When learning about the effects of spaceflight on human health^[1], you typically will hear about the dangers of radiation, bone density loss and changes in eyesight. While these long-term risks are important, a less frequently discussed concern is motion

In July 2025, Uganda’s courts^[1] swiftly dismissed a petition challenging the legality of polygamy, citing the protection of religious and cultural freedom. For most social scientists and policymakers who have long declared polygamy a “harmful cultural

Approximately 185,000 people have died in civilian aviation accidents^[1] since the advent of powered flight over a century ago. However, over the past five years among the U.S. airlines, the risk of dying was almost zero^[2]. In fact, you have a much better

A federal appeals court on Monday cleared President Donald Trump to for now send Oregon National Guard troops to Portland, lifting a previous lower court ruling that barred him from doing so following that blocked the move after months of violence outside a federal immigration building.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump likely acted within his authority when he ordered 200 Guard members into federal service for 60 days to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workers and property at the Lindquist Federal Building.

The Department of Justice appealed a previous order and received a 2-1 ruling in their favor from a panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  Judges said the president made a reasonable judgment based on the facts and the law.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, earlier this month issued two temporary restraining orders. One prohibited Trump from calling up, sending troops to Portland; another prohibited him from sending any National Guard members to Oregon at all after Trump attempted to deploy California troops across state lines, according to the Associated Press.

Judges said Trump had good reason to believe federal officers could not keep order on their own. They noted that local police refused to assist and that federal officers were stretched thin.

The court said blocking the president’s order would harm the government’s ability to protect its employees and enforce the law. 

Violence Outside ICE Building

What began as small protests in June grew into nights of chaos.

Protesters set fires, threw fireworks, and hurled rocks at federal officers. One officer was hurt when a mortar exploded nearby. Others were followed home and photographed.

The building was boarded up for weeks after demonstrators tried to break through the front doors. At one point, protesters built a guillotine outside. Local police refused to respond to immigration calls, saying they would only handle life-threatening emergencies.

The Department of Homeland Security asked the Pentagon for help after what it called coordinated attacks by violent groups. Trump used a federal law, 10 U.S.C. 12406, that allows the president to call up the National Guard when regular forces cannot enforce federal law.

When Oregon’s governor rejected the notion, Trump went ahead and ordered the Guard to federal duty. The state and city of Portland sued, saying he overstepped his authority and violated states’ rights.

Next Round of the Fight

The ruling lets Oregon Guard troops deploy while the case moves forward. The state’s lawsuit continues, but the decision gives the president the advantage for now.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, said he would ask for a broader panel of the appeals to reconsider the decision.

“Today’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification,” Rayfield said, according to the AP. “We are on a dangerous path in America.”

Similar court fights are underway in California and Illinois. Legal experts say the battle over who controls the Guard could reach the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON — It’s been a year full of money grabs by an executive branch that puts less weight on Congress’ “power of the purse” than any since the Nixon administration.

But President Donald Trump’s latest budget maneuver — paying military salaries out of unrelated research funding — has so openly flouted federal law as to make lawmakers’ appropriations authority, and Congress itself, practically irrelevant, critics argue.

“President Trump has been ignoring Congress’ authority to say which funds should be spent since the early days of this administration. He is now increasingly disregarding the requirement of an appropriation before spending money,” said David Super, a Georgetown Law professor and expert in federal budget law.

“This renders the appropriations process essentially meaningless if the president continues along this course,” Super said.

Trump’s official legal justification is that the Pentagon is using funds that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth determined have a “reasonable, logical relationship” to military pay and benefits.

That “reasonable, logical” connection would be “consistent with applicable law,” including the so-called purpose statute, Trump’s directive released Wednesday says. That’s a longstanding part of federal budget law requiring that appropriations “shall be applied only to the objects for which the appropriations were made except as otherwise provided by law.”

In an interview, a senior administration official fleshed out what they argue is the reasonable, logical use of unspent R&D funds to pay the troops.

