Vivek Ramaswamy endured an awkward moment at a midterm campaign rally after nearly dropping a young boy he had attempted to lift onto the stage.

Ramaswamy was speaking to a crowd in Vandalia, Ohio, on Saturday before Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance when he noticed the child in the audience.

The 10-year-old, identified as Hunter, was holding a sign that read “proud military kid for Trump,” which immediately caught the aspiring governor’s attention.

Ramaswamy invited Hunter onto the stage and announced, “I’m gonna pick you up!” before reaching down to lift him.

But as he tried to hoist the boy toward the podium, Ramaswamy appeared to struggle. Hunter lurched backward during the attempt.

The Republican caught him before he fell, although the mishap quickly became an embarrassing scene. As he pulled Hunter back into his arms, Ramaswamy remarked, “Big guy!”

He then called Hunter’s sister onto the stage but opted not to lift her. Instead, she led the crowd in an “OH” chant at the microphone before Ramaswamy returned to his prepared remarks.

Video of the awkward exchange spread rapidly across social media, prompting a wave of mockery from viewers.

“Another awkward as hell Vivek moment,” one person wrote.

Another joked, “He needs to do some squats.”

“Should have spent less time studying, more time in the weight room,” a third person commented.

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Ramaswamy is campaigning to become governor of Ohio against Democrat Dr. Amy Acton, the state’s former Covid-era health director.

Although he holds a substantial fundraising advantage and has spent more than $12 million on campaign advertising, Ramaswamy is now locked in a closely fought race against Acton with only weeks remaining before Election Day.

The wealthy biotech entrepreneur and former 2024 presidential candidate initially benefited from strong appeal among conservatives. Ohio Republicans quickly backed him, fueling expectations of an easy victory in the Republican-dominated state.

Before Trump arrived, Ramaswamy highlighted the American dream and his family’s experience as Indian immigrants. “I’m so grateful to this state and to this country for giving a kid like me opportunities that would not have been available to my family in any other country on planet earth,” he told the rally.

Trump offered Ramaswamy a boost soon afterward with a ringing endorsement, despite acknowledging that Ramaswamy had been “nasty” when the two faced off during the Republican primary.

Trump arrived in battleground state Ohio after a few days of campaigning in safe conservative territory.

The President has embarked on what he says will be a 32-day blitz ahead of the November 3 elections, hitting the deep red states of Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama this week. 

Saturday’s rally was just outside Dayton, Ohio, where he stumped for key candidates including incumbent Senator John Husted in competitive races for the House, Senate and the governor’s mansion in Columbus.

He hit the stage with a renewed energy moments after announcing on Truth Social that Bayer Pharmaceuticals would be bringing a $2.2 billion dollar manufacturing plant to the state providing a jobs boost to the area.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has selected former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to oversee an independent investigation into the failed execution of death row prisoner Christa Pike. The announcement came Saturday, just hours after the state’s corrections commissioner resigned.

Stanton, who led the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee from 2010 to 2017, will examine whether the Tennessee Department of Correction followed required procedures during Pike’s execution attempt, Lee’s office said.

This is not Stanton’s first review of Tennessee’s execution practices. In 2022, he headed an independent investigation after state officials discovered that drugs used in previous lethal injections had not undergone proper testing, according to WKRN-TV.

That finding prompted Lee to suspend all executions in Tennessee for the rest of 2022, including the scheduled execution of death row inmate Oscar Smith. The pause ultimately remained in effect for nearly three years.

Following Stanton’s earlier investigation, Tennessee officials significantly overhauled the state’s execution procedures before resuming executions in February 2025, the governor’s office said.

Under the revised lethal injection process, officials use one dose of pentobarbital rather than the previous three-drug combination, which included a paralytic. Pentobarbital was also administered during Pike’s execution attempt Wednesday.

The updated protocol was approved by Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, who announced Saturday that he would leave his post following the botched execution.

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Pike was convicted of the 1995 killing of a teenage classmate. She remains alive but is unconscious, intubated and dependent on a ventilator, her attorneys said.

Despite his resignation, Strada said he still believes the corrections department fulfilled its duties under the approved procedures.

