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Blues supporters also sang the name of head coach Maresca during the closing stages of an emphatic success sealed by goals from Axel Disasi, Christopher Nkunku, Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer and substitute Jadon Sancho. Bottom club Southampton briefly levelled through Joe Aribo but were a man down from the 39th minute after captain Jack Stephens was sent off for pulling the hair of Marc Cucurella. Chelsea, who have endured an underwhelming period since Todd Boehly’s consortium bought the club in 2022, climbed above Arsenal and into second place on goal difference, seven points behind leaders Liverpool. “It was a very good feeling, especially because you can see that they are happy, that is our target,” Maresca said of the atmosphere in the away end. “We work every day to keep them happy and tonight was a very good feeling, especially the one that they can see that Chelsea’s back. This is an important thing.” Maresca rotated his squad in Hampshire, making seven changes following Sunday’s impressive 3-0 win over Aston Villa. Following a sloppy start, his side, who stretched their unbeaten run to six top-flight games, could easily have won by more as they hit the woodwork three times, in addition to squandering a host of chances. “I’m very happy with the five we scored,” said the Italian. “I’m not happy with the first 15, 20 minutes, where we struggled. The reason why we struggled is because we prepared the game to press them man to man and the first 15, 20 minutes we were not pressing them man to man. “After 15, 20 minutes we adjust that and the game was much better. For sure we could score more but five goals they are enough.” Southampton manager Russell Martin rued a costly “moment of madness” from skipper Stephens. The defender’s ridiculous red card was the headline mistake of a catalogue of errors from the beleaguered south-coast club as they slipped seven points from safety following an 11th defeat of a dismal season. “I don’t think anyone will be as disappointed as Jack,” Martin said of Stephens, who was sent off for the second time this term after tugging the curls of Cucurella as Saints prepared to take a corner. “I haven’t got to sit down and talk with him about that at all. He will be hurt more than anyone and it’s changed the game for us tonight, which is disappointing. “I think they have to describe it as violent conduct; it’s not violent really but there’s no other explanation for that really. It’s a moment of madness that’s really cost us and Jack.” Southampton repeatedly invited pressure with their risky attempts to play out from defence, with goalkeeper Joe Lumley gifting Chelsea their second goal, scored by Nkunku. While Saints were booed off at full-time, Martin, who was missing a host of key players due to injuries and suspensions, praised the effort of his depleted team. “When they see such a big scoreline and a couple of the goals we concede, I understand it (the jeers),” he said. “It’s football, it’s emotive, people feel so much about it, it’s why it’s such a special sport in this country and so big. “I understand it but I feel really proud of the players tonight, some of the football we played at 11 v 11 was amazing. “For an hour with 10 men we’ve dug in so deep, there were some big performances. I’m proud of them for that and I’m grateful for that because that’s not easy in that circumstance.”
Reno, Nev., Dec. 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- American Battery Technology Company (NASDAQ: ABAT), an integrated critical battery materials company that is commercializing its technologies for both primary battery minerals manufacturing and secondary minerals lithium-ion battery recycling, today announced it has entered into securities purchase agreements with two institutional investors for the purchase and sale of 3,773,586 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 3,773,586 shares of common stock in a registered direct offering. The last closing market price was $2.60 per share and this intraday transaction had at a combined offering price of $2.65 per share and accompanying warrant, priced “at-the-market” under Nasdaq rules. The warrants have an exercise price of $2.80 per share, and will be exercisable immediately from the date of issuance and will expire five years from the initial exercise date. The gross proceeds of the offering will be approximately $10 million before deducting placement agent fees and other estimated offering expenses payable by the company. The closing of the offering is expected to take place on or about December 27, 2024, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners is acting as the sole placement agent for the offering. A shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-276329) relating to the offering of the securities described above was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 24, 2024. The offering may be made only by means of a base prospectus and accompanying prospectus supplement. A prospectus supplement relating to the offering will be filed with the SEC. Electronic copies will be available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or by contacting A.G.P./Alliance Global Partners, 590 Madison Avenue, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10022, or by telephone at (212) 624-2060, or by email at prospectus@allianceg.com . This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. About American Battery Technology Company American Battery Technology Company, headquartered in Reno, Nevada, has pioneered first-of-kind technologies to unlock domestically manufactured and recycled battery metals critically needed to help meet the significant demand from the electric vehicle, stationary storage, and consumer electronics industries. Committed to a circular supply chain for battery metals, ABTC works to continually innovate and master new battery metals technologies that power a global transition to electrification and the future of sustainable energy. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking statements." For example, the company is using forward-looking statements in this press release when it discusses the expected closing date of the offering and use of proceeds from the offering. Although the company’s management believes that such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee that such expectations are, or will be, correct. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause the company's future results to differ materially from those anticipated. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks and uncertainties related to the company's ability to continue as a going concern; general economic conditions and conditions affecting the industries in which the company operates; the uncertainty of regulatory requirements and approvals; fluctuating mineral and commodity prices. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in the company's filings with the SEC, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2024. The company assumes no obligation to update any of the information contained or referenced in this press release. Tiffiany Moehring American Battery Technology Company 720.254.1556 tmoehring@batterymetals.comLOS ANGELES , Nov. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Appotronics, the inventor of the ALPD® laser display technology, recently participated in the Laser Illuminated Projector Association (LIPA) Annual General Meeting held in Los Angeles , United States . During the event, the company showcased its optics solutions designed for both the interior and exterior of vehicles, emphasizing their versatility in functions such as illumination, entertainment, and V2X (Vehicle to Everything) communication. Meng Han , senior director of Appotronics, addressed the attendees, which included laser illumination and display technology experts, market analysts, and trend observers. He emphasized that the automotive industry is undergoing a transformation from internal combustion engines to autonomous electric vehicles, creating ample opportunities for laser projectors. This shift typically results in more internal space for entertainment features, such as in-car theaters and laser display-enabled human-vehicle communication both inside and outside the vehicle. "We have done the study, finding many people like it, " said Han, citing the example of Appotronics' rollable giant laser display screen, which is equipped on the Seres AITO M9, a top-selling SUV priced above RMB 500,000 in China . The SUV has received over 170,000 orders since its debut late last year, indicating a strong market demand for such innovative features. Han further pointed out that more laser display technology will be applied within the cabin as a supplement to the current LCD panels, transforming the cabin into an immersive and comfortable third living space. "As for the long future, the future isn't more screens—or even screens at all." Han cited Alfonso Albaisa , Design Chief of Nissan, emphasizing that laser display offers numerous advantages, such as easy modeling, free-form surfaces, design flexibility, safety, and sustainability and can be utilized for projections inside the cabin, on the sunroof, side windows, or even on the windshield. Afterwards, Xin Yu , vice president of Appotronics, introduced the company's intelligent digital colorful laser headlight as an example of immersive exterior display . This innovative light is equipped on the newly-released Smart #5 vehicle, enabling car users to enjoy movies while camping. Yu announced that the product is currently available in China and will soon be launched in Europe and Australia . Yu also demonstrated the company's All-in-One laser headlamp, which fulfills multiple functions, including intelligent signaling displays (ISD), adaptive driving beam (ADB) systems, V2X communications, and entertainment. He revealed that the multi-functional headlamp will soon enter mass production and will be showcased at CES 2025, which is scheduled to be held in Las Vegas between January 7 and January 10 . Other automotive optics solutions from Appotronics will also be displayed at the event. "So hopefully in the future, we have more friends together in this industry to make more interesting applications and build up more markets for laser innovation." Yu concluded, adding that he expects more "concepts" of laser technology to turn into "reality" in the automotive sector, just as laser technology has revolutionized the cinema industry. In addition to Appotronics' updates, representatives from Texas Instruments, Epson, Panasonic, Seibersdorf Labs, OMDIA, PMA Research, Nordisk Cinema, Nichia America Corporation, Barco, Oxford University , LUMAfestival.com, and RSL Fiber Systems also shared insights on current laser-related regulations, technological advancements, and future trends at the annual meeting. View original content: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/appotronics-highlights-role-of-laser-technology-in-automotive-industry-at-prestigious-us-trade-conference-302315609.html SOURCE Appotronics Corporation Ltd. © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.Through all the upsets, unexpected rises and falls, there are nine teams still in the mix to play in the conference championship game. No. 14 Arizona State and No. 17 Iowa State have the best odds, yet a multitude of scenarios could play out — 256 to be exact. There's even the possibility of an eight-team tie. It may take a mathematician to figure out which teams are in the Dec. 7 game in Arlington, Texas — even for the ones who win. Travis Hunter, Colorado. The Buffaloes' two-way star has excelled on both sides of the field, making him one of the favorites to win the Heisman Trophy. Cam Skattebo, Arizona State. The senior running back can do a little of everything, but excels at punishing would-be tacklers. He's one of the nation's leaders in yards after contact and the focal point of the Sun Devils' offense. Shadeur Sanders, Colorado. If it weren't for Hunter, Sanders might be the Heisman favorite. The son of coach Deion Sanders, Shedeur is fifth nationally with 3,488 yards passing and has been a big part of the Buffaloes' turnaround. DJ Giddens, Kansas State. The Wildcats' running back is one of the nation's most versatile players. He is ninth nationally with 1,271 rushing yards and has added 21 receptions for 258 yards. Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona. The Wildcats have struggled this season, but McMillan has not. He is third nationally with 1,251 receiving yards with seven touchdowns on 78 catches. Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech. The Red Raiders' junior linebacker leads the Big 12 with 68 tackles, averaging 10.2 per game. He also has four sacks. Brendan Mott, Kansas State. He's a menace to opposing quarterbacks, leading the Big 12 with 8 1/2 sacks. The Big 12 has nine teams already bowl eligible and two more a win away. The winner of the Big 12 championship game will be in the mix for a College Football Playoff spot. Arizona State, Iowa State, No. 19 BYU, Colorado, Kansas State, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia have already clinched bowl berths. Kansas and Cincinnati can get into the postseason with wins this weekend. Gus Malzahn, UCF. Despite successes in recruiting, the Knights are 10-14 in two seasons since moving to the Big 12. Maybe not enough to get shown the door this year, but another mediocre season could lead UCF to make a change. Kyle Whittingham, Utah. Whittingham was one of the Pac-12's best coaches, leading the Utes to consecutive conference titles. Utah was expected to contend for the Big 12 title its first year in the league, but enters the final weekend 1-7 in conference play, which could push Whittingham toward retirement since it's doubtful he'd be fired. Neal Brown, West Virginia. The Mountaineers' coach was in a precarious spot at the end of last season and West Virginia hasn't lived up to expectations this season. The Mountaineers are eligible to go to a bowl game for the second straight season, but Brown could be on the hot seat even after signing a contract extension before the season. Josiah Trotter, West Virginia. The redshirt freshman is the latest Trotter to have success at the linebacker position, following the footsteps of his father, former Philadelphia Eagles player Jeremiah Trotter, and brother Jeremiah Trotter Jr., a current Eagles linebacker. Sam Leavitt, Arizona State. The Michigan State transfer has been just what the Sun Devils' needed: an agile quarterback who extends plays with his legs and rarely makes bad decisions. Bryson Washington, Baylor. The Bears' running back has rushed for 812 yards — 196 against TCU — and 10 TDs. TCU has the Big 12's highest rated 2025 recruiting class with six four-star players among 26 commitments, according to the 247 Sports composite. Receiver Terry Shelton of Carrollton, Texas, is the highest-rated recruit at 71st nationally. Baylor is next with five five-star players among its 20 commitments, including running back Michael Turner, rated 13th at his position out of North Richland Hills, Texas. Texas Tech is ranked seventh in the Big 12, but has four four-star recruits.
