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AOC genocide allegation against Israel at Munich Security Conference sparks outrage | Fox News

By Benjamin Weinthal | Fox News
Published February 14, 2026 7:15am EST

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., alleged at the Munich Security Conference on Friday that U.S. aid to the Jewish state enabled a genocide by Israel. AOC’s attack on the Jewish state in Munich unfolded in the birthplace of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi movement that carried out the worst genocide in human history.

AOC’s assault on Israel’s war campaign to defeat the U.S. and EU-designated terrorist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip sparked outrage and intense criticism from academic military and Middle East experts.

During the town hall event in Munich, the Squad member said, “To me, this isn’t just about a presidential election. Personally, I think that the United States has an obligation to uphold its own laws, particularly the Leahy laws. And I think that personally, that the idea of completely unconditional aid, no matter what one does, does not make sense. I think it enabled a genocide in Gaza. And I think that we have thousands of women and children dead that don’t, that was completely avoidable.”

[‘DOUBLING DOWN ON STUPID’: NEWSOM, AOC, TRASH TRUMP AT EUROPEAN SUMMIT AS THEY RAISE 2028 PROFILES]

[Image 45: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY., speaks during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany, Feb. 13, 2026.(Liesa Johannssen/Reuters)

She continued, “And, so I believe that enforcement of our own laws through the Leahy laws, which requires conditioning aid in any circumstance, when you see gross human rights violations, is appropriate.”

The Leahy Laws prohibit the Department of Defense and the State Department from funding “foreign security force units when there is credible information that the unit has committed a ‘gross violation of human rights.” Former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT., introduced the bill in 1997.

Tom Gross, an expert on international affairs, told Fox News digital that “AOC has flown all the way to Munich — infamous as the city in which Hitler staged his Nazi Beer Hall Putsch that marked the beginning of the road to the Holocaust — in order to smear the Jewish people further with a phony genocide allegation.”

Gross added, “Such preposterous allegations of ‘genocide’ form the bedrock of modern antisemitic incitement against Jews in the U.S. and globally. This shocking ignorance and insensitivity by Ocasio-Cortez should rule her out of any potential presidential bid or other high office.”

[Image 46: memorial at Nova music festival]

Memorials at the site of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, on Monday, May 27, 2024.(Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

[RASHIDA TLAIB HIT WITH HOUSE CENSURE THREAT, ACCUSED OF ‘CELEBRATING TERRORISM’ IN PRO-PALESTINIAN SPEECH]

Military experts and genocide researchers have debunked the allegation that Israel carried out a genocide against Palestinians during its self-defense war against the Hamas terrorist organization that started after Hamas terrorists attacked communities in parts of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that saw over 1200 Israeli and foreign nationals killed and 251 brutally kidnapped and taken into Gaza by Hamas and other terrorists.

[Image 47: Hamas terrorists, Gaza]

Hamas terrorists wave to Gazans during Sunday’s release of three Israeli hostages.(TPS-IL)

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Danny Orbach, a military historian from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and co-author of “Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Reexamination of the Israel-Hamas War from October 7 2023, to June 1, 2025,” told Fox News Digital that Ocasio-Cortez accusation that Israel committed genocide is an “accusation that is incorrect both factually and legally. Under the Genocide Convention, genocide requires proof of a special intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part, and as a baseline condition, an active effort to maximize civilian destruction.

“The evidence shows the opposite: as demonstrated in our multi-author study Debunking the Genocide Allegations, Israel undertook unprecedented measures to mitigate civilian harm, including establishing humanitarian safe zones that independently verified data show were approximately six times safer than other areas of Gaza.”

[Image 49: Kibbutz massacre]

An Israeli soldier patrols near Kibbutz Beeri in southern Israel on Oct. 12, 2023, close to the place where 270 revelers were killed by terrorists during the Supernova music festival on Oct 7.(Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images)

Orbach added, “Israel also issued detailed advance warnings before strikes and facilitated the entry of over two million tons of humanitarian aid, often at significant cost to its own military advantage, including the loss of surprise and the sustainment of an enemy during wartime.”

He concluded, “These measures were taken despite Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, its systematic use of human shields and hospitals for military purposes, and a tunnel network exceeding 1,000 kilometers — an operational challenge without historical precedent. Finally, no credible evidence demonstrates the kind of unambiguous, exclusive genocidal intent toward Palestinians that international law requires and that cannot be reasonably interpreted otherwise.”

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The conservative commentator Derek Hunter posted on X. “Imagine going to Germany to complain about a fake genocide by Jews…in Munich, of all places. @AOC is about as smart as clogged toilet.”

In Dec. 2024, Germany joined the U.S. in rejecting the allegations that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at benjamin.weinthal@fox.com

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was likely fatally poisoned in prison, European leaders say

February 14, 2026 / 9:00 AM EST / CBS News

An analysis of samples from deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny shows he was likely fatally poisoned in a Russian prison, according to multiple European governments.

In a joint statement, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said they are confident Navalny was poisoned. Samples from Navalny “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine,” a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America, according to the statement.

“Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes,” the countries said. “But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement that “Russia saw Navalny as a threat” and poisoned him as a show of strength.

“By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition,” Cooper said.

The United Kingdom’s foreign office said that “only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny” and that they “hold it responsible for his death.”

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany that her husband’s death was now a “science-proven fact,” according to the AFP.

Yulia Navalnaya addresses media at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Feb. 14, 2026. Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP

“Two years ago, I came on stage here and said that it was Vladimir Putin who killed my husband,” said Navalnaya, who said in September that independent labs found her husband was poisoned shortly before his death but did not provide proof for the claim or elaborate on what the alleged poison was. At the time, she said the labs were not publishing their results due to “political considerations.”

“I was of course certain that it was a murder,” Navalnaya continued, the AFP reported. “Back then, it was just words. But today these words have become science-proven facts.”

Navalny was the loudest critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests. He was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok while flying from Moscow to Siberia in 2020 and treated in Germany. Navalny later told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl that he believed the poisoning was an assassination attempt engineered by Putin. Russia has denied any involvement.

Navalny returned to Moscow in 2021, facing certain arrest. He was convicted three times and received a sentence of 19 years for extremism. Navalny called the charges politically motivated.

He was jailed in January 2021 and moved to an Arctic penal colony in late 2023. He died there in February 2024.

Alexei Navalny in Russia on September 29, 2019. Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Russian authorities gave few details on the cause of Navalny’s death. Navalnaya said in August 2024 that she was told by Russian investigators that Navalny died from a combination of “a dozen different diseases” and that he finally succumbed to arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, after a walk. Navalnaya said her husband exhibited no instances of heart disease before he was imprisoned.

The European leaders accused Russia of having “repeated disregard for international law” and the Chemical Weapons Convention, a 1997 treaty that prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Russia has also been accused of using Novichok in a 2018 incident that led to the death of a British woman, Dawn Sturgess.

“We are further concerned that Russia did not destroy all of its chemical weapons,” the European leaders said. “We and our partners will make use of all policy levers at our disposal to continue to hold Russia to account.”

The government entered a partial shutdown at midnight Friday after Congress failed to reach a funding deal — and some lawmakers’ decision to attend an international gathering in Europe this weekend is drawing criticism from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

“It’s absurd, I hope the American people are paying attention,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital.

The deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by the end of the week came with a built-in complication: members of both chambers were scheduled to attend the annual Munich Security Conference, with many set to depart by day’s end Thursday.

[GOVERNMENT TO SHUT DOWN AT MIDNIGHT AFTER DEMS, WHITE HOUSE FAIL TO STRIKE DHS DEAL]

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While the DHS shutdown continues, several lawmakers are overseas in Germany.(Viktor Kovalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty)

Without a deal in place, Congress left Washington, D.C., on Thursday after the Senate failed to pass both a full-year funding bill for DHS and a temporary, two-week funding extension.

At midnight Friday — with several lawmakers already in Germany — DHS shut down.

Both Republican leaders warned members to be prepared to return if a deal was reached. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., gave senators 24 hours’ notice to return, while House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., allowed a 48-hour window.

Despite the conference being scheduled months in advance, some lawmakers said leaving Washington — or even the country — during an active funding standoff sent the wrong message.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., blamed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., arguing that Democrats blocked Republican-led efforts to prevent a partial DHS shutdown.

[DHS SHUTDOWN EXPLAINED: WHO WORKS WITHOUT PAY, WHAT HAPPENS TO AIRPORTS AND DISASTER RESPONSE]

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Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., in the Senate Subway during a vote at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025.(Allison Robbert/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Schumer’s what’s deciding this,” Scott told Fox News Digital. “I mean, he’s deciding that he’s more interested in people going to Munich than he is in funding DHS.”

Several lawmakers from both chambers are attending the conference, participating in side discussions and panels during the annual forum, where heads of state and top decision-makers gather to debate international security policy.

Members of the House expressed frustration that senators would leave amid stalled negotiations between Senate Democrats and the White House.

“The Senate started out a week ago saying, ‘I don’t think anybody should leave town,’” Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., told Fox News Digital. “Now they’re doing the Munich thing. At least [the House] sent a bill over…not a great pride moment for the federal government, is it?”

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., led a bipartisan delegation of 11 senators to the conference.

When asked whether the shutdown would affect his travel plans, Whitehouse said, “I hope not.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who was scheduled to participate in a panel with Graham titled “The State of Russia,” according to the conference agenda, said lawmakers should have resolved outstanding issues before leaving town.

“I’m not delighted with Republican resistance and unresponsiveness, but it’s on them at this point,” Blumenthal said.

House rules prohibit official congressional delegations, also known as CODELs, during a shutdown. Still, several House members made the trip to Bavaria. At least a handful of House Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attended the conference.

