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A blockbuster $12.5B deal as Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agree to buy the Lakers

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers are being sold for the second time in a year, going to businessmen Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for a record-breaking price.

This sale agreement is $12.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the terms who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday because neither side revealed specific details of the latest stunning development with one of North America’s marquee sports teams.

ESPN first reported that Kushner and Iger are buying the NBA’s most valuable franchise. The Lakers were valued last year at $10 billion — a record for a pro sports team — when Mark Walter purchased a controlling stake from the Buss family, which had owned the team since 1979.

Kushner, a venture capitalist, and former Walt Disney Company CEO Iger had been working together on landing a possible NBA expansion team for Las Vegas. By buying the Lakers, they don’t have to wait until the possibility of expansion in the 2028-29 season at the earliest.

The sale still will need approval from the NBA’s board of governors, and that process can take several weeks. The next board meeting is set for September in New York.

The $12.5 billion price tag is not only a record for U.S. pro sports but a new summit in skyrocketing NBA franchise values. Only three years ago, Michael Jordan sold his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets for a $3 billion valuation, while the Boston Celtics were sold last year to private equity mogul Bill Chisholm at a valuation of just over $6 billion.

Walter’s agreement to purchase a controlling stake in the Lakers at the $10 billion valuation last summer obliterated that mark, and now Iger and Kushner have pushed the bar even higher.

The 66-year-old Walter’s shocking decision to sell the Lakers after just 10 months of official ownership is reverberating throughout the team’s massive fan base, which appeared to be uniformly excited about the purchase last year. Walter has stewarded the Los Angeles Dodgers into the most successful stretch in franchise history, with three World Series championships in the past six seasons as the most aggressive spenders in baseball.

Multiple media outlets last month reported that Walter’s business empire is under scrutiny from both federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission in tax fraud investigations.

The 41-year-old Kushner’s capital holding company, Thrive Eternal, was set to be the “anchor investor” in FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell stakes in future World Cup profits. Infantino abandoned the idea on July 31. Kushner’s brother is Jared Kushner, son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Josh Kushner currently owns a minority stake in the Miami Heat, and he previously owned a stake in the Memphis Grizzlies.

The 75-year-old Iger became one of Hollywood’s most well-known executives while he ran Disney for two lengthy stints between 2005 and last March, when he stepped aside. Iger and his wife, former sports journalist Willow Bay, are the controlling owners of NWSL team Angel City FC.

Walter’s purchase of the Lakers was approved by NBA owners last October. He originally bought a 27% minority stake in the team in 2021 before purchasing control of the team last year.

Walter and his partners also have ownership interests in the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, English Premier League club Chelsea, the Professional Women’s Hockey League and the new Cadillac Formula 1 racing team.

When Walter bought his controlling interest in the Lakers, the deal specified that Jeanie Buss would stay on as the team’s governor. With new ownership, it’s unclear whether Buss will have a continuing role in the team she inherited along with her siblings from her father, Jerry Buss, who died in 2013.

The Lakers have won 17 championships going back to the franchise’s origin in Minneapolis, the second-most in NBA history behind Boston’s 18. It is a global brand, always at or near the top of the league’s merchandise-sales rankings.

This record sale price comes just weeks after LeBron James, the league’s all-time leading scorer, left the Lakers after eight seasons to become a free agent. James ultimately decided to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Lakers won their most recent title in 2020, and they have made the playoffs in each of the past four seasons. Their current roster is built around NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic, who is signed through the 2028-29 season.

August 12, 2026
Pirro, in rare move, convenes special grand jury in Washington

The Justice Department has convened a special grand jury in Washington, a rare legal body that officials say could pave the way for federal prosecutors in the nation’s capital to investigate some of its biggest and most controversial cases.

Unlike a typical grand jury, a special grand jury can release a potentially critical report about the subject of an investigation, even if prosecutors do not find enough evidence to bring the person to trial.

D.C.’s special grand jury is to be overseen by Steven Vandervelden, one of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s top allies in her office, according to three government officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that has not been made public.

Pirro has relied on Vandervelden to investigate some of her office’s most controversial cases, including a probe into then-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell and an inquiry into allegations that the D.C. police force purposely skewed its crime statistics.

It is unclear what the new special grand jury will be tasked with probing, but those interviewed said it is a notable move, especially given President Donald Trump’s interest in prosecuting his adversaries.

Special grand juries, on the rare occasions when they are convened, are typically used to pursue investigations of government officials or probe broad conspiracy cases and organized criminal activity. (A group of corruption cases that prosecutors deem to be linked could qualify as the latter.)

Steve Friedland, a law professor at Elon University, said strict procedures govern how special grand juries can be used — but that there is also flexibility.

“This could be very interesting,” Friedland said. “Each administration has its own approach to how it enforces the law and how it uses the tools available to it.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. declined to comment.

There is no known recent precedent for a special grand jury in Washington, legal experts said, although they said they could not entirely rule out that one has escaped public notice.

They are more common in larger jurisdictions home to more than 4 million people, including in New York and Texas, where federal guidelines says one must always be available, under the belief that organized crime is more common in larger areas.

