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CVS settles $12M lawsuit claiming it didn’t offer MassHealth its lowest drug prices

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CVS Pharmacy has reached a $12.25 million settlement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office over allegations that it failed to offer the state’s Medicaid program its lowest drug prices, as is required by state law, the attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

CVS Pharmacy said in a statement that it was pleased to have settled the lawsuit, but noted that the claims only involve Massachusetts’ unique regulations regarding charging MassHealth — the state’s Medicaid program — its lowest drug prices.

“The agreement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing and was agreed upon to avoid the time and expense of further litigation with Massachusetts,” the statement reads. “We’ll continue vigorously defending against the claims concerning CVS Pharmacy’s usual and customary pricing brought by remaining plaintiffs in the case.”

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, along with three other state attorneys general offices, began investigating the allegations after a whistleblower lawsuit was filed in a federal court in D.C., the attorney general’s office said in a press release. The three attorneys general offices filed a joint lawsuit against the pharmacy company in April.

The lawsuit alleged that CVS Pharmacy offered lower drug prices to cash-paying customers through a discount program administered by a company called ScriptSave, but evaded its responsibility to report and bill Medicaid programs the lower, discounted rates, the attorney general’s office said.

The pharmacy company is accused of contracting with ScriptSave to target former customers of CVS’s discount card program, Health Savings Pass and those who visited former Target pharmacies — which CVS had acquired — to join the discount program, the attorney general’s office said. As a result, MassHealth was often charged higher drug prices than these customers — even for generic drugs.

“When pharmacies overcharge MassHealth, they’re undermining the integrity of our public programs and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in the release.

As part of the settlement, CVS Pharmacy agreed to adopt a yearly reconciliation process in which they review prescription drug pricing for MassHealth members to ensure that MassHealth is not overcharged in the future, the attorney general’s office said.

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Joe Hickerson didn't just document American folk music. He shaped it

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Library of Congress archivist Joe Hickerson has died at 89. For decades, he worked to preserve America’s collection of folk music and served as director of the library’s American Folklife Center.





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Threads tests a way to share long-form text on the platform

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Threads is testing a new feature that makes it easy to share long-form text on the social network, Meta confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The feature lets users attach a block of text to a post instead of creating a thread of several different posts when looking to share more in-depth thoughts and ideas.

App researcher Radu Oncescu first spotted the new “text attachment” feature on iOS and shared a screenshot of it. According to the app’s description of the new feature, it’s designed to allow users to “attach longer text and get creative with styling tools to share deeper thoughts, news snippets, book excerpts, and more.”

The ability to share long-form content could help Threads retain creators and writers who want more distribution for articles that would otherwise be posted on their blogs or newsletter platforms like Substack. The feature also gets rid of the need for workarounds when looking to share text that goes beyond the word limit for posts, such as sharing a screenshot of a block of text in your phone’s Notes app.

Threads user Robert P. Nickson shared a post using the feature to show what it looks like to viewers. A snippet of the long-form text is displayed in a gray box within the post, which people can then click on to read and scroll through the full content.

Image Credits:Roberto P. Nickson/@rpm

Threads competitor X already offers a way for users to share long-form content on the platform with “Articles.” While X’s feature is only available for Premium subscribers, Threads’ feature is accessible to everyone, but that could change in the future.

Additionally, Threads only allows users to share text, whereas X’s lets people incorporate images and videos. Considering that the feature is still in the testing phase, it’s possible that Threads could add support for multimedia in the future.

Meta says it plans to bring this to more users in the future.

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Support for long-form posts is the latest addition among a series of new features Threads has introduced over the past year, including DMsfediverse integrationscustom feedsAI enhancements, and more.

Threads recently topped 400 million monthly active users just two years since its launch. X, on the other hand, has north of 600 million monthly active users, according to previous statements made by former CEO Linda Yaccarino.



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Sonos headphones and speakers are up to 25 percent off for Labor Day

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The Labor Day and back-to-school season isn’t only a good time to save on things like a new laptop. Case in point: Sonos’ latest sale. Whether you want to upgrade the sound in your dorm room or home office, you can save up to 25 percent on Sonos speakers and other gear right now. Included in the sale is the Era 100, which has a 10-percent discount at the moment.

