Senate postpones Casey Means affirmation listening to after she goes into labor
The Senate has postponed its affirmation listening to for Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon common, Casey Means, after she went into labor along with her first youngster, CNN reported, citing a Senate committee spokesperson.
Means was resulting from be the primary nominee ever to look by video hyperlink earlier than the well being, schooling, labor and pension committee resulting from her being pregnant.
The listening to is known to have been scheduled two days after her due date for giving start.
Means, the writer of a bestselling e-book, Good Power, has develop into a public image of the ”Make America wholesome once more” motion championed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US well being secretary, by selling holistic well being primarily based on pure meals, train and avoiding pharmaceutical pharmaceuticals for persistent illnesses.
Key occasions
A handful of states rolled out plans to make use of their very own funds to offer advantages because the SNAP federal meals assist program runs dry, AP reported.
The Trump administration says the federal authorities received’t fund this system for low-income households in November due to the extended federal shutdown.
That would depart about 1 in 8 Individuals scrambling to pay for meals. Each Democratic and Republican governors are launching applications in states together with Delaware, Louisiana, New Mexico and Vermont.
The federal authorities says they received’t be reimbursed. It’s additionally not clear how rapidly the advantages can attain recipients. Louisiana’s effort excludes “ready bodied” adults who aren’t caring for kids.
The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has pledged that the US will “catch up” with China on nuclear power, saying it was “all palms on deck” to fulfill the dedication.
In an interview with Fox Enterprise, he mentioned: “President Trump is bringing again nuclear energy like we’ve by no means seen earlier than. It’s clear, it’s dependable. The US has a bonus, and once more, for years, for some unknown motive, nuclear energy was not used within the US, and we’re bringing it again. So it’s all palms on deck for nuclear energy.
“The Chinese language are constructing nuclear vegetation. They’re beginning them up each month, and we’re behind, however underneath President Trump’s management, we’re going to catch up.”
The thriller of how quotes wrongly attributed to the previous New York mayor, Invoice de Blasio, ended up within the Occasions – traditionally famend as Britain’s “newspaper of file” – has been cleared up. The reporter involved quoted, not a de Blasio impersonator, as initially reported, however one other man known as Invoice DeBlasio, who determined to have enjoyable on the paper’s expense by answering questions concerning the Democrats’ presently mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, in an e mail trade with out disclosing that he was not, actually, the ex-mayor.
Semafor revealed that the Mamdani critic was not an impostor as such however a 59-year-old win importer from Lengthy Island who had been emailed by the reporter, Bevan Hurley, searching for his views on the candidate, within the mistaken assumption that he was the previous workplace holder.
Reasonably than right the journalist, DeBlasio determined to play alongside, composing a response utilizing ChatGPT to criticise Mamdani’s tax plans. “It was all in good enjoyable. I by no means thought it might make it to print,” DeBlasio informed Semafor. He assumed the reporter would “have all his folks test it out.”
It was removed from the primary time DeBlasio had been mistaken for his extra well-known namesake. The 2 met at a 2016 New York Mets play off, with the then mayor – who spells his surname identify with a decrease case d and has an area between its two components – asking the wine importer: “How unhealthy is it having the identical final identify as me?”
The wine importer responded: “Dude, you’re killing me.”
The Occasions has eliminated the report from its web site and apologized.
Dharna Noor
On the Cop30 UN local weather talks in Brazil subsequent month, leaders should be prepared to face as much as the fossil gas trade, mentioned Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
“It is a story that has villains in it,” he informed reporters on a webinar early Thursday.
The fossil gas trade created a “entire armada of faux entrance teams” to guard its pursuits and unfold doubt concerning the local weather disaster – regardless of early information that their merchandise heat the planet, he mentioned.
“To refuse to speak about that ignores each a vital and doubtless essentially the most fascinating a part of the story,” mentioned Whitehouse.
With out this affect, the world could have acted on the local weather a lot earlier, Rachel Cleetus, senior coverage director of the science and local weather advocacy group Union of Involved Scientists informed reporters.
“Fossil gas firms have been mendacity and obstructing progress on local weather motion. That’s why we’re right here,” she mentioned.
Who’s Casey Means?
Means certified as a physician at Stanford College medical college however dropped out of her surgical residency program at Oregon well being and science college in 2018.
