Stamau123

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39769652

The maternity ward in Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital has been reopened after renovation by the Palestinian ministry of health.

As part of the renovations walls of the maternity ward have been painted and the ceiling has been repaired. However, the rooms in the ward are not equipped for patients. According to reports, there is no oxygen, no monitors and no medical supplies.

According to doctors, the beds were retrieved from under the rubble and are worn out. The Palestinian ministry of health and the doctors had strived to find the tools and supplies for the maternity ward. However, most of the departments of the Al Shifa Hospital remain burnt and destroyed.

The maternity ward in Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital has been reopened after renovation by the Palestinian ministry of health.

As part of the renovations walls of the maternity ward have been painted and the ceiling has been repaired. However, the rooms in the ward are not equipped for patients. According to reports, there is no oxygen, no monitors and no medical supplies.

According to doctors, the beds were retrieved from under the rubble and are worn out. The Palestinian ministry of health and the doctors had strived to find the tools and supplies for the maternity ward. However, most of the departments of the Al Shifa Hospital remain burnt and destroyed.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge on Friday gave the Justice Department permission to release transcripts of a grand jury investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of underage girls in Florida — a case that ultimately ended without any federal charges being filed against the millionaire sex offender.

U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith said a recently passed federal law ordering the release of records related to the cases overrode a federal rule prohibiting the release of matters before a grand jury.

The law signed last month by President Donald Trump compels the Justice Department, FBI and federal prosecutors to release later this month the vast troves of material they have amassed during investigations into Epstein.

A federal grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, refused to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud on Thursday, sources said, rejecting the Department of Justice's attempt to refile the case just ten days after a federal judge dismissed an earlier case based on the unlawful appointment of the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Federal prosecutors failed to convince a majority of grand jurors to approve charges that James misled a bank to obtain favorable terms on a home mortgage, according to sources.

The grand jury's return of a "no true bill" in the case marked an extraordinary rebuke by average citizens of the Department of Justice's attempt to bring charges against James, an adversary of President Donald Trump who has been the target of his repeated calls for prosecution.

A Justice Department representative declined to comment.

James, in a statement, said she was grateful to the members of the grand jury.

Major win for Trump as majority rejects lower-court ruling that found maps had been racially gerrymandered

US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps

Major win for Trump as majority rejects lower-court ruling that found maps had been racially gerrymandered Sam Levine and Lauren Gambino Thu 4 Dec 2025 19.52 EST

Texas can use a redrawn congressional map that adds as many as five Republican-friendly congressional districts, the supreme court ruled on Thursday, handing Donald Trump a major win in his push to boost Republican seats ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

In an unsigned order, the 6-3 conservative majority court granted a request by Texas to lift a lower court’s ruling that struck down the state’s new map in November. The supreme court’s three liberal justices dissented.

“The district court improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the supreme court said in an order explaining its decision.

The lower district court had previously found that Texas had likely sorted voters based on their race – an unlawful practice called racial gerrymandering – when it adopted the new maps, and ordered the state to use the maps it had adopted after the 2020 census for next year’s election. Trump push for new congressional maps meets resistance – from both parties Read more

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Elena Kagan objected to the decision by the supreme court’s majority, arguing that it disrespected the work of the lower court, whose ruling actually was authored by a judge appointed by Trump.

“We are a higher court than the district court, but we are not a better one when it comes to making such a fact-based decision,” Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“This court’s stay guarantees that Texas’s new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year’s elections for the House of Representatives. And this court’s stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the constitution,” she continued.

The ruling comes amid a nationwide battle over the redrawing of electoral maps. Texas is a key piece in Trump’s effort to transform the US House map to secure Republicans’ fragile House majority for the second half of his presidential term. Democrats need to flip only a handful of congressional seats to win the House gavel, and the opposition party has historically gained ground during the midterm elections, particularly if the president’s approval ratings are low, as Trump’s are.

Typically, redistricting happens after a new decade’s census results. Yet the decision by Texas Republicans to move ahead with a brazen mid-cycle redistricting earlier this summer set off a chain reaction among other states.

The US Supreme court has agreed to hear a case on whether the century-old constitutional right of guaranteed citizenship for those born in the US will remain.

On his first day in office in January, President Donald Trump signed an order to end birthright citizenship, but the move was blocked by lower courts after it was challenged over its constitutionality.

The federal government research organization that has been devoted for half a century to renewable energy development has had the word “renewable” stripped from its name.

The Trump administration, which broadly opposes renewable energy projects, changed the name of the Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory to “National Laboratory of the Rockies.”

The U.S. Department of Energy announced the name change on Monday, effective immediately.

“The energy crisis we face today is unlike the crisis that gave rise to NREL,” Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson said in a statement. “We are no longer picking and choosing energy sources. Our highest priority is to invest in the scientific capabilities that will restore American manufacturing, drive down costs, and help this country meet its soaring energy demand. The National Laboratory of the Rockies will play a vital role in those efforts.”

