MAY 2025 EVENTS

A group of Christian leaders is denouncing the White House task force aimed at rooting out "anti-Christian bias" in a letter signed by two dozen religious leaders and scholars.

The full text of the letter is provided below.

“As Christian leaders representing millions of American Christians, we are deeply alarmed by

President Donald Trump’s authoritarian actions. His administration has attacked universities, law

firms, journalists and corporations in his quest to suppress dissent and weaken democracy. The

Trump administration has also targeted Christians, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic

Bishops, Lutheran Family Services, and the Episcopal bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar

Budde–all because their faithful work to care for “the least of these” does not align with the

Trump administration's political aims. Trump gave free rein to ICE agents to storm into churches

and other houses of worship, which desecrates our places of prayer. More than 10 million

Christians in the United States are vulnerable to deportation under Trump’s policies.

We affirm the power of the U.S. Constitution in guaranteeing our religious freedom by protecting

our ability to freely exercise our religious beliefs and the wisdom of our Founders to not

privilege any one religion. The Trump administration threatens both of these fundamental

freedoms in the manufacturing and implementation of the “Anti-Christian Bias Task Force.”

We reject the proposition that there is widespread persecution of Christians in the United States.

Christianity in America is diverse in its practices, beliefs, racial and ethnic backgrounds, political

affiliation and understanding of the way to manifest our beliefs in our work for the common good.

Marshalling the resources of the federal government for a nonexistent threat is a gross misuse of

taxpayer resources, especially when there has been a rise in not just bias but hate-based violence

against Jewish, Muslim, and other religious communities. We fear that the “Anti-Christan Bias

Task Force” will be weaponized to privilege one tradition within Christianity over others,

ironically creating anti-Christian bias even as it claims to combat it. We are also aware of how

claims of “anti-Christian bias” are shown to provide cover for white supremacy.

We are appalled by the hypocrisy of the Trump administration in shutting the door on our

siblings in Christ who are attempting to flee real Christian persecution around the world, and call

on the administration to restart the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Far from Trump as a

protector of Christians, the major threats to Christians in the United States are coming from

Trump’s own administration. Authoritarian theocracy does not serve the interests of Christians.

We have already seen that any Christian who steps out of line with this administration will be

targeted, which greatly diminishes how we can follow Christ.

We denounce the “Anti-Christian Bias Task Force” and call on the Trump administration to

immediately stop its attacks on Christians and Christian organizations. We will not sit idly by

while our faith and the name of Christ is used to justify the march towards authoritarianism.”

The letter was signed by the following:

Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, CEO and President, Interfaith Alliance (Organizer of letter)

Rev. Traci D. Blackmon, Founder, HopeBuilds, LLC

Rev. Thomas L. Bowen, Earl L. Harrison Minister of Social Justice, Shiloh Baptist Church of

Washington

Rev. Jennnifer Butler, CEO, Faith in Democracy

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., Author and historian

Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Distinguished University Professor, Vanderbilt

Rev. Dr. Shannon Fleck, Executive Director, Faithful America

Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, Chair, Public Missions, American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan

New York

Lisa Sharon Harper, President and Founder, Freedom Road.us

Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of

Christ) in the US and Canada

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Professor of History, Calvin University

Jeanné L. Lewis, CEO, Faith in Public Life

Bridget Moix, General Secretary, Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)

Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ

Joan Neal, Interim Executive Director, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice

Rev. Michael Neuroth, Director of the United Church of Christ's Office of Public Policy &

Advocacy

Doug Pagitt, Pastor and Executive Director of Vote Common Good

Reverend Sharon Prestemon, Acting Associate General Minister & Co-Executive of Global

Ministries, United Church of Christ

Bishop Dwayne D. Royster, Executive Director, Faith in Action Network

Dr. Stephen Schneck, Catholics for the Future

Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, President, Sojourners

Paul Tché, President, Christian Unity and Interfaith Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples

of Christ)

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice

& Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign

Jemar Tisby, PhD, Professor of History, Simmons College of Kentucky

Amanda Tyler, Executive Director, BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty)

Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, Ecumenical Officer, Council of Bishops, United Methodist

Church

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop new guidance for treating measles with drugs and vitamins, including promoting unproven treatments he claims are “miraculous”, even as the CDC warns against previous treatment recommendations made by RFK Jr. which could lead to toxicity in children.

"Secretary Kennedy will be enlisting the entire agency to activate a scientific process to treat a host of diseases, including measles, with single or multiple existing drugs in combination with vitamins and other modalities," the HHS spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.