[DEMS DIG IN, GUARANTEE SHUTDOWN WITH BLOCK OF DHS FUNDING]

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Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., interviews witnesses during a House Rules Committee hearing on the impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 17. 2019.(Jason Andrew/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., said during a hearing on the impact of a DHS shutdown that it would be “unconscionable if Congress leaves and does not solve the problem.”

“I’m sure Munich is a great place. I’ve been there many times. The beer is outstanding,” Cole said. “But we don’t need to go to a defense conference someplace in Europe when we’re not taking care of the defense of the United States of America.”

Lawmakers are expected to continue negotiations throughout the weekend while many are abroad. Senate Democrats have signaled they may present a counteroffer to the White House but have not finalized a proposal.

If an agreement is reached, it would still take time to draft the legislative text and bring the measure to the Senate floor. Even so, some lawmakers argued that stepping away from negotiations — whether returning home or traveling overseas — was the wrong move.

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“I’ve been pretty outspoken to say we need to stay as long as we have to be here to be able to get things resolved so we don’t ever have a shutdown,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital.

“That’s the easiest way to resolve it is to say ‘no one walks away from the table,’” he added. “We stay at the table.”

Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital the situation reflects poorly on GOP leadership’s handling of funding priorities, though he acknowledged the significance of the international conference.

“There’s a certain irony that we would not be here to fund essential services of our government, but we have enough time and energy to go to the Munich Security Conference, which admittedly is a very important international gathering,” Morelle said. “But I think it says a lot about the lack of leadership…we can’t do the fundamentals of this job.”

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.

王毅警告华盛顿若脱钩断链踩台湾问题红线 中美将陷入对抗

发布/2026年2月14日 23:15

正在德国出席慕尼黑安全会议的中国外长王毅在会上警告，华盛顿若同中国脱钩断链，甚至怂恿策划台独、分裂中国，踩踏北京红线，将导致中美陷入对抗。

根据中国外交部消息，王毅当地时间星期六（2月14日）在慕安会发表演讲时指出，改革和完善全球治理，首先需要重振联合国体系，关键是各国要协调合作。他说，现今国际体系发挥作用不够的原因主要不在联合国本身，而在于一些国家放大差异分歧，追求本国优先，热衷搞阵营对抗，甚至复活冷战思维。

王毅以不点名美国的方式说，践行多边主义，大国尤其要作出表率。“要带头推进合作，不搞冲突对抗；带头遵守规则，不搞双重标准；带头践行平等，不搞强加于人；带头推动开放，不搞单边利己。”

针对中美关系，王毅在问答环节回应慕安会主席伊申格尔提问时表示，中美关系面临两种情景：一是美国客观理性认知中国，奉行积极务实的对华政策，同中方相向而行，不断扩大共同利益，中美未来走向合作；另一是同中国“脱钩断链，逢中必反，搞各种针对中国的小圈子、小集团，甚至怂恿策划台湾独立、分裂中国，踩踏中国的红线，那将导致中美陷入对抗”。

王毅说：“我们当然希望是第一种前景，但也会做好应对各种风险的准备。”

在美国总统特朗普计划4月访华的背景下，中国国家主席习近平2月4日在中美元首通话时明确提出，台湾问题是中美关系中最重要的问题，并特别呼吁美方，务必慎重处理对台军售问题。

王毅当地时间星期五（2月13日）在慕安会场边会见美国国务卿鲁比奥。中国外交部和美国国务院皆形容此次会晤积极、富有建设性。

王毅告诉鲁比奥，中美之间对话比对抗好，合作比冲突好，共赢比零和好，并强调只要秉持平等、尊重、互惠态度，双方就能够找到解决彼此关切、妥善管控分歧的办法，且呼吁双方要共同努力，“不断拉长合作清单、压缩问题清单”。

受访学者认为，王毅对中美关系表态务实，反映北京乐观谨慎的态度。

新加坡南洋理工大学公共政策与全球事务副教授骆明辉接受《联合早报》采访时指出，王毅既强调中美关系稳定的重要性，也重申台湾问题这一不可逾越的红线。尽管特朗普4月访华前仍存在不确定性，但双方都展现出推动关系“软着陆”的政治意愿。

北京外国语大学欧盟与区域发展研究中心主任崔洪建受访时说，王毅对中美关系持谨慎乐观态度：乐观在于双方找到可推进方向，谨慎在于特朗普政府政策及美国国内能否形成共识仍有待观察。

另外，王毅星期五在慕安会场边会见多名欧洲外交高层，包括法国外长巴罗、德国外长瓦德富尔和英国外长库珀。

中德法外长当天也首次举行三方会晤，王毅在会上希望德法“推动欧盟树立客观、全面对华认知，奉行理性、务实对华政策”，呼吁要尊重彼此核心利益和重大关切，妥处分歧摩擦，深化务实合作。

被问到中欧关系时，王毅星期六强调，欧洲视中国为制度性对手是一种负面思维和错误认知，“如果继续渲染或炒作，将对中欧关系未来产生有害干扰和影响”。他也呼吁中欧应携手共同践行多边主义，共同维护联合国权威，共同反对单边霸凌，共同抵制阵营对抗。

