Many Americans really want to lose weight and a new poll shows nearly half of adults would be interested in taking a prescription drug to help them do so. Use Our Content
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At the same time, enthusiasm dims sharply if the treatment comes as an injection, if it is not covered by insurance, or if the weight is likely to return after discontinuing treatment, a new nationwide KFF poll found.
Those findings display the enthusiasm for a new generation of pricey weight loss drugs hitting the market and illustrate possible stumbling blocks, as users potentially must deal with weekly self-injections, lack of insurance coverage, and the need to continue the medications indefinitely.
For example, interest dropped to 14% when respondents were asked if they would still consider taking prescription medications if they knew they could regain weight after stopping the drugs.
One way to interpret that finding is people want to lose a few pounds but dont want to be on a drug for the rest of their life, said Ashley Kirzinger, KFFs director of survey methodology. The monthly poll reached out to 1,327 U.S. adults.
The U.S. represents a large market for drugmakers who want to sell weight loss prescriptions: An estimated 42% of the population is classified as obese, according to a controversial metric known as BMI, or body mass index. In the KFF poll, 61% said they were currently trying to lose weight, although only 4% were taking a prescription medication to do so.
That gap between the 4% taking any kind of prescription weight loss treatment and the number of Americans deemed overweight or obese is the sweet spot drugmakers are targeting for the new drugs, which include several diabetes treatments repurposed as weight loss drugs.
The drugs have attracted much attention, both in mainstream publications and broadcasts and on social media, where they are often touted by celebrities and other influencers. Demand jumped and supplies have become limited. About 7 in 10 adults had heard at least a little about the new drugs, according to the survey.
The newer treatments include Wegovy, a slightly higher dose of Novo Nordisks diabetes drug Ozempic, and Mounjaro, an Eli Lilly diabetes treatment for which the company is currently seeking FDA approval as a weight loss drug.
Weight loss with these injectable drugs surpasses those of earlier generations of weight loss medications. But they are also costlier than previous drugs. The monthly costs of the drugs set by the drugmakers can range from $900 to more than $1,300.
At, say, a wholesale price tag of $1,350, the tab per person could top $323,000 over 20 years. Email Sign-Up
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The drugs appear to work by mimicking a hormone that helps decrease appetite.
Still, like all drugs, they come with side effects, which can include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation. More serious side effects include the risk of a type of thyroid cancer, inflammation of the pancreas, or low blood sugar. Health officials in Europe are investigating reports that the drugs may result in other side effects like suicidal thoughts.
The KFF survey found that 80% of adults thought insurers should cover the new weight loss drugs for those diagnosed as overweight or obese. Just over half wanted it covered for anyone who wanted to take it. Half would still support insurance coverage even if doing so could increase everyones monthly premiums. Still, 16% of those surveyed said they would be interested in a weight loss prescription even if their insurance did not cover it.
In practice, coverage for the new treatments varies, and private insurers often peg coverage to patients BMI, a ratio of height to weight. Medicare specifically bars coverage for drugs for anorexia, weight loss, or weight gain, although it pays for bariatric surgery.
Unfortunately, a lot of insurers have not caught up to the idea of recognizing obesity as a disease, said Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Employers and insurers must consider the potential costs of covering the drugs for enrollees perhaps for them to use indefinitely against the potential savings associated with losing weight, such as a lower chance of diabetes or joint problems.
Stanford said the drugs are not a miracle cure and do not work for everyone. But for those who benefit, it can be significantly life-altering in a positive way, she said.
Its not surprising, she added, that the drugs may need to be taken long term, as the idea that there is a quick fix doesnt reflect the complexity of obesity as a disease.
While the drugs currently on the market are injectables, some drugmakers are developing oral weight loss drugs, although it is unclear whether the prices will be the same or less than the injectable products.
Still, many experts predict that a lot of money will be spent on weight loss products in the coming years. In a recent report, Morgan Stanley analysts called obesity the new hypertension and predicted industry revenue from U.S. sales of obesity drugs could rise from a current $1.6 billion annually to $31.5 billion by 2030.
Julie Appleby: jappleby@kff.org, @Julie_appleby Related Topics Health Industry Pharmaceuticals Drug Costs KFF Obesity Prescription Drugs Contact Us Submit a Story Tip
It’s not the Wrangler EV, but it’s the closest thing to it. The 2026 Jeep Recon EV is the first fully electric trail-rated SUV, packing 650 horsepower, 9.1″ of ground clearance, and plenty of range to get you back to town.
