RFK Jr. Refuses to Disclose to Senate Details of Two “Misconduct” Cases He Settled

On Friday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., responding to written questions from Senate Democrats, revealed information about his personal history that was not yet part of the public record: He had settled at least one case in which he had been accused of “misconduct or inappropriate behavior.” Kennedy also acknowledged that he had been party to at least one non-disclosure agreement.

But in that reply Kennedy provided no details about these allegations. He only offered a one-word reply when asked if he had ever been accused in such a fashion: “Yes.”

Consequently, Senate Democrats followed up with another written query to Kennedy, the anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. This was the request:

Please describe the nature of the financial settlements (including total
amounts) and non-disclosure agreements reached and what these agreements involved. Please also indicate how many of these settlements and non-disclosure agreements you have signed.

On Sunday, Kennedy submitted his response:

Twice, I have been targeted by frivolous, unfounded allegations, which I
strenuously denied at the time and continue to deny. I entered into confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements to prohibit these individuals from continuing to make these allegations.

This was not a full answer. The Senate Democrats had asked for the total amounts of the settlements, and Kennedy did not provide that information. Nor did this response indicate what “misconduct or inappropriate behavior” had been alleged.

In this reply, Kennedy stressed that he denied the allegations, whatever they had been. But how can senators assess his refutation?

During his confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), noting that “character matters,” asked Kennedy about the allegation from Eliza Cooney, who had been a babysitter for Kennedy’s family, that Kennedy had once groped her.

Murray noted that after the allegation became public in July Kennedy said he was “not a church boy… I have so many skeletons in my closet.” (He did not deny Cooney’s accusation.) Murray also pointed out that Kennedy had texted an apology to Cooney claiming he had no memory of the incident.

Kennedy shot back at Murray with a new position: “That story has been debunked.” Murray asked why then had he apologized to Cooney. Kennedy said, “I apologized to her for something else.”

But that was not how the text he sent to Cooney came across. It read, “I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.”

At the hearing, Kennedy did not specify what the “something else” was for which he had apologized to Cooney.

Kennedy’s exchange with Murray might lead senators to question the validity of his denial of the accusations of inappropriate behavior that he fended off with confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. What happened in these two cases remains a mystery.

After Kennedy initially disclosed the existence of these agreements, Senate Democrats did not raise a fuss about these accusations. With his nomination heading toward a committee vote and possibly a floor vote this upcoming week, it’s unclear whether the allegations of misconduct that Kennedy smothered will play any role in the fight over his confirmation. Kennedy’s stonewalling may well succeed.

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Elon Musk May Now Have Unique Sway Over the US Treasury

Late Friday, newly sworn-in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave access to the agency’s payments system to representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, created by President Donald Trump and headed by Elon Musk. A strike force of Musk lackeys appears to be pursuing a takeover of key background systems of the US government—from human resources to physical buildings to software systems to, now, what is essentiallythe country’s central bank account. At this point, Musk’s people reportedly cannot control payments, only view them, but how long that arrangement will last is unclear.

Treasury’s payment system processes more than $5 trillion annually, paying the countries bills. This includes Social Security checks and tax refunds, which means the system includes sensitive personal information on tens of millions of Americans. A Sunday headline from New York Magazine, “Elon Musk May Have Your Social Security Number,” is not an exaggeration.

When Musk, the world’s richest man, took over Twitter, he cut costs by simply refusing to make payments. From rent for the company’s headquarter offices in San Francisco to janitorial services, Musk’s approach was to simply stop paying the bills and see what happens. (Employees were forced to use bathrooms in other buildings.)

A similar approach to the United States government, however, promises to be catastrophic. One scenario is that shutting off payments to federal grantees and nonprofits could cause rapid harm. And this could come at the whims of extremist ideological allies of Trump. For example, his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a Christian nationalist and purveyor of misinformation (who lied to the FBI and was later pardoned by Trump), posted on X information about federal payments to Lutheran Family Services, which along with its affiliates provides a wide range of services, including counseling. Musk retweeted Flynn’s post promising “The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.” The illegal actions would in fact appear to be Musk’s own—Congress appropriates federal funds, but Musk is acting as if the law will never catch up to him.

