📌 Military Bolsters Border, RFK Jr, More

Up to 1,500 active-duty troops have been deployed to help secure the southern border.

The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order that cracks down on immigration. Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said the troops will fly helicopters to assist Border Patrol agents and help in the construction of barriers.

The Pentagon will provide military aircraft for Department of Homeland Security deportation flights for over 5,000 detained migrants. The US forces manning helicopters, the crews for the military transport planes and intelligence analysts will be in addition to the 1,500, officials said.

“In short order, the department will develop and execute additional missions in cooperation with DHS, federal agencies, and state partners to address the full range of threats outlined by the President at our nation's borders,” Salesses said.

Defense officials added that the department is prepared to provide more troops if asked, including up to 2,000 more marines.

Officials said there was no plan for the troops to perform law enforcement duties, which would put them in a dramatically different role for the first time in decades. Any decision on this would be made by the White House, they said.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is distancing himself from his anti-vaccine work, seeking to become Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy has pulled in roughly $10 million in income from his work over the past year, which includes speaking fees, leading an anti-vaccine nonprofit and legal fees, government ethics forms filed for his nomination show. He has millions of dollars more tied up in investments and other assets.

Kennedy is a lawyer who has worked on lawsuits involving environmental and vaccine injury claims against some of the country’s biggest companies. He said he would forgo payment from claims against the US under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation program.

As of December, Kennedy said in the filing that he is no longer serving as chairman or chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense, his nonprofit that launched lawsuits against the federal government over vaccines, including the authorization of the Covid shot in children.

Despite his criticism of the pharmaceutical industry, Kennedy holds investments in biotech industries, which he would regulate if confirmed to lead the Health and Human Services Department. A Senate finance committee hearing for Kennedy is scheduled for later this month.

Over 12 cats have been killed or sickened by bird flu spreading in raw food products, the Food and Drug Administration says.

The FDA is aware of reports of death or illness associated with uncooked food in 13 domestic cats in eight households, one exotic cat in one household, and an unknown number of animals at two sanctuaries for large felids," an FDA official said.

Cases have been in California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington state, the FDA said. Investigators are working to trace back the outbreaks, the official said. Testing is underway but it could take several weeks to yield results to pin down the source.

It is unclear how the virus spread into pet food. Taxpayers have funded record numbers of poultry being culled to stem bird flu outbreaks, and US officials said this month that farmers are not allowed to use meat from those birds in pet food.

Bird flu has spared many of the humans and cows sickened by this past year's outbreaks in the US from death or severe disease, but officials have warned the virus is especially lethal to cats.

The American Animal Hospital Association said it does not endorse feeding pets raw protein food. It warns that "overwhelming scientific evidence" shows it puts animals and the humans around them at risk of disease.

Republican-led states are pushing bills to restrict transgender rights and gender-affirming care, stirred by electoral successes.

Kansas Republicans are prioritizing property tax cuts and banning gender-affirming care for minors, resonating strongly with voters. Dozens of bills in red-state legislatures target issues like bathroom use, driver's license gender identity, and transgender participation in sports.

Major US medical groups oppose the bans, citing evidence that gender-affirming treatments reduce depression and suicidal thoughts in transgender youths. At least 26 states have banned or restricted gender-affirming care for minors.

The US Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of bans on gender-affirming care by the summer. About 300,000 youths and 1.3 million adults in the US identify as transgender.

Consumer stress has intensified, with an escalating share of credit cardholders making minimum payments on their bills.

A Philadelphia Federal Reserve report said the share of active holders just making baseline payments on their cards through the third quarter of 2024 jumped to a 12-year high.

The level rose to 10.75% for the period, part of a continuing trend that began in 2021 and has accelerated as average interest rates have soared and delinquencies also have accelerated.

The share of cardholders more than 30 days past due rose to 3.52%, an increase from 3.21%, for a gain of more than 10%. It also is over twice the delinquency of the pandemic-era low of 1.57% hit in the second quarter of 2021.

With average credit card balances at $10,563, it would take 22 years and cost $18,000 in interest when just paying the minimum, according to NerdWallet. Even with the rising delinquency rate, the pace is still well below the 6.8% peak during the 2008-09 financial crisis and not yet indicative of serious strains.

The huge planet WASP-127b, 520 light years away and discovered nearly a decade ago, harbors winds of 20,500 mph.

That's nearly 19 times faster than the strongest planetary winds in our solar system — the 1,100 mph gusts on Neptune. The robust supersonic winds whipping around this distant gas giant's equator are spinning six times faster than the planet, which is a little bigger than Jupiter.

Astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope facility in remote, dry Chilean mountains at some 8,645 feet high to observe the extreme winds.

The planet's nearby star illuminated the molecules in WASP-127b's atmosphere, allowing the instrument to reveal that one side of the atmosphere moved away at high speed while the other side returned at high speed, showing a fast, supersonic jet wind around the planet’s equator.

From the observations, astronomers confirmed WASP-127b harbors water vapor and carbon dioxide gases and has cooler poles and different temperatures, suggesting a complex weather system.

An ever bigger telescope dubbed the Extremely Large Telescope — which hosts a huge 128-foot primary mirror — will be able to detect weather on much smaller, rocky worlds, perhaps similar to Earth.

A local entrepreneur in Tanzania is transforming cement bags into backpacks with a small solar panel to power a reading light.

The bags have provided children with a reliable source of light that allows them to read at night. This has improved academic performance among children living in rural villages in Tanzania, as they can study more effectively.

The solution was crafted by Innocent James, who remembers studying for school by the light of a kerosene lantern. Expensive to run and somewhat dangerous to use, many parents can’t afford or don’t trust their children with the lantern and send them to bed without means to read books.

James’ solution was inspired by a university professor he met. The man carried around a solar panel to charge his phone sewn into the fabric of his jacket, giving James the idea to sew cheap, flexible solar panels onto the outside of bags to power a reading light.

He began making bags himself in 2016, sewing together around 80 per month and selling them for between the equivalent of $4.00 and $8.00 in Tanzanian shillings. This amounted to the same cost as running a kerosene lantern for about 15 days.

Today, Soma Bags employs 85 rural workers to satisfy a demand for 13,000 backpacks a month.