By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Health Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Food and Drug Administration needs outside guidance, it normally turns to a trusted source: a large roster of expert advisers who are carefully vetted for their independence, credentials and judgment.

But increasingly, the agency isn’t calling them.

Instead, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has launched a series of ad hoc “expert panels” to discuss antidepressants, menopause drugs and other topics with physicians and researchers who often have contrarian views and financial interests in the subjects.

Former agency officials worry the meetings are skirting federal rules on conflicts of interests and transparency, while promoting fringe viewpoints that align with those of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“These meetings are a chance to advance RFK’s pet peeves — talc, antidepressants, fluoride — with people who have been handpicked,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, a former FDA official who is now president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Nobody would put forward these panels as representing the general scientific opinion on these topics.”

A spokesperson for Kennedy did not answer specific questions about the panels, but said they represent an effort to “apply rigorous, evidence-based standards to ingredient safety and modernize regulatory oversight.”

The panels kicked off in May with a meeting on talc, the soft mineral sometimes added to makeup, baby powder and other consumer goods. The meeting echoed thousands of lawsuits alleging talc has contributed to ovarian cancer and other illnesses, and included two experts who testified in those cases.

Under FDA regulations, the ingredient is still considered safe when carefully tested for the presence of asbestos. And federally funded studies haven’t shown a link to cancer.

A July meeting on the safety of antidepressants during pregnancy also featured doctors who have testified in class action lawsuits, alongside other experts who allege the drugs cause autism, birth defects and other conditions — links that are not supported by science.

The meeting concluded with all but one of the experts calling for a new boxed warning — the most serious type — about antidepressant risks for mothers and developing babies.

A meeting on estrogen-based drugs for menopause took the opposite approach: Experts urged the removal of a long-standing warning.

Most of the physicians at that meeting prescribe the hormones or are involved with a pharmaceutical industry campaign opposing the warning label.

Nearly 80 researchers sent a letter to the FDA this month objecting to the “two-hour meeting of hormone proponents” and calling for an official advisory committee meeting.

FILE – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration campus in Silver Spring, Md., is photographed on Oct. 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Advisory panels operate under strict rules

The FDA has more than 30 panels composed of experts specializing in various drugs, vaccines, food ingredients and other products.

Their meetings are subject to strict government transparency rules in terms of scheduling, panel composition and disclosure of any financial conflicts. A comment period open to the public is also required. Additionally, FDA scientists usually publish a detailed memo explaining their position on the topic.

The latest FDA meetings haven’t included those elements.

Former FDA lawyers say the agency could expose itself to legal challenges if it tries to use Makary’s informal panels as the basis for regulatory decisions.

But that may not be the aim of the meetings.

“They seem more designed as a forum to put a stamp of approval on predetermined opinions,” said Genevieve Kanter, a health policy specialist at the University of Southern California. “The information in these panels could be used in litigation and presented as coming from experts or representing some intellectual consensus that doesn’t exist.”

Antidepressants meeting aired unfounded claims

Antidepressants have long been a target of Kennedy, an attorney and outspoken critic of pharmaceutical companies. During his confirmation hearings he suggested, without evidence, that the drugs contribute to school shootings.

The FDA’s recent session cataloged many unsubstantiated theories about the drugs, often based on animal studies, including that they contribute to autism, birth defects and miscarriages.

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Several participants had served as expert witnesses against drugmakers, including in lawsuits alleging that they cause homicidal behavior. All but one of the other panelists have criticized the drugs in books, articles, interviews or other forums.

“It’s never been possible to identify a group of people who do particularly well on antidepressants,” said Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, a British psychiatrist, author and co-founder a group critical of mainstream psychiatric medicine.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called the panel “alarmingly unbalanced” and full of “outlandish and unfounded claims.”

Antidepressants carry pregnancy warnings about risks of excess bleeding and lower birth weight for newborns.

But psychiatric experts say those risks are far outweighed by the well-documented harms of untreated depression in mothers, which can lead to pregnancy complications, substance abuse and suicide.

“I tell people I’m working with that the best thing they can do for themselves and their baby is to get the treatment that they need,” said Dr. Nancy Byatt of University of Massachusetts’ Chan Medical School.

Financial conflicts at menopause meeting

FDA has not disclosed how panelists were selected for the meetings. Last month’s session on hormone therapies for menopause included doctors who consult for drugmakers or promote the medications in their practices.

