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      Trump news at a glance: How Robert F Kennedy Jr is cancelling medical science

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      “The current administration is waging a war on science,” warned Celine Gounder, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at New York University in a keynote talk in May to graduates of Harvard’s School of Public Health.That war appeared to enter a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.Kennedy abruptly cancelled a scheduled meeting of a key health care advisory panel, the US Preventive Services Task Force, earlier this month. That, combined with his recent removal of a panel of more than a dozen vaccine advisers, signals that his dismantling of science-based policymaking is likely far from over.‘Making viruses great again’“Do you enjoy getting sick from preventable diseases?” Arwa Madhawi asks in her Week in Patriarchy column. “Do you have a hankering to make once-declining viruses great again? If so, why not pop over to the US where the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and his anti-vaccine cronies are making a valiant effort to overturn decades of progress in modern medicine.”Measles cases are at their highest rate in 33 years in the US, and while not entirely to blame, Trump’s officials don’t seem bothered. RFK Jr has downplayed the numbers. Kennedy has announced that the federal CDC will stop recommending Covid-19 booster shots for healthy children and pregnant women. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) said in a statement: “It is very clear that Covid-19 infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability”. Leading medical associations are suing the Trump administration as a result.Two new surveys, published as a research letter in Jama Network Open, have found that only 35% to 40% of US pregnant women and parents of young children say they intend to fully vaccinate their child. That means the majority of pregnant women and parents don’t plan to accept all recommended kids’ vaccines.Read the full storyAttack on ‘heart and brain of the EPA’ The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday it is eliminating its office of research and development (ORD) and cutting thousands of staff. One union leader said the moves “will devastate public health” by removing “the heart and brain of the EPA”. The ORD’s work underpins the EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human health.The agency is replacing it with a new office of applied science and environmental solutions that will allow it to focus on research and science “more than ever before”. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin – inevitably, a close Trump ally – said the changes would ensure the agency “is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment, while powering the Great American Comeback”.Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House science committee, called the elimination of the research office “a travesty”. “The Trump administration is firing hardworking scientists while employing political appointees whose job it is to lie incessantly to Congress and to the American people. The obliteration of ORD will have generational impacts on Americans’ health and safety.”Read the full story10 more Gaza hostages may be releasedTen more hostages will be released from Gaza “very shortly”, Donald Trump said at the White House. The news comes as the president continues to push for a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.“We’re going to have another 10 coming very shortly, and we hope to have that finished quickly,” Trump said during a dinner with Republican senators. The current Israel-Hamas ceasefire proposal includes terms calling for the return of 10 hostages, and the remains of 18 others. In exchange, Israel would be required to release an unspecified number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.Read the full story‘Arbitrary and completely groundless’The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has reportedly stripped eight of Brazil’s 11 supreme court judges of their US visas as the White House escalates its campaign to help the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro avoid justice over his alleged attempt to seize power with a murderous military coup. In support of the far-right Bolsonaro, Trump has also placed tariffs on Brazil – appalling millions of Brazilians who want to see their former leader held to account.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the presidency from Bolsonaro, denounced what he called “another arbitrary and completely groundless measure from the US government”. While the Bolsonaros have hailed Trump’s actions, they also appear to have grasped how the announcement of tariffs has backfired, allowing Lula to pose as a nationalist defender of Brazilian interests and paint the Bolsonaro clan as self-serving “traitors”. Even influential rightwing voices in Brazil have criticised Trump’s meddling in one of the world’s most populous democracies.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The White House is trying to drive out the Federal Reserve chair who is refusing to do the president’s bidding and cut interests rates, as the Fed waits to see how prices respond to Trump’s tariffs. Critics warn deposing Jerome Powell would be a costly bid to pass the buck, Callum Jones writes.

