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      Sold-out farm shops, smuggled deliveries and safety warnings: US battle over raw milk grows

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      It’s 8am, and Redmond, an 11-year-old Brown Swiss dairy cow and designated matriarch of the Churchtown Dairy herd, has been milked in her designated stall. She is concentrating on munching hay; her seventh calf is hovering nearby.The herd’s production of milk, sold unpasteurised in half-gallon and quart glass bottles in an adjacent farm store, sells out each week. It has become so popular that the store has had to limit sales.Redmond and her resplendent bovine sisters, wintering in a Shaker-style barn in upstate New York, appear unaware of the cultural-political storm gathering around them – an issue that is focusing minds far from farmyard aromas of mud and straw.The production and state-restricted distribution of raw milk, considered by some to boost health and by ­others to be a major risk to it, has become a perplexing political touchstone on what is termed the “Woo-to-Q pipeline”, along which yoga, wellness and new age spirituality adherents can drift into QAnon conspiracy beliefs.Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick to run the US Department of Health, is an advocate. He has made unpasteurised milk part of his Make America Healthy Again movement and recently tweeted that government regulations on raw milk were part of a wider “war on public health”.View image in fullscreenRepublican congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene has posted “Raw Milk does a body good”. But the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says that “raw milk can carry dangerous germs such as salmonella, E coli, listeria, campylobacter and others that cause foodborne illness”.Last week, the US Department of Agriculture issued an order to broaden tests for H5N1 – bird flu – in milk at dairy processing ­facilities, over fears that the virus could become the next Covid-19 if it spreads through US dairy herds and jumps to humans. Since March, more than 700 dairy herds across the US have tested ­positive for bird flu, mostly in California. But the new testing strategy does not cover farms that directly process and sell their own raw milk.At the same time, another dairy product has become the subject of conspiracy theories after misinformation spread about the use of Bovaer in cow feed in the UK. Arla Foods, the Danish-Swedish company behind Lurpak, announced trials of the additive, designed to cut cow methane emissions, at 30 of its farms. Some social media users raised concerns over the additive’s safety and threatened a boycott, despite Bovaer being approved by regulators.In the US, raw milk is seen as anti-government by the right, anti-corporate by the left, and amid the fracturing political delineations, lies a middle ground unmoved by either ideology.“Food production has always been political,” says Churchtown Dairy owner and land reclamation pioneer, Abby Rockefeller.Churchtown manager Eric Vinson laments raw milk has been lumped in with QAnon and wellness communities. “There’s an idea around that ­people who want to take ownership of their health have started to become conspiratorial,” he says. “It’s unfortunate. Raw milk may be a political issue but it’s not a right-left issue.”Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, Georgia, and Wyoming have passed laws or changed rules to allow the sale at farms or shops since 2020. In New York, sales are legal at farms with permits, although supplies are smuggled into the city marked “for cats and dogs”. There is no suggestion Churchtown is involved in that.Amish communities abandoned a non-political stance in the national elections in November and voted Republican, in part over the raw milk issue. An Amish organic farm was raided by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in January.There are also the health-aware “farmers’ market mums”, who say they are looking to raw milk for an immunity boost, and who harbour latent anger over the government pandemic response and vaccine mandates.View image in fullscreenRachel, a Manhattan mother of a three-year-old, who declined to be fully identified, citing potential social judgment, said: “After Covid, more of us started thinking about our bodies and health because of scepticism around doctors, hospitals and a corrupted health care system.” But like many people, she said, she felt she’d been “caught in the middle” of a political battle.Sales of raw milk are up between 21% and 65% compared with a year ago, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ. Mark McAfee, California raw milk advocate and owner of Raw Farm USA in Fresno, says production and supply across the state is growing at 50% a year. But the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call raw milk one of the “riskiest” foods people can consume. Experts say they are “horrified” by a trend they consider a roll-back of Louis Pasteur’s 19th-century invention of pasteurisation.Vinson disagrees with the idea that raw milk is “inherently dangerous” and argues, because conventional dairies rely on pasteurisation, “they don’t have to worry about sanitation around the milking practices – they can cut corners”. “You have to be more careful producing raw milk but it brings a higher price,” he adds.View image in fullscreenSince the pandemic, visitors to Churchtown have increased.Earlier this month, McAfee’s Raw Farm was hit by a notice from the California Department of Health warning that H5 virus, better known as bird flu, had been detected in a batch of cream-top whole raw milk.It’s not yet known if the virus can be transmitted to people who consume infected milk but the CDC officials warn that people who drink raw milk could theoretically become infected.Back at Churchtown Dairy, Vinson is tending the herd. A huge Jersey cow shadows her four-day old calf. At weekends, he offers tours of the barn to raw milk-curious visitors. “One of my main jobs is informing the public about farming and agricultural issues,” he says. That includes being receptive to changes. “It is important to say we don’t know everything and keep an eye open.” More

