‘I like the fact that he’s different’: Trump defends Kennedy as Dems attack
President Donald Trump stood by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. after he faced an intense grilling from senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday, telling reporters, “I like the fact that he’s different.”
While speaking with the press during his dinner with technology industry leaders at the White House, Trump was asked about the hearing.
“Mr. President, Sen. Bill Cassidy [R-La.] said, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines. Do you have full confidence in what RFK Jr. is doing?” asked a reporter.
Trump noted that he “didn’t get to watch the hearings today,” but spoke highly of Kennedy, saying, “he’s a very good person.”
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“He means very well. And he’s got some little different ideas. I guarantee a lot of the people at this table like RFK Jr., and I do, but he’s got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes,” said the president.
“But I heard he did very well today,” Trump went on. “It’s not your standard talk, I would say that, and that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he’s different.”
While testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy faced intense criticism from Democratic senators, including Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who accused Kennedy of putting children into “harm’s way” with his policies.
Wyden pressed Kennedy during the hearing, saying that he believed Kennedy had “no regrets” about a “fundamentally cruel” agenda.
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“This is about kids being pushed into harm’s way by reckless and repeated decisions to get scientists and doctors out of the way and allow conspiracy theories to dictate this country’s health policy,” Wyden said at the end of his questioning.
“I don’t see any evidence that you have any regrets about anything you’ve done or plans to change it. And my last comment is, I hope that you will tell the American people how many preventable child deaths are an acceptable sacrifice for enacting an agenda that I think is fundamentally cruel and defies common sense,” said Wyden.
Kennedy countered by noting Wyden’s decades in office while chronic disease rates climbed significantly.
“Senator, you’ve sat in that chair how long? Twenty, 25 years, while the chronic disease of our children went up to 76%. And you said nothing.”
“You never asked the question of why it’s happening. Why is this happening? Today, for the first time in 20 years, we’ve learned that infant mortality has increased in our country. It’s not because I came in here. It’s because of what happened during the Biden administration that we’re going to end,” he continued.
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Vice President JD Vance also came to Kennedy’s defense on Thursday, saying the senators who grilled him are “full of s— and everyone knows it.”
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“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” Vance wrote in an X post. “You’re full of s— and everyone knows it.”
Kennedy reposted the vice president, writing, “Thank you @JDVance. You put your finger squarely on the preeminent problem.”
Kennedy’s testimony came one day after over 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed a letter calling for his resignation on Wednesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also called for his resignation.
Cuomo challenges Mamdani to debate him, Mamdani pivots to Trump in counter proposal
Andrew Cuomo challenged his NYC mayoral opponent, Zohran Mamdani, to five different debates across all five New York City boroughs during a press conference Thursday.
The challenge came as the former governor slammed Mamdani at his press conference in Manhattan’s Upper West Side for failing “to give a straight answer” to reporters’ questions and changing his mind “on everything” he has said on the campaign trail.
“When you try to ask [Mamdani] a question, he will simply not answer, and he obfuscates. And, frankly, you guys let him get away with it,” Cuomo told reporters Thursday. “I won’t let him get away with it. And New Yorkers won’t let him get away with it.”
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Hours after Cuomo leveled his challenge to Mamdani, the self-described democratic socialist shot back a proposal of his own: debate President Donald Trump.
“Let’s cut out the middle man. Why should I debate Donald Trump’s puppet when I could debate Donald Trump himself?” Mamdani’s campaign told Fox News Digital in a statement. “If Donald Trump is serious about intervening in the mayoral race, he should come to New York City and debate me directly about why he’s cutting SNAP benefits for hungry New Yorkers to give tax breaks to his wealthy donors.”
The back-and-forth between Cuomo and Mamadani comes amid speculation that President Donald Trump is weighing whether to offer jobs in his administration to incumbent NYC Mayor Eric Adams and the GOP candidate for NYC mayor, Curtis Sliwa. The move to offer the two candidates a job is reportedly a bid to clear the field for Cuomo, multiple sources with intimate knowledge about the matter have said.
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The former governor indicated during his press conference Thursday that he was aware of media reports about Trump possibly offering his NYC mayoral opponents jobs, subsequently clearing the field for him, but added that he has “no idea” if the reports are accurate. Cuomo said he has not spoken to either Mayor Eric Adams or President Trump about the matter.
