Groundbreaking executive White House chef steps down
CNN
White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford has retired after nearly three decades cooking for five commanders-in-chief and their families, a White House official tells CNN.
White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford has retired after nearly three decades cooking for five commanders-in-chief and their families, a White House official tells CNN. Comerford, who broke ground as the first woman and person of color to hold the top job in the White House kitchen, arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania during the Clinton administration in 1995 and was elevated to executive chef by first lady Laura Bush 10 years later. Comerford cooked for America’s first families over 29 years, including the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, Trumps and Bidens, overseeing all White House cuisine from family meals to state dinners in the executive chef role. Her last day was Friday, the White House official said. “I always say, food is love. Through her barrier-breaking career, Chef Cris has led her team with warmth and creativity, and nourished our souls along the way. With all our hearts, Joe and I are filled with gratitude for her dedication and years of service,” first lady Jill Biden said in a statement. Comerford oversaw a team of three sous chefs and executive pastry chef Susie Morrison. “To be a White House chef, it’s really your temperance that really counts for a lot. Because it’s not just your knowledge and your skills and the way you cook – it has to be the way you treat people, the way you delegate your work, the way you put your team as a cohesive force,” she said in a 2014 interview with CNN.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.
As lawmakers demand answers over reports that the US military carried out a follow-up strike that killed survivors during an attacked on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, a career Navy SEAL who has spent most of his 30 years of military experience in special operations will be responsible for providing them.