Musk’s tweet may be getting ahead of the reality of what he and his team are doing at the moment. But imagine if the US government were to stop paying bills because a billionaire saw a social media post from a conspiracy theorist urging him to do so.

“Fitch and everyone else should downgrade US credit,” Dean Baker, and economist at the progressive Center for Economy and Policy Research, posted on Bluesky. “If a bill gets paid only if Elon Musk or Donald Trump feels like it, then the US is not very creditworthy.”

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, issued a similar warning. “To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” he said in a statement late Friday. “The federal government is in a financially precarious position, currently utilizing accounting maneuvers to continue paying its bills since it reached the debt limit at the beginning of the year. I am concerned that mismanagement of these payment systems could threaten the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Economists have long warned that should the United States miss a debt payment, it would send shockwaves through the world economy. On the domestic front, the Trump administration this past week attempted to withhold billions in federal aid through an Office of Management and Budget memo instructing agencies to temporarily halt payments. The attempt was “wildly illegal,” according to experts, and two federal judges have halted much of that effort. Now, it may be possible for Musk and his underlings themselves to simply withhold payments they disagree with. Theoretically, rather than asking agencies to cut spending, Musk could move to cut off the funds from Treasury.

“I am deeply concerned that following the federal grant and loan freeze earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk may have intended to access these payment systems to illegally withhold payments to any number of programs,” Wyden said in statement.

According to reporting in Politico, the Doge team doesn’t have the capability to withhold or change payments—at least not yet. Instead, access by Doge’s Treasury representative, software executive Tom Krause, is “read-only.” But warning signs of a hostile takeover have been flashing.For example, Musk’s team literally took over Office of Personnel Management computer systems this past week, locking OPM officials out of them. They have been taking down entire government websites and datasets, causing public-facing information and research to disappear before Americans’ eyes in Orwellian fashion. And over the weekend, Doge representatives demanded classified information from USAID that they lacked clearances for, according to CNN, despite that the executive order creating Doge explicitly exempts classified information from its efforts. When USAID security officials refused to comply, they were put on leave.

The power that comes with controlling US government payments is vast. How Musk and Trump might try to leverage that against political or legal opponents—say, against states that file lawsuits they don’t like—is sobering to consider. So far, the GOP-controlled Congress seems willing to let them do whatever they want.

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We May Be Eating Microbes Soon, and That’s a Good Thing

This story was originally published b_y Undark a_nd is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

As a teenager growing up in Nigeria, Helen Onyeaka was obsessed with microorganisms. The tiny lifeforms, which include bacteria and yeast, can be grown quickly and in huge quantities. Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency. “I used to dream microbes as food,” she recently recalled.

Today, Onyeaka is an industrial microbiologist and a deputy director of the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action, at the University of Birmingham in the UK. In her lab, she is testing her decades-old hypothesis, trying to identify microorganisms that could one day serve as an alternative protein source while using a fraction of the land, water, and industrial fertilizer needed to support traditional crops and livestock.

As a teenager, industrial microbiologist Helen Onyeaka dreamed of using microbes as food. She now researches microorganisms that could one day serve as a alternative protein source with a lower environmental footprint than traditional crops and livestock.Courtesy of Helen Onyeaka

She’s not the only person studying what are sometimes called single-cell proteins or edible microorganisms. While human diets have long included relatively small quantities of microbes—think of the live bacteria in yogurt, or the oven-killed yeast in bread—researchers at universities and dozens of startups across the globe are now investigating whether some microbes could serve as a caloric substitute for a wide range of foods and ingredients, including eggs, milk, meat, and flour.

Some products have already been cleared for sale in the US. And, late last year a Finnish company called Solar Foods completed requirements, outlined by the Food and Drug Administration, that allow the company to sell a powdery protein made of pasteurized bacteria.

Edible microbes face considerable hurdles to going mainstream, however. Would-be producers need to ensure that their organisms are safe to eat in large quantities and amenable to mass production. And ideally, any new product should look, feel, and taste as good as the food it replaces—and be able to overcome any skepticism from consumers uncertain about using bacteria in their kitchen.

