Financial security in retirement is a goal worth pursuing, but it’s one that a significant percentage of individuals feel is out of reach. According to a February 2024 report from the National Institute on Retirement Security, 55% of Americans are concerned they cannot achieve financial security in retirement.
Saving for retirement is an integral component of securing long-term financial security. There are many ways to save for retirement, and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and employer-sponsored 401(k) plans are among the more popular ways investors build a nest egg for their golden years.
IRAs and 401(k) plans differ in some notable ways, and recognition of what distinguishes these types of accounts can help people choose the right vehicle for them. When considering these vehicles, it’s important to point out that contribution limits can change from year to year, so individuals can expect to increase their contributions in future years if they hope to maximize the allowable amounts.
The following breakdown, courtesy of US Bank, notes some key differences between a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA and a 401(k).
Traditional IRA
Eligibility: Anyone with earned income is eligible to open a traditional IRA.
Funding: A traditional IRA can be funded with after-tax dollars or as tax-deductible contributions.
Contribution limits: $7,000 annual limit in 2025, though individuals age 50 or older can contribute an additional $1,000 if they choose to do so.
Employer match: None.
Investment selection: Account holders can choose their own investments.
Roth IRA
Eligibility: Individuals aspiring to open a Roth IRA are urged to speak with a financial planner or accountant, as certain contribution criteria and tax filing requirements must be fulfilled.
Funding: A Roth IRA is funded with after-tax dollars.
Contribution limits: $7,000 annual limit in 2025, though individuals age 50 or older can contribute an additional $1,000 if they choose to do so.
Employer match: None.
Investment selection: Account holders can choose their own investments.
401(k)
Eligibility: Individuals are urged to speak with human resources professionals at their place of employment, as US Banks notes most employers have certain qualifications their workers must meet in order for them to participate in these plans. Those qualifications can vary between firms.
Funding: A 401(k) is funded with pre-tax dollars deducted directly from participants’ paychecks.
Contribution limits: The annual limit for 2025 is $23,500, though participants age 50 and older can contribute an additional $7,500.
Employer match: Some employers match employee contributions up to a certain percentage. Investopedia notes the average match was 4.5% in 2023.
Investment selection: Various portfolios may be offered, but those available are generally chosen by employers.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is warning the public not to come in contact with dead or sick birds, especially since there has been an uptick in wild fowl deaths from bird flu over the past two months.
The DNR has noted the increase in deaths primarily in Canada geese, trumpeter swans and scavenging birds.
The DNR said the bird flu warning is especially important for wild fowl hunters.
“While waterfowl hunters are much more likely to encounter wild birds, it’s important for all Michiganders to understand the health risks that bird flu can pose to wildlife, humans and domestic animals,” said Mitch Marcus, DNR wildlife health supervisor.
“The challenge with (wild) waterfowl is that they can be carriers but not appear sick,” he said.
The DNR does not have numbers to demonstrate the increase in bird flu deaths in wild waterfowl since December.
Bird flu, also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, is a contagious disease that causes sickness and sometimes death in birds and mammals.
The virus can be spread through droppings or any interaction between farm-raised poultry and wild birds. It’s also easily tracked onto a farm on someone’s clothing or by vehicle.
Humans can contract the disease from infected animals or materials, but it doesn’t usually cause serious illness in people.
Hunters should take the following precautions to avoid contracting or spreading bird flu:
– Cook all meat to an internal temperature of 165 degrees to kill any viruses.
– Process wild birds in the field. Remains from processed birds should be buried on-site or double-bagged and disposed of with household trash.
– Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth while handling wild birds.
– Wear rubber or disposable gloves while handling and cleaning wild birds.
– Wash hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand cleanser, even if hands are not visibly soiled.
– Thoroughly clean and disinfect all knives, equipment and surfaces that come into contact with wild birds.
– Do not eat, drink or smoke while handling or cleaning wild birds.
Waterfowl hunters who care for domestic animals should take these steps:
– Keep domestic animals away from wild birds and dead birds.
– Keep domestic animals away from hunting apparel and footwear that has come into contact with wild birds or their mucus, saliva or feces.
– Cooking waterfowl meat to 165 degrees before feeding it to other animals.
– Shower after the hunt and before tending to domestic animals.
– Wash hands immediately before and after caring for animals.
– Don’t share equipment or other supplies between premises.
Earlier this month, six domestic birds at a farm at Hess-Hathaway Park in Waterford Township died; Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development officials tested them and found bird flu. MDARD euthanized the entire flock of about 100 chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese.
MDARD said bird flu is always fatal to poultry and can move quickly through a flock.
Since the current outbreak began three years ago, 15 Michigan counties have reported bird flu cases in domestic poultry or cattle or both.
Raw milk is the only food product linked to illnesses so far. Health experts recommend pasteurized milk.
Health officials haven’t yet found evidence of the disease spreading from person to person.
Nationally, about five dozen people have become ill with bird flu. Nearly all of them worked around sick animals. A Louisiana man became the first death from bird flu last month Officials said he was over age 65, had contact with infected poultry and had underlying health conditions.
In 1942, during its fight against the Soviet Union, Finland launched a novel campaign to keep the Red Army at bay: Raitis tammikuu, or “Sober January.” The monthlong sobriety challenge – one of the first Dry Januarys in history – was meant to encourage Finns to lay off the bottle while also conserving scant wartime resources.
Nowadays, Dry January isn’t so much a fight against invading forces as it is about a reset heading into a new year.
Alcohol has already taken center stage in 2025 after the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory calling for warning labels highlighting the risk of cancer in drinking boozy beverages earlier this month.
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States – greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. – yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said in a statement. “This Advisory lays out steps we can all take to increase awareness of alcohol’s cancer risk and minimize harm.”
Across the globe, some countries have introduced forms of health warning labels on alcoholic drinks. But only a few, like South Korea and soon Ireland, have explicit labels warning of the risk of cancer and other negative health consequences.
But considering how socially ingrained alcohol is, the arrival of the surgeon general’s advisory begs the question: Is it possible to sip smarter in a world where every pint or cocktail comes with a side of caution?
A research smorgasbord
The connection between cancer and alcohol may come as news to the general public, but it’s not for scientists and clinicians, said Dr. Mack Mitchell, a gastroenterologist and professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
“There’s a large background of information on alcohol and health that’s accumulated over the last not 10 years, but 50 years,” said Mitchell, who is also a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. “The issue about cancer began to be recognized back in the 1980s, and the first thing that came up was a small but real association between drinking and breast cancer in women. I think there’s no question that this has been confirmed many, many times.”
