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Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities overnight on June 21–22 followed a highly intricate plan that entailed more than 125 U.S. aircraft and warships and layers of deception, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a Pentagon news briefing.

Hegseth said preparation for the mission—dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer—took place over the course of weeks and months, “so that we could be ready when the president of the United States called.”

The U.S. strikes were made a week after Israel launched a series of surprise airstrikes across Iran, aimed at degrading the country’s nuclear programs and military capabilities.

Joining the conflict that Israel initiated, U.S. military planners set Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility as their primary target. With the Fordow facility situated hundreds of feet underground in a mountainous region of Iran, U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bombers carrying 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs, called GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators, offered one of the best options to destroy the facility.

Illustration by The Epoch Times

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the operation was the longest B-2 bomber mission since 2001, the second longest B-2 mission ever flown, and the first operational use of the GBU-57 bombs.

The Timeline

At the June 22 news briefing, Pentagon personnel presented a timeline for Operation Midnight Hammer.

• The operation began just after midnight Eastern time on June 21, as seven B-2 bombers departed Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, heading east on their way to Iran.

• The B-2 bombers received refueling support from dozens of aerial refueling aircraft along their journey across the Atlantic Ocean and over the Mediterranean Sea.

• The seven U.S. bombers reached the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility at about 5 p.m. Eastern time on June 22. Just before these bombers entered the Central Command area, U.S. submarines began launching Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.

• U.S. fighter jets flew ahead of the bombers, and the airstrike package entered Iranian airspace at approximately 6 p.m. Eastern time.

(Left) A satellite image shows vehicles at the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility in Iran on June 20, 2025. (Right) A satellite image shows the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, where multiple buildings were destroyed during recent Israeli airstrikes, in Iran on June 14, 2025. Maxar Technologies via AP

• As they flew ahead, U.S. fighter jets began preemptively suppressing Iranian air defense systems around the Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, clearing the way for the bomber crews.

• At approximately 6:40 p.m. Eastern time, the lead bomber crews reached the Fordow nuclear facility and dropped two GBU-57 bombs. Over the next 20 minutes, the rest of the bomber crews dropped their payloads over Fordow and Natanz.

• The sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles reached the third and final target, Iran’s Isfahan nuclear facility, and concluded the strike operation at approximately 7:05 p.m. Eastern time.

• The B-2 bomber crews exited the Iranian airspace at approximately 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.

As he delivered remarks on the strikes on the morning of June 22, Hegseth said U.S. air crews were still returning to the United States.

US Drops 14 Heavy Bunker Busters

After the lead bomber dropped its two GBU-57 bombs, the remaining six B-2 bombers each released two of their own heavy bunker busters over the Fordow and Natanz facilities.

In total, these bomber crews dropped 14 bunker buster bombs.

Airmen look at a GBU-57, or the massive ordnance penetrator bomb, at Whiteman Air Base in Missouri on May 2, 2023. Seven B-2 bombers on June 21, 2025, departed Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities. U.S. Air Force via AP, File

Submarines Launch More Than 2 Dozen Tomahawks

Detailing the operation, Caine said the U.S. submarines involved in the strikes began firing “more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets at Isfahan.”

The air and sea components of the U.S. strike package were carefully sequenced so that the Tomahawk missile impacts could coincide with the narrow time frame of the rest of the strike package.

Decoys and Deception

The U.S. strike operation entailed several elements of deception in order to misdirect Iran’s defenses.

While the bomber crews responsible for conducting the strikes flew east from Whiteman Air Force Base, Caine announced that some bombers were headed west over the Pacific Ocean.

An operational timeline of a strike on Iran is displayed following a news conference with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on June 22, 2025. Caine also announced that some bombers headed west over the Pacific Ocean as decoys. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Caine said it was “a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa.”

The top U.S. general said U.S. forces employed other deception tactics in the course of the mission, but did not specify what those tactics were.

More Than 125 US Aircraft Used

More than 125 military aircraft participated in Operation Midnight Hammer, according to Caine.

He said this included the B-2 stealth bombers, “multiple flights of fourth and fifth generation fighters,” and “dozens and dozens of air refueling tankers.”

A B-2 Spirit stealth bomber performs a flyover of Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, on May 8, 2020. Jeff Roberson, File/AP

No Shots Fired by Iran

Emphasizing the surprise nature of the operation, Caine said the U.S. military is unaware of any Iranian forces firing on the U.S. warplanes during the mission.

