• Trump orders military troops to be paid amid…
  • ‘No survivors’ found after explosion at Tennessee plant,…
  • Israel prepares for final hostage release as Gazans…
  • Oscar-winning actor Diane Keaton dies at 79

Be that!

contact@bethat.ne.com

 

Be That ! Menu   ≡ ╳
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics Politics
☰

Be that!

Live Nation CEO says concert tickets are underpriced

admin - Latest News - September 26, 2025
admin
13 views 6 secs 0 Comments



Live Nation CEO says concert tickets are underpriced



Source link

TAGS:
PREVIOUS
Supreme Court allows Trump to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid funding
NEXT
Sept. 26, 2025, 5:37 PM EDTBy Courtney Kube, Gabe Gutierrez and Katherine DoyleWASHINGTON — U.S. military officials are drawing up options to target drug traffickers inside Venezuela, and strikes within that country’s borders could potentially begin in a matter of weeks, four sources told NBC News.Those sources are two U.S. officials familiar with the planning and two other sources familiar with the discussions. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.Striking inside Venezuela would be another escalation in the Trump administration’s military campaign against alleged drug targets and its stance toward Venezuela’s government.In recent weeks, the U.S. military struck at least three boats from Venezuela allegedly carrying narco-traffickers and drugs that could threaten Americans, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social. The administration has not provided evidence that drugs were on all of those boats. But an official in the Dominican Republic, alongside one from the U.S. Embassy there, did say at a press conference Sunday that drugs were found in the water after one strike.Strikes inside Venezuela could happen in the next several weeks, but the president has not approved anything yet, the four people said. Two of them and an additional official familiar with the discussions said that the United States’ recent military escalation is in part a result of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro not doing enough, in the administration’s view, to stop the flow of illegal drugs out of his country.The plans being discussed primarily focus on drone strikes against drug trafficking groups’ members and leadership, as well as targeting drug labs, the four sources said.Asked for comment, the White House referred NBC News to this previous statement from the president: “We’ll see what happens. Venezuela is sending us their gang members, their drug dealers and drugs. It’s not acceptable.” The Pentagon declined to comment.President Donald Trump said on Sept. 2 that the U.S. had carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela and was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang.@realDonaldTrump via Truth SocialSome Trump administration officials are disappointed that the United States’ military escalation does not appear to have weakened Maduro’s grip on power or prompted any significant response, the official familiar with the discussions said. The White House has faced more pushback on the strikes against the drug boats than it anticipated, prompting the administration to think carefully about next steps, the official familiar with the discussions said.That includes discussions between the U.S. and Venezuela through Middle Eastern leaders serving as intermediaries, NBC News has learned. According to a senior administration official, Maduro has spoken to those intermediaries about concessions he would be willing to make to remain in power. The senior administration official would not specify which countries are acting as intermediaries beyond saying that they are allies.Trump is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” the senior administration official said.The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Maduro has previously denied any role in drug trafficking and has repeatedly alleged that the U.S. is trying to force him from power.Asked about the possibility of U.S. strikes within his country, Anibal Sanchez Ismayel, a Venezuelan political analyst, told NBC News in a WhatsApp message, “An attack on Venezuelan soil would have consequences from diplomatic protests to an increase in political persecutions of those they classify as collaborators, to further uniting the population with the need to defend sovereignty reaffirmed.”The official familiar with discussions and another source familiar with the administration’s thinking believe the U.S. striking inside Venezuela would not be surprising given other recent events.The U.S. has deployed at least eight ships with more than 4,000 personnel to the waters in the region recently and sent F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico, according to the U.S. military.“You don’t move that many resources down there without looking at all options,” the source familiar with the administration’s thinking said.That is especially true because keeping thousands of U.S. military forces, ships and aircraft in the area could begin to impact deployments elsewhere.