Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday the U.S. aerospace and defence company Raytheon had expressed an interest in joint production of Patriot interceptors, as Kyiv seeks to bolster air defences against escalating Russian ballistic missile attacks.
"I am grateful for the company's readiness to take our partnership to an even higher level, where Ukraine would co-produce, together with Raytheon, some of the most vital air defense assets – Patriot interceptors," Zelenskiy wrote on X in English after meeting a delegation from the RTX -owned company.
Ukraine has long called for help from its Western partners in building up supplies of interceptors to down Russian ballistic missiles and sought agreement on securing a licence.
U.S. President Donald Trump said during the NATO summit in Turkey this month that Washington would grant Ukraine a licence to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors.
Zelenskiy said discussions with the Raytheon delegation, led by Vice President Joseph DeAntona, also focused on "other areas of partnership regarding non-offensive military equipment."
Zelenskiy met U.S. ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker in Kyiv on Wednesday, with the discussion focusing on licences, and said he wanted "faster action and greater support" from Kyiv's partners.
https://www.aol.com/articles/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-raytheon-wants-173756000.html
Zevra Therapeutics wasn’t always a rare disease contender. Originally known as KemPharm, the company spent years focused on prodrug technology for ADHD and pain management. Recognizing that low-margin, high-volume primary care markets were a grueling battleground, management executed a bold strategic pivot: transforming into a specialized, high-margin rare disease commercial pharma.
President Donald Trump’s headline-grabbing revelation that China has stolen 220 million Americans’ voter records is only the tip of the iceberg.
But what a tip: Chinese Communist Party servers now contain detailed dossiers — names, addresses, phone numbers, party affiliation and more — on you and me and most registered voters in the entire country.
This treasure trove enables everything from covert voter profiling, microtargeting and psy-ops, to overt recruitment, identity theft and fraud.
America woke up to China’s cyber espionage in 2015, when we learned Beijing had hacked Office of Personnel Management computers, stealing detailed security clearance forms for 22 million Americans (including mine).
Cyberattacks on everything from our phone logs to our health records have only accelerated since; China probably now knows more about us than we know about ourselves.
But it gets worse: Beijing is after our kids, too.
Tens of millions of them use TikTok, which is accused of vacuuming up their personal information while simultaneously influencing them: China good, America bad.
If you wonder why your children oppose US actions in Iran, it’s because they’re on TikTok.
And who’d have thought agents of a hostile foreign power would have the chutzpah to become top aides to American governors, as Linda Sun allegedly did for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul?
Or to set up secret police stations on our soil?
We shut down the CCP’s Manhattan station in Chinatown, but other secret police stations — disguised as community centers or cultural associations — continue to operate here.
They’re watching over American citizens and permanent residents of Chinese descent, intimidating and harassing those who criticize Beijing’s might.
Pastor Bob Fu of Midland, Texas, is only one of many Chinese-Americans who have been targeted by China’s agents.
After he spoke out against the persecution of Christians in China, crowds of demonstrators surrounded his house, shouting death threats, until the FBI intervened.
China is unfazed by the loss of a secret police station here, or a highly placed agent there.
It continues to expand its efforts, run mainly through the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Works Department, to weaken and destabilize its chief adversary — the United States.
These efforts include the constant stream of Americans who, at China’s invitation and often on China’s dime, travel to the People’s Republic to be shown the wonders that “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” has wrought.
Many, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have returned from such political pilgrimages gushing praise.
American corporations doing business in China, and American universities taking millions in China-linked funding, are constantly pressured to promote CCP narratives and suppress criticism — and critics themselves.
Richard Gere’s Hollywood career took a major hit when he angered China by supporting Tibet.
And Stanford University parted company with me when my comments on China’s one-child policy so angered Beijing that it demanded I be “severely punished.”
United Front-linked groups operating in the US are so numerous that they specialize.
Some target state and local governments, others local Chinese-American communities, still others business sectors or key professions.
But the CCP is not content to play defense; it’s intent upon sowing societal chaos.
