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I felt a very faint twinge of sympathy for Oliver Dowden, I have to confess, when I saw the storm of protest which greeted his request that the heads of the institutions funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport should attend a meeting to discuss how history is represented in public institutions. Keeping any sympathy in check was the governments confrontational means of publicising the meeting: it was trailed in an article in the Sunday Telegraph, announcing that its purpose was to defend our history, amid concern that a noisy minority of activists are trying to do Britain down.

Nevertheless, how museums present and interpret British history is an important, problematic issue about which it is surely totally appropriate for museum directors and the heads of the agencies looking after heritage, including the National Trust and Historic England, to meet. There would be much to be gained from an open discussion about how they are responding to views including, from its own perspective, that of the government that our approach to history should be radically reconstructed.

It has been assumed that the meeting is totally unprecedented. While I was director of the National Gallery, however, it was not so unusual for there to be meetings called by the Department for Culture to discuss issues of common concern although these were certainly not summarised in the national press before they had even taken place. I remember a meeting to discuss how we were all going to deal with the Cultural Olympiad (I remember it because Tim Knox, then director of Sir John Soanes Museum, bravely said that he had no intention of paying any attention to the Olympics). I also remember being summoned to a dingy hotel outside Kingston, just before Christmas, for a series of pep talks by Labour ministers. This was deeply resented but we had no option, because the Department for Culture provides a considerable proportion of the funding of many of these institutions and, it needs to be remembered, is answerable to parliament for public policy. So, it is not unreasonable for the government to be interested in cultural policy.

The key issue is whether the government will use the meeting to explore how institutions have responded to the current demands to reinterpret history, to listen and to share issues of common concern. Or whether it will, instead, use this as an opportunity to try to impose the governments own ideas as to how national history should be presented: in the over-simplified, ahistorical and triumphalist manner that it has pushed in the wake of Brexit. The latter strategy will almost certainly be counterproductive; it will, and should be, resisted by trustee bodies, which have statutory independence.

From my perspective, there is a marked difference in the way institutions have responded to widespread concerns about how history is presented, many of which have been brought into focus by the Black Lives Matter movement. A frank discussion of these responses, and how they have themselves been received, might make for a good use of the advertised meeting.

A new home for Hans Sloane: the bust of the British Museums founder in a display exploring the legacies of empire and slavery. Photo: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

The British Museum, for example, has used lockdown to make a significant modification in the way its collection is presented. In particular, it has chosen to move the bust of Hans Sloane from a commemorative plinth into a display case with accompanying information about his career as a slave owner. Contrary to those newspaper pundits who were appalled by this action, probably without seeing it, I thought it was an entirely appropriate decision that the museum should document its founders actions as a slave owner and draw attention to them, but in a way which was explanatory, rather than overtly condemnatory. It leaves visitors to draw their own conclusions.

The Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum), meanwhile, has had to respond to the demands, most especially from its local community, that it remove the statue of Sir Robert Geffrye from the niche in the facade of the historic almshouses that house its collections. What it did, which was probably a good idea at the time, was to conduct an online survey. But when the great majority of respondents supported the view that the statue should be removed, the trustees, following advice from the Department for Culture, decided not to. Presumably this was partly because the statue belongs to the historic fabric and is protected by legislation (even without the current governments determination to introduce further legislation on the subject of statues).

My regret about the DCMS meeting is not that it is being held, then, but that the nature of the discussion and the conclusions which are reached will not be made public; and that, owing to the rancour of the current culture wars, we are not able to have a proper, balanced and even-handed discussion about how best to represent the British past in all its complexity.

Charles Saumarez Smith was director of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and is author of The Art Museum in Modern Times(Thames & Hudson).

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The culture minister should take an interest in museums but he can't tell them how to interpret the past - Apollo Magazine

Britain is set to introduce new laws guaranteeing freedom of speech at universities to counteract what the government on Tuesday called unacceptable silencing and censoring on campuses.

As part of the plans, the government is considering appointing a free speech champion to investigate possible breaches of the right to expression, while academics who lose their jobs in similar disputes may be able to claim compensation.

I am deeply worried about the chilling effect on campuses of unacceptable silencing and censoring, saideducationminister Gavin Williamson.

