US Treasury unveils plan to end production of penny coin
By Ryan Patrick Jones
(Reuters) -The federal government is winding down production of the penny coin following a bipartisan effort to nix the lowest-denomination of U.S. currency over cost concerns, according to a plan outlined by the Treasury Department on Thursday.
The department placed its final order for blank pennies in May, it said in a statement. It expects to stop putting new pennies into circulation by early 2026.
President Donald Trump in February directed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to cease production of the coin. Trump has described spending on penny minting as "wasteful."
In recent weeks, Republican and Democratic lawmakers introduced separate bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate calling for an end to penny production.
The change means that businesses will have to start rounding the prices of cash transactions up or down to the nearest five-cent nickel as the number of pennies in circulation dwindles.
The Treasury's penny phase-out plan was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, the details of which were confirmed to Reuters by a department spokesperson.
The cost of producing the penny has risen from 1.3 cents per coin to 3.69 cents over the past 10 years, according to the Treasury. It said stopping production will lead to immediate annual savings of $56 million.
The penny was first issued by the government in 1793. Since 1909, the profile of President Abraham Lincoln has adorned the obverse side of the coin that is made of zinc and copper.
Americans have debated for years whether the penny should be dropped from the line-up of American currency.
Supporters of the penny argue it helps keep consumer prices down and is a source of income to charities. For its critics, the coin is a nuisance that ends up being discarded in drawers, ash trays and piggy banks.
There are around 114 billion pennies currently in circulation in the U.S., according to the Treasury.
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Atlantic
9 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Stephen Miller Triggers Los Angeles
During a lull in the chanting outside the federal building targeted by protesters in downtown Los Angeles this week, I walked up behind a hooded young man wearing a mask and carrying a can of spray paint. He began to deface the marble facade in big black letters. WHEN TYRANNY BECOMES LAW, REBELLION BECOMES DUTY—THOMAS JEFFERSON, he wrote, adding his tag, SMO, in smaller font. SMO told me that he is 21, Mexican American, an Angeleno, and a 'history buff' who thinks about the Founding Fathers more than the average tagger does. He said he wanted to write something that stood out from the hundreds of places where FUCK ICE now appears. 'I needed a better message that would inspire more people to remember that our history as Americans is deeply rooted in being resistant to the ones who oppress us,' he told me. 'Our Founding Fathers trusted that we the people would take it into our hands to fight back against a government who no longer serves the people.' (The quote, although spurious, captures some of the ideas that Jefferson put into the Declaration of Independence, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.) Whether what's occurring in Los Angeles is a noble rebellion, a destructive riot, or a bit of both, the protests here have been the most intense demonstrations against President Donald Trump and his policies since he retook office. They were set off by a new, more aggressive phase of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the city last week. But it's important to keep some perspective on the size of the confrontations. Los Angeles County covers more than 4,000 square miles, with a population of 10 million, and across much of that sunny expanse, life has carried on as usual this week. Missy Ryan and Jonathan Lemire: The White House is delighted with events in Los Angeles The protesters' focal point has been the federal building in downtown Los Angeles where several Department of Homeland Security agencies, including ICE, have offices. Just across the 101 freeway is the El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic plaza, which marks the site where settlers of Native American, African, and European heritage first arrived in 1781. Nearly every city block in this part of town is taken up by a courthouse or some other stone edifice of law or government, including the Art Deco tower of Los Angeles City Hall. In a city built on shaky ground, these civic structures are meant to project stability and permanence. But L.A.'s layered, fraught history seemed very much on the minds of many demonstrators I spoke with, who told me that they felt like their right to belong—regardless of legal status—was under attack. Although the crowd of protesters has not been especially large, drawing at most a few thousand people, it has been a microcosm of Los Angeles and the deep-blue Democratic coalition that has dominated the city for decades. It's a mix of young Hispanic people—many the children of first-generation immigrants—and older liberals, college students, and left-wing activists; also present is a contingent of younger, more militant protesters, who have been eager to confront police and inflict damage on the city's buildings and institutions, and film themselves doing it. At one point on Monday, I watched a group of jumpy teen boys in hoods and masks who appeared no older than 15 or 16 approach one of the last unblemished surfaces on the federal building. One shook a spray can and began writing in large, looping letters. The nozzle wasn't working well, and his friends began to rush him. Trump is a BICH, he wrote, and ran away. Observing the crowd and speaking with protesters over the past several days, I couldn't help but think of Stephen Miller, the top Trump aide who has ordered immigration officials to arrest and deport more and more people, encouraging them to do so in the most attention-grabbing of ways. The version of Los Angeles represented by the protesters is the one Miller deplores. The city has a voracious demand for workers that, for decades, has mostly looked past legal status and allowed newcomers from around the world to live and work without much risk of arrest and deportation. Trump and Miller have upended that in a way many people here describe as a punch in the face. Los Angeles, specifically the liberal, upper-middle-class enclave of Santa Monica, is Miller's hometown, and it became the foil for his archconservative political identity. He is often described as the 'architect' of Trump's immigration policy, but his role as a political strategist—and chief provocateur—is much bigger than that. It is no fluke that Los Angeles is where Miller could most aggressively assert the ideas he champions in Trump's MAGA movement: mass deportations and a maximal assertion of executive power. No matter if it means calling out U.S. troops to suppress a backlash triggered by those policies. 