The official said the military is a special category within the government that Congress always intended to keep fully funded. But because appropriations for military personnel accounts expired Sept. 30, the Pentagon had to tap unspent funds that have not yet expired to keep funding the military during a shutdown.

R&D accounts were the obvious place to find this money, given their two-year availability, and one logical connection is that personnel are needed to conduct that research, development, testing and evaluation that those accounts pay for.

‘Pale in comparison’

The argument doesn’t pass the smell test with critics on either side of the aisle, who argue it is simply an illegal power grab.

G. William Hoagland, a longtime Senate GOP budget aide, said Trump’s budget moves are “without precedent” and that President Richard Nixon’s flouting of spending directives — which led to the landmark 1974 budget law’s enactment — “pale in comparison.”

The 1974 law created the modern controls on presidential “impoundments,” requiring the executive branch to obligate funds consistent with enacted appropriations laws — unless Congress passes legislation rescinding certain funds identified by the president.

This year, Congress passed one such rescissions package. But Trump’s budget office has taken heat for freezing appropriated funds using its “apportionment” authority, or responsibility to ensure money isn’t burned through too quickly. In some cases, funding freezes have been blocked in court.

In one high-profile case that’s currently at the Supreme Court, Trump employed what’s known as a “pocket rescission,” or a loophole in the 1974 law requiring Congress to approve rescission requests within 45 days. In this case, the Trump OMB put a hold on $5 billion in foreign assistance funds within 45 days of Sept. 30, when the money expired.

Critics were already up in arms over that move, saying it’s a violation of impoundment law that basically neuters the power of the purse. Now, Trump has gone even further, they say.

Georgetown Law’s Super pointed out that OMB Director Russ Vought, the architect of Trump’s impoundment strategy, has argued that the 1974 law doesn’t require presidents to spend every penny of an appropriation. The law puts a ceiling on that spending, rather than setting a floor, Vought says.

Now, Super said, Trump “apparently does not even believe that” and instead contends the administration is free to spend money it doesn’t have or for purposes Congress did not intend.

Constitutional principles

The purpose statute is separate from the Antideficiency Act, which bars the administration from spending money in excess of available appropriations and is another cornerstone of federal budget law.

The Antideficiency Act is what requires the government to “shut down” during a funding lapse, other than special “excepted” functions critical to public safety and security, and programs that don’t rely on annual appropriations.

But the purpose statute is considered an equally bedrock constitutional principle, with its roots in Article I: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

The senior administration official argued tapping Pentagon R&D funds to pay the troops doesn’t run afoul of the ADA because there is clearly money available. It’s the “purpose” of it that’s in question, and Congress’ intention in providing Pentagon appropriations, including for two fiscal years, was to have a functioning military.

When there is a functioning military personnel account, that’s what would fund salaries, the White House argues. So when those accounts have no money, it has to come from somewhere else.

And the president’s constitutional duties as commander in chief adds to this being a special case, which Trump alluded to in his “national security memorandum” laying out the troop funding maneuver on Wednesday. The president has identified a need for that money to carry out his duty to defend the nation, the thinking goes.

Other factors in the decision: the Pentagon couldn’t use “general transfer authority” to simply shift the R&D money into personnel accounts, because of a restriction on transferring money into expired accounts.

In addition, there’s a constitutional roadblock to tapping Pentagon funds appropriated in the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation package (PL 119-21), which many expected would be the source of cash to pay the troops.

Article I restricts Congress’ power “to raise and support Armies” to appropriations that are available for no more than two years, as the R&D funds appropriated in the fiscal 2025 spending law are. The money appropriated in reconciliation is available for five years, making that a no-go.

‘King’ Trump?

It’s such a politically unassailable move — ensuring the troops got paid on time, despite the shutdown — that the Trump administration knew going in that any on-the-record critiques would lead to swift recriminations.

Predictably, no Democrats have stepped up to publicly oppose the funding shift in and of itself. But some question the legality of it and argue it further undermines trust in the appropriations process.

“I don’t know that he’s got legal authority ... to do any of this,” Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., said Thursday. “We all want to pay the troops, but ... these complicated schemes to pay the troops that he’s using is just evidence of how badly they want to avoid negotiations.”

