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

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      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

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

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

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      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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      Trump pick for US health agency proposed ‘herd immunity’ during Covid

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      Jay Bhattacharya, an unofficial Covid adviser in Trump’s first administration, has been selected as the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the leading biomedical research institutions in the world.The choice of Bhattacharya, a Stanford economist whose proposal for widespread Covid-19 infection was backed by the White House, signals a return to controversial and scientifically questionable health policies in the second Trump administration, experts say.Bhattacharya, an economist who attended medical school, has called for an “an absolute revamping of the scientific community”.He has questioned the safety of vaccines, testified against the effectiveness of face masks, and argued that NIH officials should not be involved with scientific policy.Bhattacharya did not respond to requests for comment.In early 2020, Bhattacharya downplayed Covid’s deadliness, and he soon joined two other scientists in a recommendation to let Covid spread with “focused protection” – a proposal on the scientific fringes that soon became politically mainstream.After the Trump administration adopted the strategy of “herd immunity” through infection, millions of Americans were disabled and killed, with a vastly higher mortality rate than peer nations.In April 2020, Santiago Sanchez, then a first-year student at Stanford Medical School, wanted to do something to help as the novel coronavirus swept the nation and brought the world to a standstill.That’s how he found himself volunteering in a makeshift laboratory in the ballroom of the Palo Alto Sheraton, carefully squeezing droplets of blood samples into rapid tests for 10 to 12 hours a day.The research project was an attempt to see how many people had already gotten sick from Covid. If more people than previously known had already gotten sick and recovered, that would mean the virus wasn’t as severe as it seemed, and it might also mean there were enough people out there with immunity to help stop the virus from spreading, Sanchez hoped.But as he saw negative result after negative result, Sanchez felt his optimism curdle. After two days, the volunteers had conducted more than 3,300 tests, but fewer than two dozen turned positive, as Sanchez remembers it.That’s why he was puzzled when one of the senior researchers of the study, Jay Bhattacharya, stepped into the ballroom, saw the handful of positive tests alongside stacks of negative tests, and said, “there’s definitely signal here,” according to Sanchez’s recollection.“That was my first sinking feeling, because I was like, ‘That is not how I am interpreting this experiment,’” Sanchez said.The ensuing preprint study estimated that between 2.5% to 4% of people in the region had been infected – a rate vastly higher than previously thought, and a figure significantly higher than the number of positive tests Sanchez says he saw.Bhattacharya became a fixture on Fox News and other networks, proclaiming the opposite of what Sanchez now believed: that many more people had the virus than anyone thought, and that meant the US should reopen.“He was everywhere during the pandemic except hospitals,” said Jonathan Howard, associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at NYU Langone Health and author of the book We Want Them Infected. “He didn’t treat a single Covid patient himself and became famous despite having no real-world responsibility that way.”Scientists quickly discovered significant errors in the study: the people who gave blood weren’t a random sample; the positive tests may well have been false positives; and the study was sponsored in part by an airline founder who was an avid proponent of reopening in the midst of Covid’s strongest grip.Despite criticism, the study results “spiraled out of control”, Sanchez said. “I and many others who worked on this study had this shared feeling of being taken advantage of, like we had been pawns in an obviously ideological project that did not meet scientific muster.”A few months later, Bhattacharya and other skeptics of Covid precautions met with President Trump at the White House, at a time when Trump had stopped speaking with his chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci.Bhattacharya and two other scientists, Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorff, soon unveiled a plan, known as the Great Barrington Declaration, to let the virus spread unchecked among the general population while attempting to protect the vulnerable. The authors believed this approach could stop the pandemic within three to six months.“This is not mainstream science. It’s dangerous,” said Francis Collins, then director of the NIH.Yet the day after the proposal was released, the authors met with Alex Azar, then the secretary of Health and Human Services, who confirmed that the proposal echoed the Trump administration’s policy of reopening.Within months, the worst wave of deaths of the entire pandemic crashed into the US. The strategy of protecting the vulnerable never materialized; even Trump, perhaps the most protected person in the nation, was hospitalized with Covid.“He was a pro-infection doctor,” Howard said of Bhattacharya. “He said that parts of the country had reached herd immunity in summer 2020 … He said that one infection led to permanent, robust immunity, and he treated rare vaccine side effects as a fate worse than death.”In the past four years, Bhattacharya has testified in state and Canadian courts, as well as US congressional hearings. Bhattacharya has said that public health has become a “tool for authoritarian power … a political tool that’s been used to enforce the biosecurity state”, and that the field needs to be rebuilt.When Sanchez sees patients who say they don’t need a Covid booster, he wonders if they’ve been influenced, directly or indirectly, by Bhattacharya’s messages.And he sees a direct line from the economist’s Covid advice to his possible appointment at the NIH.“They handed Trump a huge gift. They gave him a way to talk about the pandemic that obviously reached a lot of people, that let them, in their own minds, compartmentalize what had happened and feel that it was okay to tolerate the amount of disability and death,” Sanchez said of the researchers.“It totally obfuscated people’s ability to even assess risk, to the point that we have well-established, highly efficacious childhood vaccines that are now being denied – to the point that measles is coming back in some parts of the United States.”With trust in public health greatly diminished, the repercussions could be long-lasting and tragic in coming years, particularly as Trump’s health nominees erode trust in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and other public-health precautions, Howard said.“Every measles outbreak, every pertussis outbreak, will be on them.” More

