Nearly one in three veterans who relies on the government for health care could benefit from taking psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms or MDMA.
That's not the ******* sment of some hippie or fading 1960s rock star. It came from Andrew Gradison, a senior adviser at President Donald Trump's Veterans Health Administration. Gradison told a conference for psychedelics enthusiasts this month that he is eager to ramp up the VA's capacity to give the drugs to as many as 2.1 million veterans with mental illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. Gradison said 6.4 million veterans regularly rely on the VA for care.
No government regulator has deemed psychedelics safe or effective for mental illness. Under former President Joe Biden, the Food and Drug Administration in 2024 resoundingly rejected a proposal to authorize MDMA — also known as ecstasy — combined with talk therapy, to treat people with PTSD.
But psychedelics are getting a second chance in the Trump administration. Trump in April issued an executive order to accelerate research, clinical trials and patient access to the drugs. Republicans in Congress are among psychedelics' biggest backers. And the constituency they are seeking to please, veterans, are disproportionately Republicans.
Veterans, frustrated with high suicide rates among their fellow ex-service members, are lobbying aggressively to see Trump follow through.

#Veterans #psychedelics #drugs #mdma

Relatives of some soldiers killed in the Iran war joined dozens of Gold Star families from prior U.S. conflicts Tuesday at the White House, where President Donald Trump offered words of comfort and candles were lit for the fallen service members, according to one of the widows who attended.
Not all families of the six soldiers killed March 1 in the deadliest attack of the Iran war opted to attend. Troops who survived the attack have raised questions about why they were stationed at a site that didn't have sufficient air protection and was viewed as a likely target.
Michelle Tietjens and other relatives have said they are angry the Army still hasn't answered questions over whether enough was done to protect their loved ones. But Tietjens and her teenage son traveled from Bellevue, Nebraska, to attend the event to honor her husband, Master Sgt. Noah Tietjens, who was killed along with five other Army Reserve soldiers by an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait.
"I decided to go originally because my son wanted to go," Tietjens said. "But then I wanted to see what it was about as well. I wanted to also go to support my husband's memory."
She said they toured several rooms of the White House and took a photo with Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump. Tietjens said the president told them that he wished he had her teenage son's full head of curly hair.

#soldiers #wanted #House

By Kate Holton and Steve Holland
LONDON/WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump said on Monday that a threat linked to Iran had prompted the removal of American B-1 bombers from a British airbase.
The planes had been stationed at RAF Fairford, the preferred European base for US bombers, and had recently been used in US strikes on Iran. Last week, five British ‌men were arrested near the base — which Iran's Revolutionary Guards previously said was a legitimate target — on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.
"We had an idea that there might be a threat, and why ‌would I leave them there? It costs very little money to move them," Trump told reporters on Monday. "So we had a threat, and if we're going to be threatened, we just move them, and that sort of alleviates that. And we actually know the people that made the threat."
When asked if they were linked to Iran, Trump responded: "They would be linked to Iran."

#Trump #threat #linked #british

The mother of the woman killed by Christa Pike said she was left without justice after Tennessee's failed attempt to carry out the execution, criticizing the state's handling of a procedure that left the death row prisoner hospitalized in critical condition.
"I didn't get justice for my daughter," May Martinez, whose daughter Colleen Slemmer was killed in 1995, told the ******* ociated Press on Thursday.
Martinez traveled to Nashville to witness the execution Wednesday. Instead, she watched as officials administered two doses of the state's execution drug pentobarbital without killing Pike.
"I watched the whole thing. She was awake," she said. "She was moving her head, moving her feet. She was trying to sit up. Didn't work the first time they gave her a shot. It didn't work the second time, so she's in the hospital and alive."
The inmate is receiving life-saving medical care, according to her legal team, who have asked Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence.

