A performing arts center in Ohio is in hot water for advertising a kids birthday party where participants are encouraged to shoot “The President.”
The Olmsted Performing Arts building in Berea advertised the Nerf gun game on its website with the description, “There is one president with body guards. Everyone else tries to eliminate the president.”
Some members of the community believe the game was sending children a negative political message about President Trump.
“I think it’s unfortunate that they chose that kind of theme only because of the atmosphere we are living in now,” Julie Berghaus told local news last week.
“For kids, it’s just fun, but they don’t realize what they are being taught subconsciously,” she added.
Adam Sheldon, the director of Baldwin Wallace Community Arts School which owns the community center, released a statement Saturday on Twitter.
“Baldwin Wallace acquired Olmsted Performing Arts on January 1, 2019 as part of our new Community Arts School. This party theme, ‘The President,’ which was posted under previous OPA management, is in poor taste and does not reflect the values of BW.”
Baldwin Wallace acquired Olmsted Performing Arts on January 1, 2019 as part of our new Community Arts School. This party theme, “The President,” which was posted under previous OPA management, is in poor taste and does not reflect the values of BW. 1/2
“As soon as it was brought to our attention BW CAS removed the party theme from the OPA site. We apologize to anyone who was offended by the presence of this theme; it does not reflect BW’s values in any way.”
As soon as it was brought to our attention BW CAS removed the party theme from the OPA site. We apologize to anyone who was offended by the presence of this theme; it does not reflect BW’s values in any way.
Police are looking for a suspect who allegedly pretended to be a ride-share driver in the commission of a robbery in Maryland last month.
Patch reported that a woman got into the suspect’s car, thinking it was from the ride-share company. The unidentified man, who doesn’t work for any such business, drove the victim to her residence and demanded payment, according to Montgomery County Police.
At her home in Bethesda, investigators said, the suspect tried to steal her purse, and stole property from her apartment.
Montgomery County Police released surveillance video of the suspect on Tuesday.
Last month, a University of South Carolina student was kidnapped and killed after getting into what she had thought was an Uber car, police said. The suspect has been charged with kidnapping and murder.
Frank Miles is a reporter and editor covering geopolitics, military, crime, technology and sports for FoxNews.com. His email is Frank.Miles@foxnews.com.
Workers with the City of Vicksburg start construction on one of the three flood wall gates on Levee Street in Vicksburg Miss., on Thursday Feb. 21, 2019. According to the National Weather Service the Mississippi River is currently at 44.69 feet and is expected to reach 48.9 feet. (Courtland Wells/The Vicksburg Post, via AP)
JACKSON, Miss. – The waterlogged Tennessee Valley faces more rain and severe storms in coming days, even as flood predictions along the Mississippi River rise.
More than 30 school districts in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee closed Friday after days of rain left many roads flooded. A mudslide in western Kentucky is threatening buildings in a small town. The Tennessee Valley Authority says 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain has fallen in parts of northern Alabama this week, floodwater is roaring through spillway gates on many of the federal agency's dams, and the river could crest at the highest level in decades.
"That's about two to three times the normal rainfall we get in the month of February just in the last week," said James Everett, the manager of TVA's River Forecast Center. "We're seeing some of the highest rates we've seen in many decades."
Heavy rain continued Friday morning, leading to flash flood warnings in a band across northern Mississippi and southern Tennessee, with more rain and possibly tornadoes through Saturday. The National Weather Service says the strongest chance of tornadoes Saturday will be in eastern Arkansas, northern Mississippi and western Tennessee.
Flash floods are creeping into homes in some places. In Bruce, Mississippi, local and state workers rescued people living in some homes Friday morning, and Calhoun County Sheriff Greg Pollan urged others to evacuate.
In many places, water is spilling out of creeks and streams, covering roads and fields. In Mississippi's northeast corner, Alcorn County Supervisor Steve Glidewell told the Daily Corinthian that floodwaters were washing out culverts and unpaved roads.
In Memphis, Tennessee, a park that sits along the Mississippi River on Mud Island has flooded, but there were no reports of homes threatened by high water. Trees weakened by consistent rain drenching saturated ground could pose a falling hazard.
