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On a sunny April afternoon in Seattle, around 40 activists gathered at the Pine Box, a beer and pizza bar in the sometimes scruffy Capitol Hill neighborhood. The group had reserved a side room attached to the outside patio; before remarks began, attendees flowed in and out, enjoying the warm day. Someone set up a sound system. Then the activists settled in, straining their ears as the streamed call crackled through less-than-perfect speakers.

In more than a decade of climate organizing, it was the first time Emily Johnston, one of the group’s leaders, had attended a happy hour to listen to a company’s quarterly earnings call. Also the first time a local TV station showed up to cover such a happy hour. “This whole campaign has been just a magnet for attention,” she says.

The group, officially called the Troublemakers, was rewarded right away. TeslaCEO Elon Musk started the investors’ call for the first quarter of 2025 with a sideways acknowledgement of exactly the work the group had been doing for the past two months. He called out the nationwide backlash to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an effort to cut government spending staffed by young tech enthusiasts and Musk company alumni, named—with typical Muskian Internet-brained flourish—for an early 2010s meme.

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For the last three years, we've engaged in some in-depth data analysis and tea-leaf reading to answer two questions about Apple's support for older Macs that still use Intel chips.

First, was Apple providing fewer updates and fewer years of software support to Macs based on Intel chips as it worked to transition the entire lineup to its internally developed Apple Silicon? And second, how long could Intel Mac owners reasonably expect to keep getting updates?

The answer to the first question has always been "it depends, but generally yes." And this year, we have a definitive answer to the second question: For the bare handful of Intel Macs it supports, macOS 26 Tahoe will be the final new version of the operating system to support any of Intel's chips.

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Nissan provided flights from Detroit to Los Angeles and accommodation so Ars could be briefed on the next Leaf. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

The first-generation Nissan Leaf was an incredible achievement for the company and for the industry. A mass-market EV that wasn't priced out of reach was something the industry needed at the time.

That's important. Since then, things have stagnated. To say that the 2026 Leaf is the most important EV launch for Nissan since the original car would be an understatement. It must get it right, because the competition is too good not to.

Starting things off, the car is available with two battery options. There is a 52 kWh base pack and a 75 kWh longer-range option. Each option has an active thermal management system—a first for Leaf—to address DC fast-charging concerns. Those batteries also deliver more range, with up to 303 miles (488 km) on the S+ model.

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While COVID-19 transmission remains low in the US, health experts are anxious about the potential for a big summer wave as two factors seem set for a collision course: a lull in infection activity that suggests protective responses have likely waned in the population, and a new SARS-CoV-2 variant with an infectious advantage over other variants.

The new variant is dubbed NB.1.8.1. Like all the other currently circulating variants, it's a descendant of omicron. Specifically, NB.1.8.1 is derived from the recombinant variant XDV.1.5.1. Compared to the reigning omicron variants JN.1 and LP.8.1, the new variant has a few mutations that could help it bind to human cells more easily and evade some protective immune responses.

On May 23, the World Health Organization designated NB.1.8.1 a "variant under monitoring," meaning that early signals indicate it has an advantage over other variants, but its impact on populations is not yet clear. In recent weeks, parts of Asia, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, have experienced increases in infections and hospitalizations linked to NB.1.8.1's spread. Fortunately, the variant does not appear to cause more severe disease, and current vaccines are expected to remain effective against it.

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Liam Neeson stars as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. in The Naked Gun.

Thirty years after the last film in The Naked Gun crime-spoof comedy franchise, we're finally getting a new installment, The Naked Gun, described as a "legacy sequel." And it's Liam Neeson stepping into Leslie Nielsen's fumbling shoes, playing that character's son. Judging by the official trailer, Neeson is up to the task, showcasing his screwball comedy chops.

(Some spoilers for the first three films in the franchise below.)

The original Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! debuted in 1988, with Leslie Nielsen starring as Detective Frank Drebin, trying to foil an assassination attempt on Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to the US. It proved successful enough to launch two sequels. Naked Gun 2-1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) found Drebin battling an evil plan to kidnap a prominent nuclear scientist. Naked Gun 33-1/3: The Final Insult (1994) found Drebin coming out of retirement and going undercover to take down a crime syndicate planning to blow up the Academy Awards.

