DOGE discovers outlandish contract to maintain VA’s website
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for website changes before canceling the contract and having an internal staffer take over, according to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
While combing through loads and loads of data, DOGE discovered a previous contract by the VA for its website maintenance.
“Good work by @DeptVetAffairs,” DOGE said in a post on X on Wednesday. “VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications. That contract has not been renewed, and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the VA for comment about the former contract.
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VA Secretary Doug Collins has defended DOGE cuts at the VA as part of the new administration’s efforts to reform the department and better serve veterans.
In February, the VA announced that the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees would enable the department to redirect over $98 million per year in resources back to health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries.
Billionaire Elon Musk has been the face of DOGE since President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the department on Jan. 20.
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Trump tasked the organization with optimizing the federal government, streamlining operations and slashing spending and gave the agency 18 months to do it.
Along with discoveries like the former contract VA signed for website maintenance, DOGE continues to find waste and fraud among federal agencies.
Last week, DOGE announced the termination of 113 contracts valued at $4.7 billion, including a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) consulting contract for Peru’s climate change activities.
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DOGE also announced the Department of Labor had canceled $577 million in “America Last” grants, totaling $237 million in savings.
The funding that was canceled included $10 million for “gender equity in the Mexican workplace,” $12.2 million for “worker empowerment in South America” and $6.25 million for “improving respect for workers’ rights in agricultural supply chains” in the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
As of April 2, DOGE claims on its site it has saved Americans $140 billion, or $869.57 per taxpayer.
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DOGE critics contend the organization has too much access to federal systems and should not be permitted to cancel federal contracts or make cuts to various agencies.
Governor DeSantis speaks out after Trump-endorsed candidate wins special election
Ron DeSantis intensified his attacks on Randy Fine Wednesday, blaming the representative-elect’s “unique problems” for a thin special election victory in a district known as a Republican stronghold.
The Trump-endorsed candidate won Tuesday night’s special election to take over former Congressman Mike Waltz’s seat by 14 points, the slimmest margin of victory for a Republican in the district since 2018.
DeSantis, who had already been criticizing Fine’s ability to pull out a victory, called the representative-elect a “squish” who Republican voters didn’t even want to cast their ballots for Tuesday night.
“The president really had to bail him out at the end because this race would have been much closer had the president sat on the sidelines,” DeSantis said. “I think these were voters who didn’t like Randy Fine but who basically were like, ‘You know what? We’re going to take one for the team.'”
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The governor also challenged media reports characterizing the close race as a reflection of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
“I don’t think that’s true at all for this district,” DeSantis said at the press conference. “I think you have a candidate in Randy Fine, who, one, he’s a squish.”
DeSantis added that Fine “repels” people, including his former colleagues in the state legislature. During the press conference Wednesday, the governor recounted how lawmakers in the state requested he nominate Fine to be the president of Florida Atlantic University so he would not have to serve in the legislature anymore.
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“I did, and the whole board [at Florida Atlantic] would have resigned rather than make him president,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis and Fine have had a contentious relationship for some time, which can be traced back to at least 2023, when Fine was the first Florida Republican to switch his endorsement from DeSantis to Trump during the 2024 Republican presidential nomination battle. Fine articulated his decision to endorse Trump over DeSantis during the 2024 presidential primary in a subsequent op-ed that slammed the Florida governor for failing to tamp down antisemitism after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on innocent Israelis.
According to DeSantis, Fine has supported restrictions on the Second Amendment, tried to defeat his immigration proposal earlier this year aimed at boosting the enforcement of immigration laws and tried to enact a de facto sanctuary city policy.
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In response to DeSantis’ criticisms, Fine responded on X alongside video of the governor’s remarks at the press conference Wednesday.
“A dying star burns hottest before it fades into oblivion. I’m focused on working with President Donald Trump to stop Democrats from taking this country backwards, not working with them,” Fine wrote. “Let’s go.”
Allies of Fine have been unhappy about DeSantis’ public criticisms of the representative-elect, who will now add another crucial vote to the GOP’s narrow House majority that had dwindled as a result of several members going to work in the Trump administration.
“Ron and Casey DeSantis are disloyal and consistently put their agenda ahead of the president’s,” a national Republican operative in Trump’s orbit told Fox News Digital. “With the congressional majority on the line in their own backyard, Ron and Casey didn’t lift a finger to help President Trump’s endorsed candidates. Worse, Ron undermined President Trump, openly attacked his candidates leading up to the special election, which could have suppressed Republican turnout, and then crowed about it on Fox News.