On the state level, Georgia prosecutors convened a special grand jury to investigate alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election by Trump allies in the state. On the federal side, a special grand jury was empaneled in Houston more than 20 years ago to investigate Enron, a powerful energy company that was engulfed in a massive fraud scandal.

“They are very unusual,” said Niki Kuckes, a professor at Roger Williams University with expertise in the grand jury process. “Sometimes they can issue a report, which a regular grand jury can’t do.”

The convening of the special grand jury comes as Pirro and top Justice Department officials face pressure to deliver on cases that Trump wants prosecuted. Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer, was recently confirmed as attorney general, solidifying his position atop the department.

Pirro’s record in moving against the administration’s perceived enemies has been mixed at best. Her office has failed to successfully prosecute a man accused of throwing a Subway sandwich at a federal agent; six Democratic lawmakers who released a video advising service members to reject illegal orders; and Powell, whom Trump accused of mishandling a renovation project.

Last week, the president suggested Pirro’s job was in jeopardy after she dismissed charges against a former Olympian who had been accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The officials familiar with the convening of the special grand jury said that prosecutors submitted the paperwork for it before Pirro dropped the Reflecting Pool-related charges.

In general, grand jury proceedings are a secretive part of the legal process in which prosecutors present evidence and jurors vote on whether there is evidence to charge someone with a crime.

A special grand jury has several unique characteristics. The 23 members focus only on a single case — or a string of cases that prosecutors present as related — instead of juggling a variety of matters like most grand juries. And a special grand jury’s ability to issue a report at the end of an investigation sets it apart.

That report can name specific individuals even if prosecutors do not find enough evidence to bring the people to trial, as long as the report shows that there is a “preponderance of evidence” of wrongdoing. That is a significantly lower standard than the “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” that is needed to convict someone.

Anyone named in a report has the opportunity to testify before the special grand jury and present witnesses for their defense. And according to Kuckes, a judge must sign off on the report before it is publicly released, ensuring the report meets the requirements for citing someone by name.

“It’s a very protective scheme. A majority of the grand jurors have to decide to issue the report,” Kuckes said. “And a special grand jury has to be set up to investigate some criminal wrongdoing. You can’t just have one to issue a report.”

In other ways, special grand juries resemble ordinary ones. To win an indictment, prosecutors must convince a simple majority of the jurors that there is “probable cause” to believe a crime was committed. Grand jury proceedings also take place in private, to protect the privacy of those who are interviewed but not implicated in a crime.

The law recognizes that special grand juries are only to be convened in unusual cases. In most jurisdictions, including D.C., they must be requested by the U.S. attorney general or their designee. Paperwork to establish them must go through the district’s chief judge; in Washington’s case, that is James E. Boasberg.

A special grand jury generally runs for 18 months, although it can wrap up its work sooner — or its tenure can be extended in six-month increments by a judge, with the total time not to exceed 36 months.

Pirro has regularly found herself caught between Trump, who has publicly demanded that his adversaries be prosecuted, and the liberal Democrats who live in Washington and populate its legal system. The flash point has often been grand juries, whose members in the Trump era have sometimes declined to indict people despite prosecutors urging them to do so, something that traditionally is very unusual.

Those people include the six Democratic lawmakers who appeared on the video about illegal orders, as well as several defendants whom Pirro tried to charge with felonies during last year’s federal law enforcement surge.

August 12, 2026
An overnight Ukrainian blitz damages Russia’s Black Sea naval stronghold, Zelensky says

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian anti-ship missiles and drones blitzed a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea coast in a “unique” nighttime operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday.

Cutting-edge drones developed by Kyiv since Moscow’s full-scale invasion over four years ago have repeatedly targeted Russian ships in the Black Sea, including warships and oil tankers.

Ukraine’s air and sea drones have succeeded in limiting the movements of Russia’s once-dominant Black Sea navy, Kyiv officials say, in one of the country’s biggest accomplishments of the war.

But Ukrainian officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is bent on pressing ahead with the war, despite his bigger army’s slow and costly progress on the battlefield and U.S. diplomatic efforts to find a settlement.

Putin is planning “an additional rapid mobilization of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year,” Zelensky said Tuesday night on social media, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.

Those reports have said recently that Russia is expanding production of ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones, both of which are hard for Ukrainian air defenses to counter.

Ukraine also is trying to scale up its weapons manufacturing through agreements with partner countries.

Russia shows no sign of a new mobilization

Neither Putin nor other senior Russian officials have hinted at a possible major call-up of forces to fight in Ukraine. Some officials have accused Kyiv of trying to rattle the Russian public with talk of a mobilization.

Russian lawmaker Andrei Gurulyov brushed off reports of a possible autumn mobilization. “It is the enemy deliberately spreading rumors about mobilization in order to destabilize the situation inside Russia,” he was quoted as saying by pro-Kremlin online outlet Tsargrad in comments published Monday.

After the widely unpopular partial mobilization of some 300,000 men four years ago, Russia has relied on volunteers attracted by relatively high pay. However, the decree declaring the partial mobilization that Putin signed in September 2022 is open-ended, allowing authorities to resume it if needed.

