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ASHINGTON In less than three months in office, President Trump has made abundantly clear he will not approach health and medicine the same way his predecessor did.

He is proposing dramatic funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health. He has already tried and so far failed to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obamas signature legislation. The early signals of how hell handle the opioid crisis have recovery advocates on edge.

Yet some things stay the same. Despite Trumps bluster on reining in drug prices, no major reforms appear imminent. The president and House Republicans sought to overturn Obamacare but were caught up with infighting, couldnt get the votes, and the law remains in place.

Three months ago, STAT looked at five key areas and assessed whether Trump was likely to diverge from Obama or not. Now were revisiting those issues, focusing on the new presidents record so far.

Obama vs. Trump: 5 ways they clash or dont on health and science

President Obama signed some of the mostsignificant funding increases for the NIH in years. His administration launched major programs like the Vice President Joe Bidens cancer moonshot and the Precision Medicine Initiative.

Trump is moving fastin the opposite direction.

He wants to cut NIH funding by $1.2 billion this year. Next year, under his proposed budget, the agencys budget would be slashed by another $5.8 billion. Trumps aides have defended the cuts, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the government has long been wasting money on overhead for universities and other institutions that receive NIH grants. But researchers across the country have warned of devastating consequences if Trumps proposed cuts were actually enacted.

Congressional Republicans are dubious about the proposals, and they ultimately hold the purse strings. It is also possible that Trump will keep current NIH Director Francis Collins, who is seen as an effective frontman for the agency.

But the presidents budget is an inescapable tell that the agency, the engine of so much of Americas biomedical enterprise, is entering a new age of uncertainty.

The ignominious end of the American Health Care Act, the Obamacareoverhaul backed by Trump and the House Republican leadership, is a reminder of how difficult it is to pass sweeping bills even when one party controls the entire government.

The bill would have rolled back much of Obamacares coverage gains and fundamentally overhauled Medicaid, in apparent violation of Trumps pledge not to cut the low-income insurance program. The consequences: 24 million more people would be uninsured in 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But revolts from the right and the middle the former angry the bill didnt fully repeal the ACA, the latter concerned with coverage losses stopped the legislationin the House. House leaders and Trump are still pledging to revisit health care, but, for now, Obamacare is the law of the land.

And after this failed overhaul of Medicaid, any major changes to Medicare which House Speaker Paul Ryan has long sought but Trump seemed to blanch from during the campaign seem even more unlikely.

Shortly before Trump was sworn into office, Obama signed the first major bill addressing the nations opioid epidemic and approving another $1 billion in new spending to fund its programs. During the presidential campaign, Trump pledged to end the crisis, which is now killing more than 30,000 Americans every year.

Toward that end, he has established a new presidential commission focused on the crisis. It will be led by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is generally respected for his humane approach to drug addiction. Trump has also interviewed candidates to be his White Houses drug czar, like former New Hampshire Congressman Frank Guinta, who fit a similar profile though the president has not yet selected anyone for the position, to the chagrin of D.C.-based recovery advocates.

On the other hand, however, some advocates are wary of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, one of Trumps top allies, who has infamously equated marijuana to heroin. Trumps budget is another area of concern; he has proposed slashing the HHS budget by nearly 20 percent and singled out programs like a mental health block grantfor deep cuts.

Rhetoric will only take Trump so far, and some advocates see reason to fear what policies Trump will actually implement.

Among Trumpsmost unorthodox positions as a Republican candidate for president was his pledge to take on the drug industry and bring down drug prices. It would have been his chance to tame a dragon that even eluded Obama, who found himself entangled with drug makers after they backed Obamacare.

But so far, Trump hasnt taken any significant steps to back up his pledge. Many people around Washington took note of the way Trump talked during his White House meeting with several major pharma executives he seemed to be speaking their language. His focus wasmore on removing regulatory barriers, lowering taxes, and letting the free market work than on direct government intervention.

Trump could still make a big play to rein in drug costs. He has met with Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland on the issue, and Cummings seems to believe Trump is serious about making good on his pledges.

But with all the other issues consuming Washington, and health care in general on the back burner for now, major drug pricing reforms may be a ways off.