Chargers focused on avoiding a letdown and not a potential playoff berth in matchup with Patriots
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he will nominate former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his agriculture secretary, the last of his picks to lead executive agencies and another choice from within his established circle of advisers and allies. The nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans when Trump takes office Jan. 20. Rollins would succeed Tom Vilsack , President Joe Biden’s agriculture secretary who oversees the sprawling agency that controls policies, regulations and aid programs related to farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition. Then-President Donald Trump looks to Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as she speaks during a Jan. 11, 2018, prison reform roundtable in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. Rollins previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The pick completes Trump’s selection of the heads of executive branch departments, just two and a half weeks after the former president won the White House once again. Several other picks that are traditionally Cabinet-level remain, including U.S. Trade Representative and head of the small business administration. Brooke Rollins, assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council at the time, speaks during a May 18, 2020, meeting with restaurant industry executives about the coronavirus response in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Rollins, speaking on the Christian talk show “Family Talk" earlier this year, said Trump was an “amazing boss” and confessed that she thought in 2015, during his first presidential campaign, that he would not last as a candidate in a crowded Republican primary field. “I was the person that said, ‘Oh, Donald Trump is not going to go more than two or three weeks in the Republican primary. This is to up his TV show ratings. And then we’ll get back to normal,’” she said. “Fast forward a couple of years, and I am running his domestic policy agenda.” Trump didn’t offer many specifics about his agriculture policies during the campaign, but farmers could be affected if he carries out his pledge to impose widespread tariffs. During the first Trump administration, countries like China responded to Trump’s tariffs by imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports like the corn and soybeans routinely sold overseas. Trump countered by offering massive multibillion-dollar aid to farmers to help them weather the trade war. Brooke Rollins speaks at an Oct. 27 campaign rally for then-Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York. President Abraham Lincoln founded the USDA in 1862, when about half of all Americans lived on farms. The USDA oversees multiple support programs for farmers; animal and plant health; and the safety of meat, poultry and eggs that anchor the nation’s food supply. Its federal nutrition programs provide food to low-income people, pregnant women and young children. And the agency sets standards for school meals. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has vowed to strip ultraprocessed foods from school lunches and to stop allowing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries from using food stamps to buy soda, candy or other so-called junk foods. But it would be the USDA, not HHS, that would be responsible for enacting those changes. In addition, HHS and USDA will work together to finalize the 2025-2030 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They are due late next year, with guidance for healthy diets and standards for federal nutrition programs. Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writers Josh Funk and JoNel Aleccia contributed to this report. Among President-elect Donald Trump's picks are Susie Wiles for chief of staff, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, former Democratic House member Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Susie Wiles, 67, was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and its de facto manager. Trump named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making a former sharp critic his choice to be the new administration's top diplomat. Rubio, 53, is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump's running mate on the Republican ticket last summer. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said of Rubio in a statement. The announcement punctuates the hard pivot Rubio has made with Trump, whom the senator called a “con man" during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Their relationship improved dramatically while Trump was in the White House. And as Trump campaigned for the presidency a third time, Rubio cheered his proposals. For instance, Rubio, who more than a decade ago helped craft immigration legislation that included a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, now supports Trump's plan to use the U.S. military for mass deportations. Pete Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show. Hegseth lacks senior military or national security experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea. Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year. Trump tapped Pam Bondi, 59, to be attorney general after U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration. She was Florida's first female attorney general, serving between 2011 and 2019. She also was on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020. Considered a loyalist, she served as part of a Trump-allied outside group that helped lay the groundwork for his future administration called the America First Policy Institute. Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. A fierce defender of Trump, she also frequently appears on Fox News and has been a critic of the criminal cases against him. Trump picked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a well-known conservative who faced sharp criticism for telling a story in her memoir about shooting a rambunctious dog, to lead an agency crucial to the president-elect’s hardline immigration agenda. Noem used her two terms leading a tiny state to vault to a prominent position in Republican politics. South Dakota is usually a political afterthought. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem did not order restrictions that other states had issued and instead declared her state “open for business.” Trump held a fireworks rally at Mount Rushmore in July 2020 in one of the first large gatherings of the pandemic. She takes over a department with a sprawling mission. In addition to key immigration agencies, the Department of Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports. The governor of North Dakota, who was once little-known outside his state, Burgum is a former Republican presidential primary contender who endorsed Trump, and spent months traveling to drum up support for him, after dropping out of the race. Burgum was a serious contender to be Trump’s vice presidential choice this summer. The two-term governor was seen as a possible pick because of his executive experience and business savvy. Burgum also has close ties to deep-pocketed energy industry CEOs. Trump made the announcement about Burgum joining his incoming administration while addressing a gala at his Mar-a-Lago club, and said a formal statement would be coming the following day. In comments to reporters before Trump took the stage, Burgum said that, in recent years, the power grid is deteriorating in many parts of the country, which he said could raise national security concerns but also drive up prices enough to increase inflation. “There's just a sense of urgency, and a sense of understanding in the Trump administration,” Burgum said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president as a Democrat, than as an independent, and then endorsed Trump . He's the son of Democratic icon Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated during his own presidential campaign. The nomination of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services alarmed people who are concerned about his record of spreading unfounded fears about vaccines . For example, he has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. Scott Bessent, 62, is a former George Soros money manager and an advocate for deficit reduction. He's the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary. He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the mounting U.S. national debt. That would include slashing government programs and other spending. “This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then. Oregon Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her reelection bid this month, but received strong backing from union members in her district. As a potential labor secretary, she would oversee the Labor Department’s workforce, its budget and put forth priorities that impact workers’ wages, health and safety, ability to unionize, and employer’s rights to fire employers, among other responsibilities. Chavez-DeRemer is one of few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and would add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The act would also weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment. Scott Turner is a former NFL player and White House aide. He ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term in office. Trump, in a statement, credited Turner, the highest-ranking Black person he’s yet selected for his administration, with “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.” Sean Duffy is a former House member from Wisconsin who was one of Trump's most visible defenders on cable news. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, sitting on the Financial Services Committee and chairing the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019 for a TV career and has been the host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business. Before entering politics, Duffy was a reality TV star on MTV, where he met his wife, “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. They have nine children. A campaign donor and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Write is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking — a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Wright also has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. Wright also won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term. President-elect Donald Trump tapped billionaire professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon to be secretary of the Education Department, tasked with overseeing an agency Trump promised to dismantle. McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s initial term from 2017 to 2019 and twice ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut. She’s seen as a relative unknown in education circles, though she expressed support for charter schools and school choice. She served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009 and has spent years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. Brooke Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. She previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Trump chose Howard Lutnick, head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, as his nominee for commerce secretary, a position in which he'd have a key role in carrying out Trump's plans to raise and enforce tariffs. Trump made the announcement Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social. Lutnick is a co-chair of Trump’s transition team, along with Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration. Both are tasked with putting forward candidates for key roles in the next administration. The nomination would put Lutnick in charge of a sprawling Cabinet agency that is involved in funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade restrictions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather. It is also a position in which connections to CEOs and the wider business community are crucial. Doug Collins is a former Republican congressman from Georgia who gained recognition for defending Trump during his first impeachment trial, which centered on U.S. assistance for Ukraine. Trump was impeached for urging Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in 2019 during the Democratic presidential nomination, but he was acquitted by the Senate. Collins has also served in the armed forces himself and is currently a chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command. "We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need," Trump said in a statement about nominating Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Karoline Leavitt, 27, was Trump's campaign press secretary and currently a spokesperson for his transition. She would be the youngest White House press secretary in history. The White House press secretary typically serves as the public face of the administration and historically has held daily briefings for the press corps. Leavitt, a New Hampshire native, was a spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump, before joining his 2024 campaign. In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning a 10-way Republican primary before losing to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Leavitt worked in the White House press office during Trump's first term before she became communications director for New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump's choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump to be director of national intelligence, keeping with the trend to stock his Cabinet with loyal personalities rather than veteran professionals in their requisite fields. Gabbard, 43, was a Democratic House member who unsuccessfully sought the party's 2020 presidential nomination before leaving the party in 2022. She endorsed Trump in August and campaigned often with him this fall. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community,” Trump said in a statement. Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, would come to the role as somewhat of an outsider compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions. Trump has picked John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during his first administration, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency in his next. Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during the final year and a half of Trump's first term, leading the U.S. government's spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic. “I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation's highest Intelligence positions,” Trump said in a statement, calling him a “fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans” who would ensure “the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.” Trump has chosen former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to serve as his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency . Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president. The 44-year-old former U.S. House member from New York wrote on X , “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI.” “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he added. During his campaign, Trump often attacked the Biden administration's promotion of electric vehicles, and incorrectly referring to a tax credit for EV purchases as a government mandate. Trump also often told his audiences during the campaign his administration would “Drill, baby, drill,” referring to his support for expanded petroleum exploration. In a statement, Trump said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.” Trump has named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission. Carr made past appearances on “Fox News Channel," including when he decried Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' pre-Election Day appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” He wrote an op-ed last month defending a satellite company owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk. Rep. Elise Stefanik is a representative from New York and one of Trump's staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment. Elected to the House in 2014, Stefanik was selected by her GOP House colleagues as House Republican Conference chair in 2021, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was removed from the post after publicly criticizing Trump for falsely claiming he won the 2020 election. Stefanik, 40, has served in that role ever since as the third-ranking member of House leadership. Stefanik’s questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile. If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the U.N. as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine begun in 2022. He has also called for peace as Israel continues its offensive against Hamas in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon to target Hezbollah. President-elect Donald Trump says he's chosen former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO. Trump has expressed skepticism about the Western military alliance for years. Trump said in a statement Wednesday that Whitaker is “a strong warrior and loyal Patriot” who “will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended” and “strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability.” The choice of Whitaker as the nation’s representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an unusual one, given his background is as a lawyer and not in foreign policy. A Republican congressman from Michigan who served from 1993 to 2011, Hoekstra was ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump's first term. “In my Second Term, Pete will help me once again put AMERICA FIRST,” Trump said in a statement announcing his choice. “He did an outstanding job as United States Ambassador to the Netherlands during our first four years, and I am confident that he will continue to represent our Country well in this new role.” Trump will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel's interests as it wages wars against the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah. “He loves Israel, and likewise the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in a statement. “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East.” Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, has been a popular figure among evangelical Christian conservatives, many of whom support Israel due to Old Testament writings that Jews are God’s chosen people and that Israel is their rightful homeland. Trump has been praised by some in this important Republican voting bloc for moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump on Tuesday named real estate investor Steven Witkoff to be special envoy to the Middle East. The 67-year-old Witkoff is the president-elect's golf partner and was golfing with him at Trump's club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, when the former president was the target of a second attempted assassination. Witkoff “is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy,” Trump said of Witkoff in a statement. “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud." Trump also named Witkoff co-chair, with former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, of his inaugural committee. Trump asked Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser, Trump announced in a statement Tuesday. The move puts Waltz in the middle of national security crises, ranging from efforts to provide weapons to Ukraine and worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea to the persistent attacks in the Middle East by Iran proxies and the push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. “Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda,” Trump's statement said, "and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” Waltz is a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida. He served multiple tours in Afghanistan and also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs. He is considered hawkish on China, and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to its involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population. Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner , was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump's priority of mass deportations. The 39-year-old was a senior adviser during Trump's first administration. Miller has been a central figure in some of Trump's policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families. Trump argued throughout the campaign that the nation's economic, national security and social priorities could be met by deporting people who are in the United States illegally. Since Trump left office in 2021, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization made up of former Trump advisers aimed at challenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others over issues such as free speech and national security. Thomas Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trump’s top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history. Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign. Though Homan has insisted such a massive undertaking would be humane, he has long been a loyal supporter of Trump's policy proposals, suggesting at a July conference in Washington that he would be willing to "run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Democrats have criticized Homan for his defending Trump's “zero tolerance” policy on border crossings during his first administration, which led to the separation of thousands of parents and children seeking asylum at the border. Dr. Mehmet Oz, 64, is a former heart surgeon who hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” a long-running daytime television talk show. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee in 2022 and is an outspoken supporter of Trump, who endorsed Oz's bid for elected office. Elon Musk, left, and Vivek Ramaswamy speak before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at an Oct. 27 campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. Trump on Tuesday said Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency" — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym “DOGE” is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He added the move would shock government systems. It's not clear how the organization will operate. Musk, owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the presidential election. Ramaswamy suspended his campaign in January and threw his support behind Trump. Trump said the two will “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Russell Vought held the position during Trump’s first presidency. After Trump’s initial term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes its mission as “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.” Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that he tried to distance himself from during the campaign. Vought has also previously worked as the executive and budget director for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus for conservative House Republicans. He also worked at Heritage Action, the political group tied to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Scavino, whom Trump's transition referred to in a statement as one of “Trump's longest serving and most trusted aides,” was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign, as well as his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He will be deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president. Scavino had run Trump's social media profile in the White House during his first administration. He was also held in contempt of Congress in 2022 after a month-long refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Blair was political director for Trump's 2024 campaign and for the Republican National Committee. He will be deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs and assistant to the president. Blair was key to Trump's economic messaging during his winning White House comeback campaign this year, a driving force behind the candidate's “Trump can fix it” slogan and his query to audiences this fall if they were better off than four years ago. Budowich is a veteran Trump campaign aide who launched and directed Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC that supported Trump's 2024 campaign. He will be deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel and assistant to the president. Budowich also had served as a spokesman for Trump after his presidency. McGinley was White House Cabinet secretary during Trump's first administration, and was outside legal counsel for the Republican National Committee's election integrity effort during the 2024 campaign. In a statement, Trump called McGinley “a smart and tenacious lawyer who will help me advance our America First agenda, while fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement.” Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.'AI Jesus' avatar tests man's faith in machines and the divinePolice hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO's masked killer after 'brazen, targeted' attack on NYC street
Torquay United spent most of the second half with 10 men and still beat the National League South leaders Weston-super-Mare 4-2 in the game of the season at Plainmoor so far. After some disappointing draws in the league, it was important that Torquay turned up today against a team who were three points clear at the top of the table. And turn up they did. It was 2-2 at half time with Lirak Hasani and Will Jenkins Davies scoring two good goals before Cody Cody had a late first-half penalty saved. Hasani was then red-carded three minutes into the second half, and it looked like Torquay were in trouble. But no chance, not in this mood, They defended superbly and two goals for Cooke made up for his stopped spot kick. It was backs-to-the-wall stuff after that, but in the pouring rain the 10 men defended so well that despite having much of the late possession, Weston never looked like getting back into the game. The result pushed Torquay up to third, while Weston dropped off the top, to be replaced by Truro City. Wotton made one change to the team that started the goalless draw at Boreham Wood on Saturday - with Hasani coming in for Oscar Threlkeld. It was another wet day for the players - but not quite what it was on Saturday. Still, a couple of big downpours before kick-off softened up the pitch even further. In the 11th minute, Jordan Young dinked his way to goal with the ball at his feet and his shot came off the goalkeeper Max Harris and went wide. An Omar Mussa shot skidded wide after a deflection. Torquay had started well but Weston also looked dangerous. Hasani shot wide in the 16th minute. Weston went 1-0 ahead in the 17th minute when Sam Dreyer missed a tackle and Luke Coulston was free and shot past James Hamon with confidence. Sam Pearson shot wide three minutes later. Hasani equalised in the 29th minute after some good work by the Gulls, who were playing the ball around well. From a short corner, Jenkins Davies shot was blocked but the ball popped out to Hasani and he struck it sweetly, right into the corner of the net. It was Jenkins Davies who made it 2-1 in the 35th minute when Reuben Reid played a back pass too short. The Torquay midfielder ran on to the ball, and actually looked like he had taken it too far to the right - but his strike past Harris was good and the ball found the far corner. Weston's second goal to make it 2-2 came in the 41st minute when a corner came down in the six-yard area, Hamon couldn't get a grip on the ball, and it hit Sam Avery before crossing the line. It was a soft goal to concede. The first-half action wasn't over yet. In injury time Hasani was brought down as he ran on to a through ball. From the penalty spot, Cooke struck the ball well, to the goalkeeper's right, but Harris got a strong hand to the ball to stop the shot. The rain had stopped late on in the first half and the second half starting with Torquay kicking towards the Family Stand. Hasani was sent off in the 48th minute after a poorly-timed tackle on Reid. It didn't look like a bad enough challenge for a red, but the referee pulled the card out of his pocket instantly. Wotton brought on Oscar Threlkeld to plug the gap with Mussa, who wasn't having a good game, making way. Pearson shot wide in the 53rd minute and Kieran Thomas shot wide as Weston went at Torquay. Hamon parried a Reid shot wide in the 60th minute. He shot wide soon after. A Threlkeld strike from the edge of the area went a long way wide. It was 3-2 in the 69th minute after some great work by Jenkins Davies, who cut inside from the right and found Cooke on the edge of the six-yard box, who diverted the ball past Harris. Ed Palmer came on for Young after the goal - a defender for a forward. Hamon stopped a good low cross from Nick McCootle. It felt like it might be a long 20-plus-whatever minutes. And the rain was heavy again. But Cooke made it 4-2 in the 79th minute when Weston made a horrible mistake in midfield - gifting the ball to Dan Hayfield, who was quick to claim his prize and pass it to the Torquay striker for his second goal. There was a lot of hard work and commitment as Torquay ran themselves into the ground to protect the lead. Six minutes were added on - and still Weston came at the 10 men. A Hamon punch cleared a dangerous cross clear and caught another two. But in the end, they didn't have enough to break through - and the 10 men held out for the three points. Such an important three points, too.Trump taps Rollins as agriculture chief, completing proposed slate of Cabinet secretaries
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he will nominate former White House aide Brooke Rollins to be his agriculture secretary, the last of his picks to lead executive agencies and another choice from within his established circle of advisers and allies. The nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, which will be controlled by Republicans when Trump takes office Jan. 20. Rollins would succeed Tom Vilsack , President Joe Biden’s agriculture secretary who oversees the sprawling agency that controls policies, regulations and aid programs related to farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition. Then-President Donald Trump looks to Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as she speaks during a Jan. 11, 2018, prison reform roundtable in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. Rollins previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The pick completes Trump’s selection of the heads of executive branch departments, just two and a half weeks after the former president won the White House once again. Several other picks that are traditionally Cabinet-level remain, including U.S. Trade Representative and head of the small business administration. Brooke Rollins, assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council at the time, speaks during a May 18, 2020, meeting with restaurant industry executives about the coronavirus response in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Rollins, speaking on the Christian talk show “Family Talk" earlier this year, said Trump was an “amazing boss” and confessed that she thought in 2015, during his first presidential campaign, that he would not last as a candidate in a crowded Republican primary field. “I was the person that said, ‘Oh, Donald Trump is not going to go more than two or three weeks in the Republican primary. This is to up his TV show ratings. And then we’ll get back to normal,’” she said. “Fast forward a couple of years, and I am running his domestic policy agenda.” Trump didn’t offer many specifics about his agriculture policies during the campaign, but farmers could be affected if he carries out his pledge to impose widespread tariffs. During the first Trump administration, countries like China responded to Trump’s tariffs by imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports like the corn and soybeans routinely sold overseas. Trump countered by offering massive multibillion-dollar aid to farmers to help them weather the trade war. Brooke Rollins speaks at an Oct. 27 campaign rally for then-Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York. President Abraham Lincoln founded the USDA in 1862, when about half of all Americans lived on farms. The USDA oversees multiple support programs for farmers; animal and plant health; and the safety of meat, poultry and eggs that anchor the nation’s food supply. Its federal nutrition programs provide food to low-income people, pregnant women and young children. And the agency sets standards for school meals. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has vowed to strip ultraprocessed foods from school lunches and to stop allowing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries from using food stamps to buy soda, candy or other so-called junk foods. But it would be the USDA, not HHS, that would be responsible for enacting those changes. In addition, HHS and USDA will work together to finalize the 2025-2030 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They are due late next year, with guidance for healthy diets and standards for federal nutrition programs. Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writers Josh Funk and JoNel Aleccia contributed to this report. Among President-elect Donald Trump's picks are Susie Wiles for chief of staff, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state, former Democratic House member Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general. Susie Wiles, 67, was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign and its de facto manager. Trump named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making a former sharp critic his choice to be the new administration's top diplomat. Rubio, 53, is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump's running mate on the Republican ticket last summer. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said of Rubio in a statement. The announcement punctuates the hard pivot Rubio has made with Trump, whom the senator called a “con man" during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Their relationship improved dramatically while Trump was in the White House. And as Trump campaigned for the presidency a third time, Rubio cheered his proposals. For instance, Rubio, who more than a decade ago helped craft immigration legislation that included a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, now supports Trump's plan to use the U.S. military for mass deportations. Pete Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show. Hegseth lacks senior military or national security experience. If confirmed by the Senate, he would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to the push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea. Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year. Trump tapped Pam Bondi, 59, to be attorney general after U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration. She was Florida's first female attorney general, serving between 2011 and 2019. She also was on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020. Considered a loyalist, she served as part of a Trump-allied outside group that helped lay the groundwork for his future administration called the America First Policy Institute. Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. A fierce defender of Trump, she also frequently appears on Fox News and has been a critic of the criminal cases against him. Trump picked South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a well-known conservative who faced sharp criticism for telling a story in her memoir about shooting a rambunctious dog, to lead an agency crucial to the president-elect’s hardline immigration agenda. Noem used her two terms leading a tiny state to vault to a prominent position in Republican politics. South Dakota is usually a political afterthought. