Here are some things to know about Trump’s choice and the agency that Rollins would lead if she is confirmed by the Senate.
She is a lawyer with agriculture ties — and a strong relationship with Trump
Rollins, 52, graduated from Texas A&M University with an undergraduate degree in agricultural development before completing law school at the University of Texas. She served as domestic policy chief during Trump’s first term, a portfolio that included agricultural policy. After leaving the White House, she became president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a group helping to lay the groundwork for a second Trump administration.
Over the years, Rollins has forged a strong enough relationship with Trump, who has prized proven loyalty in his Cabinet and top adviser picks, that she was among the people floated as a potential White House chief of staff. That job went to Susie Wiles, Trump’s co-campaign manager.
Rollins, in an interview earlier this year, called Trump an “amazing boss.”
Senators took down one Trump Cabinet pick. But the fight over their authority is just beginning
President Abraham Lincoln founded the USDA in 1862, when about half of all Americans lived on farms. The sprawling department now reaches into every American neighborhood, grocery store and school cafeteria.
The USDA is the primary agency overseeing the nation’s farming, forestry, ranching, food quality and nutrition. The agency has a dual purpose of promoting and regulating agriculture practice and products. The agency oversees multiple support programs for farmers; animal and plant health; and the safety of meat, poultry and eggs that anchor the nation’s food supply. Its federal nutrition programs provide food to low-income people, pregnant women and young children. And the department sets standards for school meals.
The next USDA chief could figure prominently in Trump 2.0
Trump did not offer many specifics about his agriculture policies during the campaign. But if he keeps his pledge to impose sweeping tariffs, farmers could be affected quickly — and potentially harshly. During the first Trump administration, countries like China responded to Trump’s tariffs by imposing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports like the corn and soybeans routinely sold overseas. Trump countered by offering massive multibillion-dollar aid to farmers to help them weather the trade war.
The ripple effects could extend to consumers’ grocery bills, as well. When things are going smoothly, agriculture secretaries are not usually prominent faces of an administration. But when the nation’s food supply is at issue, it could be another story.
Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investor Warren Buffett renewed his Thanksgiving tradition of giving by announcing plans Monday to hand more than $1.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four of his family’s foundations, and he offered new details about who will be handing out the rest of his fortune after his death.
Buffett has said previously that his three kids will distribute his remaining $147.4 billion fortune in the 10 years after his death, but now he has also designated successors for them because it’s possible that Buffett’s children could die before giving it all away. He didn’t identify the successors, but said his kids all know them and agree they would be good choices.
“Father time always wins. But he can be fickle – indeed unfair and even cruel – sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit,” the 94-year-old Buffett said in a letter to his fellow shareholders. “To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me. There is, however, a downside to my good fortune in avoiding his notice. The expected life span of my children has materially diminished since the 2006 pledge. They are now 71, 69 and 66.”
FILE – The children of Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, from left, Howard Buffett, Susie Buffett, and Peter Buffett, pose for a photo at the CenturyLink Center exhibit hall in Omaha, Neb., May 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
Buffett said he still has no interest in creating dynastic wealth in his family — a view shared by his first and current wives. He acknowledged giving Howard, Peter and Susie millions over the years, but he has long said he believes “hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing.”
The secret to building up such massive wealth over time has been the power of compounding interest and the steady growth of the Berkshire conglomerate Buffett leads through acquisitions and smart investments like buying billions of dollars of Apple shares as iPhone sales continued to drive growth in that company. Buffett never sold any of his Berkshire stock over the years and also resisted the trappings of wealth and never indulged in much — preferring instead to continue living in the same Omaha home he’d bought decades earlier and drive sensible luxury sedans about 20 blocks to work each day.
“As a family, we have had everything we needed or simply liked, but we have not sought enjoyment from the fact that others craved what we had,” he said.
