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Matt Gaetz says he won't return to Congress next year after withdrawing name for attorney general

The tech world is abuzz with anticipation as leaked images surface of Lenovo’s latest innovation: a laptop with a rollable display. This isn’t just another incremental upgrade; it’s a potential game-changer that could redefine how we interact with our portable computers. Expected to be unveiled at CES 2025, the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is poised to be the world’s first commercially available laptop featuring this revolutionary technology. But what exactly does this mean for consumers, and how does it work? A New Era of Multitasking Imagine working on a document while simultaneously having a video call, with both windows displayed in full size. Or picture yourself seamlessly switching between coding and browsing the web without minimizing windows . This is the promise of Lenovo’s rollable laptop. The expanding display offers a dynamic workspace that adapts to your needs, providing ample screen real estate for even the most demanding tasks. How Does It Work? The rollable display technology utilizes a flexible OLED panel that’s housed within the laptop’s chassis. With the push of a button or a simple gesture, the screen smoothly extends upwards, revealing more screen space hidden beneath. When not in use, the extra portion of the display retracts, giving the laptop a traditional form factor. More Than Just a Gimmick? While the novelty of a rollable display is undeniable, the real question is whether it offers genuine practical benefits. Based on the leaked images and Lenovo’s previous statements, it seems the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 aims to address some key user needs: Addressing Potential Concerns Naturally, with any new technology, there are concerns. Durability, battery life, and weight are all factors that Lenovo will need to address to ensure the success of this device. However, given Lenovo’s track record of innovation and the advancements in flexible display technology, there’s reason to be optimistic. My Take on the Rollable Revolution Having followed the development of flexible displays for years, I’m genuinely excited about the potential of Lenovo’s rollable laptop. As someone who often works with multiple applications open simultaneously, the idea of having a dynamically adjustable workspace is incredibly appealing. I believe this technology could be a significant step forward in portable computing, offering a more versatile and immersive user experience. While the leaked images and information provide a tantalizing glimpse into the future of laptops, many questions remain unanswered. Pricing, availability, and detailed specifications are still unknown. We’ll have to wait for the official announcement at CES 2025 to get the full picture. One thing is certain: Lenovo’s rollable laptop has captured the imagination of tech enthusiasts worldwide. It’s a bold move that could usher in a new era of innovation in the laptop industry. Whether it becomes a mainstream success or a niche product remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that this is a technology worth watching.

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Neal Maupay: Whenever I’m having a bad day I check Everton score and smilePARIS: The tough-fought finance deal at UN climate negotiations was “imperfect”, the Azerbaijan COP29 leadership has admitted, seeking to blame richer countries for an outcome slammed by poorer nations as insulting. The contentious deal agreed on Sunday saw wealthy polluters agree to a $300 billion a year pledge to help developing countries reduce emissions and prepare for the increasingly dangerous impacts of a warming world. COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev conceded that the deal was insufficient to meet escalating needs and suggested that China would have agreed to stump up more cash had others agreed to budge. Writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper on Monday he said wealthy historical emitters had been “immovable” until very late in the negotiating process. “This deal may be imperfect. It does not keep everyone happy. But it is a major step forward from the $100 billion pledged in Paris back in 2015,” he said. “It is also the deal that almost didn’t happen.” Azerbaijan, an authoritarian oil and gas exporter, came under heavy criticism for its handling of COP29, notably France and Germany. Babayev banged the deal through in the early hours of Sunday after nearly two weeks of fractious negotiations that at one point appeared on the verge of collapse. As soon as the deal was approved, India, Bolivia, Nigeria and Malawi, speaking on behalf of the 45-strong Least Developed Countries group, took to the floor to denounce it. Finance was always going to be a thorny issue for the nearly 200 nations that gathered in a sports stadium in Baku to hammer out a new target by 2035. Wealthy countries failed to meet the previous goal on time, causing cratering trust in the UN climate process. COP29 did set out a wider target of $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 to help developing nations pay for the energy transition and brace themselves for worsening climate impacts. The deal envisages that $300 billion mobilized by wealthy nations will be combined with funds from the private sector and financial institutions like the World Bank to reach this larger sum. But Babayev said he agreed with developing nations that “the industrialized world’s contribution was too low and that the private sector contribution was too theoretical”. Contrasting China’s involvement in the negotiations with that of wealthy historical emitters