vehicles, essentially all Teslas equipped with full self-driving technology, or FSD. Critics say the name is a misnomer that has lulled drivers into handing full control over to their cars. The federal agency responsible for auto safety said in a letter to Tesla on Dec. 3, 2025 that it was investigating 62 complaints, up from 58 reported incidents in October.
Tesla, headed by billionaire CEO Elon Musk, has argued to regulators and in court cases that it has repeatedly told drivers the system cannot drive the cars by itself and whoever is behind the wheel must be ready to intervene at all times. Regulators say that many Tesla drivers involved accidents said the cars gave them no warning before behaving erratically.
In a letter to the electric vehicle maker, the NHTSA said Thursday that the company now has until Feb. 23 to answer the government’s request for information. The original deadline was Jan. 19, 2025.
Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker last year for a combination of reasons, including a backlash to Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks for buyers and stiff competition at home and abroad that has pushed sales down for a second straight year.
Tesla reported earlier this month that it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down 9% from a year earlier. Chinese rival BYD, which sold 2.26 million vehicles last year, is now the world’s biggest EV maker.
The FSD system under investigation is what is called Level 2 driver-assistance software that requires drivers to pay full attention to the road. A new version of FSD was introduced in the fall. The company is also testing a vastly upgraded version that does not require driver intervention, something that Musk has been promising to roll out for years.
Tesla is under pressure to show success with FSD because the main part of its business — selling cars — is struggling.
Still, investors are betting that Tesla and Musk can deliver on their ambitions to make Tesla a leader in robotaxi services and get consumers to embrace humanoid robots that can perform basic tasks in homes and offices. Reflecting that optimism, Tesla’s stock finished 2025 with a gain of approximately 11%.
Tesla shares were essentially unchanged in midday trading Friday, going for about $439 each.
The rush to deploy A.I. in health care raises hard questions about accuracy and trust. Unsplash
Each week, more than 230 million people globally ask ChatGPT questions about health and wellness, according to OpenAI. Seeing a vast, untapped demand, OpenAI earlier this month launched ChatGPT Health and made a swift $60 million acquisition of the health care tech startup Torch to turbocharge the effort. Anthropic soon followed suit, announcing Claude for Healthcare last week. The move from general-purpose chatbot to health care advisor is well underway.
For a world rife with health care inequities—whether skyrocketing insurance costs in the U.S. or care deserts in remote regions around the globe—democratized information and advice about one’s health is, at least in theory, a positive development. But the intricacies of how large A.I. companies operate raise questions that health tech experts are eager to interrogate.
“What I am worried about as a clinician is that there is still a high level of hallucinations and erroneous information that sometimes makes it out of these general-purpose LLMs to the end user,” said Saurabh Gombar, a clinical instructor at Stanford Health Care and the chief medical officer and co-founder of Atropos Health, an A.I. clinical decision support platform.
“It’s one thing if you’re asking for a spaghetti recipe and it’s telling you to add 10 times the amount [of an ingredient] that you should. But it’s a totally different thing if it’s fundamentally missing something about the health care of the individual,” he told Observer.
For example, a doctor might see left shoulder pain as a non-traditional sign of a heart attack in certain patients, whereas a chatbot might only suggest taking an over-the-counter pain medication. The reverse can also happen. If a patient comes to a provider convinced they have a rare disorder based on a simple symptom after chatting with A.I., it can erode trust when a human doctor seeks to rule out more common explanations first.
Gombar argues that A.I. companies must do more to publicly emphasize how often an answer may be hallucinated and clearly flag when information is poorly grounded in evidence or entirely fabricated. This is particularly important given that extensive chatbot disclaimers serve to prevent legal recourse, whereas human health care models allow individuals to sue for malpractice.
The primary care provider workforce in the U.S. has shrunk by 11 percent annually over the past seven years, especially in rural areas. Gombar suggests that physicians may no longer control how they fit into the global health care landscape. “If the whole world is moving away from going to physicians first, then physicians are going to be utilized more as an expert second opinion, as opposed to the primary opinion,” he said.
The inevitable question of data privacy
OpenAI and Anthropic have been explicit that their health tools are secure and compliant, including with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S., which protects sensitive patient health information from unauthorized use and disclosure. But for Alexander Tsiaras, founder and CEO of the A.I.-driven medical record platform StoryMD, there is more to consider.
“It’s not the protection from being hacked. It’s the protection of what they will do with [the data] after,” Tsiaras told Observer. “In the back end, their encryption algorithms are as good as anyone in HIPAA. But once you have the data, can you trust them? And that’s where I think it’s going to be a real problem, because I certainly would not trust them.”
