Trump Administration Live Updates: Top Vaccine Official at F.D.A. Resigns, and Criticizes Kennedy
“The FDA’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned under pressure, criticizing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive stance on vaccines as irresponsible and dangerous. The U.S. Naval Academy ended its use of affirmative action in admissions and was ordered to remove books with diversity, equity, and inclusion themes from its library. Additionally, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of President Trump’s authority to fire the heads of two administrative boards, further consolidating his control over government agencies.
Where Things Stand
Vaccine official resigns: The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned under pressure Friday and said that the aggressive stance on vaccines from the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was irresponsible and posed a danger to the public. Read more ›
Naval Academy: The U.S. Naval Academy said it had ended its use of affirmative action in admissions, reversing a policy it previously defended as essential for diversity and national security, according to a federal court filing on Friday. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office ordered the academy to remove books with so-called diversity, equity and inclusion themes from the school’s library. Read more ›
The consumer bureau: A federal judge stepped in on Friday to keep the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from being “dissolved or dismantled” by the Trump administration. In a 112-page ruling, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington called the injunction she imposed “an extraordinary step.” Read more ›
Staff members at the U.S. Institute of Peace received termination letters last night in what they described as “mass firings,” an escalation of the administration’s efforts to gut a nonprofit that claims to be independent of the federal government. The letters asked employees to sign a “separation agreement” within 21 days.
Earlier this month, the administration and members of Elon Musk’s DOGE forced top officials out of the institute’s building with help from local law enforcement. The White House said the institute had failed to comply with an executive order telling it to reduce staff to a statutory minimum.
For months, French businesses have been bracing for the fallout of trade wars and tariff threats from the United States as the effects of President Trump’s “America First” policies ripple out. But this past week, the French corporate world was roiled by another type of Trump missive.
In a terse three-paragraph letter sent by the American Embassy in France to French companies, executives were told that President Trump’s moves to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies would apply to any firm doing business with the U.S. government. It said it was giving them five days to sign a form indicating that they would comply.
The White House has spent the week trying to downplay the revelation that top national security officials discussed plans for U.S. strikes in Yemen on Houthi militants over Signal, a commercial messaging app.
In a stunning breach of national security, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, disclosed specific operational details before the attacks in the group chat — which inadvertently included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser who added Mr. Goldberg to the chat, said he took “full responsibility” for the leak.
The Pentagon and U.S. Naval Academy are proceeding with actions in support of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate “woke” initiatives throughout the federal government.
The U.S. Naval Academy said it had ended its use of affirmative action in admissions, reversing a policy it previously defended as essential for diversity and national security, according to a federal court filing on Friday. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office has ordered the Naval Academy to identify books related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion themes that are housed in the school’s Nimitz Library, and to remove them from circulation.
A federal appeals court on Friday allowed Elon Musk and his team of analysts to resume their work in helping to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, clearing the way for them to continue while the government appeals the earlier ruling.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came as the Trump administration was taking its final steps to effectively eliminate the agency after steadily chipping away at its staff and grant programs for weeks.
The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, resigned under pressure Friday and said that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive stance on vaccines was irresponsible and posed a danger to the public.
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr. Marks wrote to Sara Brenner, the agency’s acting commissioner. He reiterated the sentiments in an interview, saying: “This man doesn’t care about the truth. He cares about what is making him followers.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, said on Friday that judges must remain “fearlessly independent” if the rule of law is to survive.
Her remarks, made in a packed auditorium at Georgetown University Law Center, were at once cautious and forceful. She did not address particular controversies arising from the Trump administration’s actions testing the conventional understanding of presidential power, many of which appear likely to land at the Supreme Court. But she made plain that her observations about the fragility of the justice system addressed current events.
A federal appeals court sided on Friday with President Trump’s drive to bring agencies with some independence more directly under his control, ruling that the president was within his rights to fire the heads of two administrative boards that review employment actions and labor disputes.
The decision cripples one of the bodies that might stand in Mr. Trump’s way as he slashes and reshapes the government, an agency known as the Merit Systems Protection Board that reviews federal employment disputes, just as it is deluged with cases from the firings of thousands of federal workers.“
No comments:
Post a Comment