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A sweeping vaccine order could upend the U.S. childhood immunization schedule, Colombia races to recover after a deadly 7.4-magnitude earthquake, and the WHO warns it's chasing an Ebola outbreak that spread undetected for months. Plus, Nvidia's massive AI funding push and the growing fight over license plate surveillance.

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The Big Read

Trump Orders the MMR Vaccine Split Into Three Separate Shots

President Trump signed an executive order Monday afternoon directing federal health agencies to split the MMR vaccine into three separate injections given at three separate appointments. Standalone measles, mumps and rubella shots are not sold anywhere in the United States today, so the order describes a schedule no manufacturer can currently supply.

Trump went further at the signing, telling reporters that one-year-olds should have their shots spread across five separate visits rather than the bundled appointments pediatricians have used for decades. Kennedy's department was also handed a formal mandate to broaden federal vaccine research, giving the health secretary direct authority over questions he has spent years pushing back into public view.

Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake Kills at Least 111 in Western Colombia

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 111 people and damaging hundreds of buildings, according to national authorities. Shaking carried clear across the border into Ecuador, where residents in northern provinces reported feeling the ground move beneath them.

Rescuers in Cali worked through the afternoon searching collapsed structures, while hospital staff wheeled patients out into the open rather than risk a compromised building. Manizales, well to the north, reported damage to its landmark cathedral, and both the US Geological Survey and Colombia's geological service independently confirmed the 7.4 reading.

WHO Says It Is Chasing an Ebola Outbreak That Had a Three-Month Head Start

The World Health Organization said Monday that the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo began at least three months before it was officially declared, leaving responders permanently a step behind the virus. More than 1,900 people have died since the May 15 declaration, which makes this the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded anywhere.

WHO Africa director Mohamed Janabi, speaking from Bunia, put it about as plainly as a health official can: "We are chasing the virus, the virus is ahead of us." Insecurity across eastern Congo has repeatedly stalled containment work, and the Bundibugyo species driving this outbreak still has no approved vaccine and no recognised therapeutic.

World View

Russian Court Bars the Country's Only Anti-War Party From the September Ballot

Russia's Supreme Court annulled Yabloko's registration on Monday, stripping the only party opposed to the war in Ukraine from next month's parliamentary ballot after an appeal from a pro-Kremlin rival. Election officials had cleared the liberal party barely a month ago alongside ten others, and its campaign slogans included an explicit call for a ceasefire, diplomacy and peace.

Twenty Million Pilgrims Gather in Karbala for Arbaeen

Roughly twenty million pilgrims converged on Karbala for Arbaeen, one of the largest religious gatherings on earth, held this year in the shadow of a region still very much at war. Iran said more than three million of its own citizens made the crossing for a commemoration now bound up with the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family.

Pentagon Tells Asian Allies to Start Paying for Their Own Defense

Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby told a forum in Manila that Washington now sees its Asian allies as "partners, not protectorates," pressing each of them to raise military spending substantially. Colby also swatted down talk of an American retreat, saying "we are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in," before flying on to Indonesia and Thailand.

Need To Know

South Carolina Votes Tuesday to Fill Lindsey Graham's Seat

Ten Republicans face voters Tuesday in a special primary in South Carolina, called after Senator Lindsey Graham died on July 11 of an aortic tear, only weeks after winning his own primary. Darline Graham, his sister and the governor's appointee to the seat, carries Trump's endorsement against a field including Representatives Russell Fry, Ralph Norman and former Governor Mark Sanford.

Madison Names the Officer Who Shot and Killed Corey Ruiz

Wisconsin authorities named the officer who shot and killed Corey Ruiz on July 22, identifying him as Kiel Baitinger-Peterson, a white officer with nearly eleven years in law enforcement. Ruiz, 38 and Black, was riding a bicycle when four officers surrounded him following calls about someone checking parked cars, and video of the shooting set off days of protests in Madison.

Trump Extends the Jones Act Waiver for Another 90 Days

Trump extended a Jones Act waiver for a further 90 days starting August 17, allowing foreign-flagged vessels to keep hauling cargo between American ports. Scope narrowed this time to energy cargo and farm commodities like fertilizers and soybean oil, and the Pentagon will now vet which voyages actually qualify.

Money & Markets

Stocks Slip From a Record While Brent Crude Jumps Almost 5 Percent

Wall Street eased back from Friday's record on Monday, with the S&P 500 down 0.1 percent, the Dow off 133 points and the Nasdaq composite sliding 0.4 percent by mid-afternoon. Brent crude went the other way entirely, surging 4.7 percent to $87.50 a barrel, while the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.70 percent from 4.65 percent late Friday.

Nvidia Lines Up $500 Billion From Wall Street to Bankroll the AI Build-Out

Nvidia is assembling a $500 billion capital package alongside Apollo, Blackstone, Brookfield, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and KKR, according to a source familiar with the discussions. Money from the vehicle would help Nvidia's biggest customers finance GPUs, data centre construction and long-term power contracts, though none of the named firms had commented by Monday afternoon.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Falls to Its Lowest Level Since 1983

America's emergency oil stockpile dropped below 300 million barrels last week, sliding 6.1 million to 298.7 million — the thinnest the reserve has been since January 1983. Trump ordered a 172-million-barrel release in March after Iran choked off Hormuz exports, and Rapidan analysts estimate at least 103 million barrels of what remains cannot be pumped out.