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      Trump announces more picks including US trade chief and health deputy

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      Donald Trump announced his selections for a series of positions in his administration Tuesday evening. The posts include the president-elect’s picks for deputy secretary of health and human services, US trade representative and head of the national economic council, among others.Jamieson Greer, an attorney who served under Trump’s previous trade representative Robert Lighthizer, will serve as US trade representative. In his announcement, Trump said: “Jamieson played a key role during my First Term in imposing Tariffs on China and others to combat unfair Trade practices, and replacing the failed NAFTA deal with USMCA, therefore making it much better for American Workers.”If confirmed by the Senate, Greer will be tasked with reining in the trade deficit and opening up “export markets everywhere”, among other things, Trump said.Jim O’Neill will serve as deputy secretary of health and human services under Robert F Kennedy Jr. O’Neill served in the department under George W Bush, before going on to work in Silicon Valley, where he invested heavily in tech ventures alongside PayPal chief executive Peter Thiel. Thiel, who advised Trump’s first administration, encouraged the president-elect to nominate O’Neill to a high-level health role in the administration.O’Neill has been vocally critical of the food and drug administration, saying in a 2014 speech that the FDA should approve drugs “after their sponsors have demonstrated safety, and let people start using them at their own risk” and “prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized”.Trump named another high level health official, nominating Stanford academic and physician Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya was an outspoken critic of the US government’s Covid policies during the pandemic, and published the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, which called for a return to life as normal for those who were not vulnerable to the virus.The declaration – which came before the availability of Covid-19 vaccines – promoted “herd immunity”, the idea that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity through infection. The proposal was embraced by some in the first Trump administration, including Trump himself who mistakenly referred to “herd mentality” as a way of stopping the spread of the virus.Bhattacharya sued the government afterward, alleging that it pressured social media platforms to censor his opinions. The supreme court sided with the Biden administration in that case.“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump wrote.Kevin Hassett, a Stanford economist who served as chair of the council of economic advisers during Trump’s first administration, will lead the national economic council.Hassett “played a crucial role in helping me to design and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017”, Trump said in a statement. “Together, we will renew and improve our record Tax Cuts, and ensure that we have Fair Trade with Countries that have taken advantage of the United States in the past.”Trump has named Vince Haley, who helped lead the speech-writing department during his first term, to be director of the domestic policy council, which drives implementation of the administration’s agenda. Trump adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller applauded the announcement in a post on social media, saying Haley’s “talent, devotion, determination and deep philosophical commitment to the America First agenda is unmatched”.John Phelan, who co-founded MSD Capital to manage the capital of Michael Dell, will be navy secretary. Phelan and his wife hosted a private fundraising dinner for Trump at their $38m home in Aspen, Colorado, in August. More

