Latest news with #RobinEpley
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The fertility crisis: can Trump make America breed again?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In 2021, J.D. Vance gave a speech in Virginia about the "civilisational crisis" of low birth rates. Praising Hungary's pro-natalist policies, he asked, "Why can't we do that here?" Now that Vance is vice-president, America may be about to try, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. Donald Trump, the self-styled "fertilisation president", has been soliciting ideas on how to get Americans to have more babies. Among the proposals floated are giving women a $5,000 bonus for every birth, lowering the cost of IVF treatments, and reserving 30% of Fulbright scholarships for married people or parents. One pronatalist adviser even suggested emulating Nazi Germany by establishing a "National Medal of Motherhood" for women with at least six children. None of these ridiculous "benefits" would entice me to breed, said Robin Epley in The Sacramento Bee. But there are other ways to make motherhood more attractive. America could, for instance, join every other "industrialised nation" by mandating paid parental leave. It could make childcare more affordable: even the Department of Labour says that childcare is now "an almost prohibitive expense" for families. And the government could make pregnancy safer. America's maternal mortality rate exceeds that of every other rich country; the figures are particularly bad for black mothers, who in certain states are 3.3 times more likely to die during pregnancy as their white counterparts. Trump has for once stumbled on a worthy cause, said Mona Charen in the Chicago Sun-Times. But if his boorish administration adopts this agenda, it will turn it "rancid" by making it seem like a patriarchal Nazi-style obsession. This is a job for the Democrats, said Elliot Haspel in The New Republic. They can't just sit on the sidelines mocking conservatives and making "predictable references to 'The Handmaid's Tale'". They, too, need to tackle this problem, which threatens to sap the nation's dynamism. There is a persistent gap in the US between the number of children that people say they want and the number they end up having. The birth rate among married couples has remained relatively stable, but the proportion of people getting hitched or cohabiting has dropped sharply. The Democrats must take up the family cause and make the "non-judgmental yet affirmative case for having children". The future of America may depend on it.
Fox News
15-04-2025
- Sport
- Fox News
Minor league baseball team reverses Gold Diggers name change after outrage
The Athletics were far from the only baseball team in Sacramento, California, receiving criticism at the start of the season. The minor league organization in town generated some heat last week. The Sacramento River Cats were set to partake in a recent minor league baseball tradition – changing their team for a period of time to promote their alternate identity. For example, the Somerset Patriots played as the Jersey Diners, and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs are set to compete as the Lehigh Valley Tomato Pie, just to name a few. The River Cats were set to play as the Sacramento Gold Diggers, seemingly a throwback to the California Gold Rush. The city of Sacramento was a haven for gold miners in the late 1840s and was turned into a thriving community and incorporated into California in 1850. "Inspired by the regional history of the California Gold Rush, this new identity offers a connection to the significant impact of this era when Sacramento grew as the closest major city to the gold fields," the team said in a news release Thursday, via The Sacramento Bee. The team released a video showcasing the team name but also leaned into an old trope as it showed two women with dollar signs on their eyes when they saw a player. The video, which has since been deleted from the team's social media pages, caused some outrage and the organization reversed their decision on the name. Sacramento Bee columnist Robin Epley ripped the rebranding as a "misogynistic joke on women." More people reacted on X. "Our recent marketing campaign for an alternative identity clearly missed the mark," the team said in a statement. "Our intention was to creatively reference the rich history of Sacramento and gold country, but our approach was wrong, and we are sorry for the mistake. We will no longer be using this identity." The River Cats are an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
New York Times
12-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Sacramento River Cats abruptly end ‘Gold Diggers' campaign: ‘Our approach was wrong'
After releasing a video Thursday promoting the 'Gold Diggers' as the team's alternate identity, the Sacramento River Cats canceled the campaign Friday. 'Our recent marketing campaign for an alternative identity clearly missed the mark,' said the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A team in an email to SFGate. 'Our intention was to creatively reference the rich history of Sacramento and gold country, but our approach was wrong, and we are sorry for the mistake. We will no longer be using this identity.' Advertisement The team deleted the video, which featured two women in Sacramento with dollar signs flashing in their eyes upon seeing a player, from its social media accounts after facing backlash for '1950s-era tropes about women only seeing dollar signs when sizing up men,' according to Sacramento Bee opinion writer Robin Epley, who reviewed the now-deleted video. The team also removed a page about the 'Gold Diggers' campaign from its website. The original plan was for the team — which currently shares its home, Sutter Health Park, with the Athletics — to wear the black-and-gold pinstriped Gold Diggers uniforms five times this season, starting with a game on April 19 against the Salt Lake Bees. 'Inspired by the regional history of the California Gold Rush, this new identity offers a connection to the significant impact of this era when Sacramento grew as the closest major city to the gold fields,' the River Cats said in a news release sent to the Sacramento Bee. The team faced criticism when it leaned into what it called 'playful and cheeky elements' of its short-lived alternate identity, which caused the River Cats to strike a nerve instead of gold. (Photo of Sutter Health Park on March 23 during an exhibition game between the Sacramento River Cats and San Francisco Giants: Scott Marshall / Getty Images)