Cancer occurs through different biological mechanisms, some of which involve ethanol — the main chemical component of alcoholic beverages — and other chemicals produced when we metabolize beer or a glass of wine, said Dr. Flavio Rocha, surgical oncologist and physician-in-chief at the Oregon Health and Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute.
“Alcohol can also increase inflammation through reactive oxygen species that we know can damage DNA,” Rocha said. “Alcohol hormonal changes particularly in estrogen, which is the mechanism thought to be causative for breast cancer and potentially liver cancer, as well.”
Yet, other studies have suggested that alcohol consumption, particularly in moderation, may be associated with positive health benefits such as longevity.
This perception, in particular, was popularized in the 1990s with the “French Paradox,” an observation that the French enjoy low rates of heart disease despite their rich, fatty diets. The secret to their good health? Imbibing red wine regularly.
But no studies to date have conclusively proved that drinking red wine offers any health benefits. And recent years have called into question the methodology of studies linking moderate alcohol drinking to health.
A 2024 review of 107 studies on drinking habits and longevity found the data suggested moderate drinkers — those enjoying anywhere between a drink a week and two a day — had a 14% lower risk of dying during the study period compared to those who abstained from alcohol. This link disappeared, however, when the researchers dug deeper into the data. In high-quality studies, which included younger people and made sure former and occasional drinkers weren’t considered abstainers, there was no evidence that light to moderate drinkers lived longer. In the lower quality studies, which involved older participants and made no distinction between former drinkers and lifelong abstainers, moderate drinking was linked to greater longevity.
Problematic methodology aside, other studies have also found socioeconomic status plays a major role in determining the health benefit of alcohol. For example, it’s been observed that people on the higher end of the socioeconomic ladder may consume similar or greater amounts of alcohol compared to people on the lower end but it’s the latter group that bears the burden of poorer health.
“There are many things related to our socioeconomic and educational levels that may contribute and, therefore, could be confounders to the alcohol effect,” Mitchell said. “And that’s where a lot of the controversy exists, whether the benefit of so-called ‘moderate’ drinking is related to drinking or related to your socioeconomic status. It’s very hard to separate the two.”
12 fluid ounces of regular beer with an alcohol content of 5%
5 fluid ounces of table wine with an alcohol content of 12%
A 1.5 fluid ounce shot of distilled spirits with an alcohol content of 40%
Even with these guidelines, alcoholic beverages don’t have explicit labeling informing consumers of how their drink compares to the standard, said Matthew Rossheim, associate professor of health administration and health policy at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.
“I’ve done research where I’ve given people cans of alcohol products like a 14% 23 and a half-ounce Four Loko. People will guess that it has two or three standard drinks but it’s really closer to a six-pack of beer in a single can,” he said.
Rossheim said the guidelines also don’t reflect the inventory of high volume alcohol products currently on the market.
“[Those guidelines] are dated because it assumes that there’s 5% beer when a lot of the products now are 8%, 12%, even 14 or 16%,” Rossheim said. “Some people don’t realize that what they’re drinking is low-end liquor rather than a beer type product, so that’s a huge issue.”
So should you cut alcohol out of your life entirely? While Mitchell, Rocha and Rossheim said there isn’t a safe amount when drinking alcohol, saying no to a nightly glass of Pinot Noir — or a cannabis-infused cocktail — is easier said than done.
If you already don’t drink alcohol, it’s best not to start now. If you do currently drink, Mitchell and Rocha said it’s best to stay within the standard guidelines and have a conversation with your health care provider to get an idea of what an acceptable amount looks like for you. That’s because one’s risk of cancer or other negative health consequences depends on many different factors, such as age, health status, lifestyle, genetics and family history.
Mitchell also endorses taking advantage of Dry January to evaluate your relationship with alcohol.
“If you don’t make it through Dry January, and your intent was to do so,” Mitchell said, “then you might want to rethink your relationship with alcohol and why you’re drinking.”
Miriam Fauzia is a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. Her fellowship is supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The News makes all editorial decisions.
By John Daley, Colorado Public Radio, KFF Health News
DENVER — Outside HCA HealthONE Rose medical center, the snow is flying. Inside, on the third floor, there’s a flurry of activity within the labor and delivery unit.
“There’s a lot of action up here. It can be very stressful at times,” said Kristina Fraser, an OB-GYN in blue scrubs.
Nurses wheel a very pregnant mom past.
“We’re going to bring a baby into this world safely,” Fraser said, “and off we go.”
She said she feels ready in part due to a calming moment she had just a few minutes earlier with some canine colleagues.
A pair of dogs, tails wagging, had come by a nearby nursing station, causing about a dozen medical professionals to melt into a collective puddle of affection. A yellow Lab named Peppi showered Fraser in nuzzles and kisses. “I don’t know if a human baby smells as good as that puppy breath!” Fraser had said as her colleagues laughed.
The dogs aren’t visitors. They work here, too, specifically for the benefit of the staff. “I feel like that dog just walks on and everybody takes a big deep breath and gets down on the ground and has a few moments of just decompressing,” Fraser said. “It’s great. It’s amazing.”
Hospital staffers who work with the dogs say there is virtually no bite risk with the carefully trained Labradors, the preferred breed for this work.
The dogs are kept away from allergic patients and washed regularly to prevent germs from spreading, and people must wash their hands before and after petting them.
Nurses on a break crowd around to pet Peppi, a Canine Companion dog, in November at Denver’ s HCA HealthONE Rose medical center.(Hart Van Denburg/CPR News/KFF Health News/TNS)
Doctors and nurses are facing a growing mental health crisis driven by their experiences at work. They and other health care colleagues face high rates of depression, anxiety, stress, suicidal ideation, and burnout. Nearly half of health workers reported often feeling burned out in 2022, an increase from 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the percentage of health care workers who reported harassment at work more than doubled over that four-year period. Advocates for the presence of dogs in hospitals see the animals as one thing that can help.
That includes Peppi’s handler, Susan Ryan, an emergency medicine physician at Rose.
Ryan said years working as an emergency room doctor left her with symptoms of PTSD. “I just was messed up and I knew it,” said Ryan, who isolated more at home and didn’t want to engage with friends. “I shoved it all in. I think we all do.”
