Donald Trump said he planned to hit goods from China with a new 10% tariff, the latest salvo in the US president's steadily escalating trade fights. Imports from China already face taxes at the border of at least 10%, after a Trump tariff order that went into effect earlier this month. China's ministry of foreign affairs said it "strongly" expressed its "dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to the plans. Trump also said on Thursday he intended to move forward with threatened 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which are set to come into effect on 4 March. Trump's comments came as officials from Mexico and Canada were in Washington for discussions aimed at heading off that plan. Trump had announced the plans for 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada for 4 February unless the two nations increased border security. He paused the measures for a month at the last minute after the two countries agreed to increase border funding and talk more about how to combat drug trafficking. On social media on Thursday, Trump wrote that he did not think enough action had been taken to address the flow of fentanyl to the US. "Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels," he wrote, adding that "a large percentage" of the drugs were made in China. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, at a press conference from the country's National Palace, said in response: "As we know, [Trump] has his way of communicating." She added: "I hope we can reach an agreement and on 4 March we can announce something else." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said his country was working hard to reach a deal, warning tariffs from the US would prompt an "immediate and extremely strong response". Trump's threats against Mexico and Canada have raised widespread alarm, as the North American economy is closely connected after decades of operating under a free trade agreement. Leaders of the two countries have previously said they would impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States if the White House went ahead with its plans. Tariffs are a tax collected by the government and paid for by the business bringing the goods into the country. China, Mexico and Canada are America's top three trade partners, together accounting for more than 40% of imports into the US last year. Economists have warned tariffs on goods from the three countries could lead to higher prices in the US on everything from iPhones to avocados. Trump's call for an additional 10% levy on goods from China - which he said would also go into effect on Tuesday - had not been previously announced, though during his presidential campaign he backed border taxes on Chinese products of as much as 60%. A spokesperson for China's ministry of foreign affairs, Lin Jian, said that Trump was using the issue of the drug fentanyl entering the US from China as an "excuse" to threaten tariffs, adding it had one of the "strictest" drug control policies in the world. "Pressure, coercion, and threats are not the correct way to deal with China," he said. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, had earlier said that his country was already working with the US to address the concerns about fentanyl, and had made "visual progress" in areas such as information exchange, case cooperation and online advertisement cleanup. "Reducing domestic drug demand and strengthening law enforcement cooperation are the fundamental solutions," he said in a statement, which warned that Trump's tariff moves were "bound to affect and undermine future counternarcotics cooperation between the two sides". "The unilateral tariffs imposed by the US will not solve its own problems, nor will it benefit the two sides or the world." Trump's comments, which called for drug flow to stop or be "severely limited", seemed to set the stage for Mexico and Canada to negotiate, said trade expert Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. On Thursday, as tariff talks intensified, two imprisoned alleged leaders of the violent Zetas cartel long sought by the US - Miguel Angel Trevino Morales and his brother Oscar - were extradited. Mexican media said they were part of a larger group of drug lords sent from Mexico to the US - a major step in terms of US-Mexico security relations. Ms McDaniel said Trump's demands of China were less clear, raising the likelihood that those measures will come into effect. Trump's initial round of tariffs on China was eclipsed by his threats against Canada and Mexico. But the potential for further duties raises questions about how businesses will respond. Ms McDaniel said she expected the hit to be felt more in China. "It's not costless for the US, but so far it seems more costly for China," she said. The impact of tariffs, if they go into effect, is expected to be felt more in the Canadian and Mexican economies, which count on the US as a key export market. But analysts have warned that the threat of the levies, even if they are never imposed, is still likely to have a chilling effect on investment, including in the US. China has already responded to the first round of tariffs from the US with its own tariffs on US products, including coal and agricultural machinery. Trump has dismissed fears about damage to the American economy.
More than half of sleep sessions end with the snooze button, with people sneaking in an extra 11 minutes on average, a new study reveals — but experts say it may not be a good idea. Researchers from Mass General Brigham analyzed data from the Sleep Cycle app, which included sleep habits from more than 21,000 people globally. Among the more than three million sleep sessions tracked, nearly 56% ended with the snooze button. MOST SLEEP-DEPRIVED CITIES IN US REVEALED IN REPORT: WHERE DOES YOURS RANK? The heaviest users of the snooze button — who used it for more than 80% of the mornings included in the study — slept an average of 20 extra minutes. These heaviest snoozers were also shown to have "more erratic sleep schedules" than those who used the snooze button less often, the researchers found."Unfortunately, the snooze alarm disrupts some of the most important stages of sleep," said lead author Rebecca Robbins, PhD, in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in a press release. "The hours just before waking are rich in rapid eye movement sleep. Hitting the snooze alarm will interrupt these critical stages of sleep and typically only offer light sleep in between snooze alarms."
