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2025 looks set to see some important legislative developments in the field of health.
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News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Political groups are engaged in negotiations to potentially reduce the scope of Olivér Várhelyi’s portfolio. [Thierry Monasse/Getty Images]
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From the weighty Pharmaceutical Package, already in the EU’s legislative pipeline, to a Critical Medicines Act due at the start of the year, 2025 is shaping up to be a busy year in the field of health policy. We’ve picked the top five legislative developments to follow.

Critical Medicines Act

Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has been tasked with presenting a Critical Medicines Act (CMA) at the start of 2025. The groundwork has already started with the creation of a Critical Medicines Alliance in 2024, made up of stakeholders from national administrations, pharma, civil society and the scientific community. 
The Polish presidency of the Council will be keen to get their teeth into the detail and is already planning a conference on the CMA in Brussels for 19 February.
“This is highly anticipated on our side; it’s a priority element,” confirmed Ewa Magdalena Piasecka, health attaché at the Permanent Representation of Poland to the EU, at a European Policy Centre event in Brussels.
The act will aim to address medicine shortages experienced across the EU. While the full scope of the act is yet to be revealed, it will likely touch on supporting EU production, stockpiling and joint procurement. 
A senior EU diplomat told Euractiv that the CMA could also play a part in the negotiations on the Pharmaceutical Package by addressing issues of access and affordability for authorised medicines, taking some of the heat out of the trickier elements of those discussions.

Pharmaceutical Package

The Council has been slogging through the more than 400 articles of the Pharma Package presented in 2023. The extensive revision of 20-year-old legislation aims to address affordability and accessibility of medicines while supporting innovation.
One of the main planks of the package – the idea of incentives – has been hotly contested, dividing opinion both in and outside the Council. Nevertheless, there is some will to overcome differences and significant progress was made under the Hungarian presidency.
The European Parliament has already adopted its position at first reading. The broad support bodes well for a compromise in 2025, should the Council reach a common position. 
Várhelyi, meanwhile, has urged health ministers to “be flexible and willing to find compromises.”

Medical Devices

Pressure has been mounting on the Commission to launch a revision of the medical devices regulation (MDR) and the in vitro diagnostics medical devices regulation (IVDR). The French and German governments put forward a paper ahead of the last Health Council in December, which received support from seven other countries at the time.
The governments want to make it faster and easier to seek approval for devices by centralising some elements of the approval process, with a greater role given to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). 
Rather than ripping up existing legislation, there could be possible quick fixes to some of the problems, in the shorter term, through delegated legislation. 
At his confirmation hearing, MEPs pushed Várhelyi to revise the medical device rules without delay. The Commission is currently carrying out an assessment, but the EPP has pressed for an expedited review.

Tobacco

There have been many delays to expected updates of tobacco legislation. The Tobacco Taxation Directive (TTD) and the legal framework on cross-border tobacco purchases of tobacco by private individuals were tabled for review in 2022, following a public consultation in 2021. Likewise, the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) was meant to be reviewed in 2024. 
Sixteen member states, led by the Netherlands, are calling for “decisive and swift action” from the Commission to revise the TTD. The signatories want the revision to be “a key priority for its next term, presenting its proposal no later than spring 2025.”
Tobacco is the subject of intense lobbying, as evidenced by the deep divisions in the Parliament prompted by a non-binding resolution on smoke and aerosol free environments. One of the most difficult areas is adjusting the legislation to include tobacco alternatives, such as e-cigarettes and vaping.

