Good morning. It’s Sunday. Thank you for reading Morning Brief. Send me a line—Ivan Pentchoukov. |
- President Joe Biden and his officials are racing against the clock to issue billions in grants and take other steps to solidify his legacy before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
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President-elect Donald Trump met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Palm Beach on Friday. The two leaders “discussed the range of global security issues facing the Alliance.”
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Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is advising against adding fluoride to the public drinking water supply.
- Brooke Rollins—who served in the first Trump administration as director of the Domestic Policy Council—is the president-elect’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- The movement to quit the Chinese Communist Party is a spiritual and cultural awakening, experts say. Known as Tuidang, the movement heralds the comeback, against all odds, of China’s millennia-old traditions.
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Court Beauties: Our colleague illuminates the life of the master English painter behind the series of six portraits of six court beauties. Story after the news.
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| Ivan Pentchoukov,
National Editor |
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President Joe Biden tosses a basketball into the crowd after the ball was presented to him as he welcomed the 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics to the White House in Washington on Nov. 21, 2024. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) |
In the remaining weeks of his administration, President Joe Biden and his officials are rushing to issue billions in grants and take other steps to solidify as much as possible of his policy-making legacy before President-elect Donald Trump takes over on Jan. 20, 2025. |
- Because Trump has promised to revoke any unspent funds from Biden’s climate and health care laws and scale back renewable energy development projects, the Biden administration is processing last-minute grants as quickly as it can.
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Trump and his Republican trifecta will likely move to undo many of Biden’s regulations and spending projects if they conflict with the president-elect’s agenda.
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“There’s only one administration at a time,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “That’s true now, and it will also be true after January 20th. Our responsibility is to make good use of the funds that Congress has authorized for us and that we’re responsible for assigning and disbursing throughout the last three years.”
Biden administration officials want the $1 trillion infrastructure law and the $375 billion climate law to survive past Biden’s tenure and are moving fast to make sure the money and grants continue to disperse. Buttigieg announced more than $3.4 billion in grants on Friday, including projects for U.S. ports, reducing highway fatalities, supporting American manufacturing, and improving passenger rail service.
White House officials are also sprinting to issue major grants for environmental projects. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced almost $3 billion in grants to help local water utilities comply with its nationwide deadline for the removal of lead pipes. (Full Story)
Meanwhile in California… Gov. Gavin Newsom paid a visit to Trump-supporting Fresno County in the state’s Central Valley this week to tell a gathering that his office is preparing to work with the president-elect’s incoming administration while also making plans to defend any threatened policies or programs.
Explainer: How Does Budget Reconciliation Work in Congress?
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Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo issued new guidance on Nov. 22, advising against the long-standing practice of adding fluoride to the public drinking water supply. “Adding fluoride to water increases the risk of neuropsychiatric disease in children and reduces their IQ,” Ladapo said in a post on X. “We can strengthen teeth without consuming this neurotoxin.” |
- In his guidance, Ladapo states that fluoride, which is known to strengthen teeth and make them more resistant to decay, is “widely available from multiple sources,” such as toothpaste and mouthwashes, and cites several studies that found a connection between negative mental side effects and fluoride exposure during childhood and pregnancy.
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Those side effects include an association with lowered IQ, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as decreased child inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility.
- His guidance also cites a report published in August by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program, which also suggested a connection between fluoridated water and reduced IQ in children.
- Ladapo also pointed to a U.S. District Court ruling that found “community water fluoridation at 0.7 milligrams per liter presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health under the Amended Toxic Substances Control Act” and called upon the Environmental Protection Agency to take action.
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The surgeon general announced his position in Winter Haven, Florida; a city that recently announced its own decision to remove fluoride from its public water supply. (Full Story)
Side Hustles: Nearly seven in 10 full time employees in the United States will voluntarily look for, or have already found, extra work or side hustles this holiday season so that they can afford their gift-giving plans, according to a new study.
