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Conference fails to approve procedural motion to take up defense spending bill as government shutdown loomsThe House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week on Thursday, when his conference again failed to approve a procedural motion as members continued to clash over government spending levels with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.With no clear path forward in Republicans' negotiations, the House concluded its work on Thursday without any stated plan to reconvene on Friday. Continue reading...

Dozens hurt, at least five of them badly, after vehicle carrying students from Long Island to a band camp in Pennsylvania collidedA charter bus carrying schoolchildren to a band camp crashed on a New York highway on Thursday, killing one person and hurting dozens of others, police said.The wreck happened on Interstate 84 in the town of Wawayanda, about 45 miles (72km) north-west of New York City, state police said. Continue reading...

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Report says Euphoria actor's death was due to combined effects of methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and benzodiazepines'The actor Angus Cloud died in July of an accidental overdose of cocaine, fentanyl and other substances, a northern California coroner's office said on Thursday.Cloud's cause of death was acute intoxication" due to the combined effects of methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and benzodiazepines", the Alameda county coroner's bureau said. The office confirmed the overdose was an accident. Continue reading...

Journalist fears for safety amid misleading firestorm over ex-police chief's alleged murder, fueled by Elon Musk postA Las Vegas newspaper is being viciously attacked online for its coverage of an alleged murder of a retired police chief, either because of a misunderstanding or a deliberate attempt to mislead on social media.A firehose of hatred" has led the Las Vegas Review-Journal to sift email directed at one of its reporters to protect her, the paper's executive editor, Glenn Cook, said. Continue reading...

Captain bullish on hosts' chances of winning third successive transatlantic joust for the first time with US keen to spoil partySuzann Pettersen's Solheim Cup experiences suggest her captaincy is unlikely to prove dull. At Finca Cortesin, Pettersen leads a European side who are seeking to create history by winning the transatlantic joust three times in a row for the first time. The Norwegian exudes a level of confidence that will come back to bite her should those in stars and stripes turn tables. Interestingly, this bullish approach from the hosts is largely fuelled by the success of their players on the United States-based LPGA Tour. Legitimate questions remain over the strength of the Ladies European Tour, which has recently been quietly enhanced by Saudi Arabian riches.Onlookers should prepare for theatre. Pettersen spent the Sunday evening of the 2015 Solheim Cup crying in her hotel room after involvement in a rules debacle. At Gleneagles four years later, Pettersen slammed home the winning putt for Europe immediately before declaring she was retiring from professional golf. She has been true to her word; Pettersen assisted Catriona Matthew in 2021 but otherwise has kept her distance from the front line of this sport. Her status is such that nobody begrudged her that. Continue reading...

The media tycoon wreaked untold havoc on American democracy and beyondIn a chilling scene at the end of James Graham's play Ink, Rupert Murdoch - having made his indelible mark on British media and society - slows his frenetic pace to ponder the future.He's thinking, he says almost dreamily, of a venture across the pond - yes, perhaps something in television news.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

A judicial council said Pauline Newman of the US court of appeals cannot effectively discharge her duties due to disabilityA 96-year-old federal appeals court judge has been barred from hearing cases for a year, after a panel said she refused to undergo medical testing amid concerns she is no longer mentally fit.It was the latest development in an unusually public and bitter fight over whether Judge Pauline Newman should continue to sit on the Washington-based US court of appeals for the federal circuit that has sparked a lawsuit and turned judges against one another. Continue reading...

