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'Imitation' Episode 2 will see how Ma-ha (Jung Ji-so) will now deal with an opportunity that seems too good to be true. In the first episode, she had been sent from the original agency that was training her to be an idol to another company where she came very close to debuting as an idol but things went wrong in the last moment.

So for a few years, she continues to do odd jobs including playing part roles in movies. Her dream about debuting as an idol seems far away, initially, but that may not be true for long.

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On the other hand, there is Kwon Ryeok (Lee Jun-young) who debuted as a singer for Shax and upon the disappearance of one of his members over a love affair, he takes over the band and ensures that the band doesn't end up falling prey to media tabloids' gossip. Since then, he has been working non-stop and risen in popularity. He also has become an actor while also being an idol, thereby ensuring that Shax is not going to be victimized by media over scandals.

The show observes and portrays the different kinds of people who make up the world of Korean entertainment and K-pop industry. With increasing interest in all things Korean, this is the latest show to delve into the theme of idol hopefuls and abuse that they face at the hands of agencies that tie them up in slave contracts.

So in the second episode, we will see how Kwon Ryeok ends up saving Ma-ha from an embarrassing situation after she is left behind by her manager at a shooting spot outside the city. However, something doesn't seem right because he tells her she will do no better than imitating other stars. This is a reference to the odd jobs that her manager gets her to do. It is harsh and we wonder why he is so rude to her but what is interesting is that Ma-ha may receive another shot at the whole idol thing.

She along with her two friends who were supposed to debut as Omega receive a deal from another entertainment agency and their agent seems to be dead set on ensuring that they make their debut. He tells them his plans and informs them that their band will be called Tea Party, but can they really make it? After all, the world of entertainment is cutthroat.

'Imitation' airs every Friday on KBS2 and can be streamed on Viki.

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'Imitation' Episode 2: Ma-ha's idol dreams rekindle after Tea Party band forms, but are her hopes too high? - MEAWW

With a badly aging bridge as his backdrop, President Joe Biden stood in reliably Republican Louisiana on Thursday to pressure GOP lawmakers to support his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, calling it a "blue collar blueprint to rebuild America." (May 6) AP Domestic

WASHINGTONTim Phillips had some straight talk for fellow freedom fighters who gathered in an Iowa restaurant in April.

Their side lost the first few months of the big, big battle going on in Washington as Congress passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, said Phillips, head of the fiscally conservative group Americans for Prosperity. But its still possible to stop the more than $4 trillion in additional spending that President Joe Biden has proposed.

In the next few months, Washington, D.C., is going to be making some decisions that could literally dramatically transform our country, Phillips said as he urged the gathering of more than 160 peopleto do more than youve ever done before.

That meeting, held in the district of Rep. Cindy Axne, a moderate Democrat who is among the top targets for Republicans in the midterm elections, was the first of more than 100 events around the country that AFP has in the works for a major campaign that kicks into gear next week.

In details provided first to USA TODAY, the groups End Washington Waste: Stop the Spending Spree campaign also includes several milliondollars in advertising to pair with the planned rallies, town halls, phone banks and door-to-door canvassing.

"This spending spree we're seeing out of Washington, D.C., is both unprecedented and unsustainable," Phillips told USA TODAY.

Tea Party supporters in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.(Photo: Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Even with the influx of cash and mobilization of a nationwide network, itremains to be seen whether conservatives can generate the kind of grassroots activism that roiled lawmakers districts when Democrats debated how to overhaul the health care system in 2009. Democrats eventually passed the Affordable Care Act, with no support from Republicans, but lost the House in the 2010 midterm elections.

The lawmakers being pressuredinclude more moderate Democrats and those representing politically competitive seatsin Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Arizona,Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey and Oregon. The initial target list also includes a moderate Republican, Pennsylvanias Brian Fitzpatrick, who sometimes crosses party lines to vote with Democrats.

White House pitch: Joe Biden looks to sell child care, education plan with state-specific details

Former President Barack Obama, in his memoir, described the Tea Party summer of 2009 when he was greeted by angry protesters as he traveled the country to discuss his health care plan. He wrote that the Tea Party represented a genuine populist surge, even if he thought some of theanger was misdirected and that it was carefully nurtured by groups like Americans for Prosperity.

Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied the Tea Party, said Americans for Prosperity was one of the groups that, recognizing the opportunity presented by Tea Party enthusiasm, stepped in to organize that conservative energy.

President Barack Obama wipes his brow while holding a health care town hall meeting in the Central High School gym on August 15, 2009 in Grand Junction, Colorado.(Photo: John Moore, Getty Images)

And they benefited hugely from it, she said, and massively expanded their reach on the ground.

But, Williamson added, some of the tea partiers opposition to Obama was about him, personally, as the first Black president, who some conservatives falsely claimed was not born in the United States. Biden doesnt inspire the same motivation, she said.

In addition, former President Donald Trump moved the GOP to the left on spending, lessening the appeal of the traditional fiscal conservative view that equates small government with economic freedom, said Lara Putnam, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies citizen activism.

Donald Trumps sweet spot as a persuasive politician was not about a small, noninterventionist government, she said.

Rather than going after major entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare that Republicans have argued for years are gobbling up the budget, Trump signed spending bills with significant increases even as he cut taxes.

Progressive groups are also mobilizing, both to support Bidens proposals generally and to specifically fight back against groups like Americans for Prosperity.

In Wisconsin, for example, a local pizza restaurant owner recently touted Biden's proposed subsidized child care assistance in a call with reporters organized by the Main Street Alliance, a progressive small-business group.

Building Back Together, a progressive organization run by Biden allies, began airing TV ads Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada to promote Bidens blue-collar blueprint to build America.

President Joe Biden says he wants to pay for his infrastructure plan by raising corporate taxes.(Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)

Democrats argue that polls show the elements of the plans including improved infrastructure, free community college, more help for families and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for it are popular.

But even if thats the case, politics are not an aggregation of survey results, Williamson said.

Our politics are the result of organized interests operating in the party system, she said.

GOP response: Republicans draw 'red line' in negotiations with Joe Biden on infrastructure package

Democrats are betting that some of the anger about Washington that contributed to Trumps election grewout of frustration that long-standing problemsarent being addressed.

Trust in government has eroded because the government hasnt really delivered for the people, White House chief of staff Ron Klain said at an April event with Georgetown University. Klain argued that the Biden administrations COVID-19 vaccination program is a key to restoring that trust, which will be further enhanced when people see the difference Bidens plans can make in their lives.

Former Sen. Joe Donnelly is trying to make that case at events in Indiana where, as a House member in 2009, hundreds of people crowded the town hall meetings he held to talk about health care.

Former Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly(Photo: Corey Ohlenkamp/Star Press)

At a recent gathering in a park in Logansport, Indiana, Donnelly touted the real meat and potatoes that are in Bidens plans.

Biden's American Families Plan in charts: What's in the plan with subsidized child care and free pre-K

Pitching improved roads, bridges and a better internet is easier, he said, than it was fighting the scare tactics against the Affordable Care Act. Those arguments about death panels and losing ones doctor were so personal that they were especially hard to combat.

Now the discussion is about, how do we revive Americas economy? How do we bring jobs back? Donnellysaid. Its harder to scare people about broadband than it is about their health.

From left, Club for Growth President David McIntosh, Tea Party Patriots President Jenny Beth Martin, Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips and FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon give statements outside the West Wing on March 8, 2017, after meeting with President Trump.(Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP)

The case Americans for Prosperity is making against Bidens plans centers on both size and scope.

Theres too much wasteful spending that will lead to higher taxes, fewer jobs and a rigged economy, the group argues.

Officials say theyre not trying to block all action, but want any bill to be more targeted and to not raise taxes.

Although Americans for Prosperity says theyre offering alternative solutions, Phillips said that given the massive amount of money the government has already spent through the coronavirus rescue package, its difficult to envision a package with even more money that the group could get behind.

As for the polls showing support for Bidens plans, Phillips said theres always a lag time, with a new administration and a new Congress, between extreme policies and public dissatisfaction and concern.

Its kind of the term `whistling past the graveyard,' he said with a chuckle. I would be wary of someone saying all this stuff is polling super greatwithin the first 120 days of a new administration.

U.S. Representative Cindy Axne (D-IA) talks with voters at Smokey Row Coffee in Des Moines, Iowa, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020.(Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

On the day the group was mobilizing in Axnes district, a local paper published her case for Bidens infrastructure bill.

Im focused on securing the investments that will ensure Iowa gets what it needs to be competitive, she wrote.

