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    Several Trump administration picks targeted with bomb threats and ‘swatting’, FBI confirms – live updates

    Democrat Derek Tran has won election to the US House of Represenatives in California’s 45th congressional district, beating incumbent Michelle Steel.The AP has called the race for Tran after a weeks-long count. Republicans already control the US House, as well as the Senate, but picking up the seat is a big win for Democrats, who lost it to Steel in 2020.Although Steel initially had a commanding lead, the race became neck and neck as election workers tallied more ballots.Derek Tran, who won his race for California’s 45th district today, flipped one of just three seats for Democrats this election.The other two pick-ups for Democrats were elsewhere in California and Oregon.Tran, an attorney and Army veteran, defeated two-term Republican Michelle Steel, largely by focusing on her record on abortion rights. Steel had twice co-sponsored a nationwide abortion ban, called the Life at Conception Act, but later withdrew her support from the bill.Despite criticism from Donald Trump, who called Tran a “Radical Left Puppet of Communist China”, Tran was able to dodge such criticism as the son of war refugees from Vietnam. He will be the district’s first Vietnamese American representative.He said his win “is a testament to the spirit and resilience of our community. As the son of Vietnamese refugees, I understand firsthand the journey and sacrifices many families in our district have made for a better life.”Democrat Derek Tran has won election to the US House of Represenatives in California’s 45th congressional district, beating incumbent Michelle Steel.The AP has called the race for Tran after a weeks-long count. Republicans already control the US House, as well as the Senate, but picking up the seat is a big win for Democrats, who lost it to Steel in 2020.Although Steel initially had a commanding lead, the race became neck and neck as election workers tallied more ballots.Iowa representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican, has won reelection to the House of Representatives, the Associated Press announced after a recount. Miller-Meeks’ lead over her opponent, Democrat Christina Bohannan, was less than a percentage point. Although Miller-Meeks had declared victory, the AP had not called the race because the margin was close enough that it could prompt a recount – which Bohannan’s campaign called for on 14 November.“This is a delaying tactic to thwart the will of the people,” the Miller-Meeks campaign said of the recount, adding that it wasted taxpayer dollars. “A recount won’t meaningfully change the outcome of this race as the congresswoman’s lead is mathematically impossible to overcome.”Miller-Meeks’ victory gives Republicans 220 seats in the House to Democrats’ 214 (the AP has yet to call one remaining House race). It also marks the first time in three decades that Iowa will have an all-Republican congressional delegation.A little-known Florida-based drones company said on Wednesday it had appointed Donald Trump Jr as an adviser – then saw its stock price surge.The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly has more on the president-elect’s son:“Don Jr joining our board of advisors provides us unique expertise we need as we bring drone component manufacturing back to America,” said Allan Evans, chief executive of Unusual Machines.By mid-morning on the New York stock exchange, company shares had climbed as high as $11.67, more than double the day’s opening price.Unusual Machines also said Trump Jr, the oldest son of the president-elect, was among its investors. A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission listed Trump Jr as the second-biggest shareholder.In a press release that described Trump Jr as “a globally recognized business leader” and “best-selling author”, Evans said he would “bring a wealth of experience”.Trump, typically referred to as Don Jr, has spent most of his adult life working for his father’s company, the Trump Organization, on real estate and branding. But he has risen to political prominence since his sister Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, distanced themselves from Donald Trump following his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress by Trump supporters who tried in vain to overturn his loss.A host of Trump appointees experienced bomb threats today. To recap the day:

    Several Trump appointees were confirmed to have been targets of bomb threats at their homes on Wednesday. The FBI confirmed it is investigating the threats. Those targeted include: Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Howard Lutnick and Lee Zeldin.

    Trump named some new people to round out his second administration. He added Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health; Jim O’Neill as deputy health secretary; John Phelan as Navy secretary and Keith Kellogg as a special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

    House speaker Mike Johnson said he would host a meeting with Republican lawmakers and the two leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to discuss government cuts next week.

    A lawsuit was dismissed against Fox News brought by Ray Epps, a Donald Trump supporter who became the subject of a rightwing conspiracy theory about the January 6 attack and sued the outlet for defamation.