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Noem did not order restrictions that other states had issued and instead declared her state “open for business.” Trump held a fireworks rally at Mount Rushmore in July 2020 in one of the first large gatherings of the pandemic. She takes over a department with a sprawling mission. In addition to key immigration agencies, the Department of Homeland Security oversees natural disaster response, the U.S. Secret Service, and Transportation Security Administration agents who work at airports. The governor of North Dakota, who was once little-known outside his state, Burgum is a former Republican presidential primary contender who endorsed Trump, and spent months traveling to drum up support for him, after dropping out of the race. Burgum was a serious contender to be Trump’s vice presidential choice this summer. The two-term governor was seen as a possible pick because of his executive experience and business savvy. Burgum also has close ties to deep-pocketed energy industry CEOs. Trump made the announcement about Burgum joining his incoming administration while addressing a gala at his Mar-a-Lago club, and said a formal statement would be coming the following day. In comments to reporters before Trump took the stage, Burgum said that, in recent years, the power grid is deteriorating in many parts of the country, which he said could raise national security concerns but also drive up prices enough to increase inflation. “There's just a sense of urgency, and a sense of understanding in the Trump administration,” Burgum said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran for president as a Democrat, than as an independent, and then endorsed Trump . He's the son of Democratic icon Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated during his own presidential campaign. The nomination of Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services alarmed people who are concerned about his record of spreading unfounded fears about vaccines . For example, he has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism. Scott Bessent, 62, is a former George Soros money manager and an advocate for deficit reduction. He's the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary. He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the mounting U.S. national debt. That would include slashing government programs and other spending. “This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then. Oregon Republican U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her reelection bid this month, but received strong backing from union members in her district. As a potential labor secretary, she would oversee the Labor Department’s workforce, its budget and put forth priorities that impact workers’ wages, health and safety, ability to unionize, and employer’s rights to fire employers, among other responsibilities. Chavez-DeRemer is one of few House Republicans to endorse the “Protecting the Right to Organize” or PRO Act would allow more workers to conduct organizing campaigns and would add penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. The act would also weaken “right-to-work” laws that allow employees in more than half the states to avoid participating in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their places of employment. Scott Turner is a former NFL player and White House aide. He ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term in office. Trump, in a statement, credited Turner, the highest-ranking Black person he’s yet selected for his administration, with “helping to lead an Unprecedented Effort that Transformed our Country’s most distressed communities.” Sean Duffy is a former House member from Wisconsin who was one of Trump's most visible defenders on cable news. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, sitting on the Financial Services Committee and chairing the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019 for a TV career and has been the host of “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business. Before entering politics, Duffy was a reality TV star on MTV, where he met his wife, “Fox and Friends Weekend” co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy. They have nine children. A campaign donor and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Write is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking — a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Wright also has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. Wright also won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm. Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term. President-elect Donald Trump tapped billionaire professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon to be secretary of the Education Department, tasked with overseeing an agency Trump promised to dismantle. McMahon led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s initial term from 2017 to 2019 and twice ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut. She’s seen as a relative unknown in education circles, though she expressed support for charter schools and school choice. She served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009 and has spent years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. Brooke Rollins, who graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in agricultural development, is a longtime Trump associate who served as White House domestic policy chief during his first presidency. The 52-year-old is president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration. She previously served as an aide to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ran a think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Trump chose Howard Lutnick, head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, as his nominee for commerce secretary, a position in which he'd have a key role in carrying out Trump's plans to raise and enforce tariffs. Trump made the announcement Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social. Lutnick is a co-chair of Trump’s transition team, along with Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration. Both are tasked with putting forward candidates for key roles in the next administration. The nomination would put Lutnick in charge of a sprawling Cabinet agency that is involved in funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade restrictions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather. It is also a position in which connections to CEOs and the wider business community are crucial. Doug Collins is a former Republican congressman from Georgia who gained recognition for defending Trump during his first impeachment trial, which centered on U.S. assistance for Ukraine. Trump was impeached for urging Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in 2019 during the Democratic presidential nomination, but he was acquitted by the Senate. Collins has also served in the armed forces himself and is currently a chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command. "We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need," Trump said in a statement about nominating Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Karoline Leavitt, 27, was Trump's campaign press secretary and currently a spokesperson for his transition. She would be the youngest White House press secretary in history. The White House press secretary typically serves as the public face of the administration and historically has held daily briefings for the press corps. Leavitt, a New Hampshire native, was a spokesperson for MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump, before joining his 2024 campaign. In 2022, she ran for Congress in New Hampshire, winning a 10-way Republican primary before losing to Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas. Leavitt worked in the White House press office during Trump's first term before she became communications director for New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump's choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump to be director of national intelligence, keeping with the trend to stock his Cabinet with loyal personalities rather than veteran professionals in their requisite fields. Gabbard, 43, was a Democratic House member who unsuccessfully sought the party's 2020 presidential nomination before leaving the party in 2022. She endorsed Trump in August and campaigned often with him this fall. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community,” Trump said in a statement. Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, would come to the role as somewhat of an outsider compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions. Trump has picked John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during his first administration, to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency in his next. Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence during the final year and a half of Trump's first term, leading the U.S. government's spy agencies during the coronavirus pandemic. “I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation's highest Intelligence positions,” Trump said in a statement, calling him a “fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans” who would ensure “the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.” Trump has chosen former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to serve as his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency . Zeldin does not appear to have any experience in environmental issues, but is a longtime supporter of the former president. The 44-year-old former U.S. House member from New York wrote on X , “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI.” “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he added. During his campaign, Trump often attacked the Biden administration's promotion of electric vehicles, and incorrectly referring to a tax credit for EV purchases as a government mandate. Trump also often told his audiences during the campaign his administration would “Drill, baby, drill,” referring to his support for expanded petroleum exploration. In a statement, Trump said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.” Trump has named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband. Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC’s general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission. Carr made past appearances on “Fox News Channel," including when he decried Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' pre-Election Day appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” He wrote an op-ed last month defending a satellite company owned by Trump supporter Elon Musk. Rep. Elise Stefanik is a representative from New York and one of Trump's staunchest defenders going back to his first impeachment. Elected to the House in 2014, Stefanik was selected by her GOP House colleagues as House Republican Conference chair in 2021, when former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney was removed from the post after publicly criticizing Trump for falsely claiming he won the 2020 election. Stefanik, 40, has served in that role ever since as the third-ranking member of House leadership. Stefanik’s questioning of university presidents over antisemitism on their campuses helped lead to two of those presidents resigning, further raising her national profile. If confirmed, she would represent American interests at the U.N. as Trump vows to end the war waged by Russia against Ukraine begun in 2022. He has also called for peace as Israel continues its offensive against Hamas in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon to target Hezbollah. President-elect Donald Trump says he's chosen former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO. Trump has expressed skepticism about the Western military alliance for years. Trump said in a statement Wednesday that Whitaker is “a strong warrior and loyal Patriot” who “will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended” and “strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability.” The choice of Whitaker as the nation’s representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an unusual one, given his background is as a lawyer and not in foreign policy. Trump will nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a staunch defender of Israel and his intended nomination comes as Trump has promised to align U.S. foreign policy more closely with Israel's interests as it wages wars against the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah. “He loves Israel, and likewise the people of Israel love him,” Trump said in a statement. “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East.” Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, has been a popular figure among evangelical Christian conservatives, many of whom support Israel due to Old Testament writings that Jews are God’s chosen people and that Israel is their rightful homeland. Trump has been praised by some in this important Republican voting bloc for moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump on Tuesday named real estate investor Steven Witkoff to be special envoy to the Middle East. The 67-year-old Witkoff is the president-elect's golf partner and was golfing with him at Trump's club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15, when the former president was the target of a second attempted assassination. Witkoff “is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy,” Trump said of Witkoff in a statement. “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud." Trump also named Witkoff co-chair, with former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, of his inaugural committee. Trump asked Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a retired Army National Guard officer and war veteran, to be his national security adviser, Trump announced in a statement Tuesday. The move puts Waltz in the middle of national security crises, ranging from efforts to provide weapons to Ukraine and worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea to the persistent attacks in the Middle East by Iran proxies and the push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. “Mike has been a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda,” Trump's statement said, "and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” Waltz is a three-term GOP congressman from east-central Florida. He served multiple tours in Afghanistan and also worked in the Pentagon as a policy adviser when Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates were defense chiefs. He is considered hawkish on China, and called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to its involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uighur population. Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner , was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump's priority of mass deportations. The 39-year-old was a senior adviser during Trump's first administration. Miller has been a central figure in some of Trump's policy decisions, notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families. Trump argued throughout the campaign that the nation's economic, national security and social priorities could be met by deporting people who are in the United States illegally. Since Trump left office in 2021, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization made up of former Trump advisers aimed at challenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others over issues such as free speech and national security. Thomas Homan, 62, has been tasked with Trump’s top priority of carrying out the largest deportation operation in the nation’s history. Homan, who served under Trump in his first administration leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was widely expected to be offered a position related to the border, an issue Trump made central to his campaign. Though Homan has insisted such a massive undertaking would be humane, he has long been a loyal supporter of Trump's policy proposals, suggesting at a July conference in Washington that he would be willing to "run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.” Democrats have criticized Homan for his defending Trump's “zero tolerance” policy on border crossings during his first administration, which led to the separation of thousands of parents and children seeking asylum at the border. Dr. Mehmet Oz, 64, is a former heart surgeon who hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” a long-running daytime television talk show. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee in 2022 and is an outspoken supporter of Trump, who endorsed Oz's bid for elected office. Elon Musk, left, and Vivek Ramaswamy speak before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at an Oct. 27 campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. Trump on Tuesday said Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency" — which is not, despite the name, a government agency. The acronym “DOGE” is a nod to Musk's favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin. Trump said Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” He added the move would shock government systems. It's not clear how the organization will operate. Musk, owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago since Trump won the presidential election. Ramaswamy suspended his campaign in January and threw his support behind Trump. Trump said the two will “pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” Russell Vought held the position during Trump’s first presidency. After Trump’s initial term ended, Vought founded the Center for Renewing America, a think tank that describes its mission as “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.” Vought was closely involved with Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term that he tried to distance himself from during the campaign. Vought has also previously worked as the executive and budget director for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus for conservative House Republicans. He also worked at Heritage Action, the political group tied to The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Scavino, whom Trump's transition referred to in a statement as one of “Trump's longest serving and most trusted aides,” was a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign, as well as his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He will be deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president. Scavino had run Trump's social media profile in the White House during his first administration. He was also held in contempt of Congress in 2022 after a month-long refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Blair was political director for Trump's 2024 campaign and for the Republican National Committee. He will be deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs and assistant to the president. Blair was key to Trump's economic messaging during his winning White House comeback campaign this year, a driving force behind the candidate's “Trump can fix it” slogan and his query to audiences this fall if they were better off than four years ago. Budowich is a veteran Trump campaign aide who launched and directed Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC that supported Trump's 2024 campaign. He will be deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel and assistant to the president. Budowich also had served as a spokesman for Trump after his presidency. McGinley was White House Cabinet secretary during Trump's first administration, and was outside legal counsel for the Republican National Committee's election integrity effort during the 2024 campaign. In a statement, Trump called McGinley “a smart and tenacious lawyer who will help me advance our America First agenda, while fighting for election integrity and against the weaponization of law enforcement.” Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.
