Bob Mackie, the nine-time Emmy-winning designer who dressed Cher, Carol Burnett, and a generation of entertainers, has died at 87, closing a career that spanned more than six decades.
Mackie's team confirmed his death Monday in a statement posted to his Instagram page. "He lived his 87 years to the fullest, fulfilling his dream of being a Fashion and Costume Designer, which is all he ever wanted to do," the statement read. Fox News reported that Mackie died of pneumonia. He is survived by his granddaughter Alyssa Townsend, great-granddaughters Kyla and Keira Townsend, and former wife Lulu Porter.
The California native built a career that few in the fashion or entertainment world could match. He won nine Emmy Awards, earned three Oscar nominations, took home a Tony Award in 2019 for his contributions to "The Cher Show," and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2002. In June 2019, the Council of Fashion Designers of America honored him with the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York.
Known as the "Sultan of Sequins," Mackie didn't just make clothes. He made entrances. His designs, heavy with beadwork, feathers, and bright color, turned performers into spectacles and award shows into front-page events. He pioneered the "nude illusion" dress, a form-fitting design layered over sheer fabric that created the appearance of bare skin beneath sequins and embellishment.
Mackie started at the bottom, working as a sketch artist for film costume designers before landing his first major client: actress and singer Mitzi Gaynor, whose Las Vegas revue shows in the 1960s gave him a platform to develop his flamboyant style. That early work led to an eleven-year run designing costumes for "The Carol Burnett Show," a stint he once described as "fabulous."
In a 2024 interview with Good Morning America, Mackie explained the difference between fashion design and costume work. "When you're a costume designer, you better understand what that person does," he said. "'What, as a performer, what kind of timing do they have? How do they move if they're a dancer?' It's all you have to think about that. You don't just send them out in a sweet little dress and hope for the best. It doesn't work that way."
That philosophy, designing for the performer, not just the body, defined his work across every medium. He created looks for Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, and Dolly Parton. He designed costumes for Carol Channing in the 1974 Broadway production "Lorelei" and for Liza Minnelli in 1999's "Minnelli On Minnelli." In 1982, he launched his own ready-to-wear Mackie label, and he later collaborated with Mattel to design outfits for Barbie dolls.
The entertainment world has lost several beloved figures in recent months, including sitcom director James Burrows, whose own career helped define an era of American television.
No collaboration defined Mackie's career more than his work with Cher. The two met in 1971, and by Cher's own telling, the connection was instant. She previously told People magazine about the encounter:
"I see this guy over my shoulder walking in the door and he's beautiful. I turned around and there's this tall, kind of Adonis-looking guy with curly blonde hair and a suntan. And I went, 'Oh my God, you're so much younger than I thought you'd be.' He said, 'You're so much thinner than I thought you'd be.' And it was kind of like that from then on."
Cher called the partnership "a match made in heaven." Over the following decades, Mackie designed for her television shows, concert tours, and award-show appearances, including the now-famous looks that turned red carpets into cultural events. As recently as 2021, the two appeared together at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Gala in Los Angeles.
On Monday, Cher posted a tribute on social media. "My dear Bob has gone up to heaven," she wrote. "Knowing him, he's bringing Sequins, Beads, & his sketch pad. Good nite sweet Prince."
The loss echoes a broader pattern of the entertainment industry saying goodbye to figures who shaped its identity. Singer Lauren Bennett, known for "Party Rock Anthem," also died recently, a reminder that the industry's losses cut across generations.
Carol Burnett, whose variety show gave Mackie one of his longest and most visible creative homes, posted her own tribute Monday. "Sadness doesn't come close to how I feel," she wrote.
"I loved him very much. As for his genius, there are fashion designers who don't do costumes and there are costume designers who don't do fashion. Bob did it all. There was no one like him."
Burnett's distinction captures what set Mackie apart. He moved between Hollywood, Broadway, television, Las Vegas, and the fashion runway without losing a step. His costumes were not just worn, they performed. They were built for movement, for timing, for the specific way a singer held a note or a comedian landed a punchline.
His influence reached younger performers as well. Breitbart reported that Mackie created looks for some of the biggest names in entertainment across multiple decades, and Fox News noted that stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Miley Cyrus had recently worn his archival designs. Carpenter posted her own tribute: "Terribly devastated. I feel so lucky to have met Bob."
Mackie's costumes remained on public display as recently as January 2026 at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California, near the desert home where he had lived and continued sketching designs. In 2024, he sat for an interview about his documentary, "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion," a title that nodded to the signature illusion dresses that made him famous.
Celebrity news continues to draw national attention across the spectrum, from serious personal matters involving public figures to the passing of artists whose work shaped American culture.
The statement on Mackie's Instagram page offered a fitting summary: "His genius and extraordinary designs will live on forever, continuing to bring beauty into this world." The cause of death, pneumonia, and the names of his surviving family were confirmed separately, but no details about where he died or the exact circumstances have been made public.
What remains is a body of work that defined American glamour for more than sixty years, nine Emmys, three Oscar nominations, a Tony, a lifetime achievement award, and a client list that reads like a roll call of twentieth-century entertainment royalty. Mackie didn't chase trends. He built them, one sequin at a time, for performers who understood that the costume was part of the act.
Bob Mackie spent six decades proving that real craftsmanship, knowing your performer, knowing your fabric, knowing the moment, never goes out of style. Hollywood could use more of that kind of discipline.
Céline Dion performed her first full concert in more than six years Saturday night in Paris, delivering a two-hour set before 30,000 fans after a grueling recovery from a rare neurological disorder that at times left her unable to walk or sing.
The 58-year-old Quebec-born singer opened with "On ne change pas" and broke down in tears within the first few minutes at Plenitude Arena in Nanterre, just west of Paris, one of Europe's largest indoor concert venues. She told the crowd the road back had been "rocky and longer than it should have been," then spent the next two hours proving she had made the trip anyway. NBC News reported that Dion performed for more than two hours, closing with the signature ballad "All by Myself."