For now, few edible microbes are ready for primetime, according to Onyeaka and other experts. Still, said Onyeaka, “the potential is there.”

According to a report from the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for alternative proteins, at least 80 companies are focused on producing food from yeast, bacteria, fungi, certain strains of algae, and other microorganisms. Some products are already on the market, wrote Adam Leman, a GFI scientist. In an email to Undark, he pointed to Quorn, a meat substitute made from fungal cells that was launched in 1985.

Over the past decade, a boomlet of new companies has emerged. Among them is Solar Foods. Prior to co-founding the company in 2017, CEO Pasi Vainikka worked for a government-owned research center, where he oversaw the largest renewable energy program in Finland. Agriculture is responsible for a large portion of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, said Vainikka. Cow burps and deforestation are particularly problematic.

CEO of Solar Foods, Pasi Vainikka, poses next to a small fermentation machine — a vessel in which the bacteria that make Solein are grown, also called a bioreactor — at the company’s pilot facility. Solar Foods

One solution, Vainikka continued, is to replace livestock with an organism that doesn’t produce much greenhouse gas or require fertile land. His company selected a bacterium from nature that doesn’t eat sugar or perform photosynthesis. Instead, it gets its energy from hydrogen. At the company’s factory in Finland, carbon dioxide is captured from the surrounding air. Electricity is used to split water molecules, freeing up hydrogen atoms. The microbes multiply in a fermentation machine as they consume the hydrogen, the carbon dioxide, and a few additional nutrients, such as calcium and phosphorous. The microbes multiply as they consume the hydrogen, the carbon dioxide, and a few additional nutrients, such as calcium and phosphorous.

Eventually, the bacteria are removed from the fermenter, pasteurized, and dried. The final product—dubbed Solein—is about 75 percent protein, has a yellow hue, and tastes a bit like mushrooms. Solein has been used in restaurants in Singapore, said Vainikka, including as a milk substitute in ice cream. The company recently filed paperwork with US regulators saying that the ingredients are generally recognized as safe, and according to Vainikka, the goal is to introduce Solein as an ingredient in packaged goods at some point in 2025.

In her UK lab, Onyeaka is growing Chlorella vulgaris, a green single-celled algae about 2 to 10 microns in diameter—roughly the width of a strand of spider silk. She and a graduate student feed the algae different nutrients to influence its protein content. The end goal, said Onyeaka, is to grow nutritious algae in quantities large enough to be used as flour by the baking industry. “At the end of the work, we’re going to be making green bread, green cakes—so watch out,” she said with a laugh.

Onyeaka readily admits her Chlorella has a long way to go. Last November, she co-authored a review article noting the significant challenges along that path—including high production costs and the organism’s capacity to accumulate heavy metals from the surrounding environment. She and her team will eventually have to ensure that the microbe is safe for human consumption by testing it for potential toxins and allergens, among other risks.

Another issue highlighted in the review paper: Chlorella doesn’t taste very good. (The researchers describe “an earthy, strong flavor and smell” that is “quite unpleasant” to some consumers.) The product may need to be blended with other strong-flavored ingredients, the paper suggests, or perhaps researchers might look for new, more mild strains.

Solein didn’t work as an egg substitute in Baxtrom’s carrot crepe. But he did use it to replace the crepe’s butter and milk. Solar Foods

Some people are finding ways to make microbes delicious. Chef Greg Baxtrom was initially approached to see if he’d be interested in serving a meal featuring Solein at his Brooklyn restaurant, Olmsted. He didn’t want to force the new product onto the menu, he said, but was curious to see if he might be able to use the protein-rich powder to create egg- or dairy-free versions of some of the restaurant’s classic dishes.

He couldn’t get the Solein to work as an egg substitute in his carrot crepe. But he could get it to replace the crepe’s butter and milk. And Solein did work as an egg substitute in a beer batter for squash rings. Ultimately, he found it worked particularly well as a milk substitute in spaetzle, a German noodle traditionally made from milk, flour, and eggs.

Chef Greg Baxtrom has used Solein to create egg- or dairy-free versions of his Brooklyn restaurant’s classic dishes.Solar Foods

Baxtrom said he planned to experiment with the product a bit more in January. “I’m not going to try to force it, but if it works, then great,” he said. “I can accommodate more allergies.”