“Iran’s fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran’s surface-to-air missile systems did not see us throughout the mission,” Caine added. “We retained the element of surprise in total.”

Hegseth also said the capabilities and coordination demonstrated by the U.S. forces during the operation will be a key factor dissuading Iran from retaliating.

“We believe that’ll have a clear psychological impact on how they view the future, and we certainly hope they take the path of negotiated peace,” Hegseth said. “But I could not be more proud of how this building operated, of the precision, the sensitivity, and the professionalism of the troops involved in this effort.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (L), accompanied by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, takes a question from a reporter during a news conference at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on June 22, 2025. President Donald Trump gave an address to the nation on June 21 after three Iranian nuclear facilities were struck by the U.S. military. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Damage Assessments Ongoing

Hegseth said Operation Midnight Hammer was launched in order to destroy or “severely degrade Iran’s nuclear program.”

The full extent of the damage inflicted on Iran’s three nuclear facilities cannot be independently confirmed at this time. Still, Caine provided an optimistic early outlook.

“I know that battle damage is of great interest,” Caine said. “Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.”

In a statement shared by Iran’s state-run PressTV shortly after the U.S. strikes, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran vowed it would continue its work. The Iranian nuclear agency also urged the international community to condemn the attack.

Vice President JD Vance said that he believes the U.S. airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites have set back the regime’s nuclear program.

“I feel very confident that we have substantially delayed their development of a nuclear weapon, and that was the goal of this attack. That’s why it was a success,” Vance said on June 22 on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I think that we have really pushed their program back by a very long time. I think that it’s going to be many, many years before the Iranians are able to develop a nuclear weapon.”

Prior to the strikes, Israel said that Iran could be just weeks away from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while President Donald Trump had said Iran was weeks to months away from a nuclear bomb.

A massive heat dome is driving temperatures to the high 90s or even into triple-digit territory across more than three dozen states—from the Plains to the Mid-Atlantic and New England—threatening to strain the nation’s largest power grid through midweek.

PJM Interconnection, the operator of the largest U.S. power grid serving 65 million people across 13 states and D.C., has issued a “Maximum Generation Alert” for Monday, ordering all available power generation to run at full capacity to ensure power demand is met during peak hours amid tightening conditions. 

Why the alert?

• Persistent heat across PJM’s 13-state region is pushing demand to summer highs.

What PJM did:

• Issued a Maximum Generation Alert and NERC EEA-1 for June 23 – a heads-up that every available generator may be called to run at full output.

• Simultaneously issued a Load Management Alert to prep demand-response resources (both non-emergency and emergency).

Who needs to act?

• Generators / transmission owners – defer routine maintenance or testing so units stay online; be ready for possible export curtailments.

• Neighboring grids – warned that PJM exports could be limited.

• Retail customers – no action required unless a formal demand-response event is later declared.

Load forecast (entire RTO):

• June 23: ~160 GW

• June 24: ~158 GW

• June 25: ~155 GW

“This alert was issued in anticipation of tight conditions on the 13-state system as electricity demand is set to top 160 gigawatts on the afternoon of June 23, which would be the highest peak since July 2011,” Bloomberg wrote in a note, adding, “The Eastern US grid operator also called a “maximum generation emergency” to shore up supplies.” 

In its 6–10 day temperature outlook map, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts above-average temperatures across much of the eastern half of the U.S. through the end of the month.

Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York could experience mercury rising above 100°F for a few days through Tuesday.

None of this should come as a surprise to readers: we’ve extensively covered PJM’s repeated warnings, shared a Goldman Sachs note highlighting that the grid is “getting critically tight,” and urged those at risk to consider adding backup power generation at home.

Authored by Gary Abernathy via The Empowerment Alliance,

When the government abuses its powers in pursuit of far-left political goals at the expense of commonsense policies, entire states and regions often suffer.

Such was the case in recent years when numerous projects centered on traditional energy were derailed by environmental extremists who leveraged the tools of government to erect roadblock after roadblock. Most famously, the Biden administration canceled the Keystone XL project in 2021, which was designed to carry 830,000 barrels of oil sands crude per day from Alberta to Nebraska.

Rather than play losing hands dealt from stacked decks, frustrated energy companies eventually began pulling the plug on one project after another, all to the detriment of businesses and families. Meanwhile, the government artificially propped up wind and solar projects, promoting energy sources that raided taxpayer wallets and were more expensive, less reliable and less efficient than traditional sources of energy.

