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NoneHealth In Tech Announces Closing of Initial Public OfferingUnited States Steel Corp . X shares plunged Tuesday following a report that President Joe Biden will block the company's proposed deal with Nippon Steel . The Details: People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Biden views the sale as a national security risk. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is expected to send the case back to Biden later this month. Read Next: SoFi Unlocks SpaceX Exposure For Retail Investors: Here’s How The CFIUS panel has been reviewing the proposed sale of US Steel for much of 2024. It must refer its decision to Biden by Dec. 22 or 23. US Steel and Nippon Steel are preparing to pursue litigation if Biden does block the merger, the sources say. "This transaction should be approved on its merits," US Steel spokeswoman Amanda Malkowski told Bloomberg. "It is inappropriate that politics continue to outweigh true national security interests — especially with the indispensable alliance between the U.S. and Japan as the important foundation," Nippon Steel said in a statement. "Nippon Steel still has confidence in the justice and fairness of America and its legal system, and — if necessary — will work with U.S. Steel to consider and take all available measures to reach a fair conclusion," the company added. The CFIUS, which extended the process in September, moved the deadline for referral to December. The sources told Bloomberg that another extension is unlikely, though that would push the decision to President-elect Donald Trump . Both Biden and Trump, along with the United Steelworkers union, have expressed opposition to the merger. The timing of an official announcement from Biden remains unclear. He will have 15 days from the date of the referral to announce a decision. X Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro , United States Steel shares ended Tuesday’s session down 9.68% at $35.26. Read More: New Conservative ETF Aims To Invest In S&P 500 Without DEI: ‘We’re Going To Deliver That Mandate’ Image: Shutterstock © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Rosen Law Firm Encourages Quanterix Corporation Investors to Inquire About Securities Class Action Investigation - QTRX
The AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll is back every week throughout the season! Get the poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here . UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — (AP) — Nick Fiorillo’s 20 points helped Vermont defeat Delaware 75-71 on Saturday. Fiorillo also contributed eight rebounds for the Catamounts (3-3). Shamir Bogues scored 18 points while finishing 8 of 11 from the floor and added six rebounds and three steals. TJ Hurley shot 4 of 12 from the field, including 1 for 7 from 3-point range, and went 5 for 6 from the line to finish with 14 points. Izaiah Pasha led the way for the Fightin’ Blue Hens (2-3) with 20 points. John Camden added 19 points for Delaware. Cavan Reilly also had 18 points. ___ The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .NoneSpecial teams bungles dominate NFL, with Commanders and Cowboys leading the way
B.C. Premier David Eby said B.C. will slay its record-setting deficit of $9 billion through growth and sound fiscal planning, not "harsh austerity cuts" or "under-funding services" as he reached out to business leaders to make a case for investment in physical and social infrastructure. Eby made these comments while speaking in Vancouver Tuesday, (Dec. 10), at an event hosted by the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, which has previously raised concerns about B.C.'s fiscal direction. That tension surfaced during the opening of the informal question-and-answer session between Eby and Fiona Famulak, chamber president and chief executive officer. "We don't always agree, but we can always have — and we always do have — candid and frank conversations, and I know you are always up for tough questions, because you always answer them," Famulak said. "What you have just said minutes ago, a lot of good things have been said." Eby acknowledged relations could be better. "So my commitment is that you will find a government that is hoping, with your support, to hit reset on this relationship, to move forward with the tariff threat that we are facing in a unified way, with the massive opportunity in this province to deliver it for British Columbians and that four years from now...we can look back and go, 'man, we did a lot of good work together.'" Eby's prepared remarks touched on a range of subjects, including tomorrow's meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as provincial and territorial leaders to discuss threatened tariffs of 25 per cent on all Canadian goods by incoming-president U.S. Donald Trump. But if a singular theme ran through Eby's speech, it was his promise to reform permitting for natural resource projects. He pointed to yesterday's announcement that his government would free nine new wind energy projects from the required environmental assessments. He then added those projects would go through a singular rather multiple permitting windows. Eby said these changes will help get these projects off the ground three to five years faster than otherwise, framing them