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WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has canceled millions of dollars in grants awarded to the American Academy ​of Pediatrics, it said on Wednesday, including ones the group said were aimed at ‌reducing sudden infant death and early detection of autism. The move comes as the AAP, a vocal critic of HHS ‌Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., challenged vaccine policies enacted under his leadership in federal court. Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccines, has accused the organization of accepting funding from drug and vaccine makers to further their interests. These grants, previously awarded...

California’s immigrant truckers are under direct threat, and the consequences are already landing in Sacramento’s neighborhoods, warehouses and family households. Drivers with spotless records are walking into the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) locations expecting a routine renewal of their commercial driver's license and walking out unemployed — not because they failed a test or violated a law, but because a federal agency quietly rewrote immigration categories and ordered states to enforce the fallout. This is a bureaucratic ambush. A new rule from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is sowing confusion across California’s supply chain and logistics network at...

"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared “dead” the proposals to seize the $247 billion in frozen Russian assets within the European Union and use them to finance a reparations loan for Ukraine. Orban, a right-wing nationalist who has warm relations with Russia, and is also one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest political allies in Europe, made the remark to reporters on Thursday morning as he entered a European Council meeting for crunch talks on the assets issue."

Mahad Mohamud is slowly readjusting to the heat, chaos and tension of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, after being deported from the US city of Minneapolis last month just as winter was closing in there. SNIP But to those running the White House-linked "Rapid Response 47" X account, Mahad was a "criminal illegal scumbag". In an October post it accused him of being "involved in the kidnapping of French officials" from a hotel in the Somali capital. Mahad has denied the allegation, saying that he was not in Mogadishu at the time. He was never convicted and the case was dropped. He...

Any day now, a US Navy strike force, led by the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, will join an armada of war ships already positioned off the coast of Venezuela. Described in the naval media as “the most capable, adaptable, and lethal combat platform in the world,” the USS Gerald R. Ford bristles with state-of-the-art attack aircraft on its massive deck: Super Hornet fighters, Growler electronic warfare jets, and Seahawk helicopters among them. And the battleship carries some 5,000 seamen and Marines, adding to the phalanx of 10,000 military personnel already deployed on bases in Puerto Rico and on...

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) is complaining that if President Donald Trump deports Haitian migrants whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will soon end, jobs will go “unfilled.” Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that TPS will end for tens of thousands of Haitian migrants come February 2026 — leaving them with no legal status to remain in the U.S. […] DeWine, in an interview with local Ohio media, complained that DHS’s potentially deporting Haitian migrants — particularly from Springfield, Ohio, where the Haitian population has exploded — will open American jobs. …

The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies have heightened stress among the country’s approximately 14 million immigrants who are living in the U.S. without legal authorization. The sharp rise in dramatic arrests and deportations of immigrants over the past year has received widespread media attention. A less publicized issue is that many young, undocumented immigrants are also finding it harder to apply to and stay in college. As someone who researches teacher training and was a high school teacher in South Carolina, I have researched how restrictive education policies make it harder for immigrant students, particularly undocumented students, to receive a...

Russia targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure with missile and drone strikes in another "massive attack" Friday night into Saturday morning, Ukrainian authorities said. "All necessary services are currently working to restore electricity and water supply in our communities affected by Russia’s overnight attack," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. "Once again, the main strike targeted our energy sector, the south of the country, and the Odesa region." Russia used almost 500 drones and missiles in a combined strike on Ukraine's critical infrastructure facilities overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said Saturday morning. In total, Russia launched 465 drones...

Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks on Rob Reiner after the Hollywood star and his wife were apparently murdered. The President appeared to blame Reiner and Michele's killings on the liberal director's 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' in a Monday post on Truth Social. Hollywood celebrities and Republicans pushed back on his statement, with some calling it 'disgusting and vile.' But the President seemed undeterred in his criticism of the late director. When pressed by a reporter in the Oval Office about his previous statement, he said: 'Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged...

... On Oct. 18, Caceres had been headed to Texas to photograph a wedding when he was detained while going through security at John Wayne Airport. Caceres and his wife of a year and a half, who is a U.S. citizen, had been wary of travel as mass deportations increased nationwide under the Trump administration. Still, he had clients counting on him. And he believed he would be safe: Caceres said he had fled to the United States as a teenager seeking asylum and had continued following immigration requirements over the years, including completing biometrics and updating his address the...