Even some Republicans are chafing a little at the erosion of lawmakers’ authority.

“It’s always preferable that Congress not only be consulted, but when it comes to appropriations, the Constitution requires the appropriations to be done by Congress,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who like Murphy is a senior Appropriations Committee member.

Bobby Kogan, a former Democratic budget aide, said Trump’s move to pay the troops using money that wasn’t appropriated for that purpose is “going to further neuter and further destroy our appropriations process.”

“At this point Trump is an appropriations king; he gets to do whatever he wants,” said Kogan, now with the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

As for Appropriations Committee members, Kogan said: “Obviously they have an existential question for themselves about what their job is.”

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(Peter Cohn and Aris Folley contributed to this report.)

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©2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. Visit at rollcall.com^[1]. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Hackers may be sitting on a massive trove of government credentials — including emails and passwords tied to the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, and U.S. Army — according to new research^[1] from NordVPN’s affiliate companies, NordPass and NordStellar.

The study found more than 53,000 passwords belonging to U.S. government employees exposed in publicly accessible databases and dark-web forums since early 2024. Among the most affected institutions include:

• Department of State – 15,272 exposed passwords
• Department of War (Defense) – 1,897 exposed passwords
• U.S. Army – 1,706 exposed passwords
• White House – Seven compromised passwords

One of the most commonly found passwords was “April@4142.” Researchers said it was the most widespread credential used by American civil servants.

“Exposure of sensitive data, including passwords of civil servants, is particularly dangerous,” Karolis Arbačiauskas, head of product at NordPass, said in a press release. “Such incidents may also pose serious risks to a country’s strategic interests.”

Leaked Passwords Reveal Wider Vulnerability

The research used NordStellar’s threat exposure management platform to analyze data from more than 5,500 government and municipal organizations across six countries, including the U.S., U.K., and Germany. It found that federal and local agencies alike remain vulnerable — from the Department of Veterans Affairs to state and city governments such as Illinois, Michigan, Utah, and Virginia Beach.

In total, NordPass identified 2,241 unique passwords among the 53,070 records, suggesting that many were reused across multiple accounts—or by multiple users—a known cybersecurity red flag.

“You can have state-of-the-art firewalls and zero-trust systems,” Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN, told Military.com. “But if employees reuse passwords, it defeats the purpose.”

The research also found passwords linked to NASA, the CIA, and the Government of the District of Columbia, further underscoring the exposure of government-affiliated credentials beyond traditional defense and diplomatic agencies.

U.S. Agencies Respond

A Department of State official told Military.com that the department has no record of receiving a notification from NordVPN regarding the reported exposure.

However, a State Department spokesperson said, “State is committed to cybersecurity across the department and we have instituted MFA (multi-factor authentication) and regularly rotate credentials to strengthen our safeguards against potential threats.”

A Department of Defense spokesperson referred Military.com to the U.S. Department of the Army for comment.

Military.com reached out to the Army as well as the White House for comment.

Nord Security’s Broader Findings

NordPass emphasized that the number of leaked passwords doesn’t necessarily equate to weak internal defenses.

“Larger organizations, with more employees, naturally have a bigger digital footprint,” Arbačiauskas said. “Sometimes a single malware infection on a personal device or the compromise of a popular third-party site can expose dozens of accounts.”

The company added that many of the breaches did not originate from government servers, but rather from employees using work emails to register on external websites—such as retail or cloud services—which were later breached.

NordPass Recommendations

To help mitigate risks, NordPass outlined several security recommendations for public agencies.

They include using long, unique passwords (of at least 20 characters, or multi-word passphrases); never reusing credentials between personal and professional accounts; implementing organization-wide password policies and breach scanners; and enforcing MFA for all internal and external systems.

The Password Problem Money Can’t Fix

Even as federal agencies invest billions in zero-trust architecture and advanced cyber defenses, researchers say one of the biggest weaknesses remains human behavior.

