Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are set to lose their eleventh publicist in just five years – having also parted with their US-based PR agency and amid continuing accusations the couple are ‘difficult’ to work with. 

Meredith Maines, who worked as their chief communications officer, has revealed she is stepping down after just a year in the role with Meghan and Harry.

Her departure comes as US-based Method Communications PR announced it too would be ending its tenure with the Sussexes after just seven months. 

Ms Maines’ resignation comes in the wake of her colleague Emily Robinson leaving as director of communications for the couple only two months ago. Insiders had suggested Ms Maines had been experiencing a ‘difficult’ time in the time since then.

The high-flying PR professional had also been at the centre of a media storm over the summer when she was pictured meeting with King Charles’ communications secretary Tobyn Andreae in London as part of a secret ‘peace summit’ between the two camps.

Both Harry, 40, and his father, 76, are said to be keen to reconcile, especially after the King was diagnosed with cancer last year.

However, Harry and Meghan are said to have been frustrated that photographs of the extraordinary meeting – which took place in July at a private members club in Mayfair – were published in an exclusive for The Mail on Sunday. 

Sources close to Prince Harry insisted the Sussexes were not responsible for passing details of the meeting on to the newspaper. 

Of her now imminent departure, Ms Maines issued a statement speaking of her ‘gratitude and respect’ for the couple.

She said: ‘After a year of inspiring work with Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Archewell, I will be pursuing a new opportunity in 2026.

Meredith Maines, who was appointed as chief communications officer is parting ways with Harry and Meghan after a year in the role

Meghan Markleand Prince Harry are set to lose their eleventh publicist in just five years after their ‘cheerleader’ spin doctor announced she is stepping down

‘I have the utmost gratitude and respect for the couple and the team, and the good they are doing in the world.’

Meanwhile a spokesperson for the couple said: ‘Meredith Maines and Method Communications have concluded their work with Archewell. 

‘The Duke and Duchess are grateful for their contributions and wish them well.’ 

It is understood that Liam Maguire, their UK and Europe director of communications, will now lead on all publicity-related work. 

The departure of Ms Maines follows the departure of Ms Robinson, who joined Harry and Meghan’s team as director of communications in June, but had already jumped ship by October.

Ms Robinson was a controversial hire as she had worked on The Crown for years – a show which aired a number of damaging narratives about the Royal Family.

Her departure comes five months after Ms Maines met with King Charles’ communications secretary Tobyn Andreae in London as part of a secret ‘peace summit’ between the two camps

The final series included scenes in which the ‘ghost’ of Princess Diana appeared to speak to The Queen and Prince Charles, which many found insensitive.

One friend of LA-based Robinson, who built up a reputation as a ‘tough cookie’ at Netflix, said: ‘It was her decision. She left a few weeks ago. She’s not a quitter, so things must have been pretty horrible for her to go.’

The departure of Ms Robinson and now Ms Maines in a matter of months means the couple have lost 11 publicists since leaving the UK for California five years ago (although two former publicists, James Holt and Miranda Barbot, have been promoted into non-PR roles).

In the last year alone, the couple have suffered numerous PR disasters, most recently the duchess’s surprise trip to Paris Fashion Week in October.

She posted a video to Instagram which showed her being driven at night along the Seine – a similar route to that taken by Princess Diana on the night she died.

There was also criticism of her appearance that same month in Washington at Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women event.

Meanwhile the couple had to navigate an unflattering cover story in Vanity Fair in February which included the claim: ‘The person who worked in media projects read stories in the tabloids about Meghan ‘bullying’ palace aides and couldn’t imagine such behaviour actually happening.

‘After working with her, though, this person realized, ‘Oh, any given Tuesday this happened’.’ 

The departure of Emily Robinson (pictured) and now Ms Maines in a matter of months means the couple have lost 11 publicists in just five years

The Sussexes hit back with a feature in People magazine with a number of employees and associated attesting to their kindness.

One Netflix crew member said of the Prince while filming With Love, Meghan: ‘Whenever Harry visited set, he was always super polite and friendly.’

The director of the series added: ‘Everyone has this one version of [Meghan], but she’s just someone who is hustling and working and doing.’

There were however more PR obstacles ahead for the couple including a piece in The Hollywood Reporter last September. One source was quoted as saying: ‘Everyone’s terrified of Meghan. She belittles people, she doesn’t take advice. 

‘Harry is a very, very charming person – no airs at all – but he’s very much an enabler. And she’s just terrible.’

A second source added: ‘She marches around like a dictator in high heels. I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears.’

But an insider close to the couple denied the allegations, saying they had been ‘fabricated by someone with no knowledge of our company’.

Some sources claimed Ms Maines had been enduring a ‘difficult’ time as the couple’s chief communications officer prior to the announcement of her departure. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to the couple’s representatives for comment. 

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Tributes will be paid to Diogo Jota when two of the clubs he represented in Liverpool and Wolves meet at Anfield, with his sons leading the sides out as mascots

Fasika Zelealem Senior Sports Reporter

09:43, 27 Dec 2025Updated 09:45, 27 Dec 2025

Diogo Jota’s two sons will be mascots as Liverpool host Wolves(Image: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Diogo Jota’s commitment to being the finest father possible to his three children was evident when the Liverpool star spoke candidly about his family life. More than five months have passed since Jota’s tragic death in a car crash alongside his younger brother Andre Silva, news that sent shockwaves through the sporting community and far beyond.

The Portuguese forward’s legacy remains strong following his untimely passing. Liverpool supporters have made it their mission to keep his memory alive by belting out his chant during the 20th minute – matching his shirt number – at every match.

Beyond being an exceptional player who consistently delivered crucial goals when it mattered most, Jota was devoted to his family – a loving husband and father to three young children. Those closest to him were acutely aware of how much his family meant to him.

It was during Liverpool’s triumphant Premier League title-winning season last year that Jota revealed how he juggled pressure and strived to remain an engaged and devoted father when returning home from his demanding role as a top-level footballer.

In conversation with Liverpool’s performance psychologist Lee Richardson before his daughter’s arrival, Jota explained his wish to be the best dad possible. He said: “When I go home I still have a family, I have two kids – three almost – and the dogs and the stress doesn’t stop.

