Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Stacey Solomon shocked as Obama shares Insta tribute Trending – RTE.ie

TV presenter Stacey Solomon has revealed her delight and shock after Michelle Obama shared a message about her on Instagram.

The former US lady posted a collection of messages and pictures from social media that praise healthcare workers in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic.

One message, in particular, was from the child of an NHS nurse who told her mother to "get some sleep, relax and let Stacy (sic) Solomon get you giggling".

When Solomon discovered the sweet message was shared by Michelle Obama she told her Instagram followers that she couldn't stop laughing.

The Loose Women panelist said: "So many of you are tagging me in this.

"Me and Hoe can't stop laughing that I'm on Michelle Obama's grid.

"I'm 100% sure the queen has no idea who I am but it has made my day nonetheless."

Obama had shared the handwritten note to the nurse alongside a message urging people to let healthcare workers know "if you're feeling grateful" for their work.

"From our medical providers and hospital staff to our grocery, transit and delivery workers, so many extraordinary people are putting their lives on the line to get us all through this moment," she said.

"Let's take the opportunity to tell them and their families that we see their sacrifices and we're behind them.

"A handwritten letter, an Instagram post, or a simple 'thank you' text can go a long way in letting someone know just how incredible they are and how much you appreciate what they're doing."

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Stacey Solomon shocked as Obama shares Insta tribute Trending - RTE.ie

Trump to gut mileage requirements Obama brokered with automakers – Crain’s Cleveland Business

The Trump administration will dramatically relax automobile emissions and fuel economy standards so that only modest efficiency gains are required through 2026, according to people familiar with the matter.

In a rule to be announced as early as Tuesday, March 31, the administration will require automakers to boost the fuel efficiency of new vehicles each year by a 1.5% fleet-average starting in 2021, said three people, who asked not to be named discussing the measure ahead of its release. The required improvements are far more modest than requirements for roughly 5% annual gains under rules charted during the Obama administration.

The final regulation's release will conclude a years-long effort to dismantle the ambitious standards, which supporters have called the most effective policy ever enacted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Transportation Department in August 2018 proposed capping the standards after 2020 instead of rising to a roughly 50-mile-per-gallon fleet average midway through this decade. That proposal argued easing mileage standards would reduce vehicle prices and make it easier for consumers to replace older, less-efficient cars with newer, safer vehicles, avoiding thousands of traffic fatalities in the process.

The administration has scaled back those earlier safety estimates as it abandoned the initial plan to freeze the standards and is now requiring modest 1.5% annual improvements instead. Under the new approach, far fewer highway fatalities would be averted than originally projected, according to a draft of the final rule obtained earlier this month by Democratic Sen. Tom Carper's office, which released a summary of its contents to reporters.

"This rule utterly fails to deliver any of its promised benefits of safer, more affordable fuel-efficient cars," Carper said in a statement after reviewing the draft rule. "It is likely to be overturned by the courts and subject automakers to years of costly litigation and confusion in the process."

A spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Transportation Department agency responsible for the regulation, declined to comment.

The EPA and Transportation Department already concluded a major portion of the push last fall when it stripped California of its authority to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, sparking a flurry of lawsuits by the state and others challenging the move.

The car rule comes as part of a broader Trump administration effort to dial back environmental regulations, including mandates on power plants and oil wells.

"Of all the bad things President Trump has done to the environment, this is the worst," said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign. "He is rolling back the biggest single step any nation has taken to fight global warming, cut oil use and save money at the pump. He is rejecting cleaner, efficient cars in favor of pollution-spewing, gas-guzzling Trump-mobiles."

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Trump to gut mileage requirements Obama brokered with automakers - Crain's Cleveland Business

Royal snub: Why Kate Middleton and Prince William did not invite the Obamas to wedding – Express

Kate and William will be celebrating their ninth wedding anniversary later this month. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are currently under intense pressure as they attempt to assist with the coronavirus pandemic, while reassuring the nation - but they are likely to be thinking back to the momentous occasion on April 29. Their wedding was considered an international moment of cheer. However, the two unintentionally caused a stir when they left the then-President and former FLOTUS off their invite lists.

According to The Telegraphs Tim Walker, Michelle Obama was particularly disappointed.

Back in 2011, he wrote: Even after it was clear that Prince William and Kate Middleton would not be sending a wedding invitation to the White House, Michelle Obama still appears not to have given up hope.

She told US TV programme Live With Regis and Kelly Show two months before the wedding that if I get invited, Ill go.

However, she was still waiting for her invitation at the time.

Mr Walker pointed out: Her comments are likely to exasperate senior courtiers, who had to put off naming the wedding date until a week after announcing the engagement because White House officials were not at first certain when Barack Obama and his wife would make their first state visit to Britain.

