Struggling to contain a raging measles epidemic in West Texas, public health officials increasingly worry that residents are relying on unproven remedies endorsed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and postponing doctor visits until the illness has worsened.

Some seriously ill children had been given alternative remedies like cod liver oil, she added. “If they’re so, so sick and have low oxygen levels, they should have been in the hospital a day or two earlier,” she said.

The growing outbreak has spread to nearly 260 people in Texas. So far, 34 patients have been hospitalized, and one child has died. In neighboring New Mexico counties, the virus has sickened 35 and hospitalized two. Two cases in Oklahoma have also been linked to the outbreak.

Texas health officials believe the true number of cases is far higher. In all, there have been 301 measles cases in the United States this year, the highest number since 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday.

Mr. Kennedy faced intense backlash for minimizing the situation, saying it was “not unusual” and falsely claiming that many people hospitalized were there “mainly for quarantine.”

There is no such cure for measles, only medications to help manage the symptoms. Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent the infection.

Unproven remedies have for decades made measles outbreaks more deadly, said Patsy Stinchfield, immediate past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

15 March 2025 New York Times

A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from banning transgender people from serving in the military, ruling that the plan violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Reyes, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, wrote that such pronouncements that transgender people are not honorable, truthful or disciplined are “pure conjecture.”

The executive order and Defense Department policy “provide nothing to support Defendants’ view that transgender military service is inconsistent with military readiness,” she wrote.

“Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed — some risking their lives — to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,”

One transgender woman, a staff sergeant serving with U.S. Army Special Forces, said she was removed from a deployment to a combat zone this month. She was sent home to Kentucky and was told she would be separated by April 26, court records state. Her unit is now operating with one medic, she wrote, a reduction that “severely impacts the readiness and mission” of the team.

19 March 2025 Washington Post

Portugal rules out buying F-35s because of Trump

The outgoing defense minister said “the predictability of our allies” must be taken into account when making procurement decisions.

Portugal ruled out replacing its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets with more modern F-35s because of Donald Trump — in one of the first examples of the U.S. president killing a potential lucrative arms deal.

“We cannot ignore the geopolitical environment in our choices. The recent position of the United States, in the context of NATO ... must make us think about the best options, because the predictability of our allies is a greater asset to take into account.''

''The world has changed ... and this ally of ours ... could bring limitations to use, maintenance, components, and everything that has to do with ensuring that aircraft will be operational and used in all types of scenarios,''

Wall Street is simply flabbergasted that Trump is wrecking the economy

Wall Street is apparently shocked that President Donald Trump is destroying the robust economy he inherited. All those self-defeating tariffs! Those arbitrary federal layoffs! Stripping work permits from legal immigrants! The self-dealing! The dismantling of the rule of law!

“With hindsight, we did not appreciate the nature of what the administration was going to be like,” a remorseful banker told the Financial Times. “I do believe they are hurting their stated objectives of peace and prosperity.”

Trump’s close allies and advisers are similarly “rattled,” “spooked” and “unnerved” by the president’s destructive decisions.

Meanwhile, the yes-men advisers who do have influence are either rationalizing or encouraging Trump’s dumbest ideas.

Coincidentally, Navarro is also one of several senior Trump officials who were previously paid by the U.S. steel industry — and who are now urging Trump to wage destructive trade wars benefiting (you guessed it) the U.S. steel industry.

Trump Administration Must Rehire Thousands of Fired Workers, Judges Rule

A federal judge called the administration’s justification for the firings of workers with probationary status a “sham.” Another ruling barred the administration from carrying out future mass reductions.

Two judges ordered federal agencies on Thursday to reinstate tens of thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired across 19 agencies as part of President Trump’s government-gutting initiative.

Judge Bredar said in his lengthy ruling that the government’s contention that the firings of the probationary employees had been for cause, and not a mass layoff, “borders on the frivolous.”

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said.“It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements,” he added.

For months, senior officials have been discussing exporting Australia's world-leading radar technology JORN to the United States, but after Donald Trump's return to the White House, Canada saw an opportunity and leapt.

Overnight, new Canadian leader Mark Carney spoke to his counterpart, Anthony Albanese, then flew to his country's Arctic territory of Nunavut to announce a $6.5 billion high-tech Australian military purchase.