Future Frontiers

Britain Approves Europe's First Daily Weight-Loss Pill

UK regulators approved Eli Lilly's Foundayo on Monday, making Britain the first country in Europe to clear a daily GLP-1 pill for both obesity and type 2 diabetes. Availability begins with private prescriptions rather than the NHS, and researchers expect the pill to deliver less weight loss than the injectables while costing considerably less per patient.

A Chinese Rocket Fails Minutes After Lifting Off From Hainan

A Long March 7A rocket failed on Monday evening after launching from the Wenchang site on Hainan, destroying the ChinaSat 4B communications satellite it was carrying. Xinhua reported that the vehicle "experienced an anomaly during the flight," and Chinese space authorities said the cause of the failure remains under investigation.

Scientists Map Where Humans Are Ticklish and Find the Same Spots Everywhere

Researchers mapped ticklishness across cultures using 448 participants from Dutch, Greek and Chinese backgrounds, and the sensitive zones barely shifted at all: neck, armpits, belly, soles of the feet. Maps published in Nature Human Behaviour looked nothing like the existing maps for pain or pleasure, which suggests ticklishness deserves a physiological category entirely of its own.

The Score

Tim Anderson Retires at 33 After Ten Big-League Seasons

Tim Anderson announced his retirement on a video call with reporters Monday, saying the game "brought too much pain for me" after a decade in the majors. Anderson walks away with a .276 career average, 98 home runs and the 2019 American League batting title, and the White Sox will honour him before a September 17 game.

Reds Lose Hunter Greene for the Season to Elbow Surgery

Cincinnati is sending Hunter Greene for elbow surgery after a second opinion confirmed a partially torn UCL, ending the 27-year-old right-hander's season. Reds executive Nick Krall said flatly that "the ligament was failing," after soreness in a side session led to an MRI and then a trip to Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles.

Cardinals Will Retire Larry Fitzgerald's No. 11 in October

Arizona will retire Larry Fitzgerald's No. 11 at halftime of the Week 7 game against Denver on October 25, just two days after his enshrinement in Canton. Fitzgerald spent all 17 of his NFL seasons with the Cardinals, and his jersey becomes only the sixth number the franchise has ever pulled out of circulation.

Life & Culture

Tupac Shakur's Alleged Killer Goes on Trial Thirty Years Later

Jury selection opened in Las Vegas on Monday in the trial of Duane Davis, the 63-year-old former gang leader charged with orchestrating the murder of Tupac Shakur. Shakur was shot in a drive-by on September 7, 1996, and nobody was arrested for 27 years; Davis has pleaded not guilty and faces life without parole.

Netflix Dates Danny Boyle's Murdoch Film and Unveils Guy Pearce in the Role

Netflix set a December 11 theatrical date for Danny Boyle's "Ink," a drama about the birth of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid empire, ahead of a January 8 streaming release. First-look images released Monday show Guy Pearce as Murdoch, the figure at the centre of Boyle's account of how the whole machine got built.

Jean Smart Could Become the First Woman to Sweep Every Season of Her Show

Jean Smart has won lead comedy actress for every eligible season of "Hacks" — 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025 — and she is nominated again for the fifth and final run. Winning would hand Smart an eighth career Emmy and a feat no woman has ever managed in the acting categories, with Zendaya chasing the identical record for "Euphoria."

Deep Dive

The License Plate Cameras Watching Every American Road

What it is: Flock Safety cameras are small, pole-mounted devices that photograph every passing license plate and dump the data into a searchable network shared with police. Local departments love them as a cheap way to solve carjackings, catch fugitives and run down Amber Alerts. More than 5,000 communities nationwide now use the system, creating one of the country's largest interconnected license plate databases and allowing agencies to track vehicle movements across city and state lines within seconds.

The detail: In Texas, the pushback has united liberals and conservatives who agree on almost nothing else. Residents in cities and rural counties alike object to cameras trained on their trucks. Critics call it a de facto mass surveillance system built with almost no public debate. Supporters point to solved cases. Civil liberties groups argue the technology enables long-term tracking of innocent drivers, while police departments counter that the cameras capture vehicles, not people, and are used only during criminal investigations.

Why it matters: The Flock rollout is one of the fastest expansions of police surveillance in recent memory, and it's largely dodged the fights that greeted facial recognition. Retention rules, access logs and audit trails vary wildly town to town. As more agencies join the network, questions over who can search the data, how long records are stored, and what safeguards prevent misuse are becoming harder for lawmakers to ignore.

What to watch: Local council meetings are the battleground now. Some jurisdictions are voting to rip the cameras out, others are doubling down. The fight will shape how Americans think about privacy on public roads for years. State legislatures may also step in with standardized rules governing data retention, interagency sharing, warrant requirements, and public oversight as the technology spreads beyond early-adopter communities.

Extra Bits

  • A former Thai MP called a YouTube livestream to confess he'd just shot a government official. Content warning, redefined for the algorithm age.

  • An Italian diver stumbled onto hundreds of ancient amphorae piled 150 feet under Sicily, apparently the cargo of a Roman shipwreck that's been waiting roughly 2,000 years for someone to notice.

  • A security researcher bought the domain noreply.net and immediately started getting password resets, invoices and internal secrets from companies that assumed nobody was on the other end.

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—The Five Minute Daily Team