Tsiaras points to the persistent techno-optimism of Silicon Valley elites like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, arguing that they live in a bubble and have “proven themselves to not care.”
On a more tangible level, chatbots tend to be overly agreeable. xAI’s Grok recently drew criticism for agreeing to generate nearly nude photos of real women and children, though the company blocked this capability this week following public outcry. Chatbots can also reinforce delusions and harmful thought patterns in people with mental illness, triggering crises such as psychosis or even suicide.
Andrew Crawford, senior counsel for privacy and data at the nonpartisan think tank Center for Democracy and Technology, said an A.I. company prioritizing profit through personalization over data protection can put sensitive health information at serious risk.
“Especially as OpenAI moves to explore advertising as a business model, it’s crucial that the separation between this sort of health data and memories that ChatGPT captures from other conversations is airtight,” Crawford said in a statement to Observer.
Then there is the question of non-protected health data that users voluntarily input. Personal wellness companies such as MyFitnessPal and Oura already pose data privacy risks. “It’s amplifying the inherent risk by making that data more available and accessible,” Gombar said.
For people like Tsiaras, profit-driven A.I. giants have tainted the health tech space. “The trust is eroded so significantly that anyone [else] who builds a system has to go in the opposite direction of spending a lot of time proving that we’re there for you and not about abusing what we can get from you,” he said.
Nasim Afsar, a physician, former chief health officer at Oracle and advisor to the White House and global health agencies, views ChatGPT Health as an early step toward what she calls intelligent health, but far from a complete solution.
“A.I. can now explain data and prepare patients for visits,” Afsar said in a statement to Observer. “That’s meaningful progress. But transformation happens when intelligence drives prevention, coordinated action and measurable health outcomes, not just better answers inside a broken system.”
This is the first major trade agreement for Mercosur, which includes the region’s two biggest economies, Brazil and Argentina, along with Paraguay and Uruguay. The two blocs are expected to formally sign their quarter-century-in-the-making trade pact this Saturday at a ceremony in Paraguay. Bolivia, the newest Mercosur member, was not involved in negotiations but can join the agreement in the coming years.
While local media reported that Argentina’s Javier Milei and Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi will be present at the ceremony hosted by Paraguay’s Santiago Peña, Lula decided not to make the trip to the capital Asuncion.
Instead, the Brazilian leader will be represented by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira.
That caused some surprise, in light of Lula’s energetic efforts in favor of the deal, particularly since returning to Brazil’s presidency in 2023 for a third, nonconsecutive term. Experts say the move may hint at Lula’s disappointment the deal was not signed in December, when Brazil had the rotating presidency of Mercosur.
In Rio, Lula again pointed to how long the negotiations had taken.
“It was more than 25 years of suffering and attempts to get a deal,” Lula said during a short statement to the press at Itamaraty Palace in downtown Rio alongside von der Leyen.
But he hailed the historic nature of the pact.
“Tomorrow in Asuncion, we will make history by creating one of the world’s largest free trade areas, bringing together some 720 million people and a GDP of over $22 trillion,” he said.
The European Commission’s president paid warm tribute to Lula for his efforts in making the deal happen.
“The political leadership, the personal commitment and passion that you have shown in the last weeks and months, dear Lula, are truly second to none,” said von der Leyen.
In a statement ahead of von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa’s trip to South America, the European Council also said that the latest Brazilian presidency of Mercosur was crucial to advance negotiations, paving the way to its signature in Paraguay.
“This is the power of partnership and openness. This is the power of friendship and understanding between peoples and regions across oceans,” von der Leyen said. “And this is how we create real prosperity — prosperity that is shared. Because, we agree, that international trade is not a zero-sum game.”
The accord grants South American nations, renowned for their fertile land and skilled farmers, increased access at a preferential tax rate to Europe’s vast market for agricultural goods.
Apex, a Brazilian government investment agency, estimates that EU-bound agricultural exports like instant coffee, poultry and orange juice will rake in $7 billion in coming years.
But Lula on Friday warned that Mercosur would not limit itself to the “eternal role” of commodity exporters. “We want to produce and sell industrial goods with higher added value,” he said.
Flavia Loss, an international relations professor at Foundation School of Sociology and Politics in Sao Paulo, said that Lula’s absence on Saturday may be retaliation for the delay — another sign that Brazil and Mercosur are seeking equal terms with the EU.
