[Fox Business] Amazon speeds up prescription delivery in NYC, LA

Amazon Pharmacy launched same-day delivery to New York City and Los Angeles this week, with plans to expand the service to over a dozen new cities by the end of the year. 

As of Tuesday, customers in New York and the greater Los Angeles area will be able to get medication to manage health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and the flu delivered to their door “within hours,” according to the Seattle-based company. 

Amazon told FOX Business that the next city to feature its services will be Orlando, Florida. 

Customers in Indianapolis, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle and Austin, Texas, already have access to same-day delivery, while customers in College Station, Texas, can receive medication within an hour by drone. 

AMAZON LAUNCHES NEW SUBSCRIPTION PRESCRIPTION DRUG SERVICE

Tuesday’s announcement marks a milestone in the company’s effort to become an influential player in the health care sector.

Currently, rivals in the space like CVS and Walgreens will deliver prescriptions within one to two days for select medicines. Walgreens, though, does offer same-day delivery for certain medications.

Meanwhile, Walmart offers two-day shipping and overnight shipping for medications upon request, according to its website. 

Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist who serves as chief medical officer for Amazon Pharmacy, said filling mail-order prescriptions is not something the health care industry has successfully executed — but if done right, it could eliminate delays in diagnoses and reduce trips to the drugstore.

AMAZON PHARMACY WILL DELIVER ELI LILLY’S ZEPBOUND, OTHER DRUGS TO CUSTOMERS’ DOORSTEPS

To help solve this issue, the company is relying on new small-format facilities, stocked with the most common prescription medications for acute conditions, so the company can get medications closer to where customers live. Its facility in Brooklyn carries a subset of the more than 12,000 medications available from its online pharmacy, the company said. 

The company said that the team on-site in Brooklyn can process a prescription within a matter of minutes compared to before, which could take hours or even days. 

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Gupta said the option will get patients medications faster than before, but it also comes with transparent pricing, so patients aren’t hit with unexpected costs at the pharmacy counter.

“We don’t just show you that… we have it in stock. We show you what you will be expected to pay with the application of insurance,” he said. 

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[Fox Business] RFK’s running mate is Google co-founder’s ex: Who is she?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Tuesday named attorney Nicole Shanahan, who was previously married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as his vice presidential pick for his independent presidential campaign.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Kennedy would name Shanahan as his running mate at a rally in Oakland, California. Shanahan grew up in Oakland, making it a likely location for Kennedy’s announcement given her ties to the area. 

Shanahan, 38, is the president of the Bia-Echo Foundation, which invests in helping women bear children at older ages, in addition to criminal justice reform and environmental policies. 

Though she lacks broad name recognition in the political sphere, Shanahan brings financial firepower as well as connections to the tech industry and abortion rights activists that could be a boon to Kennedy’s independent bid for the White House.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY EXPECTED TO ANNOUNCE WEALTHY FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR AS VICE PRESIDENTIAL RUNNING MATE

Kennedy naming Shanahan as his running mate would help his long-shot presidential campaign’s efforts to get on the ballot, given that some states require candidates to have designed a vice presidential nominee to appear on the ballot. 

The Kennedy campaign has met the signature collection requirement for ballot access in four states, although a petition in Nevada is being contested.

Last week, Kennedy told Reuters he was looking for a running mate who shares his perspective on ending the U.S. “war machine,” as well as reducing the national debt and “ending the chronic disease epidemic.”

DEMOCRATS RIPPED FOR TRYING TO ‘KILL DEMOCRACY’ WITH EFFORT TO PROTECT BIDEN, SILENCE THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATES

He added that it was important to find someone from outside the political system “who has good values, who has an open mind, who has high intelligence and inquisitive curiosity.”

Shanahan emerged as a leading contributor to Kennedy’s presidential campaign and told the New York Times that she donated $4 million to a super PAC supporting his presidential bid that aired during the Super Bowl earlier this year and was the creative force behind the ad. 

THE SILVER LINING IN KENNEDY’S RUNNING MATE ANNOUNCEMENT

The ad sparked controversy with some of Kennedy’s family members by replicating the style of an ad from the 1960 campaign of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy – a situation that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. later apologized for.

She has also given to Democratic political candidates and the PACs supporting them over the years, including the Biden campaign in 2020 and she donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

Shanahan married Google’s Brin in 2018. They separated in 2021 and divorced in 2023. 

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Brin and Elon Musk had a falling out after a 2022 report from the Wall Street Journal indicated that Shanahan and Musk had a romantic relationship. Musk and Shanahan denied the relationship, though the Journal said it stands by its reporting.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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[Fox Business] LARRY KUDLOW: Trump stands tall today

Donald Trump‘s wildly successful Trump Media stock offering is first and foremost a vote of confidence by his supporters all around the country. 

At a time when Mr. Trump is under attack from the weaponized lawfare and election interference campaign waged against him by Joe Biden all the way down through various corrupt left-wing prosecutors, Mr. Trump stands tall today atop this remarkable stock-market success. As the price of Trump Media has soared, his wealth has jumped to over $6 billion, making him one of the wealthiest people in the world. 

It gives him a big war chest to fight the slings and arrows of all these left-wing prosecutors going after him. This includes, of course, the New York story, where at least the appeals court now slashed his bond requirement by roughly 65% to $175 million. 

BLACKROCK CEO SAYS SOCIAL SECURITY’S RETIREMENT AGE ‘A BIT CRAZY’ AS CRISIS LOOMS 

Lord knows what more these local legal juveniles are going to try to do to Trump financially, but he’s got a big cushion now. He may have to wait six months to cash in on his stock, or perhaps the company will provide him with a waiver should he need the money sooner, but the point is — right now, he’s in much better financial shape than he was perhaps a week or two ago. 

There’s more to it than even that. Truth Social, Mr. Trump‘s company’s social-media platform, will be sponsoring an ever-growing, free-speech, conservative community. Breitbart’s economics editor John Carney has written brilliantly about this. 

He notes that the Trump platform will offer a bastion of free speech, tapping into a vein of societal discontent and extending beyond the current election cycle. John Carney calls it balkanization, where the liberals have their media outlets, but conservatives really do not in terms of social media. Now they will. 

For what it’s worth, I’m going to sign up myself and the Truth Social platform will, of course, be a key spot for Mr. Trump’s issues in the presidential campaign. 

That’s why Truth Social is going to grow a lot in the weeks and months ahead, as well as over the long-run and the stock offering will add about $300 million to expand and improve the Truth Social operation. Sure, at the moment the platform has been losing money — but so do practically all digital startups at first. We saw that with Amazon, Twitter, Uber, and many others. 

It’s so ironic that these local juvenile, corrupt prosecutors, the Letitia Jameses, the Alvin Braggs, the stand-by-your-man Fani Willis (whoops!), and Jack Smiths. Try as they might, they cannot bring Trump down. He is Trump tough, but now he’s Trump richer. Good combination and he never stops selling his key issues to the public. Take a listen to what he said yesterday outside the courtroom: 

DONALD TRUMP: “They can’t win an election because of the borders, because of energy prices, because of inflation, because of Afghanistan, the worst and most embarrassing day in the history of our country.” 

 There you go, Mr. Trump. I say, he is “Trump tough.” I say he is “Trump smart.” I say he is “Trump wealthy.” That’s why he looks like a winner to me.  

This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the March 26, 2024, edition of “Kudlow.”        

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