In his first 70 days, Trump hasnt yet faced an outbreak on the scale of the Ebola and Zika crises that tested Obama though an avian flu strain has been wreaking havoc in China. But public health officials remainwary, after Trump showed a predilection for health conspiracies and fear-mongering while he was a private citizen.

And, once again, Trumps spending planssignal a major shift from the Obama years. He has proposed cutting the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions funding by more than $300 million this year. His 2018 budget didnt specify funding cuts for CDC, but key lawmakers have warned that the level of spending cuts Trump wants would mean every agency would likely face some kind of reduction.

Trump has also allowed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which usually helps head up the response to health emergencies, to wither away, according to a recent report in the New York Times.

Dylan Scott can be reached at dylan.scott@statnews.com Follow Dylan on Twitter @dylanlscott Add Dylan on Facebook

Original post:
Obama vs. Trump: Early report card on how health and science are changing - STAT

The former FLOTUS glows, no matter what state her hair is in!

Michelle Obama, known for her effortless poise, has finally decided to let her hair down...literally!

Since resigning from their D.C. duties, the Obamas appear to be enjoying some downtimeand the latest picture of Mrs. Obamarocking her natural hair in a curly ponytail only solidifies it.

Related: Michelle Obama Celebrates First Day Of Spring With Bo And Sunny

Related: 'Black-ish' Star Yara Shahidi Recalls Michelle Obama's Letter Of Recommendation

For years, Blackwomen have grown to love Obama for her polished presentation, but longed for Obama to show her hair in its natural state.

I remember wishing w all my heart, FLOTUS would walk out with her fro out, said Twitter user Della Copelandin reaction to the picture surfacing.

Although her longtime stylist Johnny Wright says our former FLOTUS has been "creamy crack" free for over7 years, she's opted to wearher hair mostly straight in the public eye.

However, during a 2015 interview with The Root, Wright got natural hair enthusiasts excited when he shared that Obama could eventually go full on natural. "I dont know," he said. "Maybe on vacation she willshe is 100 percent natural now. It is a possibility.

Two years later, the natural hair community has gotten the picture theyve been dreaming of!

With a growing number of celebrities choosing to show off their natural hair textures in the last decade, Obama's candid addition is well received. And this isn't the first time a picture of a texture haired FLOTUShas surfaced.

In 2012, a photoshopped picture of her with a curly frobegan to circulate. The hair in the picture actually belonged to bloggerMae Tapp, who toldXOJane,

For years, wearing a natural hair style has been seen by some people as not 'professional' or 'elegant' enough. With more women embracing and wearing their natural texture, many of these negative stereotypes are slowly being diminished."

She also told ESSENCE,"There have been so many positive responses to seeing Mrs. Obama go natural, so I hope it inspires her to try and wear more curly styles." Looks like it worked!

Subscribe to ourdaily newsletterfor the latest in hair, beauty, style and celebrity news.

It's no secret that for years, Black womenin the spotlight have opted to keep their hair laid and straight, often as afoot in the door to major gigs, so seeinga former First Lady rocking her hair in its natural state is definitely a big deal!

And it seems Obamas supporters are far more enthused about her tresses in their au natural state.

Black twitter flooded timelines with sentiments of affection for Michelles natural mane and validated that the former FLOTUS glows no matter what state her hair is in!

Read the original:
Michelle Obama Wears Her Natural Hair In Public For First Time Ever - Essence.com

Many of the most iconic photos of Barack Obamas presidency came from Pete Souza, the official White House photographer. Granted extensive access to Obama, he shot the Osama Bin Laden war room photo, moments the president shared with Michelle Obama, the many famous images of the president interacting with kids, and countless more. These carefully composed photos so defined the public image of Obama that it nearly made Souza a household name.

In its visual representation, as in so many other respects, the Trump administration has made a break with the past. Most of what we see of Trump comes from either the traveling pool of press photographers or the smartphones of his staff. On the one hand there are Getty Images or Reuters shots of Trump standing at podiums (or pretending to drive a truck). And on the other, we get unusually informal images of him posing with world leaders or appearing to be caught off guard. In the meantime, the White Houses Flickr account was purged, and the Photos section was removed from the official website.

