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US President Donald Trump’s embattled health secretary pick, vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr, squeaked through a crucial vote in his confirmation bid on Tuesday as senators advanced his nomination to the floor. With Republicans having a one-seat advantage on the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy’s future hinged on Bill Cassidy, a physician who has clashed with the former Democrat over unfounded claims linking vaccines to autism.But Cassidy backed Kennedy after the 71-year-old environmental lawyer — and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy — was given a vote of confidence from Trump, who urged support for the man whom just nine months ago he was calling “one of the most Liberal Lunatics ever to run for office.””20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform ahead of the vote. Cassidy is a rare occasional rebel in the Republican ranks but faces reelection next year in Louisiana and risked picking up a challenger from the Republican Party’s Trumpist far right if he upset the president.Kennedy’s nomination has faced myriad concerns from both parties, with Republicans particularly eying his past support for abortion, his record suing big business as an environmental lawyer and his 2023 run for president as a Democrat.Beyond vaccines, Democrats point mainly to sexual misconduct allegations, Kennedy’s suggestion that Covid-19 was designed to spare Jews, his linking of school shootings to antidepressants and his alleged mistreatment of animal corpses.The New York Post, a reliably Trump-supporting newspaper, wrote a scathing editorial arguing that there was “too much wackiness” in Kennedy’s background to trust him with America’s health.- Iron grip -And Elizabeth Warren, the vice chair of the Senate Democrats, called Kennedy an “anti-science conspiracy peddler who is willing to gamble with American lives,” urging senators to reject the nomination.The Senate can confirm nominees without a committee’s endorsement, but Republican Majority Leader John Thune had cast doubt on how likely this was.That raised the stakes for Tulsi Gabbard — another conspiracy theorist with a long record of publicly opposing US national security policy, including siding with its adversaries — who scraped through her own key vote.Like Kennedy, 43-year-old Gabbard was running the gauntlet of a party-line vote and just a single Republican no would have sunk her chances of endorsement by the Senate Intelligence Committee.  But Susan Collins, Todd Young and Jerry Moran — considered the swing votes — all lined up behind the Hawaiian US Army Reserve officer, clearing her path to the Senate floor by nine votes to eight.Collins said the one-time lawmaker — like Kennedy, a former Democrat who once ran for president — had addressed her concerns over her past support for pardoning NSA leaker Edward Snowden.Success for Kennedy and Gabbard, two of the least experienced nominees in modern history, would be another powerful demonstration of Trump’s iron grip on his party, days after controversial Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s confirmation.The Senate confirmed former congressman Doug Collins — no relation of the senator — as secretary of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday, a day after approving fracking executive Chris Wright to lead the Energy Department.Pam Bondi is expected to be confirmed as attorney general in the early hours of Wednesday, replacing fellow Floridian Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz, who was the president’s first choice.Gaetz, who withdrew amid allegations of drug abuse and sex with an underage girl that he denies, is looking set to be the only Trump nominee whose Cabinet ambitions will have been derailed in Congress.

Nine FBI agents sued the US Justice Department on Tuesday seeking to block its efforts to collect information on agents involved in investigating President Donald Trump and the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot by his supporters.The FBI agents who filed the complaint against Trump’s acting attorney general, James McHenry, were not identified for their own protection in the complaint filed in a federal district court in Washington.The lawsuit follows reports that acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal lawyer, had asked FBI employees to respond by Tuesday to a questionnaire outlining the work they did on the sprawling Capitol riot investigation.Trump, on his first day in the White House, pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed Congress on January 6, 2021, in a bid to block the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.In their complaint, the FBI agents said the effort to collect information on employees who participated in the Capitol riot investigation was part of a “purge” orchestrated by Trump as “politically motivated retribution.””This directive is unlawful and retaliatory,” they said in asking a federal judge to block the compilation of a list of FBI employees who worked on the Capitol riot cases and the case brought against then-former-president Trump for stashing top secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.The FBI agents noted that the Justice Department had fired a number of officials last week who were involved in the prosecutions of Trump for seeking to overturn the 2020 election results and the documents case.Both cases were dismissed after Trump won the presidency.- ‘Danger of retribution’ -The FBI agents said they had been instructed to fill out a survey that would “identify their specific role in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases.””Plaintiffs assert that the purpose for this list is to identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action,” they said.They expressed fears the list could be published by Trump allies, “placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons.”The nine FBI agents said they represent at least 6,000 current or former FBI employees who participated in some manner in the investigation of “crimes and abuses of power by Donald Trump, or by those acting at his behest.”A copy of the questionnaire sent to FBI employees was attached to the complaint.It asks them whether they took part in any arrests, evidence collection, witness interviews or other activities related to the Capitol riot probe.FBI director Christopher Wray resigned following Trump’s reelection and the president has named Kash Patel, a staunch loyalist, to head the top US law enforcement agency.Patel, at his Senate confirmation hearing, was asked if he was aware of any plans to punish FBI agents who were involved in the investigations of Trump.”I am not aware of that,” he said.Patel also told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “all FBI employees will be protected against political retribution.”

