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Why presidents pardon turkeys

admin - Latest News - November 26, 2025
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NBC News’ Garrett Haake explains the history behind the Thanksgiving tradition of presidential pardons for turkeys.



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Nov. 25, 2025, 6:39 PM ESTBy Angela YangWarning: This article includes descriptions of self-harm.After a family sued OpenAI saying their teenager used ChatGPT as his “suicide coach,” the company responded on Tuesday saying it is not liable for his death, arguing that the boy misused the chatbot.The legal response, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, is OpenAI’s first answer to a lawsuit that sparked widespread concern over the potential mental health harms that chatbots can pose. In August, the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, accusing the company behind ChatGPT of wrongful death, design defects and failure to warn of risks associated with the chatbot.Chat logs in the lawsuit showed that GPT-4o — a version of ChatGPT known for being especially affirming and sycophantic — actively discouraged him from seeking mental health help, offered to help him write a suicide note and even advised him on his noose setup.“To the extent that any ‘cause’ can be attributed to this tragic event,” OpenAI argued in its court filing, “Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries and harm were caused or contributed to, directly and proximately, in whole or in part, by Adam Raine’s misuse, unauthorized use, unintended use, unforeseeable use, and/or improper use of ChatGPT.”Family sues OpenAI over son’s suicide03:41The company cited several rules within its terms of use that Raine appeared to have violated: Users under 18 years old are prohibited from using ChatGPT without consent from a parent or guardian. Users are also forbidden from using ChatGPT for “suicide” or “self-harm,” and from bypassing any of ChatGPT’s protective measures or safety mitigations.When Raine shared his suicidal ideations with ChatGPT, the bot did issue multiple messages containing the suicide hotline number, according to his family’s lawsuit. But his parents said their son would easily bypass the warnings by supplying seemingly harmless reasons for his queries, including by pretending he was just “building a character.”OpenAI’s new filing in the case also highlighted the “Limitation of liability” provision in its terms of use, which has users acknowledge that their use of ChatGPT is “at your sole risk and you will not rely on output as a sole source of truth or factual information.”Jay Edelson, the Raine family’s lead counsel, wrote in an email statement that OpenAI’s response is “disturbing.”“They abjectly ignore all of the damning facts we have put forward: how GPT-4o was rushed to market without full testing. That OpenAI twice changed its Model Spec to require ChatGPT to engage in self-harm discussions. That ChatGPT counseled Adam away from telling his parents about his suicidal ideation and actively helped him plan a ‘beautiful suicide.’ And OpenAI and Sam Altman have no explanation for the last hours of Adam’s life, when ChatGPT gave him a pep talk and then offered to write a suicide note,” Edelson wrote.(The Raine family’s lawsuit claimed that OpenAI’s “Model Spec,” the technical rulebook governing ChatGPT’s behavior, had commanded GPT-4o to refuse self-harm requests and provide crisis resources, but also required the bot to “assume best intentions” and refrain from asking users to clarify their intent.)Edelson added that OpenAI instead “tries to find fault in everyone else, including, amazingly, saying that Adam himself violated its terms and conditions by engaging with ChatGPT in the very way it was programmed to act.”OpenAI’s court filing argued that the harms in this case were at least partly caused by Raine’s “failure to heed warnings, obtain help, or otherwise exercise reasonable care,” as well as the “failure of others to respond to his obvious signs of distress.” It also shared that ChatGPT provided responses directing the teenager to seek help more than 100 times before his death on April 11, but that he attempted to circumvent those guardrails.“A full reading of his chat history shows that his death, while devastating, was not caused by ChatGPT,” the filing stated. “Adam stated that for several years before he ever used ChatGPT, he exhibited multiple significant risk factors for self-harm, including, among others, recurring suicidal thoughts and ideations.”Earlier this month, seven additional lawsuits were filed against OpenAI and Altman, similarly alleging negligence, wrongful death, as well as a variety of product liability and consumer protection claims. The suits accuse OpenAI of releasing GPT-4o, the same model Raine was using, without adequate attention to safety. OpenAI has not directly responded to the additional cases.In a new blog post Tuesday, OpenAI shared that the company aims to handle such litigation with “care, transparency, and respect.” It added, however, that its response to Raine’s lawsuit included “difficult facts about Adam’s mental health and life circumstances.”“The original complaint included selective portions of his chats that require more context, which we have provided in our response,” the post stated. “We have limited the amount of sensitive evidence that we’ve publicly cited in this filing, and submitted the chat transcripts themselves to the court under seal.”The post further highlighted OpenAI’s continued attempts to add more safeguards in the months following Raine’s death, including recently introduced parental control tools and an expert council to advise the company on guardrails and model behaviors.The company’s court filing also defended its rollout of GPT-4o, stating that the model passed thorough mental health testing before release.OpenAI additionally argued that the Raine family’s claims are barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a statute that has largely shielded tech platforms from suits that aim to hold them responsible for the content found on their platforms.But Section 230’s application to AI platforms remains uncertain, and attorneys have recently made inroads with creative legal tactics in consumer cases targeting tech companies.If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.Angela YangAngela Yang is a culture and trends reporter for NBC News.