'Huge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations. A ruptured, balkanized society of strangers,' Miller wrote Monday on X. He was attacking Governor Gavin Newsom for suing to reverse the Trump administration's takeover of the California National Guard—the first time the government has federalized state forces since 1965. Trump has also called up 700 U.S. Marines. Miller was defending the use of force to subdue protesters, but he was really talking about something bigger in his hometown. This was a culture war, with real troops. What was the spark? On May 21, Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem brought the heads of ICE's regional offices to Washington for a dressing-down. Trump had promised the largest mass-removal campaign in U.S. history and wanted 1 million deportations a year. ICE officers had been making far more arrests in American communities than under Joe Biden, but they were well short of Trump's desired pace. Miller demanded 3,000 arrests a day—a nearly fourfold increase—and demoted several top ICE officials who weren't hitting their targets. Miller's push is just a warm-up. The Republican funding bill Trump wants to sign into law by Independence Day would formalize his goal of 1 million deportations annually, and furnish more than $150 billion for immigration enforcement, including tens of billions for more ICE officers, contractors, detention facilities, and removal flights. If Los Angeles and other cities are recoiling now, how will they respond when ICE has the money to do everything Miller wants? Trump and his 'border czar,' the former ICE acting director Tom Homan, had been insisting for months that the deportation campaign would prioritize violent criminals and avoid indiscriminate roundups. Miller has told ICE officials to disregard that and to hit Home Depot parking lots. So they have. The number of arrests reported by ICE has soared past 2,000 a day in recent weeks. Backed by the Border Patrol, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and other federal law-enforcement agencies pressed into helping ICE, officers are arresting people who show up for immigration-court appointments or periodic 'check-ins' to show that they have remained in compliance with court orders. Last week in Los Angeles, ICE teams began showing up at those Home Depot parking lots and work sites, including a downtown apparel factory. This was a redline for many Angelenos. Protesters told me that it was the moment Miller and Trump went from taunts and trolling to something more personal and threatening. About a third of the city's residents are foreign-born. Juliette Kayyem: Trump's gross misuse of the National Guard 'This is humiliating,' Hector Agredano, a 30-year-old community-college instructor who was demonstrating on Sunday outside a Pasadena hotel, told me. ICE officers were rumored to be staying at the location and two others nearby, drawing dozens of protesters who chanted and carried signs demanding ICE out of LA! 'They are tearing apart our families,' Agredano told me. 'We will not stand for this. They cannot sleep safely at night while our communities are being terrorized.' Some activists have been trying to track ICE vehicles and show up where officers make arrests to film and protest. More established activist groups are organizing vigils and marches while urging demonstrators to remain peaceful. They have struggled to contain the younger, angrier elements of the crowd downtown who lack their patience. On Sunday, I watched protesters block the southbound lanes of the 101 until police cleared them with tear gas. Some in the crowd hurled water bottles and debris down at officers and set off bottle rockets and cherry bombs. The police responded with flash-bangs, which detonate with a burst of light. There were so many explosions happening, it wasn't easy to tell if they belonged to the protesters or to law enforcement. I tried approaching a police line, and a boom sounded near my head, ringing my ears. One group of vandals summoned several Waymo self-driving cars to the street next to the plaza where the city was founded and set them ablaze. People in the crowd hooted and cheered at the leaping flames, and the cars' melting batteries and sensors sent plumes of oily black smoke toward police helicopters circling above. Firetrucks arrived and put out the last of the flames, leaving little piles of gnarled metal. City officials grew more alarmed the following evening, when smaller groups of masked teenagers rampaged through downtown and looted a CVS, an Apple Store, and several other businesses, prompting Mayor Karen Bass to set an 8 p.m. curfew in the area yesterday. The smoke and flames began shifting attention away from the administration's immigration imagery has been giddily watched by White House officials, and it's fueled speculation that it could create an opening for Miller to attempt to invoke the Insurrection Act. For years he has longingly discussed the wartime power, which would give troops a direct law-enforcement role on U.S. streets, potentially including immigration arrests. Yesterday, Trump said that he would not allow Los Angeles to be 'invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy,' and that he would 