The views they expressed largely echoed those of Makary, who has argued that current warning labels overstate hormone therapy risks and don’t reflect possible benefits for some women, such as reducing heart disease and cognitive decline.

“Hormone replacement therapy for women is basically a modern-day miracle,” Makary told a podcast host last year.

But guidance from the FDA and other top federal authorities specifically advises against using the drugs to prevent chronic conditions due to a lack of clear benefit. The drugs are only FDA-approved for specific menopause symptoms, including hot flashes.

Discussions around hormone therapy reflect ongoing debate about a landmark study of two different hormone regimens in more than 26,000 postmenopausal women. The research was halted more than 20 years ago because scientists discovered that the risk of serious health problems outweighed the benefits. All estrogen drugs still carry boxed warnings about the higher rates of stroke, blood clots and cognitive problems among women taking the medications.

But some doctors — including those at FDA’s meeting — say the warnings are exaggerated and should be removed from at least some products, such as low-dose creams typically used for vaginal dryness. Makary raised the possibility of also removing the warning from higher-dose pills, patches and sprays.

It’s unclear whether the FDA will move ahead with those changes or heed calls for an official advisory meeting — a step that Kennedy’s critics say would be in keeping with his pledge for “radical transparency.”

“If you really wanted to be transparent about these issues you’d put together a balanced panel of experts, who have been carefully screened for conflicts and you’d invite the public in,” Lurie said. “But that’s the antithesis of what’s going on in these cases.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russia held its Victory Day parade this year, hackers backing the Kremlin hijacked an orbiting satellite that provides television service to Ukraine.

Instead of normal programing, Ukrainian viewers saw parade footage beamed in from Moscow: waves of tanks, soldiers and weaponry. The message was meant to intimidate and was an illustration that 21st-century war is waged not just on land, sea and air but also in cyberspace and the reaches of outer space.

Disabling a satellite could deal a devastating blow without one bullet, and it can be done by targeting the satellite’s security software or disrupting its ability to send or receive signals from Earth.

“If you can impede a satellite’s ability to communicate, you can cause a significant disruption,” said Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting supply chains.

“Think about GPS,” said Pace, who served in the Marines before working on cyber issues at the Department of Energy. “Imagine if a population lost that and the confusion it would cause.”

Satellites are the short-term challenge

More than 12,000 operating satellites now orbit the planet, playing a critical role not just in broadcast communications but also in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains. They are also key to early launch-detection efforts, which can warn of approaching missiles.

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That makes them a significant national security vulnerability, and a prime target for anyone looking to undermine an adversary’s economy or military readiness — or deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did when they hijacked television signals to Ukraine.

Hackers typically look for the weakest link in the software or hardware that supports a satellite or controls its communications with Earth. The actual orbiting device may be secure, but if it’s running on outdated software, it can be easily exploited.

As Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, someone targeted Viasat, the U.S.-based satellite company used by Ukraine’s government and military. The hack, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, used malware to infect tens of thousands of modems, creating an outage affecting wide swaths of Europe.

National security officials say Russia is developing a nuclear, space-based weapon designed to take out virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit at once. The weapon would combine a physical attack that would ripple outward, destroying more satellites, while the nuclear component is used to fry their electronics.

U.S. officials declassified information about the weapon after Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, issued a public warning about the technology. Turner has pushed for the Department of Defense to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on the weapon, which, if deployed, would violate an international treaty prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space.

Turner said such a weapon could render low-Earth orbit unusable for satellites for as long as a year. If it were used, the effects would be devastating: potentially leaving the U.S. and its allies vulnerable to economic upheaval and even a nuclear attack.

Russia and China also would lose satellites, though they are believed to be less reliant on the same kinds of satellites as the U.S.

Turner compared the weapon, which is not yet ready for deployment, to Sputnik, the Russian satellite that launched the space age in 1957.

“If this anti-satellite nuclear weapon would be put in space, it would be the end of the space age,” Turner said. “It should never be permitted to go into outer space. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in space.”

Mining the moon and beyond

Valuable minerals and other materials found on the moon and in asteroids could lead to future conflicts as nations look to exploit new technologies and energy sources.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans this month to send a small nuclear reactor to the moon, saying it’s important the U.S. does so before China or Russia.

FILE – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a SXM-9 digital, audio radio satellite payload, lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

“We’re in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon,” Duffy said. “To have a base on the moon, we need energy and some of the key locations on the moon. … We want to get there first and claim that for America.”