She's also, however, joined with a group of other farm-state and centrist Democrats to try to exemptfamily farmsfrom a proposed tax increase on inherited assets that would help pay for part of theBidenplanfocused on child care and education.

Chris Larimer, political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa, said the broad benefits of Bidens plans may make it harder for opponents to attack than the Affordable Care Act.

But Axne, he said, is in an incredibly tough district. Her re-election margin was less than 2 percentage points. And the 2022 midterms are likely to turn on voter mobilization.

The arguments being made now by both sides could affect that turnout.

And so it's going to be: How is it framed? Is the Biden administration able to talk about it in ways that Democrats in vulnerable districts can really point to specific job gains or tangible benefits for those constituents? Larimer said. Thats the challenge for vulnerable Democrats.

Billions on the way: How much money is headed to your state, city from the COVID rescue plan

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'Stop the Spending Spree': Fiscal conservatives mobilize to block Biden's jobs and families plans - USA TODAY

WASHINGTON (AP) Republican Kevin McCarthy is leading his party to an inflection point, preparing to dump Rep. Liz Cheney from the No. 3 House leadership position and transform whats left of the party of Lincoln more decisively into the party of Trump.

The GOP leader argues that ousting Cheney has less to do with her very public criticism of the former presidents lies about his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden than her inability to set aside personal convictions and do her job. As conference chair responsible for communicating a unified party message, Cheney has lost the confidence of rank-and-file lawmakers, he said this week.

But in tossing aside Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president and as close as it gets to GOP royalty, and promising a big tent to win back power, McCarthy is hollowing out a cadre of lawmakers intent on governing while he is elevating the people and personalities most loyal to Donald Trump. In one stroke, he is amplifying the former presidents false claims about the election and seeking to mend his own tattered relationship with Trump, reasserting himself as Trumps man in the House.

Its a transformational moment for McCarthy, who resurrected his political career by attaching himself to Trump who called him My Kevin and is now on a glidepath to become House speaker, second in line to the presidency, if Republicans win control in next years elections.

Theres a complete changing of the guard here, said Adam Brandon, president of the conservative FreedomWorks, a tea party group aligned with Trumps rise.

This started as one thing and morphed into something else: Its about the future.

The vote as soon as next week is expected to be decisive, showing the power of Trumps reach, particularly on McCarthy. The GOP leader initially criticized Trumps actions after the 2020 election, saying he bears responsibility for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the most serious domestic assault on the building in its history.

Five people died after Trump encouraged loyalists to fight like hell as Congress was certifying his defeat to Biden. In a private call during the insurrection, McCarthy had urged Trump to call off the rioters, only to face the presidents rebuke.

The saddest day I have ever had in Congress, McCarthy said that night, even as he joined 138 other House Republicans in voting to overturn Bidens win.

McCarthy stood by Cheney when she faced a February challenge for leading 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Trump for his role in the insurrection. McCarthy argued that the House GOP needed to stay united against newly empowered Democrats, and she easily survived.

But in between the lines, McCarthy was also considering the optics of the moment, according to Republicans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private vote. Booting Cheney so soon after the riot would be a bad look for the party, especially when House Republican leaders were also encouraging a unified vote of support for newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump ally who faced reprimand from Democrats over her conspiracy-laden social media rants.

The GOP leader counseled Cheney to stay on message, but as she continued to warn the party off Trumps falsehoods, he groomed a newly transformed Trump acolyte, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as her replacement. Like McCarthy, she is raising millions of dollars for the GOP as a Trump defender.

A last straw was Cheneys press conference at the House GOPs retreat in Florida last month when Cheney criticized Trump anew and broke with McCarthy to back a bipartisan commission fully focused on investigating the Capitol attack.

The American people need to know how we got to Jan. 6 people need to be held accountable, she said.

In an essay in Wednesdays Washington Post, she warned colleagues, History is watching.

McCarthy, who has jetted to Trumps private club at Mar-a-Lago to win back the former presidents support, had already changed his own tune, now saying he did not believe the former president had provoked the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Trump has made clear he wants Cheney out. During an event with the conservative Freedom Caucus at Mar-a-Lago ahead of the House GOP retreat, Trump told lawmakers that Cheney and other RINOs, including Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, must go, according to two Republicans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private remarks. RINO refers to those considered insufficiently loyal or conservative Republicans in name only.