Ukraine says it hit Black Sea port infrastructure

The Ukrainian military “carried out a unique operation targeting the naval base in Novorossiysk — the last major stronghold of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea,” Zelensky said in a social media post Wednesday. The attack struck air defenses, piers, and other port infrastructure, he added.

Russia relocated most of its naval ships to Novorossiysk after Ukrainian strikes on the main Black Sea base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula earlier in the war.

Hundreds of Ukrainian drones attacked Novorossiysk, Anapa, and Gelendzhik and the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar region overnight, said Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev.

An 8-year-old child was one of three people killed in the attack on the region, Kondratyev said. He added that 24 others in the region were wounded. Dozens of residential buildings were damaged, Kondratyev said, and debris from downed drones fell on the grounds of four industrial plants.

The strikes damaged two of Novorossiysk’s three grain terminals, with one of them halting operations, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed more than 500 Ukrainian drones.

Struck Russian port is also a key oil hub

Novorossiysk also is home to the Grushovaya oil terminal, one of the largest international hubs in southern Russia for petroleum products. No reports indicated it had been hit.

In February, the U.S. State Department expressed its displeasure about Ukraine’s attacks on Novorossiysk, saying they affected U.S. oil interests in ⁠Kazakhstan.

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium operates a pipeline from the Caspian coast in northwestern Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk. The pipeline handles much of the crude exports from three major Kazakh fields in which major U.S. energy companies, Chevron and ExxonMobil, have stakes.

With the militaries of European countries boarding and detaining sanctioned Russian oil tankers at sea, hurting the country’s trade and heaping economic pressure on Moscow, Putin on Wednesday threatened retaliation for what he termed “piracy.”

Speaking on a visit to a Russian warship taking part in a naval exercise in the Pacific, Putin said Western countries are breaking international maritime law by seizing ships they say are part of Moscow’s ” shadow fleet ” of sanctions-dodging merchant vessels.

“It’s nothing but piracy and robbery,” Putin said. “If this is done, we will be forced to respond in kind.”

On the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, air defenses downed 115 Ukrainian drones over Sevastopol overnight, said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the city’s Russian-installed head. He added that 10 apartment buildings and 25 private houses were damaged.

Russian drones kill 2 and destroy a shopping mall in Ukraine

Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 138 long-range drones as well as an unspecified number of missiles during the night, with damage recorded at 16 locations.

In the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, a large-scale Russian drone attack overnight killed two people and wounded two others, said regional head Oleksandr Prokudin.

The attacks also destroyed a shopping mall in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to authorities.

Missiles and long-range drones hit fuel reservoirs and infrastructure used for unloading and storing military cargo in the port of Chornomorsk in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

A bulk cargo vessel carrying military equipment and a tanker loaded with oil for the Ukrainian armed forces also were hit in Odesa, it said.

August 12, 2026
Dogs can tell when you’re happy, sad, or frustrated, study shows

If you’ve spent any time with dogs, it’s probably not news to you that they can sense the difference between positive and negative human emotions. A pup may match your excited energy when it’s time for a walk or check on you if you appear glum. But canine brains might have a deeper understanding of human emotions than you might think, a new study suggests.

Researchers put dogs (awake and unrestrained) in MRI scanners to see the activity in different regions of their brains while the pooches looked at images of human facial expressions.

They found one thing they already knew: Dogs can tell the difference between joy and a blank stare, and between happy and angry faces.

But then the brain scans showed something novel: The dogs were making distinctions between fear and anger, and fear and sadness, showing they can tell the difference between somewhat nuanced negative emotions.

“As far as we know, it’s the first time there is proof that dogs can distinguish between faces expressing two [similar] emotions,” said Laura V. Cuaya, a co-author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the SCAN-Unit, University of Vienna.

The study, which included two separate experiments, was published this month in the Cell Press journal iScience. It was started at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, then expanded to Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary.

In the first experiment, eight pet dogs were shown images of happy and neutral human faces that were unfamiliar to them. Happy faces elicited a stronger response in a part of the brain known as the right temporal cluster extending to the caudate nucleus, which is notable because it’s associated with rewards, Cuaya said.

“Other studies show, for example, that this activation is related when the dog is expecting a snack or a food reward, but also when they hear praise,” she said.

The team was interested in learning whether the same brain regions would be activated if dogs were exposed to images of negative human emotions as well as happy ones.

They designed the second experiment with 12 pet dogs, comparing brain regions where happy faces as well as those exhibiting sadness, anger, and fear were processed.

The results suggested “there is a distinction between happiness and the negative emotions,” said Raúl Hernández-Pérez, a postdoctoral researcher at the SCAN Unit and lead author of the study.

The researchers ran a whole-brain analysis to look at patterns of response for those three negative emotions. “We found that in a different part of the brain, there can be a distinction between fear and anger and between fear and sadness,” Cuaya said.

She added that there did not seem to be a difference in processing between sadness and anger.

The researchers stressed that these findings do not mean dogs understand or experience emotions in the same way humans do.

“What they have demonstrated here is that the dog brain can distinguish human faces that are showing different emotions, but it does not show that the dog brain is perceiving, processing those emotions,” said Clive Wynne, founding director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University, who was not involved with this study.