She later mentioned that she had left due to her perception that the well being care system was damaged and exploitative.
Means subsequently turned to different medication to deal with what she known as metabolic dysfunction triggered, she believed, by poor diet and the unfold of ultra-processed meals. AP reported that she has made lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} selling well being and wellness merchandise. The outlet discovered that she had did not disclose that she may personally revenue from their sale whereas selling them.
The surgeon common’s place is very delicate, inserting the nominee within the position of “the nation’s physician,” who leads well being officers and the overall inhabitants on public well being points.
Means, who has no earlier expertise in authorities, would oversee 6,000 public well being corps members and will difficulty advisories on public well being threats. Her authority in such a strategic place might be undermined by the truth that her licence to follow medication is presently inactive.
Trump nominated Means for the place after withdrawing his first nominee, Janette Nesheiwat, following criticism of her from his fellow Republicans.
The upcoming start of Means’ youngster introduces a component of concord into an in any other case fractious nomination that has been fiercely criticized by public well being campaigners.
“Everybody’s blissful for Dr. Means and her household,” mentioned Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary for the Well being and Human Providers Division. “This is without doubt one of the few occasions in life it’s straightforward to ask to maneuver a Senate listening to.”
However earlier than the postponement had been introduced, Defend Public Well being, a marketing campaign group, urged the Senate to reject her nomination. It issued a press launch timed to coincide with the initially scheduled listening to dismissing her as a ““well being influencer” with out discernible {qualifications} to be Surgeon Basic” and accused her of “peddling unproven merchandise and assessments offered by firms led by herself and her brother, Calley Means.”
In a withering critique, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and Defend Public Well being member, recommended that Means’ ties to Kennedy and help for his unproven well being theories was the one motive she had been nominated.
“She dropped out of her surgical residency, just isn’t board licensed in any specialty, holds an expired medical license, and has no public well being background in any way exterior of selling scientifically unsupported illness cures in her e-newsletter,” Rasmussen mentioned.
“Her solely obvious qualification for the job of Surgeon Basic is her willingness to advertise RFK Jr.’s disinformation and quackery.”
Dharna Noor
In local weather information, forward of main United Nations local weather talks set to start out in Brazil subsequent week, former Environmental Safety Company head Gina McCarthy mentioned US cities and states are maintaining the local weather combat alive regardless of an all-out assault on environmental coverage from the Trump administration.
“We won’t enable our nation to develop into numb or debilitated by those that are standing in the best way of progress,” she mentioned on a press name Thursday morning.
McCarthy co-chairs America Is All In, a coalition of climate-concerned states and cities within the US. The group will ship a delegation of over 100 subnational leaders from the US to the UN local weather talks generally known as Cop30 subsequent month, in addition to to the UN Native Leaders Discussion board set to happen within the days earlier than. That may embrace together with governors and senior officers from six states, over 35 US mayors, and over 50 metropolis officers and worldwide local weather consultants, she mentioned.
This week, America is All In and Heart for International Sustainability on the College of Maryland launched a examine exhibiting that with aggressive motion from cities and states, important cuts to greenhouse gasoline emissions are nonetheless achievable by 2035.
“There are particularly giant alternatives for states and cities to go additional and sooner within the energy and transport sectors, in addition to in lowering methane,” mentioned Nate Hultman, former distinguished senior advisor for local weather ambition on the State Division and founding director of the Heart for International Sustainability.
Trump is clamping down on state and native local weather motion, making an attempt to block policies in court and dealing to eliminate incentives for clean energy. However Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse mentioned local weather leaders ought to resist these assaults, and sue the administration over probably unlawful obstruction.
“I feel in case you enable your self to be intimidated by this administration, they are going to seize all the bottom that you simply’ve seen them after which come again for extra,” Whitehouse informed reporters.
Senate postpones Casey Means affirmation listening to after she goes into labor
The Senate has postponed its affirmation listening to for Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon common, Casey Means, after she went into labor along with her first youngster, CNN reported, citing a Senate committee spokesperson.
Means was resulting from be the primary nominee ever to look by video hyperlink earlier than the well being, schooling, labor and pension committee resulting from her being pregnant.
The listening to is known to have been scheduled two days after her due date for giving start.
