Anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr has launched his longshot bid to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination next year.
Mr Kennedy, a member of the country’s most famous political families who has in recent years been linked to far-right figures, started his campaign in Boston on Wednesday and likened it to the American revolution.
“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country,” he said.
Self-help author Marianne Williamson is also running in the Democratic race.
Mr Kennedy, a nephew of murdered president John F Kennedy and the son of his assassinated brother Robert F Kennedy, was once a bestselling author and environmental lawyer who worked on issues such as clean water.
But more than 15 years ago, he became fixated on a belief that vaccines are not safe.
He emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement and his work has been described by public health experts and even members of his own family as misleading and dangerous.
Mr Kennedy had been long involved in the movement, but the effort intensified after the Covid-19 pandemic and development of the coronavirus vaccine.
His anti-vaccine charity, Children’s Health Defence, prospered during the pandemic, with revenues more than doubling in 2020 to $6.8 million, according to filings with charity regulators.
Mr Kennedy's organisation has aimed false claims at groups that may be more prone to distrust the vaccine, including mothers and black Americans, experts have said, which could have resulted in deaths during the pandemic.
His push against the Covid-19 vaccine has linked him at times with anti-democratic figures and groups.
Mr Kennedy has appeared at events pushing the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and with people who cheered or played down the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
He has repeatedly invoked Nazis and the Holocaust when talking about measures aimed at mitigating the spread of Covid-19, such as mask requirements and vaccine mandates.
Mr Kennedy has sometimes apologised for those comments, including when he suggested that people in 2022 had it worse than Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp after hiding with her family in a secret annex in an Amsterdam house for two years.
He has at times used his family’s legacy in his anti-vaccine work, including sometimes using images of John F Kennedy.
His sister Kerry Kennedy, who runs Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, the international rights group founded by their mother Ethel, said her brother has at times removed some of the content at her request.
Ms Kennedy told AP in 2021 that her brother is “completely wrong on this issue and very dangerous".
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE%20Warriors%2033%20Results
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THREE
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The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
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The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Why are you, you?
Why are you, you?
From this question, a new beginning.
From this question, a new destiny.
For you are a world, and a meeting of worlds.
Our dream is to unite that which has been
separated by history.
To return the many to the one.
A great story unites us all,
beyond colour and creed and gender.
The lightning flash of art
And the music of the heart.
We reflect all cultures, all ways.
We are a twenty first century wonder.
Universal ideals, visions of art and truth.
Now is the turning point of cultures and hopes.
Come with questions, leave with visions.
We are the link between the past and the future.
Here, through art, new possibilities are born. And
new answers are given wings.
Why are you, you?
Because we are mirrors of each other.
Because together we create new worlds.
Together we are more powerful than we know.
We connect, we inspire, we multiply illuminations
with the unique light of art.
Ben Okri,
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
The years Ramadan fell in May
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Meydan Racecourse racecard:
6.30pm: The Madjani Stakes Listed (PA) | Dh175,000 | 1,900m
7.05pm: Maiden for 2-year-old fillies (TB) | Dh165,000 | 1,400m
7.40pm: The Dubai Creek Mile Listed (TB) | Dh265,000 | 1,600m
8.15pm: Maiden for 2-year-old colts (TB) | Dh165,000 | 1,600m
8.50pm: The Entisar Listed (TB) | Dh265,000 | 2,000m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) | Dh190,000 | 1,200m
10pm: Handicap (TB) | Dh190,000 | 1,600m.
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
Read more about the coronavirus
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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