Author: Alex Smith

Former heart surgeon and television host Dr. Mehmet Oz is set to face questions Friday from the Senate’s finance committee over his nomination to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Trump.After Friday’s hearing, the GOP-led finance committee will schedule a vote on whether to send Oz’s nomination to the full Senate, where he is likely to be approved given the Republican majority. If confirmed, Oz would be the administrator charged with overseeing the nearly $1.5 trillion spent by the federal government on Medicare and Medicaid. The two health insurance programs for seniors and poor Americans make…

A judge in Maryland has blocked for now the mass firings of probationary federal workers and ordered thousands of fired probationary workers to be reinstated, marking the second decision of its kind in a day.The order from U.S. District Judge James Bredar came late Thursday in a lawsuit filed by 19 states and the District of Columbia against multiple federal agencies alleging the mass firings are illegal.”In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice,” Bredar wrote. “It claims it wasn’t required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary…

The Social Security Administration could soon lose as many as 10,000 workers, according to former agency leaders who expect a large portion of federal workers to accept a buyout offer from the agency. The SSA last month announced a restructuring initiative that gives all employees the option to accept “voluntary separation incentive payments” to leave the agency, as part of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE’s effort to cut costs by culling the federal workforce. Led by billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE has abruptly terminated thousands of federal workers over the last three weeks, causing turmoil across multiple departments. The deadline for SSA workers to accept…

A former local mafia boss died Wednesday after he was shot in his car in the middle of a busy highway near the French city of Grenoble, local authorities and sources close to the case told French news agency AFP.Jean-Pierre Maldera, 71, died of his wounds after the shootout Wednesday morning, the civil defense and the regional prosecutor’s office said.Maldera was one of the so-called godfathers of the Franco-Italian mafia that terrorized the southeastern city in the 1980s, along with his brother Robert, a source close to the case told AFP.Robert Maldera, nicknamed “Il pazzo” (“The madman” in Italian), had…

Waterbury, Conn. — A Connecticut man who said he was held captive for 20 years was rescued after setting fire to his room and telling first responders he did it to gain his freedom, police said Wednesday. The man’s stepmother was charged with cruelty and kidnapping. Waterbury first responders rescued the emaciated 32-year-old man from an upstairs room after they were deployed to a house fire last month, police said in a statement. While being treated for smoke inhalation, he revealed that he intentionally set the blaze. “I wanted my freedom,” the man said, according to police. He said he…

Over 800 marine species were newly discovered after two years of collaborative efforts by scientists, governments, museums and others participating in the Ocean Census, a global alliance founded to accelerate the discovery of marine life.New species of shark, sea butterfly, mud dragon, bamboo coral, water bear, octocoral, and shrimp were just some of the findings that were registered in a directory after the collaborative conducted 10 global expeditions and hosted eight Species Discovery Workshops. “The past two years have been transformative for the Ocean Census: we’ve pioneered new methods, forged key partnerships, established a global network of participating scientists, and overcome…

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday said it would “formally reconsider” a landmark 2009 finding by the agency that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health.The announcement was one of a flurry of actions by the EPA to roll back a wide swath of environmental regulations, including rules on pollution from coal-fired power plants and electric vehicles. The EPA’s announcements also included narrowing the definition of waterways such as wetlands and streams that are protected under the Clean Water Act. The decisions start what is likely to be a years-long effort to repeal or revise dozens of environmental rules, with…

A Pennsylvania man was caught trying to carry a live turtle through airport security by hiding the reptile in his pants, the Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday.The man, who has not been identified, was flagged last week when he went through a body scanner at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, the security agency said in a news release. A TSA officer conducted a pat-down of the man’s groin area and determined there was something hidden there. When asked if he was hiding something, the man reached down the front of his pants and pulled out a live turtle, the…

They run businesses. They tend bars. They pay taxes. While they are in the U.S. illegally, they are largely spared the scrutiny of that label. But still they live in fear. They are the thousands of undocumented Irish immigrants in America today.Recent estimates from the Irish government suggest that there are as many as 10,000 undocumented Irish immigrants across the United States. Many have lived in the shadows for decades, waiting for a pathway to citizenship that may never come. And with a new president that has vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, anxieties have…

Tucked beneath snow-capped mountains in Montana, the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory is unlike any other lab in the country.  It’s where scientists are starting fires to better understand how they burn — and how to manage them.The U.S. Forest Service built the fire sciences lab in 1960, inspired by a forest fire that killed 13 firefighters. The facility includes a 66-foot-high combustion chamber that allows for intense burn tests in controlled conditions. Today, about 80 employees are carrying on that mission of wildfire research, and keep coming back to one controlling principle.”We’re definitely part of the problem,” said fire scientist…