In private calls with lawmakers, Trump had expressed similar displeasure with McCarthy, too, according to one of the Republicans.

Its not like the My Kevin days, the Republican aide said.

Never fully supported by GOPs far right flank, the California Republican has labored to win over the partys conservatives by embracing Trump and giving the former presidents allies a seat at the table in House leadership.

McCarthy was among the first Republicans in Congress to endorse Trumps presidential campaign and quickly became a close confidant and late-night telephone buddy, often fielding his calls in view of reporters in the Capitol.

In many ways, McCarthy had bridged the partys path to the Trump era years earlier. He recruited the tea party class of Republicans who seized control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, newcomers who shut down the government during hardball fiscal fights with then-President Barack Obama.

Underestimated by Democrats as a legislative lightweight, without a House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-style resume of committee work and policy chops to pass bills, McCarthy revels in outperforming expectations, steadily rising to the top GOP leadership position.

But McCarthy has always had other would-be leaders on his heels. After the Freedom Caucus led by Mark Meadows forced former Speaker John Boehner into early retirement, McCarthy withdrew his own bid to become speaker in 2015. The gavel slipped away again after Speaker Paul Ryan retired and Republicans lost House control in 2018.

McCarthy has faced potential challenges from conservative Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the GOP whip in charge of counting votes, though the two are more friendly rivals now, as well as from Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the de facto leader of the swelling conservative ranks and another Trump confidant.

Jordan said McCarthy has done what the others failed to do bring the Freedom Caucus and conservatives into the fold. While Boehner punished what he sometimes called the knuckleheads, and Ryan simply ignored them, McCarthy showers the far right with face time and rank. He made Jordan the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, the perch he used to defend Trump from impeachment.

Hes going to become the speaker if we take back the House, Jordan said an interview Thursday.

McCarthy, who declined to respond to an interview request, has said he wants House Republicans to focus their attention against Democrats, not on internal party rifts.

Without Cheney, he may have fewer dissenters to contend with.

The frustrating thing about this is that theyre both right, said Michael Steel, a former top Boehner aide.

Cheney is correct that President Trump lost the presidential election ... and McCarthy is also right the job of the Republican leader is to gain the majority and become speaker of the House.

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In booting Cheney, 'My Kevin' leads GOP back to Trump - Associated Press

FRESNO, California (KSEE/KGPE) Here are 5 things happening over Mothers Day weekend around the Central Valley!

Saturday, May 8 at 5:00 p.m.

The streets of Old Town Clovis will be cruisin, rockin and rollin with bands Diamond After Dark & Pure Harmony. There will also live DJs and music. The event is open and free to the public.

For more info visit the Clovis Smogs Valley Car Club on Facebook

Saturday May 8 at 3:00 p.m.

Plan to celebrate mom at the Kearney Mansion Museum with a traditional tea party. The planned event is scheduled to be held on the Mansions veranda with tables well spaced apart.

For more info visit the Kearney Mansion on Facebook

Saturday May 8 8:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m.

The City Attorneys Office Code Enforcement Division and the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission Local Conservation Corps Recycling Program will hold a Waste Tire Amnesty Day.

For more info visit city of Fresno on Facebook

Sunday May 9 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Spoil mom this Mothers Day with a spectacular brunch the whole family will enjoy at Engelmann Cellars.

For more info visit Engelmann Cellars on Facebook

Saturday May 8 at 5:00 p.m.

Enjoy outdoor dining with a view at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. There are outdoor dining areas with tables spaced for social distancing so you can take in a view of the savanna while enjoying your meal with family.

For more info visit the Zoos website

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5 Things To Do: Mothers Day Weekend in the Central Valley May 7 - YourCentralValley.com

By David E. Dix| Record-Courier

As America struggles to persuade the unvaccinated half of our adult population to take their shots, abundant and free of charge, India struggles to find sufficient vaccine to inoculate its much larger population where COVID-19 rages. Recorded deaths are 220,000, but the numbers are rising sharply.

Thats the report from P.V. Thomas, a respected educator in India who studied for a semester at Kent State University in 2014 and for whom Janet and I served as a supporting Friendship Family.

