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"There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism," director Ali Abbasi said when asked why he wanted to make the film about the former president's rise to power in 1980s America. "I think it's time to make movies relevant. It's time to make movies political again."One of the most anticipated moments of the 77th Cannes Film Festival finally arrived Monday night with the world premiere of the Donald Trump drama The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as a young version of the real estate mogul in his pre-MAGA days. Only Francis Ford Coppola’s wildly ambitious...

An alarming study has spotlighted how 42 million food stamp recipients spend their welfare handouts on ultra-processed junk food. Coca-Cola, Sprite and other soft drinks are the most commonly-bought items via the $135 billion-a-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a new study says. Candy, potato chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, cookies, and other ultra-processed food dominates the top 20 items, says a report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC). Report author Matthew Dickerson says recipients spend 'spend significant portions of their allotments on junk food.' These 'non-nutritious foods' include 'sugary beverages and ultra-processed foods, which can lead to poor...

A Michigan school executive has banned the terms “boy” and “girl” among school staff, contending that using the terms essentially constitutes a “harmful” practice. Kara Davis, the Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Saline Schools in Saline, Michigan, is described as “passionate learner and teacher.” She taught for more than two decades and now partners with “teachers, students, and administrators to help Saline continue to strengthen its collective vision of educational equity and deepen implementation of the Saline Area Schools Graduate Profile,” according to a description on the Saline Schools website. A letter penned by Davis is now going viral,...

(NewsNation) — The fashion industry (companies that construct clothing or make the materials for clothing) accounts for up to 4% of global climate emissions and an unknown but large percentage of worldwide water pollution. “Natural” materials like cotton and leather have huge impacts on the environment and humans. Cotton relies on pesticides, and in many parts of the world it’s harvested by children and forced laborers. Animal leather means raising cattle in ways that often lead to deforestation, water pollution and increased carbon emissions.

Many Ukrainians see Volodymyr Zelensky as a dictator who has betrayed his own country for a handful of silver. From tomorrow, May 20th, Zelensky’s presidential term is formally at an end—but no new elections will be held as long as Ukraine is under martial law because he would be overwhelmingly voted out. He preaches that Ukraine is fighting for freedom and then denies them the right to vote on his policies – so much for freedom and democracy. Zelensky has no incentive for peace at this point in time. Zelensjy won the election, which some say was rigged, promising PEACE...

Elon Musk’s Tesla is continuing to lay off employees as the company has slashed an additional 600 jobs across its California facilities, affecting a wide range of positions from factory workers to engineers. CNBC reports that Tesla has been grappling with a series of challenges that have led to multiple rounds of layoffs over the past month. The latest round of layoffs, reported in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act filing obtained by CNBC, impacted a wide range of positions, from entry-level roles to directors, spanning various departments such as factory workers, software developers, and robotics engineers. This...

With seven people killed and close to a million losing power, the recent storms hit Texas hard. Restoring electricity may take days and may not be completed by Wednesday. The isolation of the Texas power grid has become a symbol of the state’s independent streak and resistance to federal oversight in recent years. The massive outages during Winter Storm Uri in 2021 were a wake-up call to the vulnerabilities of Texas’ system. But Texas hit the snooze button, resulting in repeated crises in Summer 2022 and Winter 2023. Now it seems Texas is sleepwalking into another avoidable crisis ... ERCOT...

Hundreds of nursing homes in Florida have been forced to shut their doors over the past five years because of the soaring cost of commercial property insurance in the state. In the five-year period ending in 2023, an average of 146 nursing homes or assisted-living facilities in Florida have closed each year, according to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration. During that same five-year period, commercial property insurance premiums rose 125% in Florida. Last year alone, annual premiums rose by around 27% in the state, according to Bloomberg News.

Joe Biden displayed just how bad his dementia really is by claiming his economic policies were successful despite millions of Americans suffering from not being able to afford the most necessary consumer goods. “We got to be steady, stay the course, and continue to produce these incredible jobs, and the job — and by the way, pay for the jobs are — are outpacing the inflation rate they’re paying. We’re — we’re going to — we’re going to be able to deal with this. Gonna take a little more time. We’re just focused on it,” Biden claimed. According to several...

