US President Joe Biden on Friday criticized Republicans and drug companies during a stop at a California community college as he campaigned for fellow Democrats in next month’s midterm elections.
Biden’s trip included stops in California on Friday and Oregon yesterday as the president looks to position his party as a champion of consumers and lower healthcare costs at a time when inflation ranks among voters’ top concerns. The midterm elections are on Nov. 8.
“We took on Big Pharma and we beat them, finally,” Biden said, referring to the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions that allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, cap the cost senior citizens are charged for prescriptions and lower insulin prescriptions to US$35 for Medicare beneficiaries.
Photo: AFP
Biden promised to cap the insulin price at US$35 for all Americans if Democrats keep the US House of Representatives and US Senate.
Most forecasts show Democrats with a slight advantage in the Senate and Republicans with a larger advantage in the House.
Biden said that Republicans would repeal the prescription drug price caps and take away Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices if they take control.
The president’s motorcade was greeted in Irvine by more than 1,000 raucous protesters calling for Democracy in Iran, where anti-government demonstrations have raged for several weeks.
Outrage over the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini’s death on Sept. 16, three days after she was arrested by Iran’s notorious morality police, has fueled the biggest wave of street protests and violence seen in the country for years.
“He was moved by the protests that he saw from ... Iranian Americans who were there,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said later. “It struck him and he wanted to comment about that at the top.”
“I want you to know that we stand with the citizens, the brave women of Iran,” Biden said late on Friday. “It stunned me what it awakened in Iran. It awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted for a long, long time.”
“Women all over the world are being persecuted in various ways, but they should be able to wear in God’s name what they want to wear,” Biden said.
Iranian activists yesterday called for fresh nationwide protests.
Despite blocked access to Internet services and platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, activists issued an online appeal for a huge turnout for protests yesterday under the catchcry “The beginning of the end.”
They have called on people across Iran to show up at spots where the security forces are not present and to chant “Death to the dictator” — a reference to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Additional reporting by AFP
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
RSS