Fox News 2025-01-30 00:08:57


Tim Walz comes clean about the Harris campaign, election loss to Trump: ‘Pure hell’

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz said in a new interview on Tuesday that it’s been “pure hell” since his party lost the presidential election last November.

Speaking with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, the Minnesota governor was asked what advice he’d give to “average people” who oppose the agenda President Donald Trump has implemented since he returned to office. 

“You know that overused term, ‘The frog in the boiling water?’ We’ve been in the damn pot way too long,” Walz said. “I think it is speaking up. It’s thinking about your neighbors. It’s writing and putting those members of Congress – look, there is no spine among those folks – but this is real.”

Walz then offered some sympathy to exhausted Democratic voters.

“To the voters, I’m with this too. Everybody’s fatigued. Trust me, I get it,” Walz said. “It was pure hell, and the disappointment and the frustration, and I’m, you know, soul-searching – what could we have done to make the case? Because we knew this was coming. We knew the implication. And they’re throwing so much at us that we’re fatigued.”

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The Democratic governor went on to complain how the country spent three days debating whether billionaire Trump ally and Department of Government Efficiency co-founder Elon Musk, who he referred to “President Musk,” had given a “Nazi salute” at a Trump inauguration rally last week.

Of course he did, but that is a distraction from what, I think you said it, this is ‘game on’ stuff right here,” Walz continued. “And I am worried with these federal employees because look, they’re in a tough spot, that some of these folks, especially those that are doing good work around environmental concerns, around justice for people, around, you know, criminal justice reform, all of the things that make our society better.”

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“So I would tell people stay focused. Don’t take the bait on the distractions. Surround yourself with people who understand this, and recognize the things they went after today are basically a big chunk of what society does, and people like to have clean water, and hospitals, and safety, and roads, and airports, all the things that they are going after… We have to find that voice. We have to push back. We have to be organized,” Walz later added, discussing the pausing of federal grants.

Walz also urged Democrats to “use the courts” but expressed caution, suggesting Trump won’t care what the courts say even if his party took that route.

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“I think it’s taking it to the individual people. Show what each of these programs does and what it means for people’s lives,” Walz said.

“Yeah,” Maddow agreed. “No matter what people motivated anybody’s vote, if you didn’t think you were voting to cut firefighting, if you didn’t think you were voting to cut meat inspections, if you didn’t think you were voting to cut air traffic control, well it’s all becoming very, very clear right now.”

Maddow incorrectly asserted her one-on-one with Walz was his “first interview since the presidential election,” although it was his first national one. Walz spoke with several local Minnesota outlets in December after losing the 2024 race.

Troopers in difficult position as Obama-era prosecutor probes indefensible claims, union says

New Jersey State Police were facing accusations of racial profiling before a report revealed a sharp decline in traffic stops that coincided with a rise in crashes, some of them fatal.

Now they’re facing a special counsel investigation from the state attorney general’s office, leaving troopers in a difficult position as they try to protect the public as well as their own careers amid intense scrutiny that advocates see as anti-police. 

“If you enforce traffic laws, crashes go down. If you do not enforce them, crashes go up,” said Betsy Brantner Smith, spokesperson for the National Police Association who spent three decades on the job. “Accidents are largely created by a disparity in speed, and unless we want to admit that, then we’re going to fix it.”

State troopers were accused of profiling minority drivers in a report from the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability that looked at stops between 2009 and 2021. Then they were told by union leaders that every stop they made would go under the microscope, according to a New York Times report. For months, they made fewer stops than normal. 

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A subsequent drop in traffic stops coincided with an 18% increase in crashes, some of which took lives, according to the paper, citing public records. The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The American public is going to have to decide, what do you want? Do you want cops to enforce the law, or do you want somebody here to adhere to some sort of manufactured or false or politically correct policy when it comes to enforcing the law?” Brantner Smith said. “It is a very untenable situation for the troopers, and frankly, it’s an untenable situation for the citizens.”

Days after the Times report, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced an investigation into how the matter “was orchestrated” and vowed accountability.