    Democrats are criticizing Kamala Harris’s campaign for failing to critically analyze her loss and any missteps she made.
    Democrats are criticizing Kamala Harris and her campaign for not critically analyzing her run or acknowledging any errors that could have contributed to her loss.Harris participated in a video call to thank donors, clips of which spread around the internet, with one Democratic National Committee official calling the call essentially “just patting each other on the back”, despite Harris’s loss.Separately, Pod Save America released an episode yesterday with several Harris campaign officials which has received pushback for failing to hold the campaign to account for its decisions and saw the aides defensive rather than reflective of any mistakes.For more on how some Democrats are reacting to the Harris post-mortems, the Guardian’s Robert Tait has the full story:House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that he would host Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Capitol Hill next Thursday to talk about ways to cut the government as part of the two men’s Department of Government Efficiency effort.In a post on Musk’s platform, X, Johnson said Republican House and Senate members were invited to “discuss major reform ideas to achieve regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings—& revive the principle of limited government!”While it’s called a “department,” the new effort is not a department of the government – a president cannot unilaterally create a department. Instead, it is expected to offer suggestions to Trump on places to cut, which could include entire agencies and programs.Musk has previously said the government should have 99 agencies, a seemingly arbitrary number, instead of the several hundred it has now. Earlier today, he suggested getting rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency tasked with protecting consumers from predatory behavior in the finance sector.A report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that abortions decreased by 2% in 2022, the year Roe v Wade was overturned.Since Roe’s demise, abortion restrictions and bans in some states have closed off or limited access in those places – though other states have increased access.More from the Guardian’s Carter Sherman in the full story here:Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to lead the environmental protection agency, said on X that a pipe bomb threat targeting his home “was sent in with a pro-Palestinian themed message”.He and his family weren’t home, he said, and are safe. Zeldin added: “We are working with law enforcement to learn more as the situation develops.“We are thankful for the swift actions taken by local officers to keep our family, neighbors, and local community secure.”Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he chose Keith Kellogg to serve as a special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a newly created role as the two countries remain at war and the US’s support for Ukraine will be a key decision for Trump’s incoming administration.Kellogg previously served as a national security adviser to Trump and to former vice president Mike Pence in Trump’s first term.“I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”The choice comes after reports last week that Trump was considering Richard Grenell for the role. Grenell served as intelligence chief during Trump’s first term.More members of Trump’s cabinet have emerged as subjects of bomb threats today. So far, those known to have had their residences targeted are:

    Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary and part of his transition team, whose home was threatened, Bronx outlet News 12 reported.

    Lee Zeldin, the environmental protection agency pick, who saw his Long Island home threatened, News 12 in Long Island reported.

    Matt Gaetz, the initial nominee for attorney general who has since withdrawn, had his Florida home targeted, various news reports said.

    Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump’s UN ambassador choice, confirmed her home in New York was targeted.

    Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary pick, whose home was targeted.
    Those targeted appear to be physically safe, and law enforcement has responded to check their homes for any devices or threats, several outlets have reported.The FBI has confirmed bomb threats and swatting incidents against Trump cabinet picks.In a statement, the agency said it is “aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees” and working with other law enforcement agencies to respond.“We take all potential threats seriously and, as always, encourage members of the public to immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement,” the statement said.Fox News has welcomed the dismissal of a defamation case brought by Ray Epps, a Donald Trump supporter who became the subject of a rightwing conspiracy theory about the January 6 attack.A Fox News Media statement referred to other dismissed lawsuits when it said: “Following the dismissals of the Jankowicz, Bobulinski, and now Epps cases, Fox News is pleased with these back-to-back decisions from federal courts preserving the press freedoms of the first amendment.”Epps, now 63, is a former US marine and ex-member of the Oath Keepers militia who traveled from Arizona to Washington on 6 January 2021, as Trump sought to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden. Epps was eventually sentenced to probation for his role in the attack on Congress that ensued, a riot linked to nine deaths and over which Trump was impeached but acquitted.After becoming subject to claims he was a covert government agent who stirred Trump supporters to cause trouble, Epps was forced into hiding.At his own sentencing, Epps said: “I have learned that truth is not always found in the places that I used to trust.”He filed suit against Fox in July last year. The suit said: “In the aftermath of the events of January 6, Fox News searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican party. Eventually, they turned on one of their own.”The suit cited Fox News hosts including Laura Ingraham and Will Cain but most prominently Tucker Carlson, who it said “was bluntly telling his viewers that it was a fact that Epps was a government informant. And they believed him.”Carlson was not a target of the suit – a lawyer for Epps said he “was an employee of Fox when he lied about Ray, and Fox broadcast those defamatory falsehoods. Fox is therefore fully liable for Mr Carlson’s statements.”Carlson was fired by Fox in April 2023, shortly after it settled (for $787.5m) a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over the advancement of Trump’s electoral fraud lie.Carlson has since flourished as an independent voice in far-right media, retaining influence with Trump as the president-elect prepares to return to power in January.Pete Hegseth, nominated to be Donald Trump’s defense secretary, was among several cabinet nominees and appointees of the president-elect who were targeted with bomb threats and so-called swatting on Wednesday, the Guardian has learned.A report also emerged that former congressman Matt Gaetz, who was briefly Trump’s first choice for US attorney general but stood aside after eight days amid a sexual misconduct scandal, was also targeted.A spokesperson for Trump confirmed threats against some of his cabinet picks but did not initially give any names or say how many people had received threats.But Hegseth, the military veteran steeped in controversy over his conservative views after being selected, was understood to be among the number, according to two people familiar with the developments.Reports by the Trump transition team that multiple Trump appointees and nominees were targeted by bomb threats and swatting comes amid a season of heightened concerns about political violence – and following two assassination attempts against Trump himself.On 13 July, a shooter fired into the crowd during an open-air Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, injuring two attendees and killing one. Trump was grazed by the gunfire but emerged almost entirely uninjured.Two months later, on 15 September, a suspect was caught while pointing a gun toward Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf course, where Trump was golfing. He was apprehended the same day.Both incidents prompted the Trump and Harris campaigns to adopt heightened security for the duration of the race. After the Pennsylvania shooting, Trump frequently appeared at rallies behind bulletproof glass.Elise Stefanik, the congresswoman and Trump’s appointee for ambassador to the United Nations, confirmed on X that there was a bomb threat at her home.“This morning, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, her husband, and their three year old son were driving home to Saratoga County from Washington for Thanksgiving when they were informed of a bomb threat to their residence,” her X post says.Law enforcement responded immediately, she noted, “with the highest levels of professionalism.” More

