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Trump breaks major Social Security promise in Big Beautiful Bill
“Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” includes tax cuts and credits but omits his campaign promise to eliminate federal taxes on Social Security. The bill, which narrowly passed the House, faces criticism for potentially increasing the federal deficit and faces challenges in the Senate due to the need for bipartisan support and concerns about the financial health of the Social Security program.
President Donald Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill combines several promises he made during his campaign with various tax cuts and credits. But there’s one Social Security promise that didn’t seem to make the package.
The bill narrowly passed the House last week, and now it’s headed to the Senate. Several of Trump’s past supporters, including Elon Musk and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), have been critical of the bill, saying it will increase the federal deficit over the next decade.
The legislation is full of promises, including increasing the deduction for state and local taxes, eliminate federal income tax on tips, eliminate subsidies on federal student loans, reduce spending on Medicaid and more. One promise that’s missing, however, is federal tax cuts on Social Security.“
“A 30-year-old woman, Adriana Smith, is being kept alive on life support despite being brain dead due to Georgia’s strict anti-abortion laws. Her family, who want her to pass peacefully, are calling the situation torture. The hospital will continue life support until early August, when the fetus, Chance, is expected to be viable for a C-section.
A 30-year-old woman, Adriana Smith, is being kept alive at the Emory University Hospital despite being brain dead. She has been used as a human incubator since she was 9 weeks pregnant. Georgia has a strict anti-abortion ban, and letting her die while the baby is still alive and growing will be against those laws.
There is a huge ethical and legal dilemma here, as the family has no say in this matter. They are calling this scenario torture and want her to pass peacefully.
Adriana, a nurse herself, went to the doctor when she had severe headaches. The doctors recommended a CT scan to learn more about her symptoms. Her condition worsened the next day as she woke up with gargling sounds and shortness of breath. The doctors soon discovered blood clots in her brain. They performed surgery on her brain to clear the pressure, but it was unsuccessful, and she was declared brain dead.
Even while she was brain dead, the doctors could not let her die as the fetus had a heartbeat. Georgia anti-abortion laws prohibit abortions after six weeks or when cardiac activity is detected in the fetus. Although Adriana is legally dead, she isn’t allowed to put off life support just yet. The hospital is not considering the family’s appeal as per Georgia’s abortion laws.
The hospital is using feeding tubes to keep her alive and will keep doing so till early August. By that time, the male fetus will be developed to be delivered via C-section. Since Adriana is already brain dead, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act’s exception to save the mother is not applicable here. Doctors have confirmed she cannot be saved in any way, but the fetus, who’s being called Chance, is viable.
Adirana’s family is already grieving the loss of her life. Meanwhile, the state has taken away its right to make decisions. Her mother, April, says the situation is torture for them to watch their daughter breathe via a ventilator, but she’s gone.
The fetus has hydrocephalus, so he may end up with disabilities like blindness. He may not even be alive once he is born, so all this struggle will be for nothing. April hopes her grandson will survive and they’ll love him just the way he’ll be born. As the fetus grows, even the doctors are aware of the complications that may arise.
The life support system may not be able to sustain her. They are not made for long-term brain-dead patient treatment. Her brain has already started to decompose, so there’s no guarantee this whole experiment of keeping her alive till August will work.
Political figures have different opinions about the situation. Senator Ed Setzler said there is a valuable human life that can be saved. On the other hand, Republican Attorney General Chris Carr stated that the law does not make it an obligation to keep brain-dead patients alive.
In a similar case, a brain-dead woman, Marlise Munoz, who was 14 weeks pregnant, was kept on life support. In this case, her husband won the case to take her off life support.
(You could not have someone less qualified than R.F.K. Jr. making these recommendations. He has no medical training and he is a recovering heroin addict. Listen to him talk. He can barely speak intelligibly.)