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      Trump transition team signs agreement to begin takeover from Biden

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      Donald Trump’s team announced on Tuesday it had signed an agreement to start the complex process of transferring control of the federal government to themselves, although the details of the plan suggested some breaks with standard practice.The incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said the team would now be sending in “landing teams” into the various departments and agencies as it prepares to take over the bureaucracy of the executive branch.“After completing the selection process of his incoming cabinet, president-elect Trump is entering the next phase of his administration’s transition,” Wiles said. “This engagement allows our intended cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations.”But the agreement with the Biden administration, known as a memorandum of understanding, appeared to be a pared-down version of what is normally signed by presidential transitions with caveats that indicated a departure from usual restrictions.The signing of the memo normally unlocks up to $7.2m in government funding to help staffing costs and other expenses, as well as the use of government office space through the nonpartisan General Services Administration.The financial assistance comes with strings attached – the transition team has to agree to disclose its donors and impose a $5,000 limit on contributions – and the agreement was supposed to be signed months before the election.The transition team is normally supposed to sign an ethics agreement, which paves the way for transition aides to start receiving government information such as classified briefings and the granting of security clearances.The announcement by Wiles in a press release suggested that the Trump team had negotiated its own language around some of those restrictions.While the Trump team was committed to making the identities of its donors public, and would not accept any foreign contributions, Wiles said that it would not be using any government money and its entire operation would be privately funded.Government ethics experts have previously noted that such an arrangement would allow people seeking to curry favor with the Trump White House to donate directly to him, raising concerns about possible conflicts of interest.Wiles also said that the Trump team had its own ethics plan, rather than the formal government one, leaving unclear whether all relevant transition aides would be eligible to receive full government briefings that included classified information.That caveat on the ethics plan dovetailed with reporting by the Guardian that the Trump team is planning for political appointees to receive temporary security clearances on the first day and only face FBI background checks after it had taken over the bureau.Trump’s lack of interest in engaging with the formal transition stems from the first Trump administration, when officials turned over transition team records to the Russia investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.Trump has previously broken convention with the transfer of power. In 2016, his campaign organized what appeared to be a standard process, until Trump fired his transition team’s leadership after he won the election and cut off communications with the Obama administration.In 2020, Trump again seemed to follow standard procedure until immediately after the election, pressuring the General Services Administration to not recognize Joe Biden’s election win so his team could not access the federal financial assistance. More

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      Canada PM under pressure to stand up to Trump over tariff plan; US motorists could face higher gas prices – live