Proper handwashing could save a million lives a year, according to an expert — and yet many people are doing it improperly, often due to misconceptions surrounding the practice. Doctors recommend washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. The NFID 2025 State of Handwashing Report, recently released by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, provides details on Americans' handwashing habits (and mistakes). WHY YOUR LAUNDRY COULD BE MAKING YOU SICK AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT The report is based on a survey of 3,587 U.S. adults, conducted in November and December 2024 and March 2025."We have to recognize that there are a number of important infections that hand sanitizers are not effective at preventing," Hopkins said. One example is norovirus, a highly contagious stomach virus that is common on cruise ships and is also spread seasonally. The virus cannot be killed with hand sanitizer, but is "easily destroyed" with soap and water, according to Hopkins.Certain viruses are "encapsulated" and can be destroyed with either soap and water or hand sanitizer, the expert said. However, there is also an "unencapsulated" type of virus, which has an outer coat that does not break down from the alcohol in hand sanitizer. Using soap and water is a more effective way to kill the germs, the doctor noted. 2. Just coughing into your sleeve When people cough or sneeze into their sleeve, they could still spread germs afterward. "If you cough into your sleeve … go ahead and wash your hands with soap and water as well," Hopkins advised. COMMON MEDICAL TEST LINKED TO 5% OF CANCERS, STUDY SUGGESTS: ‘USE THEM WISELY’ "We also have to recognize that we often bring our hands up close to our face, touch our nose, our glasses, other parts of our face," noted the doctor, who is based in Arkansas. "If we have bacteria or viruses on our hands, we can introduce them into our mucous membranes, where we can get infections."
Note the time delay "The [cortisol] decline is different for everyone but typically occurs one-and-a-half to two hours after you wake," Zumpano said. That's the best time to have coffee, Zumpano said. SLEEP EXPERT REVEALS TOP FOODS AND DRINKS KEEPING YOU UP AT NIGHT That way, "you can rely on your body's natural alert system - cortisol - and when it declines, then you use caffeine to provide the boost.""There is no specific time that's best to drink caffeine," the dietitian added. "[It's] based on when you wake and your natural rise and drop in cortisol." Yet adhering to the body's natural wake-up processes can help sustain energy levels by avoiding one big cortisol, caffeinated crash. COFFEE CREAMER HEALTH RISKS: WHAT TO KNOW, WHAT TO CHOOSE INSTEAD Fox News Digital previously reported on smart ways to consume coffee, with an expert noting that coffee drinking should be tailored to each individual. "For some people, waking up and having a glass of water to rehydrate and then having coffee works well – but for others the morning ritual of having a cup of coffee first thing upon awakening is just too good to give up," said Wendy Troxel, a Utah-based sleep expert and senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation.
The Pandemic Agreement, just adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a landmark for global public health. Had such an agreement been in place before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic would have looked very different. The agreement now means that when the next pandemic begins brewing, the world will be much better equipped to mitigate or even prevent it. What exactly will the agreement do? In a nutshell, 124 countries have pledged to prevent, prepare for, and respond to future pandemics. The countries that formally ratify the agreement will be bound to uphold a number of commitments including investing in health infrastructures, sharing intellectual property, and engaging in technology transfer. Advertisement One of the biggest benefits promises to be the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System. This will require U.N. member states to share information and data about potential pandemic viruses, including sequencing of new viruses or variants, as well as share relevant vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostic technologies. Vaccine manufacturers in participating countries will be expected to provide 20% of pandemic vaccines in real time to the WHO to distribute globally, including to poorer countries and those most in need of them. Of these vaccines, member countries will donate 10% of them for free. Such an arrangement would have saved many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first few years, the unequal access to vaccines was one of the biggest challenges, with one study finding that up to half the COVID-19 deaths in many lower income countries could have been avoided with a more equitable supply of vaccines. Read More: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Global-Health Architect Conspicuously absent from the agreement is the U.S., which has historically played a key role in global health, from HIV/AIDS to malaria and beyond. Although 11 countries abstained from voting, the U.S.'s omission due to its decision to withdraw from the WHO is notable. COVID-19 taught us that the health of people on the other side of the world is inexorably tied to our own. Isolationism doesn't work when it comes to infectious disease. Even countries that took the most drastic measures to contain COVID-19, like China, eventually succumbed to rapid and extensive spread of the virus when they relaxed international travel or strict lockdowns and social-distancing measures. Preventing the next pandemic will require us to ensure that all countries, including low- and middle-income ones, have the necessary resources to prevent outbreaks from happening and to quash them before they spread. Advertisement The agreement also proves that multilateralism and a desire for global cooperation are still shared goals among most countries. Some critics of the agreement, including U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have argued that it would be a threat to national sovereignty or freedom, in that it would compromise countries’ ability to make pandemic-related health policy decisions. This is not the case. The agreement states that it “does not prejudice the sovereign right” of countries to consider it in accordance with their own national constitutions. Global agreements or treaties of this nature are rare. But when they do come about, they are far from being tokenistic documents full of legalese. Although the Pandemic Agreement is less formal and legally binding, several U.N. global treaties have already saved millions of lives. The Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, the first WHO treaty, has reduced tobacco use by one-third over the past 20 years and has saved lives with policies like indoor smoking bans.