      In post-2024 election polling, defense of democracy was a top issue for Democrats but way down the list for those who voted for Donald Trump: their top concerns were inflation and the economy. Democrats lost the popular vote. If they are to win back voters who abandoned them in the last election, their messaging needs to change, writes Joan C Williams.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 18 July. More

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      Rubio moves to strip US visas from eight Brazilian judges in Bolsonaro battle

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      The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has reportedly stripped eight of Brazil’s 11 supreme court judges of their US visas as the White House escalates its campaign to help the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro avoid justice over his alleged attempt to seize power with a military coup.Bolsonaro, a far-right populist with ties to Donald Trump’s Maga movement, is on trial for allegedly masterminding a murderous plot to cling to power after losing the 2022 election to his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is expected to be convicted by the supreme court in the coming weeks and faces a jail sentence of up to 43 years.As the day of judgment nears, Trump has been increasing pressure on the court and President Lula’s administration. On 9 July, the US president announced he would impose 50% tariffs on all Brazilian imports as of 1 August, partly as a result of the supposed persecution of his ally. The move triggered an outpouring of nationalist anger in the South American country, with Lula describing it as “unacceptable blackmail”.On Friday, after federal police raided Bolsonaro’s house and fitted him with an electronic tag to stop him absconding, Rubio announced further moves in support of the defendant, who he claimed was the victim of a “political witch hunt”.Writing on X, Rubio said he had ordered visa revocations for the judge leading the investigation into Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, as well as “his allies on the court” and their family members. Rubio did not name his other targets but the Brazilian newspaper O Globo identified them as Luís Roberto Barroso, José Antonio Dias Toffoli, Cristiano Zanin, Flávio Dino, Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, Luiz Edson Fachin and Gilmar Ferreira Mendes.Two other judges who were nominated to the court during Bolsonaro’s 2019-23 presidency, André Mendonça and Kassio Nunes Marques, reportedly avoided the sanction, as did a third judge, Luiz Fux.Lula denounced what he called “another arbitrary and completely groundless measure from the US government”.“Interference in another country’s justice system is unacceptable and offends the basic principles of national sovereignty and respect between nations,” the president said on Saturday, adding: “I’m certain that no kind of intimidation or threat – from whoever it may be – will compromise the most important mission of our nation’s powers and institutions, which is to act permanently to defend and safeguard the democratic rule of law.”The Trump strategist Alex Bruesewitz welcomed Rubio’s announcement, calling Bolsonaro’s treatment “sick and wrong”.Bolsonaro’s congressman son, Eduardo, thanked Rubio for his decision. “Thank you very much for this fight in favor of free speech, we do believe in the same values,” tweeted Eduardo, who has been living in the US since February and has reportedly been lobbying officials there over his father’s plight.Trump’s interventions have appalled millions of Brazilians who hope to see their former leader held responsible for the alleged coup attempt, which culminated in the 8 January riots in Brasília.Lula’s institutional relations minister, Gleisi Hoffmann, called the visa cancellations “an aggressive and petty retaliation” and “an affront to the Brazilian judiciary and national sovereignty”.Even influential rightwing voices have criticised the US’s attempt to meddle in one of the world’s most populous democracies by imposing 50% tariffs.On Saturday, the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper described Trump’s behaviour as “unacceptable external interference in Brazil’s domestic matters”. “Trump has not only attacked our national sovereignty … [but also] stained the history of diplomatic relations between the two largest democracies in the Americas,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.While the Bolsonaros have hailed Trump’s actions, they also appear to have grasped how the announcement of tariffs has backfired, allowing Lula to pose as a nationalist defender of Brazilian interests and paint the Bolsonaro clan as self-serving “traitors”.Lula, who had been facing growing public disillusionment and an uphill battle to win re-election next year, has enjoyed a bounce in the polls since Trump launched his trade war, the brunt of which will be borne by coffee producers and cattle ranchers in Bolsonaro-voting regions, such as São Paulo.Celso Rocha de Barros, a political columnist, said he suspected the Bolsonaros had been blindsided by the scale of Trump’s attack.“I think [Bolsonaro] wanted some kind of penalty – something he could use to say: ‘Look, Brazil’s being punished because of Bolsonaro’s persecution. But [the tariffs] went far too far … [they] screwed Bolsonaro’s base,” said Rocha de Barros, pointing to their potential impact on agribusiness.On Friday night, Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio, post on X, calling on Trump to suspend the tariffs and replace them with individual sanctions. Soon after, however, he deleted the post. More

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      Trump’s EPA eliminates research and development office and begins layoffs