NREL has a prominent presence in Alaska. The agency in 2020 joined into a partnership with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The UAF facility is one of four NREL centers; two campuses are in Colorado and there is an office in Washington, D.C.

Jud Virden, the laboratory’s director, said the new name “embraces a broader applied energy mission entrusted to us by the Department of Energy to deliver a more affordable and secure energy future for all,” according to the statement.

-Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine committee voted to do away with the long-standing, universal recommendation that all babies receive a hepatitis B shot at birth, issuing weaker guidance for certain infants.

-The group, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, recommended that parents use individual decision-making in consultation with a health-care provider to determine when or if to give the hepatitis B birth dose to a baby whose mother tested negative for the virus.

-Some committee members and public health experts said a change could have wide-ranging consequences, such as an increase in chronic infections of the incurable virus among children.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine committee voted on Friday to do away with the long-standing, universal recommendation that all babies receive a hepatitis B shot at birth, issuing weaker guidance for certain infants.

The group, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, recommended that parents use individual decision-making in consultation with a health-care provider to determine when or if to give the hepatitis B birth dose to a baby whose mother tested negative for the virus. For babies who don’t receive the birth dose, the committee recommended that they wait to receive a first vaccine until they are at least 2 months old.

The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has to sign off on that new recommendation. The CDC currently recommends that every baby get vaccinated against hepatitis B within 24 hours of birth, regardless of their mother’s testing status.

The move overturns that guidance, which has been credited with driving down infections in children by 99% since it was first introduced three decades ago and is widely considered to be a public health success story. Some committee members and public health experts warn that the change could have wide-ranging consequences, such as an increase in infections among kids.

The vote only affects the timing of the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine series. The second would still be given one to two months after birth, with a third dose between 6 and 18 months of age.

The Oakland Police Department has declined to provide the public with access to police body camera videos that would show what happened on Oct. 18, the morning former Oakland Raiders running back Doug Martin died while in the custody of several OPD officers.

In response to a public records request by The Oaklandside, the department argued Tuesday that Martin’s death did not happen during a “critical incident,” and is therefore not subject to state laws governing the release of police body camera footage.

The decision was made by Acting Police Chief James Beere. Beere determined that, under the state Public Records Act’s public-interest balancing test exemption, and because the Community Police Review Agency, or CPRA, is investigating the incident, the video and audio recordings may be kept secret. According to the balancing test exemption, agencies may keep records secret if the public interest in doing so outweighs the public interest in disclosing them.

“Specifically, disclosure at this time would compromise privacy interests, and interfere with an ongoing investigation,” OPD wrote in response to our request.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39664905

Lieutenant General Christian Freuding fears the longstanding military partnership between the two allies is unravelling under President Trump’s administration

The Pentagon has “cut off contact” between American defence officials and their German counterparts, according to the head of Germany’s army.

The United States has traditionally treated Germany as one of its most important European allies. It is thought to have about 35,000 soldiers stationed at German bases such as Ramstein and Stuttgart, which serve as staging posts for American operations across Africa and the Middle East.

Since President Trump’s return to power in January, the relationship between the countries has become markedly cooler.

Lieutenant General Christian Freuding fears the longstanding military partnership between the two allies is unravelling under President Trump’s administration

The Pentagon has “cut off contact” between American defence officials and their German counterparts, according to the head of Germany’s army.

The United States has traditionally treated Germany as one of its most important European allies. It is thought to have about 35,000 soldiers stationed at German bases such as Ramstein and Stuttgart, which serve as staging posts for American operations across Africa and the Middle East.

Since President Trump’s return to power in January, the relationship between the countries has become markedly cooler.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39457420

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has resigned following an anti-corruption raid on his home.

Yermak, a towering figure with enormous political influence, has been Zelensky's closest adviser throughout Russia's full-scale war, but has come under increasing pressure over an escalating scandal - even though he is not accused of any wrongdoing.

Zelensky had recently appointed him to head crucial negotiations, with US President Donald Trump leading a new drive to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

In a stark address to the nation outside his presidential office, Zelensky called for unity, warning: "We risk losing everything: ourselves, Ukraine, our future."

The corruption scandal has rocked Ukraine for weeks, weakening Zelensky's own position and jeopardising the country's negotiating position with the US at a delicate time.

Ukraine, backed by its European allies, has sought to change the terms of a US-led draft peace plan originally seen as heavily slanted towards Russia.

Early on Friday Ukraine's two anti-corruption agencies raided Yermak's apartment in Kyiv's government quarters and the chief of staff said on social media that "from my side there is full co-operation".

"I'm grateful to Andriy that Ukraine's position on the negotiating track was always presented as required: it was always a patriotic position," Ukraine's president said during his video address in Kyiv.

Zelensky said he would start consultations on Saturday on who would replace Yermak as his top adviser: "When all the attention is focused on diplomacy and the defence in a war, inner strength is required."