Connect with us

News

Former US president Jimmy Carter dies aged 100

Published

on

Former US president Jimmy Carter dies aged 100

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Jimmy Carter, the 39th US president who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, has died at the age of 100, the Carter Center said on Sunday.

He died peacefully on Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family, the human rights organisation he founded said in a statement.

Carter was the longest-living president in US history, having celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1 this year.

Advertisement

His death came over a year after his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, passed away in November 2023, and more than a year and a half after the ailing former president entered hospice care, in February 2023.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” Chip Carter, the former president’s son, said on Sunday.

The announcement came just weeks before Donald Trump is due to begin his second term in the White House. The Carter Center said in October that Carter, a life-long Democrat, had cast his mail-in ballot for Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent.

US President Joe Biden joined a flood of tributes, saying Carter “saved, lifted and changed the lives of people all across the globe”.

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that “the challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.”

Advertisement

Carter’s presidency was marred by spiralling inflation and a hostage crisis in Iran. The Democrat lost re-election to Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide in 1980.

In the decades after he left office, however, Carter won widespread admiration for his extensive humanitarian work at home and abroad. He founded the Carter Center, the influential pro-democracy and human rights organisation, and became one of the most prominent volunteers for Habitat for Humanity, the affordable housing charity.

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 “for undertaking peace negotiations, campaigning for human rights and working for social welfare”.

Jimmy Carter, right, after a news conference in which he announced the lifting of a travel ban on Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and Cambodia in March 1977 © AP

Carter faded from public view in the years leading up to his death. He visited Washington in 2018 to attend the state funeral of George HW Bush and endorsed Biden for president in 2020 with an audio message that was played at the Democratic National Convention.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited the Carters at their home in 2021. The Bidens attended a memorial service for Rosalynn Carter, alongside the former president, at Emory University in Atlanta in November 2023.

Advertisement

The Carter Center said in February 2023 that “after a series of short hospital stays”, the former president had decided to forgo medical treatment and enter hospice treatment at home. Carter had undergone cancer treatment and suffered several falls in recent years.

In May 2024, Jason Carter said his grandfather was “really physically limited” and “coming to the end”. He also nodded to the former president’s religious convictions, saying: “There’s a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end and I think he has been there in that space.”

After losing his re-election bid in 1980, Carter returned to a modest, two-bedroom ranch house in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where the local population is about 800 people, and he taught Sunday school at the local church well into his 90s.

Both the former president and his wife were born and raised in Plains.

Carter will be buried in a private ceremony in the small town — about 150 miles south of Atlanta — after a state funeral in Washington and a public event in Atlanta, the Carter Center said.

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

News

Boris Johnson Has Run-In With Feisty Ostrich During Texas Trip

Published

on

Boris Johnson Has Run-In With Feisty Ostrich During Texas Trip

Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, was cruising slowly through what appeared to be a wildlife park when, without warning, the ostrich stuck its head through the open driver’s side window to give Mr. Johnson a feisty peck.

“Ow!” Mr. Johnson can be heard shouting, as his toddler giggles with amusement.

The incident was shared on Sunday in a video posted to Instagram by Mr. Johnson’s wife, Carrie Johnson, accompanied by the caption, “Too funny not to share 😂.”

In the clip, after Mr. Johnson yelps, he seems to express some profanities (though they are somewhat inaudible). He then grabs the steering wheel and drives away. The toddler hanging from Mr. Johnson’s arm keeps giggling.

It was not immediately clear on Monday when or where exactly the video had been taken, though social media posts by Ms. Johnson and local sightings show the family on vacation in Texas.

Advertisement

Other videos posted to Ms. Johnson’s account that appear to be from the same location show the family looking at deer and an aoudad, a goat-like animal. Another recent post from Ms. Johnson showed the family at Dinosaur Valley State Park, near Glen Rose, Texas.

Mr. Johnson was in Texas less than two years ago to lobby for Republican support for Ukraine.

It is not the first time Mr. Johnson, who served as prime minister from 2019 until 2022, has been at the center of slapstick public mishaps that align with his colorful and oftentimes chaotic tenure as Britain’s leader.

In February 2021, Mr. Johnson struggled to put a latex glove on his hand at a vaccination center in Wales. It’s “like O.J. Simpson,” Mr. Johnson quipped, referring to the 1995 murder trial in which a glove, which was a key piece of evidence, did not fit Mr. Simpson.

In July of that year, Mr. Johnson struggled to control his umbrella at a police memorial unveiling in central England.

Advertisement

Representatives for Mr. Johnson’s family could not immediately be reached on Monday for comment regarding the incident. Several wildlife parks in the area also did not immediately respond to requests for information about whether the Johnson family had visited them.

Stumpy’s Lakeside Grill, a restaurant in Granbury, Texas, posted a photo of Mr. Johnson to social media on Saturday, noting that he had dined there.