The Israeli military fired warning shots at a large delegation of European and Arab diplomats on an official visit near the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, drawing swift international condemnation. Delegations from more than 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Canada and others, were on an official mission to see the humanitarian situation around the besieged camp, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which called the incident a “deliberate and unlawful act.” Video from the incident shows Israeli soldiers firing toward the delegation as it backs away from a gate blocking the road. At least seven shots can be heard in the video. One member of the delegation cautions the group, “be close to the wall, be close to the wall,” as they walk away from the scene. “The ministry holds the Israeli occupying government fully and directly responsible for this criminal assault and affirms that such acts will not pass without accountability,” the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the visit to the camp - the site of a major ongoing military operation that has destroyed more than 100 buildings and impacted thousands of families - was coordinated in advance. The military said it launched an initial investigation once it became clear that the group was a diplomatic delegation. “The delegation deviated from the approved route and entered an area where they were not authorized to be,” the military said in a statement Wednesday. “IDF soldiers operating in the area fired warning shots to distance them away.” The IDF said it will reach out to the delegations about the findings of the initial inquiry and “regrets the inconvenience caused.” The Palestinian Authority said the visit was announced 10 days in advance and that the group had been at the gate for more than 15 minutes before Israeli soldiers started shooting. Roland Friedrich, the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the West Bank, refuted the Israeli military’s version of events, saying that its explanations “do not fully capture the severity of today’s event.” “This incident is a stark reminder of the lax use of excessive force routinely deployed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, often with lethal consequences,” Friedrich said. “This raises serious concerns over the way rules of engagement are applied to unarmed civilians.” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said after the incident that “any threats on diplomats’ lives are unacceptable.” “We definitely call on Israel to investigate this incident and also hold those accountable who are responsible for this,” Kallas said at a press conference Wednesday. Italy’s foreign ministry summoned Israel’s ambassador in Rome for an official clarification. “The threats against diplomats are unacceptable,” the country’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani added in a social media post on X. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that Israel’s ambassador to France would also be summoned following the incident, calling it “unacceptable,” while Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that his government summoned the head of the Israeli embassy in Madrid. Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand confirmed on social media that four Canadian personnel were part of the delegation that was shot at, adding that she has asked officials to summon Israel’s Ambassador to convey “Canada’s serious concerns.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told a news conference in Ottawa that Canada expected a full and immediate explanation of what happened. “It’s totally unacceptable,” he said. “It’s some of many things that are totally unacceptable that’s going on in the region.” On Wednesday evening, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told CNN’s Isa Soares that her country will be summoning the Israeli ambassador to Finland in response to the military’s actions. “Any deviation of any route – it is not an excuse,” Valtonen said. “It is prohibited to open fire against civilians, even under the laws of war. And, of course, these people were also under diplomatic protection.” A host of officials from other European nations condemned the shooting, including representatives from Ireland, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Foreign ministries from countries including Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar also strongly condemned the incident. “This attack, which endangered the lives of diplomats, is yet another demonstration of Israel’s systematic disregard for international law and human rights,” Turkey’s foreign ministry said. “The targeting of diplomats constitutes a grave threat not only to individual safety but also to the mutual respect and trust that form the foundation of inter-state relations. This attack must be investigated without delay, and those responsible must be held accountable,” it added. Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the shooting incident occurred near the Jenin refugee camp, not within the camp.
Britain’s government has been temporarily blocked from concluding its deal to transfer the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, PA Media reported, after an 11th-hour injunction by a High Court judge. Prime Minister Keir Starmer intends to return the islands to the African country, while maintaining control of the US-UK Diego Garcia military base, and it had been expected that the deal would be signed off on Thursday.
