Trump leaves his mark on the Kennedy Center Honors
Trump in his first term had chafed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. He skipped the ceremony repeatedly, with some artists pledging to boycott if he attended.
It was White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Trump said Wednesday, who convinced him to host the honors this year.
'I said I'm the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?' Trump said from the Kennedy Center.
Despite his original criticism of the performing arts center, Trump on Wednesday said he had always wanted to be one of the honorees.
'Since 1978, the Kennedy Center honors have been among the most prestigious awards in the performing arts. I wanted one, was never able to get one,' he said. 'I would have taken it. I waited and waited and waited and I said 'to hell with it, I'll become chairman.' I will give myself an honor. Next year we'll honor Trump, okay?'
Trump also announced the Kennedy Center will be undergoing renovations under his leadership.
'In a few short months since I became chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center, we've completely reversed the decline of this cherished national institution,' he said. 'In the coming months we'll fully renovate the dated — and really the entire infrastructure of the building — and make the Kennedy Center a crown jewel of American arts and culture once again,' Trump said.
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Associated Press
a few seconds ago
- Associated Press
The US plans to build a $750M fly factory in Texas to stop a flesh-eating cattle parasite
The U.S. plans to build a $750 million factory in southern Texas to breed billions of sterile flies, ramping up its efforts to keep flesh-eating maggots in Mexico from crossing the border and damaging the American cattle industry. Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture hopes to be producing and releasing sterile male New World screwworm flies into the wild within a year from the new factory on Moore Air Base outside Edinburg, Texas, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the border. She also said the USDA plans to deploy $100 million in technology, such as fly traps and lures, and step up border patrols by 'tick riders' mounted on horseback and train dogs to sniff out the parasite. In addition, Rollins said the U.S. border will remain closed to cattle, horse and bison imports from Mexico until the U.S. sees that the pest is being pushed back south toward Panama, where the fly had been contained through late last year through the breeding of sterile flies there. The U.S. has closed its border to those imports three times in the past eight months, the last in July, following a report of an infestation about 370 miles (595 kilometers) from the Texas border. American officials worry that if the fly reaches Texas, its flesh-eating maggots could cause billions of dollars in economic losses and cause already record retail beef prices to rise even more, fueling greater inflation. The parasite also can infest wildlife, household pets and, occasionally, humans. 'Farm security is national security,' Rollins said during a news conference at the Texas State Capitol in Austin with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. 'All Americans should be concerned. But it's certainly Texas and our border and livestock producing states that are on the front lines of this every day.' The pest was a problem for the American cattle industry for decades until the U.S. largely eradicated it in the 1970s by breeding and releasing sterile male flies to breed with wild females. It shut down fly factories on U.S. soil afterward. The Mexican cattle industry has been hit hard by infestations and the U.S. closing its border to imports. Mexico's Agriculture ministry said in a statement Friday that Mexico Agriculture and Rural Development Secretary Julio Berdegué Sacristán and Rollins signed a screwworm control action plan. It includes monitoring with fly-attracting traps and establishing that livestock can only be moved within Mexico through government-certified corrals, the statement said. And on the X social media platform, Berdegué said, 'We will continue with conversations that lead to actions that will permit the reopening of livestock exports.' The new fly-breeding factory in Texas would be the first on U.S. soil in decades and represents a ramping up of the USDA's spending on breeding and releasing sterile New World screwworm flies. The sterile males are released in large enough numbers that wild females can't help but mate with them, producing sterile eggs that don't hatch. Eventually, the wild fly population shrinks away because females mate only once in their weekslong lives. In June, Rollins announced a plan to convert an existing factory for breeding fruit flies into one for breeding sterile New World Screwworm flies, as well as a plan to build a site, also on the air base near Edinburg, for gathering flies imported from Panama and releasing them from small aircraft. Those projects are expected to cost a total of $29.5 million. The Panama fly factory can breed up to 117 million flies a week, and the new Mexican fly factory is expected to produce up to 100 million more a week. Rollins said the new Texas factory would produce up to 300 million a week. She said President Donald Trump's administration wants to end the U.S. reliance on fly breeding in Mexico and Panama. 'It's a tactical move that ensures we are prepared and not just reactive, which is today what we have really been working through,' Rollins said. ___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Associated Press writer Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed reporting.