like the European Union and United States, he said Beijing was “willing to offer more if others did so too (but the others didn’t)”. China, the world’s second-biggest economy and top emitter of greenhouse gases, is considered a developing country in the UN process and is therefore not obliged to pay up, although it does already provide climate funding on its own terms. The new text states that developed nations would be “taking the lead” but implies that others could join. Babayev said the deal was “not enough”, but would provide a foundation to build on in the lead up to next year’s climate talks in Brazil. — AFPA Farmingdale High School and Stony Brook University graduate is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and if confirmed, he’d replace another Long Island native. The nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, has provoked concern from public health experts. He sponsored a bill to limit the use of vaccines containing mercury because of concerns the mercury-based preservative thimerosal could cause autism despite the CDC’s and leading health experts’ insistence that it does not, and sponsored a 2007 bill to strip the CDC of vaccine-safety responsibilities and move it to another agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. He would replace Dr. Mandy Cohen, a Baldwin native who in a statement released by the CDC after vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for secretary of health and human services, but before Weldon’s, wrote: "I don't want to go backward and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned. Any misinformation coming from places of influence or power are concerning." K.C. Rondello, a clinical associate professor of public health at Adelphi University in Garden City, said in an email that he and others working in public health "are tremendously concerned about the potential impact of appointing a vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist to the role of CDC director. [Former] Rep. Weldon espouses beliefs that are contrary to the overwhelming mountain of evidence on vaccine efficacy and safety that has been garnered over decades." The CDC states that many studies have examined potential links between vaccines and autism and "continue to show that vaccines are not associated with ASD," or autism spectrum disorder. Children’s Health Defense, an organization that Kennedy founded, said in a statement: "We believe Dr. Weldon is eminently qualified as a former member of Congress and physician." The organization referred Newsday to an article on its website in which critics of the CDC praised Weldon for his criticism of the CDC’s vaccine safety oversight. Weldon was not available to comment, a Trump transition team spokeswoman said in an email. Weldon was born in Amityville, according to his official congressional biography , and graduated from Farmingdale High in 1971. He was among the first 16 Farmingdale alumni with their names inscribed on the school’s Wall of Honor, Newsday reported in 1998. He graduated from Stony Brook in 1978 with a bachelor of science in biochemistry, earning "high honors," university records show. He received his medical degree from the University at Buffalo in 1981. Weldon was a part-time clinical professor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida, from 2012 to 2019, and served on the university’s board of trustees from 2021 until January, the university said in an email. Weldon represented an east-central Florida congressional district from 1995 to 2009. His 2004 bill regarding thimerosal didn't pass. Thimerosal is added to vaccines to prevent germ growth and, according to the CDC , contains a type of mercury different than the one that is found in some fish. Studies have shown that low doses of thimerosal in vaccines are not harmful, other than minor reactions like redness at the injection site. Thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in 2001. It is in flu vaccines for adults and children, but there are thimerosal-free options. Weldon also has expressed concern about the safety of other vaccines, including those against measles, mumps and rubella, multiple news reports said. Dorit R. Reiss, a professor at University of California Law San Francisco and an expert on vaccine policy and law, said, "Weldon isn’t quite as extreme as Kennedy." But, she said, she is concerned that Weldon would push to no longer recommend certain vaccines and change CDC vaccine guidance. A committee of medical and public health experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices , advises the CDC on vaccines, but the CDC director can reject those recommendations, Reiss said. In addition, as health and human services secretary, Kennedy would have the power to appoint committee members. Recommendations are critical, because states generally follow them, she said. "Given the way this topic is politicized — which is a really sad thing, because viruses don't care about your politics — if the recommendations change suddenly, the reception would probably vary across states by political approach, and we may end up with a tragic national experiment in which some states stop recommending some vaccines and others don’t," Reiss said. In addition, the Affordable Care Act requires that most insurance plans pay for CDC-recommended vaccines if administered in-network. Many people won’t take vaccines if they must pay for them, Reiss said. "Some [insurance companies] will continue to cover vaccines that are not recommended because it's more cost effective for them to prevent disease than to treat it, but some won’t," she said. The CDC releases other advisories and recommendations. For example, the CDC website currently states that research shows that vaccines do not