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More than 60 Health and Advocacy Groups Urge Trump to Fire Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Today, 61 organizations sent President Donald Trump a letter urging him to immediately fire Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., calling him the “source of chaos” at the U.S.’s top health agency.
In an effort led by Public Citizen and Protect Our Care, the groups call on Trump to replace Kennedy with someone who has a “demonstrated track record of experience and integrity.” The letter states Kennedy continues to undermine Americans’ health while sowing mistrust and limiting access to vaccines. The letter points to alarming moments under Kennedy’s watch including the mishandling of the 2025 measles outbreak, the firing of Center for Disease Control director Dr. Susan Monarez and cuts to billions of dollars in grant money and thousands of firings at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the most dangerous individual ever to hold the title of Secretary of Health and Human Services,” said Public Citizen Co-President Lisa Gilbert. “President Trump and Senate Republicans made a grievous error when entrusting Kennedy with our nation’s health, with results both horrible and entirely predictable. It is far past time that President Trump rectifies this error by firing Kennedy before more lives are unnecessarily put at risk by Kennedy’s anti-science views and gross mismanagement.”
Separately, in a letter released Wednesday, more than 1,000 HHS workers demanded Kennedy resign from the position, emphasizing that Kennedy is unfit to run the agency.
Read the letter sent by Public Citizen and other health groups here.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Trump to Sidestep Cold War Arms Control Treaty to Sell More Drones: Report
The policy shift—which began during the first Trump administration—came after lobbying from US drone makers and amid stiff competition from Chinese, Israeli, and Turkish manufacturers.
Sep 05, 2025
After years of lobbying from US weapons makers, President Donald Trump is reportedly set to implement his first-term reinterpretation of a Cold War-era arms control treaty in order to sell heavy attack drones to countries including Saudi Arabia, according to a report published Friday.
In July 2020, Trump announced that his administration would reclassify unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with flight speeds under 500 miles per hour—including General Atomics' MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper and Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk—as exempt from certain restrictions under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
Signed by the United States in 1987 during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the 35-nation MTCR "seeks to limit the risks of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by controlling exports of goods and technologies that could make a contribution to delivery systems" for such weapons, as the US State Department website explains.
The end of Trump's first term limited his first administration's implementation of the MTCR policy shift, which was not continued under former President Joe Biden, who adopted a somewhat stricter stance on arms exports to some gross human violators including Saudi Arabia, but not others—most notably Israel.
Now, a US official and four people familiar with the president's plan tell Reuters that Trump is preparing to complete the MTCR revision, a move that "would unlock the sale of more than 100 MQ-9 drones to Saudi Arabia, which the kingdom requested in the spring of this year and could be part of a $142 billion arms deal announced in May."
As Reuters reported:
Under the current interpretation of the MTCR, the sale of many military drones is subject to a "strong presumption of denial" unless a compelling security reason is given and the buyer agrees to use the weapons in strict accordance with international law.
The new policy will allow General Atomics, Kratos, and Anduril, which manufacture large drones, to have their products treated as "Foreign Military Sales" by the State Department, allowing them to be easily sold internationally, according to a US official speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
This effort is the first part of a planned "major" review of the US Foreign Military Sales program, the official said.
The US State Department did not respond to Reuters' request for comment on the policy shift.
Trump's move comes as US arms makers face stiff competition from Chinese, Israeli, and Turkish drone manufacturers. Neither China nor Israel are signatory to the MTCR, and Turkey, which did sign the agreement, features lighter and shorter-range UAVs not subject to the same restrictions as the heavier Reaper.
The US official who spoke to Reuters said the new guidelines will allow the US "to become the premier drone provider instead of ceding that space to Turkey and China."
Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association—a longtime critic of MTCR revision—warned that Trump's planned reinterpretation "would be a mistake."
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475 Immigrants Arrested in Raid of Hyundai EV Plant in Georgia
A spokesperson for South Korea's foreign ministry said that "the economic activities of our companies investing in the US and the rights and interests of our nationals must not be unfairly violated."
