Janine Jackson: Trump-appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is colorful, which is a problem when someone is a public hazard. Because now that Kennedy is in a position of power, we need journalists to move past anecdote to ideas—ideas that are informing actions that shape not just his reputation, but all of our lives.

Our guest suggests we could begin with a core false notion that lies in back of much of Kennedy’s program.

Paul Offit is director of the Vaccine Education Center, and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He joins us now by phone from Philly. Welcome to CounterSpin, Paul Offit.

Paul Offit: Thank you.

JJ: The context for our conversation is the first measles death in the US in a decade, in Texas, where we understand they have reported, and this news is fresh, some 400 cases of measles, just between January and March, while the national number for 2024 was 285. This is a trage

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A spider species eat their siblings as soon as they die but tolerate each other when they are alive, suggesting a mysterious signal helps them to determine when to dine on a nest mate

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is suspending a quality-control program for its food-testing laboratories as a result of staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The proficiency testing program of the FDA’s Food Emergency Response Network is designed to ensure consistency and accuracy across the agency’s network of about 170 labs that test food for pathogens and contaminants to prevent food-borne illness.

The firing and departure of as many as 20,000 HHS employees has upended public health research and disrupted the agency’s work on areas like bird flu and drug reviews. Donald Trump hopes to slash as much as $40bn from HHS.

Last Tuesday afternoon, just six days after Mark Zuckerberg’s third meeting with Donald Trump this year, the Meta CEO’s key antagonists in the federal government arrived in the Oval Office.

The visitors were Andrew Ferguson, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, which is suing Meta in a trial that begins today; and Gail Slater, the assistant attorney general who is responsible for the Justice Department’s anti-trust enforcement.

Ferguson and Slater were there, a person familiar with the meeting said, to stiffen Trump’s spine against a relentless wave of lobbying from Meta. The social media giant has pushed the president to settle a lawsuit that began in his first term, and continued through the Biden years, which seeks to force the company to divest Instagram and Whatsapp. (The FTC is an independent agency, but both Meta and many of its foes have prepared for Trump to shape the handling of the lawsuit.)

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"Democratic Rep. Josh Harder argues that Democrats must become the party most angry at the status quo to regain voter trust and electoral success. He emphasizes that the party currently faces a serious disconnect with many voters, who see Democrats as elitist and out of touch with everyday concerns. Harder criticizes the influence of far-left groups within the party, which push extreme positions such as decriminalizing border crossings and Medicare for All, that are unpopular even among the groups they claim to represent. He warns that candidates who align too closely with these far-left demands risk alienating moderate and swing voters, which contributed to Vice President Kamala Harris's poor performance in the 2024 election. Harder calls for Democrats to abandon these extreme pledges, reconnect with pragmatic voters, and focus on policies that can win broad support rather than ideological purity. He stresses the need for boldness and a break from outdated practices to rebu

Since 2020, the five richest men in the world have doubled their fortunes while almost five billion people have become poorer. A growing sense of economic injustice and insecurity is contributing to the rise of authoritarian movements around the world. Meanwhile, the world is set to blast past global heating targets. But this is not inevitable. What if, instead, economic decisions were made with people and the planet at the center?

This is the idea behind the concept of a human rights economy, which means putting rights at the heart of economic policymaking. The concept draws from the work of human rights scholars and organizations around the world, while supporting transformative economic approaches emerging from other movements, including climate justice, gender justice, and decolonization.

A phase 3 analysis shows that estetrol with drospirenone significantly reduces menstrual pain, mood swings, and other menstrual symptoms, offering clear benefits for both new and switching contraceptive users.

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Microsoft has closed its IoT & AI Insider Lab in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang hi-tech zone, marking the latest sign of the US tech giant’s retreat from China amid rising geopolitical tensions.

The Shanghai lab, meant to help with domestic development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, closed earlier this year, according to people who work in the Zhangjiang AI Island area.

The lab was dark and unoccupied during a recent visit by the South China Morning Post, with the logo removed and office equipment cleared out.