If Buffett and his first wife had never given away any of their Berkshire shares, the family’s fortune would be worth nearly $364 billion — easily making him the world’s richest man — but Buffett said he had no regrets about his giving over the years. The family’s giving began in earnest with the distribution of Susan Buffett’s $3 billion estate after her death in 2004, but really took off when Warren Buffett announced plans in 2006 to make annual gifts to the foundations run by his kids along with the one he and his wife started, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Warren Buffett’s giving to date has favored the Gates Foundation with $55 billion in stock because his friend Bill Gates already had his foundation set up and could handle huge gifts when Buffett started giving away his fortune. But Buffett has said his kids now have enough experience in philanthropy to handle the task and he plans to cut off his Gates Foundation donations after his death. Buffett always makes his main annual gifts to all five foundations every summer, but for several years now he has been giving additional Berkshire shares to his family’s foundations at Thanksgiving.
Buffett reiterated Monday his advice to every parent to allow their families to read their will while they are still alive — like he has done — to make sure they have a chance to explain their decisions about how to distribute their belongings and answer their children’s questions. Buffett said he and his longtime investing partner Charlie Munger, who died a year ago, “saw many families driven apart after the posthumous dictates of the will left beneficiaries confused and sometimes angry.”
Today, Buffett continues to lead Berkshire Hathaway as chairman and CEO and has no plans to retire although he has handed over most of the day-to-day managing duties for the conglomerates dozens of companies to others. That allows him to focus on his favorite activity of deciding where to invest Berkshire’s billions. One of Buffett’s deputies who oversees all the noninsurance companies now, Greg Abel, is set to take over as CEO after Buffett’s death.
Bremer Bank, one of the largest Minnesota banks by deposits, has been acquired by Old National Bank, which is based in Chicago and Evansville, Ind.
Bremer, a St. Paul-based farm lender that serves Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin, was established more than 80 years ago by German immigrant, banker and philanthropist Otto Bremer, who established a charitable trust as its largest shareholder and parent company. The three trustees of the St. Paul-based Otto Bremer Trust were closely involved in helping the board of the Bremer Financial Corporation court Old National for the acquisition, according to bank officials.
“We are now writing a new chapter,” wrote bank president Jeanne Crain, in an open letter published to the Bremer Bank website Monday. “When our majority shareholder, Otto Bremer Trust (OBT), reaffirmed their interest in transferring ownership of Bremer, the Bremer Financial Corporation Board and OBT trustees worked collaboratively to identify an acquirer with a commitment to customers and connection to community similar to our own.”
The purchase, which has yet to be finalized, is subject to regulatory approval.
Crain said the transition to the Old National name, brand and services will take several months, but customers can expect no immediate changes. Her letter gave no indication about whether Bremer offices, or the charitable trust, would eventually relocate from downtown St. Paul.
“While our name will change, we are pleased that following the completion of the transaction, we will have expanded banking capabilities and enhanced resources to serve you,” she wrote.
The sale represents a bit of an about-face for Bremer, which had been embroiled in multiple legal disputes between the trustees and the bank board over what was then deemed efforts to manufacture a hostile takeover of the board by selling voting shares. Those efforts, the first step toward positioning the bank for sale, were frozen during years of legal fighting that involved in Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, which regulates charities.
Old National Bank was founded in 1834 in Evansville and maintains approximately $40 billion in deposits, compared to about $13 billion in deposits for Bremer Bank.
This is a developing story — watch this space for updates.
BEIRUT (AP) — Diplomats and other officials say there have been several sticking points in ceasefire talks to end the war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, even as conditions for an agreement appear to be ripe.
Israel’s military has killed nearly all of the militant group’s top leaders, but it continues to fire missiles into Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis who were evacuated from the border months ago are pressuring their government to go home. And the world wants to stop regional conflict from spreading after more than a year of fighting.
Following the latest visit to the region by a U.S. mediator, Israel hit central Beirut over the weekend, and Hezbollah responded with its biggest barrage in weeks as each applied pressure to reach a deal.
A man stands in front of a destroyed building after Sunday’s Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israeli soldiers take cover on the side of the road during an alert of incoming rockets, near Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel Sunday Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A man checks his damaged apartment which was resulted from Sunday’s Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Residents pass in front of a destroyed building that was hit Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A Civil Defense worker uses a skid loader to remove the rubble in front of a destroyed building that was hit Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A member of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A man walks past a damaged building after a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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A man stands in front of a destroyed building after Sunday’s Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily since the day after Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, setting off the war in Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon two months ago, then a ground invasion. More than 3,500 people in Lebanon have been killed, many of them civilians.