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    Trump picks Keith Kellogg to serve as special envoy to Ukraine and Russia

    Donald Trump has picked Keith Kellogg to serve as a special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a newly conceived role given the ongoing war between the two countries.Kellogg, an 80-year-old retired US army lieutenant general, would start in the role as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its third year.“Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.Kellogg previously served as a national security adviser to the former vice-president Mike Pence during Trump’s first presidency. Kellogg later became acting security adviser to Trump himself after Michael Flynn resigned in 2017.As per his plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, Kellogg previously told Reuters that he would emphasize getting the two countries to the negotiating table.“We tell the Ukrainians: ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,’” Kellogg said in a June interview. “And you tell [Vladimir] Putin [that] he’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.”Early reactions to Kellogg’s potential confirmation have been tepid, the Hill reported.“It was a gulp – not horrible, not amazing,” said one security analyst based in Washington DC, who spoke anonymously to the publication.Oleh Shamshur, a former Ukrainian ambassador to the US, told the Hill he was pessimistic about Kellogg’s potential appointment.“As I understand, he totally accepts the logic of Trump’s ‘peace plan’ as related by [vice-president-elect JD] Vance,” said Shamshur, referring to Vance’s support of ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia and rejecting plans for Ukraine to join Nato.Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative thinktank, noted to the New York Times in September that Vance’s plans weren’t “a realistic proposal for peace”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He offered a plan for a Russian victory,” Coffey told the Times.Trump’s upcoming presidency has prompted questions about the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine. He pledged to bring a quick end to the war as one of his main campaign promises, though he has not elaborated on how he will do so.Some Ukraine supporters have voiced concerns that Trump’s steps to end the war could be detrimental to the country’s security or see Ukrainian land ceded to Russia, while Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says he is certain the war with Russia will “end sooner” than it otherwise would have once Trump takes office.Zelenskyy reportedly had a “constructive exchange” with Trump during a conversation in the aftermath of Trump’s victory the US presidential election. More

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    Democrats criticize Harris for ‘self-congratulatory’ review of election loss