Every reused password or neglected update provides an opening for threat actors, and even one compromised credential can cascade into a high-level breach.

“You may not always defend against an attacker’s tools,” Briedis said, “but you can defend against your own mistakes.”

Exploring the Power of the Ketogenic Diet

At the University of Missouri, researchers are exploring how these foods influence brain function. Their work focuses on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate eating plan known as the ketogenic diet. Early results suggest that this approach could not only support long-term brain health but also slow or even prevent cognitive decline, especially among individuals who face a higher genetic risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Inside the Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health building, Ai-Ling Lin, a professor in the School of Medicine, and doctoral student Kira Ivanich are examining how the ketogenic diet may benefit people with the APOE4 gene, which is the strongest known genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease.

In their recent study using mice, Lin and Ivanich found that females with the APOE4 gene developed healthier gut bacteria and showed higher brain energy levels when following a ketogenic diet compared to those on a high-carbohydrate diet. Males did not show the same improvement, suggesting that gender may influence who benefits most from this dietary approach.

How the Brain Uses Fuel

The key lies in how the brain produces its energy.

"When we eat carbs, our brains convert the glucose into fuel for our brains, but those with the APOE4 gene -- particularly females -- struggle to convert the glucose into brain energy, and this can lead to cognitive decline down the road," Ivanich said. "By switching to a keto diet, ketones are produced and used as an alternative fuel source. This may decrease the chance of developing Alzheimer's by preserving the health of brain cells."

These findings highlight the potential of "precision nutrition," an approach that adapts diets and interventions to fit a person's unique biology.

"Instead of expecting one solution to work for everyone, it might be better to consider a variety of factors, including someone's genotype, gut microbiome, gender and age," Lin said. "Since the symptoms of Alzheimer's -- which tend to be irreversible once they start -- usually appear after age 65, the time to be thinking about preserving brain health is well before then, so hopefully our research can offer hope to many people through early interventions."

Advancing Research Through Collaboration

Lin joined Mizzou in part for its collaborative environment and advanced imaging facilities located in the NextGen Precision Health building and at the University of Missouri Research Reactor.

"We can do a lot of things in-house here that at other places we would have to outsource," Lin said. "This is team science. The impact we make will be much better when we work together than by ourselves."

With cutting-edge imaging equipment and both research and clinical spaces under the same roof, the NextGen Precision Health building allows Mizzou to move quickly from preclinical models to human trials.

For Ivanich, that real-world impact is personal.

"When my grandmother got Alzheimer's, that sparked my interest in this topic, so being able to make an impact to help people preserve their brain health is very rewarding," she said. "With Mizzou being a leading research university and having a tight-knit community feel, I know I'm at the right place."

"Ketogenic diet modulates gut microbiota-brain metabolite axis in a sex-and genotype-specific manner in APOE4 mice" was published in the Journal of Neurochemistry.

Researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School, in a study published in BMJ Open and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), analyzed data from more than 33,000 individuals to create a personalized predictive model. This model enables healthcare professionals to estimate arm blood pressure more precisely using ankle readings (when compared with earlier approaches). To make the process easier to use, the team has also launched an online calculator that helps both clinicians and patients interpret ankle-based results.

Why Accuracy in Blood Pressure Measurement Matters

More than one billion people worldwide live with high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and kidney problems. Reliable measurements are crucial for diagnosing and managing the condition effectively.

Although blood pressure is typically measured on the upper arm, some people cannot have it taken there due to disability, limb loss, or conditions such as stroke. In such cases, readings are taken from the ankle. However, ankle measurements are usually higher than arm readings, and because treatment guidelines are based on arm data, this difference can lead to inaccurate diagnoses and inappropriate treatment decisions.

Improving Accuracy and Reducing Misdiagnoses

Professor Chris Clark, who led the research, explained: "Our new method will give a more accurate blood pressure reading for around two percent more people. This doesn't sound a big number but remember, around a third of adults have high blood pressure and once you get into your 60s it's more than half of the adults. The NHS Health Check Programme diagnoses 38,000 new cases annually in England alone, so two percent equates to 750 fewer potential misdiagnoses per year in England, and tens of thousands globally."