“I see Lula’s absence as signaling: ‘The deal is important but we’re not going to change everything for them,’” Loss said.
While the deal is asymmetrical and undoubtedly economically favorable to the European Union, politically the agreement is beneficial for both parties, said Roberto Goulart Menezes, an international relations professor at the University of Brasilia.
For the European Union, which is under pressure amid Trump’s threats to seize control of Greenland, the deal shows that the group of countries is betting on the diversification of its partners and multilateralism, Goulart said, in a symbolic rebuke of Trump’s MAGA logic.
“And for Mercosur, it illustrates that the bloc is relevant, despite accusations of being insignificant and on its last legs.”
YouTube is updating its guidelines for videos containing what advertisers define as controversial content, like abortion and self-harm, allowing more creators to earn full ad revenue when they tackle sensitive issues in a nongraphic way
YouTube is updating its guidelines for videos containing content that advertisers define as controversial, allowing more creators to earn full ad revenue when they tackle sensitive issues in a nongraphic way.
With the update that went into effect Tuesday, YouTube videos that dramatize or cover issues including domestic abuse, self-harm, suicide, adult sexual abuse, abortion and sexual harassment without graphic descriptions or imagery are now eligible for full monetization.
Ads will remain restricted on videos that include content on child abuse, child sex trafficking and eating disorders.
The changes were outlined in a video posted to the Creator Insider YouTube channel on Tuesday, and the advertiser-friendly content guidelines were also updated with specific definitions and examples.
“We want to ensure the creators who are telling sensitive stories or producing dramatized content have the opportunity to earn ad revenue while respecting advertiser choice and industry sentiment,” said Conor Kavanagh, YouTube’s head of monetization policy experience, in the video announcing the changes. “We took a closer look and found our guidelines in this area had become too restrictive and ended up demonetizing uploads like dramatized content.”
The update also makes personal accounts of these sensitive issues, as well as preventative content and journalistic coverage on these subjects, eligible for full monetization.
The Google-owned company said the degree of graphic or descriptive detail in videos wasn’t previously considered when determining advertiser friendliness.
Some creators would attempt to bypass these policies on YouTube and other platforms by using workaround language or substituting symbols and numbers for letters in written text — the most prevalent example across social platforms has been the use of the term “unalive.”
YouTube has updated its policies in response to creator feedback before. In July, the company eased its monetization policy regarding profanity, making videos that use strong profanity in the first seven seconds eligible for full ad revenue.
SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI says it will soon start showing advertisements to ChatGPT users who aren’t paying for a premium version of the chatbot.
The artificial intelligence company said Friday it hasn’t yet rolled out ads but will start testing them in the coming weeks.
It’s the latest effort by the San Francisco-based company to make money from ChatGPT’s more than 800 million users, most of whom get it for free.
Though valued at $500 billion, the startup loses more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit.
OpenAI said the digital ads will appear at the bottom of ChatGPT’s answers “when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation.”
The ads “will be clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer,” the company said.
Public concern is particularly high in Bangkok due to the frequent and sometimes fatal construction accidents on major road projects. In the latest case, a construction crane collapsed on Thursday, killing two people, just a day after the train tragedy in which 32 people died.
Public outrage has centered on Italian-Thai Development, the contractor responsible for both sites where the past week’s accidents occurred. The company, also known as Italthai, was also the joint lead contractor for the 33-story State Audit Office building, which toppled while under construction in March, killing about 100 people.
It was the only major structure in Thailand to collapse from an earthquake whose epicenter was in Myanmar, more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) away.
Twenty-three individuals and companies were indicted in that case, including Italthai’s President Premchai Karnasuta, on charges including professional negligence causing death and document forgery. Italthai, a major developer in Thailand which has won many government projects, has denied wrongdoing in that case as well as the more recent crane crashes.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has responded to the latest incidents by ordering the Transport Ministry to terminate contracts with, blacklist and prosecute the companies involved. Unfinished projects will be funded by seizing performance bonds and bank guarantees, with the government reserving the right to sue for extra costs. Additionally, a “scorecard” system to keep track of contractors’ performance records should be enforced by early February.
Investigators can often find the technical cause of accidents, such as human error or equipment failure.
But critics say construction safety faces broader systemic problems, pointing to lax regulation, poor enforcement, and corruption. A lengthy investigation determined that the building collapse in March, though triggered by an earthquake, was fundamentally caused by flawed structural design and effort to evade regulations.
