US health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr (Image credits: AP)
US health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has dismissed two top aides of the department, marking a sudden leadership shift just months into his tenure.Chief of staff Heather Flick Melanson and deputy chief of staff for Policy Hannah Anderson were removed from their roles this week, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The possible reason behind the move remains unclear. An HHS spokesperson confirmed the changes and announced that Matt Buckham, the department’s White House liaison, will take over as acting chief of staff.“He brings valuable experience in personnel strategy and organizational management to this new role,” the spokesperson said as quoted by CNN. “Secretary Kennedy thanks the outgoing leadership for their service and looks forward to working closely with Mr. Buckham as the Department continues advancing its mission to Make America Healthy Again,” he added.Kennedy has not yet chosen permanent replacements.The leadership overhaul comes as HHS faces mounting scrutiny over its efforts to revise vaccine policies and push forward key health and food initiatives.Flick was one of Kennedy’s most seasoned Washington insiders, having held multiple senior roles at HHS during the Trump administration, including acting general counsel, acting secretary for administration, and senior adviser to then-Secretary Alex Azar.Anderson came to HHS with a background as a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill, where she served as a health policy adviser on the Senate’s primary health committee. Most recently, she led health care policy at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute.
UN Watch: a watershed moment of accountability for those carrying out the UN’s institutionalized bias against the Jewish state. “This week, the dominoes are falling,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. “First, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the historic decision to sanction Francesca Albanese, the UN’s pro-Hamas rapporteur, in wake of a massive campaign led by UN Watch. Now the architects of the UN’s anti-Israel inquisition are fleeing the ship. The tide is turning” (UN Watch).
Born in the ashes of World War II and established to ensure that a Holocaust would never happen again, the United Nations has not just horribly failed in its mission, it has become the very thing it was created to oppose and defeat.Just as the League of Nations was dissolved because it failed in its primary purpose to prevent world war, the United Nations has failed in its primary purpose and should be dismantled.The United Nations “should cease to exist except for the sole purpose of the liquidation of its affairs.” They have devolved to an arm of the jihad force.
The League of Nations was established at the end of World War I as an international peacekeeping organization just as the United Nations was founded over seventy years ago in the wake of the Holocaust to ensure “never again.” Democracies, both nascent and well-established, comprised the majority of the founding nations of the UN. America was confident that the UN would be an organization which would work in tandem with American national interests in promoting the welfare of humankind and the basic rights of every human spirit.
EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas wants the US to help pay for the weapons for Ukraine.
The new NATO initiative to arm Ukraine rubs Kallas wrong.
Not everyone is thrilled by the new plan devised by US president Donald J. Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to send weapons to Ukraine.
The novel initiative will see NATO countries (Europeans and Canada) to cede equipment to Ukraine, and buy back from the US to replenish their arsenals.
This plan sees Trump shifting the financial burden of the war to the warmongering EU powers that want to keep it going.
‘We have spent about $350 billion on the Russia-Ukraine war. And we would like it to end.’
US president’s remarks follow report saying he encouraged Kyiv to step up strikes inside Russian territory.
United States President Donald Trump has said Ukraine should not target Moscow after he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if Kyiv could strike the Russian capital if he provided long-range weaponry.
Trump made the comments after The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that the US president had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up strikes deep inside Russian territory during their phone call on July 4.
The report, which cited two unnamed people familiar with the discussion, said Trump had also asked his Ukrainian counterpart whether he could hit Moscow and St Petersburg if supplied with weapons with enough range.
In response to a question on Tuesday about whether Zelenskyy should target Moscow, Trump told reporters at the White House that he should not.
Trump also told reporters that “we’re not looking” at providing Kyiv with longer-range missiles.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm the discussion in a statement provided to multiple media outlets, but said it had been taken out of context.
MBALE, Uganda — Wilson Watira offered his hand when he met his political rival at a funeral, gesturing for a proper handshake. The man didn’t want contact, instead folding a piece of paper that he aimed at Watira.
“He looked at me and picked that piece of paper of the program. He folded it and greeted me,” Watira said. “He’s just afraid of me simply because I am not afraid of him.”
