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Republicans on track to control all three branches of government

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Polymarket, the betting market that predicted the presidential election with remarkable accuracy, shows Republicans have a 97% chance of winning control of the House.

Republicans are on track to control all three branches of government for the first time since former President Donald Trump took the nation by surprise with his win in 2016.

Although many votes are left to be counted and Americans will not know the final results with certainty for days or possibly weeks, analysts generally agree that Republicans are favored to take the U.S. House of Representatives after already reclaiming the Senate.

A big development broke Thursday evening when media outlets called the tight Pennsylvania Senate race in favor of Republican Dave McCormick, who narrowly beat incumbent Sen. Bob Casey.

Republicans have now taken 53 seats in the Senate, winning four previously Democratic seats and securing the majority.

The Senate conversation has quickly pivoted to who will serve as majority leader.

“We have been given a mandate by the American people to support President Trump’s agenda and Make Washington WORK again,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., wrote on X. “I’m running to be the next Senate Majority leader to do just that.”

Republican Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas are also taking a shot at the leadership spot.

Polymarket, the betting market that predicted the presidential election with remarkable accuracy, shows Republicans have a 97% chance of winning control of the House.

Media tracking and groups’ analysis vary on how many seats Republicans have secured.

Real Clear Politics has Republicans with 212 seats, having picked up 1 so far, and Democrats with 199 seats.

The New York Times election analysts have Republicans at 210 seats, just 8 shy of a majority in the House with about 25 race outcomes left to be determined.

The Decision Desk HQ, which also analyzes results, has Republicans with 213 seats and Democrats with 200, and is projecting an 85% chance that Republicans will win the House.

Those uncalled races are scattered throughout the country, with many on the West Coast and in the Midwest.

House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Republicans are expecting to keep the House.

Republicans keeping the House will be a legislative boost to Trump but also likely keep him from the headache of facing another impeachment.

“House Republicans have been successful in securing critical flips in swing states including Pennsylvania and Michigan, while our battle-tested incumbents have secured re-election from coast to coast,” Johnson wrote on X. “The latest data and trends indicate that when all the votes are tabulated, Republicans will have held our majority, even though we faced a map with 18 Biden-won seats.”

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Daily Caller

Trump Orders Review Of Why U.S. Childhood Vaccination Schedule Has More Shots Than Peer Countries

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Emily Kopp

President Donald Trump will direct his top health officials to conduct a systematic review of the childhood vaccinations schedule by reviewing those of other high-income countries and update domestic recommendations if the schedules abroad appear superior, according to a memorandum obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“In January 2025, the United States recommended vaccinating all children for 18 diseases, including COVID-19, making our country a high outlier in the number of vaccinations recommended for all children,” the memo will state. “Study is warranted to ensure that Americans are receiving the best, scientifically-supported medical advice in the world.”

Trump directs the secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to adopt best practices from other countries if deemed more medically sound. The memo cites the contrast between the U.S., which recommends vaccination for 18 diseases, and Denmark, which recommends vaccinations for 10 diseases; Japan, which recommends vaccinations for 14 diseases; and Germany, which recommends vaccinations for 15 diseases.

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a critic of the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule.

The Trump Administration ended the blanket recommendation for all children to get annual COVID-19 vaccine boosters in perpetuity. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary and Chief Medical Officer Vinay Prasad announced in May that the agency would not approve new COVID booster shots for children and healthy non-elderly adults without clinical trials demonstrating the benefit. On Friday, Prasad told his staff at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research that a review by career staff traced the deaths of 10 children to the COVID vaccine, announced new changes to vaccine regulation, and asked for “introspection.”

Trump’s memo follows a two-day meeting of vaccine advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in which the committee adopted changes to U.S. policy on Hepatitis B vaccination that bring the country’s policy in alignment with 24 peer nations.

Total vaccines in January 2025 before the change in COVID policy. Credit: ACIP

The meeting included a presentation by FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Tracy Beth Høeg showing the discordance between the childhood vaccination schedule in the U.S. and those of other developed nations.

“Why are we so different from other developed nations, and is it ethically and scientifically justified?” Høeg asked. “We owe our children science-based recommendations here in the United States.”

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Energy

Senate votes to reopen Alaska Coastal Plain to energy leasing

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The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to overturn a Biden-era policy that restricted oil and gas drilling in most of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge’s Coastal Plain, advancing a Trump administration effort to open the area to energy development.

In a 49-45 vote, the Senate passed a resolution overturning a 2024 Interior Department plan that would have limited oil and gas lease sales to about 400,000 acres within the 1.56-million-acre Arctic Wildlife Refuge. One Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, voted with Democrats to oppose the resolution. The legislation is now on the president’s desk awaiting signature.

Federal lease sales in Alaska will now revert to a framework developed in 2020 by the Trump administration that had opened most of the Coastal Plain to oil and gas development. In October, the Interior Department said it would move to restore lease sales to the entire Coastal Plain as part of Trump’s U.S. energy dominance agenda.

The president’s One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in July, includes provisions mandating six oil and gas lease sales in the Cook Inlet Planning Area in Alaska’s federal waters between 2026 and 2032, compared to two auctions covering the same area during the Biden administration.

Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation introduced and cosponsored the legislation. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said after the vote that a return to “balanced management” on the Coastal Plain will support U.S. energy independence.

Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, a group formed in 1988 by Alaska Natives opposed to oil drilling on the Coastal Plain, said the Senate vote ignored local concerns. The group has said the Coastal Plain is a critical habitat for Porcupine caribou.

“This action from DC ignores years of consultation and communication with our Gwich’in communities that rely on this landscape for not only our subsistence and survival, but also our culture and spiritual health and well-being,” Moreland said on the group’s website. “We stand united in our opposition to any oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge and will continue to fight this effort from the Trump administration and decision-makers who ignore our voices.”

Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, also said the vote prioritizes energy production over wildlife protections.

Groups supporting the push to open the Refuge to energy production include Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose members include leaders living in the North Slope region; Kaktovik Iñupiat Corp, the village corporation for Kaktovik, the only community located within the coastal plain; and North Slope Borough, a local government organization in Alaska that supports resource development to fund essential services like schools, infrastructure and emergency services.

As mandated by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2017, the first-ever lease sale of tracts in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge occurred on Jan. 6, 2021.

Seven of the nine bids accepted at the 2021 auction went to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state-owned corporation, but those leases were canceled by the Biden administration in September 2023.

In March 2025, a U.S. District Court judge ruled the Biden administration had failed to follow the congressionally mandated procedure before canceling the leases, and ordered the Interior Department to vacate the cancelation.

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