https://apnews.com/article/jim-oneill-cdc-kennedy-trump-vaccines-58fd24f678bf46ea6ec96a2b09f85ff4

Jim O’Neill, a former investor, critic of health regulations and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s deputy, is taking control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following a tumultuous week in which the agency’s director was forced out.

O’Neill was picked by President Donald Trump to be the CDC’s interim director, supplanting Susan Monarez, a longtime government scientist.

Monarez had been the CDC director for less than a month. Her lawyers said she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

O’Neill takes over an agency that has been rocked by firings, resignations and efforts by Kennedy to reshape the nation’s vaccine policies to match his long-standing suspicions about the safety and effectiveness of long-established shots.

O’Neill said Friday afternoon in a social media post that he looked forward to working with CDC staff and “announcing additions to the senior leadership in the weeks ahead.” He added that he would continue to serve as HHS deputy.

A former associate of billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, O’Neill previously helped run one of Thiel’s investment funds and later managed several of his other projects. Those included a nonprofit working to develop manmade islands that would float outside U.S. territory, allowing them to experiment with new forms of government.

He has no training in medicine or health care and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in humanities.

A Washington insider on a team of outsiders

O’Neill has kept a markedly lower profile than Trump’s other top health officials, all of whom joined the administration as Washington outsiders. He’s also the only one with experience working at HHS, where he served for six years under President George W. Bush.

5 Democrat politicians and operatives have been arrested in Connecticut's largest city for ballot fraud. Some were caught on video stashing stacks of ballots into boxes in 2023 during the Democrat primary.
One of them, a Democrat politician, was arrested in 2019 for doing the exact same thing.

At first I wondered how or why Democrat voters keep for these politicians, but at this point I can't even assume that's what's actually happening
https://apnews.com/article/bridgeport-connecticut-absentee-ballots-arrests-7ef2a642300273dbe0b5f4f9d270362d
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A city councilor in Connecticut was arrested Friday on 10 additional counts in connection with an investigation into absentee ballot tampering in the state’s largest city, officials said.

Bridgeport City Council member Alfredo Castillo was among five Democratic politicians and operatives charged earlier this year with tampering with absentee ballots in the 2023 Democratic primary election. Claims of misuse of the ballots spurred a court-ordered rerun of a mayoral primary and general election and helped fuel skepticism about the security of U.S. elections.

The new counts against Castillo include multiple counts of possession of restricted ballots and envelopes, failure to sign as assister on an absentee ballot and misrepresenting eligibility requirements for voting by absentee ballot, Chief State’s Attorney's office said

Frank Riccio, said he’ll “study the evidence the State claims it has and determine if their case holds water.”

Police have said that in the run-up to the 2023 primary, surveillance videos showed people on several occasions stuffing what appeared to be multiple absentee ballots into city collection boxes

Castillo and other defendants have also been accused of illegally helping voters fill out ballots and telling them who to vote for, according to arrest warrants.

Castillo was previously charged with similar absentee ballot crimes connected to the 2019 election.

> Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO-CoFP942g

https://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-reported-catholic-school-minneapolis-governor/story?id=125022493

> An 8-year-old and 10-year-old sitting in pews were killed when a shooter opened fire through the windows of a church at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, police said.

> Seventeen others were injured in the shooting during a Mass that marked the first week of school, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said.

> Fourteen of the injured victims were children ages 6 to 15, and the three adults who were shot were parishioners in their 80s, he said. All of those injured are expected to survive, O'Hara said.

> The shooter died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, O’Hara said. The FBI identified the shooter as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who was born Robert Westman.

> Driver's license information reviewed by ABC News described Westman as a female, born on June 17, 2002. A name change application for a minor born on the same date, June 17, 2002, was approved by a district court in Minnesota in 2020, changing the name of a Robert Westman to Robin Westman, explaining the minor child "identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification."

> The mass shooting unfolded just before 8:30 a.m. when the shooter approached the side of the building and fired a rifle through the church windows toward the children and other worshippers sitting in the pews, O’Hara said.

> Dozens of rounds were fired, the chief said, and he called it a "deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping."

Indian truck driver who crushed 16 young white male Candians to death is free after 4 years.

Indian migrant truck driver who killed 16 young white male Canadians in crash back on streets after completing tiny sentence... and now he's trying to stop his deportation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15018765/broncos-truck-crash-jaskirat-sidhu-deportation-parole-florida-crash.html

A truck driver who spent only four years behind bars after killing half a junior ice hockey team in a horror crash is fighting deportation to India.

