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March 12 (Reuters) - Roughly one-third of Americans cut back on food, utilities or other daily expenses to pay for healthcare last year, research ‌from the West Health-Gallup Center showed on Thursday, as steeper prices ‌and rising living costs hit households.

A nationally and state-representative survey of nearly 20,000 U.S. adults in all ​50 states and in the District of Columbia, conducted from June to August 2025, found that 33% of respondents had made at least one trade-off in daily expenses to pay for healthcare.

This was far more common among Americans who do not have ‌health insurance, with 62% ⁠of those surveyed saying they have made at least one sacrifice to pay for healthcare, including 32% who had to borrow ⁠money and 24% who had prolonged their current medication.

Among those with insurance, close to three in 10 have made at least one sacrifice, the survey found.

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Most Americans with ​private health ​insurance are paying higher premiums and steeper ​out-of-pocket costs in 2026, including ‌millions of people in the government-subsidized Affordable Care Act plans in which extra COVID pandemic-era subsidies have expired.

"We're actually finding that people are reporting higher incidences of metabolic disease or depression and anxiety. We're not getting healthier as a society, we're actually getting sicker, and the healthcare cost is going up on top ‌of it," said Timothy Lash, president of West ​Health Policy Center, a nonprofit organization focused on ​healthcare and aging.

In another survey ​of 5,660 U.S. adults, collected primarily through Gallup's panel between ‌October and December last year, Americans reported ​having delayed a ​life event or change within the past four years due to healthcare costs, such as buying a new home or taking a vacation.

Nearly 9% ​of the respondents of this ‌survey, also released on Thursday, postponed their retirement due to healthcare ​costs, whereas twice as many reported delaying a job change.

(Reporting by Sriparna ​Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)

HAVANA (AP) — Several dozen people stood in circle in a room at a Havana psychiatric hospital, their hands held together as they chanted in unison, vowing to rid their bodies from "the toxins that enslave." The collective plea to reclaim their freedom for just the next 24 hours was the first step of a 90-day detoxification before beginning rehabilitation.

Cuba Drug Use

Drug use was an almost-unknown phenomenon inCubauntil the beginning of this decade. However, adeepening economic crisis, shortages of basic goods and the emergence of low-cost synthetic drugs have combined to transform the landscape.

In Havana and other cities across the island, it is no longer unusual to see young people in public parks sleeping, walking with difficulty or lying unconscious.

According to authorities, the primary threat is the "químico," (chemical) — a potent cocktail of synthetic cannabinoids and hazardous additives. Also known on the streets as "papelitos," or "little papers," the drug is absorbed into sheets of paper that are sliced into tiny doses and smoked. At roughly 250 Cuban pesos per hit (50 cents), it costs less than a basic loaf of bread or a can of soda.

"It's very cheap...and it's everywhere," said David Morales, 25, who is in recovery after receiving help at government-funded health centers and is now in rehabilitation therapy at the Alcance Victoria Cuba evangelical Baptist church.

'Zero tolerance'

Acknowledging the rise in consumption, Cuba's Ministry of Health and several state agencies in July established a National Drug Observatory, an initiative to research, monitor and mitigate the impact of illegal drugs on the island.

Although the government does not track the number of drug users, Dr. Tania Adriana Peón, head of mental health and addictions at the General Directorate of Health, pointed to emergency room data as a barometer for the trend. In 2024, 467 people sought help or were registered in emergency rooms in Havana. By 2025, that figure nearly doubled to 886.

Cuba has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs, and drug trafficking is punishable by up to life imprisonment. And while it's not a drug-producing or stockpiling country, authorities acknowledge it is not immune to drug use.

Sporadically, seizures of packages of cocaine abandoned by traffickers during chases and washed ashore are reported; these are known as "recalos" or washups. Drugs are also smuggled into the country among imported goods, and, to a lesser extent, domestic marijuana plantations have been detected.

"The primary challenge Cuba faces today is related to new psychoactive drugs or synthetic cannabinoids, which originate mainly from the United States," said Col. Juan Carlos Poey Guerra of Cuba's Interior Ministry.

He added that police laboratories detected 46 new synthetic formulations in the last year. Among the substances mixed with cannabinoids were the anticonvulsant carbamazepine, formaldehyde and fentanyl, among others. Between 2024 and 2025, he said, authorities thwarted 72 attempts to smuggle drugs into the country from 11 different origins.

The United States is the primary source of the precursor substances that constitute químico, said Poey Guerra.