This is a media and political age that he himself has shaped. It's hardly a legacy to be proud ofIt should come as no surprise that Rupert Murdoch has decided to step down from the top of his media empire. Yet the news that the 92-year-old, no longer in the best of health, will not die in the job, as he always suggested he would, came as a huge shock.After a lifetime spent transforming the relatively small Australian print newspaper business he inherited from his father into a global corporation, which spans one of the biggest newspaper businesses in the UK and one of the most controversial television channels in the US, he stands down ahead of two hugely important elections in both his adopted homelands, Britain and the US.Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Until now, women here have struggled to be heard on harassment and abuse. But two controversies in popular culture are changing thatHave you ever dated a German man who happened to be a writer? No? Good for you. Not that I would recommend dating writers in general, who have a tendency to justify their worst behaviour as art. And honestly, why wouldn't they? The canon is full of men who poured their raw misogyny into beautiful sentences and well-crafted compositions. In return some of these men had genius status conferred on them because, well, they wrote fiction and the misogyny was the fictional character's, not theirs.In German writing there is another unfortunate tradition: a hyperfixation on the inner world of the perpetrator. This focus goes beyond narrative perspective. It finds its way into essays and nonfiction writing. It finds its way into so many forms of writing that the perpetrator is sometimes transformed into the real victim of his own violence. That's exactly what the Nobel prize winner Peter Handke did (OK, Handke is Austrian), in his revisionist account of the Bosnian genocide committed by the Serbs. And it's what the recently deceased author Martin Walser did when he complained that not a day went by without Germans being hit with the ultimate moral cudgel", namely Auschwitz.Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

A number of factors contribute to heightened rates of syphilis, which can be transmitted to a fetus from the motherThe number of babies born with syphilis in Mississippi has increased more than tenfold since 2016, amid US-wide growth in cases of the potentially fatal but entirely preventable disease.Rates of congenital syphilis, which occurs when a mother transmits the infection to the fetus, have more than doubled over the past five years, with the largest spikes in southern and western states, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Continue reading...

The carmaker is now US labor's most important target. If Musk doesn't like that, he's welcome to settle it with an auto worker by cage matchThe massive United Auto Workers strike against the big three automakers is, first and foremost, an awesome demonstration of labor power - the act of a powerful, longstanding industrial union, with newly radical leadership, determined to wage one big fight to reset a playing field that has been slowly tilting in the wrong direction for years. It is also, like a disturbing number of things in America today, a case in which the grotesque specter of Elon Musk looms like a silent villain over the entire proceedings.Here is what I mean. The big three - Ford, GM and Stellantis - have long had workforces that are unionized with the UAW. The robust contracts that the union has been negotiating with the thriving industry since the middle of the 20th century played a large part in the creation of the unprecedented shared prosperity of the post-second world war middle class.Hamilton Nolan is a writer on labor and politics, based in New York City. Continue reading...

Minneapolis gallery puts A Walk in the Woods, the first of over 400 paintings Ross produced for The Joy of Painting, up for saleBob Ross was an artist who brought painting to the people, his works completed for PBS viewers in less than a half hour with little more than a large bristle brush, a putty knife and plenty of encouragement. It is unlikely he would have envisioned one of his works going up for sale for nearly $10m.But that is the price a Minneapolis gallery is now asking for A Walk in the Woods, the first of more than 400 paintings Ross produced on-air for his TV series The Joy of Painting. Continue reading...

Close to implosion on Radio 4, the PM insists to Nick Robinson that he is not watering anything down. Even though he isA night's sleep had done nothing for Rishi Sunak's mood. The prime minister dislikes being challenged at the best of times. He has the entitled demeanour of someone convinced of his own brilliance. A politician for whom the idea of getting something wrong is a category error. Who can't understand why anyone might question him. He's right because he's always right. A man not prone to self-reflection or self-doubt. And now he had to face the BBC's Nick Robinson in a 20-minute interview on the Today programme to defend his climate crisis speech. The last thing he wanted to do.Robinson began by observing they were sitting in the Thatcher Room at Downing Street and that Margaret Thatcher had taken climate change very seriously. Sunak meanwhile had chosen not to go to the United Nations general assembly and was busy watering down the UK's efforts to combat global heating. Continue reading...

Trump has healthy lead in second state to vote, ahead of Ramaswamy, Haley, Christie and flailing Florida governorThe Florida governor Ron DeSantis fell to fifth in a new New Hampshire poll, trailing not just Donald Trump, the runaway leader for the Republican presidential nomination, but Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie.The poll, from CNN and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), was just the latest worrying sign for DeSantis, whose hard-right campaign has struggled ever since a glitch-filled launch with Elon Musk on his social media platform in May. Continue reading...