cause autism. If that changed, it could affect public trust in the CDC and put an official government stamp on baseless information, she said. A Farmingdale High School and Stony Brook University graduate is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and if confirmed, he’d replace another Long Island native. The nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, has provoked concern from public health experts. He sponsored a bill to limit the use of vaccines containing mercury because of concerns the mercury-based preservative thimerosal could cause autism despite the CDC’s and leading health experts’ insistence that it does not, and sponsored a 2007 bill to strip the CDC of vaccine-safety responsibilities and move it to another agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. He would replace Dr. Mandy Cohen, a Baldwin native who in a statement released by the CDC after vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for secretary of health and human services, but before Weldon’s, wrote: "I don't want to go backward and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned. Any misinformation coming from places of influence or power are concerning." K.C. Rondello, a clinical associate professor of public health at Adelphi University in Garden City, said in an email that he and others working in public health "are tremendously concerned about the potential impact of appointing a vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist to the role of CDC director. [Former] Rep. Weldon espouses beliefs that are contrary to the overwhelming mountain of evidence on vaccine efficacy and safety that has been garnered over decades." WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND The CDC states that many studies have examined potential links between vaccines and autism and "continue to show that vaccines are not associated with ASD," or autism spectrum disorder. Get the latest stories every week about health and wellness, covering topics from medicine and mental health to updates on the coronavirus and new research. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy . Children’s Health Defense, an organization that Kennedy founded, said in a statement: "We believe Dr. Weldon is eminently qualified as a former member of Congress and physician." The organization referred Newsday to an article on its website in which critics of the CDC praised Weldon for his criticism of the CDC’s vaccine safety oversight. Weldon was not available to comment, a Trump transition team spokeswoman said in an email. Weldon was born in Amityville, according to his official congressional biography , and graduated from Farmingdale High in 1971. He was among the first 16 Farmingdale alumni with their names inscribed on the school’s Wall of Honor, Newsday reported in 1998. He graduated from Stony Brook in 1978 with a bachelor of science in biochemistry, earning "high honors," university records show. He received his medical degree from the University at Buffalo in 1981. Weldon was a part-time clinical professor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida, from 2012 to 2019, and served on the university’s board of trustees from 2021 until January, the university said in an email. Weldon represented an east-central Florida congressional district from 1995 to 2009. His 2004 bill regarding thimerosal didn't pass. Thimerosal is added to vaccines to prevent germ growth and, according to the CDC , contains a type of mercury different than the one that is found in some fish. Studies have shown that low doses of thimerosal in vaccines are not harmful, other than minor reactions like redness at the injection site. Thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines in 2001. It is in flu vaccines for adults and children, but there are thimerosal-free options. Weldon also has expressed concern about the safety of other vaccines, including those against measles, mumps and rubella, multiple news reports said. Dorit R. Reiss, a professor at University of California Law San Francisco and an expert on vaccine policy and law, said, "Weldon isn’t quite as extreme as Kennedy." But, she said, she is concerned that Weldon would push to no longer recommend certain vaccines and change CDC vaccine guidance. A committee of medical and public health experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices , advises the CDC on vaccines, but the CDC director can reject those recommendations, Reiss said. In addition, as health and human services secretary, Kennedy would have the power to appoint committee members. Recommendations are critical, because states generally follow them, she said. "Given the way this topic is politicized — which is a really sad thing, because viruses don't care about your politics — if the recommendations change suddenly, the reception would probably vary across states by political approach, and we may end up with a tragic national experiment in which some states stop recommending some vaccines and others don’t," Reiss said. In addition, the Affordable Care Act requires that most insurance plans pay for CDC-recommended vaccines if administered in-network. Many people won’t take vaccines if they must pay for them, Reiss said. "Some [insurance companies] will continue to cover vaccines that are not recommended because it's more cost effective for them to prevent disease than to treat it, but some won’t," she said. The CDC releases other advisories and recommendations. For example, the CDC website currently states that research shows that vaccines do not cause autism. If that changed, it could affect public trust in the CDC and put an official government stamp on baseless information, she said. David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.