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'We win against drugs'

Health care in Cubais state-run and free, so neighborhood family clinics are typically the first to detect signs of drug use. Patients with more severe or complex conditions are referred by health authorities for longer, more intensive hospital stays.

The Associated Press recently toured a 40-bed men's ward at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital, where patients aged 20 to 30 are undergoing a 90-day detox before beginning rehabilitation.

The space was divided into two-bed cubicles adorned with family photos. It featured a small reading area, a dining room and a recreation space. Each day, the patients — wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "We win against drugs" — take responsibility for cleaning their surroundings.

"I was incredibly depressed...living on the streets; I just couldn't take it anymore," said 23-year-old Daniel Fulleda, who was admitted in January. His tone was enthusiastic as he shared his plans of getting married before the year end and start a family. "Next year, I'll start my own business."

'We have to pray a lot'

For decades, the highly centralized state was responsible for treating drug and alcohol users — especially alcohol users — but the magnitude of the challenge in recent times has opened the door for other actors.

"There are neighborhoods that are infested… I've seen young people using drugs right in front of me," said Pastor Abel Pérez of the Alcance Victoria Cuba church. "As a pastor, I'm not called to sit idly by."

Last year, the church provided therapy to approximately 50 young people and their families and today more than a dozen individuals attend sessions regularly.

"In my youth, talking about drugs was extraordinary… The problem has grown so rapidly and in such a short time that, to some extent, it has overwhelmed the country's capacity to address it," said Alejandro Morales, a 57-year-old oceanographic engineer who accompanies his son David to meetings at the Alcance Victoria Cuba church.

In the same room, 64-year-old Vilma Arias sought help alongside her 36-year-old daughter. Her other son, 26, is also struggling with drug use but refuses to seek treatment.

"We have to pray a lot," she said. "My daughter is a wonderful teacher and my son is a graduate in automotive mechanics. I don't even know how they fell into this," she added.

Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean athttps://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

March 12 (Reuters) - Anthropic asked a U.S. ‌appeals court on ‌Wednesday for a stay of ​the Pentagon's designation of the company as a supply-chain risk ‌under a ⁠broader law, pending judicial review of ⁠the case.

In a filing with the ​U.S. Appeals ​for ​the D.C. ‌Circuit, Anthropic said the Pentagon's decision would cause the company "irreparable harm."

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Anthropic has also filed ‌a lawsuit in ​a California ​federal ​court to ‌block the Pentagon from ​placing ​it on a national security blacklist.

(Reporting ​by ‌Rajveer Singh Pardesi in ​Bengaluru; Editing by ​Clarence Fernandez)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — For more than a century, Utah has kept gambling almost entirely out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries and no racetracks that allow bets, a prohibition rooted in the conservative ideals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.

Governors Summit

But now, the state is fighting a new, more challenging battle to keep gambling outside its borders. It's on the verge of enacting a law intended to undercutprediction marketslike Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on anything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles to whether the United States will go to war.

While regulators and other states are still debating whether those markets constitute finance or gambling, Utah has already made up its mind.

"We are putting a casino in the pocket of every single American, and they are targeting especially young people," said Gov. Spencer Cox. "It is really awful what they are doing, and we are going to make sure this doesn't happen in our state."

Cox said he will sign the legislation, putting conservative Utahat odds with the federal government. Kalshi has already sued the state, and the company is backed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets.

The conflict puts Utah, a place that's not known for picking fights, on the frontlines of a cultural, political and economic battle sweeping the country. On one side is a state heavily influenced by what is widely known as theMormonchurch, where both politicians and faith leaders have treated the issue as a moral crusade. On the other is a growing industry — Kalshi and Polymarket are estimated to be worth $20 billion each after their last fundraising rounds — with connections in Washington that may offer some regulatory protection.

President Donald Trump's eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in the latter. Trump's social media platform Truth Social is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.

Whoever wins this round could shape how other states handle the issue in the future.

"What's at stake here is whether states will be able to regulate gambling or if gambling is going to be subsumed into finance and ultimately regulated by Congress," said Todd Phillips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written extensively on the issue of regulating prediction markets.

Utah takes aim at prop betting

Polymarket and Kalshi allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. Contracts are typically priced between one cent and 99 cents, which roughly translates to the percentage of customers who believe that event will happen.

The companies argue they offer products that allow customers to manage risk, like how farmers can buy corn futures to lock in the price of their crops ahead of time. And derivative markets like the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange have long offered what are known as binary options to investors, which bet on whether an event will or will not happen.

