By ALI SWENSON, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. personally directed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to update its website to contradict its longtime guidance that vaccines don’t cause autism, he told The New York Times in an interview published Friday.

His comments provide clarity into who directed the CDC’s website change, after many current and former staffers at the agency were surprised to see new published guidance on Wednesday that defies scientific consensus. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, has upended the public health agencies he oversees and pushed for and enacted changes that have unsettled much of the medical community, which sees his policies as harmful for Americans.

“The whole thing about ‘vaccines have been tested and there’s been this determination made,’ is just a lie,” Kennedy said in the interview, which was conducted Thursday.

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The CDC’s “vaccine safety” page now claims that the statement “vaccines do not cause autism” is not based on evidence because it doesn’t rule out the possibility that infant vaccines are linked to the disorder. The page also has been updated to suggest that health officials have ignored studies showing a potential link.

Public health researchers and advocates strongly refute the updated website, saying it misleads the public by exploiting the fact that the scientific method can’t satisfy a demand to prove a negative. They note that scientists have thoroughly explored potential links between vaccines and autism in rigorous research spanning decades, all pointing to the same conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism.

“No environmental factor has been better studied as a potential cause of autism than vaccines,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday. “This includes vaccine ingredients as well as the body’s response to vaccines. All this research has determined that there is no link between autism and vaccines.”

Kennedy, a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, acknowledged to The New York Times the existence of studies showing no link to autism from the mercury-based preservative thimerosal or from the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. But he told the newspaper there are still gaps in vaccine safety science and a need for more research.

The move creates another disagreement between the health secretary and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate health committee. During his confirmation process, Kennedy pledged to Cassidy he would leave the statement that vaccines do not cause autism on the CDC website. The statement remains on the website but with a disclaimer that it was left there because of their agreement.

Kennedy told The New York Times he talked to Cassidy about the updated website and that Cassidy disagreed with the decision.

“What parents need to hear right now is vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe and effective and will not cause autism,” Cassidy posted on X on Thursday. “Any statement to the contrary is wrong, irresponsible, and actively makes Americans sicker.”

The updated website comes as Kennedy has taken other steps as health secretary that sow doubt in immunizations. He has pulled $500 million for their development, ousted and replaced every member of a federal vaccine advisory committee and pledged to overhaul a federal program for compensating Americans injured by shots. He also fired former CDC Director Susan Monarez less than a month into her tenure after they clashed over vaccine policy.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, head of the infectious diseases committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics, told reporters in a briefing Thursday that the CDC’s website update was perpetuating a lie.

“This is madness,” he said. “Vaccines do not cause autism, and unfortunately, we can no longer trust health-related information coming from our government.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which didn’t make Kennedy available for an interview with The Associated Press this week, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Trump administration has sued California for providing in-state college tuition, scholarships, and state-funded financial aid to students who aren’t legally in the United States.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, alleges the practice harms U.S. citizens and encourages illegal immigration. Among the defendants are the state, top state officials, and the state’s two public university systems, the University of California and California State.

President Donald Trump’s administration has filed similar lawsuits against policies in other states, including Illinois, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Kentucky and Texas. Half the country now has similar laws to California’s.

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In June, after the administration sued, Texas ended its decades-old law. And Florida last year scrapped its law that allowed in-state tuition for high school graduates who weren’t in the country legally.

Supporters of the state tuition breaks argue that they don’t violate federal law if they provide the same rates to U.S. citizens in the same circumstances — meaning they are residents of the state and graduates of one of its high schools. The California Dream Act also allows such students to apply for state-funded financial aid.

Many of the students were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were children, and supporters of the laws say they are as much a part of their communities as U.S. citizens.

It is the latest action by Trump’s administration since he issued executive orders in February directing federal agencies to stop public benefits from going to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and to challenge state and local policies seen as favoring those immigrants over some citizens. The lawsuit argues that the Republican president’s orders enforce federal immigration laws.

“California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This marks our third lawsuit against California in one week — we will continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”

The Justice Department also recently sued to block new congressional district boundaries approved by California voters, and over California’s new laws banning federal agents from wearing masks and requiring them to have identification while conducting operations in the state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement: “The DOJ has now filed three meritless, politically motivated lawsuits against California in a single week. Good luck, Trump. We’ll see you in court.”

