New details have emerged about the gunman who opened fire inside a Minneapolis Catholic school. Investigators said 23-year-old Robin Westman was “obsessed” with the idea of killing children and idolized some of the country’s most notorious mass murderers.
Plus, at the CDC, the confusion continues. The White House has named Jim O’Neill as acting director, but Susan Monarez — the leader they claimed to have fired — insists she’s still in charge.
And in Washington state, U.S. Border Patrol agents pulled two firefighters off the front lines of a massive wildfire, arresting them for being in the country illegally.
These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Friday, Aug. 29, 2025.
Minneapolis shooter was obsessed with killing children: Investigators
Authorities identified the gunman who killed two students and injured over a dozen others at a Catholic school mass in Minneapolis as 23-year-old Robin Westman, a former student of Annunciation Catholic School. As of Friday, nine victims remained in the hospital, one child in critical condition.
Investigators said Wetman was “obsessed” with the idea of killing children.
Law enforcement has uncovered hundreds of pages of writings where Westman expressed hatred toward “almost every group imaginable,” including Black, Mexican, Christian and Jewish communities. The shooter even voiced a disapproval of President Donald Trump.
“There appears to be only one group that the shooter didn’t hate. One group of people that the shooter admired … the school shooters and the mass murderers that are notorious in this country,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson. “The shooter idolized some of the most notorious school shooters and mass murderers in our country’s history.”
Investigators said Westman wanted to kill “defenseless children” and “watch them suffer.” But despite the writings, authorities say a clear motive for the attack remains unclear.
In a manifesto, Westman expressed being tired of being trans and said they regretted brainwashing themselves.
The gunman’s mother, Mary Grace Westman, formerly worked at Anunciation Catholic School. Officials said she has hired a high-profile attorney, and, according to the Minneapolis police chief, she is refusing to talk to police.
The community continues to gather to mourn. Mourners have placed flowers and teddy bears at a memorial outside Annunciation Catholic Church.
One child was seen embracing an adult after laying down a bloom, a small sign of hope amid heartbreak.
CDC shakeup continues as new acting director named, staff resign in protest
The CDC has a new acting director as of Friday morning, after the White House fired Susan Monarez just weeks into her new job.
The Trump administration tapped Jim O’Neill, a top deputy to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to fill the role. O’Neill will keep his post at HHS while running the CDC, giving Kennedy even more influence over federal vaccine policy.
The shakeup has already rattled the agency, with four top officials resigning after Monarez’s ousting. Staffers gathered outside the CDC in Atlanta on Thursday to say goodbye. It was a somber “clap out” to see them off.
“This is unprecedented. There has never been a CDC director fired. And it appears that she was fired for standing up for saying things that are true,” said former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. “What we’re seeing is an assault. It’s an assault on science. It’s an assault on the CDC, and it is making Americans less safe.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who chairs the health committee, is calling for next month’s vaccine advisory meeting to be postponed. He warned any decisions made amid this turmoil would “lack legitimacy.”
Kennedy defended the shakeup. He said, “There’s a lot of trouble at the CDC, and it’s gonna require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture and bring back pride and self-esteem and make that agency the stellar agency that it’s always been.”
Meanwhile, Monarez’s lawyers insist she’s still the legal director, arguing that only the president can remove her. That sets up a possible legal fight even as O’Neill takes over.
Abrego Garcia lawyers seek gag order against Trump administration
Lawyers for a Maryland man at the center of a high-profile immigration case want the judge to gag the government.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father from El Salvador living in Maryland, is in custody facing federal human smuggling charges.
However, his attorneys say the Trump administration’s constant name-calling is jeopardizing his right to a fair trial.
This week, after he reported to jail in Baltimore, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem criticized him online, calling him an illegal alien, gang member, human trafficker, domestic abuser and child predator.
Trump has previously referred to him as an animal.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say those claims are baseless, and the public attacks are meant to vilify their client before he ever sees a jury.
They argue it risks “prejudicing the proceedings” and want the judge to shut it down.
Border Patrol arrests two firefighters while fighting Washington wildfire
In Washington state, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested two firefighters while they battled the state’s largest active blaze. The Bear Gulch fire has burned nearly 9,000 acres in the Olympic National Forest.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Border Patrol agents detained two crew members after verifying identities on site, saying, “Several discrepancies were identified, and two individuals were found to be present in the U.S. illegally, one with a previous order of removal.”
Other crew members said they were shocked to see an arrest during an active fire response. Federal officials insist the operation did not disrupt firefighting efforts.
But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., criticized the move, writing: “Trump has undercut our wildland firefighting abilities in more ways than one … To now apparently detain firefighters on the job. This administration’s immigration policy is fundamentally sick.”
Mexican senators exchange blows after heated cartel debate
Mexico’s upper chamber turned into a chaotic and brawling hall after a heated debate over drug cartels. Now, the U.S. is debating whether it should get involved.
Mexican Sen. Alejandro Moreno, leader of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), marched to the podium and shoved Senate President Gerardo Fernández Norona, even hitting him on the neck. When another man tried to intervene, he was also knocked down.
The scuffle ended a session during which opposition parties were accused of urging U.S. military intervention against the cartel — a claim they deny.
The dust-up arises as Trump has directed the Pentagon to classify cartels as terrorists.
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, insists there will be “no U.S. invasion.”
Strange, spiky dinosaur fossil discovered in Morocco
A dinosaur that resembles something from Jurassic Park, but it’s not the usual Hollywood depiction. Researchers in Morocco have uncovered what they call a “jaw-droppingly weird” dinosaur.
It’s the Spicomellus, the oldest known ankylosaurus, dating back 165 million years.
This creature was a showstopper — heavy body armor with spikes up to three feet long. The fossil turned up in the Atlas Mountains, adding a new branch to the Ankylosaurus family tree.
Scientists claimed the dinosaurs were slow, herbivorous tanks of their era, using their armor to survive among predators.
A reminder that even after millions of years, nature still has a few surprises to uncover.
More from Straight Arrow News:
20 years later: How Katrina changed the game in US disaster response
When Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast of Louisiana in the early Monday-morning hours of Aug. 29, 2005, it shattered everything in its path: Homes. Trees. Weather records.
The Category 4 hurricane “clearly overwhelmed” government agencies, according to an initial Government Accountability Office report, and set new precedents for mass-casualty disaster response, forever leaving its impact on how Americans respond to storms. Twenty years later, responders are still considering how lessons learned from Katrina can improve search and rescue (SAR) and other disaster-response efforts today.
Rick Christ, senior consultant of Crisis Prevention and Response Inc., was on the scene of Katrina in 2005, after Louisiana made a request for interstate aid.
“That was the moment my crew changed,” Christ told SAN. “How could a prone city be so unprepared?”
He has spent much time over the past two decades researching what went wrong leading up to Katrina. His hypothesis: Many Katrina casualties could have been prevented with better awareness about seawall weaknesses beforehand, as well as a sharper eye on data about city planning.
“We didn’t know the street names, because the street signs were down, but we could see the streets — we could grid it out. One of us gridded it like the equator and prime meridian — other teams followed that process well,” Christ told SAN. Even with his team’s creative grid efforts, some of the victims from the city’s Lower Ninth Ward were never found. Read the full story now >
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Author: Craig Nigrelli
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