But unlike those derivative markets, the bulk of Kalshi's trading volume and roughly half of Polymarket's arenow tied to sports. Kalshi said it saw more than $1 billion in volume traded on the Super Bowl alone.

Utah is seeking to limit prediction markets from doing business in the state by taking aim at proposition betting in sports, which can be a significant source of their revenue.

The bill that Cox plans to sign would expand the state's gambling ban to include wagers on certain events happening in a game rather than the game's outcome. An example of these "prop bets" would be how well a particular player performs, or a team hitting a specific threshold like rebounds or other metrics.

The legislation also aims to stop sportsbooks companies like FanDuel and DraftKings that have set up their own prediction markets, which analysts say could allow the companies to get around state gambling prohibitions.

Because of the vocal opposition of Utah officials, Kalshi preemptively sued the state in late February, asking a judge to stop Utah from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. A federal judge has yet to rule on Kalshi's request. Other judges in Nevada and Massachusetts have issued early rulings in favor of states looking to ban Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports betting in their states, while judges in New Jersey in Tennessee have ruled in favor of Kalshi.

Kalshi argues its product is different from sportsbooks companies or casinos because customers are betting against each other instead of against the "house," spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Trump has agreed with Kalshi and has asserted that it has exclusive regulatory oversight of prediction markets. The agency argues states cannot ban the products from operating in their jurisdiction just because they are morally opposed to them.

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"To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court," chairman Michael Selig said recently in a video posted to social media.

A moral crusade with religious roots

It's the first major issue in which Cox has clashed with Trump in the year and a half since the Republican governorworked his way into Trump's good gracesafter not voting for him in 2016 and 2020.

Patrick Mason, the chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, said he is not surprised to see Cox and other Utah Republicans take a stand against prediction markets, even if it means going against their own party's leadership in Washington. In the state, where about half of the 3.5 million residents are Latter-day Saints, even a simple game of church bingo is a rare sight.

"Maybe they play for M&Ms, but never money," he said.

All the state's major politicians, including the governor, lieutenant governor and its entire congressional delegation are members of the church headquartered in Salt Lake City. When they view an issue as moral rather than political, the faith's teachings often take precedence over appeasing the party, Mason explained.

Church doctrine prohibits gambling in any form, saying it is motivated by "a desire to get something for nothing" and is destructive to individuals and families.

"The idea that it goes against a sense of work ethic, a kind of fair exchange, has always been at the heart of the way a lot of people think about themselves in terms of Utah identity, and certainly Latter-day Saint identity and ethics," Mason said.

Because of Utah's religious roots, the state has prohibited gambling since it was admitted to the Union in 1895. Along with Hawaii, it has the strictest gambling prohibitions in the country. Utah doesn't even allow broad multi-state lotteries like Powerball or Mega Millions.

Utah leads on both state and federal fronts

Phillips, the professor focused on industry regulation, said if Congress does not step in to clarify whether these new prediction markets are legal, the issue will be left to the courts.

"The line between gambling and finance is very, very fine," Phillips said. "There's a reason why Congress has, over and over again, stepped in to define and regulate financial markets when the products skew too close to gambling."

There is already some movement on Capitol Hill, led in part by another Utah Republican.

Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah and Democrat Rep. Salud Carbajal of California introduced bipartisan legislation this week to more aggressively regulate prediction markets. The bill would ban prediction markets from allowing bets on war, assassinations, terrorist attacks or election outcomes, as well as allow states to ban sports-related betting.

"We, as a society, should not be taking bets on whether we are going to invade Cuba," Moore said.

Democratic senators have also said they will introduce legislation to ban wagers on violence.

"It's insane this is legal," Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on social media.

In court filings, Kalshi has tried to argue that its sports prediction market has economic utility and usefulness. It uses an example of an insurance company that underwrites the careers of college athletes using prediction markets to hedge the risk. Kalshi also argues that hotels, travel agencies and stadium management companies may be able to use prediction markets to hedge their risk against underperforming sports.

Moore said he is not swayed by Kalshi and Polymarket's economic arguments.

"Utah's economic outlook has been strong for many years," he said. "I see no need why we need to embrace these as an economic tool."

March 12 (Reuters) - Roughly one-third of Americans cut back on food, utilities or other daily expenses to pay for healthcare last year, research ‌from the West Health-Gallup Center showed on Thursday, as steeper prices ‌and rising living costs hit households.

A nationally and state-representative survey of nearly 20,000 U.S. adults in all ​50 states and in the District of Columbia, conducted from June to August 2025, found that 33% of respondents had made at least one trade-off in daily expenses to pay for healthcare.