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      The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday it is eliminating its research and development arm and reducing agency staff by thousands of employees. One union leader said the moves “will devastate public health in our country”.The agency’s office of research and development (ORD) has long provided the scientific underpinnings for the EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human health. The EPA said in May it would shift its scientific expertise and research efforts to program offices that focus on major issues such as air and water.The agency said on Friday it is creating a new office of applied science and environmental solutions that will allow it to focus on research and science “more than ever before”.Once fully implemented, the changes will save the EPA nearly $750m, officials said.Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House science committee, called the elimination of the research office “a travesty”.“The Trump administration is firing hardworking scientists while employing political appointees whose job it is to lie incessantly to Congress and to the American people,” she said. “The obliteration of ORD will have generational impacts on Americans’ health and safety.”EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement that the changes announced Friday would ensure the agency “is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment, while Powering the Great American Comeback”.The EPA also said it is beginning the process to eliminate thousands of jobs, following asupreme court ruling last week that cleared the way for Donald Trump’s plans to downsize the federal workforce, despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.Total staffing at EPA will go down to 12,448, a reduction of more than 3,700 employees, or nearly 23%, from staffing levels in January when Trump took office, the agency said.“This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars,” Zeldin said, using a government term for mass firings.The office of research and development “is the heart and brain of the EPA”, said Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents thousands of EPA employees.“Without it, we don’t have the means to assess impacts upon human health and the environment,” Chen said. “Its destruction will devastate public health in our country.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe research office – EPA’s main science arm – currently has 1,540 positions, excluding special government employees and public health officers, according to agency documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the House science panel earlier this year. As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists could be laid off, the documents indicated.The research office has 10 facilities across the country, stretching from Florida and North Carolina to Oregon. An EPA spokeswoman said that all laboratory functions currently conducted by the research office will continue.In addition to the reduction in force, the agency also is offering the third round of deferred resignations for eligible employees, including research office staff, spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said. The application period is open until 25 July.The EPA’s announcement comes two weeks after the agency put on administrative leave 139 employees who signed a “declaration of dissent” with agency policies under the Trump administration. The agency accused the employees of “unlawfully undermining” Trump’s agenda.In a letter made public on 30June, the employees wrote that the EPA is no longer living up to its mission to protect human health and the environment. The letter represented rare public criticism from agency employees who knew they could face retaliation for speaking out.Associated Press contributed to reporting More

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      Health experts raise alarm over RFK Jr’s ‘war on science’ amid mass firings and budget cuts

