Texas Weekly Online

Menu
Menu
Facebook Twitter Youtube

Author:

Sylvester Stallone calls President-elect Trump ‘second George Washington’ during AFPI Gala introduction

Sylvester Stallone calls President-elect Trump ‘second George Washington’ during AFPI Gala introduction

Actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone introduced President-elect Donald Trump at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) Gala on Thursday with a short and sweet speech in which he called Trump the “second George Washington.” The “Rocky” actor was the final speaker of the night – only talking for about two minutes – before the president-elect took the stage at Mar-a-Lago. When starting off his speech, Stallone began speaking about his “Rocky” character and how he was “going to go through a metamorphosis and change lives, just like President Trump.” “We are in the presence of a really mythical character. Nobody in the world could have pulled off what he pulled off, so I’m in awe,” he said. ‘PENNSYLVANIA, KEEP PUNCHING’: SYLVESTER STALLONE HAS A MESSAGE FOR VOTERS He continued on by comparing Trump to George Washington and how his dedication to America changed the world.  “When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like. Guess what? We’ve got the second George Washington. Congratulations!” Stallone said before Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” began playing. After a brief pause, Trump walked onto the stage to Stallone’s introduction and shook his hand while saying a few words to the actor. SYLVESTER STALLONE ON DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICANS AND RUNNING FOR OFFICE While Stallone has stayed pretty quiet about his personal politics over the years and admitted to not voting in the 2016 and 2020 elections, he did tell Variety magazine in 2016 that he liked Trump. “I love Donald Trump,” he said at the time. “There are certain people like Arnold [Schwarzenegger], Babe Ruth, that are bigger than life. But I don’t know how that translates to running the world.” Stallone did not publicly endorse Trump during the 2024 election cycle, but he did answer a FaceTime call from Fox News’ Brett Baier in October and encouraged Pennsylvania voters to “keep punching.” His speech at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday marks the first time he has publicly shared his thoughts surrounding a Trump presidency.

Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul: What’s behind the celebrity boxing craze?

Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul: What’s behind the celebrity boxing craze?

Mike Tyson, the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion who has recently recovered from a stomach ulcer, is set to face 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in a boxing match the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Friday. With an eye-watering $40m up for grabs in the fight’s “purse” and no title belts on the line, the showdown, which has been approved by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, has drawn condemnation from the boxing community for being a product of celebrity culture that some see as devaluing the art of this sport. Friday’s match marks the latest in a string of recent unorthodox matchups involving celebrities and former professionals. How did we get to a point when a former professional recovering from ill health will face off against a man 31 years his junior in a boxing ring — and potentially draw millions of viewers around the world? When did the celebrity boxing craze begin? The concept of a celebrity boxing match has been around for decades, but until recently, it had been limited to charity events and short-lived novelty TV shows. The quality and intensity of these matches ranged wildly from an unexpectedly feisty matchup in 2002 between UK comedians Ricky Gervais and Bob Mortimer to a tepid but symbolic bout in 2015 between US Senator Mitt Romney and five-times world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield. In 2017, the then-UFC lightweight champion, Conor McGregor, broke with convention when he fought boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr in a crossover fight that was billed, “The Money Fight”. Mayweather was guaranteed $100m and McGregor $30m for the fight. Non-disclosure agreements meant the final payouts have not been published, but reports from the fighters’ camps afterwards suggest the payouts were much higher than anticipated.  That same year, an amateur boxing event in London pitted YouTube influencers against each other with a headline fight between KSI – a 31-year-old British influencer and musician, and Joe Weller, 28, also a British influencer and musician. That started a trend with Jake Paul, who made a name for himself by posting prank videos online, facing off against KSI the following year and then against Mayweather in a 2021 exhibition match. Logan Paul, in the red-white-and-blue shorts, and KSI, in black-and-red shorts, exchange punches during their pro debut fight at Staples Center on November 9, 2019, in Los Angeles, California [Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images via AFP] Why do celebrities and ex-professionals want to step into the ring? Jake Paul has been clear about his priority – money. “I’m here to make $40m and knock out a legend,” he told a news conference in August. Friday’s match will be exclusively televised by the streaming service Netflix, a move that has hiked up payouts in the realm of blockbuster professional boxing matches. For example, the undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk pocketed about $45m from his last fight against British boxer Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia in May.  It will certainly mark a considerable increase from Paul’s last fight against British boxer Tommy Fury in which, according to reports, Paul took home approximately $3.2m. Duke McKenzie, a former British boxer who has won world titles in three weight classes, told Al Jazeera that, unlike Paul, Tyson’s motivation is likely not just money. “It’s his ego, nothing more, nothing less,” he said adamantly. Tyson could find many other ways to make money, including using his fame to endorse products, indicating that the former boxer is driven by a desire to relive past glories, McKenzie said. The fight had been originally scheduled for July 20, but it was pushed back after Tyson suffered a stomach ulcer flare-up. This condition, coupled with his age, has McKenzie concerned that the former champion is putting his ego before his health, he said. “What we’re looking at is an old, shock-worn warrior who, unfortunately, still wants to relive his past. “I wish he could walk away from the sport with his head held high, but his ego won’t let him.” Razor Ruddock connects with a right to the chin of Mike Tyson during their heavyweight bout at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Friday, June 29, 1991. Tyson won with a unanimous decision [Reed Saxon/AP Photo] What else is fuelling the craze for celebrity boxing? In 2023, the trend of celebrity fighting reached new levels when Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla founder and owner of social media platform X, Elon Musk, appeared to agree to a “cage fight”. Musk took to his own platform to announce that, following conversations with Italy’s prime minister and culture minister, “they have agreed on an epic location”, adding, “everything in camera frame will be ancient Rome”. Mark Zuckerberg, left, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.  ‘Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X,’ Musk wrote in a post on X on August 6, 2023. ‘All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.’ [File: Manu Fernandez, Stephan Savoia/AP] Although the match never came to fruition, the episode demonstrated how popular the concept had become. “The process of becoming extremely wealthy is a cutthroat kind of competition which unleashes a kind of hyper-masculinity,” Caroline Knowles, a sociologist and Global Professorial Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera. She said that the same drive – an intense will to succeed in the business world – lends itself to entering the same high-stakes, competitive world of combat sport. In her book, Serious Money: Walking Plutocratic London, Knowles studied the behaviour of the super-rich in London. She said that during her research, she found that activities most people would have considered hobbies would be taken much more seriously by those in the hyper-competitive world of multimillionaires and billionaires. She recalled speaking with Russian oligarchs who were interested in mountain climbing, always “trying to push the limit” and competing to see who could reach the world’s highest peaks. Knowles added that the hubris of being in a wealthy elite can make someone believe they can do anything, including stepping into an octagon cage or fighting