READ MORE: Virgil van Dijk makes heartbreaking confession over impact of Diogo Jota’s tragic deathREAD MORE: James Milner sends touching Diogo Jota message after Liverpool return

“You want to be the best father you can be, try to lead by example, give good feedback. Even though sometimes you want to get a bit more rest in the afternoon, they are all happy because you are finally at home and they want to play.

“I had this the day after the game, I wanted to get a bit of rest, [my son] wanted to play some football – and you need to be on it.” An emotional reunion is set this afternoon as Liverpool and Wolves, his two Premier League clubs, face off at Anfield for the first time since his passing.

Jota and his wife Rute Cardoso have three children(Image: Instagram/diogoj_18)

Jota’s wife, Rute Cardoso, will watch on as their sons, Dinis and Duarte, serve as mascots. On Friday evening, Wolves honoured the late striker with his ex-international team-mate Jose Sa, head coach Rob Edwards, and chairman Nathan Shi laying flowers at his memorial outside Anfield.

In his pre-match column, Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk confessed that the team is still grappling with the loss of Jota, reflecting on a year marked by both triumph and tragedy in 2025. He penned: “Saturday marks our last fixture of 2025 and when I reflect back on the year there have been a wide range of emotions for everybody at the club.

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“There have been some incredible highs, of course. To become Premier League champions, as we did back in April, was incredible. Lifting that trophy in front of you guys at Anfield is a memory that I will never forget, I can assure you.

“It was a real team effort and a deserved reward for a season of hard work, on and off the pitch. Soon after that, though, came the most devastating of lows. The loss of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva in July was something none of us could ever have prepared for, and something all of us are still coming to terms with.

“Our thoughts, as ever, remain with Diogo and Andre’s family. They will never, ever be forgotten, and we will carry their memory always.”

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Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler and military chief Selcuk Bayraktaroglu attend ceremony at an airbase near Ankara.

Published On 27 Dec 202527 Dec 2025

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Turkiye has held a military ceremony to honour a group of Libyan officials, including military chief Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad, who were killed in a plane crash over Turkish territory earlier this week.

The ceremony, held on Sunday at Murted airbase outside the capital, Ankara, honoured al-Haddad and four other military officers who were in Turkiye for high-level defence talks before the crash on Tuesday.

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Turkiye’s military chief Selcuk Bayraktaroglu and Defence Minister Yasar Guler were in attendance at the ceremony. The remains of the Libyan officials will be transported back home, where an official funeral will be held.

The aircraft carrying the Libyan delegation went down on Tuesday shortly after taking off from Ankara, following what Libyan officials said was a technical malfunction. All those on board, including three crew members, were killed.

Al-Haddad, Libya’s highest-ranking military officer, was a key figure in the United Nations-brokered efforts to unify the country’s divided armed forces. His death drew condolences even from the rival factions.

“Haddad was this strong, charismatic leader who always [sought] peace in the country,” said Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina, reporting from al-Haddad’s hometown of Misrata, Libya. “He was a man of peace, well-respected across the country, even among people he fought against.”

Khalifa Haftar, head of eastern Libya’s rival administration – whose forces al-Haddad opposed during a 2019 advance on western Libya – was among those who extended sympathies.

In a statement, Haftar expressed “deep sorrow over this tragic loss” and offered condolences to al-Haddad’s family, tribe, and city, as well as “to all the Libyan people”.

‘Big shoes to fill’

Following the ceremony in Turkiye, five coffins draped in Libyan national flags were loaded onto a plane for repatriation to Libya. Turkiye’s military chief Bayraktaroglu was also on the plane, state-run news agency TRT reported.

Libya plunged into chaos after the country’s 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The country is split, with rival administrations in the east and the west, backed by an array of rogue militias and different foreign governments.

Turkiye has been the main backer of Libya’s government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based administration as well.

Traina said it will be “extremely difficult” for Libya’s Western government “to find someone as respected” to replace al-Haddad, who had chaired a United Nations-backed truce committee. “They are extremely big shoes to fill.”

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A Kentucky congressman singled out by Donald Trump on Christmas as a “lowlife” after co-authoring a law requiring the federal government to release all of its Jeffrey Epstein files says the president attacked him for keeping a commitment to “help victims”.

Thomas Massie then successfully sought donations for his run for another term in the 2026 midterm elections against an opponent that Trump – his fellow Republican – has already endorsed.

The back-and-forth illustrated a deepening divide between Trump and Massie. Massie earned the president’s disdain by working to pass a bipartisan congressional bill demanding the full release of documents pertaining to Epstein, the former friend of Trump who once pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor and then evidently died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges.

And on Christmas, Trump posted a rant on his Truth Social platform that dismissed Congress’s interest in Epstein as a “scam” while referring to Massie – the only lawmaker named in the post – as “one lowlife ‘Republican’”.

That prompted Massie to reply on X: “Imagine celebrating a blessed Christmas with your family … suddenly phones alert everyone to the most powerful man in the world attacking you … for fulfilling his campaign promise to help victims!”

Massie’s account cited the “one lowlife ‘Republican’” phrase in the post’s text, highlighted it in screenshots of Trump’s tirade – and asked X users to “please support me” while providing a link to his campaign donations site.

More than 40 people had donated nearly $3,000 within the first two hours of the fundraising plea, Massie’s account said in separate follow-up posts. One user replying to Massie’s account described having just made “one of the few Republican contributions in my life”.

“I really appreciate it, especially the day after Christmas,” the congressman’s account said.

Massie has served in the US House since 2012. He has become a thorn in Trump’s side after the president’s administration failed to deliver on his promises of complete transparency with respect to Epstein’s case.

He not only co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act that sailed through Congress in November. Massie also said all those with connections to Epstein must face “the same kind of consequences” as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who lost his British royal title as the Duke of York over his ties to the sex offender financier.

Furthermore, Massie at the time alluded to Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador to the US before his firing over his association with Epstein.

“There’s becoming a reckoning in Britain that needs to happen in the United States,” Massie said then. “A prince lost his title. The ambassador to the United States lost his job. We need to see those … kind of consequences here.”

Trump’s justice department failed to meet the Epstein Files Transparency Act’s 19 December deadline in full, though it did release a number of materials that day. On Wednesday, the justice department said it had discovered more than a million more documents related to Epstein, and it could take “a few more weeks” to process those files for public release.