Boston Globe
2 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Draft of major MAHA report calls for more education, less regulation — and offers few policies
While the document, titled 'Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy,' retreads key MAHA ground like the need to cut artificial food dyes and encourage physical activity, it also offers a more expansive view of where Kennedy plans to steer his agency. Details of the report, which was delivered to the White House on Tuesday but not made public, were first published by The New York Times. They have yet to be authenticated by White House officials. Childhood vaccine schedule reform is on the agenda, though the report offers no details on how Kennedy will change the list of recommended childhood vaccines, if at all. He has for years cast suspicion on vaccines, often citing flawed research, and promoted the idea that early shots are harming children. The report similarly calls for 'addressing vaccine injuries.' Advertisement 'Together, this strategy will translate the work of the MAHA movement to policies that make a transformative and lasting impact for Americans and end the childhood chronic disease crisis,' says a draft document, dated Aug. 11 and published by Politico. Advertisement The strategy notably avoids mention of the 'This report has one overriding implied message: More research needed,' Marion Nestle, a leading nutrition researcher and professor emeritus at New York University, said via email. But, she said, 'we already know the problems. It's way past time to start addressing them.' Perhaps the most forceful regulatory proposals in the report have to do with marketing. One recommends the Health and Human Services Department work with other federal agencies to enforce direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, including among social media influencers and telehealth companies. The move falls short of the full ban Kennedy previously talked about. A separate recommendation would create new industry guidelines to 'limit the direct marketing of certain unhealthy foods to children,' though it seems those rules would still be voluntary. (Some of the largest food and beverage companies currently self-regulate under a 'Though still light on specifics, these draft recommendations are a bit of a mixed bag,' said Andrew Binovi, director of government affairs for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Advertisement Among the ideas is Nestle says the first Trump administration tried to implement a similar plan with pre-packed food boxes distributed through food banks and other organizations, which was 'a disaster for small farmers initially recruited to do these labor intensive and perishable boxes. It makes much more sense to make sure people have enough money to buy food.' Trump's recent tax cut bill The report also suggests the government should incentivize more breastfeeding, either through the WIC program or other routes. There is little mention of ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, which are expected to be a focus of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, due later this year. HHS is also crafting a definition of what constitutes a UPF.'It appears that big food lobbyists have been busy and successful,' said Jerold Mande, CEO of the nutrition nonprofit Nourish Science, who previously held senior policymaking roles at the FDA and USDA under the George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations. 'Who expected the MAHA report to do more to get whole milk in schools than to get UPF out?'The report also says that the USDA will 'prioritize precision nutrition research,' a line of research that aims to provide people with more personalized recommendations by taking into account their body's individual needs and responses to certain foods. Former NIH nutrition researcher Kevin Hall Advertisement The draft report is 'the most ambitious federal plan yet to confront childhood chronic disease,' said Marty Irby, president and CEO at Capitol South and Competitive Markets Action, who previously lobbied for ranchers and farmers. 'Still, there are gaps: the USDA school lunch program continues to force dairy on many children — particularly kids of color — who are lactose intolerant, with little to no alternatives, and the plan offers little to promote local, farm-to-table food in schools.' Aviva Musicus, science director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, criticized the report as embodying 'the idiosyncratic beliefs' of one person, Kennedy. 'He might be right about food dyes, but the report's recommendations to alter our vaccine framework, restructure government agencies, and promote meat and whole milk are going to promote disease, not health,' Musicus said. While the draft report is not a budget document, it is unclear how much funding would be needed for the various efforts or where it would come from. Already, Congress Advertisement Many of the proposals involve Medicaid, WIC, Instead of regulation, the administration plans to run public awareness and education campaigns aimed at adolescents about physical fitness, screen time, substance use, vaping and 'root cause issues that impact adult infertility.' Another initiative aims to train school and library workers on how to handle overdoses, and expand their access to the overdose-reversal medication Narcan, per the report. States will be encouraged to re-adopt the Presidential Fitness Test, which grades students on their ability to do things such as complete a mile run. HHS will also establish an 'infertility training center,' though the report offers limited details on precisely what services would be offered at such a facility. (Kennedy allies have been pushing for widespread use of what's called Medical schools, which have already been pushed by the administration to Advertisement Elsewhere in the department, National Institutes of Health officials plan to launch two new offices, one focused on developing alternatives to animal testing, such as organ-on-a-chip technologies, and another to organize chronic disease research. NIH will also start a new task force on children's health, and create a database of researchers' funding sources, similar to the OpenPayments system run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, per the draft report. The commission's recommendations, while largely centered at Kennedy's HHS, also affect the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency — though not as severely as some in the food and agriculture industries feared. Unlike While calling for more 'innovative growing solutions,' the report also says the government ought