Means, the writer of a bestselling e-book, Good Power, has develop into a public image of the ”Make America wholesome once more” motion championed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US well being secretary, by selling holistic well being primarily based on pure meals, train and avoiding pharmaceutical pharmaceuticals for persistent illnesses.
The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour has analyzed the South Korea assembly between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. He writes:
When Donald Trump launched his commerce battle towards China in April, threatening tariffs as excessive as 145%, the Chinese language authorities mentioned it might by no means bow to blackmail and vowed to “combat to the top”.
The query now could be whether or not the consensus reached between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday implies that the combat actually has come to an finish, and if that’s the case on whose phrases.
In the identical Fox Enterprise Community interview, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent mentioned China had agreed to purchase 12m metric tons of American soya beans throughout the present season via January and has dedicated to purchasing 25m tons yearly for the following three years as half of a bigger commerce settlement with Beijing.
Bessent informed Fox Enterprise Community’s Mornings with Maria programme that different international locations in Southeast Asia have agreed to purchase one other 19m tons of US soya beans, however didn’t specify a timeframe for these purchases.
“So our nice soybean farmers, who the Chinese language used as political pawns, that’s off the desk, and they need to prosper within the years to come back,” Bessent mentioned.
China-US commerce deal might be signed subsequent week, US Treasury’s Bessent says
The US and China may signal a commerce settlement as quickly as subsequent week, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent mentioned on Thursday after President Donald Trump’s assembly along with his Chinese language counterpart Xi Jinping.
“The Kuala Lumpur settlement was completed in the course of the evening final evening, so I count on we’ll trade signatures probably as quickly as subsequent week,” Bessent mentioned in an interview on Fox Enterprise Community.
US to halt entity restrictions for one 12 months after Trump-Xi assembly, Bessent says
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday mentioned that the US would enact a one-year suspension of Entity Record restrictions that make it tougher for Chinese language companies to make use of associates to purchase off-limits expertise.
The moratorium comes after President Donald Trump and Chinese language chief Xi Jinping had been capable of focus on large image points with nice respect at their assembly earlier within the day in South Korea, Bessent mentioned in an interview on Fox Enterprise Community.
Wall Road futures had been barely decrease on Thursday as traders assessed the Federal Reserve’s remarks, Large Tech earnings, and a newly introduced US-China commerce deal, experiences Reuters
The Fed delivered the anticipated quarter-point minimize on Wednesday, however flagged gaps in official information amid the federal shutdown, which may influence its future choices. Chair Jerome Powell mentioned policymakers could flip extra cautious if jobs and inflation information keep scarce.
Powell’s feedback prompted merchants to unwind some bets on one other similar-sized transfer on the Fed’s December assembly to about 70% from 90% earlier this week.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang mentioned on Thursday he was assured that US president Donald Trump and Chinese language chief Xi Jinping had dialog throughout a gathering in South Korea earlier within the day.
Huang was talking as he arrived at a restaurant in Seoul with Samsung Electronics chair Jay Y Lee and Hyundai Motor Group government chair Euisun Chung, experiences Reuters.
Huang mentioned he was trying ahead to assembly South Korea’s president on Friday and that his firm and the nation had many bulletins to make.
Kremlin reacts cautiously to Trump’s nuclear testing remarks
The Kremlin on Thursday reacted cautiously to US president Donald Trump’s remarks concerning the resumption of nuclear weapons testing, saying that Russia had not examined however that Moscow would comply with go well with if Washington did.
Trump ordered the US army on Thursday to right away resume testing nuclear weapons after a spot of 33 years, minutes earlier than starting a gathering with Chinese language president Xi Jinping. Trump mentioned that due to “different international locations testing programmes” the US would begin testing “on an equal foundation”.
In response to Reuters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov informed reporters:
President Trump talked about in his assertion that different international locations are engaged in testing nuclear weapons. Till now, we didn’t know that anybody was testing.
Russia, he mentioned, had obtained no prior notification from the US a few change to Washington’s place on nuclear testing.
Requested if the Kremlin felt {that a} new nuclear arms race had been triggered by Trump’s remarks, Peskov mentioned: “Probably not.”