Jacksonville Jaguars at Tennessee Titans Preview: The 2-10 Jacksonville Jaguars travel to Tennessee to take on the 3-9 Titans. Unfortunately for both teams, they are out of the playoff picture and only playing for pride. Sunday’s meeting is the first between the two teams this season, and the Jacksonville Jaguars will be without starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence for this game. Lawrence will be out for the rest of the season, and former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones will be under center. The Jaguars hope that Jones can help end their current five-game losing streak. The Titans are also coming off a loss. They were undone by the Commanders to the tune of 42-19. Moving them to 0-3 after a win this season. The Titans have struggled with ball security this season. They have a league-high 23 turnovers. Even though they are hosting the sliding Jaguars, they will have to protect the ball if they want to pick up their fourth win of the season. Listen to the Bet the Edge podcast as hosts Jay Croucher and Drew Dinsick provide listeners with sharp actionable insight, market analysis and statistical data to help bettors gain more information before placing their wagers. So, whether you’re targeting spreads and totals, looking for value in futures markets or circling player props, give their podcast a listen to give you that extra edge. How to Watch Jacksonville Jaguars at Tennessee Titans Live on Sunday: Date: Sunday, December 8, 2024 Time: 1:00 PM ET Site: Nissan Stadium City: Nashville, TN TV/Streaming: CBS Latest Game Odds for Jaguars at Titans - Week 14: The latest odds as of Tuesday morning courtesy of DraftKings: Moneyline: Jacksonville Jaguars (+145), Tennessee Titans (-170) Spread: Titans -3.5 Total: 42.5 NBC Sports Bet Best Bets: NBC Sports analyst Brad Thomas (@MrBradThomas) is leaning toward the over on Travis Etienne Jr. over 38.5 rushing yards... Thomas: “Etienne Jr. carried Tank Bigsby 13 to seven last week. There was a thought that Bigsby would eventually usurp Etienne as the leader in this backfield. That has yet to happen, and I don’t expect it to happen this season. In fact, Etienne has had double-digit carries in every game but three, which happened to be the three in which he was banged up. Even in the lopsided games against the Bills and Lions, he ran the ball at least 10 times. The Titans’ run defense isn’t bad, but they still give up 86 yards per game on the ground. Jones will keep the Jaguars in this one, allowing Etienne ample opportunities to cash this low line.” Jaguars at Titans Team Stats, Betting Trends: The Titans have failed to cover in their last five games at home The Jaguars have won four of their last five away games against teams with losing records Seven of the Jaguars’ last nine road trips to the Titans have gone over the Total The Jaguars are on a five-game losing streak Quarterback Matchup for Jaguars at Titans: Jaguars: Mac Jones – Jones will get the start in place of the injured Trevor Lawrence. He threw for 235 yards, two touchdowns, and zero interceptions last game against the Texans. Titans: Will Levis – Levis has thrown for 1,659 yards, 12 touchdowns, and nine interceptions. Player News & Injuries: Jaguars: QB Trevor Lawrence (shoulder) is on the IR CB Tyson Campbell (thigh) is questionable G Brandon Scherff (knee) is questionable LS Ross Matiscik (hamstring) is questionable P Logan Cooke (knee) is questionable Titans: OT Jaelyn Duncan (hamstring) is on the IR CB Roger McCreary (shoulder) is questionable DT T’Vondre Sweat (shoulder) is questionable LB Kenneth Murray Jr (hamstring) is questionable WR Tyler Boyd (foot) is questionable Rotoworld still has you covered with all the latest and tools for the NFL, including game predictions, player props, futures, and trends! Follow our experts on socials to keep up with all the latest content from the staff: Vaughn Dalzell (@VmoneySports) Brad Thomas (@MrBradThomas) Jay Croucher (@croucherJD) Drew Dinsick (@whale_capper)
Kylian Mbappe’s spot-kick woe goes on as Real Madrid lose at Athletic Bilbao
Drake eases by Stetson 49-10 to secure a second straight outright Pioneer Football League titleCLEVELAND (AP) — Alyssa Nakken, the first woman to coach in a Major League Baseball game, is leaving the San Francisco Giants to join the Cleveland Guardians. Nakken made history in 2022 when she took over as first-base coach following an ejection. A former college softball star at Sacramento State, Nakken joined the Giants in 2014 and was promoted to a spot on manager Gabe Kapler's staff in 2020, becoming the majors' first full-time female coach. Nakken has been hired as an assistant director within player development for the Guardians, who won the AL Central last season under first-year manager Stephen Vogt — the AL Manager of the Year. With Cleveland, the 34-year-old Nakken will work with former Giants coaches Craig Albernaz and Kai Correa. Her exact duties are still being determined. "We thank Alyssa Nakken for her incredible contributions to the San Francisco Giants and for trailblazing a path for women in sports,” the Giants said in a statement on Friday. "Her leadership, dedication, and passion for the game have inspired countless individuals, and her impact has been truly transformative for the Giants organization and the baseball community. “As she embarks on this exciting new chapter in her career, we have no doubt that she’ll continue to inspire and achieve great things. We wish her and her family nothing but the best.” Nakken is the second on-field female coach hired by the Guardians. In 2023, the club brought in Amanda Kamekona as their hitting development coach for their year-round training academy in Goodyear, Arizona. Last season, she was an assistant hitting coach at Double-A Akron. Kamekona was twice a third-team All-American at UCLA after transferring from Cal State Fullerton. AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Stock market today: Wall Street gains ground as it notches a winning week and another Dow recordTrump taps Rollins as agriculture chief, completing proposed slate of Cabinet secretaries
In February 2007, I met with writer-director-musician Marshall Brickman at his Upper West Side apartment overlooking Central Park to interview him for my book And Here’s the Kicker . After we spoke, Brickman went on to co-write the book for the 2010 Broadway production of The Addams Family , co-starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. The musical, nominated for two Tony Awards and seven Drama Desk Awards (winning for Best Set Design), would run on Broadway for more than 700 performances and continues to tour to this day. On November 29, at the age of 85, Brickman passed away in Manhattan. Below is an excerpted version of our interview. Fans of writer-director-actor Woody Allen like to refer to the mid-to-late 1970s as his career’s high point, his cinematic heyday. But three of his most critically lauded films during that period — Sleeper , Annie Hall , and Manhattan — were co-written by another Jewish kid from New York, the lesser known, but multitalented Marshall Brickman. Brickman may have looked like an overnight success in 1978 when he walked onstage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to accept the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Annie Hall (which he shared with Allen), but he was far from a novice to the comedy-writing game. He was already an accomplished television scribe, a former head writer for The Tonight Show (a job he received at the relatively young age of 27), and a staff writer for Candid Camera and The Dick Cavett Show. Brickman was also one of the key writers of a little-seen pilot in 1975 called The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. It was a risky venture to combine Sesame Street –type Muppets with adult content, but Marshall somehow managed to make it work, with irreverent yet oddly innocent gags such as the “Seven Deadly Sins Pageant” (appropriately, the character of Sloth arrived just as the end credits began to roll and asked, “Am I late?”). Brickman didn’t stick around when The Muppet Show was picked up for its first season, but he did leave a lasting influence. Without him, the world might never have enjoyed a bushy-eyebrowed Swedish Chef howling, “Bort! Bort! Bort!” After helping Woody Allen win his first Oscar, Brickman went on to write and direct many of his own projects, including Simon (1980), Lovesick (1983), and The Manhattan Project (1986). He co-wrote Manhattan Murder Mystery with Allen in 1993, directed a TV adaptation of playwright Christopher Durang’s Catholic satire Sister Mary Explains It All (2001), and co-wrote the Broadway hit Jersey Boys (2005), a musical about the popular early rock-and-roll quartet the Four Seasons. It’s not a coincidence that Brickman would write about a singing group. During the early to mid-’60s, shortly before making a living as a writer, he was a member of the folk trio the Tarriers, then later the New Journeymen, which included a pair of musical visionaries named John Phillips and Michelle Phillips, who would soon go on to form the Mamas and the Papas. Perhaps Brickman’s biggest hidden talent is his bluegrass roots. He played guitar and banjo (along with banjo virtuoso and Juilliard graduate Eric Weissberg) on the 1963 album New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass, which would find a huge mainstream audience nearly ten years later as the soundtrack to the wildly successful John Boorman–directed movie Deliverance. It’s almost impossible to ignore the inherent irony that the banjo picking of Deliverance, which so many people associate with the stereotypical Hollywood-created southern rednecks and “mountain folk,” was at least partly created by a future New Yorker comedy writer and Woody Allen cohort. It’s just another example of how Brickman can be so wonderfully and unexpectedly subversive. What was it about bluegrass that appealed to you growing up? I first heard it when I was about 11. My friend Eric Weissberg had been playing the banjo for a few years, and he was kind of a genius at it. It was a thrilling sound — it just knocked me out. But I’ve never been able to satisfactorily answer why this particular music appealed to guys like us, from Brooklyn, urban Jews. Especially back when the idea of doing this type of southern local music was so associated with things that we had a lot of suspicion about — politically, socially, culturally. It was so alien, in a way. Maybe that was part of its appeal. Or maybe it was the type of percussive, masculine sound that preadolescents enjoy so much. The Deliverance soundtrack has an interesting history. Eric and I made a record called New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass in 1963 and it sold about 5,000 copies. It was a kind of experimental album — we were developing a style of playing that was a combination of traditional Earl Scruggs–style picking and something more fluid and melodic. Other guys like Bill Keith and, later, Béla Fleck, did much more impressive developing of that kind of playing, but we were among the first. Anyhow, now it’s 1971 or so and John Boorman, the director of Deliverance, had this idea for the sequence in Deliverance — or maybe it was James Dickey, the author of the book and the screenplay — when one of the characters plays a duet with a little kid. So Eric and Steve Mandell then recorded the “Dueling Banjos” track. I really had nothing to do with it — I was already working on The Tonight Show as a writer. Warner released it as a single and, for some crazy reason, it became a big hit in Detroit. But Warner needed a whole album, so they remastered our old New Dimensions album. They released the record as the “soundtrack from Deliverance, ” which it certainly is not, but it took off and it’s been a steady seller for 30 years now. How did you get involved with your first folk group, the Tarriers? Was this after college? I graduated from the University of Wisconsin with degrees in music and science. Eric had already been with the Tarriers, but he felt they needed something else. They were a trio at that point. And he asked me, “Why don’t you join the group? We’ll become a quartet.” What did you bring to the group? I played a bunch of instruments — bass and country fiddle, and guitar and banjo. Since I could tune up pretty fast and had a little background in comedy, it defaulted to me to do the between-song patter — de rigueur for folk groups of that era. I was the guy who stood up in front of the group and told jokes. Do you remember any of the specific patter? Thankfully, no. I would guess that the material, while appropriate for a coffeehouse audience of 1966, might suffer and die from exposure to print — even if I could remember any of it. Who else was