Hawai'i Fires, Rising Inflation, Wegovy Clinical Trial
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Hawaii tenant governor says wildfires have now killed at least thirty six people .

and forced thousands to flee. The fire spread so rapidly, some people try to evy them .

by leaving into the pacific ocean. This is up first from N. P.

R. news. The labor department releases new inflation numbers today. Analysts expect to see inflation trending in the wrong direction for the first time in a year. So what's driving that increase?

And the pharmaceutical giant novo notice is promoting a popular weight loss medication. Vigo vi is said to help with heart disease too, but it's very expensive. So the company is lobbying congress to get IT covered by medicare.

Why are weight loss drugs currently banned from federal insurance? Stay with us. We've got the news. You need to .

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Authorities in hawaii have reported a higher death toll from wildfires.

The routine ic governor says at least thirty six people are dead from the fast moving fires on mali. The town of the hana is mostly destroyed and fires continue burning .

hawaii public radios. Bill dorma comes to us from honolulu. Their bill.

hello.

How do thank you? What do people they are think about when they think of the town of lehner?

You know, how is a beautiful spot on the west side of mali island? It's tucked between the west mali mountains and the pacific goal right on the water. It's a beautiful place for sunsets, and it's really is a place of tremendous hawaii history in the early eighteen hundreds that was the capital of the haien kingdom.

Few years after that, IT became one of the real centres of hawaii whaling industry, which, long before tourism as a commercial motor here, here cross these days of popular tourist attraction, especially the street lining the dock at the edge of the harbor front street. It's also got a lot of woods there, wooden buildings, wooden dogs. And right now, that's that's history that in many cases, burned to the ground in charge.

Well, we heard from sylvia lu, ta governor hawaii, that SHE tour the area by helicopter. Here's some of what he told us .

or destroyed businesses or destroyed IT just looks .

like the whole town stop into asia.

Bill.

as someone who's been to aha, what goes through your mind when you see these images and videos?

Yeah, heartbreak is a word that's used a lot, but I just seen the pictures of the helicopter. It's really it's devastating, the charred ruins. One of the problems also just in in getting precise information really from this area on the extended that and what that means in human terms.

Power and phone service have both been down in west mail. They're still down a landline and cell phones service. And while there fears the casually numbers will climb, mention the latest numbers.

now. Injuries also reported people hospitalized for smoke inhalation and burns. Some of these folks have been evacuated to hospitals in hotel lula. And people across the state really are are feeling the pain of the folks in mind.

We mentioned the death toll thirty six as of now. What are some of the other numbers that you have that give some shape to this disaster?

Yeah, it's really still developing. But one area that that were turning to now is the people who are leaving. Now these are visitors, their tourists, also residents there. The hoigh convention, somewhere here in the hood, has been turned into emergency shelter of sorts. They say they're prepared to handle two thousand, potentially lift to four thousand people if needed.

State transportation director in the news conference said about to eleven thousand visitors left mali wednesday, some going home, some going out, where in the state another six hundred people are staying overnight at the main mali airport for early morning flights. Specials expect me. Another fifteen hundred people are so live mary today.

Are people surprised that a wild fire like this would strike? And why?

Know how? What he does have wildfires. They're part of us.

Seasonal realities here. IT gets hurricanes. That that combination is unusual. Not in resident, have an on now in a while hooo in twenty eighteen.

But that combination is dangerous because not just the the high winds spreading the flames, but those storms dry out the atmosphere. So thank the fires. More fuel to burn.

Bill darmon with whi public radio.

Thanks so much for the update. thanks.

Inflation has been falling steadily over the last year, but that streak appears to have broken.

The labor department is said deliver its cost of living report for the months of july, and forecasters expect IT will show inflation heading in the wrong .

direction and r. Scott horriston joins this, whether inflation goes up or down, Scotty, morning morning. If we get an official increase.

what's behind IT? It's partly just math. Prices were flat last july, zed. So any increase in Price between june, july this year would raise the annual inflation rate. Energy Prices are also a factor. A gasoline Prices have been climbing in recent weeks, and while the average gas Prices still well below the record five dollar mark we saw last summer, pump Prices are once again putting upward pressure on inflation. A patrolling a madness Patrick han, who's with gas body, blames production cuts by side arabia for driving up the Price of crude oil well harder than usual weather on the gulf coast made IT harder for refineries to turn crude oil in.

The gasoline oil Prices finally broke out of their kind of well establish range and didn't get any help by some of the several days temperatures down and tax loy of the customised on the refining side.

and is not the only way sizzling summer weather is hitting people in their pocket books. Air conditioning bills are also likely be higher in many parts the country if the federal government does offer low income families some help with their energy cost. But mark wolf, who heads an association of state energy assistance officials, says most that money goes to help with heating bills in the winter. It's not really set up to deal with the growing Price staying cool in the summer.

