David Furnish has dismissed comparisons to Yoko Ono.

The 59-year-old producer infuriated his husband Sir Elton John’s long-term staff when he took over the management of the ‘Rocketman’ singer’s affairs and fired a number of employees, sparking comparisons with the activist, who was blamed for breaking up The Beatles after she married John Lennon.

David is quoted by the Daily Mail newspaper’s Eden Confidential column as saying: “That was more when I took over the management role.

“Inevitably, when you write a business plan, you look at the team. Do we have the right team to bring this vision to life? Because we’re moving into new media and skillsets.

“I had to make some changes to the team and that’s never a popular thing to do.”

Of the Yoko nickname, he added: “It wasn’t so much Elton saying it as what other people were saying.

“Elton doesn’t call me that now. We have a wonderful team, everyone is sharing the vision.”

David admitted he initially had reservations about taking on the task but ultimately knew he and his 75-year-old spouse – who have sons Zachary, 11, and nine-year-old Elijah together – would work well together and their relationship has proven to be a “real advantage”.

He told the i newspaper: “I did have a lot of second thoughts about becoming his manager. It takes up so much of our time. But we worked well together in the past on films like Billy Elliot. I think it’s a real advantage because I have a better insight than anyone about where he’s at, at any time.

“Elton is very decisive, if you provide him with the rationale and do your analysis properly, he gives you a quick Yes or No and then let’s you get on with it.”

The sexual orientation of a self-employed person in the European Union cannot be a reason to terminate a contract, even if national laws say otherwise, a top EU lawyer argued on Thursday.

The opinion of an advocate general at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is meant to provide impartial guidance to the judges. Justices are not obliged to follow their opinions, though they often do.

The case refers to the complaint of a Polish freelance TV editor whose short-term contract was terminated after he published a Christmas music video with his partner online promoting tolerance, the court said in a statement.

The self-employed worker had been working on short-term contracts for a Polish TV station for seven years at the time of the publication when his current contract was terminated, according to the court.

The Polish court dealing with the complaint asked the ECJ to clarify whether an EU law on equal treatment at work would overrule a national Polish law allowing the “refusal to conclude a contract with a self-employed worker because of the sexual orientation of that person,” the court writes.

Thursday’s opinion states “that the freedom to choose a contracting party cannot be usefully relied on to justify discrimination based on sexual orientation,” adding that the applicable EU law applies “to both employment and self-employment.”

Should the judges follow the top lawyer’s advice, the Polish court would be obliged to set aside national legislation and rule in accordance with the EU legislation.

A date for the final ECJ ruling has not yet been set.

Washington (AFP) – US health authorities announced Thursday they would carry out a clinical trial to test different dosing strategies of the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine, amid uncertainty over its effectiveness.

The trial will enroll 200 adults aged 18-50 across the country, and is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The Jynneos vaccine, manufactured by Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic, has been approved by the United States for the prevention of smallpox and monkeypox in people aged 18 and older. 

But while the highest-risk group, men who have sex with men, are encouraged to get the vaccine, there is no clear picture of how well it works in real world settings.

The new trial isn’t designed to produce an efficacy estimate, but rather measure the immune response of different dosing levels and administration methods.

“NIAID’s trial of JYNNEOS will provide important information on the immunogenicity, safety, and tolerability of alternative dosing approaches that would expand the current supply of vaccine,” said NIAID director Anthony Fauci in a statement.

Among the participants, one group will be injected subcutaneously — that is, under the skin. The vaccine is based on attenuated virus that is modified so it can’t replicate, and is given in two doses 28 days apart.

A second group will receive their shots intradermally, meaning between the layers of the skin. This strategy is meant to expand the availability of vaccines because it uses one-fifth of the standard dose.

A third group will also receive their shots intradermally, but at half the dosing level of the second group.

Scientists will test the peak immune responses and compare the side effects across the groups.

