NIH Budget Cuts Are a Setback for American Science
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently testified before a House committee to defend cuts at the National Institutes of Health, the world's biggest funder of biomedical and behavioral research. The agency going forward 'will focus on essential research at a more practical cost,' the secretary said. His plan would end taxpayer support for 'wasteful' academic areas, including certain gender-related topics.
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Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Judge blocks Trump's birthright citizenship restrictions in third ruling since high court decision
BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending birthright citizenship for the children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally, issuing the third court ruling blocking the birthright order nationwide since a key Supreme Court decision in June. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, joining another district court as well as an appellate panel of judges, found that a nationwide injunction granted to more than a dozen states remains in force under an exception to the Supreme Court ruling. That decision restricted the power of lower-court judges to issue nationwide injunctions. The states have argued Trump's birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for health insurance services that are contingent on citizenship status. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation's highest court. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement the administration looked forward to "being vindicated on appeal.' New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who helped lead the lawsuit before Sorokin, said in a statement he was 'thrilled the district court again barred President Trump's flagrantly unconstitutional birthright citizenship order from taking effect anywhere.' "American-born babies are American, just as they have been at every other time in our Nation's history,' he added. "The President cannot change that legal rule with the stroke of a pen.' Lawyers for the government had argued Sorokin should narrow the reach of his earlier ruling granting a preliminary injunction, saying it should be 'tailored to the States' purported financial injuries.' Sorokin said a patchwork approach to the birthright order would not protect the states in part because a substantial number of people move between states. He also blasted the Trump administration, saying it had failed to explain how a narrower injunction would work. 'That is, they have never addressed what renders a proposal feasible or workable, how the defendant agencies might implement it without imposing material administrative or financial burdens on the plaintiffs, or how it squares with other relevant federal statutes,' the judge wrote. 'In fact, they have characterized such questions as irrelevant to the task the Court is now undertaking. The defendants' position in this regard defies both law and logic.' Sorokin acknowledged his order would not be the last word on birthright citizenship. Trump and his administration 'are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,' Sorokin wrote. 'But in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.' The administration has not yet appealed any of the recent court rulings. Trump's efforts to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily will remain blocked unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise. A federal judge in New Hampshire issued a ruling earlier this month prohibiting Trump's executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed, his order went into effect. On Wednesday, a San Francisco-based appeals court found the president's executive order unconstitutional and affirmed a lower court's nationwide block. A Maryland-based judge said last week that she would do the same if an appeals court signed off. The justices ruled last month that lower courts generally can't issue nationwide injunctions, but it didn't rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional. Plaintiffs in the Boston case earlier argued that the principle of birthright citizenship is 'enshrined in the Constitution,' and that Trump does not have the authority to issue the order, which they called a 'flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.' They also argue that Trump's order halting automatic citizenship for babies born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily would cost states funding they rely on to 'provide essential services' — from foster care to health care for low-income children, to 'early interventions for infants, toddlers, and students with disabilities.' At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn't a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed. The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship. 'These courts are misinterpreting the purpose and the text of the 14th Amendment,' Jackson, the White House spokeswoman, said in her statement. ____ Associated Press reporter Mark Sherman in Washington contributed.