Republicans propose stopgap bill that excludes funding for Ukraine as both parties signal they have questions for Kyiv's delegation. Plus, why are 500,000 people watching paint dry?

UAW to launch additional strikes if agreements with General Motors, Stellantis and Ford are not reached by 22 SeptemberThe United Auto Workers (UAW) looks set to escalate strike actions against US car plants on Friday as the union struggles to reach a deal with the automakers General Motors, Stellantis and Ford.The UAW president, Shawn Fain, announced last week that the union would launch a series of stand up" strikes at individual car plants after failing to reach agreement over a new union contract with the car companies. Continue reading...

Across the EU, far-right ideas are becoming mainstream while refugees and Muslims are demonised. But change is still possibleI arrived in Brussels four decades ago as a student, scarred by the legacy of two deadly wars between India and Pakistan, and their constant enmity. I was ready to be seduced by a story of peace and cooperation - of former enemies reconciled by trade and pooled sovereignty. The EU and me were a perfect fit.Improbable as it may sound, Belgium drew me in, loved me back. University life was multicultural and exciting. Fulfilling a long-held dream, I became a reporter and started covering, later writing and commenting on, EU foreign policy and Europe's global trade and aid policies. Continue reading...

Water remained contaminated in Benton Harbor, 175 miles from Flint, as state regulators attempted fixes that failed for three yearsIn the aftermath of the Flint water crisis, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2016 established a new lead contamination response system that regulators claimed would help prevent a repeat of the deadly catastrophe.But that newly implemented policy was ignored by EPA staff starting in 2018 as residents in Benton Harbor, Michigan, for three years drank water poisoned with astronomical levels of lead in some cases far above what was found in Flint, federal investigators charge. Continue reading...

In 2007, before Twitter rage and pile-ons, Brand offered up his female assistant to go to Savile's place naked. With little social media to provide a forum for outrage, no action was taken

Biden was pitching global cooperation to developing nations long suspicious of the US-dominated world orderEvery September, the annual UN general assembly session offers global leaders a prime opportunity to publicize their top priorities to an international audience - precisely what President Joe Biden did on the conclave's opening day this week.As Biden approached the podium, the representatives of China and Russia may have braced for an earful: Russia's invasion of Ukraine has produced Europe's deadliest war in more than 70 years; and tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and trade have made blame-laden volleys between China and the US routine. As it turned out, however, Biden's half-hour speech barely mentioned the US's two biggest rivals.Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York, and a senior research scholar at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace StudiesDaniel R DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Newsweek Continue reading...

Many Daca recipients in limbo about their future in the US, the country they have called home for years, after judge's rulingThe Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen found the revised Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (Daca) policy, which shields thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children, illegal last week - after a five-year legal battle about the program's existence that has left many Daca recipients in limbo about their future in America.For one educator and activist, Alondra Garcia, the ruling is another blow in the long fight for a permanent solution for many like her to be seen in the country they have called home for years. Continue reading...

When claims such as those facing Russell Brand occur, women I know try to imagine a relationship with a 16-year-old boy - and recoilPolitical change often follows a change in consciousness; the process of defamiliarisation through which things we once accepted as fine, or hated but believed were immutable, gain sufficient criticism as to become suddenly absurd. There is nothing like the shock registered by young children today when apprised of banished norms of the recent past - smoking on planes, women needing a man to co-sign for a credit card - to remind us how quickly universal assumptions can change. Among the list of gross things that, at present, still induce widespread shrugs are relationships between adult men and teenage girls. You wonder what it would take to make that taboo, too.Calls for new laws around the age of consent in the UK, which is set at 16, came this week in the wake of the Russell Brand revelations, and were made in the first instance by one of his alleged victims, known as Alice". In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Alice, who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Brand when she was 16 and he was in his 30s in an otherwise largely consensual relationship, suggested revisiting the consent laws to recognise that men dating" girls in their teens entails a power imbalance that she considers to be abusive. Continue reading...