Trump has endorsed a retired US Navy Seal, Ed Gallrein, to run against Massie in the Republican primary for the incumbent’s seat ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Massie has previously told Politico that Gallrein is a “failed … establishment hack” whom Trump endorsed out of panic.

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Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to an immediate ceasefire, the defence ministers of both countries have said in a joint statement.

The two sides have agreed to freeze the front lines where they are now and allow civilians living in border areas to return home, halting almost three weeks of intense clashes in which dozens of people have been killed and nearly one million displaced.

The ceasefire took effect at noon local time (05:00 GMT) on Saturday. Once it has been in place for 72 hours, 18 Cambodian soldiers held by Thailand since July will be released, the statement said.

The breakthrough came after days of talks between the two countries, with diplomatic encouragement from China and the US.

The agreement prioritises getting the displaced back to their homes, and also includes an agreement to remove landmines.

Thailand’s Defence Minister Natthaphon Narkphanit described the ceasefire as a test for the “other party’s sincerity”.

“Should the ceasefire fail to materialise or be violated, Thailand retains its legitimate right to self-defence under international law,” he told reporters.

Thailand had been reluctant to accept the ceasefire, saying the last one was not properly implemented. They also resented what they saw as Cambodia’s efforts to internationalise the conflict.

Unlike the last ceasefire in July, US President Donald Trump was conspicuously absent from this one, although the US State Department was involved.

That ceasefire agreement collapsed earlier this month, when fresh clashes erupted.

Both sides have blamed each other for the breakdown of the truce.

The Thai army said its troops had responded to Cambodian fire in Thailand’s Si Sa Ket province, in which two Thai soldiers were injured.

Cambodia’s defence ministry said it was Thai forces that had attacked first, in Preah Vihear province, and insisted that Cambodia did not retaliate.

Clashes have continued throughout December. On Friday, Thailand carried out more air strikes inside Cambodia.

The Thai Air Force said it had hit a Cambodian “fortified military position” after civilians had left the area. Cambodia’s defence ministry said the strikes were “indiscriminate attacks” against civilian houses.

How well the ceasefire holds this time depends to a large extent on political will. Nationalist sentiment has been inflamed in both countries.

Cambodia, in particular, has lost many soldiers and a lot of its military equipment. It has been driven back from positions it held on the border, and suffered extensive damage from the Thai air strikes, grievances which could make a lasting peace harder to achieve.

Disagreement over the border dates back more than a century, but tension increased early this year after a group of Cambodian women sang patriotic songs in a disputed temple.

A Cambodian soldier was killed in a clash in May, and two months later, in July, there were five days of intense fighting along the border, which left dozens of soldiers and civilians dead. Thousands more civilians were displaced.

Following intervention by Malaysia and President Trump, a fragile ceasefire was negotiated between the two countries, and signed in late October.

Trump dubbed the agreement the “Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords”. It mandated both sides to withdraw their heavy weapons from the disputed region, and to establish an interim observer team to monitor it.

However, the agreement was suspended by Thailand in November after Thai soldiers were injured by landmines, with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announcing that the security threat had “not actually decreased”.

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A months-long effort to restore Munich’s famous “Eisbach” wave is being disbanded, the Surf Club Munich has announced. The group cited excessive red tape and a lack of enthusiasm for the project from the city government.

“The administration does not want to regulate surfing on the Eisbach, but to prevent it,” the association said in a statement. They pointed to “administrative obstruction” in their mission to bring the wave back after it disappeared in October during a routine cleaning process.

How did land-locked Munich become a surfing hotspot?

The Eisbach is a small tributary of the Isar river that flows through Munich’s famous English Garden city park.

A series of concrete reinforcements underneath the stream in the 1970s led to the creation of a strong current near a bridge in one area of the park.

Local surfing legend Walter Strasser has been credited in local media with coming up with the idea to place a plank at a specific angle where the current was strongest, creating a wave large enough for surfing.

Over the years, Strasser and his wave gained more and more renown in the surfing community, and the area became a hotspot for the sport.

Earlier in December, Strasser told local newspaper the Münchener Abendzeitung that he had tried to work with Mayor Dieter Reiter to restore the wave, but had been met with ambivalence.

“I have so much experience with the Eisbach. I know exactly what the problem is. I could have fixed it within weeks, with very little funding,” he told the paper. “But the city told me they didn’t need me.”

Surfing in Munich

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Deadly accident

The Eisbach was also closed for two months after a 33-year-old surfer died in April. After her surfing line became trapped around her leg, she was pulled under the water and stuck underwater for nearly 30 minutes under rescue services were able to reach her.

The strong current had prevented bystanders from coming to her aid.

Although paramedics were able to reanimate her on the riverbank, she died later that same day in a Munich hospital.

The incident was the first such deadly event at the Eisbach, and prompted what authorities called a thorough safety review before the wave reopened at the end of June. A specific cause for the accident was never found, however.

Illicit reopening

The news that the Surf Club Munich has given up its official attempts to reopen the wave come just a few days after some surfers illegally set it back up with a wooden plank and used it clandestinely over the holidays.

But this construction was not permanent, and authorities have made it clear that surfing is currently prohibited.

Although Surf Club Munich has dropped its study of how to restart the wave on a constant basis, they maintained that the debate would continue despite “becoming political.”

Edited by: Louis Oelofse

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Zelensky to meet Trump for high-stakes talks in Mar-a-Lago in bid to seal peace deal by new year

Bryony Gooch27 December 2025 08:37

Watch: Fires rage across Kyiv after Russian drone bombardment ahead of Trump talks

Fires rage across Kyiv after Russian drone bombardment ahead of Trump talks

Bryony Gooch27 December 2025 08:20

EU Commission’s Von der Leyen to participate in call with Zelenskiy, Trump and European leaders

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will join a call today with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, US president Donald Trump and other European leaders, a commission spokesperson told Reuters.

Stuti Mishra27 December 2025 08:00

Emergency power cuts in Kyiv after Russian attack

Emergency power cuts were implemented in Kyiv’s left bank after an overnight Russian aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital, according to Ukraine’s largest private electricity company DTEK.

Bryony Gooch27 December 2025 07:45

Kim says North Korea and Russia shared ‘blood, life and death’

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Russian President Vladimir Putin their countries had shared “blood, life and death” in the Ukraine war, calling 2025 a “really meaningful year” for a bilateral alliance forged “in the same trench”, state media said on Saturday.