“I don’t think Thailand fails in terms of the body of knowledge in engineering or even in the technical aspects,” said Panudech Chumyen, a civil engineering lecturer at Bangkok’s Thammasat University. “I think there’s a failure in our system; there are so many gaps that I don’t know where we should begin to close them.”
He said the safety challenges range from laxity in law enforcement to red tape and the lack of integration in safety policies among different stakeholders in projects. He also pointed to a shortage of independent assessors without conflicts of interest, which often results in performance reports that do not reflect reality.
The involvement of Chinese companies in the building collapse, as well as troubled rail and road projects, has also drawn attention.
Wednesday’s train accident took place on a line that is part of a Thai-Chinese high-speed railway project linking the capital to northeastern Thailand. It is associated with an ambitious plan to connect China with Southeast Asia under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which has caused controversy in many of its activities around the world, including corruption scandals.
Concern over Chinese construction practices increased after the collapse last year of the State Audit Office project, in which the Chinese company China Railway No. 10 was co-lead contractor with Italthai. Its Bangkok representative, Zhang Chuanling, was charged with violating Thailand’s Foreign Business Act by using Thai nationals as nominee shareholders to hide Chinese control of its local affiliate.
Thais were outraged by the collapse. Many took to social media to post criticism and images of the so- called “tofu-dreg projects” or “tofu buildings,” a term used to describe shoddy buildings or infrastructure built too hurriedly or with payoffs to allow them to evade regulatory standards. The phrase was popularized to describe such a damage after the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China.
China’s ambassador to Thailand, Zhang Jianwei, said Thursday that China requires its companies to follow the rules when participating in overseas projects, and that Beijing is willing to “guide Chinese companies to actively cooperate with the Thai authorities’ investigation.”
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AP researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.
A small investment made at the right moment has the power to launch ordinary people to millionaire status. All it took was $1,000 and an out-there idea for Jeffrey Sprecher, the founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, to set his business on a path to becoming a $98 billion behemoth.
“I had this idea that you should be able to trade electric power, buy and sell electric power, on an exchange,” Sprecher recalled recently at the Rotary Club Of Atlanta. But there was a huge caveat: He “had no idea how to do that. I’d never worked on Wall Street, I never traded.”
At the time, Sprecher had heard that Continental Power Exchange—owned by Warren Buffett’s electric utility company, MidAmerican Energy—was about to go bankrupt. Despite Buffett’s business pumping $35 million into it, the company was still struggling. And so Sprecher saw this as an opportune moment to swoop in and pursue his entrepreneurial vision.
“I bought the company for a dollar a share, and there were a thousand shares. So I bought it for $1,000, and I used that as the basis to build Intercontinental Exchange.”
Thanks to his quick thinking and business savvy, Sprecher now boasts a net worth of $1.3 billion. But the journey to the top was not very glamorous.
Living in a 500-ft studio and driving a used car while scaling the business
That measly $1,000 investment made back in 1997 served as the launchpad for Intercontinental Exchange, founded just three years later. A small team of nine employees set off to build the technology in 2000; setting up shop in Atlanta, Georgia, Sprecher and his staffers went all-in on building the business up from its former demise.
It was all hands on deck, and even as the founder and CEO, Sprecher was doing the menial labor to keep everything in order. With money being tight, the entrepreneur lived in a small apartment and drove a used car to the office to keep Intercontinental Energy afloat.
“I bought a 500-foot, one room studio apartment in Midtown…I bought a used car that I kept and I’d go into the office from time to time,” Sprecher explained, adding that he “took the trash out, shut the lights out, answered the phone, bought the staplers and the paper for the photocopier. That was the way the company started.”
Nearly 26 years later, the company boasts a market cap of $98 billion and a team of more than 12,000 employees—and has proudly owned the NYSE for over a decade.
Entrepreneurs who made a key investment at the right moment
Some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs made their billions by spotting the perfect window to invest small and earn big.
Take Kenn Ricci as an example: the serial American aviation businessman and chairman of private jet company Flexjet is a billionaire thanks to his intuition to buy a struggling business four decades ago. After being put on leave from his first pilot job out of the Air Force, he turned a sticky situation into a 10-figure fortune.
“I worked for [airline] Northwest Orient for a brief period of time. I get furloughed. Unemployed, back living with my parents,” Ricci told the Wall Street Journal in a 2025 interview, reminiscing on how he made his first $1 million.
