After months of speculation, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (known as CMS) has finally released the list of medicines that will be subject to the agency’s new price-negotiating powers. The list should give the public hope that — assuming legal challenges from drugmakers are defeated — the program could yield significant savings and […]
Ben Bragdon
Staff Writer
Ben Bragdon is managing editor of the Sun Journal. Prior to that, he was deputy managing editor for news at the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. Ben was previously editorial page editor for those newspapers and Central Maine Sunday for more than 10 years. Before that, he was managing editor for weekly newspapers at Current Publishing in Westbrook. He began his career as a reporter at the Piscataquis Observer in Dover-Foxcroft and editor at the Moosehead Messenger in Greenville. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Lisa Jarvis: Brain-to-text technology is about more than Musk
Two new studies published simultaneously in the journal Nature document a leap forward in the race to teach computers to translate brain signals into text. It’s an exciting development in a field that is attracting millions in investment, including to Elon Musk’s brain-implant company, Neuralink Corp. But to turn these discoveries into viable commercial products, […]
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Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: Vladimir Putin is no Bond villain. Supporting him is morally repulsive
The Embraer Legacy 600 jet that crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in Russia’s Tver region last week carried Yevgeny Prigozhin, the warlord and oligarch who headed up the Wagner Group of mercenaries and who in June defied Vladimir Putin’s orders to sign a contract placing his troops under Defense Ministry command. British and American […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Lisa Jarvis: Women are drinking more alcohol and it’s killing them
New data show that more U.S. women are dying from alcohol than ever before. Public health authorities need to adopt more effective strategies to help women realize when their drinking is a problem. Considering the many marketing messages pushing a “rosé all day” lifestyle, that campaign will be an uphill battle. But exposing the dangers […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: States should give rural families school choice
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will call a special legislative session this fall in hopes of joining a national trend toward expanding families’ K-12 options via school choice policies. Opponents claim that school choice will “destroy” rural school districts, but the available evidence says otherwise. Over the last 15 years, students in rural Texas have suffered […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: The March on Washington was more than a dream
Sixty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream turned the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom into a near-religious revival. King’s speech remains so emotionally powerful that we remember little else about that historic march and rally. That’s a shame, because the demonstration was so much more than a dream; it was […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
Our View: Rural police coverage needs better coordination
State police are pulling back on patrols in rural counties, putting pressure on local and county officials and leaving communities in the lurch.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Tom Waddell: Political agendas take aim at LGBTQ Americans
There is nothing wrong with being transgender. It is nefarious, bigoted religious and political agendas that cause the problems transgender people experience. Transgender and cisgender people (a person whose gender identity matches their sex given at birth) are the gender they identify as. Gender identity and sex are not the same. Sex is what you […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: The US bungled its COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Why no accountability?
Although the lion’s share of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the United States is over, Americans should embrace their inner Yogi Berra, who once observed that “it ain’t over till it’s over.” Indeed, a number of issues regarding COVID-19 remain active, including hundreds of thousands of patients potentially stricken with long COVID-19 and the mystery […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: Stop minor traffic stops. They are an excuse to randomly search cars — and can turn deadly
An enormous amount of police time and resources go into traffic patrol, in which officers pull over motorists for infractions as minor as a single nonfunctioning taillight. Traffic stops have become police surveillance tools, a pretext to search vehicles for guns, drugs or other goods that might be stolen, illicit or dangerous. Court rulings interpreting […]