In western Tennessee, Decatur County Sheriff Keith Byrd told WBBJ-TV that people were evacuating boats and campers from areas near the Tennessee River in Perryville.
In Hickman, Kentucky, a hillside gave way Wednesday in a mudslide, threatening two houses, including one that has been vacant since a 2011 mudslide. Interim City Manager Cub Stokes tells the Paducah Sun that officials are worried more rain could worsen the situation.
The Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois, could crest Sunday, with the Mississippi expected to peak at Memphis next week. In Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the river isn't expected to crest until later in March, city workers began erecting floodwalls Thursday.
Flooding is also a concern on smaller rivers in the flat Mississippi Delta, where floodwaters can spread for miles when rivers overflow.
___
Associated Press writer Adrian Sainz contributed from Memphis, Tennessee.
New research reveals that Google built biases into its search results that influenced the 2018 midterm elections – possibly costing Republicans three congressional districts.
First things first – the study was conducted by Dr. Robert Epstein – a San Diego-based Harvard Ph.D. who founded the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. He’s also a Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT), a UCSD visiting scholar, and served as editor-in-chief of Psychology Today.
Epstein and AIBRT analyzed Google searches linked to three highly competitive southern California congressional races in which Democrats won, and found that Google’s “clear democrat bias” may have flipped the seats away from Republican candidates. According to the study, at least 35,455 undecided voters within the three California districts may have been persuaded to vote Democrat due to the biased Google search results.
Epstein says that in the days leading up to the 2018 midterms, he was able to preserve “more than 47,000 election-related searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo, along with the nearly 400,000 web pages to which the search results linked.”
Analysis of this data showed a clear pro-Democrat bias in election-related Google search results as compared to competing search engines. Users performing Google searches related to the three congressional races the study focused on were significantly more likely to see pro-Democrat stories and links at the top of their results.
As Epstein’s previous studies have shown, this can have a huge impact on the decisions of undecided voters, who often assume that their search results are unbiased. Epstein has called this the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). –Breitbart
Google executives and Democrats have disputed Epstein’s findings, apparently unaware that we can simply google documented instances of the Silicon Valley search giant’s overt bias surrounding elections, their ability to influence them, and their other efforts to hobble conservatives.
“These are new forms of manipulation people can’t see,” said Epstein, who added that technology “can have an enormous impact on voters who are undecided. … People have no awareness the influence is being exerted.”
Reporting extensively on the work of Epstein is Breitbart News‘ senior tech reporter, Allum Bokhari, who notes that the latest findings “are based on modest assumptions, such as the assumption that voters conduct one election-related search per week.” In other words, the bias could be much more pronounced in reality.
On the heels of the Mueller report concluding there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, President Trump is arguably having his “best week.” But reviving the health-care debate may derail it, Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt said Wednesday.
In a sharp policy piviot, the Department of Justice declared it would move forward to eliminate President Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), after a court deemed it unconstitutional.
During Wednesday's All-Star panel segment on Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier," Stirewalt -- along with National Journal politics editor Josh Kraushaar and national security analyst Morgan Ortagus -- weighed in on the political ramifications of Trump’s renewed fight against the ACA, also known as ObamaCare.
Stirewalt declared that this was a “good week” for the Republican Party and the “best week of Donald Trump’s presidency” because of the positive outcomes of the Mueller report.
“To dive into this in this way is not politically savvy for one simple reason: ObamaCare is popular,” Stirewalt told the panel. “It’s above 50 percent and people are generally satisfied. Quinnipiac polling this week was absolutely clear: People want status quo, don’t take away what we got and that’s exactly what Republicans are talking about.”
Kraushaar agreed, calling a battle over ObamaCare a potentially “self-inflicting wound” for President Trump because health care is the “one issue that has dogged Republicans.”
“Voters, both Republicans and Democrats, are incrementalists. They’re looking at the party that isn’t gonna disrupt the status quo more. And you have a lot of Democrats talking about single payer, talking about a lot of really radical proposals on the presidential campaign trail,” Kraushaar said. “Well, here you have Trump now saying ‘I just want to rip up ObamaCare and I’m gonna support this court ruling.’ So you have a lot of congressional Republicans really scratching their heads.”