特朗普去年1月上台后，美欧关系因为关税、俄乌战争和收购格陵兰岛事件而出现裂痕。虽然鲁比奥星期六在慕安会发言时试图安抚欧洲盟友，态度与美国副总统万斯去年同一场合抨击欧洲“基本价值观”倒退截然不同，但崔洪建研判，欧洲未来或更注重自身利益，而非单纯优先考虑与美国的盟友关系。

他认为，欧美关系变化将对中欧关系产生间接影响，北京需要冷静评估形势变化，从中寻找有利因素化解中欧分歧。随着“中美关系进入相对稳定而可预期的状态，它对中欧关系带来负面影响也会降低”。

New careers, relocations and medical problems: How ex-federal workers’ lives have been upended since DOGE

2026-02-14T12:00:46.353Z / CNN

For Ashley Garley, the past year has been “messy, challenging and heartbreaking.”

Garley, a former contractor and malaria expert with the US Agency for International Development, was among the first people impacted by the Department of Government Efficiency’s massive shrinking of the federal workforce last year, led by billionaire Elon Musk, which began almost immediately after President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

Garley, who lost her job after the US froze all foreign aid in late January 2025, is struggling to find a full-time job with benefits more than a year later. To contribute to the bills, she has returned to a job she held in her teens and 20s: swim instructor.

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Going from a jet-setting job with global impact, to teaching part-time at her county pool in Maryland has been “pretty emotional,” Garley told CNN.

Like Garley, hundreds of thousands of federal workers and contractors have had their lives upended by Trump’s quest to clamp down on the federal workforce, whom he sees as a threat to his ability to execute his priorities.

More than 350,000 workers have left the federal government’s payroll since the president started his second term on January 20, 2025, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

After accounting for new hires, the federal workforce shrunk by 242,000 people – or just over 10% – between his inauguration day and December. Nearly 2.1 million federal civilian employees remain.

Trump said last month that he doesn’t feel bad about the downsizing, claiming without evidence that former federal workers are now making more money in the private sector.

But that’s not been everyone’s experience. CNN spoke with several former federal workers who were laid off or accepted buyouts amid DOGE’s aggressive and controversial cuts last year. Some of them, like Garley, have struggled to find a job and pay the bills. Meanwhile, others have pivoted careers, moved across the country for new jobs or are dedicating their time to volunteer work – and finding a silver lining in their new lives.

Here are some of their stories:

The stress of losing her dream job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention landed Morgan Hall in the hospital.

A few months after she received her final paycheck in August, Hall told CNN that she had been in bed for days without eating or answering the phone. Her son ultimately found her, and she was hospitalized in October for 10 days with severe depression, anxiety, and physical complications tied to a preexisting medical condition that can be worsened by stress.

Hall – who worked as an analyst for CDC’s violence prevention division – was initially placed on administrative leave on February 14, 2025, and later terminated as part of the sweeping layoffs known as a “reduction in force,” or RIFs. She is among the 10,500 people across agencies who were affected by RIFs.

Hall says she has fallen behind on bills, which includes roughly $57,000 in hospital costs. For two months, she relied on food stamps to buy groceries, sought state assistance for utilities, and a relative helped cover her mortgage so she would not lose her home.

In January, Hall began a temporary 12-week stint that placed her back at CDC, working through a contractor. However, she says she is still unable to meet her expenses. She is also continuing to apply for jobs, submitting at least five applications on most days.

“My hope and prayer is that one day I can go back and continue to complete my mission at CDC,” Hall told CNN, adding “I feel like a part of me is gone.”

When Casey Hollowell decided to take the second buyout offer, known as the deferred resignation program, from the US Department of Agriculture in April, he figured he’d have no trouble finding a job by the time his federal paychecks would stop at the end of September.

An Army veteran who served in Iraq, Hollowell hadn’t wanted to leave his post as an investigative analyst but felt he had no job security after being laid off in the administration’s purge of probationary workers last February and then reinstated by a federal judge.

Initially, he thought he could be picky, looking for remote jobs so he could stay in Biloxi, Mississippi, close to his teenage son. But Hollowell, 40, grew concerned after applying for multiple positions and not getting any responses. So he widened his search, applying to as many as 30 jobs a day, including ones that were in-person or part-time or entry level.

Though his grandparents helped him cover his bills, the fruitless job hunt weighed on him. He stopped hanging out with his friends because he felt he couldn’t afford it.

“I became a hermit,” said Hollowell. “I just stayed at home, like, all the time.”

Then in December, he got a big break. Hollowell applied for a data analyst position at an insurance claims management company, and less than a week later, he was asked to interview. He started on February 2, nearly one year to the day after his initial layoff from USDA.

Now Hollowell is making some other big changes. He just put an offer on a house, which was accepted. And the whole ordeal prompted him to switch from being Republican to an independent.

Similarly, Kit Rees, a former investigator at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, also accepted the administration’s second deferred resignation offer and ended their tenure in the federal government in September.

