Hantavirus misinformation runs rampant as the US is unequipped to respond to infectious disease health scare; The Guardian, May 8, 2026

 Melody Schreiber, The Guardian ; Hantavirus misinformation runs rampant as the US is unequipped to respond to infectious disease health scare

The US’s withdrawal from the WHO – and cuts to the country’s health system – stymie officials’ response

"The outbreak of hantavirus on the Dutch cruise ship MV Hondius illuminates major gaps in the US public health system – a worrying sign for stopping this outbreak quickly and preparing for a potential pandemic of a more widespread pathogen in coming years, experts say.

Passengers and their close contacts are at risk of hantavirus and need to follow public health guidance, but the danger for most people is near zero, officials and scientists say. Experts expect more cases in this outbreak to be identified, but they are emphatic that a hantavirus pandemic is highly unlikely."

Hegseth Cites Falsehood to Defend His Firing of Senior Officers; The New York Times, April 29, 2026

 Greg Jaffe, The New York Times; Hegseth Cites Falsehood to Defend His Firing of Senior Officers

The defense secretary said at a House hearing that President Barack Obama had fired 197 generals, a figure that the Pentagon previously acknowledged was false.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday defended his decisions to fire or sideline nearly 30 generals and admirals over the past year with little explanation by falsely comparing his record to that of President Barack Obama.

“I would also note that under Barack Obama, 197 general officers were removed,” Mr. Hegseth said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. “So this is not something specific to this administration.”

The number Mr. Hegseth gave has no basis in fact. It originated with an unsigned 2018 editorial in Investor’s Business Daily, which cites the right-wing news site “Breitbart.com’s Facebook page” as its source.

Mr. Hegseth’s actions to fire senior military leaders are without precedent in recent decades and have come with little explanation."

Measles Is Back. What Comes Next Will Be Worse.; The New York Times, April 25, 2026

 The Editorial Board, The New York Times; Measles Is Back. What Comes Next Will Be Worse

"The resurgence of measles — a terrible disease that can swell the brain and cause permanent disabilities or death — is alarming enough on its own. There have been more than 1,700 cases reported in the United States already this year, up from about 70 per year in the early 2000s. Three children died last year.

The rise of measles may also be a harbinger of something even worse, public officials say. “Measles is basically a canary in the coal mine for our entire system,” says Dr. Scott Harris, the state health officer in Alabama’s Department of Public Health. “When it surges like this, it signals that our vaccination programs are starting to fail, and that other diseases won’t be far behind.” Already, cases of whooping cough have surged, too. And after two Florida children died of Hib, a bacterial infection, epidemiologists worry that disease is resurgent.

The most maddening aspect of this situation is that it was almost certainly avoidable. It stems in large part from a yearslong scare campaign by vaccine conspiracists including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now serves as President Trump’s secretary of health and human services."

'Fundamentally wrong:' Gun groups, Republicans condemn Noem, Patel statements; Axios, January 25, 2026

 Marc Caputo, Axios; 'Fundamentally wrong:' Gun groups, Republicans condemn Noem, Patel statements

"A Minnesota gun-rights group accused Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI director Kash Patel of spreading misinformation about the right to bear arms at protests.

Why it matters: The Trump administration's misstatements about Alex Pretti's shooting death are damaging its credibility even with allies, especially in the gun-rights community.

• "We're getting it from all sides," a Trump adviser told Axios on Sunday.
• 
  

Zoom in: Appearing on "Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo," Patel said, "You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple. You don't have a right to break the law."

• Patel was echoing Noem, who said Saturday, "I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign."
• 
  
• The Gun Owners Caucus of Minnesota was quick to dispute Patel's statements, posting on Xthat Patel was "completely incorrect on Minnesota law. There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota."
• 
  
• The group's president, Rob Doar, told Axios that Noem's understanding of Minnesota gun law was "fundamentally wrong," and he took issue with her statements about Pretti not having his ID while he carried his concealed weapon.
• 
  

State of play: Minnesota law does not prohibit carrying a loaded firearm to a protest, according to the caucus' webpage as well as information from gun-control advocates like Everytown.