State-linked networks like Spamouflage Dragon impersonate Americans on social media to stoke divisions.
Other Chinese-controlled media, including newspapers and radio stations in the US, routinely post negative content about the United States.
It’s all meant to bend America to China’s will — suppressing criticism, capturing institutions and individuals and shaping perceptions and policies.
And to prepare for war: Why else are China-linked agents buying land next to our most sensitive military bases?
As it is, China regularly engages in out-and-out subversion.
During the Antifa riots of 2020, the Chinese consulate in Houston was shut down by the State Department after Chinese spies there had been caught recruiting agitators.
More recently, China-linked groups have been actively campaigning against data centers to hamstring American artificial intelligence and clear China’s path to AI dominance.
Chinese AI models — often connected to the PLA and trained on stolen American data — are already being used in predatory fashion, enabling China to vastly increase the sophistication, scale and speed of its hacking and cyber-espionage operations.
Allowing Chinese-made electric vehicles into the United States would expose us to rolling data-collection devices that could potentially be shut down, or even remotely controlled, from China.
In the age of AI, Americans are increasingly worried that Big Brother is watching them.
They must instead realize that the Biggest Brother of all is based in Beijing — and that its ultimate goal is not just to influence elections, but to defeat and destroy American democracy itself.
Steven W. Mosher is president of the Population Research Institute and the author of “The Devil and Communist China.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) released updated guidelines and evidence-based recommendations to help people reduce their risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
The guidelines apply to adults with normal cognition or mild cognitive impairment. They are intended primarily for healthcare providers, though they may help policymakers to support population-level interventions, the WHO said.
More than 57 million people have dementia worldwide and nearly 10 million people are diagnosed every year. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and is estimated to account for 60% to 70% of cases. In the U.S., the number of people with Alzheimer's disease exceeds 7 million.
Up to 45% of dementia risks can be attributed to modifiable risk factors like smoking, alcohol use, social isolation, physical inactivity, air pollution, or diseases like hypertension and diabetes, according to the WHO report.
"We know more today than ever before about what drives dementia risk, and these guidelines translate that knowledge into action," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said in a statement.
The document updates previous WHO guidance from 2019. They recommend behaviors and interventions like cognitive training, cognitive stimulation, and engagement in social activities. They include interventions to increase physical activity, stop tobacco use, reduce alcohol consumption, and adopt a healthy diet. They also feature new recommendations to reduce air pollution exposure, to consider dietary restriction interventions for adults with overweight or obesity, and to offer tailored multidomain interventions when needed.
Managing cardiometabolic conditions like hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol can help reduce dementia risk, the guidance said. Hearing aids may be part of risk-reduction strategies for some people.
The updated advice does not recommend vitamins B and E, omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, or multivitamin-mineral supplements to reduce risks of cognitive decline or dementia in the absence of a diagnosed deficiency, based on moderate-certainty evidence, the WHO said.
Menopausal hormone therapy also is not recommended for specifically reducing the risks of cognitive decline or dementia in postmenopausal women ages 65 and older, based on very low-certainty evidence. For women under age 65, there was not enough evidence to make a determination, the group pointed out.
There also was not enough evidence to make recommendations about whether improving sleep or managing depression would influence cognitive decline or dementia risk, the WHO said.
Many risks addressed in the WHO guidelines overlap with those found in the 2024 report of the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care, which showed that about 45% of dementia cases were potentially preventable by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors at different stages of life.
"The illness which is usually most feared by people is dementia," said Lancet Commission leader Gill Livingston, MD, of University College London.
"Health professionals are in the position to understand and communicate risk factors which each individual has and can change. This gives people choice and empowers them," Livingston told MedPage Today.
"Tackling risk such as physical inactivity or hearing loss improves quality of life immediately," she observed.
"In the longer term, some people will avoid dementia because of this knowledge; others will live longer in health and less long with dementia," Livingston added. "Some will still develop dementia but later. They must be offered care and support."