''[It] will enable Canada to detect and respond to both air and maritime threats over our Arctic both faster and from further away. It will most fundamentally keep all Canadians safe.''

Following President Trump's repeated threats to annex Canada and Greenland, Ottawa is purchasing the Australian-developed technology known as the Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar (JORN) to build its new Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system.

With the United States continuing its campaign of tariffs on foreign nations, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was good for Australia to 'diversify' its trade relationships.

British Columbia Premier David Eby says he is standing firm behind the legislation granting the province the ability to levy new fees on U.S. commercial trucks heading to Alaska, despite political threats involving the cruise ship sector from an Alaskan senator.

Eby says in response to comments made by U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan that the Canadian side knows “the consequences for Alaskans are a big deal” if any truck fees are imposed, and he expects Alaska to “respond in kind” if that were to happen.

B.C.’s government announced on Thursday a bill that would give cabinet broad-reaching emergency powers to respond to sudden, unexpected economic threats and tariffs from the Trump White House.

Eby had said the bill would also provide B.C. with the ability to levy fees on U.S. trucks travelling through the province to Alaska.

“We don’t want to use this tool. We like Alaskans. We think they’re great. We like Americans. We think they’re great. They’ve just got a lousy president.”

Vote Red. Get what you voted for.

You don’t need to hold sympathy for Mahmoud Khalil’s views to see why his targeting is an immense threat to free expression

The dust is starting to settle on the conflicting reports emerging after immigration officers’ arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University protest leader and green card holder, last weekend – and Americans should be alarmed by the similarities to authoritarian regimes’ speech policing.

The White House has confirmed the arrest took place under a law granting the secretary of state unilateral power to act when given “reasonable ground to believe” an immigrant’s “presence or activities in the United States … would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the country.

The Trump administration has not been shy in asserting that Khalil’s political expression is at the root of efforts to deport him.

If constitutionally protected speech “adversarial” to the political positions of the US and allies can make Khalil eligible for deportation, this administration is ultimately threatening the authority to revoke the status of any lawful immigrants whose views it dislikes.

14 March 2025 The Guardian

Tesla has been removed from the Vancouver Auto Show on the eve of the event, organizers announced Tuesday.

Elon Musk’s company will no longer be an exhibitor and all references to Tesla have been removed from the show’s website, a move that comes as the billionaire faces backlash for his alliance with President Donald Trump amid a trade war between Canada and the U.S.

“The Vancouver International Auto Show has removed Tesla as a participant in this week’s event, after the automaker was provided multiple opportunities to voluntarily withdraw,” said Eric Nicholl, the show’s executive director, in a statement.

Musk has been a cheerleader for Trump’s threats to annex Canada, writing on his social media platform X that Canada is “not a real country.”

British Columbia recently removed Tesla products from a list of those eligible for provincial subsidies.

18 March, 2025. CTV News

The car is, like Tesla's reputation, falling apart.

At this point it's starting to seem like the Tesla Cybertruck might actually be a joke...but now I'm starting to wonder if the whole enterprise was designed to troll us. How else to explain the veritable smorgasbord of design fails that have emerged over the last five years?

The latest problem? Oh, nothing much – just that it's falling apart.

14 March, 2025. Creative Bloq

An article by news agency wasposted on X, headlined “Musk’s DOGE cuts based more on political ideology than real cost savings so far.”

Elon, predictably, responded. With this tweet:

“I wonder how much money Reuters is getting from the government? Let’s find out.”

Elon, an hour later:

Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for ‘large scale social deception.’ They’re a total scam. Just wow.

Just wow, indeed!

@realDonaldTrump chipped in:

DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study “large scale social deception.” GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!

Large scale social deception? Shocking! If true.

But, predictably, not.

There was a $9 million contract awarded to Reuters, during Trump's first term. But not to Reuters news agency. The contract was with Toronto-based technology company Thomson Reuters Special Services, intended to protect the US government from social engineering, a form of cyber threat.

Simple fact-checking would have discovered this. But Musk, Trump and their followers don't do fact-checking. They do 'truthiness'. At this stage it's hard to tell whether Musk is trolling Trump and/or the American people. Or whether he is just incompetent.

13 February, 2025. (source)

More than a half-dozen Tesla charging stations were torched near Boston on Monday, police said, in what appears to be the latest attack on the company run by Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to President Donald Trump.

