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    Trump Chooses Linda McMahon, a Longtime Ally, for Education Secretary

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.A close friend of Mr. Trump’s and a longtime booster of his political career, Ms. McMahon had been among his early donors leading up to his electoral victory in 2016 and has been one of the leaders of his transition team, vetting other potential appointees and drafting potential executive orders since August.In Ms. McMahon, 76, Mr. Trump has elevated someone far outside the mold of traditional candidates for the role, an executive with no teaching background or professional experience steering education policy, other than an appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year.But Ms. McMahon is likely to be assigned the fraught task of carrying out what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions. And she would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.“We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” Mr. Trump said in a statement announcing the decision on Tuesday.Ms. McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Mr. Trump’s first term and resigned in 2019 without a public fallout or rift with Mr. Trump, who praised her at her departure as “one of our all-time favorites” and a “superstar.” She stepped down from that role to help with Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and became the chairwoman of the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.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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      Sid Eudy, Wrestler Known as ‘Sid Vicious’ and ‘Sycho Sid,’ Dies at 63

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      The 6-foot-9 wrestling champion faced off against some of the industry’s biggest names, including Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan.Sid Eudy, a professional wrestler known as Sid Justice, Sid Vicious and Sycho Sid, who rose to fame in the 1990s and won multiple championships, died on Monday. He was 63.The cause was cancer, his son Gunnar Eudy wrote on Facebook.Mr. Eudy was one of his generation’s “most imposing and terrifying competitors,” the World Wrestling Entertainment said in a statement. Listed at 6-foot-9 and 317 pounds, he was one of the biggest of what are known in the industry as big men, who often play supporting roles because they don’t perform the high-flying moves that thrill fans.Mr. Eudy was a very big man who became a star in his own right. He headlined Wrestlemania twice and became champion of both the W.W.F., as it was then known, and its 1990s rival, the W.C.W., a rare trifecta.Mr. Eudy first entered the world of wrestling in 1989, when he signed with World Championship Wrestling, then an upstart circuit.Sid Eudy and Hulk Hogan at Madison Square Garden in 1992.Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix, via Getty ImagesIn 1991, Mr. Eudy debuted as Sid Justice in W.W.E., the organization said, as the special guest referee at SummerSlam 1991.Wrestlemania featured Mr. Eudy in its main event twice, in 1992 against Hulk Hogan, and again in 1997, against the Undertaker. Mr. Eudy was both a two-time W.W.F. champion and two-time W.C.W. champion. He was also a two-time U.S.W.A. champion.“One of the most brutal Superstars to ever terrorize W.W.E., the sadistic Sid brought an intensity that few could ever hope to contain,” the organization wrote. “Just ask the litany of ring legends who have incurred his wrath — a hit list that includes Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, Bret ‘Hit Man’ Hart and many more.”Sidney Raymond Eudy was born in West Memphis, Ark., on Dec. 16, 1960. He is survived by his wife, Sabrina Estes Eudy, his sons Frank and Gunnar, as well as his grandchildren.In 2001, during a televised pay-per-view W.C.W. championship match, viewers watched Mr. Eudy injure his leg on live television after he jumped off the rope and accidentally landed badly, snapping his left leg at an unnatural angle.It effectively ended his career in major pro wrestling. Mr. Eudy himself acknowledged as much. “With my injury,” he said in a 2023 interview, “I feel I came up short with solidifying myself as one of the top 10, 15 money-drawers in the business.” More

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      Gabbi Tuft, First Openly Trans Former W.W.E. Star, Returns to Wrestling