For months now, President Trump has been threatening to deport foreign students who took part in last year’s campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Behind the scenes, his administration got to work. Investigators from a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that typically focuses on human traffickers and drug smugglers scoured the internet for social media posts and videos that the administration could argue showed sympathy toward Hamas, administration officials said. The investigators handed over reports on multiple protesters to the State Department, which used an obscure legal statute to authorize the arrest over the weekend of a 30-year-old lawful permanent resident: Mahmoud Khalil. Mr. Trump said this week that Mr. Khalil’s case was the first of “many to come.” Civil rights groups say the arrest of Mr. Khalil, who is a legal permanent resident and is married to an American citizen, is a clear violation of the First Amendment. But it also illustrates how Mr. Trump is using the tools of the federal government to launch a crackdown not only on those who break the law — but also on dissent more broadly. “Freedom of speech has limitations,” Thomas D. Homan, who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s deportation operation, said on Wednesday during a meeting of New York lawmakers in Albany. “We consider him a national security threat.” Mr. Khalil has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the government is using a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act to argue that his actions during protests at Columbia University harmed U.S. foreign policy interests by fomenting antisemitism. The statute says that any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” Mr. Khalil was a negotiator and a spokesman for the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia, from which he graduated in December with a master’s degree. His lawyers said Wednesday that they had not been able to hold a private conversation with him since his arrest. Stephen Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said there was only one other case he was aware of where similar powers were cited in deportation proceedings. The case involved Mario Ruiz Massieu, the former deputy attorney general of Mexico who entered the United States in 1995 on a visa. That year, the U.S. government tried to send him back to Mexico, where he was wanted on money laundering and other charges. The secretary of state at the time, Warren Christopher, said deportation was necessary for foreign policy reasons. Allowing Mr. Ruiz Massieu to stay would undermine the U.S. push for judicial reforms in Mexico, Mr. Christopher argued. The case against Mr. Ruiz Massieu was held up on appeal.The cases differ in important ways, Mr. Vladeck said. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was a foreign government official accused of corruption who was in the country on a temporary visa. Mr. Khalil has a green card — which allows a person a path to stay in the United States permanently — and was engaged in what appears to be constitutionally protected speech. “The government certainly appears to be retaliating for constitutionally protected, even if offensive, speech,” Mr. Vladeck said. The Trump administration has argued that Mr. Khalil’s role in protests at Columbia showed he was “aligned with Hamas,” but officials have not accused him of having any contact with the terrorist group, taking direction from it or providing material support to it. Mr. Trump has talked openly over the years about using the power of the presidency for retribution and reprisals. He has fired or launched investigations of government officials deemed to be disloyal and revoked security details for people with whom he has fallen out. He has put federal employees embracing diversity programs that he disagrees with on leave. But critics of the president say Mr. Khalil’s case seems designed to intimidate. “We cannot allow this nation to slide into a system of presidential authoritarianism, where people are seized at their homes, arrested and detained simply for expressing disfavored political viewpoints,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and ranking member of the judicial committee. Mr. Raskin said the detention of Mr. Khalil “sets an extremely dangerous and chilling precedent from an administration that is hellbent on wielding fear and intimidation as weapons to crush political dissent.”Legal experts say Mr. Trump’s attempts to stifle dissent can have a chilling effect. “Even if Khalil is eventually able to prevail, the government may get the short-term win of sending the message to immigrants of every status that they risk arrest, detention and perhaps even removal for having the temerity to speak out in favor of unpopular causes, even if they might win their lawsuit in the end,” Mr. Vladeck said. Mr. Trump has used his powers in the past to muzzle forms of protest. In 2020, as demonstrations against police brutality and racism swept the nation, Mr. Trump deployed various federal agencies, including the Bureau of Prisons and Customs and Border Protection officials, to crack down on protests in Washington. His administration even deployed military helicopters to fly low in the nation’s capital to try and disperse protesters. The Trump administration also considered making use of the Hobbs Act, which was put into place in the 1940s to punish racketeering in labor groups, to charge the protesters. At the same time, Mr. Trump has shown leniency when it comes to protests he agrees with. One of his first acts when he came into office in January was granting clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people who committed both violent and nonviolent crimes on Jan. 6, 2021, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. The rioters ransacked the Capitol in Mr. Trump’s name after Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the election.