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      Other members of Canada’s parliament are calling on prime minister Justin Trudeau to ready a “war room” for the coming battle over tariffs with the United States.“The only thing a bully responds to is strength. So where is our plan to fight back?” Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, asked Trudeau. “Where is the war room?”“I don’t think the idea of going to war with the United States is what anyone wants. What we will do is stand up for Canadian jobs,” Trudeau said. “Stand up for the prosperity we create when we work together.”Meanwhile, members of Canada’s liberal and conservative parties are debating ways Trudeau could promote a “Canada First” policy or work collaboratively with “our US partner.”In an election post-mortem today, top Harris campaign officials said there was little else Kamala Harris could have done to win the 2024 election.Speaking on the podcast “Pod Save America”, David Plouffe, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Quentin Fulks and Stephanie Cutter said Harris couldn’t have distanced herself further from Joe Biden because she was loyal and faced backlash over inflation that’s hurt incumbent politicians across the globe this year.“She had tremendous loyalty to President Biden,” Cutter said. “Imagine if we said, ‘Well, we would have taken this approach on the border.’ Imagine the round of stories coming out after that, of people saying, ‘Well, she never said that in the meeting.’”Plouffe added that the campaign’s internal polling never showed Harris leading president-elect Donald Trump.“We didn’t get the breaks we needed on Election Day,” he said. “I think it surprised people, because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw.”Fulks noted that Democrats could learn from how Republicans support their own, even amid controversy.“Democrats are eating our own to a very high degree, and until that stops, we’re not going to be able to address a lot of the things that just need to be said,” he said.During a thank-you call today, Kamala Harris told small-dollar donors that they helped to raise $1.4 billion over the course of her 107-day campaign.“The outcome of the election, of this election, obviously, is not what we wanted. It is not what we worked so hard for, but I am proud of the race we ran and your role was critical — what we did in 107 days was unprecedented,” she said. “The fight that fueled our campaign, a fight for freedom and opportunity, did not end on November 5th.”Harris’s running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, joined the call and urged supporters to “find the place in your community to heal both yourselves and your community.” He acknowledged feels of grief that supporters might be feeling and added, “You did everything that was asked.”Donald Trump’s team has announced that it has signed transition paperwork with the White House, which the incoming administration appeared to be dodging after failing to sign the agreement by its 1 October due date. The agreement, which directs $7.2m in federal funding to the transition, requires the incoming presidential administration to agree to an ethics pledge and cap private donations.The announcement that Trump’s team had signed the memorandum of understanding with the White House came in a press release from Trump’s chief-of-staff Susie Wiles.“After completing the selection process of his incoming Cabinet, President-elect Trump is entering the next phase of his administration’s transition by executing a Memorandum of Understanding with President Joe Biden’s White House. This engagement allows our intended Cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” she said.Speaking from the White House, Joe Biden has announced a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah.“Under the deal reached today, effective at 4am tomorrow local time, the fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border will end,” he said. “This is designed to be a permanent cesation of hostility.”Explaining the terms of the deal, Biden said, the Lebanese army will take control of the region as Israel withdraws its forces over the next 60 days. Hezbollah will not be allowed to rebuild its infrastructure. “There will be no US troops deployed in southern Lebanon,” he said, adding that the US and France would continue to provide support to Lebanon. If Lebanon fails to abide by the terms of the agreement, Biden said, Israeli retains the right to defend itself.“Now Hamas has a choice to make,” Biden said, gesturing to the ongoing war in Gaza. “Over the coming days, the United States will make another push – with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and others – to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.”A day after Elon Musk claimed to have met with “senior military officers,” the Pentagon told reporters it was not aware of any meetings with Trump transition officials, the Washington Post reports.“The president-elect’s transition team has not contacted the department yet to conduct those transitions, so I’m not aware of any official meetings,” Pentagon press secretary Patrick Ryder told reporters. Donald Trump’s transition team has declined to sign paperwork that would require the incoming administration to agree to an ethics pledge and cap private donations, which has slowed the transition.Yesterday, Musk claimed to have met with “senior military officers today” in a social media post responding to a statement from Vivek Ramaswamy about government efficiency.“In a meeting with senior military officers today, they told me that it now takes longer to renovate stairs (24 months) in the Pentagon than it took to build the WHOLE Pentagon (16 months) in the 1940s!!” Musk wrote.Speaking at an emergency gathering of the Canadian parliament today, Justin Trudeau urged unity while leaders of two of the country’s largest industrial and oil-rich provinces raised concerns over US-Canada relations, Reuters reports.The premier of Ontario, the country’s industrial heartland, said Trump had good reason to be worried about border security.“Do we need to do a better job on our borders? 