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced that the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children and pregnant women. This decision, made without consulting the CDC’s advisory panel or providing evidence, contradicts the agency’s previous stance and raises concerns about the health of vulnerable populations. While COVID-19 may no longer be the leading health threat, the virus still poses risks, especially for those at high risk, and the decision-making process should prioritize scientific evidence and expert consensus.
The coronavirus may no longer be a leading danger to our health. That doesn’t mean it can’t hurt us, or that we don’t need to protect ourselves.
On Tuesday, in a fifty-eight-second video posted on X, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, made a remarkable announcement: under his watch, he said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer advise healthy children and pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19. For decades, the C.D.C. has based its vaccination policy in large part on the recommendations of a panel of experts, who carefully review data about vaccine safety and effectiveness. The panel was already in the process of updating their recommendations, but Kennedy apparently preëmpted them; the American Academy of Pediatrics said that it had not been consulted, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a statement noting that coronavirus infection during pregnancy “can be catastrophic,” expressing grave concerns about the health of mothers and children. Kennedy, who in 2021 called COVID shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made” and urged the government to revoke their authorization, said in the clip that he “couldn’t be more pleased.”
After Kennedy’s announcement, the C.D.C. seemed to split the metaphorical baby in an update to its immunization schedule. In the new guidelines for children, the entry for COVID vaccines now says, “See Notes.” The notes explain, “Where the parent presents with a desire for their child to be vaccinated, children 6 months and older may receive COVID-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgment of a healthcare provider and personal preference and circumstances.” Below that, a timeline for vaccinating children against COVIDappears. Meanwhile, the agency’s position on COVID vaccines for pregnant women is “No Guidance/Not Applicable” In these updates, the C.D.C. appeared at pains to neither undermine its support for the vaccines nor directly contradict its boss’s boss. The agency may have succeeded at that—but an exemplar of clear public-health communication it was not.
Not all vaccines should be recommended for all people. Many countries, including France and the United Kingdom, endorse COVID vaccines only for older individuals and those at high risk for severe cases of the disease. More studies are needed in order to evaluate how much a healthy person benefits from ongoing COVID booster shots if she’s already been infected and/or immunized. Nonetheless, we should not be pleased with Kennedy’s machinations. According to data from the C.D.C., infants under six months of age with COVID have been hospitalized at comparable rates to people in their late sixties and early seventies. Many infants who experience severe illness have no known underlying medical conditions; most are born to mothers who haven’t been vaccinated during pregnancy, and are therefore less able to pass on protective antibodies. (Relatively few older children develop severe COVID.) Meanwhile, pregnant and postpartum women face clear dangers after a coronavirus infection, including blood clots, hemorrhage, and perilously high blood pressure. For this reason, the C.D.C. has considered pregnancy a high-risk condition warranting immunization. One would think that the F.D.A. commissioner, Martin Makary, who appeared next to Kennedy in the video, does, too. Just last week, in an essay that he co-authored in The New England Journal of Medicine, pregnancy appeared in a list of conditions that make COVID riskier. (Makary previously described efforts to bypass scientific advisers as “unconscionable.”)
Kennedy has said that his department will strive for “informed choice” and “radical transparency.” Public health by fiat, or by tweet, achieves neither. COVID-vaccination rates are already low: in recent C.D.C. data sets, less than fifteen per cent of children and pregnant women, and less than a third of health-care workers, had received updated COVID shots. Those who want them already had a choice. (In general, health insurers must cover vaccines recommended by the C.D.C., but are otherwise under no obligation to do so. Without coverage, COVID vaccines can cost around two hundred dollars a dose.) Kennedy cited no evidence in his announcement, and he deprived the C.D.C.’s vaccine-advisory panel of the opportunity to explain their current thinking to the public.