The concert marked the start of a two-part, 26-show residency, 16 dates running through October, with 10 more scheduled for spring 2027. Nine million people entered a presale ticket lottery in April. Some American fans paid $1,200 per ticket on the resale market just to be in the building.
Dion was diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome in late 2022, a rare progressive autoimmune condition that affects roughly one in a million people. The disease stiffens muscles and triggers violent spasms, cramps so intense they have broken her ribs, Breitbart reported. It attacks the larynx, and Dion herself has said singing with the condition feels like being strangled.
Her last full concert before Saturday was March 8, 2020, a gap of 2,379 days, AP News reported. She spent those years largely out of the spotlight, enduring physical therapy, vocal rehabilitation, ballet, Pilates, and what she described as training "like an athlete" several times a week. At times the illness prevented her from singing at all. At times it prevented her from walking.
The only public performance during that stretch came at the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, when Dion sang from the Eiffel Tower before a television audience of hundreds of millions. That appearance became a milestone in her recovery, proof that her voice could still carry on the world's biggest stage.
Saturday's concert went well beyond a single song on a landmark. Dion performed 25 songs over two hours and fifteen minutes, according to AP News. She addressed the crowd directly, framing the night as the fulfillment of a commitment she had made during the worst of her illness.
Fox News reported Dion's words to the arena:
"I made a promise to come back, to be back on stage. So here I am, singing for you and singing for me, singing life!"
She also told the crowd simply: "Je vais bien", "I'm doing fine."
Breitbart quoted another passage from her remarks onstage:
"The path was rockier than expected. But I held on to a faint ray of light in the distance, deep in the mountains."
At one point she asked the arena a single question: "Can you hear my heartbeat?" Thirty thousand people could.
The crowd that packed Plenitude Arena traveled from across the globe. Francesca Pezzulo, 31, came from Los Angeles. Ashley Hammond, 42, flew from Miami and called it a "bucket-list moment." Pirkir Gutlausson, a 53-year-old mechanic from Iceland, offered a simpler verdict.
NBC News spoke to Pezzulo after the show:
"It was a victory lap. I think her belief is renewed, I think her spirit is renewed."
Hammond described the experience in five words:
"It gave you chills. It was everything we dreamed of."
Karine Teixeira Bourgogne, 58, traveled from elsewhere in France. Her assessment of Dion cut to character: "She has class, she's humane and she's a fighter."
Élodie Marchand, a 42-year-old fan, told AP News what happened when Dion hit the famous high note in "All by Myself":
"When she hit that note, I grabbed my friend's arm. I'd been holding my breath without realizing. Then I started crying. She's back. She's really back."
The residency is already reshaping the commercial landscape around it. MKG, a hospitality and tourism consultancy, projected that the 26-show run will draw hundreds of thousands of fans who will spend millions of dollars, an economic impact the firm compared to Taylor Swift's Paris concerts.
Galeries Lafayette, the iconic Parisian fashion boutique, opened a Céline Dion pop-up store. Some T-shirts carry a $145 price tag. Le Royal Monceau, the luxury hotel where Dion has been staying, became the focal point of what NBC News called "Céline mania", fans waiting outside day and night for a glimpse of the singer. Dion has reportedly stopped outside the hotel on multiple occasions, even after midnight rehearsals, to sing and dance with the waiting crowds.
Stiff-person syndrome remains incurable. There is no public physician's statement about Dion's current medical status, and no guarantee that the remaining 25 shows will go as smoothly as the first. The disease is progressive. The spasms can return without warning.
But Saturday night, none of that stopped her. Dion walked onto a stage she had been absent from for more than six years, sang 25 songs, and walked off to 30,000 people who had bet real money, some of them $1,200, that she could still do it.
In a culture that celebrates quitting as self-care, a woman who trained like an athlete through an incurable disease just to sing again is a reminder that grit still matters, and that some promises are worth keeping.
Atlantic Council fellow and author Max Brooks told an HBO audience that Western Europe's inability to manage immigration stems from the same self-imposed guilt he sees crippling policy in the United States, a blunt diagnosis that cuts against the left's preferred framing on both continents.
Brooks made the remarks during the online "Overtime" segment of HBO's "Real Time," where he drew a sharp line between how Western and Eastern European nations handle immigration, and why. The core of his argument: Western elites, weighed down by the legacy of colonialism, refuse to put their own citizens first, while Eastern European countries that were themselves colonized feel no such obligation to open their doors.
His language was not diplomatic. Breitbart News reported Brooks' comments in full, including his claim that the root problem in both Western Europe and America is what he called "guilty honkies", white elites paralyzed by historical shame into adopting immigration policies that ignore the interests of their own populations.
Brooks, who holds a nonresident senior fellowship at the Atlantic Council, said his assessment came from firsthand experience traveling through both halves of the continent for think tank work. He framed the divide in starkly simple terms: Western European nations colonized the developing world and now feel they owe something. Eastern European nations were themselves colonized, and feel they owe nothing.
His punchline landed on the Czech Republic. As Brooks put it:
"At no point in history, in a tropical country, did someone say, oh, God, run, here comes the Czech. So, therefore, they have no guilt. They say, we take care of our poor people first before we open up. And that's a huge difference in Western Europe and Eastern Europe."
That distinction matters because it reframes the immigration debate away from economics or security and toward psychology, specifically, the psychology of Western ruling classes. Brooks was not describing a policy failure rooted in incompetence. He was describing one rooted in ideology: the belief that historical wrongs committed by prior generations obligate today's taxpayers to accept open-ended immigration regardless of cost.
It is worth noting that Eastern European governments, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, have faced years of condemnation from Brussels and Western media for refusing to accept EU migrant quotas. Brooks' framing suggests those nations are not heartless. They simply lack the guilt reflex that Western elites treat as a moral baseline.