She said doctors and other providers can be good at hiding their struggles, because they have to compartmentalize. “How else can I go from a patient who had a cardiac arrest, deal with the family members telling them that, and go to a room where another person is mad that they’ve had to wait 45 minutes for their ear pain? And I have to flip that switch.”
To cope with her symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Ryan started doing therapy with horses. But she couldn’t have a horse in her backyard, so she got a Labrador.
Ryan received training from a national service dog group called Canine Companions, becoming the first doctor trained by the group to have a facility dog in an emergency room. Canine Companions has graduated more than 8,000 service dogs.
The Rose medical center gave Ryan approval to bring a dog to work during her ER shifts. Ryan’s colleagues said they are delighted that a dog is part of their work life.
“When I have a bad day at work and I come to Rose and Peppi is here, my day’s going to be made better,” EMT Jasmine Richardson said. “And if I have a patient who’s having a tough day, Peppi just knows how to light up the room.”
Peppi, a Canine Companion dog, takes a break at Denver’ s HCA HealthONE Rose medical center with her handler, emergency medicine physician Susan Ryan, in November.(Hart Van Denburg/CPR News/KFF Health News/TNS)
Nursing supervisor Eric Vaillancourt agreed, calling Peppi “joyful.”
Ryan had another dog, Wynn, working with her during the height of the pandemic. She said she thinks Wynn made a huge difference. “It saved people,” she said. “We had new nurses that had never seen death before, and now they’re seeing a covid death. And we were worried sick we were dying.”
She said her hospital system has lost a couple of physicians to suicide in the past two years, which HCA confirmed to KFF Health News and NPR. Ryan hopes the canine connection can help with trauma. “Anything that brings you back to the present time helps ground you again. A dog can be that calming influence,” she said. “You can get down on the ground, pet them, and you just get calm.”
Ryan said research has shown the advantages. For example, one review of dozens of original studies on human-animal interactions found benefits for a variety of conditions including behavioral and mood issues and physical symptoms of stress.
Rose’s president and CEO, Casey Guber, became such a believer in the canine connection he got his own trained dog to bring to the hospital, a black Lab-retriever mix named Ralphie.
She wears a badge: Chief Dog Officer.
Guber said she’s a big morale booster. “Phenomenal,” he said. “It is not uncommon to see a surgeon coming down to our administration office and rolling on the ground with Ralphie, or one of our nurses taking Ralphie out for a walk in the park.”
This article is from a partnership that includes CPR News, NPR, and KFF Health News.
Peppi, a yellow Lab and official “Canine Companion,” sits on the lap of OB-GYN Kristina Fraser in November at the HCA HealthONE Rose medical center in Denver.
(Hart Van Denburg/CPR News/KFF Health News/TNS)
It may not seem “futuristic” these days to dip or tap a credit card instead of swiping it, or to hold a cell phone over a payment terminal to cover your groceries.
But in the U.S., you only have to go back about 10 years or so — before EMV chips and contactless technology became standard on credit cards — to find a different world, where those now-commonplace features would have been perceived as unusual, confounding and potentially even unsafe.
A lot has changed in credit card tech since 2015, though the average cardholder has proved to be a quick study.
“American consumers have adapted remarkably well to these innovations,” said Seth Perlman, global head of product at i2c Inc., a global provider of banking and payment solutions. He added, however, that “the process hasn’t been without its challenges.”
Learning curves aside, many hurdles that had been widely expected never actually materialized for cardholders — and, with the benefit of hindsight, seem a little silly now.
Dipping wasn’t so hard
One notable card advancement in the U.S. over the past decade was the proliferation of EMV-enabled cards. Those initials stand for Europay, Mastercard and Visa, the companies that developed the tech. Introduced as a way to mitigate credit card fraud, EMV chip cards feature a small microprocessor that generates encrypted data and requires consumers to insert (or “dip”) their card into a card reader, rather than use the old method of swiping a card that stored data on a magnetic stripe on the back.
EMV chips had already been in wide use in other parts of the world; Europe, for instance, was already well-acquainted with the technology. But EMV didn’t really start taking hold in the U.S. until about 2015. And one big question was: “Will cardholders know what to do now at the register?” Hand-wringing commenced. Flowcharts were created.
But it turns out we took dipping in stride. As of 2022, 69% of all issued cards were EMV-enabled, and 93% of all global physical card transactions used EMV chip technology, according to data from EMVCo, which manages EMV technology.
“As merchants upgraded their point-of-sale systems and card issuers refined the technology, consumers quickly grew accustomed to the enhanced security and peace of mind that EMV provides,” Perlman said.
Nerdy Tip The adoption of EMV technology was also driven by a “liability shift,” which meant that with the advent of the technology, card issuers were no longer solely responsible for card fraud. Rather, the liability for fraudulent transactions became the responsibility of the party that didn’t support EMV — meaning, in many cases, the merchant. Hence, businesses were motivated to implement this change and replace their point-of-sale systems to protect themselves.
Going ‘chip-and-PIN-less’ became painless, mostly
During those early years of EMV use in the U.S., a common refrain was that Americans probably needed to carry a card with “chip-and-PIN” capabilities when traveling overseas. That was because of a difference in how cardholders verified their identity at the point of sale.
In the U.S., you dipped or tapped your card and then signed your name (at least sometimes). But in Europe and elsewhere, you dipped your card and then often entered a PIN. That might, for a time, have been problematic for U.S. cardholders, who typically have no PIN and thus might have been unable to verify their identity at, say, an automated train kiosk in a different country. The worry was prevalent enough that some card issuers used to prominently advertise “chip-and-PIN” as a travel card benefit.
But technology has caught up, and international acceptance of both “chip-and-signature” and chip-and-PIN cards is fairly widespread today. Even unattended terminals overseas will generally support transactions without requiring a “CVM,” or card verification method.
It’s still advisable to pack an extra card when traveling internationally. But that’s more to guard against the loss or theft of your primary payment method, or as a backup in case the merchant doesn’t accept your American Express or Discover card. That’s still a thing.
Paying with your phone? Easy call
Mobile wallets, virtual card numbers, and buy now, pay later apps weren’t especially prevalent in 2015. But the use of those kinds of digital payment technologies has accelerated over the past decade, driven in part by the desire for contactless payment options during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, 92% of consumers in the U.S. report having made some type of digital payment over the past year, according to a 2024 digital payments survey by McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm.