This past winter, I cared for many patients with COVID—but the infection often wasn’t the primary reason that they were being hospitalized. All in all, influenza seemed to me the greater threat. The U.S. had one of its worst flu seasons in years; it appeared that we had reached a long-awaited equilibrium point in which COVID was no longer a leading danger, but rather one of many respiratory illnesses with which we must contend. That’s not to say that it is benign or that it doesn’t merit immunization. After all, we continue to advise almost everyone to get the flu shot—and we shouldn’t forget that COVID vaccines played a central role in bringing us to this stage. I plan to get an updated COVID vaccine this fall. But today, unless you are a young child, you have almost certainly encountered a version of the coronavirus through infection, immunization, or both. Now is a reasonable time for experts to reassess the advice that they give the public about how to stay safe. People who are relatively young and healthy could consider forgoing an annual shot, absent a dramatic change in the virus. (A transmissible new COVIDvariant called NB.1.8.1 has become dominant in parts of Asia, but so far it isn’t thought to cause more severe illness.) Boosters are most urgent for those whose age or medical condition places them at elevated risk.
The problem with Kennedy’s decision is that it seems to have been his decision, not the decision of deliberative medical authorities. If such an announcement were to come from independent scientists who review data and debate trade-offs, it might have been justifiable. Indeed, if it had stemmed from leaders who did not have a history of vaccine skepticism and a disregard for standard procedure, perhaps we wouldn’t even be discussing it. But this asymmetry is not a sign that we are unfairly blaming the messenger. It is a reminder that science is about more than the right answer, when such a thing exists. Science is a process, and if we follow its procedures with care we can get closer to the truth.
Kennedy’s end run around his department’s own experts is part of a pattern that threatens the proper functioning of science. In recent months, he has helped purge government employees, some of whom were let go by mistake. Prominent scientists have quit, citing interference with their work and outright censorship when their findings don’t conform to certain narratives. This week, Kennedy suggested that he may create “in-house” publications and bar government scientists from publishing in top academic journals—even as a MAHA report from his department was found to be full of errors, misrepresenting some studies and seemingly making up others. (It appears that generative A.I. may have helped to produce it.) Kennedy has shown deep distrust of mRNA vaccines, which have revolutionized preventive medicine; on Wednesday, his department cancelledsome six hundred million dollars’ worth of funding for Moderna that supported, among other things, the development of bird-flu vaccines.
Kennedy and his allies often argue that they’re restoring trust in public health. It’s more accurate to say that he’s reversed the polarity of skepticism. Vaccine skeptics may believe in his leadership; Americans who once put their faith in institutions now have reason to doubt them. At a time when the country faces no shortage of health threats, the value of evidence and expertise is itself under attack. The anti-establishment has become the establishment, and its decisions will affect us all.”
"Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has issued a refutation on the claims of US President Donald Trump that the White minority in South Africa are facing genocide, describing the statement as not only untrue but an insult to Africans.
President Trump had made claims of alleged persecution and genocide of White South Africans during the visit of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to the White House on Tuesday, a comment that infuriated Mahama and elicited a bitter reaction from the Ghanaian leader.
In an article entitled “Trump’s unfounded attack on Cyril Ramaphosa was an insult to all Africans,” Mahama recalled the historic injustice that permeated the Apartheid system in South Africa, saying, “if we want to solve injustices in Africa today, we cannot forget the injustices that shaped our shared history.”
He cited the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, which resulted in 69 deaths and more than 100 wounded, which sparked protests in Ghana, adding that the Soweto uprising in 1976, where hundreds of children, even those as young as 12, were shot dead by the Apartheid police, haunted him for years.
“Hundreds of children were killed in that Soweto protest alone. It is their blood, and the blood of their forebears, that nourishes the soil of South Africa,” he said.
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Mahama insisted that the majority of Black South Africans today, even though they have suffered the historical injustice of colonisation and Apartheid atrocities, do not have any reason to exact revenge on the Whites, even with glaring evidence that the historical injustice of the dark days has not been adequately addressed.
He said, “The racial persecution of Black South Africans was rooted in a system that was enshrined in law.