That is why we must strengthen free speech in higher education, by bolstering the existing legal duties and ensuring strong, robust action is taken if these are breached. Prime Minister Boris Johnson later tweeted that freedom of speech is at the very core of our democracy.

It is absolutely right that our great universities the historic centres of free thinking and ideas will now have this freedom protected and bolstered with stronger legal protections, he added.

Williamson said it is important to strengthen freedom of speech in higher education by bolstering the existing legal duties and ensuring strong, robust action is taken if these are breached. Source: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP

However, the government was accused of exploiting culture wars, after itself launching a pushback against the toppling of slavery-era statues and efforts to educate Britons about their colonial past, in the wake of last years Black Lives Matter protests.

Just six events out of almost 10,000 involving an external speaker were cancelled over the speakers views in 2019-20, according to a survey in December by the group Wonkhe, which analyses highereducationpolicy.

The government has tapped into a wider push by conservatives, right-leaning libertarians and classical liberals to combat cancel culture and the supposed woke left agenda that they claim has led to a crisis of free speech in Britain, Australian historian Evan Smith wrote on the Wonkhe site.Smith, who published a book last year about campus free-speech rows,added that similar claims (are) being made in the US, Australia, Canada and France.

The government proposals were slammed by Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, which represents staff in highereducation.

It is extraordinary that in the midst of a global pandemic the government appears more interested in fighting phantom threats to free speech than taking action to contain the real and present danger which the virus poses to staff and students, she said.

But a group of senior academics welcomed the proposals in a letter to The Times.

In recent years, too many academics have been marginalised because they hold unorthodox views on issues like gender, Brexit and the legacy of empire, said the letter, organised by high-profile political commentator Matthew Goodwin.

Speakers to have been no-platformed at universities include Brexit politician Nigel Farage, Canadian academic Jordan Peterson, leading feminists Julie Bindel and Selina Todd, philosopher Roger Scruton and former interior minister Amber Rudd.

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Violence toward Black people and protests for racial justice were rampant in Philadelphia during the 1918 flu pandemic, in much the same way they have been during the current coronavirus pandemic.

Adella Bond fired her revolver outside her window into the South Philadelphia air, hoping to attract police as a mob of Irish American people gathered around her home to tell her she wasnt welcome.

Bond, a Black woman who was a municipal court probation officer, knew that racial conflicts unfolded in neighborhoods that had once belonged to only White people but were beginning to house Black people as they migrated from the South to the North during the Great Migration, said Kenneth Finkel, a professor in the department of history at Temple University in Philadelphia, and the author of Insight Philadelphia: Historical Essays Illustrated.

Black people were seeking work, property ownership and refuge from Southern violence from 1916 to 1970, when ultimately millions of them traveled north for industrial employment available there because of the labor shortages that started during World War I even during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Southern Black people sought those same features, as well as better quality of life, through World War II and afterward (although segregation and other obstacles persisted for a while).

Bond knew that White people had welcomed a Black family to a nearby neighborhood by harassing them and burning their furniture in the street earlier that July. She was also aware that another woman of color had previously lived in the house on Ellsworth Street that Bond moved into on Wednesday, July 24, 1918 so she supposed that the area may have been safer for Black people.

The second time she walked down that street, however, she was stoned. The violence came to her front door two days later, when about 100 White men and boys surrounded her house on Friday, July 26.

I heard them talk about having guns, and I saw the guns and cartridges. At last a man came along with a baby in his arms, Bond told her attorney on July 30, 1918, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. He handed the baby to a woman, took a rock and threw it. The rock went through my parlor window. I didnt know what the mob would do next, and I fired my revolver from my upper window to call the police. A policeman came, but he wouldnt try to cope with that mob alone, so he turned it into a riot call.

The rock thrower, who had been shot in the leg, was arrested and held without bail. Police arrested Bond for inciting to riot, and the events of that day precipitated a slew of racial conflicts and riots that constituted one of the most violent periods in Philadelphias history.

Violence instigated by White people, violent police encounters and protests for racial justice were rampant in Philadelphia during the 1918 flu pandemic. George Floyd, a Black man from Minneapolis, was killed by a White policeman in May 2020. That killing and others by police led to the Black Lives Matter movement gaining momentum over the summer, in terms of national and global reach, numbers of protests and new supporters beyond Black communities.