That’s not to say it’s been a smooth path. Consumer adoption is one thing, but some data suggest that businesses have been slower to adjust. In a 2024 merchant services satisfaction study conducted by J.D. Power, for instance, only 57% of small businesses in the U.S. said they accept digital wallets, compared with 94% that reported accepting physical cards.
It’s also not to say consumers themselves had no initial trepidation about digital payments. Questions abounded: Can it really be safe to pay with a cell phone? Won’t I miss out on my credit card rewards when I use this method?
In truth, paying with a mobile wallet is quite secure thanks to the process of tokenization, which protects a cardholder’s real credit card number and instead sends encrypted data that’s unique to each payment.
And while at first there may have been some hiccups in terms of earning credit card rewards via a mobile wallet payment, it’s now mostly a non-issue. In fact, these days many credit cards actively incentivize the use of mobile wallets, offering bonus rewards when you choose to pay that way.
Similarly, the convenience of instant virtual credit cards (aka immediate access to your credit line) and the flexibility of buy now, pay later services have proved to be popular features for consumers.
“The push towards electronic commerce … has been something that’s been mutually beneficial for merchants, issuers and cardholders,” said Brian Riley, director of credit and risk advisory services at Javelin Strategy & Research, a financial services research firm.
Illustrative photograph of Banque Postale credit cards or chip cards on a table in Clermont Ferrand France on January 10 2025. (Photo by ROMAIN COSTASECA/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
Erica Hayes, 40, has not felt healthy since November 2020 when she first fell ill with COVID.
Hayes is too sick to work, so she has spent much of the last four years sitting on her beige couch, often curled up under an electric blanket.
“My blood flow now sucks, so my hands and my feet are freezing. Even if I’m sweating, my toes are cold,” said Hayes, who lives in Western Pennsylvania. She misses feeling well enough to play with her 9-year-old son or attend her 17-year-old son’s baseball games.
Along with claiming the lives of 1.2 million Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic has been described as a mass disabling event. Hayes is one of millions of Americans who suffer from long COVID. Depending on the patient, the condition can rob someone of energy, scramble the autonomic nervous system, or fog their memory, among many other symptoms. In addition to the brain fog and chronic fatigue, Hayes’ constellation of symptoms includes frequent hives and migraines. Also, her tongue is constantly swollen and dry.
“I’ve had multiple doctors look at it and tell me they don’t know what’s going on,” Hayes said about her tongue.
Estimates of prevalence range considerably, depending on how researchers define long COVID in a given study, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts it at 17 million adults.
Despite long COVID’s vast reach, the federal government’s investment in researching the disease — to the tune of $1.15 billion as of December — has so far failed to bring any new treatments to market.
This disappoints and angers the patient community, who say the National Institutes of Health should focus on ways to stop their suffering instead of simply trying to understand why they’re suffering.
“It’s unconscionable that more than four years since this began, we still don’t have one FDA-approved drug,” said Meighan Stone, executive director of the Long COVID Campaign, a patient-led advocacy organization. Stone was among several people with long COVID who spoke at a workshop hosted by the NIH in September where patients, clinicians, and researchers discussed their priorities and frustrations around the agency’s approach to long-COVID research.
Some doctors and researchers are also critical of the agency’s research initiative, called RECOVER, or Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery. Without clinical trials, physicians specializing in treating long COVID must rely on hunches to guide their clinical decisions, said Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development with the VA St Louis Healthcare System.
“What [RECOVER] lacks, really, is clarity of vision and clarity of purpose,” said Al-Aly, saying he agrees that the NIH has had enough time and money to produce more meaningful progress.
Now the NIH is starting to determine how to allocate an additional $662 million of funding for long-COVID research, $300 million of which is earmarked for clinical trials. These funds will be allocated over the next four years.At the end of October, RECOVER issued a request for clinical trial ideas that look at potential therapies, including medications, saying its goal is “to work rapidly, collaboratively, and transparently to advance treatments for Long COVID.”
This turn suggests the NIH has begun to respond to patients. This has stirred cautious optimism among those who say that the agency’s approach to long COVID has lacked urgency in the search for effective treatments.Stone calls this $300 million a down payment. She warns it’s going to take a lot more money to help people like Hayes regain some degree of health.“There really is a burden to make up this lost time now,” Stone said.
The NIH told KFF Health News and NPR via email that it recognizes the urgency in finding treatments. But to do that, there needs to be an understanding of the biological mechanisms that are making people sick, which is difficult to do with post-infectious conditions.
That’s why it has funded research into how long COVID affects lung function, or trying to understand why only some people are afflicted with the condition.
Then-NIH Director Francis Collins explained that RECOVER’s goal was to better understand long COVID as a disease and that clinical trials of potential treatments would come later.
According to RECOVER’s website, it has funded eight clinical trials to test the safety and effectiveness of an experimental treatment or intervention. Just one of those trials has published results.
On the other hand, RECOVER has supported more than 200 observational studies, such as research on how long COVID affects pulmonary function and on which symptoms are most common. And the initiative has funded more than 40 pathobiology studies, which focus on the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms of long COVID.
RECOVER’s website says this research has led to crucial insights on the risk factors for developing long COVID and on understanding how the disease interacts with preexisting conditions.
It notes that observational studies are important in helping scientists to design and launch evidence-based clinical trials.
Good science takes time, said Leora Horwitz, the co-principal investigator for the RECOVER-Adult Observational Cohort at New York University. And long COVID is an “exceedingly complicated” illness that appears to affect nearly every organ system, she said.
This makes it more difficult to study than many other diseases. Because long COVID harms the body in so many ways, with widely variable symptoms, it’s harder to identify precise targets for treatment.
“I also will remind you that we’re only three, four years into this pandemic for most people,” Horwitz said. “We’ve been spending much more money than this, yearly, for 30, 40 years on other conditions.”
NYU received nearly $470 million of RECOVER funds in 2021, which the institution is using to spearhead the collection of data and biospecimens from up to 40,000 patients. Horwitz said nearly 30,000 are enrolled so far.
This vast repository, Horwitz said, supports ongoing observational research, allowing scientists to understand what is happening biologically to people who don’t recover after an initial infection — and that will help determine which clinical trials for treatments are worth undertaking.
“Simply trying treatments because they are available without any evidence about whether or why they may be effective reduces the likelihood of successful trials and may put patients at risk of harm,” she said.
Delayed Hopes or Incremental Progress?
