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Mitt Romney at Downing Street London. Image: Oli Scarff/GettyRepublican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in London, trying to mend many fences, but one in particular concerning London’s security at the Olympics.

For all his bravura, Mitt Romney is largely untested on the world political stage. The candidate managed to create a major stir by questioning whether Britain is prepared to pull off the Olympic Games without problems.

Security preparedness concerns have been reported within the last week, and Romney chose to use the issue to comment on the games to ABC News. The candidate cited “not have enough people” on the security detail, as well as the “supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials.”

Romney then went on to wonder if the people of London would “come together and celebrate the Olympic moment.” Still not stopping his lack of diplomatic tact, the former president of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, added “That’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron replied to Romney’s commentary, saying: “Of course it’s easier to hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere.”

London’s mayor Boris Johnson told a raucous crowd in London’s Hyde Park after the arrival of the Olympic flame: “There’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if we are ready. Are we ready? Yes we are!”

Mitt Romney: Anglo Saxon

The Republican candidate entered a dustup yesterday, under reports that an unnamed adviser told the conservative newspaper The Telegraph that the Romney team has a greater appreciation for the US and Britain’s shared “Anglo-Saxon heritage” than does President Obama.

The paper said the adviser’s remarks “may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity.” via Chicago Tribune

Lives of Single Mothers

Melissa Kutz, a 27-year-old single mother of three, said she had gained new hope from the Climb Wyoming job training program. Carmel Zucker for The New York TimesWyoming has the highest gap in America between a woman’s wage and a man’s, writes the New York Times. The state of Wyoming also has a divorce rate 30 percent above the national average. Wyoming also rants near the bottom of states, in the percentages of women having higher education degrees or owning businesses. Suicide rates and methamphetamine use are among the highest in the nation.

Enter Climb Wyoming, a project of Nancy Freudenthal, the wife of Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat.

Ms. Freudenthal, a lawyer who worked on women’s economic issues in private life, kept at it as first lady and is credited with helping Climb Wyoming expand statewide from here in Cheyenne. The group’s $1.8 million budget is about 70 percent public money, mostly federal grants, and 30 percent private donations and foundations.

More than 500 women have participated in the program so far. Co-founder psychologist Ray Fleming Dinneen admits that the emphasis on on training go-it-alone mothers for male-dominated jobs that rule the state’s economy.

Related Reading

Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do’ New York Times

Estimates vary widely, but scholars believe that changes in marriage patterns — as opposed to changes in individual earnings — may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Economic extremes are woven in the fabric of American history. Becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards largely absent in some communities is a cause for serious concern, say statistics.

The Kids Are Not Really Alright Slate

W Bradford Wilcox strikes back against Katie Roiphe’s dismissal of the recent New York Times story on the marriage divide in America. Roiphe charged that the feature was a “puritanical and alarmist rumination on the decline of the American family.”

New York Times, Stop Moralizing About Single Mothers Slate