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Stagecoach festivalgoers split on whether America is headed in the right direction ahead of its 250th birthday

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In a dusty corner of the California desert, the national anthem plays on loudspeakers, awakening patriots for another day at one of the largest country music festivals in the world.

Stagecoach – headlined this year by Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson and Post Malone – draws roughly 80,000 people a day to Indio, Calif., to listen to some of the biggest names in country music.

Fox News Digital spoke with festival goers about the state of the country, whether the American dream is still achievable and what issues need to be addressed ahead of America’s 250th birthday.

Stagecoach attendees were split when asked whether the country is headed in the right direction as opinions remain mixed over President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.

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I think the Iran War is a total waste of our resources,” Cole Stern said. “However, I would still say in terms of places where I’m really glad to live, and places where I can chase my dreams – this is one of the best places to do that.”

“We need to take care of ourselves first before we start worrying about everybody else.” Abel Flores said. “We’re self-sufficient, we should probably just do that for a while.”

“It is heading in a favorable direction, but not great in my opinion,” Dan Payne said.

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“I would say 50-50 right now,” said Annette Flores.I don’t agree with some stuff that’s going on, I do agree with others, but it’s pretty split.”

Festival goer Zach Maurus, however, said Trump’s entry into the Middle East conflict comes with the territory of American military dominance.

“We lead in innovation by far, like there’s no country that compares,” Maurus told Fox News Digital. “Obviously, we’re a hegemony like militarily so we’re gonna have to be involved in international politics and like that has its costs of being involved in international conflicts, which is just part of being the most dominant military on earth.”

Despite concerns over the Iran War, most Stagecoach attendees had relatively high ratings for the state of America when asked to rate the country from one to ten.

“I would say an eight right now,” Abel Flores said. “I think there’s a lot of things that are happening right now that are just making it so volatile.”

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“I think it’s about an eight, honestly. I think is a great country. I love it,” Payne said. “But I do see opportunities for improvement. I think it could be much better than it is. If we learn to accept each other a little bit more…I think it could definitely be an 11.”

Stagecoach attendees Stern and Maurus expressed more favorable ratings, pointing to personal freedoms as justification for their perfect tens.

“I would rate it a 10 and mainly because even if you’re left or right, whatever, you do have the freedom to do whatever you want and that is something that is not available to most people in this world,” Stern said.

“I’m gonna say 10,” Maurus added. “I think America is the freest country in the world. Obviously there are problems, but it’s still the freest country. We have freedom of speech, we have the ability to kind of make the most out of our lives and I don’t think that’s true about other countries.”

Stagecoach attendees went on to tell Fox News Digital about the issues they believe need fixing before America’s 250th birthday, pointing to concerns ranging from overseas conflict to political division at home.

“The Strait of Hormuz, we gotta fix the oil markets, they’re crazy,” said Maurus. “I think we just have to open the strait, regardless of the Iran War, that’s a separate issue. The main issue is just making sure that oil doesn’t go above 100 a barrel.”

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“I think America needs to come, we need to become one again and not so against each other,” Annette Flores said. “The right versus the left, I think it’d be better if we just all came together and supported everyone and respect everyone else’s opinion.”

Fox News Digital also asked festivalgoers whether the American dream is still achievable, particularly among younger generations trying to find their footing in an economy with homeownership out of reach for many.

“I think it’s achievable. It’s definitely harder,” Payne said. “I have a 22-year-old daughter. I know the kind of struggles that the younger generation are going to come by as far as trying to buy a house and to get that American dream. It is achievable, it could be done much, much better though.”

“I want to start a company. I want run a business, and I would this is probably the best place I could do that,” Stern said.

Other attendees raised concerns that emerging technologies like artificial intelligence could complicate the path to the American dream.

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“In 2026, yes,” Maurus added. “We’ll see how long that lasts given if AI automates everything, then the job market will probably be pretty, pretty messed up. But for now… for the hopefully next few years, yes.”

