Most Recent Posts

After Miss Colombia's Paulina Vega won the Miss Universe pageant on Sunday, she was greeted with a scepter, tiara and a kiss from the first runner-up, Miss U.S.A. But even as Vega took her first steps as Miss Universe, something that was happening elsewhere on stage caught a lot of attention.

Photos circulated online that showed several other contestants trying to hoist Miss Jamaica, Kaci Fennell, in the air. Many members of the live audience booed loudly after it was announced that 22-year-old Fennell had placed only fifth in the competition, and there was still a steady chant of 'Jamaica' as Vega talked with the media about her victory.

Support for Miss Jamaica continued online as twitter users launched #MissJamaicaWasRobbed and #MissJamaicaShouldHaveWon hashtags to the night's top trending topics. Some allege the winner was predetermined.

VIDEO: Crowd yelling "Jamaica!" while half the #MissUniverse contestants surround and cheer her on after cr... https://t.co/hvFuq7LWLn

— the Pageant Guy (@thePageantGuy) January 26, 2015

"Even the contestants saw that it was rigged," said twitter user Melanie W. "When you ever see people congratulate the fourth runner-up and not the winner?"

Yet Miss Jamaica is downplaying the attention she's getting after igniting a firestorm of criticism aimed at this year's Miss Universe pageant. While heading back to her home country, Fennell told reporters the competition "went exactly how it should."

That hasn't stopped some critics of Sunday's competition of accusing pageant organizers of racial and cultural bias. Since Miss Universe first began in 1952, only four black women have won the title. Of those four, only two are from the continent of Africa. Requests for comment from the Miss Universe Organization were not returned.

At this year's competition, women representing more than 80 countries from six different continents competed. None of those finalists was from Africa, and most were fair-skinned Latinas. There were observers who also pointed out that Fennell's skin tone isn't representative of the vast majority of Jamaican people.

Folks can acknowledge Miss Jamaica is beautiful AND also talk about how colourism plays a role in the underrepresentation of darker sisters.

— rell (@Awkward_Duck) January 26, 2015

Several viewers tweeted complaints about the pageant's lack of global representation among the finalists. Twitter user @lukesassycalum questioned "What's the point of inviting other countries if the same ones continue to win?" Model Aisha Thalia tweeted her frustration: "I can't wait until the day that girls who don't fit into the European standard of beauty feel celebrated as well."

i

Critics suggested that most finalists conformed to a European standard of beauty, even though 88 countries from six continents were represented at the pageant. Wilfredo Lee/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Wilfredo Lee/AP

Critics suggested that most finalists conformed to a European standard of beauty, even though 88 countries from six continents were represented at the pageant.

Wilfredo Lee/AP

Others insisted Miss Jamaica's fifth place finish had more to do with her unconventional appearance than her ethnicity. Pageant contestants traditionally sport long, flowing manes while Fennell opted for a pixie cut. Miss Jamaica addressed her unique look in the question-and-answer portion of the competition: "I don't have long tresses like everyone else, I'm just representing myself and that's what beauty pageants are all about. You don't have to look a certain way ... and I feel like I represent that."

Popular pageant blog Missosology called out the competition for repeated top five appearances by countries where pageants have large followings, even including complaints from former contestants. Favoring competitors from pageant powerhouse countries could leave smaller nations at a disadvantage because they don't give pageant officials the best opportunity for publicity. Jamaica is a nation of just under three million people, though the first black Miss Universe was from an even smaller island nation. Janelle Commissiong — of Trinidad and Tobago — won the title in 1977.

In contrast, Colombia has a strong pageant culture due in large part to the country's booming beauty industry. The Miss Colombia competition is as popular there as the Super Bowl is in the U.S. Colombia and neighboring Venezuela dominate international beauty competitions. Vega is Colombia's second winner of the Miss Universe pageant after decades of runner-up finishes.

But Colombia is not without pageant controversy of its own. Contestants tend to represent the country's wealthier, whiter population despite most Colombians being of indigenous or African descent.

Meanwhile, the attention surrounding Miss Universe's controversial finale could be boosting Miss Jamaica's career. She is already receiving offers for television appearances and modeling. Fennell congratulated Vega in a tweet following the competition. Before the pageant, she tweeted this: "Matters not what the outcome may be, because tonight marks only the beginning."

Heartiest congratulations to our beautiful new Miss Universe Paulina Vega, all the best on your journey my dear :) @MissUniverse

— Kaci Fennell (@KaciFen) January 26, 2015

#missjamaica

miss jamaica

Miss Universe pageant

miss colombia

Holocaust survivors gathered along with several world leaders today to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation by the Soviet Red Army of the Auschwitz camp in Poland where more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed.

NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson tells our Newscast unit that "among the leaders who will be attending the Auschwitz ceremony are the presidents of Germany and Austria, the nations that gave rise to the Nazis and have since tried atoning for their sins. But more attention is being paid to who isn't at Auschwitz today – Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose countrymen liberated the concentration camp."

She adds: "Russian officials accuse the Polish government of snubbing Putin by not inviting him as they did in the past. Organizers say no country's leaders were invited but rather, countries were asked who they planned to send."

A decade ago, about 1,500 Auschwitz survivors attended the commemoration. Today, the number was around 300.