#execution #left

By Kristina Cooke and Ben Kellerman
Sept 14 (Reuters) - Immigration arrests in the U.S. have soared in recent months, aided by more local law enforcement cooperation with ICE, increased use of technology to track and process people, as well as enhanced data sharing between federal agencies.
But the mass arrest campaign this summer did not lead to a commensurate increase in deportations -- according to preliminary U.S. government data reviewed by Reuters -- a ‌reflection of the legal and logistical limits faced by President Donald Trump as he attempts to hit his mass deportation goals.
Even as arrests jumped to nearly 51,000 in August, setting a record for a third straight month, deportation ‌numbers held mostly steady, averaging around 1,200 per day, the preliminary government data showed.
About the same number of people were deported per day in May, for example, when there were around 19,000 fewer arrests, according to arrests data obtained by the Deportation Data Project through a public records request and ****** yzed by Reuters.

#arrests #government

By Alexander Cornwell and Rami Amichay
TEL AVIV/PSAGOT, West Bank, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Israel has given Britain 30 days to close its East Jerusalem consulate in response to sanctions on goods from settlements, a measure Britain's leader said on Wednesday was needed to "stand against injustice" in the occupied West Bank.
In the West ‌Bank, where Israeli settlements have eaten into territory Palestinians seek for a state, settler business owners said the sanctions — announced on Tuesday by Britain, France and Canada — ‌would dent their revenues and at least one said they could force him to close his date farm.
The sanctions are among the strongest collective actions taken by Western countries that Israel once counted as close allies, highlighting its growing isolation over the war in Gaza and expansion of settlements in occupied territory.
ISRAEL SETS DEADLINE FOR BRITAIN TO CLOSE CONSULATE

#britain #sanctions #settlements

Sept 9 (Reuters) - The photos tell a story of lives, interrupted.
The schoolroom, gaily decorated with paintings and letters. The paint shop, where the shelves still contain rows of once colourful cans. The bathroom, the closet that held neatly piled clothing, the ‌yards. All are now covered with a thick layer of river mud that descended without warning on bustling communities.
As the waters ‌recede, the survivors remain stunned, grieving and praying.
A string of miracle rescues in recent days has kept hopes alive that more people might still be saved from the catastrophe of August 26 when a glacier collapsed, sending a mass of mud and rock crashing into a river along the border between Nepal and China's Tibet. The resulting floods washed away villages, snapped highways like twigs, and buried homes in the mud.
At least 1,380 bodies have so far been pulled from the wreckage, some far downstream from the site of the disaster. A wall outside a Kathmandu hospital plastered with photos and desperate appeals hints at the unfinished ‌story of an estimated 5,500 people who remain ⁠missing.

#nepal

An Israeli court has acquitted a Jewish man who attacked a nun in Jerusalem, in an incident caught on CCTV which drew widespread condemnation.
Jerusalem Magistrates Court said Yona Schreiber was experiencing a psychotic episode when he pushed over and kicked the French nun in the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem in April. It ruled that he was not criminally responsible for his actions and ordered him to be sent to a psychiatric hospital for up to six years.
Video of the attack caused outrage, and deepened concerns after a rise in harassment of Christian clergy and pilgrims by Jewish extremists in the Old City.
The victim, who hit her head on a stone block, suffered a bruised face and leg.
Schreiber, 36, had been charged with **** ault motivated by hostility towards a religious group.

#magistrates #yona

Meta will pay $18 billion to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to addict kids fueling a teen mental health crisis. The company did not admit wrongdoing and will make sweeping changes to the apps. NBC News' Christine Romans reports.

#meta #Facebook #settle

(NEXSTAR) – From unexpected babies to "Ozempic teeth," the ultra-popular class of GLP-1 medications is turning out to have a few unanticipated side effects. Emerging research shows the drugs, which have proven effective in treating obesity and diabetes, may also be useful in treating addiction.
The medications' full potential is coming to light as more people are prescribed a GLP-1, which includes the brand names Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy and Zepbound. As 15% of Americans say they've tried a GLP-1, researchers are learning more about how it impacts all aspects of life, not just diet.
"This drug has been available in the medical community since 2005," said Dr. Eugene Lucas, professor and coordinator of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program at Wilkes University. "And over time, when physicians are ordering these medications for people with obesity, diabetes, they're finding that if they have a concurrent addictive disorder, and specifically alcohol, that they're either cutting back or stopping their alcohol use."
A large study of more than 200,000 people in Sweden found using a GLP-1 drug was ***** ociated with a decreased risk of hospitalization from alcohol use disorder.
Another study by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, which looked at 600,000 veterans with type 2 diabetes, found the medications were tied to a lower risk of developing any kind of substance use disorder.

