Author Archives: atomtabloid

The Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is now the deadliest the country has ever faced, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. According to local authorities, the disease has killed 2,325 people, surpassing the 2,299 deaths recorded in the DRC’s 2018-2020 outbreak, which was previously the country’sContinue reading “Ebola outbreak is the deadliest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s history”

by Benjamin Leynse, New Jersey Monitor Michael Danatos has been advocating for New Jersey’s official 9/11 memorial for over two decades. In 2004, he was chosen by then-Gov. Jim McGreevey to be on a committee made up of survivors of the attack and victims’ family members, a panel that was tasked with choosing the tributeContinue reading “At New Jersey’s 9/11 memorial, disrepair and a fight to be remembered “

President Donald Trump’s decision to fire or reassign the White House’s dedicated biological defense experts has hollowed out the nation’s frontline defenses at the precise moment when artificial intelligence is making it easier for adversaries to engineer deadly pathogens, according to current and former officials. The administration eliminated a specialized team of roughly 30 scientistsContinue reading “Trump’s dismantling of  biosecurity team leaves U.S. exposed as AI threats surge”

By Stacy Malkan The pesticide industry has spent decades building a highly effective influence operation in Washington D.C., shaping how pesticides are regulated and how American agriculture operates. Its political influence did not begin with the Trump administration and has extended across both Republican and Democratic administrations. But over the past 20 months, the TrumpContinue reading “Tracking the Trump administration’s favors to the pesticide industry”

A Bayville man has been arrested and charged in connection with a July boating crash on Barnegat Bay that killed his two young grandchildren, a 9-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. Stephen Schneider, 64, of Bayville, voluntarily surrendered to authorities Friday and was arrested on two counts of second-degree reckless vessel homicide, as well asContinue reading “Grandfather charged in fatal Barnegat Bay boat crash that killed two grandchildren”

The numbers tell a story of a company in freefall. Volkswagen AG, the world’s second-largest automaker and the crown jewel of German industry, is staring into an abyss. While executives cling to a $37 billion liquidity cushion and insist a turnaround is coming, the underlying math suggests a different outcome: bankruptcy is no longer a fringeContinue reading “Volkswagen’s bankruptcy seems inevitable amid Chinese competition & higher costs”

For New Jersey drivers, the good news on car insurance comes with an asterisk large enough to cover the Turnpike: Premiums are falling, but they remain among the highest in America, and the broader national trend has turned upward again. The average annual cost of full-coverage auto insurance reached $2,237 nationwide in the first halfContinue reading “New Jersey car insurance rates are falling, but they remain among the highest in America”

President Donald Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to “end inflation on Day One” and quickly bring down grocery and energy prices. Instead, consumer prices have continued to rise, reflecting a combination of persistent market pressures, the inflationary effects of Republican tariffs, and energy-price shocks stemming from Trump’s Iran war. The inflation report arrivedContinue reading “President Donald Trump’s pledge to halt inflation on “Day One” collided with reality”

A Massachusetts complaint about missing money sent police across state lines and ultimately led to the arrest of a 26-year-old New Jersey woman accused of using another person’s identity to withdraw money from a bank account and attempting to repeat the transaction at another Connecticut branch. Tierra Smikle, 26, faces charges of third-degree forgery, fourth-degreeContinue reading “New Jersey woman accused in multistate identity theft scheme after bank complaint.”

There are baseball towns, and then there are towns that discover, almost overnight, that they have become baseball towns. Bayonne is having that kind of summer. On Friday night in Bristol, Connecticut, Bayonne Central Little League erased a four-run deficit, defeated Darien, Connecticut, 8-6 and won the Metro Region championship. With that victory came somethingContinue reading “New Jersey baseball champs from Bayonne advance to Little League World Series”

by Ariana Figueroa, New Jersey Monitor The American Civil Liberties Union has petitioned a federal court in New Hampshire to reaffirm a ruling that found President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order unconstitutional, after the president renewed his attempts to redefine American citizenship despite his loss at the Supreme Court. “This case has always been,Continue reading “Legal groups ask court to restore block on Trump order on birthright citizenship”

Donald Yuen Sze arrived in the United States as the son of Chinese immigrants, became a dentist in Newark and an oral surgeon in Jersey City, and ultimately reached a rank few Americans — and even fewer dentists — ever attain. Sze retired from the U.S. Navy Reserve as a rear admiral after more thanContinue reading “New Jersey-trained dentist rose from immigrant roots to become Navy admiral”

Constitutional experts warn executive memo revives 18th-century practice without legislative consent, risking unaccountable warfare and geopolitical escalation President Donald Trump signed a national security memorandum Wednesday authorizing select private companies to conduct government-sponsored cyberattacks against foreign criminal networks — effectively reviving the age‑old practice of privateering for the digital era while sidestepping the constitutional authorityContinue reading “Trump resurrects digital privateers, bypassing Congress to let corporate militias wage cyberwar”

The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson became a flashpoint for a debate that extends far beyond the circumstances of his death: the longstanding frustration of patients and families who say they have struggled to obtain medical care after insurance companies denied or delayed coverage. Thompson was the sole fatal victim of the December 2024Continue reading “Thompson’s death put spotlight on unfair health insurance claim denials”

Luigi Mangione stood in federal court Friday and said the words that had been hanging over one of the most politically charged killings in recent American memory: “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died.” At 28, Mangione was no longer merely the accused gunman in the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. HeContinue reading “Luigi Mangione admitted to stalking and murdering Brian Thompson”

A Trump administration proposal that would allow publicly traded companies to stop issuing quarterly financial reports has drawn extraordinary opposition from investors, including some of Wall Street’s largest firms, as critics warn the change could leave ordinary shareholders with less information about the companies they own. Investors overwhelmingly oppose SEC plan to weaken reporting requirementsContinue reading “Investors strongly oppose Trump SEC’s proposal to weaken reporting requirements”

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign is projected to cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $269 billion through the remainder of his term—New Jersey’s share is more than $10 billion—money that could otherwise finance health care for nearly 12 million people or employ more than 930,000 public school teachers, according to a new analysis of federal spending.Continue reading “Trump deportation campaign could cost taxpayers $269 billion, analysis finds”

by Lilo H. Stainton, New Jersey Monitor Food insecurity nearly doubled in New Jersey since 2020, with some 1.2 million people struggling to regularly afford food here, according to a nonprofit analysis of federal data. Statewide, 13% of Garden State residents could not always count on three meals a day in 2024, the latest federalContinue reading “Food insecurity in NJ nearly doubled over four years, new report says”

by Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor The New Jersey Supreme Court handed a major victory Wednesday to dozens of data firms that have alleged a state law that shields the addresses of judges and police officers from the public is unconstitutional. The unanimous ruling comes as the data brokers face a federal lawsuit filed byContinue reading “NJ Supreme Court opinion on privacy law seen as win for data brokers”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries arrived in New Jersey on Tuesday with a simple message: President Donald Trump’s immigration and deportation agenda is “unjust and inhumane.” The Democratic leader visited Morristown and Newark to denounce conditions at the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility, a privately operated center that has faced near-constant controversy since reopening lastContinue reading “Jeffries vows accountability for Delaney Hall concentration camp”