Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi will travel to Washington on Monday at the head of an official delegation after an official invitation, government spokesperson Haider al-Aboudi said in a press conference on Sunday.
“The agreements to be signed will include several memorandums of understanding in the oil and gas sector as Iraq prepares to bring in various US companies that will provide momentum to increase oil production capacity,” Al-Aboudi said.
Sunday, July 12, 2026
Iraqi prime minister to visit Washington on Monday; oil and gas deals expected
Doll-Heads Apparently Fooling Tesla FSD. Is Facial-Recognition Update Next?
Chinese e-commerce platforms are selling miniature heads that, according to Fred Lambert at the EV blog Electrek, are being used to "trick Tesla's cabin camera into thinking a driver is paying attention."
Priced at $20 to $50 and marketed as dashboard decorations or "travel companions," these miniature heads are mounted near the rearview mirror to mimic a human face while Autopilot or Full Self-Driving is engaged.
via Instagram user "decentmiss_" ...
While FSD is engaged, Tesla's cabin camera monitors driver attentiveness, including whether the driver repeatedly looks away from the road, and issues warnings when attention appears to lapse. Tesla requires increased supervision when FSD is in "Mad Max" or "Hurry" mode.
Videos of the miniature heads recently went viral on social media, suggesting that some users in China are employing them to trick Tesla's driver-attention safeguards.
Here is Lambert's first take:
Let me be direct: anyone mounting a fake head to defeat their Tesla's driver monitoring system is putting their life and the lives of everyone around them at risk. And the sellers profiting from these devices are enabling potentially fatal behavior for $30 a pop.
Over the years, drivers have used various defeat devices, such as counterweights attached to the steering wheel to trick the torque sensor into believing someone was holding it. Tesla countered that workaround with the cabin camera, but now must address the issue of miniature heads.
Related:
Tesla's fastest countermeasure would likely be an over-the-air software update that uses facial recognition of the driver.
Explosions reported on Iran's Abu Musa island
Local residents reported that two projectiles struck Iran's Abu Musa island, located in the eastern Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz entrance, the country's Mehr News Agency announced on Sunday.
The news outlet also shared that at around 8:30 PM local time, several more explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, an Iranian port city, following previous reports.
In addition, it was noted that the situation on Larak Island is completely safe, with no reports of attacks or incidents.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Explosions-reported-on-Iran's-Abu-Musa-island/66680262
Drone hits Iranian Kurdish opposition site in Iraq
A drone targeted the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in northern Iraq's Sulaymaniyah province, a media outlet with links to pro-Iranian militia groups, Sabreen News, reported.
No casualties have been reported, and there were no further details provided.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Drone-hits-Iranian-Kurdish-opposition-site-in-Iraq/66680297
IDF claims it hit weapons manufacturing site in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday that its troops targeted and dismantled a weapons manufacturing facility in Gaza City earlier today.
"The production site was attacked while several terrorists from the Hamas terror organization were operating inside it, engaged in advancing and executing terror plots against IDF forces and civilians of the State of Israel," the Israeli military said in a post on X.
Moreover, the IDF also claimed that Hamas members operated from this site to assemble components for weapons in an attempt to "restore the organization's capabilities."
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/IDF-claims-it-hit-weapons-manufacturing-site-in-Gaza/66680215
'KFF: Copay Assistance Is Meant to Defray Drug Costs. Some Insurers Keep It'
For 16 years, Larry Gruber, a fitness coach from Wilton Manors, Florida, received a coupon card to help him pay for a psoriatic arthritis medication he needs that costs more than $7,700 a month.
Each year, Amgen, which makes the drug, called etanercept (Enbrel), sent the coupon card worth thousands of dollars, and that counted toward Gruber's health insurance deductible and out-of-pocket maximum.
Using the card, Gruber usually met that maximum by February, leaving his health insurance to fully cover his in-network medical costs and reducing his cost for the drug to $0 for the rest of the year.
But this year, his new health insurer, Oscar HMO of Florida, pocketed the coupon card and required Gruber to pay for the drug until he satisfied the cost-sharing requirements on his own.
If Oscar Health had applied Amgen's coupon toward Gruber's cost sharing, he would have been on the hook for about $3,000 in covered services. Without it, he had to use his savings to meet the plan's $10,600 out-of-pocket maximum.
"The real insult here is that they're taking the money that's intended to help you," said Gruber, who had planned to buy a home next year with his savings. "I feel desperate, pressed against the wall, and squeezed."