Rees’ journey to securing a full-time job in their field has been difficult and tiring, they told CNN.

Before their federal paychecks stopped, Rees began piecing together whatever work they could find. They picked up a job at an ACE Hardware store in May 2025 and found part-time work with a restoration construction company, filling in on job sites when it needed additional help.

The jobs didn’t pay nearly as much as their federal government salary but it gave Rees the mental break they said they needed.

“It was healing, lifting mulch, helping people match screws and working through house projects,” Rees said. The customer service job allowed them to talk “to dozens of people,” and those conversations reminded them “that tragedies don’t happen to everybody.”

However, struggling to pay the bills, Rees took out a $15,000 loan.

Just weeks away from asking their family for financial help, Rees secured a job in their field earlier this month.

“It’s more than a $30,000 pay cut. But it’s still the best offer that I’ve gotten,” they told CNN.

Rees said they are cautious about feeling relieved after securing the job.

After accepting a deferred resignation offer, Steve Leibman says he was lucky to be at the point of his career where he didn’t feel immediate pressure to take a new job right away. He took some consulting work and helped a non-profit, but it was his trek on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania that changed his perspective on his next real move.

Leibman – who worked remotely from the Boston area at the US Digital Service, which later formally turned into DOGE – is now enrolled in a teacher license program at Harvard University. The program is a one-year master’s degree, after which he hopes to teach high school math.

“A big part of it was just interacting with people whose perspective of the world are just different and gives a different view of how can you have impact in the world,” Liebman told CNN about his trip.

Meanwhile, David Schwark began looking for another job when a court order brought him back to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in Cleveland after he had been laid off in March 2025. He was uncertain when he would be formally let go.

The Department of Education was the second hardest hit agency in the federal government overhaul, losing 49% of its staff, according to OPM. Meanwhile, agencies that are a higher priority for Trump were shielded. For instance, staffing at the Department of Homeland Security only dipped 11%.

Schwark, who was a prosecutor before he joined the Department of Education, is now a magistrate in a local municipal court in Lakewood, Ohio.

“It’s a lot different. I loved my job with Ed,” Schwark told CNN. “It’s been a big shift to go back to dealing with criminal law and being in the court room for a long time.”

When Cameron Hilaker was laid off as an emergency manager at USAID, his wife was six-months pregnant with their first born. Their son is now eight months old and Hilaker still has not found work. He has defaulted to being a stay-at-home-dad.

“I’m very happy to be a stay-at-home dad, don’t get me wrong by any means, but this was never anywhere in our sketch of what our life would look like.”

Hilaker says his family is really starting to feel the crunch financially and are considering moving out of Washington, DC, for a better cost-of-living.

“I feel burned by Elon Musk and DOGE,” Hilaker, a member of AFGE Local 1534 union, told CNN. “They came in, they said they were going to slash and burn the federal government, they were going to reduce the deficit.”

For Vi Le, a former behavioral scientist and violence prevention researcher at the CDC, finding a new role has become its own full-time job.

She has a small contract related to violence prevention, but it is not enough to replace her previous salary. Until she finds a job in her field, Le told CNN that she is trying to expand a hobby business designing floral arrangements for events.

“For now, flowers might be the full-time job, and my career might be the hobby,” Le said.

After losing his DC-based contractor job at USAID, Nathan Karrel said he “went straight into survival mode.” He found a new role with the city of Tucson, Arizona, where he knew nobody – and moved there “sight unseen.”

“I’m not in international development anymore, which was my plan,” said Karrel, 42. “But I really love Tucson, except for the heat. It’s a whole different culture than DC. The food scene is amazing. The people are kind, and the mountains are great. Now I know all about mesquite trees and cacti.”

He is one of several federal employees who told CNN that the Trump-era cuts were so disruptive to their lives that they moved across the country – highlighting the nationwide impact of DOGE, which affected communities far beyond DC where the bulk of federal workers live.

CivicMatch, a jobs platform that connected nearly 190 former federal workers to new jobs last year at state and local governments, said roughly 33% of those people moved to a new state, and 10% did cross-country moves.

One of these people moved all the way from DC to Honolulu, Hawaii. An employee from the Department of Interior moved from Pennsylvania to Oregon. A federal health official moved from Texas to Richmond, Virginia.

“As the federal government retrenches, the work obviously does not disappear. It shifts to cities and states,” CivicMatch founder Caitlin Lewis said. “This has become a talent redistribution engine, to the benefit of local governments. Federal workers were desperate to continue serving.”

Lucas King, 36, who was also a USAID contractor, relocated from DC to Idaho, where he grew up. He previously managed some of USAID’s largest projects in Africa, including initiatives from Trump’s first term. Now he oversees permits and inspections for Ketchum, Idaho, a ski town with 3,600 residents.

“I wasn’t getting traction in DC, so we moved back to Idaho,” King said. “My new boss was clear that this was kind of a step down, given my experience. It was traumatic, but it worked out. I feel lucky that I found a place to live, a good employer, with good benefits, and I’m back with family and friends.”