“I am deeply disappointed that this well-deserved reputation for serving the public good has been tainted by the alleged and unprecedented slowdown in State Police traffic enforcement from approximately July 2023 to March 2024,” Platkin said in a statement announcing the special counsel probe. “I am particularly concerned that this slowdown may have coincided with increased crashes and fatalities on our roadways.”

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He appointed Preet Bharara, the Obama-era U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former lawyer for Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer, as special counsel overseeing the probe.

Bharara, in a statement, said he was “deeply honored” by the appointment and pledged to “conduct a fair and rigorous investigation.”

Platkin said the investigation would not interfere with cooperation between his office and state police, agencies that are often required to work together to fulfill their purpose. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The state report, which analyzed traffic stops between 2009 and 2021, accused troopers of “enforcement practices that result in adverse treatment towards minority motorists.”

Branter Smith, however, downplayed concerns of profiling leading to the stops. More than 60% of the people pulled over were White drivers. Just under 19% were Black and around 13.5% were Hispanic. 

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“Even during the day, when you’re sitting in traffic or you’re driving down the freeway, can you see the race of the person in front of you unless you pull up beside them?” she said. “And radar, when we’re talking about primarily speeding violations, radar doesn’t have a race setting.”

State police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Separately, state troopers were accused of giving preferential treatment to drivers who have friends and family in law enforcement, according to the New Jersey Comptroller’s Office. In about 27% of 500 traffic stops over a 10-day span in 2022, drivers who either showed a badge, a “courtesy card” or told the officer that they came from a law enforcement family were let go. The comptroller’s office also found that troopers ran “computer lookups” on Hispanic drivers almost twice as often as White drivers.

Brantner Smith likened the state reports and investigations to a backdoor campaign against police. 

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“The public knows this, undoubtedly, that the police have been cut off at the knees,” she told Fox News Digital. “This is just a very soft way to be anti-police. It’s almost a way to defund the police without defunding, without talking about defunding them, without making anti-police statements publicly.”

Despite the pressure campaign, she said criminal charges against state police as a result of the special counsel investigation seem like a long shot based on how the Supreme Court has ruled on what police are responsible for.

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“The most ridiculous part of this is the criminal investigation,” she added. “The most horrific part of it are these additional accidents.”

NFL star quarterback gives major backing to RFK Jr for HHS secretary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday on Capitol Hill as he looks to take over as President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been one of the loudest and proudest supporters of Kennedy, as he has been entangled in the political process, starting with the initial bid for president. Kennedy broached Rodgers to be his running mate during the 2024 presidential election – a moment that was captured on the Netflix docuseries “Enigma.”

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“Retire and go into politics or play two or three more years,” he said. “I definitely envisioned a life without football, and it wasn’t scary. I felt comfort in being able to move on at some point. But I love football. I want to keep playing. And I hated the way last year went. There’s still some unfinished business in New Jersey.”

Still, Rodgers was strong in his support of Kennedy.

He said on “The Pat McAfee Show” earlier this month that senators who were going to question Kennedy had better be ready.

“Like, please, somebody try and get after him and just watch him absolutely mop the floor with any of these senators,” Rodgers said. “You better come ready senators, come ready and try and see if you can pull one over on my boy, Bobby, because Bobby’s f—— smart, dude. And no notes, off the cuff, can handle his own pretty well, so excited for him to – and honestly so should everybody.”

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Rodgers touched on Kennedy’s initiative to “Make America Healthy Again.” The movement appeared to be kick-started this week when the Food and Drug Administration banned red food dye due to potential cancer risk.

“Like, if you spend a minute researching ingredients in products in the states compared to overseas, it’s disgusting,” the star quarterback said. “It’s disgusting what they allow here, the levels that they allow here, products that are terrible for you, products they know are carcinogenic. So it’s going to [be] as he’s doing a service to everybody if you just let him and get the hell out of the way and stop trying to label him as whatever the f— they want to label him these days. 

“He just wants to make sure that everything that’s being given to our kids is safe, everything that we’re ingesting on a day-to-day basis is safe, and he’s going to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ or is going to freaking die trying.”

