CDC Doesn’t Seem to Think Foodborne Illnesses Are a Thing Anymore

The U.S. is not monitoring foodborne illnesses like it used to.

As of last month, the only federal-state partnership responsible for overseeing food contaminants at the national level has massively scaled back its operations, reported NBC News.

Prior to July 1, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network—also known as FoodNet—was tracking infections caused by eight pathogens, including campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia, some of which are the root cause of serious or life threatening illness.

That number has now been reduced to just two: salmonella and the Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, according to the report.

A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that monitoring all eight pathogens is no longer federally required of the 10 states participating in the food monitoring program.

“Although FoodNet will narrow its focus to Salmonella and STEC, it will maintain both its infrastructure and the quality it has come to represent,” the CDC spokesperson wrote. “Narrowing FoodNet’s reporting requirements and associated activities will allow FoodNet staff to prioritize core activities.”

A memo provided to the Connecticut Public Health Department by the CDC, reviewed by NBC, indicated that the downsized project was due to a lack of available funding for America’s food safety.

“Funding has not kept pace with the resources required to maintain the continuation of FoodNet surveillance for all eight pathogens,” the note read.

FoodNet is a federal-state collaboration that surveils food-borne illnesses for 54 million Americans. It combines the efforts of the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department and 10 state health departments, including in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, and certain counties in California and New York.

Food safety experts stress that the pared down project could hold serious ramifications for America’s public health policy and make it more difficult for federal officials to respond to—or even learn of—serious outbreaks.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is suing President Donald Trump for attempting to remove her, a move that appears to be part of his crusade against the central bank.

Cook’s attorney Abbe Lowell announced Tuesday morning that Cook intended to launch a legal challenge to the president’s shocking attempt to meddle with the Federal Reserve Bank.

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” Lowell said in a statement. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

Trump announced Monday that he was removing Cook “for cause,” citing unproven allegations of mortgage fraud from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte.

Cook dismissed Trump’s attempt to fire her in a statement. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” she said.

Pulte’s allegation against Cook suggests a trend of politically motivated mortgage fraud claims, as similar allegations have been made against Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

It’s also worth noting that mortgage fraud would not necessarily constitute “cause” for her removal, as its entirely unrelated to her duties.

Trump has undertaken a months-long campaign to undermine the credibility of the Federal Reserve Bank, as his desire for interest-rate cuts to stave tariff-driven inflation has been met with resistance from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Powell, who has repeatedly issued grave warnings about Trump’s economic policies, has also received threats of removal from the president—something that is not within the executive’s power to do. On Friday, Powell warned that the jobs market had suffered a “much larger” slowdown than the bank had determined just a month earlier.

President Donald Trump is expected to soon place longtime loyalist Dan Scavino in charge of White House personnel matters—passing over far-right provocateur Laura Loomer, who was apparently eyeing the job.

As the previous personnel chief moves to a diplomatic role, Scavino will add “Presidential Personnel Office Director” to a resume already stacked with experiences working for Trump—from golf course manager to deputy chief of staff in his first administration.

The appointment is a snub to Loomer, whom some within the MAGA base were hoping would get the job, according to Politico. Loomer told the publication that it would be an “honor” to be chosen for the role.

The MAGA agitator already holds something of a de facto personnel role at the White House, with several of the administration’s recent staffing decisions traceable to her influence. The MAGA influencer regularly gins up campaigns against insufficiently loyal Trump officials, and even maintains a tip line where one can report Democratic sleeper cells in the administration.

Loomer has repeatedly expressed her interest in working for the president. And while Trump has reportedly considered fulfilling that wish in the past, she claims these attempts have been blocked by jealous staffers.

“I had four jobs given to me in this Trump administration that basically have been taken away from me because some of President Trump’s staff suffer from the incurable disease of professional jealousy,” Loomer recently told ABC.

“I wish I did work for the president,” Loomer said in June, during the deposition in her defamation lawsuit against late-night host Bill Maher, “but he asks me my opinions about [personnel] matters, and I give him my opinion. And so it’s an honor. It really is. But it would be an even bigger honor to be working in an official capacity in the White House.”

