DR. TRUMP PRESCRIBES: President Trump yesterday signed an executive order calling for American children to be immunized against fewer diseases with a longer schedule of shots.

  He offered no medical evidence to suggest the change.

  The order recommends immunizing children against 11 diseases, rather than the 17 currently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump said the order also “directs the attorney general to advance legal challenges against states that violate children’s rights to religious or medical vaccination exemptions.” 

   The President’s said he made the order in part out of concern that vaccines cause autism, a theory that has been knocked down by countless medical studies.

  The executive order does not carry the force of law but it may further confuse and frighten the public that in some cases is backing away from vaccines. That’s why measles is on the rise.

  The entire order is unsupported by medical reasoning and Trump offered some of his usual fictions. His order recommends splitting the vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella … the “MMR” …  into individual shots. “Together, there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal, and separately, it looks like they are not at all lethal, but just very effective,” Trump claimed.

  There’s no evidence that the MMR is lethal. 

  Trump also compared the volume of shots given to children to “the size of a bottle of soda” and “vats of vaccine.” He said, “Nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing.”

  All … of … this … is … completely … untrue.

RUSE: President Trump was secretly moved from one plane to another aboard a catering container to avoid threats to his life by Iran when he left Turkey after the NATO summit, The NY Times reports.

  The paper says Trump openly boarded one of the older Air Force One jets and then was moved from that plane to another to fly to Britain. Reporters and White House staff were left on the original plane, not knowing that Trump was no longer on board with them.

  In England, Trump secretly re-boarded Air Force One and then publicly got off the plane as if he had been on board the entire time.

NOR ANY DROP: Water levels in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir created by the Hoover Dam and a source of water for more than 25 million people across the Southwest, has been reduced to its lowest level ever by severe drought.

  The lake has a 100-foot tall white bathtub ring indicating how far the water level has dropped.

  Seven western states depend on the reservoir and water from the Colorado River for cities and agriculture. They have long argued over allocation of the water. After the states failed to reach an agreement, the Trump administration imposed an arrangement that would cut water allocated to the lower states,  Arizona, California, and Nevada. 

PROFILING: Body-camera footage, text messages and other documents produced in lawsuits from around the country reveal how immigration agents relied on race and ethnicity in the immigration dragnets in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and other major cities.

  Video shows agents ignoring white people while focusing on those of varying other colors.

  The NY Times reports that in some instances federal agents referred to targets as “tonks,” a derogatory term that comes from the sound of people being hit on the head with a baton or flashlight. Migrants suspected of being undocumented were described as “wet,” shorthand for the old slur “wetback” describing people who swam across the  Rio Grande to get into the US.

  It has long been considered settled law that enforcement officers could not question or detain someone solely based on their race or ethnicity. 

COLOMBIA QUAKE: At least 175 people are dead and the toll is expected to rise following a massive 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Colombia. Hundreds of buildings were damaged, some of the collapsing completely. Video shows people in the street as a church trembled before its spire fell.

  Search and rescue is underway as well as a call for food and supplies.

IT’S POLITICAL: As voters go to the polls today, Francesca Hong, a 37-year-old democratic socialist, state lawmaker and chef, is leading in the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin.

  A week after progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated a more moderate candidate in the Democratic primary for the in Michigan, other candidates are testing the appeal of progressivism. 

  The question is whether these progressive Democrats can beat MAGA Republicans. Wisconsin is a swing state in presidential elections and Minnesota has been a stronghold for Democrats over the last 20 years.

THE SPIN RACK: Wildfire smoke from Canada is once again pouring over the northern border in a trail stretching from east of Seattle through Chicago to New York and Washington. — A Syrian court sentenced the country’s former dictator Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia for murder, torture, and crimes against humanity. Assad fled to Russia with his British-born wife. — A former flight attendant from Toronto has pleaded guilty in US federal court to fraud after flying around the world for free for at least four years posing as a deadheading pilot. Dallas Pokornik, 34, is accused of taking hundreds of free flights on multiple airlines, and then posting about it on social media.

BELOW THE FOLD: Actor Brad Pitt admits that he is drinking against after going dry for seven years. Drinking contributed to his split from ex-wife Angelina Jolie. He told an interviewer, “I have to be professional about it.”

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