Bloomberg
42 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
How a US Trade War With China Could Become a Hot War
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Tension between the US and China has been building for some time. But so far this has been limited to issues of trade. The US has imposed tariffs on China. It's imposed restrictions on technology exports. In turn, China has imposed some of its own tariffs, and also limited the export of things like rare earths. But historically speaking, many hot wars have their roots in some kind of trade-related tensions between nations. So the risk exists that a trade war one day becomes a hot war. So how does this happen, and how can it be avoided? On this episode, we speak with Dale Copeland, a professor of international relations at the University of Virginia. He discusses his theories of trade, and we discuss his most recent book, A World Safe for Commerce: American Foreign Policy From the Revolution to the Rise of China, which specifically discusses the prospect for an outright US-China confrontation.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Joy Behar reveals The View is going on hiatus day after White House calls for it to be canceled
A day after the White House suggested that The View should be 'pulled off air' because its ratings 'hit an all-time low' due to 'Trump Derangement Syndrome,' host Joy Behar got MAGA tongues wagging when she accidentally revealed that the daytime talk show was approaching its summer break. 'Before we go on hiatus, we only have one more show after this,' the 82-year-old comedian declared at the top of Thursday's broadcast before looking off-camera and asking executive producer Brian Teta: 'I'm allowed to say that, right?' Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, meanwhile, jokingly exclaimed that it's 'too late now' as Teta noted: 'It doesn't really matter.' Unfazed, Behar said she was 'optimistic' that the 'tide is turning' among Donald Trump's base when it comes to the ongoing saga over the Jeffrey Epstein case, noting that MAGA influencers continue to demand a full release of the files related to the convicted sex offender. 'I mean, the ultimate irony would be that Rupert Murdoch will take him down. Fox News, who created the monster, will take him down,' she added, referencing the president's lawsuit against Murdoch over the Wall Street Journal reporting that Trump sent Epstein a 'bawdy' birthday letter. As for The View taking a hiatus after Friday's show, that has likely always been in the plans – and follows the schedule the program has had in place for years. Additionally, a source with knowledge noted that it is the show's regularly scheduled summer hiatus. After taking a weeklong break around the July 4th holiday, which the show returned from earlier this month, The View typically airs for several more weeks before wrapping up the season in late July or early August. It then kicks off its new season sometime in September, a standard practice in the broadcast television industry. At the end of Thursday's broadcast, host Whoopi Goldberg told viewers that the program would return Friday and then for a 'brand new season' in September. She added that ABC would be airing 'encore' presentations of The View for the rest of the regularly scheduled summer hiatus. Of course, with Behar – who was explicitly targeted by the White House Wednesday as an 'irrelevant loser' amid their calls for The View to be canceled – suggesting she wasn't 'allowed' to say the show was going on hiatus, it got several prominent MAGA influencers excited about the prospect the show was done for good. 'JUST IN: Joy Behar accidentally admitted The View only has 'one more show left' before 'hiatus.' Is The View FINALLY being cancelled??! PLEASE tell me this is true,' right-wing podcaster Nick Sortor tweeted while sharing a clip of her comments. 'JUST IN: The View is TAKING A BREAK. This is their second-to-last show, for now, Joy Behar says,' conservative provocateur Eric Daugherty reacted. 'MAKE IT PERMANENT! First Stephen Colbert, now cancel The View.' Other pro-Trump figures, such as notorious anti-trans account Libs of TikTok, got in on the action – expressing hope that the break would be 'forever' because Behar had said the 'quiet part out loud' amid the Trump administration's threat. Meanwhile, conservative outlets like The Daily Caller shared video clips of Behar's remarks, accompanied by siren emojis. The Independent has reached out to ABC News for comment. Meanwhile, the Trump administration calling for ABC to pull The View off the air comes just days after CBS announced it was canceling Stephen Colbert's late-night show, which itself follows the network's parent company Paramount paying Trump $16 million to settle a 'meritless' lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. While Paramount has said that the Colbert cancellation was a 'purely financial decision' due to the dwindling ad revenues for late-night television and the show's expensive production costs, CBS staffers aren't buying that rationale. 'Many of us think this was part and parcel of the Trump shakedown settlement,' one network staffer told The Independent. Trump and administration officials have also added fuel to speculation that Colbert's cancellation was an additional concession in the settlement, which had already sparked accusations of bribery (including from Colbert himself) since Paramount seeks the administration's approval to close an $8 billion merger with Skydance. With the president gloating that Colbert 'got fired' and claiming he struck a secret side deal with Skydance for an additional $20 million in pro-Trump advertising, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr – who is responsible for approving the merger – didn't directly answer Fox News on Thursday when asked if Trump had anything to do with Colbert's cancellation. At the same time, Carr also suggested that The View could be a program he'd take a close look at amid the White House's push for it to be taken off the air. 'Look, it's entirely possible that there's issues over there,' he said. 'Stepping back, this broader dynamic [that] once President Trump has exposed these media gatekeepers and smashed this facade, there are a lot of consequences. I think the consequences of that aren't quite finished.' Carr's suggestion about going after the talk show comes months after the FCC opened a probe into ABC and its parent company Disney – which paid Trump $16 million last year to settle a defamation suit – over their diversity policies, claiming they may have violated FCC regulations. It was also reported this past spring that Disney CEO Bob Iger asked The View's hosts to tone down their anti-Trump rhetoric and refrain from discussing political topics. Solve the daily Crossword
