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Toronto Sun
18-05-2025
- Health
- Toronto Sun
Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer
Published May 18, 2025 • < 1 minute read Former U.S. president Joe Biden attends a Department of Defense Commander in Chief Farewell Ceremony at Joint Base Myers-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, on Jan. 16, 2025. Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images WASHINGTON — Former president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday. Biden was seen last week by doctors after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule was found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone. 'While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,' his office said. 'The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Toronto & GTA Toronto Maple Leafs Sports World World
Toronto Sun
15-05-2025
- Business
- Toronto Sun
Qatar's PM defends jet offer to Trump, says they'll withdraw if illegal
Published May 14, 2025 • 2 minute read In this Feb.15, 2025 photo, a Boeing 747 sits on the tarmac of Palm Beach International airport after U.S. President Donald Trump toured the aircraft. Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP Qatar's prime minister defended his country's offer of a luxury jet to President Donald Trump, telling CNN they would not follow through with the gift if it was deemed illegal and insisting it was not an effort to wield undue influence within the U.S. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account 'It is government to government. The transaction has nothing to do with personnel, whether it's on the U.S. side or on the Qatari side,' Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told CNN in an interview, asking why the country would seek to buy 'influence in the United States.' 'If you look just you know, in the last 10 years of the U.S.-Qatar relationship, Qatar has been always there for the U.S.,' he added. Asked whether Qatar would withdraw the offer if it was deemed illegal, Al Thani responded, 'Of course.' 'We will not do anything illegal. I mean, if there was something illegal there were many ways to hide these kind of transactions,' he added. The potential gift of a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar has sparked controversy in Washington, with critics from both sides of the aisle saying the offer would raise security and ethical concerns. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Trump has defended his administration for considering the offer, saying it would be a gift to the Department of Defense and a benefit to taxpayers, not to him personally. The president has said he would use it as a temporary replacement for Air Force One only while in office. Trump has long expressed disappointment with the current iteration of the presidential plane and with Boeing Co., which is working on delivering newer versions of the aircraft that have been delayed 'Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done,' Trump wrote in a recent social-media post. 'This big savings will be spent, instead, to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country.' Trump is in Qatar, the second leg of a Mideast trip. On Wednesday, the U.S. announced deals totaling more than $243.5 billion with the country as Trump looks to secure investment dollars from allies in the region. Those deals include plans for Qatar Airways to acquire as many as 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X aircraft for $96 billion plan. Toronto Maple Leafs Toronto & GTA Relationships Olympics Columnists
Forbes
10-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The FTC's Lawsuit Against Meta Is A ‘Reverse 1980'
The headquarters of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington, DC, November 18, 2024. ... More (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images) With its antitrust lawsuit against Meta, the FTC's goal is to force the sale of WhatsApp and Instagram, Meta's up-to-now most successful acquisitions. Wise minds inside the Trump administration will hopefully choose to drop a suit first introduced during by a Biden administration reflexively disdainful of big. While the economic boom of the 1980s is frequently explained as a reversal of the high-tax, inflationary economic policies that prevailed in the 1960s and 70s, arguably just as important to 80s prosperity was a relentless unwinding of lumbering conglomerates formed in the decades before. It's something to keep in mind as April 14th (when the court battle is set to begin) inches ever closer. To clarify the errors underlying the FTC's actions, it's useful to remember the accepted wisdom of the 60s and 70s, that large corporations should grow ever larger through the purchase of all sorts of businesses unrelated to a corporation's existing mission or management know-how. A largely flat Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1966 to 1982 exists to this day as a market signal that investors weren't much impressed by the conglomerate craze. The good news is that markets invariably correct course, and in the 1980s they did just that. Conventional business wisdom from the 1960s and 70s was rejected in resounding fashion as intrepid investors bought the conglomerates with an eye on liberating the undermanaged and underutilized businesses under their control. While critics referred to the proliferation of hostile takeovers as a piece-by-piece selloff of 'Corporate America,' surging equity markets suggested something else entirely. Fast forward to the present, and Meta finds itself at odds with the FTC not because it spent blindly on acquisitions unrelated to its core mission, or outside its management scope, but because it did neither. What was still Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram in 2012, followed by $19 billion for WhatsApp in 2014. Nowadays a $1 billion purchase by Meta likely wouldn't rate a news story, while even $19 billion wouldn't mean much in consideration of Meta's $1.29 trillion market cap. It's a useful reminder that the FTC is taking Meta to court for the alleged offense of seeing the future of social media and global communications much better than the competition did. The previous truth can be found in what Meta initially paid for the businesses that the FTC wants it to sell. If either acquisition had been a sure thing, then the prices commanded by both Instagram and WhatsApp would have been quite a bit higher. Which is why the Trump administration would do best by calling off a lawsuit that should never have been brought forward in the first place. Meta shows that 'big' isn't inherently bad as is, while the FTC's lawsuit would most 'succeed' in rewarding the very corporate behavior that markets so thankfully corrected in the 1980s
Forbes
09-04-2025
- Health
- Forbes
A Non-Opioid Pain Medicine Exists. Will The FDA Act?