Vainikka said that he frequently consumes Solein in dishes served at the small restaurant located within Solar Foods’ headquarters. In the long run, he said, he sees the business as “an organism company with a selection of different strains for different purposes.” A person might balk at glass of yellow milk made from Solein, he pointed out, but perhaps there’s a white microbe that would be less visually objectionable. The company could also supply microbes with different tastes, textures, and nutritional profiles, said Vainikka.

For her part, Onyeaka is looking beyond academia, communicating with companies that share her interest in Chlorella. Using advanced molecular tools, one Chinese company has learned that the typically green microbe can change colors, depending on what it’s fed, she said.

She added, “Chlorella is just amazing.”

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Trump’s Trade War Is Here and Promises to Get Ugly

As he ran for a second term, President Donald Trump promised to impose sweeping tariffs. On Saturday, he pressed the launch button. In three executive orders, Trump placed 25 percent tariffs onalmost all imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10 percent tariff on goods from China. In response, Canada announced its own 25 percent tariff on more than $100 billion in American goods. Mexico and China similarly promised retaliation.

The trade war that mostdismissed as too economically disastrous to actually undertake is nowhere. In a lesson many analysts and commentators fail to learn over and over, it is wise to take Trump both seriously and literally.

With the economies of the US and its two neighbors tightly intertwined, imposing tariffs will not just raise prices but also disrupt manufacturing. According to economist Paul Krugman, the tariffs represent the end of an integrated North American manufacturing hub that mutually benefited all three nations. “Now we have a US president saying that a duly negotiated and signed trade pact isn’t worth the paper it was printed on—that he can impose high tariffs on the other signatories whenever he feels like it,” Krugman wrote on his Substack. “And even if the tariffs go away, the private sector will know that they can always come back; the credibility of this trade agreement, or any future trade agreement, will be lost. So North American manufacturing will disintegrate—that is, dis-integrate—reverting to inefficient, fragmented national industries.”

Immediate effects loom. The National Homebuilder Association warned Trump that the tariffs will raise building costs, worsening the nation’s housing crisis by slowing construction and pushing home prices upward. Automobile costs, already high, will likely rise, as auto parts cross both the northern and southern border multiple times in the process of manufacturing American cars.

Economically, a trade war seemed like such a bad idea that financial institutions and individuals didn’t really believe it would happen. Less than two weeks ago, Goldman Sachs put the likelihood of Trump’s promised tariffs at 20 percent. The staunchly right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board on Friday called the tariffs “The Dumbest Trade War in History.”

Canada quickly announced a retaliatory 25 percent tariffs on US goods, with an emphasis on products from Republican-controlled states, possibly a savvy way to apply pressure on Trump. Among those goods now taxed at 25 percent are Florida orange juice, Tennessee whiskey, and Kentucky peanut butter, according to the New York Times, as well as clothing, shoes, furniture, appliances. Canada is coordinating its strategy with Mexico, according to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump has said he would impose further tariffs if Canada and Mexico retaliate, raising the possibility that these are merely the opening shots in a new trade war.

While Trump long promised tariffs on China, it’s noteworthy thaton Saturday, he saved his highest tariffs for America’s closest trading partners, neighbors, and allies. China facesonly a 10 percent tariff so far. China promised retaliation as well.

Voter discontent over inflation was one of Trump’s biggest political advantages in the 2024 election, but the pain from his tariffs is likely to be passed on to consumers. (Trump admitted in a social media post on Sunday that Americans will feel pain from his tariffs and that it “will be worth the price that must be paid.”) Perhaps most immediately, economists warn, food costs are likely to rise. The price of cars, electronics, including cell phones, and clothing will also go up if the tariffs remain in place.

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Trump’s War on Gender is Accelerating

If you searched “transgender” on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website on January 19—the day before President Donald Trump took office—you’d find helpful information about HIV, gender-affirming resources, and the high rate of diabetes among the LGBTQ+ community.

If you make the same web query on the CDC.gov now, those webpages bring you an error message: “The page you’re looking for was not found.”

