US President Donald Trump on Tuesday hinted that he wants to nominate his chief economic adviser Kevin Hassett to replace outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell next year.Introducing guests at a White House event attended by Hassett, Trump said: “It’s a great group, and I guess a potential Fed chair is here too.”He added: “I don’t know, are we allowed to say that, potential? He’s a respected person that I can tell you. Thank you, Kevin.”At a meeting of his cabinet earlier in the day, Trump said he would announce his pick “probably early next year for the new chairman of the Fed.””I think we probably looked at 10 and we have it down to one,” he said.Hassett, a PhD economist, is currently chair of the National Economic Council, a White House body which advises the president and his cabinet on policymaking.He frequently appears on television touting the president’s policies.During Trump’s first term, he served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, another body more dedicated to research and analysis.While Hassett’s loyalty to Trump could open the doors to a Fed nomination, it is also likely to be a key discussion topic among the political and financial class as he seeks confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate.He will have to convince Senators — and markets — that he is capable of preserving the central bank’s independence and won’t let inflation spiral out of control in the world’s biggest economy.He has joined Trump in publicly criticizing the Fed over its interest-rate decisions, calling for more cuts this year, though he has not used harsh language against Powell like the president.The term of current Fed Chair Powell ends in May 2026.Trump tried unsuccessfully to hasten Powell’s departure, hurling insults and recriminations at the man he picked for the job during his first term in the White House.Since then, Trump has said he bitterly regrets this choice as Powell has resisted pressure to lower interest rates quickly enough.On Tuesday, Trump referred to the Fed chairman as a “stubborn ox” and alleged that the decision to not lower rates more quickly was motivated by personal animus.

The United States will scale back certain drug-safety testing requirements on monkeys, federal regulators said Tuesday, as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes ahead with its pledge to reduce animal use in research.Under new draft guidance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), computer models, lab-grown mini-organs, and human studies will replace six-month repeat-dose toxicity tests in monkeys for monoclonal antibodies — lab-engineered proteins used to treat cancers, autoimmune conditions and more.”We are delivering on our roadmap commitment to eliminate animal testing requirements in drug evaluation and our promise to accelerate cures and meaningful treatments for Americans,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in a statement.The statement added that typical nonclinical programs involving monoclonal antibodies could include more than 100 macaque monkeys — apes are no longer used in any invasive research in the US — yet often do not yield human-approved treatments.The move was welcomed by animal-advocacy groups.Zaher Nahle, a former animal researcher who is now the senior scientific advisor for nonprofit Center for a Humane Economy, told AFP the move was an “important step.””These primates are not reliable in terms of predicting the toxicity, so you can get at least equal or better results in terms of your accuracy in predicting toxicology using other approaches,” he added.What’s more, he noted, studies show that more than 90 percent of drugs deemed safe and effective in animals fail to win approval for human use.The FDA’s announcement follows a report in the journal Science last month that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would close its primate labs, and comes amid broader efforts by federal agencies to shift animal research toward newer technologies.It “moves us one step closer to wiping out the federal government’s wasteful monkey business,” Justin Goodman of White Coat Waste Project told AFP.But the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the country’s primary biomedical research agency — remains a notable “outlier,” he added. According to public data collected by his organization, 7,700 primates are confined in federal government labs and breeding facilities, of which 6,700 are at NIH.- ‘We still need animals’ -Among researchers, the move sparked concern about moving too far, too fast.Deborah Fuller, director of the Washington National Primate Research Center — one of seven such centers established by the NIH in the 1960s — said the FDA’s decision to reduce antibody-toxicity testing in monkeys was “very reasonable” noting that non-animal methods are suitable for this purpose.But she warned that moving too quickly in other areas could jeopardize drug development.”This needs to be driven by the science and the data, not by (the) ideology of people just wanting to suddenly end animal research because it feels good and sounds good,” she told AFP.”In terms of the next cures and biomedical advances, we still need animals,” she said, adding that non-animal methods aren’t yet as capable and that preclinical animal safety testing is the reason “you’re not hearing about people dying” during clinical trials.Proponents of animal testing also argue the research has been indispensable for major medical advances, including vaccines for diphtheria, yellow fever, measles and Covid-19.Critics counter that decades-old laws have created regulatory lock-in, that publication incentives reward animal studies in top journals, and that a lucrative “animal-industrial complex” has helped entrench the status quo.

The defense for the 27-year-old suspect accused of killing a top health insurance executive in New York sought to exclude evidence presented by the prosecution as he appeared in court for a second day Tuesday.Luigi Mangione is charged with the second-degree murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest US health insurer. Thompson, 50, was shot dead on a Manhattan street on December 4, 2024.Mangione, who comes from a wealthy Boston family, has become a lightning rod for anger against the US commercial healthcare system, but also a reminder of growing incidents of deadly violence perpetrated against public figures in the country.His lawyers requested a preliminary hearing in the murder case brought by the State of New York.Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in the state of Pennsylvania, days after last year’s shooting.Police found in his backpack a pistol equipped with a silencer and a notebook where he wrote grievances against the healthcare system.According to police, the bullet shell casings at the murder scene matched the weapon Mangione was carrying.But Mangione’s lawyers argue that the defendant’s rights were violated.In their motion, seen by AFP, they say that the evidence recovered from his backpack “must be suppressed because law enforcement failed to obtain a search warrant before searching the backpack.”They also argue that Mangione’s statements to police inside the McDonald’s should be excluded “as they were the result of custodial interrogation without Miranda warnings” about his rights.  In September, a judge threw out two terror charges against Mangione, but he is still accused of second degree murder. If convicted he could face life imprisonment without parole. He also faces federal charges.