Military doctors and other soldiers carry a wounded soldier to a UH-60 medivac helicopter some 60kms ... More northeast of Baghdad 06 May 2003. The military made dramatic advances in battlefield pain management during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images) Morphine has been the mainstay for treating pain since the Civil War. Although doctors recognized long ago that prolonged use of morphine can lead to addiction, nothing changed for 150 years. That's because there were no practical alternatives. The good news is that an effective non-opioid pain medicine exists. The bad news is that the FDA has not yet approved the medication's use for this purpose. Opioid abuse is ravaging families and communities across the United States. More than 81,000 opioid overdose deaths occurred in 2022, six times the number recorded in 1999. President Trump first declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017. His declaration was officially renewed in 2024. Although overdose deaths have declined somewhat in the past two years, they remain the leading cause of death among Americans aged 18-44. More must be done. Ketamine, an anesthetic, was first approved by the FDA 50 years ago. Its low cost and wide safety margin quickly made it a popular choice for surgery worldwide. The WHO classified it as an essential medicine in 1985. Recently, ketamine has also shown promise in treatment-resistant depression. Unfortunately, media coverage of that development, along with the rapid proliferation of 'ketamine clinics,' online prescribing and a celebrity death overshadowed another, equally promising use for ketamine: as an non-opioid alternative to treat acute pain. Ketamine's pain-relieving properties at doses far below those required for anesthesia have been recognized for years. And unlike morphine, ketamine tends to preserve blood pressure and breathing, even when administered to unstable patients. When the U.S. military entered Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, morphine was its primary drug for treating pain on the battlefield. It was soon supplemented by even more potent opioids, including fentanyl lozenges and hydromorphone. Near the end of the decade, growing concern about the opioids led military doctors to consider ketamine as an alternative. When used to treat wounded soldiers, ketamine provides excellent pain relief. Some who receive it report little or no recall of their acute event. Based on this success, the military developed guidelines for ketamine's use, trained its medics and corpsmen to administer it and supplied the medication to units deploying for combat. When word got out of the military's favorable experience, several civilian EMS services and hospital ERs started using ketamine 'off-label' to treat pain. Prescribing FDA-approved medications for non-FDA-approved purposes is more common than many people realize. Nearly 40% of U.S. prescriptions are written 'off-label,' according to the Congressional Research Service. A man is loaded into an ambulance after he was injured by one of two bombs exploded during the 117th ... More Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. (Photo by) Over the next several years, numerous clinical trials in civilian ERs and EMS services confirmed that low-dose ketamine works faster than morphine and is as safe and effective. Based on this evidence, five emergency care organizations, ten specialty societies endorsed its use to treat severe pain in emergency care settings. So did the military's Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care. Allowing medics and other emergency care professionals to administer small, fixed doses under medical supervision is safe. Using ketamine as a 'party drug' or to self-treat depression at home is not. On top of that, two heavily publicized deaths put ketamine in a bad light. Both involved highly unusual circumstances and much larger doses of ketamine than those used to treat pain. In 2019, Elijah McClain, a young, unarmed Black man, was violently tackled by three police officers, twice put in chokeholds, and pinned to the ground. When paramedics arrived shortly thereafter, they administered a large dose of ketamine for presumed 'agitated delirium.' Shortly thereafter, Mr. McClain went into cardiac arrest. The contract medical examiner retained for the case concluded that McClain's death was 'most likely the result of ketamine toxicity.' Four years later, a Colorado jury found both paramedics guilty of negligent homicide. In 2023, Hollywood actor Matthew Perry consumed a large quantity of ketamine and then climbed into his hot tub. Because no one was with him at the time, he drowned. Two months later, the L.A. County coroner ruled that Perry's death was caused by "acute effects of ketamine.' Drowning, along with coronary artery disease and concurrent use of an opioid, buprenorphine, were listed as 'contributing factors.' In contrast to the annual toll of opioid-related deaths, deaths due to ketamine are rare. CDC recently analyzed four years of data on fatal drug overdoses reported by 44 states and the District of Columbia. A total of 228,668 deaths were identified. Ketamine was detected among other drugs in 912 (0.4%) of these fatalities, listed as 'involved' in 440 (0.2%), and was the only substance involved in 24 (0.01%) deaths—an average