The DOGE layoffs also sent Nathaniel Haight on a path closer to family.

He started as an intern at USAID in 2015, and worked his way up over 10 years, handling grants and contracts. But after getting swept up in the dismantling of USAID, he cast a wide net during his job search, looking far beyond DC, so he could start providing again for his wife and four children.

He landed a new role handling grants for the city of Indianapolis, which came as a relief. His parents and four siblings live in Indiana. His kids had to switch to new schools, but they now have much deeper bonds with their cousins, he said.

“I found a new job in public service, much closer to my parents and siblings,” Haight said. “I’m seeing a lot of positives that have come out of it.”

After being placed on administrative leave from USAID, Julianne Weis began going to Capitol Hill to stress the impacts of the agency’s funding cuts and advocate for foreign aid to be restored. She co-founded Aid on the Hill, a volunteer advocacy organization.

Weis worked in USAID’s global health bureau, particularly in the areas of family planning and reproductive health. She eventually was formally terminated from the agency as part of reduction in force efforts.

These days, Weis spends most of her week meeting with congressional staffers — sometimes virtually and other times, taking her kids along to Capitol Hill.

Weis will be starting a full-time job soon, and she shared with CNN that she plans on having “a side role in helping” Aid on the Hill in her own time.

Similarly, as Deborah Kaliel – who worked at USAID’s Office of HIV/AIDS – searches for a job, she is dedicating her time as a volunteer for Crisis in Care, a fundraising effort she co-founded to provide support for HIV services in other countries.

“That has kind of taken over my life,” Kaliel told CNN. She added: “It’s been really rewarding and, and a really wonderful way for me to stay engaged with the topic and the people and the communities that I’m most passionate about.”

States ready to seize Supreme Court redistricting decision amid countdown to midterm elections

2026-02-14T14:30:47.077Z / CNN

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill arrived at the Supreme Court shortly before 10 a.m. on January 9 and took a seat in the spectator section of the columned courtroom. When US Solicitor General John Sauer, the Trump administration’s top courtroom lawyer, entered a few minutes later, he cut across the room to warmly greet her.

Murrill was waiting for ruling in a redistricting case that could unwind protections for Blacks and Latinos under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The decision could simultaneously boost the GOP’s chances in the US House of Representatives this year.

Louisiana, backed by the Trump administration and several other Republican-controlled states, has its eye on the upcoming midterm elections and told the justices it wanted a decision by early January as it seeks to replace its current congressional map – which includes two court-ordered majority Black districts – with a new map for this year’s midterm elections.

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But it did not take long after the justices ascended the bench that day for the gavel to fall. There was no decision in Louisiana v. Callais. Nor has one come since.

Speculation has only grown about the case and its consequences for voters and control of the US House, where the GOP holds a slim margin. (The justices announced on Friday that they will be issuing more opinions later this month.)

The case tests the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, which prohibits race discrimination, and a remedy that judges have often required when they find that maps have diluted the voting power of Blacks or Hispanics. Such “majority-minority districts” are intended to give them a chance to elect a candidate of choice.

States have been closely watching for Supreme Court action, some of them anticipating an opportunity for relief from earlier court orders and a chance to redistrict before November’s midterm elections. Each week that passes, however, makes it harder for some places to consider such an option. In Louisiana, where primary deadlines were pushed back last year to potentially take advantage of a Supreme Court ruling, deadlines are closing.

Irrespective of what happens in the current cycle, the eventual Supreme Court decision is certain to give states more latitude for 2028 and future elections. That’s because over the past two decades the conservative court has been steadily erasing the racial remedies of the Voting Rights Act and deferring to state legislatures.

So far, the court’s actions in the Louisiana dispute suggest the majority will make it more difficult to bring Section 2 claims. The only question is to what degree. At the most extreme, the court could outright invalidate Section 2’s protection for minorities in the redistricting process.

After a round of oral arguments in an earlier court session, the justices suddenly scheduled a second hearing in Louisiana v. Callais and broadened their review of the Voting Rights Act. Based on that second round of arguments, held last October, the justices appear ready to further limit the protections of the law considered an exemplar of the nation’s civil rights era. The VRA was passed after the March 7, 1965, “Bloody Sunday” attack on marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama.

Yet the court majority may be more apt to adopt the Trump administration’s argument for scaling back coverage, rather than accept Louisiana’s move for fully dismantling the VRA provision intended to protect against race discrimination. Even that approach, however, could diminish Black representation in public office.

The justices have splintered so deeply on past voting-rights controversies that the case may produce a series of separate writings, from both the majority and dissenting camps. The final ruling may not come until later in the spring.

The court under Chief Justice John Roberts and the Trump administration have aligned in their antagonism to race-based measures and interest in lifting federal election regulations. Within days of taking office last year, Trump’s lawyers retracted the Biden Justice Department brief in the Louisiana case that sought to preserve the Voting Rights Act.

