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"First Ladies and their teams are often the vanguards of social progress in this country, despite no budget and no pay," writes Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer) to Michelle Obama (Viola Davis) in the tenth and final episode of Showtime's The First Lady. The sentiment serves as the thesis for this anthology series from creator Aaron Cooley and director Susanne Bier, a well-meaning but ponderous effort that wastes a trio of extraordinary actresses with its dull and cursory storytelling. Despite its singular title, The First Lady insists on cramming three presidential spouses — Mrs. Obama, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt...

President Biden said Thursday he wants to put billions of dollars into a “Build Back Better World” program for foreign countries after members of his own party stymied his domestic Build Back Better Act. “We’re going to export billions of dollars worth of product for the rest of the world,” Biden said during remarks at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. “One of the proposals I have and won’t go into now is the Build Back Better World.

Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary at the Synod of Bishops’ general secretariat, delivered an online PowerPoint presentation to New Ways Ministry, which promotes homosexual and transgender rights in the Church, on April 3.VATICAN CITY — A recent lecture given by a high-level member of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops to a dissenting American organization has been criticized as “simply wrong” and part of a concerted effort to influence the current worldwide Synod on Synodality to legitimize the homosexual agenda in the Church. Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary at the Synod of Bishops’ general secretariat responsible for coordinating all...

Amid the ongoing global inflation crisis, NATO heads of state and mainstream media repeat a mantra that high energy prices are a direct result of Putin’s actions in Ukraine since end of February. The reality is that it is the western sanctions that are responsible. Those sanctions including cutting SWIFT interbank access for key Russian banks and some of the most severe sanctions ever imposed, are hardly having an impact on the military actions in Ukraine. What many overlook is the fact that they are increasingly impacting the economies of the West, especially the EU and USA. A closer look...

VATICAN CITY, April 11 (Reuters) - The Vatican is studying the possibility of extending Pope Francis' trip to Lebanon in June so he can fly to Jerusalem to meet there Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who has backed Russia's war in Ukraine, two sources told Reuters on Monday. It would be only their second meeting. Their first, in Cuba in 2016, was the first between a pope and a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church since the Great Schism that split Christianity into Eastern and Western branches in 1054. Kirill, 75, has given his full-throated blessing for Russia's invasion of Ukraine,...

The big takeaway from all of this is that despite the crisis in money market funds during the Wall Street crash of 2008, federal regulators appear to have done very little to reform what Wall Street is allowed to stuff into money market funds – which are peddled to investors as safe and liquid. This might explain why the Boston Fed has adopted a mantle of silence about what went on in its MMLF bailout fund and why it has made journalists run an obstacle course to get at the facts.….

For the fourth time and by the same 4-3 margin, the Ohio Supreme Court threw out Republican-drawn maps on Thursday for new state legislative districts as unfairly favoring Republicans. The ruling gives the Ohio Redistricting Commission until May 6 to come up with an "entirely new" plan, more than seven months after state House and Senate maps were supposed to be in place. Immediate reaction from the Republican majority in the General Assembly was muted, with John Fortney, Senate majority spokesman, saying only that they are "reviewing the opinion." Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a Republican, again joined the court's three...

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Last week, Beshear vetoed Senate Bill 83, legislation that would restrict girls’ high school and college sports to only those students whose birth certificate registered them as female. ... With that veto, along with vetoes striking down bans on teaching critical race theory and abortions after 15-weeks, a governor who had previously kept his head down in our national culture wars jumped out of the left-wing foxhole with a fixed bayonet.

Oakland - Mark Estrada, the man who pleaded guilty to killing a Hayward police sergeant in 2015, was sentenced to 50 years to life on Thursday. Sgt. Scott Lunger, a 48-year-old father of two daughters, was fatally shot by Estrada during a pre-dawn traffic stop

The director of the C.I.A. said on Thursday that “potential desperation” to extract the semblance of a victory in Ukraine could tempt President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to order the use of a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, publicly discussing for the first time a concern that has coursed through the White House during seven weeks of conflict. The director, William J. Burns, who served as American ambassador to Russia and is the member of the administration who has dealt most often with Mr. Putin, said the potential detonation of such a weapon — even as a warning shot...