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      The Trump administration’s “war on science” appears to have entered a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.The decision comes as Kennedy abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting of a key health care advisory panel, the US Preventive Services Task Force, earlier this month. That, combined with his recent removal of a panel of more than a dozen vaccine advisers, signals that his dismantling of the science-based policymaking at HHS is likely far from over.“The current administration is waging a war on science,” warned Celine Gounder, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at New York University in a keynote talk in May to graduates of Harvard’s School of Public Health.“Today we see rising threats to the public health institutions that have kept our world safe for generations,” she said, citing “cuts to research that benefits the lives of millions, looming public health emergencies that are not being addressed with the urgency they demand, and a continued coordinated attack on the very idea of the scientific process.”Gounder added: “Over the past few months, we have seen the Trump administration engage not only in medical misinformation, but in active censorship of scientific discourse.”Since he took the helm at HHS, Kennedy’s unscientific views on vaccines and some other medical matters coupled with the agency’s widespread research and staff cuts, have prompted protests from scientists inside and outside HHS plus lawsuits.Medical experts say Kennedy’s policies are helping “sow distrust in vaccines” as measles cases soar to a more than three decade high, hurt vital healthcare research with draconian cuts, and helped foment a Trump administration “war on science” mentality.Kennedy sparked a firestorm in June by ousting 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and votes to provide updates to its vaccine schedule. He then named a new eight person vaccine panel – half of whom share Kennedy’s distrust of vaccines – who quickly retracted recommendations for flu vaccines containing an ingredient which many anti-vaxxers have falsely connected to autism.That move sparked sharp criticism from veteran doctors with a national pediatric group, which opted to boycott its first meeting.“Among the reasons we decided not to participate was because it clearly appeared to be an orchestrated effort to sow distrust in vaccines,” Sean O’Leary who chairs a committee on infectious diseases with the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Guardian.Dissent has also spread at the National Institutes of Health, where dozens of science researchers and other staff in June released a detailed document, dubbed the Bethesda Declaration, warning that key missions of the premiere research agency at HHS were being damaged by the Trump administration’s budget cutting.Even before these moves, prominent healthcare scholars were sounding loud alarms about some HHS policies and the administration’s anti-science mentality – including its draconian budget cuts for research and staff cuts totaling over 10,000.Gounder said there has been a “flood of Orwellian doublespeak from public health agencies”, contributing to declining vaccination rates and making Americans more susceptible to diseases like measles, which recently hit a level not seen since 2000 when measles was declared eliminated in the US.Her critique has been amplified by public protests from healthcare experts troubled by its vaccine policies and large cuts to research and staff at the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH and other parts of HHS.On a separate legal front, a Rhode Island federal court in July ruled against HHS and Kennedy and put a temporary stop to the drastic revamping of HHS and some of its staff cuts.The ruling provided a court victory to a group of 19 Democratic state attorneys general, plus the District of Columbia, which in May sued Kennedy – plus other HHS leaders such as the FDA commissioner and the CDC’s acting director – attacking the restructuring as an “unconstitutional and illegal dismantling” of the agency. Kennedy, they alleged, has “systematically deprived HHS of the resources necessary to do its job”.The Rhode Island judge wrote that as members of the executive branch, Kennedy and the HHS do “not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress”.For his part, Kennedy in March issued a statement defending the early HHS move to cut 10,000 full-time jobs: “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”Those jobs have since been cut, as of Monday 14 July, after an 8 July order from the supreme court that allowed the restructuring plans to proceed. Many employees who were supposed to be laid off during the agency’s first round of 10,000 layoffs in April have been in limbo as the order made its way through the court system and later paused by federal judges. The reorganization, in addition to cutting staff, was supposed to consolidate the department’s 28 divisions into 15 and cut regional offices from 10 to five.Democrats in Congress too have voiced strong alarms about the thousands of HHS job cuts and their adverse impacts on healthcare and science.Ten congressional Democrats led by congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, whose district is home to thousands of NIH and FDA workers, wrote to Kennedy in March demanding the rehiring of thousands of illegally fired workers, warning of the “harmful consequences” for patient healthcare and science research.Raskin told the Guardian that Kennedy and the Trump administration’s actions reveal a “complete disregard for the law making powers of Congress. Trump wants to be both the implementer of the laws and the legislative branch, but that is not his job. It’s totally unconstitutional. They’re trying to cut off funds that have been lawfully appropriated by Congress”.O’Leary and many other medical experts warn that the dangerous ideologically driven cuts at HHS will have long-term consequences.“What we’re seeing across HHS is deeply concerning,” said O’Leary “NIH funding has never been politically or ideologically driven, but clearly that’s what we’re seeing now. Those cuts are going to have serious consequences for our country and healthcare.” More

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      How can Democrats win back working-class voters? Change their tune | Joan C Williams