The study’s limitations

Undergoing an MRI is hard enough for a human who understands why they need to remain still, so “the dogs that are able to do this MRI work are very specific types,” said Molly Byrne, principal investigator of the Dog Lab at Pace University. The researchers worked mostly with border collies, and they pointed out that this breed is highly skilled at following social cues and particularly willing to interact with humans.

More studies are needed to determine whether other breeds show similar brain activity, the researchers said.

“A border collie is bred for a job like herding,” said Byrne, who was not involved in this study. “Over the course of many generations, they selected the dogs that listen the best and pay the most attention to what humans have to say.”

It’s also notable that the dogs studied are family pets, Wynne said. “These are dogs who are around people more or less 24/7 and have to keep paying close attention to people.”

The dogs in this study were shown a static photograph of a human face, but in real life, whole-body cues probably help canines gauge human mood. “People look at faces to find emotion,” said Wynne, noting that as a species, we have flexible, expressive faces. Dogs are known to use different signals for emotional expression, wagging their tails to show happiness or raising their hackles in anger.

“If you imagine the world from the dog’s perspective, the body is more important,” Cuaya said. With this in mind, she and Hernández-Pérez are running an experiment in which the dogs watch videos of people acting out various emotions with faces digitally obscured.

Unanswered questions about how dogs perceive human emotions

Dog cognition is a relatively new field, and very few labs in the world do these kinds of studies. The hope, experts said, is that future research can address bigger questions not only about how dogs perceive us but the nature of animal minds in general.

While we can peer into a dog’s brain using an MRI, for example, we don’t know whether they’re thinking about our emotions with real meaning.

“We know how we feel when we see a lot of happy faces,” Cuaya said. “But we are not sure if for them it is a happy face.” An interesting next step, Byrne said, would be to see whether dogs behave differently after exposure to human emotions: Are they more eager to cooperate with a smiling face than a frowning one?

There’s also some debate among experts about how big a role domestication has played in a dog’s ability to pay such close attention to humans, noted Evan MacLean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona. Have domesticated dogs evolved to be fundamentally tuned in to us? Or would other species behave similarly if they had the same opportunities to observe and interact with humans?

Either way, it’s clear that dogs are able to make “some pretty fine distinctions with respect to human emotions,” MacLean said. “Certainly, their behavior suggests that they can discriminate between emotional states in people, but this is a rare look inside the brain at what’s going on.”

August 12, 2026
Wildfire smoke is a growing danger to unborn babies, study finds

Amid a summer when wildfire smoke has often filled the skies, a new study is adding to the body of research about the growing impact of fire-fueled air pollution, this time raising the alarm about prenatal health.

Wildfire pollution has become an increasing proportion of the pollution that pregnant mothers and their unborn babies are exposed to, according to a study published this month.

The new study by University of Maryland researchers found that out of the air pollution unborn babies are exposed to, the share of exposure to wildfire-generated microscopic air pollution more than doubled between 2003 and 2019.

The study did not discuss specific health outcomes for the prenatal exposure and births it analyzed, but previous studies have suggested that fine-particulate-matter pollution, known as PM 2.5, caused by wildfires can be more harmful than other forms of air pollution.

Studies have linked wildfire smoke to poor pregnancy outcomes and a variety of early-childhood health issues. The particles are small enough to enter the lungs and bloodstream, and they have also been linked to lung damage, respiratory disease, and cancers.

“We know that if we prevent PM 2.5 exposure in the prenatal period, these infants are going to grow to be healthier, more productive adults,” said Michel Boudreaux, an associate professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland and one of the study’s authors.

The research also refers to the continued way pollution from wildfires cuts into improvements made in the United States’ air quality in the past two decades.

Researchers credit the Clean Air Act for reducing pollution from cars and industrial facilities.

But wildfire smoke has cut into those gains, according to several studies in recent years. A 2023 study found that, since 2016, wildfire smoke has eroded the equivalent of around four years of air quality progress in most of the country.

Wildfire pollution occurs inconsistently, Boudreaux said, flaring up when mega-fires break out in different regions.

It remains a small share of the PM 2.5 Americans are exposed to, but annual levels of wildfire smoke stayed consistent as other sources of pollution declined over the past two decades, the new study found.

Boudreaux’s study modeled air pollution across the country from 2003 to 2019, both including and excluding pollution created by wildfires, and used birth records to estimate the air pollution exposure to prenatal infants over this period. Researchers also analyzed the regions they studied by demographics and access to healthcare services.

The study found that the proportion of wildfire smoke in annual air pollution has increased by several percentage points from 2003 to 2019.

The greatest increase was in the Northwest, where around 13% of prenatal PM 2.5 exposure could be attributed to wildfires by the end of the decade. Regions with poor access to hospital facilities and maternal care, which were largely rural, had lower average PM 2.5 levels but faced the largest proportion of pollution from wildfires.

The new study also found that wildfires accounted for more than 70% of “exceedance days” — days where PM 2.5 levels exceeded 35 micrograms per cubic meter, an Environmental Protection Agency standard — by 2017 and 2018. Wildfire-attributable exceedance days stayed constant over the period studied, while exceedance days from other sources declined sharply.