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Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer and little-known Georgia governor who became the 39th president of the United States, promising “honest and decent” government to Watergate-weary Americans, and later returned to the world stage as an influential human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has died. He was 100. When his turbulent presidency ended after a stinging reelection loss in 1980, Carter retreated to Plains, his political career over. Over the four decades that followed, though, he forged a legacy of public service, building homes for the needy, monitoring elections around the globe and emerging as a fearless and sometimes controversial critic of governments that mistreated their citizens. He lived longer than any U.S. president in history and was still regularly teaching Bible classes at his hometown Maranatha Baptist Church well into his 90s. During his post-presidency, he also wrote more than 30 books, including fiction, poetry, deeply personal reflections on his faith, and commentaries on Middle East strife. Though slowed by battles with brain and liver cancer and a series of falls and hip replacement in recent years, he returned again and again to his charity work and continued to offer occasional political commentary, including in support of mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Carter was in his first term as Georgia governor when he launched his campaign to unseat President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. At the time, the nation was still shaken by President Richard Nixon’s resignation in the Watergate scandal and by the messy end of the Vietnam War. As a moderate Southern Democrat, a standard-bearer of what was then regarded as a more racially tolerant “new South,” Carter promised a government “as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.” But some of the traits that had helped get Carter elected — his willingness to take on the Washington establishment and his preference for practicality over ideology — didn’t serve him as well in the White House. He showed a deep understanding of policy, and a refreshing modesty and disregard for the ceremonial trappings of the office, but he was unable to make the legislative deals expected of a president. Even though his Democratic Party had a majority in Congress throughout his presidency, he was impatient with the legislative give-and-take and struggled to mobilize party leaders behind his policy initiatives. His presidency also was buffeted by domestic crises — rampant inflation and high unemployment, as well as interminable lines at gas stations triggered by a decline in the global oil supply exacerbated by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. “Looking back, I am struck by how many unpopular objectives we pursued,” Carter acknowledged in his 2010 book, “White House Diary.” “I was sometimes accused of ‘micromanaging’ the affairs of government and being excessively autocratic,” he continued, “and I must admit that my critics probably had a valid point.” Carter’s signature achievements as president were primarily on the international front, and included personally brokering the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, which have endured for more than 40 years. But it was another international crisis — the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries and the government’s inability to win the release of 52 Americans taken hostage — that would cast a long shadow on his presidency and his bid for reelection. Carter authorized a secret military mission to rescue the hostages in April 1980, but it was aborted at the desert staging area; during the withdrawal, eight servicemen were killed when a helicopter crashed into a transport aircraft. The hostages were held for 444 days, a period that spanned Carter’s final 15 months in the White House. They were finally freed the day his successor, Ronald Reagan, took the oath of office. Near the end of Carter’s presidency, one poll put his job approval rating at 21% — lower than Nixon’s when he resigned in disgrace and among the lowest of any White House occupant since World War II. In a rarity for an incumbent president, Carter faced a formidable primary challenge in 1980 from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a favorite of the Democratic Party’s liberal wing. Although Carter prevailed, his nomination was in doubt until the party’s August convention. The enmity between Carter and Kennedy, two of the most important Democratic political figures of their generation, continued throughout their lives. In Kennedy’s memoir, published shortly after his death in 2009, he called Carter petty and guilty of “a failure to listen.” While promoting the publication of “White House Diary,” Carter said Kennedy had “deliberately” blocked Carter’s comprehensive healthcare proposals in the late 1970s in hopes of defeating the president in the primary. In the 1980 general election, Carter faced Reagan, then 69, who campaigned on a promise to increase military spending and rescue the economy by cutting taxes and decreasing regulation. Carter lost in a 51% to 41% thumping — he won just six states and the District of Columbia — that devastated the man known for his toothy smile and sent him back to his hometown, an ex-president at 56. A year later, he and Rosalynn founded the Carter Center, which pressed for peaceful solutions to world conflicts, promoted human rights and worked to eradicate disease in the poorest nations. The center, based in Atlanta, launched a new phase of Carter’s public life, one that would move the same historians who called Carter a weak president to label him one of America’s greatest former leaders. His post-presidential years were both “historic