Despite the challenges Black Philadelphians faced in 1918, they, too, summoned the spirit needed to work toward change.

The impact of these crowded race riots on the flu case and death rates in Philadelphia is unknown. The riots took place during a lull between the first and second waves of the pandemic, said Dr. Jeremy Brown, an emergency care physician and author of Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History, via email. As such, and during the continuing fighting during the great war in Europe, attention was surely focused on other issues. The riot was not a superspreader event, because at the time there wasnt much disease to be spread. That came back in the fall.

We may not be able to establish casualty scientifically or historically between the outbreak of disease and the virus of racism, but we understand all too well that when we fear for our very lives, our mortality can shred our civility, Brown said in an unpublished paper on the topic. This dread exposes a primal panic that unleashes the violent human impulse to blame and hurt others in ways inexcusable. There are many lessons weve learned from looking at the history of pandemics, but some, regrettably, we never seem to take to heart.

Philadelphia had the largest Black population of any Northern city in 1910, although African Americans were only 5% of the citys population, said Charles Hardy, a professor of history at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

The Great Migration resulted in Black newcomers in White neighborhoods and housing shortages, to which realtors responded by increasing rent prices effectively causing housing competition among Black and White people, and relocation by those who couldnt afford the new prices.

READ MORE: From the front lines, Black nurses battle twin pandemics of racism and coronavirus

Bond moved into a working class, tough Irish-American neighborhood, Hardy said. Philadelphia is historically known as the city of neighborhoods. The boundaries of ethnically specific neighborhoods werent to be crossed then.

Rather than blame the realtors, White residents harassed their new Black neighbors for their struggles and for not adhering to social codes in the segregated city. The citys a powder keg at this point in time, Hardy said.

A city tense over war, the flu pandemic and race riots erupted as what started at Bonds house that Friday night spread across about 2 square miles. Crowds of hundreds of rioters became thousands as the unrest escalated.

When things exploded, Finkel said, it went on for days. Every night was another chaotic mess.

On Saturday, a Black man named William Box was accused of thievery and chased by White men. A police bureau clerk tried to stop Box, who allegedly pulled a knife and cut the clerks arm.

Several policemen arrived on the scene, but were unable to curb the mob of whites and the negro was struck many times by persons in the crowd,' wrote Vincent P. Franklin, then an author and professor of history, in a 1975 paper on the race riots. Cries of lynch him' caused the police to send for help, and a squad of reserves arrived in time to prevent the mob doing serious injury to the negro,' Franklin continued, quoting a Philadelphia Inquirer report. They arrested Box and took him to the hospital.

The next morning, a White mob chased Jesse Butler as he walked home from a party. While running, Butler fired a shot into the mob and allegedly injured Hugh Lavery, a White man. Police who had arrived soon found that Butler was also wounded and took both men to the hospital, but Lavery died before their arrival.

Hostility spread as groups of White people attacked Black people on their regular travels throughout Philadelphia. Civilians, as the Home Defense Reserves typically used for emergencies, assisted around 250 policemen in maintaining a riot zone near Bonds neighborhood.

Black people felt tension and concern over police brutality, Hardy said. Philadelphia police forces were segregated, (and) most policemen were political appointees. Then theres this discriminatory enforcement of laws.

One of those was a type of stop-and-frisk practice. White patrolmen Roy Ramsey and John Schneider stopped a Black man, Riley Bullock, on an avenue and searched him on Monday. After finding a pocketknife Bullock legally carried, the patrolmen beat and arrested him. As they took Bullock into the station, he was fatally shot in the back, Finkel said, by a negro, who was seen making his escape. The police gave chase, but the alleged assailant managed to escape, reported many local newspapers that ran the unsubstantiated story.

The next day brought the revelation that Bullock was killed by a bullet from the gun of patrolman Ramsey who claimed that he slipped and his gun fired when he was taking Bullock into the station.

Bullock wasnt the only victim of police violence. When Ramsey and Schneider arrested a Black man named Preston Lewis that morning, they beat him so severely that Lewis had to be taken to the hospital. As Lewis laid on the operating table, Schneider reportedly began striking him before ultimately being carried out of the room by White officers.

