LONDON (AP) — Heavyweight boxing looks to be getting another fight for the undisputed championship, with Oleksandr Usyk set to meet Daniel Dubois in a rematch in July.
The fight will take place on July 19 in London's Wembley Stadium as reported by The Ring Magazine, a publication owned by Turki Alalshikh — chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority and the organizer of boxing events for the kingdom.
The bout hasn't been officially confirmed by either of the Usyk or Dubois camps.
The 38-year-old Usyk, who holds the WBA, WBC and WBO belts and is undefeated as a pro, stopped Dubois in the ninth round of a controversial first fight between them in Poland in August 2023.
In the fifth round, the fight was halted for what the referee ruled a low blow by Dubois which sent his rival to the canvas, with replays showing the punch hitting around Usyk’s belt.
It was not given as a knockdown, no points were deducted from Dubois, and Usyk was given time to recover.
Dubois is the IBF champion after that title was relinquished by Usyk when the Ukrainian chose to fight in a rematch against Tyson Fury in December.
Usyk won that contest in Saudi Arabia, like he did their first bout in May, which was the first fight for the undisputed championship since 2000.
Dubois beat fellow Briton Anthony Joshua in his first fight as IBF champ in September, securing a fifth-round knockout in a dominant performance.
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FILE - Ukraine's boxer Oleksandr Usyk smiles at a press conference after winning his fight against Britain's boxer Tyson Fury for the WBA, WBO, and WBC heavyweight title in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024.(AP Photo/Frank Augstein, file)
FILE - Britain's Daniel Dubois poses for the cameras after taking part in a boxing workout at the BT Sport studios, QEII Olympic Park in London, Nov. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Ian Walton, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Cristeta Comerford, a longtime White House executive chef who recently retired after nearly three decades of preparing meals for five presidents and their guests, says first families are “just regular people” when they're at home in the private living areas of the executive mansion.
“It's not what you see on the news,” she told The Associated Press in an interview.
Preparing the first families' meals was among Comerford's many culinary responsibilities. Meals mostly would be prepared in the main kitchen, then finished off in the residence kitchen on the second floor.
“At the end of the day, when you do the family meals upstairs, they're just regular people at home. They just want a good meal. They want to sit down with their family,” she said. "If they have children, they eat together. And just to see that on a daily basis, it's not what you see on the news.
“It's the other side of them that we get to see," she said.
Comerford, who hung up her apron and chef’s toque in July 2024 after nearly 20 years as top chef and nearly three decades on the kitchen staff, is the longest-serving chef in White House history. Her tenure spanned the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Each of the five families she served approached food differently, Comerford said at a recent White House Historical Association symposium on food and wine. She was asked whether she'd describe any of the presidents as “real foodies.”
The Clintons liked healthier meals, Comerford said. Then-first lady Hillary Clinton hired the first American executive chef, Walter Scheib, and had the kitchen avoid serving heavy sauces and creams.
She said, “I learned so much” about Southwestern cuisine from Bush, the former Texas governor who liked Tex-Mex food. “We made thousands of tamales for Christmas,” she said of the popular Mexican meal of stuffed corn dough wrapped in a corn husk and steamed until cooked.
Comerford got ideas from the vegetable garden Michelle Obama started when she was promoting healthy eating, primarily for children. "We used the garden as kind of like our backbone for our menu development,” she said.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump are “very, very classic eaters,” she said. Mrs. Trump “loved Italian food, so we tend to do the pastas, but light ones.” Comerford didn't comment on President Trump's food choices, but he is known to like a well-done steak served with ketchup and fast food.
Jill Biden was the first Italian American first lady, and the kitchen did “a lot of Italian food, as well, because she loved Italian food.”
Overall, “it's different for each family,” said Comerford, "but my job as the chef is to execute their style, their likes and their preferences.”
A black-tie state dinner is the highest diplomatic honor the U.S. reserves for its close allies.
Comerford presided over 54 of these opulent affairs, including for France and Australia during Trump's first term. Sometimes, guest chefs were brought in to help.
State dinners give presidents the opportunity to bring together hundreds of guests from the worlds of government, politics and other industries for an evening in which the three-course meal, decor and entertainment are designed to help foster relations by dazzling the visiting foreign leader.
The first lady's staff and the social secretary typically have about two months to pull one together.
Comerford said her team started by researching the visiting leader's likes and dislikes, then she used the information to create a menu using the best of American food while incorporating nuances from the country being recognized.
She'd develop at least three different menus. Then came tastings for the first lady to make a final decision.
Comerford, 62, started her career tending a salad bar at a Chicago airport hotel before working as a chef at restaurants in Austria and Washington. Scheib, then the White House executive chef, hired her in 1994 for a temporary gig preparing a state dinner for Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s newly elected president.
Scheib then hired her as an assistant chef in 1995, and she succeeded him a decade later, becoming the first woman and first person of color to permanently hold the executive chef’s position. Comerford is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in the Philippines.
Her husband, John Comerford, is a chef, too, and she credits him with sacrificing his career to be present for their daughter so she could thrive in hers. Their daughter is a pastry chef.
When Comerford retired, assistant chef Tommy Kurpradit, whose parents are from Thailand, was named interim executive chef. Melania Trump, who worked with Comerford in the first Trump administration, has not named a successor.
Comerford said she managed everything with “a lot of prayers,” often said during her hourlong, early morning drive into the White House, but also by being versatile, humble, able to handle chaos and having faith in herself and her team.
“One thing with cooking at the White House, you don't just do fine dining meals,” she said. “You have to know how to cook eggs and breakfast. You have to know to cook a smashburger.”
It also helps to remember that the job is about the family.
“There's no ego in it,” Comerford said.
White House culinary history includes chefs from China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, as far back as the 19th century, according to Adrian Miller and Deborah Chang, co-authors of a new book, “Cooking to the President's Taste: Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History."
Most sharpened their skills through service in the U.S. military.
Before Comerford, Pedro Udo, a Filipino trained in the U.S. military, was the first Asian heritage chef to run the White House kitchen after he was promoted from meat chef to head chef in June 1957, according to the book. He prepared meals for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip later that year, and for Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in September 1959 during the Cold War.
But his stint ended after less than four years when the new first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, hired acclaimed French chef René Verdon in early 1961.
Miller said the book offers a “unique window" on the presidency.
“We get a look at the presidents, but also the presidents got a look at Asian American life in maybe ways that they hadn’t before,” he told the AP in an interview. "And I think, you know, for the presidents that decided to open that window and find out more about the people who were providing, comforting them through amazing food, I think our nation is better for them.”
FILE - Tables are decorated during a press preview at the White House in Washington, April 9, 2024, for the State Dinner for Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Former White House exec chef Cristeta Comerford speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at Decatur House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rick Gentile)
FILE - White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford shows the main course during a preview in the State Dining Room of White House in Washington, Sept. 24, 2015, for the state dinner of the visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Former White House exec chef Cristeta Comerford speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at Decatur House, Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rick Gentile)
FILE - White House executive chef Cris Comerford, holds dishes as she speaks during a media preview for the State Dinner with President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