and polarizing,” as Princeton University historian Julian E. Zelizer put it in a 2010 biography of Carter. Zelizer said Carter “refused to be constrained politically when pursuing his international agenda” as an ex-president, and became “an enormously powerful figure on the international stage.” When Carter appeared on “The Colbert Report” in 2014, host Stephen Colbert asked him, “You invented the idea of the post-presidency. What inspired you to do that?” “I didn’t have anything else to do,” Carter replied. He traveled widely to mediate conflicts and monitor elections around the world, joined Habitat for Humanity to promote “sweat equity” for low-income homeownership, and became a blunt critic of human rights abuses. He angered conservatives and some liberals by advocating negotiations with autocrats — and his criticism of Israeli leaders and support for Palestinian self-determination angered many Jews. A prolific author, Carter covered a range of topics, including the Middle East crisis and the virtues of aging and religion. He penned a memoir on growing up in the rural South as well as a book of poems, and he was the first president to write a novel — “The Hornet’s Nest,” about the South during the Revolutionary War. He won three Grammy Awards as well for best spoken-word album, most recently in 2019 for “Faith: A Journey For All.” As with many former presidents, Carter’s popularity rose in the years after he left office. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts” and to advance democracy and human rights. By then, two-thirds of Americans said they approved of his presidency. “Jimmy Carter may never be rated a great president,” wrote Charles O. Jones, a University of Wisconsin political scientist, in his chronicle of the Carter presidency. “Yet it will be difficult in the long run to sustain censure of a president motivated to do what is right.” :::: The journey for James Earl Carter Jr. began on Oct. 1, 1924, in the tiny Sumter County, Georgia, town of Plains, home to fewer than 600 people in 2020. He was the first president born in a hospital, but he lived in a house without electricity or indoor plumbing until he was a teenager. His ancestors had been in Georgia for more than two centuries, and he was the fifth generation to own and farm the same land. His father, James Earl Carter Sr., known as Mr. Earl, was a strict disciplinarian and a conservative businessman of some means. His mother, known as Miss Lillian, had more liberal views — she was known for her charity work and for taking in transients and treating Black residents with kindness. (At the age of 70, she joined the Peace Corps, working in India.) Inspired by an uncle who was in the Navy, Carter decided as a first-grader that he wanted to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. He became the first member of his family to finish high school, then attended Georgia Tech before heading for the academy, where he studied engineering and graduated in 1946, 59th in a class of 820. Before his last year in Annapolis, while home for the summer, he met Eleanor Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister Ruth’s. He and a friend invited the two young women to the movies, and when he returned home that night, he told his mother he had met “the girl I want to marry.” He proposed that Christmas, but Rosalynn declined because she felt she was too young (she was 18 and a sophomore in college). Several weeks later, while she was visiting Carter at the academy, he asked again. This time she said yes. Carter applied to America’s new nuclear-powered submarine program under the command of the icy and demanding Capt. (later Adm.) Hyman Rickover. During Carter’s interview, Rickover asked whether he had done his best at Annapolis. “I started to say, ‘Yes, sir,’ but ... I recalled several of the many times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy and so forth,” Carter wrote in his autobiography. “... I finally gulped and said, ‘No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.’” To which Rickover replied: “Why not?” Carter got the job, and would later make “Why not the best?” his campaign slogan. The Carters had three sons, who all go by nicknames — John William “Jack,” James Earl “Chip” and Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff.” Carter and Rosalynn had wanted to have more children, but an obstetrician said that surgery Rosalynn had to remove a tumor on her uterus would make that impossible. Fifteen years after Jeffrey was born, the Carters had a daughter, Amy, who “made us young again,” Carter would later write. While in the Navy, Carter took graduate courses in nuclear physics and served as a submariner on the USS Pomfret. But his military career was cut short when his father died, and he moved back to Georgia in 1953 to help run the family business, which was in disarray. In his first year back on the farm, Carter turned a profit of less than $200, the equivalent of about $2,200 today. But with Rosalynn’s help, he expanded the business. In addition to farming 3,100 acres, the family soon operated a seed and fertilizer business, warehouses, a peanut-shelling plant and a cotton gin. By the time he began his campaign for the White House 20 years later, Carter had a net worth of about $800,000, and the revenue from his enterprises was more than $2 million a year. Carter entered electoral politics in 1962, and asked voters to call him “Jimmy.” He ran for a seat in the Georgia Senate against an incumbent backed by a local political boss who stuffed the ballot box. Trailing by 139 votes after the primary, Carter waged a furious legal battle, which he described years later in his book “Turning Point.” Carter got a recount, the primary result was reversed, and he went on to win the general election. The victory was a defining