“Because we’ve done such a good job of decreasing these non-wildfire sources, the share of ‘exceedance days’ that are due to wildfire smoke has increased,” Boudreaux said. “If we want to continue making progress on this … we have to start thinking about, how do we protect people from wildfire smoke?”

Academics not involved in the study said the work was limited by its scope and that the 2020s have seen a larger increase in wildfires after the study’s time frame. The five-year period from 2020 to 2025 was the smokiest on record in the United States, a study last year found.

“The last six years have just looked fundamentally different,” said Marshall Burke, a global environmental policy professor at Stanford University.

Michael Brauer, a professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, said further research is needed on the health risks of wildfire smoke, such as the effect of spikes in wildfire pollution at different stages of a pregnancy.

Burke said the study’s focus on prenatal exposure highlighted the breadth of air pollution’s impact across the population.

“We typically think of vulnerability to air pollution in terms of people with respiratory or other preexisting conditions,” Burke said. “But here, this is showing that pregnancy … really widens the lens of who we think as vulnerable.”

August 12, 2026
What does Trump’s executive order on vaccines mean for my kids?
President Donald Trump issued last week a sweeping executive order aimed at changing how and when American children are vaccinated, defying guidance from major medical groups and sparking confusion among parents.

The directive calls for reducing the number of recommended childhood vaccines, spacing out the shots, and splitting up the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. The White House says the effort is to align the United States with its peer nations. The potential changes would diverge from long-standing federal guidance around immunizations, which medical experts credit with halting the spread of deadly preventable diseases in the United States.

But the bottom line is that federal vaccine recommendations have not changed yet.

Implementing Trump’s directives would require a lengthy administrative process and probably a legal battle, even as Trump has privately urged his deputies to move faster.

“An executive order is not an automatic change to the schedule, because that’s not the legal way it’s done,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco whose research focuses on public health law.

States, not the federal government, generally set vaccination requirements for school attendance.

The order has drawn opposition from major medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

In January, federal health officials reduced the number of vaccines recommended for children, but a federal judge halted those changes in March, citing a flawed process.

Has the childhood vaccine schedule changed since Trump’s executive order?

No, there have been no changes to the childhood immunization schedule.

Executive orders are documents guiding federal agencies to pursue policies important to the president.

The White House is calling for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines to craft proposed changes within 90 days. The long-defunct panel was revived last year after a push from anti-vaccine activists. That task force makes recommendations to improve vaccine safety, not to recommend what should be the optimal vaccine schedule, Reiss said.

Legal experts say that’s not how vaccine changes are typically made. Usually, vaccine recommendations come from an independent vaccine advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency then decides whether to sign off on recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

“The task force isn’t the entity Congress designated to make vaccine recommendations,” said Richard H. Hughes IV, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown and attorney at Epstein, Becker & Green who also represents plaintiffs suing the administration over previous vaccine changes.

What should I do about getting my children ready for school?

Medical experts say parents are likely to be confused by the latest announcement. They should talk to their pediatricians.

The immunization schedule from the American Academy of Pediatrics, endorsed by major medical organizations, has not changed.

The timing of shots, and how they are grouped, has been well studied so they are given when the immune system is best able to be trained to recognize and make the body stronger to fight off an infection from a particular disease if it is exposed to one, said Andrew Racine, president of the AAP and a pediatrician who has been treating children for more than 40 years.

“When parents have questions about vaccines or about any other aspect of their children’s health, we encourage them to speak with their pediatricians because pediatricians are best positioned to give parents sound advice about vaccines or anything else,” he said.

Will insurers cover the shots?

Insurers probably would still cover childhood vaccines even if Trump administration officials change the schedule.

“If this EO were to withstand legal scrutiny, it appears insurers should still cover recommended vaccines for free,” Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president at KFF, a health policy research and news organization, wrote in an email. She added that spacing the shots over multiple visits is already an option for parents.

Major insurers have also previously indicated they would continue to cover vaccines even in the face of potential changes. White House officials told reporters on Monday that they believed health insurers would continue to cover vaccines currently on the childhood immunization schedule regardless of whether recommendations change.

What changes does Trump want?

Taken together, Trump’s proposed changes would mark his most significant attempt to fundamentally alter vaccine policy in the United States.

Here are some of the order’s main directives:
- Fewer universally recommended shots: Vaccines against 11 diseases — including measles, mumps, rubella, polio and whooping cough — would remain recommended for all children. Immunizations for other diseases, such as hepatitis A and B, would be recommended for certain high-risk groups or through shared decision-making between parents and doctors. Both the flu and the coronavirus shots would be included in the shared decision-making category.
- Break up the MMR shot: Trump wants the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine replaced with three individual shots, which are not currently available in the United States. Such a shift would diverge from the practices of several peer nations federal health officials have cited as models for change.
- Alternative adjuvants to aluminum: The order seeks alternatives to aluminum-containing ingredients used to strengthen the body’s immune response to some vaccines. Some high-level Food and Drug Administration officials believed last year that it would be infeasible to take aluminum adjuvants out of vaccines.
- Space out immunizations: The order states that “to the maximum extent feasible, all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits.”
Should I be getting my child individual shots of the MMR vaccine?

Individual shots are not available in the U.S., so practically speaking, that is not an option.

