Latest news with #DFD
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Bridgton medical center closing, citing financial pressures on health care system
May 29—A community clinic in Bridgton announced on Thursday that it will be closing in August, the latest shuttering of medical services in Maine. The announcement comes after Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville closed for patients this week, and after several birthing centers around Maine have closed in recent years. The reasons cited by DFD Russell Medical Center in Bridgton are familiar: low reimbursement rates from both government and private insurance, workforce shortages and an inability to rely on federal funding through Medicare and Medicaid. "This decision follows a comprehensive review of persistent financial and workforce challenges," the written announcement said. "In addition to financial pressures, DFD has experienced significant difficulty recruiting and retaining highly skilled health care providers in rural Maine — a challenge shared by many rural health organizations." Despite efforts to find alternatives, "continuing operations at this location is not sustainable," DFD said. The final day the medical center will see patients is Aug. 28. The Bridgton location has been open for four years, and DFD also operates clinics in Turner, Monmouth and Leeds that will remain open. "This is not a decision we made lightly, and it is not a reflection of our commitment to the Bridgton community," according to a written statement attributed to DFD's leadership team. "Rather, it is a decision rooted in responsibility — responsibility to quality care, our patients, our staff and the long-term sustainability of rural health care." DFD will help patients transition to Central Maine Healthcare and other primary care providers. DFD officials declined an interview with the Press Herald on Wednesday. The latest closure comes as Maine is experiencing a crisis in access to health care services, especially in rural parts of the state. While a record number of Mainers now have health insurance, many are finding it difficult or impossible to get help from a broad range of providers — primary care doctors, medical specialists, mental health counselors, dentists. It can take months — even more than a year — to get an appointment with a health professional, frustrated patients told the Portland Press Herald. Health care providers in Maine have also warned that the proposed cuts to Medicaid that were approved in the U.S. House of Representatives could eliminate health insurance coverage for an estimated 34,000 Maine residents and put more pressure on the already financially strained health care system, especially in rural communities. Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
On Chinese student visa rollback, MAGA scores another victory over tech
The Trump administration's move Wednesday night to revoke Chinese students' visas created another political headache for a powerful industry already struggling to deal with the White House's barrage of changes to trade and visa policies. Although the announcement was light on details, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Wednesday that the U.S. will 'aggressively revoke' visas for Chinese students, singling out students 'studying in critical fields.' Computer science, math and engineering top the list of subjects that Chinese students study in the U.S. — areas that could well be in the crosshairs of national security concerns. They're also of central importance to the tech industry, which relies enormously on foreign-born talent. 'This is not just going after one of 10 different pathways into the U.S.,' Jeremy Neufeld, director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, told DFD. 'It's going after the primary way that we are recruiting talent, and it is going to significantly reduce the amount of talent that we are able to recruit.' A remarkable 70 percent of Silicon Valley's highly educated tech employees are from overseas, according to a recent study from a regional think tank — and of that group, China supplies more than any country except India. Eighteen percent of those employees are currently Chinese-born. It's not clear how many of them literally came as college or graduate students, but at a moment when the U.S. is locked in a tech race with China, kicking out Chinese students strikes many industry observers as an ill-timed own goal. 'This is, frankly, going to play into the Chinese's hands,' Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told POLITICO. 'They're going to ramp up the research and teaching quality of their universities even more, so that in 10 years even if we were begging them to send their students, they're going to say, 'Nah, we're not going to do that.' ' But the tech industry is — so far — largely keeping quiet about the policy. Of the numerous Big Tech companies and affiliated groups contacted by POLITICO in the wake of Rubio's announcement, almost none were willing to go on the record Thursday. Meta, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia formally declined to comment. Tesla, Amazon and Apple didn't respond to POLITICO's emails. Their silence speaks to the political squeeze that the industry finds itself in after largely accommodating itself to Trump — and even, for many leaders, pledging their explicit support for the president. The argument over foreign tech workers began to stir up drama