Cleveland gave up $230m, three first-round draft picks and their dignity for the quarterback. They've been rewarded with one of the league's biggest flopsWe now have a half-season sample size of Deshaun Watson in Cleveland since he returned at the mid-point of last season after an 11-game suspension due to claims of sexual misconduct.The early returns: not pretty. Continue reading...

Young women who challenged the swirling misogyny were bullied and harassed - it's high time we listened to the victims of that eraA sad little hello to women in their 30s having an evening of shit Proustian flashbacks to the mid-2000s," the historian Hannah Rose Woods tweeted after the airing of In Plain Sight. I am one such woman. While the most distressing aspect of the documentary was the women's testimony, the chaser was the film-makers' clever juxtaposition of footage of Russell Brand and others that so encapsulated the specific misogyny of that time. Cue several days' worth of retrospective dredging of 2000s media culture.While it's useful to hear from those who were working in the institutions and environments in which Brand thrived, I also feel angry at the complicity of some of them. While Brand denies all the allegations made in the programme, insisting that all his relationships have been consensual, clips from his own standup, TV and radio routines show his outspoken misogyny. In all these places there were journalists and TV executives who facilitated, encouraged and failed to challenge these all-pervasive attitudes towards women, and there were those who contributed to the culture more broadly at this truly heinous time - from the men working on lads' mags and telling rape jokes onstage, to the postfeminist women's magazine journalists who seemed to have forgotten the concept of sisterhood.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

As the warring country's de facto leader attends the general assembly in New York, it's an opportunity to exert pressureHearing the horror stories from Sudan, from refugees who have managed to escape or from some of the millions who have been forcibly displaced inside the country, one can only conclude that humanity is once again on trial. We are spectacularly failing not only the people of Sudan but also those who work in the service of peace. From what is happening now in Sudan, it is clear humanity has learned nothing from Rwanda, Kosovo and elsewhere.The outbreak of the conflict, on 15April, did not happen in a vacuum. The signs had been there; it was simply a matter of when, not if. While the 2019 overthrow of the country's longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir, after months of popular protests, had provided a reprieve to the population and brought hope for the future, the events in the aftermath of the revolution pointed to a country divided. Continue reading...

EU laws have banished plastics from French fast-food chains, but in New York I couldn't escape throwaway cultureThough I grew up in the United States, I've spent the majority of my adult life in France - which means that every trip back" across the Atlantic has become a moment of curiosity and culture shock. Most recently, the shock was over the sheer prevalence of plastics in American daily life.In Paris, and elsewhere in Europe, plastics are clearly on their way out and paper is in. The standard takeaway cup in coffee shops, juice bars and cafes serving hipster smoothies is paper, and when there is a straw, it's paper as well (or some other biodegradable non-plastic material). Delivery food orders arrive in paper cartons -some with a chic design touch that plastic could never replicate, unspooling like origami flowers to reveal the food within - in paper bags. Utensils, when requested, are wooden and wrapped in paper. And in grocery stores, bulk sections for pasta, nuts, dried fruit, cereals, rice and legumes are normal, as is putting those things (or your fruit and vegetables) in paper bags. Continue reading...

A weak PM, a dying government, a radicalised rightwing press: these are the foundations of Truss's unlikely relaunchIt's quite unusual, the sight of a former prime minister for whom everything went wrong, explaining in public why she was right all along. In her defence, Liz Truss could have no precedent, as no one has ever flamed out as badly as she did.I knew I was right" isn't exactly what she said at the Institute for Government event this week. She went much further, pacing with a witchfinder's authority, giving shape to the lefty sleeper agents who have been poisoning the economic well since the beginning of the Thatcherite project. It's compelling to wonder what her motivation is. If, as she plainly believes, the reds have seeped into every institution - including her own party - and will subvert every plan for growth, what's the point of addressing us all? Surely something more decisive is called for, like a ducking stool?Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Georgia attorneys said that merely performing a role in the presidential election did not make them federal officialsFulton county prosecutors argued at a court hearing on Wednesday that three fake Trump electors seeking to transfer their criminal cases for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia should have their requests denied as they were not federal officials and thus ineligible.The prosecutors cited past comments made by supreme court justices to contend that merely performing a role in a federal election did not make them federal officials and, in any case, they were not even the duly elected electors for the state because Donald Trump lost. Continue reading...

