President signed executive order directing FDA to expedite review of psychedelic drugs including ibogaine
Donald Trump on Saturday announced reforms intended to speed up access to medical research and treatment based on psychedelic drugs.
The president signed an executive order directing the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expedite review of drugs such as ibogaine, which US military veteran groups have said can help treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
Continue reading...The president has opened fissures in his base by starting a war he couldn’t finish with Iran, stoking inflation and offending Christians. Barred from running again, he may feel he has nothing to lose
Lance Johnson voted for Donald Trump three times. Now he is feeling buyer’s remorse. “I haven’t been too happy with the third time around,” said the 47-year-old contractor, sitting at a bar in Crescent Springs, Kentucky. “We’re supposed to not start any new wars. Prices were supposed to come down. We were promised a lot of things and we’re not getting them.”
Johnson is not the only Trump voter having doubts about a US president who, after defying political gravity for a decade, finally seems to be crashing back to earth. The past two weeks have arguably been the most bruising of Trump’s two terms in office, suggesting that his tried and trusted playbook could finally be falling apart.
Continue reading...Bipartisan backing for special relationship is fraying as Middle East conflicts turn public opinion
Israel’s conflicts in the Middle East have driven a sea change in US public opinion, threatening a bipartisan consensus of support for military aid for Israel that has been the status quo for decades.
In public opinion polling of Americans, among likely candidates for president, and even in pro-Israel lobbying circles, the special relationship enjoyed by Israel with the US is now under fire as human rights concerns from the left and a new “America First” foreign policy groundswell on the right could impact coming elections – including the 2028 presidential elections.
Continue reading...Democratic representative from California has suspended gubernatorial campaign and resigned from Congress
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has opened an investigation into Eric Swalwell following his resignation from Congress, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The news of a federal investigation comes days after the Democratic representative from California stepped down due to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
Continue reading...Schwartz was deputy surgeon general under Trump’s first administration and is a rear admiral in the US Coast Guard
Donald Trump has selected Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bringing to an end a months-long search for a permanent head of the troubled public health agency.
Trump revealed his choice on Truth Social, saying: “I am pleased to announce the new leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is my Honor to nominate the incredibly talented Dr Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as my Director of the CDC,” he wrote. “She is a STAR!”
Continue reading...Trump ally grilled by lawmakers over ‘terrible decisions’ on vaccines, public health and funding cuts to key programs
Vaccines and public health dominated a frequently contentious hearing with Robert F Kennedy Jr on Thursday before the US House ways and means committee.
Kennedy, the health secretary and a longtime vaccine opponent, has overseen sweeping changes to routine vaccination recommendations and has promoted misinformation even amid the biggest measles outbreak in decades.
Continue reading...Wednesday’s strike brings the total of those killed in US military strikes on alleged drug boats to at least 177
Three people were killed in a US strike on another alleged drug-trafficking boat, the fifth such deadly attack in as many days, military officials have announced.
US southern command said it conducted “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the eastern Pacific, without naming the alleged group, in an X post.
Continue reading...President says he gave Britain ‘better deal than I had to’ but ally was ‘not there when we needed them’ on Iran
Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.
The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, was “better than I had to” and that it could “always be changed”.
Continue reading...Strike marks third deadly attack on vessels in region in four days, and the killing of 174 people since September
The US military said it killed four more people in a boat strike in the eastern Pacific ocean on Tuesday, marking the third deadly attack on vessels in the region in four days.
The US Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the killings in a social media post, claiming, without providing evidence, that the men killed were “narco-terrorists”.
Continue reading...Virginia signs national popular vote bill into law, joining interstate compact with 17 other states and District of Columbia
A national majority vote for president is one step closer to reality after the Virginia governor, Abigail Spanberger, signed the national popular vote bill into law, joining an interstate compact with 17 other states and the District of Columbia.
Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state. The compact takes effect when states representing a majority of electoral votes – 270 of 538 – pass the legislation and thus would determine the winner of the presidential contest. With Virginia, the compact now has 222 electors.
Continue reading...Gonzales, who admitted affair with aide who later died by suicide, says he will file retirement from office on Tuesday
Representative Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, announced on Monday he was stepping down from Congress after acknowledging an extramarital affair with a staffer.