#medications #diabetes #disorder #university

Angie Nixon joins Meet the Press NOW after winning an upset in the Democratic primary to represent Florida in the Senate, saying she's a capitalist despite recently joining the Democratic Socialists of America.

#senate #America #joins

Milligan University announced the death of two of its student-athletes after a driver drove into them on an early-morning training run. Authorities say the 69-year-old driver is now in custody and has been charged with vehicular homicide. NBC News' Aaron Gilchrist has the details.

#gilchrist

(NewsNation) — A Colorado woman said she saw a massive Bigfoot "gliding" through the woods in late July, according to a post on the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization's sightings database.
Lori Bowing said she was in the car with her husband, looking for wildlife near Lake City in Hinsdale County, when she saw what she described as a Bigfoot near the edge of the woods. She estimated the figure was between 7 feet and 9 feet tall based on the size of the surrounding trees.
"I saw this critter take 4-5 big gliding steps before it left my view due to the road curve," Bowing said. "Trust me when I say I am not a bigfoot believer, but after what I saw I sure in the ******* am now!"
Boater fined $5K for using foghorn to wake polar bear in Norway
She added that the figure was dark, blackish brown, with long, hairy arms, and a head that was "kind of molded into the shoulders."

#bigfoot #bowing #feet #july

Shortly after announcing his intention to run for U.S. Senate, then-candidate Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said he would support reparations legislation — government-led efforts to make up for the social harms of slavery and other injustices against Black Americans.
In a 2019 radio interview, Ossoff said it was only a question of how much the government was obligated to give.
"There is a debt unpaid. I think it is a very, very difficult question: how to pay it," Ossoff told a local radio host.
"But see, that should be the question — not if it should be paid," the host noted.
Mamdani Won't Rule Out Cash Reparations, Says He'll Await Nyc Commission Findings

#reparations #shortly

A man was arrested in connection with a burglary at a Hidden Hills property owned by reality star Kim Kardashian, authorities said. Officials say security reported the incident and said the suspect was seen driving a vehicle from the property in the area. NBC News' Dana Griffin reports.

#hidden #hills #arrested

Jamie Dimon says US economic and military strength underpins the dollar's reserve status.
The US made a mistake relying on China for critical materials.
The Iran war shows the US isn't ready for a prolonged war.
The dollar could eventually lose its status as the world's reserve currency if the US fails to maintain its economic and military dominance, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said.
"If we're not the strongest military in 25 years and the strongest economy, we won't be the reserve currency either," Dimon said on PBS' "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover," which aired over the weekend.

#reserve #jamie #economic

By Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The dollar fell against major currencies including the yen and euro on Friday after U.S. employment unexpectedly declined in July, fueling ‌concerns about the economy's strength and undermining the case for the Federal Reserve to ‌raise interest rates.
The U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said, compared with economists' expectations for an increase of 80,000 jobs, according to a Reuters poll. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 4.1% as the labor participation rate fell to a near a five-and-a-half year low of 61.4%.
The dollar weakened against the yen after the report, shedding gains made in recent days in the aftermath of a historic intervention last week ‌between ******* anese and U.S. authorities, which ⁠had pushed it to a 13-week low.
It was last down 0.57% to 157.56 yen but on track for a weekly gain of about 0.10%.

#labor #rate #last

A potentially deadly "flesh-eating" bacteria has killed five people in Louisiana this year, a sharp rise from the state's typical death toll.
Health officials are warning beachgoers to take extra precautions before heading into the water.
Vibrio vulnificus is part of a wider group of Vibrio bacteria. Found primarily in warm, coastal waters, it can cause serious, potentially life-threatening infections when contaminated seawater enters an open wound, according to the CDC.
Deadly Bacteria Found In Waters Near Luxury Vacation Destination Ahead Of Summer
Infections can also occur when someone eats raw or undercooked shellfish, especially oysters.

