AFP USA

Senior experts who recently resigned in protest from the top US public health agency denounced Sunday growing politicization of the organization, warning of a breakdown in the “firewall” between science and ideology.US President Donald Trump plunged American health policy and scientific rigor deeper into crisis this past week when he fired the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, after less than one month on the job.Monarez had clashed with vaccine skeptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr over his vaccine policy overhaul. Vaccines are safe and effective, according to overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, but critics say the Trump administration has gone out of its way to sow doubt, especially regarding Covid-19 vaccinations.Monarez’s ouster triggered the departure of five other senior CDC officials, including Demetre Daskalakis as director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.”I’ve been worried for months,” Daskalakis told the ABC News Sunday show “This Week, speaking of the impact the gutting of the historically independent CDC agency will have on public health.”The firewall between science and ideology has completely broken down,” he said.Daskalakis added that based on what he has seen since Trump’s January inauguration, and the packing of a critical immunization advisory committee with people who share Kennedy’s skepticism on vaccines, “they’re really moving in an ideologic direction, where they want to see the undoing of vaccination.”Another expert who resigned in protest, doctor Debra Houry, who served as the CDC’s chief medical officer, said she knew of no agency scientist who has briefed Kennedy since he took up his post.”I think it’s going to be very difficult to” trust the CDC moving forward, she told CNN Sunday.As for members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) set to meet in mid-September, Houry warned it will be staffed with people who are “known to be against vaccines.”Kennedy dismissed all members of the influential group and replaced them with his own nominees, in a move that sparked concern in Congress, even among Republicans.- ‘Under assault’ -Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican who chairs the Senate health committee, has called for the indefinite postponement of the September 18 ACIP meeting due to a “lack of scientific process being followed.”Former CDC director Tom Frieden spoke critically of the chaos at the CDC, an institution central to improving American health outcomes for more than 80 years.”Public health is under assault,” he told CNN, pointing to Kennedy’s systematic “undermining” of vaccine infrastructure.”They’re destroying our health protections. We are less safe.”Another former CDC head, Richard Besser, said he worries Americans will be at “incredible risk” when the next health crisis strikes.”With the director being removed, senior leadership leaving, I have great fears for what will happen to this country the next time we face a public health emergency” including the next pandemic, he told ABC News.Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, who is on the health committee with Cassidy, said in a blistering opinion piece in Sunday’s New York Times that Kennedy’s “longstanding crusade against vaccines” should disqualify him from running the Department of Health and Human Services.Kennedy “is endangering the health of the American people now and into the future. He must resign,” Sanders wrote.

The entire population of Gaza would be relocated and the United States would take control of the Palestinian territory under a plan being considered by the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported Sunday.The enclave reduced to rubble in Israel’s war prompted by the Hamas attack of 2023 would be transformed into a trusteeship administered by the United States for at least 10 years, the newspaper said.Another goal of the plan modeled on President Donald Trump’s stated vision of making it the “Riviera of the Middle East” is to transform Gaza — land which the Palestinians want to be part of a future state — into a tourism resort and high tech hub, said the Post, which viewed a 38-page prospectus outlining the initiative.It calls for at least temporary relocation of all of Gaza’s population of two million, either through “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted, secured zones inside the enclave during reconstruction, the newspaper said.Gaza residents who own land would be given a digital token by the trust in exchange for the right to develop their property. Recipients can use this token to start a new life somewhere else or eventually redeem it for an apartment in one of six to eight new “AI-powered, smart cities” to be built in Gaza, according to the plan.The Post quoted people familiar with the trust’s planning and with administration deliberations over postwar Gaza.The State Department did not immediately reply to an AFP request for comment. Trump stunned the world earlier this year when he suggested the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip, clear out all its people and build seaside real estate.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the proposal, which was heavily criticized by many European and Arab states.Trump chaired a meeting last week on postwar plans for Gaza but the White House did not release a read-out afterward or announce any decisions.The body that would administer Gaza under the plan now being considered would be called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust, said the Post. The Post said the proposal was developed by some of the same Israelis who created the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distributing food inside the enclave amid much criticism from aid groups and the United Nations.On July 22, the UN rights office said Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the GHF started operations, nearly three-quarters of them in the vicinity of GHF sites.