Tuesday was calmer, but mobs tried to lynch a Black man for allegedly stealing a watermelon that day. When its all done four days later, youve had several hundred people who were injured, four people dead, Hardy said. The houses of dozens of Black families had been destroyed, forcing them to flee. And though White people had instigated most of the violence, the majority of the 60 people arrested were Black.

What you have in the early 1900s and today is rising nativism, White ethnocentrism and White supremacy, Hardy said. After World War I is when you witness the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan which, in the 1920s, becomes a major political force. The culture wars that were witnessing today are very much reminiscent of the culture wars in the 1920s. Its basically fear of a White minority.

READ MORE: Fed study: 1918 flu deaths linked to relative strength of Nazism

There are chilling parallels between what we have seen in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic with the revelation of quite brutal police killings of African Americans and what actually happened back in 1918, Brown said.

That story is a very sobering one not least for which it reminds us that this kind of violence against the African American community is nothing new, sadly, he said. We know how long its been around, but when it comes to pandemics, its been around for well over a century.

Many Black Philadelphians organized to prevent experiencing further violence, destruction and death at the hands of White people, Franklin wrote.

Ministers and other prominent Black Philadelphians met and wrote a letter to the citys director of public safety. In it, they castigated the police force over the lack of protection and arrests of Black people during the violence, Franklin wrote, quoting the letter as reprinted by local newspapers.

In court, Black lawyers defended Black people who had been arrested during the riots. Black ministers and civic leaders formed the Association for the Protection of Colored People (or Colored Protective Association) in August, immediately gaining hundreds of members who worked and fundraised to represent prosecuted Black people and to support the civil rights of Black Philadelphians.

The association was responsible for the prosecution of patrolman Ramsey for killing Bullock, and patrolman Schneider for assaulting Lewis, but neither of the men were convicted partly due to fellow Black patrolmen backing down from testifying what they had really seen.

Black Philadelphians did succeed in getting the commander and all members of the police force transferred out of the 17th District, where most of the rioting had occurred. This event was hailed as a major victory for Philadelphias black community, Franklin wrote.

The association achieved mobilizing Black Philadelphians by informing them of their lawful civil rights, advising them on handling racial discrimination, giving speeches in churches and providing legal assistance for those who had been arrested or assaulted. When Black people made protests to government officials about violent White sailors, the commander of the Fourth Naval District investigated the situation, Franklin wrote.

When you look at Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the calls for police accountability and changes in police behavior, Hardy said, we can see a sort of predecessor to that in Philadelphia during the First World War.

These were the more significant and graphic results of the organized efforts of blacks to improve their situation in the City of Brotherly Love in the aftermath of the July, 1918, riot, Franklin wrote.

The similarities between the race riots of 1918 and racial conflicts today emphasize the importance of knowing the truth, Finkel said. Its really important not to just pat ourselves on the back and move on and forget the ugly chapters. Those ugly chapters are very informative and useful and real.

READ MORE: For churchgoers during the Covid-19 pandemic, a deadly lesson from the 1918 flu

The parallels also highlight that the movement toward racial equality is one step forward, two steps back, Hardy said.

Weve gotten unprecedented numbers of people of color in political office on the state level, he added. Weve got Kamala Harris as vice president. So, its a mixed bag. Its just this ongoing struggle. Clearly White supremacy and nativism are very strong movements in the United States today. On the other hand, a movement towards greater racial and gender equality I think continues.

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White violence and Black protests during the 1918 flu have a lesson for today - WTOP

Donald Trump has been acquitted by the Senate in his second impeachment trial for his role in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol a verdict that underscores the sway Americas 45th president still holds over the Republican party even after leaving office.

After just five days of debate in the chamber that was the scene of last months invasion, a divided Senate fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to convict high crimes and misdemeanors. A conviction would have allowed the Senate to vote to disqualify him from holding future office.

Seven Republicans joined every Democrat to declare Trump guilty on the charge of incitement of insurrection after his months-long quest to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden and its deadly conclusion on 6 January, when Congress met to formalize the election results.

The 57-43 vote was most bipartisan support for conviction ever in a presidential impeachment trial. The outcome, which was never in doubt, reflected both the still raw anger of senators over Trumps conduct as his supporters stormed the Capitol last month and the vice-like grip the defeated president still holds over his party.