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      Mitch McConnell condemns petition to revoke approval of polio vaccine by RFK Jr adviser

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      US Senate minority leader and polio survivor Mitch McConnell has condemned attempts to undermine the polio vaccine after reports that a lawyer affiliated with Robert F Kennedy Jr – the health secretary pick for Donald Trump’s second presidency – petitioned for the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of the vaccine.In a statement reported by numerous outlets on Friday, McConnell, who contracted the disease as a child in 1944 – 11 years before the licensing of the world’s first polio vaccine – said: “The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed – they’re dangerous.”The 82-year-old went on to add: “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”McConnell’s latest comment comes after the New York Times first reported that Aaron Siri, a lawyer helping Kennedy select incoming health officials for Trump’s second White House term, filed a petition in 2022 in which he called on the FDA to revoke its polio vaccine approval. Trump has nominated Kennedy, an avowed vaccine skeptic, as health secretary for his incoming administration – a move widely criticized by health experts.According to the New York Times, Siri filed the petition on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, a major anti-vaccination organization in the US. Siri has also asked federal regulators to withdraw or suspend vaccines for hepatitis B and 13 other vaccines, the outlet reported.Kennedy’s anti-vaccination beliefs have been widely debunked, including the unsupported link between vaccines and autism.Polio, also known as poliomyelitis, is a highly infectious viral disease that mostly affects children under five years old. Transmitted through contaminated water, food or contact with an infected person, the poliovirus destroys nerve cells in the spinal cord, in turn causing muscle wasting and paralysis.Since 1988, polio cases have decreased by more than 99% across the world, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated on its website, adding that polio vaccines have prevented approximately 20m cases of paralysis in children since then.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn response to the reports, a Trump spokesperson for Kennedy Jr told the Washington Post that Siri “has never had a conversation about these petitions with Mr Kennedy or any of the [health and human services] nominees at any point”.Among other things, the spokesperson added that the vaccine “should be investigated and studied appropriately”, which it already has been. More

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      Washington DC steels itself for Trump’s ‘takeover’: ‘We’re in for a bumpy ride’