Brooks did not limit his critique to Europe. He told the panel the "guilty honkies" problem is "the same problem here", meaning the United States. The implication is direct: American elites, like their Western European counterparts, let guilt over historical injustices shape immigration policy in ways that ignore the practical consequences for ordinary citizens.
That argument will sound familiar to anyone who has watched the federal government struggle to enforce basic immigration law while progressive politicians treat enforcement itself as morally suspect. The pattern Brooks identified, guilt replacing governance, has played out in sanctuary city policies, in the refusal to fund border security, and in the rhetorical gymnastics used to avoid calling illegal immigration what it is.
Brooks also drew a distinction between how immigrants integrate in the U.S. versus Europe. He said American immigrants assimilate because they work, while in Europe, generous welfare states reduce that pressure. In his telling, European immigration policy combines guilt-driven open doors with a social safety net that removes the economic incentive to integrate, a combination that produces resentment on both sides.
Brooks added a warning: Europe moving to the right on immigration is dangerous because, in his words, "Europe tends to go far to the right when it goes to the right." He described the immigration situation in Europe as "very different" from America's because European nations are made up of indigenous peoples whose identity is tied to their homeland in ways that American identity is not.
That caution is fair enough on its own terms. But it sits awkwardly next to his own diagnosis. If Western European elites have spent decades ignoring their citizens' concerns about immigration because of ideological guilt, the political backlash Brooks fears is not some irrational eruption. It is the predictable result of democratic populations being told their objections are illegitimate.
The same dynamic has shaped American politics. Voters who raised concerns about border security, about the cost of illegal immigration to local schools and hospitals, about the rule of law itself, were dismissed for years as nativists or worse. The political realignment that followed was not a mystery. It was cause and effect.
Brooks' willingness to name the problem, elite guilt overriding democratic accountability, is notable precisely because he is not a right-wing commentator. He is an Atlantic Council fellow speaking on an HBO program hosted by Bill Maher. When someone from that world says the word "guilt" instead of "compassion," it suggests the left's preferred framing is losing its grip even in friendly territory.
The broader question Brooks raised, whether Western democracies can have honest immigration debates when their elites treat any restriction as a moral failing, is one that continues to fracture the Democratic coalition in the United States. Progressive activists push for fewer restrictions. Working-class voters in both parties push back. The tension is not theoretical, it shows up in primaries, in polling, and in the tightening races that Democratic leaders once took for granted.
Meanwhile, the practical consequences of guilt-driven policy keep piling up. Communities absorb the costs. Public services strain. And when enforcement does happen, when federal agencies act to remove criminals who should never have been here, the same elites Brooks described often fight it.
Brooks gave the problem a name most commentators on his side of the aisle would never use. Whether his fellow travelers listen is another matter entirely. Guilt is a poor substitute for governance, and voters on both sides of the Atlantic have started sending that message at the ballot box.
Indonesian authorities deported a 27-year-old Australian man and banned him from the country for a decade after CCTV footage allegedly captured him having sex on a resident's driveway in Bali, a case that prompted locals to hold a cleansing ceremony at the site.
Billy Aspinall, from Australia's Sunshine Coast, was put on a Batik Air flight from Denpasar to Brisbane on Tuesday night after spending roughly two weeks in immigration detention, Muhamad Novyandri, head of the Ngurah Rai Immigration Office, confirmed Wednesday. The deportation followed Aspinall's arrest at Bali's I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport on Aug. 25, when he tried to board a flight home.
The alleged incident occurred three days earlier. On Aug. 22, security cameras at a home in the village of Tibubeneng, in Bali's North Kuta district, reportedly recorded Aspinall and an unidentified woman engaged in a sex act on a resident's driveway. The footage showed the encounter lasting roughly 15 minutes before the pair walked away, the New York Post reported.
A local woman on her way to prayer stumbled across the pair during the act and reportedly shouted at them to stop. The CCTV footage went viral late last month, drawing public outrage and putting pressure on local authorities to act.
North Kuta's chief police commander, Ketut Sukadana, said the alleged indecency risked real harm to the community. He warned that such acts have the potential to cause public concern:
"Particularly among the residents of Tibubeneng, and may negatively affect the image of security and tourism in the North Kuta area if the matter is not addressed and handled seriously by taking firm action against the perpetrators, whether under local customary law or national law."
Balinese locals did not wait for authorities to finish their process. Residents held a cleansing ceremony at the driveway where the alleged act took place, a ritual meant to purify the site of bad energy. Bali is predominantly Hindu, and such ceremonies carry deep cultural weight on the island, even as it sits within Muslim-majority Indonesia.
Novyandri framed the deportation as a cooperative effort between immigration officials and local police, and cast it as consistent with the Immigration Directorate General's "Immigration for the People" approach, which he described as emphasizing professional, humane, and firm enforcement.
He confirmed the 10-year ban in a public statement:
"The deportation of BA was carried out on Tuesday night using a Batik Air flight on the Denpasar-Brisbane route."
Novyandri added that authorities would continue to strengthen immigration oversight and coordinate with law enforcement, pledging firm action against future violations.
Aspinall's case lands against the backdrop of Indonesia's new Criminal Code, formally implemented on Jan. 2, a sweeping legal overhaul that criminalized premarital sex, cohabitation between unmarried couples, and public drunkenness. Penalties for adultery, premarital sex, and cohabitation range from six months to one year in jail.
But the law comes with a significant procedural catch. Retno Murni, a legal expert and founder of the People's Law Center, explained to news.com.au that certain offenses under the new code cannot move forward without a specific complaint from a narrow set of people:
"These alleged crimes cannot be processed by the police without a complaint which can only be filed by the legal husband or wife, parents or children of the perpetrator."
That requirement effectively limits criminal prosecution for sex-related offenses to cases where a family member files a formal complaint. Murni spelled out the practical consequence for visitors:
"Therefore, foreign tourists cannot be arrested, raided, or prosecuted simply for staying or residing with a partner, unless there is a valid complaint from these parties."