Meet the 2026 Jeep Recon EV
The Recon is finally here. Jeep unveiled the Recon on Tuesday, deeming it “the first and only fully electric Trail Rated SUV” on the market.
Built on the STLA Large platform, the Recon delivers 650 horsepower and 620 lb-ft of instant torque, good for a 0 to 60 mph sprint in as little as 3.6 seconds.
Jeep built the Recon from the ground up to make it the ultimate off-road electric SUV. The all-wheel-drive powertrain consists of 250 kW front- and rear-mounted electric drive modules (EDMs). Each EDM combines an electric motor, gearing, and power electronics to improve efficiency and response time.
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Jeep’s engineers custom-tailored the Recon’s throttle pedal to optimize torque, while an electronic locking differential ensures torque is distributed to both rear wheels when active.
The 2026 Jeep Recon electric SUV (Source: Stellantis)
The souped-up suspension and standard 33″ tires provide 9.1″ of ground clearance on the Moab trim, which will be the first trim to launch.
Jeep’s signature Selec-Terrain traction management system offers five drive modes, including a new Rock mode for the Moab trim, helping to unlock the full potential of the all-electric powertrain. The Rock mode joins the current Auto, Sport, Snow, and Sand modes.
Built for zero-emission off-roading
Although it’s still clearly a Jeep, the Recon introduces a few new design elements for a modern, electric look, including an illuminated seven-slot grille and U-shaped daytime running lights.
In the spirit of its sibling, the Wrangler, the Jeep Recon is the only fully electric vehicle with removable doors, rear quarter glass, and swing gate glass.
The interior of the 2026 Jeep Recon electric SUV (Source: Stellantis)
Inside, the electric SUV blends trail-ready materials with advanced new tech. It offers over 26″ of usable screen space, including a 12.3″ driver display and a 14.5″ infotainment touchscreen. Jeep said this is the largest usable digital screen space in one of its vehicles ever.
The setup is powered by Jeep’s Uconnect5, its most advanced infotainment system yet, offering an easier-to-use interface and larger displays.
The interior of the 2026 Jeep Recon electric SUV (Source: Stellantis)
For when the adventure gets a little rough, Jeep added a passenger-side grab handle. The Recon also includes smart storage spaces, including a two-tiered pass-through center console and modular door handles.
With up to 65.9 cubic feet of rear cargo space with the second row seats folded, plus a frunk that adds another three cubic feet, the Recon is ready for any adventure.
Jeep even included a premium Alpine audio system, the first EV in its segment to offer a premium sound system as standard.
Powered by a 100.5 kWh lithium-ion battery, the 2026 Jeep Recon has up to 250 miles of driving range. However, the Moab trim, the first to be available, is estimated to have up to 230 miles of range.
Although it will initially launch with a CCS charging port, Stellantis announced plans to switch to the NACS port starting in 2026. Jeep didn’t reveal charge speeds, but said the Recon can charge from 5% to 80% in about 28 minutes using a DC fast charger. It can add about 100 miles in 10 minutes, according to Jeep.
The 2026 Jeep Recon EV starts at $65,000, excluding a $1,995 destination fee. Production is set to begin in early 2026 at Stellantis’ Toluca Assembly plant in Mexico. The Recon will first launch in the US and Canada, followed by a global expansion.
Can Jeep’s off-road electric SUV compete with the upcoming Rivian R2 or Scout Traveler? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
The Los Angeles Dodgers greeted their fans at the tail end of their championship parade on Nov. 3, and virtually every player who grabbed the microphone atop a makeshift stage at Dodger Stadium expressed the same goal:
Three-peat.
Only two franchises, the Oakland Athletics of the early 1970s and the New York Yankees of the late 1990s, have won three consecutive World Series titles since Major League Baseball introduced divisional play in 1969. And yet the current Dodgers are unabashed in their desire to do the same.
“It’s not whether or not [or] how we’re going to do it,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said, “it’s just that we’re going to be extremely driven and do everything we can to put ourselves in the best position to do it again.”
What that looks like, exactly, is a source of intrigue throughout the sport.