1,000 percent … we do have to listen to the threat of too many illegals crossing the border,” Doug Ford told reporters. “We have to squash the illegal drugs, the illegal guns.”Ford has called on Trudeau to abandon the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade deal in favor of a bilateral agreement with the US, and called Trump’s comparison of Canada to Mexico “the most insulting thing I have ever heard”.Likewise, the premier of the oil-rich province of Alberta said yesterday that Trump had valid concerns over border security.“We are calling on the federal government to work with the incoming administration to resolve these issues immediately, thereby avoiding any unnecessary tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S.,” Danielle Smith said in a social media post. She added, “The vast majority of Alberta’s energy exports to the U.S. are delivered through secure and safe pipelines which do not in any way contribute to these illegal activities at the border.”A federal judge has rejected Rudy Giuliani’s request to reschedule a January trial date for after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The judge has ordered Giuliani to pay two Georgia election workers $148 million for spreading falsehoods after the 2020 election. The 16 January trial had been set to determine whether Giuliani would have to relinquish assets such as a Palm Beach condo and Yankees World Series rings to pay the judgement.“My client regularly consults and deals directly with President-elect Trump on issues that are taking place as the incoming administration is afoot as well as inauguration events,” Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Cammarata said. “My client wants to exercise his political right to be there.”“The defendant’s social calendar does not constitute good cause [to delay the trial],” US District Court Judge Lewis Liman said. He did suggest that he would be open to moving the trial forward a few days.Other members of Canada’s parliament are calling on prime minister Justin Trudeau to ready a “war room” for the coming battle over tariffs with the United States.“The only thing a bully responds to is strength. So where is our plan to fight back?” Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, asked Trudeau. “Where is the war room?”“I don’t think the idea of going to war with the United States is what anyone wants. What we will do is stand up for Canadian jobs,” Trudeau said. “Stand up for the prosperity we create when we work together.”Meanwhile, members of Canada’s liberal and conservative parties are debating ways Trudeau could promote a “Canada First” policy or work collaboratively with “our US partner.”Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is discussing the United States’ proposed tariffs with the leader of the opposition, Pierre Poilievre, before the Canadian parliament. Poilievre has criticized Trudeau, calling on him to “put Canada first” in its relations with the United States and do more to fix Canada’s “broken borders” and “liberalization of drugs”.“The prime minister’s disastrous legalization and liberalization of drugs has the Americans worried,” Poilievre said. “Where’s the plan to stop the drugs and keep our border open to trade?”Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is expected to speak shortly at today’s gathering of the nation’s parliament, just a day after Donald Trump threatened to levy 25% tariffs against the US’s northern neighbor.Trudeau spoke with Trump earlier today, and said “it was a good call,” adding that they “obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth.”Donald Trump’s team is discussing pursuing direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, hoping a fresh diplomatic push can lower the risks of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter, Reuters reports.Several in Trump’s team now see a direct approach from Trump, to build on a relationship that already exists, as most likely to break the ice with Kim, years after the two traded insults and what Trump called “beautiful” letters in an unprecedented diplomatic effort during his first term in office, the people said.The policy discussions are fluid and no final decisions have been made by the president-elect, the sources said.Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.What reciprocation Kim will offer Trump is unclear. The North Koreans ignored four years of outreach by outgoing president Joe Biden to start talks with no pre-conditions, and Kim is emboldened by an expanded missile arsenal and a much closer relationship with Russia.
      We have already gone as far as we can on negotiating with the United States,” Kim said last week in a speech at a Pyongyang military exhibition, according to state media.
      During his 2017-2021 presidency, Trump held three meetings with Kim, in Singapore, Hanoi, and at the Korean border, the first time a sitting US president had set foot in the country.Their diplomacy yielded no concrete results, even as Trump described their talks as falling “in love.” The US called for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, while Kim demanded full sanctions relief, then issued new threats.North Korea has sent troops to fight alongside Russia in its war with Ukraine.Donald Trump’s pledge to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports in his first day in office does not exempt crude oil from the trade penalties, two sources familiar with the plan told Reuters today.Oil producers already warned that tariffs on crude would drive up the price of gas for US motorists, the FT reported earlier.“A 25% tariff on oil and natural gas would likely result in lower production in Canada and higher gasoline and energy costs to American consumers while threatening North American energy security,” Lisa Baiton, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, told the business-focussed newspaper.In the vagaries of the markets and geopolitics, oil prices rose earlier on news of Trump’s tariffs pledge, over predictions they would discourage production, thereby raising prices, but now have dropped slightly, Reuters reports, on news of a pending ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, apparently because Wall Streeters, leaping 10 steps ahead, imagine it could lead to a relaxing of sanctions on Iran and therefore a glut of oil supply, suppressing prices…. More