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Nov. 25, 2025, 6:33 PM ESTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday announced lower prices on 15 costly prescription drugs under Medicare, including Ozempic and Wegovy. The price cuts come through the Medicare drug price negotiation program created under the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. It’s different from President Donald Trump’s “most favored nation” drug pricing approach, which relies on executive orders and voluntary deals with drugmakers — not legislation. Trump recently announced such a deal with Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, to lower the price of the drugs in exchange for tariff relief.The Trump administration has been largely quiet about the Medicare price negotiation program.This is the second round of negotiations. Last year, the Biden administration reached deals on 10 prescription drugs, including several for heart disease and diabetes. Those price cuts are set to take effect in 2026. This latest round of price negotiations will go into effect in 2027.“President Trump directed us to stop at nothing to lower health care costs for the American people,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a news release. “As we work to Make America Healthy Again, we will use every tool at our disposal to deliver affordable health care to seniors.” Drugmakers can choose not to strike deals under the negotiation program, but doing so would most likely mean withdrawing their drugs from Medicare — cutting them off from one of the nation’s largest markets. Drugmakers have challenged the program in court but so far have been unsuccessful. The negotiated prices are what Medicare will pay drugmakers for the medicines, not what patients will pay out of pocket. Those discounts will save taxpayers $12 billion, according to CMS. It’s expected to save Medicare enrollees $685 million in out-of-pocket costs in 2027. Here are the negotiated prices for the drugs, based on a 30-day supply, compared to the 2024 list price:Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy, for Type 2 diabetes and weight loss: $274 negotiated price, down from the $959 list price. (Negotiated prices for higher doses of Wegovy are $385.)Trelegy Ellipta, an asthma treatment: $175, down from $654.Xtandi, for prostate cancer: $7,004, down from $13,480.Pomalyst, a chemotherapy drug: $8,650, down from $21,744.Ofev, for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: $6,350, down from $12,622.Ibrance, a breast cancer drug: $7,871, down from $15,741.Linzess, a chronic constipation drug: $136, down from $539.Calquence, a cancer drug: $8,600, down from $14,228.Austedo and Austedo XR, for Huntington’s disease: $4,093, down from $6,623.Breo Ellipta, a COPD drug: $67, down from $397.Xifaxan, for diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome: $1,000, down from $2,696.Vraylar, an antipsychotic drug: $770, down from $1,376.Tradjenta, a diabetes drug: $78, down from $488. Janumet and Janumet XR, diabetes drugs: $80, down from $526.Otezla, a psoriatic arthritis drug: $1,650, down from $4,722.The 15 drugs accounted for $42.5 billion, or 15%, of total Medicare Part D spending in 2024. Medicare Part D covers medications that people take at home, as opposed to those administered in a facility, such as IV chemotherapy. “The price negotiations look very reasonable to me,” said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “It should hopefully provide some relief for taxpayers and beneficiaries in the long run.” Dusetzina said the $274 negotiated price for Ozempic and Wegovy is higher than the $250 price in Trump’s deal. “They should’ve gotten that deal for the taxpayers and the Medicare beneficiaries,” she said.The price cuts come as many Americans say the cost of prescription drugs is unaffordable.About 1 in 5 adults say they’ve skipped filling a prescription because it was too expensive, according to a survey published in July by health policy research group KFF. About 1 in 7 say they have cut pills in half or skipped doses of medicine in the last year because of the cost. 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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September 29, 2025
Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleSept. 29, 2025, 8:01 AM EDTBy Alexander SmithLONDON — Europe may have defeated the United States in golf’s marquee event. But the verbal abuse hurled at the European players by a baying, boozed-up New York crowd left a sour taste Monday, with calls for tighter policing of American spectators.The scenes at the Ryder Cup were unrecognizable from golf’s genteel archetype, where etiquette demands silence on the tee and applause greets opponents’ drives and putts. Instead the Bethpage Black Course, on Long Island, descended this weekend into a bearpit of personal insults, vulgar chanting and — in one instance — a beer thrown at the wife of star Rory McIlroy.McIlroy, the world No.2, led the jubilant response, including a chant asking President Donald Trump if he had seen the result (he had — and congratulated the Europeans.)The Northern Irishman received the brunt of the abuse, which veered into anti-Irish and homophobic jeers and references to his well-documented marital issues. It wasn’t just the crowd. Heather McMahan, an American warm-up comedian, was forced to apologize and step down after leading a chant of “f— you, Rory!” And there was a heated verbal altercation between Englishman Justin Rose, California native Bryson DeChambeau and their caddies.
October 2, 2025
Oct. 2, 2025, 12:53 PM EDTBy Natasha Korecki, Amanda Terkel, Monica Alba and Matt DixonDepartment of Education employees furloughed this week discovered their email accounts had been manipulated while they were out of office to include partisan talking points that blamed a government shutdown on Democrats. Five employees who spoke with NBC News and provided copies of their out-of-office messages said the wording was altered from how they originally had composed them. All of them are civil servants, not political appointees, and requested anonymity out of fear of professional repercussions. Education officials had initially sent employees templates of nonpartisan out-of-office wording to use in their emails. Several employees said they used the language provided by department officials earlier in the week only to find that while they were furloughed, someone had changed it. We’re looking to hear from federal government workers. If you’re willing to talk with us, please email us at tips@nbcuni.com or contact us through one of these methods.One person said they changed their out-of-office message back to the nonpartisan version, only to have it then revert to the partisan wording later. “None of us consented to this. And it’s written in the first-person, as if I’m the one conveying this message, and I’m not. I don’t agree with it. I don’t think it’s ethical or legal. I think it violates the Hatch Act,” this person said, referring to the law that imposes limits on political activity by federal employees.“I took the statement that they sent us earlier in the week to use. And I pasted it on top of that — basically has a standard out-of-office,” another one of the Department of Education employees said. “They went in and manipulated my out-of-office reply. I guess they’re now making us all guilty of violating the Hatch Act.” Follow live updates on the government shutdownOn Wednesday, NBC News reported that some employees at federal agencies were being offered partisan language blaming Democrats for the shutdown to use as their out-of-office messages. A number of federal websites also now display language going after Democrats or the “radical left.”But what the Department of Education is doing goes further, pulling individual civil servants into the political talking points even if they don’t agree with them. The agency did not immediately return requests for comment. One spokesperson had an out-of-office message that did not contain any partisan language, instead saying, “There is a temporary shutdown of the U.S. government due to a lapse in appropriations. I will respond to your message if it is allowable as an excepted activity or as soon as possible after the temporary shutdown ends”The altered email messages included language saying: “Thank you for contacting me. On September 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse of appropriations, I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.” One of the employees said they were not overly worried about getting hit with a Hatch Act violation, saying the department has crossed into a level of partisanship they’d never seen without anyone being held accountable. In this case, the employee was incensed that someone else’s message was connected to their name. “Nobody follows the law anymore, so why does it matter? It seems like laws are dotted lines now, not solid lines. It seems there’s no one to hold this administration accountable to laws,” one of the employees said. As far as fearing any repercussions, they said: “Clearly, this wasn’t done by me, it was done while I was in a furlough status, I think I’d be able to argue that point.” Natasha KoreckiNatasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Amanda TerkelAmanda Terkel is politics managing editor for NBC News Digital.Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.Matt DixonMatt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.