Our choice for midrange smart speaker is down to $179 from $199 as part of a larger sale on the Sonos website. The same price is available on Amazon, as are some more deals on Sonos products.

Image for the large product module

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

Get it now for 10 percent off. 

$179 at Sonos

Sonos debuted the Era 100 speaker in 2023 as a replacement for the Sonos One. It offers great sound quality and has built-in mics for Trueplay tuning and voice control. It’s worth mentioning that the Sonos Ace headphones are also on sale for $299, down from $399 — a 25 percent discount. The headphones have come a long way since they first launched, including the introduction of TrueCinema, which works with a Sonos soundbar to create the best spatial audio experience.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.





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Pixel 10 Qi2 magnets include this key MagSafe feature

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The built-in Qi2 magnets in the Pixel 10 series are one of the biggest hardware additions and, for the world of MagSafe accessories already on the market, a piece of good news is that there’s a little “lock” magnet to help keep those accessories in place, just like you find on iPhone.

Apple’s MagSafe standard is what brought phone magnets to the masses and, with it, a whole new collection of accessories. The main idea behind MagSafe and its industry-standard counterpart, Qi2, is to perfectly align the wireless charging coil with a charger to enable higher speeds and better efficiency. A great idea, but just the foundation of many other types of accessories.

Wallets, mounts, grips, kickstands, battery banks, and so many other useful accessories are made possible by placing magnets inside of your phone and its cases, and Qi2 is what makes that an industry standard that anyone can use.

One minor concern I saw floating around regarding Pixel 10, though, was whether or not the Qi2 magnets would include something to keep accessories in place. The actual ring of magnets does the “heavy lifting” for accessories, but the iPhone includes a secondary magnet underneath which keeps accessories such as wallets from sliding around the back of the device.

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On the Pixel 10 series, Google has done the same.

Using a magnetic film, we can see on our Pixel 10 Pro XL here that there’s a magnet below the main Qi2 ring, just like on iPhones, to keep accessories “locked” in place.

This does seem to be a part of the overarching Qi2 standard, rather than something Google chose to implement itself.

In digging through the Qi 2.1 specification, we found the diagram below which illustrates where the “orientation magnet” should be placed.

So, as Qi2 makes it way to other Android phones – at least, assuming other brands follow the standard Google is setting – you can expect the same to be the case.

This is also important because, in the current Wild West-style ecosystem of magnet accessories for Android devices, that orientation magnet just doesn’t exist. Looking at a “Qi2 Ready” case for the Galaxy S25 Ultra (the same is in Samsung’s official case) and one of OnePlus’ magnet cases for the OnePlus 13, there’s no orientation magnet in place, though I did find one in a dbrand case for my Pixel 9 Pro XL. It’s just so hit or miss on devices without Qi2 built-in.

Are you looking forward to seeing more magnetic accessories for the Pixel 10 and other Android devices?

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Man wanted on murder charge arrested in Framingham after officer spots wig

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A Framingham police officer on his way to a Wednesday morning briefing spotted two people walking on the sidewalk, one of whom appeared to be wearing a wig.

The keen observation led to the arrest and capture of a man wanted on a warrant out of Ohio, charging him with murder in connection with the death of a 2-year-old boy.

The officer, Andrew Lewis, was on his way to a briefing with the U.S. Marshals Service and the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, when he spotted the wig. At the briefing, officers were set to discuss their attempts to serve a warrant for the very man Lewis saw walking on the sidewalk.

Police subsequently arrested the man, identified as 25-year-old Dioblis Williams, of Columbus, Ohio. Williams is charged with being a fugitive from justice on a Massachusetts warrant, as well as murder on a warrant out of Ohio.

The murder charge is tied to the death of 2-year-old Ja’mir Jones, who was found in a bathtub in Columbus in 2020, Fox 28 Columbus reported.