To achieve this, the researchers used statistical modeling on data from 33,710 people (mean age 58 years, 45 per cent female) across multiple countries. The analysis explored the relationship between arm and ankle blood pressures, developed a predictive equation for estimating arm values from ankle readings, and examined how ankle readings relate to important health outcomes (such as heart attack risk).

This advancement could help close a significant health gap by providing accurate and personalized blood pressure results for people who have been excluded from standard monitoring. It is estimated that up to 10,000 adults in the UK live with upper limb loss, while 75 per cent of the country's 1.3 million stroke survivors experience upper limb difficulties that can make arm-based measurements challenging or impossible.

The project received support from the Stroke Association and the Thalidomide Trust, two organizations advocating for people affected by these conditions.

Expert Reactions and Public Health Impact

Juliet Bouverie OBE, CEO of the Stroke Association, said: "Someone in the UK has a stroke every five minutes, with high blood pressure accounting for around half of those. Around two-thirds of stroke survivors will leave hospital with some form of disability, including paralysis in an arm, which can prevent getting accurate blood pressure readings from the affected limb. Many stroke survivors feel anxious about having another stroke, so receiving an accurate blood pressure reading in the ankle will not only provide benefits in the primary prevention of stroke, but importantly in easing the minds of stroke survivors who are already dealing with the devastating impact of stroke."

Professor Kevin Munro, Director of NIHR's Research for Patient Benefit Programme, said: "This research has identified an ingenious solution to an important problem -- finding a way to measure blood pressure for people who cannot have it monitored via the upper arm. Keeping track of blood pressure is a vital tool to help keep people healthy and this NIHR-funded research will help to spot high blood pressure and treat it even more widely."

The paper titled "Arm Based on LEg blood pressures (ABLE-BP): Can systolic ankle blood pressure measurements predict systolic arm blood pressure? An individual participant data meta-analysis from the INTERPRESS-IPD Collaboration" is published in BMJ Open.

The online calculator is available at: ABLE-BP Tool -- https://ablebp.research.exeter.ac.uk/^[1]

"Why should I not be able to have my blood pressure taken?"

TV presenter Sue Kent, 62 from Swansea, has an upper limb disability caused by the drug Thalidomide, which was prescribed to her mother during pregnancy. She has eight-inch arms which aren't big enough for blood pressure to be taken.

Sue said: "I rarely had my blood pressure taken when I was younger, but when I did, I used to have a really big cuff they would put around my thigh and take the blood pressure there. Whether it was accurate or not nobody worried, but I didn't seem to have blood pressure problems.

"But then I had a cataract operation, and somebody took my blood pressure from my ankle, and it was very high. They did it three times and every time it was high, and it made me very worried. They (medical staff) weren't worried and carried on and did the cataract operation, but I was quite distressed."

Sue was diagnosed with Meniere's disease in 2017, which is a rare inner ear condition which has left her partially deaf.

She said: "I was worried I was going to have a stroke because Meniere's can be an indicator the blood flow isn't going to the brain. I knew I couldn't have my blood pressure taken accurately, so I went privately to have dye injected to check everything was OK.

"As you get older blood pressure is an important indicator of so many things, including things that could be seriously wrong. Prodding about in the dark and guessing isn't really a safe thing to do. You need the right information about your blood pressure."

Sue hopes this new method could potentially help her and thousands of others like her have something most of us take for granted -- an accurate blood pressure reading.

She said: "Why should I not be able to have my blood pressure taken when it's available to most people and is a relatively simple thing to do?

"When you're disabled, you're more likely to die younger for a variety of reasons, so this resource tips the scales a bit more in our favor. This could put us on a level playing field with everybody else when it comes to blood pressure. It means reassurance and maybe an early diagnosis if something is wrong."

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The No. 1 cause of the damages and deaths from hurricanes is storm surge^[2].

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You didn’t ask for this. The AI simply knew your plans from scanning your calendar and email and decided to help. Later, you...