as the first of many changes to speed up permitting. One of the central sectors concerned about permitting is the mining sector, which has touted 17 critical mineral mining projects. Famulak cited these concerns when she quoted a mining executive as saying that it "'takes 12 to 15 years to give a mine a green light in this province (but) we can put a person on the moon in eight.'" Eby pointed to the heightened potential of the critical mineral sector following China's decision to limit rare earth exports to the United States during his prepared remarks. He promised "significant" reductions in wait times without being specific when asked cutting timelines in half. "So specifically on mining, we have committed to work with the sector to deliver guaranteed timelines for a permit review and decision," he said. Eby also reached to the business community in other ways. He touted the business credentials of B.C.'s Finance Minister Brenda Bailey — "she comes from among you" — and B.C.'s Jobs Minister Diane Gibson and reiterated campaign promises to review business regulations in consultation with the business community, as well as administration at the health authorities to ensure "administration doesn't suck up" resources slated for front-line support. Eby also said government is having "conversation" with B.C. Ferries about its administration and noted a hiring freeze on the administrative side of the public sector with some exceptions around permitting. "There is absolutely work for us to do around the administration of government services and ensuring that that is right-sized for the work that's actually out there," he said. But Eby also defended B.C.'s record when it comes to creating private-sector jobs, while framing the growth of public sector jobs as investments that ultimately also benefit business. "You are right, we have created a lot of public sector jobs," he said. "(These) are child care workers, nurses, doctors, health science professionals, long-term care facility workers. "(We) are desperate for teachers, educational assistants — this is essential infrastructure. If the hospital doesn't work for your employees, your staff can't get a child care space, if there (are) schools full of portables and there's actually not a teacher...you are going to have a hard time recruiting. Your businesses aren't going to be successful. The province isn't going to be successful." Ultimately though, Eby appeared to have hit the right tone. "We have to do more to unlock B.C.'s potential," he said during his remarks. "I like your words, unlocking the potential, the economic potential we have," Famulak said during the question-and-answer session. "Let's do it and I think everybody in this room would agree with that."For Janice Myles and her seven siblings, their lives are forever bound up in the life — and death — of their father’s church. The Rev. Leonard L. Hester and his wife, Parthena, founded New Light Baptist Church in 1954, and right from the outset, it was a family endeavor. Myles and her two sisters grew up singing in the choir, conducted by their eldest brother and accompanied by their younger brother on drums. In 1977, when Hester moved New Light from Oakland to a former Swedish church in South Berkeley, Myles remembers pitching in to redecorate. The Hesters hung chandeliers and trimmed the sanctuary in gold leaf paint. It all cost her father a fortune, but it was worth it, she said. “It was his sanctuary to God.” Today, though, the gold leaf paint and chandeliers are long gone, and the building has a radically different decor. Its salmon exterior now slate gray, the property has a wrought-iron spiral staircase, a domed movie screen where the altar once was, and a rooftop jacuzzi with panoramic views of Berkeley and the Bay. After decades of dwindling membership and donations, the Hesters lost New Light to foreclosure in 2014. Two years later, architect Josiah Maddock bought the historic Black church and spent six years converting it into a six-bedroom, multi-story residence. Maddock currently rents it out to five tenants — a collective of artists and tech workers, none of whom are Black, who say they’re creating a “congregation” of their own. Since its construction in 1907, the church at the corner of Parker Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way has meant many things to many people, from a gathering place for Scandinavian immigrants to the backdrop of a . Now, the former church has become a complex symbol — of the Bay Area’s ; of South Berkeley’s ; of debates over gentrification, the legacy of exclusionary zoning and how to solve the housing crisis; and of the neighborhood’s past and future. A time of growth and thriving Leonard and Parthena Hester saw moving to South Berkeley as a logical next step, in New Light’s trajectory and their own. The son of a Methodist minister in Texas, Hester and his family relocated to Oakland in the 1950s; he accepted a music director position at his brother-in-law’s church. Then, in 1954, Hester ventured out on his own, starting New Light Baptist Church at 1451 16th St. in West Oakland and moving to a larger building on 54th Street two years later. Hester quickly established his church as a musical powerhouse. New Light’s Sunday evening services were broadcast live on KDIA, the Bay Area’s go-to soul music