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Rodgers has not made any more statements ahead of Kennedy’s hearing on Wednesday, but all signs indicate he will be watching.

Cartel bandits terrorize US railroads with high-stakes heists

The Sinaloa Cartel raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars stealing Nike shoes from a moving BNSF train in their latest railroad heist between California and Arizona, a pattern that has been on the rise, according to law enforcement.

Eleven members of the Mexican transnational criminal organization are in federal custody after stealing the merchandise from a train car traveling north of Phoenix with cut air brakes on Jan. 17, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) said in documents filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Arizona.

BNSF employees notified police after spotting a severed air hose on a cargo train near Perrin, Arizona. Railroad police noticed a box truck parked a few miles away and, later, several crates positioned near the tracks. 

Police said they stopped a Toyota Camry leaving the area of a Ford Econoline box truck and identified its occupants as Jaime Cota Peraza and Sadiel Martinez Soto. While the suspects were distracted, other authorities placed tracking devices into the waiting crates. 

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After authorities reportedly watched several people load the crates into the box truck, Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers tracked them to Kingman, Arizona, where they chased two men who they said were Erik Portillo Valdez and Noe Cecena Castro over some trees and a barbed wire fence.

The tracking devices led them to a Chevy Tahoe pulling the crates. Inside, authorities found 150 cases of Nike merchandise worth $202,500. 

Peraza, Soto, Valdez, Castro and seven other individuals were charged with felony possession or receipt of goods stolen from an interstate shipment. Nine of those suspects were in the United States illegally and six said they are Sinaloa natives.

Over the past two years, similar thefts have been on the rise, HSI said.

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“Once the organization targets a train of interest, they find a location for several burglars to get on the train,” the agency wrote in court documents. “The burglars open container doors while the train is moving and target merchandise such as electronics, tools and footwear.”

Cartel members look for cars with security locks and use metal-cutting saws, bolt cutters and other tools to steal the contents. In other instances, associates sabotage the trains’ signal systems by cutting locks on signal boxes and tampering with their wiring. 

Once the train has stopped, they use their phones to share their location with other cartel members who are driving box trucks or small trailers on nearby roads to pick up the stolen goods. 

“The suspects often cut the train braking system air hose, which causes the train to go into emergency stop,” HSI said in the court documents. “This act is very dangerous and can cause a train to derail, which could cause serious injury or death to railroad company employees or citizens.”

“This also is a dangerous act that creates ‘dark areas’ on the rail network. Trains travel at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour on multiple tracks east and west. Dispatchers and train crews rely on the signals for safe transportation,” the agency continued. 

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Typically, the agency said, the cartel sells its spoils on Amazon, eBay or other digital platforms or to amenable California retailers. 

Chris Swecker, the former assistant director of the FBI, told Fox News Digital that cartels have been robbing trains for at least a decade. 

“When I was an assistant director, we were dealing with this at that time. If you look back, there was an epidemic for a while, then law enforcement got a handle on it,” Swecker said. “What’s even more interesting is that when they do it, it’s almost like a retail theft where there’s no intervention during the time when it happens. Nobody comes in guns blazing trying to stop the theft.”

Michael Ricks, the metro Atlanta region director for the Georgia Gang Investigators Association, said train thefts are “a very lucrative activity for organized crime groups and cartels.”

“They can get hundreds of thousands if not over $1 million worth of merchandise to sell and launder through … one, two container hits,” he said. “So this is actually relatively common activity for transnational criminal organizations and cartels.”

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President Donald Trump’s executive order to designate cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations could help curb train thefts along with other cartel operations, Swecker said. 

“You can punish anyone who provides a stash house, a car, cash, money laundering activities for providing material support to a designated terrorist organization,” Swecker said. “It just adds another set of tools to the toolbox.”

“Giving them that designation certainly would help in building something like a racketeering case [when handling train thefts],” Ricks told Fox News Digital. “It’s not a coincidence that they happened to hit the Nike car that has $202,000 of merchandise, and that’s some type of inside information was provided to them at some level.”

