Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Wednesday.
Trump’s surgeon general pick sidesteps questions on vaccinesCasey Means, the popular wellness influencer picked by President Trump to be the next surgeon general, appeared on Capitol Hill today for her confirmation hearing. She was calm and mostly unflappable as senators of both parties pressed her about her stances on birth control, pesticides, psychedelic drugs and whether she believes that vaccines cause autism. Means, who has raised questions about whether children receive too many shots, repeatedly sidestepped questions about vaccinations. She told senators that “anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been part of my message,” but refused to say whether she would advise parents to vaccinate their children against measles. Means appears likely to be confirmed as the next surgeon general, but her background is highly unconventional for the role. She does not have an active medical license, and she is a frequent critic of the mainstream medical system she could soon become the face of. Here’s what to know about her. In other Trump administration news:
Cuba says it killed 4 people aboard a U.S. boatThe Cuban government said that its troops engaged in a deadly gunfight today with the occupants of a Florida-based speedboat, killing at least four people on the vessel and wounding six others. Follow here for updates. The government said that five of its border guard personnel approached the boat when it came within one nautical mile of the El Pino channel in central Cuba — just south of Miami. The people aboard the boat opened fire, officials said, wounding a Cuban commander and prompting a firefight. A U.S. official said the vessel was not a U.S. Naval or Coast Guard boat. Carlos Gimenez, a House Republican from Florida, called for an immediate investigation into what he called a “massacre.” Florida’s attorney general said he had ordered an investigation. Context: The shooting comes as the U.S. has built an effective oil blockade around Cuba, plunging it into a deep economic crisis and putting the survival of its communist government in doubt.
Missing memos raise questions about handling of Epstein filesThe Justice Department’s vast trove of files from its investigations into Jeffrey Epstein did not include memos summarizing interviews connected to a woman’s accusations against Trump. It is not clear why the materials are missing from the release; officials said only materials that are “privileged or duplicates” were withheld, before adding that documents involved in ongoing investigations could also have been held back. The president has denied wrongdoing. In related news:
An inside look at Maduro’s final days in powerJust days before a team of elite U.S. commandos launched a raid in Venezuela, capturing then-President Nicolás Maduro, he seemed surprisingly relaxed. He was celebrating the New Year, consumed with hubris and dismissive of the possibility that Trump would make good on his threats. My colleagues on the ground in Caracas learned about that remarkable miscalculation in interviews with a dozen Venezuelan senior officials, as well as friends of Maduro, who spoke with him just before he was taken. Read their behind-the-scenes account. More top news
Alireza Ahmadi is a star of futsal, a fast, five-on-five indoor version of soccer. He and his teammates — most of whom are members of Afghanistan’s long-marginalized Hazara minority — have become national heroes.
Watch these TV stars cook up some chaos (and pizza)Our Cooking team has an interview series in which we invite actors to come into our studio to discuss their new projects, their feelings about cooking and what dish represents them. The only catch: They have to make pizza. In the latest episode, we talked with Tracy Morgan, Daniel Radcliffe and Erika Alexander about their new NBC sitcom, “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins,” about a scandal-scarred former football star. The pizza-making part took a few wrong turns. Watch it all here.
How to age well at homeMany people aspire to grow old at home, rather than at a nursing home. It’s familiar, and it sometimes offers more independence. But aging in place can also involve risks. So, my colleagues at Wirecutter spoke with a wide range of experts and put together a room-by-room guide for what it looks like to adapt a home for aging. They also have advice on many more aspects of accessibility and aging. Related: A new study found that the brains of so-called super-agers had special abilities.
Dinner table topics
Cook: Improve your tomato and orzo soup with marinated feta. Snack: My colleagues tasted 59 tins of sardines to find the very best. Watch: Check out these three great documentaries by Frederick Wiseman, who died last week at 96. Read: “Starry and Restless” is an immersive account of three pathbreaking female journalists. |