A former Donald Trump aide who once called for “competent white men” to be “in charge” and spread conspiracy theories about the 2021 US Capitol assault has been given a top State Department post, an official said.Darren Beattie, an influential figure in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement and founder of the right-wing “Revolver News” site, has been named acting under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a US official told AFP on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.The role is responsible for developing the public image of American diplomacy around the world.The appointment has not yet been publicly announced, but Beattie — who also reportedly has ties with white supremacists — said he would be joining the State Department in a letter published on Revolver News.The publication has repeatedly pushed the idea that the FBI spurred on the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.”Rest assured, Revolver will continue to provide the fearless, cutting-edge, America First reporting that our readers expect and deserve,” his letter said.Beattie previously worked as a speechwriter for Trump during his first term, but he left the administration in 2018 after US media revealed he had attended a conference two years earlier where white supremacists were present.Reports of his latest appointment have sparked outrage among many, particularly over an October 4, 2024 post on X, in which he wrote: “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”

US President Donald Trump’s administration is moving to roll back protections for endangered species and their habitats in a bid to advance his “drill, baby, drill” energy agenda.A directive signed late Monday by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum gives agencies 15 days to submit plans to unleash US energy, which critics say would weaken the Endangered Species Act and open up fragile landscapes from the Arctic to the Grand Canyon and even national monuments for exploitation.”Today marks the beginning of an exciting chapter for the Department of the Interior,” said Burgum, whose close ties to the fossil fuel industry drew sharp rebuke from environmentalists during his confirmation hearings.”We are committed to working collaboratively to unlock America’s full potential in energy dominance and economic development to make life more affordable for every American family while showing the world the power of America’s natural resources and innovation.”The order aims to reverse bans on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore waters, sweeping restrictions imposed by former president Joe Biden. It also seeks to rescind a rule that reinstated long-standing protections for birds against unintentional but preventable deaths caused by oil spills, mining pits, and building collisions.Remarkably, it contains a directive to review safeguards for all national monuments — a list of 138 historic landmarks that include sites such as Bears Ears in Utah, which was proclaimed by former president Barack Obama before Trump ordered its size to be reduced by 85 percent during his first term.Environmental groups warn the move would accelerate the decline of animal and plant species.- Birds and lizards threatened -“Even as imperiled species dwindle and vanish across America, this order will fan the flames of the extinction crisis,” said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity.Taylor McKinnon, who oversees the Center’s Southwest region, went further: “By making all national monuments available for review and possible termination, this order could be the most sweeping attack on public lands in the history of public lands.”Since its 1973 enactment, the Endangered Species Act has been credited with saving iconic species such as the gray wolf, bald eagle and grizzly bear from extinction.But under Trump’s first administration, key provisions were weakened — allowing economic considerations to influence decisions on species protections. Biden later rolled back those changes, and now Trump is pushing to reinstate them.Greenwald told AFP that species like the greater sage grouse, lesser prairie chicken, and sagebrush lizard — whose habitats overlap with the Greater Permian Basin, the nation’s top oil-producing and fracking site — would be at heightened risk.”Donald Trump made it clear on Day One what his priorities for public lands and waters would be, and these orders are the next step in his reckless ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program.