    Some Democratic figures have accused Kamala Harris’s campaign of being self-congratulatory after a series of recent public appearances from the candidate and her senior staff in which they declined to admit making any errors that could have contributed to her defeat.Some of the criticism was aimed at Harris herself, following a video call to thank campaign donors in which the vice-president expressed pride in her failed race for the White House.She appeared to boast that the coalition assembled during her three-and-a-half-month campaign after succeeding Joe Biden as the Democrats’ nominee ranked among the “best political movements”. She insisted it would have “a lasting effect”, despite it ending in a decisive loss to Donald Trump, something she and her supporters warned beforehand would be a catastrophe.“I am proud of the race we ran, and your role in this was critical,” the vice-president said in a 10-minute address. “What we did in 107 days was unprecedented. Think about the coalition that we built, and we were so intentional about that – you would hear me talk about it all the time.”Although she admitted the election “didn’t turn out like we wanted”, she noted that the campaign raised nearly $1.5bn dollars, a record, and praised the success in fundraising from grassroots donors – despite reportedly ending the race $20m in debt and sending post-election fundraising emails to donors.After some of the vice-president’s key staffers also appeared on a podcast billed as dissecting reasons for the defeat, one member of the Democratic National Committee’s finance team called the Harris campaign “self-congratulatory” .Lindy Li told NewsNation she was “stunned that there was no sort of postmortem or analysis of the disastrous campaign”.“It was just patting each other on the back,” she said. “They praised Harris as a visionary leader, and at one moment during the call, she was talking about her Thanksgiving recipe.”Referring to a Pod Save America podcast posted on Tuesday in which Harris’s key aides discussed the $1bn-plus campaign spend, Li said: “They failed to mention that hundreds of millions of dollars went to them and their friends right through these consulting firms.“These consultants were the primary beneficiaries of the Harris campaign, not the American people.”One explanation on the podcast by Stephanie Cutter, a Harris adviser, on why the vice-president had declined to break with Biden despite the president’s persistently low approval ratings drew criticism.“She felt like she was part of the administration. So why should she look back and cherry pick some things that she would have done differently when she was part of it?” Cutter told the podcast. “She had tremendous loyalty to President Biden. So the best we could do, and the most that she felt comfortable with was saying like, look, vice-presidents never break with their presidents.”One X user posted: “If the guys at pod save America don’t have an episode just straight shit talking all these losers who helped us lose im never listening to another episode. [Because] wtf was this nonsense.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnother podcast guest, David Plouffe, a former adviser to Barack Obama, was criticised after claiming: “It’s really hard for Democrats to win battleground states.” He said the party needed “to dominate the moderate vote” to win future elections.Jeet Heer, a writer for the leftwing Nation magazine responded: “Is it too much to ask for a little humility and self-reflection from the people whose strategies failed badly?”Another social media user posted: “Anybody with more than two brain cells who’s committed to building up the democratic party would be analyzing the depressed voter turnout numbers. But the dudes at pod save America have no goal other than reliving their glory days.”The discussion, which also included Harris’s campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, and Quentin Fulks, the campaign’s deputy manager, was also ridiculed by some on the right.Bill O’Reilly, a former Fox News host, told NewsNation: “It’s kind of like the New York Jets. You guys follow the football, nobody did anything wrong, and they’re 3-8 … I hope people see the absurdity of this.”James Carville, a veteran Democratic strategist and the architect of Bill Clinton’s 1992 election win, criticised aides who advised Harris not to go on the Joe Rogan podcast before election. Trump, by contrast, granted a three-hour interview to Rogan.“If I were running a 2028 campaign and I had some little snot-nosed 23-year-old saying, ‘I’m going to resign if you don’t do this,’ not only would I fire that motherfucker on the spot, I would find out who hired them and fire that person on the spot,” Carville said in a foul-mouthed video rant posted on social media. “I’m really not interested in your uninformed, stupid, jackass opinion as to whether you go on Joe Rogan or not.” More

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    Trump’s picks for new administration are focus of bomb threats and ‘swatting’

