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Trump threatens Colombia amid war on drug cartels

admin - Latest News - November 7, 2025
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NBC News’ Richard Engel reports from Colombia where President Trump is threatening to cut U.S. aid amid his crackdown on drug cartels allegedly tied to Venezuela.



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Nov. 7, 2025, 5:55 PM ESTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.President Donald Trump hailed his deal to slash the price of blockbuster weight loss drugs as a game changer, promising to make Wegovy and Zepbound more affordable for millions of Americans. But major gaps in the plan could blunt its impact, drug policy experts say: Some of the drugs the administration has promised discounts on haven’t been approved yet by the Food and Drug Administration; the lower prices for people paying out of pocket only appear to apply to the lowest doses of the drugs; and the deal doesn’t expand Medicare coverage to people seeking treatment for weight loss alone.“It’s a situation where we have more questions than answers,” said Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Medicare policy program at KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. “Based on what we didn’t hear, that suggests to me that there’s a lot that the administration itself hasn’t even ironed out as of yet.”“It just feels,” she added, “a little bit too squishy right now.”U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by members of the pharmaceutical industry and administration officials, delivers remarks on lowering drug prices in the Oval Office at the White House on November 06, 2025 in Washington, DC. Andrew Harnik / Getty ImagesThe announcement marks one of the most ambitious efforts yet to tackle the high cost of weight loss drugs in the U.S. Wegovy and Zepbound carry list prices above $1,000 a month, a cost that both Republicans and Democrats have criticized as far too high, especially compared with what other countries pay. Administration officials say there’s still time to iron out details before the lower prices take effect. The lower prices that will be available through the administration’s self-pay platform, TrumpRx, aren’t expected to go live until the end of the year, and the Medicare and Medicaid changes won’t roll out until mid-2026.“I think the administration deserves credit for continuing to try to push the envelope on finding ways to lower prescription drug prices in the U.S.,” Cubanski said. She said KFF polling shows that health care costs, including prescription drugs, are a top concern for Americans.Art Caplan, the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, said the deal, while ambitious, lacks crucial details.“It’s just murky as to how this will take shape, how the programs will work,” Caplan said. “You can’t really tell from what’s going on.”Unapproved drugsSeveral forms of the drugs included in the deal haven’t yet received FDA approval. That includes oral versions of the weight loss drugs — which are still under development or FDA review — and Eli Lilly’s new multidose injection pens, which haven’t been approved but the drugmaker says are the versions included in the pricing agreement.Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said that makes the administration’s promises premature, since those lower prices can’t take effect until the products are on the market. “It is reckless to negotiate pricing deals on products which the FDA have not yet approved as safe and effective,” Gostin said. “The administration is getting way out ahead of its own safety agency.”An oral version of Wegovy, from Novo Nordisk, is being reviewed by the FDA. A decision is expected in the coming weeks. A multidose version of Zepbound is under review by the FDA, Lilly said. The company hasn’t submitted its weight loss pill, orforglipron, to the agency yet. Lilly CEO David Ricks told NBC News’ Tom Llamas on “Top Story” that the FDA would review the pill quickly. “As part of the deal, they’ve agreed to give us an expedited approval,” Ricks said. Different doses, different pricesThe White House said that both the pills and the injection pens will be available for discounted prices for people who pay out of pocket. Starting doses of weight loss pills will cost $149 for a month’s supply, and the shots will cost an average of $350 for a month’s supply, the White House said. The price of the injections is expected to fall to about $250 within two years, it said.But people may end up paying more.When people start on a weight loss drug, they start with the lowest dose possible — the starting dose — to allow the body to get used to the drug. Over the course of several months, however, they increase the dose until they get to a dose that’s effective for weight loss. Wegovy comes in five doses and Zepbound comes in six, with the most weight loss seen at the highest doses. Administration officials said the starting doses of GLP-1 pills will cost $149 a month, but did not say what higher doses would be.For the injections, the exact White House language was vague: The shots will initially have a “weighted average” price of $350 a month. Lilly, however, said Zepbound will be available at the lowest dose for $299 a month, with additional doses priced up to $449. A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk didn’t say whether doses would have different prices, but said it plans to publish an update on costs “in the coming weeks.”That means patients paying through TrumpRx could end up paying far more than the administration’s advertised prices — especially if patients don’t stay on the lowest doses for long, Caplan said. Limited coverageAs part of the deal, Lilly and Novo Nordisk will charge Medicare and Medicaid $245 for a month’s supply of the shots, a move that will likely provide savings for the programs. Medicare enrollees will have their costs capped at $50 a month. Medicaid enrollees often don’t have copays.But not everyone on Medicare or Medicaid is eligible.Under the deal, Medicare will continue to cover the weight loss drugs for people who are overweight or obese and have another qualifying condition, such as heart or kidney disease. The agreement doesn’t expand coverage to people using the drugs for weight loss alone. Medicare, by law, is barred from covering weight loss drugs, Cubanski, of KFF, said.Eli Lilly CEO talks deal to cut medication prices with the Trump administration09:10The lack of expanded coverage is a significant omission, said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Medicare is one of the largest payers in the country, and without broader coverage, millions of patients will remain priced out even as the administration touts lower costs.“You would have to change the law or go through several regulatory steps to be able to offer coverage outside of an already covered indication,” Dusetzina said. A White House spokesperson said the administration wanted to first lower prices for patients who would most benefit, such as those with risk factors associated with obesity. It’s possible the administration could eventually expand Medicare coverage through a pilot program. Ricks, the CEO of Lilly, said at a briefing Thursday that the government plans to launch one in spring 2026 that would be voluntary for Medicare plans. Still, there are issues Medicare plans would have to weigh, Dusetzina said. “The plans will have to think about how many more people might be interested in enrolling and using these drugs and how that would affect their costs,” she said. “So, again, it’s not totally clear to me how that will get operationalized and how soon Medicare beneficiaries would expect to see lower prices.”Ricks said the pilot would be “at no cost” to the plans.Dr. Shauna Levy, a specialist in obesity medicine and the medical director of the Tulane Weight Loss Center in New Orleans, said the deal is “a step in the right direction” but she worries if the administration is overstating the potential savings.“As an obesity community, I think we will remain skeptical of this deal until we see how it actually plays out,” Levy wrote in an email. Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.
