UNITED STATES
Trump booed at baseball
President Donald Trump was booed by baseball fans as he attended a World Series game with his wife, Melania, in Washington on Sunday. The Trumps attended the tie-breaking Game 5 of the series. After the game’s third inning, the stadium’s video display showed military members in attendance and then cut to Donald Trump. The cheering crowd immediately switched to loud and sustained boos. When the display cut back to the soldiers, the booing died down, but fans soon took up a chorus of “Lock him up!” — a play on the chant frequently heard at Donald Trump rallies against former secretary of state Hilary Rodham Clinton. Demonstrators sitting behind the home plate also unfurled “veterans for impeachment” banners during the game, in reference to the House of Representatives investigation into whether Donald Trump abused power by withholding military aid to Ukraine.
UNITED STATES
California official resigns
Representative Katie Hill on Sunday announced her resignation amid an ethics probe, saying that explicit photographs of her with a campaign staffer had been “weaponized” by her husband and political operatives. The California Democrat, 32, had been hand-picked for a coveted leadership seat, but in recent days, compromising photos of Hill and purported text messages from her to a campaign staffer surfaced online and in a British tabloid. The House Ethics Committee also had launched an investigation into whether Hill had an inappropriate relationship with an aide in her congressional office, which is prohibited under House rules. Hill has denied that and vowed to fight a “smear” campaign waged by a husband she called abusive. However, her relationship with the aide became a concern for House Democrats who have made equality in the workplace a particular priority. After apologizing for the relationship with a subordinate, Hill announced she was stepping aside. “It is with a broken heart that today I announce my resignation from Congress,” she wrote in a statement. “Having private photos of personal moments weaponized against me has been an appalling invasion of my privacy.”
UNITED STATES
Geena Davis honored
Actress Geena Davis on Sunday urged Hollywood filmmakers to take new steps to address a gender imbalance in media as she accepted an honorary Oscar for her work to promote more women on screen. While equality for women lags throughout US society, it is even worse in film and television, said Davis, the Thelma and Louise star who founded a nonprofit research group called the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2004. “However abysmal the numbers are in real life, it’s far worse in fiction — where you make it up!” Davis said as she accepted the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. “We make it worse.”
COLOMBIA
Bogota elects female mayor
Bogota on Sunday elected its first female mayor in what is being hailed as an important advancement for women’s right. Claudia Lopez won the race for mayor of Bogota on a platform promising to combat corruption and advance equal rights for minority communities. The Alianza Verde candidate captured more than 1.1 million votes, or about 35 percent of the vote, defeating runner-up Carlos Galan by 2.7 percentage points.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
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