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The Trump administration officially sent Congress its 2027 budget proposal on Friday, and while the largest story that emerged from the mammoth document was that the president is looking to increase defense spending over 40 percent to a staggering $1.5 trillion, there are plenty more budget adjustments to laugh/shudder/weep over.Among the social and health programs Trump is looking to cut in order to fund his bloodlust is the National Institutes of Health, the government’s main medical research branch. NIH was one of the main targets of DOGE cuts back in 2025; now Trump’s budget proposal looks to wrest $5 billion more from the department, alleging that NIH “broke the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.”The NIH has made major breakthroughs in the fields of vaccines, heart disease, and AIDS, and to date 174 researchers funded by the agency have won Nobel Prizes. But because of its willingness to fund research into LGBTQ and minority health, and its unwillingness to break with science to back MAGA’s most ridiculous medical claims, the agency has become a bugbear of the president.Among the examples the Trump administration cites for its claim that the NIH is “wasteful and radical” are studies on how HIV risk affects the mental and sexual health of young men, and how sexually transmitted infections can occur between transgender women.Reasoning for the cuts gets downright conspiratorial when the document begins rambling about NIH “funneling millions of dollars to EcoHealth Alliance, which funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the likely source of the COVID-19 pandemic, under Dr. Anthony Fauci.”Studies conducted from both within and outside the NIH have looked into the “lab-leak theory” and found that while the Chinese government has been less than transparent about sharing genome data from the earliest contractors of Covid, there is little credible evidence supporting the idea that Chinese scientists accidentally created the virus, and that it is more likely Covid emerged from general contact between animals and humans.“The weight of available evidence … suggests zoonotic spillover … either directly from bats or through an intermediate host,” the WHO concluded last year.That hasn’t stopped the White House from running with the more inflammatory theory since the end of Trump’s first term, using it to justify racism against Chinese Americans and lend legitimacy to other unfounded conspiracies (cough, Chinese election fraud, cough).Congress still holds the power of the purse, and tweaks to Trump’s budget proposal are undoubtedly coming. The bad news is that Republicans still command majorities in the House and the Senate, and will aim to pass the 2027 budget before the midterms, which look increasingly favorable for many Democrat challengers. Anything could happen, but for now, it’s looking grim for America’s premier medical research department.

The production company claims it's "too busy being bad asses" to resolve labor disputes.

The White House’s “Ice Maiden” has been unnerved by the lack of information reaching the president regarding the reality of the Iran war.Three weeks into the conflict—in mid-March—White House chief of staff Susie Wiles forced a meeting of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers to deliver the bad news. Privately, Wiles had urged the president’s inner circle to stop feeding him a rose-tinted interpretation of the conflict, fearing that Trump was largely unaware of the domestic fallout of the war just months ahead of a contentious midterm season, Time magazine reported Thursday.Up until that point, Trump had been spoon-fed daily video compilations of various battlefield successes, a senior administration official told the publication. Trump was under the impression that stripping nuclear capabilities from Iran could be one of his greatest legacies as America’s forty-seventh president. In reality, Americans were irate that Trump was pushing the country into another complicated and seemingly inexplicable Middle East conflict. National surveys have almost unilaterally conveyed as much. When the war began, an NBC News poll indicated that 52 percent of registered voters did not think the U.S. should have taken military action against Iran. That sentiment has only grown more severe in recent weeks: A CNN poll published Wednesday (before Trump’s address) showed that 66 percent of respondents either “somewhat disapprove” or “strongly disapprove” of “the U.S. decision to take military action in Iran.”In the meantime, attacks on Iran’s oil and gas reserves—and the country’s decision to seal off the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy transit point—have drastically ramped up the cost of gas around the globe.The combination has struck fear in the Republican Party, whose lawmakers have taken to grumbling about the domestic ramifications of the war and the impact it will have at the ballot box come November.Wiles urged her colleagues to be “more forthright with the boss” about the political and economic risks of pushing U.S. troops into Iran, according to Time.Trump has attempted to off-road the conflict in the weeks since the meeting, working to peel America’s presence out of the region while still claiming victory for some of his biggest goals in Iran, such as decapitating Iran’s nuclear capabilities, dismantling Tehran’s ballistic missile program, and replacing Iran’s government with a slew of more U.S.-friendly politicians. Unfortunately for the president, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that he’ll be able to do any of that on the White House’s advertised four-to-six week timeline. (The war is already in its fifth week.)

Former President Obama’s lead Iran negotiator, Wendy Sherman, admitted her X account was hacked Friday after posting a strangely worded message against the Iran war.“We were promised strength. Instead, we are watching the greatest decline in our nation’s history unfold in real time. Our future is being traded away piece by piece for a war that was never truly ours,” the former U.S. deputy secretary of state posted on X. “Watch the video. Decide for yourself. #AmericaFirst#F35Falling#WarReality.”Attached is unconfirmed footage shared by Iranian state media of a shot-down U.S. F-15 fighter jet, as well as unconfirmed images of its debris. What has been confirmed is that the Iranian military did shoot down a U.S. fighter jet over Iran, and Iranian officials have since called on civilians to search for and capture the pilot.“It appears I have been hacked,” Sherman posted almost two hours later. “Recent tweet is not from me.”It is unclear who the hackers are or where they came from, although they could likely be tied to Iran. For some reason, the post is still up on Sherman’s page.

Angelina Keeley is calling out the editors for an all-bro, zero-balance season.

“It’s effectively feudal,” a clean energy advocate says of a utility board election in which only landowners can vote.

A new facility celebrated by Gov. Gavin Newsom will disrupt prisoner-led programming and normalize our captivity.

The Pentagon has been misleading Americans about the destruction of Iran’s military arsenal, casting doubt on Donald Trump’s timeline for ending the war. After five weeks of military bombardment from the United States and Israel, roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers and thousands of one-way attack drones are still intact, according to an exclusive CNN report Thursday. Some of these assets may be inaccessible to the Iranian military, having been buried by strikes. Speaking on March 19 about the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pointed to the number of Iranian missile strikes, rather than the arsenal itself. He claimed that ballistic missile attacks against U.S. forces were “down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one-way attack UAVS, think kamikaze drones.” While the number of strikes may have plunged, Iran’s arsenal has only been halved, according to U.S. intelligence sources.  Still, while speaking to the nation Wednesday night, Trump emphasized the damage to Iran’s military arsenal. “Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed, and their weapons factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces,” he said. “We’ve done all of it,” he continued. “Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their missiles are just about used up or beaten.”  One U.S. official who reviewed the intelligence cast doubt on the American military’s ability to resolve the conflict in only two or three weeks, as Trump suggested during his speech. “We can keep f**king them up, I don’t doubt it, but you’re out of your mind if you think this will be done in two weeks,” the official said.Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell dismissed CNN’s reporting as “completely wrong.”“The United States military has delivered a crippling series of blows to the Iranian regime,” Parnell said. “We are far ahead of schedule on accomplishing our military objectives: Destroy Iran’s missile arsenal, annihilate their navy, destroy their terrorist proxies, and ensure Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.”Israeli intelligence estimated that the number of remaining Iranian missiles was closer to 20 or 25 percent of the original arsenal, not including launchers that were inaccessible.It’s worth noting that this is where Iran’s arsenal stands weeks after Trump announced that the war in Iran was already won. 

Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, and Ghana are among those due to compete in the tournament, as are Africa Cup of Nations finalists Morocco and Senegal.