2025-12-14 04:34:38
The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to place a “black-box” warning—a high-danger label only used to flag risk of death, severe harm, or incapacitation—on Covid vaccines, CNN has reported.
According to the Friday CNN report, the initiative to include the warning—part of a range of efforts by Trump administration health officials to limit access to, public support for, and uptake of Covid shots and other vaccinations—is being led by FDA chief medical and scientific officer Vinay Prasad, who is also director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The plan to implement the warnings is expected to be made public by the end of December.
Prasad has a long history of dismissing the pandemic, claiming in 2021 that Covid was not more harmful to children than the common flu.
Health experts have continued to voice concerns that adding such a warning label may further reduce access to Covid vaccines by making clinicians more hesitant to recommend shots to groups who are at risk for severe Covid. Vaccines with black box warnings are particularly rare because vaccines are only approved after especially extensive safety and efficacy checks.
The news follows reporting earlier this week that the FDA is investigating whether Covid vaccines are linked to deaths in adults, continuing a campaign public health experts have viewed with extreme skepticism. Prasad wrote to FDA staffers in a November letter that “at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination,” without specific evidence.
A CDC study released Thursday found that the 2024-2025 Covid vaccine was approximately 76 percent effective against emergency and urgent care visits in children aged 9 months to 4 years, and 56 percent effective for children 5-17 years old, compared to those who didn’t get the updated vaccine.
But since June, CDC recommendations have stated that “parents of children ages 6 months to 17 years should discuss the benefits of vaccination with their doctor.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s FDA has already reversed previous federal policy on Covid vaccines, restricting the most recent vaccineto people who are at elevated risk due to age or an underlying health condition. Kennedy said in November that he instructed CDC to retract its long-held public stance that vaccines do not cause autism despite evidence to the contrary. (CDC’s website now claims that the assertion that vaccines do not cause autism is not “evidence-based.”)
Health experts told my colleagues Kiera Butler and Anna Merlan earlier this year that RFK and his allies’ anti-vaccine decisions open the door to taking essential drugs off the market.
“Kennedy’s crusade will create even more doubt over vaccines’ effectiveness, as he uses his position to broadcast and legitimize debunked ideas about their risks,” they wrote. “In the end, experts warn, it will be patients who suffer.”
2025-12-14 03:38:07
The Transportation Security Administration is forwarding passenger lists to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in order to detain and deport travelers while denying them the chance to challenge the process, according to documents obtained by the New York Times.
A Times report Friday revealed that information furnished by TSA provided the basis of ICE’s high-profile detention of university student Any Lucía López Belloza, who was deported following her arrest at Boston’s Logan airport en route to visit her family for Thanksgiving.
On a near-daily basis since March, the agency has been sending files to ICE that include photographs of the person targeted for deportation, and flight information that ICE employs to detain people before they board.
The TSA’s participation in immigration enforcement is unprecedented, as is that of ICE with domestic travel; the program, kept secret until Friday’s report, represents yet another means of inducing collective fear en masse in travelers and other residents.
It’s a widespread problem—other travelers have been detained at airports.
In the case of many immigrants like López, a student with no criminal record, those attacks defy orders by federal judges not to deport the people targeted—defiance facilitated by ICE’s collaboration with TSA, which prevents timely challenges.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the TSA’s collaboration with ICE and the secrecy around it.
As my colleague Isabela Dias wrote earlier this week about the second Trump administration’s immigration policy, “the US government is using its prosecutorial discretion—it is choosing—to normalize casual cruelty and overt racism. And it’s doing so ostensibly in the name of “protecting” the American people.”
2025-12-13 20:30:00
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Changes in polar bear DNA that could help the animals adapt to warmer climates have been detected by researchers, in a study thought to be the first time a statistically significant link has been found between rising temperatures and changing DNA in a wild mammal species.
Climate breakdown is threatening the survival of polar bears. Two-thirds of them are expected to have disappeared by 2050 as their icy habitat melts and the weather becomes hotter.
Now scientists at the University of East Anglia have found that some genes related to heat stress, ageing, and metabolism are behaving differently in polar bears living in southeast Greenland, suggesting they may be adjusting to warmer conditions.
The researchers analysed blood samples taken from polar bears in two regions of Greenland and compared “jumping genes”: small, mobile pieces of the genome that can influence how other genes work. Scientists looked at the genes in relation to temperatures in the two regions and at the associated changes in gene expression.
“We cannot be complacent, this offers some hope but does not mean that polar bears are at any less risk of extinction.”
“DNA is the instruction book inside every cell, guiding how an organism grows and develops,” said the lead researcher, Dr Alice Godden. “By comparing these bears’ active genes to local climate data, we found that rising temperatures appear to be driving a dramatic increase in the activity of jumping genes within the south-east Greenland bears’ DNA.”
