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🔵 Big Pharma Shakeup
Citizen Frank
May 08, 2025
Good morning. It’s Wednesday, May 7.
President Donald Trump plans to revive an effort to dramatically slash drug costs by tying the amount the government pays for some medicines to lower prices abroad, three people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.
Trump early next week is expected to sign an executive order directing aides to pursue the initiative, called “most favored nation,” for a selection of drugs within the Medicare program. The idea would use the administration’s authorities to force prices down.
The proposal has not been finalized and could still change as aides work through the specifics, said the people involved in the plan, who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Trump has not yet personally approved the plan.
President Trump is expected to announce on Thursday that the United States will strike a trade agreement with Britain, according to three people familiar with the plans.
Mr. Trump teased a new trade agreement in a social media post on Wednesday night, though he did not specify which nation was part of the deal.
“Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY. THE FIRST OF MANY!!!” he wrote.
The Trump administration plans to rescind Biden-era AI chip curbs as part of a broader effort to revise semiconductor trade restrictions that have drawn strong opposition from major tech companies and foreign governments, according to people familiar with the matter.
The repeal, which is not yet final, seeks to refashion a policy launched under President Joe Biden that created three broad tiers of countries for regulating the export of chips from Nvidia Corp. and others. The Trump administration will not enforce the so-called AI diffusion rule when it takes effect on May 15, the people said.
The changes are taking shape as President Donald Trump prepares for a trip to the Middle East, where a number of countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have bristled at restrictions on their ability to acquire AI chips. Trump officials are actively working toward a new rule that would strengthen the control of chips abroad, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the change isn’t yet public.
Hours after more than 100 masked anti-Israel agitators stormed the Butler Library at Columbia University in New York City, pushing past campus security as students prepared for finals Wednesday afternoon, college officials summoned the New York Police Department (NYPD) in an effort to subdue the unruly mob.
More than 80 people have been arrested, all students at the university, NYPD sources told Fox News.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was also monitoring the situation. If arrests were made, the suspects were to be fingerprinted to determine if any are non-citizens, Fox News reported.
The Israeli embassy was reportedly the target of a terror plot linked to Iran that was thwarted “with hours to spare”.
Five Iranian nationals were among eight men arrested in two separate counter-terrorism investigations on Saturday.
Counterterrorism officers, supported by the military, swooped in to make arrests fearing an attack was imminent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday signed a strategic partnership treaty in Moscow, the latest in a series of alliances Russia has forged since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The deal marks Russia’s fourth such agreement in two years, following similar pacts with China, North Korea and Iran.
“Thanks to this treaty, we’ll see how relations flourish between a great Russia, a key power among humanity today, and Venezuela in the coming years,” Maduro said during talks at the Kremlin.
A former porn star who allegedly shot up one of President Trump’s Florida resorts before claiming to have been Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex slave had signed an NDA with the disgraced rapper, according to a report Wednesday.
Jonathan Oddi was arrested in 2018 after he was reportedly caught on camera carrying a US flag and ranting about the president as he stormed into the lobby of the Trump National Doral Golf Club before getting into a shootout with cops.
Following his arrest, Oddi made a series of claims to police, including that he had been kept as a “sex slave” by Combs, previously released video from the interview shows.
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