McMahon: Donald Trump has selected Linda McMahon, former CEO of the Stamford-based wrestling conglomerate WWE, to be secretary of education under his new administration. McMahon co-founded WWE with her husband Vincent. She headed the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. Trump has vowed to eliminate the Department of Education. McMahon is co-chair of the Trump transition team. She contributed an estimated $21 million to help Trump get elected to a second term.
OZ: Donald Trump has named cardiothoracic surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMMS controls health care insurance coverage for about 150 million Americans. Trump had campaigned on cutting federal funding for health care services and also has said the exact opposite, that he would not cut Medicare or Medicaid. During Covid, Oz was pushing for the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid cure when there was no scientific evidence that it worked. He also came under criticism for promoting a unproven weight loss product on his TV show.
Bounty: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered a payment of $5 million to anyone who brings a hostage currently held by Hamas back to Israel. He also said that Israel will offer safe haven to the person and his or her family. At the same time, Netanyahu threatened retribution against anyone who harms a hostage. It’s believed that fewer than 100 of the some 250 hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel remain in Hamas’ custody and that not all of them still are alive.
Cyclone: A weather phenomenon known as a bomb cyclone slammed into Washington state and British Columbia today and dipped into Oregon and northern California. At least one person was killed. Power was cut off to close to a million of customers. The storm system brought hurricane strength winds that topped 100 miles per hour in British Columbia. An AMTRAK train hit a downed tree north of Seattle, but no injuries were reported.
Land mines: In another uptick in U.S. support for Ukraine before the Trump Administration takes over, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin today confirmed that the U.S. has given Ukraine the okay to use anti-personnel land mines. The mines will be used in the eastern part of Ukraine where Russian troops have been making slow but steady progress across terrain. The U.S. wants Ukraine to take extra measures to limit the threat to civilians from the land mines.
Comcast: Entertainment giant Comcast is planning to spin off its cable TV networks into a separate company to get ready to sell the networks or merge the new company with another entity. The cable networks include MSNBC, CNBC, USA, The Golf Channel, E!, Syfy and Oxrgen. Comcast would keep the NBC television network, NBC broadcast stations, Telemundo, the Peacock streaming service and Universal. NBC News would continue providing content to the new company. Comcast, like other cable operators, has seen cable subscriber numbers and ad revenues erode in recent years.