October 23, 2025
Oct. 23, 2025, 3:51 PM EDTBy Rebecca KeeganAfter “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which counts Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara as executive producers, received a nearly 23-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere in September, filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania took a slew of meetings with potential North American distributors.Executives praised the film, which follows the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s failed attempt to save Hind, a Palestinian child who was killed in Gaza in 2024 after being trapped in a car under Israeli fire. But not a single major studio or streamer made an offer on the movie, the official Oscar submission of the Tunisian Culture Ministry, Ben Hania said.“People never say, ‘I’m afraid to pick up a movie,’” Ben Hania said. “Maybe they are. I don’t know. They can’t openly talk about it, because it’s a shame to be afraid of talking about the killing of a child.”Four movies that tell stories about Palestinian people, set from 1936 to 2024, are competing for this year’s Academy Award for best international feature, just as a ceasefire takes hold in the region. The films, “All That’s Left of You,” “Palestine 36,” “The Sea,” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” are screening for awards voters this fall. Three of them are slated to run at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles this week. Despite interest at the start of filming, and in some cases A-list backers, none of these films have secured a deal with a major studio or streamer, which is uncommon when a title receives buzz overseas. In past years, other foreign language films about major conflicts in history, such as Brazil’s “I’m Still Here” Germany’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the United Kingdom’s “Zone of Interest” all found prominent distributors.As Hollywood has grown more outspoken in recent months about the situation in the Middle East, the challenges of convincing its distributors — the lifelines that can take movies from obscurity to national recognition — remain. The batch of movies arrives as the crisis in the Gaza Strip remains a flashpoint issue in the entertainment industry. More than 5,000 film and television professionals have signed on to a boycott of Israeli film institutions, while two studios, Paramount and Warner Bros.. have condemned the boycott. Just as some in Hollywood have worried about saying the wrong thing in a social media post or a red carpet interview, others have been vocal, like Javier Bardem, who wore a keffiyeh to the Emmy Awards in September and openly criticized the war in interviews on the red carpet, or Amy Schumer, who posted frequently on her Instagram account calling for the release of the Israeli hostages.A still from the film “Palestine 36.”Watermelon PicturesForeign films that get picked up for distribution often land with smaller independent companies, limiting the films to a few cities and small marketing budgets. International films have also long struggled with marketing to English-speaking audiences with non-English language films. Multiple distributors declined to comment on the record about why studios aren’t buying the movies about Palestinians, but studio sources said either that their slates were already full or that the movies don’t seem likely to draw large audiences to theaters.Without a major distributor, it can be hard for films from the region to demonstrate theatrical potential. But last year’s Oscar-winning “No Other Land,” a documentary about a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank, shows both an appetite among American audiences for Palestinian stories and the complex issues these films face.When “No Other Land” failed to close a theatrical deal in North America, producers paid to release it in theaters themselves, collecting $2.5 million domestically, enough to make theirs the third highest grossing documentary of the year so far, after films featuring Taylor Swift and Led Zeppelin. The filmmakers then turned down an offer to stream on U.S. platforms from Mubi, citing the London company’s backing from Sequoia Capital, which also invests in an Israeli defense tech startup called Kela. (In August, Mubi’s CEO responded to backlash about Sequoia financing by saying that the profits Mubi generates “do not fund any other companies in Sequoia’s portfolio.”) For the filmmakers working in the region over the past two years, it’s been a long, arduous road to reach audiences, as the war impacted their physical productions and made potential distributors wary of facing political backlash for releasing their films. Seeking to fill what they see as a void in the marketplace, Palestinian-American brothers and producers Hamza and Badi Ali formed their own company, Watermelon Pictures, in April 2024. The duo also tapped model Alana Hadid as Watermelon’s creative director and unofficial brand ambassador.