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Following Comey indictment, Trump suggests more political prosecutions could be coming

admin - Latest News - September 26, 2025
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Amid accusations he is carrying out a campaign of retribution following the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, President Trump suggested the Department of Justice may be eyeing additional political prosecutions. Comey says he is innocent and that he’s “known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump.” NBC News’ Laura Jarrett reports.



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October 3, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleBy Jamie GrayLONDON — A woman has been named to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time in the history of the Church of England. The Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, will be installed into the church’s most senior role in March 2026. Mullally is the first female Archbishop of Canterbury to be chosen since women were allowed to become bishops in 2014. As the spiritual leader of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury heads a global Anglican community of around 85 million people, across 165 countries.In a statement following her appointment, Mullally said: “As I respond to the call of Christ to this new ministry, I do so in the same spirit of service to God and to others that has motivated me since I first came to faith as a teenager.” “At every stage of that journey, through my nursing career and Christian ministry, I have learned to listen deeply — to people and to God’s gentle prompting — to seek to bring people together to find hope and healing.” Mullally’s appointment comes 11 months after the previous archbishop, Justin Welby, resigned after a damning report into his handling of the case of a prolific child abuser associated with the church. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed Mullally’s appointment, saying she would play “a key role in our national life.”“The Church of England is of profound importance to this country. Its churches, cathedrals, schools, and charities are part of the fabric of our communities,” he said in a statement.Jamie GrayJamie Gray is a senior desk editor for NBC News based in London. 
September 25, 2025
Sept. 25, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Abigail Brooks and Erik OrtizDerrick Dearman appeared to be high on drugs in his Alabama prison in the days leading up to his execution.The convicted killer raged in phone calls and emails, anguishing over how his willingness to die for his crimes wouldn’t change the perception of him as an irredeemable monster.And by the time he took his final breath, his longtime addiction to methamphetamine — the drug he blamed for fueling the murders of five people, including a pregnant woman, in 2016 — had consumed him to the end.Dearman, 36, had meth in his body when Alabama put him to death by lethal injection in October 2024, according to a toxicology report confirming what eyewitnesses believed at the time.He isn’t the only prisoner to be executed with narcotics in their system in Alabama recently.Since Alabama resumed executions in 2023, following a pause on capital punishment amid a series of failed lethal injection attempts, the state has executed 11 people, including Dearman. An NBC News review of available autopsies shows that at least three others had taken illegal drugs prior to their executions: Jamie Ray Mills, 50, was executed last year with meth in his body, while Carey Dale Grayson, 50, and Kenneth Smith, 58, died last year with a form of a synthetic cannabinoid in their system, according to their toxicology reports. Synthetic cannabinoids imitate the effects of substances like marijuana.Carey Dale Grayson; Kenneth Smith; Jamie Ray Mills.Alabama Department of CorrectionsAlabama has its fourth execution of the year scheduled for Thursday.Jon Ozmint, a former prosecutor who was the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections from 2003 to 2011, said that the discovery during autopsy of drugs unrelated to an execution and not prescribed to an inmate would have been “a red flag for us.”“We definitely would have launched an after-action review, and then, if there was any indication of you know, staff wrongdoing, we would have launched the appropriate level of investigation,” Ozmint said.Mills was executed by lethal injection, and Grayson and Smith died by an execution method using nitrogen gas. (Smith was the first inmate in the nation to die in that manner.)The amount of the drugs found in Dearman, Mills, Grayson and Smith was relatively small, independent medical experts who reviewed the inmates’ records told NBC News, but their detection still indicates the drugs had been recently absorbed.D’Michelle DuPre, a forensic consultant in South Carolina and a former medical examiner, has analyzed about 125 death row inmates’ toxicology reports throughout her career, she said.“I have rarely seen an opioid in the inmates’ tox screen. I don’t recall seeing a narcotic,” DuPre noted.Alabama executes convicted murderer with new nitrogen method02:05Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative, which represented Mills in his death row case, said drugs are generally less of a problem in Alabama’s William C. Holman Correctional Facility because of heightened security and inmates’ isolation.However, she said, she’s not surprised to learn that even death row inmates can score drugs, indicating the depths of the problem.“The entire system is poorly managed,” Morrison said. Drugs “are a pervasive crisis.”The Alabama Department of Corrections and the state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to inquiries about the inmates’ toxicology results.According to the state’s execution protocol, on the afternoon of an execution, “a medical examination of the condemned inmate will be completed, with the results recorded on a Medical Treatment Record or Body Chart.” The Department of Corrections also did not immediately respond when asked if workers are checking for drug use in that final examination and what happens if it is detected.In a deposition last October involving Grayson’s case, Corrections Commissioner John Hamm acknowledged drugs are circulating in Alabama’s prisons. He agreed that, in some instances, corrections employees may be smuggling the contraband into the prisons and selling them to prisoners.In recent months, the Department of Corrections said a corrections officer was accused of the large-scale trafficking of narcotics, including meth and marijuana, at the state prison in St. Clair County. Additionally, visitors have attempted to bring drugs into facilities, including at Holman, or used drones to drop backpacks containing drugs onto prison grounds.The William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala., where death row inmates are executed.Sharon Steinmann / APThe drug trade has had lethal consequences, as well. Of the 277 deaths last year of inmates in state Department of Corrections custody, 46 were classified as “accidental/overdose,” according to an ACLU of Alabama report.In 2020, the Justice Department sued Alabama for alleged constitutional violations within its prison system, citing instances of excessive force, sexual abuse and poor sanitary conditions. The suit also mentioned the system’s “failure to prevent the introduction of illegal contraband leads to prisoner-on-prisoner violence.”