'liberate' the country's second-largest city. His send-in-the-Marines order underscored his apparent eagerness to deal with the demonstrators as combatants, rather than as civilians and American citizens. Since Trump's announcement, protesters have been on the lookout for the Marines, wondering if their arrival would signal a darker, more violent phase of the government's response. But military officials said today that the Marine units will need to receive more training in civilian deployments before they go to Los Angeles. Despite the attention on the federalized California National Guard troops, they have had a minimal role so far, standing guard at the entrance to the federal building where SMO and other taggers have left messages for Trump and ICE. Mayor Bass said that about 100 soldiers were stationed there as of today. Trump has activated 4,000, and there are signs that their role is already expanding: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a photo yesterday of soldiers with rifles and full combat gear standing guard for ICE officers making street arrests. 'This We'll Defend,' he wrote. David Frum: For Trump, this is a dress rehearsal In downtown Los Angeles, though, the LAPD and the California Highway Patrol—which are under the control of the state and local Democratic leaders—have been left to handle violent protesters and looters. By insisting that Trump's troop deployment is unnecessary and provocative, Newsom and Bass are under more pressure to make sure that their forces, not Trump's, can keep a lid on the anger. Their officers have fired tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and a kind of less-than-lethal projectile known as a sponge grenade that leaves bruises and welts. One Australian television reporter was hit while doing a live report; many others have been shot at point-blank range. Over more than three days of street confrontations, there have been no deaths or reports of serious injuries. Some protesters gathered up the spent sponge munitions as souvenirs. With a hard foam nose and a thick plastic base, they resemble Nerf darts from hell. I met one protester, carrying a camera, who wore a bandage around his forearm where he'd been struck minutes earlier. Castro—he wouldn't give me his first name—told me that he was a 39-year-old security guard whose parents are from El Salvador. He likened the pain to a sprained ankle. 'I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I support, I love, I stand for America. I love the USA,' he told me. 'I'm here today to support our people of Los Angeles. That's it.' Some Democrats outside the state have chafed at the sight of protesters waving Mexican flags and those of other nations, which Trump officials have seized upon as evidence of anti-Americanism. Protesters told me the flags of their or their parents' home countries are not intended as a sign of loyalty to another nation. Quite a few protesters waved the Stars and Stripes too, or a hybrid of the American flag and their home country's. Hailey, a 23-year-old welder carrying a Guatemalan flag, told me she wanted to display her heritage at a protest that brought together people from all over. That was part of belonging to California, she said: 'I was born on American soil, but I just think it's appropriate to celebrate where my family is from. And America is supposed to be a celebration of that.' Dylan Littlefield, a bishop who joined a rally on Sunday led by union organizers, told me that he grew up in L.A. with Italian Americans displaying their flag. 'No one has ever made a single comment or had any objection to the Italian flag flying, so the people that are making the flag issue now really are trying to create a battle where there's no battle to be had,' he said. The protests against Trump in Los Angeles have picked up, to some extent, where those in Portland left off. In 2020, anti-ICE protesters targeted the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, and DHS sent federal agents and officers to defend the building and confront the crowds. The destructive standoff carried on for months, and the city's Democratic mayor and Oregon's Democratic governor eventually had to use escalating force against rioters. Newsom and Bass seem keen to avoid the price they would pay politically if that were to occur here, but for now they are caught between the need to suppress the violent elements of the protests and their desire to blame the White House for fanning the flames. Anne Applebaum: This is what Trump does when his revolution sputters Trump officials say they have delighted in the imagery of L.A. mayhem and foreign-flag waving, but they face a threat, too, if protests spread beyond blue California and become a nationwide movement. That would take pressure off Newsom and Bass. Doe Hain, a retired teacher I met in Pasadena this week holding a Save Democracy sign for passing motorists, told me that the ICE push into California symbolizes the worst fears of an authoritarian takeover by a president unfazed by the idea of turning troops against Americans. 'I don't really think I can protest the existence of ICE as a federal agency, but we can protest the way that they're doing things,' Hain said. 'They're bypassing people's rights and the laws, and that's not right.' Few people I spoke with said they thought the protests in Los Angeles would diminish, even if more troops arrive in the city. There have been fewer reports of ICE raids since the protests erupted, and one Home Depot I visited on Monday—south of Los Angeles, in Huntington Park—had had only a handful of arrests that day, bystanders told me. ICE teams had moved to other locations in Southern California and the Central Valley. They will surely be back. At a minimum, Miller and other Trump officials have come away from this round of confrontations with the imagery they wanted. Today, DHS released a none-too-subtle social-media ad with a dark, ominous filter, featuring the flaming Waymos, Mexican flags, looters, and rock throwers. 'RESTORE LAW AND ORDER NOW!' it said, with the number for an ICE tip line. It fades out on an image of a burning American flag.
