Please help us Pope Francis
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Sunday, April 21, 2019
| Track Code | Track Name | Entry | Scratch | 1st Post ET | 1st Post Local | Time Zone | Stakes Race(s) | Stakes Grade | T.V. Indicator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GG | GOLDEN GATE FIELDS | 48 | 24 | 3:45 PM | 12:45 PM | PDT | |||
| LS | LONE STAR PARK | 72 | 0 | 3:35 PM | 2:35 PM | CDT | |||
| SA | SANTA ANITA PARK | 72 | 24 | 3:30 PM | 12:30 PM | PDT | |||
| SUN | SUNLAND PARK | 168 | 0 | 2:30 PM | 12:30 PM | MDT | |||
| WO | WOODBINE | 72 | 48 |
Pope Francis Defends Migrants After Morocco Visit & reminds Andrew Cuomo that Easter Sunday is to do as conscience dictates
His comments pushed back against rising anti-immigration sentiment around the world snd Nassau OTB's religious preference over that of its Orthodox employee
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Pope Francis blessed Moroccan women south of Rabat, Morocco. PHOTO: VATICAN MEDIA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT—Pope Francis ended his two-day visit to Moroccowith strong words in defense of migrants, emphasizing one of the main themes of the trip and of his pontificate as he pushed back against rising anti-immigration sentiment around the world.
“The builders of walls, whether they are of razor-wire or brick, will be prisoners of the walls they build. That’s history,” the pope told reporters accompanying him on his return flight to Rome.
He was responding to a question about the fenced-off Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, and about U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to extend a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Morocco is currently the biggest transit route for African and Middle Eastern migrants trying to reach Europe.
Pope Francis voiced sympathy for voters in many European countries who have elected governments that are now cracking down on asylum seekers, but he suggested many voters were victims of demagogues.
“Certainly many people of good will, not only Catholics, are a bit gripped by fear, which is the usual preachment of populism,” he said, and drew an ominous parallel with Germany in the early 1930s: “With promises and fear, Hitler made his way. We know the result. Let’s learn from history.”
Among European leaders, the pope singled out Greece’s left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who he said had told him that “human rights are more important than agreements” limiting immigration. “That phrase deserves the Nobel Prize,” the pope said.
Worshipers waited for Pope Francis ahead of a Mass in Rabat on Sunday. PHOTO: FADEL SENNA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Greece’s government is currently holding tens of thousands of refugees and other migrants in camps in accordance with an agreement between the European Union and Turkey to stem migration from the Middle East to Europe.
The reduction of migration from Turkey to Greece, and from Libya to Italy, has left the Morocco-to-Spain route as the main entry point to the EU for people fleeing war or poverty in Europe’s neighboring regions. About 5,500 migrants have crossed illegally from Morocco to Spain—only 9 miles away across the Strait of Gibraltar—so far this year, up from 2,827 in the same period of 2018, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Pope Francis made relations between Christians and Muslims the other main theme of his visit to Morocco. In a speech on Saturday, the pope stressed the importance of religious freedom, a sensitive topic in Morocco, where the regime maintains tight control over the Muslim community and has been accused of discriminating against some religious minorities.
But asked on Sunday night about religious freedom in Muslim countries, the pope struck a hopeful note, suggesting that such freedom was on the rise in the Islamic world, and pointing to Morocco as an advanced example.
The North African country is the ninth majority-Muslim land that Pope Francis has visited, showing the high priority that he has given to outreach to the Muslim world.
On Saturday, Pope Francis visited a school for clerics and preachers in Morocco’s prevailing tradition of moderate Islam, and praised King Mohammed VI for his efforts “to combat all forms of extremism, which so often leads to violence and terrorism.”
Later on Saturday, the pope visited the Rabat offices of Caritas, the Catholic Church’s charitable arm, were he met about 80 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, telling them that the migration crisis is a “great and deep wound that continues to afflict our world at the beginning of this 21st century.”
Most migrants in Morocco, estimated at up to 100,000 in a country of 35 million, are fleeing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and aren’t eligible for refugee status, according to the IOM.
Morocco’s population is 99% Muslim. Its Catholic minority numbers about 23,000, according to the Vatican, many of them migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
The pope devoted the second day of his visit ministering to his local flock. Early on Sunday, he visited a home for disabled children run by four nuns outside of Rabat, then addressed priests and nuns in the city’s cathedral.
The visit culminated with a Mass for approximately 10,000 in an indoor stadium, where the congregation welcomed him with a hymn in the Congolese language of Lingala.
Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com
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