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U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly deteriorated in June as households increasingly worried about job availability, another indication that labor market conditions were softening against the backdrop of rising economic uncertainty because of the Trump administration's tariffs.

The ebb in confidence reported by the Conference Board on Tuesday was across all age cohorts and nearly all income groups. It was also across the political spectrum, with the largest decline among Republicans.

Consumers remained pre-occupied with the import duties and were mostly undecided on big-ticket purchases. There was a decline in the share expecting their incomes to increase, though perceptions of the current financial situation remained solid.

A review on the use of the preservative thimerosal in vaccines slated to be presented on Thursday to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's outside vaccine committee cites a study that does not exist, the scientist listed as the study's author said.

The report, called "Thimerosal as a Vaccine Preservative" published on the CDC website on Tuesday, is to be presented by Lyn Redwood, a former leader of the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense.

It makes reference to a study called "Low-level neonatal thimerosal exposure: Long-term consequences in the brain," published in the journal Neurotoxicology in 2008, and co-authored by UC Davis Professor Emeritus Robert Berman.

But according to Berman, "it's not making reference to a study I published or carried out."

China's auto industry has inflated car sales for years through a burgeoning government-backed grey market that registers new cars right off the assembly line and then ships them overseas as "used" vehicles.

These so-called "zero-mileage" cars have never been driven but they are being exported as used to markets like Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East, allowing Chinese automakers to show growth and to dispose of cars that it would be difficult to sell domestically, according to a Reuters review of government documents and interviews with five auto dealers and car traders.

"This is the outcome of an almost-four-year price war that has made companies desperate to book any sales possible," said Tu Le, Michigan-based founder of consultancy Sino Auto Insights.

Decline blamed on health inequalities, COVID disruption and soaring levels of misinformation and hesitancy

Millions of children worldwide are at risk of lethal diseases because vaccine coverage has stalled or reversed amid persistent health inequalities and soaring levels of misinformation and hesitancy, the largest study of its kind has found.

Major progress in rolling out jabs to billions of children in all corners of the globe over the last five decades has prevented the deaths of 154 million children, according to an analysis published in the Lancet.

But since 2010, progress has stalled or reversed in many countries. Measles vaccination rates have fallen in 100 of 204 countries, while coverage for at least one dose against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio or tuberculosis has declined in 21 of 36 high-income countries – including France, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.

The reversal, further exacerbated by the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, has left millions of children vulnerable to preventable diseases and death, the authors of the study led by the University of Washington in Seattle said.

Findings by Defense Intelligence Agency suggest Trump’s declaration that sites were ‘obliterated’ may be overstated

An initial classified US assessment of Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend says they did not destroy two of the sites and likely only set back the nuclear program by a few months, according to two people familiar with the report.

The report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency – the intelligence arm of the Pentagon – concluded key components of the nuclear program, including centrifuges, were capable of being restarted within months.

The report also found that much of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be put to use for a possible nuclear weapon was moved before the strikes and may have been moved to other secret nuclear sites maintained by Iran.

A Norwegian tourist has accused American authorities of denying him entry into the U.S. because he had a popular meme of JD Vance saved on his phone.

Mads Mikkelsen, 21, told his hometown newspaper Nordlys that he was subjected to “abuse of power and harassment” by officials at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Mikkelsen claims that immigration officials stopped him for questioning and quizzed him “about drug trafficking, terrorist plots, and right-wing extremism,” all of which he said was “totally without reason.” He says he was placed in a holding cell.

A plan to sell more than 2 million acres of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.

Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.

For social justice activist Glenn Harris, Donald Trump’s statement on Juneteenth, arguing there are “too many nonworking holidays in America” costing the country “billions of dollars,” was no surprise.

Harris said the comments coming on the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States were consistent with Trump’s most recent policies and practices working against people of color.

“In many ways it’s just a continuation of this administration’s attempt to erase the civil rights, free speech and literally the history of Black and brown people,” said Harris, who is president of Race Forward.

JD Vance has suggested Iran’s estimated 400kg (882lb) stockpile of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, remains intact despite the recent US bombing campaign against Iran.

On Monday, the vice-president told Fox News that the location of the uranium “is not the question before us”, and said the relevant question was: “Can Iran enrich the uranium to weapons-grade level and can they convert that fuel into a nuclear weapon?”

The Iranian stockpile of uranium was believed to have been located mainly at Isfahan, which houses a conversion facility that turns uranium into the form that can be fed into centrifuges for enrichment.

Federal agencies are rehiring and ordering back from leave some of the employees who were laid off in the weeks after Donald Trump took office as they scramble to fill critical gaps in services left by the DOGE-led effort to shrink the federal workforce.

The Trump administration’s quiet backtracking from the firings and voluntary retirements — which are also paired with new hires to fill vacancies those departures created — come as federal agencies are still implementing their “reduction-in-force” plans as part of a push for spending cuts.

Experts warned that even though the Trump administration has backtracked on some of its efforts to shrink the federal workforce, the rapid rehirings are a warning sign that it has lost more capacities and expertise that could prove critical — and difficult to replace — in the months and years ahead.

Since the invasion of Ukraine prompted Helsinki to join NATO two years ago, tensions reminiscent of the Cold War have resurfaced along the forested 1,340-km frontier, Europe’s longest with Russia.

The provision was aimed at curbing nationwide injunctions imposed by judges that have blocked some high-profile Trump administration policies.

Senate Democrats forced the removal of a provision in Republicans' sweeping domestic policy bill that sought to restrict the power of courts to block federal government policies with injunctions or restraining orders.

Democrats are challenging a broad range of provisions in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" for compliance with Senate budget rules that Republicans are relying on to bypass the 60-vote hurdle in the chamber to advance most legislation.

A Democratic aide on the Senate Budget Committee confirmed that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, the in-house referee, ruled the provision did not comply with the “Byrd rule,” which says provisions must be directly related to taxes or spending.