The area houses the offices of several Big Tech firms, including German chipmaker Infineon Technologies and Chinese internet search giant Baidu.

The US imposed sanctions on Hong Kong’s departing police chief and five other officials on Monday, saying they had undermined the semi-autonomous city’s “protected rights and freedoms”, and warned of additional visa restrictions for Chinese officials blocking “reciprocal access” to Tibet.

The sanctions against Hong Kong Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee and other high-ranking officials announced on Monday will freeze any assets they have in the US and restrict any financial transactions with them under US law. The sanctions were imposed on Chiu a day before he retires on Tuesday.

Citing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump during his first term, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move showed “the Trump administration’s commitment to hold to account those responsible for depriving people in Hong Kong of protected rights and freedoms or who commit acts of transnational repression on US soil”.

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TOKYO -- Tokyo Gas has decided to acquire part of a shale gas development in Texas from U.S. oil major Chevron, Nikkei has learned, as the Japanese energy company looks to expand profit through trading. The deal, estimated at tens of billions of yen (10 billion yen equals $66.6 million), is expected as early as April. Tokyo Gas will use the natural gas it extracts from the development to trade on the market, as well as supply the fuel to power plants and other customers. Because natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide at fossil fuel plants compared with coal, Tokyo Gas anticipates that demand will continue to rise. The enthusiasm for shale gas expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump also was a factor. At the end of 2023, Tokyo Gas bought Rockcliff Energy, a Texas-based shale gas developer, for around 400 billion yen. The Japanese utility will acquire a new interest close to Rockcliff and reduce the costs of laying pipe

Artificial intelligence powerhouse OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, on Monday announced it is building a more open generative AI model as it faces growing competition in the open-source space from Chinese rival DeepSeek and Meta.

The announcement marks a strategic shift by OpenAI, which until now has been a fierce defender of closed, proprietary models that do not allow developers to modify the basic technology to make AI more adapted to their goals.

OpenAI and defenders of closed models - which include Google - have often decried open models as more risky and vulnerable to nefarious uses by bad actors or foreign adversaries.

OpenAI’s embrace of closed models has also been a bone of contention in its battles with former investor Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, who has called on OpenAI to honour the spirit of the company’s name and “return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was”.

Putting pressure on OpenAI, many large companies and governments ha

COVID-19 vaccination slashed the risk of experiencing prolonged symptoms by about 27% in fully vaccinated adults who were later infected, estimates a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) systematic review of 12 studies.

The researchers identified 11 studies on whether COVID-19 vaccination lowers the risk of long COVID, or post-COVID condition (PCC) and 1 study designed to determine whether vaccination reduces both the risk and duration of persistent symptoms. Published after October 2021, the studies used the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of long COVID and were conducted in Europe and similar regions.

The WHO defines long COVID as symptoms 3 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection that last for at least 2 months.

No conclusions about kids, immune-compromised adults. Six studies of adults overall found that full vaccination before infection significantly reduced the odds of developing long COVID compared with no vaccination.

"These studies represent

A clinical survey of 85 pediatric long-COVID patients in Bavaria, Germany, reveals high levels of fatigue, loss of motivation, difficulty concentrating and maintaining attention, worsened mood, and greater anxiety. A

To holistically describe long-COVID symptoms and identify risk factors for post-infection neurocognitive and emotional problems, University of Regensburg researchers analyzed clinical data from COVID-19 survivors aged 12 to 17 years who had symptoms for at least 4 weeks. The average patient age was 12.5 years, 61.2% were girls, and the average interval from infection to examination was 5.7 months.

From December 2021 to June 2023, the children were given a neuropsychological evaluation made up of infection-specific interviews, psychopathologic exams, questionnaires on emotional well-being and behavioral problems, and computerized tests measuring concentration, attention, and memory. Participants also underwent neurologic, pneumological, gastrointestinal, and cardiac t

A Washington Post report on March 28 that the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) forced the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) top vaccine official—Peter Marks, MD—to resign or be fired quickly caught the attention of some lawmakers, along with members of the scientific and business communities.