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      View image in fullscreenBoth a senator and a pastor, Raphael Warnock reflected on being asked to give closing remarks at an annual congressional dinner in Washington. “Since we are meeting in what used to be the Trump International Hotel,” he mused, “perhaps it is an exorcism”.That was last year, when the ghost of Donald Trump had seemingly been banished for good from the nation’s capital. But like all the best horror movies, there is going to be a sequel. Next month Trump will return to a city that he has openly disparaged – the feeling is generally mutual – when he is inaugurated as the 47th US president.Trump lost the Republican primary election to Nikki Haley in the District of Columbia. He lost the presidential election there to Democrat Kamala Harris by 86 percentage points. Even so, he has vowed to radically overhaul the capital, threatened its political autonomy and recruited the billionaire Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.Sally Quinn, an author, journalist and socialite, said: “The mood is pretty grim. People are depressed. I had a dinner last night with a number of people from Washington and I would say that everyone was very subdued and there’s not a lot of gaiety or celebration. I don’t know anybody who’s in the Christmas spirit right now.”During his first term, Trump, a New Yorker and now Florida resident, never truly embraced Washington, a city of around 700,000 people that has been home to the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the singer Marvin Gaye and the comedian Dave Chappelle.During his presidency, the only DC restaurant he patronised was his own, ordering a well-done steak with ketchup at BLT Prime in the Trump International Hotel, half a mile from the White House. He has since sold the hotel, and its new restaurant is run by José Andrés, a Spanish-American chef and outspoken Trump critic.The former president snubbed Washington rituals. He was the only president never to attend the annual Kennedy Center Honors. He also skipped the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. In late 2019 Trump did watch the Washington Nationals in the baseball World Series only to be met with loud boos and chants of “Lock him up!” and “Impeach Trump!”In 2020 Washington was convulsed by the coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Teargas was fired against nearby peaceful protesters outside the White House before Trump staged a photo opportunity holding a Bible outside a church. DC responded by painting “Black Lives Matter” on a nearby street and creating Black Lives Matter Plaza.Then came his defeat in the presidential election. First the city erupted in joy with people celebrating in the streets. Then it was stunned by the insurrection on 6 January 2021 at the US Capitol building, leading to five deaths. Washington was left reeling but, two weeks later, saw Trump depart the White House and assumed he was gone for good.Quinn reflected: “This is a Democratic town. People are in a state of shock and disbelief and trying to understand: how do you get over January 6? What is it that Democrats did wrong that was so much worse than January 6? What did the Democrats do that didn’t appeal to people? You have an indicted criminal as an elected president. How is that possible?”With the Trump hotel now under different ownership, it remains to be seen where his allies and supporters will congregate. Quinn recalls that some used to gather at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, much to the dismay of locals. “One night there were about 10 Trump people there and the buzz all around the room was such that I felt like everybody was going to stand up and start singing ‘La Marseillaise’ the way they did at Rick’s Café in Casablanca.”Trump’s return also has huge implications for the way that DC runs itself. The district has always lacked the autonomy of state. It was granted limited self-governance by the Home Rule Act in 1973 but Congress still essentially vets all DC laws and can outright overturn them.During his first term Trump threatened to federalise DC police, deployed the National Guard against protesters and expressed a desire to control city functions like road repair. On the campaign trail he expressed disdain for the city, raising fears about a potential escalation during his second term.Trump repeatedly vowed to “take over” the city and usurp the authority of the local government. In August last year, when he briefly came to town to plead not guilty on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 electoral loss to Biden, Trump derided the capital on social media, calling it a “filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation”. He has long condemned it as “the swamp”.George Derek Musgrove, co-author of Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital, suggests that there are two Washingtons in Trump’s imagination. “One is the place where only lobbyists, lawyers and Hill staffers and federal regulators live. He sees those people as parasitical: if we got rid of those, we’d be able to have a much more functional democracy.