Pyongyang dispatched thousands of troops to fight for Moscow, according to South Korean and Western intelligence agencies, as Russia presses ahead with its nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine. In April North Korea publicly confirmed for the first time that it had sent personnel to support Moscow’s invasion and had suffered combat deaths. Earlier this month, North Korea acknowledged deploying an engineering regiment to clear mines in Russia’s Kursk region in August, with Mr Kim later saying at least nine soldiers were killed during the 120‑day mission.

Stuti Mishra27 December 2025 07:30

Zelensky says Russia is using Belarus to get around defences

President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of using apartment blocks in Belarus to attack Ukraine’s defences.

“We note that the Russians are trying to bypass our defensive interceptor positions through the territory of neighbouring Belarus. This is risky for Belarus,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on Telegram on Friday.

“It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favour of Russia’s aggressive ambitions.”

Belarus has remained a staunch ally of Russia, with President Vladimir Putin launching attacks on Ukraine from the territory in February 2022 that sparked the war.

Zelensky noted that Russian military were situated “in Belarusian settlements near the border, including on residential buildings.”

He added: “Antennae and other equipment are located on the roofs of ordinary five-storey apartment buildings, which help guide ‘Shaheds’ (Russian drones) to targets in our western regions. This is an absolute disregard for human lives, and it is important that Minsk stops playing with this.”

Maira Butt27 December 2025 07:00

Poland temporarily closes two airports due to Russian strikes on Ukraine

Poland has temporarily closed two airports in the south, Rzeszow and Lublin, after the Polish armed forces scrambled fighter jets due to Russian strikes on Ukraine, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency said on Saturday.

Stuti Mishra27 December 2025 06:28

Watch: Zelensky says he will meet Trump on Sunday for talks on Ukraine security

Zelensky says he will meet Trump on Sunday for talks on Ukraine security

Maira Butt27 December 2025 06:00

Russian drones, missiles pound Ukraine before Zelensky-Trump meeting

Russia attacked Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of what president Volodymyr Zelensky said would be a key meeting with US president Donald Trump to work out a deal to end nearly four years of war.

Before the overnight attacks, Mr Zelensky said his talks in Florida tomorrow would focus on the territory to be controlled by each side after a halt to the fighting that began in February 2022 with president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.

Explosions sounded in Kyiv as Ukraine’s air defence units went into action, and the military said on the Telegram messaging app that missiles were being deployed. The air force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and regions in the northeast and south.

An air raid alert remained in effect in the capital some four hours after being introduced, according to Reuters. There were no immediate reports of damage or power cuts

Stuti Mishra27 December 2025 05:31

Zelensky ready to call referendum on Trump plan

President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is open to putting his 20-point proposal, created during US-brokered peace talks, to a public vote if the US is not able to agree a “strong” position on the issue of territorial concessions.

He told Axios that he would be open to putting the proposal to a referendum, as long as Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire in order to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold such a vote.

Maira Butt27 December 2025 05:00

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If you keep waking up with a stiff neck, your pillow could be to blame — especially if it’s old and lumpy. 

It’s time to replace your pillow, but how do you find the right one? While it’s tempting to reach for the first fluffy one you find, you should choose based on your preferred sleeping position — whether that’s on your back, stomach, or side. 

The National Sleep Foundation recommends “pillows that support your spine,” and studies have shown that pillow height and other features can affect sleep quality when your head and neck are not properly aligned. You’ll need specific support depending on how you sleep, so it’s important to know which features to examine closely. 

This guide to shopping for pillows based on sleeping positions will help you find the right one and finally get a good night’s rest. Plus, we’re including our top picks at Amazon from Serta, Coop, Saatva, and more — starting at just $23.

Best Pillows for Back, Stomach, and Side Sleepers at Amazon

• Seen with Taylor Swift: Coop Original Adjustable Pillow, $89
• Chiropractor- and Orthopedist-Recommended: Saatva High-Loft Pillow, $185
• Nasa-Inspired: Nuzzle Cooling Adjustable Pillow, $49
• Allergen-Free Materials: Serta Down Illusion Pillow, $38 (orig. $45)
• Two-Pack: Pacific Coast Goose Feather Down Pillow, $108 (orig. $120)
• 100% Cotton: Three Geese Goose Feather Pillow, $28
• 171,000+ Five-Star Ratings: Beckham Hotel Collection Pillows, $60 (orig. $80)
• Breathable Memory Foam: Iwacool Thin Cooling Gel Pillow, $30 (orig. $36)
• Washer- and Dryer-Safe: Downlite Extra Thin Pillow, $125
• Reinforced Gusseted Edges: Utopia Bedding Soft Pillows, $23 (orig. $30)

What to Know About Choosing Pillows

Pillows for back, stomach, and side sleepers have varying levels of support. To find the best pillow for your sleep position, you’ll need to consider each pillow’s loft, firmness, fill materials, and adjustability. 

• Loft: This refers to a pillow’s thickness or height, and it’s expressed as low (up to 3 inches high), medium (up to 6 inches high), or high (over 6 inches high). 
• Firmness: Like mattresses, pillows are rated on their levels of support. They may be soft, medium, or firm — and some brands offer extra soft or extra firm varieties. Other pillows have in-between firmness levels and may be described as “soft/medium” or “medium/firm.”
• Fill Materials: Pillows can be filled with cotton, polyester, gel, memory foam, feathers, or goose down. It’s common for pillows to be filled with a mix of these materials.
• Adjustability: Adjustable pillows have removable fillings so you can customize their height and support levels. This includes pillows with loose materials (like shredded memory foam) as well as those with mini supportive cushions that you can reposition inside of them.

Side Sleepers

Side sleepers benefit from using supportive pillows that prevent the head from sinking into the pillow, placing the neck at an awkward angle. Some side sleepers prefer thicker and harder pillows to achieve this support level, while others prefer slightly softer pillows that hold their shape to prevent collapsing. Many pillows for side sleepers are also made with cooling materials that prevent their ears and faces from sweating. 

Coop Original Adjustable Pillow

Amazon

Taylor Swift appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on December 10 and shared that she and her four-legged companion sleep on what appears to be the Coop Pillow while they’re on the road.