On the afternoon of March 25, 2020, officers responding to a call for a drowning found Jones not breathing, according to the Ohio Attorney General. Officers called for a medic and began CPR, but the boy was pronounced dead at Children’s Hospital.

wif Police say Williams placed Ja’Mir in the bathtub unsupervised after the boy had an accident in his pull-up diaper, according to an affidavit filed in support of the charge against Williams, as reported by ABC 6.

An autopsy obtained by the station lists the boy’s manner of death as homicide, and lists the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the abdomen. The boy had bruises on his face, torso and neck, ABC 6 reported.

Williams is accused of repeatedly hitting Ja’Mir, causing his death, according to the station.

“Hallelujah, thank the Lord, thank the Lord,” Ja’Mir’s great-grandmother, Bernice Anderson Pearson, is quoted as saying by Fox 28. “I’ve been praying for this for five years, five long years.”

The warrant for Williams’ arrest was issued earlier this month, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

“Today’s arrest is a reminder that you can run, but you can’t hide. Mr. Williams thought that he could evade arrest and accountability by hiding in Massachusetts. I hope that today’s arrest brings us one step closer to justice for a young child whose life ended tragically,” Acting U.S. Marshal Kevin W. Neal said in a statement.

Williams will be arraigned on the fugitive from justice charge before being extradited to Ohio.

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Maisa AI gets $25M to fix enterprise AI’s 95% failure rate

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A staggering 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing, according to a recent report published by MIT’s NANDA initiative. But rather than giving up on the technology altogether, the most advanced organizations are experimenting with agentic AI systems that can learn and be supervised.

That’s where Maisa AI comes in. The year-old startup has built its entire approach around the premise that enterprise automation requires accountable AI agents, not opaque black boxes. With a new, $25 million seed round led by European VC firm Creandum, it has now launched Maisa Studio, a model-agnostic self-serve platform that helps users deploy digital workers that can be trained with natural language.

While that might sound familiar — reminiscent of so-called vibe coding platforms like Cursor and the Creandum-backed Lovable — Maisa argues that its approach is fundamentally different. “Instead of using AI to build the responses, we use AI to build the process that needs to be executed to get to the response — what we call ‘chain-of-work,” Maisa CEO David Villalón told TechCrunch.

The principal architect behind this process is Maisa’s co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Manuel Romero, who had previously worked with Villalón at Spanish AI startup Clibrain. In 2024, the duo teamed up to build a solution to hallucinations after seeing firsthand that “you could not rely on AI,” Villalón said.

The pair isn’t skeptical about AI, but they think it won’t be feasible for humans to review “three months of work done in five minutes.” To address this, Maisa employs a system called HALP, standing for Human-Augmented LLM Processing. This custom method works like students at the blackboard — it asks users about their needs while the digital workers outline each step they will follow.

Maisa AI - Worker builder
Image Credits:Maisa AI

The startup also developed the Knowledge Processing Unit (KPU), a deterministic system designed to limit hallucinations. While Maisa started out from this technical challenge rather than a use case, it soon found that its bet on trustworthiness and accountability resonated with companies hoping to apply AI to critical tasks. For instance, clients that currently use Maisa in production include a large bank, as well as companies in the car manufacturing and energy sectors.

By serving these enterprise clients, Maisa hopes to position itself as a more advanced form of robotic process automation (RPA) that unlocks productivity gains without requiring companies to rely on rigid predefined rules or extensive manual programming. To meet their needs, the startup also offers them either deployment in its secure cloud or through on-premise deployment. 

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This enterprise-first approach means Maisa’s customer base is still very small compared to the millions flocking to freemium vibe-coding platforms. But as these platforms are now exploring how to win enterprise customers, Maisa is moving in the opposite direction with Maisa Studio, which is designed to grow its customer funnel and ease adoption.

The startup also plans to expand with existing customers that have operations in multiple countries. With dual headquarters in Valencia and San Francisco, Maisa itself already has a foothold in the U.S., as reflected in its cap table; its $5 million pre-seed round last December was led by the San Francisco-based venture firms NFX and Village Global. 

In addition, TechCrunch learned exclusively that U.S. firm Forgepoint Capital International participated in this new round via its European joint venture with Spanish bank Banco Santander, highlighting its appeal for regulated sectors.