15 minutes ago
Kennedy's new CDC panel includes members who have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation
NEW YORK -- U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week. They include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns, and a professor of operations management. Kennedy's decision to 'retire' the previous 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was widely decried by doctors' groups and public health organizations, who feared the advisers would be replaced by a group aligned with Kennedy's desire to reassess — and possibly end — longstanding vaccination recommendations. On Tuesday, before he announced his picks, Kennedy said: 'We're going to bring great people onto the ACIP panel – not anti-vaxxers – bringing people on who are credentialed scientists.' The new appointees include Vicky Pebsworth, a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses, who has been listed as a board member and volunteer director for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that is widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation. Another is Dr. Robert Malone, the former mRNA researcher who emerged as a close adviser to Kennedy during the measles outbreak. Malone, who runs a wellness institute and a popular blog, rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as he relayed conspiracy theories around the outbreak and the vaccines that followed. He has appeared on podcasts and other conservative news outlets where he's promoted unproven and alternative treatments for measles and COVID-19. He has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the COVID-19 shots and has suggested that those vaccines cause a form of AIDS. He's downplayed deaths related to one of the largest measles outbreaks in the U.S. in years. Other appointees include Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. Dr. Cody Meissner, a former ACIP member, also was named. Abram Wagner of the University of Michigan's school of public health, who investigates vaccination programs, said he's not satisfied with the composition of the committee. 'The previous ACIP was made up of technical experts who have spent their lives studying vaccines,' he said. Most people on the current list 'don't have the technical capacity that we would expect out of people who would have to make really complicated decisions involving interpreting complicated scientific data.' He said having Pebsworth on the board is 'incredibly problematic' since she is involved in an organization that 'distributes a lot of misinformation.' Kennedy made the announcement in a social media post on Wednesday. The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The CDC's final recommendations are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. The other appointees are: —Dr. James Hibbeln, who formerly headed a National Institutes of Health group focused on nutritional neurosciences and who studies how nutrition affects the brain, including the potential benefits of seafood consumption during pregnancy. —Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies business issues related to supply chain, logistics, pricing optimization and health and health care management. In a 2023 video pinned to an X profile under his name, Levi called for the end of the COVID-19 vaccination program, claiming the vaccines were ineffective and dangerous despite evidence they saved millions of lives. —Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician from Los Angeles. —Dr. Michael Ross, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist. Of the eight named by Kennedy, perhaps the most experienced in vaccine policy is Meissner, an expert in pediatric infectious diseases at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who has previously served as a member of both ACIP and the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory panel. During his five-year term as an FDA adviser, the committee was repeatedly asked to review and vote on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that were rapidly developed to fight the pandemic. In September 2021, he joined the majority of panelists who voted against a plan from the Biden administration to offer an extra vaccine dose to all American adults. The panel instead recommended that the extra shot should be limited to seniors and those at higher risk of the disease. Ultimately, the FDA disregarded the panel's recommendation and OK'd an extra vaccine dose for all adults. In addition to serving on government panels, Meissner has helped author policy statements and vaccination schedules for the American Academy of Pediatrics. ACIP members typically serve in staggered four-year terms, although several appointments were delayed during the Biden administration before positions were filled last year. The voting members all have scientific or clinical expertise in immunization, except for one 'consumer representative' who can bring perspective on community and social facets of vaccine programs. Kennedy, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government's top health official, has accused the committee of being too closely aligned with vaccine manufacturers and of rubber-stamping vaccines. ACIP policies require members to state past collaborations with vaccine companies and to recuse themselves from votes in which they had a conflict of interest, but Kennedy has dismissed those safeguards as weak. Most of the people who best understand vaccines are those who have researched them, which usually requires some degree of collaboration with the companies that develop and sell them, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher. 