between the MAGA and techie wings of the GOP before Trump even took office for the second time. In the months between the election and Jan. 20, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon — both Trump supporters — found themselves embroiled in a high-profile public debate over H1-B visas, which allow companies to bring high-skilled workers to the United States. Musk, a champion of the visas, argued that although flawed, the program was necessary to compete with China and other high-tech nations; Bannon argued in nationalist terms that the program should be abolished entirely in favor of nurturing homegrown talent. The visa move looks like another win for the Bannon wing. DFD reached out to influential voices in the right-leaning parts of the tech world — thinkers and investors who had supported Trump as a vehicle for accelerating American competitiveness. Like the Big Tech firms, they wanted no part of this conversation. Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm whose employees pepper the Trump administration and whose 'American Dynamism' portfolio emphasizes a high-tech, pro-industrial vision of state capacity, simply pointed POLITICO to a blog post about 'talent' that made no mention of student visas or foreign workers. Julius Krein, the conservative policy wonk who argues for a strong government hand in building competitive national industries, declined to comment, telling DFD it's 'not really an issue I have any meaningful insight on.' The Foundation for American Innovation declined to comment beyond pointing DFD to an essay by senior fellow Dan Lips promoting broad reforms to the student visa program. One industry figure who did weigh in: Josh Wolfe, partner and co-founder at venture capital firm Lux Capital, who called the visa policy shortsighted — and, like Atkinson, saw it as something of a gift to China. 'If we make it harder for the world's best minds to stay and build here, we're not just stifling startups, we're underwriting our competitors,' he said. 'Talent is national security. We should act like it.' The Bannonite contingent within the Republican Party has the advantage of a very simple message: Jobs in America should go to Americans, tech or otherwise. But the economic and geopolitical reality the country's biggest industries have to navigate isn't quite that simple. Americans, at least for now, are not qualified to do many of the jobs required to meet the administration's goal of besting China on the world stage. 'China graduates over 50 percent of the world's AI undergrads,' said Wolfe, whose firm invests in AI companies, 'and America's share of international students has dropped from 23 percent to 15 percent over two decades. That's less a statistic and more like strategic surrender.' China has four times the population of the United States, and a massive advantage when it comes to STEM education. According to a report from research firm fDi Intelligence, China graduated more STEM PhDs than the United States starting in 2007, and doubled the American number by 2022. Chinese industry is making huge strides in AI and microchip development, not to mention other fields like advanced biotech. With that background, it's not just policy wonks who are concerned about the Trump administration's hard-line nationalist policies putting America on its back foot. Though he didn't weigh in Thursday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — whose company produces the advanced microchips at the center of an ongoing trade war with China — warned Jim Cramer in a recent interview that China is 'filling the gap we left and growing exponentially.' 'The only way we have a real chance at keeping up here is by using our advantage that we don't have to just rely on people here, we can rely on the best and brightest from around the world,' the IFP's Neufeld said. 'It's disappointing people aren't willing to talk about this,' he said. 'We need a balanced approach if we're not going to just forfeit the technological competition.' Anthony Adragna, Daniella Cheslow, Gabby Miller and Christine Mui contributed to this report.
Politico
3 days ago
- Business
- Politico
On Chinese student visa rollback, MAGA scores another victory over tech
The Trump administration's move Wednesday night to revoke Chinese students' visas created another political headache for a powerful industry already struggling to deal with the White House's barrage of changes to trade and visa policies. Although the announcement was light on details, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Wednesday that the U.S. will 'aggressively revoke' visas for Chinese students, singling out students 'studying in critical fields.' Computer science, math and engineering top the list of subjects that Chinese students study in the U.S. — areas that could well be in the crosshairs of national security concerns. They're also of central importance to the tech industry, which relies enormously on foreign-born talent. 'This is not just going after one of 10 different pathways into the U.S.,' Jeremy Neufeld, director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, told DFD. 