Buzzy horror flick “Weapons” returned to the top of the North American box office in its fourth week of release, earning $12.4 million over the Labor Day holiday weekend, industry estimates showed Sunday.The Warner Bros. movie, starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of a group of children from the same school class.”Weapons,” which briefly ceded the top spot to Netflix’s animated hit “KPop Demon Hunters” last week, has so far made $134.6 million in the United States and Canada, according to Exhibitor Relations.In second place was the 50th anniversary re-release of Universal’s summer shark thriller “Jaws,” making $9.8 million over the Friday-to-Monday period.”Doing this kind of business, 50 years after the original release, is impressive,” said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.”Caught Stealing,” a crime flick from Sony starring Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz, debuted in third place at $9.5 million.Disney’s “Freakier Friday,” the much-anticipated sequel to the 2003 body-swapping family film which again stars Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, came in fourth at $8.3 million.And in fifth place was Searchlight’s “The Roses,” a remake of the 1989 dark comedy “The War of the Roses” starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, at $8 million.This time, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play the couple whose marriage descends into resentment.Rounding out the top 10 were:”The Bad Guys 2″ ($6.2 million)”The Fantastic Four: First Steps” ($6 million)”Superman” ($3.3 million)”Nobody 2″ ($2.4 million)”The Naked Gun” ($2.25 million)

Floating blue paddles dance on the waves that lap a dock in the Port of Los Angeles, silently converting the power of the sea into useable electricity.This innovative installation may hold one of the keys to accelerating a transition away from fossil fuels that scientists say is necessary if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change.”The project is very simple and easy,” Inna Braverman, co-founder of Israeli start-up Eco Wave Power, told AFP.Looking a little like piano keys, the floaters rise and fall with each wave. They are connected to hydraulic pistons that push a biodegradable fluid through pipes to a container filled with accumulators, which resemble large red scuba tanks. When the pressure is released, it spins a turbine that generates electrical current. If this pilot project convinces the California authorities, Braverman hopes to cover the entire 13-kilometer (eight-mile) breakwater protecting the port with hundreds of floaters that together would produce enough electricity to power 60,000 US homes.Supporters of the technology say wave energy is an endlessly renewable and always reliable source of power.Unlike solar power, which produces nothing at night, or wind power, which depends on the weather, the sea is always in motion.And there is a lot of it.- Tough tech – The waves off the American West Coast could theoretically power 130 million homes — or supply around a third of the electricity used every year in the United States, according to the US Department of Energy. However wave energy remains the poor relation of other, better-known renewables, and has not been successfully commercialized at a large-enough scale.The history of the sector is full of company shipwrecks and projects sunk by the brutality of the high seas. Developing devices robust enough to withstand the fury of the waves, while transmitting electricity via underwater cables to the shore, has proven to be an impossible task so far.”Ninety-nine percent of competitors chose to install in the middle of the ocean, where it’s super expensive, where it’s breaking down all the time, so they can’t really make projects work,” Braverman said.With her retractable dock-mounted device, the entrepreneur believes she has found the answer.”When the waves are too high for the system to handle, the floaters just rise to the upward position until the storm passes, so you have no damage.”The design appeals to Krish Thiagarajan Sharman, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.”The Achilles heel of wave energy is in the costs of maintenance and inspection,” he told AFP.”So having a device close to shore, where you can walk on a breakwater and then inspect the device, makes a lot of sense.”Sharman, who is not affiliated with the project and whose laboratory is testing various wave energy equipment, said projects tend to be suited to smaller-scale demands, like powering remote islands.”This eight-mile breakwater, that’s not a common thing. It’s a rare opportunity, a rare location where such a long wavefront is available for producing power,” he said.- AI power demand – Braverman’s Eco Wave Power is already thinking ahead, having identified dozens more sites in the United States that could be suitable for similar projects.The project predates Donald Trump’s administration, but even before the political environment in Washington turned against renewables, the company was already looking beyond the US.In Israel, up to 100 homes in the port of Jaffa have been powered by waves since December. By 2026, 1,000 homes in Porto, Portugal should be online, with installations also planned in Taiwan and India.Braverman dreams of 20-megawatt projects, a critical capacity needed to offer electricity at rates that can compete with wind power. And, she said, the installations will not harm the local wildlife.”There’s zero environmental impact. We connect to existent man-made structures, which already disturb the environment.”Promises like this resonate in California, where the Energy Commission highlighted in a recent report the potential of wave energy to help the state achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. “The amount of energy that we’re consuming is only increasing with the age of AI and data centers,” said Jenny Krusoe, founder of AltaSea, an organization that helped fund the project.”So the faster we can move this technology and have it down the coastline, the better for California.”