While the CDC is continuing to recommend vaccination "as the most effective way to prevent the disease," the statement says they recognize some Americans "may choose not to vaccinate."

"Our commitment is to support all families — regardless of their vaccination status — in reducing the risk of hospitalization, serious complications, and death from measles," the statement said.

"We are developing now a worksheet for doctors to address the epidemic, to address people who have it, not just with vaccination, but actually with budesonide, with clarithromycin, with vitamin A and many, many other treatments that have been shown very effective," Kennedy said in a video published by local television station WFAA.

Kennedy has praised the use of the drugs budesonide and clarithromycin for treating measles, claiming "miraculous and instantaneous recovery" for some patients despite scant evidence for the recommendation. Unproven claims about success using the drugs stem from two Texas doctors — Dr. Ben Edwards and Dr. Richard Bartlett — who both have been criticized for their methods. 

"There is no cure for measles, and it can result in serious complications. It's misleading and dangerous to promote the idea that measles is easily treated using unproven and ineffective therapies like budesonide and clarithromycin," the American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, said last month of the claim.

Dr. James Campbell, vice chair of the AAP committee that develops recommendations for doctors treating measles and other infectious diseases, told CBS News earlier this year that while budesonide can help with lung inflammation and clarithromycin can fight off co-infections from other germs, neither were antivirals for fighting the measles virus infection itself. 

"In 2025, we should not have to treat measles in the U.S. because it is completely preventable, but of course, like all preventable diseases, we do," Campbell had said in an email.

Kennedy's request for the CDC comes days after the agency stepped up its warning against overuse of vitamin A, which does not cure measles infections but can be useful for reducing the risk of severe illness. High levels of vitamin A can be toxic.

"Vitamin A does not prevent measles and is not a substitute for vaccination. Consistent with guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, vitamin A may be administered to infants and children in the United States with measles under the supervision of a healthcare provider as part of supportive management," the CDC said in updated guidance for doctors last month.

The agency cautioned that giving too much vitamin A to children could lead to toxicity "and cause damage to the liver, bones, central nervous system, and skin."

This contradicts Kennedy saying people should use cod liver oil to treat measles in children, which the AAP says can be dangerous.

"It has high amounts of vitamin A, much higher than the recommended daily amounts. It also can make kids sick if they take too much. In addition to vitamin A, cod liver oil is high in vitamin D — another nutrient that can be harmful if kids take more than the recommended daily amount," the association says.

Central New Jersey News reports that Piscataway, NJ police officer Wesley Kliwinski, 37, has been arrested and charged following a sexual contact investigation by the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office and South Plainfield Police Department.

Kliwinski was arrested May 1 and charged with endangering the welfare of a child by engaging in sexual conduct, a third-degree crime, criminal sexual contact, a fourth-degree crime, and harassment, a petty disorderly persons offense. He was released from the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick following a Superior Court appearance.

An investigation began April 30 into allegations of a man following young women, including a child, around a store in South Plainfield with a clearly visible erection, according to police. Some of the conduct was captured on video surveillance, police said.

The investigation revealed the man allegedly engaged in the same behavior at another store in the area. The suspect was identified as Kliwinski, police said.

"The arrest of Officer Wesley Kliwinski on serious charges is deeply concerning and does not reflect the values and standards of the Piscataway Police Department. We hold our officers to a high standard and any allegations of criminal conduct are taken extremely seriously," said Gene Wilk, Piscataway public information officer.

Wilk said that upon learning of the allegations, the police department immediately took appropriate steps including suspending Kliwinski pending the outcome of the investigation.

On a Meet the Press interview airing on May 4 Trump stated that “Prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline,” He went on to say that “It went up to $3.90, even $4. And in California, $5 and $6. Right? Okay. I have it down to $1.98 in many states right now.”

For consumers nationwide, the average price of regular grade gasoline was $3.15 per gallon the week ending May 5, according to EIA data. That was up from about $3.11 per gallon when Trump began his second term earlier this year. Prices had been as high as $5 a gallon in 2022.

As for individual states, AAA said the lowest average price on May 7 was roughly $2.65 per gallon in Mississippi.

It is also important to note that presidents don’t control gasoline prices. The price is determined by the cost of crude oil, which is set on the global market based largely on supply and demand.

On Monday, ProPublica won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for public service for the series “Life of the Mother,” which the judges described as “urgent reporting about pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgently needed care for fear of violating vague ‘life of the mother’ exceptions in states with strict abortion laws.” The prize is given to the staff of a news organization that performed “meritorious public service.” This is the second consecutive year the organization was awarded the distinction. It is the eighth Pulitzer for ProPublica.

