defiant

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary and a longtime vaccine skeptic, struck a defiant tone Thursday as he faced bipartisan criticism over changes he has made to reorganize federal health agencies and vaccine policies, telling senators that he is determined to “eliminate politics from science.”

In the testy appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy repeatedly defended his record in heated exchanges with senators from both parties and questioned data that show the effectiveness of vaccines. In turn, senators accused him of taking actions that contradict his promise seven months earlier that he would do “nothing that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.”

“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearing you promised to uphold the highest standard for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a top-ranking Senate Republican and a physician, said during the hearing.

Kennedy forcefully denied that he has limited access to vaccines and defended his record in restoring trust in federal healthcare agencies under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“They deserve the truth and that’s what we’re going to give them for the first time in the history of the agency,” Kennedy told senators.

From the outset, it was expected that Democrats would slam Kennedy’s record. Some of them called on him to resign and accused him of politicizing federal health policy decisions. But three other Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was key in advancing Kennedy’s nomination, joined Democrats in criticizing Kennedy’s actions, mostly pertaining to vaccine policy changes.

Thursday’s session marked a peak of bipartisan frustration over a string of controversial decisions by Kennedy that have thrown his department into disarray. Kennedy dismissed an entire advisory panel responsible for vaccine recommendations and replaced its members with known vaccine skeptics. He withdrew $500 million in funding earmarked for developing vaccines against respiratory viruses. And, just last week, he ousted the newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following disagreements over vaccine policy.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Susan Monarez, the former CDC director, wrote that she was forced out after she declined to recommend people “who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric” to an influential vaccine advisory panel.

At the hearing, Kennedy said Monarez was lying. Instead, he said he fired her because he asked her if she was trustworthy, and she told him, “no.”

He added that he fired all the members of the vaccine panel because it was “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest.”

“We depoliticized it and put great scientists on it from a very diverse group, very, very pro-vaccine,” he claimed.

In questioning, however, members of his own party questioned his support for vaccines. At one point, Cassidy, a physician, read an email from a physician friend who said patients 65 and older need a prescription to get a COVID-19 shot.

“I would say effectively we are denying people vaccines,” Cassidy said.

“You’re wrong,” Kennedy responded.

In that same exchange, Cassidy asked Kennedy if he believed President Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for his administration’s work on Operation Warp Speed, the initiative that sped the development of the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments.

“Absolutely,” Kennedy said.

Cassidy said he was surprised at his answer because he believes Kennedy is trying to restrict access to the COVID-19 vaccine. He also expressed dismay at Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology, which Cassidy said was key to the operation.

Kennedy’s position on vaccines have reverberated beyond Capitol Hill.

Ahead of the hearing, more than 1,000 employees at the health agency and national health organizations called on Kennedy to resign. Seemingly in support of Kennedy’s direction, Florida announced plans to become the first state to end all vaccines mandated, including for schoolchildren. And three Democratic-led states — California, Washington and Oregon — have created an alliance to counter turmoil within the federal public health agency.

The states said the focus of their health alliance will be on ensuring the public has access to credible information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Almost as if in a parallel universe, Kennedy told senators on Thursday that his goal was to achieve the same thing, after facing hours of criticism on his vaccine policies.

“I am not going to sign on to something if I can’t make it with scientific certainty,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I am antivax, it just means I am pro-science.”

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Sunday that immigration operations will soon be expanded in Chicago, confirming plans for a stepped-up presence of federal agents in the nation’s third-largest city as President Trump continues to lash out at Illinois’ Democratic leadership.

Noem’s comments came a day after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson struck back against what he called the “out-of-control” plan to surge federal officers into the city. The Chicago Police Department will be barred from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge, according to an executive order Johnson signed Saturday.

The Homeland Security Department last week requested limited logistical support from officials at the Naval Station Great Lakes to support the agency’s anticipated operations. The military installation is about 35 miles north of Chicago.

“We’ve already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago … but we do intend to add more resources to those operations,” Noem said during a Sunday appearance CBS News’ ”Face the Nation.”

Noem declined to provide further details about the planned surge of federal officers. It comes after the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops to Washington, saying they were needed to target crime, immigration and homelessness, and two months after it sent troops to Los Angeles.

Trump lashed out against Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in a social media posting Saturday, warning him that he must straighten out Chicago’s crime problems quickly “or we’re coming.” The Republican president has also been critical of Johnson.

Johnson and Pritzker, both Democrats, have denounced the expected federal mobilization, noting that crime has fallen in Chicago. They are planning to sue if Trump moves forward with the plan.

In his order signed Saturday, Johnson directed all city departments to guard the constitutional rights of Chicago residents “amidst the possibility of imminent militarized immigration or National Guard deployment by the federal government.”

