Author: potus

Bangkok, Thailand – At the end of January, Cambodia’s Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance was unexpectedly informed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that all funding for its tuberculosis programme had been put on hold for 90 days. KHANA, as the NGO is more commonly known, detects about 10,000 tuberculosis (TB) cases each year, providing preventive treatment to some 10,000 close contacts and medical care for some 300 rural patients, according to executive director, Choub Sok Chamreun. With funding drying up, many rural Cambodians will soon lose care, Chamreun said. “Within the suspension period, these people will have a…

(The Center Square) – State lawmakers are forwarding a bill that would change how medical debt impacts Washingtonians’ credit scores.Senate Bill 5480 doesn’t erase medical debt completely but “Declares a medical debt void and unenforceable if it is reported to a consumer credit reporting agency or credit bureau,” according to a Senate Bill Report.The report goes on to say the bill “Prohibits specific entities from reporting medical debts to a consumer credit reporting agency or credit bureau, on pain of committing a violation of the Consumer Protection Act.According to an Economic Opportunity Institute article from the summer of 2024, approximately 95%…

The European Union spent last year drawing up secret plans for what the bloc would do if President Trump made good on his threats of imposing higher tariffs on European goods and services.Now, as those threats go from hypothetical to potentially imminent, its plans are coming into broad focus.Hit specific, politically sensitive sectors — like products made in Republican states — with targeted tariffs meant to inflict maximum pain. Don’t escalate into a tit-for-tat competition if it’s avoidable. Do move quickly and decisively, potentially using new tactics that could hit service providers like big Silicon Valley technology firms.It’s a rough…

La afirmación del presidente Donald Trump de que China controla el canal de Panamá ha puesto a un magnate de Hong Kong y a su conglomerado en el centro de un enfrentamiento entre Estados Unidos y China.Esa enorme empresa, CK Hutchison Holdings, es una de las más valiosas de Hong Kong que cotizan en bolsa y cuenta con algunos de los mayores inversores del mundo entre sus accionistas. Una de sus filiales, Hutchison Ports, ha estado involucrada en el canal de Panamá desde 1997.De los cinco puertos de Panamá, los de Hutchison —uno en cada extremo del canal— son los…

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the primary U.S. nonprofit fighting child sexual exploitation, said Friday that it is removing all references to transgender people from its public materials.The move is in accordance with an executive order President Trump signed last week, which bars federal funding that goes to “gender ideology” and makes it the official policy of the federal government not to recognize their gender identity.“Earlier this week, like many federally funded non-profits, NCMEC was directed by DOJ to comply with Executive Order 14168,” a NCMEC spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We are responding to…

BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday lashed out at what it called U.S. “coercion” after Panama declined to renew a key infrastructure agreement with Beijing following Washington’s threat to take back the Panama Canal. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a briefing that China “firmly opposes the U.S. smearing and undermining the Belt and Road cooperation through means of pressure and coercion.” The Belt and Road Initiative is President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign police drive to bind China closer to countries in the region and beyond by building roads, railways, airports, power plants and other infrastructure. The program has…

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary will take legal action to eliminate non-governmental organizations and media outlets operating in the country that receive funding from the United States and other international sources, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday. Orbán, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in statements on state radio that his government was going “line by line” through organizations operating in Hungary that have received financial assistance from the United States. He praised Trump’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas, claiming such aid had been used…

In an exclusive interview with NBC News on Thursday, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said his country and the United States “don’t have a timeline” on when Guatemala will begin receiving non-Guatemalan nationals who are deported by the Trump administration. Arevalo met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week as Rubio visited five countries across Latin America for his first trip since taking office. In a press conference in Guatemala City on Wednesday, the pair announced that Guatemala had not only offered to ramp up deportation flights from the U.S. by 40% but also agreed to receive third-country nationals as they make their way back to their home countries. “It’s very important for us in terms of the migratory situation that we’re facing,” Rubio…

Transgender girls and women will no longer compete in female events at most college sporting events in the United States after a governing body’s decision to bar athletes who were born male. The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the main governing body for college sport in the US, said on Thursday that it would limit competition in girls’ and women’s sport to female-born athletes only. The NCAA’s announcement comes after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order the previous day to deny funding to educational institutes that allow trans girls and women to compete in female sport. “The NCAA is…

Verily headquarters in San Bruno, California.Courtesy: VerilyVerily is selling its stop-loss insurance subsidiary, Granular Insurance Company, to the insurance provider Elevance Health, the Alphabet health tech company confirmed to CNBC on Thursday.Verily is one of Google’s sister companies and operates within Alphabet’s “Other Bets” category. The Granular sale is the latest in a series of sweeping changes at the precision health company, which has slashed its workforce, restructured its business and overhauled its executive leadership in recent years.The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Verily launched Granular, initially called Coefficient Insurance Company, in 2020 with financial backing from the commercial…