“Truthfully, we wish there was more competition,” Hamza Ali said. “It is almost like all of the pressure is on us to release these films and we feel obligated to do so. We hope that distributors of all sizes will start to engage.” The Chicago-based company is distributing “All That’s Left of You,” submitted by the Royal Film Commission–Jordan for Oscar consideration, and “Palestine 36,” submitted by the Palestinian Culture Ministry, both of which also received long ovations at film festivals and strong reviews from critics. Cherien Dabis as Hanan in “All That’s Left of You.”Watermelon PicturesOver a year since the company’s launch, the Ali brothers said that when they meet with executives at larger studios and streamers about buying films on Palestinian people, the buyers defer to higher ranking executives, citing the sensitivity of the subject matter, and effectively ending any conversation about a deal.For some directors, the barriers have come from their own governments. In Israel, filmmaker Shai Carmeli-Pollack won the country’s version of the Oscar for “The Sea,” the Ophir Award, only to have the Israeli government condemn the film and pull funding for the organization that granted the award. Each country chooses its own film to submit for Oscar consideration, and in Israel, the winner of best film at the Ophir Awards is automatically the country’s submission. “I wasn’t surprised,” said Carmeli-Pollack, whose film is about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who wants to join a school trip to the beach. “I’m not the first film that they attacked. In a way, they saved us a lot of explaining to the world that we do not represent this government.”In a statement issued on social media in September regarding the decision, Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar wrote in Hebrew that he believes the country’s taxpayers shouldn’t have to support a “ceremony that spits on the heroic Israeli soldiers. (The film features a soldier questioning a Palestinian boy and his father as they are trying to go to the beach).Muhammad Gawazi as Khaled in the film “The Sea.”MubiCarmeli-Pollack shot his movie in the West Bank in the summer of 2023, and he said he saw distributors’ enthusiasm for it evaporate after the Oct. 7 attacks. “The Sea” is now being released in the U.S. by Menemsha Films, a small Los Angeles-based company that distributes a variety of Jewish films.Stories shot in the Palestinian territories have always faced hurdles when it comes to securing locations, but the crisis in Gaza made physical production virtually impossible, directors who spoke to NBC News said.Cherien Dabis, the director, writer and star of “All That’s Left Of You,” was scheduled to start shooting her film in October 2023 in Jericho. Plans changed after the Oct. 7, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which led Dabis to evacuate her cast and crew from the West Bank.“We were hearing fighter jets and cities were being sealed off, checkpoints were closing,” she said. “We thought maybe we’d come back to Palestine, things would blow over. We had no idea.”We need to make sure that we’re speaking to the masses.-Cherien Dabis, the director, writer and star of “All That’s Left Of You”Dabis, whose movie she said is backed by a mix of European and Arab financing, ended up shooting in Greece, Cyprus and Jordan, telling the fraught history of the region through three generations of one family who were expelled from Jaffa in 1948. “Palestine 36” director Annemarie Jacir was also scheduled to shoot her historical drama in October 2023 in the West Bank, with a cast that includes British actor Jeremy Irons and Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass. But after Oct. 7, “There was no more insurance,” Jacir said. “No agents were going to send any of their cast to Palestine to film.” Jacir shot most of her movie in Jordan but was eventually able to return, with a much smaller crew, to film some scenes in Bethlehem, Jaffa and Jerusalem. In order to help their movies find wider audiences, some are enlisting high-profile Hollywood advocates. Dabis recruited Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo, two of the entertainment industry’s most outspoken figures on Gaza, as executive producers. “Given what we’ve watched unfold in the last two years, we understand that we need to break out of any kind of echo chamber,” she said. “We need to make sure that we’re speaking to the masses.”On Dec. 16, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce a narrowed list of 15 movies in contention for the international Oscar, ahead of the awards telecast March 15. Rebecca KeeganRebecca Keegan is the senior Hollywood reporter for NBC News Digital, where she covers the entertainment industry.
September 23, 2025
Secret Service shuts down disruptive network in NYC
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