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“DeSantis’ personal politics once again betrayed the Trump agenda and the MAGA movement.”
Gov. DeSantis’ office declined to provide comment for this article.
Trump admin acts after blue state refuses to comply with executive order
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Wednesday a pause and an ongoing review of federal funding to Maine after the state refused to provide equal opportunities to women and girls in educational programs.
The state has refused to comply with President Donald Trump’s February executive order to ban trans athletes from girls and women’s sports, prompting immense federal pressure. Trump initially vowed to cut federal funding to the state if it refused to comply with the order during a Feb. 20 speech.
Now, Trump has made good on that promise.
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USDA secretary Brooks Rollins said the state must agree to protect female athletes from trans inclusion before funding is restored.
“In order to continue to receive taxpayer dollars from USDA, the state of Maine must demonstrate compliance with Title IX which protects female student athletes from having to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males,” Rollins wrote in a letter to the state.
“In addition, USDA has launched a full review of grants awarded by the Biden Administration to the Maine Department of Education. Many of these grants appear to be wasteful, redundant, or otherwise against the priorities of the Trump Administration. USDA will not stand for the Biden Administration’s bloated bureaucracy and will instead focus on a Department that is farmer-first and without a leftist social agenda.”
Maine GOP state Rep. Laurel Libby was one of the key figures in bringing attention to the state’s trans inclusion issue, when she made a social media post identifying a transgender track and field athlete at Greely High School had taken first place at a Maine girls pole vault competition after competing as a boy just one year earlier.
Libby’s revelation of the trans athlete ignited national conversation and coverage of the state’s policy on trans inclusion. Libby was censured by the Maine House Democrat majority for her post on the premise that she identified a minor, but she has since filed a lawsuit to have the censure lifted.
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“Governor Janet Mills and Maine Democrats have chosen to dig their heels in and embrace radical left-wing ideology over the safety and rights of Maine women and girls. Despite repeated warnings from President Trump, Maine Democrats continued to defy federal law, forcing Maine girls to unfairly compete against biological males,” Libby told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
“As a result, Maine’s Democrat majority has poised Maine students to lose hundreds of millions in federal funding, starting with our USDA funding, instead of championing Maine girls by adhering to federal law. I continue to stand firmly with Maine girls and President Trump in the pursuit of sanity and fairness. I implore Maine Democrats to abandon this incredibly harmful and radical gender ideology for the sake of our students.”
More potential sanctions could be coming to the state in the next week.
The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) on Monday advising a final deadline of April 11 to address the issue or risk a second referral to the Department of Justice. The Department of Health and Human Services already referred Maine to the DOJ last week.
Wednesday’s announcement is not the first funding freeze USDA announced regarding Maine.
The department paused funding to the University of Maine System (UMS), a network of eight public universities in the state, on March 11 while it conducted a review of the system’s compliance with Title IX.
Funding was restored to UMS just days later and the USDA announced the system was in full compliance.
But the major issue involving trans athlete inclusion in Maine is at the high school level. In addition to the incident involving the pole vaulter at Greely High School, other instances have impacted multiple girls across the state who have had to compete with and share locker rooms with biological males.
Maine teen Cassidy Carlisle previously told Fox News Digital about how she had to share a locker room with a trans student while in middle school, then had to compete with another trans athlete in Nordic skiing last year.
“The defeat that comes with that in that moment is heartbreaking,” Carlisle said. “I’m just in shock in a way. I didn’t believe it. … I didn’t think it was happening to me.”
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“I stayed silent for a while,” Carlisle said. “It’s very hard to speak up if you don’t have a platform to do it on. … Backlash is a huge thing. I’m a high school student. No high school student wants to be hurt or yelled at or said mean comments by people. And the reality of it, with the state that I live in, that could very much happen.”
A survey by the American Parents Coalition found that out of about 600 registered Maine voters, 63% said school sports participation should be based on biological sex, and 66% agreed it’s “only fair to restrict women’s sports to biological women.”
The poll also found that 60% of residents would support a ballot measure limiting participation in women’s and girls sports to biological females. This included 64% of independents and 66% of parents with kids under age 18.
Experts uncover what led to ‘Snow White’ remake becoming a box office bomb
Leading film industry experts are weighing in on why Disney’s live-action “Snow White” remake became one of the biggest box office blunders in recent memory.