“I know nothing about that speculation,” Cuomo told reporters Thursday about the matter. His campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Neither Adams nor his team responded to Fox News Digital’s inquiries on Thursday either, but media reports Thursday indicated Adams met in Florida with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, one of the president’s closest advisors, to discuss a potential job with the Trump administration.
News of the Adams meeting came after media reports last week indicating Trump had personally phoned influential businessman John Catsimatidis, an Adams ally, to set a deadline for the mayor and Sliwa to drop out.
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The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the matter.
Cuomo, who has positioned himself as the moderate left-wing alternative to Mamdani in the race, described Mamdani’s policy proposals Thursday as “absurd,” “out of the mainstream” and “discordant with what New Yorkers believe.”
Shortly after launching his independent bid for mayor last month, Cuomo proposed that all the other candidates in the race, with the exclusion of Mamdani, make a pledge to agree that whoever is not leading in the polls by mid-September, would step aside. The aim of the pledge, Cuomo indicated, is to ensure the candidate with the best opportunity to defeat Mamdani runs against him under the most favorable conditions possible.
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However, the proposal has been rejected by Adams, and Sliwa suggested to Fox News Digital Thursday that Cuomo and Adams are not even the main frontrunners who New Yorkers want to win.
“This is a race between the two major party nominees, myself and Mamdani, and New Yorkers know I’m the only one with the experience and grit to take him on,” Sliwa told Fox News Digital. “I’m running to save New York City from decline and give working people the future they deserve.”
Speaking specifically to Mamdani’s response to Cuomo’s debate challenge, Sliwa added that Mamdani “is desperate to distract from his own radical agenda, so he hides behind cheap theatrics.”
Bishop fires back after Dem senator claims God-given rights are ‘extremely troubling’
A Senate Democrat compared language from one of the nation’s founding documents to that of Iran during a Senate hearing considering President Donald Trump’s nominees.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pushed back against the opening statement of Riley Barnes, who was tapped by Trump to serve as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, during a Senate Foreign Relations hearing Wednesday.
Barnes quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his opening remarks, telling lawmakers on the panel, “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator — not from our laws, not from our governments.
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“The secretary went on to say that we will always be strong defenders of that principle, and that’s why the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor is important,” he said. “We are a nation of individuals, each made in the image of God and possessing an inherent dignity. This is a truth that our founders understood as essential to American self-government.”
But Kaine, who is a Catholic, found Barnes’ sentiment “troubling.”
“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator, that’s what the Iranian government believes,” Kaine said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities.
“And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator,” he continued. “So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
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Kaine said he was a “strong believer in natural rights” but noted that if natural rights were to be debated by people within the committee room with different views and religious traditions, “there would be some significant differences in the definitions of those natural rights.”
While the Constitution does not explicitly mention God or a Creator, the Declaration of Independence does.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that the “radical and dangerous notion,” in Kaine’s words, “is literally the founding principle upon which the United States of America was created.”
“And if you do not believe me, and you made reference to this, Mr. Barnes, then you can believe perhaps the most prominent Virginian to ever serve, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence, ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator.’”
“Not by government, not by the Democratic National Committee, but by God,” Cruz said.
The Declaration of Independence does say, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
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Kaine’s sentiment drew heat from Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, who panned his remarks in a post on X Thursday. Barron argued that the lawmaker was “actively contesting the view that our rights come from God and not from the government.”
“If the government creates our rights, it can take them away,” Barron said. “If the government is responsible for our rights, well then it can change them.”
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“It just strikes me as extraordinary that a major American politician wouldn’t understand this really elemental part of our system. God help us. I mean that literally, God help us if we say our rights are coming to us from the government, that gives the government, indeed, godlike power,” Barron continued.
Fox News Digital reached out for comment from Kaine’s office but did not immediately hear back.
Newborn’s autopsy results revealed after athlete accused of stashing body in closet
A coroner revealed Wednesday that the cause of death remains inconclusive for a newborn allegedly hidden in a closet by a University of Kentucky student-athlete.
The Fayette County Coroner’s Office in Lexington, Kentucky, said in a statement that the autopsy on the male infant was completed, but the findings were inconclusive as extensive microscopic analyses are essential to determine the cause and manner of death.
Officers with the Lexington Police Department took the infant’s mother, Laken Snelling, 21, into custody Sunday after the baby was found dead wrapped in a towel inside a trash bag, WLEX reported. The trash bag was reportedly placed inside a closet.