“We are so honored to have him as our guest!!” the restaurant said.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Billionaire financiers lambast Donald Trump’s tariffs

Published

on

Billionaire financiers lambast Donald Trump’s tariffs

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot and longtime Republican donor, has lambasted Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs for being set too high and implemented too quickly.

Langone told the Financial Times the US president was being “poorly advised”, the 46 per cent tariff on Vietnam was “bullshit” and the additional 34 per cent tariff on China was “too aggressive, too soon” and did not give “serious negotiations a chance to work”.

“Forty-six per cent on Vietnam? Come on!” said Langone. “You might as well tell them, ‘Don’t even bother calling’.”

Advertisement

Langone is one of a growing number of billionaire financiers openly criticising the president’s decision to increase tariffs on imports to heights not seen since the 1930s as they grow increasingly alarmed at the resulting market meltdown.

The tariffs — a universal 10 per cent duty plus additional individual levies for many countries — have sent global markets into a tailspin. Over the past week, the S&P 500 has fallen almost 10 per cent.

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, a mentor to Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, has also weighed in, posting on X on Sunday: “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%.”

President Donald Trump announces the tariffs imposed on US trade partners in the White House Rose Garden last week © Carlos Barria/Reuters

So too did billionaire donor Bill Ackman, a supporter of Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign, who described the tariffs as “a major policy error”.

Jim Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros, wrote in an email to the FT that while “tariffs have occasionally helped a few people for fairly short periods”, they “are rarely good for anyone”.

Advertisement

Tesla and Starlink owner Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest donor, has also hit out at the tariffs. On Saturday, Musk called for “a zero-tariff situation” between the US and Europe and remarked that Peter Navarro, Trump’s senior adviser on trade, “ain’t built shit”.

In his annual letter to shareholders on Monday, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon also criticised the measures, warning that the tariffs “will probably increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession”.

“The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse,” he added.

Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary during his first term, has also weighed in, warning that the tariffs had had an unexpected impact.

Wilbur Ross
Wilbur Ross, who was previously commerce secretary under Trump, says he has ‘doubts about the logic of the formula to compute the tariffs’ © Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

“It’s more severe than I would have expected,” Ross told the FT. “Particularly the way it is impacting Vietnam, China and Cambodia is more extreme than I would have thought.”

Ross added that businesses and investment firms could deal with good news and bad news but warned: “It’s hard to deal with uncertainty. Fear of the unknown is the worst for people and we are in a period of extreme fear of the unknown.”

Advertisement

Langone said a “more manageable and certainly more constructive” approach would have been to impose a 10 per cent across-the-board tariff on imported goods, followed by bilateral negotiations with countries.

“I don’t understand the goddamn formula,” said Langone. “I believe he’s been poorly advised by his advisers about this trade situation — and the formula they’re applying.”

Ross, who refrained from directly criticising Trump, agreed there were problems with the way the tariffs had been calculated. “I also have some doubts about the logic of the formula to compute the tariffs. It’s a fairly unconventional way of measuring tariffs.”

He added: “I think that the countries most adversely affected hopefully will come forward and therefore quickly make a deal.”

Langone said that while he agreed with a number of measures carried out by the Trump administration, “I have a different read on when I do it, how I do it. I wouldn’t take on everything all at once”.

Advertisement

He expected Trump would “eventually” engage in a series of bilateral meetings.

“I think it’ll work,” Langone said. “Right now, what everybody’s terrified of is a tariff war.”

Continue Reading

News

‘Brace for impact’: Chinese economist warns the gloves are off in US trade war

Published

on

‘Brace for impact’: Chinese economist warns the gloves are off in US trade war

With its forceful response to US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, China has abandoned courtesy, leaving the chances of reconciliation slim as ties between the world’s two largest economies grow increasingly fraught, according to a prominent economist.

“Initially, China opted to maintain some courtesy to avoid too much escalation when Trump [first] hiked tariffs,” said Mao Zhenhua, an economics professor with the University of Hong Kong and co-director of Renmin University’s Institute of Economic Research.

Trump had announced increases of 10 per cent and later 20 per cent on Chinese goods after taking office in January. Last week, as part of a sweeping package of import duties on nearly every US trade partner, the president levied an additional 34 per cent.

“But [the new tariff] is boundary-testing, so Beijing had to respond differently and harshly. China’s response has also evolved, having realised that the measured approach does not work,” Mao said, calling Beijing’s counterpunch swift in contrast with other countries’ slower, more muted responses.

“The probability for both sides to meet for talks or even a turnaround is very small,” Mao added, warning all parties to “brace for impact”.

Set to take effect at noon on Thursday, China’s retaliatory universal tariffs of 34 per cent were seen as a sterner rebuke than the more selective hikes instituted after earlier US actions.
Continue Reading

Trending