radio station throughout the 1960s and ’70s. Hester’s eldest son, Larry, directed music from 1963 to 1986, but before that, it was conducted by a young , who would go on to form the award-winning choral group “ ” and work with the biggest names in gospel music. Some of those stars even performed at New Light, like Oakland-born gospel pioneer Edwin Hawkins, best known for his chart-topper, “ .” New Light also built a reputation for the miraculous. In 1972, 10-year-old Cloretta Starks reportedly exhibited the signs of stigmata — bleeding from her palms, feet and side, each of the places where Christ was wounded. Larry Hester said he witnessed it: “My mother wiped the blood with her handkerchief.” The phenomena drew widespread media coverage as well as numerous miracle-seekers. Over the next five years, Starks claimed to have experienced the stigmata three more times, and Rev. Hester helped organize a week of healing services around the girl called the “Youth Supernatural End-Time Revival.” “Bring the sick, troubled, the dope addict and the possessed, and depressed,” one newspaper ad exhorted. In 1977, Hester moved his growing congregation to a church at 1841 Parker St. The building had already lived two full lives since its construction in 1907 for a longtime sailor’s missionary and his congregation. First called “Svenska Missionen,” or Swedish Mission Church, and later renamed Berkeley Covenant Church, it remained a hub for Scandinavian immigrants and their descendants, offering Sunday services in the “mother tongue” well into the 1920s. Then, in 1954, Berkeley Covenant moved to a larger building on Hopkins Street. In a ceremony that year, church leaders handed off the keys to Grove Street Christian Church — a predominantly Black congregation that thrived until 1977. Like so many churches of the era, Grove Street regularly served as a civil rights gathering place. Along with other Berkeley churches, the church helped host the Black Odyssey Festival, a series of lectures and cultural activities created to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. after his death and sponsored by the Graduate Theological Union. And throughout the 1970s, the Berkeley chapter of the — a multigenerational advocacy group established to combat ageism and fight for other social justice issues — consistently met at 1837 Parker St., the pastor’s residence next door to the church. Eventually, Grove Street sold its property to Hester, but only because its 200 members successfully merged with a shrinking white congregation in East Oakland. The Parker Street church’s transition from a Scandinavian church to a largely Black one tracks with South Berkeley’s evolution in the middle of the 20th century. “It was this time of growth, specifically of Black people,” explains Brandi T. Summers, an associate professor of Geography at UC Berkeley. “Many of them were now able to move to parts of Berkeley and create their kind of community.” Before and during the Second World War, thousands of Black Americans arrived in the Bay Area as part of , fleeing the strictures of the Jim Crow South and seeking the promise of industrial jobs. In the 1940s, Berkeley’s Black population nearly quadrupled — even as largely confined them to neighborhoods south of Dwight Way and west of Grove Street (now Martin Luther King Jr. Way). At the same time, white residents exited the flats in droves, often relocating to more spacious suburbs like Orinda and Moraga, Summers said. South Berkeley lost roughly a third of its white residents between 1940 and 1950. When New Light took up residence on Parker Street, the neighborhood was 80% Black. Still, even with all the demographic changes, Larry Hester doesn’t recall too many Black Baptist churches in the area back then, at least with music like New Light. “We definitely brought, I like to say, a little soul to Berkeley,” he said. Hester had the church repainted, inside and out, and flung the doors open wide every Sunday “so the music could go out to the community,” Myles said. She remembers New Light as interracial and interdenominational, drawing in hundreds of neighbors, Cal students and Sunday commuters. “We had members that drove from Tracy and Stockton just to come to service.” A struggle to stay open in a changing neighborhood In 1985, Leonard Hester died at age 64 after a sudden illness. At his memorial service, Myles was overwhelmed by the turnout. “We literally had to block the street off and put chairs outside ... he was a pillar of that community.” Hester’s death sent shockwaves through the family and, by extension, the ministry. Larry Hester, grieving the loss of his father “and his particular way of church,” left New Light entirely, while Myles soon moved to Arizona with her husband and family. Michael Hester, the second youngest son, took over for his father, with his older brother Ernest at his side. (Michael and Ernest Hester did not respond to requests for an interview for this story.) Michael Hester took New Light in some bold new directions. “He wanted to extend his ministry beyond the traditional boundaries of the local church,” observed Rev. Robert McKnight of The Rock of Truth Church. He drew in a younger crowd and even briefly moved the church to the — a since demolished art deco movie palace on MacArthur Boulevard — leasing out the Parker