Trump’s escalation of the oil blockade on Cuba intensifies the humanitarian crisis on the island while placing Mexico under direct pressure from Washington.
Members of Congress are calling on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign after the government’s latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files show that the pair had a close relationship, contradicting Lutnick’s earlier denials.Lutnick, who lived next door to Epstein in New York, claimed last year on the conservative Pod Force One podcast that after he met the convicted sex offender in 2005, he swore off future interactions with Epstein. But revelations late last month show that Lutnick’s financial services firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, was making deals with Epstein long after that, with Lutnick traveling to Epstein’s private Caribbean island and continuing to correspond with the billionaire via email.Republican Representative Thomas Massie and several Democrats over the weekend called for Lutnick to step down, with the Kentucky congressmen telling CNN’s Inside Politics on Sunday that Lutnick “should just resign.”“Howard Lutnick clearly went to the island, if we believe what’s in these files; he was in business with Jeffrey Epstein, and this was many years after Jeffrey Epstein was convicted,” Massie said. “He’s got a lot to answer for, but really, he should make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.”Democratic Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove posted Sunday afternoon, “In between gaslighting Americans about the economy & sucking up to Trump, Lutnick took up TV air time to lie about his relationship with Epstein. He visited Epstein’s island in 2012 yet claimed he cut ties with Epstein years earlier. What else is he hiding? He must resign.”Representative Robert Garcia later said, “It’s now clear that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been lying about his relationship with Epstein. He said he had no interactions with Epstein after 2005, yet we now know they were in business together. Lutnick must resign or be fired. And he must answer our questions.”Representative Ted Lieu called out Lutnick for having gone “on national TV and lied to the American people.”“You were despicable then for planning a visit to Epstein island, and you are despicable now for brazenly lying. You should resign,” Lieu posted Sunday.“He has no business being our Commerce Secretary. He should resign,” Senator Adam Schiff also posted Sunday, calling out Lutnick for lying about his business ties with Epstein.On Monday, Representative Melanie Stansbury called for Lutnick to appear before the House Oversight Committee and said, “I personally believe that Mr. Lutnick needs to step down immediately.” Q: “Can you talk about if there was a conversation about Howard Lutnick?”Rep. Stansbury: “The committee is keeping on ongoing list of individuals we would like to subpoena…Of course we would like to speak to Secretary Lutnick, and I personally believe that Mr. Lutnick needs to… pic.twitter.com/t6vc89f3l4— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) February 9, 2026
The Department of Justice has withheld evidence from state investigators examining Renee Nicole Good’s killing by ICE.
The U.S. health secretary’s motivation for ending childhood obesity apparently rests on military recruitment.Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event Monday morning, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that America’s fat kids need to lose weight so they can go to war, lest we “lose” the country.“Seventy-seven percent of our children can no longer qualify for military service and most of that is diet-related,” Kennedy said. “We need to change what we’re feeding these children or we’re going to lose our country.”The Pentagon’s 2020 Qualified Military Available Study found that just 77 percent of young Americans would qualify for service without a medical waiver due to reasons such as obesity, drug use, and mental or physical health disorders. The report noted, however, that just 11 percent of America’s youth would be disqualified from service for obesity. Kennedy appears to have his numbers backward.But the U.S. does have a severe obesity problem. Federal administrations dating back to the 1970s have attempted to address it, though seemingly to no avail, as rates are higher than ever. Roughly two in five Americans are obese, according to data from the National Institutes of Health. Meanwhile, one in five children are affected by obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.For all the political noise Republicans made when former first lady Michelle Obama decided to tackle childhood obesity rates, Kennedy’s efforts are totally cool with conservatives—even, or perhaps especially, if his end goal is to use children’s bodies for America’s militaristic aims.Back in September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made clear that his version of the U.S. military would have no room for “fat troops.” Speaking before hundreds of America’s top military commanders at a mandatory in-person meeting in Quantico, Hegseth unveiled his efforts to de-wokify the country’s armed forces, including resetting military combat requirements to the “highest male standard only” and updating the branches’ height and weight requirements. He not-so-subtly admitted he wanted to force women out of service, as well as Black men by way of a ban on military beard waivers.But it’s not clear if Kennedy’s MAHA agenda—which was generated by AI—will work. Last month, the health secretary unveiled the outcome of his department’s monthslong project to reimagine the food pyramid. The result: an upside-down triangle, in which butter, steak, and cheese play a leading role.Furthermore, a fraction of Americans volunteer for military service, raising questions about whether obesity rates actually have an effect on recruitment efforts. Less than one half of one percent of the general public is active duty, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Only roughly 6 percent of the population has ever served in the military, representing some 18 million veterans.