The moon is rich in a material known as helium 3, which scientists believe could be used in nuclear fusion to generate huge amounts of energy. While that technology is decades away, control over the moon in the intervening years could determine which countries emerge as superpowers, according to Joseph Rooke, a London-based cybersecurity expert who has worked in the U.K. defense industry and is now director of risk insights at the firm Recorded Future.

The end of the Cold War temporarily halted a lot of investments in space, but competition is likely to increase as the promise of mining the moon becomes a reality.

“This isn’t sci-fi. It’s quickly becoming a reality,” Rooke said. “If you dominate Earth’s energy needs, that’s game over.”

China and Russia have announced plans for their own nuclear plants on the moon in the coming years, while the U.S. is planning missions to the moon and Mars. Artificial intelligence is likely to speed up the competition, as is the demand for the energy that AI requires.

Messages left with Russia’s Embassy in Washington were not returned.

Despite its steps into outer space, China opposes any extraterrestrial arms race, according to Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s Embassy in Washington. He said it is the U.S. that is threatening to militarize the final frontier.

“It has kept expanding military strength in space, created space military alliances, and attempted to turn space into a war zone,” Liu said. “China urges the U.S. to stop spreading irresponsible rhetoric, stop expanding military build-up in space, and make due contribution to upholding the lasting peace and security in space.”

What the US is doing about security in space

Nations are scrambling to create their own rocket and space programs to exploit commercial prospects and ensure they aren’t dependent on foreign satellites. It’s an expensive and difficult proposition, as demonstrated last week when the first Australian-made rocket crashed after 14 seconds of flight.

This photo provided by United States Space Force the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7), the U.S. Space Force’s dynamic unmanned spaceplane, successfully deorbited and landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., March 7, 2025. (United States Space Force via AP)

The U.S. Space Force was created in 2019 to protect American interests in space and to defend U.S. satellites from attacks from adversaries.

The space service is far smaller than the more well-established services like the Army, Navy or Air Force, but it’s growing, and the White House is expected to announce a location for its headquarters soon. Colorado and Alabama are both candidates.

The U.S. military operates an unmanned space shuttle used to conduct classified military missions and research. The craft, known as the X-37B, recently returned to Earth after more than a year in orbit.

The Space Force called access to space a vital national security interest.

“Space is a warfighting domain, and it is the Space Force’s job to contest and control its environment to achieve national security objectives,” it said in the statement.

American dominance in space has been largely unquestioned for decades following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. But the new threats and competition posed by Russia and China show the need for an aggressive response, U.S. officials say.

The hope, Turner said, is that the U.S. can take steps to ensure Russia and China can’t get the upper hand, and the frightening potential of space weapons is not realized.

“You have to pay attention to these things so they don’t happen,” Turner said.

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Media Writer

Television’s MSNBC news network is changing its name to My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW for short, as part of its corporate divorce from NBC.

The network, which appeals to liberal audiences with a stable of personalities including Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber and Nicole Wallace, has been building its own separate news division from NBC News. It will also remove NBC’s peacock symbol from its logo as part of the change, which will take effect later this year.

The name change was ordered by NBC Universal, which last November spun off cable networks USA, CNBC, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, Oxygen and the Golf Channel into its own company, called Versant. None of the other networks are changing their name.

This image released by Versant shows the logo for My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW. (Versant via AP)

MSNBC got its name upon its formation in 1996, as a partnership then between Microsoft and NBC.

Name changes always carry an inherent risk, and MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler said that for employees, it is hard to imagine the network under a different name. “This was not a decision that was made quickly or without significant debate,” she said in a memo to staff.

“During this time of transition, NBC Universal decided that our brand requires a new, separate identity,” she said. “This decision now allows us to set our own course and assert our indepedence as we continue to build our own modern newsgathering organization.”

Still, it’s noteworthy that the business channel CNBC is leaving “NBC” in its name. MSNBC argues that CNBC has always maintained a greater separation and, with its business focus, is less likely to cover many of the same topics.

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Still, the affiliation between a news division that tries to play it safe and one that doesn’t hide its liberal bent has long caused tension. President Donald Trump refers to the cable network as “MSDNC,” for Democratic National Committee. Even before the corporate change, NBC News has been reducing the use of its personalities on MSNBC.

Some NBC News personalities, like Jacob Soboroff, Vaughn Hillyard, Brandy Zadrozny and Antonia Hylton, have joined MSNBC. The network has also hired Carol Leoning, Catherine Rampell and Jackie Alemany from the Washington Post, and Eugene Daniels from Politico.