“Contradictorily, he also sees the district where actual real people live but those people are poor and Black and highly criminal. Those are two DCs that he and House Republicans have presented to the country and both of them have a national political function. They’re a way of painting the Democratic party as part of the deep state and siding with criminals over victimised law-abiding citizens.”Trump has duly appointed Elon Musk and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to a “Department of Government Efficiency” intended to save money by shrinking the federal government – an effort that could risk the jobs of thousands of employees in Washington and nearby Maryland and Virginia. The president-elect has also vowed to dismantle the Department of Education.Musgrove, an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore county, said: “When you talk about the fear of the incoming Trump administration, it’s twofold. One is the attacks on democracy in the district. The other is this real fear that his plans to slash the federal workforce will fall disproportionately on us and cause economic pain in the district.”Congressional Republicans have become increasingly aggressive in using their power to override DC laws, restrict its budget and target liberal policies on criminal justice, marijuana legalisation and abortion. Andrew Clyde, a Georgia congressman, has proposed completely repealing the Home Rule Act, while Andy Ogles, a Tennessee congressman, has talked publicly of abolishing the office of DC mayor.The current mayor, Muriel Bowser, was a thorn in Trump’s side first time around. But she and other local officials are seeking ways to work with the Trump administration on issues such as bringing federal workers back to the office. Unlike Democratic state governors, who are already coordinating on how to resist Trump on issues such as immigration, the mayor’s reach is limited.Meagan Hatcher-Mays, a senior adviser for United for Democracy, a coalition of more than 140 organisations, said: “We have a Democratic mayor but we’re not a state and so the federal government can interfere with our local politics and our local decisions in a way that they can’t with the states. Whether Trump is physically present here or not, we’re in for a bumpy ride with a lot of his policy folks and administration.”Hatcher-Mays also warned that DC could also prove a laboratory for Project 2025, a radical policy blueprint drawn up by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank. “Pretty much everything that’s in Project 2025 that they might not be able to get through Congress to go national could become real and exclusively apply just to DC.”Republicans’ clean sweep of the White House and both chambers of Congress was also a heavy blow to the long-running campaign for DC statehood. Advocates argue that this is the only way to ensure full democratic rights for DC residents, who pay federal taxes but lack voting representation. Republicans, however, are fiercely opposed to the idea of adding two senators likely to be Democrats.Paul Strauss, the “shadow” senator for DC who does get a vote in the Senate chamber, admitted: “We’re on defence. Most of what I expect I’ll be doing in the next two years is defending attacks on DC autonomy without a majority in either chamber. There’s not going to be much of a chance to move a bill forward. We are going to be trying to preserve what little self-determination we have.”The storied culture of DC includes the Washington Post, a newspaper founded in 1877 and famed for its investigation into the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. It spent the first Trump term locked in an old fashioned newspaper war with the New York Times over a seemingly endless series of revelations about his administration.But since then the Post has suffered deep financial losses, job cuts and reports that its publisher, Will Lewis, tried to pressure Post staff not to report on questions of whether he was involved in covering up crimes more than a decade ago at Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid newspapers. The paper, owned by the billionaire Jeff Bezos, declined to endorse a candidate for president, reportedly prompting more than 250,000 readers to cancel subscriptions.Hatcher-Mays commented: “This is not a knock on any of the reporters who work at the Post. I know they’re independent and all great but it’s going to be a tough uphill climb to report out the various misdeeds of this administration when the owner of your paper is more interested playing footsie with a person who’s been impeached twice, is under indictment and has no interest in the product of democracy.”During his first term, Trump spent many weekends at his clubs in Florida or New Jersey but, when in Washington, was often driven to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, where he played rounds. An accompanying pool of reporters would kill time at Lucia’s, an Italian restaurant nearby.Its owner, David Hackett, is preparing for their return after a four-year hiatus and prefers to not reveal his political allegiance. “It was definitely a nice Saturday and Sunday boost,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the journalists coming back. That might be the only plus to the whole deal for me.” More