'It's going after the primary way that we are recruiting talent, and it is going to significantly reduce the amount of talent that we are able to recruit.' A remarkable 70 percent of Silicon Valley's highly educated tech employees are from overseas, according to a recent study from a regional think tank — and of that group, China supplies more than any country except India. Eighteen percent of those employees are currently Chinese-born. It's not clear how many of them literally came as college or graduate students, but at a moment when the U.S. is locked in a tech race with China, kicking out Chinese students strikes many industry observers as an ill-timed own goal. 'This is, frankly, going to play into the Chinese's hands,' Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told POLITICO. 'They're going to ramp up the research and teaching quality of their universities even more, so that in 10 years even if we were begging them to send their students, they're going to say, 'Nah, we're not going to do that.' ' But the tech industry is — so far — largely keeping quiet about the policy. Of the numerous Big Tech companies and affiliated groups contacted by POLITICO in the wake of Rubio's announcement, almost none were willing to go on the record Thursday. Meta, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia formally declined to comment. Tesla, Amazon and Apple didn't respond to POLITICO's emails. Their silence speaks to the political squeeze that the industry finds itself in after largely accommodating itself to Trump — and even, for many leaders, pledging their explicit support for the president. The argument over foreign tech workers began to stir up drama between the MAGA and techie wings of the GOP before Trump even took office for the second time. In the months between the election and Jan. 20, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon — both Trump supporters — found themselves embroiled in a high-profile public debate over H1-B visas, which allow companies to bring high-skilled workers to the United States. Musk, a champion of the visas, argued that although flawed, the program was necessary to compete with China and other high-tech nations; Bannon argued in nationalist terms that the program should be abolished entirely in favor of nurturing homegrown talent. The visa move looks like another win for the Bannon wing. DFD reached out to influential voices in the right-leaning parts of the tech world — thinkers and investors who had supported Trump as a vehicle for accelerating American competitiveness. Like the Big Tech firms, they wanted no part of this conversation. Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm whose employees pepper the Trump administration and whose 'American Dynamism' portfolio emphasizes a high-tech, pro-industrial vision of state capacity, simply pointed POLITICO to a blog post about 'talent' that made no mention of student visas or foreign workers. Julius Krein, the conservative policy wonk who argues for a strong government hand in building competitive national industries, declined to comment, telling DFD it's 'not really an issue I have any meaningful insight on.' The Foundation for American Innovation declined to comment beyond pointing DFD to an essay by senior fellow Dan Lips promoting broad reforms to the student visa program. One industry figure who did weigh in: Josh Wolfe, partner and co-founder at venture capital firm Lux Capital, who called the visa policy shortsighted — and, like Atkinson, saw it as something of a gift to China. 'If we make it harder for the world's best minds to stay and build here, we're not just stifling startups, we're underwriting our competitors,' he said. 'Talent is national security. We should act like it.' The Bannonite contingent within the Republican Party has the advantage of a very simple message: Jobs in America should go to Americans, tech or otherwise. But the economic and geopolitical reality the country's biggest industries have to navigate isn't quite that simple. Americans, at least for now, are not qualified to do many of the jobs required to meet the administration's goal of besting China on the world stage. 'China graduates over 50 percent of the world's AI undergrads,' said Wolfe, whose firm invests in AI companies, 'and America's share of international students has dropped from 23 percent to 15 percent over two decades. That's less a statistic and more like strategic surrender.' China has four times the population of the United States, and a massive advantage when it comes to STEM education. According to a report from research firm fDi Intelligence, China graduated more STEM PhDs than the United States starting in 2007, and doubled the American number by 2022. Chinese industry is making huge strides in AI and microchip development, not to mention other fields like advanced biotech. With that background, it's not just policy wonks who are concerned about the Trump administration's hard-line nationalist policies putting America on its back foot. Though he didn't weigh in Thursday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — whose company produces the advanced microchips at the center of an ongoing trade war with China — warned Jim Cramer in a recent interview that China is 'filling the gap we left and growing exponentially.' 'The only way we have a real chance at keeping up here is by using our advantage that we don't have to just rely on people here, we can rely on the best and brightest from around the world,' the IFP's Neufeld said. 'It's disappointing people aren't willing to talk about this,' he said. 'We need a balanced approach if we're not going to just forfeit the technological competition.' Anthony Adragna, Daniella Cheslow, Gabby Miller and Christine Mui contributed to this report.