Murni urged tourists not to panic over the new code, saying that as long as visitors "behave appropriately, respect local norms, and use official documents," they have nothing to worry about while in Indonesia.
Authorities have not publicly identified the woman seen with Aspinall in the CCTV footage. She is believed to be a foreign citizen who had been drinking with him before the alleged act, but it remains unclear whether she has faced any legal consequences or immigration action.
It is also unclear whether Aspinall faced criminal charges under Indonesian law in addition to the immigration violations that led to his deportation and ban. Indonesian authorities cited immigration regulations as the basis for the enforcement action, but have not specified which provisions applied. Aspinall himself has not made any public statement about the incident, his detention, or his removal from the country.
Whether he was trying to leave the country before authorities could act, or simply catching a scheduled flight home, has not been addressed by officials.
Countries that depend on tourism have every right to set standards for the visitors who fill their hotels and crowd their temples. Indonesia enforced its laws, protected its residents, and sent a clear message. The only surprise is that anyone would need to be told.
A 32-year-old California man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a jury convicted him of killing five passengers in a 101-mph drunk-driving crash, and then carjacking a bystander's vehicle to flee the scene.
Cameron Garcia received a 188-year prison sentence last Friday in Sacramento County after a jury found him guilty on five counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and one count of carjacking. The five people who died in the 2023 wreck were all passengers in the 2007 Cadillac Escalade Garcia was convicted of driving: Monte Nunn, 29; Faith Samuel, 18; Izabelle Salaz-Stephens, 19; Curvontay Swygert, 16; and Aahliya Garcia, 17.
Three of the five were teenagers. The youngest was sixteen years old.
Prosecutors said Garcia spent the day drinking along the Sacramento River before getting behind the wheel of the Escalade. He was traveling at 101 miles per hour on a stretch of road south of the Freeport Bridge, between the small Sacramento County communities of Clarksburg and Freeport, when the SUV slammed into a tree. The New York Post reported that Garcia never applied the brakes and that his foot was on the accelerator at the moment of impact.
The collision flipped the Escalade 180 degrees. The entire right side and most of the roof were torn off. All five passengers died. Garcia survived with multiple injuries.
A blood test administered roughly 90 minutes after the crash measured Garcia's blood-alcohol concentration at 0.11 percent, above the legal threshold. Active marijuana was also detected in his system.
What Garcia did next turned a catastrophic DUI into something worse.
Rather than stay at the scene where five people lay dead, Garcia tried to run. Prosecutors said he attempted to take several vehicles from the crash site. When an unnamed woman drove to the scene, Garcia got into her car and shoved her out of the driver's seat.
He then drove the stolen car to Elk Grove, about fifteen miles south of Sacramento's downtown, sparking a pursuit involving patrol vehicles and a law enforcement helicopter. Garcia crashed the stolen car in Elk Grove, tried to flee on foot, and was apprehended by officers. The jury later cited his attempts to escape as grounds for enhancing his punishment.
In an era when lawmakers are moving to impose tougher consequences on violent offenders, the 188-year sentence stands out even by California standards. It amounts to a life sentence many times over for a man who is 32 years old.
Garcia was convicted on each of the five gross vehicular manslaughter counts, one for every passenger killed, plus the carjacking charge. The Sacramento County District Attorney's office prosecuted the case. No named spokesperson from the office provided public comment in the available reporting, but the factual account presented at trial, the speed, the alcohol, the marijuana, the flight, painted a picture the jury evidently found damning.
The sentence dwarfs what many drunk drivers receive, even those who kill. But the combination of five deaths, a BAC above the legal limit, drugs in the defendant's system, a carjacking, and a police chase gave prosecutors and the court ample basis to stack the penalties.
Cases involving sentences of this magnitude remain rare, though not unprecedented. An Arizona man recently received life plus 102 years for the murder of an elderly pastor, another case where the sheer scale of the sentence reflected the gravity of the crime.
Garcia's family has launched a Change.org petition seeking a review of his conviction. The petition claims Faith Samuel, the 18-year-old passenger who died, was actually behind the wheel and had "lost control" of the vehicle. It also alleges Garcia was asleep at the time of the crash.
The petition states:
"The only survivor, Cameron was thrown from the vehicle in a manner that, he desperately insists, proves he was not driving."
It adds:
"Despite the context and evidence, he was sentenced to 188 years for a crime he did not commit."
The family's claims are disputed. A jury weighed the evidence, including the blood-alcohol results, the speed data, and Garcia's conduct after the crash, and concluded he was the driver. Whether any appeal has been filed is not clear from the available record.
It is worth noting what the family's petition does not address: why a man who was supposedly asleep and innocent immediately tried to steal multiple cars and flee the scene. That behavior is not consistent with someone who just woke up in a wrecked vehicle and had nothing to hide.
The Garcia case is a reminder that the justice system can still deliver serious consequences when prosecutors pursue them and juries are allowed to do their jobs. That stands in sharp contrast to jurisdictions where officials have intervened to soften outcomes for convicted offenders, or where progressive policies have reduced charges and shortened sentences for violent conduct.
Sacramento County chose the opposite path. Five families lost someone, a brother, a daughter, a friend, a teenager who had not yet turned twenty. The youngest passenger, Curvontay Swygert, was sixteen. Aahliya Garcia was seventeen. Faith Samuel was eighteen. These were not statistics. They were people whose lives ended because a grown man got behind the wheel drunk, high, and doing 101 miles per hour on a two-lane road.
And when the crash was over, Garcia did not call for help. He did not check on the passengers. He tried to run. He shoved a woman out of her own car. He led police on a chase through Elk Grove. Only after crashing a second vehicle and failing to escape on foot did his flight end.
The public has grown accustomed to watching serious offenders face real consequences only after extraordinary effort. In this case, the system worked the way it is supposed to. A man killed five people through reckless, intoxicated driving, fled the scene, committed another violent crime in the process, and a jury held him fully accountable.