in the group besides you and Eric Weissberg? Bob Carey and Clarence Cooper. Two Black guys and two Jews. An integrated group — that must have been a rarity. We couldn’t play south of Washington, D.C. We couldn’t get booking for the same hotels. What year was this? 1964 or so. This was around the time of the British Invasion. Yes, but as folk purists, we never felt we were in the same world as the Brits — or the Roger & Roger groups that were vying with the Brits for space on Billboard’ s Top 10. How did you end up joining forces with John Phillips? “Join forces” — that’s an interesting way of putting it. It was more like John ingested me whole, like a python. John had a group called the Journeymen. In the early ’60s he met a spectacular-looking young woman named Michelle Gilliam and promptly fell in love. We all became friends, and we formed the New Journeymen. A clever name, no? John, Michelle, and me. Were you ever in the running to become a member of the Mamas and the Papas? On the contrary. Leaving the group — which I did after an eight-month wild ride — was, for me, the equivalent of escaping from a burning building. John was into drugs of all kinds; experimental, over- and under-the-counter. John was wonderfully talented and charming, but I was this kid from Brooklyn and really couldn’t tolerate that lifestyle. It was madness. We’d come into some town to perform, and I’d keep saying, “We have to rehearse! We have to do a sound check!” And John would say, “Chill out.” And he and Michelle would take off and do interesting things like buy two motorcycles and ride around town. Whereas I would stay back at the hotel and write bass charts. [ Laughs ] Did you keep in touch with John after you left the music scene? We did remain friends. Later, I quit the music business and went to write for Candid Camera and later for The Tonight Show. By this time, John and Michelle had hit it really big, and they were living in Bel Air in [’30s and ’40s film actress] Jeanette MacDonald’s old house, a spectacular chalet with a giant pool and peacocks strutting around the grounds — like a drugged-out Versailles. It was quite a scene. I used to work all day at NBC in Burbank and then, at the end of the day, I’d switch gears and call John and ask, “Okay, what have you got for me tonight? What’s going on?” One Friday in 1969, I called John to see what the plan was, and he said, “We have a choice. There’s a party over in Malibu. Or we could go over to Benedict Canyon.” You have to understand that as head writer for a daily show like The Tonight Show, one is always looking for material. I used to read every magazine and newspaper I could get my hands on, in a never-ending, desperate attempt to find material for the show. I had read earlier that day, in the science section of the Los Angeles Times, that there was a colony of phosphorescent plankton that had drifted into Malibu from the Pacific, and that every time a wave crashed, it looked like a big neon tube lighting up the entire beach. So I opted to go see the plankton. That’s the kind of fun guy I was. I told John: “Let’s go to Malibu.” We show up at this party — hosted by this Brit director Michael Sarne, who had gotten a little heat from a 1968 film called Joanna and who later directed a train wreck called Myra Breckenridge . Anyhow, we showed up, and it was like Caligula’s Rome. There was a big pile of white powder on a table, which turned out to be mescaline. People would casually stroll by, lick a finger, dip it into the power, and lick it off. Who was I not to do this also? Out on the beach was a huge bonfire, and everyone was singing and playing and doing other things not suitable to mention in a family publication, and at one point my hand started to strobe in front of my face. Understand that up to that time I was, pharmaceutically speaking, pretty much a virgin. Maybe a little grass in the dressing room. So, as a Jewish control freak now out of control, I started to panic. I said to John, “My hand is strobing.” He looked at me for a full 20 seconds, his pupils teeny little black dots, and finally said, “What?” And I yelled, “My hand is strobing in front of my face!” And he said, “God gave you a gift, man. Why don’t you enjoy it?” So I immediately called a friend of mine and told her, “Get me the fuck out of here.” My friend picked me up and deposited me back at the hotel on Sunset Boulevard where The Tonight Show put up their staff, and I put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and went to sleep. When I awoke, there were about six dozen messages waiting for me. You’re probably ahead of me, but that was the night of the Manson murders. The horrible events took place at the other party I could have gone to — the one in Benedict Canyon. The first victim they had discovered was a young man about my age who was shot numerous times. All my friends thought it was me. My God, it could have easily been you. Absolutely. Then again, maybe if I had been there, the murders wouldn’t have taken place. But, most likely, I would be dead. And we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What can we learn from this? Perhaps: Stay out of Los Angeles. The music scene was just never for me. There used to be a mirror on 57th Street in New York, a little distorted, like a fun-house mirror. One day, as I was carrying my banjo and my guitar, I looked at this strangely shaped person in the reflection, and I thought, Is this why my father escaped from Poland? So I could become an itinerant musician with a squished head and spindly legs? So I gave up the music scene entirely and eventually got a job as a writer for Candid Camera. This was before writing for The Tonight Show. How did you get the job for Candid Camera ? I auditioned for Allen Funt, the creator of Candid Camera, by writing a couple of pages with ideas for those hostile, hateful little stunts he used to do. I guess you could say that Candid Camera was one of the first reality shows. Compared with what goes on today, those stunts were very sweet. I know. Nobody had to eat tarantulas. What was Allen Funt like to work for? Kind of eccentric, and when he walked into the room there was an aura of tension around him. I was fired after about seven months, which was par for the course. Pretty much every writer was fired from that show at one point or another. What sort of ideas did you come up with for the show? One of the ideas — I think it was mine, but it’s been a long time — concerned a dry-cleaning establishment. A guy would drop off his suit to be dry-cleaned — this took a little planning, of course — and we would manufacture an identical suit but in a tiny size, like for a chimpanzee. When the guy returned for his suit, the clerk would bring out the tiny version and explain that it had shrunk, and he was really sorry, but the customer should have read the warning on the back of the ticket. And some people accepted it and some people became very angry, and so on. I recall one customer didn’t respond very well. It turns out this guy was caught once before by Candid Camera. He was in a city he wasn’t supposed to be in, with someone he wasn’t supposed to be with. So after he was caught for the second time, and after he was told, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera !,” instead of smiling, he went berserk. He spotted the hidden camera and picked up a glass ashtray weighing about six pounds and hurled it at the camera operator and broke the two-way mirror the camera was hidden behind. Then he decked the clerk, who was, of course, an actor working for the show. Lots of good, wholesome fun. Needless to say, he didn’t sign the release. But the footage was a big hit at the show’s Christmas party. Did this happen often? Not as violently, but the ratio of filmed segments to segments that actually aired was something like 20 to one. It must have been tough to pull off those stunts. The cameras were huge compared with the ones today, and I assume you needed a tremendous amount of lighting. You’re absolutely right. One of the crises on the show was the phasing out of anything that was in black-and-white. They had to start using color film, which needed about five times the amount of light as black-and-white film. So they had to put these 2,000-watt bulbs in the lamps in the fake offices or other places we used. Most of our “locations” were more like movie sets than offices. The walls didn’t even go up to the ceiling. And there would be some poor person earning $4.10 an hour, hired as a temp, sitting at a desk. The “manager” would tell this temp, “Look, I’m going out for 20 minutes, so just answer the phone and take messages.” And then a man in a gorilla suit would run through. And then the “manager” would return and say, “I’m back from lunch. Did anything happen?” And the temp would often say, “No, nothing.” People don’t notice what they don’t want to notice — either that, or they don’t trust their own senses. More likely, they were afraid that if they were the only one to have seen the gorilla, they might be locked up. It was like that famous experiment conceived by the Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram, detailed in Obedience to Authority [ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 1963; HarperCollins, 1974] . If a person in a white lab coat tells someone it’s okay to hurt someone else, then it becomes accepted. Someone in a position of authority can remove all rationality from a person’s responses. That’s especially true when you’re a temp. You don’t want to rock the boat. How did you get the job writing for The Tonight Show ? My friend Dick Cavett, who was a writer on the show at this time, the early ’60s, was leaving to try his hand at stand-up. And I was bouncing around after Candid Camera . So I said to Dick, “Let me see what your stuff looks like when you hand it in to Johnny.” I had this idea that if Carson saw material submitted to him in the form that he was used to, he would think I had already worked for him. Or deserved to work for him. Anyhow, he hired me. That’s the key to life, isn’t it? Acting as if you belong where you want to end up. “Assume a virtue if you have it not,” as Shakespeare wrote. How did you become the head writer for the show? I didn’t have an office when I started, just a rolling typewriter stand with an old Royal on it. And I would push my stand to an empty part of the office and write my jokes. Walter Kempley, who later wrote for Happy Days , was then the head writer. He had a disagreement with the producer over a raise, and he left. Walter called me into his office and said, “Congratulations, kid. You’re the head writer.” He gave me half a box of cigars and his joke file. I got his office — a nice office with a window — and a backlog of four or five years of jokes. How long had you been on the show? A month or two. You skipped over all the other writers to become head writer? The other writers didn’t want the job. They were smart. The monologue writers, like David Lloyd, who later wrote for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers and Frasier , merely had to deliver a monologue to Carson every day by three o’clock. I shouldn’t say “merely,” because writing a daily monologue can be a terrifying task. But the head writer, in addition to running the writing department, had to write all the sketches, the little interview pieces, the comedy spots. Such as Carnac the Magnificent, Aunt Blabby, and “The Tea Time Movie”? All that shit. I have piles of it, cubic feet of it, stored somewhere. They were very vaudevillian, those sketches. Johnny loved to do characters. And the advantage we had was, as a nightly show, the material didn’t have to be timeless — or even very funny. But if you had timely references, it usually worked. And Johnny was quite skillful. The audiences loved him. TV’s a monster. It just eats up material. It’s impossible to be continuously good. That’s why I’m amazed when I see a TV show that’s good consistently, night after night, week after week. One of the things that I’ll go to my grave having to apologize for is having invented the “Carnac Saver.” Which was what? Every time Johnny’s character Carnac the Magnificent told a joke that bombed, he would have a line that would save him. Like a “hecklerstopper.” And we would give Johnny a page of these jokes: “May the Great Camel of Giza leave you a present in your undershorts.” I can’t believe we were paid for this. Was there a lot of pressure for you on The Tonight Show ? I didn’t experience it as pressure. It was a good stress. I was young, had a lot of energy. I was what — 26, 27? What are your feelings about Carson? What was he like to work with? He was an avuncular figure to me, even though he was probably only 40 when I started on the show. He had a reputation for being difficult to write