Wall Street Journal film critic Kyle Smith, “Hollywood in Toto Podcast” host Christian Toto, and YouTube film and pop culture commentator “Nerdrotic,” told Fox News Digital that a “perfect storm” of bad press ahead of Snow White’s release warded off potential viewers who worried that it would be too woke.
Not only that, the film just wasn’t very good. Smith panned the movie outright, calling it “charmless, uninspired and mediocre.” Nerdrotic called it an “ill-conceived creative bankruptcy.” And though Toto was less harsh and praised elements of the film, he ripped the movie for its “woke upgrades” to the original film.
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The studio’s remake of the 1937 animated classic suffered a dismal box office opening on the weekend of Mar. 28, earning only $43 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada. This represented a huge drop-off from box office predictions in February that it would open to $85 million domestically.
With a $43 million opening, “Snow White” performed worse at the box office than the worst-performing live-action Disney remake up to that point, the 2019 “Dumbo” remake, which opened to $46 million.
The film’s poor opening extended to its second week, where it earned only $14.2 million domestically – a 66% decline from its opening weekend. These numbers appeared all the more catastrophic considering the film had a budget of approximately $250 million — making it one of the company’s most expensive film productions in the last several years.
Toto summed up what he thought led to this bomb, stating, “The film endured a perfect storm of bad buzz, turning what should have been a slam-dunk hit into a debacle.”
“A leading lady who antagonized the original film’s fans … a lackluster trailer … a studio increasingly known for its woke storytelling … a dwarf controversy that never should have happened in the first place … there was never any room for positive buzz to build,” he continued, adding up the laundry list of controversies the film endured.
In the three years leading up to the “Snow White” release, a year-long delay, Disney’s apparent flip-flop on making the film’s “dwarfs” depiction more politically correct, lead actress Rachel Zegler’s bashing of the original film’s traditional themes and her public demonization of Trump supporters, soured the film before it even came out.
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Smith noted that all this bad press caused prospective audiences to believe that “the remake was going to be an act of cultural vandalism on a par with tossing a bucket of paint on the Mona Lisa.”
He noted that the film was “probably perceived, or feared, as being more woke than it was.”
Mentioning the year-long delay and reported re-shoots done to the film, he added, “I suspect that when Disney did reshoots, executives steered the story back in a fairly conventional direction.” In the end, however, Smith said the movie wasn’t good.
Youtuber Nerdrotic, whose real name is Gary Buechler and has a YouTube channel that boasts more than 1.2 million subscribers, told Fox News Digital that the film was made “worse by a two-year-long PR nightmare mostly due to the film’s star.”
The pop culture commentator added that “Snow White” is “a well-earned historic failure,” stating, “From nightmarish CGI dwarves to Gal Godot ‘singing’ and the inability to suspend my disbelief enough to convince myself that Rachel Zegler is this kind and beautiful person.”
Nerdrotic blasted the film as woke, noting, “After all that was said and done, I was expecting more generic Disney content, not feminist/communist propaganda.”
Toto said he found the movie to be “certainly woke,” and criticized it for getting away from the original story.
“The story diverges from the source material to make Snow White the main protagonist and diminish her love for the Prince (except he’s not even a Prince-Prince in the film),” he said, noting that such changes “frustrated” him.
The film’s male love interest is a bandit played by Andrew Burnap, who falls in love with Zegler’s “Snow White” after teaming up to defeat the evil queen.
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Toto was the only one of the experts who mentioned some positive aspects of the film, saying, “the film moves briskly, features Rachel Zegler’s lovely singing voice and has a sweetness that should go down easier once all the bad buzz dies down. I bet it will perform well on Disney+.”
Though he savaged the film, Smith marveled at the movie’s poor box-office performance, saying that kids’ films normally perform well despite bad reviews. “A lot of kids’ movies that aren’t very good nevertheless make a lot of money because parents just need to get out of the house sometimes, and they don’t mind being bored if the kids stay calm for a couple of hours.”
“So I’m surprised it may not even reach $100 million at the domestic box office,” he said, adding, “I would have guessed it would hit at least $150 million.”
When asked how they think Disney can prevent similar box office disasters going forward, they argued that Disney needs to ditch “wokeness” both on and off-screen. “Woke often short circuits the storytelling process, so a move away from it is almost certainly a positive step,” Toto said.
Smith said Disney should remember “that parents of small children are a lot more conservative than Hollywood progressives. [Disney] always knew that, but they temporarily forgot that their customers are more important than their employees’ feelings.”