“The use of illicit substances, including methamphetamines or fentanyl or synthetic cannabinoids, is prevalent in Alabama’s prison for men,” the complaint alleges. “Prisoners using illicit substances often harm others or become indebted to other prisoners.”The federal government’s lawsuit against Alabama remains ongoing, and the state has largely denied the allegations in court filings.Carla Crowder, the executive director of Alabama Appleseed, a nonprofit criminal justice reform organization that provides legal and re-entry services, said prison officials have the ability to root out drugs in prisons “from a public corruption perspective.”“Start tracking down the source — who’s in charge, who’s calling the shots,” Crowder said. “We are advocating for the state to begin to take this seriously.”During Commissioner Hamm’s deposition, one of Grayson’s lawyers pointed out the ability for some death row inmates to acquire drugs, including his own client — and questioned whether that affected Grayson’s ability to meaningfully participate in his own defense.“Mr. Grayson admitted that he was on drugs at the time of his deposition or had taken them in the immediate — in the preceding 12 hours,” lawyer Spencer Hahn told U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr.“I don’t understand how a person who is being held on single block at the most secure prison in the state of Alabama is allowed to alter his consciousness using drugs before a deposition that is central to his case,” Hahn said. “So a lot of what Mr. Grayson said and may not have said, he was not in his right mind in a lot of ways.”Hahn added that Grayson had been under the influence of flakka, a synthetic stimulant similar to the more commonly known bath salts.He said Grayson’s drug use was also consistent with a synthetic cannabinoid found in Smith’s autopsy. An attorney for the state responded that the synthetic cannabinoid Smith consumed was “smoked.”Certainly taking drugs is illegal, but so is providing drugs to a prisoner. ”Said Spencer hahn, a lawyer for a Death row inmate“Having access to these mind-altering substances can absolutely impact your conscious state and your decision-making,” said David Dadiomov, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California.Dadiomov also said the way these drugs are used among people who are incarcerated is different because of the setting. “Things are misused simply based on access,” he said. “At extremely high doses, because these substances are usually very potent, they also cause psychotic-like effects, or effects that are quite different from what people classically view as intoxication from marijuana.”During Hamm’s deposition, Hahn questioned how Smith could have drugs in his system when he “had been watched for four days straight before an execution.”“Somehow he was able to, from an isolation cell, obtain flakka or whatever that synthetic cannabinoid source was,” Hahn said of Smith.“Certainly taking drugs is illegal,” Hahn added, “but so is providing drugs to a prisoner. And somebody got those drugs into that prison.”During the deposition, the judge suggested drugs could be getting into Alabama prisons another way.“There has been an issue in the state prison system of lawyers bringing in papers that have been soaked in drugs and then giving them to their clients and DOC, you know, or whatever the facility maybe can’t stop that from happening because it’s legal papers,” Judge Huffaker said. “And then the particular inmate smokes or ingests it or does whatever with it.”Hahn denied his law office had ever done so.He declined to comment about Grayson’s case when reached by NBC News this week.A lawyer for Smith also couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.Read more death row coverageAn Idaho warden acquired hard-to-get lethal injection drugs from an undisclosed supplier on a rural roadAfter Biden commuted federal death row sentences, DAs are weighing state chargesSouth Carolina prepares for first firing squad execution, ushering in return of rare methodIndiana carries out first execution in 15 years in process scrutinized for its secrecyDearman, who initially pleaded not guilty to the crimes, later fired his two court-appointed attorneys and changed his plea to guilty.In a phone interview with NBC News in April 2024, Dearman said he had dropped the appeals in his case and was ready for the state to execute him on capital murder and kidnapping charges.Dearman said he was high on meth in 2016 when he burst into a bungalow armed with an ax and firearms in a rural area near Mobile. His estranged ex-girlfriend, Laneta Lester, was staying at the home, which belonged to her brother.Dearman was convicted of killing five people while they slept: Lester’s brother, Joseph Adam Turner, 26, and his wife, Shannon Melissa Randall, 35; Randall’s brother, Robert Lee Brown, 26; and two others who lived at the home, Justin Kaleb Reed, 23, and his wife, Chelsea Marie Reed, 22, who was five months pregnant. Dearman was also convicted in the death of the Reed’s unborn child.He told NBC News last year that he was addicted to drugs since he was a teenager and that his dependency on them ignited the rampage.“Drugs turned me into a very unpredictable, unstable and violent person,” he said. “That’s not who I am. The person that committed these crimes and the person who I truly am is two different people.”Dadiomov said there is a strong correlation between long-term meth use and severe mental illness, likening meth-induced psychosis to schizophrenia.“They present similarly,” he said. “They can have the similar features of hallucinations, so seeing things that aren’t there or hearing things that aren’t there.”Morrison, who represented Mills on Alabama’s death row, said the need for inmates to turn to drugs in prison, and then potentially gain access to narcotics from corrections officers and other employees, only shows the absence of rehabilitation and programming to help prisoners — even those relegated to death row.“It impacts any sense of hope,” Morrison said. “It’s a system that reflects to an entire group of people that they do not have worth.”Abigail BrooksAbigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.Erik OrtizErik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.
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.
October 9, 2025
National Guard Arrives in Chicago as Deployment Battle Intensifies
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