President Trump signed an executive order Monday titled "Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations," cutting the number of vaccines recommended for children from 18 down to 11. Parents gain more flexibility to space out shots across separate visits, and the combined MMR vaccine can now be split into three single-disease injections. The Department of Justice is also directed to investigate states that may be overriding parental rights or religious exemptions in vaccine mandates.
Trump's SAVE America Act — which would require proof of citizenship to vote — is shelved after a chaotic all-night Senate session that ended with senators simply walking out. Sen. Mike Lee had vowed to force a floor vote and block adjournment, but no objection ever came. Senate Majority Leader John Thune defied the President's calls to cancel recess, and Congress departed Saturday morning without passing the bill.
Voters in Connecticut, Vermont, Minnesota, and Wisconsin head to the polls today, with a special Senate primary in South Carolina also on the ballot. Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary is the marquee race, coming on the heels of a string of progressive wins earlier this year. Political analysts are watching the results as a direct test of the Democratic Socialists of America's growing influence inside the party ahead of November.
Republican Rep. Max Miller is trailing by eight points in Ohio's 7th congressional district — a seat President Trump won by eleven points in 2024, a nineteen-point swing. The polling is raising red flags among GOP strategists as the party eyes its midterm map heading into November.
Ten weeks of intensifying protests in Hong Kong have prompted urgent warnings from US lawmakers, as China's People's Armed Police are reportedly massed in nearby Shenzhen under the cover of "military exercises." Officials are calling for restraint on both sides, but warn that a Chinese military intervention could trigger a historic rupture in US-China relations.
Iranian officials close to President Pezeshkian's government are privately fearing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may be near death, with one source saying they "would not be surprised" by news of his martyrdom. Iran released a video Sunday purportedly showing a healthy Khamenei, though analysts and the White House are questioning when it was actually filmed. Trump says he's "hearing he's not alive" and is taking a "low-keying" approach, relying on economic pressure rather than military action for now.
Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is now Britain's Prime Minister after Keir Starmer's resignation, having won a by-election just weeks before being invited by King Charles to form a government. Burnham is calling for a "new political model" and plans to shift some government operations from London to Manchester — a concept he's calling "No. 10 North."
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman confirmed the space agency has captured footage of objects it cannot identify, including imagery from the Apollo missions and from airspace over Iraq and Greece in recent years. Isaacman said the agency is dealing with "real unexplained phenomena" — not crashed ships or alien bodies, but objects the available data simply cannot account for. The Trump administration has released two rounds of declassified UAP files as part of a broader transparency effort.
A new investigation from The Federalist reveals the American Society for Reproductive Medicine — the nation's leading fertility lobby — has been funding experiments including research on depriving embryos of oxygen and pushing state laws to define embryos as non-persons. ASRM successfully lobbied Tennessee this year to require all fertility clinics to be ASRM-certified, effectively enshrining ASRM's own ethical guidelines as state law.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly announced and livestreamed herself beginning the egg-freezing process on Instagram Saturday, prefacing it with: "Don't be weird about this — even though I know all of you will." She framed the decision as a choice to feel more in control of her future while taking aim at the Trump administration's record on women's reproductive health. She has not ruled out a 2028 presidential run — and the internet was, as predicted, immediately weird about it.