Asked during a news conference about federal agents who are presumably “taking orders,” Johnson replied: “Yeah, and I don’t take orders from the federal government.”

Johnson also blocked Chicago police from wearing face coverings to hide their identities, as most federal immigration officers have done since Trump launched his crackdown.

The federal surge into Chicago could start as early as Friday and last about 30 days, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been made public.

Pritzker, in an interview aired Sunday on “Face the Nation,” said that Trump’s expected plans to mobilize federal forces in the city may be part of a plan to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections.”

Noem said it was a Trump “prerogative” whether to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago as he did in Los Angeles in June in the midst of protests there against immigration raids.

“I do know that L.A. wouldn’t be standing today if President Trump hadn’t taken action,” Noem said. “That city would have burned if left to devices of the mayor and governor of that state.”

Unlike the recent federal takeover of policing in Washington, the Chicago operation is not expected to rely on the National Guard or military and is focused exclusively on immigration, rather than being cast as part of a broad campaign against crime, Trump administration officials have said.

Chicago is home to a large immigrant population, and both the city and the state of Illinois have some of the country’s strongest rules against cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts. That has often put the city and state at odds with the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

Johnson’s order builds on the city’s longtime stance, that neither Chicago nor Illinois officials have sought or been consulted on the federal presence and they stand against Trump’s mobilization plan.

During his news conference Saturday, Johnson accused the president of “behaving outside the bounds of the Constitution” and seeking a federal presence in Democratic cities as retribution against his political rivals.

“He is reckless and out of control,” Johnson said. “He’s the biggest threat to our democracy that we’ve experienced in the history of our country.”

In response, the White House contended that the potential flood of federal agents was about “cracking down on crime.”

“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the President, their communities would be much safer,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an email Saturday.

Critics have noted that Trump, while espousing a tough-on-crime push, is the only felon ever to occupy the White House.

Madhani and Beck write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and Chicago, respectively.

KYIV, Ukraine — Glide bombs and ballistic missiles struck a Ukrainian prison and a medical facility overnight as Russia’s relentless strikes on civilian areas killed at least 27 people across the country, officials said Tuesday, despite President Trump’s threat to soon punish Russia with sanctions and tariffs unless it stops.

Four powerful Russian glide bombs hit the prison in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, authorities said. At least 16 inmates were killed and more than 90 wounded, Ukraine’s Justice Ministry said.

In the Dnipro region of central Ukraine, authorities said Russian missiles partially destroyed a three-story building and damaged nearby medical facilities, including a maternity hospital and a city hospital ward. At least three people were killed, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman, and two other people were killed elsewhere in the region, regional authorities said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said overnight Russian strikes across the country hit 73 cities, towns and villages. “These were conscious, deliberate strikes — not accidental,” Zelensky said on Telegram.

Trump said Tuesday he is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin 10 days to stop the killing in Ukraine after three years of war, moving up a 50-day deadline he had given the Russian leader two weeks ago. The move meant Trump wants peace efforts to make progress by Aug. 8.

Trump has repeatedly rebuked Putin for talking about ending the war but continuing to bombard Ukrainian civilians. But the Kremlin hasn’t changed its tactics.

“I’m disappointed in President Putin,” Trump said during a visit to Scotland.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Russia is determined to achieve its goals in Ukraine, though he said Moscow has “taken note” of Trump’s announcement and is committed to seeking a peaceful solution.

Zelensky welcomed Trump’s shortening of the deadline. “Everyone needs peace — Ukraine, Europe, the United States and responsible leaders across the globe,” Zelensky wrote in a post on Telegram. “Everyone except Russia.”

The Kremlin pushed back, with a top Putin lieutenant warning Trump against “playing the ultimatum game with Russia.”

“Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran,” former President Dmitry Medvedev, who is deputy head of the country’s Security Council, wrote on social platform X.

“Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country,” Medvedev said.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the Kremlin has warned Kyiv’s Western backers that their involvement could end up broadening the war to NATO countries.

“Kremlin officials continue to frame Russia as in direct geopolitical confrontation with the West in order to generate domestic support for the war in Ukraine and future Russian aggression against NATO,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said late Monday.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched two Iskander-M ballistic missiles along with 37 Shahed-type strike drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight. It said 32 Shahed drones were intercepted or neutralized by Ukrainian air defenses.

The Russian attack close to midnight Monday hit the Bilenkivska Correctional Facility with glide bombs, according to the State Criminal Executive Service of Ukraine.