But, as conservative website The Free Press reported this month, White House officials are wary of Loomer, with one calling her “more trouble than she’s worth,” and questioning where the Trump loyalty enforcer’s own loyalties lie. “She used to pretty much just amplify the MAGA line,” the unnamed official said, “but now it’s pretty clear that she has her own agenda.”

Despite her unrequited desire to be brought officially aboard by Trump, Loomer says she’s intent on keeping her independent operation churning for his sake. “If I’m going to be denied access by jealous staffers … then I have to operate as my own independent agency,” she told ABC.

A Trump-appointed federal judge just did something truly unexpected.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas T. Cullen dismissed the Department of Justice’s lawsuit challenging a Maryland judge’s two-day waiting period on deportations—and offered a scathing rebuke of the administration’s attacks on the federal judiciary. 

The judge defended a previous ruling that granted immigrant detainees a 48-hour long temporary stay of removal, to provide judges with enough time to actually read their habeas petitions.  

In May, Chief Judge George L. Russell III had originally ruled that the brief stay was necessary to “preserve existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of this Court over pending matters while the Court determines the scope of its authority to grant the request[ed] relief.”

The DOJ challenged the ruling, alleging that the court had overstepped its authority, violated local court rules, and wrongly granted automatic relief to a special class of litigants. 

But in his 39-page filing Tuesday, Cullen wrote that the government had gone about its grievances all wrong.

“Fair enough, as far as it goes. If these arguments were made in the proper forum, they might well get some traction,” Cullen wrote, adding, “But as events over the past several months have revealed these are not normal times—at least regarding the interplay between the Executive and this coordinate branch of government. It’s no surprise that the Executive chose a different, and more confrontational, path entirely.”

In a footnote, Cullen slammed the Trump administration’s “smear” campaign against the federal judiciary.

“Indeed, over the past several months, principal officers of the Executive (and their spokespersons) have described federal district judges across the country as ‘left-wing,’ liberal,’ ‘activists,’ ‘radical,’ ‘politically minded,’ ‘rogue,’ ‘unhinged,’ ‘outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional,’ ‘c]rooked,’ and worse,” Cullen wrote. “Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.”

Cullen wrote that there was “no alternative but to dismiss” the government’s lawsuit. 

“To hold otherwise would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law,” the judge wrote. “All of this isn’t to say that the Executive is without any recourse; far from it. If the Executive truly believes that Defendants’ standing orders violate the law, it should avail itself of the tried-and-true recourse available to all federal litigants: It should appeal.”

There’s some good news in Utah: On Monday, Judge Dianna Gibson blocked the state’s Republican-controlled legislature from enacting their heavily gerrymandered congressional map, declaring it unconstitutional. Instead the state will defer to the independent redistricting reform that citizens voted for back in 2018, known as “Proposition 4.” 

“Proposition 4 is the law in Utah on redistricting. H.B. 2004, the 2021 Congressional Map, which was not enacted under S.B. 200 and not Proposition 4, cannot lawfully govern future elections in Utah,” Gibson wrote. “The Legislature intentionally stripped away all of Proposition 4’s core redistricting standards and procedures that were mandatory and binding on it.... To permit the 2021 Congressional Plan to remain in place would reward the very constitutional violation this Court has already identified and would nullify the people’s 2018 redistricting reform.” 

Republican attempts to supersede Proposition 4 began in 2021, when they ignored ballot measures and split up Salt Lake County, the district that contains most of the state’s Democratic voters. Now that their move has been struck down, lawmakers have just under a month to bring the map up to Proposition 4 standards.   

This comes as Texas and California are locked in a heated gerrymandering battle, as the former carries out a Trump-backed effort to add multiple Republican seats to the House, while the latter starts its own retaliatory redistricting effort under Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. The results in Utah, in addition to the language in Gibson’s ruling, serve as a positive sign for those who want to bring legal challenges on gerrymandering in the near future. 

Nobody seems to like Cracker Barrel’s brand overhaul—including the president.

Donald Trump weighed in on the culture war fiasco Tuesday, urging the Tennessee-born “old country store” to return to its design roots.

“Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right. Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again.”

The U.S. leader then took the opportunity to toot his own horn, absurdly claiming that he had resurrected America from a supposedly decrepit state last year.

“Remember, in just a short period of time I made the United States of America the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World,” Trump noted. “One year ago, it was ‘DEAD.’ Good luck!”