They underlying parliament, they don't have enough money to run a year around program, and that's what we're concerned about. The program in the state rules are all, all around heating. They're not worry in around rising temperatures .

that may have to change if we have more hot summers in our future.

Scott, as you're talking, i'm remembering and event from a couple of days ago driving bus gestation, there was four ninety thousand. And why a minute that just seems like from some other time, is inflation likely though to cool off as we head into the fall?

Energy Prices could welcome down this fall. Electricity Prices are expected to drop as a result of flower natural gas Prices, and demand for gasoline typically dips once kids go back to school. Also amid september refinement, sich over the cheaper winter blend of gas. So the summer spiking gas Prices could be short lived to hz unless the tropical storm blows into the gulf, in which case all but are off.

That's the other wildcard. If we get hit by a hurricane that could pose problems not only for oil production at the time that the saudis are cutting back, think of all those reason, the gulf of mexico, but that also could really hit us on refining. And you can't make up for the last time.

Keep in mind, while gasoline Prices do packed a big psychological punch, they're actually a pretty small piece of the overall inflation picture. Gas accounts for less than three and half percent to the consumer Price index.

Okay, what's happening with the rest of their index?

If you strip out value, food and fuel Prices, so called core inflation, is projected to be about four point seven percent for the twelve months ending in july. That would be down a little bit from the four point eight percent we saw in june. We do expect to see a further drop in the Price of use cars, possibly decrease a new cars as well.

Now the federal reserve has been worried about the Price of services, things like getting your car fixed, going to denis, to the feds, concern that could keep inflation elevated. But service Prices have moderated in recent months and will find out this morning if that trend continued to into july. By the way, the feed's next interest rate decision will be in late september, so we'll have another month of pricing data before that comes.

okay. N, P, S, got horsey. Thanks so much. You welcome.

A drug company has been lobbying in congress to get medicare to cover its weight loss drugs.

Novo notice makes we go vy and olympic. They're very popular. And aside from weight loss, the company claims they may prevent heart attacks, too.

But for many people, the cost of those drug puts them out of reach. Many insurance plans do not cover them. And now the company is leaning on lawmakers to get these new weight loss drugs covered under medicare, the health care program for seniors.

Regina prodan from our partner K F. F. Health news is here to discuss this.

Good morning. Good thanks.

Why doesn't medicare cover these drugs?

Well, there is an explicit ban under federal law that says that medicare's prescription drug benefit cannot cover drugs that are used for weight loss.

I'd like to understand why there would be, because they seem obvious for many people in many health situations that losing some weight will be beneficial for them. So why would the federal law explicitly forbid that kind of drug?

Well, when medicare's prescription drug benefit was created in two thousand and three, we were living in a different time. Weight loss drugs that we're on the market were not nearly as effective as the new generation of drugs that we are seeing on the market now. And at that time, I was really fresh, I think, in lawmakers memory that there was some pretty major diet to debacle s that made lawmakers extremely sceptical about covering these drugs under medical.

So there was this environment twenty years ago when the law was passed. Now things have changed, or novo notice would like people to think so. Anyway, what are they doing to try to get congress to change this ban so that medicare would cover their drugs?

They are focused on the congressional black caucus and associations that are kind of affiliated with that caucus of lawmakers to community their message and get allies in their pursuit of this policy goal.

Does this include campaign contributions or what?

Well, certainly no notice. And other pharmacology companies give campaign cash to, uh, lawmakers regardless of political party. But they often times will sponsor panels webinars and give to these nonprofits that are associated with these different groups of lawmakers as a way to sort of bolster their advocate work, if you will.

This particularly bad, though, i'm thinking about studies that find that black americans do have certain kinds of health problems more often than other people, and that can include problems like heart attacks and strokes and obesity.

for sure. I mean, based on the body mass index, the B M, I, african americans have the highest rate of obesity in the U. S.

And so I think there's a reason why another notice would want black figures to be a part of its messaging on this. And IT is true that these drugs really do have significant benefit in that the weight loss experience among patients is very significant. However, as with anything in american medicine, you can separate cost from the benefits. And any drug, regardless of what IT is, has benefits but also has risks. And so I think that, that is the thing that needs to be baLanced, right, which is that you have to look at the bigger picture from all of these different factors.

Rota per down of K F F health news is covering a lobbying effort by novo nord sk for its weight loss drugs.

Thanks so much. Thank you.

And that's at first for this thursday, August tenth.

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