It has removable memory foam so you can find your ideal levels of loft and firmness. Need a bit more of both? Coop includes an “Extra Oomph” memory foam packet with this pillow, making it a great choice for side sleepers who prefer a high level of firmness with consistent head and neck support. It also has a breathable fabric cover that is ultra-soft and machine-washable.

Support Level: Adjustable | Loft: Adjustable | Firmness: Adjustable | Outer Materials: Lulltra | Fill Materials: Memory foam, microfiber, gel fiber, polyester | Sizes: Queen and king

PEOPLE shopping writer Toni Sutton tried the Coop pillow and “noticed a difference” in “neck stiffness after the very first night.” It molded to her body, keeping her “head and spine aligned… no matter how much [she] shifted” while she slept. “It stays supportive all night, and I wake up feeling… more refreshed,” Sutton added. 

Supa Modern Side Sleeper Pillow

Amazon

Saatva High-Loft Pillow Pillow

Amazon

Nuzzle Cooling Adjustable Pillow

Amazon

While You’re Shopping…

Add these sleep essentials to your cart:

Back Sleepers

Back sleepers should opt for pillows with medium loft and firmness to cradle their heads. This supports the cervical spine’s natural curve and prevents the head from tilting backward, causing neck strain. These pillows are also the ideal thickness to provide modest support around the shoulders.

Serta Down Illusion Pillow

Amazon

This down-alternative pillow supports the head and neck with medium loft and fluffy fiber that bounces back after each night. It’s covered with soft microfiber and has an allergen barrier, preventing dust and germs from seeping inside the pillow. It’s available as medium/firm or soft/medium, in case you need an in-between firmness level. One back sleeper called it “Squishmallow comfy” and said that they “didn’t wake up once to adjust the pillow.”

Support Level: Medium | Loft: Medium | Firmness: Soft/medium or medium/firm | Outer Materials: Polyester microfiber | Fill Materials: Polyester | Sizes: Queen and king

Pacific Coast Goose Feather Down Pillow

Amazon

Three Geese Goose Feather Pillow

Amazon

Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillows, 2-Pack

Amazon

Stomach Sleepers

Stomach sleepers should reach for low-loft pillows that are thin and soft, as they can minimize neck strain. Thin pillows also leave adequate room for sleepers who place their arms beneath the pillow while they sleep. Like side-sleeper pillows, many of these have cooling features since stomach sleepers also lean on their cheeks and ears all night.

Beckham Hotel Collection Pillows, 2-Pack

Amazon

These Beckham pillows have a lightweight down alternative fill that offers soft support to stomach sleepers. Although they compress into a comfortable height, sleepers can fluff them up as needed. The pillows have a 250 thread-count cotton shell that is thin and breathable, allowing for airflow around the head. One stomach sleeper called it the “perfect pillow” that remains cool, which means they’re “not doing a middle-of-the-night pillow flip.”

Support Level: Medium | Loft: Low to medium | Firmness: Soft | Outer Materials: Cotton | Fill Materials: Polyester | Sizes: Queen, king, and European

Iwacool Thin Cooling Gel Pillow

Amazon

Bluewave Ultra Slim Gel Pillow

Amazon

Utopia Bedding Soft Pillows, 2-Pack

Amazon

Downlite Extra Thin Pillow

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A Montana cattleman and his wife have made a jaw-dropping decision to give away a $21.6 million ranch that has been in the family for generations, ensuring it remains a working ranch.

In a move that could have been plucked from the TV drama Yellowstone, Dale and Janet Veseth have donated their roughly 38,000-acre cattle ranch in southern Phillips County, Montana, to the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance (RSA).

The RSA is a rancher-founded nonprofit dedicated to keeping land in production agriculture. 

The gift is believed to be the largest recorded donation of a working ranch in Montana history, according to the organization.

The Veseths will continue to manage the ranch during their lifetimes, but ownership will pass to RSA.

It means the land’s future is secured and will be devoted to cattle, grass, wildlife, and rural communities than being carved up, sold off, or converted to other uses.

For Dale, 63, the decision reflects both hard economic realities and a deeply personal reckoning with what ranching has become in the modern West.

At the heart of the ranch is a lineage that predates Dale himself. 

Dale and Janet Veseth made a rare and dramatic decision to give away their $21.6 million Montana ranch rather than sell it

The Veseths, pictured here on the ranch in 2008, will continue managing the land during their lifetimes despite donating ownership

The move echoes themes from Yellowstone, the hit TV series starring Kevin Costner, pictured

His father ran cattle on the same land, as did his grandfather. 

Over the decades, Veseth has refined a rotational grazing system he’s worked on for 35 years, even adopting remote-controlled collars that allow him to move cattle up to 170 times a year across more than 38,000 acres.

But while the tools have evolved, the pressures have intensified.

Competing interests now vie for ranchland across Montana’s high northern plains – a landscape once defined by family homesteads, now increasingly shaped by conservation groups, investors, and soaring land prices.

Veseth said those pressures have made it nearly impossible for younger generations to enter the business.

‘The capitalization to get in and maintain a ranching business was out of the reach of most Americans,’ Veseth told Cowboy State Daily. ‘Land is just one aspect. You have cattle. You have equipment, you have labor.

‘And (everything) to make all these things go,’ he added. ‘We thought it was pretty hard to recruit the next generation of people who produced our food.’

Veseth said at least 76 homesteads are now incorporated into his deeded acres.

The couple said they wanted to make sure the ranch stayed complete, working, and stayed in the hands of people who understand the land

The $21.6 million has been in the family for generations. The Veseths have now donated their roughly 38,000-acre cattle ranch in southern Phillips County, Montana, to the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance (RSA)

The ranch will remain a working cattle operation under the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance

When factoring in Bureau of Land Management grazing lands, he estimates roughly 100 families once worked the land that now supports just three.

‘They all had dreams and interests,’ Veseth said.

He recalled how, in 1926, a struggling neighbor approached his grandfather and said, ‘maybe if I lease my place to you that between us we can make it.’ 

The family eventually left ranching altogether, later finding success in the air-conditioning business in Southern California and Hawaii – never returning to the land.

Today, Veseth said, the economics no longer add up.

‘For people to go out and pay $20 million to have an average job, that probably isn’t going to work,’ he said.

Rather than selling the ranch to the highest bidder, Veseth and his wife chose a different ending – one more in line with the moral code of Yellowstone’s fictional Dutton family than modern real estate logic.