One hundred eighty-eight years. Cameron Garcia will never drive again, never sit by the Sacramento River with a drink in his hand and car keys in his pocket. For Monte Nunn, Faith Samuel, Izabelle Salaz-Stephens, Curvontay Swygert, and Aahliya Garcia, no sentence restores what was taken. But this one, at least, makes clear that their lives counted.
When the system treats every life lost as a reason for consequence rather than an excuse for leniency, justice still has a pulse.
A sitting Michigan Democratic state lawmaker is urging Black voters to reject candidate Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, accusing the party's far-left socialist wing of treating Black communities like property rather than people.
State Rep. Karen Whitsett, a Detroit-area Democrat who plans to retire at the end of her term this year, told Fox News Digital that El-Sayed's candidacy "doesn't line up biblically" and "doesn't line up with common sense." She went further, saying the far-left faction of her own party poses a deeper threat to Black Americans than the Ku Klux Klan.
Whitsett did not hold back. She accused socialist Democrats, and "especially the white women" within the movement, of a racism she considers more dangerous because it operates under the cover of progressive politics rather than white hoods.
"You can see the serious divide of the crazy socialist far-left and especially the white women. They are the worst and the most racist that there possibly ever could be. They're, I think, they're more racist than the KKK."
El-Sayed's campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment before publication.
Whitsett's broadside was not limited to El-Sayed. She named prominent Black activist Al Sharpton and Detroit pastor Horace Sheffield III, who has worked with El-Sayed's campaign, accusing both of "keep[ing] the knee on [Black voters'] neck" rather than empowering the communities they claim to serve.
Her language carried a deliberate historical edge. She compared the Democratic Party's relationship with Black voters to slavery, arguing that the faces at the top change but the dynamic does not.
"It doesn't change, it's just different slave owners."
She pressed the point with a series of blunt questions aimed at the party establishment:
"Are you trying to help the black community or are you trying to kill it? Are you trying to keep people stupid and ill-informed or what? Because right now I can't tell, right? Is this voter education or are you just trying to make sure you count your slaves on the plantation."
Those are not the words of a Republican operative or a cable-news provocateur. They come from a sitting Democratic lawmaker describing her own party, a distinction that makes them far harder for party leaders to dismiss.
Whitsett framed her opposition to El-Sayed and the broader socialist wing as rooted in faith and practical judgment. She described herself as someone who refuses to fall in line.
"I always try to be a voice of reason, and I'm not a go-along, get-along. So, my whole thing is it has to make sense, and I am definitely family over party. God over party is of the utmost importance."
On policy, Whitsett said she believes everyone should have medical insurance but accused El-Sayed of failing to explain how his signature Medicare for All proposal would actually work in practice. She treated his platform as aspiration without substance, a promise designed to attract votes, not solve problems.
Her skepticism of the party she belongs to is not new. Fox News reported that Whitsett announced she would not seek re-election, calling it a "spiritual decision." She said she "cannot support the Democratic Party" as it exists today, citing conflicts over abortion and LGBTQ policies that she views as incompatible with Scripture. She was formally censured by her own party after publicly thanking President Trump and crediting hydroxychloroquine for her COVID-19 recovery.
That censure is worth pausing on. The Democratic Party did not censure Whitsett for corruption, misconduct, or dereliction. It censured her for publicly thanking a sitting president and sharing her own medical experience. The message to other Black Democrats who might step out of line was plain enough.
Whitsett's departure adds to a pattern of Michigan Democrats abandoning ship as the party's internal fractures widen. The exits are not all coming from the same ideological corner, which makes the trend harder for party leaders to explain away as a single faction's grievance.
Whitsett's case is distinct because she is not leaving quietly. She is leaving loudly, publicly warning Black voters that the party claiming to represent them is, in her view, exploiting them. She plans to work with the Trump administration after leaving office, a move that will only deepen the rift.
The broader Democratic coalition has been struggling with exactly the kind of tension Whitsett describes. Donna Brazile, the former interim DNC chair, has warned her party to define itself or risk drowning in a socialist wave. When a party veteran like Brazile and a sitting state legislator like Whitsett are both sounding the same alarm from different vantage points, the problem is structural, not personal.
Intra-party conflict has surfaced in other states as well. In Texas, a Democratic lawmaker refused to back a fellow Democrat in a high-profile Senate race. At the national level, the DNC itself has been roiled by internal turmoil, with chairman Ken Martin's volatile behavior during a deepening financial crisis raising questions about whether anyone is steering the ship.
El-Sayed's campaign offered no response to Whitsett's accusations. That silence may be strategic, engaging a retiring lawmaker from his own party risks amplifying her message, but it also leaves her charges unanswered on the public record. She questioned his fitness for office on grounds of faith, policy substance, and basic common sense, and his campaign had nothing to say.
Whitsett's critique of El-Sayed is not ideological abstraction. She asked a concrete question about Medicare for All, how would it work?, and said he has not provided a concrete answer. For voters being asked to trust a candidate with their healthcare, that gap between promise and plan matters more than any endorsement from a Detroit pastor or a national activist.
Whether Whitsett's warning moves voters remains to be seen. She is a retiring lawmaker with limited institutional power. But her willingness to say publicly what many Black Democrats have said privately, that the party takes their votes for granted, that progressive elites treat Black communities as a captive constituency, and that socialist policies are sold with slogans rather than substance, gives voice to a frustration the Democratic establishment has spent years refusing to address.
When a Democrat calls her own party's far-left wing more racist than the Klan, the party can dismiss her, censure her again, or listen. So far, the track record suggests they will choose the first two, and wonder, once more, why the voters keep walking away.
The Trump administration permanently installed four senior leaders at the Food and Drug Administration and created a first-of-its-kind deputy commissioner role for artificial intelligence, a move aimed at stabilizing an agency that has suffered months of turnover and internal friction.
Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas announced the appointments on Tuesday, naming a psychiatrist, a former pharmaceutical executive, a longtime agency attorney, and a tech entrepreneur to run key divisions that oversee drug approvals, biologics, tobacco regulation, and emerging technology. The picks transition several acting leaders into permanent roles and signal the administration's intent to lock in its regulatory direction before a new commissioner is confirmed.
The shakeup follows the resignation of Marty Makary, President Trump's first FDA commissioner of his second term, who stepped down in May. Makary's tenure was marked by clashes with career staff, disputes with the biotechnology industry, and review decisions that drew accusations of political interference. His departure left the agency adrift at a moment when drug-approval backlogs and workforce losses had already rattled the pharmaceutical sector.
Michael Davis, a psychiatrist who had been serving in an acting capacity, will permanently lead the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the FDA's largest division and the gateway for most prescription drug approvals in the United States. The Hill reported that Davis is one of several acting leaders now transitioning into the jobs on a permanent basis.
Karim Mikhail, a former Merck official, takes over the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the division responsible for vaccines, blood products, and gene therapies. Unnamed industry groups have called Mikhail "a stabilizing force," a label that carries weight given what happened under his predecessor.
Vinay Prasad, who previously ran the biologics center, oversaw a period in which hundreds of workers left the division, morale dropped, and at least five drugs that advocates and the FDA itself had previously considered promising were rejected. Mikhail inherits a division that needs rebuilding, and the industry's early praise suggests the private sector sees his appointment as a course correction.
Bret Koplow, an attorney who has worked at the FDA since 2011, will lead the Center for Tobacco Products. Koplow's fifteen-year tenure inside the agency makes him the most institutionally rooted of the four picks, a contrast to the outsider-heavy staffing choices that defined the early months of the administration's FDA overhaul.
The administration's broadest structural move is the creation of a brand-new deputy commissioner role for technology and artificial intelligence. Jared Seehafer, an entrepreneur who founded a life science software company and first joined the FDA in 2025 as an adviser, will fill the position. The Department of Health and Human Services said the new role reflects the administration's commitment to speeding up AI adoption and building a regulatory framework for emerging technologies. That effort fits a broader pattern of the Trump White House asserting executive authority to reshape how federal agencies operate.
Diamantas, who has led the FDA in an acting capacity since Makary's exit, cast the appointments as more than administrative housekeeping.
"These selections are not just about filling leadership roles, they signal the direction we are heading."
He also said the new leaders will help the agency "attract and retain best-in-class talent" and build a workforce capable of accelerating innovation across the FDA's centers. For an agency that watched hundreds of employees walk out the door under previous leadership, the retention pitch matters as much as the policy agenda.
The administration has also nominated Heidi Overton to serve as the permanent FDA commissioner. If confirmed, she would take charge of an agency that critics across the political spectrum have described as less trustworthy and more politicized than at any point in recent memory. Her confirmation timeline remains unclear.
Makary's resignation in May capped a turbulent stretch. His clashes with career FDA staff and disagreements with the biotech industry left the agency without a stable chain of command during a period when drug companies, patient advocates, and congressional overseers all wanted answers about delayed approvals and shifting review standards. The administration's decision to move quickly on permanent appointments, rather than let acting leaders linger indefinitely, suggests the White House recognized the cost of that vacuum.
The broader Trump administration has not been shy about making permanent, consequential moves across the federal government. The president has pursued sweeping deals on energy and foreign policy, and the health arena has seen its own wave of lasting changes, including a push by the administration's allies to remove artificial additives from the American food supply.
Still, open questions remain. It is unclear whether any of the four permanent appointees require Senate confirmation, or whether the newly created deputy commissioner role carries the same confirmation requirements as other senior FDA positions. The specific drugs Prasad rejected, and whether any of those decisions will be revisited under new leadership, also remain unanswered.
And the FDA's credibility problem did not start with Makary. Years of pandemic-era controversies, shifting guidance, and perceived institutional arrogance eroded public trust long before the current administration arrived. Rebuilding that trust requires more than new names on office doors. It requires leaders willing to make tough calls and accept accountability for the results.
Permanent leadership is a start. Whether these four deliver the competence and transparency the FDA owes the public is the only test that matters.
A California sea lion died at San Francisco’s Crissy Field as marine rescuers faced a sharp rise in suspected domoic acid poisonings along the coast.
Callers reported the distressed animal at about 8 a.m. Monday. It was weaving its head and suffering seizures on the beach east of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The Marine Mammal Center sent a trained responder and began organizing a rescue team. The sea lion died before that team could complete the rescue, and tests had not yet confirmed what killed it.
Samples were taken to determine whether domoic acid caused the symptoms or death. As in any unexplained death investigation, the pending test results matter: suspicion is not proof.
Domoic acid can cause seizures and heart failure in sea lions. Those known effects matched some of the distress seen at Crissy Field, but the center had not received test results Monday.
That distinction should remain clear. The animal died during a documented coastal surge, yet the individual cause of death remained an open question.
NBC Bay Area reported that the problem stretched well beyond San Francisco. About 40 sea lions had been rescued in Monterey County and southern Santa Cruz County since Aug. 24.
Additional rescues occurred in San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma counties. The center said it had already passed its usual annual total of 75 to 90 domoic acid rescues.
Pending laboratory work often separates an early theory from a final finding. That same need for firm answers applies across breaking cases, including the recent Kansas City death case covered by this publication.
The Marine Mammal Center covers 600 miles of California coastline. During the current surge, its hotline has received three to six times its normal call volume, with nearly 700 calls on some days.
The center described the pressure in a statement published by NBC Bay Area:
“As we are currently seeing intense surges of domoic acid along the California coast, our hotline is inundated with reports of animals in need to the tune of 3-6x our normal call volume, with some days seeing nearly 700 calls,”
Those numbers show why prompt public reports matter. They also show the limits facing responders when emergencies arrive across hundreds of miles at once.
The center urged people to stay away from stranded or distressed marine mammals and to keep pets back as well. Reports can be made from Mendocino County to San Luis Obispo County at 415-289-SEAL (7325).
