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Category: Politics

Huge cuts to mRNA research trigger fears about future pandemics and national security

Huge cuts to mRNA research trigger fears about future pandemics and national security

The Hill reports: Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision this week to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine funding will leave the United States unprepared for the next pandemic and other public health emergencies, public health experts warned. “I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions—but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives,” President Trump’s former surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said in a post on…

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The White House office for U.S. pandemic policy has been gutted

The White House office for U.S. pandemic policy has been gutted

Nikki Romanik writes: The White House office mandated by Congress to coordinate pandemic preparedness has been gutted, leaving urgent global health security gaps. Six months into the second Trump administration, a critical piece of America’s pandemic defense infrastructure sits dormant. The Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR), created in 2022 by congressional mandate through the PREVENT Pandemics Act, has been effectively abandoned—operating without a director since Trump’s second inauguration. This institutional void emerges just as the United States…

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The ADL used to fight for justice for all. Now its focus is on crushing pro-Palestinian activism

The ADL used to fight for justice for all. Now its focus is on crushing pro-Palestinian activism

  Noah Shachtman writes: On June 4, an executive at the Anti-Defamation League, which was founded with a mission to defend the Jewish people and “to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” walked into a room on the fourth floor of the Eisenhower building across the street from the White House. They were there to attend a meeting between Jewish groups and members of the Trump administration. Just a few years before, in the waning days of Trump’s first…

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‘A million calls an hour’: Microsoft storing Israeli intelligence trove used to attack Palestinians

‘A million calls an hour’: Microsoft storing Israeli intelligence trove used to attack Palestinians

Yuval Abraham reports: The Israeli army’s elite cyber warfare unit is using Microsoft’s cloud servers to store masses of intelligence on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — information that has been used to plan deadly airstrikes and shape military operations, an investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal. Unit 8200, roughly equivalent in function to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), has transferred audio files of millions of calls by Palestinians in the occupied…

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Details on Trump regime’s ‘ideological deportation’ policy filed in federal court

Details on Trump regime’s ‘ideological deportation’ policy filed in federal court

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University yesterday filed and today made public an almost-two-hundred-page brief describing evidence presented during trial in a case challenging the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen faculty and students for their pro-Palestinian advocacy. The case was filed in the spring on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), AAUP’s Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers campus chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association. Judge William G. Young of the U.S….

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Trumpworld knows Epstein is a problem they can’t solve

Trumpworld knows Epstein is a problem they can’t solve

Wired reports: Privately, some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal allies have come to a sobering conclusion. There’s simply nothing that can be done, they’ve come to believe, to salvage the ongoing catastrophe that is the MAGA base fraying over the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein. People aren’t jumping off the Trump train yet—at least not in significant numbers, though polling shows at least 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Epstein case in recent weeks—but the damage…

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Victims object to ‘public legitimization’ of Maxwell as judge weighs fate of Epstein grand jury transcripts

Victims object to ‘public legitimization’ of Maxwell as judge weighs fate of Epstein grand jury transcripts

CNN reports: Numerous victims of Jeffrey Epstein took aim at the “public legitimization” of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell as they urged a federal judge considering unsealing grand jury transcripts to take their privacy into account when making his decision. Lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who represent numerous victims, including a woman who testified at Maxwell’s criminal trial, also questioned the motives of the Justice Department as the Trump administration tries to tamp down criticism from some of his most…

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Trump regime making plans to destroy NASA satellites designed for monitoring greenhouse gases

Trump regime making plans to destroy NASA satellites designed for monitoring greenhouse gases

NPR reports: The Trump administration has asked NASA employees to draw up plans to end at least two major satellite missions, according to current and former NASA staffers. If the plans are carried out, one of the missions would be permanently terminated, because the satellite would burn up in the atmosphere. The data the two missions collect is widely used, including by scientists, oil and gas companies and farmers who need detailed information about carbon dioxide and crop health. They…

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Netanyahu willing to sacrifice hostages in pursuit of complete conquest of Gaza

Netanyahu willing to sacrifice hostages in pursuit of complete conquest of Gaza

The Times of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with senior security officials on Tuesday to hammer out Gaza war plans, and reportedly came out in favor of the military taking control of the entire enclave, even if it meant that the remaining hostages could be harmed or executed by Hamas. The meeting came amid multiple reports of rising tensions between the prime minister and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir over the prospect of Israeli forces…

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For Trump’s own deep state, ‘his usefulness has expired’

For Trump’s own deep state, ‘his usefulness has expired’

Wajahat Ali talks to Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, who broke the news that someone waived Ghislaine Maxwell’s status as a sex offender so she could move to a minimum security prison camp in Texas. Gill also earlier broke news that Bloomberg confirmed today that the FBI’s FOIA team was asked to redact the names of Trump and other prominent individuals from thousands of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.   The Associated Press reports: The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed…

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EPA moves to terminate $7 billion in grants for solar energy

EPA moves to terminate $7 billion in grants for solar energy

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is preparing to terminate $7 billion in federal grants intended to help low- and moderate-income families install solar panels on their homes, according to two people briefed on the matter. The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting termination letters to the 60 state agencies, nonprofit groups and Native American tribes that received the grants under the “Solar for All” program, with the goal of sending the letters by the end of this week,…

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White House prepares order to punish banks that supposedly discriminate against conservatives

White House prepares order to punish banks that supposedly discriminate against conservatives

The Wall Street Journal reports: The White House is preparing to step up pressure against big banks over perceived discrimination against conservatives and crypto companies with an executive order that threatens to fine lenders that drop customers for political reasons. A draft of the executive order, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, directs bank regulators to investigate whether any financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws or consumer financial-protection laws. Violators could be…

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U.S. defence firms scramble for rare earth minerals after China blocks exports

U.S. defence firms scramble for rare earth minerals after China blocks exports

The Telegraph reports: The US is scrambling to get hold of the rare earth metals needed to make weapons after China slashed its supply to American defence firms. Prices of some rare earths have increased more than 60-fold after Beijing restricted the export of the materials for defence purposes earlier this year, amid a trade war with the US. Beijing controls around 90 per cent of the world’s rare metal supply and dominates the production of many other critical minerals,…

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Trump is turning America into a banana republic

Trump is turning America into a banana republic

Tom Friedman writes: Of all the terrible things Donald Trump has said and done as president, the most dangerous one just happened on Friday. Trump, in effect, ordered our trusted and independent government office of economic statistics to become as big a liar as he is. He fired Erika McEntarfer, the Senate-confirmed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for bringing him economic news he did not like, and in the hours immediately following, the second most dangerous thing happened:…

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Judges no longer trust the government after DOJ lawyers have repeatedly misled courts

Judges no longer trust the government after DOJ lawyers have repeatedly misled courts

The New York Times reports: Justice Department lawyers have long enjoyed a professional benefit when they appear in court. As a general rule, judges tend to take them at their word and assume they are telling the truth. But in the past several months, as members of President Trump’s Justice Department have repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them, some jurists have started to show an angry loss of faith in the…

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Trump regime turns domestic disaster relief into a tool for shielding Israel from boycotts

Trump regime turns domestic disaster relief into a tool for shielding Israel from boycotts

Reuters reports: U.S. states and cities that boycott Israeli companies will be denied federal aid for natural disaster preparedness, the Trump administration has announced, tying routine federal funding to its political stance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency stated in grant notices posted on Friday that states must follow its “terms and conditions.” Those conditions require they certify they will not sever “commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies” to qualify for funding. The requirement applies to at least $1.9 billion that…

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