In October, they announced they were gifting the ranch to RSA, a nonprofit Veseth helped establish 22 years ago amid growing concern over outside acquisition of ranchland in Phillips County and across northern Montana.

‘We’ve watched RSA grow into something pretty special,’ Veseth told the Whitefish Pilot. 

‘We’re proud to know the ranch will be part of that. They’ll keep it working the way it’s meant to be.’

Dale Veseth, who is also Vice President of the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance, has spent decades refining rotational grazing practices across the vast property

The gift is believed to be the largest recorded donation of a working ranch in Montana history

Like the fictional Dutton family, the Veseths chose legacy and land stewardship over profit. Pictured, Kevin Costner as John Dutton, left, Jefferson White as Jimmy Hurdstrom, Denim Richards as Colby

RSA President Conni French said the news stunned the organization.

‘I think we were all completely taken aback, and honestly, I don’t think the shock has worn off,’ French said.

‘It’s hard to put into words what a gesture like this means, not just for RSA, but for the future of ranching and conservation here at home.’

RSA Executive Director Angel DeVries told Cowboy State Daily the organization was formed when ‘ranchers started to stand up a little bit more to say, ‘Hey, we’ve been the ones stewarding the land.’

‘People who were not on the ground were saying what needed to be done or changed in this landscape,’ DeVries said. ‘And that’s really where the RSA, the Rancher Stewardship Alliance, was born out of.’

RSA Communications Director Haylie Shipp described the group’s mission as a simple one: ‘What can we do for ranchers so that they never have to sell their ranches out of production agriculture?’

‘American Prairie at the very, very base level, was perhaps a catalyst for why we got started,’ Shipp said.

For the Veseths, the couple wanted to ensure the land remained in the hands of people who work it.

Dale Veseth says the decision is rooted in real economic pressure and long-term planning

The donation is meant to preserve ranching, wildlife habitat, and rural communities together

With the average rancher now about 60 years old and full-time ranchers under 35 making up just 12 percent of the agricultural population, Veseth said his donation is meant to create access for people who don’t have tens of millions of dollars.

The ranch will eventually support education and access programs through RSA, offering carefully structured leasing opportunities to aspiring ranchers who lack the capital to buy land outright.

‘RSA is going to have a forum,’ Veseth said. ‘They will have an avenue for people that have spent their life on the land and want other people to have that opportunity, raise food, and be the backbone of these rural local communities.’

‘I’m extremely happy I’m a rancher,’ he added. ‘I think I had one of the few opportunities that most people will never have.’

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Russia used the full forces of its Tu-22M3 long range strategic bombers to inflict further misery on Ukraine and NATO was forced to scramble fighters for the second consecutive day



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Thailand and Cambodia have signed a ceasefire agreement to end weeks of armed combat along their border over competing claims to territory.

It took effect at noon local time.

As well as an end to the fighting, the agreement also calls for no further military movements by either side and no violations of either side’s airspace for military purposes.

Only Thailand employed airstrikes in the fighting, hitting sites in Cambodia as recently as Saturday morning, the Cambodian defence ministry said.

The deal also calls for Thailand, after the ceasefire has held for 72 hours, to repatriate 18 Cambodian soldiers it has held as prisoners since earlier fighting in July.

Their release has been a major demand of the Cambodian side.

The agreement was signed by the two countries’ defence ministers, Cambodia’s Tea Seiha and Thailand’s Nattaphon Narkphanit, at a checkpoint on their border after lower-level talks by military officials for three days as part of the already-established General Border Committee.

The original July ceasefire was brokered by Malaysia and pushed through after pressure from US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump threatened to withhold trade privileges unless Thailand and Cambodia agreed.

It was formalised in more detail at a regional meeting in Malaysia in October that Mr Trump attended.

Despite those deals, the two nations carried on a bitter propaganda war and minor cross-border violence continued, escalating to widespread heavy fighting in early December.

Thailand has lost 26 soldiers and one civilian as a direct result of the conflict since 7 December, according to officials.

Thailand has also reported 44 civilian deaths from collateral effects.

Cambodia hasn’t issued an official figure on military casualties, but says 30 civilians have been killed and 90 injured.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from areas affected on both sides of the border.

The two sides traded blame for starting the fighting and claimed to be acting in self-defence.

The agreement also calls on both countries to adhere to international agreements against deploying landmines – a major concern of Thailand.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

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Ex-Brazilian police chief caught using fake Paraguay passport in attempt to board flight to Panama, sent back to Brazil.

Published On 27 Dec 202527 Dec 2025

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A Brazilian former police chief, who fled the country after he was convicted as an accomplice in the attempted coup by Brazil’s far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested in Paraguay, according to the country’s immigration agency.

Silvinei Vasques was arrested on Friday at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, the Paraguayan National Migration Directorate (DNM) said in a statement posted on its website.

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The agency said Vasques was arrested for “identity theft” after “attempting to evade immigration controls by impersonating a Paraguayan citizen”.

Vasques was arrested while attempting to board a flight to Panama, declaring El Salvador as his final destination, the DNM statement said.

The wanted police chief had “clandestinely” entered Paraguay while “evading justice in his home country”, DNM added.

An image published on X by Paraguayan immigration authorities showed Vasques’s arrest and identification.

A separate video clip posted on the same account showed Vasques being turned over to Brazilian federal police at the Friendship Bridge border crossing that connects Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este and Brazil’s Foz do Iguacu.

Translation: The National Directorate of Migration (DNM) expelled Silvinei Vasques from the country. Moments ago, the DNM expelled Silvinei Vasques (50) from the country, subsequently handing him over to Brazilian Federal Police authorities at the Friendship Bridge border crossing.

Vasques, the former chief of Brazil’s highway police, was accused of deploying officers to prevent voters in left-leaning areas from casting their ballots in 2022 elections that Bolsonaro lost to left-wing candidate and current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He was arrested in 2023 and placed under supervision with an electronic ankle monitor pending trial. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison to be served under house arrest. He fled Brazil shortly after.

Brazilian media reported that Vasques broke his ankle monitor and drove across the border to Paraguay.

Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the fugitive’s preventive detention as a precautionary measure on  Friday, Reuters news agency reported, citing a court document and information from two people familiar with the matter.

Reached by Reuters, Vasques’s lawyer did not comment on his client’s attempt to flee.