More than 70 have been killed in Israel, over 40 of them civilians. In addition, over 50 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive.
Here’s a look at the proposal and the sticking points.
A proposed two-month ceasefire to start
The proposal under discussion to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River.
The withdrawals would be accompanied by an influx of thousands more Lebanese army troops, who have been largely sidelined in the war, to patrol the border area along with an existing U.N. peacekeeping force.
An international committee would be set up to monitor implementation of the ceasefire agreement and of U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which was passed in 2006 to end a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah but never fully implemented. Hezbollah never ended its presence in southern Lebanon, while Lebanon said Israel regularly violated its airspace and occupied small patches of its territory.
It is not clear whether a new deal would be any more successfully implemented than the one in 2006.
Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, told Israeli Army Radio on Monday that the deal aimed to improve surveillance and enforcement of the previous resolution. While he said there were still certain points that needed to be finalized, a deal was close and could be clinched “within days.”
A U.S. official said negotiations continued to progress on Sunday, but the parties still need to work out some outstanding issues to close the deal. The official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private talks, declined to detail the outstanding issues.
Israel wants freedom to strike Hezbollah and other disagreements
Two Western diplomats described several points of dispute to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing negotiations.
They said Israel was asking for more guarantees to ensure that Hezbollah’s weapons are removed from the border area. Israeli officials, concerned about the possibility of Hezbollah launching the kind of attack that Hamas carried out from Gaza into southern Israel, have said they would not agree to a ceasefire deal that doesn’t explicitly grant them freedom to strike in Lebanon if they believe Hezbollah is violating it.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the sensitive talks, said the issue remained a point of contention, although he said the talks were headed in a “positive direction.”
Lebanese officials have said agreeing to such a deal would violate Lebanon’s sovereignty. Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem has said the militant group would not agree to a deal that does not entail a “complete and comprehensive end to the aggression” and does not protect Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Lebanon and Israel have also disagreed over which countries would sit on the international committee overseeing implementation of the deal and Resolution 1701.
In a sign of progress, Israel appeared to have dropped its opposition to France, which has remained close with Lebanon since its colonial rule there ended and has recently been at odds with Israel.
On Monday, an official familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes negotiations, said that France would be part of the monitoring committee. Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker, Elias Bousaab, also said Israel had accepted France.
But Lebanon has refused to allow Britain, a close ally of Israel. It was unclear Monday if Lebanese officials had dropped their opposition following Israel’s concession.
Meanwhile, Israel does not want to enter into negotiations on 13 disputed points along the border as part of a ceasefire deal, the diplomats said.
Both sides have an interest in ending the war
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest of Iran’s armed proxies, is expected to significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of war between Israel and Iran directly. It’s not clear how it would affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it has now dropped that condition.
One diplomat said there are fears that if no ceasefire is reached, the war will expand further into Syria and Iraq as Israel attempts to cut off the supply of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel has carried out regular airstrikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and has threatened to strike in Iraq, where Iran-backed militias have periodically launched drone attacks on Israel.
Geir Pedersen, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said during a visit to Damascus on Sunday that ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon are critical to “avoid Syria being dragged even further into the conflict.”
Meanwhile, analysts say Hezbollah has been weakened but continues to keep up steady fire into Israel, including strikes far from the border.
On Sunday, Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets and other projectiles into Israel, wounding seven people in one of the militant group’s heaviest barrages in months, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut. Violent clashes continue in southern Lebanon as Israeli forces attempt to take control of strategic towns.
Israel says its goal in the war with Hezbollah is to enable displaced Israelis to safely return home. In Lebanon, a quarter of the population has been displaced, and parts of the country, particularly in south Lebanon and areas south of the capital Beirut, have been destroyed.
In Lebanon, where officials and residents are anxious for war to end, an initial rush of optimism dissipated after the Biden administration’s point man on Israel and Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, left the region last week without a deal.
Many now believe no agreement will be reached before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington.
