What changes did Secretary of State Marco Rubio make to human rights reports?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has given U.S. embassies new instructions on how to write the annual human rights reports. It'll downplay the rights of minority groups and focus more on what the U.S. sees as infringements on free speech in allied countries in Europe, as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports.
Rubio's State Department rewrote the Biden administration's country reports on human rights, and now embassies have been given instructions on how to keep this year's report brief and focused. A senior State Department official says the department will focus on what the administration describes as natural rights of individuals rather than on marginalized groups.
The new instructions encourage embassies to write about affirmative action policies, which the Trump administration opposes. as well as abortion. Rather than focusing on trans rights, the State Department will report on what it calls the chemical or surgical mutilation of children in operations that attempt to modify their sex. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.
A federal judge has issued a blistering dissent after two other judges on the same panel blocked Texas' redistricting map from taking effect next year, The case has major ramifications for whether Republicans retained control of the House after the midterm elections. From Houston Public Media, Andrew Schneider reports.
U.S. Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith lost in the 2-1 ruling. In a more than 100-page dissent, Smith wrote the big winners in the case are liberal activists and politicians. At South Texas College of Law, Houston professor Josh Blackman says Smith argues his fellow judges displayed their own judicial activism.
It's unusual for a judge to talk about politics so much, but the basic claim is this is about politics. And under the controlling precedent of the circuit, gerrymandering is permissible for political reasons, even if not for racial reasons.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in. For NPR News, I'm Andrew Schneider in Houston.
The Trump administration has revised a CDC website to contradict the scientific consensus that vaccines don't cause autism. The update has outraged public health and autism experts. It's part of the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's overhaul of U.S. vaccine policy, as NPR's Ping Huang explains.
As health secretary, Kennedy has been sowing doubts about vaccine safety. Earlier this year, during a big measles outbreak in Texas, which killed two children, Kennedy went on Fox News and said that the measles vaccine kills people every year. gives them the same symptoms you get from measles. That is not true. He's also been making changes to how vaccine policy gets made.
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