RFK Jr defends downsizing health department as protesters disrupt Senate hearing – US politics live

Director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired the two highest-ranking officials at the National Intelligence Council, just weeks after the council released an assessment that contradicted President Donald Trump’s justification for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process.

Gabbard fired Mike Collins, the acting chair, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, on Tuesday, CNN reported.

The dismissals come after the NIC authored an assessment that found it unlikely that Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, is helping the criminal activities of Tren de Aragua in the US.

The latest round of intelligence firings comes as Gabbard and her team aim to eliminate what they view as bias and inefficiency within the intelligence community. On X, Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, Alexa Henning, said the NIC officials, whom she referred to as “Biden holdovers”, were removed for “politicizing intelligence.”

The Georgetown academic Badar Khan Suri was released from Ice detention hours after after a Virginia federal judge’s order on Wednesday.

Khan Suri was among several individuals legally studying in the US who have been targeted by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism. He has spent two months in detention.

US district judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, said that the ruling was effective immediately with no conditions and no bond. She added that Khan Suri’s release was “in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech” during the hearing. The judge explained in her ruling how the government did not submit sufficient evidence on several of its claims.

A large crowd of demonstrators outside the courthouse reportedly cheered upon hearing the news of the ruling.

Badar Khan Suri will go home to his family in Virginia while he awaits the outcome of his petition against the Trump administration for wrongful arrest and detention in violation of the first amendment and other constitutional rights.

He is also facing deportation proceedings in an immigration court in Texas.

Read the full story by Marina Dunbar:

Elon Musk shows he still has the White House’s ear on Trump’s Middle East trip

Over the course of an eight-minute interview, Elon Musk touted his numerous businesses and vision of a “Star Trek future” while telling the crowd that his Tesla Optimus robots had performed a dance for Donald Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to the tune of YMCA. He also announced that Starlink, his satellite internet company, had struck a deal for use in Saudi Arabia for maritime and aviation usage; looking to the near future, he expressed his desire to bring Tesla’s self-driving robotaxis to the country.

“We could not be more appreciative of having a lifetime partner and a friend like you, Elon, to the Kingdom,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and IT, Abdullah Alswaha, told Musk.

Although Musk has pivoted away from his role as de facto leader of the so-called “department of government efficiency” and moved out of the White House, the Saudi summit showed how he is still retaining his proximity to the US president and international influence. As Musk returns to his businesses as his primary focus, he is still primed to reap the rewards of his connections and political sway over Trump.

Starlink diplomacy

Musk’s Starlink announcement comes after a spate of countries have agreed to allow the satellite communications service to operate within their borders. Several countries that have approved Starlink did so after US state department officials mentioned the company by name or pushed for increased satellite services in negotiations over Trump’s sweeping tariffs, according to internal memos obtained by the Washington Post.

Concerns over whether Musk and the Trump administration are leveraging their power to force countries into adopting Starlink has prompted calls for a state department inspector general investigation into whether there is undue influence at play in these agreements. On Wednesday, a group of Democratic senators issued a letter requesting a broad review of the state department’s alleged efforts to assist Starlink.

Read the full analysis by The Guardian’s Nick Robins-Early here:

A Russian-born researcher at Harvard University who has been held for weeks in an immigration detention center in Louisiana has been criminally charged with attempting to smuggle frog embryo samples into the United States, Reuters reports.

Federal prosecutors in Boston announced the smuggling charge against Kseniia Petrova, 31, hours after a federal judge in Vermont heard arguments in a lawsuit she filed that argues the Trump administration has been unlawfully detaining her.

The Trump administration intends to deport Petrova back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her protest of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the New York Times reports.

About a dozen labor unions have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in an effort to overturn sweeping cuts to the nation’s occupational health agency.

The suit was brought by the United Mine Workers of America, the American Federation of Teachers, National Nurses United and 10 other unions.

The case centers on the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which was massively downsized this year following layoffs that eliminated about 850 of its 1,000 employees, according to the Associated Press.

At a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, Robert F Kennedy Jr said he is reversing the firing of about 330 Niosh workers. But the lawsuit seeks to reinstate all Niosh staff and functions, arguing that the cuts flouted express directives from Congress and are illegal.

Johana Bhuiyan

Republicans have propose prohibiting US states from regulating AI for 10 years.

Republicans in US Congress are trying to bar states from being able to introduce or enforce laws that would create guardrails for artificial intelligence or automated decision-making systems for 10 years.

