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Editorial: Transparency just a buzzword in Bay State politics

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

Transparency is a four-letter word in Massachusetts politics.Putting a pin in the State Legislature’s efforts to stop Auditor Diana DiZoglio from opening the books, the most egregious example of late comes from the top.Gov. Maura Healey will no longer disclose her out-of-state travel in advance, it was reported late last week. This came after Healey took a trip to North Carolina in early October without it being made public at the time. Her office said the new policy is due to unspecified “security concerns.”This is quite a change from the Maura Healey of February 2022, who, as a gubernatorial candidate, backed a bill that would make the governor’s office follow the state public records law.“AG Healey has long supported updating the public records law to cover the Governor’s Office in the interest of transparency and accountability,” Healey spokesperson Jillian Fennimore said.The problem, Healey learned after becoming governor, was that tran...

Knight: Affordable access to insulin vital to U.S. health

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

As a registered nurse working at the bedside, a crucial issue I have experienced are clients with diabetes not adhering to their insulin regimen due to increased cost. There has been an enormous uptick of clients who are admitted to the hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis, a state in which the body produces an overload of ketones in the blood due to lack of appropriate insulin utilization. This is a serious complication from uncontrolled diabetes, and is inherently life-threatening.The prevalence of diabetes is astonishing. In 2019, approximately 11% of the American population was diagnosed with this disease. These numbers are projected to increase at a monumental rate, making diabetes one of the most universal diseases within our population.A large amount of people have inadequate health insurance, and with the cost of insulin rising, affordability of this medication is  problematic. Insulin is a fundamental medication, and its actions decrease the body’s blood sugar levels in orde...

Dear Abby: Kids baffled as mom walks out on dad

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

Dear Abby: One night about six months ago, my mom walked out on my dad. A week later, she admitted she had been having an affair for a whole year. My parents’ divorce was final three months after she left.Mom has now announced to me and my siblings that she’s engaged and plans to marry her fiance just six months after the divorce. We think it’s a terrible idea. We really dislike her fiance and think he’s a bad guy based on our interactions with him. Mom claims to be happy, but we don’t believe her. Should we just let her live her life? How do we accept this new reality? — Thrown in WashingtonDear Thrown: If you and your siblings plan to maintain a relationship with your mother, handle this like the hot potato it is. Recognize that things were not as rosy as you assumed in your parents’ marriage, take things one step at a time, and make an extra effort to look out for your father. Then cross your fingers and hope that as painful as this disru...

Deadline looming for Scripps Health patients with Medicare

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Scripps Health is dropping out of the Medicare Advantage program at the end of the year.It’s a move affecting 32,000 people in San Diego County who have Scripps Clinic and Scripps Coastal primary care doctors under several health plans.Patients recently received shocking notices and now have less than a month to decide what to do with their coverage.“We have till December 7th to make a decision. After December 7th, it's locked in for January 1st," said John Mendoza, an independent health insurance broker in El Cajon. "There's some PPO plans that will offer that availability to keep their doctors, if they're willing to pay out-of-network costs.”Mendoza says those typically range from $150 to $400 a month, depending on age.It’s a bitter pill to swallow for those who haven’t had to pay anything. Two popular ice-skating rinks opening this week for the holiday season “I have a list of people that have these networks and now they're pulling their hair out -- some of these p...

City of San Diego passes plan to reduce fees, entice homeowners to pay for sidewalk repairs

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego City Council voted 5 to 3 Monday afternoon to begin a sidewalk program to reduce the cost of city permits in hopes of enticing homeowners to complete repairs on damaged sidewalks.According to the city, there's more than 85,000 sidewalks in need of repair, which is estimated to cost $238 million, but city officials said some of that responsibility is on the homeowner, not the city. “I understand that addressing sidewalks has remained a complicated puzzle," Councilmember Kent Lee said during Monday's meeting. "Today is a positive first step."The city said it has already spent millions of dollars in injury payouts and now hope cutting permit fees for homeowners will help cut down on the backlog of sidewalk repairs and cut down on lawsuits. The city said it's paid an average of $46,000 per claim in the last 10 fiscal years. Prefer small towns? This is the least populated city in San Diego County According to the city, a state law states homeowners are responsib...

