Category: 2. World

Donald Trump is facing a simmering Republican backlash over the policies of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, amid unease over the administration’s pronouncements on the causes of autism and changes to children’s vaccine policy.

Republicans in Congress are threatening to “break ranks” after this week’s White House announcement by Trump – flanked by Kennedy – claiming a link between autism and Tylenol, an over-the-counter medication, also known as paracetamol, that is widely used to relieve pain experienced by pregnant women.

Medical experts and autism specialists say there is no scientific evidence to support the claim.

Leading the rebellion is Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator for Louisiana and chair of the Senate health committee, who previously voted to confirm Kennedy to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), despite having voiced misgivings about his anti-vaccine views.

“HHS should release the new data that it has to support this claim,” Cassidy, a medical doctor, wrote on social media. “The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case. The concern is that women will be left with no options to manage pain in pregnancy.”

Cassidy, who is up for re-election to the Senate next year, expanded on his comments in an interview with the Hill.

“You’re going to change a medical guideline without science?” he told the site, referring to last week’s Senate testimony by Susan Monarez. She said during a hearing that she was sacked as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after Kennedy pressed her to approve new childhood vaccination recommendations regardless of scientific data.

“I mean, you’re going to build a bridge without physics? You’re going to fly a plane without engineering?”

Other Republicans supported Cassidy’s critique, including Susan Collins, a senator for Maine.

“It appears that [Monarez] was under a lot of pressure to approve recommendations that may come from the [vaccine advisory] committee that may lack scientific basis, so that is disturbing and would undermine our public health efforts,” Collins told the Hill.

“I’m very pleased that Chairman Cassidy is having these hearings.”

Lisa Murkowski, a senator for Alaska, called Monarez’s description of the workings of Kennedy’s vaccine policy committee “very unsettling and very concerning”.

Others said Kennedy threatened to become a political liability for Trump.

“You see a lot of Republicans starting to break ranks here, and there’s a lot of noise. I think it will come down to Trump and what his tolerance level is for all this noise around [Kennedy],” one unnamed senator told the Hill.

“I don’t think he likes all the noise. He hasn’t liked that previously. He has a really low tolerance level for that, but Bobby Kennedy is different. He’s not like anyone else in the cabinet.”

Medical bodies including the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have endorsed the use of acetaminophen – a principal ingredient of Tylenol – as a treatment for fever and pain during pregnancy after Trump advised women during Monday’s press conference to avoid taking the drug and instead “tough it out”.

On the program today

The impacts of climate change are undermined by the world’s most powerful man, U-S President Donald Trump, who called it a great big hoax.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister and Pacific Islands Forum chair Jeremiah Manele calls on development partners to contribute to the Pacific Resillience Facility.

Nauru’s President David Adeang has defends moves to open his country’s waters to deep sea mining.

Two ornate carvings, called ‘pou,’ that have been in the South Australian Museum’s collection for more than 130 years set sail for New Zealand.

A successful applicant of Australia’s Pacific Engagement Visa expresses relief after waiting ten months for it to be approved.

And we find out what Pacific Islanders really think of the Chinese presence in their nations, both old and new.

New York
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President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he would hike H1-B application fees to $100,000 sparked fear and confusion among foreign workers. It also sent the companies who employ them scrambling, forcing the White House to clarify that the fee would apply only to new applications, not existing H1-B workers.

The Trump administration says the fee is intended to curb abuse of the H1-B program.

But the new fee could have significant ramifications for the thousands of H1-B workers employed in the United States each year – and big costs for the firms who rely on the program to bring in highly skilled talent they can’t find at home.

So, we want to hear from you. If you are currently a foreign worker in the United States — or a foreign student hoping to stay and work in America — has this fee changed how you’re thinking about your future career path? Has your employer provided information about how they’ll navigate this new policy, or did you have to make last-minute travel changes following the announcement?

If you’re an employer with H1-B workers, how is this new policy going to affect your business expenses? Will you continue to employ H1-B talent in the United States, or seek to place employees in other offices around the world? How do you think this change will affect your ability to attract top talent?

Tell us about it in the form below, and please leave your contact information. No named commentary will be used without following up with you, and we can discuss anonymity based on your situation.

At least 20 people have been injured, two seriously, after a drone launched from Yemen hit Israel’s Red Sea resort city of Eilat on the border with Jordan and Egypt.

Police said the drone fell in Eilat’s city centre, causing damage in the area frequented by tourists.

Footage shared on social media showed a drone flying above the resort town before crashing, with smoke and flames rising from the impact area. Local reports suggested the drone had hit the ground next to a hotel, damaging several rooms.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which occurred on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 Eli Lankri, the mayor of Eilat, called on the government to “strike the Houthis hard” in retaliation, adding that repeated Houthi attacks have disrupted operations at the Eilat port.

The Israeli military said interception attempts had been made but gave no further details.

The local newspaper Israel Hayom, citing an initial investigation, said air defence systems had failed to intercept the drone.

The drone attack on Wednesday comes days after the Houthis fired a drone that crashed in Eilat’s hotel zone, resulting in material damage but no casualties.

The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have been launching missiles and drones thousands of kilometres north towards Israel, in what the group says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians. Most of the dozens of missiles and drones have been intercepted or fallen short of Israeli territory. Few have caused significant damage, though one temporarily shut down Israel’s main international airport earlier this year.

Israel has retaliated by bombing Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including the vital Hodeidah port. The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have also been attacking vessels in the Red Sea since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.

In Gaza, the Israeli military on Wednesday pressed its assault on Gaza City, from where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee.

The war was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel in which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage. The ensuing Israeli military campaign has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and injured more than 160,000, and has spread famine, reduced swathes of the territory to ruins and displaced most of the population, in many cases multiple times.

Benjamin Netanyahu had told the family of Alon Ohel, a hostage still held in Gaza, that a combined military and diplomatic effort was being pursued to defeat Hamas and bring back all hostages, the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Wednesday.