WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named his deputy, Jim O&#8217;Neill, as acting director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after ousting the former director less than a month into her tenure.
President Donald Trump fired on Wednesday CDC Director Susan Monarez after she resisted changes to vaccine policy advanced by Kennedy that she believed contradicted scientific evidence, further destabilizing the already embattled agency.
&#8220;Together, we will rebuild this institution into what it was always meant to be: a guardian of America&#8217;s health and security,&#8221; Kennedy wrote on Thursday in a memo to CDC staff seen by Reuters. &#8220;To help advance this mission, I am pleased to announce that Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O&#8217;Neill is now also serving as Acting Director of the CDC.&#8221;
Monarez&#8217;s firing triggered the resignations of four senior CDC officials who cited anti-vaccine policies and misinformation pushed by Kennedy and his team.
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The CDC has faced mounting challenges under Kennedy&#8217;s leadership, including a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters earlier this month. The union representing CDC workers said the incident &#8220;compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.&#8221;
The White House sought to cut the agency&#8217;s budget by almost $3.6 billion, leaving it with a $4 billion 2026 budget, and Kennedy announced a layoff plan earlier this year that cut 2,400 CDC employees, though some 700 were rehired.
O&#8217;Neill, prior to his confirmation as Kennedy&#8217;s second in command, served as a health policy adviser with ties to several healthcare companies.
He also managed one of tech billionaire and Trump-backer Peter Thiel&#8217;s venture capital firms, Mithril Capital Management, from 2012 to 2019. O&#8217;Neill also served as chief executive of his philanthropic Thiel Foundation and as a managing director at Thiel Capital.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Diane Craft)

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RFK Jr. Appoints Deputy Jim O’Neill As Interim CDC Director After Monarez Ouster

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U.S. no-frills pioneer Spirit Airlines filed for fresh chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, as dwindling cash and mounting losses derailed its turnaround efforts since emerging from a previous Chapter 11 reorganization in March.
The carrier, recognizable by its bright yellow jets, has struggled to steady operations since emerging from its first bankruptcy in March.
Flights, ticket sales, reservations and operations will continue, the airline said on Friday.
Spirit had been attempting to rebrand as a more premium airline to keep pace with post-pandemic travel trends that have challenged the viability of the ultra-low-cost model.
But Spirit&#8217;s recovery was further hit by uncertainty from tariffs and budget cuts, which have cooled consumer spending and driven down domestic airfares.
The airline was forced to raise going-concern doubts earlier this month.
&#8220;Since emerging from our previous restructuring, which was targeted exclusively on reducing Spirit&#8217;s funded debt and raising equity capital, it has become clear that there is much more work to be done and many more tools are available to best position Spirit for the future,&#8221; said CEO Dave Davis.
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The Florida-based airline first sought bankruptcy protection last November after years of losses, failed merger bids and mounting debt, becoming the first major U.S. carrier to do so since 2011.
It posted a $1.2 billion net loss last year, with its troubles compounded by the collapse of a $3.8 billion merger with JetBlue Airways and RTX&#8217;s Pratt &amp; Whitney engine issues that forced it to ground many of its Airbus jets.
Spirit began in 1964 as a long-haul trucking company before shifting to aviation in the 1980s, initially flying leisure packages under the name Charter One Airlines.
It rebranded as Spirit in 1992 and built its reputation as a discount carrier for budget-conscious travelers willing to skip extras like checked bags and seat assignments.
But the pandemic upended that model, as demand shifted toward more comfortable, experience-driven travel, leaving ultra-low-cost carriers struggling to adapt.
(Reporting by Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Maju Samuel)

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Spirit Airlines Files For Bankruptcy — Again

