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      Florida Surgeon General Urges End to Fluoride in Water, Backing RFK Jr.’s Push

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      Florida’s surgeon general issued guidance on Friday that called for a halt to adding fluoride to the water supply, backing a similar push by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, cited recent research that highlighted the potential risk of heightened exposure to the chemical — including lower I.Q.s in children. Health experts agree that excessive exposure to fluoride over a long period of time can cause health problems, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Dental Association say that fluoridated water does not pose any of these risks at the level currently recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.“Due to the neuropsychiatric risk associated with fluoride exposure,” Dr. Ladapo’s guidance said, “particularly in pregnant women and children, and the wide availability of alternative sources of fluoride for dental health, the State Surgeon General recommends against community water fluoridation.”Dr. Ladapo has played a prominent role in Mr. DeSantis’s administration, often supporting the governor in political fights over pandemic-era health policy. More recently, Dr. Ladapo called for a halt to the use of Covid vaccines earlier this year, citing widely debunked concerns about contaminants in the vaccine.He also contradicted widespread medical guidance about the spread of measles, sending a letter to parents after an outbreak of the disease at an elementary school that said it was up to parents and guardians to determine when their children can attend school, even if those children have not been vaccinated for measles.The guidance on fluoridation in Florida follows heightened attention on the issue after recent statements by Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has no medical or public health degrees, and Mr. Trump. Mr. Kennedy declared on social media this month that, as president, Mr. Trump would advise communities to stop adding fluoride to drinking water. Mr. Kennedy described the chemical as “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease.”In a recent interview with NBC News, Mr. Trump said the idea of doing away with fluoridation “sounds OK to me.”Sheryl Gay Stolberg More

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      Trump Picks Russell Vought, Key Figure in Project 2025, to Lead OMB

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump on Friday picked a key figure in Project 2025 to lead the Office of Management and Budget, elevating a longtime ally who has spent the last four years making plans to rework the American government to enhance presidential power.The would-be nominee, Russell T. Vought, would oversee the White House budget and help determine whether federal agencies comport with the president’s policies. The role requires Senate confirmation unless Mr. Trump is able to make recess appointments.The choice of Mr. Vought would bring in a strongly ideological figure who played a pivotal role in Mr. Trump’s first term, when he also served as budget chief. Among other things, Mr. Vought helped come up with the idea of having Mr. Trump use emergency power to circumvent Congress’s decision about how much to spend on a border wall.Mr. Vought was a leading figure in Project 2025, the effort by conservative organizations to build a governing blueprint for Mr. Trump should he take office once again. Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the effort during his campaign, but he has put forward people with ties to the project for his administration since the election.Mr. Vought’s role in Project 2025 was to oversee executive orders and other unilateral actions that Mr. Trump could take during his first six months in office, with the goal of tearing down and rebuilding executive branch institutions in a way that would enhance presidential power.In an interview with The New York Times in 2023, Mr. Vought laid out an agenda of eliminating the independence of certain regulatory agencies that operate outside the direct control of the White House, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pam Bondi, a $25,000 Donation and Trump University: Questions Remain

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      While Ms. Bondi, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, served as attorney general of Florida, her office declined to investigate allegations of fraud against his for-profit school.Reports of deceptive practices and fraud by Donald J. Trump and his Trump University business unit had been piling up for several years in states across the nation, including in Florida.The state attorney general in New York moved in, filing a lawsuit in 2013 that accused Mr. Trump and his for-profit trade school of “engaging in persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct,” even though by that point Trump University was already out of business.The Florida attorney general’s office, which Pam Bondi had taken over in 2011, handled it differently.She publicly acknowledged that her office was examining complaints about Trump University, but it decided against a formal investigation.The decision came soon after Mr. Trump, through his family foundation, sent a check for $25,000 to a political action committee associated with Ms. Bondi, who was running for a second term.Florida’s was not the only state attorney general’s office to decide against taking up the Trump University matter. Mr. Trump also donated to Kamala Harris while she was attorney general of California, and after reviewing the matter, her office also did not pursue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ¿Quién es Pam Bondi, la nueva elección de Donald Trump para fiscala general?