Among the Republicans willing to defy him were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

The swift conclusion of the Senate trial, only the fourth presidential impeachment in American history and Trumps second in just over a year capped one of the most tumultuous chapters in the nations political history. Still shaken by the deadly riot that threatened Americas commitment to a peaceful transfer of power, senators of both parties were eager to turn the page.

Trumps acquittal came after grave warnings from the nine Democratic House impeachment managers, serving as prosecutors, that Trump continued to pose a threat to the nation and democracy itself.

If this is not a high crime and misdemeanor against the United States of America then nothing is, congressman Jaime Raskin, the lead manager, pleaded with senators in the final moments before they rendered their judgments as jurors and witnesses. President Trump must be convicted, for the safety and democracy of our people.

From the outset, Trumps allies in the Senate made clear they had no intention of convicting him. Though many Republicans explicitly supported or implicitly indulged Trumps baseless claim of a stolen election, few defended his actions during the trial. Instead, they relied on a technical argument, advanced by his attorneys and rejected by a majority of the Senate as well as leading constitutional scholars, that the proceedings were unconstitutional because Trump was no longer in office.

In a floor speech after the vote, Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said Trumps conduct preceding the assault on the Capitol amounted to a disgraceful dereliction of duty by the former president, who he held practically, and morally, responsible for provoking the events of the day

But McConnell concluded that the Senate was never meant to serve as a moral tribunal and suggested instead that Trump could still face criminal prosecution.

President Trump is still liable for everything he did while hes in office, McConnell said. He didnt get away with anything yet.

At a news conference after the vote, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, denounced as cowardly the Republicans who voted to spare Trump on procedural grounds and said she would refuse to entertain their calls for a censure.

We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose, she said, her voice rising in indignation. We dont censure people for inciting insurrection.

Moments after the not guilty verdict was announced, a defiant Trump thanked Republicans who stood by him and decried what he called yet another phase of the greatest witch-hunt in the history of our country.

In his statement, Trump expressed no remorse and made no mention of the violence that unfolded in his name, but signaled his desire to remain a political force within the party.

Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun, he declared triumphantly.

Trump was the first US president to be impeached twice and is now the first president to be twice acquitted. The decision leave him free to pursue another tilt at the White House in 2024, though polling suggests the violent end to his presidency left his reputation badly damaged.

The House impeached Trump in his final days in office, on one charge of incitement of insurrection of the siege on the US Capitol. He invited supporters to Washington on the day electoral college votes were being counted, told them to fight like hell and encouraged them to go to the US Capitol, Democrats charged.

Once the attack on the Capitol turned deadly, placing Vice-President Mike Pence, members of Congress and Capitol Hill employees in danger, Trump violated his oath of office by failing to defend the US government against an attack, the impeachment article alleged.

The attack came after Trump spent weeks trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Five people died as a direct result of the assault, including a police officer, and scores more were seriously injured.

During their two-day presentation, prosecutors played harrowing and never-before-seen security footage of the attack to bolster their case that Trump had deliberately fomented insurrection by whipping up his followers, who believed they were acting on his instructions.

Crucially, they argued, the Capitol siege was not just a result of the speech Trump gave on 6 January but a foreseeable result after he spent years sanctioning violence among his supporters.

In a chamber protesters breached, the Democrats case was by turns emotional and visceral. It offered new insight into the scope of the violence that transpired, and senators learned for the first time how close the nations political leaders came to the mob that hunted them.

The striking evidence presented was a notable contrast to Trumps first impeachment trial, which was built around documents and testimony regarding his effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to help him politically.

After Democrats concluded their arguments, Trumps lawyers used just a fraction of the 16 hours allocated for their case. They used a smattering of approaches, arguing Trump could not be tried because he had already left office and that his speech did not amount to an incitement of violence and was protected by the first amendment.

During their brief presentation on Friday, Trumps lawyers argued that he was using the same kind of rhetoric politicians frequently use and said the trial was a political witch-hunt and that Trump a victim of constitutional cancel culture.

Those arguments largely seemed to be an effort to distort the case against Trump and obscure the unique context under which he encouraged supporters to disrupt the activities of the US government as it facilitated the peaceful transfer of power.

The vote on Saturday came after the proceedings were briefly thrown into chaos when the House managers unexpectedly moved to call witnesses, in an effort to shed light on Trumps state of mind as the assault unfolded. Caught off guard, Trumps legal team threatened to depose at least over 100 witnesses, and said Pelosi was at the top of their list.