Meteorologists get it wrong sometimes. Thankfully, when they got a Los Angeles weather forecast wrong this week, it was because the winds were weaker than predicted on Tuesday and no longer met the National Weather Service’s criteria for a “particularly dangerous situation.” The phrase describes a rare, high-level warning that is meant to be used only every few years for the worst possible wildfire conditions of dried vegetation, low humidity and strong winds. Just a week ago, at the start of a cycle of four Santa Ana wind events that have overtaken the region since then, the forecast warned of a “particularly dangerous” wildfire outlook, with a windstorm of a strength not seen in over a decade. That forecast was realized when the Palisades fire, the Eaton fire and other blazes sent Los Angeles residents fleeing from their homes as a torrent of winds pushed fires raging through their neighborhoods.Weather Service meteorologists make their forecasts based on a combination of current conditions, historical events and computer weather models. They take all this information in and then forecast what they think is the most likely outcome. There are always outliers, conditions that could occur but are less likely. Sometimes, a storm will overperform the forecast, and sometimes it will under perform. In meteorology, both eventualities are considered “busted forecasts.” While forecasters who predict an especially extreme event might be happy if the conditions aren’t as bad as they had predicted, they know that if the forecast is off by too much, people will trust future warnings a little less. James Brotherton, a meteorologist with the Weather Service in Los Angeles, said he would much rather have a forecast be wrong if it meant there was “less pain and suffering.” Ahead of this cycle of winds, forecasters put another “particularly dangerous situation” warning in place from 4 a.m. Tuesday through noon on Wednesday, as they feared more strong winds would help fuel existing fires and possibly spark new ones. But by early Tuesday afternoon, the winds were proving to be less strong than expected, and the Weather Service dropped the warning for the rest of the day. The move was temporary, and another “particularly dangerous situation” warning will be in place from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday. Ryan Kittell, another forecaster in the Los Angeles office, compared it to someone filling out an N.C.A.A. bracket every March. “Even if you’re the best, at some point you won’t have a forecast verify as you would like,” he said. The “particularly dangerous situation” designation is still a relatively new tool, Mr. Kittell said. Tuesday’s forecast was always right at the line between high level and not, and the office opted to use the stronger warning because of the ongoing fires across the region, he said. Robert Clark, a fire behavior analyst for Cal Fire who is working on the Palisades fire, was relieved Tuesday’s winds weren’t as powerful. The fire didn’t grow overnight, and quieter weather was allowing crews to extinguish fire in pockets of smoldering landscape and vegetation. While conditions have improved, Mr. Clark said he was most concerned about the forecast for the Santa Ana winds to pick up again Tuesday night into Wednesday. “And then we’re looking out to the future to see what happens with the weather forecast with an additional round of Santa Ana winds possible next week,” he said.
President Donald Trump's announcement that he plans to end the U.S. sanctions imposed on Syria, which have been in place for over 45 years, was met with jubilant celebrations in the Syrian capital of Damascus. People in the streets cheered and waved Syrian flags. Disclosing the news on the first leg of his Middle East tour, during the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday, Trump said he would be lifting sanctions “in order to give them [Syria] greatness.” Advertisement He described the sanctions as “brutal and crippling,” but also noted their important function before the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime in December 2024. On Wednesday morning, before departing for Doha, Qatar, Trump met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. They were accompanied by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan joined remotely via telephone. While travelling to Doha on Air Force One, Trump shared with reporters his impression of al-Sharaa, calling him a "young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter… He’s got a real shot at holding it together.” Read More: Trump Meets With Syria’s President After Announcing Plans to Lift U.S. Sanctions on Country Shiraz Maher, a writer and lecturer of war studies at King’s College London, says that Trump’s announcement shows “an explicit vote of confidence in the new Administration. It gives Syria a new opportunity.”I see this as something that Obama tried to do, leading from behind, removing obstacles, and giving Syria an opportunity to do it their way.” In a post-meeting update shared on X, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump urged al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel. He also encouraged al-Sharaa to remove foreign terrorists from Syria and help the United States prevent the resurgence of ISIS. The Abraham Accords, established during Trump’s first term, involve a number of Arab and Muslim states normalizing diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. Since the collapse of the Assad regime in December, Israel has conducted airstrikes within Syria, recently near Damascus, citing violence in Druze areas. Israeli forces have also reportedly expanded military operations beyond the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the southwest corner of Syria.
As the new head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is now in charge of disbursing $35 billion a year, the largest amount of funding for biomedical research in the world. That is, if he continues the NIH’s support of the research that has been behind many medical breakthroughs, including mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Bhattacharya emerged during the pandemic as a critic of the government and its response, and gained notoriety for claiming that federal health officials were assessing the risk of the pandemic all wrong. He argued that masking and lockdowns were misguided policies fueled by a skewed analysis of only the most severe COVID-19 cases among people who were hospitalized or died. As the new head of NIH, it’s likely similar questioning of how data is interpreted will permeate the types of grants the Institutes will fund; the day after he was confirmed as NIH’s new director, according to some NIH employees, they received an email asking for a comprehensive list of contracts exhibiting censorship and misinformation, listing the dangers of COVID-19 and not wearing masks as examples.