“You can’t keep that kind of firepower in the Caribbean forever,” one of the sources familiar with the discussions said.In 2020, during Trump’s first term, the Justice Department indicted Maduro on drug trafficking charges. The Trump administration has accused Maduro of working with cartels that it says are sending cocaine, fentanyl and gang members to the U.S. The administration recently increased a U.S. reward for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million. Venezuela is not a significant cocaine producer, but is considered a major departure point for flights carrying the drug elsewhere. It is not believed to be a source for illegal fentanyl brought into the U.S., most of which comes from Mexico.Trump administration officials have not ruled out regime change as another aim of these military operations, and they have increased pressure on Maduro himself. NBC News previously reported that the administration’s goal, according to the source familiar with its thinking, is to force Maduro to make rash decisions that could ultimately lead to him being ousted without American boots on the ground.Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been one of the voices championing regime change, according to the source familiar with the administration’s thinking.Earlier this month Maduro sent a letter to Trump about opening a dialogue, according to a social media post by the Venezuelan government. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Trump received the letter but condemned it.“Frankly, I think there were a lot of lies that were repeated by Maduro in that letter, and the administration’s position on Venezuela has not changed,” Leavitt said at a White House press briefing Monday. “We view the Maduro regime as illegitimate, and the president has clearly shown that he’s willing to use any and all means necessary to stop the illegal trafficking of deadly drugs from the Venezuelan regime into the United States of America.”The U.S. has continued to coordinate with Venezuela on some matters, including on continuing deportation flights, the official familiar with the discussions said. There have been 54 such flights through last Friday, that official said.Ric Grenell, who serves as the special presidential envoy for special missions, has been in routine communication with Trump and continues to push diplomacy with Venezuela as an option, according to the same official as well as a source familiar with the negotiations.Courtney KubeCourtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Gabe GutierrezGabe Gutierrez is a senior White House correspondent for NBC News.Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News. Erika Angulo contributed.
Related Post
September 27, 2025
Sept. 27, 2025, 5:30 AM EDTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.For people who rely on certain prescription drugs, including weight loss, asthma and cancer medications, President Donald Trump’s post announcing 100% tariffs on foreign brand-name drugs offers little clarity on when — or if — medications might see price hikes. “Starting October 1st, 2025, we will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America,” Trump said on Truth Social late Thursday. “‘IS BUILDING’ will be defined as, ‘breaking ground’ and/or ‘under construction.’ There will, therefore, be no Tariff on these Pharmaceutical Products if construction has started.”Experts say Trump’s post raises a lot of questions. Here are five major ones. What drugs will be impacted?Trump’s post doesn’t specify whether brand-name drugmakers with an existing U.S. plant would be exempt, whether that exemption would include all their products, or whether it would only be for the drugs manufactured at the U.S. site. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, makers of the weight loss drugs Wegovy and Zepound, respectively, have announced plans to invest in U.S. manufacturing. But it’s unclear if their intent to invest will warrant an exemption. On Tuesday, Lilly announced plans for a $6.5 billion manufacturing facility in Houston that will produce Zepbound and its other GLP-1 drug, Mounjaro, following a recent commitment to build a $5 billion plant near Richmond, Virginia. Novo Nordisk, a Danish company, said in June it would spend $4.1 billion to construct a second GLP-1 fill-finish plant in Clayton, North Carolina.AstraZeneca, which makes the asthma drug Symbicort, also announced in July that it will invest $50 billion over the next five years to expand its research and development and manufacturing footprint in the U.S. Many other popular brand-name drugs, however, are primarily manufactured overseas, particularly in Europe, said Rena Conti, an associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.Botox, made by Allergen, and the cancer drug Keytruda from drugmaker Merck are made in Ireland. (Keytruda’s manufacturing has increasingly moved to the United States in recent years, but it’s not clear if that would earn an exemption from Trump’s tariffs.)Others, including some for blood and lung cancers, as well as vaccines, are made in places like India and China, Conti said. “I think what’s most at risk here are branded products that come from China and India,” she said. The E.U. and Japan already have trade agreements in place that cover pharmaceuticals, she added, and it’s unclear whether the new tariff will supersede that. Will patients see prices increase?Only 1 in 10 of the prescriptions filled in the U.S. are for brand-name drugs; the vast majority are for generics, which