(Reuters) -Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday signed into law a bill to redraw the state&#8217;s congressional maps at the behest of President Donald Trump in an effort to flip five U.S. House seats held by Democrats to Republicans.
The ratification came after the state&#8217;s legislature passed the measure last week amid a nationwide redistricting battle.
&#8220;Texas is now more red in the United States Congress,&#8221; Abbott said in a video post on social media, after signing the bill with a marker.
Republicans have acknowledged they believe winning more congressional seats in Texas will help the party maintain its slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year&#8217;s midterm elections. More states controlled by Republicans are considering similar action.
California and other states where Democrats hold power vow to counter such moves. The California legislature approved a redistricting plan last week aimed at giving Democrats five more congressional seats.
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The California plan must be approved by voters in November. The Texas plan does not need voter approval, but it has been challenged in court.
The Texas bill was delayed for two weeks after more than 50 Democratic state House members staged a walkout that denied Republicans the legislative quorum needed.
Democrats argued that the new Texas map violates federal law by diluting Hispanic and Black voting power and discriminating on the basis of race.
Texas Republicans who sponsored the bill said they redrew maps based on voting history, not race.
Most Americans believe redrawing congressional lines for the sake of maximizing political gain, known as gerrymandering, is bad for democracy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found this week.
(Reporting By Andrew Hay; editing by Diane Craft)

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Texas Governor Greg Abbott Signs Law To Secure New Congressional Maps

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named his deputy, Jim O&#8217;Neill, as acting director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after ousting the former director less than a month into her tenure.
President Donald Trump fired on Wednesday CDC Director Susan Monarez after she resisted changes to vaccine policy advanced by Kennedy that she believed contradicted scientific evidence, further destabilizing the already embattled agency.
&#8220;Together, we will rebuild this institution into what it was always meant to be: a guardian of America&#8217;s health and security,&#8221; Kennedy wrote on Thursday in a memo to CDC staff seen by Reuters. &#8220;To help advance this mission, I am pleased to announce that Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O&#8217;Neill is now also serving as Acting Director of the CDC.&#8221;
Monarez&#8217;s firing triggered the resignations of four senior CDC officials who cited anti-vaccine policies and misinformation pushed by Kennedy and his team.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
The CDC has faced mounting challenges under Kennedy&#8217;s leadership, including a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters earlier this month. The union representing CDC workers said the incident &#8220;compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.&#8221;
The White House sought to cut the agency&#8217;s budget by almost $3.6 billion, leaving it with a $4 billion 2026 budget, and Kennedy announced a layoff plan earlier this year that cut 2,400 CDC employees, though some 700 were rehired.
O&#8217;Neill, prior to his confirmation as Kennedy&#8217;s second in command, served as a health policy adviser with ties to several healthcare companies.
He also managed one of tech billionaire and Trump-backer Peter Thiel&#8217;s venture capital firms, Mithril Capital Management, from 2012 to 2019. O&#8217;Neill also served as chief executive of his philanthropic Thiel Foundation and as a managing director at Thiel Capital.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Diane Craft)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa has told confidants she will not run for re-election next year, CBS News reported, which could complicate her party&#8217;s efforts to retain control of the chamber.
Ernst&#8217;s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ernst, 55, was first elected to the Senate in 2014. Before that she served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves and was deployed to Iraq.
Republicans currently control the Senate by a 53-47 margin and nonpartisan analysts say they are favored to retain control of the chamber in next year&#8217;s midterm elections at this point.
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Iowa, once a competitive state in presidential elections, has trended increasingly Republican over the past decade. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Ernst&#8217;s seat &#8220;Likely Republican,&#8221; making it less competitive than several other Senate races next year.
At least five Democratic candidates have announced they will run for the seat.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Nolan D. McCaskill and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Matthew Lewis)

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Veteran Republican Senator Will Not Seek Re-Election: Report