The NIH told KFF Health News and NPR that patients and caregivers have been central to RECOVER from the beginning, “playing critical roles in designing studies and clinical trials, responding to surveys, serving on governance and publication groups, and guiding the initiative.”But the consensus from patient advocacy groups is that RECOVER should have done more to prioritize clinical trials from the outset. Patients also say RECOVER leadership ignored their priorities and experiences when determining which studies to fund.
RECOVER has scored some gains, said JD Davids, co-director of Long COVID Justice. This includes findings on differences in long COVID between adults and kids.But Davids said the NIH shouldn’t have named the initiative “RECOVER,” since it wasn’t designed as a streamlined effort to develop treatments.
“The name’s a little cruel and misleading,” he said.
RECOVER’s initial allocation of $1.15 billion probably wasn’t enough to develop a new medication to treat long COVID, said Ezekiel J. Emanuel, co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Healthcare Transformation Institute.
But, he said, the results of preliminary clinical trials could have spurred pharmaceutical companies to fund more studies on drug development and test how existing drugs influence a patient’s immune response.
Emanuel is one of the authors of a March 2022 COVID roadmap report. He notes that RECOVER’s lack of focus on new treatments was a problem. “Only 15% of the budget is for clinical studies. That is a failure in itself — a failure of having the right priorities,” he told KFF Health News and NPR via email.
And though the NYU biobank has been impactful, Emanuel said there needs to be more focus on how existing drugs influence immune response.
He said some clinical trials that RECOVER has funded are “ridiculous,” because they’ve focused on symptom amelioration, for example to study the benefits of over-the-counter medication to improve sleep. Other studies looked at non-pharmacological interventions, such as exercise and “brain training” to help with cognitive fog.
People with long COVID say this type of clinical research contributes to what many describe as the “gaslighting” they experience from doctors, who sometimes blame a patient’s symptoms on anxiety or depression, rather than acknowledging long COVID as a real illness with a physiological basis.
“I’m just disgusted,” said long-COVID patient Hayes. “You wouldn’t tell somebody with diabetes to breathe through it.”
Chimére L. Sweeney, director and founder of the Black Long COVID Experience, said she’s even taken breaks from seeking treatment after getting fed up with being told that her symptoms were due to her diet or mental health.
“You’re at the whim of somebody who may not even understand the spectrum of long COVID,” Sweeney said.
Insurance Battles Over Experimental Treatments
Since there are still no long-COVID treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration, anything a physician prescribes is classified as either experimental — for unproven treatments — or an off-label use of a drug approved for other conditions. This means patients can struggle to get insurance to cover prescriptions.
For example, intravenous immunoglobulin therapy, low-dose naltrexone, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are all promising treatments, he said.
For hyperbaric oxygen, two small, randomized controlled studies show improvements for the chronic fatigue and brain fog that often plague long-COVID patients. The theory is that higher oxygen concentration and increased air pressure can help heal tissues that were damaged during a COVID infection.
However, the out-of-pocket cost for a series of sessions in a hyperbaric chamber can run as much as $8,000, Brode said.
“Am I going to look a patient in the eye and say, ‘You need to spend that money for an unproven treatment’?” he said. “I don’t want to hype up a treatment that is still experimental. But I also don’t want to hide it.”
There’s a host of pharmaceuticals that have promising off-label uses for long COVID, said microbiologist Amy Proal, president and chief scientific officer at the Massachusetts-based PolyBio Research Foundation. For instance, she’s collaborating on a clinical study that repurposes two HIV drugs to treat long COVID.
Proal said research on treatments can move forward based on what’s already understood about the disease. For instance, she said that scientists have evidence — partly due to RECOVER research — that some patients continue to harbor small amounts of viral material after a COVID infection. She has not received RECOVER funds but is researching antivirals.
But to vet a range of possible treatments for the millions suffering now — and to develop new drugs specifically targeting long COVID — clinical trials are needed. And that requires money.
Hayes said she would definitely volunteer for an experimental drug trial. For now, though, “in order to not be absolutely miserable,” she said she focuses on what she can do, like having dinner with her family.At the same time, Hayes doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life on a beige couch.
RECOVER’s deadline to submit research proposals for potential long-COVID treatments is Feb. 1.
This article is from a partnership that includes NPR and KFF Health News.
Despite facing pressure from the Trump administration, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced that interest rates will remain unchanged as concerns remain over inflation and the job market.
After increasing interest rates to their highest levels in decades in 2023, the Federal Reserve started easing interest rates in September 2024 as annual inflation rates began stabilizing below 3%. The Federal Reserve implemented two additional rate drops in late 2024.
But lately, the annual consumer inflation rate has crept slightly higher, causing the Federal Reserve to pause any additional rate cuts. The Federal Reserve noted that the job market remains strong, another key determining factor in whether to adjust interest rates.
Powell has said the Federal Reserve is trying to balance the need to reduce inflation while preventing the labor market from being stifled. In recent cases when interest rates increased, like they did in 2000 and 2007, a recession followed.
"The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance. The economic outlook is uncertain, and the Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate," the Federal Reserve said.
During last week's World Economic Forum, President Trump said, "Ill demand that interest rates drop immediately, and likewise, they should be dropping all over the world.
The consumer price index, the top measure for consumer inflation in the U.S., increased in December to 2.9% in the 12-month period ending last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which released the updated consumer price index earlier this month.
December marked the third consecutive month the consumer price index rose, after dipping to an annualized rate of 2.4% in September.
Experts have said that the federal interest rate has the largest effect on car loans and similar large purchases.
Mortgage rates, although not directly tied to the federal interest rate, also reached a 23-year high in 2023 and any future drop in interest rates would likely trickle down to Americans looking to buy a home.
Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift will be among the familiar faces at the Super Bowl when the Kansas City Chiefs go for an unprecedented three-peat against the Philadelphia Eagles on Feb. 9 in New Orleans.
Mahomes and the Chiefs are back in the NFL title game after beating the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in a thrilling AFC championship game on Sunday. They’ll face Philadelphia and star running back Saquon Barkley, who ran for three touchdowns as the Eagles beat the Washington Commanders 55-23 in the NFC title game.
Here are a few more things to know as the Super Bowl approaches:
What channel is the Super Bowl on?
The game will be aired on Fox. Kevin Burkhardt will be the play-by-play announcer with former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as the analyst. This is Brady’s first Super Bowl as an announcer. He won seven titles as a player. Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi are also part of the broadcast team.
