The Times - UK (2020-11-26)

the times | Thursday November 26 2020 2GM 37

Wo r l d

In the past few weeks gardeners in
Georgia have reported seeing a mon-
strous worm with a broad, fan-shaped
head and a body up to a foot long.
Known as the shovel-headed or
hammerhead worm, their appearance
aroused fascination among landown-
ers in the US state but fear for the earth-
worms on which they prey.
“It looked like an alien,” one gardener
told an Atlanta television station.
“Something I’ve never seen before.”
James Murphy, an agriculture and
natural resources extension agent for
the University of Georgia, said he had
been sceptical at first.
The sightings warned of a new ad-
vance for the species in the flowerbeds
of the south, he said. But as more sight-
ings were reported, “my interest has

been a bit more piqued”, he said. “We

are starting to see additional sightings

in other states.”

Mr Murphy said records of sightings

date back at least a century. “The origi-

nal scientific description goes back to

the 1870s at Kew Gardens,” he said.

The worms are reputed to be

extremely hardy. “They are able to

reproduce from a fragmented body

were Canadian, and Mr Trudeau, 48,

was fielding calls from world leaders.

He opens with a warm: “Hello Greta.”

The impersonator begins with grave

fears about the growing crisis.

Mr Trudeau says he is pushing for a

“reduction of tensions”. The fake Greta

answers: “You are adults but you act like

children. Leave Nato. Drop your weap-

ons. Pick flowers. Smile at nature.”

The Canadian applauds her enthusi-

asm. When Mr Trump is criticised, the

prime minister says he has a responsi-

bility to work with other leaders.

The penny drops when the prankster

asks to meet two characters from the

animated comedy series South Park and

the conversation is ended. Mr Trudeau

met Ms Thunberg last September.

had last seen their grandfather. A

White House spokeswoman told the

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which had

reported the story, that “they owe no

one, especially idle gossips seeking

press attention, an explanation”.

Ms Trump may be facing legal ques-

tions too. Two investigations in New

York being conducted into Mr Trump

are said to have broadened their inquir-

ies to examine tax write-offs on con-

sulting fees that went to his daughter.

In 2017 Ms Trump reported receiving

payments from a consulting company

she owned that exactly matched tax de-

ductions taken by the Trump Organi-

sation for hotel projects. She said the in-

vestigations were a “fishing expedition”.

Will Trump’s choice sway the Supreme

Court? page 59

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who married in 2009, plan to improve and

expand the family’s Bedminster cottage on a Trump golf course in New Jersey

Ivanka transfers

her family away

from Manhattan

public perception of them has trans-

formed in a short time.

Initially the pair were seen as liberal,

moderating influences on Mr Trump,

working in the White House out of

familial loyalty and a desire to moder-

ate his excesses. Until 2018 they were

both registered Democrats who

donated to Democratic candidates. Ms

Trump was close to Chelsea Clinton,

the daughter of Hillary Clinton, Mr

Trump’s vanquished rival in 2016.

But the couple cleaved closely to Mr

Trump’s presidency, and Ms Trump

became one of his most prominent

surrogates, both at private fundraisers

and at public rallies in territory that

once would have seemed alien to her.

Her social liberal bona fides were

shrugged off: shortly before the elect-

ion she declared herself “pro-life, and

unapologetically so”.

As their image changed, so did their

perception in Democratic Washington.

At the Jewish private elementary

school in Washington that their eldest

two children started attending in 2017,

other parents were generally public

servants of the sort scorned by Mr

Trump. Some said the children should

be refused admission.

The New York Times

said it had been told by

four parents that Ms

Trump and Mr

Kushner violated

an “unspoken rule

of the Washing-

ton private-

school world”

that parents with

big security details

should keep their

disruption as mini-

mal as possible. In-

stead at school events

the family and their large

entourage would typically take

up the whole of the front two rows.