As far as dealing with the outspoken political views of movie stars like Zegler, Smith thinks that the studio will mandate penalties for becoming a PR liability for the film. “Yes, my guess is they are going to put it in actors’ contracts in the future, if they haven’t already: dump on our movie, or provide unnecessary distractions from it, and you’ll be penalized.”
“Studios have always had morals clauses; this would be more of a stupidity clause,” he added.
Nerdrotic agreed, stating, “This should be a call to arms with agents and studios. The culture has shifted and when your ‘stars’ are on the clock they are their to sell, not alienate half the potential shrinking audience.”
He continued, “These are desperate times in Hollywood, which is suffering from brand damage.”
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Toto disagreed with actors being corralled by studios in such a way, but urged stars to keep their statements appropriate during production periods. “I’d advise stars to think about why they’re talking to the press, walking down the red carpet or chatting with the likes of Fallon or Colbert. It’s to nudge people into seeing your film. Period.”
“Getting political, divisive or just cruel is a terrible way to coax audiences to see your product,” he concluded.
NAACP leader sues school district over mascot called ‘symbol of White supremacy’
A Long Island, New York school district is facing a lawsuit from a father and local civil rights leader who claims the school district’s new mascot is a symbol of White supremacy.
William King Moss III, Islip Town NAACP President, former mathematics teacher in Brentwood Union Free School District and father of two Brentwood students, filed the complaint against the district on March 26.
Moss’s complaint accuses the district of selecting the “Spartans” as their new mascot, despite it being “racially problematic,” claiming the ancient Greek warrior is a “symbol of hate” banned by state law.
His complaint contends that in January 2024, the district began collecting ideas from the community for a new mascot through an online survey. The responses were narrowed down to six options, and the district said it selected the “Spartans” after this choice received the most votes.
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Moss argued that the other options chosen, “Green Machine,” “Bears,” “Owls,” “Bulldogs,” and “Eagles,” were not members of an “identifiable or generally perceived protected class,” like the Spartans.
“Spartans are of the identifiable and generally perceived protected classes of White Non-Hispanic in race, White in color, Greek in National Origin, and Spartan or Greek in Ethnicity,” the complaint states.
Moss’s lawsuit questions the survey’s methodology and argues that the district did not act in a democratic manner in selecting the mascot, which was meant to replace its old Native American-themed one that had been banned.
The complaint states that Moss asked the district to conduct another vote. During meetings with the Board of Education last November, Moss warned the district that selecting a mascot that’s based on race would prompt a lawsuit.
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The school board defended its decision to Moss, according to an alleged email sent by the school board in December. The board argued the team name was used by over a dozen school districts in New York and denied that Spartans implied any “particular ethnic group.”
Moss says the Spartans are a “symbol of White supremacy,” because it is well-known that they are known to be “White warriors” who conquered other people groups and “enslaved indigenous people called the Helots.”
The complaint also accuses the logo of being a symbol of hate for female enlistment in the military because “Ancient Spartans did not allow females to be soldiers in the military.”
Moss accuses Brentwood Schools of violating state and federal due process clauses in its team selection and violating the state and federal equal protection clauses by selecting a symbol of “White supremacy” and “male misogynists,” among other grievances listed in the complaint.
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Moss’s complaint asks the district to pick a new mascot and cover attorney’s costs.
Brentwood Schools declined to comment on the pending litigation to Fox News Digital. Moss did not immediately return a request for comment.
Superintendent of Schools Wanda Ortiz-Rivera said in a statement that the selection process was done in an inclusive manner with input from students, staff and the broader community and the Board of Education approved the resolution on November 21, 2024.
The district’s previous team mascot was “The Indians.” It was forced to pick a new mascot last April after a directive from the New York Education Department required school districts to stop using indigenous names, mascots and logos unless they have permission from tribal nations.
Schools that refused to comply with the rule by the end of the 2024-2025 school year were told they could face penalties, including the withholding of state aid.
On Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by four Long Island school districts challenging the state ban, The Long Island Press reported.
‘Revolving door’ lets ex-football player murder suspect keep walking free
A former Duke University football player who allegedly confessed to killing his former high school friend and Charlotte, North Carolina, real estate agent Whitney Hurd, was arrested and released four separate times between Hurd’s death in July 2024 and his arrest for murder in March.