Meanwhile, Ortagus said Republicans “shouldn’t be running away from health care at all,” pointing to how the 2018 midterms were about that issue and not Mueller's Russia investigation.
“Make this entire election about federalism versus socialism," she added, looking ahead to 2020, "and when you do that, that plays into the broader themes."
U.S. President Donald Trump attends the Greek Independence Day Celebration at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 18, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
March 19, 2019
By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – President Donald Trump will nominate a Washington attorney, Christopher Landau, to be the next United States Ambassador to Mexico, the White House Press Office said on Monday.
The nomination comes at a time of strained relations between the neighbors amid trade disputes, Trump’s complaints about undocumented immigrants crossing the border, and his efforts to build an extended border wall.
Roberta Jacobson, the previous U.S. ambassador, stepped down in May, joining a list of senior U.S. State Department officials to resign during Trump’s presidency.
Landau, now a partner at the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, and then for Justice Clarence Thomas, both considered court conservatives.
The White House described Landau as a constitutional and appellate attorney who has briefed and argued appeals before the Supreme Court, Federal courts of appeals, and State appellate courts.
He previously headed the appellate litigation practice at the firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
In 2017, Landau served a three-year term as a member of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, the White House said.
No formal diplomatic experience was mentioned in the White House statement, which said Landau is fluent in Spanish.
Landau could not immediately be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
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FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo
April 26, 2019
JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and told the cartel to lower oil prices.
“Gasoline prices are coming down. I called up OPEC, I said you’ve got to bring them down. You’ve got to bring them down,” Trump told reporters.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy in Meyzieu near Lyon, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot
April 26, 2019
By Julien Pretot
MEYZIEU, France (Reuters) – Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas was wringing out his women’s team shirts in the locker room on a rainy London day eight years ago when he decided it was time to take gender equality more seriously.
It was halftime in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Arsenal at Meadow Park with 507 fans watching and Aulas realized that his players did not have a another kit for the second half.
“Next time, there will be a second set just like for the men, that’s how it’s going to work from now on,” he said.
Lyon have since won five Champions League titles to become the most successful women’s team in Europe and recently claimed a 13th consecutive domestic crown.
They visit Chelsea on Sunday in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, with a fourth straight title in their sights.
At the heart of their achievements is a pervasive ethos that promotes gender equality throughout the club, starting in the youth academy.
In 2013, Aulas appointed former Lyon and France player Sonia Bompastor as head of the Women’s Academy — the female equivalent of one of France’s top youth set-ups that has produced players such as Karim Benzema, Alexandre Lacazette and Hatem Ben Arfa.
At the Youth Academy, girls and boys share the same facilities.
“Pitches, physiotherapy rooms are the same for all,” the 38-year-old Bompastor told Reuters.
As the girls train under the watch of former Lyon and France international Camille Abily, the screams of the boys practicing can be heard nearby.
The boys and girls also benefit from the same psychological support that includes hypnosis sessions and yoga.
“We have a ‘mental ability’ cell and the hypnotist acts on the girls’ subconscious, on their deeply held beliefs after observing them on and off the pitch,” Bompastor added.
SAME TREATMENT
One message the Academy staff are trying to convey is that girls are as good as boys.
“Women’s nature is such that we have low self-esteem. So self-esteem is a big topic for our girls,” said Bompastor.
This is not the case with the boys, she added.
“Some 14, 15-year-old boys still think they would beat our professional players, we tell them this would not be happening. We still need to work on those beliefs,” she said.
Female players also have to face questions that their male counterparts do not, Bompastor explained.
“In France there is a problem with the way women are considered, there are high aesthetic expectations. So we get heavy questions on femininity, intimate questions that men don’t get,” she said.
OL’s Academy has been held up as a shining example for others to follow, even in the U.S., where women’s soccer has a wider audience than in Europe.
“About one third of the (senior women’s) squad comes from the Academy, we have a good balance,” said Bompastor.
“I’m getting tons of requests from American universities and foreign clubs, who want to come and visit our facilities.”
‘ONE CLUB’
The salaries of the senior players is one area where there remains a large discrepancy between Lyon’s men’s and women’s teams.
While the three best-paid women players in the world are at Lyon with Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg earning 400,000 euros ($445,520) a year, this figure is dwarfed by the around 4 million euros earned annually by men’s player Memphis Depay.
