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Franks: Welfare reform, abortion impact elections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

Is it possible that welfare reform and my small contribution toward that effort in 1996 as the Republican chairman of the Welfare Reform Task Force may have inadvertently contributed to the election of a Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate in 2022, a Kentucky governor, and a Virginia state legislature in 2023? Sounds strange.After the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade – which returned the abortion question back to the states – the GOP has had to fend off well organized campaigns in states across the country.Is there a lesson to be learned?At the very least, Democratic women and young women have been super motivated to vote and vote Democrat. There is no wonder and no secret why Vice President Kamala Harris is leading the charge for the Biden-Harris campaign on the abortion rights issue. She has made frequent college campus stops to discuss the issue. It is paying political dividends.One of the primary goals of the Welfare Reform Bill was to break the cycle of government dep...

NEEDTOBREATHE switched on for MGM show in Boston

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

NEEDTOBREATHE is definitely a rock band, and its members are indeed Christians. But there are a few good reasons why they don’t like to call themselves a Christian rock band, even after a Grammy nomination in that category.“People hear that and assume that it (stinks),” says frontman Bear Rinehart. “There are a lot of very big bands out there that you could just as easily call Christian bands, and for us it really comes more from the business side — like ‘Is this song going to make it on Christian radio?’ There have certainly been songs where my faith gets into them in a natural way, and I wouldn’t say I shy away from that. I just don’t feel that every one of my songs derives from that place.”If he does write a spiritual song, he’ll probably keep it non-specific. “I decided a long time ago that I can’t tell people what to think of my songs or how to interpret them. And I think we intentionally write songs in ambiguous way. To my mind that gives people a way to connect, so they...

Why Jed Hoyer seized the opportunity to hire Craig Counsell to manage the Chicago Cubs: ‘Felt like we left wins on the table’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer had said all the right things for months in support of David Ross.Even when scrutiny on Ross’ performance became heightened in June when the Cubs slipped 10 games below .500, Hoyer continued to believe in him. At the end of the season, after a three-week September collapse dropped them out of playoff position, he backed his hand-picked manager. Hoyer, though, has shown a willingness to make tough decisions when he believes it benefits the organization.A covert recruitment of managerial free agent Craig Counsell was the latest shrewd maneuver by Hoyer that landed the Cubs one of the best in the game for a record contract at the expense of parting ways with Ross. But that was a price Hoyer was willing to pay. The Cubs want to harness the way Counsell and the Brewers consistently outperformed expectations during his nine seasons at the helm.Counsell always seemed to get the best out of his roster.“My job is to figure o...

Dear Abby: Priced out of pal’s bachelorette bash

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

Dear Abby: My best friend is getting married next year and is planning for her bachelorette party. Right now, they are looking at places that have a three- or four-night minimum and would cost each person more than $500. (That’s just to rent the place.) It wouldn’t cover food, gifts, etc.My friend isn’t a fancy, extravagant person, so I was shocked by the length of time I’ll need to take off from work and the amount of money I will have to spend. I worry if I try to (nicely) say something, it will come across as not caring about her, her wedding or doing this for her. It’s not that I can’t afford it, and I think I should have some time off available, but it’s going to cost more than I’m comfortable with. Am I being unreasonable? I wouldn’t want to not make her feel special. — Sour On It in IndianaDear Sour: You are not being unreasonable. You are practical, and your reasoning is sound. If your friend’s bachelorette pa...

Vivek Ramaswamy’s approach in business and politics is the same: Confidence, no matter the scenario

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — A political novice and one of the world’s wealthiest millennials, Vivek Ramaswamy has waged a whirlwind presidential campaign mirroring his meteoric rise as a biotech entrepreneur. On everything from deporting people born in the United States to ending aid to Israel and Ukraine, he consistently displays the bravado of a populist, self-declared outsider.“I stand on the side of revolution,” he declares. “That’s what I’m going to lead in a way that no establishment politician can.”In business and politics, though, Ramaswamy has run into skeptics and sometimes hard facts that threatened to derail his ambitions. In the 2024 campaign, the Israel-Hamas war has refocused the Republican primary on foreign policy and exposed just how much Ramaswamy’s self-declared revolutionary approach puts him at odds with the party’s most powerful figures and many of its voters.At Wednesday’s primary debate, Ramaswamy joined the rest of the field in supporting Israel’...