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Subscribers in Southern California of Spectrum’s Internet service experienced outages over the weekend following what company officials said was an attempted theft of copper lines located in Van Nuys, a suburb located 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

The people behind the incident thought they were targeting copper lines, the officials wrote in a statement Sunday. Instead, they cut into fiber optic cables. The cuts caused service disruptions for subscribers in Van Nuys and surrounding areas. Spectrum has since restored service and is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the people responsible. Spectrum will also credit affected customers one day of service on their next bill.

An industry-wide problem

“Criminal acts of network vandalism have become an issue affecting the entire telecommunications industry, not just Spectrum, largely due to the increase in the price of precious metals,” the officials wrote in a statement issued Sunday. “These acts of vandalism are not only a crime, but also affect our customers, local businesses and potentially emergency services. Spectrum’s fiber lines do not include any copper.”

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Critics warn that the United States may soon be taking on more nuclear safety risks after Donald Trump fired one of five members of an independent commission that monitors the country's nuclear reactors.

In a statement Monday, Christopher Hanson confirmed that Trump fired him from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday. He alleged that the firing was "without cause" and "contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding removal of independent agency appointees." According to NPR, he received an email that simply said his firing was "effective immediately."

Hanson had enjoyed bipartisan support for his work for years. Trump initially appointed Hanson to the NRC in 2020, then he was renominated by Joe Biden in 2024. In his statement, he said it was an "honor" to serve, citing accomplishments over his long stint as chair, which ended in January 2025.

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Last Friday, a Michigan man named David Bartels was sentenced to five years in federal prison for "Possession of Child Pornography by a Person Employed by the Armed Forces Outside of the United States." The unusual nature of the charge stems from the fact that Bartels bought and viewed the illegal material while working as a military contractor for Maytag Fuels at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Bartels had made some cursory efforts to cover his tracks, such as using the TOR browser. (This may sound simple enough, but according to the US government, only 12.3 percent of people charged with similar offenses used "the Dark Web" at all.) Bartels knew enough about tech to use Discord, Telegram, VLC, and Megasync to further his searches. And he had at least eight external USB hard drives or SSDs, plus laptops, an Apple iPad Mini, and a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.

But for all his baseline technical knowledge, Bartels simultaneously showed little security awareness. He bought collections of child sex abuse material (CSAM) using PayPal, for instance. He received CSAM from other people who possessed his actual contact information. And he stored his contraband on a Western Digital 5TB hard drive under the astonishingly guilty-sounding folder hierarchy "/NSFW/Nope/Don't open/You were Warned/Deeper/."

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Recently, a Reddit user discovered a rare RCA Spectra 70/35 computer control panel from 1966 in their family's old collapsed garage, posting photos of the pre-moon landing mainframe component to the "retrobattlestations" subreddit that celebrates vintage computers. After cleaning the panel and fixing most keyswitches, the original poster noted that actually running it would require "1,500lbs of mainframe"—the rest of the computer system that's missing.

As it turns out, the panel had been sitting in the garage for decades without the poster's knowledge. "In short my house is a two-family, my dad used to rent out the other half before I was born," explained SonOfADeadMeme in the thread on Friday. "One of the people who rented out the apartment worked at IBM (apparently the RCA Spectra 70's were compatible with IBM sets from the time) and shortly before he left he shown up with a forklift and left something in the garage."

A view of the RCA Spectra 70/35 computer control panel before (right) and after (left) its owner cleaned it up. Credit: SonOfaDeadMeme / Reddit

The equipment remained hidden for decades due to the deteriorating condition of the structure. "The garage was very dilapidated and has since collapsed so no one bothered going in. Fast forward a few decades and I found the RCA terminal and a crate labeled 'Return to IBM San Jose,'" SonOfADeadMeme wrote. They speculated the unidentified IBM component in the crate was "something power supply related" but noted they hadn't examined it closely due to their basement being "jam-packed with stuff."

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For the first time since launching in 2009, WhatsApp will now show users advertisements. The ads are “rolling out gradually,” the company said.

For now, the ads will only appear on WhatsApp's Updates tab, where users can update their status and access channels or groups targeting specific interests they may want to follow. In its announcement of the ads, parent company Meta claimed that placing ads under Updates means that the ads won’t “interrupt personal chats.”

Meta said that 1.5 billion people use the Updates tab daily. However, if you exclusively use WhatsApp for direct messages and personal group chats, you could avoid ever seeing ads.

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Donald Trump's image will soon be used to sell smartphones, the Trump Organization confirmed after unveiling a new wireless service, Trump Mobile, on Monday.

According to the press release, Trump Mobile's "flagship" wireless plan will be "The 47 Plan," which references Trump's current term as the United States' 47th president.