Politico
3 days ago
- Business
- Politico
On Chinese student visas, MAGA scores another victory over tech
With help from Daniella Cheslow, Gabby Miller and Christine Mui The Trump administration's move Wednesday night to revoke Chinese students' visas created another political headache for a powerful industry already struggling to deal with the White House's barrage of changes to trade and visa policies. Although the announcement was light on details, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared today that the U.S. will 'aggressively revoke' visas for Chinese students, singling out students 'studying in critical fields.' Computer science, math and engineering top the list of subjects that Chinese students study in the U.S. — areas that could well be in the crosshairs of national security concerns. They're also of central importance to the tech industry, which relies enormously on foreign-born talent. 'This is not just going after one of 10 different pathways into the U.S.,' Jeremy Neufeld, director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, told DFD. 'It's going after the primary way that we are recruiting talent, and it is going to significantly reduce the amount of talent that we are able to recruit.' A remarkable 70 percent of Silicon Valley's highly educated tech employees are from overseas, according to a recent study from a regional think tank — and of that group, China supplies more than any country except India. Eighteen percent of those employees are currently Chinese-born. It's not clear how many of them literally came as college or graduate students, but at a moment when the U.S. is locked in a tech race with China, kicking out Chinese students strikes many industry observers as an ill-timed own goal. 'This is, frankly, going to play into the Chinese's hands,' Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told POLITICO. 'They're going to ramp up the research and teaching quality of their universities even more, so that in 10 years even if we were begging them to send their students, they're going to say, 'Nah, we're not going to do that.' ' But the tech industry is — so far — largely keeping quiet about the policy. Of the numerous Big Tech companies and affiliated groups contacted by POLITICO in the wake of Rubio's announcement, almost none were willing to go on the record today. Meta, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia formally declined to comment. Tesla, Amazon and Apple didn't respond to POLITICO's emails. Their silence speaks to the political squeeze that the industry finds itself in after largely accommodating itself to Trump — and even, for many leaders, pledging their explicit support for the president. The argument over foreign tech workers began to stir up drama between the MAGA and techie wings of the GOP before Trump even took office for the second time. In the months between the election and Jan. 20, Elon Musk and Steve Bannon — both Trump supporters — found themselves embroiled in a high-profile public debate over H1-B visas, which allow companies to bring high-skilled workers to the United States. Musk, a champion of the visas, argued that although flawed, the program was necessary to compete with China and other high-tech nations; Bannon argued in nationalist terms that the program should be abolished entirely in favor of nurturing homegrown talent. The visa move looks like another win for the Bannon wing. Today, DFD reached out to influential voices in the right-leaning parts of the tech world — thinkers and investors who had supported Trump as a vehicle for accelerating American competitiveness. Like the Big Tech firms, they wanted no part of this conversation. Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm whose employees pepper the Trump administration and whose 'American Dynamism' portfolio emphasizes a high-tech, pro-industrial vision of state capacity, simply pointed POLITICO to a blog post about 'talent' that made no mention of student visas or foreign workers. Julius Krein, the conservative policy wonk who argues for a strong government hand in building competitive national industries, declined to comment, telling DFD it's 'not really an issue I have any meaningful insight on.' The Foundation for American Innovation declined to comment beyond pointing DFD to an essay by senior fellow Dan Lips promoting broad reforms to the student visa program. One industry figure who did weigh in: Josh Wolfe, partner and co-founder at venture capital firm Lux Capital, who called the visa policy shortsighted — and, like Atkinson, saw it as something of a gift to China. 'If we make it harder for the world's best minds to stay and build here, we're not just stifling startups, we're underwriting our competitors,' he said. 'Talent is national security. We should act like it.' The Bannonite contingent within the Republican Party has the advantage of a very simple message: Jobs in America should go to Americans, tech or otherwise. But the economic and geopolitical reality the country's biggest industries have to navigate isn't quite that simple. Americans, at least for now, are not qualified to do many of the jobs required to meet the administration's goal of besting China on the world stage. 