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 994

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 994

As the war enters its 994th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Friday, November 15: Fighting A Russian air attack struck a residential building and power installations in and near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one person, injuring eight and knocking out a boiler plant used for heating, Ukrainian officials have said. A small Russian assault group briefly broke through to the outskirts of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk for the first time since September 2022, in a sign of mounting pressure on the Ukrainian outpost. Ukraine’s military said its troops were still in full control of the rail hub and their forces had stopped the Russian advance. Russian forces have captured the village of Voznesenka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defence. The Ukrainian military has said it shot down 21 out of 59 Russian attack drones launched overnight on Thursday. A mother and her child are evacuated by the Vostok SOS organisation from Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, to safer areas on Thursday [Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu] Russian affairs International affairs Russia is open to negotiations to end the Ukraine war if initiated by United States President-elect Donald Trump, but any talks need to be based on the realities of Russian advances in the conflict, according to Gennady Gatilov, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva. Trump has chosen Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who lacks security and intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria, as the US’s new director of national intelligence. The decision has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment given the 43-year-old is seen as sympathetic to Russia in its war on Ukraine. Germany needs to step up its role in defence if the US focuses less on Europe, the country’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said, adding it did not make sense to present a debt-free Germany that is less capable of defending itself to President Putin. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided a test of suicide drones and ordered mass production of the aerial weapon, raising questions as to whether he is receiving technical help from Russia to develop the weapons amid warming military ties with Moscow. The foreign ministers of Poland, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Ukraine will meet on November 19 in Poland’s capital Warsaw to discuss topics including Trump’s re-election and the war in Ukraine. President Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed developments in the conflict in Ukraine when they spoke this week, the Kremlin has said, declining to provide further details. Adblock test (Why?)