“America’s Mental Barrier,” an examination of how insurance companies interfere with access to necessary mental health care across the United States, was named a finalist in the explanatory reporting category.

On Thursday night, Trump said he was appointing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be the acting U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. She's replacing Ed Martin, whose Senate confirmation ran into trouble with both Republicans and Democrats.

In his announcement, Trump proudly cited Pirro's work for Fox, stating that The Five, which she co-hosted, is "one of the Highest Rated Shows on Television." 

According to liberal watchdog group Media Matters, Pirro is the 23rd Fox personality named to a high-ranking position in the Trump administration.

On Thursday, Trump was asked about the toy company Mattel stating it would bump up prices because of Trump’s 145 percent tariff on most Chinese exports. Trump responded “Mattel, I don’t know. I’m not so sure. They also said—they’re the only country I’ve heard, they said, ‘Well, we’re going to go counter. We’re going to try going someplace else.’ That’s okay,“ Trump said.

He went on to say,“Let him go, and we’ll put a 100 percent tariff on his toys. And he won’t sell one toy in the United States, and that’s their biggest market,” 

The New York Times reports that federal officials on Friday arrested Ras J. Baraka, the mayor of Newark, in a public area outside a new immigration detention facility that Newark officials claim opened without proper permits or authorization.

Mayor Baraka, a Democrat who is running for governor of New Jersey, was taken to a separate federal ICE facility in Newark and charged with trespassing. He was released about five hours later.

Alina Habba, a Trump lawyer who is now New Jersey’s interim U.S. attorney, claimed that Mayor Baraka was arrested because he had “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself,” and had chosen “to disregard the law,” despite videos taken by protesters showing Mayor Baraka being taken into custody in a public area outside the front entrance gates of the facility.

Three members of New Jersey’s Democratic congressional delegation, Representatives Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and LaMonica McIver, were at the building on Friday for an oversight visit, and were allowed to enter. 

Mayor Baraka was allowed past the front gate but was not allowed to accompany the members of Congress inside, according to a video taken by Viri Martinez, an immigration activist who witnessed the arrest.

In the video, members of Congress can be seen joining Mayor Baraka in an area inside the front gate after leaving the facility.

Representative McIver said that Mayor Baraka went outside to a public area where other protesters were gathered. “He walked himself out,” she said.

Representative Menendez can be heard on video telling Mr. Baraka: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”

The mayor replied: “I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me.”

Mr. Baraka, 55, was later taken into custody by a team of masked federal agents wearing military fatigues outside the gates in a driveway swarming with protesters and reporters.

Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, called the episode a “bizarre political stunt” in a social media post. She wrongly claimed Ms. Watson Coleman and Mr. Menendez, along with “multiple protesters,” had “holed up in a guard shack.”

“This illegal breaking and entering of a detention facility puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk,” Ms. McLaughlin said, despite the mayor never entering the facility. 

Newark officials have been arguing for weeks in federal court that the center’s owner, GEO Group, was violating city laws because it had failed to obtain required permits or a valid certificate of occupancy.

Mayor Baraka showed up at the facility with city inspectors on Tuesday and Wednesday seeking entry and was refused both times.

Federal officials and a spokesman for GEO Group, one of the country’s largest private prison companies, said the mayor had ignored established processes for requesting entry. They also said the facility has all the required permits.

“The mayor has been informed that he is more than welcome to enter the facility, as long as he follows security protocols like everyone else,” Ms. McLaughlin said on Tuesday after the mayor was denied entry.

In February, the Trump administration entered into a 15-year, $1 billion contract with GEO Group to turn Delaney Hall into a large detention center.

In a social media post, Ms. Watson Coleman, wrote that the facility had opened without permission from the city.

“We’ve heard stories of what it’s like in other ICE prisons,” she wrote. “We’re exercising our oversight authority to see for ourselves.”

A Newark native, Baraka is the son of poet and activist Amiri Baraka. 

Baraka edited the 1992 book In the Tradition: An Anthology of Young Black Writers.

Baraka was also featured on singer Lauryn Hill's 1998 The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, as the narrator of several interludes on the album. He also recorded the intro to The Score, the Fugees' second album.

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Turkish Tufts University doctoral student who was grabbed off the street by masked federal agents in suburban Boston more than six weeks ago, was released from federal custody on Friday.

She was released hours after Judge William K. Sessions of the U.S. District Court for Vermont ordered the Trump administration to free her. Accompanied by her lawyer, Öztürk walked out of the immigration detention center in rural Louisiana.