The restaurant chain’s redesign stripped down its logo, removing the imagery of the old man (known as “Uncle Herschel”) and his barrel, replacing it with simple, minimalist text. The stores are expected to undergo a similar redecoration, eschewing the company’s old-timey, gold and wood-toned brand for grayer, cleaner decor that would have been on trend if it was unveiled some 15 years ago.

It took the brains of three PR firms—Prophet, Viral Nation and Blue Engine—to cook up Cracker Barrel’s $700 million transformation.

While no one seems particularly jazzed about the overhaul—the company’s stock plummeted by almost $100 million in the wake of the announcement—MAGA pundits have taken particular issue with Cracker Barrel’s rebrand.

Podcaster Matt Walsh called the effort “generic.” Fox & Friends called it “woke.” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was particularly chuffed—in separate posts, Kirk claimed that Cracker Barrel was “targeted” to promote “LGBTQ propaganda,” and also used the fiasco as an opportunity to fat shame, likening the new logo to an overweight woman while comparing the old one to Sydney Sweeney in her “great genes” American Eagle ad campaign.

The division wasn’t entirely partisan, however. The official X account for the Democratic party chimed in on the rebrand last week, writing: “We think the Cracker Barrel rebrand sucks too.”

The company practically apologized for its new look Monday, releasing a statement recognizing the design misstep while emphasizing that the brand had not forgotten about Uncle Herschel.

“If the last few days have shown us anything, it’s how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel,” the company posted on its website Monday. “You’ve also shown us that we could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.”

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order to bolster his federal occupation of Washington, D.C., and create a “quick reaction force” in the National Guard that could be deployed to tamp down civil protests across the country.

Hidden in that executive order is a chilling directive to the “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force,” led by White House adviser Stephen Miller to “establish an online portal for Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience to apply to join Federal law enforcement entities” in support of his previous order declaring a “crime emergency” in D.C.

The order continues:

“Each law enforcement agency that is a member of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, as well as other relevant components of the Department of Justice as the Attorney General determines, shall further, subject to the availability of appropriations and applicable law, immediately create and begin training, manning, hiring, and equipping a specialized unit that is dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation’s capital that can be deployed whenever the circumstances necessitate, and that could be deployed, subject to applicable law, in other cities where public safety and order has been lost.” [emphasis added]

The move is sure to receive a warm reception from the far-right vigilante groups that are already, as The New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant recently wrote, nodding along to federal forces’ actions on the streets of D.C.

Grant observed, for example, that Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, in a recent interview, spoke favorably of Trump’s crackdown on the capital and urged him to call up a militia for immigration enforcement. “He should call up all of us,” Rhodes said. “Every able-bodied male in this nation, age 17 to 45 could be called up as the militia.” For Rhodes and his ilk, Trump’s Monday executive order is surely a step in the right direction.

Some of President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters are arguing that he just made a very bad move.

On Monday, the president offered a concession to China amid ongoing trade talks with Beijing, informing reporters at the White House that the administration would permit hundreds of thousands of Chinese students to continue their studies in the U.S.

“We’re going to allow their students to come in,” Trump said. “It’s very important, 600,000 students. It’s very important. But we’re going to get along with China.”

But that did not sit well with his MAGA base, who claimed that the administration would never accomplish its “mass deportation” if it allowed immigrants into the country.

“I didn’t vote for more Muslims and Chinese people to be imported to my country,” far-right provocateur Laura Loomer wrote on X. “Sorry but these immigrants from communist countries and Sharia shitholes where child rape is legalized don’t make America great.”

“Please don’t Make America China,” she continued. “MAGA doesn’t want more immigrants.”

In another post, Loomer urged Trump to “do the math,” lamenting that the country would never “get rid of the millions who came in under Biden” if it followed through on Trump’s plan.

“If we are only mass deporting 1,000 illegals each day but allowing 600,000 Chinese spies to come to our country, how can we call them mass deportations?” she wrote.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was also outraged, preaching on social media that the country should not “let in” thousands of students who she claimed could be “loyal” to the Chinese Communist Party.

“If refusing to allow these Chinese students to attend our schools causes 15 percent of them to fail then these schools should fail anyways because they are being propped up by the CCP,” Greene wrote. “Why are we allowing 600,000 students from China to replace our American student’s opportunities? We should never allow that.”

