NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A constitutional challenge to the Biden administration program enabling Medicare to negotiate lower prices for widely used prescription drugs was revived by a federal appeals court in New Orleans in a 2-1 decision Friday.
Congress created the program as part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022. The first 10 drugs targeted for negotiations were announced last year, and new prices, agreed upon last month, are set to take effect in 2026.
Friday’s ruling was handed down by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It does not derail the program, but the ruling sends the case back for further consideration by the Texas-based federal district court that tossed it in February. And it means the case is likely to wind up back before the conservative-dominated appeals court where opponents of President Joe Biden's initiatives often pursue challenges on issues ranging from abortion access to immigration to gun rights..
The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit is the National Infusion Center Association, which filed as a representative of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Global Colon Cancer Association.
Among their arguments is that Congress lacked constitutional authority to delegate Medicare pricing authority to an executive branch department.
The district court said the federal Medicare Act requires such claims to first be channeled through the Department of Health and Human Services. But 5th Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote that the claim was brought under the IRA, not the Medicare Act. Elrod, who was nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President George W. Bush, wrote on behalf of herself and Judge Kyle Duncan, nominated by former President Donald Trump.
In a dissent, Judge Irma Ramirez, nominated by President Joe Biden, said the lawsuit was properly dismissed and that the Medicare Act “provides the standing and substantive basis” of the National Infusion Center Association's claims.
The Department of Health and Human Services declined comment.
PhRMA released a statement applauding the ruling: “We are pleased the Fifth Circuit agreed that the merits of our lawsuit challenging the IRA’s drug pricing provisions should be heard."
The advocacy group AARP was critical of the lawsuit. “Any efforts to stop the drug negotiation program in its tracks risks the wellbeing of millions of older adults in the country who have waited far too long to afford medicine," the organization said in an emailed release.
FILE - Pharmaceuticals are arranged for a photograph in North Andover, Mass., June 15, 2018. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks about his administration's plans to protect Social Security and Medicare and lower healthcare costs, Feb. 9, 2023, at the University of Tampa in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more, Lebanese health officials said. It was the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months and came shortly after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets.
The Israeli military and Hezbollah said the airstrike killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior military official with the militant group.
Hezbollah said its attacks had targeted several Israeli military sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they said they’d struck for the first time.
In Gaza, Palestinian authorities said 15 people were killed overnight in Israeli attacks.
Israel maintains it targets only militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military had no immediate comment.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.
Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Here's the latest:
BEIRUT — Hezbollah announced the death of a top military official in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut Friday.
Israeli officials had earlier said the rare strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs killed Ibrahim Akil, a commander of the Lebanese militant group’s elite Radwan Force. The strike killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
In a statement, Hezbollah described Akil as “a great jihadist leader” and said he had “joined the procession of his brothers, the great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work, wounds, sacrifices, dangers, challenges, achievements, and victories.”
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. humanitarian chief told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that weaponizing communications devices represents a new development in warfare and said targeting thousands of Lebanese people using them without their knowledge is a violation of international human rights law.
Volker Türk called for an independent investigation of this week’s mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies that killed at least 37 people and wounding about 3,000 others. The attacks have widely been attributed to Israel.
“Those who ordered and carried out these attacks must be held to account,” he told council members Friday.
Türk said the explosions also appear to violate international humanitarian law’s key principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack. He said international law also prohibits the use of booby-trapped devices that look harmless.
“It is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians,” he added.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s mission to the United Nations called attacks this week in which thousands of devices were blown up “an unprecedented method of fighting in its brutality and terrorism.”
It said targeting thousands of people of different ages and in heavily populated areas “is an act of terrorism and a violation of international law and human rights and is designated as a war crimes.”
The mass explosions of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies on Tuesday and Wednesday killed at least 37 people and wounding about 3,000 others in attacks widely attributed to Israel.
Lebanon said the U.N. should hold an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in the Middle East and should condemn the attacks. It also said the U.N should stop Israel’s attacks to avoid “a destructive regional war.”
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry has raised the death toll from Friday's Israeli airstrike on Beirut to 14. Dozens more were wounded.
The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital flattened two apartment buildings.
The Israeli military said the strike killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday said that his administration must keep working at trying to win a cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas as tensions rise along the Israel-Lebanon border.
The president’s comments came hours after Israel carried out what it called targeted strikes near Beirut. The action is raising concerns that the nearly yearlong Gaza war could spread into a larger regional war.
“We are continuing to try to do what we tried in the beginning to make sure that both the people of northern Israel as well as southern Lebanon are able to get back to their homes and go back safely,” Biden said in an exchange with reporters at the start of a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
Asked if getting an agreement may be slipping out of reach in the final months of his presidency, Biden said he still had hope and that his national security team continues to work.
“If I ever said it wasn’t realistic, we might as well leave,” Biden said. “A lot of things don’t look realistic until we get them done. We have to keep at it.”
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military announced that its airstrike Friday on a neighborhood of Beirut killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah.
The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 60 others, according to Lebanese health officials, and flattened two apartment buildings. The Israeli military also claimed that its strike killed other “top operatives” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, without elaborating.
A Hezbollah official has confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building in the Dahiya district that was hit.
Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shortened a planned trip to the U.S. because of rising tensions with Hezbollah, according to an Israeli official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media on the matter. Netanyahu is supposed to travel to the U.S. ahead of a planned speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
The decision to shorten the trip comes as tensions with Hezbollah threaten to spiral into an all-out war, following an Israeli strike targeting a senior Hezbollah leader in a southern suburb of Beirut.
