When the Trump administration announced massive cuts to federal health agencies earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was getting rid of excess administrators who were larding the government with bureaucratic bloat.

But a groundbreaking data analysis by ProPublica shows the administration has cut deeper than it has acknowledged. Though Kennedy said he would add scientists to the workforce, agencies have lost thousands of them, along with colleagues who those scientists depended on to dispatch checks, fix computers and order lab supplies, enabling them to do their jobs.

Done in the name of government efficiency, these reductions have left departments stretching to perform their basic functions, ProPublica found, according to interviews with more than three dozen former and current

• Slashed Autism Funding: RFK Jr. promised to identify the causes of autism but has eliminated parts of his agency actively investigating them and has cut millions in funding for autism research.
• Silent on Rollbacks: Once an ardent environmentalist who took on big polluters, RFK Jr. has been silent on Trump’s dismantling of efforts to combat climate change and pollution.
• Conflicting Priorities: RFK Jr. helps lead an administration that is reversing regulations on pollution and chemicals, including some linked to autism.

Any such effort, said one democracy watchdog, "would violate the Constitution and is a major step to prevent free and fair elections."

After months of degrading transgender athletes under the guise of protecting women’s sports, right-wing media weirdos are suggesting the WNBA “embrace” the sexualization of its players

MAGA media personalities can’t stop talking about the WNBA — not because of the players’ athleticism, but because people keep throwing adult toys onto the court during games. After degrading transgender athletes under the guise of protecting women’s sports, right-wing media weirdos are once again demonstrating their utter disdain for women athletes by mocking the incidents and suggesting the WNBA “embrace” the sexualization of its players.

Whether the goal is to rough up liberals, hunt down brown people, or help Donald Trump obscure his relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Republican governors are glad to dispatch troops to help the president occupy the nation's capital.

• Law enforcement officers responded to protests against immigration raids in and around Los Angeles between June 6 and 14 with excessive force and deliberate brutality.
• Local, state, and federal law enforcement’s aggressive response to these protests violently oppressed the public’s right to express outrage and the media’s right to report safely.
• All law enforcement agencies involved should respect the right to protest and ensure that those responsible for abuse are held to account.

Papers with U.S. State Department markings, found Friday morning in the business center of an Alaskan hotel, revealed previously undisclosed and potentially sensitive details about the Aug. 15 meetings between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Anchorage.

Eight pages, that appear to have been produced by U.S. staff and left behind accidentally, shared precise locations and meeting times of the summit and phone numbers of U.S. government employees.

At around 9 a.m. on Friday, three guests at Hotel Captain Cook, a four-star hotel located 20 minutes from the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage where [leaders from the U.S. and Russia convened](https://www.npr.org/2025/08