As Soraya says: "It is likely the last decade anniversary where significant numbers of actual survivors of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps will attend. This year, the youngest of the 300 who traveled to Poland for the ceremony are in their 70s."

Paula Lebovics of Encino, Calif., recalled how a Russian soldier who was among those who liberated the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, took her in his arms and rocked her tenderly with tears coming to his eyes. She was 11 at the time. Now 81, she told The Associated Press it was a shame Putin wasn't among those at the today's ceremony.

"He should be there," she said. "They were our liberators."

Another survivor, Eva Mozes Kor, told the AP said she will not miss Putin, "but I do believe that from a moral and historical perspective he should be here."

Besides the leaders of Germany and Austria, French President Francois Hollande was at today's ceremony in Auschwitz. Russia's delegation is being led by Sergei Ivanov, Putin's chief of staff; the U.S. delegation by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Auschwitz

The federal deficit is on track to its lowest level as a percentage of the economy since 2007, and the economy is stronger than expected.

That's the good news from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's new economic outlook released Monday. "Economic activity will expand at a solid pace in 2015 and over the next few years – reducing the amount of underused resources, or 'slack,' in the economy," the report said.

There is, though, the perennial bad news: huge deficits in later years, driven primarily by an aging population supported by fewer working age Americans. By 2025, the federal deficit will reach $1.1 trillion.

The forecast of expected revenues and outlays is used by Congress as it shapes its spending bills for the year that starts Oct. 1.

The report also found that the economy is stronger now than the CBO had expected it would be in its recent forecasts, but that it would be not as strong later in the 10-year forecast window than it predicted earlier. Unemployment, currently at 5.6 percent, is expected to fall to 5.3 percent by late summer of 2017.

The CBO also found that implementing the Affordable Care Act will not be as expensive as it originally predicted when the law was passed in 2010. Instead of costing $710 billion through 2019, the complex law will only cost $571 billion through its first decade.

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf attributed the lower cost partly to the 2012 Supreme Court decision ruling that states did not have to participate in the law's expansion of Medicaid. But Elmendorf said much of the savings comes from lower health insurance costs and lower health insurance premiums over the past several years.

Elmendorf also said the CBO would follow the House's instructions to include "dynamic scoring" in its analyses of some legislation, but would not offer a personal assessment of the idea. "We don't have a position about whether the House rule is a good idea or not," he said.

Many Republicans, particularly conservatives, have pushed for dynamic scoring of tax cut bills, because they believe such "macroeconomic" analyses would show that legislation would cost the Treasury less than traditional scoring methods show, or would even show that tax cuts actually increase tax revenue.

"We think it's natural for members of Congress to be interested in the macroeconomic consequences of major pieces of legislation. That's why CBO has, for many years, built models to estimate those macroeconomic consequences," Elmendorf said, adding that CBO reports on House legislation would now build that methodology into the final number, rather than providing it in a supplementary report. "It's up to the Congress to decide the format in which it wants to receive our analysis."

Obamacare

CBO

Three Republican presidential hopefuls declined Sunday night to insult some of the Republican party's biggest donors.

Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, asked by debate moderator Jonathan Karl of ABC News if billionaires now have too much influence in both major parties, agreed that it wasn't a problem. They all said no, if not exactly for the same reasons.

The senators spoke at a semi-annual gathering of billionaires David and Charles Koch's donor network, which underwrites a powerful array of secretly funded political groups. As the GOP presidential competition accelerates, the network is giving signals that it might get involved in presidential primaries for the first time.

Cruz brought up Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's harsh attacks on the Koch brothers in Senate floor speeches last year. Reid, then the majority leader, had called the brothers "un-American." Cruz said Reid's speeches were "grotesque and offensive." As audience members applauded, Cruz said the Kochs "have stood up for free enterprise principles and endured vilification with equanimity and grace."

Paul called for additional limits on lobbying by government contractors; he didn't say if that also would cover government employee unions. His conclusion: "I haven't met one person since I've been here or as I travel around the country who's come up to me saying, 'Oh, I want a contract.' They simply want to be left alone. So I don't fault anybody for that."

Rubio said political spending "is a form of political speech protected under the Constitution," and echoed Paul's view of big donors: "I don't know a single person in this room who's ever been to my office... asking from government any special access. By and large what they want is to be left alone."

The question of political influence came at the end of a freewheeling debate. Paul supported the administration's decision to lift the Cuban trade embargo; Cruz and Rubio, who fiercely oppose the Castro regime, said the embargo should stay. There was a similar split on Middle East policy: Paul advocated diplomacy, while Rubio and Cruz took more aggressive stands. They all said the economy either isn't recovering or is recovering despite Obama administration policies. And they all ranked the income gap as a crucial issue for the Republican agenda.

The forum capped an active weekend of campaigning by GOP presidential hopefuls, none of whom has officially declared. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush gave a major speech. A platoon of possible candidates addressed a conference in Iowa, where the first presidential balloting will take place next January. Cruz was the only potential candidate to speak in Iowa and at the Koch event in Palm Springs, Calif.

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a hub of the Koch network, webcast the debate to news organizations – a break from the tight security that kept reporters away from previous Koch gatherings.

2016 Republican presidential nomination

Koch Brothers