Trump has a staff photographer, but we havent seen much of her work

The new administration does have an official photographer in Shealah Craighead, who was hired in late January. She was the personal photographer for first lady Laura Bush, as well as the photo editor for Vice President Dick Cheney. So far very few of her photos have been published. The majority exist in one 50-image gallery on the presidents official Facebook page or are scattered around Instagram. A few others seem to show up in the graphics created for the official @POTUS Twitter account. Wherever they can be found, the pictures we see appear to show Craighead has little in the way of special access to Trump.

If you look at the archive of the White Houses Flickr account under Barack Obama, Souza was already taking a wider variety of photos of Obama, from loosening his tie on Inauguration Night to stressing during a budget meeting two weeks later.

Craigheads photos are instead mostly taken from a distance. She appears to be situated with, or even behind the White House press pool. Even the few photos of Trump or his daughter Ivanka that you could consider behind the scenes are still taken from far away. If anyone has the access that Souza had, its people like Sean Spicer or Kellyanne Conway, who are only armed with smartphones.

Considering Trumps desire to circumvent the traditional media, its surprising that he has not taken advantage of the position of official White House photographer, which gives the president a powerful way of controlling his image directly.

Some of the changes in the role of White House photographer can likely be attributed to organizational chaos in the administration. Outgoing Obama White House photo editor Al Anderson told the National Press Photographers Association that the Trump administration didnt take the time to build a team before Inauguration Day, and that Craighead asked him to stay at the White House while the photo department was restaffed. Anderson says that military photographers had to be brought in to help cover the inauguration, while Craighead tried to both organize coverage and take photos herself. Craighead declined to comment and the White House did not respond to inquiries.

Seeing fewer images from the White House might be better from a photojournalistic perspective

If the administration continues to downplay the official photographer role, it might not necessarily be a bad thing, according to Liz Losh, an associate professor at William and Mary who has written extensively about the visual culture of government.

From the standpoint of photojournalism, a lot of people would argue this is better, Losh tells The Verge. The control that the Pete Souza image had, it created an image of surplus and abundance of images of the president, but it became invisible how much those images were controlled.

John Bredar wrote the book about the history of White House photographers, and he agrees with Losh to an extent. I remember from interviewing [Pete Souza] back in 2010, that he was saying something like 90% of their selects, 90 to 95% of their selects, meaning his and his picture editor, were being uploaded to Flickr, and that maybe 5% were being filtered out for a variety of different reasons by [Obamas press secretary] Josh Earnest at the time.

In 2013, Obama came under fire when photojournalists from mainstream outlets noticed that Souza was uploading large numbers of photos from events and engagements to which they hadnt been invited. The White House Correspondents association and 37 news outlets sent a letter to then press secretary Jay Carney that compared the behavior to that of Soviet Russia. The New York Times described the protest as a mutiny.

Instead of leveraging the White House photographer, Trumps team has published large numbers of photos taken by phone-wielding staffers. We often see the same pic collages, thumbs-up photo ops, and phone conversation photos. This is in keeping with Trumps campaign. Trump kept the campaign press pool on a different plane, so the only behind-the-scenes looks we got of him were informal, often taken casually and at a distance. The photos were typically blurry, underexposed, and poorly composed. The campaign appeared to prioritize graphics, screenshots of tweets, and videos over high-quality photography.

Some of the most iconic images of the administration have also come from bystanders taking photos with their phones, like when a Mar-A-Lago guest snapped a photo of Trump using his cell phones flashlight to look at what appeared to be sensitive documents.

Losh argues that viewing Trump mainly through spur-of-the-moment cellphone snaps and the editorially independent photojournalists means were getting a more accurate portrayal of the president than we would if the official photographer was more active. Often these offhand photos can drive small news cycles of their own.

Bredar says hes holding his judgement on Craigheads role until he sees more of her work. Whats more, he says its hard to define the role of a White House photographer, because its not a position thats prescribed its more of a kept tradition. Bredar says it wasnt until the Johnson or Ford administrations that we really knew what kind of access the photographer had.

There was no Flickr stream, there was no kind of way to put photos out, and to some extent, the official White House photographers work was kept under wraps except for under some rare circumstances, he says.