for, very aloof. Aloof, I guess. He wasn’t a touchy-feely type of guy. But appreciative and loyal. And a good boss. What were his strengths, from a writer’s standpoint? He knew how to deliver a joke. He was a good reactor. He was perfect for television. He never gave a whole lot away. But in terms of delivering comic material, he had that glint. He knew exactly what would work for him. He had a good arena instinct, a solid sense of what the audience would accept from him. Not only in terms of the kinds of jokes, but how far he was willing to push it politically. He was a kind of barometer. When he finally did a joke about Johnson or Nixon or whomever, then it became okay to think about those things in a different way. I’ve always thought that television exists for the audience as a kind of parental entity. If it’s on TV, then it’s been certified by someone, somewhere. And if Johnny did a joke about Nixon or the mayor or whomever — then it became okay to do jokes about that person. We were constantly trying to push Johnny — by we, I mean Jewish, liberal-left-wing writers. We would always try to have him do jokes that were a little stronger than what he wanted to do. But every once in a while he’d sense when the time was right. That was his strength, really. He was like a tuning fork. He would vibrate with what he perceived was the mood of the country. So he could sense when the time was right to tell a certain joke? Yes. Without losing his constituency. I think of Carson as representing this gentile, Middle America persona. Did you have trouble tailoring your humor to that world, being a Jewish writer from Brooklyn? No, it’s easy to write for someone who’s already established a persona. It’s easy to write for a Bob Hope or a Jack Benny or a Groucho Marx. Those characters have already been developed. It’s the hardest thing to develop a persona. That’s why movies and plays about fictional comedians are almost never truly convincing. Because it takes years for the audience to help a comedian shape a comedic persona. A case in point: Woody Allen’s act was all over the map at first. I remember, early on, he had one of those “What if?” premises. For instance: “What if Russia launched a missile and it was going to hit New York? And Khrushchev had to call Mayor Lindsay and warn him about it?” And then Woody would get on the phone like Bob Newhart and be Mayor Lindsay’s half of the phone conversation. It was funny, of course — because he can make anything he touches funny. But then he eventually started to explore more personal things — subjects about his psychiatrist or his marriage. Initially, people were kind of shocked that he was willing to be so intimate onstage — it’s hard to believe this now in the current environment of public confessionals — but they didn’t know what to think. And a lot of times they didn’t laugh. Woody would say his jokes for 20 minutes, and the audience would just stare at him, as if he were an oil painting. When did you first meet Woody? He opened for the Tarriers at the Bitter End in the early 1960s, and we were represented by the same manager, Charles Joffe. He thought Woody and I might be able to write together, and as I said, I was the one in the Tarriers who was the front man and told jokes. It turned out Mr. Joffe was right. You once said that Woody is very intuitive, while you’re much more analytical and logical. I would always try to back into something logically. And he would always make an intuitive leap. How would you write together? Just like you and I are doing now. A dialogue. Then he’d go off and write a scene and give it to me, and we’d trade it back and forth. Or we would play “What if this?” or “What if that?” like Woody used to do when he first started in stand-up. One of us would say something and someone would say something else. You know, if you’re loose enough, you can make it work. That’s the trick. It’s hard to do. It’s like an actor who’s in the part but who’s also looking at his own performance at the same time. Then you can come up with the right material. A lot of it is intuitive, and it’s hard to get your internal editor out of the way. The editor is always sitting there and editing before you say it. Collaborations can often be tricky, though. In the end, who ultimately decides what’s funny and what’s not? I don’t think there’s ever a totally equal collaboration. There has to be one dominant intelligence or creative force that informs the process. You have to have one person who is making those decisions, so that you wind up with something that has a little consistency and integrity. Can you give me a specific example of your creative process with Woody? Our first movie was Sleeper . We first wanted to do the movie with an intermission. Talk about arrogance! We wanted the beginning of the film to take place in contemporary New York, where a guy who owns a health-food store goes in for an operation. And then there would be an intermission, and you would come back and this character would be defrosted and in the future. We thought there would be no speaking whatsoever in our version of the future. We wanted to do a purely visual comedy. And we tried to figure out why in the future there would be no speaking. We decided that in the future it was a privilege to speak, that only certain classes of society had the right to speak, that everyone else had to be quiet. So we wrote a whole scenario in which none of the things that we were good at as writers, like dialogue and jokes, were in the second half of the movie. Fortunately, we soon came to the conclusion that this was a bad idea. It eventually became what it became, the movie that everyone knows, but it had to go through that exploratory process first. What are some specific jokes that didn’t make the final cut of Sleeper ? One early joke was that the president of the future exploded and Woody had to reconstruct him. But the only thing left was his penis. That was later changed to a nose. When you’re loose and intuitive, you’re vulnerable to a variety of peripheral influences. We were working on the screenplay during the 1972 Fischer- Spassky chess match, in Reykjavík. We were both chess fans, and we were watching a lot of it on TV. So we wrote a chess sequence in which the pieces were played by actual human beings — knights on horses, the whole deal. Woody filmed the scene out in the desert on a giant chessboard. He was a white pawn, and he was trembling. One of the other players, who was the voice of God, muses, “Hmmm ... should I sacrifice that pawn?” Woody starts to argue with God and then finally breaks all the rules of chess by running off the board, with the other chess pieces chasing after him. That scene never made the final cut. It was like what later happened with Annie Hall . A lot of material was taken out because the audience just doesn’t care how clever the authors are. They only want a good story. And they’re right. Are there jokes in Sleeper that you now regret? Any that you feel are too dated? I try never to regret anything. But the Albert Shanker joke is one that might need some explanation to current viewers. At the time of the movie’s release in 1973, Albert Shanker was the very powerful president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York. The joke was that Shanker had somehow gotten his hands on a nuclear bomb and destroyed civilization. How do you feel about that joke now? I love that type of stuff. I think it really grounds it in its time and place. If people don’t get it now, too bad. I think you always have to be as specific as possible; that’s the only way you can achieve the universal. But that’s the problem with TV — it tries for the universal and gets nothing. It’s like E.B. White’s advice about writing: Don’t write about Man, write about a man. Exactly. Let’s talk about Annie Hall . From what I understand, it started as a book. Woody might have started it as a book. I’m not sure. After Sleeper , we decided to do something else. We were working on two ideas for movies simultaneously: One was this kind of weird literary piece, which turned out to be Annie Hall. The other was a more conventional period comedy. For me, trying to decide which one to finally do was like being in a desert between two mirages. As you got closer to one idea, it would start to break up, and you’d turn around, and the other idea would look very nice from a distance, and you’d approach that one, but then that one would start to disintegrate. We went back and forth for a while, until, one morning, Woody said, “You know what? The movie that could really be a breakthrough hit is the kind that nobody’s tried before. So let’s do the crazy one, the literary one.” Which was Annie Hall. The French had tried it a little bit, talking to the camera, breaking the frame. Very Brechtian, always reminding the audience that they were watching a movie, with split screens and cartoons. Nobody had really tried anything like that in American cinema, however, and we really couldn’t have done it anywhere but at United Artists. They were enthralled with Woody, and they gave him carte blanche. What was the first version of Annie Hall like? Was it different from what eventually ended up onscreen? It was full of brilliance. It was very long — about two hours and 40 minutes — and it really didn’t have Annie as a significant character. She was just one of the women in his life, among the others. If I remember correctly, she didn’t come from Wisconsin; she came from New York. But that was just in the first draft of the screenplay. By the time the movie was shot, she was from Wisconsin. When we saw the initial screening, we thought, There’s no story here . In the first scene of the original version, Woody came out and looked at the camera and said something to the effect of, “Well, I just turned 40 and I’ve been examining my life. How did I become who I am?” And it went on from there, in a ruminative and associative fashion. After watching it, we thought, Where’s the relationship? When people come to me with ideas, sometimes they say, “I want to do a story about a war” or “I want to do a story about a hospital.” And I’ll always say, “Tell me the story in terms of a relationship.” So, with Annie Hall , we knew what was missing. It didn’t focus on a relationship. Audiences don’t really care how bright you are as writers and how many literary associations you make and how brilliant you come off. When you’re showing off, it becomes a little exclusionary to the audience. You’re just being precocious. That’s why the movie was called Annie Hall and not Anhedonia or The Second Lobster Scene , which were two working titles. Didn’t the movie have a few working titles, such as Roller Coaster Named Desire , Me and My Goy , and Me and My Jew ? Not to my recollection. Those sound like jokes, not titles. What were your thoughts upon first seeing that two-hour-and-40-minute cut? I was very inexperienced. I didn’t realize that a rough cut is exactly that — rough. There’s a Yiddish phrase: “Never show a fool something half-finished.” Well, I was the fool in that situation. And I don’t even know why they bothered to show it to me. I thought, Uh-oh . It was like a nightclub act, like a riff. Later, after the drastic edit, were you upset that a lot of the brilliant material never made it to the screen? Oh, no, no, no. Because when I saw the final cut, I thought, That’s it. It went through a lot of reshoots, didn’t it? A few. The ending took a while to get right. But who knows why that film works? I have no idea. It’s a film where you can learn nothing as a screen-writer or as a director, because it’s so eccentric. It’s such an odd, idiosyncratic, personal thing, and that’s probably part of its appeal. And, not to take anything away from Woody’s performance, which is very skillful, but I think that a lot of the success and charm of the film is due to Diane Keaton, with her endearing eccentricity and the way she appreciates Woody and grows as a character. She was — and is — a delight. She sort of inhabits the whole movie. And I think that’s what you leave with, that glow from her performance. But again, who knows, really, why it works? It’s a mistake to think that what you’re seeing up on the stage or on the screen is what the author intended. It isn’t. It’s always the result of a hundred compromises and accidents, both good and bad, and if you’re lucky, you get lucky. People feel such a strong attachment to Annie Hall. It was, among other things, a reasonably accurate record of what it might have been like to live in New York at that time. In a way, it’s an anthropological document. It was sort of at the tail end of the new Hollywood, the revolution that started, I guess, with Easy Rider , when the Young Turks from USC film school took over Old Hollywood — those years when