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      Doing the same thing and expecting a different result – that’s the definition of insanity. So I fall into despair when I hear yet another news story, and yet another politician, talking incessantly about assaults on democracy. It’s as if folks have read no post-2024 election polling. Defense of democracy was a top issue for Democrats but way, way down for those who voted for Donald Trump: their top concerns were inflation and the economy. Democrats lost the popular vote. They need to attract voters they lost in the last election. What’s complicated about this?Assaults on democracy are driven by narcissistic authoritarianism, for sure – but they’re also a strategy to control the narrative in ways that aid and abet the far right. Democrats need to stop walking into the same old trap, and supplement defense of democracy with a viable strategy to lure back enough non-college-educated voters to win elections.The first step is to understand why defense of democracy doesn’t work with non-college voters. Both white voters and voters of color without degrees typically care more about the economy than democratic norms. Inequality predicts low trust in political institutions, and the US has a serious inequality problem. Many feel democratic institutions have failed them: while over 90% of Americans did better than their parents in the decades after the second world war, only about half of those born in the 1980s will, with particularly sharp declines in “blue wall” states Democrats need to win.Democrats’ failure to connect with non-college voters has been analyzed as an institutional problem of “the groups” inside the beltway – the web of non-profits that reflect the values of the 8% of Americans who are progressive activists. But Democrats’ problem is less an institutional than a cultural problem.Many Democratic candidates feel compelled to keep talking about the issues their core college-educated constituencies care most about – defense of democracy, the climate crisis, abortion rights – in language that appeals to college graduates.What a gift for Maga: in 2024, 84% of voters cared more about the cost of living than the climate crisis and 79% cared more about the cost of living than abortion rights. Only 18% of voters said “preserving American’s institutions” was more important than “delivering change that improves Americans’ lives” (chosen by 78%).Remember the famous ad: “Kamala Harris cares about they/them. Trump cares about you.” That definitely attracted the transphobic – but it also attracted working-class people angry that Democrats weren’t campaigning on the kitchen table issues that mattered most to them. The path forward for Democrats is to learn how to connect with non-college voters, using three arguments.First, Trump is not focused on the kitchen table issues he ran on. Second, he has cut government programs that provide security for ordinary Americans in order to finance huge tax cuts for big business. Third, he’s playing checkers in a world where the big boys play chess, making American weak again in the process.For college grads, the key point about Trump’s tariffs is that they’re chaotic and “dumb”. But the key point for voters without degrees is that Trump isn’t delivering on his core election promise to make middle-class life work for hardworking Americans. The most effective ads of 2024 focused on economics: one called out the cost of rent, groceries and utilities; another decried Trump for fighting “for himself and his billionaire friends” to finance a national sales tax that would raise prices on middle-class families (which is precisely what tariffs do). Democrats should provide a clear contrast, insisting on a society “where hard work is repaid with a stable life” (to quote Zohran Mamdani’s acceptance speech).Tariffs take us in the opposite direction. Not only do they raise prices for American consumers but they also hurt two constituencies non-college voters care about: farmers and small business. America’s most farming-dependent counties went for Trump by 77%; tariffs cut American farmers off from key markets abroad for soybeans, almonds and other agricultural products. Trump’s tariffs also threatened to destroy small business supply chains – the small flower shop that imports flowers from Mexico and the small manufacturer whose supply chains includes Canada – which is why more than half of 600 small business owners surveyed expressed concern about tariffs. That’s important because they represent twice the proportion of voters as compared to Europe. Non-college grads hold small business in high esteem; it’s the most trusted institution in the US. Many non-college Americans’ fondest hope is to own a small business so they can stop being order-takers and become order-givers instead.College grads are upset that the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has terminated National Science Foundation grants (including mine), and fired climate scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. But for non-college voters the key message is that Doge is robbing the settled middle class of the security they yearn for and deserve. Ethnographies show again and again that stability and order are highly valued by the blue-, pink- and routine white-collar voters who are flocking to the far right.Trump’s budget cuts include blue-collar jobs, such as federal firefighters. Also targeted is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema
      ), which helps ensure that ordinary Americans don’t fall out of the middle class when their house floods or burns down in a wildfire. Doge also has fired so many Social Security employees that people now face long waits at Social Security and Medicare – benefits Trump promised to protect. Doge also eliminated USAID programs that bought grain from hard-pressed Kansas farmers.Why are all these assaults on the middle class necessary? To enable huge tax cuts for big business and Trump’s billionaire friends. Three-fourths of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations, and 58% believe upper-income Americans’ taxes are too low.As a central theme, Democrats should insist that government defend small business and stop catering to big business. Anti-elitist rhetoric is important, as evidenced by both research and the big crowds at the Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez Fighting Oligarchy rallies.The third crucial theme is that Trump’s foreign policy is not Maga but “Mawa” (Make America Weak Again). His Taco (Trump Always Chickens Out) tariffs are making the US look foolish and ineffectual. He plays into our enemies’ hand by insulting allies while sucking up to dictators who stroke his ego: Russia and North Korea were among the only countries not included in his initial tariff plan.His administration is trying to fire nearly 1,000 FBI agents whose only fault is that they followed orders, threatening our chief anti-terrorism agency’s ability to do its job in a dangerous world. Fired, too, is the head of cybersecurity, a four-star general summarily dismissed on the advice of a known dingbat after a distinguished 33-year military career.The “Mawa” theme taps into working-class patriotism, security-mindedness, and masculinities. As compared to elites, non-elites are more patriotic, because everyone stresses the highest-status categories they belong to and being American is one of the few high-status categories non-elites can claim. For similar reasons, non-elites endorse traditional masculinities at higher rates: unlike class ideals, gender ideals are social ideals they can fulfill. Blue-collar families are more security-minded for a different reason: they often feel the world is a scary and uncertain place – which, for them, it often is.The left needs to get as conversant in working-class values as the far right is. Masculinity is a good example. We need a lot more jibes like Taco tariffs and political cartoons (Instagram, TikTok, anyone?) that contest Trump’s macho self-image. He’s not a Real Man; he’s a little rich boy so vain and frantic for attention he’s readily manipulable. His fragility is his Achilles’ heel, which is fast becoming America’s Achilles heel.None of these themes resonate as much with college grads as does defense of democracy. But if you care about democracy or immigrants or LGBTQ+ issues or the climate – and I care about them all – we need to build a coalition with working-class people whose values center kitchen table economics, security and patriotism. We haven’t done so yet, and who’s paying the price? The climate and marginalized groups. Not to mention our democracy.