Among the natural gas pipeline projects that ground to a halt were the Constitution and the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipelines, both designed to transport natural gas to New York. Activists agitated against the projects, often centering their arguments on supposed clean water concerns and the alleged dangers of fracking. Even though the fracking was happening in Pennsylvania – and the projects had received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – New York state officials ultimately caved to the pressure from the far left and denied permits.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) was a leader among the anti-pipeline forces. In 2019, Cuomo had “signed into law the state’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” as NPR previously reported. Of the pipeline efforts, Cuomo pledged that “any way that we can challenge it, we will.”

After years of costly battles – and in the face of New York regulatory officials and politicians determined to stand in their way – company officials threw their hands in the air and gave up on the Constitution project in 2020, doing the same just a year ago in regard to the NESE pipeline.

Environmental groups were ecstatic. When the Constitution project shut down, Earthjustice staff attorney Moneen Nasmith said, “At this critical moment for our climate, we cannot afford unnecessary fossil fuel projects that will lead to more fracking and exacerbate our climate crisis.”

As evidenced by increasingly frequent blackouts and faulty grid performances, the so-called “alternatives” favored by self-labeled “environmental groups” have proven to be poor substitutes for affordable and reliable traditional energy resources. Among those resources, natural gas leads the way in both cost effectiveness and cleanliness. Natural gas has become increasingly “green” with a low carbon footprint compared to other fossil fuels.

Shutting down the natural gas pipeline projects led to predictable consequences – a shortage of gas in New York and New England, leading to understandable worries about sustaining reliable energy. As demonstrated by the blackout that hit Spain, Portugal and parts of France in late April, natural gas is essential to producing electricity and rescuing residents from grid failures caused by the weaknesses of wind and solar.

But there’s renewed hope for New York and the surrounding region. Because of the Trump administration’s posture favoring traditional energy sources, the Williams Companies – owners of the Constitution and NESE pipeline projects – announced in late May that they are working with government officials to revive both projects.

The news came after some savvy maneuvering by U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and a less severe attitude by current Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul. Burgum had issued a stop-work order on an off-shore wind project near New York. He lifted that order last month – a move that Hochul requested – saying he was encouraged that Hochul “will allow new gas pipeline capacity to move forward,” according to Reuters.

For her part, Hochul “did not specifically endorse the gas pipes but said in a statement that New York would work with the U.S. administration and private entities on projects that meet the legal requirements under state law,” Reuters reported. If not an expression of full-throated support, Hochul’s position is a far cry from Cuomo’s previous pledge to oppose the project “any way that we can challenge it.”

A Williams official said the company has submitted a petition to federal regulators to get started again, and “has begun working through state permitting matters with environmental regulators in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York and will be promptly filing applications with those agencies to secure the necessary permits for advancing both the NESE and Constitution Pipeline projects.”

Time and again, opposition to traditional energy collides with stark reality, too often only after disaster strikes and officials are forced to turn to tried-and-true resources. The proactive measures by the Trump administration, and the tempered responses from some officials on the left who choose to acknowledge reality, just might be happening in time to avert the pending energy disasters facing the U.S. and other countries.

The New York pipeline saga is a microcosm of the challenges facing the country, thanks to the misguided priorities of the climate cult. Local government officials from coast to coast would be wise to acknowledge what New York officials seem to be realizing: Building the delivery system for natural gas is delivering on the promise of affordable and reliable energy for all.

Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation. Abernathy’s “TEA Takes” column will be published every Wednesday and delivered to your inbox!

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

Just over two months ago, the Rand Corporation released a study on the cost of producing multi-family housing in three states: California, Colorado, and Texas.

The results were paradoxically shocking, yet utterly predictable.

California, it turns out, is a ridiculous place, run by ridiculous people, with ridiculous regulations. Or, as the folks at Rand put it, “The average market-rate apartment in California is roughly two and a half times the cost of a similar apartment constructed in Texas on a square-foot basis—and regional differences within California, where costs in the San Francisco Bay Area are roughly 50 percent higher than costs in San Diego.” Additionally, “[t]he time to bring a project to completion in California is more than 22 months longer than the average time required in Texas.” According to Rand, the culprit for these grotesque disparities is, to no one’s surprise, the differences in regulatory burdens between Texas and California and between various jurisdictions within the (allegedly) Golden State.

Earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was forced to issue a threat to the government of California, warning the state that the federal government was considering rescinding future funding for its high-speed rail boondoggle. According to a department report, the federal government had released more than $7 billion to California for the project over the last several years, and it had, unsurprisingly, spent all of the money, yet somehow managed not to lay even a single foot of track. As The New York Post noted at the time, “the 800-mile rail line was supposed to be completed in two phases on a $33 billion budget by 2020.” Nevertheless, the proposed line has now been abbreviated to a mere 119 miles. Its budget has ballooned to nearly $130 billion, and it appears highly unlikely that it will be completed by its new 2033 deadline.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail project—in India, for crying out loud—began planning in 2014 and is moving along quite nicely. According to Newsweek, India Railways “reported that as of June 2025, more than 300 kilometers of elevated viaduct structures had been completed….Fourteen river bridges, seven steel bridges, and five prestressed concrete bridges are now finished.” More to the point, the project, which will span nearly 600 km, is expected to be fully completed by 2030 at the cost of a mere $15 billion.

As it turns out, when it comes to building things, California is not only not competitive with Texas, but it’s also not competitive with India, an actual, real-life Third World country. Once the economic engine that drove the nation, California is now an anchor, dragging everyone and everything down with it into the mire.

All of that said, it’s probably not fair to single out California here. These days, no American state—no city, no county, not even the federal government—could build a high-speed railroad on budget and on schedule. The federal government, with its massive military budget, struggles to build ships. Heck, it struggles even to maintain the ones it has. America just doesn’t build things or complete large, complex projects anymore. Or at least it doesn’t do them well or effectively. We used to build things, but we don’t anymore. Once upon a time—and not that long ago—we built the greatest system of roads ever known to man, spanning the entire continent, east-to-west and north-to-south. Now, the interstate system would never even be started, much less finished. Somehow, sometime along the way, American governments at all levels lost their ability to do or build much of anything.

The biggest part of the problem here can be summed up in one word: “bureaucracy.” Now, I know that just two weeks ago, in these very pages, I wrote that “For all the criticism it receives, bureaucracy remains the most rational and effective organizational structure known to man for the effective and efficient operation of large systems.” While this remains inarguably true, American government bureaucracy seems not to operate at all. It appears irrational, ineffective, and, at times, totally dysfunctional. But why?

The good news is that the problem with American bureaucracy is actually fairly easily diagnosed. The bad news is that this “problem” is entrenched in American administrative practice and is unlikely to be excised without concerted and prolonged effort.

In 1948, Dwight Waldo, an American political scientist, penned his magnum opus, a book titled The Administrative State. Waldo’s primary goal was to undermine the “neutrality” of American bureaucracy, to subvert the Wilsonian “politics-administration dichotomy” that had been characteristic of American administration since Woodrow Wilson famously expounded on its ideal characteristics. The dichotomy aligned American bureaucracy with Weberian theory and made the American administrative state like all others. It was imperfect, to say the least, mostly because it was undemocratic, but at least it worked. Until Waldo came along, that is.

The problem was that Waldo’s main objection to the politics-administration dichotomy was not based on the fact that it was undemocratic. Rather, his objection was to the idea that administration could be neutral or “scientific.” He believed that it was impossible, in the application of administration, to distinguish between “value” and “fact.” What this meant in practice was that “effective” administrators would not be able to act neutrally, in Waldo’s vision, as they did everywhere else. Instead, they would have to apply their “values” to bureaucratic decision-making. This, in turn, was taken as a license by administrators and, more to the point, those who taught administrators to become values advocates, supporters of the application of largely left-leaning values to the administration of the state.

In 2018, on the 70th anniversary of The Administrative State and the 50th anniversary of Waldo’s famous Minnowbrook Conference, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, remembered the man and his contributions, noting that “Waldo’s 1948 book challenged the idea that public administration is value-neutral, performed in a dispassionate, almost mechanical manner. He argued that public servants should become active, informed, politically savvy agents of change” [emphasis added]. George Frederickson, a public administration professor at the University of Kansas and the organizer of the “Minnowbrook II” conference in 1988, told the Maxwell School magazine that Waldo’s contributions included “three lasting themes in PA: social equity; democratic administration; and proactive, advocating, non-neutral public administration.” In short, Waldo changed everything.

By the late 1960s, it had become accepted practice, but only in the United States, for public administrators to see themselves as value advocates and social justice warriors. And within a decade or so, that attitude had become profoundly ingrained among bureaucracies at all levels of government, throughout the country. Unsurprisingly, not long thereafter, American governments became incapable of doing much of anything.