Elliott Gould was in every other movie. There was an air of promise, an aura of possibility. It was sort of like the cultural equivalent of what happened socially in the ’60s, when you felt that there was a possibility for something new and exciting. And I’m not sure that exists anymore. I think there’s a kind of nostalgia for that now, when everything’s become so corporate, so homogenized and controlled. That generation in the ’70s used movies as their way of defining themselves culturally, the way kids now use music. Film for us was really a very important cultural experience. We loved foreign films by Bergman, Truffaut, Resnais, Fellini. What were your thoughts when you saw the first cut of Manhattan ? The same as Annie Hall ? I never saw the first cut. I just saw the final film. I thought it was fine. And it looked wonderful. I did have one discussion with Woody about a scene. It was the only time we ever had a real disagreement. In this particular scene, Woody lists Groucho Marx, Louis Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues,” Flaubert’s Sentimental Education , Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, and a few other things that make life worth living. And I thought, Why Sentimental Education? Why not Madame Bovary? And how do you pick the “Jupiter” Symphony over another Mozart symphony? Woody was doing the same thing he accuses Diane’s character of doing in the movie — ranking works of art. Plus, isn’t that a tad myopic? How about things that really make life worth living? Kids. Family. Love. Sacrifice. Yes, it can be argued that this is the character’s view of the world, but I thought it was dangerous — the line between who Woody was in life and the characters he was playing in his movies was pretty fuzzy. And I said, “The critics are going to kill us! It’s a pretentious, narcissistic, solipsistic view of the world that you’re offering up.” And he said, “Nah, you’re crazy, nobody’s going to say anything, it’s going to be fine.” And he was right. The only person who criticized us was Joan Didion in The New York Review of Books . She said something to the effect of: “Who in the hell do they think they are with their things worth living for?” I’ve always felt that that particular speech was essential to the broader theme of the movie — that an obsession with minutiae takes our minds off the bigger issues. Maybe you can extract a theme from that dialogue, but, honestly, we were not writing to proselytize a point of view like that, although I guess it’s sort of inherent in the movie. None of that was really in the air when we were writing the screenplay. Most of what we talked about was conversation and plot. When you look at Manhattan , can you tell who wrote what? What scene or joke you came up with and what Woody came up with? Sometimes, but the great rule I learned from Woody is that when you get in a room with another person, you’re both responsible for the result — assuming that there’s a reasonably equal level of talent. This is not as coy an answer as it might appear. Even though a great line or idea might be uttered by one person, it may have been triggered or stimulated by what the other party said. This happens all the time in collaborations, so the safest and fairest way of attributing ownership — though probably less satisfying to the curious — is to attribute everything to both parties. How did you eventually write for the Muppets? I was an enormous fan of Jim Henson’s; I really thought he was a genius. I was finally introduced to him by a mutual friend, and when Jim was given the green light to develop a pilot for ABC, he asked me to work with him. This was the 1975 TV special called The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. The Muppets were making fun of sex and violence on television, complete with a beauty pageant featuring the Seven Deadly Sins. The humor was somewhat mature for a show featuring puppets. As evidenced by the following two jokes: “What’s black and white and red all over? The Federalist Papers!” Also: “Knock knock. Who’s there? Roosevelt. Roosevelt who? Roosevelt nice, but Gladys felt nicer.” Did you write either of those jokes? I don’t remember, truthfully. But I did create, or help to create, a few of the Muppet characters, like the two old men in the balcony, Statler and Waldorf, and the Swedish Chef. Somewhere out there, there’s a cassette of me speaking in a mock Swedish accent that Jim Henson listened to in order to capture the mood for that character. Maybe it’ll show up one day on eBay. You wrote and directed a movie called Simon , released in 1980. The plot involved a think tank that performed a social experiment on a character played by Alan Arkin. The purpose of this experiment was to convince Arkin’s character that he was an alien. I always looked at Simon as being a film for the ’70s. It was satirical of the culture at the time — especially TV and faith in science. All of that seemed to be in the air then. In one scene, a group of believers pray before a giant TV set. I take it you’re not such a fan of television? TV is just a medium. What I’m not a fan of is how TV has replaced more meaningful cultural values and experiences — like reading and group activities. Watching TV is an isolating, rather than a socializing, experience. It creates passivity in the viewer. Most of TV is a sales tool; the culture and entertainment aspects are just a means of delivering markets to merchandisers. Do you have any interest in writing more humor for the page? You’ve written a few pieces for The New Yorker but not in a long while. It’s been more than 30 years. I’d love to. In college I was introduced to the writings of S.J. Perelman, Robert Benchley, and the whole New Yorker bunch. What they were able to do with the written word had an effect on me similar to when, at the age of 11, I first heard Eric Weissberg play Scruggs-style five-string banjo. It was like watching someone levitate. The first thing I ever wrote for The New Yorker was actually published. It was called “What, Another Legend?” It involved a fake press release for a fictitious, 112-year-old Black clarinet player. But those pieces are not so easy. They take some time to get right. I am forever indebted to my editor at The New Yorker , Roger Angell, who led me through my overwritten stuff and edited it down to what finally appeared in print. At one point, many years ago, someone from the New York Times took me to lunch and asked me if I would be interested in taking over for the columnist Russell Baker. And I said, “You’re crazy. I could never do that each week!” Baker, as I recall, did two columns a week. I couldn’t imagine doing that. Besides, I didn’t really have a voice then. How would you describe your voice now? I don’t know. If it’s anything, I suppose, it’s anti-sentimental. Can you give me a specific example? In Jersey Boys , there’s a scene in the second act when the two members of the Four Seasons who are left, Frankie and Bob, are sitting and having a cup of coffee. And Bob says, “Look, I think you need to go out on the road.” And Frankie replies, “You want me to go out by myself? What if they don’t like me as a solo singer?” Originally, the next line was: “Frankie, this is your time.” And it never sat right for me. So I changed it to: “Frankie, what makes you think they liked you before ?” It’s a nice little change, because it defines the relationship between these characters very quickly, that they’re able to deal with each other like that. Also, it’s funny and it’s not sentimental. What I like to do is to turn 90 degrees from something that’s headed towards sentimental and undercut it. That’s a very Jewish sensibility. The Jews have always had something amusing to say while they’re getting the shit kicked out of them. I can attest to that. Right. So it’s the abhorrence of unearned sentiment, I guess. Which is defined as asking the audience to feel more for the characters than God does. By the way, I still can’t believe I wrote Jersey Boys . Why did you? What was it about the story that appealed to you? When I heard that the Four Seasons had sold about 175 million records here and abroad, I blinked. And then, when I finally met with Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli and they told me the story of their rise from blue-collar New Jersey — with their involvement with the mob, with being poor, to finally making it, the whole arc of success and failure — I realized that this was not only a true story but it was a very good story. Are you a fan of musicals in general? Some, like Guys and Dolls. But not a fervent aficionado. I’m more of a movie guy. That’s where I was for 20 years. But when musical theater works, there’s really nothing like it. You almost never get a movie audience to stand up and cheer, because they realize on some level — not a very deep level, actually — that what they’re seeing onscreen has already happened . In a very real sense, movies are dead. In live theater, the audience gets to bond through the live event with live actors and singers. It’s all happening in real time in front of their eyes, and it can be a deeply moving and socializing experience. How is writing for the stage different than writing for the screen? It follows the same general rules about character and action, of course, but in many ways writing for the stage is a totally different animal. For instance, initially, I’d write a scene and then end it with, “Then we cut to ...” And I would have to be reminded that in live theater you don’t “cut” to anything. So it’s a different set of rules — how to get people on and off the stage, how to make smooth transitions, remembering that there are no close-ups or reaction shots. The audience looks where it wants to look, and it’s the job of the author and director to make you, in the audience, look where you need to look. Because of the fluidity and freedom of theater, you can do many things without apology — and without being necessarily naturalistic. Great productions of the classics have been done with minimal sets and props — a table, a drop, some lighting. You couldn’t get away with that in a movie, in which the “contract” with the audience is different. Movies are, on a certain level, documentary. It’s time to end the interview, so I’m going to pull out one of my stock, yet extremely popular, questions. Do you have any advice to the aspiring comedy writer on how to discover their voice? Search your roots and your heritage, your ethnic background, the way people speak. Most great comedy comes from minorities — ethnic, social, economic. If you think about it, most comedy ought to function as a corrective — against one or another social or cultural or economic inequity. Perhaps I should modify that to read “real or imagined” social or cultural or economic inequity. Then there’s the issue of language and style, which gets into the equation somehow. But even that definition doesn’t cover the entire waterfront, as it doesn’t exactly include parody or other literary forms, such as with Benchley and Perelman and others. And yet, it’s a good start. So, by searching your own roots and using what you have at your disposal, does this make the comedy more authentic and true, and thus more real and funny? I really have no idea as to why something is funny. I know it has something to do with the correct matching of performer and material, or some set of commonly held assumptions about the world, or an attitude. I get dizzy trying to deconstruct it. I do know that when I can match a comic performer or writer with some sociological turf, then the comedy has, for me, a better chance of landing: Jonathan Winters and his characters from the Midwest. Or Woody Allen, from a Jewish-urban landscape. Or Chris Rock, from the upwardly mobile, urban-Black perspective. And so on. I do know that those performers who seem to come from the Land of Media have a more difficult time making me laugh — the exception is David Letterman, much of whose humor is deconstructionist and exhibits, or tries to conceal, a hilarious rage against the various forms of media, like advertising, political doublespeak, and so on. So there are exceptions. Any advice for the comedy writer on how to succeed in the movie or TV business? My feeling is that there are already too many comedy writers. What we need is people in health care. Learn CPR and how to fill out a certificate of death. And if you’re not into CPR and still want to pursue humor writing? Have an uncle who runs the New York office of the William Morris Agency. And if you’re not lucky enough to have an uncle who runs the New York office of William Morris? Then you must go into health care.A celebrated author argues that it's not at all impractical to study subjects like writing, languages, music and historyNebraska 44, Wisconsin 25