As for the smartphone photos, Bredar says hes a bit wary about how theyre being handled since its unclear if theyre being managed or archived by the White House picture editor. Its also not clear if ones been hired after being asked last minute to stay on, Al Anderson left the post after two weeks.

Its not clear if any of these smartphone photos are being properly managed or archived

From the perspective of someone who looks at history kind of with a students eye, those are valuable documents to understand what was going on, Bredar says. And if nobodys kind of avidly collecting or managing that, thats one issue, and potentially a significant loss to the country.

Bredar and Losh both agree that the Trump administration is off to a bizarre start visually. Usually when a new president comes in, theres a huge amount of buzz ahead of time about who the photographers going to be within that photo community, Bredar says. And you didnt really hear that kind of conversation through this campaign.

The Trump team could settle in, and Craigheads role could evolve. But sometimes, Bredar says, that takes a very long time to happen.

If you look at Ollie Atkins, who was Nixons photographer, he reported to [press secretary] Ron Ziegler, and they had total control over him. He wasnt allowed to go in [the Oval Office] without Zieglers approval, Bredar says. Thats why Nixons presidency is often remembered for stiffly posed photos with people like Elvis Presley. Sound familiar?

It wasnt until Atkins learned that Nixon was telling his family about his decision to resign in 1974, Bredar says, that the photographer protested enough to get access to a truly intimate moment. He was rewarded with a set of iconic, if awkward, photos of the Nixon familys darkest hour. Those are the best photos that Ive seen from Ollies work.

View original post here:
The photography of Trump's presidency is a huge break from Obama's - The Verge

On Thursday we closed the book on the Obama economic miracle and its a miracle we are not in a recession.

Last week the Commerce Department released its third revision for fourth-quarter 2016 gross domestic product. The number came in at a paltry 2.1 percent, meaning that growth during President Obamas final year in office the end of an Error of Hope landed with a big thud at just 1.6 percent.

That low-water mark puts the Obama presidency in last place among all the post-World War II presidents when it comes to economic growth.

There have been 13 post-WWII presidents, beginning with Harry Truman, who had the disadvantage of beginning in the aftermath of war in 1946, during which the economy contracted 11.6 percent four times the contraction any other negative year since and even he bested Obamas economic record!

Truman, a moderate Democrat, also posted the two best years of growth on record: 1950 at 8.7 percent and 1951 at 8 percent, and there was no zero percent interest rate to gin up the economy back then.

Thirteenth of 13 presidents is no mild distinction. Obama had eight full years to enact a growth policy, while many of his predecessors never had two complete terms. George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter had just four years each, Gerald Ford had less than three years and Richard Nixon had five.

Im not the least bit surprised the Obama economy was a failure. Ive chronicled it for more than seven years in this column.

Here are the average growth rates for each president:

See more here:
Obama was terrible for economic growth - New York Post

Just when you thought Washington couldnt get worse, were swamped by sensational headlines and breathless reports about Russia, wiretaps and criminal leaks of classified material.

Throw in a leading congressmans late-night meeting at the White House, and it all has the feel of a second-rate movie plot. But dont you dare tune out, because we are witnessing an unprecedented event: two potential Watergate-sized scandals involving two presidents are emerging simultaneously.

Did Donald Trump collude with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton? Did Barack Obama politicize law enforcement and intelligence-gathering to spy on Trump and destroy his presidency?

Those are extraordinary questions, all the more so because the race to answer them is happening on parallel tracks. The usual partisanship has become a winner-take-all war to paint the other sides president as guilty of un-American conduct.

Scandal No. 1 started with reports that Russian hackers tried to tip the presidential election to Trump. Soon came the added charge that Trumps team was working with Vladimir Putin, as described in the discredited dossier about Russian hookers.

Clinton insisted often that Trump was guilty of something, and her media handmaidens still fan the smoke in a desperate search for flames. Though there is zero evidence so far, the continuing FBI investigation gives Democrats an opening to make up their own facts, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did Friday by suggesting that Russia is blackmailing Trump.

The next piece of collusion evidence will be the first, but that hasnt stopped the lefts fantasies about impeaching Trump. Some are breaking the law to build their case.