America’s relationship with China has been fraught since Trump returned to office. Earlier this year, the president imposed a whopping 145 percent tariff on all Chinese goods—a threat that provoked a quick response from Beijing, which imposed a 125 percent tariff on U.S. exports in return.

China’s defiant negotiating strategy with the U.S. became an international model in May when Trump’s tariffs plummeted, proving that the country’s refusal to play the White House’s waiting game had earned them a significantly better deal.

But the U.S. leader’s economic threats have continued, nonetheless. In the same White House presser Monday, Trump curiously fixated on magnets, warning China that it must hand more over or face a “200 percent tariff or something.”

President Trump and his Justice Department have finally given up on charging D.C. woman Sidney Lori Reid with a felony after failing to convince three different grand juries that she deserved eight years in prison for allegedly placing herself between ICE agents and someone they were detaining.

This is a pretty impressive failure on D.C. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s part. It’s not often that prosecutors are denied an indictment from a grand jury given the preexisting bias towards federal prosecution (defendant’s lawyers aren’t even allowed in the room in front of a grand jury).

In July, Reid was accused of assaulting, impeding, or interfering with federal agents while they transferred two alleged gang members into FBI custody at a D.C. jail. According to prosecutors, she recorded the agents and tried to block them from getting to one of the detainees. After being pushed against a wall by agents, prosecutors claimed Reid “forcibly pushed” an FBI agent’s arm off of her with the intent to injure the agent.

The argument didn’t work in court, as Reid’s lawyers argued she was simply arrested by officers who didn’t want to be filmed, and the physical altercation occurred because of the agents.

Federal prosecutors have now refiled the case as a low-level misdemeanor.

“Three grand juries have now declined to indict Ms. Reid for felony assault on a law enforcement officer,” her lawyers, Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm, wrote in a statement Monday night. “The U.S. attorney can try to concoct crimes to quiet the people, but in our criminal justice system, the citizens have the last word. We are anxious to present the misdemeanor case to a jury and to quickly clear Ms. Reid’s name.”

If Reid had been charged with the felony, she would have faced up to eight years in prison.

The case proves the obvious: The Trump administration is being overly aggressive, and is more focused on making brutal legal examples of people rather than actually having a punishment that fits the “crime.”

“Seeking an indictment for a third time is extremely rare and usually only reserved for the most serious of crimes,” attorney Christopher Macchiaroli told D.C.’s local WUSA9. “If a governmental entity cannot convince a supermajority of grand jurors that there is a fair probability that a crime was committed, it is virtually impossible to believe that twelve jurors in the same relevant jurisdiction could unanimously at a future date find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard of proof under the law.”

The charges levied against Reid are the same ones levied against Sean Dunn, the Subway sandwich thrower in Washington, D.C., who had his apartment raided by agents when he was arrested.

Reid’s outcome should be a positive sign for people like Dunn, but the Justice Department isn’t giving up on their efforts to ruin people’s lives over low-level arrests just yet. Senior Justice Department official Akaash Singh told his prosecutors to ignore the losses and criticism, and to continue to overcharge people, according to The New York Times.

A demonstrator who identified himself as a disabled combat veteran was arrested Monday after burning an American flag in protest of President Donald Trump’s latest executive order.

Speaking through a megaphone to the onlookers outside of the White House, the protester explained that Trump’s latest decree penalizing flag burning was an affront to the First Amendment.

“I fought for every single one of your rights to express yourself in however you feel that you may want to express yourself,” the protester said, in a video shared to social media.

“No president can make a law—period—no Congress can make a law infringing on First Amendment rights,” he added. “I’m burning this flag as a protest of that illegal fascist president that sits in that house!”

The protester then lit the flag on fire.

Despite Trump’s claim that burning the American flag “incites riots at a level we’ve never seen,” no such riot materialized. The protester was promptly arrested by the Secret Service.

The Secret Service released a statement that it detained the man “for igniting an object” and that he was turned over to Park Police, who said they’d arrested him for violating a statute that prohibits lighting a fire in a public park, according to NBC News.

Trump’s blatant attack on free speech built on fictitious grounds is an affront to the U.S. Constitution, and the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 1989 that flag burning was protected speech under the First Amendment.