The University of California defended its decades-old in-state tuition policy.

“While we will, of course, comply with the law as determined by the courts, we believe our policies and practices are consistent with current legal standards,” it said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes weeks after the California Supreme Court let stand a lower-court ruling that the University of California’s policy barring students without legal status in the U.S. from campus jobs is discriminatory and must be reconsidered.

University system officials had warned that the decision would put them in a precarious position as they negotiate with the Trump administration after the withdrawal of federal research funds.

The UC is dealing with federal grant suspensions and a White House demand that it pay a $1 billion fine over allegations including antisemitism and the illegal consideration of race in admitting students to its Los Angeles campus.

The California State University system is the nation’s largest and among its most diverse, with more than 460,000 students. More than a quarter of undergraduates are first-generation college students, according to the university system.

The University of California serves about 300,000 students.

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press

The fallout from Jeffrey Epstein’s transgressions spans oceans and continents, from the vulnerable girls he exploited to the privileged people and institutions that chose to associate with him, cover up his activities — or look away. No one has paid a higher cost than Epstein’s victims, who number more than 1,000, according to the Justice Department.

The world will soon have more information. President Donald Trump, friends with Epstein for years before he says they had a falling out in the early to mid-2000s, signed a bill late Wednesday forcing the Justice Department to make public many of its files on Epstein. The president’s reversal was a rare bow to the fact that his fight to quash the files was doomed in the Republican-led Congress, a development noted in foreign news outlets as a moment of exposure on the home front for the brash American president who had dominated geopolitics all year.

It’s worth noting that elected representatives of a nation bitterly divided on so much else at least could agree that the web of Epstein’s sex trafficking must be exposed. Yet even that has limits, because the legislation shields some of the case files from public view. Trump has insisted throughout that he has done nothing wrong and did not know of Epstein’s activities.

But even in death, Epstein bedevils not only the president but academics, government leaders, royalty, journalists and banks, across borders and parties. Public trust has suffered, too. Here’s a look at the escalating cost of the truth in the ongoing scandal.

Epstein friendship upends a pillar of academia

Economist Lawrence Summers has bounced back before after falling from the pinnacles of academia, government and punditry. That’s not likely for now, in the face of newly released emails showing that Summers stayed in touch with Epstein years after the disgraced financier pled guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.

This combo shows Jeffrey Epstein, left, and U.S. economist Larry Summers. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP/Michel Euler)

The letters reveal that Summers appeared to ask Epstein for advice about women — and Epstein dubbed himself Summers’ “wing man” — as late as 2019. That has cost the economist his positions with OpenAI, the Center for American Progress, a think tank, and the Budget Lab at Yale University. At first, Summers pledged to keep teaching classes at Harvard, captured in an eyebrow-raising video Wednesday in which he opened a class by noting his shame about the relationship with Epstein. Then he stepped away from that job, too, the university said.

The 70-year-old Summers, a former treasury secretary and onetime contender to lead the Federal Reserve, has had to give up responsibilities at Harvard before. In 2006, he stepped down as president of the elite school after a speech in which he suggested that women were less represented in math and science fields because of “intrinsic aptitude.”

This week, Harvard said it was conducting its own review. In 2020, the elite school reported that Epstein visited its Cambridge, Mass., campus more than 40 times after his 2008 plea deal. It said he was given his own office and unfettered access to a research center he helped establish. It also found that Harvard accepted more than $9 million from Epstein during the decade leading up to his conviction but barred him from making further donations after that point.

A former prince loses royal title, duties, castle home

A well-documented connection with Epstein has cost Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor his home on castle grounds and his title as prince of the realm.

FILE – Britain’s Prince Andrew speaks during a television interview at the Royal Chapel of All Saints at Royal Lodge in Windsor, April 11, 2021. (Steve Parsons/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Revelations about the king’s brother trickled forth for years and left little doubt that Mountbatten-Windsor, as Prince Andrew is now known, not only was involved in Epstein’s sex crimes against minors but stayed in touch with the disgraced financier after his conviction.

The evidence against Andrew grew increasingly hard to ignore even by his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who was said to consider Mountbatten-Windsor her favorite child and may have shielded him from the full consequences of his scandals.

That became impossible after Andrew gave a disastrous interview to the BBC in 2019. He was widely panned for failing to show empathy for Epstein’s victims and for offering unbelievable explanations for the friendship.

