Enter
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POINTERS
GROUNDBREAKING SELFIE
The biggest winner at the 86th annual
Academy Awards on Sunday night was host
Ellen DeGeneres’ record-breaking selfie,
which crashed Twitter when it went viral
and topped President Barack Obama’s
election night post to become the most
retweeted tweet in history. The photo,
which has now been shared more than 3 million times, includes stars Bradley Cooper,
Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep.
FROM TOP: THEELLENSHOW/TWITTER; JUAN BARRETO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; TOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL
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A CONFLICTED
ANNIVERSARY
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HUFFINGTON
03.09.14
Venezuela marked the one-year anniversary this week
of the death of leader Hugo Chavez, as demonstrations
continued against his successor, Nicolas Maduro.
Twenty people have been killed in the worst unrest
in the country in a decade, as protesters express
discontent over runaway inflation, violent crime and a
struggling economy. Venezuelans are divided on the
legacy of their former leader, and Maduro has pledged
to stay true to Chavez’s policies. While unrest has been
significant, Reuters reported “there seems to be little
chance of a Ukraine-style change at the top.”
BUDGETARY WISH LIST
President Barack Obama released his 2015
fiscal year budget on Tuesday. The $3.9
trillion blueprint includes funding for some of
Obama’s top priorities as outlined in his most
recent State of the Union address, and is
widely seen as a shift away from an austerity
agenda of previous years’ proposals. It includes plans to raise taxes on the rich, expand
the earned-income tax credit, and offer more funds to agencies affected by the sequester
cuts. It also calls for increased spending on education, public works and research projects.
Republicans in Congress are expected to block many of the budget’s initiatives, so it’s
more of a wish list and a guide for Democrats going into the 2014 elections than an actual
fiscal plan, but Democrats hope to preserve some of its ideas.