President Joe Biden looked lost again Thursday after finishing a speech on the nation's ongoing supply chain crisis when he turned around and stuck his hand out as if to shake hands - but there was no one else on stage. The blunder from 79-year-old Biden comes days after he looked disoriented during an event that saw former President Barack Obama visit the White House for the first time since leaving office. Immediately after ending the speech in Greensboro, North Carolina. with the signoff 'God bless you all,' footage from the event shows Biden turning to his right and seemingly...

TikToker Chrissy Chlapecka has brought back more than just Paris Hilton-esque micro-miniskirts and bleach-blond hair — she and her fellow Gen Zers are proud “bimbos,” too. The Chicago native, who has garnered 4.3 million followers on TikTok, regularly posts shamelessly scantily clad videos dolled up in head-to-toe pink to hype up her “bimbos-in-training,” convince them to dump their boyfriends and reclaim the term by embracing overt sexuality. “It’s time to start being yourself if you want to dye your hair pink, dye your hair pink,” she exhorts in an intentional upskirt clip with 2.5 million views. “Life is short, nothing...

resident Joe Biden appeared to offer a handshake to nobody in particular after finishing his Thursday speech in Greensboro, North Carolina. When the speech ended, the president turned to his right and put out his hand in thin air for a few moments before turning around and roaming the stage for several seconds. He then proceeded to the other side of the stage to shake hands with attendees in the audience.

A cancer survivor is vowing to untangle the twisted mystery of why almost 100 people associated with a New Jersey high school have developed “extremely” rare malignant brain tumors. Al Lupiano is among the 94 former staff and students from Colonia High School in the Woodbridge Township School District who have been stricken by the devastating diagnoses in recent years. “I will not rest until I have answers,” Lupiano, 50, declared in an interview with NJ.com and the Star Ledger on Thursday. “I will uncover the truth.”

“In the house of the righteous is much treasure: but in the revenues of the wicked is trouble. The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so” (Proverbs 15:6).

I think this is a case of a longtime enemy of the Kremlin making mischief at an opportune moment more so than a bankable report. It comes from Leonid Nevzlin, a prominent businessman who fled Russia for Israel nearly 20 years ago due to fear of persecution and has been a critic of Moscow ever since. In 2008 he was sentenced to life in prison there in absentia. How much stock do we want to put in a claim made by a well-known dissident with strong personal reasons to embarrass Putin’s regime?Having said that, there are reasons to believe it...

The candidate of the National Rally assured that she wanted to "speak to all French people" during her first meeting between the two rounds. She also denounced a "quinnquennium which have divided, despised and hurt" in front of her supporters. Giving pledges to the left while preserving itself as a credible alternative to Emmanuel Macron. For the first of her meetings between the two rounds in Avignon, Marine Le Pen presented her strategy to try to win on April 24. "Patriots on the right, patriots on the left, our only goal is France...Come and vote. We are talking to all...

Rudy Giuliani assisted federal investigators in unlocking several electronic devices that had been seized from him by the FBI -- a move that could speed a decision from Southern District of New York prosecutors whether to charge the former New York City mayor and presidential candidate over his lobbying efforts in Ukraine, his attorney and sources familiar with the case told ABC News. The FBI seized more than a dozen devices from Giuliani's home and office during a search last April. A court-appointed special master has been reviewing the contents but had been slowed by the inability to access all...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus says the governor of Texas should coordinate with the federal government before busing migrants to Washington, D.C. His remarks follow an order from Governor Greg Abbott to provide buses to take willing migrants already released by federal agencies and transport them to the nation’s capital. “Governor Abbott is taking actions to move migrants without adequately coordinating with the federal government and local border communities,” Commissioner Magnus said in a written statement Thursday afternoon. “CBP has always worked closely with and supported border communities in Texas, many of which CBP personnel call home.”...