Well before Trump first came to office, the Roberts Court had begun retrenching on the VRA.

William and Mary law professor Rebecca Green, an election-law expert, attributes its pattern to the current majority’s “colorblind” approach, attempting to eliminate racial remedies across the board. That was seen in its 2023 decision forbidding colleges and universities from considering students’ race in admissions.

In the context of redistricting, some justices similarly are trying to keep race from ever being a factor in drawing legislative lines. But, Green said, “Congress has prohibited minority vote dilution. And there’s really no way to comply with the Voting Rights Act or provide a remedy for a violation without taking race into account.”

Green also noted that the court has “doubled down on the idea that state legislatures are acting in good faith,” for example, with its December order to leave in place a new Texas congressional map challenged as a racial gerrymander.

The map, with potentially five new Republican seats, arose from President Donald Trump’s 2025 push for off-year redistricting to potentially increase the number of Republicans in the US House; California responded with a new map that could add five additional Democratic seats. The Supreme Court recently allowed that map to stand, too.

In the high court’s more consequential pattern favoring states and localities, Chief Justice Roberts in 2013 led the court to a 5-4 decision, in Shelby County v. Holder, that gutted a VRA provision (known as Section 5) requiring states with a history of discrimination to obtain approval from the US Justice Department before making electoral changes.

Then, in 2021, the majority diminished the reach of Section 2 for certain challenges to state practices. That Arizona case, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, concerned requirements that ballots cast at the wrong precinct be discarded and criminalized the third-party collection of absentee ballots (such as were sometimes used in remote tribal areas of the state).

Now Section 2’s coverage for redistricting practices hangs in the balance. Conflicts among the justices in the Louisiana case were evident from the start. The dispute was first heard in March 2025, but then in June the justices issued the unusual order calling for re-argument.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the order, making clear he wanted the court to avoid any delay in finding that Section 2 violates the Constitution as it takes voters’ race into account. “I am hopeful,” Thomas wrote then, “that this Court will soon realize that the conflict its Section 2 jurisprudence has sown with the Constitution is too severe to ignore.”

Thomas has yet to claim a majority for his view that Section 2 clashes with the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. And as recently as a 2023 case from Alabama, Allen v. Milligan, the justices said the awareness and use of race was not only permissible but might be required, to compensate for a prior map that, for example, was the result of legislative “cracking” and “packing” techniques – that is, dispersing or concentrating Blacks among districts.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was the key fifth vote in that Alabama case, has suggested that Section 2’s race-based safeguard may no longer be needed some 60 years after passage of the VRA and that, as the court found in the context of higher education, it may violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law. Kavanaugh appears positioned to be a decisive justice here.

Lower court judges who heard the Louisiana controversy had ordered the second majority-Black district after finding that the state legislature had, in an atmosphere of racially polarized voting, divided Black voters across districts in a way that diluted their electoral power. A group of mainly White residents subsequently sued, contending that the revised map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

The state initially defended the revised map, but Attorney General Murrill and her legal team argued more recently, once the justices reframed the case, that “race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution.”

The US solicitor general’s office does not go that far. It instead focuses on how lower court judges assess a VRA violation in the first place and whether a legislature’s map might be driven by politics rather than by race.

“In short,” Sauer wrote in the federal government’s brief, “this Court’s Section 2 jurisprudence should account for the fact that, today, a State’s failure to create a compact majority-minority district, even where demographically possible, is far more likely to reflect political motives than racial ones.”

Kavanaugh latched on to the option regarding a state’s “political objectives.” He called it a “real innovation.”

Under the US solicitor general’s approach, challengers trying to succeed on a VRA Section 2 claim would have to separate party from race and show that the state’s failure to create a majority-minority district reflected racial motives rather than political ones.

Critics, including Harvard University law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos, say that could extinguish Section 2 claims, particularly in the South, where Blacks overwhelmingly vote Democratic and Whites overwhelmingly vote Republican. Legislators could assert that arguably discriminatory maps protected incumbents and preserved a partisan balance.

“(T)he SG’s position would render Section 2 a dead letter in the southern jurisdictions where the provision has historically had its greatest impact,” Stephanopoulos said of the solicitor general’s position, noting that an additional minority district can usually be drawn only at the cost of an existing Republican district. “This swap of an old Republican district for a new minority-opportunity district, however, is exactly what the SG’s proposal would prevent.”

During October’s oral arguments, Janai Nelson, NAACP Legal Defense Fund director-counsel, told Kavanaugh that requiring new scrutiny of partisanship could undercut state responsibility “to ensure that all voters have an equally open electoral process.”

“The fact that Black voters may correlate with voting Democrat or White voters may correlate with voting Republican does not deny the fact that there is racially polarized voting,” Nelson said. “And the totality of the circumstances, including the inability to elect Black candidates in Louisiana on a statewide basis for a number of offices – there’s never been a Black person in Louisiana elected statewide – is additional indicia that race is playing an outsized role in the electoral process in Louisiana.”