Biotech Act  

In her political guidelines, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “In order to make it easier to bring biotech from the laboratory to factory and then onto the market we will propose a new European Biotech Act in 2025.”
It’s another ambitious plan for 2025, aiming by mid-year to complete a study on how to reduce regulatory fragmentation and bureaucracy for the sector. The act is inspired by the EU’s Chips Act, which aims to mobilise €43 billion in investment. 
All-in-all, then, a busy year for new legislation – but also an important one for implementation. The Health Technology Assessment and Clinical Trials Regulations both reach important deadlines in 2025, while the rollout of the European Health Data Space, agreed last year, also moves on.
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Mullvad is Firefox, but enhanced for privacy, pretty interesting take as a cross-platform private browser app.
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Mullvad is Firefox, but enhanced for privacy, pretty interesting take as a cross-platform private browser app.
Having a good web browser on your computer is essential for navigating the web, with a wide range of options being available that offer distinctive features. If you go for the mainstream approach, then something like Google Chrome would do the trick. However, you will be handing over a worrying amount of PII to Google.
If you are someone who cares about their privacy, then you are most likely using non-Chromium offerings like Firefox or LibreWolf. Such options are designed to block trackers, minimize fingerprinting, and give users great control over their web experience.
In this article, we are diving into Mullvad Browser, a web browser that has been made in collaboration with the Tor Project. It inherits many of Tor Browser’s security mechanisms while excluding Tor network routing.
Mullvad is a well-known name in the privacy space thanks to its innovative VPN product that has found many takers around the globe. Born out of the need for a dependable privacy-focused browser, Mullvad Browser was launched back in 2023 and has come a long way since.
By default, Mullvad Browser doesn’t save a user’s browsing information, cleaning up any residuals on browser exit. As a result, you don’t have to worry about leaving traces of browsing data like visited pages, download history, cookies, cached web content, etc.
On the user experience side of things, there is a handy “New identity” button on the toolbar that allows for quick session resets, DuckDuckGo as the default search engine, telemetry and crash reporting being disabled by default. Moreover, there is also a “Max Protection” setting for DNS over HTPS with Mullvad as the provider.
For dodging fingerprinting, the browser implements a range of resistance techniques like setting the reported timezone as UTC, restricting font access to websites, hiding the keyboard layout, and reporting a common version number and operating system to websites.
The developers have also removed all Mozilla account synchronization components and special privileges for Mozilla sites like addons.mozilla.org.
Here are some notable aspects of Mullvad Browser:
I set up Mullvad Browser 14.0.3 on a Fedora 40 system with Proton VPN active to see how it performed for some common browsing tasks.
As expected, it is a familiar experience with websites loading up correctly without missing any elements. But as I went deeper, I found out that Mullvad Browser is notably different from the likes of Firefox (which it is based on) in some important areas.
Mullvad Browser’s resource usage when playing videos on multiple websites.
I loaded up some resource-intensive websites like Reddit, Imgur, and YouTube, all playing videos, and when I checked the memory usage, the browser was consuming over 1.1 GB.
Do note that the “Web” processes highlighted in the screenshot above were all tied to Mullvad Browser.
I could also easily install any Firefox themes and extensions by allowing the relevant permission when asked. I installed Dark Reader, and it worked as expected. Seeing that, I am convinced that most Firefox add-ons are going to work well with Mullvad Browser.
Plus, every Mullvad Browser installation ships with three pre-installed extensions that support its privacy-focused nature. First is the Mullvad Browser Extension that shows essential connection-related details when a user clicks on it in the toolbar.
The other two are NoScript and uBlock Origin, which act as robust defensive measures against ads, tracking, exploits, and fingerprinting.
During my use, I noticed that whenever Proton VPN was auto-connecting on app launch (I have configured it that way), Mullvad Browser would refuse to connect to the internet, only working when I disconnected and manually reconnected to a VPN server again.
Other web browsers were not affected by this issue, and my best guess is that either NoScript or uBlock Origin were bugging out during all this. I couldn’t test that because disabling those two extensions is not possible, and disabling the Mullvad Browser Extension didn’t change anything.
A contrasting view of how Mullvad Browser (left) and Firefox (right) fared on EFF’s fingerprint test.
Finally, I pitched Mullvad Browser against Firefox on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) fingerprint test, and the results were contrasting to say the least.
Here, Firefox scored poorly, with its scores in protection against ad trackers, invisible trackers and fingerprinting being rated as “partial protection” and the browser having a unique fingerprint.
On the other hand, Mullvad Browser scored exceptionally, with protection against ads, tracking, and fingerprinting all scoring well. I concluded my testing with more questions than before, making me wonder whether it was time for a switch away from Firefox.
You can find the latest release of Mullvad Browser for Linux, Windows, and macOS on the official website. If you are interested in downloading alternative packages or building from source, then you can visit GitHub.
Keep on reading to see how you can install this on Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora.
For Fedora, you can get Mullvad Browser by running the following commands:
Likewise, for Debian or Ubuntu, you can run the following:
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More Sports
ES Fancast
Jan 5, 2025 | 4:21 PM EST
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Dec 1, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Aaron Wiggins (21) dribbles the ball during the game against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images
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Dec 1, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Aaron Wiggins (21) dribbles the ball during the game against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images
Aaron Wiggins has rapidly become a promising figure in the NBA with his impressive skills and growing fanbase. As a key player for the Oklahoma City Thunder, his rise to prominence has caught the attention of basketball fans and analysts alike. While much of his background remains a mystery, many are eager to learn more about his roots, including his ethnicity and religious beliefs.
For fans, these aspects are as intriguing as on-court games. Let’s uncover the aspects of the 26-year-old’s life that are not well known.
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Aaron Wiggins was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on January 2, 1999, which makes him an American national. He was born to Tim and Serena Wiggins in an African-American household and grew up alongside four siblings—Shekinah, Joshua, Zacchaeus, and Imanai. He was raised in an environment that prioritized both academic and athletic achievement, so the youngster had to devote his focus to both fields.
 