Fire that indefinitely closed vital Los Angeles freeway was likely arson, governor says

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arson was the cause of a massive weekend fire that charred and indefinitely closed a vital section of a Los Angeles freeway, causing major traffic headaches for hundreds of thousands of commuters, California authorities said.Gov. Gavin Newsom said investigators were trying to determine if one person or more were involved. He gave no other details. “I have to stress that we have determined what started the fire,” Newsom told reporters Monday.The fire erupted Saturday in two storage lots under Interstate 10 where construction materials combusted quickly and the fire grew. It left many columns charred and chipped and the deck guardrails twisted. Crews shored up the most damaged section for the safety of workers clearing the debris. It’s still unclear what structural damage, if any, the blaze caused to the freeway. Beyond a massive traffic headache, the closure is expected to be felt well beyond the metropolis, including possibly slowing the transport of goods from th...

Defense to call witnesses in trial of man accused of attacking Nancy Pelosi’s husband with hammer

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Defense attorneys for David DePape, the man on trial for the attack of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in the couple’s San Francisco home, will call witnesses Tuesday as they argue DePape is not guilty of the crimes he’s been charged with. The trial’s third day will start with a final witness from the prosecution, and defense attorneys say they hope to wrap up their case by day’s end. The case would then go to jurors.Prosecutors say DePape bludgeoned Paul Pelosi in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2022, just days before the midterm elections, and that he had rope and zip ties with him. DePape has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties.Defense attorney Jodi Linker told jurors last week that she won’t dispute that DePape attacked Pelosi. Instead, she will a...

Head of China’s state-backed Catholic church begins historic trip to Hong Kong

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — The head of the Catholic church in China began a trip to Hong Kong on Tuesday at the invitation of the city’s pope-appointed Roman Catholic cardinal, marking the first official visit by a Beijing bishop in history. Joseph Li, who was installed by China’s state-controlled Catholic church as an archbishop, visited the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the morning, public broadcaster RTHK said. Li’s five-day tour came after the city’s newly installed Cardinal Stephen Chow invited him to visit Hong Kong during a landmark trip to Beijing in April — the first visit to the Chinese capital by the city’s bishop in nearly three decades. Experts said the invitation was a symbolic gesture that could strengthen the fragile relationship between China and the Vatican.Earlier this month, Chow said his job is to foster better communication between the sides, and underscored the importance of human connections when asked about the significance of Li’s visit. The Hong Kong dio...

A missing sailor’s last message from Hurricane Otis was to ask his family to pray for him

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — During the first minutes of Oct. 25 when Hurricane Otis roared into Acapulco Bay with 165 mph winds, sailor Ruben Torres recorded a 10-second audio message from a yacht called the Sereno.“All things considered I’m alright, but it’s really horrible, it’s really horrible, it’s really horrible,” he said over the howling wind and the boat’s beeping alarms. “Family, I don’t want to exaggerate, but pray for us because it’s really awful out here.”The Sereno was one of 614 boats — yachts, ferries, fishing boats — that according to Mexico’s Navy were in the bay that night and ended up damaged or on the ocean floor. Of those aboard the Sereno, one person survived, while Torres and the boat’s captain remain missing.Otis killed at least 48 people officially, most drowned, and some 26 are missing. Sailors, fishermen and their families believe there are many more. Sailors in the region typically board their boats during a storm rather than stay on land where th...

Biden administration slow to act as millions are booted off Medicaid, advocates say

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:06:25 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Up to 30 million of the poorest Americans could be purged from the Medicaid program, many the result of error-ridden state reviews that poverty experts say the Biden administration is not doing enough to stop. The projections from the health consulting firm Avalere come as states undertake a sweeping re-evaluation of the 94 million people enrolled in Medicaid, government’s health insurance for the neediest Americans. A host of problems have surfaced across the country, including hours-long phone wait times in Florida, confusing government forms in Arkansas, and children wrongly dropped from coverage in Texas. “Those people were destined to fail,” said Trevor Hawkins, an attorney for Legal Aid of Arkansas. Hawkins helped hundreds of people navigate their Medicaid eligibility in Arkansas, as state officials worked to “ swiftly disenroll ” about 420,000 people in six months’ time. He raised problems with Arkansas’ process — like forms that wrongly told people th...