Vasques is not the first official convicted over the 2023 coup attempt who has tried to escape from Brazil. In November, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the former intelligence agency director Alexandre Ramagem, who left the country in September and has since been living in the United States.

That same month, Justice Moraes also ordered Bolsonaro be detained after the former president tried to remove his court-ordered ankle monitor using a soldering iron, in what the court saw as an attempt to escape justice.

Bolsonaro, 70, is now serving a 27-year sentence in jail after being found guilty in September of having led the plot to prevent Lula from taking office.

On Thursday, the former president underwent surgery in hospital for a hernia.

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European leaders are to take part in a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump on Saturday as part of a growing push for a peace deal that will see the Ukrainian president head to Florida on Sunday.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is to join a call on Saturday, a commission spokesperson told Reuters, ahead of the Ukrainian president’s trip to Florida for a Sunday meeting with Trump that Zelenskyy said would focus on some of the most sensitive parts of the peace talks. Key sticking points include Ukrainian security guarantees and reconstruction, plus territorial discussions regarding the Donbas region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Sunday’s meeting is “specifically intended to refine things as much as we possibly can”, Zelenskyy said on Friday. He added that the proposed 20-point peace plan was “90% ready”. “Our goal is to bring everything to 100%,” Zelenskyy said. “As of today, our teams – the Ukrainian and American negotiating teams – have made significant progress.”

Zelenskyy is willing to hold a referendum on the peace plan if Russia agrees to a ceasefire of at least 60 days, Axios reported, following an interview with the Ukrainian president on Friday. Zelenskyy reportedly said he would need to seek approval of the Ukrainian public if he fails to secure a “strong” position on territory.

Against the political backdrop, powerful explosions were heard in Kyiv in the early hours of Saturday, hours after Zelenskyy spoke of his US meeting. The Kyiv Independent reported that the capital came under attack from Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles. The mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said at least five people were injured, with a fire reported in the city’s Holosiivskyi district. In the wider region, power outages were reported in and around the town of Brovary.

Ukraine’s air force also announced a countrywide air alert, saying on social media that drones and missiles were moving over several Ukrainian regions, including the capital.

The Russian strikes forced Polish fighter jets to scramble, and two airports in south-eastern Poland – Rzeszów and Lublin – were temporarily closed.

The latest peace efforts follow a burst of diplomatic activity last weekend in Miami, where Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met separately with Russian and Ukrainian representatives, as well as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The latest plan is considered an updated version of an earlier 28-point document agreed several weeks ago between the US envoys and Russian officials, a proposal widely viewed as skewed towards the Kremlin’s demands.

Ukraine has pushed for security guarantees modelled on Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence pledge under any proposed peace deal with Russia, though it remains unclear whether Moscow would accept such terms.

In an interview with Politico on Friday, Trump said he anticipated a “good” meeting with the Ukrainian leader, though he offered no endorsement of Zelenskyy’s plan. “He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told the news website. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”

The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, used a Russian television appearance on Friday to criticise Zelenskyy and European allies on their work on the peace plan. “Our ability to make the final push and reach an agreement will depend on our own work and the political will of the other party,” Ryabkov said. “Especially in a context where Kyiv and its sponsors – notably within the European Union, who are not in favour of an agreement – have stepped up efforts to torpedo it.”

He said the proposal drawn up with Zelenskyy’s input “differs radically” from points initially drawn up by US and Russian officials in contacts this month. “Without an adequate resolution of the problems at the origin of this crisis, it will be quite simply impossible to reach a definitive accord,” Ryabkov added.

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The sun would rise over the Rockies, and Robin Gammons would run to the front porch to grab the morning paper before school.

She wanted the comics and her dad wanted sports, but the Montana Standard meant more than their daily race to grab “Calvin and Hobbes” or baseball scores. When one of the three kids made honor roll, won a basketball game or dressed a freshly slain bison for the History Club, appearing in the Standard’s pages made the achievement feel more real. Robin became an artist with a one-woman show at a downtown gallery and the front-page article went on the fridge, too. Five years later, the yellowing article is still there.

The Montana Standard slashed print circulation to three days a week two years ago, cutting back the expense of printing like 1,200 U.S. newspapers over the past two decades. About 3,500 papers closed over the same time. An average of two a week have shut this year.

That slow fade, it turns out, means more than changing news habits. It speaks directly to the newspaper’s presence in our lives — not just in terms of the information printed upon it, but in its identity as a physical object with many other uses.

“You can pass it on. You can keep it. And then, of course, there’s all the fun things,” says Diane DeBlois, one of the founders of the Ephemera Society of America, a group of scholars, researchers, dealers and collectors who focus on what they call “precious primary source information.”

“Newspapers wrapped fish. They washed windows. They appeared in outhouses,” she says. “And — free toilet paper.”

The downward lurch in the media business has changed American democracy over the last two decades — some think for better, many for worse. What’s indisputable: The gradual dwindling of the printed paper — the item that so many millions read to inform themselves and then repurposed into household workflows — has quietly altered the texture of daily life.

American democracy and pet cages

People used to catch up on the world, then save their precious memories, protect their floors and furniture, wrap gifts, line pet cages and light fires. In Butte, in San Antonio, Texas, in much of New Jersey and worldwide, lives without the printed paper are just a tiny bit different.

For newspaper publishers, the expense of printing is just too high in an industry that’s under strain in an online society. For ordinary people, the physical paper is joining the pay phone, the cassette tape, the answering machine, the bank check, the sound of the internal combustion engine and the ivory-white pair of women’s gloves as objects whose disappearance marks the passage of time.

“Very hard to see it while it’s happening, much easier to see things like that in even modest retrospect,” says Marilyn Nissenson, co-author of “Going Going Gone: Vanishing Americana.” “Young women were going to work and they wore them for a while and then one day they looked at them and thought, ‘This is ludicrous.’ That was a small but telling icon for a much larger social change.”

Nick Mathews thinks a lot about newspapers. Both of his parents worked at the Pekin (Illinois) Daily Times. He went on to become sports editor of the Houston Chronicle and, now, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism.

“I have fond memories of my parents using newspapers to wrap presents,” he says. “In my family, you always knew that the gift was from my parents because of what it was wrapped in.”

In Houston, he recently recalled, the Chronicle reliably sold out when the Astros, Rockets or Texas won a championship because so many people wanted the paper as a keepsake.