And making them available would not be as simple as splitting the existing MMR vaccine into three shots. Merck, which makes one of the MMR vaccines used in the U.S., said each individual vaccine would essentially be considered a new investigational product and would require development, clinical trials, and FDA review to demonstrate its safety and effectiveness.

The process could take years — potentially as many as 10 — before the vaccines could be approved and manufacturing and commercialization could begin, a Merck spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday. White House officials said Monday they plan to work with the private sector to make that option available.

Splitting up the MMR vaccine would also differ from the approach taken by several comparable countries the Trump administration has cited as models for U.S. vaccine policy. Denmark, Australia, and Canada give MMR immunizations in a combination vaccine. Britain this year began replacing the MMR shot with a four-in-one vaccine that also protects against chicken pox.

Major medical organizations strongly recommend the combination MMR vaccine, the safety and effectiveness of which has been well studied.

Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective in preventing measles, which can result in serious complications, including pneumonia, swelling of the brain, and, in rare cases, death from respiratory and neurological complications.

Medical experts and public health officials have already seen a drop in the percent of parents willing to give the MMR vaccine to their children, and as a consequence, U.S. measles cases are at a 35-year high.

Merck said there is no published scientific evidence showing a benefit from separating the MMR vaccine into three individual shots. Combination vaccines can also make it easier for children to receive all their recommended vaccines on schedule, the company said; giving the components individually would require more injections and could lead to delayed or missed immunizations.

Why is this happening now?

Trump has long questioned whether the number of childhood vaccines can cause autism, in defiance of decades of research finding no link. The president’s musings have become more prominent during his second term with the selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s health department. Kennedy, the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group, has a lengthy history of disparaging vaccines and has sought to reshape the nation’s immunization system, to the alarm of public health experts who say he is eroding confidence in long-standing measures.

Medical and public health groups say there is no new scientific evidence that would justify the changes Trump is seeking. Instead, they say the executive order comes amid a broader push by the administration to overhaul federal vaccine policy.

“There’s nothing that has changed. The science about vaccines and their efficacy has not changed,” the AAP’s Racine said. “The distribution of viruses and other pathogens in our environment has not changed. The children in this country have not changed in the last 48 hours.”
August 12, 2026
Jackie, the California bald eagle who became an internet sensation, dies after illness

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. — Jackie, the bald eagle who became an internet sensation and a symbol of the species’ recovery in California, died Monday after being treated for an illness at a veterinary facility, her caretakers announced.

For more than a decade, nature lovers watched via an online video feed as Jackie and her partner Shadow tended to their nest each year atop trees near Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles.

The nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley installed the nest camera in 2015 and documented the successes and failures of each breeding season. In 2024, Jackie diligently sat on her eggs for more than 2½ days straight after a winter storm blanketed the nest with snow.

The Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation’s San Dimas Raptor Rescue team found Jackie on July 17 following reports that the bird had been involved in a fight with two other eagles and was found to be ill.

Jackie had been receiving medical treatment for three weeks at the Ojai Raptor Center, where she was treated for a variety of ailments including anemia. Despite undergoing a blood transfusion and oxygen therapy, her condition worsened and the center announced the animal’s death Monday.

“We know this news will be deeply felt by the many thousands of people around the world who have followed her journey, hoped alongside us, prayed for her, and supported the people caring for her,” the center’s statement said. “Our team is heartbroken. It has been an extraordinary privilege to care for her.”

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is caring for the remains.

Among those who enjoyed monitoring Jackie’s nests from afar was biologist Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Ventana Wildlife Society in central California. While his group was not involved with the Big Bear eagles, he sees their breeding as emblematic of the comeback the species has made in the state over the past decades.

American bald eagles teetered on the brink of extinction until the pesticide DDT was banned in the 1970s and other protections were established, leading the species to rebound and be removed from the federal endangered list.

“You want to see a success story like that,” Sorenson said Monday. “Having access to a live cam to see the nesting first hand is very powerful. It brings people in on an emotional level.”

August 11, 2026
Former Syrian President Assad sentenced to death in absentia for war crimes

DAMASCUS, Syria — A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced ousted President Bashar Assad and his brother in absentia for murder, torture and crimes against humanity committed before and during the country’s 14-year civil war that left about half a million people dead.

The verdicts by a court in Damascus are the first against Assad or any members of his inner circle since his family’s five decades in power came to an end 20 months ago. They are mostly symbolic, however, because Assad and his brother Maher fled to Russia, where they received asylum after the Syrian government’s stunning collapse in December 2024.

Six other former officials were also sentenced to death in absentia. The only former official sentenced to death and in custody is Assad’s maternal cousin Atef Najib, who oversaw a crackdown on dissent that led to an uprising that sparked the civil war. Najib stood inside a cage wearing a prisoner’s uniform as the judge read his sentence aloud, and a crowd gathered outside the heavily guarded courthouse.

Even though Assad is unlikely to ever face justice, the verdicts will be popular among many Syrians, especially those who have expressed frustration that the new government hasn’t moved with enough speed or strength against Assad-era figures.

Some human rights groups, though, expressed concerns that the trials were rushed, potentially unfair, and, at the very least, exposed flaws in Syria’s justice system.