A provision in the proposed budgetary bill now before the House of Representatives would prohibit any state or local governing body from pursuing “any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems” unless the purpose of the law is to “remove legal impediments to, or facilitate the deployment or operation of” these systems.

The provision was a last-minute addition by House Republicans to the bill just two nights before it was due to be marked up on Tuesday. The House energy and commerce committee voted to advance the reconciliation package on Wednesday morning.

The bill defines AI systems and models broadly, with anything from facial recognition systems to generative AI qualifying. The proposed law would also apply to systems that use algorithms or AI to make decisions including for hiring, housing and whether someone qualifies for public benefits.

Many of these automated decision-making systems have recently come under fire. The deregulatory proposal comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by several state attorneys general against the property management software RealPage, which the lawsuit alleges colluded with landlords to raise rents based on the company’s algorithmic recommendations. Another company, SafeRent, recently settled a class-action lawsuit filed by Black and Hispanic renters who say they were denied apartments based on an opaque score the company gave them.

Read the full story here:

Harvard University announced that it will allocate $250 million of its own funds to support researchers after the Trump administration froze nearly $3 billion in federal grants and contracts in recent weeks, the Harvard Crimson reports.

The elite Ivy League institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has become a frequent target of President Donald Trump, who has launched an aggressive campaign to reshape private colleges and universities across the country. He accuses them of promoting anti-American, Marxist, and “radical left” ideologies.

“We understand the uncertainty that these times have brought and the burden our community faces,” Harvard President Alan M. Garber wrote. “We are here to support you.”

Still, Garber acknowledged that the university would not be able to fully absorb the cost of the suspended or canceled federal awards. He warned that the funding freeze could disrupt long-running projects, delay scientific progress, and force unpopular decisions across Harvard’s schools, according to the student-run outlet.

“While there will undoubtedly be difficult decisions and sacrifices ahead, we know that, together, we will chart a path forward to sustain and advance Harvard’s vital research mission,” he wrote.

Robert F Kennedy Jr said that the “central focus” of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be on studying ultra-processed foods, sugars and food additives.

“The central focus of NIH, is going to be looking at – and FDA – looking at ultra-processed foods, and sugars, and the 10,000 additives that are in our food,” Kennedy said during a Senate committee on health, education, labor & pensions hearing.

Among those interrupting Robert F Kennedy’s testimony at the Senate hearing were Aids activists, protesting mass terminations and cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services. The reductions have gutted programs that focus on child support services and international HIV treatment initiatives.

In a statement, Asia Russell of Health Gap said:

Kennedy and Trump are massacring America’s global and domestic HIV responses … People will die as a result of their senseless decisions. Congress has a duty to intervene now and reject Kennedy’s deadly budget proposal, and work urgently to reinstate what he is demolishing.

All federal experts on HIV prevention in children overseas were fired last month as part of the reduction in force. At least $759m worth of federal grants for HIV research have been cancelled so far.

House Republicans are proposing lowering the SNAP dependent exemption age from 18 to 7, NOTUS reports.

Under current SNAP rules, adults caring for children under 18 are exempt from work requirements. House Republicans are proposing to lower that age limit to 7, meaning caregivers of children aged 8 or older would no longer qualify for the exemption.

The proposed change, part of the agriculture section in the reconciliation bill, drew outrage from Democrats on the Agriculture Committee.

“In the absence of a hearing or serious explanation, I suggest we give our 8-year-olds little tiny boots with little tiny bootstraps,” said Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia.

A judge has temporarily blocked the justice department from cancelling $3.2m in grants to the American Bar Association (ABA) to train lawyers to represent victims of domestic and sexual violence.

The ABA sued the justice department in April, claiming it illegally terminated federal grants in retaliation for the organization’s public criticism of the Trump administration.

US district judge Christopher Cooper granted the ABA’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop the government from terminating the grants as the case moves forward.

“The first amendment injury is concrete and ongoing,” Cooper wrote in his opinion on Wednesday.

The ABA regularly engages in protected expressive activity, and DOJ’s termination of its grants directly punishes that activity.

Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, has warned that the Medicaid cuts Congress is considering would mean billions of dollars in lost federal aid to the state.

Hundreds of thousands of people could lose access to Medicaid, Shapiro told WILK-FM radio on Wednesday. He said:

I just need to stress: there is no back-filling at the state level. There are no dollars available at the state level to make up for these cuts at the federal level. So if they cut someone off Medicaid, they’re off. We will not be able to fix that for them.