The United States has frozen its financial contributions to a multinational security support mission in Haiti, a United Nations spokesperson said on Tuesday, a move that would stop $13.3 million in pending aid.”We received an official notification from the US asking for an immediate stop work order on their contribution to the multinational security support force,” said Stephane Dujarric, the UN secretary-general’s spokesperson, referring to the already underfunded Kenya-led force.The UN Security Council gave the green light in October 2023 to the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission designed to support Haiti’s authorities in their fight against criminal gangs, which control swaths of the country.Washington’s funding freeze comes as part of newly elected President Donald Trump’s push to slash US overseas aid, a drive that has included an effort to shutter the operations of the government’s main aid agency, USAID.In late January, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Haiti’s capital could become overrun by gangs if the international community does not step up aid to the security mission.More money, equipment and personnel are needed for the international force, Guterres said, adding that any further delays risk the “catastrophic” collapse of Haiti’s security institutions and “could allow gangs to overrun the entire metropolitan area” of the capital Port-au-Prince.Haiti’s Foreign Minister Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste, speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council, has said that the country faced “major difficulties” that threaten not just the population but also “the very survival of the state.” The MSS is not a UN force, but the UN has set up a voluntary fund to finance it, which has raised $110 million to date, an amount that has been deemed largely insufficient.Just under 800 of the 2,500 security personnel hoped for have been deployed.The United States had committed $15 million to the fund — the second-largest contribution, after Canada’s $63 million — with $1.7 million already disbursed.Haiti currently has no president or parliament and is ruled by a transitional body, which is struggling to manage extreme violence linked to criminal gangs, poverty and other challenges.More than 5,626 people were killed in Haiti last year as a result of gang violence, about a thousand more than in 2023, the UN said. More than a million Haitians have been forced to flee their homes, three times as many as a year ago.

The first US flights carrying detained migrants to America’s notorious Guantanamo military base in Cuba were underway Tuesday as President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on illegal migration, the White House said.Guantanamo is primarily known as a detention center for suspects accused of terrorism-related offenses, but the base also has a history of being used to hold migrants, and Trump last week ordered the preparation of a 30,000-person “migrant facility” there.”Today, the first flights from the United States to Guantanamo Bay with illegal migrants are underway,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox Business.Trump has launched what his second administration is casting as a major effort to combat illegal migration, trumpeting immigration raids, arrests and deportations on military aircraft.The president has made the issue a priority on the international stage as well, threatening Colombia with sanctions and massive tariffs for turning back two planeloads of deportees.The Guantanamo prison was opened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and has been used to indefinitely hold detainees seized during the wars and other operations that followed. The conditions there have prompted consistent outcry from rights groups, and UN experts have condemned it as a site of “unparalleled notoriety.”- ‘Perfect place’ -Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden both sought to close the facility, but Congress has opposed efforts to shutter Guantanamo and it remains open to this day.It still holds 15 people incarcerated for militant activity or terrorism-related offenses, among them several accused plotters of the 9/11 attacks, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.But migrants will be detained in a separate part of the base.According to US Southern Command, there are some 300 American military personnel at Guantanamo supporting “illegal alien holding operations.”The base has for decades been used to hold Caribbean asylum seekers and refugees caught at sea, and was used in the 1990s to house tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans who fled crises in their homelands.They were accommodated in tent cities, with many eventually sent home after being held at Guantanamo for years.Thousands of undocumented migrants have been arrested since Trump’s January 20 inauguration, including some accused of crimes.An unknown number have been repatriated to Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil and other countries, and Trump has vowed to expel millions.US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday described Guantanamo as the “perfect place” to detain migrants as he