Stagecoach attendees used words like diversity, freedom and patriotism to describe America in their conversations with Fox News Digital, and one concertgoer highlighted a patriotic moment that unfolds at the festival’s campsite every day at 6 a.m.

“We’re camping here and the national anthem plays in the morning. Everybody stops what they’re doing and respects that, so that’s awesome,” Abel Flores said.

As America nears its 250th birthday, Stagecoach goers suggest the nation is still wrestling with challenges but expressed hope for what it can become.

Next year brings another chapter for the nation, and at Stagecoach, the national anthem will once again greet campers at sunrise.

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Study finds more AI praise for Black students, softer treatment of females

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A new study found that artificial intelligence (AI) gave more praise and positive feedback to Black students’ essays and differing treatment for other students based on their race and sex.

The study, titled “Marked Pedagogies: Examining Linguistic Biases in Personalized Automated Writing Feedback,” was published in March by three Stanford University researchers who analyzed 600 eighth-grade persuasive essays through four different AI models, including various versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as Llama, a large language model made by Meta AI. 

The essays covered topics including whether schools should require community service and whether aliens built a hill on Mars.

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The researchers — Mei Tan, Lena Phalen and Dorottya Demszky — then submitted the essays again and labeled the writers as Black or White, male or female, driven or unmotivated, or as having a learning disability.

The Hechinger Report showed that “researchers found consistent patterns across all the AI models. Essays attributed to Black students received more praise and encouragement, sometimes emphasizing leadership or power,” including feedback such as, “Your personal story is powerful! Adding more about how your experiences can connect with others could make this even stronger.”

Conversely, “Essays labeled as written by Hispanic students or English learners were more likely to trigger corrections about grammar and ‘proper’ English. When the student was identified as White, the feedback more often focused on argument structure, evidence and clarity — the kinds of comments that can push writers to strengthen their ideas.” 

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According to the analysis, students who identified as female “often used first-person pronouns and affective language that positioned the model as personally engaged with the student’s work” with feedback such as “I love your confidence in expressing your opinion!” and “I appreciate your emphasis on respect.” 

The analysis also found that “compared to their counterparts, students identified as Black, Hispanic, Asian, female, unmotivated, and learning-disabled received less constructive criticism and more praise, reflecting both feedback withholding and positive feedback biases. In some cases, praise took on overtly stereotyped forms: words like ‘love’ were used disproportionately with female students, while ‘powerful’ appeared only for Black students.” 

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Fox News Digital reached out to researchers, Tan and Phalen who told Fox News Digital in a statement that, “Our concern is not that feedback should be standardized for every student. Good teaching is often responsive to students’ skills, needs, and experiences.”

They continued, “Feedback being positive does not mean it’s high-quality. In our study, some automated feedback over-relied on praise for students marked by race or disability, while offering less substantive critique to help them improve. In other cases, especially for students identified as English Language Learners, feedback was intensely negative and corrective. Both can deny students meaningful opportunities to revise and grow as writers.”

“Since LLM training procedures are proprietary, we can only speculate on why these biases may exist,” Tan and Phalen added. “Research has observed positive feedback bias and feedback withholding bias in human feedback. This related paper also hypothesizes that bias mitigation mechanisms in training LLMs may introduce some of the positive stereotypes we see.” 

Fox News Digital reached out to Demszky as well as OpenAI and Meta for comment.

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Stephen A. Smith calls out heated political rhetoric after WHCD security scare

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Stephen A. Smith expected a routine night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The black tie event was anything but, as it turned into a moment of real fear.

The ESPN host was inside the Washington Hilton on Saturday night when gunfire outside the event triggered panic throughout the room.

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The deranged anti-Trump and anti-Christian gunman never made it into the ballroom and was stopped by security, but for several tense seconds, no one inside knew that.

On his YouTube show Monday, Smith described the chaos as guests scrambled to react without clear information.

“What scared the living hell out of everybody was that you thought at least for a few seconds that the room had been penetrated,” Smith said. “So all of us had to get down. We ducked under tables, ducked under chairs and all of that other stuff.”