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Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, 36, barreled through a stop sign at 53 to 60mph and a bus carrying 29 players and staff from the Humboldt Broncos couldn't stop in time.

The bus collided with the truck's front trailer, killing 16 and injuring 13 in the crash at about 5pm on April 6, 2018, in rural Saskatchewan, Canada.

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Sidhu was jailed for eight years in March 2019 but was released on parole after four years and four months behind bars.

He returned to his suburban life with his Canadian wife and the couple had a baby soon after he was released, who has severe heart and lung complications.

Sidhu's case is similar to that of Harjinder Singh, who killed three people when he made an illegal U-turn across two lanes of traffic on August 12.

His sentence and subsequent deportation battle may be a glimpse into the future for those affected by last week's tragedy on the Florida Turnpike.


https://www.cbc.ca/sports/humboldt-broncos-graysen-cameron-playing-for-those-guys-1.5550677
https://globalnews.ca/news/4137218/humboldt-broncos-bus-crash-myles-shumlanski/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/ptsd-first-responders-broncos-crash-code-orange-1.4610238
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/humboldt-crash-victims-alberta-1.4610340
https://globalnews.ca/news/4133425/survivors-humboldt-broncos-crash-critical-condition/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/nipawin-humboldt-bus-crash-1.4609835

The Maryland governor has frequently been floated as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
https://people.com/trump-claims-governor-wes-moore-privately-said-trump-is-the-greatest-president-of-moores-lifetime-11797336

President Donald Trump claimed that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore privately told him that he’s been “the greatest president” in the governor’s lifetime.

On Monday, Aug. 25, the president was speaking to reporters in the Oval Office about Maryland’s largest city, Baltimore, saying that the “horrible death bed” is filled with crime. As Trump, 79, continued, he remarked that he met Moore, 46, at the 2024 Army-Navy football game in mid-December in Landover, Md.

There, Trump claims Moore approached him. “He came over, he hugged me, he shook my hand. He said, ‘Sir, you are the greatest president in my lifetime,' " Trump claimed, adding that Moore allegedly told him, "'Sir, you’re doing a fantastic job. I just want to shake your hand.' "

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/26/politics/fema-workers-administrative-leave-katrina-declaration-trump
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/27/nx-s1-5476531/fema-hurricane-katrina-trump
https://apnews.com/article/fema-letter-dissent-staff-put-on-leave-4794981bba6415451add5423530159ec

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday placed several employees on administrative leave effective immediately, just one day after they signed an open letter warning Congress that the Trump administration’s sweeping overhaul of the agency could lead to catastrophic failures in disaster response.

Titled “Katrina Declaration,” the letter accuses President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, of undermining the agency’s capabilities, ignoring its congressionally mandated authority and appointing unqualified leadership. The group calls for FEMA to be shielded from political interference and for its workforce to be protected from politically motivated firings.

Of the more than 180 current and former FEMA staffers who signed the letter, most did so anonymously. Only 36 signed publicly, though it’s unclear how many were still employed when the letter was released.

Among them was Virginia Case, a supervisory management and program analyst, who told CNN she received notice Tuesday evening that she’d been placed on paid leave.

https://apnews.com/article/cdc-director-susan-monarez-50dfbec849b53b4593755d2e6e616687

The director of the nation’s top public health agency has been fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have resigned.

Susan Monarez isn’t “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesman Kush Desai said Wednesday night.

Her lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had announced her departure in a brief social media post late Wednesday afternoon. Her lawyers responded with a statement saying Monarez had neither resigned nor been told she was fired.

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.

“This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,” they said.

Her departure coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials. The list includes Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s deputy director; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.

In an email seen by The Associated Press, Houry lamented the crippling effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganization and firings.

Southwest Airlines had a policy where fat people could get an extra seat for free. Now that wokeness is dead, fat people have to pay for the extra seat again.

https://metro.co.uk/2025/08/27/southwest-airlines-changing-rules-plus-sized-passengers-24008196/

Southwest Airlines is rolling out a new rule for plus-sized travellers that could make fares significantly more expensive.

Passengers who can’t fit within the armrests of their seat will soon need to book an additional one before they fly.

The rule goes into effect on 27 January 2026 as part of a wider set of changes, including pre-assigned seats.

As it stands, plus-sized travellers have two options if they require extra room: they can either purchase an additional seat upfront and apply for a refund after flying, or request a complimentary seat at the airport.