Four years ago, Mathews interviewed 19 people in Caroline County, Virginia, about the 2018 shuttering of the Caroline Progress, a 99-year-old weekly paper that was shuttered months before its 100th anniversary.

In “Print Imprint: The Connection Between the Physical Newspaper and the Self,” published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry, wistful Virginians remember their senior high school portrait and their daughter’s picture in a wedding dress appearing in the Progress. Plus, one told Mathews, “My fingers are too clean now. I feel sad without ink smudges.”

The many and varied uses

Flush with cash from Omahans who invested years ago with local boy Warren Buffett, Nebraska Wildlife Rehab is a well-equipped center for migratory waterfowl, wading birds, reptiles, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, mink and beaver.

“We get over 8,000 animals every year and we use that newspaper for almost all of those animals,” Executive Director Laura Stastny says.

Getting old newspapers has never been a problem in this neighborly Midwestern city. Yet Stastny frets about the electronic future.

“We do pretty well now,” she says. “If we lost that source and had to use something else or had to purchase something, that, with the available options that we have now, would cost us more than $10,000 a year easily.”

That would be nearly 1% of the budget, Stastny says, but “I’ve never been in a position to be without them, so I might be shocked with a higher dollar figure.”

Until 1974, the Omaha World-Herald printed a morning edition and two afternoon ones, including a late-afternoon Wall Street Edition with closing prices.

“Afternoon major-league baseball was still standard then, so I got to gorge on both baseball and stock market facts,” an 85-year-old Buffett told the World-Herald in 2013, By then, he had become the world’s most famous investor and the paper’s owner.

The World-Herald ended its second afternoon edition in 2016 and Buffett left the newspaper business five years ago. Fewer than 60,000 households take the paper today, according to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, down from nearly more than 190,000 in 2005, or about one per household.

Time marches on

Few places symbolize the move from print to digital more than Akalla, a district of Stockholm where the ST01 data center sits at a site once occupied by the factory that prints Sweden main newspaper, Kaun says.

“They have less and less machines, and instead the building is taken over more and more by this co-location data center,” she says.

Data centers use huge amounts of energy, of course, and the environmental benefit of using less printing paper is also offset by the enormous popularity of online shopping.

“You will see a decline in printed papers, but there is a huge increase in packaging,” says Cecilia Alcoreza, manager, of forest sector transformation for the World Wildlife Fund.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced in August that it would stop providing a print edition at year’s end and go completely digital, making Atlanta the largest U.S. metro area without a printed daily newspaper.

The habit of following the news — of being informed about the world — can’t be divorced from the existence of print, says Anne Kaun, professor of media and communication studies at Södertörn University in Stockholm.

Children who grew up in homes with printed newspapers and magazines randomly came across news and socialized into a news-reading habit, Kaun observed. With cell phones, that doesn’t happen.

“I do think it meaningfully changes how we relate to each other, how we relate to things like the news. It is reshaping attention spans and communications,” says Sarah Wasserman, a cultural critic and assistant dean at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire who specializes in changing forms of communication.

“These things will always continue to exist in certain spheres and certain pockets and certain class niches,” she says. “But I do think they’re fading.”

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By SOPHIE GABLE, US REPORTER

Published: 05:41 GMT, 27 December 2025 | Updated: 05:49 GMT, 27 December 2025

The president of the recently renamed Kennedy Center issued a scathing letter to a musician who pulled out of a Christmas Eve performance, calling the drummer’s ticket sales ‘dismal’ and demanding $1 million in damages. 

Richard Grenell, the president of the Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, sent a letter to musician Chuck Redd after the host canceled the annual Jazz Jam. 

Grenell slammed Redd for the ‘abrupt cancellation’ and accused the drummer of pulling out due to ‘partisan political reasons,’ in a letter published by the Associated Press. 

‘Your decision to withdraw at the last moment – explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure – is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit Arts institution,’ the letter read.

‘Regrettably, your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances at our national cultural center.’

Grenell went on to accuse Redd’s annual Jazz Jam of ‘lagging considerably’ behind the center’s other holiday shows. 

‘Your dismal ticket sales and lack of donor support, combined with your last-minute cancellation has cost us considerably,’ the letter continued before demanding $1 million in damages. 

Grenell also praised the Trump administration in his letter for rescuing the venue from destruction. 

Jazz musician Chuck Redd canceled his annual Christmas Eve performance at the Kennedy Center after the institution was renamed to include Donald Trump 

The newly-appointed board of trustees voted earlier this month to rename the center to The Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts 

Trump was announced as the chairman of the center in February and said he was ‘honored’ that the board voted to change the name to include him 

Redd told the Associated Press on Christmas Eve that he canceled the concert because of the Kennedy Center’s name change. 

‘I’ve been performing at the Kennedy Center since the beginning of my career and I was saddened to see this name change,’ Redd told CNN. 

He’s hosted the annual concert for two decades and has a resume including tours with Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Brown. 

Redd was also a member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra and is a faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Music. 

Trump became the chairman of the Kennedy Center in February. The previous president, Deborah F Rutter, was subsequently fired, and Grenell was appointed interim president. 

Grenell served as an ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term in office. Fourteen new members of the Board of Trustees were later announced, including Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Second Lady Usha Vance. 

Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center sparked departures from other high-profile officials, including showrunner Shonda Rhimes, who resigned as treasurer. 

Artists, including Issa Rae, Peter Wolf, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, canceled their performances as a result of the leadership changes. 

Trump appointed his former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell (left), as the interim president of the board 

The name change has prompted legal concerns. A law was passed after President Kennedy’s assassination explicitly naming the center as a living memorial for the late world leader. 

Former House historian Ray Smock argued the law prohibits the board of trustees from adding anyone else to the center or putting another person’s name on the building. 

Ohio Representative Joyce Beatty filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration for the move, claiming that as a member of the center’s board, she was silenced from voting on the name change. 

Grenell hit back at her allegations on social media, claiming that she was a ‘non-voting ex-officio member.’ 

Trump boasted earlier this month that his administration ‘saved’ the building, and he was honored to have his name added to the memorial.  

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Trump-Kennedy Center will seek $1million in damages from ‘dismal’ drummer who pulled out of Christmas concert due to MAGA rebrand

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