It was another week of non-stop news that was nearly impossible to keep up with. Stories I was unable to get to include a deal to make some obesity drugs more affordable, a federal judge issuing a stark rebuke to ICE's tactics in Chicago, the arrest of an IDF attorney for revealing sexual torture, and more!
As insurance rates skyrocket, Trump gets much-needed healthcare win
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced a deal with drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to reduce the prices of their popular GLP-1 receptor agonist obesity treatments, Zepbound and Wegovy. The administration says coverage of the drugs will expand to Medicare patients starting next year. Prices currently average around $500 a month and are not always covered by insurance. A new pill version of the otherwise injectable drug is also on its way and is expected to cost around $150 a month.
ICE Rebuked
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis is ordering federal agents in Chicago to restrict the use of force against peaceful protesters and news media, ruling that current practices violate their constitutional rights. The preliminary injunction is in response to a lawsuit alleging federal agents have used excessive force in the Chicago area. It was applied to a previous temporary order that required agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot-control techniques, such as tear gas, against peaceful protesters and journalists. A requirement for body cameras was added.
The world's first trillionaire
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders approved a plan that could make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. They overwhelmingly agreed to award Musk shares worth almost a trillion dollars if the company achieves ambitious financial and operational goals over the next decade. It is far from certain that Musk will hit those goals, however. They include vastly increasing the company’s stock market valuation, which is already seen as one of the most overvalued in the market.
IDF's top lawyer arrested for revealing prisoner sexual assault video
The former top legal officer of the Israel Defense Forces has been arrested after admitting to authorizing the leak of a video that allegedly shows Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee. The video, recorded in 2024, shows IDF soldiers surrounding a blindfolded detainee with riot shields before he was allegedly beaten and suffered severe injuries, including fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and a rectal tear that reportedly resulted from having been sodomized by a baton.
Epstein and Israel
Hacked emails show how Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak tried to engineer a Russian-led solution to remove Bashar al-Assad. The release also demonstrates that the notorious sex trafficker was involved in far more than sexual blackmail and would seem to put to rest any doubt that Epstein was tied to Israeli intelligence.
Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels and a short story collection available here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.
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Cat L
Woa ... I had missed that last one.
Friday, November 7, 2025 Report this
David Daniels
I like this new feature. Two more that I think deserve mention both came out yesterday. One made me feel good, the other made me mad. The feel good one, not surprisingly, was not reported on cable Fox News. After 3 months of aggressive prosecution from the highest level of Justice Dept, Sean Dunn, the guy that on August 10 threw a subway sandwich at an armed-for-combat- ready CBP officer, was acquitted by a jury of misdemeanor assault. From the reporting, the jury doubted that the intent (or the result) was to inflict bodily harm. The officer, who was wearing an armor plated vest, testified the sandwich "exploded" when it hit his chest. However, one of the videos introduced as evidence showed the sandwich on the ground afterward, still in the paper wrapper. On the night of August 10, Dunn was detained and released. On August 13, he was indicted for felony assault and called a member of the deep state by AG Pam Bondi (highly covered by Fox News). He was fired from his job as a paralegal at the Justice Dept. He tried to turn himself in that night but nobody was available to book. On the 14th his apartment was raided military style by an army of heavily armed marshals. The government put out videos of the raid that were shown extensively on Fox. Jeanine Pirro, who had just been named the U.S. attorney in Washington, made Dunn a symbol of Trump’s aggressive militarization strategy, saying: “He thought it was funny, well, he doesn’t think it’s funny today.” However, on August 26, Pirro failed to get a grand jury to indict, a rarity before recent months. So they dropped the charge to a misdemeanor, which still had a maximum of 1 year. The trial took 3 days.
The story yesterday that made me mad was that again the Supreme Court sided with Trump in reversing the lower courts (including an appellate court) stay that prohibited the government from requiring the *** at birth on passports of trans people. The Supreme Court ruled that the President would be "harmed" if he didn't get his way - even though the record was clear about the real harm to trans people no longer, after over 30 years, being able to list their preferred identity. Among other real harms, the record showed that trans people had faced a risk of being strip searched in other countries. Potential Harm to the parties is part of the equity test the Supreme Court weighs in deciding cases on the emergency (shadow) docket. This makes me sad for trans people because there is no other reason for this new rule other than cruelty. It makes me mad that this is yet another example where the Supreme Court uses the shadow docket (not signed, no explanation of the lawful rationale) to overrule the lower courts that have heard the evidence. Justice Jackson once again wrote a scathing dissent that was signed by Sotomayor and Kagan.
Friday, November 7, 2025 Report this