At a bail hearing earlier in the day, Judge Sessions said "I suggested to the government that they produce any additional information which would suggest that she posed a substantial risk," He went on to say, "And that was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed. That literally is the case. There is no evidence here."

Sessions added: "The court finds that Ms. Öztürk has raised a substantial claim of a constitutional violation."

He ordered her immediate release, rejecting the government's request that immigration officials be allowed to place conditions on her freedom. Sessions called Öztürk's experience "a traumatic incident" and said "her continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens."

Öztürk still faces possible deportation. 

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Friday that Trump and his team are “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown.

A writ of habeas corpus compels authorities to produce an individual they are holding and to justify their confinement. 

“Well, the Constitution is clear — and that of course is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller told reporters at the White House.

“So, it’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

The Constitution says habeas corpus may not be suspended “unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” 

The writ of habeas corpus has been suspended only four times, during the Civil War, in parts of South Carolina overrun by the Ku Klux Klan during reconstruction, in two provinces in the Philippines in 1905, and in Hawaii after the bombing at Pearl Harbor.

In an interview with Peruvian news outlet Semanario Expresión,  newly appointed Pope Leo XIV condemned Russia's war against Ukraine, characterizing it as a "a true invasion, imperialist in nature, where Russia seeks to conquer territory for reasons of power.”

Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Virginia Commonwealth University is withholding the degrees of three students who helped organize a campus gathering of about 40 students in support of Palestine last month that ended in a student’s arrest.

The three students will be able to participate in graduation events this weekend, but the university will not officially confer their degrees until it has resolved the disciplinary process.

On April 29, about 40 students gathered on the lawn outside Cabell Library. For three hours, VCU staffers, security and police warned students that their event was unauthorized and needed to move a short distance away.

When not every student left the most recent gathering, VCU police arrested one of them.

Aaron Hart, VCU’s vice president for student affairs, said the university generally tries to resolve such issues so students who commit minor violations eventually receive their degrees. Only when a student commits a serious crime or major academic violation does he or she risk not receiving a degree, Hart said.

While the Trump administration has suspended other refugee programs and halted arrivals from other parts of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, they are bringing Afrikaners to the United States as refugees. They say this is the start of a larger relocation effort for a minority group who they claim are being persecuted by their Black-led government because of their race.

Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group who were at the heart of South Africa’s previous apartheid system of white minority rule. There are around 2.7 million Afrikaners among South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80% Black. Afrikaners are among the richest and most successful people in the country, and they are among the most economically privileged.

The Trump administration’s refugee program only offers relocation to Afrikaners, who are largely seen as holding conservative and Christian values that might align with the politics of the Trump administration.

U.S. officials stated that the first group of more than two dozen Afrikaners from about four families will arrive Monday in Washington.

Trump and his South African-born adviser Elon Musk have accused the South African government of racist anti-white laws and policies, based on a small number of violent farm attacks and robberies on white people in rural communities.

The government says there is no targeting or persecution of white people in South Africa, and that the farm attacks are part of ongoing struggles with violent crime.

An Afrikaner group called AfriForum records farm attacks and said there were 49 farm homicides in South Africa in 2023. Those are set against a total of more than 20,000 homicides in South Africa a year. 

There have not been any reports on how many Afrikaners have applied for or been granted refugee status, but a U.S.-based South African business group said it had a list of tens of thousands who had expressed interest.

On May 11, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted photos of him swimming at Rock Creek Park with several of his grandchildren — the 1,754 acre city park in Washington, D.C. managed by the NPS.

"Mother's Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek," Kennedy wrote in a post on the social media platform X. In the photos, Kennedy is seen completely submerged in the water as well as helping a child wade through the water.

NPS currently prohibits swimming in Rock Creek due to the high levels of pollution from city runoff.

"Stay out of the water to protect streambanks, plants and animals and keep you and your family (including pets!) safe from illness," the NPS states on its front page for the park. "Rock Creek has high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading, and other contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) health."

The Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar with an estimated value of $400 million, a gift that is to be available for use by Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation.

In a social media post Sunday night, Trump confirmed his administration was preparing to accept the aircraft, calling it a "very public and transparent transaction" with the Defense Department.

Trump had previously toured the plane, which has been called "a flying palace," while it was parked at the West Palm Beach International Airport in February.

 The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday the state can keep banning abortions around six weeks  after conception by agreeing with the earliest interpretation offered of  when a heartbeat starts. 