A US guided missile cruiser, USS Lake Erie, was seen crossing the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean Friday night, after the Trump administration deployed warships near the coast of Venezuela.AFP journalists saw the naval vessel passing through one of the canal’s locks at around 9:30 pm (0230 GMT Saturday) and navigating east toward the Atlantic.The United States has said the deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean, near Venezuela’s territorial waters, was an anti-drug trafficking operation.”I didn’t know the ship was going to pass… I was surprised,” Alfredo Cedeno, a 32-year-old health technician, who took photos of the cruiser, told AFP.The Lake Erie had been moored for the past two days at the Port of Rodman, at the canal’s Pacific entrance.Washington has accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel and has doubled the bounty for his capture to $50 million.The United States has, however, made no public threat to invade Venezuela.Caracas announced on Monday the deployment of 15,000 security forces to the Colombian border for anti-drug trafficking operations. A day later, Venezuela announced that it would patrol its territorial waters with drones and navy ships.Maduro also claimed to have mobilized more than four million militia members in response to US “threats.” The 567-foot-long (173 meters) USS Lake Erie displaces 9,800 tons and is based in the port of San Diego, California.

A US appeals court on Friday ruled that many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have upended global trade, were illegal — but allowed them to remain in place for now, giving him time to take the fight to the Supreme Court.The 7-4 ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that Trump had exceeded his authority in tapping emergency economic powers to impose wide-ranging duties.But the judges allowed the tariffs to stay in place through mid-October — and Trump swiftly made clear he would put the time to use.The appeals court “incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end,” he said in a statement on his Truth Social platform lashing out at the ruling.He added that he would fight back “with the help of the United States Supreme Court.”The decision marks a blow to the president, who has wielded duties as a wide-ranging economic policy tool.It could also cast doubt over deals Trump has struck with major trading partners such as the European Union, and raised the question of what would happen to the billions of dollars collected by the United States since the tariffs were put in place if the conservative-majority Supreme Court does not back him.Friday’s case, however, does not deal with sector-specific tariffs that the Trump administration has also imposed on steel, aluminum, autos and other imports.- ‘Diplomatic embarrassment’- Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on almost all US trading partners, with a 10-percent baseline level and higher rates for dozens of economies.He has invoked similar authorities to slap separate tariffs hitting Mexico, Canada and China over the flow of deadly drugs into the United States.The Court of International Trade had ruled in May that Trump overstepped his authority with across-the-board global levies, blocking most of the duties from taking effect, but the appeals court later put the ruling on hold to consider the case.Friday’s ruling noted that “the statute bestows significant authority on the President to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax.”It added that it was not addressing if Trump’s actions should have been taken as a matter of policy or deciding whether IEEPA authorizes any tariffs at all.Instead, it sought to resolve the question of whether Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs and those imposed over trafficking were authorized, with the document noting: “We conclude they are not.”In a supplementary filing just hours before the appeals court released its decision, Trump cabinet officials argued that ruling the global tariffs illegal and blocking them would hurt US foreign policy and national security.”Such a ruling would threaten broader US strategic interests at home and abroad, likely lead to retaliation and the unwinding of agreed-upon deals by foreign-trading partners,” wrote Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.Lutnick added that they could also “derail critical ongoing negotiations” with partners.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, warned that suspending the effectiveness of tariffs “would lead to dangerous diplomatic embarrassment.”Several legal challenges have been filed against the tariffs Trump invoked citing emergencies.If these tariffs are ultimately ruled illegal, companies could possibly seek reimbursements.

Budget US carrier Spirit Airlines said Friday that it will file for bankruptcy for the second time in a year, but will continue to fly, sell tickets and operate.Spirit first filed for bankruptcy in November and announced in March that it had completed a restructuring deal with creditors to trim its debt by nearly $800 million.With the new filing, the Florida-based company said it “expects to double down on its efforts to” redesign its network, “rightsize its fleet,” and pursue further cost efficiencies.”The Chapter 11 process will provide Spirit the tools, time and flexibility to continue ongoing discussions with all of its lessors, financial creditors and other parties to implement a financial and operational transformation of the Company,” Spirit said in a statement.In April, former CEO Ted Christie was replaced by Dave Davis, who joined Spirit from Sun Country Airlines. “As we move forward, guests can continue to rely on Spirit to provide high-value travel options and connect them with the people and places that matter most,” said Dave Davis, Spirit’s president and CEO.Discount airline Spirit boosted its capacity and market share in the post-Covid aviation market, but has faced increased competition from other carriers.In 2022, competitor Frontier Airlines attempted a $2.9 billion merger with Spirit. Another rival, JetBlue, then made a potentially more lucrative offer, but the deal fell through after authorities cited antitrust concerns.

