Author: potus

(The Center Square) – It’s not just lower-income people or those with disabilities using Medicaid in the United States.A new investigation led by the Patient First Coalition found that tens of thousands of wealthy people remain enrolled in Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded health insurance program meant for low-income and disabled Americans.It’s an issue happening nationwide, the report said, though Ohio, Arizona, and South Carolina represent some of the more egregious examples. The issue is costing American taxpayers over $200 billion annually, the Patient First Coalition says.Shannon Burns, a senior advisor with the group, told The Center Square in a phone interview…

It took 11 years since Facebook acquired it for $19 billion, but Meta is finally bringing ads to WhatsApp, marking a major change for an app whose founders shunned advertising.Meta announced Monday that businesses will now be able to run so-called status ads on WhatsApp that prompt users to interact with the advertisers via the app’s messaging features. The ads will only be shown to users within WhatsApp’s “Updates” tab to separate the promotions from people’s personal conversations. Additionally, Meta will begin monetizing WhatsApp’s Channels feature through search ads and subscriptions. The debut of ads on the messaging app represents a…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a New York court to take a new look at whether some religious organizations should be excluded from a state regulation requiring health insurance plans to cover abortions. The justices acted after the court unanimously ruled earlier in June that Wisconsin discriminated against a Catholic charity by forcing it to pay state unemployment taxes. The New York case poses a similar issue because the state exempts religious employers if their purpose is to spread religious values and they primarily employ and serve people of their faith. But religious groups that serve…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear from a faith-based pregnancy center in New Jersey challenging a state investigation into whether it misled people into thinking its services included referrals for abortion.The justices agreed to consider an appeal from First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which wants to block a 2023 subpoena from Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin seeking information about the crisis pregnancy center’s donors, advertisements and medical personnel. It has not yet been enforced. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case nearly three years after overturning abortion as a nationwide right. Since…

President Donald Trump has arrived for the G7, or Group of Seven, summit in Canada, a country he has suggested should be annexed, as he wages a trade war with America’s longstanding allies.If there is a shared mission at this year’s G7 summit, which begins Monday in the Rocky Mountains, it is a desire to minimize any fireworks at a moment of combustible tensions. Other news we’re following:Trump vetoed Israeli plan to kill the Ayatollah, US official tells AP: Israel recently informed the Trump administration that it had developed a credible plan to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,…

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Republican senators consider President Donald Trump’s big bill that could slash federal spending and extend tax cuts, a new survey shows most U.S. adults don’t think the government is overspending on the programs the GOP has focused on cutting, like Medicaid and food stamps.Americans broadly support increasing or maintaining existing levels of funding for popular safety net programs, including Social Security and Medicare, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. They’re more divided on spending around the military and border security, and most think the government is spending too much…

The U.S. has placed major chip export restrictions on Huawei and Chinese firms over the past few years. This has cut off companies’ access to critical semiconductors.Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesTaiwan has added China’s Huawei and SMIC to its trade blacklist in a move that further aligns it with U.S. trade policy and comes amid growing tensions with Beijing. The International Trade Administration of Taiwan added Huawei and SMIC to its “Strategic High-Tech Commodities Entity List,” including a host of their subsidiaries.Taiwan’s current regulations require licenses from regulators before domestic firms can ship products to parties named on the…

ATLANTA (AP) — In North Carolina, it was a lawsuit over the state’s voter registration records. In Arizona and Wisconsin, it was a letter to state election officials warning of potential administrative violations. And in Colorado, it was a demand for election records going back to 2020.Those actions in recent weeks by the U.S. Department of Justice’s voting section may seem focused on the technical machinery of how elections are run but signal deeper changes when combined with the departures of career attorneys and decisions to drop various voting rights cases.They represent a shift away from the division’s traditional role…

An AI assistant on display at Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona.Angel Garcia | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesArtificial intelligence is shaking up the advertising business and “unnerving” investors, one industry leader told CNBC.”I think this AI disruption … unnerving investors in every industry, and it’s totally disrupting our business,” Mark Read, the outgoing CEO of British advertising group WPP, told CNBC’s Karen Tso on Tuesday.The advertising market is under threat from emerging generative AI tools that can be used to materialize pieces of content at rapid pace. The past couple of years has seen the rise of a number of…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church, a new poll shows that American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.About two-thirds of American Catholics have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of Pope Leo, according to the new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while about 3 in 10 don’t know enough to have an opinion. Very few Catholics — less than 1 in 10 — view him unfavorably. Among Americans overall, plenty of people are still making…