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Trump's In-Laws Celebrate his Election Win in Kfaraakka, Lebanon

From right to left: Michael Boulos, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Sara Zuhair Fadoul and Massad Boulos. (Social media)
From right to left: Michael Boulos, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Sara Zuhair Fadoul and Massad Boulos. (Social media)
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Trump's In-Laws Celebrate his Election Win in Kfaraakka, Lebanon

From right to left: Michael Boulos, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Sara Zuhair Fadoul and Massad Boulos. (Social media)
From right to left: Michael Boulos, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump, Melania Trump, Sara Zuhair Fadoul and Massad Boulos. (Social media)

Mary-Therese, 75, Michael Boulos’ grandmother, couldn’t hold back her tears of joy at her home in Kfaraakka, northern Lebanon, when she heard the news of her grandson-in-law Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.

Michael is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany.

Mary-Therese followed the election closely on TV and stayed in touch with her children in the US, who were actively involved in the campaign.

The Boulos family, some traveling from Kfaraakka, worked hard to support Trump’s victory. Michael’s father, Massad, played a key role in connecting with the Arab community, especially in Michigan, securing votes from Lebanese Americans.

Massad was joined in his efforts by his sister, Michael’s sibling, and his sister Viviane and her daughter. Michael’s fourth sibling, Philippe, couldn’t participate due to business commitments in Africa and Lebanon.

As family friend Dr. Lily Mleha Fayyad shared, it’s common for Trump to involve his family in his campaigns.

The residents of Koura celebrated Trump’s victory, feeling connected through Michael. Well-wishers filled the family’s home, and the phone never stopped ringing.

“We were so happy when Michael and Tiffany married,” said Marlene from Kfaraakka.

“We were proud to see his father, Massad, on TV, especially for his efforts in convincing the Arab community to support Trump. We hope to see him as a US envoy to Lebanon soon, helping bring peace, as promised.”

Few in Kfaraakka know Michael personally, as he was born in Lebanon, raised in Nigeria, and educated in the US, but always spent his vacations in Lebanon.

“We’d see him visit with his family, but we know Massad well,” Marlene added. “He grew up here, and everyone loves him for his kind and friendly personality.”

Fayyad praised Massad as “a devoted son” who took great care of his parents, especially his father before he passed away 12 years ago.

“He’s a great example of a dutiful son, which earned him the respect of everyone around him.”

In Kfaraakka, locals admire the Boulos family for their closeness. Massad and his wife, Sara Zuhair Fadoul, along with their children, Fares, Michael, Sophie and Oriane, continue to visit Lebanon despite living in Lagos.

“They’re a humble, kind family, not like the nouveau riche,” said Fayyad.

“Their doors are always open, and they have a special place in their neighbors’ hearts,” she added.

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Fast-forming Alien Planet has Astronomers Intrigued

An artist's depiction of a planet and its host star with a misaligned disk of material, and a binary companion in the background, is shown in this undated handout image. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)/Handout via REUTERS
An artist's depiction of a planet and its host star with a misaligned disk of material, and a binary companion in the background, is shown in this undated handout image. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)/Handout via REUTERS
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Fast-forming Alien Planet has Astronomers Intrigued

An artist's depiction of a planet and its host star with a misaligned disk of material, and a binary companion in the background, is shown in this undated handout image. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)/Handout via REUTERS
An artist's depiction of a planet and its host star with a misaligned disk of material, and a binary companion in the background, is shown in this undated handout image. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)/Handout via REUTERS

Astronomers have spotted orbiting around a young star a newborn planet that took only 3 million years to form - quite swift in cosmic terms - in a discovery that challenges the current understanding of the speed of planetary formation.
This infant world, estimated at around 10 to 20 times the mass of Earth, is one of the youngest planets beyond our solar system - called exoplanets - ever discovered. It resides alongside the remnants of the disk of dense gas and dust circling the host star - called a protoplanetary disk - that provided the ingredients for the planet to form.
The star it orbits is expected to become a stellar type called an orange dwarf, less hot and less massive than our sun. The star's mass is about 70% that of the sun and it is about half as luminous. It is located in our Milky Way galaxy about 520 light-years from Earth, Reuters reported. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
"This discovery confirms that planets can be in a cohesive form within 3 million years, which was previously unclear as Earth took 10 to 20 million years to form," said Madyson Barber, a graduate student in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature.
"We don't really know how long it takes for planets to form," UNC astrophysicist and study co-author Andrew Mann added. "We know that giant planets must form faster than their disk dissipates because they need a lot of gas from the disk. But disks take 5 to 10 million years to dissipate. So do planets form in 1 million years? 5? 10?"
The planet, given the names IRAS 04125+2902 b and TIDYE-1b, orbits its star every 8.8 days at a distance about one-fifth that separating our solar system's innermost planet Mercury from the sun. Its mass is in between that of Earth, the largest of our solar system's rocky planets, and Neptune, the smallest of the gas planets. It is less dense than Earth and has a diameter about 11 times greater. Its chemical composition is not known.
The researchers suspect that the planet formed further away from its star and then migrated inward.
"Forming large planets close to the star is difficult because the protoplanetary disk dissipates away from closest to the star the fastest, meaning there's not enough material to form a large planet that close that quickly," Barber said.
The researchers detected it using what is called the "transit" method, observing a dip in the host star's brightness when the planet passes in front of it, from the perspective of a viewer on Earth. It was found by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, space telescope.
"This is the youngest-known transiting planet. It is on par with the youngest planets known," Barber said.
Exoplanets not detected using this method sometimes are directly imaged using telescopes. But these typically are massive ones, around 10 times greater than our solar system's largest planet Jupiter.
Stars and planets form from clouds of interstellar gas and dust.
"To form a star-planet system, the cloud of gas and dust will collapse and spin into a flat environment, with the star at the center and the disk surrounding it. Planets will form in that disk. The disk will then dissipate starting from the inner region near the star," Barber said.
"It was previously thought that we wouldn't be able to find a transiting planet this young because the disk would be in the way. But for some reason that we aren't sure of, the outer disk is warped, leaving a perfect window to the star and allowing us to detect the transit," Barber added.