That brings us to Scandal No. 2, which got a late start, but its moving fast and is closer to pay dirt. As far fetched as it might have seemed when Trump first charged that Obama wire-tapped him, there is compelling evidence that Trump was onto something very big.

Numerous media reports continue to reveal that federal agents gathered secret information about Trumps team and used it to sabotage him. If it can be proven that a sitting president used government authorities to spy on a candidate who then became president and orchestrated leaks of classified material, Watergate, by comparison, really would be a second-rate burglary.

The odds favor the possibility that Obama was the king of dirty tricks. Consider that Evelyn Farkas, a former Obama defense official whose portfolio included Russia, said in a March 2 interview that was little noticed until last week that she had urged the Obama White House and congressional Dems to gather information about Trump and protect it from the new administration.

If they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staffs dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence, Farkas told MSNBC. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more.

She added: We have good intelligence on Russia ... Thats why you have the leaking. People are worried.

Farkas later tried to walk back her claims, but too late. Her next speech should be to a federal grand jury.

Her apparent admission that national security leaks came from Obama officials working to undermine Trump is a major development, and The New York Times added an important wrinkle Friday. Perhaps inadvertently, a Page One story dropped the usual reference to surveillance on Trump associates and cited intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

To my knowledge, that is the first report anywhere to say that Trump himself was picked up on surveillance. If true, its a bombshell that changes everything.

When was Trump overheard? Who was he talking to? How does the Times know it was incidental instead of intentional, except that a leaker said so?

The story doesnt answer those questions, yet says Trumps claim of being wiretapped was debunked.

Wrong. Its been denied, but hardly debunked.

Furthermore, its a crime for anyone to leak Trumps name to the Times and to unmask any American citizen who was not the target of surveillance. Yet Trump is at least the sixth person from his circle to be publicly identified as being picked up by Obama-era surveillance.

The accumulating evidence that Trump and his team were targeted by American agents is now properly part of congressional investigations, but the pattern also deserves a criminal probe.

Watergate references can be trite, but the end of Richard Nixon offers lessons about where we go from here. For one thing, finding and squeezing a knowledgeable insider is crucial, and Farkas is a good starting point for the Justice Department.

Because she later served as an adviser to Clintons campaign, its also worth exploring whether she was a conduit with the Obama White House, and whether she leaked secret data to the media.

A second Watergate lesson is that the war isnt over until the home team waves the white flag. Recall that it was Republicans who convinced Nixon it was time to go.

So the GOP is key to the outcome of the Trump-Russia probe, and Dems will have a say about whether the leak investigation implicates Obama.

Heres the really frightening possibility: What if both presidents turn out to be guilty? What the hell do we do then?

Gov, Blas are lefty cellmates

Gov. Cuomo and Mayor deBlasio are personal enemies but, politically, more like twins. Their desire to close Rikers Island is the latest example of their shared radicalism.

The leftward march is no coincidence. Both have their eye on a national Democratic audience even as they run for re-election: de Blasio this year, Cuomo next. Both also hope to get ahead by running against the policies of President Trump.

Its hard to believe theres room for another New Yorker on the national stage, with Trump in the White House and Sen. Chuck Schumer the big Dem dog in the Senate. Then again, Trumps victory is convincing lots of long shots that lightning can strike them, too.

DeBs tab? Put it on the house

Now that the citys Conflict of Interest Board has slapped a $50 limit on gifts to Mayor deBlasios legal-defense fund, speculation grows that hell stick taxpayers with the bill. Heres a better idea: As Ive noted, de Blasio owns two private homes in pricey Brooklyn, and a reader estimates their combined market value could be $5 million. The mayor is rich, and can pay his own legal bills. He should sell the houses instead of sticking taxpayers with another corruption tax.

Haha, Bharara!

Preet Bharara hasnt lost his sense of humor. The former federal prosecutor tweeted about Albany:

#BREAKING: Bold, sweeping, principled ethics reforms finally enacted in New York State! The swamp, drained. #AprilFools.

See the original post:
The Watergate-sized scandals rocking the Trump and Obama administrations - New York Post