But instead of throwing in the towel, he spotted a golden opportunity. Ricci took a contract pilot job at Professional Flight Crews, and one of the companies he flew for was private aviation company Corporate Wings. The budding businessman was intrigued when its owners put the business up for sale at $27,500 in 1981—and jumped on the opportunity to buy it. By the early 1990s, the business was pulling in $3 million a year.
But people don’t need to buy and scale a company to make a worthwhile investment; millennial investing wiz Martin Mignot became a self-made millionaire thanks to his ability to spot unicorn companies before they make it big. One of his biggest wins was an early investment in Deliveroo—back when the business was just a small, London-based operation.
“They had eight employees. They were in three London boroughs. Overall, they had a few 1000 users to date, so it was very, very early,” Mignot told Fortune last year. “They didn’t have an app. Their first website was pretty terrible and ugly, if I’m frank, but the delivery experience was incredible.”
Lo and behold, Deliveroo grew to become a $3.5 billion company with millions of global customers. And as a partner at Index Ventures, Mignot is part of a team reaping billion-dollar rewards from forward-thinking investments in tech businesses including Figma, Scale AI, and Wiz. Aside from his day job, Mignot has also strategically put money towards iconic European start-ups including Revolut, Trainline and Personio. Before he was even 30, he solidified himself as a notable investor—and advised others that “It’s about owning equity, that is the key.”
At the highest levels of the FDA, questions remain about which officials have the legal authority to sign off on drugs cleared under the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, which promises approval in as little as one month for medicines that support “U.S. national interests.”
Traditionally, approval decisions have nearly always been handled by FDA review scientists and their immediate supervisors, not the agency’s political appointees and senior leaders.
But drug reviewers say they’ve received little information about the new program’s workings. And some staffers working on a highly anticipated anti-obesity pill were recently told they can skip certain regulatory steps to meet top officials’ aggressive deadlines.
Outside experts point out that FDA drug reviews — which range from six to 10 months — are already the fastest in the world.
“The concept of doing a review in one to two months just does not have scientific precedent,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor at Harvard Medical School. “FDA cannot do the same detailed review that it does of a regular application in one to two months, and it doesn’t have the resources to do it.”
On Thursday Reuters reported that FDA officials have delayed the review of two drugs in the program, in part due to safety concerns, including the death of a patient taking one of the medications.
Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said the voucher program prioritizes “gold standard scientific review” and aims to deliver “meaningful and effective treatments and cures.”
The program remains popular at the White House, where pricing concessions announced by the Republican president have repeatedly been accompanied by FDA vouchers for drugmakers that agree to cut their prices.
For instance, when the White House announced that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk would reduce prices on their popular obesity drugs, FDA staffers had to scramble to vet new vouchers for both companies in time for Trump’s news conference, according to multiple people involved in the process.
That’s sparked widespread concern that FDA drug reviews — long pegged to objective standards and procedures — have become open to political interference.
“It’s extraordinary to have such an opaque application process, one that is obviously susceptible to politicization,” said Paul Kim, a former FDA attorney who now works with pharmaceutical clients.
Top FDA officials declined to sign off on expedited approvals
Many of the concerns around the program stem from the fact that it hasn’t been laid out in federal rules and regulations.
The FDA already has more than a half-dozen programs intended to speed up or streamline reviews for promising drugs — all approved by Congress, with regulations written by agency staff.
In contrast, information about the voucher program is mostly confined to an agency website. Drugmakers can apply by submitting a 350-word “statement of interest.”
Increasingly, agency leaders such as Dr. Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top medical officer and vaccine center director, have been contacting drugmakers directly about awarding vouchers. That’s created quandaries for FDA staffers on even basic questions, such as how to formally award a voucher to a company that didn’t request one.
Nixon, the HHS spokesman, said that voucher submissions are evaluated by “a senior, multidisciplinary review committee,” led by Prasad.
Questions about the legality of the program led the FDA’s then-drug director, Dr. George Tidmarsh, to decline to sign off on approvals under the pathway, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Tidmarsh resigned from the agency in November after a lawsuit challenging his conduct on issues unrelated to the voucher program.
After his departure, Sara Brenner, the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner, was set to have the power to decide, but she also declined the role after looking further into the legal implications, according to the people. Currently the agency’s deputy chief medical officer, Dr. Mallika Mundkur, who works under Prasad, is taking on the responsibility.
Giving final approval to a drug carries significant legal risks, essentially certifying that the medicine meets FDA standards for safety and effectiveness. If unexpected safety problems later emerge, both the agency and individual staffers could be pulled into investigations or lawsuits.