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Oct. 7, 2025, 6:30 PM EDTBy Kaitlin SullivanShort bursts of purposeful activity –– such as walking around the block or lifting small weights –– may be the best way to get in the habit of exercising. Bite-sized bits of exercise also improve heart and muscle fitness, a study published Tuesday in BMJ Sports Medicine found.Less than half of adults in the United States get enough aerobic activity and less than a quarter get the recommended amount of both aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise. “When people are asked why they don’t exercise, the answers are almost always the same, no time and no motivation,” Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, a doctoral student in clinical research at the University of Oviedo in Spain, who led the study, said in an email.Rodríguez and his team measured how brief bouts of exercise spread throughout the day –– which he calls exercise snacks –– affected cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, as well as blood pressure and body composition in adults who did not regularly exercise. The team compiled data from seven randomized clinical trials that included people ages 18 to 80. There were more than 400 inactive people across the study, about 70% of whom women.What’s an effective exercise snack? An exercise snack was defined as a bout of vigorous physical activity that lasted less than five minutes. The activity had to be done at least two times a day on at least three days per week, for four to 12 weeks. The exercise was short and deliberate, such as climbing flights of stairs for the purpose of exercise. Stair-climbing was most common in adults younger than 65, while exercise, including tai chi, that strengthened lower body muscles was more common in older adults. They found that in adults younger than 65, these small acts of physical activity significantly improved cardiorespiratory fitness. For older adults –– those 65 and older –– exercise snacks significantly improved muscular endurance. People were also extremely likely to adhere to these small bouts of exercise –– about 91% of adults and 83% of older adults routinely engaged in them.“The biggest benefits happen at the very beginning, when someone goes from being inactive to a little bit active. That’s where exercise snacks can really help,” Rodríguez said. The study did have limitations, including the fact that the seven clinical trials they included used different methods to collect data, and had people exercise for different lengths of time between four and 12 weeks. For this reason, some of the benefits of moving may have been masked.For example, contrary to what past research has found, the new study found that short bursts of activity did not appear to have an effect on cardiometabolic health, such as body composition, blood pressure and blood lipids. Lipids are fatty substances, including LDL (bad cholesterol), HDL (good cholesterol) and triglycerides, that perform critical functions in the body but can be harmful if they build up in the blood.“It was surprising that they didn’t find any improvement in those other markers of cardiometabolic health because most other studies have,” said Carol Ewing Garber, director of both the Applied Physiology Laboratory and the EXerT Clinic at the Columbia University Teachers College, who wasn’t involved in the study. Cardiorespiratory health is a measure of how well the heart and lungs deliver oxygen to the muscles during exercise and predicts a person’s risk of developing heart disease and diabetes. The new study showed short bursts of exercises improved cardiorespiratory fitness.At the very least, getting small amounts of deliberate exercise on a regular basis will make everyday tasks, such as hauling groceries or making the bed, much easier, Garber said. “Most of us could probably find these five-minute bouts of time in our day, to walk around the building we work in, or up and down the stairs. We just don’t think we can,” she said. Short workouts create changes in the bodyPerhaps the biggest benefit of starting an exercise snack routine is that it can help people who are inactive build upon these small changes, said Dr. Tamanna Singh, director of the Sports Cardiology Center at Cleveland Clinic. “If you do the same snack, for the same amount of time, at the same frequency, your body will get used to it. The body needs a challenge,” she said. “The exercise snack can be the start of a foundation for more intense exercise.”Short workouts create key changes in the body that make intensifying workouts easier, Singh added. Within a couple of weeks of getting exercise, aerobic activity initiates cellular changes that increase the amount of plasma in the blood, which allows the blood to deliver more oxygen to the muscles and lengthens endurance. Even small amounts of aerobic activity strengthens the network of tiny blood vessels, called capillaries, that remove waste from muscles. Consistent activity also improves the amount of energy cells can provide, she added. These changes make it easier to exercise for longer periods of time or at a higher intensity. “The main takeaway here is that anything is better than nothing, but that does not mean you should just get three minutes of exercise,” Singh said. “Use that as a base, hopefully these exercise snacks will make people want to have an exercise meal.”Kaitlin SullivanKaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.
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