A new US National Security Strategy (NSS) has accused Europe of economic, political and cultural deterioration, sending shockwaves through Brussels but delighting the continent's populist parties. The controversial strategy, signed by US President Donald Trump, warns that Europe is on the brink of 'civilisational erasure' due to decades of decline, and condemns its practice of 'censorship' and 'mass migration' that will render the continent 'unrecognisable in 20 years or less'. The report crystallises in stark terms the growing fracture between the EU and its most important ally, the United States, threatening to torpedo a relationship that has defined global politics...

Trump officials have been accused of bigotry after the portrait of former President Joe Biden's transgender assistant secretary for health was altered to reflect her birth name. Admiral Rachel Levine's portrait has hung in a hallway of the Humphrey Building in Washington DC - the Department of Health and Human Services's headquarters - since she became the first trans woman to win Senate confirmation in 2021. Following the 68-year-old's four years of service under the Biden administration, her name was reverted to Richard Levine, the name she was given at birth. Levine's dead name - a trans person's original name...

Donald Trump Jr. revealed that his father, President Donald Trump, may walk away from Ukraine due to the lack of progress towards a peace deal. Speaking at a forum in Doha on Sunday, Trump Jr. criticized the major corruption in Ukraine, which penetrated the highest levels of government in Kyiv, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s longtime chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who resigned after facing a massive embezzlement probe. Yermak, the former lead negotiator for Ukraine who was widely regarded as the second-most powerful figure in the nation, resigned after anti-corruption investigators raided his home last month in connection with...

Russia is gaining territory in Ukraine at one of the fastest rates since the war began, new data show, ahead of an emergency Downing Street summit. The Kremlin’s army seized 200 square miles of territory in November, up from 100 square miles the previous month, according to DeepState, a trusted Ukraine-based battlefield map. The speed of advance was approaching the fastest since the initial invasion almost four years ago, the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, said

It was a clear attempt to project Russian power. Hours before meeting U.S. officials in Moscow this past week about their plan to end the war, President Vladimir V. Putin claimed that Russia’s forces had seized the strategic Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after a monthslong fight. The reality was murkier. Slivers of the city were still contested, according to battlefield maps and the Ukrainian military. But Mr. Putin’s claim, even if premature, reflected a trend shaping his unbending approach to negotiations: Russian forces are on the march. “The Russians do have the upper hand,” said Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst...

Vladimir Putin has told the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, that Russia is ready to continue “uninterrupted” shipments of oil to India, signalling a defiant stance to the US as the two leaders met in Delhi and affirmed that their ties were “resilient to external pressure”. The statement, made on Friday after the annual India-Russia summit, appeared to be directed at western countries – particularly the US – that have attempted to pressure New Delhi into scaling back its ties to Moscow. The US president, Donald Trump, in August imposed an additional 25% import tariff on India over its purchase...

Gary Ridgway, one of the country’s most notorious serial killers, is reportedly dying in a Washington prison. Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, is now 76 years old and is receiving end-of-life care in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, according to several sources with “knowledge of his condition” who spoke with Washington-based radio station KIRO. He’s been in prison since 2003, when he pleaded guilty to killing 48 women in the ’80s and ’90s. Ridgway has maintained over the decades that he is responsible for killing somewhere between 75 and 80 women during his reign of terror....

The car world is taking a long look at its EV offerings as major brands decide to kill off some of the very models that, just a few years ago, were touted as the way forward for automakers. With a new administration, slashed tax incentives for EVs, and wonky pricing, tariffs, and inflation, some surprising cuts are being made. Checking in on the state of EVs with Art Wheaton, automotive expert and director of labor studies at Cornell University ILR School in Buffalo, New York, he confirmed in a recent call, “It’s a brutal market. And the current administration isn’t...

Santa Barbara’s longtime Milpas Street Holiday Parade will not take place this year after organizers said many Eastside families and participants expressed fear about attending a large public event due to concerns of potential immigration-enforcement activity in the region. The Santa Barbara Eastside Society announced the decision Tuesday, saying it came “after many weeks of listening” to families, volunteers, local leaders and immigrant-rights partners who described a heightened sense of vulnerability.

Emmanuel Macron has reportedly warned Volodymyr Zelenskyy that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory, without clarity on security guarantees”, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, quoting a leaked note from a recent call with several European leaders. Der Spiegel said it had obtained an English summary of Monday’s call, featuring what it said were direct quotations from European heads of government in which they expressed fundamental doubts about Washington’s approach to the talks. The French president described the current tense phase of the negotiations as harbouring “a big danger” for Ukraine’s embattled president, according...