The state legislature, meanwhile, postponed filing deadlines for the midterm elections, as Murrill and other Louisiana officials anticipated a high court ruling and possible opportunity to change the current map with two Black-majority districts.

But the filing period for the general primary now is upon candidates. A deadline was Friday, and the justices are not scheduled to return to their courtroom until February 20.

粮农组织：粮食废弃物或助长抗微生物药物耐药性

发布时间 / 来源：2026-02-14T15:53:35.000Z / 联合早报

联合国新闻中心星期四（2月12日）引述研究报告说，食物残渣作为细菌滋生的理想基质，可能助长耐药微生物及基因的存活。 （示意图／Pixabay）

联合国粮食与农业组织专家指出，抗药性削弱现有药物的疗效，每年导致数百万人死亡，而粮食损失与浪费可能成为抗微生物药物耐药性的温床甚至加速器，这凸显了将其纳入抗微生物药物耐药性监测与管理策略的必要性。

发表于期刊《贫困传染病》的最新科学综述《粮食损失与浪费传播抗微生物药物耐药性的风险》指出，将粮食损失与浪费弃物倾倒至填埋场或露天垃圾场会加剧耐药风险。

农业领域是已知的抗微生物药物耐药性来源，其中动物饲养行业占全球抗生素销售量的近四分之三。在粮食零售和消费环节，药物残留和耐药基因存在于肉类产品中，同时也在胡萝卜、生菜、叶菜和西红柿等植物性食品中检出。

食物残渣是细菌滋生理想基质

联合国新闻中心星期四（2月12日）引述研究报告说，食物残渣作为细菌滋生的理想基质，可能助长耐药微生物及基因的存活。对厨房废弃物原料及学校、医院食物残渣的检测显示，其中存在大量耐多种抗生素的基因，有时甚至包含新型药物。

多数国家的大量食物废弃物最终进入垃圾填埋场。填埋场因混合了工业、农业和医疗来源的生物物质与化学废物而带来额外风险。若垃圾场暴露于迁徙鸟类等食腐动物活动区域，或渗入地表水及地下水源，将加剧抗药性扩散风险。

报告指出，需从抗菌药物使用监管较弱且未来数年使用量预计增长的中低收入国家获取更多数据，并敦促各国加强抗真菌药物耐药性研究。

粮农组织：粮食废弃物或助长抗微生物药物耐药性

发布/2026年2月14日 23:53

联合国粮食与农业组织专家指出，抗药性削弱现有药物的疗效，每年导致数百万人死亡，而粮食损失与浪费可能成为抗微生物药物耐药性的温床甚至加速器，这凸显了将其纳入抗微生物药物耐药性监测与管理策略的必要性。

发表于期刊《贫困传染病》的最新科学综述《粮食损失与浪费传播抗微生物药物耐药性的风险》指出，将粮食损失与浪费弃物倾倒至填埋场或露天垃圾场会加剧耐药风险。

农业领域是已知的抗微生物药物耐药性来源，其中动物饲养行业占全球抗生素销售量的近四分之三。在粮食零售和消费环节，药物残留和耐药基因存在于肉类产品中，同时也在胡萝卜、生菜、叶菜和西红柿等植物性食品中检出。

食物残渣是细菌滋生理想基质

联合国新闻中心星期四（2月12日）引述研究报告说，食物残渣作为细菌滋生的理想基质，可能助长耐药微生物及基因的存活。对厨房废弃物原料及学校、医院食物残渣的检测显示，其中存在大量耐多种抗生素的基因，有时甚至包含新型药物。

多数国家的大量食物废弃物最终进入垃圾填埋场。填埋场因混合了工业、农业和医疗来源的生物物质与化学废物而带来额外风险。若垃圾场暴露于迁徙鸟类等食腐动物活动区域，或渗入地表水及地下水源，将加剧抗药性扩散风险。

报告指出，需从抗菌药物使用监管较弱且未来数年使用量预计增长的中低收入国家获取更多数据，并敦促各国加强抗真菌药物耐药性研究。

巴刹热闹买年菜 人潮涌动年味浓

发布/2026年2月14日 18:30

农历新年前的最后一个周末，黄埔、哥本峇鲁和顺福巴刹星期六（2月14日）一大早便人潮涌动，人们抓紧时间采购年菜食材，买气十足，巴刹里洋溢着浓浓的年味。 （梁麒麟摄）

[农历新年]前的最后一个周末，黄埔巴刹星期六（2月14日）一大早便人潮涌动，人们抓紧时间采购年菜食材，买气十足，巴刹里洋溢着浓浓的年味。

鸡鸭摊位的应节品种如文昌鸡和大红公鸡，不到中午便已售罄。蔬菜摊上，各种蔬菜堆得满满当当，还有摊主24小时全天营业，星期天（15日）凌晨再进货来服务更多顾客。

不管是海鲜、蔬果或年花，摊主的生意都靠天气“吃饭”。今年海鲜价格因季候风和产量有限而上调，尤其是印度尼西亚进口的鱼虾。