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“Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.”
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- The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block a lower court order restricting the Department of Homeland Security from deporting illegal immigrants to nations other than their home countries.
- Health officials on Tuesday said they’re no longer recommendingthe COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.
- The European Union has formally adopted a landmark $170 billion defense financing program aimed at rearming the continent, bolstering its defense industry, and reducing reliance on the United States as the war in Ukraine rages on and questions swirl about America’s future engagement in Europe’s security amid increasing risks in the Pacific posed by communist China.
- Tesla’s vehicle sales across Europe tumbled nearly 50 percent in April, even as overall electric vehicle demand accelerated across the continent.
- 🍵Health: While the physical toll of obesity is well-known, mounting research shows that excess body fat changes the brain, affecting how we think, feel, and understand.
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Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor
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The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on May 19, 2025. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block a lower court order restricting the Department of Homeland Security from deporting illegal immigrants to nations other than their home countries.
“On behalf of a nationwide class of aliens with final orders of removal, the district court issued an extraordinary preliminary injunction that restrains DHS from exercising its undisputed statutory authority to remove an alien to a country not specifically identified in his removal order (i.e., a ’third country’), unless DHS first satisfies an onerous set of procedures invented by the district court to assess any potential claim under the Convention Against Torture,” the Justice Department said in a filing on Tuesday.
It added that, “Those judicially created procedures are currently wreaking havoc on the third country removal process.”
The administration said it had been removing individuals to South Sudan, but was blocked by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts.
The administration “was in the process of removing a group of criminal aliens who had been in the country for years or decades after receiving final orders of removal, despite having committed horrific crimes,” according to the filing.
That included people convicted of murder, sexually abusing a child, and sexually abusing a mentally handicapped woman.
Murphy has issued multiple orders over the past few months blocking potential deportations. In April, he said that individuals should be given a chance to explain why deportation to a new country would “likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.”
“This small modicum of process is mandated by the Constitution of the United States,” he added. (💬 Comment)
More Politics:
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- The president said on Tuesday that he would soon grant pardons to reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, who were convicted of bank fraud, tax evasion, and other financial crimes.
- Trump warned California that he intends to rescind federal education funds if the state does not abide by his executive order that banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
- The State Department ordered American embassies worldwide to pause all student visa interviews, a senior department official confirmed to The Epoch Times.
- A federal judge has temporarily barred the federal government from punishing New York State for continuing New York City’s congestion pricing toll in defiance of a federal directive to shut it down.
- Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) will not seek re-election in 2026 and will, instead, run for governor of Alabama.
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Health officials on Tuesday said they’re no longer recommendingthe COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a video on social media platform X that the vaccines will be removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s online versions of the schedules, which say they were published in 2024, still list the COVID-19 vaccine.
The latest versions of the vaccines were cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 2024 without any clinical data. The CDC previously advised pregnant women and children to receive at least one dose of the currently available formulations of the shots, even if they had previously been vaccinated.
Those recommendations came “despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children,” Kennedy said.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in the video: “That ends today. It’s common sense, and it’s good science.”
Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, added: “There’s no evidence healthy kids need it today, and most countries have stopped recommending it for children.”
The CDC, FDA, and National Institutes of Health are all part of the Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy heads. (💬 Comment)
More U.S. News
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- The National Archives released thousands of UFO reports filed by civilian pilots over the course of 17 years. Here’s what they reveal.
- PDD Holdings Inc., the Shanghai-based parent company of the retail and shopping platform Temu, saw a significant decline in first-quarter profits and sales as the Chinese e-commerce industry faces growing challenges at home and abroad, while the United States ramps up trade talks with Beijing.
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As the international community closely monitors the global spread of Omicron variant NB.1.8.1, China announced on May 23 that it is the primary variant spreading in the country.
On the same day, a World Health Organization advisory group classified NB.1.8.1 as a variant under monitoring, due to its increasing detection in monitoring efforts around the globe.
The WHO said they currently consider the NB.1.8.1 variant, first detected in January this year, to have a low risk to public health “at the global level.”
As of May 18, 518 sequences of the new variant had been submitted by 22 countries to GISAID, a global influenza and COVID-19 virus genome sequence database, accounting for 10.7 percent of global sequences in for the week of April 21-27. This represents a significant increase in detection of the variant from 2.5 percent in the week from March 31 to April 6.
NB.1.8.1’s dominance is particularly pronounced among China’s immediate neighbors in Asia.
China last month reported a sharp increase in reported COVID cases, mostly driven by the NB.1.8.1 variant, with residents reporting symptoms including severe burning throat pain, cough, and fever. (More)
More World News:
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- President Trump says it would cost Canada $61 billion to partner in the Golden Dome missile defence system he is planning.
- An investigation by the European Commission of the European Union has found online retailer Shein to have engaged in a “number of practices on its platform that infringe EU consumer law,” according to the commission.
- Health officials in the U.S. and Argentine governments called on other countries to join the two nations after both withdrew from the World Health Organization earlier this year.
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📷 Photo of the Day: Two men wash sheep in the river ahead of Eid al-Adha in Srinagar, India, on May 27, 2025. This year’s celebrations are subdued after the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 25 civilians. Faisal Khan/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
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🇺🇲 American Thoughts Leaders: Jonah Platt: The Incredible Story of Muslims and Jews Visiting Auschwitz Together (Watch)
🎙 Podcast: Li Shaomin is a professor of international business at Old Dominion University in Virginia. He shares his intriguing life story of how he lived through China’s communist propaganda, painted it, and suddenly broke free from it. (Listen)
✍️ Opinion: Beijing Turns Its Eye Toward Latin America, by Milton Ezrati (Read)
🎵 Music: Bach – Brandenburg Concertos (Listen)
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While the physical toll of obesity is well-known, mounting research shows that excess body fat changes the brain, affecting how we think, feel, and understand.
The connection is made worse because calorie-rich, highly tasty foods can hijack our brain’s reward system, making them almost impossible to resist.
The relationship between obesity and the brain is fueled by a continuous, self-reinforcing loop, in which obesity stems from certain behaviors while also reinforcing and perpetuating them.
Our brains are wired to find pleasure in calorie-dense foods, a deeply ingrained evolutionary trait that once served us well in times of scarcity. However, in today’s abundant food environment, this wiring becomes a problem.
Foods high in sugar, fat, and salt trigger a strong release of dopamine in the brain, create a powerful sense of pleasure, and reinforce the desire to keep eating them. Ultra-processed foods are designed to overstimulate this reward pathway, effectively hijacking our natural satiety signals and making it harder to know when we’ve had enough.
Research also suggests that people with obesity are more likely to make riskier choices in situations involving calculable risks, particularly when the potential downside is low. This might explain certain food choices, even when the health consequences are known.
Adding fuel to this cycle is the relentless marketing of unhealthy foods. The average person is exposed to around 2,000 ads for food every day, Dr. Eric Akin, a neurosurgeon who reversed his prediabetes, told The Epoch Times. Most of those ads are for very calorie-dense, nutrient-poor, sugar-laden foods. (More)
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Thanks for reading.
Have a wonderful day.
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—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li.
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