Street property to McKnight’s church. But the changes did not sit well with some longtime members, and many left. Within a few years, Michael Hester and New Light returned to the smaller sanctuary on Parker Street. The church body fluctuated over the coming decades. Still, New Light remained an epicenter of gospel music for years. Michael Hester’s cousin, James L. Richard II, recalled regularly seeing international students among the usual crowd; apparently, an instructor at UC Berkeley Extension recommended the church as “a taste of Black culture.” In 1990, the church got an unexpected dose of publicity: Oakland native MC Hammer chose New Light as one of the settings for “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em: The Movie,” the direct-to-video companion for his multi-platinum album of the same name. shows rap’s first megastar strutting behind the pulpit and rapping his hit “Pray,” flanked by record-spinning deacons and backed by a hip-hop choir. By the 2000s, though, New Light (its name changed to New Light Christian Center) struggled. Alameda County put multiple liens on the church, which Michael Hester later resolved. But then, in 2008, Ernest Hester started his own church, Tremendous Faith Christian Center. He took many New Light members with him, gathering at an Adventist church only a few blocks down Parker Street. Simmering beneath all of this, of course, was a rapidly transforming Berkeley. The greater Bay Area was on its way to becoming . In conjunction, South Berkeley’s Black population, around 80% in 1980, dropped to 30% by 2010. This was largely displacement — the result of gentrification, soaring rents and home prices, the racial wealth gap, the 2008 financial crash and the region’s failure to build enough housing. But in some cases, it was also a sign of success, Summers emphasized. Many middle-class Black families could now move elsewhere, she said, buying larger homes with yards and walkable neighborhoods, achieving “what they’d been desiring for so long.” Michael Hester endeavored to keep New Light alive despite a reconfiguring neighborhood and declining attendance. Finally, though, in 2014, the bank foreclosed his church. For the first time in nearly half a century, the Parker Street church was out of the Hesters’ hands. A new use for an old church When architect Josiah Maddock bought the church for $539,000 in March 2016, “it was the only building in Berkeley I could afford,” he said. He already had a few major projects under his belt, including a luxury high-rise in Honolulu and another tower in San Francisco. But at 36, a few years into running his own , he was looking for something unique — a project he, his partner and his dog could live in while they rebuilt it. Then he visited the church and was immediately smitten: “I could tell as soon as I walked into the building how special it was.” Maddock said his primary concern was what the community would think. “The last thing I wanted to do was be a disrespectful, non-present developer that just chopped the building up into a bunch of pieces and maximized the profit.” He made a point of going around to his neighbors — some of whom had attended New Light — and letting them know his plan to rehabilitate and repair the space. Maddock and his partner spent six years converting the church. They repaired the walls and roof, removed the pews and installed a kitchen island, and built offices in the steeples. Throughout the process, there was very little community outcry, Maddock said. On Facebook, however, some former parishioners grieved. “I’m feeling some kinda way about this gentrification,” one member posted in October 2019, sharing a photo of the refurbished property, now adorned with Halloween decorations. Reactions were strong. “God is not pleased period,” one commenter wrote. “Sad,” another replied. “We have to fight to keep our history.” But there was never any concerted pushback — perhaps, McKnight believes, because those who cared were gone. “Long-time members of that community had passed away or moved on. And the next generation, they went away to school, they found jobs, they were able to purchase homes, and many never returned.” In late 2022, Maddock and his partner moved to Los Angeles and handed the property off to renters for the first time, marketing it at over $10,000 per month. They were choosy about who would take over the building, looking for tenants who “understood the space” and would care for it, Maddock said. Eventually, they found their match: a collective of artists and tech workers who had come together in San Francisco. The building was formally converted to a single-family home, which the five tenants see as fitting. “We are a single family,” said one resident, an aerial acrobat who daylights as a technical writer for Google. After trying out another living situation, she said, the group felt this space could truly be a “canvas for community building.” They’re still experimenting to find what that looks like in practice. In the last year, they’ve housed artists-in-residence for free or cheap and hope to provide performance space for up-and-coming bands and playwrights. First and foremost, though, the group views the space as a home. Another resident, a musician and software engineer, sees poignancy in the fact that they live in a former place of