#found #waters #infections #Health

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday said the Trump administration improperly terminated billions of dollars in funds to boost clean energy projects, handing a win to a coalition of nonprofits picked to run the Biden-era effort.
Climate United Fund and other nonprofits won't have access to their funds immediately as the decision will be put on hold for several days giving the Environmental Protection Agency time to ask the Supreme Court to step in.
The judgement by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is a loss for the Trump administration in one of its earliest efforts to dismantle President Joe Biden's campaign to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gases. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly referred to as a "green bank," is a $20 billion congressionally authorized program that provided money to nonprofits that would then make loans and invest in small energy projects, energy-efficient buildings and transportation.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin accused Climate United Fund and other nonprofits picked to run the green bank of mismanagement and potential fraud. He froze billions that had been placed in a Citibank account for the program and then terminated their grants. The groups disputed any wrongdoing and sued, arguing the Trump administration broke the law and violated the Constitution by not spending money authorized by Congress.
"Despite efforts to harm the awardees with false allegations and misinformation, there remains no legal basis for terminating our grant award and clawing back funds that were already disbursed in our bank accounts," Climate United said in a statement.

#fund #administration #energy

The Pima County Sheriff's Department said in a statement that investigators, "continue to pursue every possible lead," in the Nancy Guthrie case. It comes only days after Savannah Guthrie posted a video on social media, seemingly to speak to whomever is directly involved. NBC News' Tom Winter reports.

#pima #nancy

Ryder Williams, the 16-year-old lifeguard credited with saving a boy off California's Santa Cruz coast is speaking out for the first time. Williams says he was at the waterline when he saw a child lose his footing. The father of the boy rescued tells NBC News he is eternally grateful to Williams. NBC News' Liz Kreutz has the story.

#ryder #cruz #year #lifeguard

A clip from Ed Sheeran's appearance on "The Louis Theroux Podcast" has recently resurfaced on social media, sparking renewed debate over differences between British and American attitudes toward alcohol.
"Americans call something 'alcoholism' that Brits simply call 'culture.' Maybe one or two pints at the end of a workday," the singer said during the 2025 podcast.
"On a Friday you'll have 6 pints and a bottle of wine. It's not alcoholism to drink every day here … It's just the culture."
Nightly Glass Of Wine May Not Be As Harmless As Many People Think, Study Suggests
Americans and Britons consume similar amounts of alcohol overall, with the average adult drinking about 9.7 liters of pure alcohol per year, according to the World Health Organization.

#podcast #louis

WASHINGTON – Six weeks after he was hospitalized for a fall and pneumonia, Sen. Mitch McConnell's doctors still have not medically cleared him to return to work or leave a rehabilitation facility, the Capitol physician's office said.
Since June, the Kentucky Republican's health has been a source of widespread speculation and interest. He has missed 38 roll call votes in the Senate, including on key measures such as the annual defense policy bill and ending the Iran war, as well as high-profile confirmation hearings for crucial Trump nominees like Todd Blanche, who is awaiting a vote to become the next attorney general.
All summer his office has provided only limited updates on his condition. But in a statement July 27, McConnell, 84, said he was still having "intense physical therapy" and wouldn't be able to travel to western Kentucky for the annual Fancy Farm picnic, a marquee political event in the state.
"As always, I appreciate all of your continued well wishes, and I'm looking forward to getting back to the Senate and to Kentucky soon," he said.
The Office of the Attending Physician, which provides medical services and guidance to members of Congress, said the lifelong effects of McConnell's bout with childhood polio continue to be a "significant factor in his mobility." Doctors visit with him every day.

#still #annual

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Lawyers for Pamela Smart, who is serving life in prison for orchestrating the murder of her husband by her teenage student in 1990, urged a New Hampshire judge Monday to allow her latest petition for a new trial to move forward.
Smart, 58, was a 22-year-old high school media coordinator when she began an affair with a 15-year-old boy who later fatally shot her husband, Gregory Smart, in Derry.
The shooter was freed in 2015 after serving a 25-year sentence. Though Smart denied knowledge of the plot, she was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder and other crimes and was sentenced to life without parole after a trial that was one of the first in the nation to be broadcast live on television from start to finish.
Smart filed a petition for habeas corpus relief in January seeking to overturn her conviction over what her lawyers claim were several constitutional violations. The state responded with a motion to dismiss the petition, resulting in Monday's hearing, which Smart attended remotely from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in New York.
Merrimack County Superior Court Judge James Kennedy took the matter under advisement. He planned to rule in 30 to 60 days.

