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WASHINGTON (AP) — After complaints about staffing cuts and long waits to get help at the Social Security Administration, its commissioner says he’s ready to make the case to Congress this week that things are getting a lot better at the embattled agency.

Frank Bisignano is expected to face pointed questions from lawmakers at a hearing on his agency’s customer service performance, its ability to pay Americans their benefits, protect their privacy, and other questions about the inner workings of the SSA.

He plans to tout shorter wait times and other customer service metrics to a House Ways and Means Committee hearing slated for Wednesday, and slam his predecessor, Martin O’Malley, for requiring appointments for field office visits, in a letter to lawmakers viewed by The Associated Press.

In the letter, Bisignano states that the SSA has cut phone wait times by 75% under his leadership, fixed frustrating website issues, and served 50% more people.

“I’ve been very clear. We will meet clients where they want to be met. You want to call us on a phone, we’ll have technology on the phone, or you can talk to somebody on the phone. You want to come to a field office, you can come with an appointment, or without,” Bisignano told The Associated Press in an interview.

Critics argue that recent gains are being achieved through temporary staffing shifts, increased reliance on online services, and workforce reductions that have created longer-term service risks, shifting bottlenecks around rather than solving staffing problems.

Bisignano dismisses the criticism. “People boo at Yankee Stadium, even when they’re winning,” he said.

Bisignano in his letter also said the Biden-era Social Security Administration, run by O’Malley, “turned people away who travelled to field offices” in a “failure to have consumer-centric service.”

O’Malley told the AP that the SSA under his tenure never turned away walk-in customers. “We encouraged appointments, but we were not turning away walk-ins.”

“He lies a lot,” O’Malley said about Bisignano. “He’s in the habit of lying.”

Bisignano took over the agency after a series of chaotic customer service changes, leadership exits, and false allegations made by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk — who ran the Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting program — that millions of dead people were receiving benefits.

The SSA cut 7,000 workers at the start of the Trump administration. Roughly 2,000 employees were reassigned last year into direct-service positions, including staff whose jobs don’t normally involve answering calls.

The SSA’s Inspector General — its internal watchdog — has identified ongoing errors in benefit administration and claims processing. But its latest semiannual report to Congress also shows the agency has made measurable progress in improving telephone service and deploying technology to speed disability claims processing.

The union representing SSA employees and field office workers says some offices are severely understaffed. That includes Ironwood, Michigan; Decorah, Iowa; Havre, Montana; Big Spring, Texas; Sheridan, Wyoming; Glasgow, Montana; Pierre, South Dakota; Cedar City, Utah; and Cody, Wyoming, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220.

But Bisignano said no field offices have been closed and noted that the agency is committed to meeting clients where they prefer.

“What I’m trying to achieve is to have a better way for the American public to interact with the Social Security Administration,” Bisignano said.

Bisignano also serves as chief executive of the IRS, in a role that was created by the Trump administration. Asked about a new tax audit immunity deal for Trump and his family that was part of the controversial settlement crafted to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, Bisignano referred The Associated Press to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent comments to a congressional committee, where he refused comment on ongoing litigation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has warned more than 500 hospitals that they are failing to provide the public with basic pricing information — arguing that the lack of disclosure is keeping healthcare costs higher than they should be.

The Associated Press obtained exclusively the list of hospitals that since April have either received letters of warning or, in more severe cases, requests to submit plans to provide transparent pricing. Failing to comply with the warnings comes with penalties as high as $2 million annually for each recipient that doesn’t create a plan to post clear pricing data.

The letters are meant to fix a fundamental problem that patients, employers and insurers might not know ahead of time the cost of blood work, an imaging test or another form of treatment, and as a result pay more than they should have. The AP has posted the list of hospitals that have received letters.

A senior administration official who requested anonymity to provide the list said President Donald Trump plans to tighten enforcement of price transparency standards made possible by a 2019 executive order signed by Trump. More hospitals are likely to receive letters regarding the absence of pricing data, the official said.

