Ouster of new CDC chief sparks walkout by top scientists

Ouster of new CDC chief sparks walkout by top scientists.

Shooting at Catholic school in Minneapolis kills two children, injures 17.

Nazi-looted painting vanishes after appearing in Argentina property listing.

Less than one month after her senate confirmation as Director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Susan Monarez is out. Monarez is an infectious disease specialist who has long worked for the federal government. She previously served as the CDC’s Acting Director before she was sworn in as Director on July 31. At this moment, it is unclear whether she resigned or was fired. Neither Monarez nor the Department of Health and Human Services have publicly explained her departure.

Citing unnamed sources, The Washington Post reports that Monarez angered HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., by refusing to sign off on new policies reflecting Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism. Following this disagreement, the Post reports that Kennedy asked Monarez to resign. Monarez reportedly enlisted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to push back on Kennedy’s demands, furth angering Kennedy. Ultimately, Kennedy told Monarez to resign or be fired, according to the Post.

Monarez had already shepherded the agency through one crisis. On August 8, a shooting at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters left a police officer dead and forced hundreds of employees into lockdown. The suspect blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his health problems. While President Trump made no comment on the shooting, Monarez tried to reassure her colleagues and made plans to enhance security.

Other top experts leave

Following the news of Monarez’s departure, four of the CDC’s top scientists and department heads have also resigned. They are: Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Jen Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology; and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

In an email to colleagues, Dr. Daskalakis said he was resigning due to “the ongoing weaponization of public health”. The departures signaled wider frustration in the CDC’s top echelon with Kennedy’s open hostility to longstanding public health policy and rejection of peer-reviewed medical science in favor of pseudoscience.

The CDC has quietly scaled back a program to track and monitor cases of foodborne illness.

FEMA suspends employees who warned Trump’s changes would leave Americans more vulnerable to Katrina-like emergency management failures.

Shooting at Catholic school in Minneapolis kills two children, injures 17

This morning, a shooter opened fire inside a church affiliated with the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, MN. Children were filing in for morning Mass services ahead of what would have been their third day of school this year. The shooter, who reportedly aimed for the pews where the children were sitting, killed 2 children aged 8 and 10. Seventeen others were injured, including 14 children, before the shooter committed suicide.

The accused shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, a trans woman believed to be in her early 20s. Court records show Westman’s parent applied to change Westman’s name from Robert to Robin in January 2020, when Westman would have been 17. Westman apparently left behind videos and a manifesto which apologized to her family and referenced suicide.

The incident is reminiscent of a 2023 shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, TN. A heavily-armed transgender man killed 3 students and 3 staff before killing himself. In that instance, the shooter was a former pupil at the school, but it remains unclear whether that played into the shooter’s motive.

Police have not revealed whether Westman or her family had any connection to the Annunciation School or its church, but they are investigating any potential connection.

After appearing in an Argentina property listing, a painting looted by the Nazis vanishes again

Investigative journalists for the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) made an astounding discovery after years of investigating the children of a Nazi official who fled to Argentina after WWII. AD journalist Peter Schouten recently traveled to Mar del Plata, Argentina, to attempt to interview the daughters of Friedrich Kadgien, an SS officer and close advisor of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. Kadgien was known to have arrived in Argentina with two stolen paintings and other looted valuables after the war.

Upon arriving at the Mar del Plata property, Schouten could not get anyone to come to the door, although there was movement inside. Schouten noticed the property was for sale and looked up the listing online. In one of the photos, hanging above an old sofa, was what appeared to be one of the missing paintings- Portrait of a Lady by the 17th century portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi (known as Fra’ Galgario).

Portrait of a Lady was one of 1100 artworks the Nazis seized from the collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch-Jewish art dealer from Amsterdam. Goudstikker died in 1940 while fleeing Nazi persecution. Parts of his collection eventually wound up in Göring’s collection. About 200 pieces have been recovered, but the vast majority remain unaccounted for. It unclear how Kadgien came to possess the Ghislandi piece.

Kadgien’s elusive daughters have refused to comment. Argentinian police raided the Mar del Plata property after press reports of the find circulated, but the painting was nowhere to be found. Hanging in its place above the sofa was a woven tapestry depicting horses. The sisters are also believed to possess Kadgien’s other stolen painting, a 17th-century floral still life by Dutch artist Abraham Mignon. AD’s reporters saw the painting in a 2012 picture on one of the sisters’ social media pages.