What time is the Super Bowl?
It will start at roughly 6:30 p.m. EST on Feb. 9.
Who is the Super Bowl favorite?
The Chiefs are favored by 1 1/2 points, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.
What are the streaming options for the Super Bowl?
The winner will be announced at the NFL Honors on Feb. 6 at 9 p.m. EST, a show that will air on Fox and NFL Network. Snoop Dogg is the host. A nationwide panel of 50 media members who regularly cover the league completed voting before the playoffs began.
Who is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show?
Kendrick Lamar will be the headliner for the halftime show.
The rap megastar, who has won 17 Grammys, said he’s looking forward to bringing hip-hop to the NFL’s championship game, where he performed as a guest artist with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Eminem in 2022.
Lamar will be joined on stage by Grammy winner SZA — his former Top Dawg Entertainment labelmate. The singer appeared on Lamar’s recent album “GNX” and was featured on a couple of songs including “Gloria” and “Luther,” which also features sampled vocals from Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn.
The duo’s previous hits include the Oscar-nominated “All the Stars” and “Doves in the Wind.” Jay-Z’s Roc Nation company and Emmy-winning producer Jesse Collins will serve as co-executive producers of the halftime show.
Who is singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl?
The Super Bowl pregame will have some Louisiana flavor: Jon Batiste will hit the stage to sing the national anthem, while Trombone Shorty and Lauren Daigle are slated to perform “America the Beautiful.”
The national anthem and “America the Beautiful” will be performed by actor Stephanie Nogueras in American sign language. Otis Jones IV will sign “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and the halftime show will be signed by Matt Maxey.
The pregame performers are all Louisiana natives.
Which teams do celebrities like?
Swift will be rooting for her beau Kelce and the Chiefs, but she’s far from the only star with a rooting interest.
The Chiefs’ famous fans include Paul Rudd, Rob Riggle, Heidi Gardner, Jason Sudeikis, Henry Cavill, Henry Winkler and David Koechner. Musicians Melissa Etheridge and Tech N9ne have each created songs for their team.
Meanwhile, the Eagles boast a starry roster of superfans such as Bradley Cooper, Will Smith, Kevin Hart, Miles Teller, Pink, Questlove and Meek Mill.
AP Sports Writer David Brandt and AP Entertainment Writer Jonathan Landrum Jr. contributed to this report.
Human-caused climate change increased the likelihood and intensity of the hot, dry and windy conditions that fanned the flames of the recent devastating Southern California wildfires, a scientific study found.
But the myriad of causes that go into the still smoldering fires are complex, so the level of global warming's fingerprints on weeks of burning appears relatively small compared to previous studies of killer heat waves, floods and droughts by the international team at World Weather Attribution. Tuesday's report, too rapid for peer review yet, found global warming boosted the likelihood of high fire weather conditions in this month's fires by 35% and its intensity by 6%.
Once-in-a-decade super strong Santa Ana winds, a dry autumn that followed two very wet years that caused rapid growth in flammable chaparral and grass, hot weather, dry air and vulnerable houses in fire-prone areas all were factors in the fast-moving fires that destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least 29 people, study authors said. But the climate attribution team was only able to quantify issues that dealt with the fire weather index, which are the meteorological conditions that add up to fire danger.
The fire weather index which includes measurements of past rainfall, humidity and wind speed is where the team looked and found markers of climate change that they could quantify.
The team used observations of past weather and computer simulations that compared what happened this month to a what-if world without the 1.3 degrees Celsius of human-caused climate change that Earth has had since industrial times. That allowed them to come up with a calculation for warming's contribution to the disaster. It's a method that the National Academy of Sciences says is valid. Even though these rapid studies aren't yet peer-reviewed, nearly all of them are published later in peer-reviewed journals without significant changes, said World Weather Attribution co-lead scientist Friederike Otto.
"The number (35%) doesn't sound like much" because, unlike dozens of its past studies, the team looked at a small area and a complex meteorological measurement in the fire weather index that would generally mean there would be large uncertainties, said Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. But in this case the climate change fingerprint is big enough that it stands out, she said.
Those conditions are part of what makes California attractive to 25 million residents, said study co-author John Abatzoglou, a climate and fire scientist at the University of California Merced.
Southern California has "some of the best climate, best weather on the planet except when you get a combination of conditions that occurred here," Abatzoglou said. "You get the trifecta of dry windy and warm conditions. Those three things, in combination with dry fuels and ignitions, are the perfect recipe for fire disasters."
Abatzoglou said it's like a bunch of switches dryness, fuels, high temperatures, wind and ignition that all need to be turned on "for conditions to really take off." Think of it as switches for a light bulb to illuminate "and so you can think about the artificial warming due to human-caused climate change making the light brighter," added co-author Park Williams, a UCLA fire and climate scientist.
The study also found California's dry season has increased by 23 days and the lack of rain in October, November and December was more than twice as likely now than in pre-industrial times, but because of limitations on the data, researchers couldn't statistically pinpoint these to both climate change and the specific fires this month, Otto said. But she said "the rains are decreasing that is because of human-induced climate change."
Then add in strong winds to whip and spread flames.
Mike Flannigan, a Canadian fire scientist who wasn't part of the research, said one key to him is the fire season extending longer and "increasing the chance a fire will start during peak Santa Ana winds."
The research couldn't specifically quantify how much, if any, climate change affected the Santa Ana winds.
Craig Clements, a climate scientist and director of wildfire study at San Jose State University, said the rapid study makes sense and fits with past research about other fires.
"It's hard to attribute climate change to every fire event as many do," said Clements, who wasn't part of the research. "If we can state with confidence that the drought is caused by climate change then that is the fingerprint."
If the world warms another 1.3 degrees Celsius from now, the study said people should expect the type of weather conditions that led to these fires to happen another 35% more often.
Otto said this is not an issue of politics, but science.
"It's not something where you can say that this was because California did something very wrong. They did a lot of things right. They did some things that they could do better," Otto said. "But what makes these ever more dangerous, these fires, and what is something that the government of California alone can definitely not do anything about is human-induced climate change. And drill, baby drill will make this much, much worse."
A controversial Melvindale police lieutenant was accused in a civil lawsuit Tuesday of assault and battery and false arrest.
The allegations stem from a July 2024 traffic stop where the suspect, Drakkar Williams, recently saw most of the criminal charges against him dismissed.