— By Julia Frankel
BERUIT — An Israeli airstrike hit Beirut on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 60 others in the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months.
The Israeli strike on Beirut’s crowded southern suburbs hit during rush hour, as people headed home from work and children left school. Local networks broadcast footage that showed at least two buildings completely flattened and the main street ravaged in Dahiyeh, just kilometers from downtown Beirut where Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group holds sway.
The strike came after Hezbollah pounded Israel with 140 rockets earlier Friday and tensions threaten to spill into all-out war.
WASHINGTON — The White House says a video showing Israeli soldiers pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from rooftops during a raid in the northern part of the occupied West Bank “deeply disturbing.”
An AP journalist in the town of Qabatiya witnessed three soldiers push the bodies off the roofs of adjacent multi-story buildings, sending them falling out of view.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that “it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behavior by professional soldiers” if the video is found to be authentic.
"We reached out immediately to our Israeli counterparts about it, and we pressed them for more details,” he said. “They have assured us that they’re going to investigate this, and that there will be proper accountability if it’s warranted. And we’re going to be very eager to see what the IDF investigation finds.”
The Israeli military in a statement called it “a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers,” using the acronym the military goes by.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration continues to hold on to hope that surging tensions between Israel and Hezbollah won’t escalate into all-out war following Israel Defense Forces air strike Friday near Beirut.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said he was unaware of Israel providing the U.S. any forewarning ahead of the operation.
“We still believe that there is time and space for a diplomatic solution,” Kirby said. “We think that that is the best way forward. War is not inevitable up there at the Blue Line. And we’re going to continue to do everything we can to prevent it.”
The Israeli strikes near Beirut followed two waves of deadly attacks earlier this week of hundreds of hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants exploding. The sophisticated sabotage operations are widely believed to be carried out by Israel.
The White House has declined to publicly comment on the electronic device attacks beyond saying the U.S. was not involved.
Palestinian authorities say 15 people were killed overnight in the Gaza Strip in multiple Israeli attacks.
An airstrike early Friday morning in Gaza City hit a family home, killing six people including an unknown number of children, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Another person was killed in Gaza City when a strike hit a group of people on a street.
In Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza City, another person was killed and several others injured when a vehicle was hit by an Israeli strike, the Civil Defense said.
Late Thursday, six more people were killed in a strike that hit a home in the center of Gaza City, while another was killed in Beit Lahya, north of Gaza City.
Israel maintains it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Israel's foreign ministry said Friday it submitted two legal briefs in response to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants against the country's leaders.
The court’s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders. One of them was since assassinated in what was believed to be an Israeli strike.
The foreign ministry said it has submitted two legal briefs challenging the court’s jurisdiction to arrest Israeli leaders and claiming the court did not provide Israel the opportunity to investigate itself before requesting the warrants.
“No other democracy with an independent and respected legal system like that which exists in Israel has been treated in this prejudicial manner by the Prosecutor,” wrote Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein on the social media platform X. He said Israel remained “steadfast in its commitment to the rule of law and justice” and would continue to protect its citizens against militancy.
Israel is not a party to the court. Rights groups say the country has struggled to investigate itself in the past. Netanyahu has brushed off calls for a state investigation into the failings that led to the Oct. 7 attack.
BAGHDAD — A leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia was killed Friday in a strike in Syria, a war monitor and a militia official said.
Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah group — which is different from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — said in a statement that Abu Haidar al-Khafaji was killed “while performing his duties as a security advisor in Damascus.”
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that a leader in Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah group was killed and another person injured in a drone strike on the car they were traveling in on the road to the Damascus airport.
An official with an Iraqi militia confirmed that a car carrying a group of militia members was struck in Damascus, killing one person and injuring three others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
There was no comment from Israeli officials on the strike. Israel frequently strikes Iranian and Iran-linked groups in Syria but rarely acknowledges the strikes.
Tensions have heightened in the region following a wave of apparently remotely detonated explosions in Lebanon targeting pagers and walkie talkies belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The attacks, widely blamed on Israel, which has not commented on them, killed at least 37 people - including two children - and wounded about 3,000.
— By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
BEIRUT — Israel’s military killed two Hezbollah members who were planting explosives along the border over the weekend, Israel’s military and an official with a Lebanese group said.
The official with a Lebanese group said the two members of the militant group were killed Sunday and their bodies were taken by Israeli troops because they were too close to the fence along the tense frontier. The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
On Thursday, Israel’s military released a video it said was taken by one of the fighters showing the militants coming under fire. The military said that the two fighters were killed by Israeli troops as they tried to plant an improvised explosive device near a military post.
In the days following the tense border interaction, thousands of devices exploded in different parts of Lebanon and Syria, killing 37 people and wounding around 3,000 others. The attack was blamed on Israel, and many of those killed or injured were members of Hezbollah.
Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.
Residents look on as rescuers arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A woman grieves during the funeral for three Palestinian militants killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mourners march during the funeral for three Palestinian militants killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mourners gather around the flag-draped casket of Israeli reservist Major Nael Fwarsy, one of two soldiers killed by a Lebanese drone attack on northern Israel, during his funeral in Maghar, Israel, Friday, Sept 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Ambulances arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
People stand on top of a damaged car at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Hezbollah members carry the coffin of their comrade who was killed when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Right-wing Israelis with relatives held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and their supporters, rally against a hostage deal, in Jerusalem, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. The placard in Hebrew reads: " To bathe in his blood." (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Houses are engulfed in fire as the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians duck for cover as the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Thursday, Sept.19, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
FILE - Hezbollah fighters carry one of the coffins of four fallen comrades who were killed Tuesday after their handheld pagers exploded, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)