The Trump Organization says the plan offers an "unbeatable value"—costing $47.45 per month—and "transformational" cellular service. But the price seems to be on par with other major carriers' "best phone plans," according to a recent CNET roundup, and the service simply plugs into the 5G network through "all three major carriers," the press release noted.

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Kia provided flights from Washington, DC, to Seoul and accommodation so Ars could drive the EV4. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

SEOUL, South Korea—Drive enough electric vehicles from enough different manufacturers and something becomes clear: the Korean automakers know what they're doing. From small cars like the Niro all the way to three-row SUVs, the EVs coming out of Kia (and its sibling Hyundai) are as efficient as anything out there, usually with a distinctive style. It's fair to say they're at the front of the pack, at least as far as EVs offered to North America.

And soon, there will be a new one to consider. It's the Kia EV4, a small electric sedan that uses a new version of the E-GMP platform that has so impressed us in cars like the EV6. Originally designed for midsize and larger vehicles and operating at 800 V, the E-GMP powertrain is very capable but also relatively expensive to make. Now Kia has taken what it learned with the 800 V experience and applied it to the new 400 V version that's suitable for smaller and cheaper EVs.

One motor, two packs

Kia told Ars that while the development know-how carried over to the new lower-voltage components, the battery, motors, and power electronics are all new. The car arrives in the US in Q4 of this year and will feature a native NACS charging port. There's only one motor being offered for now, which generates 201 hp (150 kW) and 209 lb-ft (283 Nm) and drives the front wheels. But there are two choices of battery: the standard 58.3 kWh, which Kia reckons should achieve an EPA range of 235 miles (378 km); and an 81.4 kWh long-range pack, that should be sufficient for 330 miles (531 km) on North American roads. In time, expect a twin-motor, all-wheel drive option, as well as a more powerful EV4 GT.

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When Nintendo launched the Switch in 2017, the sheer novelty of the new hardware brought the company a lot of renewed attention. After the market disaster of the Wii U's homebound "second screen" tablet, Nintendo exploited advances in system-on-a-chip miniaturization to create something of a minimum viable HD-capable system that could work as both a lightweight handheld and a slightly underpowered TV-based console. That unique combination, and Nintendo's usual selection of first-party system sellers, set the console apart from what the rest of the gaming market was offering at the time.

Eight years later, the Switch 2 launched into a transformed gaming hardware market that the original Switch played a large role in shaping, one full of portable gaming consoles that can optionally be connected to a TV. That includes full-featured handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and its many imitators, but also streaming-focused Android-based gaming handhelds and retro-focused emulation machines on the cheaper end. Even Microsoft is preparing to get in on the act, streamlining the Windows gaming experience for an Asus-powered handheld gaming PC that hides the Windows desktop.

Mario is excited! Are you? Credit: Kyle Orland

Those market changes make the Switch 2 a lot less of a novelty than its predecessor. As its name implies, it is essentially a direct sequel to the original Switch hardware, with improvements to the physical hardware and internal architecture. Rather than shaking things up with a new concept, Nintendo seems to be saying, "Hey, you liked the Switch? Here's the same thing, but moreso."

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The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on the Île Notre-Dame in Montreal has long been home to the Canadian Grand Prix. The artificial island was originally built for Expo 67 but was later remodeled for the 1976 Olympics; a race track was then constructed out of the roads on the island in 1978. F1 has come and gone in the US and Mexico in that time, but Canada has been a near-constant, missing just 2009.

Many of those races have been classics. 2007 saw Lewis Hamilton's first win, when he was a rookie with McLaren. (Takuma Sato's sixth place in the Super Aguri made that day even better.) 2010 had such extreme tire degradation that then-F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone had Pirelli build that into its tires from 2011 as a feature, one that at times had a highly deleterious effect on racing.

Yesterday's race in Montreal will not be remembered as one of the all-time great Canadian F1 races. Well, perhaps it will by the Mercedes team, which scored its first win of the year with George Russell, and rookie Kimi Antonelli finished third, claiming his first podium. Montreal lacks the long-duration corners that overheat the Mercedes' tires past their best. Instead, it rewards good traction and good braking, both attributes that the silver arrows' car possesses.

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The Federal Aviation Administration may soon levy fees on companies seeking launch and reentry licenses, a new tack in the push to give the agency the resources it needs to keep up with the rapidly growing commercial space industry.