“Bashar Assad used state agencies to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan during a court session that was aired live on state TV — a contrast with Assad-era trials, which were conducted in secret. The verdicts al-Aryan read aloud found Assad and the others guilty of premeditated murder, including against children, as well as other acts of brutality, including torture.

Al-Aryan said Najib could appeal.

“Today is the day of justice for all the wounded, martyrs, detainees and Syrians who were forced to leave their country,” said attorney Adnan al-Masalmeh, who represented families of Najib’s victims. “Today marks a victory of right against injustice, a victory of the Syrian people against the ousted regime.”

Najib is one of the highest-ranking security officials to be put on trial. He is a former army brigadier general who was in charge of political security in Syria’s southern Daraa province.

During his tenure, more than a dozen teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a school wall were arrested and tortured. The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the repressive policies of Assad’s security forces.

The protests were met by a brutal government crackdown in 2011 that spiraled into the civil war that ended with Assad’s ouster in a lightning rebel offensive.

Some of Najib’s victims were present at the courthouse, including two who were teenagers in 2011 and expressed their opinions to the Associated Press.

“Today we reached a point where the blood was not wasted,” said Mouawiya Sayasneh, about those who died in the crackdown. Fifteen years later, “there is happiness that Atef Najib was sentenced to death,” he said.

Another man, Nayef Abazeid, who was detained at the age of 13 in 2011, expressed his satisfaction with the sentence, adding, “Our biggest happiness will be when Bashar Assad is executed.”

Maher Assad was a former commander of the Syrian military’s 4th Armored Division — which opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion, and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers.

“Today’s scenes outside the courthouse reflect 15 years of pain and a justice long denied,” said Hiba Zayadin, Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. She said the rights group opposes the death penalty in all cases, including this one, because ”it’s cruel and irreversible, especially when a fair trial isn’t guaranteed.”

She said the appeal process for Najib “needs to meet fair trial standards.” Real accountability for Assad-era crimes depends on Syria building a justice system that lasts, she said.

The Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Center described Tuesday’s conviction of Najib as a “historical step in Syria’s transitional period,” but said it exposed major flaws in the justice system which likely jeopardized his right to a fair trial.

It said that SJAC’s trial monitoring team attended Najib’s trial and documented multiple issues such as rushed proceedings and witness testimony that did not connect Atef to the crimes he was charged with. SJAC said Najib’s lawyer “lacked the capacity and willingness to meaningfully engage with the case or mount an adequate defense.”

August 11, 2026
Investigators say Myanmar’s military has escalated airstrikes against civilians

BANGKOK — Myanmar‘s military has increasingly used low-cost aircraft such as motorized paragliders and gyrocopters in escalating aerial attacks that kill civilians in its conflict with armed, anti-government groups, a U.N. investigation said in a report Tuesday.

Separately, a major ethnic armed group fighting the government in Rakhine state said 20 civilians had been killed in strikes by the military so far this month.

Myanmar’s military government did not immediately respond to either the U.N. probe or the allegations by the Arakan Army. In the past, the military has said it only attacks legitimate targets of war, accusing the resistance forces of being terrorists.

The report by the United Nations-established Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, or IIMM, details a yearlong investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Myanmar’s military and affiliated militias, as well as the opposition armed groups.

It found that abuses escalated around the country’s army-organized elections in December and January. The IIMM said it observed a notable escalation in aerial attacks in the months preceding the elections and that they have continued unabated afterward, with investigators also documenting a pattern of deliberate arbitrary detention, torture, and sexual violence.

The IIMM said civilian casualties are worsened by the military’s increasing use of “double-tap” aerial attacks, in which a second strike follows the first, apparently targeting first responders, people helping the wounded, and those trying to flee.

The IIMM said the Myanmar military was increasingly using motorized paragliders — also known as paramotors — as well as gyrocopters and drones to carry out low-altitude airstrikes with unguided explosives.

In several recent incidents in the upper Sagaing region, paramotor pilots allegedly cut their engines as they approached targets, allowing them to glide silently and leaving civilians little or no warning to flee or seek shelter, the report said.

The IIMM’s report came as the Arakan Army, a powerful ethnic armed group fighting the army in Rakhine, said that about 20 civilians were killed and 22 injured in airstrikes across three townships from Aug. 1-11, including one attack involving up to eight aircraft that lasted about an hour.

The military-backed government has not publicly commented on the alleged attacks.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent organization that keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the civil war, more than 8,000 civilians have been killed and more than 31,000 arrested by Myanmar’s security forces since 2021.

The IIMM, which was established by the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2018 to monitor violations of international law in Myanmar, said it gathered evidence from more than 1,600 sources and witnesses that can be used in future prosecutions of those responsible.

“Behind every piece of evidence we collect are people whose lives have been devastated by these crimes,” group leader Nicholas Koumjian said in the report. “Communities across Myanmar are not only living under the constant threat of violence but are also coping with the profound and lasting impact of what they have endured.”

The IIMM said it is also investigating serious crimes allegedly committed by armed groups opposed to the military, including members of the Arakan Army, who have been accused of rape and other sexual violence against Rohingya Muslim women, summary executions, child recruitment, and the destruction of mosques in Rakhine.