Scandal-plagued mayor jumps in brawl between her boyfriend and activist at board meeting

Tiffany Henyard, the scandal-plagued mayor of Dolton, Illinois, was seen on video jumping into a chaotic brawl that broke out between her boyfriend and an activist who called her a “b—-” during a heated board meeting Tuesday night. 

The fight happened during a Thornton Township Board of Trustees meeting, after activist Jedidiah Brown had some strong words for Henyard. 

Brown referenced the findings of former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s investigation into Henyard, as a scathing report presented to the village board Monday night alleged a pattern of deception and mismanagement of funds by the mayor.  

“You’ve been a half-a– mayor. But if you wanted to get up here and earn some respect, then you should have been able to respond to Lori Lightfoot’s report about credit cards. You want to talk about them not coming to work, but we’ve been hearing what you’ve been doing while you’ve been at work,” Brown said during the public comment section of the township meeting Tuesday. “And I’m going to give away the rest of my time because I think, on behalf of the Black Cookout Association, that we better take a vote … that we’re going to exchange your Black a– for Stephanie to be the newer member.… So all those against it say ‘nay,’ all those in favor say, ‘aye.’” 

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“You gone, b—-,” Brown concluded. 

The room quickly devolved into chaos, as bystander video showed Henyard’s boyfriend, Kamal Woods, and Brown throwing punches at one another in the back of the room. Others joined the fight as security tried to separate the crowd. 

The video shows Henyard, who had been seated behind a table at the front of the room listening to the remarks, running over to join the melee in the back. Police officers soon arrived at the scene. 

“I have never seen a politician jump in and fight like that – it was scary and horrible – it is an embarrassment,” one witness, Meghan Dudek, told WMAQ-TV. 

“It should have never come to blows, and Tiffany should have never got involved,” another witness, Gerald Williams, added. “She jumped in. She hit her head on the table, so I don’t know. She might be injured.” 

“It was one thing when the guys were fighting, but when she jumped in it, I was taken aback. I was floored,” a third witness, Alicia Nichole, told WLS-TV. 

It is unclear from the video whether Henyard was actively participating in the fight or trying to break it up. Fox News Digital reached out to her office, but they did not immediately respond.

Before it turned violent, the meeting had already grown tense as the board voted to place Woods and another man, William Moore, on leave without pay and hire auditors to investigate their management of the township’s at-risk youth program.

Henyard is also the supervisor of Thornton Township in south Chicago but recently lost a Democratic primary for that role to Illinois State. Sen. Napoleon Harris, who will advance to the April general election with party support. 

Henyard claimed there was “voter suppression,” but lost her bid to be added back on to the ballot.

Dolton Park District Executive Director Stephanie Wiedeman was recently elected to fill a vacant seat on the Thornton Township Board of Trustees. Her election ended a tense political standoff and local government shutdown. 

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With Wiedeman on the board, the township was able to end the shutdown by approving its tax levy ordinance and insurance, WLS reported.

Lightfoot, who was hired to investigate the Dolton mayor last summer, found that Henyard and her administration engaged in a “concerted, systematic effort” since at least 2021 “to hide the true financial condition of the Village of Dolton from the trustees and from members of the public.” In presenting her findings to the village board Monday night, Lightfoot revealed the Village of Dolton had received some $3 million in payments from the American Rescue Plan, hundreds of thousands of which went missing without receipts. Henyard failed to appoint an official to track how the funds were spent, as required by the Treasury Department, Lightfoot’s report says. 

The city’s credit card spending also spiked to $779,638 in 2023, with little to no tracking.

“Many of the credit card expenditures have no accompanying receipt, and the statements alone provide limited information about the purchases,” the report says, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 

City credit cards were also used to pay for large trips to Las Vegas in both 2022 and 2023, and the report claims, “There is no evidence that any business development opportunities came to the village as a result of either of these two trips.”

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Tuesday’s fight comes days after Henyard was also held in contempt of court for allegedly stonewalling liquor licenses for months. 