    Pete Hegseth, nominated to be Donald Trump’s defense secretary, was among several cabinet nominees and appointees of the president-elect’s incoming administration who were targeted with bomb threats and so-called “swatting” on Wednesday, the Guardian has learned.Elise Stefanik, Republican congresswoman of New York and Trump’s nomination for US ambassador to the United Nations, who has emerged as a hard right loyalist of Trump in the last few years, was the subject of a bomb threat, her office said.The home of Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary and part of his transition team, was threatened, Bronx outlet News 12 reported. And Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency pick, saw his Long Island home threatened, News 12 in Long Island also reported.Zeldin later posted on X saying: “A pipe bomb threat targeting me and my family at our home today was sent in with a pro-Palestinian themed message.” He said they were not at home and were trying to find out more.A report also emerged via CNN that Matt Gaetz was also targeted. The former congressman who was Trump’s first choice for US attorney general but withdrew after eight days amid a sexual misconduct scandal that meant he risked not being confirmed by the Senate.A spokesperson for Trump confirmed threats against some of his cabinet picks but did not initially give any names or say how many people had received threats.The FBI then later said it was involved in investigating the incidents.But Hegseth, the military veteran steeped in controversy over his hardline conservative views and a sexual scandal, was understood to be among those threatened, according to two people familiar with the developments.He was understood to have received a threat at home of a pipe bomb targeting him. It was unclear whether the threats related to real weapons or were hoaxes, but as events unfolded early afternoon there was no sign of any bombs being located. The threat is understood to have prompted a law enforcement bomb squad to deploy to his residence.Apart from the social media comment from Zeldin, there were no other comments on possible motive. Israel’s war in Gaza continues even as a ceasefire was declared with Hezbollah in Lebanon.A wave of bomb threats also occurred during the election campaign, with election officials and their offices often targeted.Trump has so far put together one of the most controversial and incongruous cabinet teams in US presidential history, delighting his supporters.The threats were made on both Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Members of law enforcement and various authorities acted quickly to ensure the safety of those targeted, according to Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s spokesperson and incoming White House press secretary, who released a statement.Leavitt did not give further details on the nature of the different threats. Spokespeople for the FBI and the justice department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLeavitt said the attacks “ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting’,” when a hoax call is made to police designed to prompt them to dispatch a significant, armed response to someone’s home and cause fear and maximum chaos.Stefanik’s office said in a post on X: “This morning, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, her husband, and their three-year-old son were driving home to Saratoga county from Washington for Thanksgiving when they were informed of a bomb threat to their residence. New York State, county law enforcement, and US Capitol police responded immediately with the highest levels of professionalism.”Wednesday’s developments follow two assassination attempts against Trump himself during his election campaign.On 13 July, a shooter fired into the crowd during an open-air Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, injuring two attendees and killing one. Trump was grazed by the gunfire but emerged almost entirely uninjured.Two months later, on 15 September, a suspect was caught while pointing a gun toward Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf course, where Trump was golfing. He was apprehended the same day.Both incidents prompted the campaigns of both Trump and his rival, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, to adopt heightened security for the duration of the race. After the Pennsylvania shooting, Trump frequently appeared at rallies behind bulletproof glass. More

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    The Guardian view on the Lebanon ceasefire: a lasting regional peace must go through Gaza | Editorial

    Unsurprisingly, Joe Biden struck an upbeat, optimistic note on Tuesday as he announced a US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. “It reminds us that peace is possible,” said Mr Biden, as the deal brought to an end the 14-month conflict, during which close to 4,000 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands were displaced.For the outgoing American president, who has signally failed to restrain Israel’s excesses after the heinous Hamas massacre of 7 October 2023, the agreement amounts to a valedictory breakthrough after months of weak and ineffective diplomacy. More importantly, it affords the suffering people of Lebanon some respite, after a bombing campaign and ground invasion that paid scant regard to the appalling impact on civilian lives. For the 60,000 citizens of Israel forced to flee the country’s northern border region by Hezbollah rockets, there is the prospect of a return home after spending more than a year in displacement camps.Peace on Israel’s northern front will inevitably spark hopes of wider progress, as the disgraceful, savage destruction of Gaza continues to the south, and hope dwindles for surviving Israeli hostages held captive there. But it would be unwise to overstate the catalytic potential of an agreement that was made on the terms of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and to suit his interests.Crucially, Hezbollah’s weakness meant that Israel was able to decouple the Lebanon and Gaza wars, reaching a ceasefire that leaves it with a free hand in the latter. Based on a UN security council resolution that ended the 2006 Lebanon war but was never fully implemented, the deal will oblige Israeli forces to depart and Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. This time the buffer zone created is more likely to stick. Hezbollah is currently in a state of disarray, denuded of leaders, infrastructure and military hardware.With the live threat of a powerful Iranian proxy on Israel’s doorstep removed, Mr Netanyahu is free to double down on his bellicose objectives elsewhere – notably in relation to Tehran. In Gaza, meanwhile, he has shown no willingness to engage in peace talks brokered by Qatar, which suspended its mediating role this month in exasperation. The unconscionable death toll there now stands at more than 44,000 – the vast majority women and children.In a region on the brink, any lasting settlement must go through Gaza and involve the creation of realistic conditions for a viable Palestinian state. As Óscar Romero, the martyred Salvadoran bishop, once wrote, “Peace is not the silence of cemeteries / Peace is not the silent result of violent repression” – a warning that resonates starkly in Gaza’s ongoing tragedy. But Mr Netanyahu has no desire to be a peacemaker, as he attempts to dodge a corruption trial, and an election that would empower the anger of voters following 7 October. His interest lies rather in perpetuating a sense of national emergency; and in indulging far-right members of his cabinet who could bring him down, and who dream of new settlements in a broken, ethnically cleansed Gaza.As Donald Trump prepares to replace Joe Biden in the White House, the world must hope that his appetite for imposing immediate solutions opens up new possibilities. For now, welcome developments in the north offer little comfort to the desperate inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. More

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    Gibson issues cease and desist over Trump-backed guitars