Watira, who seeks a seat in Uganda’s Parliament, remembered the recent event as a vivid example of the rampant fear of witchcraft as politicians seeking office try to outmaneuver each other in this east African country.
In public, political contests often entail spectacles where rivals rent cars to mount raucous processions in the streets, offering cash and other inducements to voters. Behind the scenes, the struggle for victory can be intensely spiritual, with faith figuring in incidents ranging from ritual sacrifice to visits with traditional healers, according to Watira and others who spoke to The Associated Press.
Watira, a leader of a group uniting Uganda’s Bamasaba people, said the incumbent legislator who refused to shake his hand may have worried that would somehow give Watira the upper hand or provoke misfortune. Watira said he wasn’t surprised by the man’s behavior.
BEIJING — The head of Nvidia downplayed his role in getting the U.S. government to lift a ban on selling an advanced computer chip in China and said it will take time to ramp up production once orders for the AI-processor come in.
CEO Jensen Huang, speaking Wednesday in the Chinese capital Beijing, was upbeat about the prospects for the H20 chip, which was designed to meet U.S. restrictions on technology exports to China but nonetheless blocked in April.
He met U.S. President Donald Trump before his trip and his company announced this week it had received assurances that sales to China would be approved.
“I don’t think I changed his mind,” Huang told a cluster of journalists, many of whom asked for his autograph or to take selfies with him.
A carefully organized press conference at a luxury hotel descended into a crowd scene when Huang arrived in his trademark leather jacket and started taking questions randomly in his characteristic casual style.
Export controls and tariffs were something companies must adapt to in a world he said was reconfiguring itself. He described his role as informing governments in the U.S. and elsewhere of the nature and unintended consequences of their policies.
The decision to lift the ban on the H20 chip was entirely in the hands of the American and Chinese governments and whatever trade talks they had, he said.
Though endlessly critical of his predecessor, President Trump has adopted a Ukraine strategy similar to that of former President Joe Biden: Arm the Ukrainians to the teeth and threaten Russian President Vladimir Putin with even more sanctions if he does not agree to a peace deal.
Some of Trump’s closest domestic allies are already warning that the “expanded American role in the Ukraine War” will be “quite shocking” to the America First voters who returned him to the Oval Office.
But the same president who vowed to end the war in 24 hours has lost patience with Putin after six months. “He’s fooled a lot of people,” Trump said of the Russian leader. “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me.” Seated in the Oval Office next to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the president offered a glimpse into the negotiation process and his seemingly shifting mood on the war.
“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump admitted. “But it just kept going on and on.”
So Trump will sell weapons to NATO to supply Ukraine, and if Russia does not yield in 50 days, Trump promises another 100% tariff on all Russian goods.
Twenty Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the crush of a crowd at a food distribution site run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip, the group said, the first time it has acknowledged deadly violence at its operations. The deaths came as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.
The Gaza Humanitarian Fund accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.
It said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed at a hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd, inciting a panic. The ministry said that it was the first time people have been killed by a stampede at the aid sites.
It was also the first time that GHF has confirmed deaths at one of its distribution sites, although Palestinian witnesses, health officials and U.N. agencies say hundreds of people have been killed while heading to the hubs to get food.
Russia’s economy is facing fresh turmoil as its once-buoyant property market plunges into crisis, with sales of new apartments collapsing by nearly 39% over the past year, according to new government data. From July 2024 to June 2025, just 458,727 apartments were sold across the country, representing a staggering 38.7% drop in the number of transactions compared to the previous 12 months.
The total area of property sold fell by 37.2%, down to 21.9 million square metres, according to a report by the state-owned housing firm Dom.RF. The figures are echoed by real estate platform Cian, which recorded a 39% decline in property deals year-on-year, down to 477,000 units.
The dramatic decline has been linked to the abolition of Russia’s preferential mortgage program on July 1, 2024.
Texas Hill Country was back under a flood watch on Saturday, with the National Weather Service warning of “locally heavy rainfall” of 1-3in with isolated amounts close to 6in possible.
The flood watch, which continues through Sunday evening, comes as the death toll from the 4 July flood continues to rise – now at nearly 130 people – and authorities continue their search for the 160 more who are missing.
The latest warnings anticipate considerably less rain than what came down last week, which caused the Guadalupe River to rise 29ft in 45 minutes.