The Crissy Field case joins other recent reports in which a confirmed death left key questions unanswered, including the Athens suitcase investigation. In San Francisco, the central unanswered question is whether testing will tie this sea lion’s death to domoic acid.
Public warnings should be clear, and official conclusions should rest on evidence. Responsible authorities owe the public both urgency and accuracy.
Sen. John Fetterman is fighting back against a Wall Street Journal exposé that used his own text messages to document a pattern of skipped meetings and indifference toward constituents, but the rebuttal may be raising more questions than it answers.
The Pennsylvania Democrat issued a statement over the weekend calling the report a collection of "lies, half-truths, innuendos, smears and anonymous" attacks from disgruntled former employees. The Wall Street Journal report cited leaked text messages and accounts from former aides who described a senator with little interest in the basic work of representing Pennsylvania, from constituent meetings to public appearances to legislative review.
Fetterman's defense follows a now-familiar script. This marks the third time he has publicly attributed critical coverage to "disgruntled staffers." But the texts, his own words, sent from his own phone, are harder to wave away than anonymous quotes.
The most damaging material in the Journal's report isn't secondhand gossip. It's Fetterman's own messages to his staff. In one exchange, an aide explained that officials from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia wanted to meet because they were "worried about Medicaid cuts." Fetterman's reply: "Well, I'm not." In another message, he asked his staff why he had to "keep having to meet" with CHOP officials at all.
CHOP is one of the most prominent pediatric hospitals in the country. Medicaid funding is a life-or-death policy issue for the families it serves. A senator who represents Philadelphia dismissing those concerns in a text message is not a matter of tone, it's a matter of priorities.
Fetterman acknowledged the CHOP exchange in his statement to CNN, calling it a "dumb joke" and offering what he described as a sincere apology. He added:
"My office and I always have, and always will, advocate for CHOP, support their requests and any other needs that we can assist with."
He also posted a photo on X showing meetings with CHOP officials, though the Journal report's timeline and the text messages suggest those meetings were ones his staff had to push him to attend.
Last September, three police officers were killed near York, Pennsylvania, Fetterman's hometown. The Journal report revealed that Fetterman texted his staff about the funeral service, writing, "This may be a nonstarter," citing the service's three-hour length. He did not attend.
In his statement, Fetterman said his office "privately ordered flowers to be delivered for their families" and that he "expressed my condolences publicly", pointing to a post on X. He also said he attended a Tunnel to Towers fundraiser in York in June for the officers' families, where he met with the police chief and family members directly.
Flowers and a social media post are not the same as standing with a grieving community at a funeral. The families of fallen officers, the kind of people who show up for three-hour services because the sacrifice demands it, deserved more than a text message calling the event a "nonstarter." Fetterman's later attendance at a fundraiser months afterward does not erase the initial refusal. It underscores it.
Fetterman's shifting political alignment has earned him some goodwill on the right, but goodwill built on rhetoric has to be backed by conduct. Skipping a police funeral in your own hometown tests that proposition.
Perhaps the most striking episode in the Journal's report involves three paralyzed Pennsylvania veterans who traveled to meet with Fetterman to discuss healthcare legislation. Fetterman's staff told the veterans the senator wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it. Roughly one hour later, Fetterman showed up at his office appearing fine, and conducted an interview on Fox News.
Fetterman's explanation to CNN:
"Prior to the meeting I was at home throwing up, so I asked my staff to continue with the meeting which they did. Hours later, I felt well enough to continue the day as scheduled."
The Journal's account says Fetterman appeared approximately one hour later, not "hours later." That gap matters. Paralyzed veterans who made the effort to come to Washington to talk about their healthcare don't deserve to be told the senator is too sick to see them while he recovers in time for a cable news appearance. The optics alone would sink most politicians. The facts are worse.
Fetterman said it was his "intention" to meet with the group. Intentions don't count for much when the veterans are already in the building and the camera crew gets priority.
Fetterman has now used the phrase "disgruntled staffers" to explain away three separate rounds of critical reporting. In May 2025, he told CNN that an earlier New York Magazine story relied on former employees with a "weird grudge." That Magazine piece had reported on a 2024 letter from Adam Jentleson, Fetterman's former chief of staff, raising concerns about the senator's behavior and mental health.
Jentleson, who left Fetterman's office and has spoken publicly about his concerns, noted on X last week that the Journal's reporting drew on "an entirely new group of staff who have rotated in and apparently find themselves horrified at Fetterman's behavior." That distinction matters. If the complaints came from one bitter ex-aide, the "disgruntled" label might stick. When successive waves of staffers, people who chose to work for Fetterman, reach the same conclusion independently, the common denominator isn't the staff.
Now a group of those former campaign and Senate staffers has created an anonymous X account called "Former Fetterman Staffers," promising to release damaging insider details beginning September 14. The account has described the Journal report as the "tip of the iceberg." Anonymous accounts carry obvious credibility risks, but the sheer number of former aides willing to go on record, or near-record, suggests something deeper than a grudge.
Multiple Pennsylvania Democratic officials have already condemned Fetterman publicly. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, did not hold back:
"John Fetterman is a disgrace. Our state deserves better than a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job."
Former Rep. Conor Lamb went further, calling on Fetterman to resign outright:
"John, if there is a decent bone left in your body, just quit. It's an insult to decent people in our state for you to treat them and the office this way."
Those are Democrats talking about their own senator. A DNC vice chair also joined the condemnation, along with two sitting Pennsylvania House Democrats. The party that sent Fetterman to Washington is now openly asking whether he belongs there.
In a notable twist, Fetterman's strongest public defender over the weekend was not a fellow Democrat but Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Dave McCormick. On X, McCormick called the stories "the latest example of outrageously disloyal staff and forces on the Left using anonymous leaks to cancel my friend John Fetterman."
"They hate that he is an independent thinker who refuses to fall into line so they want to silence him."