'If you are to exclude any reputable, respected vaccine expert who has ever engaged even in a limited way with the vaccine industry, you're likely to have a very small pool of folks to draw from,' Schwartz said. The U.S. Senate confirmed Kennedy in February after he promised he would not change the vaccination schedule. But less than a week later, he vowed to investigate childhood vaccines that prevent measles, polio and other dangerous diseases. Kennedy has ignored some of the recommendations ACIP voted for in April, including the endorsement of a new combination shot that protects against five strains of meningococcal bacteria and the expansion of vaccinations against RSV. In late May, Kennedy disregarded the committee and announced the government would change the recommendation for children and pregnant women to get COVID-19 shots. On Monday, Kennedy ousted all 17 members of the ACIP, saying he would appoint a new group before the next scheduled meeting in late June. The agenda for that meeting has not yet been posted, but a recent federal notice said votes are expected on vaccinations against flu, COVID-19, HPV, RSV and meningococcal bacteria. A HHS spokesman did not respond to a question about whether there would be only eight ACIP members, or whether more will be named later. ___ ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Unironically Attends 'Les Misérables' As Protests Spread
As protests against his immigration policies balloon nationwide, President Donald Trump is seeing one of his favorite musicals on Wednesday night: 'Les Misérables,' the story of an anti-government uprising, abusive police and harsh imprisonment. Trump is going to opening night of the famous musical's one-month run at Washington, D.C.'s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose entire board of trustees he replaced in February and had them name him chairman. 'We've seen it many times,' Trump said upon arriving at the Kennedy Center with first lady Melania Trump. 'Love it. One of my favorites.' When a reporter asked him which side of the musical's conflict he most identified with, Trump laughed and refused to answer. 'That's tough. You better answer that one, honey,' he said, gesturing to the first lady. 'I don't know.' When another reporter asked how he felt about reports that some of the 'Les Misérables' cast would be boycotting the night of his performance, Trump said he 'couldn't care less.' 'All I do is run the country well,' he retorted. Trump received a mixture of cheers and boos when he took his seat at the theater. His attendance comes after he deployed National Guard troops to face largely peaceful protesters in Los Angeles and announced he was sending in Marines, despite pushback from local leadership. 'Les Misérables,' the musical based on the 1862 novel of the same name, tells the story of French peasant Jean Valjean after he emerges from a 19-year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread for his niece. Much of the musical centers around student demonstrations against the French monarchy. One of the musical's most recognizable songs ― 'Do You Hear The People Sing?' ― has a long history as an anthem at pro-democracy demonstrations. It's also an apparent favorite of Trump's, as he played the song right before walking onstage to announce his third presidential run in 2022. Several drag performers also attended the show Wednesday night to protest Trump, who announced in February there would be 'NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA' at the Kennedy Center going forward. They received applause as they walked in to the theater, social media videos show. Vagenesis, whose government name is Anderson Wells, was one of the planned attendees. 'Theater is supposed to be a place of community, a place of storytelling, a place of celebration, joy, catharsis and it should be open and available to all,' Vagenesis told NPR on Wednesday. Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence similarly caused a stir when he went to see 'Hamilton' shortly after winning the 2016 election. He was loudly booed when he arrived at the Manhattan theater. When Pence was trying to exit the theater after the final curtain call, actor Brandon Dixon, who was playing the part of Aaron Burr, asked him to stay and delivered a message to him. 'We, sir, we are the diverse America, who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights,' Dixon said. 'We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us,' he continued. Pam Bondi Warns Of More Arrests In California Amid Protests Against Immigration Raids Karoline Leavitt Snaps At Reporter For 'Stupid Question' About Peaceful Protests There's Growing Anger Over Flags Flown At LA Protests. Here's What Everyone Is Getting Wrong.
