Trump's first-term surgeon general denounces his current nominee
Dr Jerome Adams, who served as the US surgeon general during Donald Trump’s first term, denounced the president’s nomination of Dr Casey Means, a wellness influencer without a medical license who did not complete her residency, in a statement posted on social media after her confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
“As a former U.S. Surgeon General who held an active medical license and practiced medicine while in the role (at Walter Reed and aboard the USS Comfort) it is incomprehensible that the Senate is even considering a nominee for this role who lacks any active license and has never practiced unsupervised,” Adams wrote.
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Justice department says it is 'reviewing files' after reports Epstein files with accusation against Trump are missing
The US justice department said on Wednesday it is “currently reviewing files” from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who was friends with Donald Trump, in response to reporting that more than 50 pages of FBI notes and interviews with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse when she was a minor are missing from the public database of documents.
The fact that documents on the woman’s accusation are referred to on the available records, but missing from the files made public was first reported by Roger Sollenberger, an investigative journalist, and then confirmed by NPR.
“Should any document be found to have been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the Act, the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law,” the justice department said in a statement posted on its combative, openly partisan “rapid response” social media account.
House Democrats on the oversight committee said on Tuesday that they could “confirm that the DoJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes”.
“Under the oversight committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public,” Robert Garcia, the California congressman who is the senior Democrat on the committee said. “Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up.”
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'This has nothing to do with fraud,' Walz says, accusing Trump of withholding Medicaid funds 'to punish blue states like Minnesota'
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, responded to the Trump administration’s decision to withhold $259m in federal Medicaid funds from his state by accusing the Republican administration of using fraud accusations as a cover for a politically motivated attack on the state’s Democratic leadership.
Walz, who was his party’s nominee for vice-president in 2024, replied on social media to the announcement that federal funds would be withheld from his state by writing:
This has nothing to do with fraud. The agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DOJ is gutting the US Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.
This is a campaign of retribution. Trump is weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota. These cuts will be devastating for veterans, families with young kids, folks with disabilities, and working people across our state.
Walz connected the recent immigration crackdown, in which two Minnesota protesters were shot and killed by federal agents, to an earlier raft of fraud allegations from the Trump administration which focused on members of the state’s Somali American community.
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Vance says Trump administration is withholding Medicaid funds from Minnesota out of 'love'
After the announcement that the Trump administration is withholding $259m in federal Medicaid funding from the state of Minnesota, a reporter asked JD Vance, the vice-president, what he would say to the people of the state, who are already dealing with a violent federal immigration enforcement surge.
“Our message to the people of Minnesota is that we love them,” Vance replied. “They’re our fellow citizens, we’re trying to do right by them and … the main reason that we’re doing this is that we want to make sure that the people of Minnesota have access to the services that they’re entitled to.”
Vance went on to argue that benefit fraud keeps the needy from receiving the help they need, although he did not explain how depriving the state government of federal reimbursement for services already received by poor children, pregnant mothers and disabled senior citizens would help to “stop the fraud”.
Vance also connected the withheld Medicare funding to immigration enforcement, saying “we haven’t gotten the cooperation” of state and local elected leaders in Minnesota.
The Republican vice-president, who likely hopes to run for president in two years, also made it clear that he hopes residents of the state will blame the state’s Democratic leaders for the withheld funding.
“What I would say to the people of Minnesota is: we want to do right by you; we think you deserve better public services; we think you deserve to have the benefits that you’re actually entitled to,” Vance said. “And we encourage everybody in Minnesota, whatever their political affiliation to work on the state government a little bit, because if we had some better cooperation we could have commonsense immigration enforcement, we could also have less money going to fraudsters.”
The vice-president did not mention that the administration’s deadly immigration crackdown had prompted a wave of resignations from the federal prosecutors in Minnesota who had led the fraud investigations.
Dozens of people were charged with fraud in 2022, during the Biden administration, by a team of federal prosecutors in Minnesota led by Joseph Thompson and Harry Jacobs.
Thompson and Jacobs were among the federal prosecutors who resigned in January after senior justice department officials pressed them to open a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman shot and killed by an ICE officer.
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Citing fraud concerns, Trump administration imposes six-month national moratorium on federal funds for prosthesis and orthotics
Dr Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, just announced that Trump administration is imposing a six-month national moratorium on federal funding for people who need durable medical equipment, including prosthesis and orthotics.
According to Oz, who spoke alongside the vice-president, JD Vance, new enrollments for federal Medicare funds for such devices would be halted due to concerns about benefit fraud.
Oz then tried to illustrate what he called the scope of the potential fraud with an awkward bit of dialogue with the vice-president.
Oz first turned to Vance and asked if if he ever goes to McDonalds. Vance said “Yeah… too much,” which led Oz to note that they “didn’t rehearse this”. Oz then said that there are twice as many durable medical equipment suppliers in south Florida as there are McDonalds. “Wow,” Vance said. “And that’s not because secretary Kennedy is closing down McDonalds,” Oz added, to laughter from Vance and no one else.
