US President Donald Trump said he would designate “Antifa” — a shorthand term for “anti-fascist” used to describe diffuse far-left groups — as “a major terrorist organization,” a move he threatened in his first term.For years Trump has blamed Antifa for various wrongs, from violence against police to being behind the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 that aimed to block Joe Biden’s presidential election win.”I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social, calling Antifa “A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER.”Antifa has no head or national organization and seemed to be made up of “independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals,” a Congressional Research Service analysis found in 2020.The White House did not immediately offer details on how the label could be applied.While federal law enforcement includes combating domestic terrorism under its purview, the United States does not have a list of designated “domestic terrorist organizations.”Trump threatened the move on Monday after senior White House official Stephen Miller vowed the administration would dismantle an alleged “vast domestic terror movement” that he linked to the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.- Ideology, not a movement -Critics of the Republican president warn such a move could be used as a pretext to quash dissent and target political rivals.While Kirk was a vocal conservative, the United States has seen violence targeting members of both political parties in recent years, amid a sharp rise in polarization and easy access to firearms.Antifa — whose name has roots in socialist groups in 1930s Germany that opposed Hitler — has a track record of confronting right-wing groups and engaging in civil disobedience.Its members, often dressed entirely in black, protest against racism, far-right values and what they consider fascism, and say violent tactics are sometimes justified as self-defense. During Trump’s first inauguration in January 2017 scores of black-clad, mask-wearing Antifa and other protestors smashed windows and burned a car in Washington.Antifa was also involved in counter-protests to racist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia later that year. In June 2020, Trump said he would formally designate Antifa as “terrorists” on the same level as al-Qaeda and Islamic State.But FBI director Chris Wray responded in a Congressional hearing that Antifa was “a movement or an ideology” as opposed to a group.Antifa is not among the 95 “designated foreign terrorist organizations” listed on the State Department website on Wednesday.

A US panel stacked with figures sympathetic to the anti-vaccine movement will on Thursday take on federal immunization recommendations in a highly politicized meeting that could upend longstanding medical advice.President Donald Trump’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., handpicked the voting members of the medical advisory group that is expected to consider whether to alter the standard childhood vaccine schedule — a move public health experts warn could have dire consequences.The specific questions that will come to a vote during the two-day meeting in Atlanta aren’t public, but it’s expected discussion will include delaying childhood shots including against the highly contagious disease Hepatitis B.The Covid-19 vaccine is also on the agenda, as well as the combination MMRV shot that covers measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella shot, which is offered as an alternative to separate MMR and chicken pox injections.They’re expected to discuss the small increase in risk of febrile seizures that could result from the combined MMRV jab.Earlier this year anti-vaccine advocate Kennedy fired all 17 members of the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with members whose vaccine skepticism tracks more closely with his own.Their first meeting promoted anti-vax themes and raised questions about long-settled medical debates.The revised committee and its agenda has many members of the medical, scientific and policy communities concerned that ideology rather than science will guide the future of public health in the United States.”Vaccines have added decades of life to our life expectancy. They have helped Americans live healthier lives. There’s so much here that’s riding,” said epidemiologist Syra Madad.She told AFP shifting the childhood vaccine schedule “is like pulling bricks out of the foundation of public health.””It risks collapse, and creates real consequences for every community in America.”Experts including Madad say the votes could prompt unnecessary confusion and concern among parents. Revised recommendations could also restrict federal funding of vaccines for low-income families, or shift requirements for private insurers.- Preying on ‘ignorance’ -Kennedy has spent decades promoting vaccine misinformation, including the widely debunked claim that the MMR shot causes autism.He has also taken aim at the Hepatitis B shot. Since 2005 ACIP has recommended administering the first dose to most newborns within 24 hours of birth, to prevent any maternal transmission of the disease, which can cause severe liver damage.But because Hepatitis B is also spread sexually and through needles, Kennedy and his allies have questioned why newborns need protection from it.Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, said that notion is “a play on people’s ignorance.””RFK doesn’t get rewarded when he prevents perinatal Hepatitis B, he gets rewarded when he panders to the anti-vax movement,” Adalja told AFP.The committee is also expected to consider this season’s Covid-19 shot, including who should get it and who should pay for it.The meeting comes one day after the ex-chief of the US disease prevention agency told senators she was fired for refusing to promise Kennedy she would approve ACIP recommendations to childhood vaccine schedules not backed by scientific evidence.Her ouster triggered a series of high-profile resignations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Meanwhile some states are taking matters into their own hands.Four Western states governed by Democrats on Wednesday delivered their own detailed guidance on seasonal shots, recommending most people get a Covid-19 and flu shot.That missive mirrors the advice of national medical institutions.Those efforts are “a great way to make sure that the access is still there,” said Madad, but “I am worried about the patchwork that it’s causing across the United States.””I’m just concerned and frustrated at the state of affairs that we’re in right now.”