    Gibson, the maker of famous electric guitars, has issued a cease and desist order to the company behind a range of “Trump Guitars” endorsed by the US president-elect.Gibson told Guitar World, which first reported the story, it took action because the design of the instruments being sold as Trump Guitars “infringes upon Gibson’s exclusive trademarks, particularly the iconic Les Paul body shape”.Named for the American musician whom the Guardian once said “basically invented the electric guitar”, Gibson Les Pauls have been sold since 1952 and played by countless rock legends, among them the Edge of U2, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Slash of Guns n’ Roses.Trump Guitars were announced last week, as the latest in a line of merchandise including Bibles, sneakers, watches and even digital trading cards.Multiple outlets reported that though Trump has been shown to own CIC Ventures, a company which has offered endorsed products, he does not appear to own or have a stake in 16 Creative, the company behind the guitars.Nonetheless, last week Trump posted to his social media platform a picture of him holding a guitar emblazoned with a US flag and a bald eagle, with the message: “Coming Soon! The Limited Edition ‘45’ Guitar. Only 1,300 of each Acoustic and Electric Guitars MADE – Some personally signed!”Trump was the 45th president of the US, between 2017 and 2021. On 20 January 2025 he will become the 47th president, as the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, failed to take the election this month. The only president previously to serve two non-consecutive terms was Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who served from 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897.On Wednesday, a website for Trump Guitars featured a picture of the president-elect signing an instrument. Two models were marked sold out: American Eagle electric guitars (priced $1,500) and autographed American Eagle electric guitars ($11,500).Unsigned ($1,250) and signed ($10,250) acoustic guitars were also offered, each featuring Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”, on its fretboard. The website also offered a Presidential Series guitar, in the Les Paul shape and with Trump’s name on the fretboard, and God Bless the USA acoustic guitars displaying that message, the title of a song by the country singer Lee Greenwood that is also affixed to Trump’s endorsed Bible.Trump did not immediately comment, whether through his transition team or the Trump Organization, his New York-based, much-penalized commercial company.Trump is not known to play guitar, though his series of digital trading cards does include an image of him dressed in the style of Elvis Presley, playing a guitar in the distinctive Gibson shape.As Guitar World pointed out, Gibson has not shown any tendency to tread softly when it comes to protecting its rights and products. A long-running dispute with Dean Guitars, over the Flying V and Explorer shapes Gibson also introduced in the 1950s, is heading for a retrial. More

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    ‘The science of fluoride is starting to evolve’: behind the risks and benefits of the mineral

