Names and faces
■ Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the national security aide who offered key testimony during the impeachment hearings of President Donald Trump and later accused the president of running a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation,” has a book deal. Harper announced that Vindman’s “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” will come out in the spring. Vindman, 45, who announced his retirement from the military in July, in a statement Monday, said that he hoped his book would inspire readers. “My family and I have had an extraordinary outpouring of support from people around the globe. My hope is to offer my story as an affirmation that the American dream is alive and worth continuing to fight for,” he said. The publisher said the memoir will span the Vindman family’s emigration from the Soviet Union to the United States to Alexander Vindman’s “moment of truth” in taking on a sitting president. Vindman, who served as an expert on Ukraine, was ousted by Trump in February from his job on the National Security Council. Trump’s action came after the Democratic-led House impeached the president for pressing Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, now the Democrats’ presidential nominee. The Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump on the charges.
■ The long-running royal scandal that has riveted Belgium and damaged those involved has achieved a new milestone after former King Albert II reunited with Delphine Boel — the daughter he fathered out of wedlock more than half a century ago and stubbornly refused to recognize. The ex-king and his wife, Queen Paola, received Boel at their residence, the 18th Century Belvedere Castle outside Brussels. The gathering Sunday was soon followed by a reportedly warm meeting with her half-brother, the reigning King Phillipe, at the royal palace. Rumors about Albert and Boel’s mother, the aristocratic wife of a wealthy industrialist, had been around for years. Last month, Boel, a 52-year-old artist, won recognition as Her Royal Highness Princess Delphine following a bitter two-decade paternity fight. “After the tumult, the suffering and the hurt, it is time for forgiveness, healing and reconciliation,” the three said in a joint statement issued by the Royal Palace on Tuesday, two days after the meeting. “Together, we decided to take this new path. It will require patience and effort, but we are determined,” they said. In September, a Belgian court ruled in Boel’s favor and officially recognized her as the daughter of King Albert II, something the aging monarch had fought ever since paternity rumors became public in 1998. Albert II, 86, was king until 2013.