Evelyn Reynolds

Colorado lawmaker, who pushed for Epstein files release, points to bill’s unanimous passage through US House and SenateRepublican representative Lauren Boebert has fired back at Donald Trump for vetoing a bill that would have funded a drinking water project in her Colorado district, implying the president was playing at political retaliation.The bill was aimed at funding a decades-long project to bring safe drinking water to 39 communities in Colorado’s eastern plains, where the groundwater is high in salt and wells sometimes unleash radioactivity into the water supply. Continue reading… More

Trump official says funds will be released ‘only when states prove they are being spent legitimately’The Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all childcare payments to all states, an official for Donald Trump’s administration told ABC News in a report published Wednesday. States’ funds will be released “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately”.The report came a day after Jim O’Neill, the HHS deputy secretary, and Alex Adams, an HHS assistant secretary who oversees the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), appeared in a Tuesday evening video message. O’Neill declared that the department had “activated our defend-the-spend system for all ACF childcare payments across America” and would now require “justification, receipt or photo evidence before we make a payment”. Continue reading… More

Democrat Muhammad Akbar Ali joins the Georgia state house as a legislator representing an Atlanta suburbMuhammad Akbar Ali, a 21-year-old recent college graduate, won a runoff election for a state house seat in Atlanta’s suburbs earlier this month, becoming the youngest Georgia state legislator serving today – perhaps the youngest ever.The key to the young Democrat’s victory and his strategy moving forward? Experience. Continue reading… More

The Danish American who doubted Covid shots is meant to lead drug regulation – but has focused on vaccinesAs the US continues making unprecedented changes to its vaccination recommendations, one figure appears unexpectedly: Tracy Beth Høeg, a Danish American sports physician and epidemiologist who first made her name casting doubt on Covid vaccines in the pandemic and has focused upon possible deaths after Covid vaccination in her short tenure at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Health officials planned to announce radical changes to the childhood vaccine schedule earlier this month, aligning the US with Denmark’s immunization schedule, sources say – a major change that would put the US out of step with much of the world with no evidence for benefit. The announcement has been postponed until the new year. Continue reading… More

How the tech CEO and ‘Dogefather’ made a mess of the year – from an apparent Nazi salute during his White House tenure to Tesla sales slumps and Starship explosionsThe year of 2025 was dizzying for Elon Musk. The tech titan began the year holding court with Donald Trump in Washington DC. As the months ticked by, one public appearance after another baffled the US and the world. Musk appeared to give a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration, staunchly championed a 19-year-old staffer nicknamed “Big Balls,” denied reports of being a drug addict while advising the president, and showed up at a White House press conference with a black eye – all in the first half of the year alone.“Elon’s attitude is you have to get it done fast. If you’re an incrementalist, you just won’t get your rocket to the moon,” Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, told Vanity Fair in an expansive interview earlier this month. “And so with that attitude, you’re going to break some china.” Continue reading… More

Officials claim to find ‘rampant fraud’ in childcare funding, but prosecutions began in Biden era and Tim Walz says ‘we’ve spent years cracking down on it’ The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it is freezing federal funding for childcare programs in Minnesota after allegations of fraud – first exposed and prosecuted during the Biden administration – recently became the focus of conservative influencers and media outlets.Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of health and human services, said in a video statement that the funding freeze was in response to what he called “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country … We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud.” Continue reading… More

More musical acts pull out of performances after Trump slaps his name on the building – key US politics stories from 30 December at a glanceThe list of musical artists canceling gigs at the Kennedy Center, which Donald Trump has attempted to rename the “Trump-Kennedy Center”, in Washington DC continues to grow.A second jazz band has pulled out of a New Year’s Eve gig, giving just two days’ notice before the event was set to take place. Continue reading… More

A pity that Trump, or one of the 18 intelligence agencies reporting to him, did not trace the image back to its sourceEven while on holiday at his Florida resort, Donald Trump has refused to take a break from his unrelenting war on wind energy.Late Tuesday, the US president posted an image of a dead bird beneath a turbine on social media, accompanied by the lament: “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!” Continue reading… More