Information about trans people, gender identity, and disease prevention was edited or removed from the CDC’s website by Friday, according to the Washington Post. The removals coincided with the CDC and other government agencies—the Departments of Transportation and Energy—instructing employees last week to remove their pronouns from email signatures. An employee of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also told Mother Jones they were told verbally to remove their pronouns.

Both efforts were spurred by an executive order Trump signed on his first day in office, in which he declared, “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” The memo included several directives for government agencies, including instructions for them to cease issuing passports with the “X” gender-marker, “to remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology,” and to “take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the Federal funding of gender ideology.”

These changes won’t just make it harder for individuals to seek information they can use in their personal lives, but they may also stifle research that helps identify links between age, race, gender, socioeconomic status and public health risks. For example, data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a national survey conducted every two years (I personally remember taking it in school) among high school students, is currently not available on the CDC site. Data from that survey previously has been used to understand children’s’ use of weapons and drugs, as well as suicidality.

In the first two weeks of his second presidential term, Trump has also directed his attorney general to investigate teachers who “unlawfully facilitat[e] the social transition of a minor student.” According to the executive order, reported by my colleague Madison Pauly, possible offenses include an educator calling a student by their trans name and pronouns or allowing a student to use the restroom aligned with their gender identity. Yet another executive order instructs federal agencies to start taking steps to eliminate gender-affirming treatments for individuals up to the age of 19.

The Trump Administration’s obsession with this issue is disproportionate to the number of Americans and children who identify as non-binary or seek gender-affirming healthcare. Fewer than 2 percent of adults in the US say their gender is different from their assigned sex at birth, according to Pew Research Center. Moreover, a recent survey of 5.1 million kids in JAMA-pediatrics found that only 0.017 percent of youth were coded as trans and received puberty blockers, while 0.037 percent were trans and accessed hormone therapy.

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This Week’s Episode of Reveal: Immigrants on the Line

Mackenson Remy didn’t plan to bypass security when he drove into the parking lot of a factory in Greeley, Colorado. He’d never been there before. All he knew was this place had jobs…lots of jobs.

Remy is originally from Haiti, and in 2023, he’d been making TikTok videos about job openings in the area for his few followers, mostly other Haitians.

What Remy didn’t know was that he had stumbled onto a meatpacking plant owned by the largest meat producer in the world, JBS. The video he made outside the facility went viral, and hundreds of Haitians moved for jobs at the plant.

But less than a year later, Remy—and JBS—were accused of human trafficking and exploitation by the union representing workers at the plant.

“This is America. I was hoping America to be better than back home,” says Tchelly Moise, a Haitian immigrant and union rep. “Someone needs to be held accountable for this, because this is not okay anywhere.”

This week on Reveal, reporter Ted Genoways with the Food & Environment Reporting Network looks into JBS’ long reliance on immigrant labor for this work—and its track record of not treating those workers well. The difference this time is those same workers are now targets of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

This episode was produced in partnership with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit news organization.

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Trump’s Tariffs: Another Disaster for the Families Who’ve Lost Everything

President Donald Trump says he’ll impose punitive tariffs on America’s allies and rivals this weekend—25 percent on imported goods from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent on Chinese imports. We don’t yet know which industries he will exclude (Trump has mentioned oil and gas) or how the targeted countries will respond—but the expert consensus is that tariffs will drive up prices for American companies and, in turn, consumers.

That’s particularly unwelcome news for the Floridians and North Carolinians whose homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed by Hurricanes Milton and Helena, the thousands of Los Angelenos who lost everything in the recent fires, and any American community, now or in the near future, that is compelled to rebuild in the face of ever more frequent and destructive climate-change-driven disasters.

Trump’s tariffs will “fan the flames of the already challenging environment that Californians face in recovering from the LA fires,” says Ann Harrison, an economist at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business who specializes in international trade. “A tariff of 25 percent levied on foreign imports would likely be paid by domestic California businesses and residents consuming lumber, food, cement, plastics, and other necessities. If the tariffs are passed through to importers of these goods, then rebuilding homes could be much more expensive.”

Consider the vulnerabilities: In 2022, according to visual data compiled by the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Canada was the source of almost half of the roughly $35 billion worth of wood products imported into the United States, with China second.