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      Sad but true – Donald Trump really did wrestle his way into the White House | David Moon

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      Do you remember World Wrestling Entertainment? For many people, the show, in which muscle-bound wrestlers in tight tights throw one another around in staged fights, is a nostalgic throwback to the early 2000s, when it played briefly on Channel 4. Today, its mix of soap opera, theatre and athletic spectacle still draws millions of viewers each week. To some, it’s a guilty pleasure; to others, timeless entertainment. Still, few would associate it with the serious world of politics.For Donald Trump, though, professional wrestling is a lifelong passion. His announcement in November that the former CEO of WWE, Linda McMahon, would take up the role of education secretary in his cabinet of curiosities elicited shock and disbelief. It is impossible to fully understand US politics today without understanding the significance of pro wrestling.Long before McMahon’s nomination, Trump was the first occupant of the Oval Office to be a WWE Hall of Fame inductee, an honour that marked his decades-long business relationship with the company. Trump has hosted two WrestleManias, the WWE’s flagship annual event, appeared more than a dozen times on WWE programmes, played a leading role in two storylines, and gotten physical (albeit to a very limited, awkward degree) around the ring itself. It’s now widely acknowledged that pro wrestling is key to Trump as a political phenomenon. Yet its influence is bigger than Trump. Wrestling has become a key element to understand the reshaping of US politics itself – particularly the Republican right.Just look at the 2024 presidential campaign. Jesse “the Body” Ventura was named by the Robert F Kennedy Jr campaign as a potential vice-presidential running mate. Hulk Hogan tore his shirt off at the Republican national convention, rallied “Trumpaholics” at Madison Square Garden, and hinted at a possible role in a future Trump administration on Fox News. For his part, Donald Trump participated in a Fox News segment with former WWE superstar Tyrus, who dubbed him “the people’s champion” and gave him a replica title belt. He joined the podcasts of pro wrestling icon Mark “the Undertaker” Calloway and current WWE superstar Logan Paul, as well as receiving the endorsement of Calloway and Glenn Jacobs – better known as WWE’s Kane, the Undertaker’s storyline brother – in a TikTok video.One explanation for such behaviour is simply that it’s strategic. A former boxing promoter, Trump has become a fixture at combat sports in general, especially Ultimate Fighting Championship (which merged with WWE to form the media conglomerate TKO in 2023), whose CEO, Dana White, was one of the first people brought on stage at his victory speech. By attaching himself to entertainment forms widely dismissed in polite society, Trump burnishes his anti-establishment vibes while reaching out to a younger, often politically apathetic, male electorate that populates these fandoms. It is pro wrestling, however, that is his natural home. The idea that Trump’s pro wrestling background is used strategically is also linked to his infamous campaign rallies. From the fireworks and thumping entrance music, to the carefully choreographed conflict and spectacle on the stage, the atmosphere of these rallies has often been compared with pro wrestling shows.View image in fullscreenTrump frequently resorts to call-and-response chants and indulges in “smack talk” against the “losers and haters” – assigning them diminishing nicknames such as “lyin’ Ted”, “crooked Hillary” and “sleepy Joe”. Being part of a pro wrestling audience – much like attending a Trump rally – allows spectators to experience emotions that are usually forbidden. They can scream, shout and display rage in a rare public context where it’s socially permitted. Trump rallies are safe spaces where it’s acceptable to emote: to shout and cheer for your country and candidate, while vocalising hatred for political opponents. In 2016, it was possible to think these similarities were coincidental. Today, the influence of pro wrestling is unavoidable. Watch the post-election footage of Donald Trump emerging to the strains of Kid Rock’s American Badass – the Undertaker’s previous entrance music – through the roaring crowd of a recent UFC event and it’s impossible not to make the connection.As the US political sphere becomes one gigantic pro wrestling arena, traditional theories and frameworks are inadequate for making sense of events. We need, therefore, to turn to pro wrestling for answers, particularly the industry-specific concept of “kayfabe”. Initially a label for the illusion that pro wrestling’s predetermined performances were “real”, today, kayfabe describes the peculiar way fans engage with pro wrestling as an acknowledged performance form. In her own insightful writings on pro wrestling and politics, the writer and author Abraham Josephine Riesman proposes “neokayfabe” as a label for Trump-inspired Republican strategies that deliberately blur truth and fiction so that producers and consumers lose the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t.The idea of politics as kayfabe can be taken further. In my view, the relationship between pro wrestling fans and performances are analogous to how electorates engage with contemporary politics more generally. Trump and his supporters are an extreme case of a wider phenomenon. Enjoying pro wrestling involves a deliberate suspension of disbelief, whereby fans acknowledge the theatricality of the performance while investing in it emotionally. Spectators collaborate with the performers by playing along as “believing fans”, cheering and booing as conventions dictate, embracing the spectacle even while recognising its pretence. In pro wrestling terms this is called “keeping kayfabe”.This mirrors people’s engagement with the artifice surrounding contemporary, professionalised politics. We all know, for example, that politicians’ words are written by speechwriters, based on focus group findings, targeted at specific voter demographics, identified by pollsters and strategists. Yet supporters suspend disbelief, cheer conference speeches and emotionally invest in sentiments they express, all while knowing and accepting and even discussing in detail the calculations behind their construction. In other words, they keep kayfabe. Politics increasingly amounts to this: electorates acting out their role as “believing supporters” while maintaining a knowing cynicism about the whole performance.What makes Trump special is thus not that he personifies “pro wrestlingified” politics, but that his supporters are willing to suspend their disbelief and support his campaign when its fakery is so blatant. If the best our political systems offer their understandably jaded electorates is the option to “suspend disbelief” and “keep kayfabe” with a political campaign they view as essentially simulated, we shouldn’t be shocked many choose the one with an anti-establishment pose and chaotic performance style (each products of a pro wrestling pedigree). It may be a performance, sure, but at least it’s entertaining.

      Dr David Moon is head of division for politics at Bath University More

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      Daniel Penny will be JD Vance’s guest at Army-Navy football game in Maryland

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      JD Vance, the vice-president-elect, confirmed that Daniel Penny, a Marine Corps veteran recently acquitted of homicide charges, will be his invited guest at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday in Maryland.Penny will watch the game from a suite alongside president-elect Donald Trump and other figures in Trump’s next administration, including his defence secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance posted on X, confirming news first reported by the non-profit publication Notus.The invitation follows Penny’s acquittal on Monday by a New York jury, which found him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of arrests, mental illness and medical conditions. Medical evidence revealed that Neely had sickle cell trait, an inherited genetic condition that under extreme physiological stress can potentially compromise blood oxygen transport, a factor Penny’s defence team argued could have contributed to his death.The case sparked nationwide controversy after Penny placed Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train in May 2023. Witnesses reported that Neely had been shouting and acting erratically, with one passenger, Juan Alberto Vazquez, telling NBC News at the time that Neely was making aggressive statements about not caring about potential consequences.It will be Penny’s first public appearance since his acquittal, and a high-profile event with deep ties to the military at that.Vance was vocal in his support of Penny, describing the prosecution as a “scandal” and praising the jury’s decision.“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance posted on X.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPenny, in a sit-down interview with Fox News this week, maintained that he feared for his own safety and that of other passengers during the incident, describing himself as being in a “vulnerable position”.“The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself,” Penny said. “I’d take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.” More