Two men convicted partly on evidence presented by Dr Henry Lee, who in July was found liable for fabricating evidence in the caseConnecticut has agreed to pay a $25m settlement to two men who spent decades in prison for a brutal murder they did not commit, and whose convictions were partly based on evidence presented by a forensic scientist who worked on some of America's most notorious criminal investigations and trials.Ralph Ricky" Birch and Shawn Henning were convicted for the 1985 murder of Everett Carr after Dr Henry Lee - whose name would later become widely known in connection with the OJ Simpson, Lana Clarkson and JonBenet Ramsey cases - testified about blood" evidence on a towel and how blood from the victim's wounds had spattered in an uninterrupted" fashion. Continue reading...

Trial is first of several stemming from 2019 death of Black man put in neck hold and injected with powerful sedativeThe trial of two suburban Denver police officers was set to open on Wednesday in the killing of Elijah McClain, a Black man put in a neck hold and injected with a powerful sedative whose 2019 death later became a rallying cry for nationwide protests and spurred police reform in Colorado.It's the first of several trials stemming from the death of McClain, and lawyers for the two sides are expected to paint contrasting pictures of the deadly struggle between the officers and the 23-year-old massage therapist. McClain was stopped by police in the city of Aurora while walking home from a convenience store carrying only a plastic bag and his phone. Continue reading...

The trial for Andrew Lester, who shot the 16-year-old after he mistakenly rang his doorbell, has been scheduled for 2024A white 84-year-old homeowner who is accused of shooting a Black teenager after the high schooler mistakenly came to his Kansas City home entered a not-guilty plea on Wednesday, and the judge scheduled his trial for next year.Andrew Lester, a retired aircraft mechanic, is charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the 13 April shooting of Ralph Yarl. The trial in the case, which shocked the country and renewed national debates about gun policies and race in America, was scheduled to begin on 7 October 2024. Continue reading...

Attorney general questioned by House judiciary committee members in hearing that White House called a circus'Merrick Garland faced down the latest Republican attacks on the justice department's handling of Hunter Biden and other issues on Wednesday, vowing to not be intimidated".The House judiciary inquiry came just a week before the Joe Biden impeachment hearing, which will also focus on the scope of Hunter Biden's legal troubles and alleged corruption. Both are part of the Republican party's ongoing attempt to erode trust in federal institutions such as the Department of Justice and its FBI arm, claiming they are partisan actors. Continue reading...

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Woman lowered herself inside the toilet after dropping the watch and was later heard yelling for helpA woman was rescued on Tuesday from an outhouse toilet in northern Michigan while trying to retrieve her Apple Watch.The woman, whose name was not released, lowered herself inside the toilet after dropping the watch at the department of natural resources boat launch at Dixon Lake in Otsego county's Bagley Township, state police said on Wednesday in a release. Continue reading...

Exclusive: in a new book, Hutchinson describes incident in which the former New York mayor put his hand under my blazer, then my skirt'Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump aide turned crucial January 6 witness, says in a new book she was groped by Rudy Giuliani, who was like a wolf closing in on its prey", on the day of the attack on the Capitol.Describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Donald Trump's speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer put his hand under my blazer, then my skirt". Continue reading...

Expert says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy's estimate wildly off as there are 1.12 million people in state and nowhere close to that number of bear'In the compendium of false claims, an offering from Tim Sheehy, a Montana 2024 Republican Senate candidate, is readily disprovable.In an interview with Breitbart, the former Navy Seal observed that the state, which he referred to as flyover country", did not typically have much in political power - a situation that could change with the balance of power in the US Senate races next year. Continue reading...