In her posthumous memoir, Virginia Giuffre said she was only 17 when she was trafficked to Andrew and that Epstein took a now-famous photograph that showed the then-prince with his hand around her waist.

FILE – Virginia Giuffre speaks during a news conference outside a Manhattan court in New York, Aug. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

Andrew denied ever meeting Giuffre, did not recall the photo being taken and committed no crimes. But he did reach a settlement with her. Giuffre died by suicide in April.

“I can’t take any more of this,” a sender identified in Epstein’s contacts as “The Duke” wrote to him in 2011 of the scrutiny of their friendship, according to the partly redacted emails released by the House.

The flood of tawdry stories threatened to undermine support for the British monarchy at a time when Charles, 76 and in cancer treatment, is seeking ways to buttress the institution for his son, Prince William, to inherit.

Charles stripped Andrew of his title and forced him to move out of Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion near Windsor Castle where Mountbatten-Windsor has lived for more than 20 years. Mountbatten-Windsor is banished to Sandringham, the king’s remote and private estate in the east of England.

Trump’s image of control took a hit

This time, the president failed to control a crisis of his own making — then claimed credit for resolving it.

In fact, Trump signed the bill to release files only after he’d lost a highly visible political fight, including with some of his fiercest MAGA defenders. That started a 30-day clock ticking for the release.

President Donald Trump speaks at the McDonald’s Impact Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

But six years after Epstein’s death, his friendship with Trump continues to chip away at the president’s time, attention and support.

Trump increasingly began paying those costs in July, when the Justice Department abruptly reversed course and announced that no “further disclosure” of the Epstein files would be forthcoming. MAGA supporters, expecting Trump to make good on his campaign promise to release the files, edged toward rebellion.

Trump claimed he no longer wanted the support of such “stupid people” and “weaklings” — but that didn’t quiet them. He tried lashing out at reporters who asked about Epstein, but they kept doing so. A White House effort to lean on key Republicans supporting the files’ release didn’t work.

Major developments that Trump has trumpeted as achievements didn’t quiet the Epstein issue for long. Democrats made sure of that, releasing their choice Epstein emails on Nov. 12, the same day Congress and Trump ended a record 43-day government shutdown.

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The president thundered on social media that Epstein’s email claiming that Trump “knew about the girls” was a “hoax.” At another point, the president was forced to respond to a Wall Street Journal report that he’d written and signed a bawdy birthday note to Epstein that referred to secrets. Trump denied writing the note and filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the news outlet. Earlier this month, the president directed the Justice Department to investigate Democrats linked to Epstein.

Then, faced with the fact that all but one Republican in Congress would vote to release the FBI files, Trump abruptly backtracked.

“I DON’T CARE!” Trump wrote in a social media post. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.”

By Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times

Travelers who attempt to fly without a Real ID or a passport could be subject to a new airport security screening program that carries an $18 fee.

On Thursday, the TSA announced another option for travelers who have yet to get their Real ID or are flying without their passport: the modernized alternative identity-verification program.

The proposed program will use a new biometric kiosk system to verify identification before the traveler is permitted to pass through the TSA checkpoint, according to a notice posted on the Federal Register.

This option does not guarantee an individual will be granted access beyond the checkpoint and into the airport. To address the costs associated with the program, the TSA will require participants to pay an $18 fee, which then allows them to pass through airport security checkpoints for 10 days.

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Biometrics uses physical characteristics to verify identity. The TSA already uses such methods for verifying digital IDS and for facial comparison.

Travelers who undergo the program screening may be subject to additional screening or experience delays.

It’s unclear if and when the new system and accompanying $18 fee will be implemented.

The TSA did not respond to The Times’ request for comment by the time of publication.

In a statement, the TSA said, “This notice serves as a next step in the process in REAL ID compliance, which was signed into law more than 20 years ago and finally implemented by Secretary [Kristi] Noem as of May 2025. TSA is working with stakeholders and partners to ensure both security and efficiency at our checkpoints. Additional guidance will be announced in the coming days.”

The newest program comes six months after TSA finally began enforcing its Real ID deadline, with mixed results. Since May 7, travelers who plan to board a domestic flight are required to show the federally compliant Real ID or another approved form of identification such as a passport to pass through airport security.

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