Williams was stopped by Melvindale Lieutenant Matthew Furman on July 20
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after driving around traffic barricades. Williams, it would later be determined, was driving on a revoked drivers license.
After being asked multiple times to step out of his vehicle, Williams would be repeatedly drive stunned by Furman and, later, alleged that the lieutenant grabbed his hair while he was handcuffed and struck his head into the back of a fire truck.
Last week, charges of resisting arrest, interfering with police, providing false information to a police officer and others lodged against Williams were dismissed.
Williams entered a plea of guilty to driving without insurance and on a revoked license and was found responsible for driving with tinted windows.
Tuesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, Williams filed a lawsuit against Furman, another lieutenant on the scene that day and the Melvindale Police Department, alleging gross negligence, assault and battery, false arrest and more.
Last week, a 7 News Detroit investigation revealed the litany of allegations made against Furman throughout his career by citizens and fellow officers.
Furman denied wrongdoing in each case, saying his proactive policing strategy makes him an easy target.
For the last several months, Furmans actions during the Williams arrest have been the subject of a Michigan State Police investigation that remains ongoing.
Furman did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump to meet with him at the White House.
An Israeli official confirmed Wednesday that Netanyahu is expected to arrive in Washington, D.C., early next week and does not have any other meetings scheduled with any other U.S. officials at this time.
"I look forward to discussing how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries," a letter from Netanyahu's office said, according to The Associated Press.
It comes as Netanyahu was meeting earlier Wednesday in Jerusalem with Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy to the Middle East.
Witkoff worked closely alongside former President Biden's special envoy to the region to help negotiate the ceasefire and hostage release deal earlier this month between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
This is expected to be the first time President Trump and Netanyahu will meet in-person since July, when Netanyahu took a trip to Florida to meet with then-presidential candidate Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
At the time, Trump pressed the Israeli prime minister on the importance of ending his country's war against Hamas and bringing peace to the Middle East.
DETROIT — The Tigers on Wednesday reached an agreement with veteran right-handed reliever Tommy Kahnle on a one-year deal worth $7.75 million.
The deal, which is pending a physical, was first reported by Jon Heyman and confirmed to The Detroit News by a source familiar with the negotiations.
Kahnle, 35, has been a model of consistency the last three seasons, posting 2.44 ERA and a 1.063 WHIP with the Dodgers in 2022 and the Yankees the last two seasons. Last season in 50 games he had a 2.11 ERA, 1.148 WHIP with 46 strikeouts in 42.2 innings.
He started last season on the injured list with shoulder soreness. But he quickly became the Yankees’ most reliable reliever for a three-month stretch. In 33 appearances from June 12 through the end of August, Kahnle allowed two earned runs in 28.2 innings with 31 strikeouts.
He’s logged 30 innings in the postseason over his career, including 8.2 last season. He didn’t allow an earned run until his last outing, which came in Game 5 of the World Series.
The 10-year veteran adds a different look to the back end of the Tigers’ bullpen in that he features an elite and unique changeup, one he threw 73% of the time last season. He throws it between 87 and 88 mph off a 94-mph four-seamer. Last season, the changeup limited hitters to a .173 average and a 39% swing and miss rate.
At one point last season, he threw 61 straight changeups.
Going back to 2019 when he made the changeup his primary pitch, opponents hit .163 (65 for 397) against it with 155 strikeouts.
Overall last season, Kahnle got hitters to chase pitches out of the strike zone 31% and whiff 36%. The swing-and-miss ability, as well as the uniqueness of his changeup, adds a dimension to the Tigers’ ‘pen that was missing last season.
The Tigers had been linked to several top-end relievers this offseason, including Kirby Yates, who signed a one-year deal worth $13 million with the Dodgers. Others at the top of the market, like Tanner Scott, Jeff Hoffman, Blake Treinen, A.J. Minter and Clay Holmes all signed deals that average between $11 and $18 million per season.
Interesting, too, is that Kahnle has only 18 save opportunities (with eight saves) over his career. He’s never been a closer, which seems to fit with the way the Tigers, under manager AJ Hinch and pitching coach Chris Fetter, like to construct the bullpen — without assigned, traditional roles.
Kahnle is expected to join Tyler Holton, Jason Foley, Beau Brieske and Will Vest as late-game options. It’s also going to create an even more intense battle for the final three bullpen spots this spring with Alex Faedo, Brenan Hanifee, Sean Guenther, Brant Hurter with the possibility of a starting pitcher eventually transitioning to a relief role (Matt Manning, Ty Madden, Kenta Maeda, among others).
New York Yankees pitcher Tommy Kahnle celebrates after Game 4 of the baseball AL Championship Series against the Cleveland Guardians Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Cleveland. The Yankees won 8-6 to take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. (GODOFREDO A. VASQUEZ — AP Photo, file)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday.
The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water almost right from the start.
“That’s the kind of environment that could have been essential to the steps that lead from elements to life,” said the Smithsonian Institution’s Tim McCoy, one of the lead study authors.
NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft returned 122 grams of dust and pebbles from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, delivering the sample canister to the Utah desert in 2023 before swooping off after another space rock. It remains the biggest cosmic haul from beyond the moon. The two previous asteroid sample missions, by Japan, yielded considerably less material.
Small amounts of Bennu’s precious black grains — leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago — were doled out to the two separate research teams whose studies appeared in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy. But it was more than enough to tease out the sodium-rich minerals and confirm the presence of amino acids, nitrogen in the form of ammonia and even parts of the genetic code.
Some if not all of the delicate salts found at Bennu — similar to what’s in the dry lakebeds of California’s Mojave Desert and Africa’s Sahara — would be stripped away if present in falling meteorites.
“This discovery was only possible by analyzing samples that were collected directly from the asteroid then carefully preserved back on Earth,” the Institute of Science Tokyo’s Yasuhito Sekine, who was not involved in the studies, said in an accompanying editorial.
Combining the ingredients of life with an environment of sodium-rich salt water, or brines, “that’s really the pathway to life,” said McCoy, the National Museum of Natural History’s curator of meteorites. “These processes probably occurred much earlier and were much more widespread than we had thought before.”
NASA’s Daniel Glavin said one of the biggest surprises was the relatively high abundance of nitrogen, including ammonia. While all of the organic molecules found in the Bennu samples have been identified before in meteorites, Glavin said the ones from Bennu are valid — “real extraterrestrial organic material formed in space and not a result of contamination from Earth.”