OEC

The US imported nearly $3 billion worth of plastic building materials in 2022. Here’s where they came from:

OEC

What about the $2.3 billion worth of cement America imports? Turkey is the biggest source, but the runners up are Canada and Mexico.

OEC

It goes on like this. The majority of imported gravel and crushed stone is from Canada and Mexico. Nearly a quarter of imported bricks are supplied by China and Canada. The United States took in $43.2 billion worth of steel in 2022, and about 37 percent came from the three countries Trump is targeting.

OEC

As the Guardian‘s Nina Lakhani reported a few days ago, Trump’s deportation orders are already posingproblems for communities stricken by fires and floods. Clearing toxic debris in a disaster’s wake is difficult and dangerous work, and with unemployment hovering around 4 percent, it’s hard to find people willing to do it. For better or worse, America dependson immigrants, often undocumented, for work that is low-paid and unpleasant, albeit essential.

At the best of times, the construction industry depends heavily on immigrants, from grunt laborers to contractors and skilled tradespeople, including carpenters electricians, landscapers, masons, plumbers, roofers, tilers, and welders. In some states, including California and Florida, an estimated 40 percent of construction industry workers are immigrants. Some have green cards, legal work permits, or, until last week, temporary deportation protections—which President Biden granted but Trump has since rejected. Others are in the United States illegally and are therefore at the mercy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

As the administration pursues its deportation agenda, which experts predict will be economically destructive, even legal immigrants will be reticent to make themselves vulnerable to getting swept up in ICE raids. Any worker fearful of la migra may well choose to avoid disaster recovery zones, lest those areas prove too tempting a target for immigration enforcement.

Any labor shortages that result from deportations, or the fear of deportation, will inevitably slow the pace of recovery and drive up the costs. The double-whammy of deportations and tariffs could prove devastating for recovery efforts. “Trump’s tariffs are insane, not to put it into too-technical language. And the timing couldn’t be worse,” says Joseph Stiglitz, a prominent economist at Columbia University who was awarded the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize for economics.

“Combined with labor shortages that may arise from his immigration policies, they are even worse. And with the climate-related disasters, such as the wildfires in LA, there will be an even greater need both for construction workers and materials. Like it or not, we are heavily dependent on both from outside our borders, and changing that can’t occur overnight.”

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Louisiana Indicts NY Doctor for Telemedicine Abortion

In what is believed to be the first criminal case of its kind in the post–Roe v. Wade era, a New York-based telemedicine provider has been indicted in Louisiana—which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country—for supplying the abortion pill to a teenage patient in that state.

The Louisiana indictment against Dr. Margaret “Maggie” Campbell signals a major escalation in legal challenges by red states against telemedicine providers in blue states who are dispensing abortion drugs under shield laws meant to protect them from prosecution. As my Mother Jones colleagues have reported, those shield laws—which are on the books in 22 states and the District of Columbia—are a major reason why the number of abortions has continued to rise despite the overturn of Roe in June 2022.

The Louisiana case involves a pregnant minor whose mother allegedly purchased abortion medications from Campbell’s business, Nightingale Medical PC, in April 2024, The Advocate reported. In addition to Campbell, a grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish also indicted the mother for allegedly coercing her to take the medicine to terminate the pregnancy. The felony charge against the two women carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and up to $50,000 in fines, WWNO reported.

The indictment comes as the anti-abortion movement has ramped up attacks on the abortion pill on multiple fronts—from pressuring the new Trump administration to reconsider the safety of mifepristone and use the Comstock Act to institute a federal abortion ban, to filing lawsuits challenging the FDA’s regulation of the drug, to introducing a flurry of new bills targeting medication abortion in numerous states. These include Louisiana, which last year became the first state to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs commonly used in medication abortions, as “controlled dangerous substances.” As my colleague Julianne McShane reported:

To say that this designation—the same one applied to opioids and other addictive drugs—is without scientific or medical merit is an understatement. More than 100 studies have found that mifepristone and misoprostol offer a safe and effective way to terminate a pregnancy.