RFK Jr. is ordering the FDA to review regulations around the highly prescribed abortion pill mifepristone, citing a new study that experts have called “fatally flawed” and “junk science.”

The report—entitled “The Abortion Pill Harms Women”—was published last month by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), a right-wing organization that was on the advisory board of Project 2025. The report claims that nearly 11 percent of women experience a “serious adverse event” within 45 days of taking mifepristone, whereas numerous other studies show less than one percent of people have serious complications. The report urges the FDA to reinstate more stringent protocols for accessing it and ultimately “reconsider its approval altogether.”

The Society of Family Planning (SFP), a nonprofit research and advocacy organization that supports abortion rights, noted in a May 2 letter to the FDA director that the report is not peer-reviewed, fails to reveal the database for their claims, lacks a standardized definition of “hemorrhage,” making it difficult to know if the report is characterizing normal post-abortion bleeding as a “serious adverse event”; and wrongly classifies emergency room visits and subsequent treatment to complete an abortion as “serious adverse events,” despite the FDA’s own guidance that emergency room visits alone should not be classified as “serious adverse events,” and that research shows people go to ERs after taking abortion pills for various reasons, including to ask questions about symptoms and to confirm they are no longer pregnant.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a committee of Democrats and Republicans Wednesday that the public should not heed medical advice from him, after skirting questions on whether or not he would vaccinate his children.

“If you had a child today, would you vaccinate that child for measles?” Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin asked at the hearing.

Kennedy replied “For measles? Um, probably for measles. What I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant.… I don’t want to seem like I’m being evasive, but I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me.”

When asked whether he would vaccinate his children against chickenpox, Kennedy said he did not want to give vaccine advice. He said the same in response to questioning about protecting against polio.

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Al Green, a Houston Democrat, filed a bill in the House calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. 

"I announced on the floor of the House of Representatives that I have filed H.Res.415 to impeach President Donald John Trump for condoning the flouting of federal court orders, flouting the separation of powers, undermining the independence of the federal judiciary, and flouting the constitutional mandate of due process — devolving our democracy into a de facto dictatorship with himself as the de facto dictator," Green said in a press release. 

His letter “To Whom It May Concern” provided explanation on why he filed the legislation. 

"I cannot, in good conscience, as a member of Congress, having said what I have said, and knowing what I know — wait until the next election to deal with authoritarian President Donald John Trump’s pre-election threat to American democracy that has become a post-election assault on our government," he wrote in the letter. 

Liz Huston, White House assistant press secretary, offered a statement in response Friday morning. 

"Every action taken by President Trump and his administration is fully lawful and firmly rooted in the will of the American people. President Trump is doing exactly what he promised: securing our border, bringing in trillions of dollars in investment to America, and restoring common sense leadership," she said in an email to the Houston Chronicle. "Meanwhile, Democrats are once again showing where their true priorities lie — siding with illegal immigrants over the safety, security and well-being of hardworking American citizens. This desperate impeachment stunt is nothing more than a reckless political act that the American people see right through.” 

Green previously filed Articles of Impeachment against Trump in December 2017, January 2018 and July 2019, each time citing "high misdemeanors." None of these bills were successful. 

Trump has been impeached twice already, first, in December 2019, over allegations he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to share information about Joe Biden in 2019, and again in 2021 when he was accused of inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted the president both times.

In Georgia, Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old pregnant Georgia woman, has been kept on life support for three months despite being declared brain-dead, due to the state’s abortion restrictions.

Adriana’s mother April Newkirk said the decision to keep her daughter alive was made without input from her family.

“This decision should’ve been left to us,” she told local NBC broadcaster WXIA-TV.

Smith, a registered nurse, was suffering serious headaches in February when she was nine weeks pregnant. An initial hospital visit ended with only a prescription for medication.

The next morning, when she was taken to the hospital where she worked, doctors found multiple blood clots in her brain, and she was declared brain dead.

Georgia law bans all abortion treatments after six weeks of pregnancy. 

Smith has been kept on life support ever since, and is now 21 weeks into her pregnancy.

A spokesperson for Emory Healthcare told NBC News that the health care system “uses consensus from clinical experts, medical literature, and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individualized treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”

“Our top priorities continue to be the safety and wellbeing of the patients we serve,” the spokesperson added.

According to the local NBC affiliate, the plan is to keep Smith alive until the point that doctors think her baby can survive outside the womb, likely around 32 weeks.

Georgia’s abortion law does include exceptions to protect the mother’s life. But because Smith is brain-dead, doctors do not have to take her health into account.

Georgia state Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican who sponsored the law, told The Associated Press that the hospital was making the right decision.

