Category Archives: Trump administration

‘How is he going to have the time?’ NIH staff voice concern as Bhattacharya takes on CDC role

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Scientists fear NIH director will be even more absent and leave key issues unresolved as he takes interim CDC lead

As Jay Bhattacharya temporarily takes the lead at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where Bhattacharya is the permanent director, fear his attention will falter even more as critical issues at the research agency go unaddressed.

Bhattacharya first rose to prominence as a fierce opponent to Covid mitigations and has become a close ally of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary. Under their oversight, NIH has sharply curtailed the funds it awards to researchers, especially studies involving race and gender, while some employees faced hiring freezes and increased health expenses at the agency.

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Will UN plans to transform the way it works ‘throw equality under the bus’?

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Many of those attending the world’s largest meeting on women’s rights in New York this week are primed to defend the two key UN agencies that protect women and girls around the world

Thousands of international delegates are gathering in New York this week for the world’s largest meeting on women’s rights. The United Nation’s annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an opportunity for government ministers, UN officials, NGO representatives and activists to discuss the global state of gender equality and women’s empowerment. This year, there will be a strong focus on “ensuring and strengthening access to justice”.

But as senior UN figures urge countries to intensify their efforts to achieve gender equality, many of the delegates will be asking whether the UN is at risk of diluting its own commitment to women and girls.

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Trump convenes ‘Shield of Americas’ summit with 12 Latin American leaders

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In Miami, president calls for regional cooperation to counter Chinese economic and political interests

Donald Trump changed the channel from Iran to the western hemisphere on Saturday, convening a gathering of Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club to discuss regional interests and establishing what he called a “counter-cartel coalition”.

“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate Isis, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told 12 regional leaders gathered at what the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit.

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US agency did not perform safety checks of more than 100 food ingredients, analysis finds

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Review of FDA records by the Environmental Working Group reveals firms are exploiting rule to send new chemicals in food system

More than 100 substances widely used in common US foods, supplements and beverages underwent no health and safety review by the US Food and Drug Administration, a new analysis of federal records finds.

The review of FDA records by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) non-profit reveals that diverse products across the food pyramid, such as Capri Sun drinks, Kettle and Fire organic broth, Acme smoked fish, and Quaker Oats snack bars, use a range of substances that have not undergone review by regulators.

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‘Operation Epstein Distraction’: Trump’s bloody Iran ‘hype videos’ seem to target niche audience

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White House wages online propaganda campaign with aggressive and tasteless videos seemingly designed for young rightwing American men

Rap and EDM. Clips from action movies. Heads-up displays from video games.

As the war with Iran approaches its second week, the White House has leaned into an online propaganda campaign that seems less about intimidating Iran or projecting US strength abroad than it is about reaching a rather niche domestic audience: young rightwing American men who spend a lot of time online.

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Pakistani man convicted of plotting to kill Trump over death of Iranian commander

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Asif Merchant accused of trying to recruit people in 2024 plan to target Trump, Biden and other politicians in retaliation for killing of Qassem Suleimani

A Pakistani man has been convicted of planning to kill Donald Trump and other prominent US politicians two years ago at the behest of Iran.

Asif Merchant was accused of trying to recruit people in the US in a plan targeting Trump and others in retaliation for the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani in 2020, during Trump’s first term as president.

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Trump administration’s embattled FDA vaccine chief ousted for the second time

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Vinay Prasad to leave in April after decisions involving vaccine reviews and specialty drugs for rare diseases

The top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr Vinay Prasad, is once again leaving the agency – the second time in less than a year that he’s departed after decisions involving the review of vaccinations and specialty drugs for rare diseases.

FDA commissioner Marty Makary announced the news to FDA staff in an email late Friday, saying Prasad would depart at the end of April. Makary said Prasad would return to his academic job at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Minneapolis killings and deportation outrage: Kristi Noem’s scandal-plagued DHS tenure

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Backlash grew against homeland security secretary after slew of controversies from Trump’s immigration crackdown

Kristi Noem’s year-long tenure as homeland security secretary has been plagued by controversies as she led an aggressive immigration crackdown that hasprompted protests and lawsuits.

There have been scandals, legally dubious deportations condemned by human rights groups, taxpayer-funded publicity campaigns, and false claims about US citizens.

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Trump ousts DHS secretary Kristi Noem and replaces her with Republican senator

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Noem’s tenure was marked by killings of US citizens by federal agents, a rumored affair and $220m spent on ads

Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was replacing Kristi Noem as the homeland security secretary, capping weeks of bipartisan complaints about her leadership after immigration agents killed two US citizens and reports emerged that she was involved in a personal relationship with a top deputy.

Noem’s firing was the first major personnel shake-up of Trump’s second term. The president made it public in a post on Truth Social, in which he said Markwayne Mullin, a Republican Oklahoma senator, would take over from Noem starting on 31 March – though Congress would need to vote to confirm the choice first. The secretary, who he said “has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!)”, would become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a security initiative Trump said he planned to announce over the weekend.

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RFK Jr urges medical schools to increase nutrition education training

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As part of his Maha agenda, health secretary wants schools to incorporate 40 hours of instruction

Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr unveiled a new effort on Thursday aimed at increasing the amount of nutrition education taught in medical schools.

