RFK Jr. warns FDA staff of ‘deep state’ in all-hands meeting

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned Food and Drug Administration staff about the influence of the “deep state” on the agency in an all-hands meeting Friday where he also made off-color comments about children with developmental disabilities.

FDA employees gathered at the agency’s Maryland-based headquarters for a “viewing party” to watch FDA commissioner Marty Makary and the Department of Health and Human Services secretary, who spoke from a separate room in the same building, according to an invitation seen by Bloomberg News and people familiar with the meeting.

Makary and Kennedy began by laying out their vision for the FDA: examining the U.S. food supply, making regulation more transparent and improving public health.

But the meeting quickly turned to warnings of the “deep state” and influence of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to audio and transcripts obtained by Bloomberg News. The HHS chief encouraged whistleblowers to speak up if their supervisors push to approve unsafe products.

—Bloomberg News

Luigi Mangione’s attorneys argue against death penalty, claim Trump administration politicizing CEO killing case

Luigi Mangione’s attorneys argued Friday that federal prosecutors should be precluded from seeking the death penalty for the Towson, Maryland, native on charges that he killed a health insurance executive.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s announcement earlier this month directing prosecutors to pursue capital punishment in the case was “explicitly and unapologetically political” and came before the 26-year-old has even been indicted let alone convicted on federal charges, his attorneys wrote in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

“The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt,” the defense team wrote.

Mangione, the 2016 valedictorian of his Gilman class, was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9 after a five-day manhunt for the killer of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, who was shot in Midtown Manhattan as he headed to a hotel to address an investors meeting. The case has tapped into the anger many feel toward the health insurance industry, and turned Mangione into a cause celebre.

—Baltimore Sun

Pro-Jewish billboards with thought-provoking statements go up around KC

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If you see bright pink pro-Jewish billboards while driving around Kansas City highways, then a national nonprofit has accomplished its mission of spreading awareness.

JewBelong, an online platform that combats antisemitism and spreads information about Judaism, has posted seven billboards along I-70 and I-29 with what they hope are thought-provoking statements about the religion.

A billboard on I-70 and Brooklyn Avenue reads “Can a billboard end antisemitism? No. But you’re not a billboard.” A billboard on I-29 and Northwest Waukomis Drive reads “We’re just 80 years since the gas chambers. So no, a billboard calling out Jew hate isn’t an overreaction.”

Co-founder Archie Gottesman said these messages are significant because of the rise of antisemitism across the country. The Anti-Defamation League reported a yearly all-time high in antisemitic incidents in America from the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel to Sept. 24, 2024.

—The Kansas City Star

Why Haiti’s cities keep falling to gangs: New UN report provides disturbing insight

The upper-middle-class community of Kenscoff, which overlooks Haiti’s volatile capital, is about an hour’s drive up the hill from one of the last remaining enclaves in metropolitan Port-au-Prince that’s still relatively free from gang control.

But when a hundred armed men started killing its people on Jan. 27, under cover of darkness and after using donkeys to secretly transport their weapons into its mountaintop villages, Haiti’s security forces didn’t move in right away.

The critical delay, a new United Nations report shows, was just one of many missed opportunities by the Haiti National police and the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission to isolate gangs in Kenscoff and stop their deadly drive that now threatens collapse of the capital and the national government.

“There was a five-hour gap between the start of the attacks and the response of the security forces, even though the targeted areas were about an hour away from the police stations in Kenscoff and Pétion-Ville,” the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner said about the deadly — and continuing — attacks by the powerful Viv Ansanm gang coalition. The delay in the police response is one of the issues the U.N. highlights in what observers say is a disturbing look at why Haiti’s cities are falling to gang control.

—Miami Herald