The Dodgers have spent the past two offseasons throwing around money at jaw-dropping levels. In signings and extensions, they added five nine-figure contracts to their payroll, which, for competitive-balance-tax purposes, stood at roughly $415 million in 2025. The industry seemed to bend to their will because of it. Now the Dodgers operate as a sort of boogeyman. Agents attach them to their clients in an attempt to drive up prices, rival executives worry they’ll swoop in on trade targets they’re eyeing.
The Dodgers, though, continue to fight an internal battle, one voiced by general manager Brandon Gomes at last week’s general managers meetings in Las Vegas.
“How do you win this year,” he asked rhetorically, “without falling off that cliff?”
Friedman, Gomes and the rest of the Dodgers’ decision-makers are constantly trying to balance winning now with winning later, an inexact science that periodically strays them from the middle. Over these past two winters, the Dodgers leaned heavily into the present. Now they hope to find more of a balance, said multiple sources familiar with their thinking, though to what degree remains to be seen.
On one side, the Dodgers are cognizant of how much depth they have coming back and how much older their roster has become. On the other, they’re determined to maximize what Friedman has deemed this franchise’s “golden era,” mindful of how a third straight title can cement that legacy.
“I think definitionally, it’s a dynasty,” Friedman said after watching his team claim a third championship in six years. “But that to me, in a lot of ways, kind of caps it if you say, ‘OK, this is what it is.’ For me, it’s still evolving and growing, and we want to add to it and we want to continue it and do everything we can to put it at a level where people after us have a hard time reaching.”
How they do that will depend on how they answer three key questions.
It said everything about how hard the Dodgers’ bullpen fell in 2025, and yet it runs in stark contrast to the front office’s staunch belief at this moment, according to sources — that their bullpen depth should inspire confidence in 2026.
This certainly does not mean the Dodgers are set here. Their bullpen is coming off a season in which it posted a 4.27 ERA, 21st in the majors. And there are a litany of questions surrounding their returning arms, whether it’s coming back from injury (Graterol and Phillips), advanced age (Treinen and Stewart), control issues (Henriquez, Klein, Hurt and Gervase) or stark memories of a disastrous 2025 (Scott). But if there is one thing to take away from all that, it’s this:
The Dodgers will carry a high bar when it comes to their pursuit of bullpen help.
A solidified closer, or at least one leverage arm capable of handling the ninth inning on a championship team, will be what they spend the most time on in the coming weeks. And though the trade option remains their ideal path, free agency is primed with standout closers. The headliner is Edwin Diaz, though the thought of a long-term deal and the presence of a qualifying offer might scare away the Dodgers. More likely is someone such as Devin Williams, who they’ve already expressed interest in, according to sources. And a tier below are a host of others who, like Williams, can be had for the type of short-term deal the Dodgers prefer, including Brad Keller, Pete Fairbanks, Emilio Pagan, Kyle Finnegan, Luke Weaver, Raisel Iglesias and Robert Suarez.
How badly do they need another bat?
You know what else the Dodgers didn’t do all that well this past season? Hit. For a decent chunk of it, at least. Over a 33-game stretch from early July to mid-August, they batted .235 and averaged the sixth-fewest runs in the majors. Over their past three playoff rounds, they slashed a combined .213/.303/.364. If this sounds a bit harsh, well, it might be: 33 games represents only about 20% of the regular season, and hitting in the playoffs has proved to be quite difficult for any team. Keep this group intact, and on paper, it would represent arguably the best lineup in the sport.
But last season’s lulls help to underscore another important point about the Dodgers’ offseason: They can stand to add another bat, and chances are they will.
The easiest path is to add an outfielder, and this year’s free agent options just so happen to be headlined by two of them in Kyle Tucker and Cody Bellinger. The Dodgers aren’t expected to be one of the more aggressive suitors for Tucker, sources have indicated, but they’ll remain on the periphery if his market collapses and a short-term, high-dollar deal becomes appealing to his representatives at Excel. They’ve also expressed interest in a reunion with Bellinger, according to sources, though it remains to be seen whether they’d be motivated enough to win a potential bidding war with the Yankees.
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel projects an 11-year, $418 million contract for Tucker, who turns 29 in January, and a much more modest six-year, $165 million contract for Bellinger, who will be 31 in July.
