https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pediaflow-research-babies-heart-defects-trump-administration-rcna197155
For James Antaki, a biomedical engineering professor at Cornell University, the $6.7 million government grant meant babies would be saved. Awarded by the Department of Defense on March 30, it would allow his team at Cornell to ramp up production and testing of PediaFlow, a device that boosts blood flow in infants with heart defects.

A week later, that all changed.

The Defense Department sent Antaki a stop-work order on April 8 informing him that his team wouldn’t get the money, intended to be distributed over four years. Three decades of research is now at risk, and Antaki said he has no idea why the government cut off funding.

“I feel that it’s my calling in life to complete this project,” he said Friday, in his first news interview since losing funding. “Once a week, I go through this mental process of, ‘Is it time to give up?’ But it is not my prerogative to give up.”

Neither the Defense Department nor the White House press office responded to requests for comment.

Antaki is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of academics nationwide who’ve lost funding in a variety of fields since President Donald Trump came to office, due to a mix of new executive orders limiting what government money can support and the sweeping grant cancellations ordered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

One in 100 babies in the U.S. are born with heart defects, and about a quarter of them need surgery or other procedures in their first year to survive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Worldwide, it’s estimated that 240,000 babies die within their first 28 days due to congenital birth defects.

FACIST dictator Donald Dump Trump has officially caused a recession. Experts sound the alarm on his regressive trade policies with China and the world
https://www.rawstory.com/scaramucci-prediction-recession-trade/
Time is running out': Ex-Trump official gives grim prediction of 'unnecessary recession'

If Donald Trump isn't careful, he's going to open up the United States to an "unnecessary recession" very soon, according to a former Trump official.

Trump thinks he has a handle on the trade wars the U.S. is fighting, but things will turn quickly, according to his previous white house communications chief.

Anthony Scaramucci, who previously said Trump was a grifter who "really wants to hurt people," appeared on CNN to discuss the president's ongoing efforts.

Scaramucci hinted at the stock market's clues before saying, "Time is running out."

GET THE NEW RAW STORY APP.

"The supply chain and the ships at port are going to dry up with non-tariff goods and it'll cause an unnecessary recession by the third or fourth quarter of this year," he predicted Saturday.

The FASCIST DICTATOR Donald Dump Trump is arresting his political enemies for standing up for GOOD, proving he is enacting an evil billionaire agenda
https://www.rawstory.com/ras-baraka/
‘I didn’t break any laws’: Newark mayor slams ‘humiliating’ arrest at ICE facility

Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, didn’t waste any time defending himself after his arrest outside an ICE facility sparked a chaotic scene that included protesters and several members of Congress who were on site.

“It was really humiliating and painful,” Baraka, who said he's now facing a federal trespassing charge, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Friday.

Speaking out just hours after his release from federal custody, Baraka, a candidate for governor of New York, took to CNN to tell his side of the story – and denounce the charges. He said he was there in support of members of Congress and his capacity as mayor, not to protest, and was wrongfully “targeted.”

“After they told us to leave, we left and they began to try to arrest me,” Baraka said. “I shouldn't say us. They targeted me and came after me specifically and arrested me.” He also slammed comments from Alina Habba, acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and longtime Trump ally, that accused the Newark mayor of ignoring multiple warnings.

“The reality is, Alina Habba wasn't there,” he said. “She doesn't know what happened. I was there for over an hour in that space, and nobody ever told me to move."

GET THE NEW RAW STORY APP.

“Not a single person,” he added. “Not an officer from ICE, not any of the security guards, nobody told me to leave that place.”

But Baraka said he has no regrets.

“I don't have any regrets at all,” Baraka told Collins. “I would do it again. I have a right to go to those facilities as the mayor of the city.”

Watch the video below via CNN or at the link here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/08/bill-gates-to-close-foundation-give-away-rest-of-wealth-by-2045.html

Bill Gates plans to give away nearly all of his personal wealth and shutter the Gates Foundation within 20 years, the billionaire announced in a blog post on Thursday.

“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them,” wrote Gates, 69. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people.”

The Microsoft co-founder, whose net worth Bloomberg currently estimates at $168 billion, has pledged for years to give away most of his wealth to his philanthropic foundation. His eventual goal is to drop “off of the list of the world’s richest people,” he wrote in a social media post in July 2022.

Now, Gates has set a specific timeline for disbursing his fortune: The Gates Foundation is set to close its doors on December 31, 2045. Since the Foundation’s launch in 2000, it has contributed more than $100 billion to global causes — particularly working to eradicate diseases and poverty, address climate change and expand access to healthcare and education.