Denmark takes drastic military measures around Greenland as Trump floats acquiring island

The government of Denmark says it will increase military spending in the North Atlantic amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to have Greenland sold or ceded to the United States. 

Late Monday, the Danish government announced an agreement of 14.6 billion-kroner – or nearly $2 billion – with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.”

The Defense Ministry in Copenhagen said those will include three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity. 

On Tuesday, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, traveled to several major European capitals, including Berlin, Paris and Brussels, where she met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

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Frederiksen warned that Europe faces what she called “a more uncertain reality” and said her country would be strengthening its military presence around Greenland.

The trip comes after Trump has repeatedly made various statements calling Greenland vital to U.S. national and economic security interests and expressed interest in purchasing it from Denmark. Trump has even said he wouldn’t rule out using military force to gain control of the island’s territory. 

Frederiksen didn’t directly mention Trump’s threat in comments at a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but she said that “we are facing a more uncertain reality, a reality that calls for an even more united Europe and for more cooperation.”

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She pointed to Russian activities in Ukraine and beyond and said that “it is up to Europe to define the future of our continent, and I think we have to take more responsibility for our own security.”

In its announcement on the Arctic and North Atlantic region, the Danish Defense Ministry said that the parties agreed to negotiate a second agreement in the first half of this year focused on strengthening deterrence and defense.

“We must face the fact that there are serious challenges regarding security and defense in the Arctic and North Atlantic,” Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said. “For this reason, we must strengthen our presence in the region.”

His ministry said ensuring that investments provide support for local jobs and businesses in Greenland and the Faroe Islands will be “a focal point.” 

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Greenland’s government has insisted that the territory isn’t for sale but that it is open to cooperation. The Defense Ministry statement didn’t mention Trump’s ambitions.

America’s deadliest threat rises as doctor issues urgent ‘dying’ warning for everyone

Heart disease remains the top killer of Americans as risk factors continue to grow.

The latest statistics were revealed in the American Heart Association’s annual report, 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics.

The report, which was published on Jan. 27 in the AHA’s journal Circulation, revealed that cardiovascular disease kills more people than all types of cancer and accidental deaths combined.

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In 2022 — the most recent year for which mortality data is available — a total of 941,652 people died of heart disease-related conditions, according to the report. This was a little more than 10,000 more deaths than the prior year.

The age-adjusted death rate decreased slightly from last year, however.

“Overall, we are seeing cardiovascular-related deaths leveling out compared to 2022,” said Dr. Bradley Serwer, a Maryland-based cardiologist and chief medical officer at VitalSolution, an Ingenovis Health company that offers cardiovascular and anesthesiology services to hospitals.

“We are making some improvements in regard to improved prevalence of hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) and lower incidence of smoking, but have lost ground in regard to diabetes, obesity and hypertension,” Serwer, who was not involved in the report, told Fox News Digital.

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Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds in the U.S., and a total of 2,500 die per day, according to Keith Churchwell, M.D., the volunteer president of the American Heart Association.

“It’s alarming to note that excess weight now costs us even more lives than smoking.”

“Those are alarming statistics to me – and they should be alarming for all of us,” Churchwell said in a press release.

“Too many people are dying from heart disease and from stroke, which remains the fifth leading cause of death.”

Risk factors

The report also detailed the prevalence of specific risk factors for heart disease.

More than 72% of U.S. adults have “unhealthy weight,” which is defined as a body mass index of at least 25, the report stated.

Nearly 42% of those adults meet the criteria for obesity (a body mass index of 30 or more).

The report also revealed that more than half of U.S. adults (57%) have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.

“Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done,” American Heart Association volunteer Dhruv S. Kazi, M.D., wrote in an editorial that accompanied the report.

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“If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180 million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million.”

Experts predict a 300% increase cardiovascular-related healthcare costs, added Kazi, who is also head of health economics and associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

The report also called out different rates of risk factors among different races and ethnic groups.

Black women were found to have the highest rate of obesity (57.9%) and Asian women had the lowest rate (14.5%).