The warnings are the latest example of Trump leaning into the message that his administration is fixing the problem of healthcare expenses that can drain a family budget. It’s a calculated pitch ahead of the November midterms at a time when affordability is a top concern for voters. But Trump is also vulnerable on this particular issue, as his administration allowed subsidies to lapse for people buying insurance through the 2010 Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare.

Just 29% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s healthcare policies according to the most recent survey on the issue by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The president fared slightly worse on that issue in the December survey than on the economy, immigration or his management of the federal government.

Data on healthcare prices can be confusing

Gary Claxton, senior vice president and the director of the program on the healthcare marketplace at KFF, said the pricing data is more useful for benefit consultants and others in the sector with access to additional information than it would be for consumers. But he said the standards in reporting pricing data can still create difficulty in making accurate comparisons about the costs and quality of the services being provided.

“There’s a pretty widespread belief that prices are more divergent than they should be in a competitive market — and this is one way of trying to understand that more,” Claxton said. “It’s moving in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean it has gotten to where it needs to be.”

The American Hospital Association said in a statement that its members have long supported price transparency and the majority of hospitals are complying with the federal requirements that went into effect this year.

Still, Ashley Thompson, senior vice president for policy at the association, noted in the statement that “the current system is not working as well as it could for patients” and that hospitals would continue working with the administration to improve pricing information and transparency.

The push for price transparency could have a particular impact on Republican strongholds like Texas, Florida, Indiana, Alabama and Louisiana, which are among the states with the highest count of hospitals that have not provided adequate information on the costs of medical services.

Texas had 42 hospitals that received warnings, more than any other state. Baptist Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, among the state’s largest hospitals with 1,585 beds, received a letter, as did the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center said that after it received notice from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, it found “a minor formatting issue involving a date field” that was “quickly corrected.” The center said the government accepted the updated documentation and there “were no concerns regarding the integrity or completeness of the data.”

Missouri-based Ascension, one of the country’s largest hospital systems, had 13 hospitals in multiple states that received letters. Ascension said the warning letters identified a “minor technical error” and it’s committed to giving patients “the information they need to make informed decisions.”

The Republican state of Indiana had 34 hospitals that received letters, nearly as many as the 38 in Democratic-led California, even though California has five times more people than Indiana.

Administration officials interviewed for this article noted that Christiana Hospital in former President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware also received a warning letter.

Different approaches to tackling high costs

The letters reflect two competing philosophies between Republicans and Democrats over how to handle the ballooning expense of healthcare, which is also a growing risk for the federal government’s own balance sheet.

Biden’s team put more emphasis on record enrollment in Obamacare programs that increased the percentage of people with health insurance. Biden also signed a bill that allowed the government to begin negotiating prices for some Medicare drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies. That program, which has continued into Trump’s second administration, has helped knock down the list prices of some of Medicare’s costliest drugs.

The Trump administration, by contrast, has focused more on trying to find ways to provide details on pricing — such as promoting the TrumpRx site for prescription drugs — betting that doing so will lead to better and more efficient spending on healthcare as the data gets crunched.

Critics have said Trump’s negotiated prices on prescription drugs might not produce genuine savings for many Americans with insurance, while the administration has estimated savings in excess of $500 billion over 10 years.

With the various lists of hospital prices, the administration wants providers to make it easier to access the files and to ensure the information in them is legitimate, instead of being based on estimates or omitting numbers for key procedures.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has a hearing planned for Wednesday on price transparency.

“Transparency is the foundation of a healthcare system that rewards competition based on cost and quality,” Shawn Gremminger, CEO of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, plans to say in his prepared remarks.

MCKINNEY (AP) — A Texas teenager who fatally stabbed a 17-year-old track athlete from a rival team during a high school meet was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison on Tuesday in a case that drew wide attention beyond the booming Dallas suburb where they were students. A jury rejected Karmelo Anthony’s claims of self-defense during a confrontation with Austin Metcalf in stadium bleachers last year. Most people who testified were students who described a heated exchange over Anthony’s refusal on a rainy spring day to leave a tent that belonged to Metcalf’s team.

Anthony, now 19, did not testify at trial and only his mother took the stand during the sentencing phase, telling jurors her son was sorry.

