Walgreens Boots Alliance is being taken private in a deal valued up to $23.7 billion, following a largely disastrous run on the public markets where its market cap has lost billions and more than 10% of its locations have closed. It brings an end to nearly 100 years as a publicly traded company. Private equity firm Sycamore Partners agreed to pay $11.45 a share in cash, according to a statement from Walgreens. Including debt and other potential future payouts, the company said the full value of the deal could reach up to $23.7 billion.
Lawyers for Prospect Medical Holdings warned before a federal judge in Texas Thursday about the possible closure of the entire Crozer Health system in Pennsylvania. The judge did not issue a ruling. Instead, she called for all parties to meet next week in hopes of keeping Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Taylor Hospital and other outpatient facilities and doctors' offices open. The meeting could happen as early as Monday. Another hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in federal court. Prospect Medical Holdings claims there's only enough money to keep the hospitals open through March 14.
The VA is planning a reorganization that includes cutting over 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency that provides healthcare and other services for millions of veterans. The VA's chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top-level officials at the agency Tuesday that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, as well as to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya promised to cut wasted research dollars and focus on funding studies to find the root causes of chronic diseases during his confirmation hearing to direct the $48 billion National Institutes of Health this morning. "Every dollar wasted on a frivolous study, every dollar wasted on administrative costs that are not needed, is a dollar not spent on research," Bhattacharya told the Senate HELP Committee.
Just a few weeks after summarily firing hundreds of employees, the Trump administration is now notifying some staff at the CDC that they're back on the job. On Tuesday, an unknown number of CDC staff began receiving emails stating that their letters of termination were being rescinded, according to emails reviewed by NPR and interviews with more than half a dozen sources at the agency who were not authorized to speak publicly.