“That’s because the amount of fraud is so massive,” Oz continued, without citing any evidence for the claim, or noting that south Florida has a very large population of retired Americans.
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Trump administration is withholding $259m in Medicaid funding from Minnesota, Vance and Oz say
JD Vance, who has been tasked with leading a Trump administration effort to draw attention to claimed benefit fraud in states led by Democratic governors, said on Wednesday that the federal government will pause reimbursements to the state of Minnesota for certain Medicaid payments.
“We’re announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota, in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money,” the vice-president said at an event in the Eisenhower executive office building.
The providers have already been paid by the state of Minnesota for their services, Vance said, but federal funds that are supposed to reimburse the state will be withheld.
Investigations into benefits fraud in Minnesota were already under way before the Trump administration, and rightwing social media influencers who support it, began highlighting the issue, and falsely claiming that the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, who was the Democratic nominee for vice-president in 2024, was not responding to the scandal.
Vance then introduced Dr Mehmet Oz, now serving as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who said that $259m in funding for Medicaid programs that serve pregnant women, children and disabled seniors in Minnesota would be withheld.
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Texas Republican congressman says colleague accused of affair with staffer who killed herself should not resign
Troy Nehls, a Republican congressman from Texas, told reporters on Wednesday that the resignation of his embattled colleague, Tony Gonzales, “would be the stupidest thing he could ever do”, because it could imperil the Republican majority in the House.
Gonzales, a fellow Texas Republican, has rejected calls from other members of his party to step down over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
“He’s not been indicted for anything,” Nehls said of Gonzales on the steps of the Capitol. “Does it look good? No. I don’t like the appearance of it. He’s got a problem here, don’t get me wrong. The optics are horrible.”
Gonzales has been accused of sending sexually explicit text messages in which he appeared to pressure the senior staffer to share images of herself and, eventually, coerced her into a sexual relationship.
Nehls, a former sheriff, seems unusually focused on optics. The congressman created a viral moment on Tuesday night, when he asked Donald Trump to sign his tie, which featured several images of the president, as he left the House chamber after his State of the Union address.
Nehls made that request just a few steps away from where he was pictured on 6 January 2021, when he stood alongside Capitol police officers at the barricaded door of the House chamber and scolded Trump supporters who were trying to break in to stop the certification of Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
The congressman was outspoken in his denunciation of the rioters that day, but more recently pivoted to blaming the Capitol police for the riot.
Nehls, who is not running for re-election in November, could be replaced next year by his identical twin brother, Trever, who is a candidate in the upcoming Republican primary.
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Cuba says border guards killed four gunmen on US-registered speedboat
The Cuban Interior Ministry has said that border guards killed four gunmen and wounded six more on a speedboat bearing a Florida registration off the coast of Cuba’s Villa Clara province.
The rare clash off Cuba’s coast, which took place today, comes at a moment of heightened tensions between the United States and Cuba during an oil embargo that has led to an energy and humanitarian crisis on the island.
One border guard was injured in an exchange of gunfire, according to the ministry.
The Cuban embassy in the US said in a post on social media: “In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar of the Cuban State in safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.”
More on this story here:
The California senator Alex Padilla is holding a forum with elected officials and voting rights activists to discuss the Trump administration’s apparent movement toward subverting local elections offices and interfering with voting.
Padilla, who delivered the Spanish-language response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address last night, discussed the potential threats to free elections in light of Trump’s comments calling on Republicans to “take over the voting” in 15 places.
Questioned by the Georgia senator Raphael Warnock, Fulton county commissioner Mo Ivory said she personally saw Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, when FBI agents served a criminal warrant to take more than 600 boxes of documents from the 2020 election.
“I have demanded an explanation from Pam Bondi about this raid,” Warnock said. “So far, I have not heard back from her. She has not offered one, but we will keep demanding answers … They’re already trying to cast doubt on the 2026 elections.”
Catherine Cortez Masto, who once served as Nevada’s secretary of state, raised questions about the rhetoric suggesting that noncitizens are voting in meaningful numbers that require additional measures to prevent, describing the evidence of significant noncitizen voting as “nonexistent”.
“The incidences are so tiny that as a statistical matter, it should be considered zero,” said retired ambassador Norm Eisen, a voting rights activist.
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The day so far
JD Vance said that Donald Trump still prefers a diplomatic solution with Iran but still has “other tools at his disposal” that he is willing to use – and that he hoped the Iranians took that seriously in their negotiations tomorrow. It has been reported that Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of his special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons. The envoys will attend a last-ditch round of negotiations to discuss a detailed proposal for a nuclear deal drafted by Iran is expected to take place in Geneva tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the president was busy today weighing in on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib yelling during his SOTU speech last night. Trump called the two Democratic representatives “Low IQ” and said the had the “bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized”.