to 'ensure that the public has awareness and confidence in EPA's robust pesticide review procedures.' When it comes to air quality — a 'The commission has a historic opportunity to protect America's kids, but only if it resists corporate influence and turns bold ideas into real, accountable action,' Irby told STAT. Here are other highlights from the document: Mental health: More prior authorization Pediatric mental health remains a key focus for Kennedy and his MAHA allies. In February, a White House executive order called mood stabilizers and antipsychotic drugs a ' The draft echoes this language, highlighting the overmedicalization of children as a key challenge to overcome and calling for HHS to form a working group that will evaluate prescription patterns for SSRIs, antipsychotics, stimulants, and other drugs that children take. They also ask the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to work with states to increase prior authorization requirements and tighten prescribing safeguards particularly for ADHD. The draft says the Veterans Administration will provide NIH with de-identifiable data on ADHD, diabetes, and pharmaceutical usage among spouses, dependents and survivors of veterans under 18. It's true that kids can be overmedicalized, said Jennifer Mathis, deputy director for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. But it was 'disheartening, however, that the leaked draft strategy makes no mention of well-established services that are critical for children with significant mental health needs, such as intensive care coordination, intensive behavior support, and mobile crisis services,' Mathis said. Rates of anxiety, depression and ADHD in the U.S. are increasing, but the scientific explanation for their rise is Although the scientific literature on screen use offers Notably absent from the report, however, was the startling rise of youth suicide over the last two decades. Suicide is one of the leading causes of deaths in this demographic and is particularly pronounced among Black teenagers. One in five high school students Fluoride: New scrutiny of water standards In discussing the importance of water quality, the document focuses on one element: fluoride. The document does not directly name other contaminants, like PFAS or lead. The report states that the CDC and USDA will 'educate Americans on the appropriate levels of fluoride, clarify the role of EPA in drinking water standards for fluoride under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and increase awareness of the ability to obtain fluoride topically through toothpaste,' Experts largely agree that fluoridation at the level currently recommended by the CDC is safe, despite some growing concern that higher levels of fluoride intake could be The draft of the report also states the FDA will evaluate liquid drops and tablets. This process has already begun, with a Electromagnetic radiation: Studies ahead The report also says HHS plans to study electromagnetic radiation and health research 'to identify gaps in knowledge, including on new technologies to ensure safety and efficacy.' The report doesn't explain what sources of electromagnetic radiation its authors consider possible cause for concern. But Kennedy has claimed — contrary to scientific consensus — on The But while there's not evidence of a link between cell phones and cancer, it's true that the devices have changed dramatically since the advent of smartphones and that kids' usage has skyrocketed, said Emanuela Taioli, director of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, via email. 'Perhaps a new study on kids specifically is worth doing.' Daniel Payne and Chelsea Cirruzzo contributed reporting. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat . For TTY users: Use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 988.
Buzz Feed
2 minutes ago
- Buzz Feed
People Are NOT HAPPY With Trump's White House Renos
Hi, I'm Alexa, and I usually track the unemployment rate, cost of eggs/beef, gas prices, inflation, and more under the Trump administration. BUT, the numbers aren't enough anymore. Actions speak just as loud. Somehow, we've left A LOT in the hands of this guy. And that guy? Well, he's been giving major ✨Marie Antoinette Energy✨ lately. Consider how, for example, nearly 70% of Americans say they're experiencing financial stress amid continually rising prices. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is bragging about all the money supposedly made from tariffs — aka, money partially coming directly out of your pockets via those rising prices. (At least Marie didn't hear that her people were starving and then add an additional tax on bread.) For many online, the leaders' relationships with their disgruntled and financially struggling public isn't where the similarities end. Instead, the glaring overlap seems to be both Marie and Trump's extravagant spending. Look at the difference in the Oval Office. Here's what it looked like under Biden. And now under Trump. Trump's team has added a LOT of gold. Gold decor on the fireplace mantle... ...and on the fireplace itself. Gold around the crown molding. Gold around the presidential seal on the ceiling. Gold details on the walls. Personalized, golden coasters. Tacky gold drapes. And whatever this gold thing is above the Oval Office door. Trump has also taken it upon himself to (in my opinion) needlessly renovate the White House. He took the famed Rose Garden from this... ...to this. And according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more expansions are on the way... Including a gold and white ballroom that's expected to cost around $200 million. And just like the French in the 1790s, Americans are less than impressed. "building a giant ballroom while half the country loses healthcare and is in poverty and can't find housing or rent... i feel like I'm reading about pre-revolution france," one X user wrote. "Listen man, if you wanna live in the palace of Versailles then that's fine, but you can't act surprised when the people eventually start sharpening the guillotine," another added hyperbolically. (This particular tweet was among the most widespread, with 3.3 million views.) Sigh. This administration promised to get rid of wasteful government spending. That was the whole point of DOGE. Yet we're plastering gold on White House walls and building out $200-million ballrooms while nearly 14 million children face hunger in the US as of 2023. Maybe the call is coming from inside the House. Want to know if Trump's economy is actually doing as well as he promised? Subscribe to the Economy Hate Watch newsletter and never miss our monthly update.