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      Fue la primera fiscala general del estado de Florida, se convirtió en integrante del equipo de defensa del juicio político a Donald Trump y respaldó sus falsas acusaciones de fraude electoral en 2020.El presidente electo de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, se apresuró a dejar de lado los malos titulares del jueves sobre Matt Gaetz reemplazándolo con rapidez por Pam Bondi, una colega republicana de Florida con un perfil muy diferente —pero una reputación similar de lealtad— para ser su fiscala general.Bondi, de 59 años, es una lobista leal a Trump que ocupó el cargo de fiscala general de Florida entre 2011 y 2019. Ha trazado un camino más convencional y menos estrepitoso que Gaetz, con poco del desagradable bagaje personal o político que llevó a algunos republicanos a oponerse a su nominación.Fue fiscala localBondi, hija del alcalde de un pequeño municipio del área de Tampa, empezó a trabajar como ayudante del fiscal del estado en el condado de Hillsborough en la década de 1990. Durante 18 años como fiscala, llevó casos “que iban desde la violencia doméstica hasta el homicidio punible con pena capital”, según la página de su biografía en su empresa de cabildeo.Supervisó un puñado de casos de gran repercusión, entre los que destaca el del exlanzador de los New York Mets Dwight Gooden, quien cumplió una condena de un año de prisión por violar la libertad condicional en un caso de drogas en 2006.En 2010 fue elegida la primera mujer fiscala general de FloridaBondi, demócrata hasta 2000, se impuso en unas reñidas primarias republicanas y ganó las elecciones a fiscala general tras conseguir el apoyo de Sarah Palin, exgobernadora de Alaska y fallida candidata republicana a la vicepresidencia en 2008, y promocionar su firme postura contra la delincuencia durante sus apariciones en Fox News.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Bondi Might Do as Attorney General

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      Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the Justice Department fought to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and has lobbied for Amazon, Uber and General Motors.Pam Bondi in 2020. She is seen as a Donald Trump loyalist who may lead a shake-up of the Justice Department.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesNew face, same goals?Heads in Washington are still spinning after Donald Trump named Pam Bondi as his choice for attorney general, just hours following Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration.Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and close ally of the president-elect, would most likely share his and Gaetz’s goal of shaking up the Justice Department. But the switcheroo also raises questions about how willing Republicans might be to push back against the more divisive elements of the Trump agenda.What to know: As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi participated in efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and the legalization of marijuana, as well as a multi-state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.Since leaving office in 2019, she has worked for the powerful Republican lobbyist Brian Ballard — where her clients included General Motors (labor and tax policy), Amazon (cloud computing and trade) and Uber (the gig economy) — and a separate right-wing think tank that’s close to the Trump transition team.But while she is a favorite of Trump’s, it’s unclear whether she had been on a vetting list for an administration role. The Times reports that she interviewed for the position only on Thursday.It’s also uncertain how Bondi would steer the Justice Department. She is a longtime loyalist who served on the legal team that fought his first impeachment and publicly criticized the prosecutors and judge in his Manhattan criminal trial. “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore,” Trump wrote in announcing her selection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Merkel Memoir Recalls What It Was Like Dealing With Trump and Putin