    A national conversation about fluoride’s health benefits exploded this fall after a federal toxicology report, court ruling and independent scientific review all called for updated risk-benefit analysis.Fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral in some regions, has been added to community water supplies since the mid-20th century when studies found exposure dramatically reduced tooth decay.The controversy, heightened by description of the mineral as “industrial waste” by Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US health department, highlights questions some towns are now wrestling with: should the mineral’s well-established protective effects against tooth decay be prioritized lest Americans, and especially children, be subject to unnecessary pain and shame from an unhealthy smile? Or should the possibility of neurodevelopment effects be prioritized, even as studies continue?“Fluoride is the perfect example of helping people without them even having to do anything,” said Dr Sreenivas Koka, the former dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s school of dentistry. The state is a “dental desert”, where there is only one dentist for every 2,120 residents. “Fluoride in the water – all you have to do is drink water and you’ll get the benefit.”Fluoride is added to about 72% of community water supplies in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC again endorsed the practice in a scientific statement this May, saying it found no “convincing scientific evidence linking community water fluoridation with any potential adverse health effect or systemic disorder such as an increased risk for cancer, Down syndrome, heart disease, osteoporosis and bone fracture, immune disorders, low intelligence, renal disorders, Alzheimer disease, or allergic reactions”.Still, controversy over water fluoridation recently made headlines after two high-profile reports and a federal court ruling. The US National Toxicology Program set off a firestorm in August when it published a systematic review that found with “moderate confidence” that children exposed to fluoride levels twice those recommended for drinking water (1.5mg per liter versus the recommended 0.7mg per liter) “are consistently associated with lower IQ in children”.Then, in October, a new Cochrane Review lowered the estimated impact of fluoride, citing the widespread use of fluoride in toothpaste beginning in 1975.“Studies conducted in 1975 or earlier showed a clear and important effect on prevention of tooth decay in children,” Cochrane Review researchers wrote. “However, due to the increased availability of fluoride in toothpaste since 1975, it is unlikely that we will see this effect in all populations today.”The public debate comes as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest publicly funded research agency, is both a key funder of research advancing society’s understanding of fluoride’s non-dental health effects and an agency squarely in Trump’s crosshairs.The agency is one of the top targets for cuts and restructuring. Paradoxically, that could mean that critics such as Kennedy cut research on fluoride, even as the NIH funds research into potential detriments. The incoming administration has not made proposals on how to improve oral health in the US.Fluoride’s health benefits were investigated in the early 20th century, when a Colorado Springs dentist questioned why town residents had brown, mottled and decay-resistant teeth – now known as fluorosis.It was later found that fluoride naturally occurred at high levels in Colorado Springs, causing the cosmetic defects. Its decay-resistant properties were confirmed in a landmark 1945 study in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which found children in Grand Rapids were 60% less likely to develop dental caries (better known as cavities) with fluoride added to water.By 1999, the CDC hailed water fluoridation as one of public health’s greatest victories, alongside seat belts and vaccination. That view was buttressed by a 2015 Cochrane Review, considered the gold standard, that found fluoridating water at 0.7mg per liter led to a nearly 26% reduction in tooth decay, a figure still cited by the American Dental Association (ADA) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) today.The need for preventive oral health solutions is profound in the US – more than 68 million people lack dental insurance and about one in four adults said in a survey they have avoided the dentist because of cost.In addition, school children lose an estimated average of 34m school hours each year due to unexpected dental visits; 2 million Americans visit the emergency room each year because of tooth pain; half a million travel abroad for cheaper care and one in five American seniors lack a single natural tooth. Lack of dental access is so common in some areas, doctors in prison frequently have patients who have never seen one.“One of the things I routinely ask young people in juvenile jail is: ‘Do you have a doctor? Do you have a dentist?’” said Dr Fred Rottnek, former medical director of St Louis county jails in Missouri and now a professor of community medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. “A lot of them have never reported going to the dentist.”Modern inquiry into fluoride’s non-dental health effects began to pick up pace in 2015, when the National Toxicology Program (NTP) requested a systematic review on fluoride’s impact on neurodevelopment. By 2019, toxicology researcher Bruce Lanphear, of Simon Fraser University in Canada, co-authored a study finding fluoride exposure was associated with decreased IQ, which would later be incorporated into the NTP’s systematic review.“That gives you an indication that the science of fluoride is starting to evolve – it wasn’t set in stone 70 years ago,” he said.Lanphear, and a small group of like-minded toxicology researchers, argue now is the time for us to “pause and have an independent scientific committee look at all this new evidence” as “we have a lot of new science specifically about fluoride and the developing brain,” he said.Critics were buttressed again when a federal court ruled in September that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) needed to evaluate fluoride under the Toxic Substances Control Act.But physicians, dentists and mainstream professional associations from the American Dental Association to the American Academy of Pediatrics stand by recommendations for fluoridated water.While some towns step away from fluoride, communities such as Buffalo, New York, are restarting programs.“This is a shame if we don’t take advantage of what we know from the science,” said Koka about the preventive effects of fluoride. “Are there challenges to doing it right? Yes, but should they be so strong they overcome trying at all? That’s a tragedy.”The CDC has also refined guidance about fluoridation in recent years. In 2015, its water fluoridation recommendations went down to 0.7mg per liter of water, from 0.7 to 1.0mg per liter dependent on climate. Later, the CDC issued a 2019 report that advised parents of children younger than two to speak with their dentist about fluoridated toothpaste, and reminded parents of children younger than three to use only a “grain of rice”-sized “smear”.As critics argue that federal agencies’ recommendation lag behind, the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) has become one of the chief funders of research into fluoride’s potential impacts on IQ.“Getting funding from the NIH shows they are interested in this important question,” said Christine Till, an assistant professor at York University in Canada and a co-investigator with Lanphear, whose grant studying tooth dentin and neurodevelopment in Canada was funded by the NIH, but turned down by the Canadian government.Others, such as Ashley Malin, epidemiology professor at University of Florida, and Dana Goin, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, have also received NIH funding to research fluoride’s non-dental health effects. Malin is studying fluoride’s impact on children’s sleep and Goin is investigating reproductive health effects.“There is a lot of ongoing work in this area, particularly in the US,” said Goin. “Hopefully, the results from these studies will help determine whether EPA drinking water regulations and CDC recommendations for water fluoridation are adequately balancing improvements in dental health from fluoridation versus any potential negative effects.”Goin’s current funding builds on her previous work, which found water fluoridation was not associated with small-for-gestational age or preterm births. She is now exploring whether fluoride is associated with gestational diabetes.Malin added that it’s a sign of “progress” that the studies can be discussed: “Over a decade ago, to even ask the question of whether optimally fluoridated, or the concentration in drinking water, could be impacting neurodevelopment was quite controversial.” More