What should have been a unifying moment against political violence once again turned into political chicanery from the Left.

Smith also pushed back on conspiracy theories that quickly surfaced online in the aftermath.

“You’ve got a lot of conspiracy theorists out there claiming that this was all rigged,” he said. “Me personally, people can have their opinions, their conjecture or whatever, but it would be irresponsible for me or any journalist to jump to that conclusion. We’re not gonna do that.”

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At the same time, he pointed to a broader issue, the increasingly heated political climate surrounding moments like this.

“I’m sick and tired of us giving lip service to the narrative of dialing down the rhetoric. Enough of that. Stop talking about it and do it,” Smith said. “Let’s debate policy as opposed to engaging in name-calling and speaking about people in incendiary and derogatory fashion.”

The incident also raised a practical concern about the event itself …

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is held at a hotel, not on White House grounds.

Smith did not dismiss that criticism.

“A dead clock is right twice a day. The president has a point,” he said. “Stuff like this should be on the grounds of the White House. It shouldn’t be at some damn hotel in D.C. that just anybody could get into. It just shouldn’t.”

OutKick founder Clay Travis, who also attended the event, sounded the alarm about what he sees as ongoing security concerns.

On X, Travis wrote, “Assassination attempts four and five are coming. The Secret Service is not good enough at their jobs. We need better.”

Ultimately, the threat never reached the ballroom. But for a few moments, uncertainty took over, and that was enough. Because in a room filled with some of the most prominent figures in media and politics, no one knew if they were safe.

Send us your thoughts: [email protected] / Follow along on X: @alejandroaveela 

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LIV Golf’s New Orleans event cancelled weeks after CEO vowed season would go on ‘full throttle’

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The LIV Golf Tour seems to be at a major turning point. 

Rumors swirled about the breakaway golf format over the last few weeks, when reports broke that an announcement was imminent about the future of the Tour and its relationship with the Saudi Arabia-backed Public Investment Fund. 

Then, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil confirmed that the Saudis would be pulling their financial support for LIV after the end of the 2026 season. While most have assumed that would mean the end of the league entirely, O’Neil told TNT Sports that he had a “business plan” to keep the league going. 

“The reality is you’re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going. But that’s not different from any other private equity-funded business in the history of man,” O’Neil said.

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Whether the league can secure funding from other sources after the season remains to be seen, but O’Neil was adamant in an internal memo that the remainder of the 2026 season would go on “exactly as planned, uninterrupted, and full throttle.”

Well, that’s officially no longer the case.

Local Louisiana media outlet WDSU reported on Monday afternoon that the Tour’s event in New Orleans in late-June would no longer take place as scheduled. An announcement, the report said, could come as soon as Tuesday. 

Per WDSU, the state of Louisiana postponed the event until “LIV can restructure financially and find additional sources of funding.” 

The Athletic reported that there are still hopes of hosting a “re-envisioned event in the fall” in New Orleans, though what that event would entail is also unclear. The state had already spent roughly $2 million to improve the Bayou Oaks in City Park golf course, and paid a $1.2 million hosting fee to LIV. That $1.2 million will reportedly be returned to the state.

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Without question, it is a concerning sign for the financial state of the Tour that this event has been canceled. And it raises questions about the rest of the summer schedule. Without the Louisiana event, LIV no longer has a tournament between June 4-7 in Spain and July 23-26 in the United Kingdom. 

The next stop is LIV Golf Virginia at Trump National Golf Club in Lowes Island on May 7-10 before they head to South Korea in late May.

How this plays out for the remainder of 2026, 2027 and beyond is anyone’s guess. Bryson DeChambeau’s contract, arguably LIV’s biggest draw, expires at the end of the year. And given his earnings, and the earnings and promises made to players like Jon Rahm, other investors will have a hefty bill to foot should they want to keep LIV going as currently constructed. 

The cancellation of the Louisiana event implies that there might be more uncertainty there than O’Neil has been willing to admit.

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