There is, however, a level of interaction between the men’s and women’s players that is not present at many other clubs.
“When you talk about OL you talk about women and men, you talk about one club and you feel it when you are here or outside in the city,” Germany defender Carolin Simon told Reuters.
“We see it when we play in the big stadium. It’s not ‘normal’ for women’s football,” the 26-year-old, who joined the club last year, added.
Lyon’s female players also enjoy respect from their male counterparts, Simon said.
“It’s very cool, it’s a big honor to feel that it doesn’t matter if you are a professional man or woman. We talk with the men, there are handshakes, it’s a good atmosphere and it’s also why we are successful,” said Simon.
“The men respect us and it’s not just for the cameras.”
Her team mate, England’s Lucy Bronze, sees the men’s respect as key to improving women’s football.
“We might not be paid the same but they are just normal with us, they see us as footballers the same as they are,” Bronze told Reuters.
“Being at Lyon has really opened my eyes. To improve women’s football, it starts with having the respect of your male counterparts. It’s the biggest thing because they can influence so many people.”
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo
April 26, 2019
GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemeni authorities have rounded up about 3,000 irregular migrants, predominantly Ethiopians, in the south of the country, “creating an acute humanitarian situation,” the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.
“IOM is deeply concerned about the conditions in which the migrants are being held and is engaging with the authorities to ensure access to the detained migrants,” the International Organization for Migration said.
The migrants are held in open-air football stadiums and in a military camp, it said in a statement.
The detentions began on Sunday in the city of Aden and the neighboring province of Lahj, which are under the control of the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran-aligned Houthi rebels control Sanaa, the capital, and other major urban centers.
Both sides are under international diplomatic pressure to implement a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire deal agreed last year in Sweden and to prepare for a wider political dialogue that would end the four-year-old war.
Thousands of migrants arrive in Yemen every year, mostly from the Horn of Africa, driven by drought and unemployment at home and lured by the wages available in the Gulf.
(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by William Maclean)
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. Picture taken November 7. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.
1/DOLLAR JUGGERNAUT
The dollar has zipped to near two-year highs, leaving many scratching their heads. To many, it’s down to signs the U.S. economy is chugging ahead while the rest of the world loses steam. After all, Wall Street is busily scaling new peaks day after day.
Never mind the cause, the effect is stark. The euro has tumbled to 22-month lows against the dollar and investors are preparing for more, buying options to shield against further downside. Emerging-market currencies are also in pain, with Turkish lira and Argentine peso both sharply weaker.
Now U.S. data need to keep surprising on the upside or even just meet expectations. The International Monetary Fund sees U.S. growth at 2.3 percent this year. For Germany, the forecast is 0.8 percent. The U.S. economy’s rude health has given rise to speculation the Fed might resume raising interest rates. Unlikely. But as other countries — Canada, Sweden and Australia are the latest — hint at more policy easing, there seems to be one way the dollar can go. Up.
(GRAPHIC: Dollar outperforms G10 FX – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dz17S5)
2/FED: UP OR DOWN?
Wall Street is near record highs and recession worries are receding, so as we mentioned above, investors might wonder if the Federal Reserve will start raising rates again.
Such a pivot is unlikely after the Fed killed off rate-rise expectations at its March meeting. And the latest Reuters poll all but puts to bed any risk of rates will go up this economic cycle, given inflation remains below the Fed’s alarm threshold and unemployment is the lowest in generations.
Before the March rate-pause announcement, a preponderance of economists penciled in one or more increases this year. But that has flipped. A majority of those surveyed April 22-24 see no further tightening through December and more are leaning toward a cut by the end of next year.
Indeed, interest rate futures imply Fed Funds will be below the current 2.25-2.50 percent target range by this December.
Recent positive consumer spending and exports data have eased market concerns of a sharp economic slowdown. But inflation probably needs to run hot for a long period to panic policymakers off their wait-and-see course.
(GRAPHIC: Federal funds and the economy – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DzjTZz)
3/HEISEI TO REIWA
Next week ends three decades of Japan’s Heisei era. Heisei, or Achieving Peace, began in 1989 near the peak of a massive stock market bubble and closes with the country trapped in low growth, no inflation, and negative interest rates.