Gonzales, who was facing a growing threat of expulsion by his colleagues, admitted last month that he had an affair with an aide who later died by suicide.
Continue reading...Stunning loss of rightwing populist in Hungary carries symbolic significance for opponents of Donald Trump
For US Democrats seeking rays of light in the dark landscape of Donald Trump’s authoritarian onslaught, illumination has arrived from the unlikely source of Budapest.
Viktor Orbán’s stunning defeat in Hungary’s general election – ending 16 years of unbroken rule for his governing Fidesz party – carries symbolic and psychological significance for American politics out of all proportion to the central European country’s modest size and distance from the US.
Continue reading...John Brennan says president who made volatile remarks about destroying Iranian civilization ‘is clearly unhinged’
The former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan has added his name to growing calls for the president to be ousted on grounds that he is unfit for the job, arguing that the US constitution’s 25th amendment addressing involuntary removal from office was “written with Donald Trump in mind”.
Brennan, who served as head of the spy agency during Barack Obama’s presidency, told MS Now on Saturday that Trump’s recent volatile remarks about destroying Iranian civilization and the danger he posed to so many lives merited his removal from the Oval Office.
Continue reading...President has long been a fan of mixed martial arts
Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr also at event
Donald Trump and US secretary of state Marco Rubio attended a UFC event in Miami night on Saturday night as peace talks with Iran failed on the other side of the world.
Trump entered the Kaseya Center shortly after 9pm alongside several members of his family and UFC chief Dana White, who has been a supporter of the president since his first term. Seated nearby was Rubio as well as the US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, the rapper Vanilla Ice and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino.
Continue reading...Three arrested by federal agents had family ties to Iranian military general, regime spokesperson or security chief
United States federal agents arrested three Iranian nationals – including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis – after the US state department terminated their green cards, the department announced on Saturday.
State department officials revoked the green card status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, whose mother was an Iranian revolutionary who served as the spokesperson for Iran’s regime during the hostage crisis that defined the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The state department also revoked the green card – or legal permanent resident – statuses of Hashemi’s wife and son.
Continue reading...After Calvin Duncan served 28 years for a murder he didn’t commit, he won an election to serve as criminal court clerk. But now the office might be shut down
A man imprisoned for nearly 30 years before being exonerated won a landmark election in New Orleans promising to fix a judicial system that failed him. Now, Louisiana’s governor, Jeff Landry, and the Republican-controlled state legislature are racing to eliminate his job before he can be sworn in.
Calvin Duncan won 68% of the vote last November to become the Orleans parish clerk of criminal court after pledging to reform the justice system based on his own experience fighting to access court records while in maximum security prison.
Continue reading...President already has issued sweeping pardons throughout second term, including for 1,500 US Capital riot defendants
Donald Trump has reportedly said he will issue pardons en masse to his closest advisers at the end of his second presidency, promising them in casual conversations over the last year.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval [Office],” the president reportedly said in a recent meeting, garnering laughs from the room, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing an anonymous source.
Continue reading...Adams was granted citizenship and a passport from Balkan country by a special decree from the republic’s president
Eric Adams has obtained citizenship and a passport from Albania, the Balkan country which received effusive compliments from the former New York City mayor during a visit there relatively recently.
The Albania Daily News first reported on Friday that Adams had requested both and was granted them by a special decree from the republic’s president, Bajram Begaj. A spokesperson for Adams then confirmed that development in a statement distributed to the news media, and it was evidently chronicled in Albania’s official government journal.
Continue reading...Former vice-president spoke before a crowd at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network gathering in New York
Kamala Harris said she is “thinking about” running in the 2028 presidential election.
“I might, I might. I’m thinking about it,” the former vice-president told the crowd at a gathering of the National Action Network (NAN), a civil rights organization founded by Al Sharpton, on Friday in New York City.
Continue reading...The men, sent to the southern African country in July, have been denied in-person counsel for nine months
Four men deported by the US to Eswatini and denied in-person legal counsel for nine months while detained in a maximum security prison have the right to see a local lawyer, Eswatini’s supreme court ruled.
The men, from Cambodia, Cuba, Vietnam and Yemen, were sent to the small southern African country, formerly known as Swaziland, in July despite having no connection to the country, as part of Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations.
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