After a frantic bout of uncertainty in which it appeared the managers request could prolong the trial for several more weeks, Senators struck a deal with the prosecution and Trumps lawyers to avert calling witnesses. Instead, they agreed to enter as evidence the written statement of a Republican congresswoman who had been told that Trump sided with the rioters after the House minority leader pleaded with him to stop the attack on 6 January.

Embracing Trumps combative and fact-bending approach, his lawyers declared him innocent of the charges against him and denounced the trial as a final, desperate attempt by Democrats to disqualify their most despised opponent from public office.

You do not have to indulge the impeachment lust, the dishonesty and the hypocrisy, Michael van der Veen, one of Trumps lawyers, told senators.

With the result a foregone conclusion, the Democratic managers summoned the weight of history, reminding senators of the consequential votes taken by their forebears in the same chamber from abolishing slavery, to passing the Civil Rights Act and imposing sanctions on apartheid South Africa. Difficult in the moment, the managers said, these votes defined their legacies and changed the course of American history.

There are moments that transcend party politics and that require us to put country above our party because the consequences of not doing so are just too great, said one of the managers, Joe Neguse. Senators, this is one of those moments.

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Donald Trump acquitted in second impeachment trial ...

Donald Trump spent the last four years committing numerous crimes big and small, the most serious one being his incitement of the violent mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6. Unfortunately, because of his inexplicable stranglehold on the Republican Party, hes gotten away with all of it. That has unsurprisingly left millions of people feeling variously disappointed, confused, and angry, with few ways to channel their feelings (aside from hoping hes hit with a never-ending tide of lawsuits and/or a prison sentence). Luckily, this week has fortuitously brought with it some much-needed catharsis, in the form of a Trump property being literally blown to smithereens.

On Wednesday morning, the derelict Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City was blown up before an audience of paying guests, after demolition crews placed approximately 3,000 sticks of dynamite around the structure to send its 34 stories crumbling to the ground. Its an end of a not-so-great era, Jennifer Owen, who bid $575 to win a front-row seat to the show, told The New York Times. If you werent able to make it down to A.C., dont worry, you can watch the implosion over and over and over again at your leisure:

Trump Plaza was one of a trio of casinos the ex-president owned before his gambling business went belly up and filed for bankruptcy, leaving, per The New York Times, a trail of unpaid contractors and suppliers. Opening day on May 14, 1984, reportedly involved malfunctioning slot machines and left two women injured when a faulty fire alarm caused a rush of gamblers trying to leave the building. In 2009, Trump resigned as chairman of the company, retaining just a 10% stake, and on September 16, 2014, the Plaza shuttered for good, closing out a run as the worst-performing casino in Atlantic City. After that, NJ Advance Media notes, the building sat vacant, sending pieces of debris flying onto the boardwalk every time noreasters traveled up the coast, which is clearly a metaphor for something. During his first State of the City in January 2020, Mayor Marty Small said it was his goal to tear Trump Plaza down, adding: Its an embarrassment, its blight on our skyline, and thats the biggest eyesore in town.

Trumps old casino wasnt the only thing getting the boot this week though. His Mar-a-Lago helipad is also in the process of getting the heave-ho. Per the Daily Mail:

Demolition crews have arrived at Mar-a-Lago to rip out Donald Trumps helipad after his exemption from Palm Beachs helicopter-free zone rule was revoked when he left office. Construction workers were seen at the former president's sprawling estate Tuesday with a red digger and concrete cutting equipment, demolishing the concrete helicopter landing pad set among the towering palm trees. Its removal, handled by contractor Pyramid Builders of Palm Beach, from the western lawn of the 17-acre property will cost in the region of $15,000, the permit shows.

Palm Beach does not allow helipads in its town but made an exception for Trump while he was president, on the condition it only be used for presidential business and be removed again when he left the White House. The town of Palm Beach issued a permit for the helipads demolition on February 2. Town Manager Kirk Blouin said there had never been any question that it would be removed as soon as Trump was no longer president, according to Palm Beach Daily News.

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Watch Donald Trumps Old Casino Be Blown to Smithereens, If Youre Into That Sort of Thing - Vanity Fair