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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, despite extensive scientific research that has disproved or failed to find evidence of such links.

It is unclear whether the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has long promoted anti-vaccine views, is involved in the planned CDC study or how it would be carried out. The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately available for comment.

The CDC’s move comes amid one of the largest measles outbreaks the US has seen in the past decade, with more than 150 cases and two deaths in Texas and New Mexico. The outbreak has been fueled by declining vaccination rates in parts of the United States where parents have been falsely persuaded that such shots do more harm than good.

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Donald Trump plans to today sign an executive order barring government and non-profit employees from a student loan forgiveness program if they engage in “improper activities”.

The order affects the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, under which employees of those organizations can have their federal student debt forgiven if they meet certain criteria. White House staff secretary Will Scharf said that the order will target employees of non-governmental organizations “that engage in illegal, or what we would consider to be improper activities, supporting, for example, illegal immigration or foreign terrorist organizations or otherwise law-breaking activities”.

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The Trump administration is pulling about $400 million in federal funds from Columbia University, citing the school's "continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students," the Department of Education and other agencies announced Friday.

Columbia has been at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel because of the civilian deaths and humanitarian crisis in the Israel-Hamas war.

There have been allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counterprotests. Columbia has said it has been fighting antisemitism.

MAGA activists have turned against one of President Donald Trump's own appointees to the Supreme Court: Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Appointed by Trump in 2020, Barrett is a staunch conservative who has joined major rulings in which the court has moved U.S. law to the right, including on abortion and affirmative action.

But that's not enough for some of Trump's most aggressive supporters, who think the former Notre Dame Law School professor has been a disappointment. MAGA supporters see what some call an independent streak as a sign she isn't sufficiently aligned with or loyal to Trump.

"She is a rattled law professor with her head up her a--," said Mike Davis, who once clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Neil Gorsuch and described Barrett as "weak and timid."

Barrett defenders have dismissed the attacks, scoffing at the idea that the justice’s conservatism is defined by how her decisions align with Trump and insisting Barrett won’t be affected by outside criticism. Barrett, reached via the Supreme Court, did not respond to a request for comment.

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Behind the scenes: The meetings between Boehler and Hamas officials took place in Doha in recent weeks.

• While the Trump administration consulted with Israel about the possibility of engaging with Hamas, Israel learned about aspects of the talks through other channels, one source said.
• The sources spoke with Axios on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the sensitive meetings.

Zoom in: The talks have focused in part on the release of U.S. hostages, which is within Boehler's remit as hostage envoy.

• But they have also included discussions of a broader deal to release all remaining hostages and reach a long-term truce, the sources say. No deal has yet been reached.
• White House envoy Steve Witkoff also planned to travel to Doha this week to meet the prime minister of Qatar about the ceasefire negotiations but canceled the trip on Tuesday night after he saw there was no progress from Hamas' side, a U.S. official said.

A federal court ruled that Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of a former senior official at the top US labor watchdog was illegal, and ordered that she be reinstated.

Gwynne Wilcox was the first member of the National Labor Relations Board to be removed by a US president since the board’s inception in 1935.

The framers of the US constitution “made clear that no one in our system of government was meant to be king – the President included – and not just in name only”, the judge Beryl A Howell, wrote in the ruling.

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