When we spoke via WhatsApp a few days ago, Thomas, who resides with his family in Malappuram, a city of 100,000 in the beautiful and tropical state of Kerala, said he, along with his dear wife, Lilly, and two college age daughters, have been on almost near lockdown for more than a year. He and Lilly teach online. Their daughters learn online. As their needs arise, he ventures forth masked, to buy necessities in those local stores that are open.

Kerala, on the southwest coast, is one of Indias smallest, but most densely populated states and one of its best educated. Because its state government has done a better job than many others in providing medical and material assistance for even its poorest citizens, Kerala has one of Indias best records in fighting Covid-19.

As a result, in Keralas just concluded state elections, its incumbent Communist Party, which, despite its provocative label, functions more like a European democratic socialist party, won re-election garnering 99 of the 140 seats in the state legislature. The BjP, the Right-Wing Hindu nationalist party that dominates Indias federal government, lost the only seat it had won in Kerala in 2016.

Thomas was one of the thousands who helped tally the votes in Keralas state election. He was a micro observer for collecting votes for people over 80, COVID-infected persons, and differently abled persons with election officials going to their homes to facilitate their voting. During the main day of counting, he volunteered and wore a mask and gloves for several hours with more than 500 others in a building in which vote counters were cordoned off in rooms, approximately 20 to a room.

Prime Minister Modi, a year ago, when Indias COVID-19 caseload seemed under control, touted India as an example to be emulated. Overly confident, he sent precious inventories of vaccine to other countries as part of his much-publicized vaccine diplomacy, vaccine that India sorely needs now as COVID-19 escalates, threatening the countrys health system with meltdown, a dangerous mutant deadlier than the original, spreading.

Focused on extending the power that his Hindu nationalist BjP party has accumulated at the federal level into state elections, Modi, with superior resources, drew the vote out in stages over a months time, holding virus-spreader political rallies that targeted Bengal, the historically prestigious state in Northeast India whose capital is Calcutta (now renamed Kolkata). Bengal, like Kerala is among Indias better educated states. Bengalis voted in a secular, pluralistic centrist party that does not adhere to Modis demonizing of Indias Muslim minority.

Elsewhere, Indian writer Arundhati Roy, whose novel, The God of All Small Things, won the Booker Prize, has called Modis approach to COVID-19, a crime against humanity.

On April 28, in The Guardian, a British newspaper, Roy wrote, So, where is the COVID-specific infrastructure and the Peoples movement against the virus that Modi boasted about....

People are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes. Crematoriums in Delhi have run out of firewood….Parks and car parks are being turned into cremation grounds…Oxygen is the new currency on Indias morbid new stock exchanges. Senior politicians, journalists, lawyers Indias elite are on Twitter pleading for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders. The hidden market for cylinders is booming.

There are markets for other things, too, she writes. . . . a bribe to sneak a last look at your loved one, bagged and stacked in a hospital mortuary. A surcharge for a priest who agrees to say the final prayers…Online medical consultancies in which desperate families are fleeced by ruthless doctors.

As China becomes stronger and more assertive, India and America grow closer. Per capita income in India is lower and its major religious influences have been caste-oriented Hinduism and non-caste-based Islam rather than Christianity and Judaism.

Nevertheless, America, the worlds most powerful democracy, and India, the most populous democracy, share important commonalities. Both were once part of the British Empire and struggled for independence. (The Boston Tea Party? That was Indian tea on board British ships that those rebellious Bostonians dumped into the harbor.) Both judicial systems borrowed from Britain and the English common law. Mahatma Gandhis 30-year non-violence campaign for independence became Martin Luther Kings model for his civil rights campaign. Both nations have vigorous private enterprise sectors, huge gaps between rich and poor, and large minorities that populist politicians demonize. Both India and America have a free press and formidable systems of publicly and privately supported schools, higher education, and research. English is widely taught and an impressive Indian literature written in English has arisen, although India remains a land of longstanding, vibrant, indigenous languages, each having its own rich literature.

After college in 1963, I was lucky to work for two years at American College in Madurai, a bustling South Indian temple city. Viewing the world through Indias perspective, I came to admire its commitment to pluralistic democracy. Janet and I maintain contact with friends in India and follow the news from India. We pray both democracies emerge from the pandemic healthy and intact.

David E. Dix is a former publisher of the Record-Courier.

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Along the Way: Views from India as Covid-19 rages out of control - Record-Courier