For embattled Tiktok, Trump offers hope of a reprieve

For embattled Tiktok, Trump offers hope of a reprieve

As United States President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, TikTok could be in line for a reprieve from the very leader who led the charge to ban the embattled video-sharing platform. Under a law signed by US President Joe Biden in April, ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the wildly popular app, was given nine months to divest its stake in the company or face a ban on national security grounds. The deadline for the sale – January 19 – is the day before Trump’s inauguration. On the campaign trail, Trump, who signed an executive order seeking to ban the app during his first term, pledged to “save TikTok” but neither he nor his transition team have disclosed further details about what this might mean for ByteDance. The president-elect potentially has several options, although he would not be able to overturn the law enforcing the ban on his own, according to legal experts. Originally passed in the US House of Representatives as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a shorter version of the ban was tacked onto a Senate bill approving foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. Shortly after it was signed into law, ByteDance initiated a lawsuit arguing that the ban violates the freedom of speech of 170 million American users of the app. “For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than 1 billion people worldwide,” the company said in the lawsuit. ByteDance did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. The lawsuit is expected to take years to conclude and is further complicated by the fact that a ban would involve the participation of Google and Apple, which offer TikTok in their app stores, and Oracle, which hosts the app in the US. Anupam Chander, an expert on global tech regulations at Georgetown Law in Washington, DC, said that Trump could ask the US Congress to empower him to negotiate a different arrangement with ByteDance and TikTok that takes security concerns into account. “I think many politicians would prefer that TikTok not go dark in the US in January. After all, some 170 million Americans continue to use the app, even after the government told them it’s a national security threat,” Chander told Al Jazeera. “And yes, even if TikTok stops working for a while because TikTok’s owners won’t sell at a fire sale price, Trump could convince Congress to change the law to bring it back.” David Greene, the civil liberties director of the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said Trump could also instruct the US Justice Department to drop or modify its defence in the lawsuit with ByteDance or instruct the US Department of Commerce not to enforce the law. The incoming president could also choose to do nothing and let the ban stand, Greene said. “There’s a fair chance he still doesn’t stick to his offhand comment that ‘I’m going to reverse the TikTok ban’ because he tends to change his mind about these things or he gets talked into changing his mind,” Greene told Al Jazeera. “You may recall he was the one who issued the initial TikTok ban. He did it by executive order [in 2020], which was overturned by the courts, but he was very much of the belief that TikTok posed a national security threat,” he added. The EFF was one of dozens of civil liberties and freedom of speech organisations that opposed a ban on TikTok, arguing that it posed no greater threat than other social media platforms. Critics of the TikTok ban also say that rather than targeting a single social media company, the US needs laws protecting data privacy similar to those passed by the European Union. Much of the concern around TikTok has focused on its Chinese ownership and fears that Beijing could use the app to harvest data on millions of Americans or find a secret back door into their devices. Proponents of a ban also argue that Beijing could use the platform to carry out influence campaigns aimed at subverting US democracy. US-based apps, however, are also capable of harvesting massive amounts of user data, which they can in turn sell to data brokers and then on to intelligence agencies and other buyers. ByteDance attempted to mollify US lawmakers with its $1.5bn “Project Texas” initiative, which created a dedicated US subsidiary to manage American data on US soil with the assistance of US tech company Oracle. Despite the concession, many US officials remain suspicious of the app and its Chinese ownership amid a growing bipartisan consensus that Beijing poses a threat. TikTok has already been banned or otherwise restricted in numerous countries, including Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Somalia, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Restrictions also exist in the US for government employees and at agencies in individual US states. Despite the threat of a US ban, the sale of TikTok had seemed unlikely to many observers from the start because it would mean giving away access to the app’s secret – and some argue, addicting – algorithm. It is also unclear whether Beijing would allow such a sale to go ahead. Adblock test (Why?)

Democratic Colorado governor commends Trump for nominating RFK Jr. as HHS secretary

Democratic Colorado governor commends Trump for nominating RFK Jr. as HHS secretary

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis praised President-elect Trump for nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In a lengthy social media post on Thursday, Polis praised Kennedy for helping Colorado “defeat vaccine mandates” in 2019 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA,” he wrote.  “I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health,” Polis said. RFK JR. ASKS AMERICANS TO SUGGEST POLICIES FOR NEW TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: ‘TRANSITION TEAM BELONGS TO YOU’ Trump announced his nomination of RFK Jr. for HHS secretary Thursday afternoon, igniting a firestorm of praise and critique. In his announcement, Trump promised that, with Kennedy leading the HHS, the agency would be restored as the “Gold Standard Scientific Research.” “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote. “Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!” Kennedy launched his presidential campaign as a Democrat and then eventually endorsed Trump.  Kennedy also spoke during Trump’s historic Madison Square Garden rally last month, where he unleashed on the current state of the Democratic Party. “The Democratic Party is the party of war. It’s the party of the CIA. You had Kamala Harris giving a speech at the Democratic convention that was written by neocons. It was belligerent, pugnacious. It talked about domination of the world by the United States through our weapons of war. It’s the party today that wants to divide Americans. It’s a party that is dismantling women’s sports by letting men play women’s sports,” he said.  TRUMP’S PICKS SO FAR: HERE’S WHO WILL BE ADVISING THE NEW PRESIDENT “It’s the party of Wall Street. It’s the party of Bill Gates, who just gave $50 million to Harris. It’s the party, and the Harris campaign is very proud that it received the endorsement of 50 former CIA agents and officers and of John Bolton and of Dick Cheney.” This isn’t the first time Kennedy was considered for a Cabinet position for a presidential administration. Back in 2008, then President-elect Obama reportedly strongly considered naming Kennedy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Politico reported at the time.  Polis has been critical of a Trump presidency. He recently joined forces with Illinois Gov. J.B Pritzker to co-chair a new coalition called Governors Safeguarding Democracy. The website names “fast-moving disinformation campaigns” and “cyberthreats” as examples of “threats to our democracy.” “Donald Trump is going to bring people into his administration who are absolute loyalists to his cult of personality and not necessarily to the law,” Pritzker said, according to the New York Times. “Last time, he didn’t really know where the levers of government were. I think he probably does now. And so I think that the threat remains great.” During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Polis said of Trump, “we’re gonna work with him and his administration however we can for our state.”  Polis echoed his sentiments, writing on X that he looks forward to “partnering with him to truly make America healthy again.” “He will face strong special interest opposition on these, but I look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again,” Polis added.  Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.