As local climates and diets evolve as a result of changes in habitat and prey forced by global heating, the genetics of the bears appear to be adapting, with the group of bears in the warmest part of the country showing more changes than the communities farther north. The authors of the study have said these changes could help us understand how polar bears might survive in a warming world, inform understanding of which populations are most at risk and guide future conservation efforts.
This is because the findings, published on Friday in the journal Mobile DNA, suggest the genes that are changing play a crucial role in how different polar bear populations are evolving.
Godden said: “This finding is important because it shows, for the first time, that a unique group of polar bears in the warmest part of Greenland are using ‘jumping genes’ to rapidly rewrite their own DNA, which might be a desperate survival mechanism against melting sea ice.”
Temperatures in northeast Greenland are colder and less variable, while in the south-east there is a much warmer and less icy environment, with steep temperature fluctuations.
DNA sequences in animals change over time, but this process can be accelerated by environmental stress such as a rapidly heating climate.
There were some interesting DNA changes, such as in areas linked to fat processing, that could help polar bears survive when food is scarce. Bears in warmer regions had more rough, plant-based diets compared with the fatty, seal-based diets of northern bears, and the DNA of southeastern bears seemed to be adapting to this.
Godden said: “We identified several genetic hotspots where these jumping genes were highly active, with some located in the protein-coding regions of the genome, suggesting that the bears are undergoing rapid, fundamental genetic changes as they adapt to their disappearing sea ice habitat.”
The next step will be to look at other polar bear populations, of which there are 20 around the world, to see if similar changes are happening to their DNA.
This research could help protect the bears from extinction. But the scientists said it was crucial to stop temperature rises accelerating by reducing the burning of fossil fuels.
Godden said: “We cannot be complacent, this offers some hope but does not mean that polar bears are at any less risk of extinction. We still need to be doing everything we can to reduce global carbon emissions and slow temperature increases.”
2025-12-13 19:00:00
Karen Gleason, a veteran reporter, lit a cigarette as she steps out of her white sports car into the sweltering dry heat of the South Texas summer. It took her a few minutes to reach the border wall then recently expanded by Gov. Greg Abbott to deter migrants from Central America. The wall, despite having gaps throughout, is daunting and monstrous. But it does not impede migrants, nor does it resolve the political divide of Del Rio, the city where Gleason lives.
Del Rio sits on the banks of the Rio Grande River in Val Verde County in southwestern Texas. The small border city of 34,000 people has been at the center of the migrant crisis, most notably when thousands of Haitian migrants made headlines in September 2021 as they sheltered under a bridge outside of town.
This crisis was just one of several incidents during which residents of Del Rio and surrounding communities received a slew of misinformation and disinformation. The Del Rio News-Herald, a longstanding daily newspaper, closed in November 2020, making the city part of a growing trend of news deserts across the country.
With the paper closing, community members rely on other, sometimes unchecked, sources for information about immigration, crime, and politics, like the local radio station (which at times gets information from Fox News), right-wing individuals who stand in as citizen journalists with a growing Facebook platform, and social media accounts with anonymous contributors.
A popular Facebook account run by former Border Patrol agent Frank Lopez Jr. consistently associates immigrants with heightened crime in the area, often calling recent border crossers “terrorists, criminals, and rapists.” Lopez occasionally uploads videos of himself on location in front of migrants, telling his nearly 50,000 followers how tax dollars are being funneled to support them.
“This is one of the many misconceptions that has been magnified throughout different media,” says Tiffany Burrow, director of operations at Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition (VVBHC). “We don’t receive federal funding. So people say, ‘My taxes are paying for the work that you’re doing…’ We are a faith-based organization; there’s other ways to raise funding besides the federal government. [We receive] no federal funding.”
As a short-term respite center, the VVBHC is the first stop in the United States for migrants after being released by the Border Patrol. In 2023, VVBHC had 57,139 individuals walk through their door. During their brief stays at the center, migrants are offered small snacks, water, and hygiene kits. “Our mission is to help others in their time of need,” Burrow says. “If individuals are going to spew whatever they want without validating it, that’s a way bigger problem than one person is able to deal with.”
“Here, you have a lot of our elderly and a lot of people that don’t rely on their phone, so where do they get their news from? [They] don’t.” –Judge Lewis G. Owens
Another hot topic in Del Rio is crime—and the notion that it’s on the rise. For example, an anonymous Facebook account called Rio del Rio listens to the police scanner to post daily about incidents in the city. The posts often feature fear-mongering headlines, including one that claimed the Biden administration was letting ISIS-linked migrants into the country. “I don’t see myself as a journalist, more like a community activist trying to make their hometown better…having an impact on local government by bringing things to people’s attention is quite rewarding, as well,” the person behind the Rio del Rio account told me via Facebook messenger. The account holder believes maintaining anonymity is important “in order to post the things I post and get away with it.”