He nevertheless described the independent investigation as “entirely appropriate and necessary,” adding that he would cooperate fully to help establish what happened, WKRN reported.

Lee’s office said Stanton will also assess whether changes are needed to ensure Tennessee’s execution protocol remains lawful and effective.

A group of Tennessee death row prisoners filed a lawsuit after the state announced the single-drug method in December 2024. The inmates argued that the revised protocol could violate constitutional protections.

Opponents of capital punishment also questioned the approach. They noted that the federal government had stopped using a single dose of pentobarbital for lethal injections, reportedly because of uncertainty over whether the drug could cause severe pain and suffering, WKRN reported.

Lee’s decision came days after Pike received two doses of the lethal drug and survived. She was the first woman Tennessee had planned to execute in more than two centuries. The state has also faced another failed execution attempt this year.

Tony Carruthers, who was convicted of murder and kidnapping, was scheduled to die by lethal injection in May. Lee halted the execution and granted him a one-year reprieve after prison officials could not locate a vein for a backup IV as required under the state’s protocol.

Nearly half of U.S. adults fail to get enough exercise.

Experts recommend 75 to 150 minutes of physical activity each week, citing well-established benefits that include longer life, lower obesity rates and a reduced risk of chronic disease.

Yet finding time to exercise around work and family commitments can seem almost impossible. Spending hours at the gym may also place additional strain on the body.

Now, researchers have identified a three-minute burst of intense exercise that could support longevity by promoting disease protection and weight loss more effectively than 90 minutes of moderate activity such as cycling or swimming.

In a new study, researchers found that just three minutes of sprinting prompted molecular changes in the body. The activity increased beneficial proteins in the blood that have been linked to reduced stress on the heart and improved fat metabolism.

Researchers in New York City conducted an eight-week trial comparing participants who completed three to four weekly sprint-cycling sessions, each lasting three minutes, with people who cycled moderately for 90 minutes.

The brief sprints immediately produced a surge in more than 200 proteins known as exerkines. These proteins have been associated with blood-vessel growth, tissue repair and hormonal signals involved in breaking down fat.

By contrast, only a small proportion of proteins changed noticeably after 90 minutes of moderate cycling, and some beneficial proteins did not appear until three hours later.

Although the study focused on cycling sprints, the researchers said similar bursts of intense activity could include running, climbing stairs or performing bodyweight movements such as burpees.

Brief, vigorous exercise is thought to raise the heart rate rapidly, allowing the heart to pump blood more forcefully and deliver oxygen to working muscles. This may help the body burn calories more quickly, cope with physical stress and recover more efficiently, potentially reducing injury risk.

Longer sessions of moderate exercise, meanwhile, can create more wear and tear, deplete energy stores and contribute to fatigue, inflammation and tissue damage.

‘What’s exciting here is that just a few minutes of intense exercise can trigger a significant molecular response,’ Paul Cohen, the study’s lead author and head of the Weslie R and William H Janeway Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism at Rockefeller University in New York City, said.

‘And we still see it after eight weeks of training, which tells us this response isn’t simply a product of the body struggling to keep up with unfamiliar stress. It may be that the responses we observed are intrinsic to intense exercise.’

The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, involved 19 participants divided into two groups.

Ten participants completed six all-out cycling sprints lasting 30 seconds each, with four minutes of recovery after every sprint. The other nine participants cycled continuously at moderate intensity for 90 minutes.

The researchers collected blood samples from both groups and examined how the workouts affected protein levels immediately afterward.

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They identified 2,884 proteins in the blood. Acting as tiny messengers, these proteins carry signals throughout the body and can influence blood vessels, muscles, hormones and metabolism.

Immediately after the sprint sessions, nearly 25 percent of the proteins had changed. Many were linked to lower risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes and slower biological aging. Of the 33 proteins associated with reduced disease risk, 32 responded to sprinting.

By comparison, 90 minutes of moderate cycling altered fewer than 0.25 percent of the proteins immediately after the workout.

Some proteins linked to lower metabolic disease risk appeared later, but it took about three hours. Of the 33 proteins associated with lower risk, only three were altered after moderate exercise. 