'China graduates over 50 percent of the world's AI undergrads,' said Wolfe, whose firm invests in AI companies, 'and America's share of international students has dropped from 23 percent to 15 percent over two decades. That's less a statistic and more like strategic surrender.' China has four times the population of the United States, and a massive advantage when it comes to STEM education. According to a report from research firm fDi Intelligence, China graduated more STEM PhDs than the United States starting in 2007, and doubled the American number by 2022. Chinese industry is making huge strides in AI and microchip development, not to mention other fields like advanced biotech. With that background, it's not just policy wonks who are concerned about the Trump administration's hard-line nationalist policies putting America on its back foot. Though he didn't weigh in today, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — whose company produces the advanced microchips at the center of today's trade wars with China —- warned Jim Cramer in a recent interview that China is 'filling the gap we left and growing exponentially.' 'The only way we have a real chance at keeping up here is by using our advantage that we don't have to just rely on people here, we can rely on the best and brightest from around the world,' the IFP's Neufeld said. 'It's disappointing people aren't willing to talk about this,' he said. 'We need a balanced approach if we're not going to just forfeit the technological competition.' Daniella Cheslow, Gabby Miller and Christine Mui contributed to this report. a new face at lpo A former bitcoin miner now has a prominent perch at the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office. E&E News' Brian Dabbs reported today that Greg Beard, an energy investor who ran Stronghold Digital Mining until March, is now a top-ranking political appointee at the LPO. The office provides loans for energy infrastructure projects, and wonks across the political spectrum are trying to save it from congressional budget cuts. With Beard onboard, the LPO has reached out to Bank of America to assess the market value of billions of dollars worth of DOE loans — which some staffers say is a potential move toward selling them and downsizing the office. Brian also reports that Beard has been discussed as a replacement to current LPO acting Director Lane Genatowski, a DOE veteran. openai turns up the heat OpenAI wants to scrutinize a nonprofit it suspects is tied to Elon Musk and his challenge to the company's corporate restructuring. POLITICO's Chase DiFeliciantonio reported for Pro subscribers Wednesday on a subpoena OpenAI sent earlier this month to the Coalition for Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit Integrity demanding to know more about the group's funding and any potential ties to Musk. CANI has argued money OpenAI has accrued for nonprofit purposes should be used as such, and also backed a California bill that threatened OpenAI's restructuring plans. Becky Warren, a spokesperson for CANI, called the subpoena part of OpenAI's 'bullying tactics,' and has asserted that it's a grassroots group not funded by Musk. post of the day THE FUTURE IN 5 LINKS Stay in touch with the whole team: Derek Robertson (drobertson@ Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@ Steve Heuser (sheuser@ Nate Robson (nrobson@ and Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Detroit Fire medics honored after saving man during cardiac arrest
The Brief Two members of Detroit Fire were honored with the Lifesaver of the Year Award Tuesday. Chris Photiades and Samuel Lemire received the awards for saving a man in cardiac arrest. Their patient, Micah Parker, was on hand to thank them after being considered clinically dead. DETROIT (FOX 2) - A journeyman mason was on hand as the two Detroit Fire medics were honored for bringing him back from the brink on Tuesday. The backstory Every day is a second chance for Micah Parker. Today it was another chance for him to say thanks. "I see this guy every day from the memories," he said. Parker is talking about Detroit Firefighter Paramedic Chris Photiades. "We're responding to a different call and we were rerouted from a different call to this one," he said. The DFD Medic Crew was just in time to arrive at Mann Elementary School in Detroit. "When we got there we saw the patient, his union brothers were doing CPR on him," said Photiades. Parker, who was working as a journeyman mason, had suffered cardiac arrest and was clinically dead. "It was very tense. We recognized immediately that we needed to fire all cylinders when working on this guy," said Samuel Lemire, DFD firefighter. "We lowered him down on the ground, cut his shirt off, started CPR on him, threw the defibrillator pads on him," said Photiades. And then finally - there was a sign of life. "Between us and his union brothers, Engine Company 55, we all worked together to bring him back from the dead, literally," said Photiades. FOX 2 first met Parker last November when he met with his union brothers, medics and DMC Sinai Grace Hospital staff to say thank you. "I'm just happy that I am really able to talk about all this," he said, then. Fast-forward to EMS Week 2025 and Parker showed his appreciation while the two medics received the Kim Lagerquist Lifesaver of the Year Award from the Detroit East Medical Control Authority. Related: Union-required CPR training saves member's life on Detroit job site "Every day members go above and beyond, but for some cases, they just really need that extra recognition," said Chuck Simms, DFD executive fire commissioner. Everyone involved in this life-saving story say you, too, can be a hero, and it starts with learning hands-only CPR "You not knowing CPR could be the difference between someone living or dying around you," "It's two to three hours out of your day for a lifetime of knowledge that could save your life, or someone you love," said Photiades. The Source Information for this story came from a previous report and Tuesday's award ceremony.