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Snelling, a senior at the University of Kentucky, is charged with tampering with physical evidence, concealing the birth of an infant and abuse of a corpse, according to police.
A university spokesperson confirmed to Fox News Digital that Snelling is a member of the school’s STUNT team, which the athletics department describes as a “head-to-head competition between two teams that focuses on the technical and athletic aspects of cheer.”
Police said she admitted to giving birth, according to arrest records.
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Snelling was released from jail on a $100,000 bond and placed on house arrest, according to court documents.
She pleaded not guilty in court on Tuesday, according to a report from KBTX.
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Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said he understands the community’s concern, noting the death “affects many lives in our neighboring state of Tennessee and as well as those in the Commonwealth.”
“We are currently conducting a thorough and methodical death investigation to ensure all facts are carefully considered,” Ginn wrote in the statement. “Please keep the family and friends as well as the University of Kentucky friends in your thoughts and prayers.”
Ginn added the death investigation remains open pending test results.
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The Lexington Police Department said its special victims section is continuing to investigate.
Luxury yacht tips and sinks minutes after launch, terrified passengers jump overboard
Dramatic video shows a brand-new luxury yacht sinking just minutes after it was launched off the coast of Turkey, forcing its crew to leap overboard.
According to reports, the new $1 million vessel, an 85-foot cruiser named Dolce Vento, was launched Tuesday in the Ereğli district of Zonguldak, a port city on Turkey’s Black Sea.
The amateur video shows the boat being pushed into the ocean down a track on the beach and then swaying within 15 minutes of setting off.
As bystanders watched, the luxury yacht lurched to one side, tilting dangerously before taking on water.
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Chaos erupted as people on board had to scramble onto the sloping deck. As the vessel sank quickly, they were forced to dive into the sea.
One clip shows a man in a dark suit standing on the vessel’s side before springing into the water.
The Turkish Coast Guard and port teams reportedly rushed to the scene, setting up a security perimeter around the capsized craft as it slipped further into the water, per TMZ.
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According to TMZ, a spokesperson for the shipyard hosting the yacht, Med Yilmaz, said the cause of the disaster is under investigation.
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Technical inspections will be carried out to determine whether a construction flaw, balance issue or human error doomed the luxury vessel.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Turkish Coast Guard for comment.
Researchers find over-the-counter remedy may prevent COVID-19 infection
A new study has discovered another way to potentially prevent COVID-19.
Researchers at Saarland University in Germany headed a clinical trial that found a nasal spray could reduce the risk of coronavirus infection by two-thirds.
The phase 2 study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, ran from March 2023 to July 2024 at Saarland University Hospital.
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The 450 healthy adult participants were randomly assigned to receive either the azelastine nasal spray or a placebo, three times per day for 56 days.
The researchers conducted SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen testing twice a week to diagnose infection. People who had symptoms but received negative antigen test results underwent multiple PCR tests for respiratory viruses.
Among the 227 individuals who received the azelastine nasal spray, rates of confirmed COVID infection were “significantly lower” at 2.2%, compared with 6.7% for the placebo group.
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The researchers also noted an increase in the period before infection for the people taking azelastine. In these patients, the medication was linked to a lower rate of PCR-confirmed symptomatic infections and fewer confirmed rhinovirus infections (the primary cause of the common cold).
“In this single-center trial, azelastine nasal spray was associated with reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 respiratory infections,” the researchers wrote.
Azelastine has been available as an over-the-counter treatment for hay fever, according to a press release from Saarland University, and has previously been suggested to have an anti-viral effect against COVID and other respiratory viruses.
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Lead trial researcher Professor Robert Bals, director of the Department of Internal Medicine at Saarland University Medical Center, commented in a statement that the trial has demonstrated azelastine’s impact in a “real-world setting.”
“Azelastine nasal spray could provide an additional, easily accessible prophylactic to complement existing protective measures, especially for vulnerable groups, during periods of high infection rates or before traveling,” he went on.
“Our results highlight the need for larger, multicenter trials to continue exploring the use of azelastine nasal sprays as an on-demand preventive treatment, and to examine its potential effectiveness against other respiratory pathogens.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
NFL season opener turns ugly as Philly defender ejected before first snap
The 2025 NFL season has begun in the most absurd way possible.
