California
States sue Trump administration over changes to childhood vaccine recommendations
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than a dozen states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.
The states argue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put children’s lives at risk when it announced last month that it would stop recommending all children get immunized against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Under the new guidance, which was met with criticism from medical experts, protections against those diseases are recommended only for certain groups deemed high risk or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.”
The new vaccine recommendations ignore long-standing medical guidance and will make states have to spend more to protect against outbreaks, the states, including Arizona and California, said.
“The health and safety of children across the country is not a political issue,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said at a news conference. “It is not a culture war talking point.”
Emily G. Hilliard, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, blasted the complaint as a “publicity stunt dressed up as a lawsuit.”
The lawsuit escalates an ongoing battle between Democratic-led states and Republican President Donald Trump’s administration over the federal government’s changes to public health policy under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at federal public health agencies, cut funding for scientific research and altered government guidance on fluoride and other topics.
Kennedy last year ousted every member of a vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with his own picks, which Tuesday’s complaint alleges was unlawful.
The lawsuit comes months after the Democratic governors of California, Washington state and Oregon launched an alliance to establish their own vaccine recommendations. The governors said the Trump administration was risking people’s health by politicizing the CDC.
States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren, though the CDC’s requirements typically influence state regulations.
Washington
Pentagon appeals order blocking Sen. Mark Kelly’s punishment for call to resist unlawful orders
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is appealing a judge’s order that blocks him from punishing Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot, for participating in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders, according to a court filing on Tuesday.
Justice Department officials filed a notice that they wil ask a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the Feb. 12 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon.
Kelly, who represents Arizona, said in a social media post that the only reason for Hegseth to appeal is to “keep trampling on the free speech rights of retired veterans and silence dissent.”
“These guys don’t know when to quit,” Kelly wrote on his X account.
Hegseth had vowed to immediately appeal Leon’s decision. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,’” he posted on his X account, referring to Kelly by his rank at retirement.
In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers appeared on a video in which they urged troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow unlawful military directives from the Trump administration. Republican President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later.
Earlier this month, a Washington grand jury declined to indict the lawmakers over the video.
Kelly sued in federal court to block his Jan. 5 censure from Hegseth. Leon’s order prohibits the Pentagon from implementing or enforcing Kelly’s punishment while his lawsuit is pending.
Leon ruled that Pentagon officials not only violated Kelly’s First Amendment free speech rights, but they also “threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees.” The judge invoked an old-fashioned rebuke -- “Horsefeathers!” -- in response to the government’s claim that Kelly is trying to exempt himself from the rules of military justice.
“To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their Government, and our Constitution demands they receive it!” wrote Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush.
The 90-second video was first posted on a social media account belonging to Slotkin. Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania also appeared in the video. All of the participants are veterans of the armed services or intelligence agencies.
Washington
Judge bars government from ‘wholesale’ search of Washington Post reporter’s seized devices
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities are barred from conducting an “unsupervised, wholesale search” of electronic devices that they seized from a Washington Post reporter’s Virginia home while investigating allegations that a Pentagon contractor illegally leaked classified information to the journalist, a magistrate judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter said he will independently review the contents of Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s devices instead of allowing a Justice Department “filter team” to perform a search. Porter said he balanced the need to protect Natanson’s free speech rights with the government’s duty to safeguard top secret national security information.
“The Court finds that seizing the totality of a reporter’s electronic work product, including tools essential to ongoing newsgathering, constitutes a restraint on the exercise of First Amendment rights,” he wrote.
The case has drawn national attention and scrutiny from press freedom advocates who say it reflects a more aggressive posture by the Justice Department toward leak investigations involving journalists.
Federal agents seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin smart watch when they searched Natanson’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, on Jan. 14. Last month, Porter agreed to temporarily bar the government from reviewing any material from Natanson’s devices. Tuesday’s order extends that prohibition.
“The Court’s genuine hope is that this search was conducted — as the government contends — to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration,” he wrote.
The Post sought an order requiring the government to immediately return the devices to its reporter, but Porter denied that request. He said it is reasonable for the government to keep nothing more than the “limited information” responsive to the search warrant. The rest of the contents must be returned to Natanson, he ruled.
Allowing the government to search a reporter’s work material, including unrelated information from confidential sources, “is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” Porter wrote.
Pentagon contractor Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones was arrested on Jan. 8 and charged with unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. Perez-Lugones is accused of taking home printouts of classified documents from his workplace and later passing them to Natanson.
The newspaper’s attorneys accused authorities of violating legal safeguards for journalists and trampling on Natanson’s First Amendment rights.
Justice Department attorneys argued that the government is entitled to keep the seized material because it contains evidence in an ongoing investigation with national security implications.
The FBI began investigating after the Post on Oct. 31 published an article containing classified information from an intelligence report, according to the government. The Post reporter co-wrote and contributed to at least five articles that contained classified information provided by Perez-Lugones, authorities said.