Trump also threatened to “send them back from where they came from – as fast as possible”. Both women are US citizens. Omar came to the US as a child refugee and has been a US citizen for more than two decades. Tlaib was born in the US.
Omar, of Minnesota, told CNN that she didn’t regret her actions at the address, saying Trump posed the question of protecting Americans without acknowledging that “his administration was responsible for killing two American citizens” in her district. “It was really important to my constituents to hear that I was reminding the president that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed under this administration,” she said.
And Tlaib, of Michigan, responded to Trump’s post about her: “Can’t take two Muslimas talking back and correcting him so now he is crashing out. #PresidentMajnoon”.
Omar also said today that her State of the Union guest, Aliya Rahman, was charged with unlawful conduct for standing up silently during Trump’s speech last night. “The heavy-handed response to a peaceful guest sends a chilling message about the state of our democracy. I am calling for a full explanation of why this arrest occurred,” Omar said.
In an interview with Democracy Now, Rahman said she stood up because Trump was saying “racist things” and trashing Minnesota while glorifying federal agents, and she wanted to see if there were any “grownups” among the lawmakers below who were standing against his comments. Republicans around her were also standing up and applauding, though none of them were removed or arrested.
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, called the allegations against Tony Gonzales “detestable” and said that he would meet with the Texas congressman “hopefully today”. Johnson added that he would let the “due process here to play out as always”. The speaker has resisted growing calls from within the GOP to pressure Gonzales to resign over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
Casey Means, the wellness influencer who is Trump’s controversial nominee for US surgeon general, appeared before lawmakers on the Senate committee for health, labor and pensions. She was grilled on everything from her stances on vaccines and autism to her inactive medical license.
House Democrats have demanded a briefing from the justice department on the removal of Gail Slater, who was forced to resign as head of the antitrust division this month under a cloud of controversy and fraught tensions with her bosses inside the Trump administration.
The US will provide on-site consular services in two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for the first time, breaking with previous policy in a move that has been criticised by Palestinian officials as “a clear violation of international law”.
Marco Rubio held talks in the Caribbean today with regional leaders calling for “de-escalation and dialogue” to deal with the impact of recent US policies and a growing humanitarian crisis in Cuba that could destabilize their region.
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Aliya Rahman, Ilhan Omar’s guest who was removed from Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, also spoke about the incident with Democracy Now.
She attended the interview in the same clothes as the prior day, saying she only got out of a hospital visit and then custody of Capitol police just before 4am. She said she was “arrested so physically that two other attendees upstairs attempted to intervene in officers pulling on my shoulders after I told them I have a torn rotator cuff tendon and multiple cartilage tears in both of my shoulders”, injuries she sustained after her violent arrest by federal agents in Minneapolis last month.
“The only reason I can think that they thought me standing silently there was a protest is because by this point my body, unafraid, even if broken, standing and looking at these people in their face, well, that must be a protest to you,” she said.
She said the sergeant at arms told her she was removed and arrested because she was standing up.
“No buttons, no facial expressions, no gestures, no signs. Not one sound. Standing up,” she said. “There are only two things you can do at the State of the Union, and they are sit down and stand up. All kinds of people were standing up all night.”
She said she stood up because Trump was saying “racist things” and trashing Minnesota while glorifying federal agents, and she wanted to see if there were any “grownups” among the lawmakers below who were standing against his comments. Republicans around her were also standing up and applauding, though none of them were removed or arrested.
“I really wonder if these folks have noticed yet that every time you try to break my body, you fuel my spirit,” she said. “I was arrested for standing up. This administration wins zero prizes for their command of metaphors.”
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Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Minnesota, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that she didn’t regret her actions at the State of the Union address, saying Trump posed the question of protecting Americans without acknowledging that “his administration was responsible for killing two American citizens” in her district.
When Blitzer asked if she should have instead not attended the speech, as many Democrats chose to do, she said it was important for her to bring four Minnesotans as guests and for her constituents to see her representing the state there after the killings during the ICE surge.
“It was important for us to be there to bear witness, to hold the space for our constituents that have lived through an occupation from federal law enforcement, that have been terrorized, that have seen our neighbors been killed and traumatized in so many ways and so no, I think it was really important for my constituents to see me there,” she said. “It was really important to my constituents to hear that I was reminding the president that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed under this administration.”
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Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic representative from Michigan, responded on social media to Trump’s post about her: “Can’t take two Muslimas talking back and correcting him so now he is crashing out. #PresidentMajnoon”
Trump lays into Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib after State of the Union protests
Donald Trump has weighed in on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib yelling during his speech last night.
In a post on Truth Social, he called the two Democratic representatives “Low IQ” and said the had the “bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized”.
He also threatened to “send them back from where they came from – as fast as possible”. Both women are US citizens. Omar came to the US as a child refugee and has been a US citizen for more than two decades. Tlaib was born in the US.