An economist offered an explanation for a paradox that has emerged in recent data showing that spending has remained robust even as consumers report feeling pessimistic. Joanne Hsu, who is the director of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey, told CNBC on Friday that she thinks Americans have abandoned plans to save money as they see their financial goals look less attainable and are spending money instead. “This positive spending is not a reflection of some sort of internalized secret sense of confidence that consumers have,” he explained. “And instead my interpretation is that consumers see that a lot...

The Minnesota Senate on Friday approved a package of partisan changes to landlord-tenant law that are poised to make housing more expensive for renters and create significant burdens for landlords. The landlord-tenant conference report is the product of an agreement between Democrat House and Senate negotiators on SF 3492, the landlord-tenant bill the Senate passed by an overwhelmingly partisan vote in April. Sen. Eric Lucero (R-St. Michael), the lead Republican on the Senate’s Housing and Homelessness Prevention Committee, issued the following statement sharply criticizing the misplaced priorities in the bill: “The cost of housing in Minnesota is dramatically more expensive...

Parties opposing Catalonia’s independence from Spain have garnered the support of a majority of voters in the region. Recent elections saw approximately 54% of the electorate elect candidates from non-separatist parties across the political spectrum, making a significant shift in Catalonia’s political landscape. This vote may have drawn a line under a tumultuous decade marked by a push for independence. The 2017 call for independence included an unofficial referendum, a unilateral declaration of independence, mass protests and arguably the country’s most severe constitutional crisis since the transition to democracy in 1975. Separatism had been waning before this vote, but this...

Pole climbing and hurtman's rescue.

NEW YORK — Your wallet may soon be getting thinner. Visa on Wednesday announced major changes to how credit and debit cards will operate in the U.S. in the coming months and years. The new features could mean Americans will be carrying fewer physical cards in their wallets, and will make the 16-digit credit or debit card number printed on every card increasingly irrelevant. They will be some of the biggest changes to how payments operate in the U.S. since the U.S. rolled out chip-embedded cards several years ago. They also come as Americans have many more options to pay...

Grocery prices fell on the whole in April for the first time in 12 months, according to data released Wednesday by the Labor Department.

Drivers are apparently choosing to drive gas powered vehicles over electric ones amid President Joe Biden’s (D) push for Americans to go green on the road. A recent report from ISeeCars.com said drivers are using electric vehicles (EVs) 20 percent less than those powered by gas, the outlet reported Friday. The news comes as Biden wants a national network of 500,000 publicly available EV chargers by 2030 as he charges ahead with his “climate agenda,” Breitbart News reported April 1.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Velshi” that former President Donald Trump made an “obvious quid pro quo” when he allegedly asked for a $1 billion donation from oil executives during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month. Whitehouse said, “The problem we have is a little bit like the House. If we issue subpoenas, as the Judiciary Committee did to pursue the payments made to Justice Thomas, the Republicans said they would not enforce the subpoenas and they said they don’t comply and we won’t let them enforce it. I would expect something like that to...

CBS New Polls conducted by YouGov May 5-16. AZ (1193 LV): Trump 52, Biden 47; FL (1181 LV): Trump 54, Biden 45

Legal challenges by conservative lawmakers and activists against guaranteed basic income programs are heating up nationwide. And one of their arguments is surprising: Some say the programs are discriminatory because they are not universal. Numerous cities and counties are experimenting with guaranteed basic incomes to support their most vulnerable populations. They typically offer no-strings-attached monthly payments between $500 and $1,000 to specific groups, like new moms, Black women, or trans people, all of them low-income residents. Guaranteed basic income programs differ from their idealistic cousin — a universal basic income. UBI, made famous by Andrew Yang during the 2016 presidential...

Former Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, once a powerful Democrat, was found guilty of 13 out of 14 corruption charges, including racketeering, bribery, and extortion. The case highlighted high-level corruption in Chicago’s city government, involving political favors for money. The trial also implicated other officials and revealed widespread corruption in Illinois, leading to numerous convictions. “This case was about bribery and extortion occurring at the highest level of Chicago city government,” U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual said. “Burke has his hand out for money. He tied the giving of official action by him to the giving of money to him.” “Alderman Burke...