Last month, when Mr Trump con-

tracted coronavirus and the festivities

to promote Amy Coney Barrett’s nomi-

nation to the Supreme Court became a

superspreader event, parents demand-

ed that school officials find out whether

pupils had been indirectly exposed. Ms

Trump and Mr Kushner were said to

have refused to say when their children

United States
Henry Zeffman Washington

Ivanka Trump is preparing to move to
New Jersey when her father leaves the
White House, anticipating rejection by
the New York high society she inhabit-
ed before 2016.
As a senior adviser to President
Trump as well as his eldest daughter,
Ms Trump, 39, has lived in Washington
with her husband Jared Kushner, 39,
who is also an adviser in the White
House, for the past four years.
The couple, who married in 2009 and
have three children, are said to be plan-
ning to upgrade their “cottage” at a
Trump golf course in Bedminster, an
hour’s drive from Manhattan.
Proposals submitted to town offi-

cials, uncovered by
The New York Times,
reveal plans to add a
spa and yoga com-
plex, move a heli-
port and insert
four pickleball
courts — a sport
that combines ele-
ments of tennis, ta-
ble tennis and bad-
minton. They also plan
to expand the main bed-
room, bathroom and dress-
ing room, and add two bed-
rooms, a study and a veranda.
The plans would make the house
much more like their $15,000-a-month
home in Kalorama, an enclave of Wash-
ington where Jeff Bezos, the Amazon
founder, and the Obamas live.
The apparent decision not to return
to New York, where Ms Trump grew up
and where the couple lived before the
family’s political rise, underscores how

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Alien worms spread terra in Georgia

part,” Mr Murphy said. Predators that

might eat them do not like how they

taste.

A study published in 2014 found that

their bodies contained a paralytic toxin,

apparently used to subdue larger prey.

Mr Murphy emphasised, however, that

there were only a few of the worms.

He was not sure if the rise in sightings

was caused by a growth in their num-

bers or an increase in gardeners with

mobile phone cameras.

Mr Murphy advised the gardeners to

sprinkle salt on the worms or put them

in a pail of water. He suspected that

their presence would be of most con-

cern, however, “if you are in the busi-

ness of raising earthworms”.

“They are not exclusively predatory

on earthworms and can be cannibalis-

tic,” he said. “In some cases the popula-

tions can be their own worst enemies.”

Will Pavia New York

Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of

Canada, became the latest world figure

to be fooled by two Russian hoaxers,

who led him to believe he was talking to

the climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stol-

yarov have released a recording of the

ten-minute call. The fake 17-year-old

counsels Mr Trudeau on global affairs,

criticises President Trump and asks to

meet two Canadian cartoon characters.

The conversation occurred in Janu-

ary, days after Ukraine International

Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down in

Iran amid heightened tensions with

America. Of the 176 people killed, 55

Fake Greta tells Trudeau:

Leave Nato, pick flowers

Canada

Charlie Mitchell Ottawa

Hammerhead worms can be a foot long

Full pardon

for Trump

adviser who

lied to FBI

Henry Zeffman

President Trump has pardoned Mich-

ael Flynn, his former national security

adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying to

the FBI about his Russian contacts.

Flynn’s pardon is the culmination of a

four-year saga that flowed from the

FBI’s investigation into alleged

co-operation between Mr Trump’s

campaign and the Russian government.

“It is my Great Honour to announce

that General Michael T Flynn has been

granted a Full Pardon,” Mr Trump an-

nounced on Twitter. “Congratulations

to @GenFlynn and his wonderful

family, I know you will now have a truly

fantastic Thanksgiving!”

Flynn, 61, lasted little more than

three weeks in the administration in

2017 before quitting for misleading

Mike Pence, the vice-president, and the

FBI over his ties to Russia. During the

last presidential transition he had

urged the Russian ambassador to

Washington not to respond to the

Obama administration imposing sanc-

tions for its election interference.

He pleaded guilty to making “false,

fictitious and fraudulent” statements to

the investigators in December 2017. He

pleaded guilty for a second time in 2018.

Flynn was the first Trump aide to be

prosecuted as a result of Robert

Mueller’s investigation into Russian in-

terference in the 2016 election.

Flynn later tried to retract his guilty

plea, suggesting he had been set up by

the FBI, and in May the justice depart-

ment said it was dropping the case. A

judge later sought to block that move,

while Mr Trump declared his former

adviser to be “an innocent man”.

The pardon was denounced by Dem-

ocrats. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic

Speaker of the House of Representa-

tives, said: “Trump’s pardoning of

Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying

to the FBI about his dealings with a for-

eign adversary, is an act of grave cor-

ruption and a brazen abuse of power.”

Separately, Joe Biden said that he will

use his first 100 days in the White

House to reverse Mr Trump’s environ-

mental orders and expand citizenship

to millions of undocumented immi-

grants. “I made a commitment,” Mr

Biden, 78, told NBC News in his first

interview as president-elect. “I will

send an immigration bill to the US Sen-

ate with a pathway to citizenship for

over 11 million undocumented people.”