      Joan C Williams is distinguished professor of law and Hastings Foundation chair (emerita) at University of California College of the Law San Francisco. She is also the author of Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back More

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      Tulsi Gabbard calls for Obama to be prosecuted over 2016 election claims

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      Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.She said Obama and senior officials in his administration had “[laid] the groundwork for … a years-long coup” against Trump after his victory over Hillary Clinton by “manufacturing intelligence” to suggest that Russia had tried to influence the election. That included using a dossier prepared by a British intelligence analyst, Christopher Steele, that they knew to be unreliable, Gabbard claimed.The post-election intelligence estimates contrasted with findings reached before the election, which indicated that Russia probably was not trying to interfere.In extraordinary comments calling for prosecutions, she added: “The information we are releasing today clearly shows there was a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government.“Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people.“No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it.”Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress, said she was passing documents supporting her case to the justice department. They included a partially redacted intelligence community assessment from the Obama administration on cyber threats to the 2016 election and a series of previously classified memos, including some from the office of James Clapper, who served as Obama’s director of national intelligence.Clapper is one of several officials named by Gabbard as apparently implicated in the supposed conspiracy. Others include John Brennan, the former CIA director, John Kerry, the then secretary of state, Susan Rice, the national security adviser at the time, Andrew McCabe, the then deputy FBI director, who later fell foul of Trump, and Obama himself.View image in fullscreenThe attempt to return the spotlight back to the Russia investigation – long derided by Trump as a “hoax” – comes as the US president finds himself in the maelstrom of the lingering scandal over the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on sex-trafficking charges.The Trump administration has come under mounting pressure from the president’s make America great again (Maga) base to release files on the case, including a supposed list of Epstein’s influential clients.Trump, in response, has variously dismissed the existence of such files or said they were invented by Obama and members of his administration, including James Comey, the former FBI director, and Joe Biden, vice-president in the Obama administration.Commentary accompanying a series of Obama-era memos published by Gabbard’s office uses terms characteristic of Trump and his most ardent supporters to paint an alleged conspiracy to discredit his 2016 win.Following a meeting on 9 December 2016 of Obama’s most senior national security team, the document – entitled the Russia Hoax – says: “Deep State officials in the IC [intelligence community] begin leaking blatantly false intelligence to the Washington Post … claiming that Russia used “cyber means” to influence “the outcome of the election.“Later that evening, another leak to the Washington Post falsely alleges that the CIA “concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened” in the election to help President Trump.”On 6 January the following year, the document continues: “The Obama administration shares the unclassified ICA [intelligence community assessment] with the public. It falsely alleges, based in part on ‘further information’ that had ‘come to light’ since the election, that Putin directed an effort to help President Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. This ‘further information’ is later confirmed to be the Steele dossier.”The assessment “suppressed” previous pre-election assessments that Russia lacked the intent or means to successfully hack the poll, Gabbard’s report alleges.The Steele dossier, which contained salacious details of “kompromat” allegedly held by Russian intelligence on Trump, formed part of the basis for a lengthy investigation conducted by Robert Mueller, who was appointed as special counsel into the Russia affair. Mueller’s subsequent report concluded that Russia interfered “in sweeping and systematic fashion” in the election campaign but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated” with the Russian government’s activities.Gabbard’s nomination as national intelligence director was one of Trump’s most contentious. It drew criticism because of her lack of previous intelligence experience, having never even served on a congressional committee on the subject, and a track record of supportive comments about Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and repeating Kremlin talking points on the war with Ukraine. More