• An FBI spokesperson said Patel wasn't speaking to the letter of the law, per se, but to the practicalities of showing up to a protest armed and coming into conflict with law enforcement.
• 
  
• Protest groups in Minnesota specifically advise demonstrators to not bring firearms or "weapons of any kind" regardless of what the law allows.
• 
  

Pressure on DHS

The big picture: President Trump was already complaining about his collapsing immigration poll numbers from videos showing aggressive DHS confrontations with citizen protesters — and that was before the Jan. 7 shooting of Minneapolis protester Renee Good, Axios first reported.

• DHS was also facing a credibility problem over misstatements by top Border Patrol enforcer Greg Bovino and by Homeland Security's spokesperson before Pretti's shooting.
• 
  
• Noem, who faces calls for impeachment from Democrats, complicated the situation with her Saturday comments.
• 
  
• Echoing a DHS statement on X, Noem said that "an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun. The officers attempted to disarm the suspect, but the armed suspect reacted violently."
• 
  

Reality check: Videos shot from different angles tell a different story. The conflict did not stem from Pretti's possession of a gun:

• Pretti had no visible weapon: He clearly had a smartphone recording video in his right hand. His left hand was free, videos show."

VA Doctor Remembers Alex Pretti, 37-Year-Old Man Killed by ICE, as ‘Kind and Helpful’ ICU Nurse (Exclusive); People, January 24, 2026

 Toria Sheffield and Wendy Grossman Kantor, People; VA Doctor Remembers Alex Pretti, 37-Year-Old Man Killed by ICE, as ‘Kind and Helpful’ ICU Nurse (Exclusive)

 "Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis, is being remembered by one of his colleagues as a 'kind guy' and a “very, very skilled nurse.”

“He was energetic, he was kind. He was always quick to have a joke or a laugh,” Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, an infectious disease physician at the VA Medical Center where Pretti was employed, told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.

“He was very capable. When he gave a summary of the shift … [he] had all the information at his fingertips. He would tell me how the family was doing. He was a very, very skilled nurse,” he continued. 

Drekonja, 51, went on to say that the “biggest thing” he wants others to know about Pretti is “that this was a kind and helpful guy — and nothing over the years that I knew him contradicted that. He was always willing to help. Whether it was a small task, whether it was patient care, whether it was, ‘Hey, I can give you a ride over, we're gonna meet for drinks after work.’ He was just a really kind guy.”

“It’s just been gutting,” he continued of Pretti's death, adding that he and other colleagues at the hospital “want people to know that [Pretti] was a good person. He was such a nice guy.”

Drekonja additionally said that he and Pretti shared an interest in mountain biking, and that they would often discuss their favorite local routes.

Pretti had been a registered nurse since January 2021, according to his nursing license, obtained by PEOPLE. He previously worked at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Pretti was shot and killed on Saturday, Jan. 24, at about 9:00 a.m. local time."

ICE Agent Not ‘Run Over’ in Minneapolis: NewsGuard’s False Claim of the Week; NewsGuard's Reality Check, January 9, 2026

 NewsGuard's Reality Check ; ICE Agent Not ‘Run Over’ in Minneapolis: NewsGuard’s False Claim of the Week

[Kip Currier: The fact-checking and news and information quality assessment organization NewsGuard serves as a crucial countervailing force to disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.

This week, NewsGuard debunked falsehoods about an ICE agent alleged to have been run over in Minneapolis by Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by the agent on January 7, 2026.

In my recently published Ethics, Information, and Technology book, I profile NewsGuard's debunking of the utterly untrue claims of pet-eating by immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which was amplified by Donald Trump and JD Vance during the 2024 Presidential election.]

Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Rally and Demand More from Trump; The New York Times, January 6, 2026

 Karoun Demirjian , The New York Times; Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Rally and Demand More from Trump

[Kip Currier: Contrast these remorseless January 6 pardoned insurrectionists with Pamela Hemphill, who turned down a pardon offer from Trump and on 1/6/26 apologized to the Capitol Hill police for her part in furthering Trump and MAGA's conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.]

[Excerpt]

"Five years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, several dozen rioters, including many who were jailed and later pardoned, gathered in Washington to retrace their steps and vow to keep fighting for payback, even against the Trump administration.