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      Ms. Tuft, who retired from the W.W.E. more than a decade ago and came out as transgender in 2021, will return to the ring on Tuesday, she said on social media.Gabbi Tuft, a former World Wrestling Entertainment star and the first current or former member of the organization to come out as transgender, will return to the ring this month, she said on social media on Sunday.Ms. Tuft, who retired more than a decade ago, fought in the W.W.E. under the name Tyler Reks, a dreadlocked gladiator who weighed 250 pounds. She left the organization shortly after the birth of her child, and has since become an online personal fitness and nutrition coach and a TikTok personality with more than a million followers.On Sunday, Ms. Tuft announced that she would be performing for West Coast Pro Wrestling on Tuesday at the Irvine Improv, a venue in Irvine, Calif., which hosts professional wrestling events. The match, she said, would air at a later date on YouTube and other national TV stations.“Mother Arrives,” Ms. Tuft said on social media. “Everything that is unfolding is per the plan,” she added. “Stay faithful. There is more to the plan than what you see or what you think.” Her opponent was not announced.In an interview with The New York Times last year, Ms. Tuft, who came out publicly as transgender in 2021, said she first began dressing as a woman during the pandemic, but was initially in denial, believing it was similar to adopting a persona in the ring and justifying it as another “form of role play.”Months later, she came out to her wife. The following year, she posted a photograph of herself in front of a portrait of her old W.W.E. persona, Tyler Reks, to Instagram.“This is me. Unashamed, unabashedly me. This is the side of me that has hidden in the shadows, afraid and fearful of what the world would think; afraid of what my family, friends, and followers would say or do,” Ms. Tuft wrote in the accompanying caption. “I am no longer afraid and I am no longer fearful.”In Sunday’s social media posts announcing her return to wrestling, Ms. Tuft wrote, “Mother will guide her children to salvation.” More

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      Ole Anderson, Original Member of Four Horsemen Wrestling Team, Dies at 81

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      The professional wrestler fought alongside Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard. He later spoke out against the commercialization of the sport.Ole Anderson, a professional wrestler who starred as an original member of the Four Horsemen team in the 1980s and was later critical of the sport’s corporate greed, died on Monday. He was 81.The Carter Funeral Home in Winder, Ga., said that Mr. Anderson had died at his home in Monroe, Ga., and that he had “passed away peacefully.” The funeral home did not share a cause of death.World Wrestling Entertainment, known as the World Wrestling Federation when Mr. Anderson wrestled, said in a statement on Monday that he was known for his “hard-nosed style and gruff demeanor.”Mr. Anderson wrestled professionally from the late 1960s through the 1980s, after training under Verne Gagne, a member of the W.W.E. Hall of Fame.Through the 1970s and early 1980s, he was a member of the tag team known as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, which over the years included Gene, Lars and Arn Anderson, who called themselves brothers and were popular around the Midwest. They were part of regional circuits like Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and Georgia Championship Wrestling that were united under the National Wrestling Alliance, which regularly crowned them tag-team champions.In the 1980s, Mr. Anderson teamed up with Arn Anderson, Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard to become the Four Horsemen, who went on to dominate the N.W.A. and later World Championship Wrestling, which competed with the W.W.F.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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      Vince McMahon Resigns From W.W.E.

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      The longtime chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment stepped down one day after a former employee accused him of sexual assault in a federal lawsuit.Vince McMahon, the longtime chairman and former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, resigned from his positions with W.W.E. and its parent company, the TKO Group, on Friday, one day after a former employee accused him of sexual assault and trafficking in a federal lawsuit.W.W.E. employees were informed of the changes in an email sent by Nick Kahn, the president of W.W.E. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or W.W.E.,” Mr. Kahn wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.Vince McMahon at W.W.E. headquarters in Stamford, Conn., in 2018.Jesse Dittmar for The New York TimesThe lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, accused Mr. McMahon of trafficking the employee, Janel Grant, as well as physically and emotionally abusing her. The graphic complaint, which also named John Laurinatis, a W.W.E. executive, and the company itself as defendants, says Mr. McMahon and Mr. Laurinatis once took turns raping her, among numerous other allegations.Mr. McMahon eventually pressured Ms. Grant to sign a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for $3 million, according to the complaint, but paid her only $1 million.In a statement released after his resignations, Mr. McMahon called Ms. Grant’s lawsuit a “vindictive distortion of the truth” and said he looked forward to clearing his name. But he decided to resign “out of respect” for TKO, W.W.E., their employees and wrestlers.The lawsuit is far from the first time Mr. McMahon has been accused of sexual misconduct. In 2022, a special committee of W.W.E.’s board conducted an investigation into Mr. McMahon’s conduct, and found that over 16 years he had spent $14.6 million in payments to women who had accused him of sexual misconduct. A further company investigation found he had made an additional $5 million in payments to two different women.Mr. McMahon temporarily resigned from W.W.E. during the investigation. But he remained the company’s largest shareholder, and in 2023 he returned to chair its board and initiate a sale process that resulted in sports and entertainment conglomerate Endeavor purchasing it. Endeavor then combined W.W.E. and another one of its holdings, the mixed martial arts promotional company Ultimate Fighting Championships, into a new public company, TKO Group.This is a breaking story. It will be updated. More