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      Native American universities and colleges brace for crippling Trump cuts

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      While colleges and universities slow down during summer break, Ahniwake Rose is busy wondering what the fall semester will hold for the nation’s 37 tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) – and if they will be able to stay open much longer.As the president and CEO of the Indigenous non-profit American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), Rose (Cherokee and Muscogee Creek) braces as the schools she represents face a potential nearly 90% reduction in funding starting in October. President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget includes a proposal to slash operations funding from $183.3m to $22.1m for Bureau of Indian Education post-secondary programs – career and technical schools, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities. On 15 July, a House appropriations subcommittee approved legislation that allotted $1.5bn to the Bureau of Indian Education, though it did not specify how much would go toward post-secondary programs. Congress still needs to finish approving the budget for the Bureau of Indian Education, a subdivision of the Department of Interior.If approved, such cuts will further endanger a system that’s already undernourished. Congress currently underfunds the nation’s 37 tribal colleges and universities by $250m a year, according to a 2024 ProPublica report.TCUs are heavily reliant on federal funding, which accounts for about 75% of their revenue. Those monies cannot be replaced with endowments or alumni donations as other higher education institutions do due to low wealth in Indigenous communities, said Rose. “There is really no other option, if not to close,” she said, “than to severely reduce the way that our institutions are able to provide services to our students.” Rose added that “there is not one TCU that would be able to walk away unscathed”.While they are on summer recess, faculty and students have expressed concerns about their academic future as they fear that their schools will close next year.“The impact that this is having on the morale of our community and our students has been deeply troubling,” Rose said. Some students are reconsidering whether they will begin school or continue their coursework next year. “Would the staff want to sign a contract for an institution that might not be able to pay them next year or in a few months?”In anticipation of potential budget cuts, some schools have adjusted by canceling internships, fellowships and workforce study, said Rose. AIHEC is working with institutions to guarantee that the cancellations don’t affect students’ abilities to meet degree requirements and graduate. For students who relied on fellowships to support their education, the non-profit is partnering with the American Indian College Fund so that they can complete their education on time.When Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) student Breana Brave Heart (Oglala Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne) learned that the Trump administration was seeking to eliminate her school’s funding, she saw it as a betrayal. “It felt like a direct attack on us as Native students – on our dreams, our cultures and our treaty rights,” Brave Heart said in a statement to the Guardian. “IAIA isn’t just a college; it’s a promise our ancestors secured for us through sacrifice and agreements with the US government.”Rose said that Brave Heart’s school was most vulnerable to a potential closure, since Trump’s 2026 discretionary budget request includes a plan to specifically eliminate funding for the school – without explanation. The four-year fine arts school that focuses on Alaska Native and Native American arts receives $13.5m in annual appropriations. That amount would be reduced to zero if the budget is approved by Congress.“If they were to defund us,” the IAIA president, Robert Martin, (Cherokee) said, “then what would happen to those 850 students? Where would they go at this point?” Native Americans make up 80% of the student population, with 92 federally recognized tribes represented at the school.View image in fullscreenFounded in 1962, IAIA has had an indelible influence on Indigenous arts, Martin said. Some of the most well-known alumni include the former US poet laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee/Creek) and author Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho of Oklahoma), a finalist for the Pulitzer prize for fiction.“With the pandemic and historical trauma to begin with, there’s always been mental health issues [for students], and this adds a little bit more stress to being a college student,” Martin said. “In terms of faculty and staff, they are stressed about their employment outlook in the future, and what that’s going to bring.”In the meantime, Martin is telling staff and students to expect to return to campus in the fall. School leadership has held town hall meetings for faculty and staff to allay their concerns, and they are preparing to increase their fundraising efforts.An obligation to educateMartin and Christopher Caldwell (Menominee), president at College of Menominee Nation in Wisconsin, hope that whenever a new budget passes, it will uphold the federal government’s promise to fund Indigenous education. The 1978 Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities Assistance Act and about 150 treaties guaranteed federal funding to higher education, at a base amount of $8,000 per student adjusted for inflation.Since June, school leaders and their allies have lobbied congressional members to continue supporting TCUs so they remain open in the upcoming academic year. Continued funding of the schools, which provides economic vitality to the entire community also allows tribes to govern themselves, said Rose.