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Health secretary unilaterally appointed ACIP’s eight new members, several of whom are critical of immunizations

The first meeting of a critical federal vaccine panel was a high-profile display of how the US health secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr has injected chaos into vaccine policy infrastructure.

Wednesday’s meeting was held amid controversy, not only regarding the new members unilaterally appointed by Kennedy, but also the questions they would consider, their conflicts of interest and views on vaccines, and the scheduled speakers.

The new chair of the committee, former Harvard University professor of medicine Dr Martin Kulldorff, who was fired for refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19, began the meeting by criticizing both his former employer and the media.

Mike German, an ex-FBI agent, said immigration agents hiding their identities ‘highlights the illegitimacy of actions’

Some wear balaclavas. Some wear neck gators, sunglasses and hats. Some wear masks and casual clothes.

Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing up prominent Democratic critics.

It’s a trend that has sparked alarm among civil rights and law enforcement experts alike.

Mike German, a former FBI agent, said officers’ widespread use of masks was unprecedented in US law enforcement and a sign of a rapidly eroding democracy. “Masking symbolizes the drift of law enforcement away from democratic controls,” he said.

At hearing, US attorney general claims she’s unaware of reports that officials have hid their faces during roundups

The attorney general, Pam Bondi, professed ignorance of reports of immigration officials hiding their faces with masks during roundups of undocumented people, despite widespread video evidence and reports that they are instilling pervasive fear and panic.

Challenged at a Wednesday Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing by Gary Peters, a Democratic senator for Michigan, Bondi, who as the country’s top law officer has a prominent role in the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policy, implied she was unaware of plain-clothed agents concealing their faces while carrying out arrests but suggested it was for self-protection.

A senior aide to President Donald Trump has claimed Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary is a result of a failure to control migration.

"NYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration," Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, wrote on X.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a stunning upset on Tuesday night.

DHS does not deny strong-arming tourist into letting them into his phone, only that agents sent him home because of a meme

The story circulating online — first in Norwegian newspaper Nordlys and then picked up by British tabloids — claims that during Mikkelsen's encounter with the Department of Homeland Security, agents took his phone and found a meme depicting Vance as a bloated, smooth, bald man staring off into the distance.

Mikkelsen claims that the officials threatened to fine him $5,000 or send him to prison for five years if he refused to provide them with his phone password. The tourist ultimately agreed to hand over his information, allowing agents to look through his phone.

The reports picked up enough steam in headlines and on social media to justify CBP putting out a statement denying parts of the story.

Plaintiff says company’s bid to exit bankruptcy omits US government plan to seize $225m that should go to victims

A New York bankruptcy judge approved a disclosure statement last week laying out Purdue Pharma’s proposed reorganization plan – despite an objection alleging the disclosure omits information about the US government’s plan to seize Purdue money that could be used to compensate prescription opioid victims under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act instead.

It’s been five years since Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy in a New Jersey federal court, including for unlawfully dispensing opioid products without a legitimate medical purpose. In a press release at the time, the Department of Justice emphasized that the convictions were part of a strategy to defeat the opioid crisis.

But the plea agreement did not include restitution for opioid victims, reasoning that it would not be “administratively feasible” to distribute the funds. Since then, opioid victims have been unable to seek settlements from Purdue, as the company’s 2019 bankruptcy filing stayed civil lawsuits against the company, and will likely instead be settled in bankruptcy court as part of the reorganization plan.

Donald Trump and the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, have admitted to some doubt over the scale of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear sites by the US bombing at the weekend, after a leaked Pentagon assessment said the Iranian programme had been set back by only a few months.

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A fired Department of Justice lawyer says that top DOJ official Emil Bove told department attorneys to consider telling judges “f---k you” and ignore any court order barring the Trump administration from deporting immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act.

Donald Trump has nominated Bove as a federal circuit court appeals judge.

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Dick Durbin, an Ilinois Democrat, urged his Republican colleagues not to “turn a blind eye to the dire consequences of confirming” Bove to a lifetime position as a circuit court judge.

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Tesla new car sales in Europe fell 27.9% year-on-year. in May.

The U.S. EV maker has sustained brand and reputational damage in part due to CEO Elon Musk’s incendiary rhetoric and political activity.

Chinese manufacturers, meanwhile, maintained their strong momentum in Europe’s new car market last month.

One of DOGE’s best-known workers Edward Coristine, 19, quits a month after his former boss Elon Musk’s departure

19-year-old Edward Coristine, has resigned from the US government, a White House official said on Tuesday, a month after the acrimonious departure of his former boss Elon Musk.

Last month, Reuters reported that Coristine was one of two Doge associates promoting the use of AI across the federal bureaucracy. Media outlets, including Wired which first reported his departure, revealed that Coristine had been active in a chat room popular with hackers and previously had been fired from a job following an alleged data leak.

In March, Reuters reported that Coristine had provided tech support to a cybercrime gang that had bragged about trafficking in stolen data and harassing an FBI agent.

The British paedophile charged in connection with organising a "mock wedding" to a child in Disneyland Paris is Jacky Jhaj, who was found guilty of sexual activity with two 15-year-olds in 2016, the BBC understands.

Jhaj, 39, has been charged in connection with organising the fake ceremony on Saturday, in which a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl was due to feature as his bride.

He was arrested when police were called on Saturday morning by an actor who said he had been hired by Jhaj to play the father of the bride.

The BBC has previously investigated how Jhaj was able to hire hundreds of children to act as his fawning fans at a fake film premiere in London's Leicester Square in 2023.