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      Questions dog Trump pick for Middle East adviser with inconsistent résumé

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      President-elect Donald Trump’s appointee to advise him on Middle East affairs, Massad Boulos, is reported to have significant discrepancies between his public profile and documented business background, casting doubt on the thoroughness of the former president’s vetting process.Corporate records reviewed by the New York Times reveal that Boulos, father-in-law to Tiffany Trump, is frequently described as a billionaire mogul, but actually manages a truck dealership in Nigeria that generated less than $66,000 in profit last year. The company, SCOA Nigeria PLC, is valued at approximately $865,000, with Boulos’s personal stake worth just $1.53, according to the securities filings in the Times report.The advisory position, which does not require Senate confirmation, follows Boulos’s prominent role in Trump’s 2024 campaign outreach to Arab American voters, particularly in key swing states like Michigan. Boulos positioned himself as a critical intermediary, helping Trump navigate complex political sentiments within Arab American communities – and doing Arab-language interviews with media in the region.While Boulos has been active in Arab American political circles, his murky business background and lack of diplomatic and policy expertise raises questions about the depth of the vetting process conducted by Trump’s team – who were also said to be caught-off guard by accusations against Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth.During the campaign, Boulos pounded the pavement in Michigan to tout Trump’s foreign policy record, claiming he was “the only president in modern US history who did not start any wars”, despite Trump resupplying Saudi Arabia with an arms package, including precision bombs and munitions, for its brutal war in Yemen.Boulos’s political connections are multifaceted. He’s reported to maintain relationships with various Lebanese political figures, including Christian politician Sleiman Frangieh, an ally of Hezbollah whom the militant group endorsed for president.Boulos’s own background includes a failed parliamentary run in Lebanon in 2009. It was his son Michael’s marriage to Tiffany in Mar-a-Lago in 2022 that significantly elevated the family’s political profile.A May meeting with dozens of Arab American leaders in Michigan highlighted the challenges of Boulos’s political positioning. The gathering, which included Trump adviser Richard Grenell, reportedly became tense when Grenell repeated controversial comments about removing Palestinians from Gaza’s “waterfront property”, causing frustration among attendees.Trump announced the appointment on Truth Social in early December, describing Boulos as “a skilled negotiator and a steadfast advocate for PEACE in the Middle East”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf appointed, Boulos would inherit a Middle East in profound crisis, with Israel’s destructive and more than year-long war in Gaza leading to at least 45,000 dead Palestinians and international arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. The portfolio also includes a new era for Syria as rebels toppled longtime autocrat Bashar al-Assad and war-torn Lebanon with ongoing strikes between Hezbollah and Israel.The appointment also follows a pattern of Trump selecting family-connected individuals for key positions, with Boulos joining Ivanka Trump’s father-in-law, Charles Kushner, who was named as the potential US ambassador to France. More

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      Pete Hegseth decried out gay troops in US military as part of Marxist agenda