Oscar Health is one of many commercial health insurers that use what are often called copay accumulator programs to keep funds that are meant to defray patients' out-of-pocket costs for expensive specialty drugs. Over the past decade, more insurers have adopted such strategies to reduce their prescription drug costs, according to Avalere Health, a consulting company.
Patients who rely on copay assistance from drugmakers are typically heavy users of healthcare for whom delays in treatment or worsening conditions can lead to higher costs, according to patient advocates.
Matt Choffin, Florida market president for Oscar Health, did not comment on the specifics of Gruber's case. He said the company uses copay accumulators to manage rising medical and prescription costs and "to keep monthly premiums as low as possible."
Drugmakers argue that insurers and pharmacy benefit managers use copay accumulators and other strategies to delay or deny care and steer patients toward medicines that insurers prefer instead. Insurers counter that coupon cards and other patient financial assistance from drug manufacturers drive up premiums and encourage patients to use higher-priced, brand-name drugs instead of less-expensive generics.
Meanwhile, patient advocates say it's difficult for consumers to find out if their plan uses a copay accumulator or to understand how they work. Not only do the programs make medications unaffordable for consumers, critics argue, but they allow insurers to double-dip.
"They're collecting the money twice and they're hurting patients," said Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, a patient advocacy group.
"Why does it make a difference to Oscar if they get the money from a drug company or, you know, his mother or him?" he said of Gruber's experience. "They're still getting the money."
Controlling Costs or Harming Patients?
Not all insurance types use copay accumulators. Medicare and Medicaid prohibit copay assistance because federal anti-kickback laws forbid drug manufacturers from offering financial incentives to influence patients' choices. And the Internal Revenue Service prohibits such help for high-deductible plans with health savings accounts. But individual and commercial group plans can use them.
Regulation of copay accumulator programs has fallen largely to states, which oversee individual and small-group plans sold on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace.
For 2026, nearly 40% of ACA marketplace plans have such a program, according to a review from the AIDS Institute, a nonprofit group that opposes the programs. Of the 16 insurers that sell plans on the marketplace in Florida, 10 use copay accumulator programs, the review found.
Patients who take brand-name specialty drugs for conditions such as autoimmune disorders, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, HIV, and cancer are most likely to encounter these programs. Health insurers say that making patients share the costs for specialty drugs encourages them to choose value over brand.
But Gruber doesn't have a choice because there is no medically equivalent generic for etanercept. Gruber's livelihood as a trainer depends on his athleticism. The weekly injections, which he has to take for the rest of his life, prevent his joints from getting stiff. When he was diagnosed in 2010, Gruber said, he couldn't shake hands or lift his knee to get into bed. Without treatment, he said, "I ache from my neck down to my toes."
If manufacturers priced their drugs affordably, patients like Gruber wouldn't need financial assistance, said Sean Dickson, MPH, a senior vice president for AHIP, a trade association representing insurers.
"Drugmakers offer short-term 'discounts' to justify overcharging Americans in the long term, driving up healthcare costs for everyone," he said in a statement. "Research shows limiting copay coupons can reduce premiums and lower consumers' out-of-pocket costs."
Sarah Ryan, a spokesperson for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade association for the pharmaceutical industry, said copay assistance helps patients access medications free of charge or at reduced cost.
"Health insurance is supposed to protect patients," Ryan said, adding that insurers and pharmacy benefit managers that refuse to count copay assistance toward cost sharing are "leaving patients facing unexpected costs and disrupting their care."
Insurance companies already have tools to control costs without keeping financial assistance intended for patients, said Rachel Klein, deputy executive director for the AIDS Institute.
Insurers choose what drugs to cover, whether they are medically necessary, and if a patient must try a cheaper alternative first.
"They are the ones making the decisions," Klein said. "Now the individual is left trying to figure out how they're going to pay for it."
Consumers Stuck in the Middle
Before moving to Florida in 2024, Gruber said, he had bought coverage on the ACA marketplaces in Illinois and Louisiana, which prohibit copay accumulators. Gruber said he hadn't encountered one until his experience with Oscar Health.
He complained to the office of Florida's insurance consumer advocate, which informed him that the practice is legal in the state and that Oscar Health had disclosed its use of a copay accumulator program. Page 127 of his 168-page evidence of coverage states, "Third party assistance will not count towards your out-of-pocket maximum or deductible."
Gruber said he selected his coverage using a tool on healthcare.gov that listed all the Florida ACA plans that cover etanercept. "I always choose the one with the highest deductible to get the lowest premium," he said, "because I know I'm going to meet it." His monthly premium is about $315 after subsidies.