The “J6ers,” as they refer to themselves, have been emboldened by President Trump, who pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 1,600 people who planned or participated in storming the Capitol to protest the results of the 2020 election. During Tuesday's anniversary march, they praised Mr. Trump for setting them free, but were critical of his administration for not doing more for them.

“Retribution is what we seek,” said Enrique Tarrio, a far-right activist and leader of the Proud Boys, one of the organizers of the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstration and Tuesday’s anniversary event. “Without accountability, there is no justice.”

“I am loyal to Donald Trump, but my loyalty doesn’t extend to his administration,” said Barry Ramey, who was convicted of assaulting a police officer during the Capitol riot, an act he says he regrets. He listed Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, among Trump administration officials who “could be doing a better job.”"

A conversation between Joe Rogan and Mel Gibson summed up 2025 for me – and not in a good way; The Guardian, December 27, 2025

George Monbiot, The Guardian ; A conversation between Joe Rogan and Mel Gibson summed up 2025 for me – and not in a good way

[Kip Currier: I'm grateful to Guardian writer George Monbiot for raising awareness of this January 2025 podcast conversation between podcast influencer Joe Rogan and "Mad Max" actor Mel Gibson, as this "bro banter" episode wasn't on my radar. The discussions between these two men have to be read to be believed. 

On the one hand, the abject ignorance, misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theorizing is colossally astounding. Indeed, it could lead one to feelings of depression and apathy -- if one allows oneself to follow Rogan and Gibson down that road to nowhere good.

Instead, let's choose to see the conversation between Rogan and Gibson as a reminder of and motivation for how much work remains to be done to push back against wholesale untruths, cynicism, and divisiveness that people like this perpetrate on our world.

In 2026, resolve to support a library that provides access to life-changing information, visit a museum that is standing up for not erasing history and unheard voices, and choose news sources that engage in evidence-based reporting and fact-checking and which forthrightly correct and acknowledge when they make mistakes.

As a boy and even into my adult years, I recall my kind-hearted and worldly-wise late paternal Grandmother, Esther Currier, using the phrase "consider the source" when occasionally referring to a person of questionable character or integrity. Implicit in that phrase was the sense, too, of not wasting mental energy or time on someone or something of little value. As an evaluative tool, "consider the source" is as timely and useful now as it was then for deciding whether to trust what someone says or does.

So, no thanks, Joe Rogan and Mel Gibson...looking at your track records for character, integrity, compassion, accuracy, and responsibility, that's a "hard pass" on considering you as sources of reliable information.

And thanks again for the great advice, Grandma Currier -- which I note in the Acknowledgments section of my recently published Bloomsbury book, Ethics, Information, and Technology.]

[Excerpt]

"Looking back on this crazy year, one event, right at the start, seems to me to encapsulate the whole. In January, recording his podcast in a studio in Austin, Texas, the host, Joe Rogan, and the actor Mel Gibson merrily dissed climate science. At the same time, about 1,200 miles away in California, Gibson’s $14m home was being incinerated in the Palisades wildfire. In this and other respects, their discussion could be seen as prefiguring the entire 12 months."

CDC changes website to promote debunked vaccines-autism link; Axios, November 20, 2025

 Maya Goldman , Axios; CDC changes website to promote debunked vaccines-autism link

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its website to promote the widely debunked claim that vaccines may cause autism. 

Why it matters: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly linked vaccines to autism, and now the public health agency he oversees is publicly reversing its position to reflect that belief. 

Multiple studies over decades have disproven links between childhood vaccines and developing autism. 

State of play: The agency's webpage on vaccines and autism, updated Wednesday, now says the statement that vaccines don't cause autism "is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism."

"Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities," the website continues. 

HHS in September released plans to contract with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to research connections between vaccines and autism. 

Career scientists at the agency were not consulted about the changes and were caught off guard by them, the Washington Post reported.

The CDC site previously said studies showed there was no connection between receiving vaccines and developing autism."

Books by Bots: Librarians grapple with AI-generated material in collections; American Libraries, September 2, 2025

 Reema Saleh  , American Libraries; Books by Bots: Librarians grapple with AI-generated material in collections

"How to Spot AI-Generated Books

Once an AI-generated book has made it to your library, it will likely give itself away with telltale signs such as jumbled, repetitive, or contradicting sentences; glaring grammatical errors or false statements; or digital art that looks too smooth around the corners.