(Reuters) -Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming President Donald Trump has no power to remove her from office, setting up a legal battle that could reset long-established norms for the U.S. central bank&#8217;s independence.
The lawsuit said Trump violated a federal law allowing him to remove a Fed governor only &#8220;for cause&#8221; when the president took the unprecedented step on August 25 of announcing he would fire her. Trump has accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud in 2021, a year before she joined the central bank&#8217;s governing body.
Cook also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order which declares that Trump&#8217;s effort to fire her is unlawful and seeks to bar the Fed from taking steps to remove her pending further litigation. A hearing on the motion is set for 10 a.m. EDT on Friday.
&#8220;Neither the type of &#8216;offense&#8217; the President cited nor the threadbare evidence against Governor Cook would constitute &#8217;cause&#8217; for removal even if the President&#8217;s allegations were true &#8211; which they are not,&#8221; the motion said.
In the court filings, Cook said an unsubstantiated allegation about conduct that took place before she was confirmed to her position at the Fed does not amount to cause. She denied committing mortgage fraud, but said that even if she had it would not justify her removal.
&#8220;The President would not have &#8217;cause&#8217; to remove a Federal Reserve Governor even if he possessed smoking gun evidence that she jaywalked in college,&#8221; Cook&#8217;s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit.
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The lawsuit also accused Trump of violating her right to due process under the U.S. Constitution by firing her without notice or a hearing.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The case is likely headed to the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority has at least tentatively allowed Trump to fire officials from other agencies, though it recently signaled the Fed may qualify for a rare exception from direct control by the president.
Cook, in her lawsuit, noted that the court in a May order distinguished the Fed from other government agencies, citing its unique structure and &#8220;distinct historical tradition.&#8221;
Concerns about the Fed&#8217;s independence from the White House in setting monetary policy could have a ripple effect throughout the global economy. The U.S. dollar stumbled against other major currencies after Trump, a Republican, first said he would remove Cook. It was trading lower on Thursday as traders added to bets that the Fed would cut interest rates next month.
A Fed spokesperson said on Tuesday, before the lawsuit was filed, that the Fed would abide by any court decision. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Trump exercised &#8220;lawful authority&#8221; in removing Cook, saying she was credibly accused of lying in her mortgage documents and adding that her removal &#8220;for cause improves the Federal Reserve Board&#8217;s accountability and credibility for both the markets and American people.&#8221;
Cook was appointed to the Fed in 2022 by Biden and is the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor.
Trump earlier this year also fired Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to sit on the National Labor Relations Board, which hears private-sector labor disputes. Trump also has dismissed a slew of officials from other agencies that have long been treated as independent from the White House.
PRESSURE CAMPAIGN
The law that created the Fed does not define &#8220;cause&#8221; or lay out any standard or procedures for removal. No president has ever removed a Fed board member, and the law has never been tested in court.
Several federal laws requiring the president to have cause before removing members of other agencies say that the term can include neglect of duty, malfeasance, and inefficiency. Those laws could be a guide for courts to determine if Trump had cause to fire Cook.
Questions about Cook&#8217;s mortgages were first raised in August by William Pulte, a Trump appointee who is the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte referred the matter to Attorney General Pamela Bondi for investigation.
Cook took out the mortgages in Michigan and Georgia in 2021 when she was an academic. An official financial disclosure form for 2024 lists three mortgages held by Cook, with two listed as personal residences. Loans for primary residences can carry lower rates than mortgages on investment properties, which are considered riskier by banks.
Some experts have questioned whether transactions that preceded Cook&#8217;s appointment to the Fed and were in the public record when she was vetted and confirmed by the U.S. Senate could amount to adequate cause to remove her.
The Trump administration could argue in response to the lawsuit that giving Fed governors any protections from removal violates the president&#8217;s broad constitutional powers to control the executive branch, as it has in cases filed by other ex-officials.
Trump in an August 25 letter to Cook accused her of having engaged in &#8220;deceitful and criminal conduct in a financial matter&#8221; and said he did not have confidence in her integrity.
Cook&#8217;s departure would allow Trump to name his fourth pick to the Fed&#8217;s seven-member board.
The president has repeatedly berated Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering rates and over his alleged mishandling of a multibillion-dollar renovation project, though he has halted threats to remove Powell before his term as central bank chief ends in May.
The Trump administration has also targeted political opponents, including U.S. Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James, with similar accusations of mortgage fraud. Schiff and James have denied wrongdoing.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and Ann Saphir, Andrea Shalal; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Rosalba O&#8217;Brien and Paul Simao)
&nbsp;