Obama's men, adamant that the two events should not clash, subsequently agreed May 24 to 26, almost a month after the royal wedding, as the dates for his visit.

However, Mr Walked added that the President may feel he had a lucky escape.

Political tensions could have arisen at the event, after Hamad bin Isa Khalifa, the King of Bahrain, confirmed his attendance.

READ MORE:How Obama accused Prince George of protocol breach

Their first overseas tour was to the US as well, which started later that same year.

They then invited Mr and Mrs Obama over to their Kensington Palace apartments in 2016.

The couple were delighted to meet the third-in-line to the throne Prince George, who was in his dressing gown at the time.

The US President was visiting the UK to congratulate the Queen on her 90th birthday.

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Royal snub: Why Kate Middleton and Prince William did not invite the Obamas to wedding - Express

Why William and Kate didnt invite the Obamas to their wedding – Marie Claire UK

Millions of people across the globe tuned in to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton say I do back in 2011. The couple exchanged vows in front of around 1,900 guests who attended the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, with 600 invited to a lunch reception at Buckingham Palace and 300 getting an exclusive invite to the evening dinner.

However, two very important figures that didnt make it onto the Duke and Duchess of Cambridges guestlist were the then-President and First Lady, Barack and Michelle Obama.

According to an article by The Telegraphs Tim Walker in 2011, Michelle was disappointed not to get an invite.

He wrote: Even after it was clear that Prince William and Kate Middleton would not be sending a wedding invitation to the White House, Michelle Obama still appears not to have given up hope.

Two months before the big day, she said on the US talkshow Live With Regis and Kelly Show: If I get invited, Ill go.

But Walker wrote: Her comments are likely to exasperate senior courtiers, who had to put off naming the wedding date until a week after announcing the engagement because White House officials were not at first certain when Barack Obama and his wife would make their first state visit to Britain.

Obamas men, adamant that the two events should not clash, subsequently agreed May 24 to 26, almost a month after the royal wedding, as the dates for his visit.

However, shortly after their wedding, William and Kate greeted the Obamas at Buckingham Palace to start their UK tour, and it was their first royal duty as a married couple and Kates first as a member of the royal family.

William and Kate have remained close with the Obamas ever since. The former President and First Lady visited their home at Kensington Palace in 2016 (remember those adorable pictures of Barack meeting a toddler Prince George in his dressing gown?) while visiting the UK for the Queens 90th birthday.

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Why William and Kate didnt invite the Obamas to their wedding - Marie Claire UK

Trump Implied Obama Failed H1N1 Crisis Over 13,000 Deaths But Fauci Predicts COVID-19 Could Bring More Than 15 Times That Number – PoliticusUSA

In defending his administrations response to the coronavirus pandemic earlier this month, President Donald Trump brought forward an unusual comparison, implying that his predecessor had done a worse job than him during a separate viral outbreak.

Speaking with Sean Hannity during an interview on Fox News on March 4, Trump claimed that the swine flu (H1N1) resulted in 17,000 deaths across the country a result that came about, Trump suggested, because former President Barack Obama didnt do anything to contain the disease. (His numbers were off there were about 13,000 deaths as a result of the swine flu.)

Trumps comments were examined by a number of different fact-checking sites, and were found to be obscenely false. The Obama administration, these sites concluded, had responded appropriately to the H1N1 pandemic. Indeed, the Presidents Council of Advisers on Science and Technology in August 2009 predicted between 30,000 and 90,000 were going to die from the disease, a range that is many times larger than the actual outcome, all things considered.

Trump used the numbers to demonstrate that his administration was doing a better job than Obamas had but it was an apples-to-oranges comparison, as it was looking at Obamas record at theendof a crisis, and comparing it to Trumps at thebeginningof his.

In all likelihood, Trumps final tally is going to be grimmer.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the presidents coronavirus task force, spoke on Sunday morning on CNNs State of the Union. When asked about what outcome the crisis could have, Fauci warned that his predictions were based on models he had observed, and that they could be different in the end.

However, he also said the American public should be prepared for a high number of Americans getting sick, and dying, from COVID-19.

Looking at what were seeing now, you know, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths will occur as a result of coronavirus, coming about from millions of cases in total across the country, Fauci explained.

As of Sunday morning, there have been nearly 2,200 documented deaths in the United States as a result of coronavirus. Experts agree that the number is going to go up significantly in the coming weeks.

Chris Walker is a freelance journalist based in Madison, Wisconsin, who focuses on news, politics, and analysis of world events. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, since 2005 Chris has reported on workers rights protests in Wisconsin, opined on four separate presidential elections and written on a number of other political subjects for a variety of national online publications.

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Trump Implied Obama Failed H1N1 Crisis Over 13,000 Deaths But Fauci Predicts COVID-19 Could Bring More Than 15 Times That Number - PoliticusUSA