Police found Hurd, 32, dead with multiple stab wounds in her townhome in Charlotte’s upscale South Park neighborhood on July 14 of last year while responding to a call for medical assistance that afternoon. Her manner of death was ruled a homicide.
Court records show that Brandon Braxton, 33, was arrested and released on unrelated charges four times for charges including injury to real property, simple assault, larceny, trespassing, resisting a public officer, indecent exposure and assault on a female before he was eventually charged with murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon on March 20.
Just months after Hurd’s death, Braxton allegedly exposed himself to a victim in a public Charlotte park and attempted to grab a woman’s shorts, according to court records. He spent 31 minutes in jail for the incident exposure charge, records show.
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“This is nothing new, and it isn’t surprising in this case,” Charlotte Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) President Daniel Redford told Fox News Digital.
“It highlights the frustrations that we have all spoken about.”
Redford noted, however, that authorities may not have had enough information to charge Braxton with murder in the Hurd case to keep him in jail on his multiple other charges after she was found dead.
But on March 3 of this year, Braxton allegedly submitted a written grievance to Mecklenburg County jail officials, stating: “I killed Whitney Hurd,” the affidavit states.
Hurd’s neighbor apparently saw a man driving her white BMW away from her home on the afternoon of July 4, 2024, and there was nobody in the passenger seat. The neighbor advised police that Hurd never let anyone else drive her vehicle, according to an affidavit.
An indictment filed on March 31 alleges that Braxton stole Hurd’s BMW and cellphone “by means of assault” against Hurd with a knife.
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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) obtained a search warrant for Hurd’s phone and received her last known location data, which led detectives to her vehicle, which was collected and processed as evidence. Detectives were unable to locate her phone, but the case was still inside the vehicle.
Fingerprints from Hurd’s vehicle were collected and processed, placing Braxton inside her vehicle and residence.
“I call it an open-door policy. Some people call it a revolving door. … You commit a crime, you get arrested, you’re back out.”
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Redford called Braxton’s four arrests and releases after Hurd’s murder “very concerning,” saying his record indicates a “progression of increasing what crimes he was committing.” He noted that certain Mecklenburg County judges take a more progressive approach to criminal justice, releasing certain violent criminal suspects on low bond or without bond.
In June 2024, for example, a Rock Hill murder and rape suspect named Raphael Wright was released on $50,000 bond, leading police and the victim’s family to voice their concerns. A judge ultimately raised his bond to $850,000 a month later, and Wright was again detained.
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden told Fox News Digital that his office “lacks the authority to release individuals without a judge’s order.”
“Consequently, we have no involvement in determining how, when or why someone’s release nor the amount of their bonds, or the conditions of their release,” McFadden said in an emailed statement. “The Sheriff’s Office is solely responsible for the custody and care of individuals. The factors and reasons for their release are solely determined by the appropriate authorities which is the magistrate or a judge.”
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The Mecklenburg District Attorney’s Office did not respond to an inquiry from Fox News Digital.
Braxton’s attorney said he will not be commenting publicly on the matter at this time.
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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said the case is still an active and ongoing investigation, and the department is unable to provide further comment at this time.
Mecklenburg County’s current bail policy, in general, is to allow suspects accused of minor crimes to be released from custody.
McFadden directed Fox News Digital to a recent study from MDRC’s Center for Criminal Justice Research showing the county’s bail policies led to increased release rates but no significant increase in defendants’ failures to appear in court or in new criminal charges filed against the same defendants.
Legendary rocker’s daughter, reality star reveals stage 4 cancer spread with new tumors
Teddi Mellencamp’s doctors recently found four more tumors in her brain, one month after the reality star was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.
The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star told US Weekly she’s in the fight of her life after the cancer spread in her brain and to her lungs.
Mellencamp, 43, isn’t sure what the future holds, but she’s remaining positive for her family, friends and herself.
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“I’m fighting for my life,” Mellencamp told the outlet. “But also for my family’s life and all the people I love.”
In February, after medication became ineffective for her migraines and Mellencamp began feeling severe pain, she rushed to an emergency room with her estranged husband, Edwin Arroyave.
‘REAL HOUSEWIVES’ STAR TEDDI MELLENCAMP HOSPITALIZED WITH MULTIPLE TUMORS ON HER BRAIN
“The pain had become something I’d never felt before,” she said. “They diagnosed me with multiple brain tumors, but the [ER doctor] says he can’t take them out; they’ve got to get me into Cedars-Sinai [hospital].