“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” he said. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately.” He added that the family members have “good choices” in how they can move forward, such as adoption or keeping the child.

But Smith’s mother told WXIA that doctors were concerned after discovering fluid on the baby’s brain.

“She’s pregnant with my grandson. But my grandson may be blind, may not be able to walk ... we don’t know if he’ll live once she has him,” Newkirk said.

Along with the emotional toll, Smith’s relatives are dealing with the financial burden of keeping their daughter on life support.

“Every day that goes by, it’s more cost, more trauma, more questions,” Newkirk told WXIA.

The Department of Homeland Security has asked for 20,000 National Guard troops to assist with immigration roundups across the country, and the Pentagon is reviewing the request, a U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press.

DHS asked for the troops to help carry out Trump’s “mandate from the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens,” department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said. She said DHS will ”use every tool and resource available” to do so because the “safety of American citizens comes first.”

These National Guard units would come from the states and be used to assist in deportation operations in the interior of the country.

The author announced in a Saturday post to X that she would be founding the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, using her personal fortune. The website for the group states that it “offers legal funding support to individuals and organisations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces.”

It is not the first time Rowling has used her over $1 billion net worth to influence legal cases involving so-called women’s sex-based rights - Rowling donated £70,000 (roughly $88,200) to the anti-trans group For Women Scotland in 2024 after it lost its challenge to a 2018 Scottish law that legally recognized trans women as women. The group appealed its case to the U.K. Supreme Court, which ruled last month that trans women aren’t considered women under the nation’s Equality Act.

Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus spent three days asking guards at Richwood Correctional Center for help before she was hospitalized, where physicians said she lost her pregnancy due to a lack of prenatal care.

“I had him inside here for three days, in this Louisiana facility, my baby dead in my stomach, inside my stomach for three days, dead,” she said.

Just a few months ago, Monterroso-Lemus and her partner, Gary Bivens, expected to welcome their baby in August or September. 

Then, in mid-March, Monterroso-Lemus was detained by ICE. She said she was initially picked up by Lenoir City Police after missing a court hearing related to a child custody case. She had temporarily transferred custody of two of her six children to her mother and was in the process of regaining it. She said the hearing had been scheduled for a Saturday, and she wasn’t able to attend. Bivens posted her bail, but ICE already had placed a detainer hold on her by then.

After she was arrested, she was transferred several times. She said she went from Illinois, back to Tennessee, then to Alabama — spending about a week or two in each facility — before she was sent to the Richwood during the first week of April.

The Richwood immigration detention facility has a long history of documented abuse. A 2023 report from the Department of Homeland Security cited violations that compromised the health, safety, and rights of detainees.

Once in Louisiana, she said she often felt she was “starving,” and that she wasn’t getting the nutrients she needed, adding that the food was so disgusting that many would throw it away rather than eat it. She also said she experienced mistreatment and mocking from the guards.

She repeatedly asked for an ultrasound to make sure her pregnancy was healthy, but that the staff only monitored her blood pressure and tested her urine.

It wasn’t until April 29 that she was finally admitted to a hospital, Ochsner LSU Health – Monroe Medical Center.

That day she went through spontaneous vaginal delivery after experiencing intrauterine fetal death. The clinical notes state that the pregnancy was “complicated by no PNC,” meaning she had received no prenatal care. She gave birth under the constant watch of two federal guards.

“When I was delivering my baby, they didn’t even give me a little privacy,” she said. “One time, they even shackled my feet because they thought I might escape. Like I was some kind of criminal. I told them, ‘What you’re doing to me isn’t right.’”

Iris was deported to Guatemala, a country she hadn’t called home in more than a decade. 

Meanwhile, her partner was left in the dark about it all, as she was not allowed to contact him. Finally, a friend of hers in detention contacted him. 

Not long after he finally managed to get in touch with Monterroso-Lemus and learn that they lost the pregnancy, he received a call.

“Twenty minutes later, I had a social worker call me and [say], ‘Well, what do you want to do with the baby’s remains?’” he said.

“I said, ‘Excuse me? I just found out, like 20 minutes ago, that the baby’s deceased and you’re already calling me?’ That is so disrespectful in my opinion … like they were trying to rush it.” 

“And she said, ‘Oh, well, you can only keep that baby in a cold’ — they call it a cold, a cold crib — ‘for a day.’ I said, ‘Well, so be it,’” he said. 

Feeling pressured, he accepted cremation. The next thing he knew, they requested that he pay to have the baby’s remains mailed.