Abortion foes have also begun to challenge the shield laws that blue states have been enacting to protect telemedicine abortion providers operating from within their borders. In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton brought a civil suit accusing the same New York doctor—Campbell—of prescribing abortion pills to a 20-year-old woman near Dallas. But the Texas case doesn’t involve criminal charges; instead, Paxton is seeking an injunction against Campbell, $100,000 in civil penalties for each violation of Texas law, and legal costs.

Officials in New York, which enacted its abortion shield law in 2023, immediately criticized today’s indictment. “This cowardly attempt out of Louisiana to weaponize the law against out-of-state providers is unjust and un-American,” New York Attorney General Leticia James said in a statement. Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul promised to “never back down from this fight…. We will remain a safe harbor.”

But Louisiana prosecutors defended the charges, which were brought under a 2022 statute that makes it a crime to“knowingly [cause] an abortion to occur by means of delivering, dispensing, distributing, or providing a pregnant woman with an abortion-inducing drug.” Tony Clayton, district attorney of an area that includes West Baton Rouge Parish, told The Advocate, “The daughter wanted the pregnancy and had a reveal party planned.”

“The allegations in this case have nothing to do with reproductive health care,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill echoed in a statement. “This is about coercion. This is about forcing somebody to have an abortion who didn’t want one.”

Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban, which doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest, targets physicians in the state with up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines and the loss of their medical licenses. Last year’s law reclassifying abortion medications as controlled substances carries penalties of up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Both laws specifically exempt pregnant women.

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Mother Jones updated their profile.

Trump’s War on Medicaid Will Institutionalize Millions of People

In August 1981, then-President Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law that allowed the development of state-level programs to help disabled people live outside institutions like nursing homes. Known as Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waivers, the programs—now in their fourth decade—are funded by Medicaid and run by each individual state. With potential cuts to […]

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A Former ICE Chief of Staff on How Trump’s Enforcement Push Is Backfiring

Three days after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared an early accomplishment: the arrest, and deportation, of hundreds of immigrants she alleged were convicted of crimes. “We’re getting the bad, hard criminals out,” Trump told reporters the next day. This has been the refrain from all corners of the administration. On multiple […]

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SCOOP: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Admits Settlement for “Misconduct” Accusation

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has admitted to the US Senate that he has reached at least one settlement agreement in which he was accused of misconduct or inappropriate behavior. After the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday completed its confirmation hearing for Kennedy’s appointment to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Democrats on the […]

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With Trump’s Mass Deportations, Who Will Rebuild Our Disaster-Stricken Cities?

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Trump’s immigration crackdown could cause chaos for communities trying to rebuild after devastating wildfires and floods, as the vast majority of skilled disaster-restoration workers are immigrants, a leading expert has warned. Republican and Democratic voters across the US are reeling from climate-fueled disasters, with thousands […]

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I Work at NIH. The Fear Among Staff Is Palpable.

The science world is in disarray. In just the last 10 days, the Trump administration has paused external communication and most travel for staffers within the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); […]

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How Trump Makes Tragedies Worse, A History

President Trump’s baseless claims that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are responsible for the tragic, late-night plane collision in Washington, DC are not the first time he’s peddled conspiracy theories as the nation reels from a crisis. In the past, Trump has also boosted false and disproven claims in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, a […]

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Christian Nationalists Are Swooning Over JD Vance’s Remarks on Fox News

On Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Wednesday evening, Vice President JD Vance held forth about what he called an “old school, very Christian concept.” You love your family, then you love your neighbor, then you love your community, then you love you fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can […]

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Kash Patel Suddenly Can’t Seem to Remember His Long Record of Extremism

Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI, published a book that included a list of political enemies he characterized as Deep Staters. He called for the prosecution of law enforcement officials who investigated President Donald Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 election. He hailed January 6 rioters convicted of violence against police […]

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Severe Weather Is Increasing the Cost of Living for Black Americans

This story was originally published by Capital B, a nonprofit newsroom that centers Black voices. To read more of Adam Mahoney’s work on climate change, visit Capital B. As Los Angeles battled its largest wildfires in history, parts of the southern U.S. faced a very different kind of disaster — record-breaking snowstorms not seen in over 125 […]

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Trump Asks Schools to Report Activist Students for Deportation