Maddow, in a recent episode of Pivot, noted that MSNBC will no longer have to compete with NBC News programs for reporting product from out in the field — meaning it will no longer get the “leftovers.”

“In this case, we can apply our own instincts, our own queries, our own priorities, to getting stuff that we need from reporters and correspondents,” Maddow said. “And so it’s gonna be better.”

Vacationers looking to get in their daily step goal will have no problem achieving that while on board Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas.

The world’s largest cruise ship, which arrived at Port Canaveral earlier this month as the company’s second Icon-class ship, has plenty of spaces to relax, new technology and adventurous ways to spend time onboard. At 248,663 gross tons, the ship has 20 decks, seven pools, six waterslides and more than 40 venues for dining and drinking. It can accommodate 5,610 passengers at double occupancy and more than 7,000 passengers at full capacity, plus 2,350 crew.

The Star of the Seas feels like a floating city, complete with its own Central Park in the middle and eight neighborhoods, each designed for different activities and age groups. It’s bright, artsy, colorful and has scenes of idyllic vacations playing out around every corner.

Most passengers embark on Deck 5, where they are greeted by The Pearl, a three-deck art installation with 3,600 computer-driven kinetic tiles that move with music. The sphere sits in the middle of the Royal Promenade where guests can find shopping options, bars and eateries — including Spotlight Karaoke on Deck 5, right across from New York pizza restaurant Sorrento’s, and a dueling piano bar on Deck 6.

Deck 4 is home to Casino Royale and the Music Hall, while the main dining room is at the aft of the ship on decks 3-5. In addition to housing the Royal Promenade, Deck 5 is where guests can find the fitness center, outdoor jogging track, the Royal Theater, the location of the “Back to the Future” musical, and Absolute Zero, an ice arena for the “Sol” skating show that’s accessible from Deck 6.

Deck 7 has the Surfside neighborhood at the aft of the ship, which is geared toward families with a carousel, Surfside Eatery, ice cream and a water playground called Splashaway Bay. Dozens of staterooms overlook this neighborhood, some with their own balconies.

That is also the case with a selection of staterooms that overlook Central Park on Deck 8. The interior neighborhood features greenery, bars and dining venues such as Chops Grille, Izumi Hibachi & Sushi and Park Cafe. Moving toward the fore of the ship, guests can see the exclusive Lincoln Park Supper Club, a formal upscale dining venue with limited space.

Decks 9-14 consist mostly of cabins, except for the Vitality Spa accessed on Deck 14.

On Deck 15, passengers can visit the Windjammer Marketplace, a buffet-style eatery, or head out to the Chill Island pool deck. Nearby the Royal Bay Pool sits The Lime & Coconut Bar as well as El Loco Fresh, which serves up Mexican food. At the aft of the ship, guests ages 18 and older can visit The Hideaway, which includes an infinity pool and a bar for adults only.

At the fore of Deck 15 sits the 82-foot-tall, 164-foot-wide, glass-and-metal AquaDome. The entertainment venue hosts the “Torque” show and sits adjacent to Hooked Seafood, Chef’s Table and Celebration Table. On the opposite side, the AquaDome Market has five stands serving different cuisines, including Thai food, barbecue, South American staples, Mediterranean bites and crepes.

Deck 16 has the continuation of Chill Island, which includes the Swim & Tonic, a pool with a swim-up bar, and a dry slide down to Deck 15. The chills quickly turn into thrills when heading to the aft of the ship.

Thrill Island is the access point for Crown’s Edge, a harnessed ropes course and skywalk that dangles guests out over the ocean. That area of Deck 16 is also where guests can find the Adrenaline Peak rock-climbing wall, the Lost Dunes mini golf course and the stairs to access the Category 6 Waterpark.

More high adventure can be found on Deck 17 during a visit to the sports court or the FlowRider surf simulator at the aft of the ship. The fore of the ship has access to the Suite Neighborhood on decks 16-18 with pools and eateries reserved for guests staying in suites.

Star of the Seas will sail seven-night alternating Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries from Port Canaveral, which also serves as homeport to Royal’s Utopia of the Seas. That ship debuted in summer 2024 at Port Canaveral and will continue three- and four-night Bahamas itineraries. Many sailings include a stop at Royal Caribbean’s Perfect Day at CocoCay.

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