The Texas division of emergency management had mobilized before the storm, but its assets were not focused exclusively on Texas Hill Country. The storm alerts that were issued before and during the storm, in an area of patchy cellphone service, are now the subject of scrutiny.
On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic’s buildings from its 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous floodplain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors.
President Donald Trump defended the state and federal response to deadly flash flooding in Texas on Friday as he visited the stricken Hill Country region, where at least 120 people, including dozens of children, perished a week ago.
During a roundtable discussion after touring Kerr County, the epicenter of the disaster, Trump praised both Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for their response, saying they both did an “incredible job.”
The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, has faced mounting questions over whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents ahead of the flooding, which struck with astonishing speed in the pre-dawn hours on July 4, the U.S. Independence Day holiday.
Trump reacted with anger when a reporter said some families affected by the floods had expressed frustration that warnings did not go out sooner.
“I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances,” he said. “I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”
Amid the deadly flooding in central Texas, animal rescue groups are working tirelessly to shelter displaced pets, relocate them, and ensure their safety until they can be reunited with their families.Marc Peralta, chief program officer at Best Friends Animal Society, quoted ABC News, said, “When the floods occurred, we knew right away from other emergency response situations, such as the fires in Los Angeles, that we have shelters that are full of animals and what we are going to need in any event like this was to make room for displaced pets, lost pets and provide that relief for families that are already going through complete tumultuous situations to maybe have one less thing to worry about.”In response to the crisis, Best Friends Animal Society and its partners airlifted around 130 cats and dogs, allowing them to take shelter in the community, stay safe, and, hopefully, reunite with their families.
As the death toll from catastrophic flash floods in Texas continues to climb, weather conspiracies on social media began to circulate. Users suggested a cloud seeding operation – carried out 2 days before the floods by the company Rainmaker – were to blame for triggering the flooding. These claims have been slammed by weather experts and meteorologists. Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.
Meanwhile, questions intensified over whether Trump’s funding cuts had weakened warning systems, and over the handling of the rescue operation.
During an at-times tense news conference, Baker skirted a question on the speed of the emergency response.
“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” he said.
Shel Winkley, a weather expert at the Climate Central research group, blamed the extent of the disaster on geography, the remnants of tropical storm Beryl, and exceptional drought, when dry soil absorbs less rainfall.
“This part of Texas, at least in the Kerr County flood specifically, was in an extreme to exceptional drought. So that’s the worst drought conditions that you can have, and we know that since May, temperatures have been above average,” Winkley told reporters.
The organisation’s media director, Tom Di Liberto, said staffing shortages at the National Weather Service had contributed to the disaster.
“What happens, and this is shared not only in Texas but weather forecast offices across the country, is that the people with the most experience dealing with these extreme (events), but also communicating it, have left in a lot of places, so you can’t necessarily replace that experience,” Di Liberto said.
Meanwhile, questions intensified over whether Trump’s funding cuts had weakened warning systems, and over the handling of the rescue operation.
During an at-times tense news conference, Baker skirted a question on the speed of the emergency response.
“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” he said.
Shel Winkley, a weather expert at the Climate Central research group, blamed the extent of the disaster on geography, the remnants of tropical storm Beryl, and exceptional drought, when dry soil absorbs less rainfall.
“This part of Texas, at least in the Kerr County flood specifically, was in an extreme to exceptional drought. So that’s the worst drought conditions that you can have, and we know that since May, temperatures have been above average,” Winkley told reporters.
The organisation’s media director, Tom Di Liberto, said staffing shortages at the National Weather Service had contributed to the disaster.
“What happens, and this is shared not only in Texas but weather forecast offices across the country, is that the people with the most experience dealing with these extreme (events), but also communicating it, have left in a lot of places, so you can’t necessarily replace that experience,” Di Liberto said.
with more rain expected– www.channelnewsasia.com Source Link Excerpt:
Meanwhile, questions intensified over whether Trump’s funding cuts had weakened warning systems, and over the handling of the rescue operation.
During an at-times tense news conference, Baker skirted a question on the speed of the emergency response.
“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” he said.