“They can only damage the United States of America, they can do nothing to help it. They should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying – some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!”
He called the actor “Trump Deranged” and said he “may be even sicker than Crazy Rosie O’Donnell”, another frequent target of Trump’s attacks, saying that O’Donnell “is probably somewhat smarter than [De Niro], which isn’t saying much”.
“The good news is that America is now Bigger, Better, Richer, and Stronger than ever before, and it’s driving them absolutely crazy!” he concluded before signing his name in capital letters.
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Omar says her State of the Union guest charged with unlawful conduct for standing up silently during speech
Democratic representative Ilhan Omar has said that her State of the Union guest was charged with unlawful conduct for standing up silently during Donald Trump’s speech last night.
Omar said that Aliya Rahman was “forcibly removed” because she stood up in the gallery for a “short period of time, part of which other guests were also standing”, during the president’s speech.
Reports indicate that Rahman was “aggressively handled” and was taken to George Washington University hospital for treatment, Omar said, and she was “later booked at the United States Capitol police headquarters”.
“The heavy-handed response to a peaceful guest sends a chilling message about the state of our democracy. I am calling for a full explanation of why this arrest occurred,” Omar said.
CNN has a statement from the Capitol police last night which said that Rahman was arrested after “demonstrating” during the speech. It said:
All State of the Union tickets clearly explain that demonstrating is prohibited. At approximately 10:07 p.m., a person in the House Gallery started demonstrating during tonight’s State of the Union Address. The guest was told to sit down, but refused to obey our lawful orders. It is illegal to disrupt the Congress and demonstrate in the Congressional Buildings, so 43-year-old Aliya M. Rahman of Minneapolis, MN, was arrested for D.C. Code §10-503.16 – Unlawful Conduct, Disruption of Congress.”
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US to offer passport services to citizens in illegal West Bank settlements
International security correspondent
The US will provide on-site consular services in two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for the first time, breaking with previous policy in a move that has been criticised by Palestinian officials as “a clear violation of international law”.
In a post on X, the US embassy in Jerusalem said that as part of an initiative to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence, it would provide Americans with routine passport services in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Friday, “for one day only”.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law. Efrat is home to about 12,000 Israelis and is located 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) south of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said in a statement that the initiative “constitutes a clear violation of international law and a blatant favouring of the occupation authorities”, referring to Israel.
Mu’ayyad Shaa’ban, the head of the commission, said the step “entrenches a settlement reality that undermines the possibility of establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state”.
Hugh Lovatt, senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the intent and context of the new policy were important.
The background is very clear. Mike Huckabee [the US ambassador to Israel] is an avowed proponent of the Greater Israel vision and supports the realisation of that vision between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
This is a signal that the US will not treat the Israeli settlements [in the West Bank] in any different way from towns within Israel.
Last week, Israel’s cabinet approved measures to tighten the country’s control over the West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, a move Palestinians called a “de facto annexation”.
Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has said he opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank in line with longstanding US policy but his administration has not taken any measures to halt settlement activity, which has risen since he took office last year.
House Democrats open inquiry into ouster of US antitrust chief Gail Slater
House Democrats have demanded a briefing from the justice department on the removal of Gail Slater, who was forced to resign as head of the antitrust division this month under a cloud of controversy and fraught tensions with her bosses inside the Trump administration.
The request from Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, and Jerry Nadler, a Democratic New York congressman, marked the first step in what is almost certain to become a much larger investigation should Democrats reclaim the House majority in the midterm elections and gain subpoena power.
In a letter to the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, Raskin sought a briefing on the role of Trump-connected lobbyists in Slater’s removal, after she tried to block a $14bn merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, a cloud-computing and software company.
“With the departure of AAG Slater, it appears there are no longer any principled antitrust experts left to guard the antitrust division from this cascade of corruption,” the letter said. “The leadership vacuum is occurring just as the antitrust division is handling historic cases.”
Slater was pushed out after her relationship with Bondi and JD Vance – once her most powerful ally until he grew weary of her invoking his name at the justice department – steadily deteriorated off the back of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise case, the Guardian has previously reported.
Among other things, Slater had told Bondi that the US intelligence community never raised national security concerns about stopping the deal. But her claim was contradicted by John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, who questioned why he had not been consulted.
An exasperated Bondi later told associates she felt Slater had lied to her to continue with the suit, which the justice department dropped in June 2025 in favor of negotiating a settlement. Slater in turn complained the department had been captured by lobbyists for Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
A spokesperson for the justice department referred queries about its response to the letter to Bondi’s previous statement thanking Slater for her service.
More on this story here:
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Rubio begins talks with Caribbean leaders calling for ‘de-escalation and dialogue’ amid US oil embargo on Cuba
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, arrived in the Caribbean today to begin talks with regional leaders who are calling for “de-escalation and dialogue” to deal with the impact of recent US policies and a growing humanitarian crisis in Cuba that could destabilize their region.