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Our senior editor Jan Jekielek sits down with David M. Friedman, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under the Trump administration, one of the main architects of the Abraham Accords, and the author of “One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict.” Watch ➞
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President-elect Donald Trump met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 22.
The transatlantic alliance confirmed the meeting in a brief statement on its website on Nov. 23. |
- Trump and Rutte “discussed the range of global security issues facing the Alliance,” the statement reads.
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Rutte also met with Trump’s prospective national security team members, including Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), whom Trump has chosen to serve as his White House national security adviser.
- A former prime minister of the Netherlands, Rutte assumed the role of NATO secretary-general in October.
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The Friday meeting appears to be the first between Rutte and Trump since the president-elect won the U.S. presidential race. (Full Story) |
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Controversy is intensifying and the stakes are rising over the International Criminal Court’s recent decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
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Russia’s use of an experimental missile in Ukraine has allied strategists wondering if its all bluster or a grim new chapter in the war.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a new intermediate-range ultra-high speed ballistic missile system, which was recently battle-tested in Ukraine, has been officially commissioned into the Russian Armed Forces and will continue to be evaluated in combat scenarios.
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Sikh participants compete in ‘Gatka’, an ancient form of Sikh martial arts in Amritsar, India, on Nov. 23, 2024. (Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images) |
Our photography editors comb through the best images in the world every day. See their top picks for today here ➞ |
Filling your Thanksgiving menu with fermented foods unlocks delicious flavor combinations and unleashes feel-good flora in your gut. Such a strategy may be especially helpful for those concerned that holiday meals could bring on uncomfortable or embarrassing digestive woes like gas and bloating. |
- Fermenting—often associated with a traditional process that lengthens the shelf life of food—adds probiotics, or live microorganisms, to food that eventually finds its way into our bodies.
- Probiotics assist us digestively with a number of other benefits, like improved immunity, gut microbial diversity, and nutrient absorption, to name a few.
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Incorporating fermented foods into your diet doesn’t have to be complicated. You can buy them ready-made or make your own easy, at-home cultures that take only a few days.
For creative recipes and concoctions, continue reading here.
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A portrait detail of Carey Fraser, Countess of Peterborough, between 1690 and 1691, by Godfrey Kneller. (Royal Collection, UK) |
When viewing the eight-portrait series “Hampton Court Beauties,” those struck by the combination of beauty, sobriety, grandeur, reserve, and dignity might assume these paintings were the work of a mid-to-late 18th-century artist.
However, these portraits were composed a century earlier by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723), the German-British painter regarded to be the greatest English baroque portraitist. |
- Trained by Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), who studied under the Dutch master Rembrandt, Kneller’s work shows strong and unmistakable signs of his foundation in the Northern baroque tradition.
- The subdued atmosphere, the subject’s naturalism and relaxed poses, and frequent use of dark or neutral colored clothing were common in Dutch baroque art rather than the dramatic and effusive Flemish baroque style.
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Two portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller. (L) Diana De Vere, Duchess of St. Albans, 1691 (R) Lady Mary Bentinck, Countess of Essex, circa 1691. (Royal Collection, UK) |
Between completing his apprenticeship in the Netherlands and beginning a career as England’s master portraitist, Kneller also spent six years in Rome assisting Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), one of the few Italian baroque artists to maintain Raphael’s classical artistic traditions. |
- Kneller’s frequent inclusion of classicizing elements, which took on a more dominant role in the “Hampton Beauties,” reflects Maratta’s influence and indicates the artist’s own preferences.
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Kneller’s portraits also signaled a new cultural alignment with the more sober, modest, and stolid Dutch style. Unlike Lely’s “Windsor Beauties,” Kneller’s portraits were not of the king’s mistresses, but of attendants to Queen Mary.
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In celebrating feminine modesty, Kneller simultaneously celebrated feminine beauty with paintings that brilliantly captured a sense of nobility.
Read the full article by our colleague James Baresel here. |
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Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day. |
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