It took worldwide participation through demonstrations, boycotts, divestments and sanctions to end apartheid so that all South Africans, regardless of skin colour, would be considered equal.
“Nevertheless, the effects of centuries-long oppression do not just disappear with the stroke of a pen, particularly when there has been no cogent plan of reparative justice.”
He pointed out that despite making up less than 10% of the population, white South Africans control more than 70% of the nation’s wealth. Even now, there are a few places in South Africa where only Afrikaners can own property, live, and work.
He said further that at the entrance to one such settlement, Kleinfontein, is an enormous bust of Hendrik Verwoerd, the former prime minister who is considered the architect of apartheid.
He frowned at the fact that another separatist town, Orania, teaches only Afrikaans in its schools, has its own chamber of commerce, and uses its own currency, the ora, strictly within its borders.
“It has been reported that inside the Orania Cultural History Museum, there is a bust of every apartheid-era president except FW de Klerk, who initiated reforms that led to the repeal of apartheid laws.
“Both Kleinfontein and Orania are currently in existence and boast a peaceful lifestyle. Why had the America-bound Afrikaners not sought refuge in either of those places?
“Had the Black South Africans wanted to exact revenge on Afrikaners, surely, they would have done so decades ago when the pain of their previous circumstances was still fresh in their minds. What, at this point, is there to be gained by viciously killing and persecuting people you’d long ago forgiven? He added.
Mahama quoted the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs as saying that half of the population of South Africa is under 29, and was born after the apartheid era. They are presumably committed to building and uplifting the “rainbow nation” and have no reason to unleash a genocide against white people."
“Elon Musk, ending his 130-day stint as a “special government employee,” appeared at the White House with a black eye. He claimed it was from playing with his 5-year-old son, X, but the incident sparked speculation about his tumultuous tenure in Washington.
The list of possible suspects seemed long.
Friday was Elon Musk’s last day as a “special government employee.” Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
After 130 days spent fighting the federal government, Elon Musk turned up with a black eye at the White House on Friday for his last day as a “special government employee.” If you squinted, you could see it: His right eye socket was puffy and empurpled. No doubt about it, that was a big, fat shiner.
His project in Washington more or less finished, he never came close to cutting the $1 trillion from the federal government he had promised. His businesses and his public image got somewhat battered, and now, apparently, so had his face.
Did somebody beat him up?
The list of possible suspects seemed long. An abridged lineup of people and constituencies currently unhappy with Mr. Musk includes: at least two of the many women with whom he has fathered children; pretty much the entire federal bureaucracy; his neighbors in a suburb of Austin, Texas; Tesla shareholders; old friends of his; Republicans on Capitol Hill; his 20-year-old daughter; all those people who have lit Teslas on fire; and even some Trump voters.
But it wasn’t any of those people who gave him the black eye. It was, he said, his progeny X, age 5.
“I was just horsing around with little X, and I said, ‘Go ahead, punch me in the face,’ and he did,” Mr. Musk explained after a reporter asked him if he was OK.
It was an odd moment in a news conference that was quite odd to begin with. Moments earlier, Mr. Musk had angrily refused to engage with a question put to him about a new report in The New York Times detailing his drug use. Mr. Trump remained mostly mute as Mr. Musk batted back that question. Now the tech mogul was explaining why he looked beaten up.
The president seemed to find this rather amusing. “I didn’t notice,” he said as he turned in his seat to get a better look at Mr. Musk. “That was X that did that?”
Mr. Trump has spent a considerable amount of time around the little slugger over these last 130 days. He and Mr. Musk have even brought the child to sit ringside with them at Ultimate Fighting Championship matches. Mr. Trump thought about the explanation that was being offered for the black eye. “X could do it,” he concluded, sounding almost impressed. “If you knew X, he could do it.” The way the president said this, you’d never guess he was talking about a 5-year-old.
And so, Mr. Musk left Washington, his eye as bruised as his ego.