The Waldo-revolution turned what should have been executive-dependent, value-neutral, efficient bureaucracies into left-wing social justice machines. Not only does that explain the American bureaucracy’s overall dysfunction, but it also explains why politically left-leaning jurisdictions like California are even worse off than most places. Just as with their politicians, their bureaucrats adhere to different values—or cling to the same values more firmly and unrelentingly—making everything dysfunctional to the point of collapse.

The bottom line is that if the United States wants to compete in the twenty-first century, it will have to do something about its bureaucracies. The administrative state is massive and overgrown, to be sure, but more than that, it’s guided by its own values, which render it hopelessly ineffective and, ironically, radically undemocratic. Cutting it—at all levels—would be a start, but it won’t be the end. The whole concept has to be reformed from top to bottom, with the application of “social equity” and other highly subjective values purged from both practice and theory.

On Sunday morning Russia’s former president and current deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev issued his reaction to the major US overnight strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, giving what’s essentially the view of where things stand from the Kremlin.

Medvedev in a ten-point list of reactions characterized the attacks as ultimately ineffective, and that it will blow back on America and Israel in a way opposite than intended, especially as Tehran will now only push harder for a nuke, and allied countries might now simply be willing to supply them to the Iranians, he described.

Interestingly, Medvedev has also echoed Moscow’s stance on nuclear warheads in the Middle East, and has written over the weekend on his VKontakte page, “Does Iran have nuclear weapons? We don’t know, but we know that Israel has a secret nuclear program. Well, let them both renounce such programs under the supervision of the UN Security Council and the IAEA.” 

As for the ten-point critique of the brazen US heavy bombing of the Islamic Republic, Medvedev wrote on X as follows…

“What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran?” he first posed, before listing [emphasis ZH]:

1. Critical infrastructure of the nuclear fuel cycle appears to have been unaffected or sustained only minor damage.

2. The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue.

3. A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.

4. Israel is under attack, explosions are rocking the country, and people are panicking.

5. The US is now entangled in a new conflict, with prospects of a ground operation looming on the horizon. 

6. Iran’s political regime has survived — and in all likelihood, has come out even stronger.

7. The people are rallying around the country’s spiritual leadership, including those who were previously indifferent or opposed to it.

8. Donald Trump, once hailed as ‘president of peace,’ has now pushed the US into another war.

9. The vast majority of countries around the world oppose the actions of Israel and the United States.

10. At this rate, Trump can forget about the Nobel Peace Prize — not even with how rigged it has become.

Medvedev actually finished his point #10 with a sarcastic dig at the US leader, writing “What a way to kick things off, Mr. President. Congratulations!”

This certainly complicates things in terms of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Moscow has long received its major supply of Shahed ‘Kamikaze’ drones from Iran, and has ongoing defense contracts and agreements, including possibly to receive mid-range missiles. Washington is ‘flexing’ in Moscow’s direction with this major long-range B-2 bomber military operation on the other side of the world.

RT is currently joining Iran’s IRNA news in greatly downplaying the US bomber raids:

❗️Iran reporter finds Trump’s strikes a NOTHINGBURGER

Only smoke from Fordow air defense, not nuclear site. Zero significant emergency activity

Trump’s ‘spectacular’ bombing just for show? pic.twitter.com/CrJ5slwK0J

— RT (@RT_com) June 22, 2025

However, Washington is clearly targeting Iran as part of a new ‘axis’ – which some US defense officials have previously described as consisting of Russia, Iran, and North Korea. But to some degree Trump likely went full ‘bombs away’ on Iran because it’s the weaker country among the three, and such an attack was ‘easy’ – whereas it would be impossible to attack Russia or North Korea without triggering potential nuclear war.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who regularly presented data to the agency’s vaccine advisory panel has resigned.

Dr. Fiona Havers told The New York Times that she resigned from the CDC on June 16 because she disagrees with the approach to vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“If it isn’t stopped, and some of this isn’t reversed, like, immediately, a lot of Americans are going to die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases,” Havers said.

Kennedy’s approach so far has included the narrowing of COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and the removal of all members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Kennedy has since named eight new members to the panel, which provides advice on immunizations to the CDC.

“I could not be party to legitimizing this new committee,” Havers told The New York Times. “I just no longer had confidence that the data that we were generating was going to be used objectively.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Havers frequently presented to the ACIP on COVID-19 developments.

A request for comment to Havers’s email returned an automated message that stated, “I am no longer at CDC.”

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email that “under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is committed to following the gold standard of scientific integrity.”

The spokesperson added, “Vaccine policy decisions will be based on objective data, transparent analysis, and evidence—not conflicts of interest or industry influence.”