It comes amid continued deadly US military strikes against alleged drug boats and the Trump administration’s oil blockade on Cuba. Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on Cuba in the wake of his dramatic ousting of Venezuelan president and key Cuban ally Nicolás Maduro last month.
Rubio addressed a closed-door meeting of Caricom, the Caribbean group that comprises 15 member states and five associated members, in Saint Kitts and Nevis, and would hold bilateral meetings with some regional leaders, Reuters reports.
The meeting’s host, Saint Kitts and Nevis PM Terrance Drew, said that Caricom should be a conduit for dialogue over Cuba’s future. “A destabilized Cuba will destabilize all of us,” he said.
Yesterday, ahead of Rubio’s arrival, my colleague Natricia Duncan reported that the Jamaican prime minister and the outgoing Caricom chair, Andrew Holness, appealed for a collective response to the crisis in Cuba, saying that he supports “constructive dialogue between Cuba and the US aimed at de-escalation, reform and stability”.
“We must address the situation in Cuba with clarity and courage,” Holness said. “Cuba is our Caribbean neighbour. Its doctors and teachers have served across our region,” he said.
Cubans are facing “severe economic hardship, energy shortages and growing humanitarian strain”, which could have consequences across the wider region, he said.
Humanitarian suffering serves no one. Apart from our fraternal care and solidarity with the Cuban people, it must be clear that a prolonged crisis in Cuba will not remain confined to Cuba. It will affect migration, security and economic stability across the Caribbean basin.
The Trump administration has been pressuring countries to stop participating in the Cuban medics program – which is a source of foreign currency for the Cuban government – chill relations with China and consider allowing US military hardware in their countries. Trump has also threatened tariff hikes against any nation sending energy supplies to Cuba and has urged the country’s leaders to reach a deal to avert a worsening humanitarian crisis.
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Back at the Senate committee for health, labor and pensions’ grilling of Casey Means, Trump’s controversial nominee for US surgeon general …
In an exchange with the Democratic senator Andy Kim, Means pushed back on questions about her inactive medical license, stressing that it was “voluntarily placed on inactive status” because she is not currently seeing patients. She added that she has no plans to reactivate it, noting that the surgeon general does not provide individual clinical care.
Means then pivoted to her credentials, citing her medical degree from Stanford and her years of clinical and surgical training. “I owned my own medical practice, and I’ve seen thousands of patients, and I did over four years of surgical training – which is more than many of our past surgeon generals completed, who did medical specialities,” she said. “I have completed extremely thorough medical training, and I have the ability, through these experiences, to communicate excellent public health information.”
One complication: the surgeon general also oversees the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a uniformed service of more than 6,000 public‑health officers. That role requires “maintaining active and unrestricted licenses and certification”.
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JD Vance says Trump still prefers diplomatic solution with Iran
The vice-president has said that Donald Trump still prefers a diplomatic solution with Iran but still has “other tools at his disposal” that he is willing to use – and that he hoped the Iranians took that seriously in their negotiations tomorrow.
Vance told Fox News this morning:
We have to get to a position where Iran can’t threaten the world with nuclear terrorism … We can’t let the craziest and worst regime in the world to have nuclear weapons. That is what the president is accomplishing. That’s what the president has set as our goal.
He’s going to try to accomplish that diplomatically but … the president has a number of other tools at his disposal to ensure this doesn’t happen. He’s shown a willingness to use them and I hope the Iranians take it seriously in their negotiations tomorrow because that’s certainly what the president prefers.
A last-ditch round of negotiations to discuss a detailed proposal for a nuclear deal drafted by Iran is expected to take place in Geneva tomorrow. As my colleague Hugo Lowell reported earlier this week, Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of his special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons.
In his Fox News interview, Vance sidestepped a question on whether any of what he said means that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has to go. It has been reported that if there is no deal, Trump has told advisers he is considering limited strikes to pressure Iran and, failing that, a far larger attack to force regime change.
“The president ultimately will make the decision about how to ensure Iran does not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said. “We’re sitting down having another round of diplomatic talks with the Iranians trying to reach a reasonable settlement.”
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House speaker calls allegations against Gonzales 'detestable' and says he'll speak to him 'hopefully today'
In comments pretty similar to what he said yesterday, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, has said that he would meet with Tony Gonzales “hopefully today” but that he would let the “due process here to play out as always”.
CNN reported Johnson as saying this morning:
The allegations are alarming and detestable, and I’ve said to him publicly and privately, he’s got to address that directly and head-on with his constituents. There’s a primary there in less than a week, these things will play out. So we’re allowing that to happen.
He had also told CBS Evening News yesterday that the allegations against Gonzales were “detestable”, but “we’re trying to sort it out”, adding that he would let the “due process here to play out as always”.
My understanding is he’s denied a lot of this, and we’re trying to sort it out … Now, it has been reported that the office of congressional conduct is investigating this, and has been for some time. And what we do here is we allow all the facts to play out.
