Dan Driscoll kept everyone waiting. The United States secretary of the Army had been due to arrive earlier today at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Kyiv to speak with diplomats from NATO member states. The guests were eager to hear about the 28-point peace plan Driscoll had delivered on behalf of the Trump administration to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But what they heard when Driscoll finally got there left some of the Europeans infuriated.
Let me make a small concession on behalf of the medical community: The CDC is technically correct when it asserts, as it did this week in a surprise update to its website, that “studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” But the underlying logic of this change clearly goes beyond the wispy double negative. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has already said that he believes in the affirmative: Vaccines do cause autism.
Updated with new questions at 4:25 p.m. ET on November 21, 2025.
If I have provided you with any factoids in the course of Atlantic Trivia, I apologize, because a factoid, properly, is not a small, interesting fact. A factoid is a piece of information that looks like a fact but is untrue. Norman Mailer popularized the term in 1973, very intentionally giving it the suffix -oid. Is a humanoid not a creature whose appearance suggests humanity but whose nature belies it? Thus is it with factoid.
The HHS secretary said in an interview he ordered the CDC’s website to acknowledge gaps in studies on vaccines and autism.
Commissioner Marty Makary is pushing back on the demand, officials told POLITICO, in the latest development to roil the agency
Workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told POLITICO that they’re grappling with lack of communication from the top, leadership vacancies and stalled progress – and the worry that they’ll soon again be fired. HHS disputes their concerns.
Nations are struggling to reach a final text agreement at the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil. Decisions are made by consensus at COPs, requiring consent among 192 countries, and the biggest fight over the draft text is the exclusion of a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. Reportedly Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and India are among those that rejected the roadmap. But more than 30 countries are saying they will not accept a final deal without one.
Thousands of Amazonian land defenders, both Indigenous peoples and their allies, have traveled to the COP30 U.N. climate conference in Belém, Brazil. On Friday night, an Indigenous-led march arrived at the perimeter of the COP’s “Blue Zone,” a secure area accessible only to those bearing official summit credentials. The group stormed security, kicking down a door before the United Nations police contained the protest.
As negotiations draw close to a conclusion at the COP30 U.N. climate summit, nations are still sharply divided over the future of fossil fuels. Delegates representing dozens of countries have rejected a draft agreement that does not include a roadmap to transition away from oil, coal and gas. Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister for climate change, says a number of nations refused to “entertain any mention of fossil fuels” in the outcome statement from COP30.
From affairs with big-name politicians to a MySpace-era pop song, the journalist’s comeback attempt is hitting a few bumps along the way.
It defines the American experience like no other. People are no longer buying.
Under Armour’s Steph Curry disaster just hit the ultimate low.
FHFA director Bill Pulte convinced Trump to back 50-year mortgages and no one else thinks it’s a good idea.
Anna Sale and Felix Salmon discuss the tricky waters of dealing with aging parents. Plus – how to stay on top of your own cognitive decline.
The health secretary and his FDA chief, Marty Makary, can’t agree on how to proceed with vaccine safety studies.
There are only a few short weeks left until Obamacare subsidies expire and enrollees start paying much higher premiums.
The change will make it harder for legal Medicaid enrollees to obtain a green card.
The church’s “it couple” faces AIDS, caregiving, and loss as part of a pair, part of families, and part of a community.
A celebrity contracts HIV, the world finally pays attention to AIDS, and Jim Mitulski preaches to a community tired of people dying from it.
When a lesbian minister is physically assaulted, the church is galvanized. When it happens again, the city is galvanized.
A gay minister seeks healing with his family and his queer kin, even as he knows he’ll soon die from AIDS.
AIDS helps forge an unlikely friendship between two San Francisco churches from very different neighborhoods with very different views on sexuality.
Democrats running on cost-of-living anxieties outperformed Republicans in Tuesday’s elections by greater-than-expected margins. The president chalked it up to partisan lies.
A recent poll found a majority of Americans feel they’re spending more on groceries than they did a year ago.
The Republican nominee has promised tax cuts and economic growth, but the numbers are fuzzy.
Trump’s strength with Republicans on the economy could prove to be a boon for the GOP.
A new report titled “Data Crunch: How the AI Boom Threatens to Entrench Fossil Fuels and Compromise Climate Goals” from the Center for Biological Diversity warns the booming artificial intelligence industry’s high resource consumption threatens the world’s climate goals, despite rosy prognoses of AI’s projected benefits. Co-author Jean Su says that the increasing use of AI for military applications offsets any positives it offers for climate change mitigation.
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The first thing that happened when I put on the glasses was that “Starboy,” the 2016 dance track by The Weeknd and Daft Punk, started blasting.
If Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, did bother to ask CDC scientists about using their website to turn anti-vaccine talking points into agency guidance, it didn’t matter much. “My understanding is that none of the leadership were asked about it, or if they were asked about changing the website, they did not agree with the change,” Daniel Jernigan, the former director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told me.