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    Will the Democrats finally realize that Big Tech is not an ally? | Zephyr Teachout

    As Democrats think about how to counter the Trump administration, they need to accept a very simple lesson from the last eight years. Big tech and big business are part of the political opposition working on behalf of Donald Trump, not the Democrats’ allies working against Trump and Trumpism.It shouldn’t seem necessary to point out what seems to be an obvious fact. Nonetheless, there are some Democrats trying to stay close to big tech, or downplaying the importance of anti-monopoly policy when it comes to authoritarian risks. For example, a few days ago, Priorities USA, the largest Democratic party Super Pac, held a big resistance strategy session hosted by “our friends at Google”.As another example, Adam Jentleson, a political writer and a former chief of staff for US senator John Fetterman, wrote a recent piece for the New York Times that among other things criticized fighting monopolies as a “niche issue”. He argued that there’s a dichotomy between kitchen table issues and challenging corporate power, and we should focus on the former.The belief that big tech, and more broadly big business, is helpful to Democrats has already been tried – and found to be untrue.When Trump was elected in 2016, one central pillar of the Democratic resistance involved using big tech platforms as a counterweight. If you remember, the CEO of Google even joined anti-Trump protests. Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and pre-Elon Musk Twitter were scolded for using technologies that enabled extremism, but instead of aggressively moving to regulate the algorithmic design, change liability rules or break them up, Democrats focused on nudging platforms on editorial policy.The assumption was they could be corralled into the “right” set of editorial practices, ones that would help defeat Trump and Maga-ism, and limit the reach of his rhetoric in the short term. This was the context in which the “misinformation and disinformation” framework was born.We use the phrases all the time now, but it is worth reflecting on how strange they are. Sometimes misinformation refers to inadvertent lies, and disinformation describes purposeful lies, but sometimes the terms encompass factually correct but misleading information, or as Barack Obama argued in 2022, the “suppression of true information” if such suppression was done for, among other things, “political gain” or “targeting those you don’t like”.Not only did these new categories infuriate those who were caught in the broad, fuzzy definitions, but they focused Democratic attention away from questions of power. The mis/disinformation framework fit part and parcel with joining with big tech as an anti-fascist alliance. “We”, the science-grounded Democrats, would successfully work hand in hand with the biggest tech companies in the world to protect America.Eight years later, the Democrats have lost the White House, House of Representatives and Senate. The big tech platforms are awash in extremist content. Big tech should not look like the ally anymore. Not only is Musk fully ensconced at the head of the power table, right next to Trump, but the CEOs of Meta, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon all reached out to Trump before the election, perhaps taking seriously his threat to put Mark Zuckerberg in jail if he opposed him, perhaps just realizing that Trump is a deregulatory juggernaut.Musk reportedly joined a recent phone call between Trump and the CEO of Google. We can anticipate dozens of such meetings at the highest levels, and strong relationships being born. And instead of repeatedly insisting that tech titans have too much power, we have spent eight years arming them with language that can be used to suppress dissent.Repeated polling has shown that voters actually hate corporate monopolies, and antitrust politics are extremely popular. I don’t want to overclaim the point – antitrust politics disappeared in America for the 30 years between 1980 and 2020, and it is fair to argue that anti-monopoly policy, especially against big tech, can use more experimentation in how we talk about it. On the substance, however, we should be very concerned.Facebook, Google and Amazon have destroyed the actual bulwark against autocratic leaders – local journalism – while cozying up to actual autocracy. They now control the digital ad industry. According to one recent research report, if they paid news organizations what they make off them by standing as a middleman between readers and writers, they would be handing over between $12bn and $14bn a year. The very journalists and news organizations we rely on for fact-finding and fact-checking are scared of being shadowbanned – Jeff Bezos’s fear of Trump being exhibit A of how that can impact editorial content.Google, thankfully, has officially been called an illegal monopolist by a court, thanks to the work of the Department of Justice under assistant attorney general Jonathan Kanter, and other antitrust cases regarding Facebook and Amazon are winding their way through the court system. But even if Google is forced to divest Chrome, which seems possible, the failure of Democrats in power to put serious tech-busting legislation to a vote now seems grotesque. It looks like we didn’t even try to stop the incoming power couple of Trump and tech.While pundits are trying to sort through the messaging lesson of how Kamala Harris lost what seemed like a winnable election, we would do well to look further back, and remember the real lessons from 2016: joining hands with big tech oligarchs is joining hands with the destruction of the Democratic party and democracy.

    Zephyr Teachout is a professor at Fordham Law School and the author of Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money More