Marcia Lawrence

RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for vaccine development The Department of Health and Human Services plans to cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.

Government funding of healthcare will be be even cheaper when people die in droves.

Google Cloud outage leads to global internet disruptions • Kansas Reflector A Google Cloud outage caused disruptions across the globe Thursday afternoon, affecting Google users and other companies like Spotify, Discord, Amazon Web Services and CloudFlare.

Google Cloud outage leads to global internet disruptions | #ksleg via @bypaigegross.bsky.social kansasreflector.com/2025/06/12/r...

Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and Adam Schiff react to Sen. Alex Padilla being removed from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference.

Democrats have condemned the 'sickening assault' of US senator Alex Padilla, who was forcibly removed from a Kristi Noem press conference in LA, before being pinned to the floor and his hands cuffed behind his back. Watch the video: www.theguardian.com/p/x2fcn...

Trouble accessing your favorite site? A bunch of internet platforms, including Google, were experiencing issues Google Cloud services were down and are affecting other sites, according to Replit and Cloudflare.

Google Cloud services were down and are affecting other sites, according to Replit and Cloudflare.

Chinese state media cheer Trump’s decision to axe Voice of America The dismantling of the international broadcaster and other U.S. government-funded news outlets was criticized as another blow to U.S. soft power efforts.

Chinese state media are celebrating President Trump’s move to gut Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded news outlets that push back against authoritarian regimes.

Trump administration deports hundreds of immigrants even as a judge orders their removals be stopped The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration ta...

If you thought FOTUS47 would respect U.S. court decisions, here's your answer.

Hegseth orders suspension of Pentagon's offensive cyberoperations against Russia The U.S. Cyber Command is pausing its offensive operations against Russia. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the decision, which was confirmed Monday by a U.S. official speaking on condition of anon...

This does not bode well. apnews.com/article/cybe... Wire_4 Mar_2025&utm_term=Morning Wire Subscribers

Here are some goods in the crosshairs of Trump's tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China President Donald Trump was poised to impose 25% taxes on imports from Canada and Mexico Tuesday and to double to 20% his levies on Chinese products.

apnews.com/article/trum... Wire_4 Mar_2025&utm_term=Morning Wire Subscribers

Federal agencies told to start planning for large-scale layoffs in Trump admin memo Thousands of federal workers have already been fired over the last few weeks.

The Trump administration directed federal agencies on Wednesday to prepare for mass layoffs, according to the heads of the White House budget and personnel management offices.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos says opinion pages will defend free market and 'personal liberties' The billionaire owner of The Washington Post is directing its opinion section to defend personal liberties and the free market in a shift that prompted the editor of that page to resign.

apnews.com/article/wash...

White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump In announcing plans to handpick the reporters who can ask the president questions, the White House is breaking decades of precedent.

Didn't that German guy do this same thing in the 1940s?
White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/b...

Judge rejects immediately restoring AP's access to White House but urges government to reconsider A federal judge has refused to immediately order the White House to restore The Associated Press’ access to presidential events, saying the news organization had not shown it had suffered irreparable ...

What is happening to freedom of the press? This cannot stand. apnews.com/article/ap-l...

From NPR: Trump has frozen the $4 billion that President Biden set aside to keep the Colorado River flowing. The river supplies around 40 million people with drinking water, is the foundation for a massive agricultural economy across the Southwest, and generates significant hydroelectric power.

@tarandtea.bsky.social

Court refuses to lift injunction against Trump’s birthright citizenship ban; JD Vance to address CPAC – US politics live Push to end birthright citizenship could be headed to supreme court after judges deny appeal; VP due to give speech at conservative conference Trump’s first month in office could be described as whiplash-inducing – and his flurry of executive actions…

Court refuses to lift injunction against Trump’s birthright citizenship ban; JD Vance to address CPAC – US politics live

Trump says feds should ‘take over’ governance of D.C. The president told reporters that city leaders are not doing enough to reduce crime, clean up graffiti and remove homeless encampments.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday night that the federal government “should take over the governance of D.C.,” claiming that leaders of the nation’s capital are not doing enough to reduce crime, clean up graffiti and remove homeless encampments.

Another day, another ominous warning. Take heed.

“Therefore, in order to improve the administration of the executive branch and to increase regulatory officials’ accountability to the American people, it shall be the policy of the executive branch to ensure Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch. Moreover, all executive departments and agencies, including so-called independent agencies, shall submit for review all proposed and final significant regulatory actions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Executive Office of the President before publication in the Federal Register. Sec. 2. Definitions. For the purposes of this order: (a) The term “employees” shall have the meaning given that term in section 2105 of title 5, United States Code.   (b) The term “independent regulatory agency” shall have the meaning given that term in section 3502(5) of title 44, United States Code. This order shall not apply to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or to the Federal Open Market Committee in its conduct of monetary policy. This order shall apply to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System only in connection with its conduct and authorities directly related to its supervision and regulation of financial institutions. “

With this EO, Trump is explicitly seizing control of agencies meant to operate free from presidential interference, such as the FCC, FTC, FEC and financial regulators.

Now any new regulations must go through the White House. Monumental change here.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Trump says AP will be curtailed at the White House until it changes its style to Gulf of America President Donald Trump says his administration will continue to restrict The Associated Press' access to cover presidential events until the news agency goes along with his renaming of the Gulf of Mex...

Maybe we need a new White House where "of the people, by the people, and for the people" rules. apnews.com/article/trum...

US DOGE Svc: Steve Davis, Brad Smith, Katie Miller, Alexandra “Aly” Beynon, Riccardo Biasini, Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier “Cole” Killian, Gavin Kliger, Nikhil Rajpal, Ethan Shaotran, Christopher Stanley, Jordan Wick.

From Alt Natl Park Svc. Musk staffers @ OPM: Amanda Scales, Brian Bjelde, Stephen Duarte, Christina Hanna, Bryanne-Michelle Mlodzianowski. GSA: Stephen Ehikian, Thomas Shedd, Nate Cavanaugh. Treasury Dept: Tom Krause, Marko Elez. Justin Fulcher and Scott Langmack.

From Reuters: The Royal Society scientific academy said it would hold a meeting to discuss principles around the public pronouncements and behaviours of its fellows after thousands of scientists expressed their concerns over Elon Musk's continued membership.

Mostly Johnson and Wyandotte counties. No cases reported in other counties yet.

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see Several groups are working to preserve webpages, tools and data – some of which have already gone missing from government webpages since the start of the Trump administration.

Public Environmental Data Partners archives climate datasets, uploading copies to public repositories and cataloging where and how to find them if they go missing from government websites. Scholars explain: