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Falling childhood vaccine coverage and a large, smoldering outbreak that was kindled in an undervaccinated pocket of West Texas have driven the United States to a troubling new milestone: There have been more measles cases in the US this year than any other since the disease was declared eliminated a quarter-century ago.

There have been at least 1,277 confirmed cases of measles reported in the US in 2025, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Outbreak Response Innovation.

Just halfway through the year, the case tally has already surpassed the last record from 2019, when there were a total of 1,274 cases.

Mastodon bots which mirror the NWS warnings back them up

What failed was local officials not succeeding in alerting people — in large part because they had plan or mechanism available to do so with the roughly one-hour warning that current meteorology can provide for specific flash floods like this.

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Elon Musk said he is starting a new political party, which he dubbed the 'America Party' in a post on X Saturday.

Musk was born in South Africa but obtained his citizenship in 2002. He took an increasingly prominent role in politics through his partnership with Donald Trump during the 2024 U.S. presidential cycle, pumping money into the Republican's campaign and utilizing his social media platform, X, to promote him.

However, Musk and Trump had a very public fall out after the tech mogul departed the federal government. While Musk has walked back some of his more outrageous allegations and attacks, he has persisted with the idea that the U.S. needs a new political party.

A Tennessee man pardoned by Trump in January for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol will nevertheless serve a life sentence for plotting to attack FBI agents and seeking to incite a "civil war," according to prosecutors.

Edward Kelley, who was the fourth U.S. Capitol rioter to enter the building on Jan. 6, 2021, faced a separate prosecution for targeting federal agents while he was being investigated for his role in the Capitol attack.

The Justice Department argued Kelley created a "kill list" of FBI agents and others who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 siege. Prosecutors said Kelley "distributed this list — along with videos containing images of certain FBI employees identified on the list — to a co-conspirator as part of his 'mission.'"

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that his conversation with US President Donald Trump, which took place the day before, has been the best and most productive in the history of communication between the leaders.

Source: Zelenskyy in his evening address on 5 July

Quote: "We discussed the issue of air defence. I am grateful for the willingness to help. Patriot [air defence system] is the key to protection against ballistic missiles."

Details: Zelenskyy said that he and Trump also discussed several other important issues, which will be worked out in detail by the teams of the two countries at further meetings in the near future.

A written ruling details why a judge restored funding for many NIH grants.

A federal judge issued a stinging rebuke to the Trump administration, declaring that its decision to cancel the funding for many grants issued by the National Institutes of Health was illegal, and suggesting that the policy was likely animated by racism. But the detailed reasoning behind his decision wasn't released at the time. The written portion of the decision was finally issued on Wednesday, and it has a number of notable features.

For starters, it's more limited in scope due to a pair of Supreme Court decisions that were issued in the intervening weeks. As a consequence, far fewer grants will see their funding restored. Regardless, the court continues to find that the government's actions were arbitrary and capricious, in part because the government never bothered to define the problems that would get a grant canceled. As a result, officials within the NIH simply canceled lists of grants they received from DOGE without bothering to examine their scientific merit, and then struggled to retroactively describe a policy that justified the actions afterward—a process that led several of them to resign.

Authorities say more than 20 girls are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, where the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours during torrential rains that triggered flash flooding in parts of the state yesterday.

At least 27 people, including nine children, have died in the flooding, according to local officials. The families of three campers have confirmed their deaths to CNN.

Exclusive: Melbourne team demonstrates way to make the virus visible within white blood cells, paving the way to fully clear it from the body

Samsung is reportedly delaying the launch of its Taylor, Texas, fab, citing difficulties in securing customers for its output. Sources told Nikkei Asia that even if the South Korean chipmaker brings in the necessary equipment to produce chips at the new plant, the company cannot do anything with them due to the lack of demand.

Aside from that, the original planned process node for the Taylor plant is no longer aligned with current demand, highlighting the rapid pace of semiconductor technology.

The chip maker started construction on the Taylor fab in 2022, with an initial investment of $17 billion. By 2024, the company decided to increase this to $44 billion, with the addition of another advanced fab and expanded R&D operations. This move is supported by a $6.6-billion CHIPS Act subsidy, which was finalized in December last year, despite multiple delays and setbacks.

Even in places, like Central Texas, with a long history of floods, human-caused warming is creating the conditions for more frequent and severe deluges.

Immigrant advocates and civil rights lawyers say evidence is mounting that immigration agents carrying out the Trump administration's deportation crackdown in southern California are engaging in widespread racial profiling.

They've raided known hubs for Latino workers almost daily – hardware store parking lots, car washes, and street vendor corners. Videos of many of those operations, filmed by bystanders and posted to social media, have shown agents arresting people who appear to be Latino as they stand on sidewalks or wait at bus stops.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups filed a federal class action lawsuit alleging that immigration agents roving the streets are targeting people based on the color of their skin or their apparent occupation. They want a judge to declare the raids unconstitutional.

Fish or bird ownership showed no significant link to slower cognitive decline in study with implications for ageing societies

As global population ages and dementia rates climb, scientists may have found an unexpected ally in the fight against cognitive decline.

Cats and dogs may be exercising more than just your patience: they could be keeping parts of your brain ticking over too. In a potential breakthrough for preventive health, researchers have found that owning a four-pawed friend is linked to slower cognitive decline by potentially preserving specific brain functions as we grow older.

Interestingly, the associations differ depending on the animal: dog owners were found to retain sharper memory, both immediate and delayed, while cat owners showed slower decline in verbal fluency.

The U.S. Air Force has suspended plans it had proposed with Elon Musk's SpaceX to test hypersonic rocket cargo deliveries from a remote Pacific atoll, according to a report this week in Stars and Stripes, an independent publication of the U.S. military.

The suspension came after Reuters reported that biologists and experts said the project would harm many seabirds that nest at the wildlife refuge on the Johnston Atoll, an unincorporated U.S. territory nearly 800 miles (1,300 km) southwest of Hawaii.

The Air Force had said it would undertake an environmental assessment of the project, but publication of a draft assessment was delayed after opposition to the plan by environmental groups.

The first group of immigrants has arrived at a new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” a spokesperson for Republican state Attorney General James Uthmeier told The Associated Press.

“People are there,” Press Secretary Jae Williams said, though he didn’t immediately provide further details on the number of detainees or when they arrived.

“Next stop: back to where they came from,” Uthmeier said on the X social media platform Wednesday. He’s been credited as the architect behind the Everglades proposal.

“Stood up in record time under @GovRonDeSantis ’ leadership & in coordination with @DHSgov & @ICEgov, Florida is proud to help facilitate @realDonaldTrump ’s mission to enforce immigration law,” the account for the Florida Division of Emergency Management posted to the social media site X on Thursday. Requests for additional information from the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and FDEM, which is building the site, were not returned early Thursday afternoon.

The facility, at an airport used for training, will have an initial capacity of about 3,000 detainees, DeSantis said. The center was built in eight days and features more than 200 security cameras, 28,000-plus feet (8,500 meters) of barbed wire and 400 security personnel

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he is willing to let migrant laborers stay in the United States if the farmers they work for will vouch for them.

At a campaign-style speech at the Iowa state fairgrounds, Trump said he is working with the Homeland Security Department to help farmers who depend on migrant laborers for their seasonal needs. He said he will also work with the hotel industry on the issue.

Some hospitals in the U.S. are without essential staff because international doctors who were set to start their medical training this week were delayed by the Trump administration’s travel and visa restrictions.

It’s unclear exactly how many foreign medical residents were unable to start their assignments, but six medical residents interviewed by The Associated Press say they’ve undergone years of training and work only to be stopped at the finish line by what is usually a procedural step.

“I don’t want to give up,” said a permanent Canadian resident who matched to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Harrisburg but had her visa denied because she is a citizen of Afghanistan. She requested to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal. “But the situation also seems so helpless.”