Bennu — a rubble pile just one-third of a mile across — was originally part of a much larger asteroid that got clobbered by other space rocks. The latest results suggest this parent body had an extensive underground network of lakes or even oceans, and that the water evaporated away, leaving behind the salty clues.
Sixty labs around the world are analyzing bits of Bennu as part of initial studies, said the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, the mission’s chief scientist who took part in both studies.
Most of the $1 billion mission’s cache has been set aside for future analysis. Scientists stress more testing is needed to better understand the Bennu samples, as well as more asteroid and comet sample returns. China plans to launch an asteroid sample return mission this year.
Many are pushing for a mission to collect rocks and dirt from the potentially waterlogged dwarf planet Ceres in the main asteroid belt. Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus also beckon as enticing water worlds. Meanwhile, NASA has core samples awaiting pickup at Mars, but their delivery is on hold while the space agency studies the quickest and cheapest way to get them here.
“Are we alone?” McCoy said. “That’s one of the questions we’re trying to answer.”
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Following widespread confusion, lawsuits and backlash, the Trump administration rescinded a memo that attempted to pause federal funding for grants and loan programs.
A memo to heads of executive government departments says, "OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded. If you have questions about implementing the Presidents Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel."
The original memo stated the order was set to go into effect on Tuesday, but was halted after a federal judge granted a "brief administrative stay."
The order stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Democracy First on behalf of the National Council of Nonprofits, American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance and SAGE.
Facing legal pressure from our clients and in the wake of a federal judge ruling in our case last evening, the Trump-Vance administration has abandoned OMBs ordered federal funding freeze. We are proud of our courageous clients -- who represent communities across the nation -- for going to court to stop the administration's unlawful actions," said Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to clarify why the Trump administration rescinded the memo.
"In light of the injunction, OMB has rescinded the memo to end any confusion on federal policy created by the court ruling and the dishonest media coverage," she stated. "The Executive Orders issued by the President on funding reviews remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented by all agencies and departments. This action should effectively end the court case and allow the government to focus on enforcing the Presidents orders on controlling federal spending. In the coming weeks and months, more executive action will continue to end the egregious waste of federal funding."
About two dozen states, including New York and California, also sued to fight against the funding freeze, which could have impacted federal infrastructure projects, foreign aid commitments and grants for nonprofit organizations and services.
The proposed pause was not meant to be permanent and was intended to give federal agencies time to ensure their grants, loans and programs comply with Trump administration policies and goals, officials said.
Starbucks announced plans to cut out 30% of its menu items by later this year on its most recent investor call, according to multiple outlets.
It's part of the coffee shop giant's broader brand re-focus that it's calling "Back to Starbucks" in efforts to bring back customers after posting another loss in the most recent quarter.
New CEO Brian Niccol did not specify which menu items are being axed, but the company has already removed its olive oil drink line less than a year after it launched the brainchild of former CEO Howard Schultz.
It's also reversing its open-door policy, where things like its restrooms are only available to customers.
While were only one quarter into our turnaround, were moving quickly to act on the 'Back to Starbucks' efforts and weve seen a positive response, said Brian Niccol in a press release. We believe this is the fundamental change in strategy needed to solve our underlying issues, restore confidence in our brand and return the business to sustainable, long-term growth."
President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to halt what he calls radical indoctrination in K-12 schools, specifically targeting "critical race theory" and "gender ideology."
The order prohibits federal funding for schools that incorporate critical race theory and other teachings Trumps administration deems inappropriate.
It also directs the Secretary of Education and the Secretary of Defense, who oversees Department of Defense-run schools, to develop a strategy within 90 days to halt such teachings from classrooms.
The order fulfills a promise President Trump made while campaigning.
On day one, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children, Trump previously said.
The executive order reinstates a previous Trump-era policy, which reintroduces the 1776 Commission. It's an initiative aimed at promoting patriotic education.
"Unfortunately, some versions of American history offer a misconstrued and one-sided account of our founding in an effort to paint America as a systemically racist country," the original policy stated.
The wide-ranging impact of Trump's latest executive order remains to be seen as most education decisions are made a the local level.
What is critical race theory?
Critical race theory is an academic concept that was originally taught at the college level. It involves analyzing how race and racism intersect with social structures and institutions.
The extent to which critical race theory is taught in K-12 schools. While it may not be taught in its original form, critical race theory has taken on a new meaning for some. Some conservatives argue discussions around diversity, equity and inclusion amount to critical race theory.
President Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law on Wednesday, marking the first law enacted during his second term.
The act requires members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain any illegal immigrant who is arrested, charged or convicted with burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. In passing the bill, the Senate also added two acts to the list of offenses that force ICE to act: assault of a law enforcement officer and acts causing death or injury.
The act is named for Laken Riley, a University of Georgia student who was killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan immigrant who entered the country illegally in 2022. Ibarra was sentenced in November of 2024 to life in prison for the murder.
The bill passed by a vote of 263-156 in the House. All GOP members of the House who voted were in favor of passing the bill, while 156 Democrats voted against it. Before that, the bill passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 64-35, where the yes votes included 12 Democratic senators.
The act was signed as President Trump has touted stepped-up deportations of migrants in the U.S. illegally.
Metro Detroit dog lovers will soon have another place to take their pups. A new dog park is set to open in Southfield this summer.
Barkside, a Detroit dog park and bar, announced its opening another location at 15640 West Eleven Mile Road.
Related Video: Barkside opens on Detroit's east side Dog bar opens on Detroit's east side
Barkside Southfield will feature 6,000 square feet of indoor play space and 7,000 square feet of outdoor space, offering an experience for dogs and their humans, blending community, craft beverages, and safe, year-round fun.
Our vision for Barkside has always been about more than just a bar or a dog park. Its about creating a place where dog lovers and dogs can safely socialize, unwind, and have fun, said founders Cody Williams and David Oh in a press release. Southfields central location makes it the perfect spot to bring Barksides unique concept and strong sense of community to even more Metro Detroit dog lovers.
Courtesy: Stucky Vitale Architects
Barkside said the outdoor space will be fully fenced with dog-friendly mulch and drainage in the event of rain. There will also reportedly be dedicated indoor and outdoor play areas specially designed for small dogs.
The bars menu will reportedly include Michigan-made beer, craft cocktails, wine, mocktails, and coffee.
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