Jim Biden’s last name has helped open doors. It’s also made him a Republican target

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

ELLWOOD CITY, Pa. (AP) — When a healthcare startup dreamed of building a network of rural hospitals several years ago, it turned to Jim Biden.Although he wasn’t a public health consultant or a medical expert, Jim Biden was the brother of Joe Biden, who had recently finished his term as vice president. The firm’s chief executive believed Jim Biden would help provide the enterprise with “serious horsepower.”But Jim Biden wasn’t the secret weapon that Americore Health Services was counting on. The company imploded in 2019, filing for bankruptcy amid a pile of lawsuits and a federal investigation into fraud allegations. Americore also accused Jim Biden of failing to repay $600,000 in loans.Some of the Florida-based company’s hospitals closed, including one here in Ellwood City, near the western edge of Pennsylvania, where medical equipment gathers dust and plywood covers broken windows. The only reminder of the bankrupt company’s brief tenure as the town’s biggest employer is a pl...

Biden and Xi are to meet next week. There is no detail too small to sweat

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, there will be no such thing as a small detail.How they greet? If they eat? Where they sit? Will there be flowers? Bottled water or in a glass? “Pretty intense,” senior administration officials say of navigating delicate protocols. Any encounter involving the president and a foreign leader means managing tricky logistics, political and cultural, and every occurrence or utterance can potentially jolt the world order. But few nations are more attuned to etiquette than the Chinese, and Washington and Beijing’s often-conflicting interests might mean the seemingly trivial becomes meaningful. There’s probably “very detailed planning of the actual choreography of who enters a room where, if there will be pictures taken and all of that,” said Bonny Lin, senior fellow for Asian security and director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Biden and Xi ...

Projects featuring Lady Bird Johnson’s voice offer new looks at the late first lady

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — Texas college student Jade Emerson found herself entranced as she worked on a podcast about Lady Bird Johnson, listening to hour upon hour of the former first lady recounting everything from her childhood memories to advising her husband in the White House.“I fell in love very quickly,” said Emerson, host and producer of the University of Texas podcast “Lady Bird.” “She kept surprising me.”The podcast, which was released earlier this year, is among several recent projects using Johnson’s own lyrical voice to offer a new look at the first lady who died in 2007. Other projects include a documentary titled “The Lady Bird Diaries” that premieres Monday on Hulu and an exhibit in Austin at the presidential library for her husband, Lyndon B. Johnson, who died in 1973.Lady Bird Johnson began recording an audio diary in the tumultuous days after her husband became president following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Th...

Nonprofits making progress in tackling homelessness among veterans, but challenges remain

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Along a busy Atlanta residential road, a 68-year-old Vietnam War-era Army veteran has found what he calls a “match made in heaven.” Harold Tilson Jr. found himself homeless earlier this year but for the past few months has been living in transitional housing run by the nonprofit Veterans Empowerment Organization, or VEO. It provides emergency and permanent housing for dozens of previously homeless military veterans.“If you’re homeless and you need help, you couldn’t ask for a better place to go because they take care of just about everything,” Tilson said.It’s part of a years-long effort by government agencies and nonprofits around the country to address homelessness among veterans. Since January 2020, the numbers of homeless veterans have fallen 11% and have gone down 55% over the past 13 years, according to a government count. That’s in sharp contrast with the general homeless population. Authorities credit the Obama administration’s work to make h...

Mexico City imposes another round of water restrictions in the face of drought ‘crisis’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:06:57 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican officials imposed severe, months-long cuts to Mexico City’s water supply at midnight Friday, acting just a month after initial restrictions were ordered as drought dries the capital’s reservoirs.The Mexican National Water Commission and mayor announced the moves at a news conference, but officials did not report the cuts on social media until just four hours before they took effect.Abnormally low rain has dropped the Cutzamala system — a network of three reservoirs serving over 20 million residents in the Valley of Mexico — to historic seasonal lows. The system is 44% lower than it should be at this time of the year.Officials began restricting water from Cutzamala by roughly 8% on Oct. 17. Friday’s cuts are much more drastic, representing a further 25% of the system’s total flow. Twelve boroughs, mostly in the west of the city, can expect lower water pressure until the restrictions lift, officials said.Officials did not specify when...