Johnson has faced resisted growing calls from within the GOP to pressure Gonzales, of Texas, to resign over allegations that he had an affair with a staffer who later died by suicide.
Gonzales has previously denied having the affair and said he is being blackmailed, but has not addressed newly released text messages in which he appeared to ask the former staffer for intimate photos and discuss sex acts. He refused to resign yesterday after several GOP lawmakers publicly called for him to go.
The speaker had endorsed Gonzales’ bid for re-election “before any of this came up”. Gonzales faces a tough primary contest on 3 March against Brandon Herrera, a gun rights influencer who almost beat him in 2024.
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Trump's surgeon general nominee grilled over stances on vaccines and autism
Casey Means, Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for US surgeon general, is answering questions before lawmakers on the Senate committee for health, labor and pensions today. The surgeon general serves as the nation’s top doctor, responsible for disseminating the latest public health guidance.
Means, who has a medical degree but is not board-certified, and does not have an active medical license, declined to give a simple yes-or-no answer when the committee chair, Republican senator Bill Cassidy, pressed her on whether, if confirmed, she would encourage parents to vaccinate their children with routine shots such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. She said:
I’m supportive of vaccination. I do believe that each patient, mother, parent, needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they’re putting in their body and their children’s bodies.
When Cassidy asked whether she would state her position more clearly if confirmed, she replied: “I’m not an individual’s doctor, and every individual needs to talk to their doctor before putting a medication in their body.”
Her comments come as measles outbreaks continue across the country, with South Carolina experiencing the worst measles outbreak in more than 30 years amid declining childhood immunization rates.
In response, Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, urged Americans to “take the vaccine, please” earlier this month. In an interview with CNN, Oz issued a rare plea from the Trump administration to insist upon inoculation.
Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses. But measles is one you should get your vaccine.
While Means insisted that anti-vaccine rhetoric “has never been a part” of her message and said she was “not here to complicate the issue on vaccines”, she repeatedly sidestepped direct questions from lawmakers about whether vaccines cause autism – a theory long discredited by the scientific community and frequently promoted by Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
“The reality is that we have an autism crisis that’s increasing, and this is devastating to many families, and we do not know as a medical community what causes autism,” she said, while acknowledging that there is an overwhelming body of evidence refuting claims that vaccines cause the condition. “I also think that science is never settled, and I think that the effort to look at comprehensive, cumulative exposures into what is causing autism is important.”
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For her part, late last night after the speech, the Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar shared a video clip of her yelling that Trump should be ashamed of himself and said: “Donald Trump killed two of my constituents. He is a liar and should be ashamed of himself.”
Omar was referring to the two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, whom federal agents killed in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement surge this year.
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JD Vance called Democrats’ refusal to stand when Trump said they should stand for US citizens a “sad commentary” on the Democratic party.
Speaking to Fox News today, the vice-president said it was a “shame” that Democrats didn’t stand in what will surely serve as a moment crafted for Republicans to attack the left during the midterms.
“Something that I saw, that probably most TV viewers didn’t see, was really the cowardice, because there were a few Democrats who sort of politely clapped,” he said. “They didn’t want to stand up. I guess maybe they were worried about being primaried by the far-left fringe of their party. But they were all looking around … They were all looking around for cues from their colleagues because they didn’t have the courage to stand on their own.”
He said none of them had the “courage” to stand when the rest of their party wasn’t.
“They won’t even have the courage of their convictions,” he said. “They lean on the person to their left and their right rather than actually have some conviction. That is, unfortunately, what’s true about Democrats in Washington today.”
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Chuck Schumer says Trump is 'not protecting Americans'
The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said Democrats were right to remain seated when Trump called on the crowd to stand if they believed in protecting US citizens over undocumented immigrants, a line that Republicans are now using to call out Democrats.
“Bottom line is very simple, we agree we need to protect Americans. He’s not,” Schumer told CNN this morning. “By his reckless ICE agency in Minnesota, two Americans were killed. Americans are being pulled out of their cars and beaten. Americans’ houses, the doors are being knocked down without a warrant. And no other police department in America, run by Americans, has done what ICE has done.”
“So, yes, we want to protect Americans. He’s not doing it. And that’s why the American people are against what ICE is doing.”
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Alas, the supreme court rulings issued today were on smaller cases. We’ll continue to watch this week and beyond for these big rulings we’re waiting on, which carry consequences for voting rights and executive power.
Supreme court announcing decisions in number of cases
We are watching for potential rulings from the US supreme court this morning.
Some of the remaining cases we’re looking out for today could be:
a potential gutting of the voting rights act
whether Trump was legally able to oust a Fed governor or
Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a federal trade commissioner.
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Johnson says he came 'this close' to ejecting Omar and Tlaib from chamber during State of the Union
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, said he came “this close” to ejecting Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from the chamber during last night’s state of the union over their verbal protests to Trump’s remarks.
