Author: Reporter

Many states are failing to track how frequently children in foster care facilities are abused, sexually assaulted, or improperly restrained, leaving them vulnerable to mistreatment, the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said in a June report. The findings came as hotel heiress Paris Hilton headed to Congress to lobby in person on the problem. The report followed a Senate committee investigation that revealed children are subjected to abuse in foster care facilities around the country that are operated by a handful of large, for-profit companies and financed by taxpayers. States that are responsible for the...

Unexpectedly high medical bills are common in the United States, but there are ways to get relief. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, one in five Americans are affected by outstanding medical debt, for a total cost of $88 billion. In a 2022 study, the bureau found that roughly 20% of U.S. households report that they have medical debt, with collections appearing on 43 million credit reports. As of the second quarter of 2021, 58% of all bills in collections on credit records were medical bills. Medical debt affects households unevenly, too, according to the agency. Past-due bills...

In the name of consumer protection, a slew of U.S. federal agencies are working to make it easier for Americans to click the unsubscribe button for unwanted memberships and recurring payment services. A broad new government initiative, dubbed “Time Is Money,” includes new regulations and the promise of more for industries spanning from healthcare and fitness memberships to media subscriptions. “The administration is cracking down on all the ways that companies, through paperwork, hold times and general aggravation waste people’s money and waste people’s time and really hold onto their money,” Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser, told...

The world’s nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their nuclear weapons as the countries deepened their reliance on such deterrence in 2023, a Swedish think tank said in June. “We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War,” said Wilfred Wan, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s weapons of mass destruction program. Russia and its ally Belarus launched a second stage of drills in June intended to train their troops in tactical nuclear weapons, part of the Kremlin’s efforts to discourage the West from ramping up support for...