The remains of several geese were found on a New York City sightseeing helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River last year and killed 6 people, investigators said Thursday, strong suggestions that multiple bird strikes contributed to the tragedy.
Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board were not final and do not identify a definitive cause of the crash. But they describe evidence that supports bird strikes before the helicopter plummeted into the river on April 10, 2025.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said that helicopters are especially vulnerable to bird strikes because they fly at low altitudes. Strikes can turn out to be devastating.
"It seems pretty clear to me that the breakup of that helicopter was precipitated by several bird strikes," said aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, who read the key findings. "Not just one but several — and birds of a different feather."
He noted damage to the aircraft's horizontal stabilizer, a key part of the helicopter.

A black labrador had to be rescued from the UK's highest mountain after falling seriously ill when she ate cannabis, her owner has said.
Five-year-old Tokyo became unwell and even lost consciousness several hours into a hike up Scotland's Ben Nevis last Sunday, according to her owner Christina Bluhme.
"She'd been so happy eating treats and drinking and had been her very active normal self," Bluhme, a professional dog trainer, told CNN on Monday. The two had been trekking alongside Bluhme's 17-year-old son Magnus and their two-year-old golden labrador, Blaze.
Then things took a dramatic turn as they approached the peak of the mountain, which stands at 4,413 feet (1,345 meters).
"We were maybe an hour from the top when we noticed Tokyo got really weak in her hind quarters," said Bluhme.

By Erwin Seba
July 12 - Minnesota Governor Tim Walz mobilized state National Guard troops ‌on Sunday to battle wildfires on ‌the state's northern border with Canada.
The fires have covered more than 800 acres in five days and are yet to be contained, according to a Minnesota state website. They are among the latest ‌in a swath ⁠of fires that have raged across the United States due to hot, ⁠dry conditions driven by an El Nino weather pattern across the continent.
"I've declared a peacetime emergency and mobilized the National Guard to ***** ist with ‌wildfire response in northern Minnesota," said Walz, a Democrat. "Minnesotans extend our deepest gratitude to all of the first responders working around the clock to keep their neighbors safe."
A total of 16 ‌fires are burning in the Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota, which normally attracts about 150,000 visitors in ‌the summer. Park rangers have been escorting visitors out of the park over the weekend, according to the Minnesota Natural Resources Department website.

Record shark sightings are being reported at a popular beach in New York. It comes as local authorities expand surveillance, especially by drone. NBC News' Steven Romo reports.

By Rami Ayyub
TURMUS AYYA, West Bank, July 11 (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna said he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made rifles during a West Bank visit this week that he cast as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation as he weighs a ‌2028 presidential run.
Speaking with Reuters on Thursday in a Palestinian village, Khanna said his group's van was surrounded by settlers wielding M4 rifles a day earlier ‌while touring a part of the southern West Bank where residents face frequent settler attacks.
"We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it," said Khanna, a progressive lawmaker from California in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans," Khanna said, referring to the Israeli military.

LOS GALLARDOS, Spain, July 10 (Reuters) - As flames approached their homes and the smoke-filled air became choking, panicked residents in rural Andalusian villages around Los Gallardos in southern Spain chose to flee — a decision some paid for with their lives.
With the wildfire racing ‌up the bone-dry mountainsides, residents faced a choice of taking their chance and leaving, or sheltering in place.
Authorities recommended some residents above ‌Los Gallardos evacuate and signalled a safe route, while later it was considered safer for those in the forested hamlet of Bedar to stay where they were given the fire was so close.
"In situations like this, it is essential that we all follow the routes indicated," Antonio Sanz, head of emergencies in the Andalusia region, said. "Unfortunately in this instance a decision was taken to use another route that wasn't the one recommended for evacuation. Looking for another way out via a dry riverbed turned out to be a trap."
As the flames approached, Antonio Rubio, a handyman living in Bedar, said the smoke had made it impossible to shelter in place.