Natanson has been covering Republican President Donald Trump’s transformation of the federal government. The Post published a piece in which she described gaining hundreds of new sources from the federal workforce, leading one colleague to call her “the federal government whisperer.”
The Post says the seized material spanned years of Natanson’s reporting across hundreds of stories, including communications with confidential sources.
The Justice Department has internal guidelines governing its response to news media leaks. Last April, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued new guidelines restoring prosecutors’ authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.
The new guidelines rescinded a policy from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations.
Perez-Lugones, 61, of Laurel, Maryland, has remained jailed since his arrest. He held a top-secret security clearance while working as a systems engineer and information technology specialist for a government contractor.
Investigators found phone messages between Perez-Lugones and the reporter in which they discussed the information that he provided, authorities said. “I’m going quiet for a bit ... just to see if anyone starts asking questions,” Perez-Lugones wrote after sending one of the documents, according to the government.
New Hampshire
State resident charged in shooting at Canadian border
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Authorities have charged a New Hampshire resident in connection with a shooting that occurred at the state’s border with Canada, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Blu Zeke Daly, 26, who also goes by Cullan Zeke Daly, of Manchester, was charged with one count of attempted murder of a federal officer and one count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said. Daly was shot near the border early Sunday by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was returning fire from Daly, investigators said Monday.
Daly is at a hospital receiving medical treatment under guard, prosecutors said. The Border Patrol agent, whom authorities have not named, was unharmed, authorities said earlier this week.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has said shots were fired around 1 a.m. Sunday in Pittsburg, a town of about 800 people at the border with Canada. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire said Tuesday that a border patrol agent encountered Daly driving alone near the border late Saturday and followed Daly for a distance. Daly then arrived at the Pittsburg Port of Entry, which was closed at the time.
“The Border Patrol agent activated his emergency lights and exited his vehicle, at which point Daly started to turn. Daly then fired a handgun at the Border Patrol agent. The agent returned fire with his own service weapon and shot Daly,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
It was unclear Tuesday night if Daly had an attorney. Prosecutors said the case is still under investigation and the FBI is taking the lead.
Pittsburg is a rural community that is home to the state’s sole border crossing with the Canadian province of Quebec. It’s is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of the state capital of Concord. The town borders Maine and Vermont as well as Canada.
States sue Trump administration over changes to childhood vaccine recommendations
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than a dozen states sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.
The states argue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put children’s lives at risk when it announced last month that it would stop recommending all children get immunized against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Under the new guidance, which was met with criticism from medical experts, protections against those diseases are recommended only for certain groups deemed high risk or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.”
The new vaccine recommendations ignore long-standing medical guidance and will make states have to spend more to protect against outbreaks, the states, including Arizona and California, said.
“The health and safety of children across the country is not a political issue,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said at a news conference. “It is not a culture war talking point.”
Emily G. Hilliard, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, blasted the complaint as a “publicity stunt dressed up as a lawsuit.”
The lawsuit escalates an ongoing battle between Democratic-led states and Republican President Donald Trump’s administration over the federal government’s changes to public health policy under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at federal public health agencies, cut funding for scientific research and altered government guidance on fluoride and other topics.
Kennedy last year ousted every member of a vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with his own picks, which Tuesday’s complaint alleges was unlawful.
The lawsuit comes months after the Democratic governors of California, Washington state and Oregon launched an alliance to establish their own vaccine recommendations. The governors said the Trump administration was risking people’s health by politicizing the CDC.
States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren, though the CDC’s requirements typically influence state regulations.
Washington
Pentagon appeals order blocking Sen. Mark Kelly’s punishment for call to resist unlawful orders
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is appealing a judge’s order that blocks him from punishing Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot, for participating in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders, according to a court filing on Tuesday.
Justice Department officials filed a notice that they wil ask a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the Feb. 12 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon.
Kelly, who represents Arizona, said in a social media post that the only reason for Hegseth to appeal is to “keep trampling on the free speech rights of retired veterans and silence dissent.”
“These guys don’t know when to quit,” Kelly wrote on his X account.
Hegseth had vowed to immediately appeal Leon’s decision. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,’” he posted on his X account, referring to Kelly by his rank at retirement.
In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers appeared on a video in which they urged troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow unlawful military directives from the Trump administration. Republican President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later.
Earlier this month, a Washington grand jury declined to indict the lawmakers over the video.
Kelly sued in federal court to block his Jan. 5 censure from Hegseth. Leon’s order prohibits the Pentagon from implementing or enforcing Kelly’s punishment while his lawsuit is pending.
Leon ruled that Pentagon officials not only violated Kelly’s First Amendment free speech rights, but they also “threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees.” The judge invoked an old-fashioned rebuke -- “Horsefeathers!” -- in response to the government’s claim that Kelly is trying to exempt himself from the rules of military justice.