Notoriety about the case spread, in part, because of a flood of social media posts that amplified the killing in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Lawyers on both sides, however, told jurors that the tragedy had nothing to do with race.

Jeff Metcalf, Austin’s father, had also denounced those who sought to stoke racial divisions after his son was killed. A year later, he said again in a Collin County courtroom that it was never about race while his voice swelled with anger over the death of his son.

“You failed your parents, you failed yourself and you failed society,” said Metcalf, looking at Anthony after the teenager was sentenced.

Jurors, who deliberated for less than three hours, had the option of a lesser charge, manslaughter, but didn’t choose it.

Prosecutor Bill Wirskye had asked for a lengthy prison term.

“Mercy to the guilty,” he said, “is cruelty to the innocent.”

Earlier Tuesday, during the trial’s closing arguments, the jury heard dueling narratives from Wirskye and defense attorney Mike Howard about what happened in April 2025.

Several schools were competing when Anthony sat under the Memorial High School tent that was perched in the bleachers. Austin Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.

Howard told jurors that Metcalf had “no legal right to put his hands on Karmelo.”

“Texas law does not require that you wait until you get hit,” Howard said. “In that split second of chaos, you must put yourself in his shoes.”

During the nearly weeklong trial, prosecutors said that Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses have testified that Anthony was the aggressor.

“This is not self-defense, folks. It’s murder plain and simple,” Wirskye said.

Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” according to a police report.

Metcalf pushed Anthony, according to witnesses, who said Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

“You don’t get to meet a shove with a stab, especially if you provoke the shove,” Wirskye said.

The teens, both from Frisco, didn’t know each other.

“He’s very sorry for what he did. Please, have mercy on my son,” Anthony’s mother, Kala Hayes, pleaded to jurors shortly after the verdict.

The trial drew lines of spectators hoping to find seats in the gallery and unfolded amid heavy security at the Collin County courthouse. As police officers watched Tuesday, dozens of people stood outside the courthouse in 90 degree Fahrenheit heat (32 degrees Celsius) to await the verdict. There were wails of grief from one woman — “This isn’t real!” — when the result became known.

Frisco is one of Texas’ fastest-growing cities and is dotted with dozens of modern school campuses and gleaming athletic facilities. The parents of Anthony and Metcalf have said they were good students who planned to go to college.

Several students testified that Metcalf, after ordering Anthony to leave his team’s tent, scoffed before Anthony reached into a bag and pulled out a knife.

One teen recalled Metcalf telling Anthony, “You don’t have anything in that backpack. It’s Frisco.”

SHERMAN – A Dallas drug dealer has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for trafficking methamphetamine in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs.

Deldrick Damond Lewis, 40, was found guilty by a jury of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine in August of 2025. Lewis was sentenced to 360 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III on June 9, 2026.

According to information presented in court, Lewis was identified as a methamphetamine supplier during an investigation of drug trafficking activities in the Grayson County area. Lewis sold approximately 460 grams of pure methamphetamine during a drug trafficking transaction. Additionally, prosecutors presented evidence at trial that included Lewis’ social media accounts, text messages, and other evidence from his cellular phones. Lewis received a sentencing enhancement because it was determined the methamphetamine was imported from Mexico for distribution in the United States.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.

This case was investigated by the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office, Sherman Police Department, and FBI’s Texoma Narcotics and Violent Crime Task Force. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Maureen Smith and Stevan Buys.

MCKINNEY – After only a few hours of deliberation by a jury, Judge John Roach in a Collin County Court has ruled Karmelo Anthony, the teenager accused of fatally stabbing a fellow student during a high school track meet last year, guilty of murder. Multiple north Texas news outlets reported around 2:32 pm Tuesday that after the verdict announcement was made, the punishment phase would soon begin after. The jury, which spured controversy for a lack of people of color, was given the case at 10:50 am Tuesday. Reports of a verdict being reached were first announced at 1:45 pm Tuesday afternoon. At 2:14 p.m., Karmelo Anthony and his attorneys entered the courtroom. Judge Roach entered the courtroom as well as the jury at approximately 2:30 pm. At 2:33 pm, Judge Roach announced the guilty verdict.