This was far more common among Americans who do not have ‌health insurance, with 62% ⁠of those surveyed saying they have made at least one sacrifice to pay for healthcare, including 32% who had to borrow ⁠money and 24% who had prolonged their current medication.

Among those with insurance, close to three in 10 have made at least one sacrifice, the survey found.

Advertisement

Most Americans with ​private health ​insurance are paying higher premiums and steeper ​out-of-pocket costs in 2026, including ‌millions of people in the government-subsidized Affordable Care Act plans in which extra COVID pandemic-era subsidies have expired.

"We're actually finding that people are reporting higher incidences of metabolic disease or depression and anxiety. We're not getting healthier as a society, we're actually getting sicker, and the healthcare cost is going up on top ‌of it," said Timothy Lash, president of West ​Health Policy Center, a nonprofit organization focused on ​healthcare and aging.

In another survey ​of 5,660 U.S. adults, collected primarily through Gallup's panel between ‌October and December last year, Americans reported ​having delayed a ​life event or change within the past four years due to healthcare costs, such as buying a new home or taking a vacation.

Nearly 9% ​of the respondents of this ‌survey, also released on Thursday, postponed their retirement due to healthcare ​costs, whereas twice as many reported delaying a job change.

(Reporting by Sriparna ​Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday to halt construction work on an ‌immigration detention center after the state had sued citing environmental concerns.

Maryland Attorney ‌General Anthony Brown had argued that President Donald Trump's administration had not conducted a proper environmental review or ​received public input.

The federal government spent more than $100 million on a 54-acre warehouse in Maryland's Washington County to convert it into a detention center capable of holding 1,500 people at a time, Brown said in February when the state sued.

U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson ‌granted Maryland's request for a ⁠restraining order to immediately pause construction for up to 14 days while the court considered Maryland's broader legal challenge.

"The State has shown ⁠that Defendants likely failed to comply with their obligations under (the National Environmental Policy Act)," the judge wrote.

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"Defendants do not appear to have taken a 'hard look' at the potential environmental consequences ​of ​their plans for the Williamsport Warehouse," the judge ​added.

The U.S. Department of Homeland ‌Security, which has federal oversight of immigration and of which the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is a part, has previously said DHS was willing to work with state officials to expand detention capabilities. It has also previously rejected Maryland's assertion that the lawsuit was based on environmental concerns.

The Trump administration's immigration crackdown and deportation drive ‌have received widespread condemnation from rights advocates over ​what they call violations of free speech and ​due process rights. Rights experts also ​say the crackdown has created an unsafe environment, particularly for minorities.

Trump ‌has cast his actions as aiming to ​stop illegal immigration ​and improve domestic security.

Brown cast the ruling as a win.

"Though temporary, this ruling stops the construction of this massive immigration detention center while our lawsuit continues ​to play out in court. ‌We will not let DHS and ICE rush through the proper legal ​process in their haste to ramp up deportations," Brown said.

(Reporting by Kanishka ​Singh in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry)

Stryker, a medical technology company that makes a variety of products, including surgical tools and medical implants, announced Wednesday that it was hit by a cyberattack.

And while the company has provided few details about the extent of the attack, a pro-Iran hacking group, Handala, is claiming responsibility, saying in a post on X that it executed the cyberattack "in retaliation" for the ongoing war in the region.

The hacking group claimed that in the cyberattack, "over 200,000 systems, servers, and mobile devices have been wiped and 50 terabytes of critical data have been extracted."

Stryker, the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based company, said in a statement Wednesday that it has "no indication of ransomware or malware and believe the incident is contained."

The company did note that it was "experiencing a global network disruption to our Microsoft environment."

"Our teams are working rapidly to understand the impact of the attack on our systems," Stryker said.

The company did not provide further details but assured "continuity measures in place to continue to support our customers and partners."

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Department of Homeland Security warns of potential attacks amid Iran operation

The hacking group claimed in its statement that the deadly strike on a girls' elementary school in Iran was in part the motivation behind the cyberattack.

The group posted that the attack was "in retaliation for the brutal attack on the Minab school and in response to ongoing cyber assaults against the infrastructure."

Local officials say 168 people were killed in a Feb. 28 strike, in which several buildings connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were destroyed along with a nearby building housing a school for girls.

It has not been determined who was behind the strike, though the U.S. military wasstriking targetsin Iran in the area near the school, people familiar with the findings told ABC News. An investigation is ongoing.

U.S. officials have not immediately commented on the cyberattack.

ABC News' Mason Leath and Victor Ordonez contributed to this report.