McCormick vowed to continue working with Fetterman on bipartisan measures. The two senators have built an unusual cross-aisle relationship, Fetterman has even pledged not to campaign against McCormick in his next race.
McCormick's framing, that this is a left-wing effort to punish Fetterman for ideological independence, has some basis. Fetterman has broken with his party on Israel, Iran, immigration, and crime. He told the New York Post flatly, "I am not woke," rejected squatters' rights as "crazy" and "breaking the law," and split with Senate Democratic leadership by disagreeing with Chuck Schumer's call for new Israeli elections. In July, he warned he would leave the Democratic Party entirely if it adopts an anti-Israel policy.
That ideological drift has fueled persistent party-switch speculation, and it has clearly made him a target within progressive circles. Former staffers who disagree with his positions on Israel and immigration are among those cited in the Journal report as sources.
But McCormick's defense, however generous, doesn't answer the specific allegations. Leaked text messages aren't "anonymous leaks" in the usual sense, they're documentary evidence. And the question of whether Fetterman skipped a police funeral or blew off paralyzed veterans isn't about ideology. It's about whether he's doing the job.
Fetterman faces sagging approval ratings within his own party. His first-term record now includes a six-week hospitalization for clinical depression in 2023, something he has been open about, followed by an increasingly public break with Democratic orthodoxy on issue after issue. The combination of personal health struggles, ideological realignment, and now a staff revolt has left his political future uncertain.
A potential 2028 reelection bid looms. Fetterman would need to hold together some coalition of voters in a state that has trended competitive. Right now, his own party's officials are calling him a disgrace, his former staff is organizing against him on social media, and the broader Democratic apparatus is consumed by its own internal dysfunction.
Fetterman told CNN he remains "proud to continue to deliver for Pennsylvania." The text messages suggest the delivery has been spotty at best.
His willingness to break ranks with his party on policy has earned real respect from voters who value independence over partisan loyalty. But independence on policy is one thing. Indifference toward the people you represent is another, and no amount of blaming the staff who noticed will change that.
Pennsylvanians elected a senator, not a commentator. If Fetterman wants to keep the job, he might start by showing up for it.
A 63-year-old retired Oklahoma man was killed when his vehicle hit a group of wild hogs and overturned, a tragedy that highlights the growing dangers of feral swine on America’s rural roads.
Roger Gregory Cummings, who had recently retired after more than four decades at Marlow Lumber Company, died late Wednesday night after colliding with a pack of 10 feral hogs in Stephens County, Oklahoma, about 90 miles south of Oklahoma City. The crash sent his vehicle into a ditch, through a fence, and ultimately caused it to roll over, crushing Cummings beneath it. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the New York Post.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported that Cummings was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. There were no other reported injuries, and the exact time and location within Stephens County have not been disclosed. The collision marks a grim milestone in a state where wildlife crashes are common but rarely deadly, according to those who knew Cummings.
Barbara Johnson, owner of Marlow Lumber Company, described Cummings as “part of our family here.” She told the Daily Mail, “People hit wildlife all the time, but we don’t get fatalities often.” Johnson said the loss had “shocked and saddened” the community and that their “thoughts are with his wife and son.”
Cummings had just celebrated his 40-year wedding anniversary with his wife, Soyna, and his retirement from Marlow Lumber Company in June. The obituary published by Callaway-Smith-Cobb Funeral and Cremation Services reflected the deep ties he had to his family and the local community.
The Oklahoma Wildlife Department notes that feral swine have been detected in 70 of Oklahoma’s 77 counties. These invasive animals are not just a nuisance, they are a growing hazard for rural drivers, as Cummings’ fatal accident demonstrates. The department’s website lays out the widespread presence of these animals, underscoring the risk they pose to both property and public safety across the state.
While the precise fate of the hogs involved in this collision is unknown, the ongoing spread of feral swine has prompted concerns from landowners and public officials alike. The fact that such a large group of animals could cross a rural road undetected, leading to a fatal wreck, is a sobering reminder of the unique dangers rural Americans face, dangers that often go ignored by policymakers more focused on urban priorities.
Collisions with wildlife have long been a fact of life in rural America, but as the feral hog population explodes, so do the risks. Fatalities remain rare, but as Johnson put it, “we don’t get fatalities often.” The death of a man who had just begun his retirement years after a lifetime of hard work is a blow to his family and his community, and a wake-up call for lawmakers who have neglected the issue of invasive species management and rural road safety.
Similar to the uncertainties and sudden losses that have captured national attention in other recent stories, like the sudden death of a public figure or the confusion surrounding conflicting reports about a senator’s health, the shock of this event is compounded by its unpredictability and the lack of clear answers about prevention.
Despite the details provided by Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Daily Mail’s reporting, several questions remain unanswered. The exact date and time of the crash are not specified, nor is the precise location within Stephens County. It is also unclear how quickly the scene was discovered, what happened to the hogs after the collision, or whether any government response will follow this latest tragedy. The lack of seatbelt use was noted, but with an animal strike of this size, it is uncertain what difference, if any, it would have made in this case.
The incident also raises fresh concerns about the impact of invasive animals and the adequacy of rural infrastructure and emergency response when lives are at stake. Just as the nation has been forced to confront disturbing stories of animal-related deaths in other contexts, such as the recent animal cruelty case in Florida, this Oklahoma tragedy spotlights the need for serious, practical action, not just words.
As the feral swine problem grows, so does the risk to rural families simply driving home from work or heading out at night. Oklahoma’s experience is a warning to the rest of the country: when government fails to keep up with invasive species and ignores rural road safety, it’s ordinary Americans who pay the price. For too long, rural problems have been an afterthought in statehouses and Washington alike, a theme seen not just in wildlife management, but in the handling of public health, infrastructure, and even high-profile political events, from Senate absences to presidential appearances.
When the headlines fade, it’s families like the Cummings who are left to pick up the pieces, and a state still searching for answers on how to make its backroads safer for everyone.