“The Trump administration has added seven countries, including five in Africa, to the list of nations whose passport holders are required to post bonds of up to $15,000 to apply to enter the United States. Thirteen countries, all but two of them in Africa, are now on the list, which makes the process of obtaining a U.S. visa unaffordable for many. The State Department last week quietly added Bhutan, Botswana, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia and Turkmenistan to the list. Those designations took effect on Jan. 1, according to a notice posted on the travel.state.gov website. It’s the latest effort by the Trump administration to tighten requirements for entry to the U.S., including requiring citizens from all countries that require visas to sit for in-person interviews and disclose years of social media histories as well as detailed accounts of their and their families’ previous travel and living arrangements.” (01/05/26)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reducing the number of vaccines it recommends for children, officials said Monday, a major shift that officials say will bring the U.S. recommendations more similar to those of other developed countries. The move, which is effective immediately, fulfills a longtime goal of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other vaccine skeptics who have questioned the number and benefit of the vaccines children receive. The CDC will now recommend children receive 11 vaccines, rather than the current list of 17, putting it line with the much smaller country of Denmark.” [editor’s note: Right direction, for which RFK/MAHA deserve at least a golf clap – TLK] (01/05/26)
“Google has announced that Gmail will discontinue support for two key features regarding third-party email accounts. Starting in January 2026, the platform will drop support for ‘Gmailify’ and the widely utilized ‘Check mail from other accounts’ feature via POP3 fetching. For over a decade, power users have relied on Gmail not just as an email service, but as a central hub for managing diverse email identities. This upcoming update effectively marks the end of Gmail acting as a web-based email client for external POP3 accounts. The deprecation of Gmailify represents a loss of functionality for users who linked Yahoo, Outlook, or other IMAP accounts to get the ‘Google treatment.’ Gmailify bridged the gap between providers, applying Google’s advanced algorithms to third-party inboxes.” (01/05/26)
“The nation’s health department starting Monday can resume sharing the personal data of certain Medicaid enrollees with deportation officials, according to a federal judge’s ruling, in a blow to states that had sued the administration over privacy concerns. But the judge’s decision, issued last Monday, strictly limits the scope of data from the 22 plaintiff states that can be shared — for now only allowing the agency to hand over basic biographical information about immigrants residing in the United States illegally [sic]. The states’ lawsuit came after an Associated Press report identified the data sharing policy. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco comes after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it planned to share the data again as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.” (01/05/26)
“The first pill version of the blockbuster GLP-1 weight loss drugs has been launched in the US by Novo Nordisk at a lower cost than jab varieties, accelerating a price war in the sector. The Danish pharmaceutical company said on Monday that its once-a-day Wegovy pill, which received approval from the US regulator just before Christmas, was now available in the country. … the highest doses cost $299 a month. Patients with insurance pay from $25 a month. Matt Weston, a pharmaceutical analyst at UBS, said the price was lower than expected. US list prices for weight-loss jabs are about $1,000 a month or more, although Novo Nordisk started selling its Wegovy injection at $349 a month to cash payers in November.” (01/05/26)
“A U.S. judge on Monday rejected Amazon.com‘s bid to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the online retailer of price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic. … Consumers in the proposed class action claimed to suffer losses because Amazon failed to take steps to prevent sellers from using its platform to charge excessive prices.” (01/05/26)
“New regulations come into force on Monday in Britain banning daytime TV and online adverts for so-called junk foods, in what the government calls a ‘world-leading action’ to tackle childhood obesity. The ban – targeting commercials for products high in fat, salt or sugar – is expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets each year, according to the health ministry. The restrictions, which cover television advertisements before 9pm and all digital platforms, will cut childhood obesity cases by 20,000 and save the healthcare system £2 billion (US$2.7 billion), the ministry said. The implementation of the measure – first announced in December 2024 – follows other recent steps, including an extended sugar tax on pre-packaged items like milkshakes, ready-to-go coffees and sweetened yogurt drinks.” (01/05/26)
“The Trump administration is cutting off more than $10 billion in social services and child care funding meant for a handful of Democrat-led states, officials told The Post Monday. The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze taxpayer funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the Social Services Block Grant program. At least $7.35 billion in TANF money will be prevented from going to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. The CCDF funding block of $2.3 billion affects all those states except Colorado. Another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant coffers is being kept from all five states. The funding pauses were to be announced via letters to each state, citing concerns that benefits were fraudulently going to non-US citizens.” (01/05/25)
“A massive 535-pound bluefin tuna sold for a record 510 million yen ($3.2 million) at the first auction of 2026 at Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market. The top bidder for the prized tuna at the predawn auction on Monday was Kiyomura Corp., whose owner Kiyoshi Kimura runs the popular Sushi Zanmai chain. Kimura, who has won the annual auction many times in the past, broke the previous record of 334 million yen ($2.1 million) he set in 2019. … Due to the popularity of tuna for sushi and sashimi, Pacific bluefin tuna was previously a threatened species due to climate change and overfishing, but its stock is recovering following conservation efforts.” (01/05/26)
“Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats’ 2024 candidate for vice president, is ending his bid for a third term as governor amid President Donald Trump’s relentless focus on a fraud investigation into child care programs in the state. Less than four months after announcing his reelection campaign, Walz said Monday that negative attention and Republican attacks have contributed to an ‘extraordinarily difficult year for our state,’ making it impossible for him to serve full-time as governor while also being a candidate to keep his job.” (01/05/25)