“I didn’t really feel much at the time,” he said about being punched in the face, “but then I guess it bruises up.”
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.“
“The Trump administration’s policies, including visa restrictions and research funding cuts, are driving away international scientists and students, potentially eroding the U.S.’s longstanding global scientific dominance. This shift could have far-reaching implications, impacting innovation, economic growth, and military advancements. While other countries are courting American scientists, the U.S.’s unique research culture and historical leadership make it difficult to replace.
With the welcome mat withdrawn for promising researchers from around the world, America is at risk of losing its longstanding pre-eminence in the sciences.
Dr. Raj Ladher, a professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, with Ph.D. students.Samyukta Lakshmi for The New York Times
For decades, Bangalore, India, has been an incubator for scientific talent, sending newly minted Ph.D.s around the world to do groundbreaking research. In an ordinary year, many aim their sights at labs in the United States.
“These are our students, and we want them to go and do something amazing,” said a professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, Raj Ladher.
But this is not an ordinary year.
When Professor Ladher queried some 30 graduates in the city recently about their plans, only one had certain employment in the United States. For many of the others, the political turmoil in Washington has dried up job opportunities in what Professor Ladher calls “the best research ecosystem in the world.” Some decided they would now rather take their skills elsewhere, including Austria, Japan and Australia, while others opted to stay in India.
As the Trump administration moves with abandon to deny visas, expel foreign students and slash spending on research, scientists in the United States are becoming increasingly alarmed. The global supremacy that the United States has long enjoyed in health, biology, the physical sciences and other fields, they warn, may be coming to an end.
“If things continue as they are, American science is ruined,” said David W. Hogg, a professor of physics and data science at New York University who works closely with astronomers and other experts around the world. “If it becomes impossible to work with non-U.S. scientists,” he said, “it would basically render the kinds of research that I do impossible.”
Research cuts and moves to curtail the presence of foreign students by the Trump administration have happened at a dizzying pace.
The administration has gone so far as moving to block any international students at all from attending Harvard, and more than $3 billion in research grants to the university were terminated or paused. At Johns Hopkins University, a bastion of scientific research, officials announced the layoffs of more than 2,000 people after losing $800 million in government grants. An analysis by The New York Times found that the National Science Foundation, the world’s pre-eminent funding agency in the physical sciences, has been issuing financing for new grants at its slowest rate since at least 1990.
It is not merely a matter of the American scientific community losing power or prestige.
A rally in support of international students at Harvard University on Tuesday.Lucy Lu for The New York Times
Dirk Brockmann, a biology and physics professor in Germany, warned that there were much broader implications. The acceptance of risk and seemingly crazy leaps of inspiration woven into American attitudes, he said, help produce a research environment that nowhere else can quite match. The result has been decades of innovation, economic growth and military advances.
“There is something very deep in the culture that makes it very special,” said Professor Brockmann, who once taught at Northwestern. “It’s almost like a magical ingredient.”
Scientists believe that some of the international talent that has long helped drive the U.S. research engine may land elsewhere. Many foreign governments, from France to Australia, have also started openly courting American scientists.
But because the United States has led the field for so long, there is deep concern that research globally will suffer.
“For many areas, the U.S. is absolutely the crucial partner,” said Wim Leemans, the director of the accelerator division at DESY, a research center in Germany, and a professor at the University of Hamburg.
Professor Leemans, who is an American and Belgian citizen and spent 34 years in the United States, said that in areas like medical research and climate monitoring, the rest of the world would be hard pressed to compensate for the loss of American leadership.
There was a time when the U.S. government embraced America’s role in the global scientific community.
In 1945, a presidential science adviser, Vannevar Bush, issued a landmark blueprint for post-World War II science in the United States. “Science, the Endless Frontier,” it was called, and among its arguments was that the country would gain more by sharing information, including bringing in foreign scientists even if they might one day leave, than by trying to protect discoveries that would be made elsewhere anyway.