Using anti-racketeering laws created to fight the mafia, the state is cracking down on people protesting a police training facilityWithin weeks of each other, Donald Trump and 61 leftwing activists were indicted under criminal conspiracy laws in Georgia. What may feel like a victory for centrism and justice is actually a dangerous conflation.The protesters are part of the Stop Cop City movement, fighting to prevent the construction of a new police urban combat training facility over what the Muscogee Creek people call the Weelaunee forest outside of Atlanta. One protester has already been killed by police, with an independent autopsy detailing that they probably had their hands up when they were shot 57 times.

Driver was delivering package to Palm City home when she was bitten by an eastern diamondback rattlesnake near the front doorA Florida Amazon delivery driver is in serious condition after being bitten by an eastern diamondback rattlesnake.The driver was delivering a package to a home in Palm City on Monday when she was bitten by the snake which was coiled up near the front door of the delivery location, according to the Martin county sheriff's office (MCSO) in south-eastern Florida. Continue reading...

Buddy Teevens, the innovative coach who brought robotic tackling dummies to Dartmouth practices, has died of injuries he sustained from a bicycle crash in March. He was 66. Teevens was a former star Dartmouth quarterback who went on to become the school's all-time wins leader with a 117-101-2 record in 23 seasons. He coached the Big Green from 1987-91 and returned in 2005. His teams have won or shared five Ivy League championships. Teevens' lasting legacy will be in his efforts to make the sport safer. He reduced full-contact practices by focusing on technique, while still leading winning teams. He also led the development by Dartmouth's engineering school of the the Mobile Virtual Player, a robotic tackling dummy that has also been used by other college programs and NFL teams.

Move comes as education laws restricting teaching of race, sexuality and other topics are being implemented across the USA Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank's diary to her middle school class, in a move that some are calling a political attack on truth".The eighth-grade school teacher was released after officials with Hamshire-Fannett independent school district said the teacher presented the inappropriate" book to students, reported KFDM. Continue reading...

Year after year, I struggle to give away an enormous crop of scarred, worm-eaten apples - while everyone else struggles to avoid themSometimes you smell them before you see them. These people carry a particular scent. It is worthy and rich but with a suggestion of the fetid - like creamy milk that is on the verge of turning sour. I don't want to be rude about them because they are nice folk and I am one of them. I own a fruit tree. And I can't get rid of the fruit.Every autumn the world divides into those with fruit trees and those without. The latter have to be on high alert for the people bearing fruit. A friend, a colleague, even a passing stranger can stage an ambush. Before you know it, they will have whipped out a bag of their produce and thrust it under your nose so that particular smell assaults your senses. Help yourself," they say. Ooh, lovely!" you are forced to exclaim. It's the simple gift there is no polite way to refuse. Continue reading...

Cold-case investigators worked for more than 20 years to identify the man who killed nine-year-old Debbie Lynn RandallJohn and Juanita Randall died in recent years without ever knowing who kidnapped, raped and strangled their daughter after she went across the street from their family's home north of Atlanta, Georgia, to run an errand in 1972.But authorities never stopped pursuing the truth about nine-year-old Debbie Lynn Randall's slaying, and this week, their community learned the identity of her killer. By all indications, it was a stranger who ultimately died by suicide, authorities announced, citing the results of an investigation that combined evidence collected shortly after Randall's death as well as DNA technology. Continue reading...

The next generation of autoworkers faces a future with no healthcare or retirement - unless the union prevailsWhen Ryder Littlejohn started working at Ford in 1994 his starting wage was $12.45 an hour with a path to go full rate after three years at $25 an hour.A third-generation autoworker, Littlejohn noted that adjusted for inflation, his starting rate was over $20 an hour in today's dollars and a full rate of $45 an hour, with pension, retiree healthcare and cost-of-living adjustment. Continue reading...