The new era that dawns on May 1 is called Reiwa, meaning Beautiful Harmony. It begins when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne. But do investors really want harmony? What they want to see is a bit of economic growth and inflation to shake up the status quo.
The Bank of Japan’s stimulus toolkit to revive a long-suffering economy is anything but harmonious and yet it’s set to stay. The central bank confirmed recently rates will stay near zero for a long time. But the coming days may not be harmonious or peaceful for currency markets. A 10-day Golden Week holiday kicks off on April 29 and investors are fretting over the risk of a “flash crash” – a violent currency spasm that can occur in times of thin trading turnover.
The year has already seen two yen spikes and many, including Japan’s housewife-trader brigade – so-called Mrs Watanabes – appear to have bought yen as the holiday approaches. Their short dollar/long yen positions recently reached record highs, stock exchange data showed.
(GRAPHIC: Japan stocks: from Hensei to Reiwa – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W6a7Fe)
4/EARNING TURNING
Quarterly earnings were supposed to be the worst in Europe in almost three years, but with a third of results in, things are looking a little rosier.
Two-thirds of companies’ results have beat expectations, and they point to earnings growth of 4.5 percent year-on-year. Financials have delivered the biggest surprises, according to analysis by Barclays.
That might just show how low expectations were. In fact, analysts are still taking a red pen to their estimates.
The latest I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv shows analysts on average expect first-quarter earnings-per-share for STOXX 600-listed companies to fall 4.2 percent. That would be their worst quarter since 2016 and down sharply from an estimated 3.4 percent just a week earlier.
Those estimates may end up being a little too bearish as earnings season goes on, quelling worries that Europe is heading toward a corporate recession.
GSK and Reckitt Benckiser will give the market a glimpse of the health of the consumer products market and spending on everything from toothpaste, washing powder and paracetamol.
Sterling has gone into the doldrums amid the Brexit delay and unproductive talks between the UK government and the opposition Labour party on a EU withdrawal deal. The resurgent dollar, meanwhile, has taken 2 percent off the pound in April. It is unlikely the Bank of England will be able to rouse it at its May 2 meeting.
Despite robust retail and jobs data of late, the economic picture is gloomy – 2019 growth is likely to be around 1.2 percent, the weakest since 2009, investment is down and Governor Mark Carney says business uncertainty is “through the roof”.
Indeed, expectations for an interest rate increase have been whittled down; Reuters polls forecast rates will not move until early 2020, a calendar quarter later than was forecast a month ago. The hunt for a new governor to replace Carney in October adds more uncertainty to the mix.
The recent run of UK data has fueled hopes of economic rebound. That’s put net hedge fund positions in the pound into positive territory for the first time in nearly a year. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might temper some of that optimism.
(Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Karin Strohecker, Josephine Mason and Saikat Chatterjee in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; edited by Larry King)
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren suggested that doctors and nurses don’t treat African American women the same way they do white women.
Warren appeared on Wednesday together with a number of other 2020 Democratic candidates at the She The People Forum in Houston, discussing issues concerning women of color.
The Massachusetts senator announced on stage a plan to decrease the childbirth mortality rate among black women while identifying a systematic problem with how they are treated.
“And there is a specific problem, as you rightly identified, for women of color who are three, four times more likely to die in childbirth,” Warren said.
“And here’s the thing, even after we do the adjustments for income, for education, this is true across the board. This is true for well-educated African American women, for wealthy African American women, and the best studies that I’m seeing put it down to just one thing, prejudice,” she added.
“That doctors and nurses don’t hear African American women’s medical issues the same way that they hear the same things from white women.”
“That doctors and nurses don’t hear African American women’s medical issues the same way that they hear the same things from white women.”
Warren went on to get into details of her plan, noting that hospitals will be given bonuses if they manage to reduce the childbirth mortality rate among black women in an effort to give financial incentives for those doctors and nurses to provide better care.
“And if they don’t, then they’re going to have money taken away from them,” Warren added.
“I want to see the hospitals see it as their responsibility to address this problem head-on and make it a first priority. The best way to do that is to use the money to make it happen because we gotta have change, and we gotta have change now.”
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