Some staff at USAID have been placed on administrative leave, so they’re leaking to Fortune. They are leaking communications to make it seem as if DOGE and the TRUMP administration are in chaos. There will be some chaos for a while. USAID only has 1700 people in the foreign service as they give billions away. […] The post About 40,000 Federal Workers Are Taking the Buyout So Far appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Heavy metal recording artist Ozzy Osbourne says he will perform one last time this summer at a charity concert in the United Kingdom. The British rocker is set to reunite with his former band, Black Sabbath, for the first time in two decades for this show, per USA Today. Osbourne, 76, has been dealing with health issues for years following a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. “Ozzy didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to his friends, to his fans, and he feels there’s been no full stop,” Ozzy’s wife Sharon told BBC on Wednesday. “This is his full stop.” The charity concert on July 5 will include other popular heavy metal bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, and dozens of others. Organizers said that profits will be donated to charities, including Cure Parkinson’s, the outlet noted. “It’s … time for me to give back to the place where I was born,” Osbourne said in a statement about the upcoming show. “How blessed am I to do it with the help of people whom I love. Birmingham is the true home of metal.” Osbourne previously said he believed he only had “10 years left” and wanted to play a farewell show for fans. “I’m taking it one day at a time, and if I can perform again, I will,” he said in 2023, as The Daily Wire previously reported. “But it’s been like saying farewell to the best relationship of my life. At the start of my illness, when I stopped touring, I was really pissed off with myself, the doctors, and the world. But as time has gone on, I’ve just gone, ‘Well, maybe I’ve just got to accept that fact.’” “I’m not going to get up there and do a half-hearted Ozzy looking for sympathy,” Osbourne added. “What’s the f***ing point in that? I’m not going up there in a f***ing wheelchair. I’ve seen Phil Collins perform recently, and he’s got virtually the same problems as me. He gets up there in a wheelchair! But I couldn’t do that.” He also said not being able to say goodbye to his fans was “one of the things I’ve been the most f***ing pissed off at.” “If I can’t continue doing shows on a regular basis, I just want to be well enough to do one show where I can say, ‘Hi guys, thanks so much for my life.’ That’s what I’m working towards, and if I drop down dead at the end of it, I’ll die a happy man,” Osbourne said at the time.

The Trump administration reportedly filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the city of Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois over their sanctuary laws that shield illegal aliens from deportation, arguing that they interfere with federal law enforcement’s operations. The lawsuit argues that the jurisdictions have adopted policies that inhibit the federal government’s ability to enforce federal immigration law. “We’ve identified Illinois, the city of Chicago and Cook County as all having laws and ordinances on the books that impede federal immigration enforcement, in particular the Chicago Welcoming ordinance, the Illinois Trust Act,” one unnamed Department of Justice official told the New York Post. President Donald Trump’s newly confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi explained the significance of the suit and accused the municipal, county, and state governments of prioritizing illegal aliens over Americans. “For too long, leaders in Illinois and Chicago have abused their power by putting the comfort of illegal aliens over the safety and welfare of their own citizens. This ends today,” she said. “The Department of Justice will no longer stand by as state and local leaders obstruct federal law enforcement efforts, endangering their citizens and the brave men and women in uniform.” One of the laws targeted by the suit, the Illinois Trust Act, which was signed into law in 2017, states: “State law does not currently grant State or local law enforcement the authority to enforce federal civil immigration laws.” There’s also Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance, which prohibits city officials from detaining people on the basis of their status as illegal aliens. “No agency or agent shall: arrest, detain or continue to detain a person solely on the belief that the person is not present legally in the United States,” reads the ordinance. The suit specified how these policies interfere with federal law enforcement agent’s ability to enforce immigration law, noting that the jurisdictions “refuse to cooperate with detainers” lodged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “So instead of handing over people who are in prison or in jail to federal immigration authorities they will just let folks go,” the lawsuit states. “This lawsuit will put the spotlight on obstruction by state and local officials and their refusal to support the administration and compliance with the law. The law says people who are here illegally are not allowed to stay here, they should be deported. So we want to make sure those impediments are taken away,” a DOJ official told the Post. “These states and localities advertise themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions. They are inviting people here who are illegal, and they’re promising to protect them from federal law enforcement,” the official went on to say, noting that the case could go all the way to the Supreme Court. The DOJ official charged that the laws currently “need to be struck from the books because they’re incentivizing illegal immigration into the country.” The suit comes just one day after AG Bondi was sworn into office. Bondi addressed sanctuary cities in her day one directives, ordering the federal government to halt funding to sanctuary cities. “She is right out of the gate sending a clear message to other sanctuary jurisdictions,” another unnamed DOJ official said. 

Actor Harrison Ford issued a two-word response to his recent project, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which underperformed expectations at the box office in 2023.  “S***  happens,” the 82-year-old action star recently told WSJ. Magazine of the Disney film’s lackluster box office performance. “I was really the one who felt there was another story to tell. When [Indy] had suffered the consequences of the life that he had to live, I wanted one more chance to pick him up and shake the dust off his ass and stick him out there, bereft of some of his vigor, to see what happened.” “I’m still happy I made that movie,” Ford added. “Dial of Destiny” was the fifth film in the popular “Indiana Jones” franchise, which began in 1981 with “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008) is the highest-grossing title in the franchise, with gross domestic sales totaling $317 million and worldwide sales of more than $786 million. The latest title brought in just under $160 million domestically, resulting in a net loss of $143 million, per Deadline.  Bad reviews didn’t help “Dial of Destiny” sell tickets. A Rolling Stone review said, “[Y]ou either die an intellectual-property hero trapped in amber, or you live long enough to see yourself riding a fake horse against a green-screened subway background when most of your peers have slowed down.” “[O]ne can feel the four credited screenwriters grasping at inspiration and coming up short. What they did manage to make would be perfectly fine as a standalone adventure film starring some other character, but it’s not worthy of the whip,” Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson wrote. Many moviegoers also questioned how realistic it was to have Ford still playing an action star at the age of 80. The actor famously said no one else should take on the role after he stops playing it. “This is the final film in the series, and this is the last time I’ll play the character,” Ford told Total Film Magazine in April 2023. “I anticipate that it will be the last time that he appears in a film.” Ford recently returned for Season 2 of the Apple TV+ series “Shrinking.” The actor will make his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as Thaddeus Ross in “Captain America: Brave New World,” which hits theaters on February 14. 

The world of music is shaken by the loss of the talented star

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