worship. “We’re trying to build something here that is long-lasting and intentional,” he said. “None of us are Black in this place that was predominantly Black,” he recognized. They’re still new to the area, he noted, and getting to know their neighbors. But they feel a “reasonably high degree of responsibility” to “provide a space that helps the people around us, helps the community grow, and helps folks feel supported.” As for how to honor the property’s heritage, the tenants are still finding their way. During a tour of their home, as we were about to scale the spiral staircase on our way to view the rooftop jacuzzi, a resident gestured downward. The floorboards — left unchanged in Maddock’s remodel — were discolored in conspicuous rows, revealing where pews once were. The resident eagerly pointed out numerous shoe-sized scuffs where congregants’ feet had worn grooves in the floor. “It’s cool to see,” he said, “thinking about the history and all that.” ‘It’s not about the building’ Larry Hester still lives in Berkeley and frequently drives past his father’s former church. It pains him, he said. “My Camelot hope was always that it would be the monument of my dad’s life.” Instead, he’s had to face a very different reality. As religious demographics reconfigure, experts say that , in the Bay Area and beyond. With death comes new possibilities, although what those are depends on who you ask. In San Francisco, century-old churches like New Light have been resurrected as , , and other community spaces. Maddock, for his part, believes former churches can be used to address Berkeley’s housing crisis, albeit imperfectly. “Every unit of housing is a good thing in the Bay Area,” he said. He hopes to build “a bunch more co-living spaces” like 1841 Parker St. in the future. Housing advocate Darrell Owens, who grew up not far from New Light, generally agrees, although he contends that single-family residences like Maddock’s are “insufficient to meet Berkeley’s needs.” After decades of producing little housing, Berkeley is now exceeding state housing goals but still . Ideally, Owens would like to see former church plots converted into subsidized housing. That’s the kind of project other Berkeley churches are already pursuing. In May 2022, North Berkeley’s opened on land belonging to All Souls Episcopal Parish. The century-old McGee Avenue Baptist Church recently partnered with to transform a dilapidated church building on Stuart Street into an And St. Paul AME Church on Ashby Avenue plans to develop its old offices into a , with 10 units reserved for formerly homeless individuals. Given the city’s dire need for affordable housing, the project was “obvious,” said Pastor Anthony Hughes of St. Paul AME. He recognizes that Berkeley should have a range of housing options, including single-family homes. Still, Hughes said, quoting Matthew 25, “I’d hope that anybody who is repurposing a property would build something to help ‘ ’ among us.” aims to stem the housing shortage by encouraging projects like these. SB4, , allows faith-based organizations to more easily convert parking lots and unused land into affordable housing. The law frees up some 171,000 acres throughout the state — nearly five times the size of Oakland — according to by Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. It’s possible that legislation like this, if passed earlier, could have kept New Light alive; in addition to the church, the Hesters owned the four-bedroom pastor’s residence next door, which was sold in 2015. For struggling churches today, the chance to transform excess land into affordable housing could be a “lifeline” in helping “churches leverage their land and avoid foreclosures,” said David Garcia, policy director at the Terner Center. Owens said he was shocked but not really that surprised to learn of New Light’s fate. “An old Black church becoming a mansion is perfectly in line with all the other changes in South Berkeley,” he said. Still, he noted, the onus is not on Maddock for building a home; it’s on the city. Berkeley zoning laws only allow for one unit per 1,650 square feet at the site. With a small lot under 3,000 square feet, a single unit was the most Maddock could build. “A measly single-family home doesn’t do anything,” Owens said. “But Berkeley zoning more or less asks for it.” City leaders , though it may be before actual zoning changes are made in South Berkeley. For Summers, the Cal geographer, the Parker Street property and its tenants encapsulate Berkeley’s gentrification to a “dystopian” degree. “The artists are attempting to beautify and create community as if community doesn’t already exist,” she said. While she is all for affordable housing, Summers believes former churches like New Light should remain spaces that serve the broader community, like parks and food co-ops. Addressing gentrification requires more than building apartments, she argues. “We need to think more holistically as it relates to life, not just a place to sleep, or cook dinner, or park your car.” Like her brother, Janice Myles wishes New Light could have lived on, or at least remained a church. At the same time, she’s convinced her parents’ legacy extends far beyond Parker Street, carried on in the lives of present-day pastors like her brother Ernest. “Buildings fade away,” she said. Still, there’d been so much singing over the decades, she joked, that she wondered if the tenants ever hear voices emanating from the drywall. “I’m sure they’re there. I’m positive they’re still coming out of those walls.” “It’s not about the building,” Myles added. “It’s about the people.” " " indicates required fields To remove this article -