Trump told Democrats during the speech that they should be ashamed for not standing, Omar yelled back that he should be ashamed and repeatedly yelled “You have killed Americans!”
Johnson told Fox’s Sean Hannity that the retorts were “shameful”.
“I came this close to stopping them. We could have probably ejected them from the floor. I thought, let their actions speak for themselves,” he said. “If they’d gone a step further, I probably would have ejected them.”
But, he said, he thought they served as a nice “contrast” to Republicans, who were standing and celebrating and chanting throughout the speech.
“I think it was good for them to be there,” he said. “I think it’s good for the American people to see the shame that they brought upon their party and upon themselves.”
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More journalists and media workers killed in 2025 than in previous 30 years of data collected
A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows more journalists and media workers were killed in 2025 than any previous year since the committee started collecting data more than 30 years ago.
The committee found 129 members of the press killed in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israel. Of those killed by Israel in 2025, more than 60% were Palestinians reporting from Gaza, the report said.
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since CPJ began documentation in 1992,” the report said.
At least 104 of those counted in the report were killed in conflict, including in Ukraine, where four journalists were killed, and Sudan, where nine were killed.
The group has categorized 47 of those killings as targeted, the highest number of journalists killed deliberating for their work in the past decade. This rise in journalist deaths globally is “fueled by a persistent culture of impunity for attacks on the press,” citing few transparent investigations into these targeted killings.
The group said the rise in deaths comes alongside a near-record of journalists being jailed in 2025 as well.
“Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of CPJ. “Attacks on the media are a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators. We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”
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US diplomats ordered to work against foreign nations' attempts to regulate how US tech companies handle data
A newly revealed diplomatic cable calls on US diplomats to work against attempts by foreign nations to regulate how US tech companies handle their citizens’ data, as “data sovereignty initiatives” gather steam in Europe over security concerns.
More from Reuters:
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services.
Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information - initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.“
In the State Department cable, dated February 18 and signed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the agency said such laws would “disrupt global data flows, increase costs and cybersecurity risks, limit Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services, and expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorship.“
The cable said the Trump administration was pushing for “a more assertive international data policy” and that diplomats should “counter unnecessarily burdensome regulations, such as data localization mandates.”
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Some countries will face 15% tariffs, says US trade representative Jamieson Greer
Some countries will see a 15% tariff, US trade representative Jamieson Greer said Monday on Fox Business Network. He didn’t give any further details on which countries could see this higher rate, which would be an increase from an across-the-board 10% tariff Trump imposed after the US supreme court ruled against some of his tariffs.
“Right now, we have the 10% tariff. It’ll go up to 15 (%) for some and then it may go higher for others, and I think it will be in line with the types of tariffs we’ve been seeing,” Greer told the network.
He also said trade officials for the US and Canada spoke on Wednesday and expected to meet soon to discuss an agreement on trade.
“They have a few ideas on how they might want to have a deal with us. We’re obviously open to that,” Greer said.
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Donald Trump made history again on Tuesday evening, delivering the longest State of the Union address on record.
But while the president declared the ‘golden age of America’, many Democrats boycotted the event, telling the country Republicans are ‘making your life harder’.
The Guardian’s Jenna Amatulli talks to Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramírez about Trump’s claims, the Democrats’ rebuttal, and how the speech will land with a divided nation…
Iran’s negotiating delegation, led by foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, has left Tehran for Geneva to take part in a third round of nuclear negotiations, state media reported on Wednesday.
The United States has deployed a vast naval force near the Iranian coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic. US president Donald Trump said last week that he was giving Tehran about 10 to 15 days to make a deal.
The talks are set to take place on Thursday in Geneva, a senior US official said on Monday, with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner slated to meet with the Iranian delegation for the negotiations.
Donald Trump has claimed authorship of the Mexican military raid that led to the killing of the country’s most wanted man, the cartel boss known as El Mencho.
The drug lord, whose real name is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, died after a special forces operation in the Mexican state of Jalisco on Sunday which triggered an explosion of violence in at least 20 of Mexico’s 32 states.
“We've … taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all,” Trump boasted during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Mexico’s government has said the US provided “complementary intelligence” that led its troops to the cartel leader’s mountain hideout and the New York Times has reported that information about the drug trafficker’s location came from the CIA. But no US troops were directly involved in the assault and Mexico’s president has denied the operation was launched as a result of months of pressure and threats from Trump, calling such claims “almost laughable”.
However, during his speech the US president presented the killing of the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel as one of his numerous “wins”, claiming his administration was “restoring American security and dominance in the western hemisphere”.
“For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels. That’s why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organisations and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,” Trump said.
“With our new military campaign we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea.”
Trump also boasted of the capture of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro – who he had spuriously labelled a ‘narco-terrorist’ – at the start of the year.