moment for Carter, the outsider committed to fairness and honesty who had successfully battled establishment politicians corrupted by their ties to special interests. In two terms in the Georgia Senate, Carter established a legislative record that was socially progressive and fiscally conservative. He first ran for governor in 1966, but finished third in the primary. Over the next four years, he made 1,800 speeches and shook hands with an estimated 600,000 people — a style of campaigning that paid off in the 1970 gubernatorial election and later in his bid for the White House. In his inaugural address as governor in 1971, Carter made national news by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” He had a portrait of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. hung in a hall at the Capitol in Atlanta. But when Carter launched his official campaign for the White House in December 1974, he was still so little-known outside Georgia that a celebrity panel on the TV show “What’s My Line?” couldn’t identify him. In the beginning, many scoffed at the temerity of a peanut farmer and one-term governor running for the highest office in the land. After Carter met with House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr., the speaker was asked whom he had been talking to. “Some fellow named Jimmy Carter from Georgia. Says he’s running for president,” O’Neill replied. In a meeting with editors of the Los Angeles Times in 1975, Carter said he planned to gain the presidency by building a network of supporters and by giving his candidacy an early boost by winning the Iowa caucuses. Until then, Iowa had been a bit player in the nominating process, mostly ignored by strategists. But Carter’s victory there vaulted him to front-runner status — and Iowa into a major role in presidential nominations. His emergence from the pack of Democratic hopefuls was helped by the release of his well-reviewed autobiography “Why Not the Best?” in which he described his upbringing on the farm and his traditional moral values. On the campaign trail, Carter came across as refreshingly candid and even innocent — an antidote to the atmosphere of scandal that had eroded confidence in public officials since the events leading to Nixon’s resignation on Aug. 9, 1974. A Baptist Sunday school teacher, Carter was among the first presidential candidates to embrace the label of born-again Christian. That was underscored when, in an interview with Playboy magazine, he made headlines by admitting, “I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. God knows I will do this and forgives me.” Carter had emerged from the Democratic National Convention in July with a wide lead over Ford, Nixon’s vice president and successor, but by the time of the Playboy interview in September, his numbers were tumbling. By election day, the contest was a dead heat. Carter, running on a ticket with Walter F. Mondale for his vice president, eked out a victory with one of the narrower margins in U.S. presidential history, winning 50.1% to 48% of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes, 27 more than needed. Many of Carter’s supporters hoped he would usher in a new era of liberal policies. But he saw his role as more of a problem-solver than a politician, and as an outsider who promised to shake things up in Washington, he often acted unilaterally. A few weeks into his term, Carter announced that he was cutting off federal funding to 18 water projects around the country to save money and protect the environment. Lawmakers, surprised by the assault on their pet projects, were livid. He ultimately backed down on some of the cuts. But his relationship with Congress never fully healed. Members often complained that they couldn’t get in to see him, and that when they did he was in a rush to show them the door. His relationship with the media, as he acknowledged later in life, was similarly fraught. Carter’s image as a reformer also took a hit early in his presidency after he appointed Bert Lance, a longtime confidant, to head the Office of Management and Budget. Within months of the appointment, questions were raised about Lance’s personal financial affairs as a Georgia banker. Adamant that Lance had done nothing wrong, Carter dug in his heels and publicly told his friend, “Bert, I’m proud of you.” Still, Lance resigned under pressure, and although he was later acquitted of criminal charges, the damage to Carter had been done. As Mondale later put it: “It made people realize that we were no different than anybody else.” When Carter did score legislative victories, the cost was high. In 1978, he pushed the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties to eventually hand control of the canal over to Panama. But conservatives criticized the move as a diminution of U.S. strength, and even the Democratic National Committee declined to endorse it. Carter’s most significant foreign policy accomplishment was the 1978 Camp David agreement, a peace pact between Israel and Egypt. But he followed that with several unpopular moves, including his decree that the United States would not participate in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, as a protest against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. It was the only time in Olympic history that the United States had boycotted an Olympics; the Soviets responded by boycotting the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Carter had taken a series of largely symbolic steps to dispel the imperial image of the presidency. After he took the oath of office on a wintry day, he and the new first lady emerged from their motorcade and walked part of the way from the Capitol to the White House. He ended chauffeur-driven cars for top staff members, sold the presidential yacht, went to the White