Of course, if you can get a digital sneak-peek inside a book before ordering, all the better. But if not, how can you head off AI content so it never arrives on your desk? The following tips can help.

• Look into who the author is and how “real” they seem, says Robin Bradford, a collection development librarian at a public library in Washington. An author with no digital footprint is a red flag, especially if they are credited with a slew of titles each year. Also a red flag: a book with no author listed at all.
• Exercise caution regarding self-published books, small presses, or platforms such as Amazon, which filters out less AI-generated content than other vendors do.
• Think about whether the book is capitalizing on the chance that a reader will confuse it with another, more popular book, says Jane Stimpson, a library instruction and educational technology consultant for the Massachusetts Library System. Does it have a cover similar to that of an existing bestseller? Just as animated Disney movies get imitated by low-budget knockoffs, popular titles get imitated by AI-generated books.
• Check if there is mention of AI use in the Library of Congress record associated with the book, says Sarah Manning, a collection development librarian at Boise (Idaho) Public Library (BPL). If the book has been registered with the US Copyright Office, its record may mention AI."

‘Public health is in trouble,’ says high-ranking CDC leader who resigned in protest; PBS News, August 28, 2025

 Amna Nawaz, Aznar Merchant , PBS News; ‘Public health is in trouble,’ says high-ranking CDC leader who resigned in protest

"Amna Nawaz:

• So let's just start with your decision. Why did you feel the need to resign?

• Dr. Debra Houry:

  It was such a tough decision. I love the CDC. The work we do is so important.

  But I had just felt we had reached a tipping point when it came to our science and our data and being able to do the work we needed to do. I was concerned about the future of CDC and my ability to be a leader at the CDC and to do what was needed to be done on the inside. I thought my voice and the voice of my colleagues that also resigned with me would be more powerful on the outside.

• Amna Nawaz:

  What does reaching that tipping point, as you put it, mean to you?

  You saw Dr. Monarez's lawyers reference the unscientific and reckless directives. What does that mean to you?

  • Dr. Debra Houry:

    Yes, so we have an immunization committee meeting coming up in a few weeks. And many of us, myself included, were concerned about some of the recommendations might walk back vaccines in our country.

    To me, that's one of the tipping points. I think another tipping point is just the loss of Dr. Monarez. We hadn't had a CDC director for several months. When she came on board, she brought scientific rigor and some new ideas around public comment and how to really make sure data drove the decisions.

    When she had done some of these changes, she was brought to the secretary's office for discussion. And, at that point, I became concerned that she wouldn't be able to implement changes that were needed at CDC, and without that leadership, it would just leave us vulnerable again. And I thought that was the point to say, enough is enough and to really raise that Bat Signal that public health and CDC is in trouble.

    
    

    • Amna Nawaz:

      You have also said previously that her firing makes it easier for Secretary Kennedy's appointees to change vaccine recommendations. You just mentioned fearing a walk-back in some of those vaccine policies.

      What does that mean specifically? What could we see ahead?

    • Dr. Debra Houry:

      So, if we don't have a CDC director, and if there's not an acting CDC director, then the secretary would sign recommendations like he did for the last ACIP, or vaccine committee, meeting.

      So things like the COVID vaccine or hepatitis B vaccine, they could choose to change ages on it or the populations that have access to it. I'm just concerned about changing vaccine access in our country and that we need to focus more on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, shared decision-making around vaccines, and not talking about misinformation around vaccines.

      
      

      • Amna Nawaz:

        And changes to things like the hepatitis B vaccine, are those conversations you were a part of during your time there? Those are being discussed?

      • Dr. Debra Houry:

        So I know that the work groups have been asked to look at hepatitis B. They're in the middle of pulling a systematic review together right now.

        So I would imagine that means they will be discussed. My concern is, we have pulled evidence reviews together before for the ACIP meetings, that we had one that was pulled down and not discussed. I think it's really important when we do work at CDC for our data, our science and our evidence reviews to be publicly posted, so the public can also review them and understand.

        And, to me, that is transparency and something we were trying to move towards, particularly with the secretary's commitment to radical transparency. That would mean having publicly available data and documents."