“In January, elite American warriors carried out one of the most complex spectacular feats of military competence and power in world history. No one’s seen anything like it. Foreign leaders – I won’t tell you – called me and they said, ‘Very impressive,’” Trump said, calling the operation “an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States”.
Plenty of medals were dished out last night during Trump’s State of the Union address before Congress, with some of the recipients including service members and an Olympic athlete. The US president also expressed his continued interest in awarding himself the Medal of Honor, “but I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself”.
Here are some of last night’s honourees:
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Iran hits back at Trump ahead of Geneva talks
Trump’s comments on Iran have unsurprisingly provoked the ire of Tehran officials, which does not bode well for the nuclear talks scheduled for tomorrow.
The third round of indirect talks between the US and Iran will be attended by Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, along with Iranian officials. It is set to be held in Geneva and mediated by Oman.
The talks are taking place against the backdrop of increasing US military presence in the Middle East, with Trump previously warning “bad things” would happen if Iran does not agree to a nuclear deal.
Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, said his country remained committed to negotiations but that it was prepared to retaliate if the US threatened military action.
“If you choose the table of diplomacy – a diplomacy in which the dignity of the Iranian nation and mutual interests are respected – we will also be at that table,” he said, according to Iranian media.
“But if you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, flawed analysis and false information, and launch an attack in the midst of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the firm blow of the Iranian nation and the country’s defensive forces.”
Earlier, Esmail Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, likened the Trump administration to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, for conducting a “disinformation and misinformation campaign” against Tehran.
“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest is simply the repetition of ‘big lies’,” he wrote on X.
Why the longest-ever State of the Union address was the most inconsequential
He wanted to give the king’s speech. Donald Trump entered the US House chamber on Tuesday like a medieval monarch, with Republicans lined up eager to touch his royal robes (or, in two cases, grab a selfie with him). But within moments, the illusion was shattered.
As the US president strolled by, soaking up adulation, Democratic representative Al Green of Texas held aloft a handwritten sign: “Black people aren’t apes!” – a reference to Trump recently sharing a racist video depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama.
When the first State of the Union address of Trump’s second term got under way, Republicans moved in on Green menacingly and tried to tear the sign away. But he persisted until being escorted out for the second year in a row. As he departed, there were more acrimonious exchanges with Republicans, a few of whom tried to start a chant of “USA! USA!”
It was the first but not the last time that a person of color would take a stand during the wannabe autocrat’s record 107-minute speech while others remained silent or raucously egged him on. It was a night where Trump again sought to poison US politics and divide Americans along various fault lines, none more inflammatory than race.
Key takeaways from Trump’s State of the Union speech
During his one hour and 47 minute speech, the longest State of the Union address ever delivered, Donald Trump proclaimed a “turnaround for the ages” in his first year back in office, despite low public approval ratings and voter concerns over the state of the economy.
A resolute Trump sought to paint over the affordability concerns at the centre of upcoming midterm elections by insisting the good times are here. “Inflation is plummeting. Incomes are rising fast. The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” he said. Many voters, however, disagree, with recent polling showing the population harbouring significant doubts about his priorities.
The US president took aim at the Democrats, branding them as “crazy”, unelectable and anti-American. Several Democrats walked out early – Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, posted on Bluesky that he “couldn’t sit through an hour of Trump’s lies”.
Trump spent about three minutes talking about Iran without offering any clarity on his intentions regarding a possible attack against Tehran. He said he prefers to “solve this problem through diplomacy”, which did little to explain why he has assembled the largest US military presence in the Middle East in decades.
The former reality TV star welcomed several guests during his speech to present numerous presidential medals to “extraordinary American patriots”. These included the men’s hockey team that just won gold medals at the Winter Olympics, and a national guard soldier who survived a fatal shooting in Washington.
We factchecked some of the claims made by Trump during his speech, click on the link below to find out more:
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to our US politics live blog.
Iran has accused the US of spreading “big lies” about its missiles programme, after Donald Trump claimed Tehran was building weapons that could strike the US.
During his State of the Union speech last night, the US president said Iran has “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach” the US.
He described Iran as “the world’s number one sponsor of terror” and claimed at least 32,000 protesters were killed during recent unrest in the country.
The Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei rejected those claims, without mentioning Trump directly.
“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear programme, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest, is simply the repetition of ‘big lies’,” he posted on X.
His remarks came just a day before Iran and the US are due to hold a third round of Oman-mediated nuclear talks in Geneva. Trump said he preferred to solve tensions through diplomacy but that the US has not heard Iran say “those secret words – we will never have a nuclear weapon”.
Iran has repeatedly denied seeking a nuclear weapon and maintains that uranium enrichment is a sovereign right, but evidence over the years suggests it has tested materials and components directly related to the development of nuclear weapons.
Trump did little to explain why he has amassed the largest amount of US military power in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While he apparently has been weighing a military strike against Iran in recent weeks, he only spent about three minutes talking about Tehran in his near two-hour speech last night.
Read our full report on Trump’s State of the Union address here:
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