The text of a budget reconciliation bill released by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last week calls for the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation, known as AST, to begin charging licensing fees to space companies next year. The fees would phase in over eight years, after which the FAA would adjust them to keep pace with inflation. The money would go into a trust fund to help pay for the operating costs of the FAA's commercial space office.

The bill released by Cruz's office last week covers federal agencies under the oversight of the Senate Commerce Committee, which he chairs. These agencies include the FAA and NASA. Ars recently covered Cruz's proposals for NASA to keep the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and Gateway lunar space station alive, while the Trump administration aims to cancel Gateway and end the SLS and Orion programs after two crew missions to the Moon.

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Narrator Ryan Reynolds celebrates nature's outcasts in the new NatGeo docuseries Underdogs.

Most of us have seen a nature documentary or two (or three) at some point in our lives, so it's a familiar format: sweeping majestic footage of impressively regal animals accompanied by reverently high-toned narration (preferably with a tony British accent). Underdogs, a new docuseries from National Geographic, takes a decidedly different and unconventional approach. Narrated by with hilarious irreverence by Ryan Reynolds, the five-part series highlights nature's less cool and majestic creatures: the outcasts and benchwarmers, more noteworthy for their "unconventional hygiene choices" and "unsavory courtship rituals." It's like The Suicide Squad or Thunderbolts*, except these creatures actually exist.

Per the official premise, "Underdogs features a range of never-before-filmed scenes, including the first time a film crew has ever entered a special cave in New Zealand—a huge cavern that glows brighter than a bachelor pad under a black light thanks to the glowing butts of millions of mucus-coated grubs. All over the world, overlooked superstars like this are out there 24/7, giving it maximum effort and keeping the natural world in working order for all those showboating polar bears, sharks and gorillas." It's rated PG-13 thanks to the odd bit of scatalogical humor and shots of Nature Sexy Time

Each of the five episodes is built around a specific genre. "Superheroes" highlights the surprising superpowers of the honey badger, pistol shrimp, and the invisible glass frog, among others, augmented with comic book graphics; "Sexy Beasts" focuses on bizarre mating habits and follows the format of a romantic advice column; "Terrible Parents" highlights nature's worst practices, following the outline of a parenting guide; "Total Grossout" is exactly what it sounds like; and "The Unusual Suspects" is a heist tale, documenting the supposed efforts of a macaque to put together the ultimate team of masters of deception and disguise (an inside man, a decoy, a fall guy, etc.).  Green Day even wrote and recorded a special theme song for the opening credits.

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Today's monkey torture videos are the products of a digitally connected world. People who enjoy watching baby animals probed, snipped, and mutilated in horrible ways often have difficulty finding local collaborators, but online communities like "million tears"—now thankfully shuttered—can help them forge connections.

Once they do meet other like-minded souls, communication takes place through chat apps like Telegram and Signal, often using encryption.

Money is pooled through various phone apps, then sent to videographers in countries where wages are low and monkeys are plentiful. (The cases I have seen usually involve Indonesia; read my feature from last year to learn more about how these groups work.)

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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

The American Midwest is home to some of the richest, most productive farmland in the world, enabling its transformation into a vast corn- and soy-producing machine—a conversion spurred largely by decades-long policies that support the production of biofuels.

But a new report takes a big swing at the ethanol orthodoxy of American agriculture, criticizing the industry for causing economic and social imbalances across rural communities and saying that the expansion of biofuels will increase greenhouse gas emissions, despite their purported climate benefits.

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Apps used to be the measure of a mobile platform's worth, with Apple and Google dueling over who could list the most items in their respective stores. Today, the numbers don't matter as much—there are enough apps, and Google's attempt to replace parts of the web with apps is going away. Instant Apps, a feature that debuted in 2017, will reportedly be scrapped in December 2025. In its place, you'll just have to use the Internet.

Developer Leon Omelan spotted this news buried in the latest Canary release of Android Studio (confirmed by Android Authority). The development client includes a warning that Instant Apps is headed for the Google graveyard. Here's the full notice, which is the only official confirmation from Google at this time.

Google's latest Android Studio build announces the end of Instant Apps. Credit: Android Authority

Instant Apps wasn't a bad idea—it was just too late. Early in the mobile era, browsers and websites were sluggish on phones, making apps a much better option. Installing them for every site that offered them could be a pain, though. Google's Instant Apps tried to smooth over the experience by delivering an app live without installation. When developers implemented the feature, clicking a link to their websites could instead open the Android app in a similar amount of time as loading a webpage. Google later expanded the feature to games.