👀🐢⁉️ pic.twitter.com/3ZUQAyDq0I
— Aaron (@Aaron_Wiggins_) September 30, 2017
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Apart from playing basketball, he used to play soccer and participated in running tracks. He was musically talented and played piano and trombone and practiced jazz music. He even tap-danced, did ballet, had hip-hop moves, and also acted in multiple plays such as The High School Musical and The Wizard of Oz. Quite the journey this hooper has had if you ask us.
Is Aaron Wiggins the most versatile player in the NBA today with his diverse talents?
Debate
During his time at the University of Maryland, he hosted a welcome rally (“Big Show”) for 4,000 incoming freshmen. Speaking of his college, he played for the Terrapins and achieved numerous accolades.
In his freshman year, he led his team with a season-high 15 points in losses to Michigan State. And then came his sophomore year, where he earned recognition as the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year when he averaged 10.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.4 assists per game. He continued to impress in his junior year, with a career-high 27 points in a loss to Alabama in the NCAA tournament. Given that his junior year saw him record 14.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.5 rebounds per game, such a performance earned him the All-Big Ten honorable mention honors.
Well now, that we have enough understanding of his early hooping career now, let’s move to a different aspect of his life.
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As for Aaron Wiggins’ religion, there isn’t a lot of public information that definitively answers this question. However, a few clues can help us make a guess. He attended Wesleyan Christian Academy, a private Christian school, which might suggest that he might have ties to Christianity. Additionally, his love for music and involvement with the high school Church band hint at his personal beliefs.
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Jan 3, 2025; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Aaron Wiggins (21) goes up for a basket against New York Knicks guard Josh Hart (3) during the second half at Paycom Center. Mandatory Credit: Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images
Although he hasn’t explicitly spoken about his faith, his high school environment and personal choices may indicate a Christian upbringing, common among many families in his community. His journey through high school and college basketball led to his NBA Draft in 2021. Initially, he signed a two-way contract, spending his time in the G-League, his performances led to the conversion of his contract into a standard NBA deal.
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Though fans may not have all the details about Wiggins’ personal life, what’s clear is that he comes from a background that has played a significant role in shaping the player he is today. As Wiggins continues to build his career, more aspects of his life may become known, but for now, his story is one of determination, talent, and hard work.
Let the world know your perspective.
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Solve the puzzle and prove your knowledge of iconic players, terms, and moments.
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Is Aaron Wiggins the most versatile player in the NBA today with his diverse talents?
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Solayer, a restaking platform built on the Solana blockchain, has officially announced the establishment of its new foundation, a governance token named LAYER, and plans for an upcoming airdrop.
The newly formed Solayer Foundation is set to function as an independent non-profit organization. Its primary focus will be to foster advanced research and development within Solayer, as well as other protocols aimed at scaling distributed systems.
Governance of the foundation will be heavily influenced by holders of the LAYER token, who will have the authority to appoint directors and make crucial decisions regarding the platform’s future.
The LAYER token will serve initially as a governance tool for stakeholders, with plans to expand its functionalities in the future. Details on these additional features are yet to be revealed.
Furthermore, the token will be distributed to eligible participants and partners through the “Solayer Season One” airdrop, although the exact date for this event remains unspecified.
Since its inception in May 2024, Solayer has quickly risen to become the seventh-largest restaking platform in terms of total value locked (TVL), boasting over $350 million in staked assets and more than 190,000 unique depositors, according to data from DeFiLlama. The platform has also reported an impressive annual percentage yield (APY) of over 12% for its native staking options.