Peskov underscored that Russia’s check of the Burevestnik cruise missile on 21 October and the Poseidon nuclear-powered tremendous torpedo on 28 October had been most positively not nuclear weapons assessments.
Vladimir Putin, who instructions the world’s greatest nuclear arsenal, has repeatedly mentioned that if any nation assessments a nuclear weapon then Russia will accomplish that too. Peskov mentioned:
I wish to recall President Putin’s assertion, which has been repeated many occasions: if somebody departs from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly.
Put up-Soviet Russia has by no means examined a nuclear weapon. The Soviet Union final examined in 1990, the US final examined in 1992 and China in 1996.
Lisa O’Carroll
With Donald Trump heading again to the US after putting an settlement with China’s president Xi Jinping, the main focus now switches to the EU, with a senior delegation heading to Brussels for crunch talks over the choking off of provides of uncommon earths to semiconductors.
Yesterday, the automobile trade mentioned it was “days away” from meeting line stoppages after Beijing’s ban on exports of chips from Nexperia in China in a row over the Dutch authorities’s choice to take management of its Netherland’s operations amid safety fears.
The EU is now questioning whether or not its coverage, drawn up in 2023, to “derisk” from China somewhat than “decouple” is working as Beijing’s stranglehold on uncommon earths and demanding uncooked supplies permits it to show on and off provides based on its political will.
“That is all a part of a brand new technique the place China is repeatedly now taking steps that carry European trade and different industries world wide to the purpose of choking them off,” Andrew Small, senior fellow on the German Marshall Fund.
“It’s now not that Europe is collateral injury, it’s China focusing on Europe and I feel persons are starting to know that now,” he mentioned.
Lisa O’Carroll
Donald Trump has used his Reality Social platform to declare the commerce tensions with China are “very near being resolved” as he urges US farmers to exit and purchase “extra land and larger tractors” as Beijing ends its soya bean embargo.
The US exports about £18bn price of soya bean a 12 months, half of which works to China, however China stopped shopping for the product leaving Trump considering a multi-billion greenback bailout for farmers.
Trump mentioned on Reality Social:
I had a very nice assembly with President Xi of China. There’s huge respect between our two International locations, and that may solely be enhanced with what simply befell.
We agreed on many issues, with others, even of excessive significance, being very near resolved. I used to be extraordinarily honored by the truth that President Xi licensed China to start the acquisition of large quantities of Soybeans, Sorghum, and different Farm merchandise.
Our Farmers can be very blissful! Actually, as I mentioned as soon as earlier than throughout my first Administration, Farmers ought to instantly exit and purchase extra land and bigger tractors.
The deal covers Fentanyl, uncommon earths and demanding minerals resembling refined lithium utilized in electrical automobile automobile batteries – a sector during which China dominates the world.
China has additionally agreed to liberalise the sale of magnets utilized in every part from dishwasher doorways to automobile window openings, he mentioned.
It’ll additionally purchase oil and gasoline from Alaska, Trump added.
Donald Trump had first laid out his intention to pursue nuclear arms management efforts in February, saying he needed to start discussions with each Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping about imposing limits on their arsenals, experiences Reuters.
Most main nuclear powers besides North Korea stopped explosive nuclear testing within the Nineteen Nineties. North Korea performed its final nuclear check in 2017. Russia’s final confirmed check was in 1990, adopted by the final US check in 1992, and by China’s in 1996.
The response to Donald Trump’s announcement on nuclear testing was swift within the US additionally.
Consultant Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada, mentioned on X:
I’ll be introducing laws to place a cease to this.
Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Management Affiliation, mentioned it might take the US no less than 36 months to renew contained nuclear assessments underground on the former check web site in Nevada. Kimball mentioned on X:
Trump is misinformed and out of contact. The US has no technical, army, or political motive to renew nuclear explosive testing for the primary time since 1992.
Other than offering technical information, a US check can be seen in Russia and China as a deliberate assertion of Washington’s strategic energy. Russian president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly mentioned that Russia will check if the US does.
In August, Trump mentioned he had mentioned nuclear arms management with Putin and needed China to get entangled. Beijing responded by saying it was “unreasonable and unrealistic” to ask the nation to affix in nuclear disarmament negotiations with the 2 international locations, since its arsenal was a lot smaller.