Traditionally, approval comes from FDA drug office directors, made in consultation with a team of reviewers. Under the voucher program, approval comes through a committee vote by senior agency leaders led by Prasad, according to multiple people familiar with the process. Staff reviewers don’t get a vote.
“It is a complete reversal from the normal review process, which is traditionally led by the scientists who are the ones immersed in the data,” said Kesselheim, who is a lawyer and a medical researcher.
Not everyone sees problems with the program. Dan Troy, the FDA’s top lawyer under President George W. Bush, a Republican, says federal law gives the commissioner broad discretion to reorganize the handling of drug reviews.
Still, he says, the voucher program, like many of Makary’s initiatives, may be short-lived because it isn’t codified.
“If you live by the press release then you die by the press release,” Troy said. “Anything that they’re doing now could be wiped out in a moment by the next administration.”
The voucher program has ballooned after outreach by FDA officials
Initially framed as a pilot program of no more than five drugs, it has expanded to 18 vouchers awarded, with more under consideration. That puts extra pressure on the agency’s drug center, where 20% of the staff has left through retirements, buyouts or resignations over the past year.
When Makary unveiled the program in October there were immediate concerns about the unprecedented power he would have in deciding which companies benefit.
Makary then said that nominations for drugs would come from career staffers. Indeed, some of the early drugs were recommended by FDA reviewers, according to two people familiar with the process. They said FDA staffers deliberately selected drugs that could be vetted quickly.
But, increasingly, selection decisions are led by Prasad or other senior officials, sometimes unbeknownst to FDA staff, according to three people. In one case, FDA reviewers learned from GlaxoSmithKline representatives that Prasad had contacted the company about a voucher.
Access to Makary is limited because he does not use a government email account to do business, according to people familiar with the matter, breaking with longstanding precedent.
Under pressure from drugmakers, some FDA reviewers were told they can skip steps
Once a voucher is awarded, some drugmakers have their own interpretation of the review timeline — creating further confusion and anxiety among staff.
Two people involved in the ongoing review of Eli Lilly’s anti-obesity pill said company executives initially told the FDA they expected the drug approved within two months.
The timeline alarmed FDA reviewers because it did not include the agency’s standard 60-day prefiling period, when staffers check the application to ensure it isn’t missing essential information. That 60-day window has been in place for more than 30 years.
Lilly pushed for a quicker filing turnaround, demanding one week. Eventually the agency and the company agreed to a two-week period.
Nixon declined to comment on the specifics of Lilly’s review but said FDA reviewers can “adjust timelines as needed.”
Staffers were pushed to keep the application moving forward, even though key pieces of data about the drug’s chemistry appeared to be missing. When reviewers raised concerns about some of the gaps during an internal meeting, they were told by one senior official: “If the science is sound then you can overlook the regulations.”
Former reviewers and outside experts say that approach is the opposite of how FDA reviews should work: By following the regulations, staffers scientifically confirm the safety and effectiveness of drugs.
Skipping review steps could also carry risks for drugmakers if future FDA leaders decide a drug wasn’t properly vetted. Like other experts, Kesselheim says the program may not last beyond the current administration.
“They are fundamentally changing the application of the standards, but the underlying law remains what it is,” he said. “The hope is that one day we will return to these scientifically sound, legally sound principles.”
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Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) said it will increase maximum daily parking rates starting March 1, according to a release.
What You Need To Know
Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) said it will increase parking fees starting March 1
The airport said rising operational costs are to blame for the increase
More travellers are starting from CLT rather than flying through, as well
They’ll use they funds to improve parking facilities around the airport
Operational costs and shifting demand are the key reasons the airport said it had to increase fees to fliers. More CLT travelers are starting their trips at the airport, rather than just flying through.
The new bump will also help the airport make facilities better, improve their infrastructure and make things safer and reliable.
“These adjustments allow us to continue investing in our parking facilities while maintaining competitive rates, and our focus remains on safety, reliability and a positive customer experience,” Ted Kaplan, CLT Chief Business and Innovation Officer, said.
Here’s a look at new pricing starting March 1:
Valet – $50, up from $45 Available for pre-book and drive-up
Hourly Deck – $35, up from $32 Available for pre-book and drive-up
Daily Deck – $28, up from $20 Pre-book only
Express Deck Preferred – $24 (no change) Pre-book only
Express Deck Self-Park – $24, up from $20 Pre-book only
Daily North – $18, up from $14 Drive-up only
Long Term 1 – $14, up from $12 Pre-book only
Long Term 2 – $14, up from $12 Drive-up only
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