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      Policies allowing out gay people to serve in the US military have been denounced as part of a “Marxist” agenda aimed at prioritising social justice above combat-readiness by Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled defence secretary pick.The assertion was among many contentious “anti-woke” views expressed in Hegseth’s latest book, The War on Warriors, published this year, in which he lambasted a previous policy – known as don’t ask, don’t tell (DADT) – that tolerated gay service members as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation, while also excoriating its repeal.DADT was introduced as a compromise during Bill Clinton’s presidency in 1993 to allow lesbians and gay men to serve in the military in the face of opposition from senior commanders. The policy overturned a previous blanket ban that had been in place since the second world war.It was repealed in 2011 during the presidency of Barack Obama following numerous complaints of discrimination resulting from the dishonourable discharges of armed service personnel after their sexuality had come to light.Hegseth – whose nomination has become imperilled following allegations of drunkenness, sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement – has denounced DADT as the start of ideological “tinkering” with the armed forces for social justice ends, CNN reported .But he has also voiced regret over its repeal, calling it “a breach in the wire” that opened the path to a wider ideological and cultural change in the armed forces.Recalling how he was getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan when the policy was annulled, he wrote: “Our commander briefed the unit, peppered with a few jokes. You know, infantry stuff.“We mostly laughed it off and moved on. America was at war. Gays and lesbians were already serving in the military. I had seen the enemy with my own eyes. We needed everybody.”He now says that inclusive and tolerant attitude was a mistake, suggesting it paved the way for admitting transgender people into the military and allowing women to serve in combat roles, from which they were barred until a 2013 reform.“It started with Clinton under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’,” Hegseth told the conservative broadcaster, Ben Shapiro, in an interview this year in which he cited a military recruitment advertisement of a soldier with two lesbian mothers as illustrative of a shift in military culture.“At least when it was an ‘Army of One’, they were, you know, [a] tough-looking, go get ’em army,” he said.“Now you just have the absurdity of ‘I have two mommies and I’m so proud to show them that I can wear the uniform too.’ So they, it’s just like everything else the Marxists and the leftists have done. At first it was camouflaged nicely and now they’re just open about it.”Hegseth’s aversion to gay people in the military and women in combat was expressed before Trump nominated him for a cabinet position that would give him decision-making power over both policies.Interviewed this week by CNN, Hegseth – a former army national guard soldier and Fox News host – declined to say whether he still believed it was a mistake to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell.He also said he supported “all women serving in our military” – despite previously arguing that their presence led to an “erosion in standards”.Hegseth repeatedly took issue with the concept of female combatants in a chapter of his latest book titled “The (deadly) obsession with women warriors”.“I’m going to say something politically incorrect that is perfectly commonsensical observation,” he wrote. “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bike. We need moms, but not in the military, especially in combat units.”In another provocative passage, he wrote: “If you train a group of men to treat women equally on the battlefield then you will be hard pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home.”Hegseth conflated the issue of women and gay people in the military in comments to Fox News in 2015, Meidas News reported.“Through don’t ask, don’t tell and women in the military and these standards, they’re going to inevitably start to erode standards because they want that one female special operator, that one female Green Beret, that one female Army Ranger, that one female Navy Seal, so they can put them on a recruiting poster and feel good about themselves – and [that] has nothing to do with national security,” he said. More

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      Ontario leader threatens to halt energy exports to US if Trump imposes tariffs

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      The leader of Canada’s largest province says he’s prepared to halt energy exports to the United States, warning that other premiers “need to be ready to fight” as threats escalate ahead of possible American tariffs.The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, says he’s weighing options to fight back against a 25% levy on all Canadian goods that the US president-elect Donald Trump has pledged to implement when he assumes office.Following a meeting with the nation’s premiers and the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Ford said other leaders were also drawing up lists of exports that could be halted.“But we will go to the full extent, depending how far this goes, we will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michigan, going down to New York state and over to Wisconsin,” said Ford. “I don’t want this to happen, but my number one job is to protect Ontario, Ontarians and Canadians as a whole.”Canada’s most populous province is also among the most vulnerable to American tariffs because roughly 85% of its exports – including billions in automotive parts – are sent to a handful of US states. As a result, Ford has emerged as the Canadian politician most vocal about the devastating effects the tariffs would have on hundreds of billions of shared trade.“We need to be ready. We need to be ready to fight,” said Ford. “This fight is coming 100% on January 20 or January 21.”Ford’s threat aims to highlight both the integrated nature of North American economies and also to put pressure on state governors. But is unclear how much Ford could follow through on his pledge to cut electricity exports, given that premiers do not make international energy policy.Canada supplies roughly 60% of all American oil imports and even more of its electricity imports. In 2022, Canada’s revenue from electricity exports to the United States hit a record high of C$5.8bn. Quebec is the largest exporter, with Ontario following second at 13.9m megawatt-hours of power sent south.“We will use every tool in our tool box to fight back,” said Ford. “We can’t sit back and roll over. We just won’t as a country. And isn’t this a shame, our closest friends and allies.”Trump threatened last month to apply the devastating levies of 25% on all goods and services from both Mexico and Canada, vowing to keep them in place until “such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”Last week, Trump seemed to take joy in the panicked response from Canadian officials, calling Trudeau Canada’s “governor” of a potential “51st” state. More