visited the border with Mexico — an area where the Trump administration has boosted the country’s military presence in recent weeks.The Pentagon will provide any necessary assets “to support the expulsion and detention of those in our country illegally,” Hegseth said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged Tuesday that some aid groups may have intentionally sabotaged projects to make a point after he froze most US assistance.Rubio, currently on a Latin America tour, doubled down on President Donald Trump’s 90-day suspension of assistance as reports emerge around the world of local aid groups curtailing or stopping life-saving aid.”I issued a blanket waiver that said, if this is life-saving programs, OK; if it’s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you’re not included in the freeze,” Rubio told reporters in Costa Rica.”I don’t know how much more clear we can be than that,” he said.”I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point,” said the former Republican senator.A day earlier, Rubio said he had been made acting head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk look at drastically scaling back aid and merging the organization under the State Department.Non-governmental groups say they have heard multiple cases of aid groups that have struggled to operate, mostly smaller organizations that provide targeted services such as health care or education and did not have reserves.Some schools have shuttered in Uganda, where USAID was backing a universal education program, and demining work has been disrupted in Cambodia, among other cases.- Targeted support to allies -Rubio announced that he was issuing new waivers to ensure the flow of assistance to Costa Rica, a major US partner on issues including migration and drug-trafficking.US assistance includes biometric work to stop smugglers, which Rubio pointed out as an example of concrete American help that benefits its own interests.”Under President Trump, we have a foreign policy in which we are strong in providing support to our allies,” Rubio said as he met Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves.The top US diplomat, on his third stop in his first trip, is a longtime China hawk who is also looking to push back on Beijing’s influence in the region.Costa Rica in 2007 switched recognition to China from Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing — a turning point as other Latin American countries followed suit.But US officials also see hope in the example of Costa Rica, whose relations with China have turned rockier in recent years.Chaves in 2023 effectively forbade Chinese tech titan Huawei from bidding for the nation’s 5G network due to Beijing’s refusal to sign an international agreement on cybercrime.”When you confront companies that are not secure, they’re backed by governments like the government of China that likes to threaten, that likes to sabotage, that likes to use economic coercion to punish you,” Rubio said.Costa Rica has been “very firm, and I think they deserve a lot of support in confronting that,” Rubio said.

US President Donald Trump is set to sign a fresh set of executive orders Tuesday amid reports that he will kick off his election campaign vow to gut the federal education department.Trump cannot abolish the department without the approval of Congress, which he is unlikely to get, but US media reported Tuesday that he would issue orders to effectively dismantle it from the inside.The White House confirmed Trump was due to sign the latest in a slew of executive orders since his assumption of power on January 20, but did not specify what they were.The reports come amid a wider blitz on the federal government led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, that effectively shuttered the USAID humanitarian aid agency on Monday.Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) was already probing data at the education department, the Washington Post newspaper reported on Monday.The tech tycoon referenced the report on his social media network X, saying that while former US president and conservative icon Ronald Reagan had not honored his vow to abolish the department in the 1980s, “President @realDonaldTrump will succeed.”During the 2024 election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to do away with the department if he won a second term in power, returning decisions on the subject to US states.The Republican billionaire has repeatedly said the department has too much spending power even as global metrics show the United States lagging far behind other countries in school standards.He has also criticized US schools for being too liberal. Last week, he signed several executive orders regarding hot-button topics in education — including race, gender, and college campus protests.Trump has nominated Linda McMahon — the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment — to lead the education department, in a move widely seen as signaling his intention to downgrade it.At the culmination of a staged feud, Trump once body-slammed her husband, legendary wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, and shaved his head in the middle of a wrestling ring on live television.