Focusing on complex use cases demanding accountability from non-technical users could be a differentiator for Maisa, whose competitors include CrewAI and many other AI-powered, business-focused workflow automation products. In a LinkedIn post, Villalón highlighted this “AI framework gold rush,” warning that the “quick start” becomes a long nightmare when you need reliability, auditability, or the ability to fix what went wrong.”

Doubling down on its goal to help AI scale, Maisa plans to use its funding to grow from 35 to as many as 65 people by the first quarter of 2026 in order to meet demand. Starting in the last quarter of this year, the startup anticipates rapid growth as it begins serving its waiting list. “We are going to show the market that there is a company that is delivering what has been promised, and that it’s working,” Villalón said.



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Samsung will hold another Unpacked on September 4

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Samsung is hosting another Unpacked event on September 4, and this time it’ll only be available to watch virtually. The event will stream on and at 5:30AM ET, following the in-person launch events the company held for the in January and the new and in July.

With most of the company’s smartphone lineup accounted for, Samsung will likely use this Unpacked to introduce new tablets. The company announced the the earlier this week and now leaks point to a new Galaxy Tab S11 and S11 Ultra being in the works, The Tab S11 will reportedly feature an AMOLED screen, 12GB of RAM and a MediaTek Dimensity 9400 chip, rather than Samsung’s preferred Qualcomm Snapdragon chips. The Tab S11 Ultra will have similar features, but with a larger AMOLED, up to 16GB of RAM, the same MediaTek chip and a larger 11,600mAh battery.

Odds are also good that Samsung will announce the Galaxy S25 FE, a cheaper alternative to the normal Galaxy S25. Based on the leaks , the S25 FE will share many similarities with the , save for an improved 12MP selfie camera, up from 10MP on the S24 FE, a larger 4,900mAh battery and faster wired charging speeds.

Provided you’re willing to get up early, you’ll be able to see for yourself when Samsung streams its next Unpacked event on September 4. It likely won’t be the last event the company holds this year, either. The Android XR headset and Samsung’s are also expected to be released in 2025.



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Google Phone app rolling out custom ‘calling cards’ on Android

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Following the broader Material 3 Expressive redesign last week, the Google Phone app is now more widely rolling out calling cards.

Once available, you’ll see an “Introducing calling card: Customize how you see your contact when they call you” promo at the top of the Home tab. (You might also be prompted inside Google Contacts for a more direct editing experience alongside other details.)

In the Phone by Google app, this takes you to a “Calling card” page that will list all the ones you’ve added for quick editing. This is accessible at any time from the Phone app’s Settings list (near the bottom).

Once you’ve selected a contact, you can take a new picture, open your gallery, or launch Google Photos to make a selection. Besides cropping the image and adjusting the framing, you can customize their name at the top with a carousel of font and color options. 

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After setting, this image will appear on the incoming and in-call screens as a fullscreen image. (Keep in mind the solid bottom sheet for call controls.) Compared to Apple’s implementation or profile pictures in Google Messages, these images are unique to you. Likewise, you don’t get to set how you appear to other people. 

We’re now seeing this roll out to stable users with version 188 of the Google Phone app. It’s coming alongside the Pixel 10 and ahead of the Material 3 Expressive launch with Android 16 QPR1.

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Man in wheelchair dies after falling 8 feet from deck at Beverly home

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A man in a wheelchair died Tuesday afternoon after falling 8 feet from a deck at a home in Beverly, according to local news outlets.

The Essex County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Wednesday that a resident of 55 Amherst Road in Beverly had died, but said that no foul play was suspected. The district attorney’s office declined to offer more information on Wednesday, and Beverly police did not respond to a request for comment.

The man lived at a group home and was using an electric wheelchair when he fell through the deck’s fencing into an embankment around 4 p.m., The Boston Globe reported. Firefighters found the man in a trench near the back of the residence and declared him dead at the scene, WCVB reported.

Beverly police are investigating the incident. No further information about the man’s death — including his identity — has been released.

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