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “to combat anti-Semitism” that allows for a broad crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, including deporting demonstrators on student visas. The order, titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” asks federal agencies to report within 60 days all ways to combat antisemitism, including identification of “all civil and criminal […]

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Trying to Hide Who He Is

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings to become Secretary of Health and Human Services could have been a window into Kennedy’s beliefs and how he’d run one of the largest departments in the U.S. government. Instead, Kennedy spent much of the two days he was questioned before two different Senate committees denying his past comments, obfuscating his […]

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Inside the Fight for the First Whole Foods Union

On Monday, workers at Philadelphia’s Center City Whole Foods voted 130-100 to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. It marks the first time an Amazon-owned Whole Foods store has voted to unionize—and it is one of the first major union elections of the second Trump presidency. The organizing effort, which […]

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Trump Responds to Washington Plane Crash With Racist, Ableist Diatribe

On Wednesday, an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a commercial American Airlines flight as it was in the process of landing at Ronald Reagan International Airport in Washington, DC. Officials believe that there were no survivors among the 67 people on both craft. After tragedies like these, it’s typical for American presidents to address […]

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There Is No Evidence the US Planned to Send $50 Million for “Condoms in Gaza”

At her first White House press briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the Trump administration had paused $50 million in funding for “condoms in Gaza.” Leavitt called the money a “preposterous waste” and the pause an example of how the new administration is safeguarding “tax dollars.” The next day, President Donald Trump […]

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The World’s Largest Rubber Plantation is About to Go on Strike

For sixteen years, Eric Fatoma seldom ventured beyond the boundaries of Firestone’s 185 square mile property in Liberia, where he was employed at the American-founded tire company’s rubber plantation. Around 7,000 employees and their families live on what the company describes as the world’s largest contiguous natural rubber farm, relying on Firestone for food, education, […]

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The World’s Largest Rubber Plantation Just Went on Strike

For sixteen years, Eric Fatoma seldom ventured beyond the boundaries of Firestone’s 185 square mile property in Liberia, where he was employed at the American-founded tire company’s rubber plantation. Around 7,000 employees and their families live on what the company describes as the world’s largest contiguous natural rubber farm, relying on Firestone for food, education, […]

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Planning for the Worst in Trump’s Next Term: Prepare, Don’t Panic, and Don’t Comply in Advance

In the frenetic days following the November election, longtime abortion provider Amy Hagstrom Miller spent a lot of time in meetings—some in person, some on Zoom—rallying her troops. As one of the most prominent, and tenacious, independent abortion providers in the country, with six Whole Woman’s Health clinics in four states, it was a safe […]

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Planning for the Worst in Trump’s Next Term: Prepare, Don’t Panic, and Don’t Comply in Advance

In the frenetic days following the November election, longtime abortion provider Amy Hagstrom Miller spent a lot of time in meetings—some in person, some on Zoom—rallying her troops. As one of the most prominent and tenacious independent abortion providers in the country, with six Whole Woman’s Health clinics in four states, it was a safe […]

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Planning for the Worst In Trump’s Next Term: Prepare, Don’t Panic, and Don’t Comply in Advance

In the frenetic days following the November election, longtime abortion provider Amy Hagstrom Miller spent a lot of time in meetings—some in person, some on Zoom—rallying her troops. As one of the most prominent, and tenacious, independent abortion providers in the country, with six Whole Woman’s Health clinics in four states, it was a safe […]

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For Scientists Studying Environmental Health, Trump’s Diktats Are a Slow-Moving Disaster

Gabriel Filippelli opened up his email inbox on Monday to encounter some unexpected news: a notice that his $300,000 grant from the State Department was no more. Filippelli is the Chancellor’s Professor of Earth Sciences and executive director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University. Previously a senior science advisor to the State Department, […]

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“It’s a Scam”: Federal Workers React to Trump’s Supposed Buyout

Federal workers comprise less than one percent of the US population, but are responsible for facilitating programs that help all 330-plus million Americans have access to health care, veterans’ services, safe transportation, clean water, nutritional assistance, and so much more. On Tuesday evening, a memo titled “Fork in the Road,” from a mysterious Office of […]

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