The report said numerous people were also arrested under an electoral law that carries up to 20 years in prison or the death penalty for acts such as criticizing the elections online or distributing “anti-election” leaflets.

The election was dismissed by the critics as a sham designed to consolidate the military’s grip on power after its 2021 takeover that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering deadly civil war.

August 11, 2026
For Nigel Farage, success brings new pressures and a showdown with Count Binface

LONDON — Nigel Farage depicts himself as an outsider taking on the establishment, but now the tables have turned.

The leader of anti-immigration party Reform UK is running in an election as the incumbent favorite, and his main opponent is a man dressed as a garbage can.

Farage, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, triggered Thursday’s special election in the English seaside town of Clacton by quitting his seat in the House of Commons last month. Facing awkward questions about his finances, Farage said he would let voters judge him in a “people versus the establishment” contest.

But the other main parties called it a stunt and refused to take part, leaving Farage running against an assortment of independents, jokers, and single-issue candidates led by Count Binface, a comic space alien with a trash can on his head. In that field, it’s Farage who looks like the mainstream politician.

Simon Usherwood, professor of politics and international studies at the Open University, said Farage’s appeal is built on his image as a straight-talking individualist, “the kind of bloke you can have a pint with down the pub.”

“It’s that very charismatic aspect of Farage that is both his strength and his weakness,” Usherwood said. “He has fallen into a trap of thinking that he is somehow immune from the kind of scrutiny that would undo other politicians.”

Farage built his brand on Brexit and immigration

For two decades, the populist Farage has led small parties with an outsized impact on British policy.

His charisma — and, critics say, his distortions — were key to securing victory for the “leave” side in Britain’s 2016 European Union membership referendum. After Brexit, Farage switched his focus to migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, a stream that he has called an invasion.

In 2024 he was elected to Parliament at his eighth attempt, representing the strongly Brexit-backing town of Clacton in eastern England.

Becoming a lawmaker brought unwelcome scrutiny of his finances. Parliament’s standards watchdog is investigating an undeclared donation of 5 million pounds ($6.7 million) to Farage in 2024 from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. Farage says he didn’t need to declare the money because it was a personal gift he used to fund his security and came before he was elected.

Newly elected lawmakers must declare gifts worth more than 300 pounds ($400) received in the previous year if they are related to political activities.

Farage is also facing an investigation into his financial relationship with George Cottrell, an aristocratic crypto-gambling entrepreneur who served eight months in a U.S. prison for fraud a decade ago after offering to launder money for undercover agents posing as drug traffickers.

Cottrell, 32, remains close to Farage and has reportedly given him money for security and staff. U.K. media report that Cottrell and his mother have been interviewed by police as part of a probe into donations to Reform UK, though they have not been arrested.

Farage is standing by the man he calls “Posh George,” saying Aug. 3: “I don’t ditch my allies.”

Farage faces off against Count Binface

The governing Labour Party and opposition Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens all declined to run in Clacton. But it is still a crowded field, with almost three dozen candidates, including representatives of Rejoin EU, the Everyone Is God Party, and the Monster Raving Loony Party.

By far the best known is Count Binface, a frequent comedy candidate whose platform includes the pledge “I will not accept 5-million-pound gifts from crypto billionaires (on Earth).” He says his main appeal is “I’m not Nigel Farage.”

Farage doesn’t find it funny. He and his party claim Binface, alter ego of comedian Jon Harvey, is just another representative of a hostile political establishment.

“The establishment is using every means available, fair and foul, to undermine Farage before the country gets a chance to elect him,” Gawain Towler, Farage’s former press officer and now a Reform UK board member, said in a blog post.

Farage won handily in Clacton in 2024, and most observers expect him to win again. If he does, the parliamentary investigation of his finances will resume. A finding of wrongdoing could lead to Farage being suspended from Parliament and trigger yet another special election for the seat.

Reform UK has just seven lawmakers — eight if Farage is included — but led nationwide opinion polls for more than a year. But the party has recently suffered setbacks, losing a string of special elections, including one in June that brought Prime Minister Andy Burnham to power.

After months of flagging popularity, Labour senses a “Burnham bounce.” Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has found her feet after a shaky start. And Restore Britain, a far-right party with just one lawmaker but a loud social media presence amplified by Elon Musk, is nibbling away at Reform’s support.

Farage, 62, has a history of walking away from parties he led. He stepped down from both the UK Independence Party and its successor, the Brexit Party, in the last decade.

He has earned more than 2 million pounds ($2.7 million) outside of Parliament in the past two years from speeches, promotional work, and television appearances, far more than he makes as a lawmaker. He might be tempted to quit politics again if he remains under sustained pressure.

Martin Farr, a contemporary historian at Newcastle University, said Farage will probably come out of the election strengthened, at least in the eyes of his supporters.

“To his supporters, this will be an example of how he’s fearless and he’s prepared to fight against, as he will put it, the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the establishment,” Farr said. “To his opponents, it suggests a thin-skinned demagogue who has reacted petulantly to scrutiny and has been embarrassed by the fact that no one else has taken his stand seriously.”

August 11, 2026