“And I’m like, ‘Can’t you get me in tonight? I want to go tonight.’ I had six brain tumors and two lung tumors; they all came from melanoma that metastasized into these tumors inside of my body.”
Her “RHOBH” co-star, Kyle Richards, made a few phone calls to get her into a hospital immediately.
“Kyle saved the day,” Mellencamp said. “I believe it was within 24 hours that an incredible surgeon was able to remove four tumors from my brain. I didn’t know they had been there for six months to a year, and we had no idea.”
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Mellencamp began radiation and immunotherapy treatment immediately after her surgery, which took a toll on her body.
“I thought I was going to feel like how I felt after my neck lift,” she said. “My reaction is always a headache, and I found out that’s good news because it means that the immunotherapy or the radiation is killing your cancer.”
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Mellencamp said in her Instagram story Wednesday after undergoing both radiation and immunotherapy the day before that she feels “so tired and run down, but I know it’s going to get better again.”
“Something that everyone can keep in mind … I kind of thought that I’d already beaten it, and then, a couple days later, I found out I had four more tumors. So, there are so many different highs and lows, and yeah, but I’ve learned a lot.”
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She said her famous father, musician John Mellencamp, calls to check in on her every day.
“Some days, I’m not in the mood. I don’t want a pep talk,” Teddi said. “[I tell him], ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I’ll be more pep talk-ready, but I love you.’”
He’s also given some life advice to his daughter as a survivor of a heart attack when he was 36 years old.
“I remember his life completely changing,” Teddi said. “And some of the moments [when] I felt really scared, I was like, ‘Hold on. I’m not changing everything about my life. I want more things. I want to keep building.’
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“But he’s like, ‘There are moments where you emotionally won’t be able to control how you’re feeling because of a certain medication or a certain whatever. And you have to give yourself some grace and know this isn’t you sometimes. And that’s OK.’”
Probe into mysterious death of former Yankees player’s son triggers warning from experts
Experts are speaking out about the potential dangers attached to carbon monoxide, as authorities continue to probe the death of teen Miller Gardner, son of former New York Yankees player Brett Gardner.
While the cause of Miller Gardner’s death remains unconfirmed, Costa Rican Judicial Investigative Agency (OIJ) General Director Randall Zúñiga told reporters at a press conference on Monday that high levels of carbon monoxide contamination were found in the Gardner family’s hotel room, and that it might have caused the teen’s death.
“Which then leads us towards a line of investigation in which it seems that this person could have died from inhaling these very dangerous gases,” Zúñiga said.
Zúñiga said investigators who work on a specialized dangerous atmospheres team detected “high emissions of pollution of…carbon monoxide” in the room at Costa Rica’s Arenas Del Mar Beachfront & Rainforest Resort, which is where the Gardners were staying.
Officials at the hotel are denying the carbon monoxide claims.
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“The levels in the hotel room were non-existent and non-lethal. There was an error in this initial reporting. As mentioned, we await for conclusive results to confirm the cause of this unfortunate death,” a hotel spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The spokesperson also said the room has been “closed off out of an abundance of precaution.”
Dr. Nicole Saphier, a Fox News medical contributor, said no parent should ever have to endure the tragedy of losing a child.
In regard to carbon monoxide, she said the gas is “a silent, deadly threat.”
“We often focus on smoke alarms, but carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless and can overcome a person before they even realize what’s happening,” Saphier told Fox News Digital.
Saphier said every household should have multiple functioning carbon monoxide detectors, especially near sleeping areas.
“When we travel — whether staying at a hotel, Airbnb, or even in an RV — it’s worth considering bringing a portable carbon monoxide monitor for added protection,” she suggested.
Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and a Fox News senior medical analyst, said, “symptoms can come on rapidly within minutes or hours and can include headache, nausea, fatigue, dizziness and vomiting.”
If you experience symptoms that you think could be from carbon monoxide poisoning, the Environmental Protection Agency recommends opening doors and windows, turning off combustion appliances and leaving the building.
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Siegel said prompt treatment with oxygen can sometimes reverse carbon monoxide poisoning.
“It is absolutely shocking to me that it took this long to be disclosed as a likely cause of death, when they could have done a test for carbon monoxide in [Miller Gardener’s] blood within hours during his autopsy weeks ago,” Siegel told Fox News Digital.
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Between 2009 and 2019, deaths from non-fire-related carbon monoxide poisoning were on the rise, according to a report released by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in March 2023.
Fox News Digital reached out to OIJ in Costa Rica for additional comment.