Adding to Gruber's confusion, he said, was that his patient portal with Oscar Health was counting his coupon card at first. He said he met his out-of-pocket maximum in February, and in March Oscar covered all the cost for the medication.
But when he ordered his refill for April, the pharmacy told him that Oscar would cover only $1,000 of the medication's cost for that month. He would have to pay the remaining $6,700.
Gruber then received a letter from Oscar Health, telling him that an incorrect amount had been applied to his deductible.
"They sent me a letter that basically stated they made a mistake," he said. "The fact that they're allowed to sort of change things midstream is also, I think, a little galling."
He began rationing the injections, taking them every other week instead of weekly. By May, he had dipped into his savings to pay for the drug.
States Step Up While Federal Oversight Stalls
The first state laws banning copay accumulators were adopted in 2019, and since then more states have moved to regulate the programs, said Gavin Clingham, public policy director for the Alliance for Patient Access, an advocacy group.
"The goal is to build upon that progress at the federal level and to continue to drive this momentum forward," he said.
Twenty-six states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have adopted laws banning copay accumulators or prohibiting them for drugs that do not have a generic equivalent. Colorado also prohibits copay accumulators for drugs without a biosimilar. In states that have not banned or restricted the programs, insurance companies decide whether to use them.
But federal regulation of the programs, which would apply to all states, remains at a standstill.
A federal court in 2023 struck down a policy enacted during President Donald Trump's first term that had permitted insurers to use copay accumulator programs. As a result, HHS reverted to an earlier rule that restricts their use to brand-name drugs with a medically appropriate generic equivalent.
After the court ruling, the Biden administration pledged to address copay accumulators in future rulemaking. But HHS has yet to do so, said Schmid, whose group, the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, led a coalition of patient advocacy groups that sued to overturn the rule.
"The Trump administration can stop this once and for all at the national level," Schmid said. "If they really care about patient affordability, this is something they can do."
Bipartisan legislation in Congress called the HELP Copays Act would require financial assistance to count toward deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs on plans regulated by the federal government, including much employer-sponsored coverage.
Schmid said the bill has not gotten "enough traction on the Hill yet."
Other ways to obtain medication don't help patients facing copay accumulators either. The President's TrumpRx initiative, an online platform through which consumers can buy prescription drugs at a discount, requires patients to pay out of pocket, and the cost does not count toward their plan's cost-sharing requirements.
Christopher Krepich, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services spokesperson, said that HHS, along with the departments of Labor and the Treasury, intend to address the issue of whether copay assistance must apply toward health plan cost sharing.
Until then, he wrote, "the Departments do not intend to take any enforcement action against health insurance issuers or group health plans based on their treatment of such manufacturer assistance."
Outside of government regulation, consumers have few protections or alternatives.
Patients who rely on expensive medications -- and who have a choice in their health insurance plan -- should research their coverage options and choose wisely so they're not caught by surprise, Clingham said.
That may mean reading plan benefit explanation packages, contacting their state's insurance regulator, or calling an insurance company to ask if their plans use copay accumulator programs.
For Gruber, the extra expense means he won't take a vacation this year. He's also concerned that the money he was saving for a home will now go to his medication costs instead.
"It's the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning," he said. "If this happens every year, it would be financially devastating."
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/publichealth/122127
"The Same Monstrous Theme... Collectivism"
Ayn Rand was right when she wrote these words, and she is still right now.
“Fascism, Nazism, Communism and Socialism are only superficial variations of the same monstrous theme: collectivism.”
That is the part too many people refuse to understand.
These systems may use different slogans.
They may wave different flags. They may promise different futures.
One may speak in the language of nationalism, another in the language of equality, another in the language of compassion, another in the language of revolution.
But underneath the branding, the heart of the thing is the same.
The individual is pushed aside. The family is weakened. Faith is mocked or controlled.
Property becomes conditional. Speech becomes dangerous. And the State becomes the final authority over your life.
That is collectivism.
It always starts with beautiful promises. Free this, fair that, justice for all, power to the people. But somehow, every time, the people end up with less power and the rulers end up with more.
Why anyone would want this in America is beyond my understanding.
The only explanation that makes sense is that generations have been trained not to recognize the pattern. They were taught to hate capitalism, distrust liberty, and look to government as the answer to every problem. That did not happen by accident.
A free people cannot stay free if they forget what freedom is.
That is why this warning matters.
Rand was not saying these systems are identical in every historical detail. She was saying they all lead back to the same ugly principle, the group over the person, the State over the citizen, the collective over the individual soul.
Different heads.
Same beast.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/same-monstrous-theme-collectivism
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