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreen“Our tribal colleges are a deep expression of self-determination and sovereignty. These education systems were created to support and build tribal leadership, to create education systems in which Native students can thrive and can build our economies,” Rose said. “Not only are the proposed cuts a direct attack against the trust and treaty responsibility that the federal government has to postsecondary institutions, it inhibits tribes’ ability to direct self-determination in our own education systems.” She added that her organization and the institutions were connecting with the current administration to underscore just how critical Department of Interior funding is to tribal colleges.The Institute of American Indian Arts has been in contact with New Mexico’s congressional delegation and members of the appropriations committee to ensure that they understand the significance of funding for TCUs. “We’ve had bipartisan support for our programs, and it’s all part of the trust responsibility of the federal government,” Martin said. “Our ancestors ceded millions of acres of land to the federal government in return for certain promises, and one of those was education.”Martin continued: “What we’re hearing from our donors and supporters is: ‘How can we help? And what can we do?’ We’re telling them to reach out to the congressional delegation immediately. But we also have to emphasize that we may have to experience some reduction in our funding, so we’re going to have to make that up in some way to continue to offer the quality of programs and really focus on student success.”Students are also part of the campaign to preserve tribal education. Brave Heart, the IAIA student, is working with her peers to reach out to Congress. “We deserve more than to see our futures reduced to a line item crossed out in a budget. We need our elected leaders to honor their commitments to Indigenous students and uphold these sacred obligations.”View image in fullscreenThe potential closures of schools will greatly affect tribal economies, particularly since TCUs are sometimes the largest employers in their locales, said Rose. The non-profit plans to release an analysis that looks at the overall economic impact of TCUs on the surrounding communities around the nation.Along with writing letters to congressional members, AIHEC is also helping the schools review their budgets and identify ways that they can cut costs. But for some institutions, the decreases are so steep it’s hard to plan.Caldwell, the College of Menominee Nation president, said that the school’s federal funding would be reduced from $1.5m to $181,000 if Congress passes the proposed budget.“How do you budget for the coming years when you see that kind of uncertainty?” Caldwell said. “We’re constantly weighing how much of these costs we are able to cover if the government suddenly stops paying their side of what they agreed to.”The school is refiguring their strategic plan for the upcoming academic year and examining whether their academic offerings align with workforce trends.In light of the financial hits that TCUs have faced since Trump entered office in January, including staff reductions at the Bureau of Indian Education, Caldwell said that the College of Menominee Nation had seen an increase in anonymous donations. “It demonstrated that there are people who support the work that we do in tribal nations and surrounding communities.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas

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      The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.“This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,” added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, about the matter.The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any “eligible buyers”, in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson.Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded.The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration’s months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) erased 83% of USAID’s programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID’s entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the state department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First.In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children.“If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it’s quite likely that you will die,” said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. “If you’re not given the means to space or limit your births, you’re putting your life at risk or your child’s life at risk.”MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI’s ability to distribute them.The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw’s allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an “eligible buyer”.In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone.Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. “The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there’s so much need – it’s just egregious,” she said. “It’s disgusting.” The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction.The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives.“I’ve worked in this sector for over 20 years and I’ve never seen anything on this scale,” Shaw said. “The speed at which they’ve managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it’s just vanished in weeks.”Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico.The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early on Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance.“It’s not just about an empty shelf,” Shaw said. “It’s about unfulfilled potential. It’s about a girl having to drop out of school. It’s about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That’s what it’s really about.” More