White smoke, Black pope? Genealogist says Leo XIV has Louisiana African roots

https://www.ncronline.org/news/white-smoke-black-pope-genealogist-says-leo-xiv-has-louisiana-african-roots

The Catholic Church has a new leader, with the Augustinian Cardinal Robert Prevost elected as Pope Leo XIV, his chosen name as bishop of Rome. He is the first North American pope and, according to a prominent genealogist, a pope with African-Creole ancestry.

The understated candidate triumphed on the second day of voting in a count kept under permanent Vatican seal. The results were announced with white smoke in St. Peter's Square Thursday evening, May 8, with the new pope making his first appearance to a crowd of more than 100,000 from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica.

"Thank you to my cardinal brothers who chose me to be the successor of Peter and to walk together with you as a united church searching all together for peace and justice," the 69-year-old Chicago native said in a bilingual (Italian and Spanish) address that included odes of thanks to his predecessor, Pope Francis.

"Thank you to my cardinal brothers who chose me to be the successor of Peter and to walk together with you as a united church searching all together for peace and justice," the 69-year-old Chicago native said in a bilingual (Italian and Spanish) address that included odes of thanks to his predecessor, Pope Francis.

"We have to look together how to be a missionary church, building bridges, dialogue, always open to receiving with open arms for everyone, like this square, open to all, to all who need our charity, our presence, dialogue, love."

Leo XIV is a member of a religious order named for the famous African St. Augustine of Hippo.

Louisiana Creole expert Jari Honora has traced Prevost's ancestry to the Black community of New Orleans. His maternal ancestors lived in the Crescent City before migrating to Chicago in the early 20th century, Honora said.

MAGA is in FULL MELTDOWN mode, absolutely MELTING DOWN over the new pope
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/new-pope-robert-prevost-social-media-maga-meltdown-1235334802/
MAGA Melts Down Over New Pope’s Anti-Trump, Pro-Immigrant Social Media
Robert Prevost, now known as Pope Leo XIV, has been critical of the president and his actions

to rank our love for others,” Prevost wrote. (He added a second post critical of Vance’s misunderstanding of the doctrine of “ordo amoris.”)
In his most recent post before entering Conclave, Prevost criticized Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for making light of the deportation and detention of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Prevost linked to an article from the website Catholic Standard comparing the plights and persecutions experienced by immigrant and refugee communities to the Passion of Jesus Christ.
The reaction from the MAGA right — which in recent years has also taken a liking to ultra-conservative Catholicism — was immediate and predictable.
“WOKE MARXIST POPE,” wrote Laura Loomer — a far-right 9/11 conspiracy theorist who is close enough to Trump to advise him on national security staffing decisions. In another post, Loomer wrote that Prevost was “just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican,” and that “Catholics don’t have anything good to look forward to.”

Translated by MistralAI
https://formiche.net/2025/05/dalle-auto-alla-geopolitica-cosi-lindustria-tedesca-mira-alla-difesa-e-allo-spazio/
There is a Germany that is once again looking at geopolitics, but it does so with its feet firmly on the ground and its eyes on space. A Germany that, while trying to move away from the monoculture of the automobile, repositions its industry at the center of the continent's major strategic supply chains. This is where Rheinmetall's trajectory fits in, as the defense giant has become the main European champion of industrial reconversion in recent months. From converted automotive plants for the production of armored vehicles to the creation of new production lines for satellites, Berlin seems determined to take serious action. This is a silent but profound shift, which says a lot about how Germany is trying to get its production machine moving again.
The change in pace can be seen in concrete choices. After converting part of the plants in Berlin and Neuss-once dedicated to the automotive sector
—Rheinmetall is now looking with interest at the historic Volkswagen plant in Osnabrück, considered "very suitable" for the production of military vehicles. However, the company is not limiting itself solely to the production of armaments and is also targeting another strategic sector for European competitiveness: space. In recent days, Rheinmetall announced the creation of a joint venture with the Finnish company Iceye to build Sar (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellites, capable of observing the Earth's surface with millimetric precision, day and night, under any atmospheric conditions. Production will be located at the same site in Neuss, confirming a strategy that is now evident, aimed at transforming the old automotive hubs into new centers for the European strategic industry.

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/franconia-mcdonalds-bans-dine-in-access-for-anyone-21-and-under/65-f34249b8-e0d9-427d-a55a-f634c31f78a1

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/blast-heard-pakistans-lahore-amid-tensions-with-india-say-geo-news-reuters-2025-05-08/
Whoever loses, we win