Billions of dollars in funding cuts would also accelerate the shuttering of rural hospitals “which are teetering on the brink of closure”, he added.

Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr described the downsizing of his department as necessary cost-cutting measures as he defended his spending plans under Donald Trump’s budget proposal.

The plans include an $18bn cut to National Institutes of Health funding and $3.6bn from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kennedy, appearing before the House appropriations committee this morning, argued the proposed cuts would save taxpayers $1.8bn per year and make the department more efficient. He said in his opening statement:

Our reductions have focused on aligning HHS staffing levels to reflect the size of HHS prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw around a 15% increase in the number of employees.

Asked about Elon Musk’s involvement in the cuts and firings at his department, Kennedy said:

Ultimately, we executed the decisions, but Elon Musk gave us help in trying and figuring out where there was fraud and abuse in the department. But it was up to me to make the decision, and there are many instances where I pushed back.

Protesters interrupted Robert F Kennedy Jr’s opening remarks before the Senate health committee this afternoon, shouting: “RFK kills people with Aids!”

The health secretary was visibly startled and jumped from his chair when protesters began shouting, before being removed by Capitol police.

“That was a made for C-Span moment,” said senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the committee.

Dozens of federal health workers and offices dedicated to HIV/Aids research have been shuttered under Kennedy’s watch.

Robert F Kennedy Jr has spent the day defending deep staffing cuts, research funding freezes and drastic policy changes in his department during his first appearance on Capitol Hill as health secretary.

Kennedy appeared at a House appropriations hearing earlier this morning to defend the White House’s requested budget for his agency, including a $500m boost for his “make America healthy again” initiative.

Since his confirmation, Kennedy has slashed 10,000 jobs including at the country’s top food and drugs regulator, public health agency and biomedical research institute.

Asked if he would give his children the measles vaccine today, Kennedy sidestepped the question. He said:

Measles? Probably for measles. What I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant. I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me.

Asked if he would vaccinate his kids today against chickenpox and polio, Kennedy refused to answer, only saying: “I don’t want to give advice.”

Carter Sherman

Republicans’ newest tax bill threatens to exclude millions of families from a tax credit meant to ease household financial burdens, even as conservatives are increasingly claiming to tout policies designed to entice families to have more babies.

One provision in the bill, which runs nearly 400 pages, seeks to raise the child tax credit from the current $2,000 level to $2,500 per child – but an estimated 17 million children would be ineligible to receive the full credit because their parents do not make enough to qualify, according to a congressional estimate.

Another provision of the bill would require a US citizen child’s parent or guardian to possess a social security number in order to claim the credit; if the child’s parents are married and file their taxes together, both parents would need social security numbers.

This requirement would make undocumented immigrants and other immigrants who lack work authorization ineligible to claim the credit on behalf of children who are US citizens or legal permanent residents, stripping the benefit from a number of families who would otherwise receive it.

Under current requirements, families of children with social security numbers are eligible regardless of the parents’ status.

Here are some more photos from Donald Trump’s visit to Qatar where he is attending a state dinner at Lusail Palace. He will no doubt have been pleased by the abundance of marble and camels.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has left Doha and is en route to Antalya, Turkey, where he will meet Nato foreign ministers on Thursday.

It comes ahead of his planned travel onwards to Istanbul on Friday, where the state department says he will attend talks with European counterparts to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Judge orders immediate release of Indian academic detained by Ice over pro-Palestinian views

Marina Dunbar

A Virginia federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Georgetown academic Badar Khan Suri from Ice detention during a hearing on Wednesday.

Khan Suri was among several individuals legally studying in the US who have been targeted by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism. He has spent two months in detention.

US district judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, said that the ruling is effective immediately with no conditions and no bond.

The Trump administration had ordered the detention of Khan Suri, a citizen of India, on 17 March. He was previously being held at an immigration prison in Alvarado, Texas.

Immigration officials revoked his J-1 student visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago in addition to claims that he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine.

Khan Suri, who is married to a Palestinian-American US citizen, Mapheze Saleh, is a senior postdoctoral fellow at the institution’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). Many students and alumni of the institution signed a letter opposing his detention by Ice.

Giles prohibited federal officials in March from deporting the postdoctoral fellow after his wife filed an emergency court request to prevent deportation.