“To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their Government, and our Constitution demands they receive it!” wrote Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush.
The 90-second video was first posted on a social media account belonging to Slotkin. Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania also appeared in the video. All of the participants are veterans of the armed services or intelligence agencies.
Washington
Judge bars government from ‘wholesale’ search of Washington Post reporter’s seized devices
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities are barred from conducting an “unsupervised, wholesale search” of electronic devices that they seized from a Washington Post reporter’s Virginia home while investigating allegations that a Pentagon contractor illegally leaked classified information to the journalist, a magistrate judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter said he will independently review the contents of Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s devices instead of allowing a Justice Department “filter team” to perform a search. Porter said he balanced the need to protect Natanson’s free speech rights with the government’s duty to safeguard top secret national security information.
“The Court finds that seizing the totality of a reporter’s electronic work product, including tools essential to ongoing newsgathering, constitutes a restraint on the exercise of First Amendment rights,” he wrote.
The case has drawn national attention and scrutiny from press freedom advocates who say it reflects a more aggressive posture by the Justice Department toward leak investigations involving journalists.
Federal agents seized a phone, two laptops, a recorder, a portable hard drive and a Garmin smart watch when they searched Natanson’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, on Jan. 14. Last month, Porter agreed to temporarily bar the government from reviewing any material from Natanson’s devices. Tuesday’s order extends that prohibition.
“The Court’s genuine hope is that this search was conducted — as the government contends — to gather evidence of a crime in a single case, not to collect information about confidential sources from a reporter who has published articles critical of the administration,” he wrote.
The Post sought an order requiring the government to immediately return the devices to its reporter, but Porter denied that request. He said it is reasonable for the government to keep nothing more than the “limited information” responsive to the search warrant. The rest of the contents must be returned to Natanson, he ruled.
Allowing the government to search a reporter’s work material, including unrelated information from confidential sources, “is the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of the Washington Post’s henhouse,” Porter wrote.
Pentagon contractor Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones was arrested on Jan. 8 and charged with unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents. Perez-Lugones is accused of taking home printouts of classified documents from his workplace and later passing them to Natanson.
The newspaper’s attorneys accused authorities of violating legal safeguards for journalists and trampling on Natanson’s First Amendment rights.
Justice Department attorneys argued that the government is entitled to keep the seized material because it contains evidence in an ongoing investigation with national security implications.
The FBI began investigating after the Post on Oct. 31 published an article containing classified information from an intelligence report, according to the government. The Post reporter co-wrote and contributed to at least five articles that contained classified information provided by Perez-Lugones, authorities said.
Natanson has been covering Republican President Donald Trump’s transformation of the federal government. The Post published a piece in which she described gaining hundreds of new sources from the federal workforce, leading one colleague to call her “the federal government whisperer.”
The Post says the seized material spanned years of Natanson’s reporting across hundreds of stories, including communications with confidential sources.
The Justice Department has internal guidelines governing its response to news media leaks. Last April, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued new guidelines restoring prosecutors’ authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.
The new guidelines rescinded a policy from Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations.
Perez-Lugones, 61, of Laurel, Maryland, has remained jailed since his arrest. He held a top-secret security clearance while working as a systems engineer and information technology specialist for a government contractor.
Investigators found phone messages between Perez-Lugones and the reporter in which they discussed the information that he provided, authorities said. “I’m going quiet for a bit ... just to see if anyone starts asking questions,” Perez-Lugones wrote after sending one of the documents, according to the government.
New Hampshire
State resident charged in shooting at Canadian border
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Authorities have charged a New Hampshire resident in connection with a shooting that occurred at the state’s border with Canada, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Blu Zeke Daly, 26, who also goes by Cullan Zeke Daly, of Manchester, was charged with one count of attempted murder of a federal officer and one count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said. Daly was shot near the border early Sunday by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was returning fire from Daly, investigators said Monday.
Daly is at a hospital receiving medical treatment under guard, prosecutors said. The Border Patrol agent, whom authorities have not named, was unharmed, authorities said earlier this week.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has said shots were fired around 1 a.m. Sunday in Pittsburg, a town of about 800 people at the border with Canada. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire said Tuesday that a border patrol agent encountered Daly driving alone near the border late Saturday and followed Daly for a distance. Daly then arrived at the Pittsburg Port of Entry, which was closed at the time.
“The Border Patrol agent activated his emergency lights and exited his vehicle, at which point Daly started to turn. Daly then fired a handgun at the Border Patrol agent. The agent returned fire with his own service weapon and shot Daly,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
It was unclear Tuesday night if Daly had an attorney. Prosecutors said the case is still under investigation and the FBI is taking the lead.
Pittsburg is a rural community that is home to the state’s sole border crossing with the Canadian province of Quebec. It’s is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) north of the state capital of Concord. The town borders Maine and Vermont as well as Canada.