The cost for a Bellinger deal makes more sense, but so does his ability to play center field. The Dodgers are a far better defensive team if they can slide Andy Pages to right and shift Teoscar Hernández to left. Doing so would require an everyday center fielder, and perhaps it would be unfair to ask Tommy Edman to take that on in the wake of offseason ankle surgery. Bellinger — a fourth-round pick by the Dodgers in 2013, a Rookie of the Year in 2017, an MVP in 2019 and a champion in 2020 before being non-tendered only two years later — would fit the bill, and perhaps even slide to first base after Freddie Freeman‘s contract expires.
But the Dodgers can also sign someone such as Harrison Bader, whom they targeted at midseason, for less money, or, given the dearth of free agent outfielders beyond him, pivot to a trade option. Two players who might fit are Cleveland Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan and St. Louis Cardinals utility man Brendan Donovan, both of whom have a knack for putting together good at-bats and making contact. Some high-ranking members of the organization believe there is a need for more of that in their lineup, given the swing and miss of guys like Pages and Hernández. Addressing that could help limit the lulls.
Do they need to get younger?
Mookie Betts gathered his teammates for a post-parade podcast recently, and at one point the 18-inning World Series game came up. Betts argued that the second half of it was boring, to which Clayton Kershaw playfully responded that, for everyone’s sake, the offense should have ended it early.
“Our team’s so old,” Kershaw said. “We were tired the next two [games].”
What Kershaw said off the cuff was something felt by many who watched the Dodgers, both inside and outside the organization. Playing the equivalent of two full games in Game 3 of the World Series seemed to drain them more than it did their opponents, as evidenced by lethargic performances in Games 4 and 5, during which the Dodgers totaled three runs and suffered back-to-back losses.
The average age of the Dodgers’ position players was 30.7 this past season, making them the oldest group in the majors (slightly ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies at 30.3). Seven of their starting position players are now heading into their age-31 season or older, and all but one of them — Max Muncy, whose 2026 option was picked up earlier this month — are signed for multiple years.
Friedman’s longtime quest to balance the present with the future faces a difficult test with this current construction. Freeman, Betts, Ohtani and Will Smith will continue to be cornerstone players for years, but the Dodgers will spend some time this offseason wondering how they can plug in more youth around them.
They can do it the more conventional way, by slowly transitioning some of their upper-level prospects into everyday players (infielder Alex Freeland, outfielder Ryan Ward and catcher Dalton Rushing, who will return as Smith’s backup but could get time at first base and in left field in 2026). Or they can make impact moves via trade.
The Dodgers have a glut of highly regarded outfield prospects at the moment, namely Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero, Zhyir Hope and Mike Sirota. The Dodgers’ preference is to pluck from that group to address needs through a trade, according to sources. And though they can use them to access the closer they desire, they can also add young, controllable position players, ideally at second base, shortstop or center field. And if they need to dip into their starting pitching, River Ryan and Gavin Stone are returning from injury and don’t have a spot in a six-man rotation given the presence of Yamamoto, Snell, Glasnow, Ohtani, Sheehan and Roki Sasaki.
Ryan and Stone, though, have options. The Dodgers, coming off setting franchise records by deploying 40 pitchers in back-to-back seasons, can simply stash them in the minors and wait until they’re inevitably needed.
David Carrick has been found guilty of sexual offences against a 12-year-old girl and a former partner.
Carrick, 50, was found guilty of five counts of indecent assault, two counts of rape, one of sexual assault and one of controlling or coercive behaviour.
Carrick, who is one of the UK’s worst sex offenders, is already serving a life sentence after admitting crimes against 12 women over 17 years.
He was further accused of molesting a 12-year-old girl in the late 1980s and raping a woman during the course of a toxic relationship more than 20 years later.
Carrick pleaded not guilty to two charges of rape, one of sexual assault and coercive and controlling behaviour towards the woman between 2014 and 2019, and five counts of sexual assault relating to the girl in the late 1980s.
He didn’t give evidence at his Old Bailey trial, but denied the allegations, claiming sex with the woman was consensual and the child accuser had lied.
The court heard the latest allegations were made after Carrick pleaded guilty to 71 instances of sexual violence against 12 different women over a period spanning 17 years.
He was sentenced to a minimum term of 30 years in prison in 2023 in a case that caused widespread public anger after it emerged repeated opportunities to stop his offending had been missed while he was serving as a police officer.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.