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump’s recent dinner with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral were not just exercises in policy and diplomacy. They were also prime trolling opportunities for Trump. Throughout his first term in the White House and during his campaign to return, Trump has spun out countless provocative, antagonizing and mocking statements. There were his belittling nicknames for political opponents, his impressions of other political figures and the plentiful memes he shared on social media. Now that's to the Oval Office, Trump is back at it, and his trolling is attracting more attention — and eyerolls. On Sunday, Trump turned a photo of himself seated near a smiling first lady Jill Biden at the Notre Dame ceremony for his new perfume and cologne line, with the tag line, “A fragrance your enemies can’t resist!” The first lady’s office declined to comment. When Trudeau hastily flew to Florida to meet with Trump last month over the president-elect's on all Canadian products entering the U.S., that Canada become the 51st U.S. state. The Canadians passed off the comment as a joke, but Trump has continued to play up the dig, including in on his social media network referring to the prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.” After decades as an entertainer and tabloid fixture, Trump has a flair for the provocative that is aimed at attracting attention and, in his most recent incarnation as a politician, mobilizing fans. He has long relished poking at his opponents, both to demean and minimize them and to delight supporters who share his irreverent comments and posts widely online and cheer for them in person. Trump, to the joy of his fans, first publicly needled Canada on his social media network a week ago when he with a Canadian flag next to him and the caption “Oh Canada!” After his latest post, Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday: “It sounds like we’re living in a episode of South Park." “his approach will often be to challenge people, to destabilize a negotiating partner, to offer uncertainty and even sometimes a bit of chaos into the well established hallways of democracies and institutions and one of the most important things for us to do is not to freak out, not to panic.” Even Thanksgiving dinner isn't a trolling-free zone for Trump's adversaries. On Thanksgiving Day, from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” with President Joe Biden and other Democrats’ faces superimposed on the characters in a spoof of the turkey-carving scene. The video shows Trump appearing to explode out of the turkey in a swirl of purple sparks, with the former president stiffly dancing to one of his favorite songs, Village People’s “Y.M.C.A." In his most recent presidential campaign, Trump mocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, refusing to call his GOP primary opponent by his real name and instead dubbing him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” He added, for good measure, in a post on his Truth Social network: “I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will.” As he campaigned against Biden, Trump taunted him in online posts and with comments and impressions at his rallies, deriding the president over his intellect, his walk, his golf game and even his beach body. After Vice President Kamala Harris took over Biden's spot as the Democratic nominee, Trump repeatedly suggested she never worked at McDonalds while in college. by appearing at a Pennsylvania McDonalds in October, when he manned the fries station and held an impromptu news conference from the restaurant drive-thru. Trump’s team thinks people should get a sense of humor. “President Trump is a master at messaging and he’s always relatable to the average person, whereas many media members take themselves too seriously and have no concept of anything else other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” said Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director. “President Trump will Make America Great Again and we are getting back to a sense of optimism after a tumultuous four years.” Though both the Biden and Harris campaigns and launched other stunts to respond to Trump's taunts, so far America’s neighbors to the north are not taking the bait. “I don’t think we should necessarily look on Truth Social for public policy,” Miller said. Gerald Butts, a former top adviser to Trudeau and a close friend, said Trump brought up the 51st state line to Trudeau repeatedly during Trump’s first term in office. “Oh God,” Butts said Tuesday, “At least a half dozen times.” “This is who he is and what he does. He’s trying to destabilize everybody and make people anxious,” Butts said. “He’s trying to get people on the defensive and anxious and therefore willing to do things they wouldn’t otherwise entertain if they had their wits about them. I don’t know why anybody is surprised by it.” Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.