The resignation followed the replacement of Dr. Melinda Wharton, a CDC employee who served as ACIP’s executive secretary.

Wharton, who did not respond to requests for comment, still works for the CDC as an associate director for vaccine policy, according to her LinkedIn and the HHS employee directory.

A spokesperson for the HHS in an email to The Epoch Times confirmed that Wharton was replaced by Mina Zadeh, who has worked for the CDC since 2000, most recently in the CDC director’s office on scheduling, and holds a doctorate in evaluation.

Zadeh “brings unparalleled experience, strategic insight, and commitment to scientific excellence to the ACIP,” the spokesperson said.

The draft agenda for the next ACIP meeting, which includes presentations on COVID-19, does not list Havers as a presenter. It states that Dr. Adam Macneil and Dr. Georgina Peacock will present on some aspects of COVID-19, while the presenters on other aspects have yet to be determined.

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. military is prioritizing the protection of its bases in the country from drone attacks after Ukraine launched a surprise attack against Russia earlier this month and Israel is suspected of using the same strategy against Iran.

The Ukraine attack destroyed at least 10 of Moscow’s limited supply of long-range heavy bombers, which are a critical component of Russia’s nuclear capability.

Israel is suspected to have smuggled drone parts into Iran and assembled them before using the drones to attack Tehran’s ballistic missile launchers and silos from within.

U.S. military leaders are increasingly concerned that similar attacks, which leverage low-cost commercial drones against expensive weapons systems, could pose a lasting threat to bases and critical infrastructure throughout the country.

However, the Army and other service branches are struggling to design and deploy appropriate technologies to defend bases on U.S. soil, owing to variables that don’t need to be considered in a war zone.

“How we’re going to [defend bases] in a combat zone is very different from how we would do that in the states, obviously,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said at a House Armed Services Committee on June 4.

One key factor is the Byzantine patchwork of local, state, and federal laws governing drone flights and the military’s own rules of engagement.

Whereas officers at an outpost overseas might simply engage with an unidentified drone approaching their base before any potential harm can occur, the military lacks the authority to engage with drones on U.S. soil, unless those drones directly enter a facility’s airspace.

Even then, options are limited.

The use of kinetic systems that would simply shoot down a drone are out of the question on American soil, according to military personnel, as they are not cost-effective, and would also run the risk of injuring civilians or damaging property when the debris fell to the ground.

That issue highlights the other key factor confounding military planners: A lack of counter-drone systems customized to deal with emergent threats to bases in the United States without endangering civilians.

While the military, and federal government, do have electromagnetic weapons that can knock out drones by interfering with their electrical and navigational systems, these weapons are typically poorly suited to an environment rich in aerial traffic because they affect all electronic systems within a given area.

Such an issue was laid bare on March 1, when more than a dozen flights on final approach to the Reagan National Airport outside Washington received false collision warnings, prompting at least six flights to abort their landings.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) later stated that the false positives were caused by government testing of counter-drone technology near the airport.

Because of that weakness in the system, the Army is now exploring the use of directed energy weapons in its counter-drone operations.

Many such systems, including variants of weapons using lasers, microwaves, and particle and sound beams, are still in development, but they bring their own problems because of high energy consumption.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon’s newest counter-drone weapons would need to draw 100 kilowatts of power to fire a laser in a counter-drone capacity.

That’s more power than the average American household uses in three days, and that figure does not include the additional power requirements for cooling the significant amount of heat generated by such weapons.

It makes defending military installations on U.S. soil from drone attacks an infrastructure problem as well as a defense problem.

New Energy Sources

Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, who also spoke at the hearing, said the directed energy requirements for defending U.S. bases and supply chains from future drone attacks simply can’t be met with today’s power systems.

“For a lot of the tools that are coming out, directed energy, for example, they have incredible energy requirements,” Driscoll said.

“You’re going to have to have spikes of energy come through the lines that just are not set up. The current technology is not sufficient for it.”

The key to solving the nation’s directed energy issues is in the creation of nuclear microreactors, small modular nuclear reactors that would generate power for an individual base and its weapons, he said.

Driscoll’s push toward nuclear power matches an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last month directing the Army to deploy a nuclear reactor at a U.S. base by 2028.

“Advanced nuclear reactors include … small modular reactors, microreactors, and stationary and mobile reactors that have the potential to deliver resilient, secure, and reliable power to critical defense facilities and other mission capability resources,” the order reads.

Read the rest here…