US President Donald Trump has moved to cut nearly $5 billion of congressionally-approved foreign aid, the White House said Friday — raising the likelihood of a federal shutdown as Democrats oppose the policy.The $4.9 billion in cuts target programs of the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Trump wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives.The president “will always put AMERICA FIRST,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said on social media, releasing a copy of the letter.Democrats have warned that any attempt to reverse funding already approved by Congress would doom negotiations to avoid budgetary paralysis, the so-called shutdown, later this year.Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democratic minority in the US Senate, described Trump’s little-known legislative tactic, technically known as a pocket rescission, as illegal.”It’s clear neither Trump nor Congressional Republicans have any plan to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown,” he said.Some moderate Republican also expressed opposition to Trump’s effort to stop spending already approved by lawmakers.A White House official told reporters the administration has a “solid legal basis” for Trump’s maneuver — and that any challenge in court would fail.- USAID dismantled -Trump has effectively dismantled USAID, the world’s largest humanitarian aid agency, since taking office.Founded in 1961 as John F. Kennedy sought to leverage aid to win over the developing world in the Cold War, USAID has been incorporated into the State Department after Secretary of State Marco Rubio slashed 85 percent of its programming.Rubio welcomed Trump’s latest move as part of “rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse from the US government, saving American workers billions of dollars.”The vast majority of the new cuts — $3.2 billion — would be to USAID funding, according to court documents seen by AFP, confirming an earlier report in the New York Post.Research published in The Lancet journal in June estimated that the previous round of USAID cuts could result in the preventable deaths of more than 14 million vulnerable people worldwide — a third of them small children.Also targeted by the new cuts was $838 million for peacekeeping missions.”This is going to make our budget situation or liquidity situation that much more challenging,” United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a press conference.Trump, after taking office for the second time in January, launched a sweeping campaign to downsize or dismantle swaths of the US government.Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but need Democrat support in the Senate to pass new spending laws.Trump, who is pushing to extend presidential powers, aims to claw back the $4.9 billion late in the fiscal year so that Congress may not have time to vote before the funding expires next month.The United States last averted shutdown, with hours to spare, in March.Shutdowns are rare but disruptive and costly, as everyday functions like food inspections halt, and parks, monuments and federal buildings shut up shop.Up to 900,000 federal employees can be furloughed, while another million deemed essential — from air traffic controllers to police — work but forego pay until normal service resumes.

A California bookmaker who took at least 19,000 bets from the former interpreter of Japanese baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani was sentenced to one year and one day in prison on Friday.Mathew Bowyer, who pleaded guilty last August to operating an unlawful gambling business, money laundering and subscribing to a false tax return, was also ordered to pay more than $1.6 million in restitution.The case against the 50-year-old was part of a federal probe into illegal sports gambling that led to the arrest of Ippei Mizuhara — the former interpreter for Ohtani who admitted stealing almost $17 million from the Dodgers star to pay off illegal gambling debts.Mizuhara was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $18.1 million in restitution at his sentencing in February on charges of bank fraud and filing a false tax return.Mizuhara’s involvement saw Ohtani — whose pitching and hitting skills have drawn comparisons to Babe Ruth — engulfed in scandal not long after he signed the richest contract in North American sports history, when he joined the Dodgers in 2023 on a deal worth $700 million.But prosecutors stressed throughout the case that Ohtani was an innocent victim of Mizuhara’s deception, and there was no evidence to suggest he was aware of or involved in illegal gambling.According to court documents, Bowyer operated an unlicensed and illegal bookmaking business that focused on sports betting and violated California law.His gambling business remained in operation for at least five years until October 2023, and at times had more than 700 bettors.Mizuhara began placing bets with Bowyer after they met at a poker game in San Diego in 2021.Mizuhara went on to make at least 19,000 wagers between December 2021 and January 2024, and lost nearly $41 million.”(Bowyer’s) crimes were not a single indiscretion, but instead a multi-year operation that raked in millions of dollars for (Bowyer) and his associates to gamble and live an extravagant lifestyle, often through the exploitation of people (Bowyer) recognized were addicted and extending themselves beyond their means,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.Bowyer, who told US District Judge John W. Holcomb in court Friday that he was “remorseful,” could have faced a longer sentence, but prosecutors said his assistance helped authorities obtain convictions against Mizuhara and another California bookmaker.