“They actually said I had to pay for the shipment for my baby to come home to Tennessee,” Bivens said, as his eyes welled with tears. 

Elon Musk announced Wednesday that he is leaving his government role as a top adviser to  Trump.

Axios reports that in a meeting last week, White House's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that immigration agents seek to arrest 3,000 people a day, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

Miller laid into top immigration officials during the May 21 meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in D.C., according to four people familiar with the meeting.

Miller demanded that field office directors and special agents in charge get arrest and deportation numbers up as much as possible.

Miller had people leaving the meeting feeling their jobs could be in jeopardy if the new targets aren't reached, two of the sources said. 

Part of the Trump-backed "big beautiful bill" that passed the House last week provides an extra $147 billion in immigration funds over the next 10 years.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) has filed a federal  lawsuit against the White House over a lack of American Sign Language  interpreters at media briefings. 

The NAD says the White House  abruptly stopped providing ASL interpreters during press briefings and  other public events when Trump returned to office.

The lawsuit,  filed on Wednesday, asks the court to require ASL interpreters be  present at press briefings and that video of them be available for viewers.

ProPublica reports that American diplomats in Malawi and Kenya have recently delivered internal reports to Washington that document how the Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign aid is bringing about the violence and chaos that many had warned would come.

Trump’s administration, working alongside DOGE, swiftly dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, canceling thousands of government-funded foreign aid programs they considered wasteful. More than 80% of USAID’s operations were terminated, crippling lifesaving humanitarian efforts around the world.

The vacuum left after the U.S. abandoned its humanitarian commitments has destabilized some of the most fragile locations in the world and thrown refugee camps further into unrest, according to State Department correspondence and notes obtained by ProPublica.

Malawi - In the southeastern African country of Malawi, U.S. funding cuts to the United Nations’ World Food Programme have “yielded a sharp increase in criminality, sexual violence, and instances of human trafficking” within a large refugee camp. The world’s largest humanitarian food provider, the WFP projects a 40% decrease in funding compared to last year and has been forced to reduce food rations in Malawi’s sprawling Dzaleka refugee camp by a third.

Kenya- The U.S. embassy in Kenya reported that news of funding cuts to refugee camps’ food programs led to violent demonstrations. At one protest, police responded with gunfire and wounded four people. Refugees have also died at food distribution centers, including a pregnant woman who died under a stampede. The WFP will cut its rations in June down to less than 600 calories a day per person, the WFP’s Kenya country director Lauren Landis told ProPublica. The WFP’s standard minimum for adults is 2,100 calories per day.

“It is devastating, but it’s not surprising,” Eric Schwartz, a former State Department assistant secretary and member of the National Security Council during Democratic administrations, told ProPublica. “It’s all what people in the national security community have predicted.”

“I struggle for adjectives to adequately describe the horror that this administration has visited on the world,” Schwartz added. “It keeps me up at night.”

A federal appeals court temporarily reinstated the most sweeping of Trump's tariffs on Thursday, a day after a U.S. trade court ordered an immediate block on them.

The trade court ruled that the Constitution gave  Congress, not the president, the power to levy taxes and tariffs, and  that Trump exceeded his authority by invoking the  International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to address  threats during national emergencies. 

The  United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington  said it was pausing the lower court's ruling to consider the  government's appeal, and ordered the plaintiffs in the cases to respond  by June 5 and the administration by June 9.

More than 300 cultural figures across the United Kingdom and Ireland have signed a letter demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and unrestricted aid to people there facing starvation.

Signatories include bestselling writers such as Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson, Zadie Smith and Pico Iyer. Musician Brian Eno and Russell T. Davies.

"The government of Israel has renewed its assault on Gaza with unrestrained brutality," the letter says. "Public statements by Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir openly express genocidal intentions. The use of the words 'genocide' or 'acts of genocide' to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations."

The letter also calls the atrocities committed by Hamas "crimes of war" and "crimes against humanity."

"We reject and abhor attacks, hate and violence — in writing, speech and action — against Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish people in all and any form," the letter says, which also demands sanctions against the state of Israel if the government does not agree to a ceasefire.

KFF Health News and NPR report that since Trump was reelected, American doctors have shown skyrocketing interest in becoming licensed in Canada.

The Medical Council of Canada said in an email statement that the number of American doctors creating accounts on physiciansapply.ca, which is "typically the first step" to being licensed in Canada, has increased more than 750% over the past seven months compared with the same time period last year — from 71 applicants to 615. Separately, medical licensing organizations in Canada's most populous provinces reported a rise in Americans either applying for or receiving Canadian licenses, with at least some doctors disclosing they were moving specifically because of Trump.