House mess hall for lunch with the staff and conducted town meetings around the country. He suspended the playing of “Hail to the Chief” whenever he arrived at an event, though he later allowed the practice to resume. On the domestic front, he was saddled with a country in crisis. Inflation galloped at rates up to 14%, and global gasoline shortages closed service stations and created high prices and long lines. Interest rates for home mortgages soared above 14%. In his first televised fireside chat, he wore a cardigan sweater and encouraged Americans to conserve energy during the winter by keeping their thermostats at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night. He also proposed a string of legislative initiatives to deal with the crisis, but many were blocked by Congress. In what would become a seminal moment in his presidency, Carter addressed the nation — and a television audience of more than 60 million — on a Sunday evening in 1979, saying the country had been seized by a “crisis of confidence ... that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.” He outlined a series of proposals to develop new sources of energy. The address, widely known as the “malaise speech” even though Carter never used that word, was generally well-received at the time, though some bristled at the implication that Americans were to blame for the country’s problems. Any positive glow disappeared two days later, when Carter fired five of his top officials, including the Energy, Treasury and Transportation secretaries and his attorney general. The value of the dollar sank and the stock market tumbled. Sensing that Carter was politically vulnerable, Kennedy moved to present himself as an alternative for the 1980 Democratic nomination, publicly criticizing the president’s agenda. But Kennedy damaged his own candidacy in a prime-time interview with CBS’ Roger Mudd: Asked why he was running for president, Kennedy fumbled his answer, and critics cited it as evidence that the senator didn’t want the job so much as he felt obligated to seek it. A few months after the malaise speech, in late 1979, revolutionaries loyal to Iran’s spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. Weeks stretched into months, with Iran refusing all efforts to negotiate a hostage release. In April 1980, Carter approved Operation Eagle Claw, a secret Delta Force rescue mission. But it ended in disaster — mechanical trouble sidelined three helicopters and, after the mission was aborted, one of the remaining helicopters collided with a transport plane on the ground, killing eight soldiers. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance resigned before the mission, believing the plan too risky. Negotiations to free the hostages resumed, and Carter desperately tried to win their release before the November election. But the Iranians prolonged the talks and the hostages weren’t released until Jan. 20, 1981, moments after Carter watched Reagan being sworn in. The journey home for Carter was painful. Of those who voted for Reagan in 1980, nearly 1 in 4 said they were primarily motivated by their dissatisfaction with Carter. :::: Carter faced “an altogether new, unwanted and potentially empty life,” as he later put it. He sold the family farm-supply business, which had been placed in a blind trust during his presidency and was by then deeply in debt. Then, as Rosalynn later recalled, Carter awoke one night with an idea to build not just a presidential library but a place to resolve global conflicts. Together, they founded the nonprofit, nonpartisan Carter Center. His skill as a mediator made Carter a ready choice for future presidents seeking envoys to navigate crises. Republican President George H.W. Bush sent him on peace missions to Ethiopia and Sudan, and President Bill Clinton, a fellow Democrat, dispatched him to North Korea, Haiti and what then was Yugoslavia. Carter described his relationship with President Barack Obama as chilly, however, in part because he had openly criticized the administration’s policies toward Israel. He felt Obama did not strongly enough support a separate Palestinian state. “Every president has been a very powerful factor here in advocating this two-state solution,” Carter told the New York Times in 2012. “That is now not apparent.” As an election observer, he called them as he saw them. After monitoring presidential voting in Panama in 1989, he declared that Manuel Noriega had rigged the election. He also began building houses worldwide for Habitat for Humanity, and he wrote prodigiously. The Nobel committee awarded Carter the Peace Prize in 2002, more than two decades after he left the White House, praising him for standing by “the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation.” During his 70s, 80s and even into his 90s, the former president showed an energy that never failed to impress those around him. In his 1998 book “The Virtues of Aging,” he urged retirees to remain active and engaged, and he followed his own advice, continuing to jog, play tennis and go fly-fishing well into his 80s. When his “White House Diary” was published in 2010, he embarked on a nationwide book tour at 85, as he did in 2015 with the publication of “A Full Life: Reflections at 90.” When he told America he had cancer that had spread to his liver and brain, it was vintage Carter. Wearing a coat and tie and a pair of blue jeans, he stared into the television cameras and was unflinchingly blunt about his prognosis. “Hope for the best; accept what comes,” he said. “I think I have been as blessed as any human being in the world.” Former Times staff writers Jack Nelson, Robert Shogan and Johanna Neuman contributed to this report. ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com . 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