The blueprint helped drive the postwar scientific dominance of the United States, said Cole Donovan, an international technology adviser in the Biden White House. “Much of U.S. power and influence is derived from our science and technology supremacy,” he said.
Now the United States is taking in the welcome mat.
Professor Brockmann, who studies complex systems at the Dresden University of Technology, was once planning to return to Northwestern to give a keynote presentation in June. It was to be part of a family trip to the United States; his children once lived in Evanston, Ill., where he taught at the university from 2008 to 2013.
He canceled the talk after the Foreign Ministry issued new guidance on travel to the United States following the detention of German tourists at the American border. That warning he said, “was kind of a signal to me: I don’t feel safe.”
Mr. Donovan said it was too early to tell whether Europe, say, or China could take over an international leadership role in science. Professor Ladher, the Bangalore researcher, said that so far, Europe has been taking up some of the slack in hiring his graduates.
“Austria has become a huge destination for many of our students,” he said.
Ph.D. students at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore.Samyukta Lakshmi for The New York Times
In Bangalore, one graduate student who is waiting to defend her doctoral thesis on cell signaling and cancer, said it was widely believed in India that U.S. labs were unlikely to hire many international students this year. That has led many of her colleagues to look elsewhere, said the student, who asked not to be named because she still planned to apply for positions in the United States and did not want to hurt her chances.
The American scientific community, she said, has long been revered abroad.
“It is sad to see that the hero is coming down from the pedestal,” she said.
James Glanz is a Times international and investigative reporter covering major disasters, conflict and deadly failures of technology.“
Just days after tech billionaire Elon Musk officially left his role as a top adviser to President Donald Trump,The New York Times reportedthat the tech mogul was consuming large quantities of drugsaround the same time he became a fixture on the campaign trail.
Citing private messages obtained by the Times and interviews with Musk’s associates, the outlet reported that Musk took ketamine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, Ambien, Adderall, and other drugs, and traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills.
The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla reportedly took so much Ketamine, a dissociative anestheticknown to induceschizophrenia-like symptoms, that it affected his bladder function.
The report is bolstered by a January 2024Wall Street Journal investigationin which sources close to Musk said they’d witnessed or had direct knowledge of him using LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine.
Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro told the Journal at the time that his client is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX” and has “never failed a test.”
It’s unclear how, or whether, Musk’s consumption habits changed once he became a federal bureaucrat with an office in the White House complex. He didn’t address the claims directly at a Friday afternoon press conference in the Oval Office,instead attacking the credibilityof The New York Times itself.
In April, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.)introduced a billthat would require Musk and his hires at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to undergo regular drug testing, though the bill has gone nowhere in the Republican-majority house.
“Donald Trump has given billionaire Elon Musk the keys to our government, and with it, access to highly sensitive information — from Treasury and Social Security data to even our most guarded military plans,” Sherrill wrote in a press release. “Those with access to sensitive information must be thoroughly vetted, clear-eyed, and exercise good judgment.”
Asked Friday if he was concerned about drug use by Musk, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was dismissive ― but notably didn’t rule it out.
“The drugs that we’re concerned about are the drugs running across the southern border,” he told reporters.
The eccentric billionaire has openly discussed his ketamine use in the past. In a 2024 interview with Don Lemon, he said he took “a small amount” every other week ― butgot miffed when Lemon pushed him on it.
“If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done, and I have a lot of work,” he told the journalist at the time.
An Atlantic articledescribing the drug’s effects on the bodyfound people build tolerance to it very quickly, requiring ever larger doses to achieve the same high and leading to long-term impaired cognition, including “delusional thinking, superstitious beliefs, and a sense of specialness and importance.”
Those would seem to strike a chord with Sam Harris, a public intellectual and former friend of Musk, whopublicly broke with the world’s richest manin a post earlier this year.
“Any dispassionate observer of Elon’s behavior on Twitter/X can see that there is something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality,” he wrote."