Musk has become the public face of the Trump administration's efforts to drastically slash federal programs and shift U.S. foreign policy.

Musk and Tesla have been targeted in Europe, too.

CORRECTION (March 4, 2025, 9:35 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated Elon Musk’s relation to Tesla. He is its CEO; he did not found it.

13 February, 2025. (NBC News)

Typically, Musk likes to buy companies with good ideas and retroactively claim to be the founder.

The conversation among the defense secretary and other national security officials on a commercial messaging app mistakenly included the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed war plans in an encrypted group chat that included a journalist two hours before U.S. troops launched attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen, the White House said on Monday, confirming an account in the magazine The Atlantic.

It was an extraordinary breach of American national security intelligence. Not only was the journalist inadvertently included in the group, but the conversation also took place outside the secure government channels that would normally be used for classified and highly sensitive war planning.

At 11:44 a.m. on March 15, Mr. Hegseth posted the “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Mr. Goldberg wrote.

“The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East.”

Mr. Goldberg did not publish the details of the war plans in his article.

Several Defense Department officials expressed shock that Mr. Hegseth had put American war plans into a commercial chat group. They said that having this type of conversation in a Signal chat group itself could be a violation of the Espionage Act, a law covering the handling of sensitive information.

24 March 2025 New York Times

The change is expected to create new hardships as Trump and Musk push massive cuts to the agency that serves elderly and disabled Americans.

The change is expected to disrupt agency operations just as the Trump administration, driven by billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, is racing to downsize Social Security — cutting 7,000 jobs, consolidating programs, and closing dozens of regional and local offices.

Because millions of elderly and disabled customers the agency serves lack computers to authenticate their identity — and have limited mobility to access in-person help — the change will create hardships, a top agency official acknowledged last week in an internal memorandum.

“Knowledge-based authentication is dead,” Dudek said, referring to questions employees currently ask by phone to verify if a person applying for retirement or disability benefits is who they say they are. “These changes are not intended to hurt our customers, but to make sure benefits go to the right customer at the right time.”

“Make no mistake, this is a full-blown attack on Social Security. Elon Musk is trying to take away benefits you earned.”

18th March 2025 The Washington Post

Former agency leaders, including two Republicans, say rollbacks by Lee Zeldin could cause ‘severe harms’

Three former Environmental Protection Agency leaders sounded an alarm on Friday, saying rollbacks proposed by the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, endanger the lives of millions of Americans and abandon the agency’s dual mission to protect the environment and human health.

The former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy called Zeldin’s announcement “the most disastrous day in EPA history”.

The warning by McCarthy, who served under two Democratic administrations, was echoed by two former EPA heads who served under Republican presidents.

“What this administration is doing is endangering all of our lives – ours, our children, our grandchildren,” added Christine Todd Whitman, who led the EPA under George W Bush.

14th March 2025 The Guardian

National Science Foundation staff have been combing through thousands of active science research projects, alongside a list of keywords, to determine if they include activities that violate Trump’s executive orders [to scrub references to DEI from government web-sites and publications].

Words that raise flags and should be further investigated include: Barrier, Disability, Diversity, Equity, Female, Hender, Historically, Institutional, Minority, Racially, Victims, Women. And many, many more.

Scientists who receive NSF funding were already put on notice last week to cease any activities that do not comply with the executive orders. “In particular, this may include, but is not limited to conferences, trainings, workshops, considerations for staffing and participant selection, and any other grant activity that uses or promotes the use of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) principles and frameworks or violates federal anti-discrimination laws,” a message to investigators said.

...

The NSF is a $9 billion agency that funds scientific research across the globe, including research stations in Antarctica and astronomy observatories. Grants also fund research into quantum technologies, biology and earthquake risk, and support training young scientists...

On Wednesday 22nd January, 2025, a full two days into Trump 2.0, a bill was introduced into the Mississippi State legislature that would pay bounty hunters $1000 for every undocumented immigrant they help to deport.

Payment would be from the Mississippi Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program Fund. A similar bill was introduced in Missouri last year.

After 40 hours of training and successful completion of an online quiz, and payment of a $40 licensing fee, a bounty hunter is free to search out those people who, generally, look different from themselves.

It is legal to carry a concealed handgun without a permit in Mississippi, with certain restrictions. After safety training, it is then legal to carry a concealed handgun into schools, bars and churches, polling stations, government offices, ...