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Fed Governor Cook Defies Trump Firing Order, Launches Lawsuit

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia pounded Ukraine with deadly missiles and drone strikes early on Thursday in a sweeping attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was Moscow&#8217;s answer to diplomatic efforts to end its war.
At least 18 people, including four children, were killed in the capital, officials from the city administration said. As the sun rose, rescuers dug through a wrecked block on Kyiv&#8217;s left bank and pulled at least two bodies from the rubble.
The strikes damaged the European Union&#8217;s mission and British Council offices in the city, officials said. The European Union and London summoned Russian envoys to protest. There were no reports of casualties at either site.
&#8220;Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table,&#8221; Zelenskiy said on X, calling for new sanctions on Russia. &#8220;It chooses to continue killing instead of ending the war.&#8221;
Russia said its attack had hit military industrial facilities and air bases, and that Ukraine had also attacked Russian targets. The Kremlin said it was still interested in pursuing peace talks.
Moscow has regularly denied targeting civilians. Ukrainian officials say scores of civilians have died in Russian strikes on densely populated areas over the recent months, and thousands since the start of the war.
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During the attack on Kyiv, explosions rang out as clouds of smoke rose into the night sky. Drones whirred overhead.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko described it as one of the biggest attacks on the city in recent months. At least 38 people were wounded in the hours-long assault which damaged buildings in all city districts, officials said.
Across the country, Ukraine&#8217;s military said Russian attacks struck 13 locations. National grid operator Ukrenergo said energy facilities were hit, causing power cuts.
A push by Kyiv and its allies to end the invasion that Moscow launched in February 2022 has yielded little, despite meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts.
Russia has stepped up air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities far behind the front line and pushed a grinding offensive across much of the east in a bid to pressure Ukraine into giving up territory.
&#8216;ANOTHER GRIM REMINDER&#8217;
&#8220;This is another grim reminder of what is at stake. It shows that the Kremlin will stop at nothing to terrorize Ukraine, blindly killing civilians and even targeting the European Union,&#8221; EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels.
She said two missiles had struck near the office within 20 seconds of each other.
EU countries would soon come up with a 19th package of sanctions against Russia and were advancing work on how to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, she added.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the assault, which he said had damaged the British Council building. &#8220;Putin is killing children and civilians and sabotaging hopes of peace,&#8221; he wrote on X.
Ukraine&#8217;s military said air defences had downed 563 of nearly 600 drones and 26 of 31 missiles launched by Russia across the country.
One attack damaged a railway hub in central Ukraine&#8217;s Vinnytsia region, where officials said a strike on critical infrastructure had left 60,000 residents without power.
Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia would step up strikes on the country&#8217;s energy grid as winter approaches.
Russia&#8217;s Defence Ministry said Russian air defences destroyed 102 Ukrainian drones overnight in at least seven regions.
Ukraine&#8217;s drone force said it had struck the Afipsky and Kuybyshevskyi oil refineries as part of that attack.
Russia added that its forces had used an unmanned speedboat to hit and sink a Ukrainian reconnaissance boat on Thursday in the mouth of the Danube River.
Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine&#8217;s navy, said the attack killed one person and several others were wounded or missing. He did not comment on the strike location.
The Danube ports are critically important for Ukraine, serving as an alternative to the Black Sea ports through which fuel and other critical cargoes are imported into the country.
(Reporting by Taras Garanich Anastasiia Malenko; Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Bart Meijer in Brussels; Writing by Dan Peleschuk and Andrew Heavens; Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Alex Richardson)
&nbsp;

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Putin Escalates: Russian Missiles Hit Ukraine, EU And British Buildings Targeted

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RFK Jr. Appoints Deputy Jim O’Neill As Interim CDC Director After Monarez Ouster

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