The upcoming “Season One” airdrop by Solayer aims to reward its community members, including those staking sSOL, endo, and exo AVS tokens, participants of sUSD (Solayer’s yield-bearing stablecoin), and whitelisted ecosystem partners. This airdrop will utilize a stake and time-weighted system to ensure fair distribution among early supporters and active users.
Following the announcement, Solayer’s liquid restaking token, Solayer Staked SOL, witnessed a 5% increase in its value, as per the latest figures from Coingecko. This uptick reflects the positive market response to the new developments and the anticipated growth of the Solayer ecosystem.
As Solayer continues to innovate and expand its services, the community and potential investors are keenly watching for more updates, especially regarding the specifics of the LAYER token’s additional functionalities and the exact timeline for the airdrop.
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North American rail traffic has yet to rebound to pre-pandemic levels  TRAINS Magazine
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Bitcoin price move above $100K could pull SOL, SUI, ICP and ENA higher  Cointelegraph
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【sportsbet politics】 Português  Agencia Brasilia
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The Powerball jackpot continued to rise again, reaching $206 million on Saturday after no one managed to match all five white balls and the red Powerball on Wednesday’s drawing.
The second Powerball draw of 2025 happened shortly after 11 p.m. ET Saturday, and we have the results below. The jackpot for the game is worth an estimated $92.1 million after taxes. 
The game had an eventful 2024, with nine jackpot winners, including the largest one in April: the $1.3 billion jackpot went to three players in Oregon, one of whom is a cancer survivor.
The most recent win came in December when a ticket sold in New York had the winning numbers for a $256 million jackpot.
The winning numbers for the Powerball drawing on Jan 4, 2025, are: 26, 32, 43, 54, 56
Holiday deals: Shop this season’s top products and sales curated by our editors.
Powerball: 24
Powerplay: 2x
Winning lottery numbers are sponsored by Jackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network.
No one won the Powerball jackpot, Match 5 + Power Play $2 million prize or Match 5 $1 million prize.
To find the full list of previous Powerball winners, click the link to the lottery’s website.
The next drawing will happen on Monday, Jan. 6, just after 11 p.m. ET.
To play the Powerball, you have to buy a ticket for $2. You can do this at a variety of locations, including your local convenience store, gas station, or even grocery store. In some states, Powerball tickets can be bought online.
Once you have your ticket, you need to pick six numbers. Five of them will be white balls with numbers from 1 to 69. The red Powerball ranges from 1 to 26. People can also add a “Power Play” for $1 which increases the winning for all non-jackpot prizes.
The “Power Play” multiplier can multiply winnings by: 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, or 10X.
If you are feeling unlucky or want the computer to do the work for you, the “Quick Pick” option is available where computer-generated numbers will be printed on a Powerball ticket. To win the jackpot, players must match all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball.
Powerball drawings are held on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday nights, if no one wins the jackpot, the cash prize will continue to tick up.
Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets.
You can also order tickets online throughJackpocket, the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network, in these U.S. states and territories: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Texas, Washington D.C. and West Virginia. The Jackpocket app allows you to pick your lottery game and numbers, place your order, see your ticket and collect your winnings all using your phone or home computer.
Jackpocket is the official digital lottery courier of the USA TODAY Network. Gannett may earn revenue for audience referrals to Jackpocket services. Must be 18+, 21+ in AZ and 19+ in NE. Not affiliated with any State Lottery. Gambling Problem? Call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY); 1-800-327-5050(MA); 1-877-MYLIMIT (OR); 1-800-981-0023 (PR); 1-800-GAMBLER (all others). Visit jackpocket.com/tos for full terms.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
Contributing: James Powel

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