Marks submitted his resignation letter, with an effective date of April 5. The development comes amid a major change in focus under the leadership of new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic, which the agency spelled out in a March 27 announcement.

Marks: Kennedy wants support for misinformation, lies

Marks is a hematologist oncologist who has led the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) since 2016 after serving as its deputy director since 2012. He has widely been credited as playing a key role in Operation Warp Speed, a partnership between the federal government and the private sector that streamlined the development, pro

Under the ACA, insurance plans sold through the ACA marketplace are required to cover all EHBs as defined by the benchmarks of the state in which they operate. The rule, if enacted as proposed, would remove hormone replacement therapy, gender-affirming surgery, puberty blockers, and other forms of gender-affirming medical care from the list of valid EHBs. Insurers would still be allowed, but not required, to offer coverage for such care.

As justification for the new rule, CMS and HHS pointed to Trump’s executive orders calling for gender-affirming care to be banned for trans youth and demanding an “end to Federal funding of gender ideology.” But although it parrots Trump’s false definition of “biological sex” (that people are immutably male or female based on whether they have “the biological function to produce” sperm or eggs), the proposal claims that it is not subject to the injunctions blocking them, because it “does not rely on the enjoined sections” of those executive orders.

Tennessee lawmakers voted to advance a bill Wednesday that would allow public schools to check students’ immigration status and charge tuition to students who cannot provide proof that they are in the country legally.

The legislation aims to provoke a challenge to a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees free public education for students regardless of immigration status. The lead House sponsor is Republican Rep. William Lamberth of Portland.

After a tense debate, the House Education Committee voted 11-7 to clear the bill, bringing it a step closer to a floor vote. The language of the bill also changed to align more with its companion bill in the Senate.

If passed, the legislation would give public schools and public charter schools the option to ask students for documents showing that they are U.S. citizens or legal residents, or are in the process of obtaining citizenship. If a student cannot provide this documentation, then the districts could charge the family tuition f

Klein had already been talking with EdTrust, a nonprofit dedicated to removing racial and economic barriers to education, about developing a more detailed national map to illustrate all the ways extreme weather disrupts learning. Then the L.A. wildfires broke out in early January...

More than 750,000 kids went to more than 1,000 schools that were closed for as few as two days or more than 10 days in January, they found.

“Three out of four kids impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires are socioeconomically disadvantaged,” Klein said. “Two out of five kids impacted by the wildfires are multilingual learners and one out of 10 is a student with disabilities.”

The report is not peer-reviewed and makes no claim to being comprehensive, Klein said. But it’s important to compile statistics like this, he said, because some students have specific needs that are seriously affected by the interruption to classroom learning. They need to return to learning and a stable school setting most urgent

HVAC projects to improve indoor air quality. Tutoring programs for struggling students. Tuition support for young people who want to become teachers in their home communities.

These were some of the ways Maryland schools were using what remained of the state’s federal pandemic relief dollars.

Those projects and similar ones in schools around the country are now on hold — and states and school districts are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars — after Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the U.S. Department of Education would not pay for any more expenses related to pandemic recovery.

In a letter to state education leaders Friday, McMahon said the department would not honor deadline extensions to spend COVID aid it had approved just a few months ago under the Biden administration.

Niger’s democratically elected former President Mohamed Bazoum and his wife Hadiza have spent more than 20 months in detention by a military that seized power in 2023 and this week cemented its grip on the country.

A former high school philosophy teacher who went on to become Niger’s interior minister, Bazoum represented a break with the past: His presidential inauguration in 2021 was hailed as the first peaceful democratic transition in the West African nation since it gained independence from France in 1960.

But he was ousted only two years later as Niger followed in the footsteps of neighboring Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso in returning to military rule. On Wednesday, coup leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani was sworn in as Niger’s president for a “transitional” five years.

edit: downvotes from spineless coward Putin removed. maybe if you're a cunt hard enough your daddy dictator will anal you softly.