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Amazon forced all Prime Video subscribers onto a new ad-based subscription tier in January 2024 unless users paid more for their subscription type. Now, the tech giant is reportedly showing twice as many ads to subscribers as it did when it started selling ad-based streaming subscriptions.

Currently, anyone who signs up for Amazon Prime (which is $15 per month or $139 per year) gets Prime Video with ads. If they don’t want to see commercials, they have to pay an extra $3 per month. One can also subscribe to Prime Video alone for $9 per month with ads or $12 per month without ads.

When Amazon originally announced the ad tier, it said it would deliver “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers." Based on “six ad buyers and documents” ad trade publication AdWeek reported viewing, Amazon has determined the average is four to six minutes of advertisements per hour.

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When major events occur, most people rush to Google to find information. Increasingly, the first thing they see is an AI Overview, a feature that already has a reputation for making glaring mistakes. In the wake of a tragic plane crash in India, Google's AI search results are spreading misinformation claiming the incident involved an Airbus plane—it was actually a Boeing 787.

Travelers are more attuned to the airliner models these days after a spate of crashes involving Boeing's 737 lineup several years ago. Searches for airline disasters are sure to skyrocket in the coming days, with reports that more than 200 passengers and crew lost their lives in the Air India Flight 171 crash. The way generative AI operates means some people searching for details may get the wrong impression from Google's results page.

Not all searches get AI answers, but Google has been steadily expanding this feature since it debuted last year. One searcher on Reddit spotted a troubling confabulation when searching for crashes involving Airbus planes. AI Overviews, apparently overwhelmed with results reporting on the Air India crash, stated confidently (and incorrectly) that it was an Airbus A330 that fell out of the sky shortly after takeoff. We've run a few similar searches—some of the AI results say Boeing, some say Airbus, and some include a strange mashup blaming both Airbus and Boeing. It's a mess.

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NotebookLM is undoubtedly one of Google's best implementations of generative AI technology, giving you the ability to explore documents and notes with a Gemini AI model. Last year, Google added the ability to generate so-called "audio overviews" of your source material in NotebookLM. Now, Google has brought those fake AI podcasts to search results as a test. Instead of clicking links or reading the AI Overview, you can have two nonexistent people tell you what the results say.

This feature is not currently rolling out widely—it's available in search labs, which means you have to manually enable it. Anyone can opt in to the new Audio Overview search experience, though. If you join the test, you'll quickly see the embedded player in Google search results. However, it's not at the top with the usual block of AI-generated text. Instead, you'll see it after the first few search results, below the "People also ask" knowledge graph section.

Credit: Google

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The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly pitching a merger condition that would forbid advertising agencies from boycotting platforms based on political content, in a move that could benefit Elon Musk's X social network and President Trump's own Truth Social platform.

As the FTC reviews a proposed merger between Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group, two large ad agencies, The New York Times reported yesterday that a "proposed consent decree would prevent the merged company from boycotting platforms because of their political content by refusing to place their clients' advertisements on them, according to two people briefed on the matter."

This is one of several moves the FTC has reportedly made to discourage ad boycotts that have riled conservatives. The FTC currently has only Republican commissioners because President Trump fired both Democrats, who allege in a lawsuit that the firings were illegal. Trump also declared sweeping executive power over the FTC and other agencies that were created to operate independently from the White House.

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Meta has invested $15 billion into data-labeling startup Scale AI and hired its co-founder, Alexandr Wang, as part of its bid to attract talent from rivals in a fiercely competitive market.

The deal values Scale at $29 billion, double its valuation last year. Scale said it would “substantially expand” its commercial relationship with Meta “to accelerate deployment of Scale’s data solutions,” without giving further details. Scale helps companies improve their artificial intelligence models by providing labeled training data.

Scale will distribute proceeds from Meta’s investment to shareholders, and Meta will own 49 percent of Scale’s equity following the transaction.

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The medical community is bracing for attacks on, and the possible dismantling of, federal recommendations for safe, lifesaving childhood vaccinations after health secretary and fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired all 17 members of a federal vaccine advisory committee Monday.

Outrage has been swift after Kennedy announced the "clean sweep" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). He made the announcement in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Open protest erupted at the CDC on Tuesday, with staff calling for Kennedy's resignation. Staff rallied outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta, objecting to agency firings, cuts to funding and critical programs, scientific censorship, as well as ACIP's ouster.

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