Researchers say the rapid changes may be driven in part by ectodomain shedding, a process in which cells release pieces of proteins into the bloodstream, allowing them to quickly send signals around the body. 

Sprinting also appeared to send a stronger, faster signal to fat cells through the bloodstream. 

Exercise is already known to send signals from working muscles to other parts of the body. But when researchers exposed human fat cells to blood taken after sprinting, the cells showed major changes in how they processed fuel and responded to hormones. 

The findings could help explain how intense exercise affects fat metabolism.

Blood taken after moderate cycling caused much smaller changes in the fat cells.

The findings could help explain how intense exercise affects metabolism and how the body uses and stores energy. While the study did not measure weight loss, these changes could potentially play a role in the metabolic benefits of exercise linked to a longer lifespan.

Since this study was limited to 19 subjects, researchers then compared the proteins that changed after exercise with health data from more than 53,000 people in a UK health research database. 

Many of these proteins were associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. More than 25 percent were associated with slow biological aging.

But the findings do not mean moderate exercise was ineffective. Instead, its effects appeared to unfold more slowly.  

Researchers cautioned that more work is needed to understand how these molecular changes translate into long-term benefits. The study analyzed the body’s short-term response to different types of exercise, meaning it cannot prove that the proteins released after sprinting directly prevent obesity, diabetes or other diseases.

‘It’s well appreciated that different intensities of exercise stimulate distinct body-wide adaptations,’ Luke Olsen, study author and postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, said. ‘However, the molecular mechanisms linking these intensity-dependent adaptations have remained largely elusive. 

‘Our work suggests that exerkines – proteins and metabolites released into the bloodstream following exercise – are highly sensitive to exercise intensity and may be the key mediators of the health-promoting effects of short bursts of vigorous exercise.’

President Trump on Saturday defended the rapid expansion of massive data centers, telling supporters in Ohio that blocking the technology projects could give China an economic and strategic advantage. He made the argument while urging voters to support Republican candidates in next month’s midterm elections.

“There’s so much money to be made for Ohio. You can’t just turn them off. They’ll go to China,” Trump said at a campaign rally outside Dayton. He called on voters to back Republican Sen. Jon Husted and gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump repeatedly encouraged the crowd in the battleground state to approach the November 3 midterm elections as if his own name were on the ballot.

“Please pretend that I’m on the ballot, and you need to turn out for a midterm victory,” he said.

The president said his administration was taking “historic action” to ensure that the large technology companies building data centers also provide benefits to the communities around them.

Trump linked the data center boom to the global competition over artificial intelligence. He said the United States was ahead of China in the race to develop what he repeatedly described as “superintelligence.”

Trump said China “doesn’t want to see us” succeed, adding, “We’re beating China” in the technology race. He used that argument to oppose efforts to reject or restrict data center projects in the United States.

At the same time, Trump endorsed legislation backed by Husted that he said would “stop data centers from raising electricity costs and require them to pay their own way.”

Trump said nearly every Senate Democrat had voted several days earlier to block the proposal.

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He promised to sign the Ratepayer Protection Act “into law immediately within 24 hours” if Republicans won.

The rapid growth of data center construction has sparked bipartisan opposition in communities nationwide. Local officials and residents are confronting the vast quantities of electricity, water and land needed to operate the facilities.

The central dispute has focused on who should pay for the infrastructure required to support the projects.

Utilities may have to construct power plants, substations and transmission lines to handle the enormous electricity demand from data centers. That has raised concerns that households and other businesses could face higher bills if the expenses are distributed across the wider customer base.

Heavy water consumption, noise and sprawling development sites have added to the backlash, particularly when projects are built near residential neighborhoods or depend on already-strained water supplies.

Critics have also challenged the generous state and local tax incentives offered to data center developers. The facilities can cost billions of dollars to build while employing comparatively few workers after construction is completed.

Mounting political pressure has led officials in several states to reconsider the tax breaks and expedited approvals once used to attract the industry.

Some states have suspended tax incentives or permitting processes. Others have introduced special utility rates and new requirements designed to make developers bear more of the cost of providing service to their facilities.

Trump traveled to Ohio after stops in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama this week as part of what he has described as a 32-day tour ahead of the midterm elections.

— With Post wires