JD Vance becomes first bearded US Vice President since 1909
Washington, D.C.: JD Vance, the 40-year-old senator from Ohio, made history by becoming the first US Vice President to sport a beard since Charles W. Fairbanks, who served under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1905 to 1909. Vance took the oath as the 50th Vice President during an inauguration ceremony held at the US Capitol Rotunda.
The event, held indoors due to freezing temperatures, also marked other notable milestones. At 78 years and seven months, Donald Trump became the oldest president to take office, surpassing Joe Biden's previous record. Vance, born in 1984, became the first millennial Vice President and the third youngest in US history.
This marks a return of facial hair to high executive offices, which had been absent for nearly a century. The last Vice President to sport facial hair was Charles Curtis, who served under President Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933 with a moustache.
Vance, author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, is known for his advocacy for working-class Americans. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 2019. His wife, Usha Vance, born to Indian immigrants, is now the first Asian American Second Lady.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