Black women also had the highest rate of blood pressure (58.4%) and Hispanic women, at 35.3%, had the lowest rate.

“Just because we are seeing improvements in smoking and high cholesterol doesn’t mean we can back off.”

“We are also seeing a rise in obesity in our youth, with as many as 40% having unhealthy weight,” Serwer warned. 

“This trend continues into adulthood, when we see nearly 60% of adults having unhealthy weight.”

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Excess weight is a contributing factor in as many as 1,300 additional deaths per day in the U.S., or nearly 500,000 per year, according to the report.

“It lowers life expectancy by as much as 2.4 years compared to a healthy weight,” said American Heart Association volunteer Latha P. Palaniappan, M.D., a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. 

“It’s alarming to note that excess weight now costs us even more lives than smoking – as smoking rates have actually fallen in recent years. Being overweight is the new smoking when it comes to health threats.”

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One positive finding in the report is that rates of high cholesterol have dropped, which is attributed to improved dietary and lifestyle factors, availability of medications and “better clinical control.”

“Recent clinical research has identified a number of new medication therapies to address the growing burden of obesity, as well, and we look forward to learning more about those advances as the body of science builds,” Churchwell noted.

What needs to change?

The researchers called for interventions to help reduce heart disease risk factors.

“Any medical or clinical therapies that can treat the risk factors that contribute to CVD are essential,” Churchwell wrote. “…We need to stop these risk factors in their tracks, keep people healthy throughout their lifespan.”

Serwer agreed that the best way to combat this top killer is to aggressively attack the risk factors. 

“Just because we are seeing improvements in smoking and high cholesterol doesn’t mean we can back off,” he said.

“We need to continue to aggressively attack tobacco use and treat hyperlipidemia while increasing efforts to treat obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.”

Costco on the brink of major pushback from workers as retailer faces public backlash

As Costco finds itself embroiled in a public battle over its controversial DEI policies, a much larger fight is looming with 18,000 store employees set to head to the picket lines if the grocery chain can’t agree to a new contract by Friday.

“If Costco actually respects its employees, it will give our 18,000 members the wages, benefits and work rules that they have been demanding for months,” a Teamsters spokesperson told Fox News Digital

The grocery wholesaler, who has long held a pro-worker image, has been locked in a protracted battle with the Teamsters Union, which represents 18,000 of Costco’s 219,000 U.S. worker base. The Teamsters are accusing the grocery club of not sharing its record $7.4 billion profits with its workers. The Teamsters have accused Costco of engaging in “illegal and reckless behavior” including kicking union reps out of stores, preventing employees from wearing Teamster buttons and changing the locks on union bulletin boards.

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Talks finally broke down in January when Costco refused to reach a card check agreement. Card check is a process that would make it easier for workers to join unions by eliminating secret ballots. Eighty-five percent of Costco’s unionized employees voted to authorize a strike. The strike would affect 50 stores across the US in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington. 

As the Costco board voted overwhelmingly to reject an anti-DEI measure brought by activist investors at their shareholders meeting last Friday, workers rallied just outside their Washington offices – signaling the real fight was yet to come.

“Costco has two choices: respect the workers who made them a success or face a national strike. Costco Teamsters deserve an industry-leading contract that reflects the company’s massive profits. If Costco thinks they can exploit our members while raking in billions, we’ll shut them down,” Teamsters President Sean O’brien said in a statement.

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“What I can tell you is our contract with this company expires at midnight on Friday, and the reason Costco has made so much money over the past few years is its workers,” the Teamsters spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

Costco didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The potential strike comes as 19 states’ attorneys general called on Costco to drop their DEI policies, writing that the grocery chain must “end all unlawful discrimination imposed by the company through diversity, equity, and inclusion,” in a letter sent to Costco CEO Ron Vachris.

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When asked if the Teamsters thought that the wholesaler was picking a public fight about DEI to deflect attention away from its labor dispute, their spokesperson told Fox News Digital “I can’t really speculate as to why Costco makes certain decisions.”