Experts who study the nation's food supply say food safety across the United States is at risk due to massive cuts by the Trump administration to the three federal agencies charged with monitoring it: the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These agencies coordinate and fund a lot of the complex work that makes up the country's food safety surveillance system, while state and local regulators and inspectors conduct a lot of work on the ground.

"Our federal food safety system is teetering on the brink of a collapse," says Sarah Sorscher, a policy expert at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. She's most concerned about the loss of expertise from recent job cuts, but also worries about recent policy moves, like the administration's rollback of new USDA food-safety rules regarding poultry salmonella levels.

Last month, the Trump administration also abruptly shuttered two of the FDA's seven food testing labs in San Francisco and Chicago, which delayed seafood inspections and routine produce testing. Food samples had to be shipped to other labs, where a shortage of staff and basic lab supplies made it difficult to triage the workload.

This month, the labs were reopened, but Sorscher says the damage has been done. "It's as if you took a chainsaw and started cutting holes out of the walls of a house," she says. "You can't really point to the fact that the doors or windows are still there and say, 'Don't worry, the house is secure.'"

The San Francisco Standard reports that a day after ICE agents swooped into San Francisco Immigration Court to take four people into custody, the federal government sent them an unusual email.

“I have a request to ask if you would consider blurring the faces of our officers and agents,” ICE spokesperson Richard Beam wrote Wednesday. “Out of a concern for the safety of our personnel I wanted to simply ask.”

Beam was referring to photos and videos The Standard published Tuesday, showing ICE agents loading a handcuffed immigrant into a van along Montgomery Street in the heart of the Financial District. 

ICE would “normally not make such a request,” Beam said, adding that he “fully” respects the media’s right to take photos in public spaces. 

The Standard did not comply with the request.

“While we always weigh legitimate concerns around privacy and safety, we believe that censoring images from this news event would set a harmful precedent for the media’s right to report and the public’s right to know,” managing editor Jeff Bercovici said.

ICE later defended the request, writing that the agency “takes the safety and security of its personnel as a priority.”

“Some ICE law enforcement personnel are certified undercover agents and may be actively participating in sensitive investigations that involve an undercover identity,” the agency wrote.

ICE added that it asks media to blur photos “as a matter of routine” — contradicting Beam’s earlier note about “normally not” making such a request.

NBC Bay Area blurred footage of agents in a segment it posted Tuesday but did not in several others. The station did not reply to requests for comment.

ICE itself posts the names and photos of undocumented immigrants who have no apparent criminal records. Families of detained immigrants have also accused ICE agents of “mocking” and filming their loved ones on personal cellphones. 

The article stated that Musk told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

Musk and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment about his drug use and personal life. He has previously said he was prescribed ketamine for depression, taking it about every two weeks. And he told his biographer, “I really don’t like doing illegal drugs.”

At a news conference with Trump on Friday afternoon, Musk was asked about The New York Times’s coverage. He questioned the newspaper’s credibility and told the reporter to “move on.” He later said on social media that he did not use drugs. That evening, Trump told reporters that he was not aware of regular drug use by Musk. “I’m not troubled by anything with Elon,” he said. “I think he’s fantastic.”

As a large government contractor, Musk’s aerospace firm, SpaceX, must maintain a drug-free work force and administers random drug tests to its employees. But Musk has received advance warning of the tests, according to people close to the process. SpaceX did not respond to questions about those warnings.

The New York Times reports that Trump has enlisted Palantir, founded by far-right billionaire Peter Thiel, to carry out his March executive order instructing government agencies to share data with each other. 

Palantir supplies data analysis software—called “spy tech” by its critics—to governments and companies. That software has reportedly been used to help generate “kill lists” for the Israeli Defense Forces, target immigrant families for deportation from the United States, and enable rogue employees to spy on co-workers.

Palantir has taken more than $113 million in government spending since Trump took office, from existing contracts and new ones with the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. The firm also just won a new $795 million contract with the DOD last week.

Palantir is speaking with various other agencies across the federal government, including the Social Security Administration and the IRS, about buying its technology, according to the Times. Palantir’s Foundry tool, which analyzes and organizes data, is already being used at the DHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, and at least two other agencies.

On a call with investors in February of 2025, Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp spoke about their role in working with the government.

“I’m very happy to have you along for the journey,” Karp said. “We are crushing it. We are dedicating our company to the service of the West and the United States of America, and we’re super-proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about.” 

“Palantir is here to disrupt,” he continued. “And, when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.”