Sep 05, 2025
The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday expressed "concern and regret" after US agents arrested 475 immigrants at a Hyundai electric vehicle plant in Ellabell, Georgia and turned them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE was among several agencies involved in "the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security Investigations," Steven Schrank, the special agent in charge for HSI Atlanta, said during a Friday morning press conference.
The immigrants worked for a variety of companies and were arrested "as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices," Schrank explained. The probe continues, but no criminal charges are being filed at this time.
While Schrank only confirmed that a large number of those arrested on Thursday are South Koreans, a diplomatic source told the news agency Yonhap that the figure is over 300.
Yonhap also reported on a press briefing in which a spokesperson for South Korea's foreign ministry, Lee Jae-woong, said that "the economic activities of our companies investing in the US and the rights and interests of our nationals must not be unfairly violated."
"We conveyed our concern and regret through the US Embassy in Seoul today," Lee added.
According to The Associated Press:
Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea's biggest automaker, began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people, and has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year.
In a statement to The Associated Press, LG said it was "closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details." It said it couldn't immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.
"Our top priority is always ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and partners. We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities," the company said.
Hyundai's South Korean office didn't respond to AP's requests for comment. Forbes highlighted that the raid comes shortly after the company "announced it would invest $26 billion in the US over the next three years," which is expected to create 25,000 jobs.
During the Friday press conference, Schrank appeared to try to distinguish these arrests from President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, saying that "this was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks, and put them on buses—this has been a multimonth criminal investigation."
However, Tori Branum, a firearms instructor and Republican candidate for Georgia's 12th Congressional District who is publicly taking credit for the raid, made the connection clear.
"For months, folks have whispered about what's going on behind those gates," Branum wrote on Facebook. "I reported this site to ICE a few months ago and was on the phone with an agent."
"This is what I voted for—to get rid of a lot of illegals," she told Rolling Stone after the arrests. "And what I voted for is happening."
In addition to raids of other workplaces such as farms in California, Trump's mass deporation agenda has featured an effort to illegally deport hundreds of children to Guatemala over Labor Day weekend, masked agents in plain clothes ripping people off US streets, arresting firefighters while they were on the job, revoking Temporary Protected Status for various foreign nationals, and locking up immigrants in horrific conditions in facilities including "Alligator Alcatraz."
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Corbyn-Led Tribunal Slams UK 'Complicity' in Israeli Gaza Atrocities
"Just like Iraq, the government is doing everything it can to protect itself from scrutiny," said Corbyn.
Sep 05, 2025
A tribunal led by former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday accused the UK of being complicit in Israel-committed atrocities in Gaza.
As reported by Al Jazeera, Corbyn led an unofficial inquiry into how the UK government's support of Israel has aided the country in carrying out war crimes in Gaza in a conflict that so far has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians.
The tribunal heard from Nick Maynard, a British doctor who has treated wounded civilians in Gaza's Nasser Hospital, and who described seeing teenage boys who appeared to have been deliberately shot in the genitals by Israeli soldiers.
"The pattern of the targeting of specific body parts was something we all recognized," said Maynard, who described such actions "as target practice by the Israeli soldiers."
Maynard also described his attempts to treat a 7-month-old baby in the hospital who eventually died of malnutrition.
"You could see every rib, every bone in her body," he said. "She was being fed with water mixed with sugar. We had completely run out of formula feed."
Per Middle East Eye, the inquiry also featured testimony from Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on occupied Palestine, who said that the UK and other Western nations deserved condemnation for continuing to supply weapons and resources to Israel even as its actions have created a famine inside of Gaza.
"States, including the United Kingdom, have been on notice for decades of their legal obligations," she told the panel. "This failure to abide by long-standing international obligations might be sufficient to establish a criminal case for complicity in the actions of Israel."
Corbyn, who is leading the panel alongside Queen Mary College professor of human rights law Neve Gordon and University of Kent lecturer on international law Shahd Hammouri, likened the UK government's current actions to actions it took under former Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq War.
"Just like Iraq, the government is doing everything it can to protect itself from scrutiny," said Corbyn. "Just like Iraq, it will not succeed in its attempts to suffocate the truth. We will uncover the full scale of British complicity in genocide—and we will bring about justice for the people of Palestine."
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