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      The new book by former Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany also aims to justify decisions she made that are still affecting her country and the rest of Europe.Shortly after Donald J. Trump’s 2017 inauguration, Angela Merkel, who was then Germany’s chancellor, visited Washington. As the world looked on, the two leaders sat in front of an unlit fireplace, awkwardly and silently waiting for the photographers to do their work.After hearing the photographers demand “handshake, handshake,” an urging that Mr. Trump ignored, Ms. Merkel tried herself, she relates in a new memoir. “They want to have a handshake,” she said in a hushed tone audible to the press corps just feet away.“As soon as I said that, I shook my head mentally at myself,” Ms. Merkel wrote, according to excerpts from the memoir released this week in Die Zeit, the German weekly. “How could I forget that Trump knew exactly what effect he wanted to achieve?” she added.Long-anticipated in Germany, the book, “Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021,” promises the inside story of the taciturn woman many saw as the defender of a global liberal order. When the world was shocked by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the first election of Mr. Trump and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Ms. Merkel exuded a kind of patient, cerebral calm that was widely seen as the bastion of an old, more predictable world order.Since she stepped down in 2021, things have changed drastically. Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting Germany to wean itself off cheap Russian gas. Absorbing both the lack of cheap energy and a reduction of the Chinese export market, the German economy has stagnated. The country’s bridges, roads and railways, long neglected, are falling apart. And Ms. Merkel’s welcoming migration policy has led to a surge in the far right.All of which has led to widespread unhappiness and a rethinking of Ms. Merkel’s legacy.Ms. Merkel’s book, which is also being published in an English translation and hits bookstores on Tuesday, is expected to be more than just a fascinating first-person view from the seat of a great European power. It is also a justification for decisions she made that helped lead Germany and the rest of Europe to a perilous place.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Pam Bondi Is Trump’s New Choice as Attorney General. Here’s What to Know About Her.

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump quickly swept aside Thursday’s bad headlines about Matt Gaetz by speedily substituting Pam Bondi, a fellow Florida Republican with a starkly different profile — but a similar reputation for fealty — to be his attorney general.Ms. Bondi, 59, is a lobbyist and Trump loyalist who served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019. She has charted a more conventional and less clamorous course than Mr. Gaetz, with little of the ugly personal or political baggage that led some Republicans to oppose Mr. Gaetz’s nomination.She was a local prosecutor.Ms. Bondi, the daughter of the mayor of a small Tampa-area municipality, began working as an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County in the 1990s. During 18 years as a prosecutor, she tried cases “ranging from domestic violence to capital murder,” according to the bio page at her lobbying firm.She supervised a handful of high-profile cases, most notably one involving the former New York Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden, who served a one-year prison sentence for violating probation in a drug case in 2006.She was elected Florida’s first female attorney general in 2010.Ms. Bondi — a Democrat until 2000 — emerged from a crowded Republican primary to win the attorney general’s race after garnering the support of Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and failed 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, and by touting her tough stance on crime during appearances on Fox News.During her eight-year tenure, she tried unsuccessfully to overturn and weaken the Affordable Care Act, opposed expanding legal protections for the L.G.B.T.Q. community and cultivated a national reputation by supporting anti-human-trafficking efforts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bondi Worked as Lobbyist in Recent Years, With Clients Including Amazon, G.M., Uber and Qatar

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to be attorney general, Pam Bondi, is a lobbyist for a powerhouse Republican firm, for which she represented major corporations and foreign governments with interests before the U.S. government.Ms. Bondi joined the lobbying firm of the Republican fund-raiser Brian Ballard after finishing her second term as Florida attorney general in January 2019.Among the clients for which she was registered to lobby were major companies, including Amazon, General Motors and Uber, as well as the Qatari government and various financial firms.Those registrations are no longer active, but Ms. Bondi is currently registered as a lobbyist for law enforcement-related clients, including an association representing some of the country’s largest sheriff’s offices and another group representing sheriffs in Florida, as well as the Florida sheriffs’ self-insurance program.A person familiar with the firm confirmed that Ms. Bondi was still affiliated with it and those clients as of Thursday.The firm’s website indicates that she is the chairwoman of its corporate regulatory compliance practice, focusing on helping Fortune 500 companies implement policies to fight human trafficking, opioid abuse and data breaches.Another veteran of Mr. Ballard’s firm, Susie Wiles, was tapped by Mr. Trump to be the White House chief of staff. Ms. Wiles will be the first woman to hold that job. Mr. Ballard helped to bring in more than $50 million for committees supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign. More