Shel Winkley, a weather expert at the Climate Central research group, blamed the extent of the disaster on geography, the remnants of tropical storm Beryl, and exceptional drought, when dry soil absorbs less rainfall.
“This part of Texas, at least in the Kerr County flood specifically, was in an extreme to exceptional drought. So that’s the worst drought conditions that you can have, and we know that since May, temperatures have been above average,” Winkley told reporters.
The organisation’s media director, Tom Di Liberto, said staffing shortages at the National Weather Service had contributed to the disaster.
“What happens, and this is shared not only in Texas but weather forecast offices across the country, is that the people with the most experience dealing with these extreme (events), but also communicating it, have left in a lot of places, so you can’t necessarily replace that experience,” Di Liberto said.
Rescue teams in central Texas are continuing the search for survivors five days after devastating flash floods swept through the region. Officials say the death toll, already above 100, is expected to rise.
In Kerr County, where several summer camps are based, 84 bodies have been recovered, including 28 children. Camp Mystic, a Christian camp in the Texas Hill Country, confirmed 27 of its campers and staff lost their lives. Ten children and one counsellor are still unaccounted for.
Officials are investigating whether emergency alerts were adequate, as poor mobile service may have hindered warnings.
Tucker Carlson, who seems fully dedicated to the anti-Israel movement now, provided yet another platform for the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism (Iran) to lie to the world. One of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s denials is disprovable with a simple internet search — yes, Iran has repeatedly called for Donald Trump’s assassination.
Carlson rarely seems to do any research that would enable him to call out his interviewees’ lies, allowing multiple guests in recent months to make preposterous claims that the barest journalistic prep would have warned him are false claims. In this case, he was so focused on trying to claim Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying to trick Americans into fighting a regime that has been at war with us for four decades that he let Pezeshkian make a mendacious semi-denial. Ignore the fact that Iran’s grand ayatollah just issued a fatwa saying Trump must receive the punishment of death.
Netanyahu said in June about Iran, “They want to kill [Trump]. He’s enemy number one.” And if Tucker weren’t an antisemite more interested in irritating other conservatives than in fact-checking foreign dictators’ claims, he’d know that Iran’s desire to see Trump dead isn’t a big secret — Iran has been posting online about it for years.
“Has Iran ever backed an assassination attempt against Donald Trump?” Carlson asked. Predictably, Pezeshhkian lied without an outright denial, while cleverly manipulating Carlson by using one of Tucker’s favorite phrases: “This is actually what Netanyahu is trying to insinuate and to make your people or the president of your country to believe. But this is wrong because Netanyahu, who has his own agenda, wants to drag the U.S. into forever wars as I said and to bring insecurity and instability and onwards to the whole region.” Pezeshkian also denied Iranian sleeper cells in America, about which the Department of Homeland Security is raising alarms.
US President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law a major spending and tax bill, which includes key parts of his second-term agenda. The legislation, dubbed the “big, beautiful bill” by Trump, was passed by the US House of Representatives on Thursday just before the July 4 deadline.The House passed the bill on Thursday with a narrow 218-214 vote, following its approval in the Senate on Tuesday, where it passed by a 51-50 margin. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.“Our Country is going to explode with Massive Growth, even more than it already has since I was Re-Elected,” Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after Vice President JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote to send the bill back to the House.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday made his first public appearance since the 12-day war between Israel and Iran began, attending a mourning ceremony on the eve of Ashoura.
Khamenei’s absence during the war suggested the Iranian leader, who has final say on all state matters, had been in seclusion in a bunker — something not acknowledged by state media. State TV in Iran showed him waving and nodding to the chanting crowd, which rose to its feet as he entered and sat at a mosque next to his office and residence in the capital, Tehran.
There was no immediate report on any public statement made. Iranian officials such as the parliament speaker were present. Such events are always held under heavy security.
After the United States inserted itself into the war by bombing three key nuclear sites in Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump sent warnings via social media to the 86-year-old Khamenei that the U.S. knew where he was but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now.”
On June 26, shortly after a ceasefire began, Khamenei made his first public statement in days, saying in a prerecorded statement that Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar, and warning against further attacks by the U.S. or Israel on Iran.
Trump replied, in remarks to reporters and on social media: “Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell.”