Philadelphia Eagles star defensive tackle Jalen Carter was ejected before the first offensive snap of the game after seemingly spitting on Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
Prescott emerged from the Cowboys’ huddle to meet Carter, who had walked up to them as officials were talking over a penalty on the opening kickoff. Video replay showed Carter and Prescott talking, and the former spit at him before walking away.
Referees immediately threw the flag, and he was ejected after the unsportsmanlike penalty was called.
If you bought a gold bar at Costco last year, here’s what it’s worth now
Gold prices slipped on Thursday, marking a pause in what has been a record-breaking rally that has seen market prices for the precious metal surge over the last year.
Long considered a safe haven asset to hedge against economic uncertainty, gold has risen as investors deal with concerns about the U.S. economy due to the impact of tariffs on inflation, as well as signs of a weakening labor market and expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut.
An investor who bought a 1-ounce gold bar at Costco a year ago would have paid $2,495, and that investment would be worth $3,557 as of Thursday. That amounts to a one-year gain of about 42%, or more than $1,000 in dollar terms.
Spot gold prices hit a record high of $3,578 on Wednesday after weak job opening data strengthened the market’s outlook for Fed rate cuts. Additional data released on Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing new jobless claims rose more than expected last week.
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“With Fed rate cut expectations already largely priced in, tomorrow’s monthly jobs report becomes the key focal point. Any shift in that outlook would directly impact the dollar and, by extension, gold,” said David Meger, director of metals trading at High Ridge Futures.
Federal Reserve officials who spoke on Wednesday indicated that concerns over the strength of the labor market could allow for a rate cut despite inflation remaining well above the Fed’s long-run 2% target.
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Standard Chartered said it expects gold to rise further amid a growing demand for the safe-haven asset due to the elevated uncertainty over tariff policies as well as rising concerns over the Fed’s independence.
President Donald Trump is attempting to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, citing mortgage fraud allegations raised by his ally, FHFA director Bill Pulte.
Cook has sued to block her termination, arguing that Trump’s attempt to remove her doesn’t meet the threshold required for a “for cause” removal.
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Trump has previously threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who he appointed to the role in 2017, though he has recently backed off those threats with Powell’s term as chairman set to expire in May 2026 and markets responding negatively to his threats against Powell.
Central banks around the world have also weighed increasing their gold reserves, providing further support to the asset.
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Poland’s central bank governor, Adam Glapinski, has indicated he will propose increasing the target for gold as a percentage of the central bank’s reserves from the current 20% to 30%.
‘Shark Tank’ star flaunts neon green bikini at 76 as fans call her ‘sexier than sexy’
“Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran put her bikini body on display as she said goodbye to summer.
On Monday, the 76-year-old shared a photo of herself in a neon green bikini with a second picture of herself bundled up for fall on Instagram.
She noted that the bikini post was August 31st, and the fully clothed picture was a representation of Sept. 1.
“This is what being a New Yorker feels like! My heart says summer but my calendar says Fall…” Corcoran captioned her post. She paired Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” to play when the images are viewed.
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In the bikini picture, Corcoran was drying her hair after a dip in the ocean. She waved to the camera and smiled as the waves were crashing behind her.
“This is what being a New Yorker feels like! My heart says summer but my calendar says Fall…”
In the photo of herself prepped for fall weather, Corcoran sported a tan trench coat, a matching scarf, dark denim jeans and nude pointed shoes.
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Fans quickly praised the businesswoman for her looks.
“Omg she’s sexier than sexy,” an Instagram user commented.
Another added, “Whatever Barb is doing she’s perfect.”
In June, Barbara shed some insight on what she does to keep up with her looks. She shared an image of herself on Instagram, along with an extensive list of procedures she had done.
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“Heard the cool kids were sharing their plastic surgery secrets,” she captioned her post before spilling the work she’s had done.
Corcoran has had three face-lifts, a brow and eye lift and a neck lift. She also gets filler four times a year, professional teeth whitening, Fractional C02 laser on her face once a year and at-home haircuts and color every six weeks.
In July, she also uploaded a photo of herself getting Botox and captioned the post, “natural beauty.”
Corcoran told Page Six she’s considering a fourth face-lift for her 85th birthday. She also didn’t rule out other body enhancements or anything she can “sign up for.”
“I’m thinking of enhancing my figure. I would like to have a bigger chest, bigger hips, bigger butt,” the real estate mogul told the outlet at the time.
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