of six per year. To put this number in perspective, overdoses with acetamenophen account for about 500 deaths per year in the U.S. Because the FDA has only approved ketamine as an anesthetic, manufacturers produce it in multidose vials of three different strengths. In high-stress emergencies, calculating the correct dose to withdraw from a vial takes time and increases the risk of error. This is why, for more than a decade, the U.S. military has sought FDA approval of ketamine to treat severe pain in combat and other time-urgent emergency care settings. If (or more likely, when) the FDA finally grants approval, military and civilian teams should be able to acquire prepackaged doses of ketamine or better yet, preloaded automatic injectors that will enable them to relieve the pain experienced by seriously injured patients more quickly and safely. Additionally, pre-loaded injectors are more difficult to divert than multi-dose vials. Food And Drug Administration headquarters in White Oak, Maryland. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty ... More Images) Rather than accept the large body of real-world evidence of the safety and efficacy of low-dose ketamine as an analgesic, the FDA wants additional studies done to pinpoint the best dose and to prove to its satisfaction that this battle-tested drug is effective at reducing or relieving pain. This will take time and money. If the FDA does not reconsider its position, I hope that the U.S. military quickly sponsors the needed research so its medics, corpsmen and doctors, as well as civilian EMS and ER staff, can reduce their longstanding reliance on morphine, fentanyl, and other opioid analgesics to treat severe pain.
Forbes
22-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Fed Holds Rates Steady—What It Means For Stocks
US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference after the Monetary Policy Committee ... More meeting, at the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC on March 19, 2025. The Fed paused interest rate cuts again on March 19 and noted an increase in economic uncertainty, as it navigates an economy unnerved by the stop-start tariff policies of US President Donald Trump. Policymakers voted to hold the lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, the Fed said in a statement. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images) On March 19, 2025, the Federal Reserve opted to keep its target for the Federal Funds rate unchanged at a range of 4.25% to 4.50%. The FOMC Statement began… Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. The unemployment rate has stabilized at a low level in recent months, and labor market conditions remain solid. Inflation remains somewhat elevated. The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty around the economic outlook has increased. The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate. Of course, Jerome H. Powell & his colleagues downgraded their collective real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth forecast to 1.7% (from 2.1%) for 2025 and raised their inflation projection to 2.7% (from 2.5%), but the Fed Chair at his Press Conference later that day had this to say in his opening remarks… The economy is strong overall and has made significant progress toward our goals over the past two years. Labor market conditions are solid, and inflation has moved closer to our 2 percent longer-run goal, though it remains somewhat elevated. Despite the Fed's relatively upbeat commentary, we understand that plenty of ink will be spilled over deciphering near-term movements in interest rates. However, history shows that stocks have delivered solid returns, on average, regardless of whether rates are rising or falling. In fact, data from 1954 to 2024 suggests that equities performed well in both high- and low-rate environments: Stocks entered correction (10% or greater decline) territory, based on the S&P 500, on March 13, 2025. While corrections happen every 11 months or so, on average, I understand that they can be disconcerting, especially as 'it is different this time.' Market Corrections (and 10%+ Rallies) Of course, it is different every time and market downturns are inevitable. I have always been of the mind that the secret to success in stocks is not to get scared out of them, and I think it should be reassuring to note that all previous trips south have been followed by an eventual sizable advance. Just since the launch of The Prudent Speculator in 1977, the S&P 500 has experienced 10% corrections 39 times, with an average loss of 17.83% during those periods in the red. However, each of those declines was followed by a whopping average gain of 40.69%! While economic concerns persist, history suggests that staying invested—especially in Value stocks and Dividend Payers—has consistently rewarded patient investors. The Fed's stance may shift in the months ahead, and stock prices will always be volatile, but long-term investors should remember legendary investor Charlie Munger's admonition, 'The first rule of compounding. Never interrupt it unnecessarily.' For those looking to hear more, straight from the horse's mouth, check out my recent Webinar: 3 Market Myths Debunked and Q&A. A replay of the event is available here: 3 Market Myths Webinar And the slide deck is available here:
