Extra, Extra
DEI Hard: “School and state officials are required to sign a certification letter attached to the memo and return it to the department within 10 days, proving that they are complying with the directive.” Education Dept. warns schools: Eliminate DEI programs or lose funding.
+ Chat Rot: “The probe, announced on Thursday, follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist.” Pentagon watchdog to investigate Pete Hegseth over Signal war-planning chat leak. Related: Waltz’s team set up at least 20 Signal group chats for crises across the world.
+ Out With the Good: WSJ (Gift Article): White House Fires Several Members of Trump’s National Security Council. “Several National Security Council staffers were fired this week, people familiar with the matter said, as right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer alleged to President Trump that some members of his administration weren’t aligned with his priorities.” Axios: What to know about Laura Loomer, Trump’s conspiracy theorist ally. (Even his other conspiracy theorist allies don’t like her.)
+ Learning Aid: “There’s historical precedent for how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is handling his ascension to high office. It’s an episode that didn’t end well. Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa and ruled in his shadow for nine years, was the world’s most powerful AIDS denier. As president, he could do far more than spout long-debunked theories about HIV not causing AIDS. He appointed a health minister who insisted that the cure was garlic, lemons, beets and beer. And he forbade public hospitals to provide the antiviral drugs that were saving lives in other African countries. Both Mbeki and his people paid a price. In 2008, he was ousted in a party power struggle — after his intransigence had killed an estimated 365,000 South Africans, including 35,000 newborns who would have lived if their HIV-positive mothers had been given just a few doses of a drug to prevent mother-child transmission, according to a Harvard study.” Donald McNeil in WaPo: RFK Jr. mimics AIDS denier Thabo Mbeki.
+ Laws in Practice: “Doctors who practice medicine in states with abortion bans have described in a new study how three of their pregnant patients died, but probably could have been saved had they been able to receive abortion care.”
+ Here Comes the New Boss: Enough with the bad news! “Bruce Springsteen is opening his vault — and unleashing seven ‘lost’ LPs. On June 27, Springsteen will release ‘Tracks II: The Lost Albums,’ a collection of 83 songs on seven CDs (or nine vinyl LPs), of which 74 have never been officially released in any form.”
+ Shingle Minded: Study finds strongest evidence yet that shingles vaccine helps cut dementia risk.