For months, Kennedy has urged medical schools to expand their nutrition curriculum and warned that institutions refusing to do so could face cuts to federal funding, while those that adopt the changes may receive public acknowledgment.

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Vanuatu moves forward with UN climate resolution despite Trump opposition

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Pacific island says the US weakened its proposal to advance a key climate ruling but vows to hold major polluters accountable

The Trump administration’s attempt to sink a UN resolution demanding countries act on the climate crisis has caused cuts to the proposal but hasn’t entirely killed it, according to the tiny Pacific island country spearheading the effort.

The US has demanded that Vanuatu, an archipelago in the south Pacific, drop its UN draft resolution that calls on the world to implement a landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling from last year that countries could face paying reparations if they fail to stem the climate crisis.

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Pete Hegseth says US is ‘investigating’ deadly strike on girls’ school in Iran

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US defense secretary was evasive when asked about the airstrike that Iranian officials say killed at least 165 students

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, offered few details and was evasive when asked about the deadly strike on a girls’ school in Iran, saying only that the US was “investigating” the incident.

Iranian officials say the attack, which happened on Saturday, killed at least 165 students.

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Israel strikes Tehran and Beirut as Iran vows ‘complete destruction’ in region

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Rapidly escalating war enters fifth day and spreads as far as Indian Ocean with sinking of Iranian vessel off Sri Lanka

Israel has carried out a wave of airstrikes on Iranian security targets and Hezbollah in Beirut as Tehran threatened the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure” as the rapidly escalating war entered its fifth day and reached as far as the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka.

The Israeli military said it had hit buildings in Iran belonging to the Basij, the volunteer police arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and buildings belonging to internal security forces. Police stations and IRGC headquarters in the Kurdish regions of north-western Iran were also razed by strikes, Kurdish media reported.

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Cuba charges six exiles with terrorism in wake of deadly speedboat attack

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Detainees accused of coming from the US with intent to sow chaos and attack military units on Communist-ruled island

Cuban prosecutors have formally charged six people with crimes of terrorism after a US-flagged speedboat was involved in a deadly shootout with Cuba’s coast guard last week.

The US-based Cuban defendants are accused of packing a boat with weapons and heading toward Cuba in hopes of destabilising the government in Havana.

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Democrats thrown into disarray as US offensive on Iran creates cracks

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Lawmakers from Sanders to Mark Kelly offer mixed feelings on Trump’s action and killing of Iranian supreme leader

As Republicans celebrated the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump’s decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front.

Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught.

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Lack of a clear Iran plan could suck US into a long conflict: ‘Where does this go?’

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Fears that decision to strike could be open-ended as Trump comes under pressure to spell out his vision for the country

Donald Trump is under pressure to spell out his vision for Iran amid the ongoing attacks on the country and reports of the first American casualties since the launch of unprovoked US and Israeli military strikes.

Trump’s critics are demanding that the White House provide greater clarity about what comes next. Opponents and analysts say the lack of a clear plan outlined so far has created a danger of the US being sucked into a long-lasting conflict of the sort that Trump repeatedly vowed to avoid.

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Starmer faces greater quandary over ‘special relationship’ after Iran attack

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PM is in diplomatically precarious position of declining to endorse US strikes while also refusing to condemn them

It was perhaps naive of No 10 ever to position Keir Starmer as a “Donald Trump whisperer” capable of persuading the unpredictable US president to step back from reckless decisions.

The “special relationship” has been under severe strain in recent months over the UK’s decision to give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands and the refusal of European countries to back Trump’s play for Greenland.

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Trump says Iran leadership agrees to talks after US and Israel strike Tehran

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‘They should have done it sooner, they waited too long,’ says Trump but he doesn’t say when talks would take place

Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s political leadership have agreed to talks, a day after the US and Israel began to target the country’s military and political infrastructure, killing the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top officials.

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told a reporter for the Atlantic magazine on Sunday. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”

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Protesters rally across US after strikes on Iran that killed Khamenei

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Crowds gather in DC, New York and beyond to denounce Trump’s Iran strikes as an illegal act of war

As news circulated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, anti-war protesters gathered across the United States, including outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square to voice opposition to US military involvement in the region.

“It wasn’t sanctioned by Congress, so what Trump is doing is on his own terms, it’s making him a fascist and it’s making the country into a fascist state,” said Sue Johnson, a protester.

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‘Viruses don’t know borders’: US anti-vaccine rhetoric could impact global measles crisis

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Experts say global measles vaccination rates are falling as Trump officials signal a deprioritization of the virus

The US government has amplified anti-vaccine rhetoric and signaled that it does not consider measles to be a priority, which could have global ramifications as countries around the world have lost or are on the brink of losing measles elimination status.

The World Health Organization announced in late January that six European countries: the United Kingdom, Spain, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan had all officially lost their measles elimination status, which means the virus has been circulating continuously in those countries for more than 12 months. In order to contain measles, at least 95% of children should be fully vaccinated against it, according to health recommendations, but vaccination rates have been falling across Europe.

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