USA Today - 11.11.2019

Titans refuse to go down to Chiefs;
Falcons end Saints’ winning streak

IN SPORTS

TITANS’ RYAN TANNEHILL BY USA TODAY SPORTS

Slugfests and stunners

mark NFL’s Week 10

IN NEWS

$2.00 z THE NATION'S NEWS MONDAY

Thousands of people

lost millions in schemes

that preyed on nation’s veterans

Dan Meehan, from left, Mary Orem and Michael Haring were plunged into

debt after signing on with companies in the business of buying and selling

military benefits. PHOTOS BY JOSH MORGAN/USA TODAY NETWORK

It was as if the website read Dan

Meehan’s mind.

“You deserve to not wait for your

money any longer.”

Meehan, 51, a Navy Reserve vet-

eran, needed cash in the spring of

2015, and he needed it right away. He

had a check coming – he received

$2,906.83 in military disability

benefits the first of every month.

Maybe he could leverage that to cov-

er the next few rent payments.

Just $5,000 would do, he

thought.

Meehan was a psychiatric patient

in a Boston veterans hospital when

he sat down at a computer, typed

“veteran disability loans” into a

search bar and found a Future In-

come Payments’ website.

What he did later – dialing the

number listed on the website – is the

“biggest blunder in my life.”

Meehan fell into a carefully con-

ceived trap that lured vulnerable

veterans desperate to keep their

homes or pay off mounting medical

bills or send a child to college. All

they had to do was redirect part of

their monthly benefits for a cash ad-

vance from investors.

It was too good to be true.

This business of buying and sell-

ing military benefits spread to at

least 33 states before unraveling.

In the past two years, investiga-

INDEBTED

A USA TODAY NETWORK INVESTIGATION

Too good

to be true

Kirk Brown and Carol Motsinger

Greenville News

USA TODAY NETWORK – SOUTH CAROLINA

‘Everybody got money except me’

Read the series at greenvilleonline.com

See VETERANS, Page 6A

QIJFAF-01005z(O)g

©COPYRIGHT 2019

USA TODAY,

A division of

Gannett Co., Inc.

©

Veterans for hire

86% of veterans, including 82% of

those currently employed, are looking

for jobs. What they say would most

attract them to a company:

Salary or benefi ts

Advancement

opportunities

On-the-job training

67%

58%

32%

SOURCE iCIMS/RecruitMilitary survey
AMY BARNETTE, DAVID ANESTA/USA TODAY

11.11.

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A wide swath of the nation was

bracing for an early-season blast of

cold, wintry weather that could smash

records from New Mexico to New Jer-

sey and bring more than a foot of snow

to parts of Michigan.

“148 daily record lows are currently

forecast to be broken, tied, or come

within 1 degree between Tuesday and

Thursday this week,” the National

Weather Service Weather Prediction

Center tweeted Sunday.

Record lows were expected across

the South and Midwest on Tuesday.

Parts of Texas could see 16 degrees. Cit-

ies in Texas and Louisiana were predic-

ted to reach highs in the mid-40s,

breaking long-standing records.

AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist

Dan Pydynowski said the calendar

may say mid-November, but the temps

will scream mid-January across much

of the nation, starting Monday in the

Upper Midwest and slowly sliding

south and east.

“Monday will be worst in the Upper

Midwest, Wisconsin the Dakotas,”

Pydynowski said. “Highs in the teens,

lows in single digits. But they laugh at

that in Fargo.”

High temperatures on Monday may

be stuck in the teens and 20s in the

Midwest and around the Great Lakes.

It could be the coldest Veterans Day on

record in Chicago and Minneapolis,

according to the Weather Channel.

Parts of Michigan could see up to a foot

of snow by Monday morning, the

weather service in Marquette, Michi-

gan, warned.

The high Tuesday in Dallas is fore-

cast for 44 degrees – 24 degrees below

average for the date. Sunday’s high in

Brownsville, Texas, was forecast for 80

degrees. Tuesday’s high: 46 degrees.

Contributing: Grace Hauck

Icy cold

could

shatter

records

Temperatures tumble

across Midwest, South

John Bacon

USA TODAY

A wintry storm is set to track through

the southern Plains early this week,

bringing a threat of freezing rain and

bitterly cold air.DAVID ZALUBOWSKI/AP

Whistleblower also tops Republicans’
wish list for impeachment hearings

NICK WASS/AP

GOP wants to hear

from Hunter Biden

Despite female executives’ successes,
diversity is still lagging in top ranks

IN MONEY

GM’S DHIVYA SURYADEVARA BY JOHN F. MARTIN

Auto industry’s power

is still in hands of men

The stomach-acid-blocking drug Zantac was pre-

scribed more than 15 million times a year with little

worry about the safety of the medication, available for

decades.

But it’s been harder to get the drug since September,

when the Food and Drug Administration said testing

showed versions of Zantac and its generic, ranitidine,

contained a probable carcinogen. The French drug-

maker Sanofirecalled Zantacfrom drugstores and

retailers’ shelves. A half-dozen generic drugmakers

pulled ranitidine from the market.

How did a drug routinely used by millions of heart-

burn sufferers and available with or without a pre-

Zantac’s potential cancer risk not new

Zantac prescriptions

steady since 2010

SOURCE ClinCalc.com

JANET LOEHRKE, USA TODAY

In millions

15.

16.016.

Zantac/Ranitidine prescriptions

17

11

6

2010 ’11 ’12 ’13 ’14 ’15 ’

0

Ken Alltucker USA TODAY

See ZANTAC, Page 8A

Widely used drug may have always had carcinogen

“It is our view

that this problem

with ranitidine

has been there

since the 1980s.

It’s a much more

serious issue.”

David Light

Valisure CEO