Glide bombs, which are Soviet-era bombs retrofitted with retractable fins and guidance systems, have been laying waste to cities in eastern Ukraine, where the Russian army is trying to pierce Ukrainian defenses. The bombs carry up to 6,600 pounds of explosives.

At least 42 inmates were hospitalized because of serious injuries, and an additional 40 people, including one staff member, sustained various injuries.

The strike destroyed the prison’s dining hall, and damaged administrative and quarantine buildings, but the perimeter fence held and no escapes were reported, authorities said.

Ukrainian officials condemned the attack, saying that targeting civilian infrastructure, such as prisons, is a war crime under international conventions.

The assault occurred exactly three years after an explosion killed more than 50 people at the Olenivka detention facility in the Russia-occupied Donetsk region, where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners were killed.

Russia and Ukraine accused each other of shelling the prison. The Associated Press interviewed over a dozen people with direct knowledge of details of that attack, including survivors, investigators and families of the dead and missing. All described evidence they believed points directly to Russia as the culprit. The AP also obtained an internal United Nations analysis that found the same.

Russian forces also struck a grocery store in a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region, police said, killing five and wounding three civilians.

Authorities in the southern Kherson region reported one civilian killed and three wounded over the last 24 hours.

Alongside the barrages, Russia has also kept up its grinding war of attrition, which has slowly churned across the eastern side of Ukraine at a heavy cost in troop losses and military hardware.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday that Russian troops have captured the villages of Novoukrainka in the Donetsk region and Temyrivka in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Ukraine launches long-range drones

Ukraine has sought to fight back against Russian strikes by developing its own long-range drone technology, hitting oil depots, weapons plants and disrupting commercial flights.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that air defenses downed 74 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including 43 over the Bryansk region.

Yuri Slyusar, the head of the Rostov region, said a man in the city of Salsk was killed in a drone attack, which started a fire at the Salsk railway station.

Officials said a cargo train was set ablaze at the Salsk station and the railway traffic via Salsk was suspended. Explosions shattered windows in two cars of a passenger train and passengers were evacuated.

Arhirova and Novikov write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — After the raucous rainbow-hued festivities of Saturday’s parade, the final day of World Pride 2025 in the nation’s capital kicked off on a more downbeat note.

More than 1,000 people gathered under gray skies Sunday morning at the Lincoln Memorial for a rally that will lead into a protest march, as the community gathers its strength for a looming fight under President Trump’s second administration.

“This is not just a party,” Ashley Smith, board president of Capital Pride Alliance. “This is a rally for our lives.”

Smith acknowledged that international attendance numbers for the biannual World Pride were measurably down, with many potential attendees avoiding travel to the U.S. because of either fear of harassment or in protest of Trump’s policies.

“That should disturb us and mobilize us,” Smith said.

More than 1,000 people cheered on LGBTQ+ activists taking the stage while waving traditional Pride flags and flags representing transgender, bisexual, intersex and other communities. Many had rainbow glitter and rhinestones adorning their faces. They held signs declaring, “Fight back,” “Gay is good,” “Ban bombs not bathrooms” and “We will not be erased.”

Trump’s campaign against transgender protections and oft-stated antipathy for drag shows have set the community on edge, with some hoping to see a renewed wave of street politics in response.

“Trans people just want to be loved. Everybody wants to live their own lives and I don’t understand the problem with it all,” said Tyler Cargill, who came wearing an elaborate costume with a hat topped by a replica of the U.S. Capitol building.

Wes Kincaid drove roughly six hours from Charlotte, N.C., to attend this year. Sitting on a park bench near the reflecting pond, Kincaid said he made a point of attending this year, “because it’s more important than ever to show up for our community.”

Drag dancer Violeta puts on a show for visitors to Beaches Pride Paradise at the WeHo Pride Street Fair along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on May 31.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Reminders of the cuts to federal government programs were on full display Sunday. One attendee waved a massive rainbow flag affixed on the same staff as a large USAID flag; another held a “Proud gay federal worker” sign; and a third held an umbrella with the logos of various federal programs facing cuts — including the PBS logo.

Trump’s anti-trans rhetoric had fueled fears of violence or protests targeting World Pride participants; at one point earlier this spring, rumors circulated that the Proud Boys were planning to disrupt this weekend’s celebrations. Those concerns prompted organizers to install security fencing around the entire two-day street party on a multi-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue.

But so far, the only clear act of aggression has been the vandalizing of a queer bar last week. Late Saturday night, there was a pair of violent incidents near Dupont Circle — one of the epicenters of the World Pride celebrations. Two juveniles were stabbed and a man was shot in the foot in separate incidents. The Metropolitan Police Department says it is not clear if either incident was directly related to World Pride.

Fernando, Hussein, Martin and Pesoli write for the Associated Press.