According to a study co-led by Northwestern University economist Elisa Jacome, there is no data to show that immigrants contribute to a higher crime rate. In fact, her study found that over a 150-year period, immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than those born in the United States.
For a city like Del Rio, and other news deserts across the country, there is a lot at stake when it comes to this type of misinformation and disinformation. What we saw weeks before the 2024 presidential elections far surpassed anything we have seen before, according to disinformation researchers. As Americans tuned into one of the most closely followed elections in history, limited options for local news, advancements in Artificial Intelligence, and a lack of oversight on platforms like X left many voters vulnerable to falsehoods and smear campaigns. “If people don’t do their own fact-checking from serious, and from really solid resources…it’s going to be really hard to go forward,” Burrow says.
While traditional media–once the bedrock of how Americans stayed informed–continues to shift, legacy and start-up news outlets, with different business models and platforms, have new opportunities to enter the news industry.
Gleason, who was a long-time employee of the Del Rio News-Herald, now works for a weekly tabloid-sized newspaper started by a veteran, Joel Langton. The newspaper operates out of Langton’s home. They meet in his living room, sip sparkling water and eat cookies while discussing the most important stories Gleason should dig into. Langton then personally delivers the newspaper every Friday morning to local establishments.
While Gleason makes a fraction of what she once made at the Del Rio News-Herald, since the 1980s, she has believed strongly in her mission as a journalist and keeping the people of Del Rio informed. Her role has not changed, and perhaps, has become even more vital.
2025-12-13 16:01:00
Chicago has been one of the latest stops on the Trump administration’s deportation tour. “Operation Midway Blitz” started in September and, for months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents have been roaming the streets and detaining hundreds of people.
This week on Reveal, host Al Letson and producer Ashley Cleek visit Chicago to see “Operation Midway Blitz” in action, and find out what it’s been like for those targeted by it. Letson and Cleek found citizens detained, Chicago police officers pepper-sprayed, and communities terrified. Most Chicagoans arrested by federal agents in the operation had no criminal record, not even a traffic ticket.
Letson and Cleek also see how communities are mobilizing to protect each other, and how some of the tensions over immigration raids stretch back to decisions made by the city back in 2022. They also learn from 404 Media’s Joseph Cox about face-scanning apps used by federal agents in Chicago—and how the use of this kind of surveillance points to a broader shift in how the US government deploys its technologies against people inside the country.
2025-12-13 08:11:28
A former Los Angeles County district attorney who was put on administrative leave in 2022 after he based a prosecution around tips from a right-wing group that has promoted election fraud conspiracy theories is now the top voting rights official at the Department of Justice, according to a legal filing reviewed by Mother Jones.
Recently, Eric Neff’s name began showing up in emails to state election officials and on DOJ legal filings, which referred to him as a “trial attorney.” But a new lawsuit filed against Fulton County, Georgia, on Thursday showed Neff got an apparent promotion. The legal complaint, which seeks 2020 ballot and signature envelopes to search for irregularities, refers to Neff as “Acting Chief, Voting Section.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Working as a California prosecutor in October 2022, Neff led efforts to accuse Eugene Yu, the CEO of Michigan-based election management company Konnech, of storing sensitive data about California poll workers on Chinese servers—an alleged violation of his contract with Los Angeles County. The county charged Yu with embezzlement and conspiracy.
Neff’s boss at the time, District Attorney George Gascón, emphasized there was no evidence Yu’s alleged misconduct affected the legitimacy of the 2020 election results, but the charges nonetheless fed into right-wing conspiracies that China was somehow involved in stealing Donald Trump’s reelection. Both Trump and the late Charlie Kirk celebrated Yu’s arrest at the time.
Less than two months later, Gascón dropped the charges because there was “potential bias” in the “presentation” of evidence. According to the Los Angeles Times, Neff’s investigation into Yu was apparently spurred by a tip from one of the co-founders of True the Vote, a right-wing group that has promoted baseless allegations that the 2020 election was stolen. Neff was placed on administrative leave, and the county subsequently paid Yu $5 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit.
True the Vote is most notable for its false claims about people committing mass fraud in 2020 through ballot drop boxes; Dinesh D’Souza based his now-debunked 2022 film, 2000 Mules, around the group’s work.
Neff’s career advancement comes as the DOJ voting section attempts to compile a national voter roll in a purported effort to uncover examples of voter fraud. As my colleague Ari Berman and I reported last week, Trump and his allies could use this voter registration information to challenge election outcomes, or even to illegally cull voters from voter rolls.
“This administration is abandoning the congressional mandate that the division has to stamp out discrimination and protect vulnerable populations,” Chiraag Bains, a former high-ranking official in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told us. “They’re not just abandoning it. They’re actually weaponizing the power of the federal government to try to cut off access to the ballot.”