are much cheaper and will not be affected by these tariffs. Whether patients see price increases will depend on how many drugmakers receive exemptions — and on whether companies choose to pass those costs on to patients at the pharmacy counter, said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. ​​“Ultimately, tariffs are taxes on patients,” Kesselheim said, “and to the extent that drug companies see increases in cost due to tariffs, they will pass those costs on to patients.”Some companies may decide not to pass the costs along. So far, the 15% tariffs on imports from the E.U. haven’t translated into big price hikes for U.S. patients, Conti noted. To be sure, a 100% tariff would be far more costly for a company. Price hikes may not start right away, as drugmakers find out whether they qualify for an exemption. There also might be a lag since U.S. law prevents drugmakers from increasing the price of drugs faster than inflation.“What if you’re doing updates to the plant you currently have? What if you’re planning a facility? Do those count?” Kesselheim said. “It’s all very ambiguous.”Some patients may not notice additional price hikes at all, given how costly brand-name drugs already are in the U.S., said Arthur Caplan, the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. “I can certainly predict that some patients will immediately feel price increases that will shock them on some of these drugs,” Caplan said.Could insurers absorb the costs?Insurers and middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, could try to negotiate drugmakers or absorb some of the tariff-related costs, Caplan said.It’s more likely, however, that they’d pass it on to patients in the short term, potentially in the form of a larger copay, he said.It’s not only patients with private insurance that should be worried about price hikes, Kesselheim said. Those who get their drugs covered through government health programs could also see price increases.“The government is the largest purchaser of prescription drugs in the market, through Medicare, Medicaid and the VA, so it’s really the government or government payers that are going to see the largest impact on price increases,” he said. Will tariffs spur more U.S. drug manufacturing?It’s unlikely, Kesselheim said. The decision to build a plant “is a complicated and expensive one” that requires several regulatory hurdles and years of planning.Conti noted that by the time new manufacturing plants are completed, Trump would likely be out of office.“It is somewhere between two years and five years to get new production facilities built,” she said, “and it can be in the millions of dollars depending on whether the product that you’re making is a small molecule drug or a biologic.”Even putting money back into an existing plant isn’t quick.“If you want to switch a line or retool a factory to make a product, then we’re talking about somewhere between 18 to 36 months to do that,” Conti said, “because you have to show the U.S. regulator that you can make it at this factory at scale, and the product is what it says it is, or is high quality and meets the quality standards of the U.S.”In a statement, Alex Schriver, a spokesperson for the trade group the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said “most innovative medicines prescribed in America are already made in America” and companies continue to invest in the U.S.“Tariffs risk those plans because every dollar spent on tariffs is a dollar that cannot be invested in American manufacturing or the development of future treatments and cures,” Schriver said. “Medicines have historically been exempt from tariffs because they raise costs and could lead to shortages.”What about shortages?If Trump keeps his focus solely on brand-name drugs, U.S. patients are unlikely to face shortages, Kesselheim said.“Their profits are just so, so far beyond this tariff cost that they could probably be OK or raise the prices of the drugs,” he said. “They would probably not stop production as a result.”But that excludes, he added, some smaller companies who may make niche brand-name products and may not have the resources to take on the extra costs. If tariffs extend to generics, the risk is far greater, Caplan added. Unlike brand-name drugs, generic drugs are typically sold at close to the cost they’re made, he said, which makes it difficult for companies to justify the cost of building a new facility. They’d likely be forced to walk away from production or close their plants altogether.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.
September 24, 2025
Trump signals shift on Ukraine after blunt speech criticizing the U.N.
October 7, 2025
Oct. 7, 2025, 6:10 PM EDTBy Denise ChowA mysterious interstellar comet — just the third such object ever confirmed to have entered our solar system — streaked past Mars last week.A spacecraft in orbit around the red planet had a front-row seat and snapped new images of the comet, known as 3I/ATLAS, on Friday. The photos, released Tuesday by the European Space Agency, show a fuzzy white dot moving against the vast expanse of space.
October 8, 2025
Trump participates in White House roundtable
Comments are closed.
Scroll To Top
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics
© Copyright 2025 - Be That ! . All Rights Reserved