The trade war may be on hold, but in a Canadian border city where the unhindered flow of auto parts across the bridge to Detroit supports thousands of jobs, the future remains uncertain.When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that punishing US import tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump had been delayed a month, the line of cars waiting to enter Windsor, Ontario was stacked dozens deep. The build up was heavy for a Monday but not extraordinary, underscoring how lives and the economies in Windsor and Detroit have grown intertwined. Among those who had just driven across the suspension bridge connecting the cities was Ryan Martin, a 33-year-old automotive engineer, who lives in Canada but crosses daily to work in Michigan. “I’m relieved for now,” he told AFP through the rolled down window of his black pick-up truck, as he waited to clear Canadian customs.But, he added, “I think the damage is already done.”The relationship between the United States and Canada — a close alliance for well over a century that currently involves billions of dollars in daily cross border trade — “is not in a good spot,” said Martin. “Not as good as it should be.”- ‘Freaking out’ – Trump’s pledge to impose a blanket 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports, which may resurface in a month, pushed national anxiety in Canada to rare heights. Canada announced retaliatory measures and economists warned the US levees could trigger a recession by mid-year. Trump has said tariffs were aimed at forcing Canada to counter the cross-border flow of migrants and the powerful and dangerous drug fentanyl.That argument provoked bewilderment among some Canadians, as Ottawa maintained that less than one percent of fentanyl and undocumented migrants in the United States cross through the northern border. In Windsor, Trump’s motivation for tariffs likely matters less than their potentially existential impact on the auto industry, which drives the local economy. “It’s massive,” said John D’Agnolo, who heads a local union representing Ford plant workers. Ford has been employing people in Windsor for more than 100 years and without auto jobs the city would be plunged into a “huge recession,” he said. When Trump signed the order on Saturday signalling tariffs would go into force, people believed “cross border trade, especially for the automotive sector, was heading to a dark place,” D’Agnolo said.Members of his union “were, quite frankly, freaking out.” D’Agnolo estimated that there are 30,000 individual parts in an average vehicle, some of which cross the US-Canada border multiple times through a manufacturing process that has developed over years to maximize efficiency. Workers at his plant, for example, make engines for Ford trucks assembled in the United States. A 25 percent tariff each time Canadian cargo headed into Michigan would cause car companies “a lot of pain,” he said. “It would be impossible.”For D’Agnolo, the 30-day pause was obviously welcome but has hardly settled minds in Windsor. “For now it’s relief, but it gives workers an eye opener,” he said. His message to union members is “you’re going to have to start saving some money, because we don’t know yet.”- ‘Four years of not knowing’ -Krysten Lawton, a health and safety trainer at the Ford plant, is a fourth generation auto worker and her children just joined the industry. “It’s kind of our bloodline,” the 52-year-old told AFP. Lawton said she exhaled deeply in relief when news of the tariff pause broke Monday but she was steeling herself for uncertainty which she expects to last throughout Trump’s second term. “I don’t think we’re going to feel safe for some time. I think it’s going to be four year of not knowing,” she said. Earlier in her career, she dealt more closely with Ford colleagues in Detroit — relations that were always cordial — and she voiced hope that US-Canada bonds could transcend any fraying caused by the tariff standoff. “This is just chaos…this is a drive to divide people and I hope that people are smarter than that,” she said. “We would love for North America to flourish… as a whole.”

New York is defined by its iconic yellow taxis, stretching down Manhattan’s long avenues as far as the eye can see.But a challenge that may not occur to the average rider is how the drivers of cabs and ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft, who work as much as 12 hours a day, can take a comfort break.Currently drivers are forced to hunt for an ever-dwindling number of parking spaces for somewhere to stop before they can go inside to relieve themselves.Taxi driver representatives are now pushing to be given special placards that would allow them to stop briefly in spots that would otherwise be off limits, like bus lanes.”Drivers are being tortured by not being able to stop and use the restroom when they need to,” said Fernando Mateo of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, which is leading the campaign and represents 30,000 drivers, most of whom work for ride-hailing services.”We have worked hard to get barber shops, restaurants and small businesses to allow taxi drivers to go use the bathroom, but when they come back out, within minutes, they get a ticket. And now the tickets are being issued by automation.”Local media report that, in desperation, some drivers have been forced to relieve themselves besides their cars, opening them up to public urination penalties.”If they get caught relieving themselves next to their car, then it’s called indecent exposure, and at that point you could lose your license,” Fernando said.   “So what we’re asking the city is to issue (drivers) a permit that when they are using a bathroom, they would place it on their windshield, and they have 10 minutes to do what they have to do and come back out.” Yellow cab driver Dorjee Nangyal, 49, said he would welcome the ability to stop without risking a ticket which could wipe out an entire day’s profit.”The police give you a ticket, you have to stay in the car. If I go to the toilet, I’ll get a ticket. I’ve had a ticket too many times,” said Nangyal from his taxi as he waited for fares outside Manhattan’s Grand Central station.A spokesman for the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), Jason Kersten, said “access to restrooms for TLC drivers is fundamental to humane working conditions, and an important issue that we take seriously.””We are constantly seeking ways to expand bathroom access for TLC drivers within our limited public space, including working with our partners at the Department of Transport to identify spots for new taxi and for-hire vehicle relief stands.”