President Joe Biden’s administration has bet heavily on the Jynneos vaccine to stem the spread of monkeypox, which has affected more than 20,000 people in the United States since May.

But the question of how well the shot prevents infection versus minimizing disease would require further study to answer.

The current global outbreak is primarily affecting gay and bisexual men.

Historically, the virus has been spread via direct contact with lesions, body fluids and respiratory droplets, and sometimes through indirect contamination via surfaces such as shared bedding. 

But in this outbreak, there is preliminary evidence that sexual transmission may also play a role.

The virus causes painful skin lesions and flu-like symptoms. 

Most people fully recover, but the disease can cause serious complications, including bacterial infections, brain inflammation and death.

Children’s TV show “Peppa Pig” has added a lesbian couple to its cast of characters for the first time.

In episode 41 of season seven, titled Families, which aired on the UK’s Channel 5 in September, Penny the polar bear introduced her two mothers.

In the scene, Peppa Pig and her classmates are asked by their teacher to sketch pictures of their families to be put up on their classroom wall.

Each student has their turn to introduce the family members they have drawn and describe their job and characteristics. Penny sketches a portrait of her family and draws two female polar bears wearing dresses.

As she draws, she tells her classmates: “I’m Penny Polar Bear. I live with my mummy and my other mummy. One mummy is a doctor and one mummy cooks spaghetti. I love spaghetti.”

Teacher Madame Gazelle responds: “Lovely, Penny.”

Penny’s mothers are then shown at the end of the episode arriving with the other parents to pick up their children after school has finished.

Many viewers took to social media to praise the decision to show an LGBT+ family for the first time in the cartoon show’s history.

One twitter user wrote: “THIS is how young children should be taught about inclusion. We don’t need to talk to them about sexuality. Just show all types of families. They’ll understand the rest when it’s appropriate.”

Another person tweeted: “An autistic character in Thomas the Tank Engine and a kid with two mums in Peppa Pig … it’s been a good day for representation!”

Children’s TV show “Thomas & Friends” is introducing its first autistic character who has been created in collaboration with autistic writers and organisations.

The character called Bruno the Brake Car will be voiced by nine-year-old autistic actor Elliott Garcia and will be seen in future episodes of “Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!” from September 21 at 7am.

Peppa Pig first aired in 2004 on Channel 5 Milkshake and Nick Jr, and has since become available in more than 180 territories.

Toronto (Canada) (AFP) – Steven Spielberg will lead a host of Hollywood A-listers across the border to Toronto this week for North America’s biggest film festival, which organizers say will celebrate a breakthrough year for LGBTQ cinema.

The Harry Styles-led drama “My Policeman,” about a closeted gay policeman, and Universal’s “Bros” starring Billy Eichner — the first major LGBTQ rom-com from a top Tinseltown studio — are among a starry and 200-strong feature film lineup for the festival starting Thursday.

Renowned for drawing large cinephile crowds to its glitzy premieres and red carpets, the Toronto International Film Festival was hit hard by the pandemic and is seeking to return to full scale after two muted and pared-back editions.

“Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List” director Spielberg often skips the film festival circuit entirely with his new releases, so landing the world premiere of his deeply personal “The Fabelmans” marks a major coup for TIFF.

“I think Steven Spielberg… and Universal know the power of the Toronto audience, in terms of how we respond to movies here,” festival CEO Cameron Bailey told AFP.

“The knowledge and the passion for movies that we bring here — I think that made a lot of sense to bring this into a festival, and to start here in Toronto.”

Based on Spielberg’s childhood in Arizona, the coming-of-age drama explores the family secrets of a young man with an early passion for filmmaking, and stars Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Seth Rogen.

“This is a really unique story for him… he’s really shied away, for the most part, from being directly personal in his films, unlike so many other filmmakers,” said Bailey.

“But he’s gone there for the first time with ‘The Fabelmans.’ It’s powerful. If you know Spielberg’s films as an adult, to see how this artist was formed as a boy is fascinating.”

The Spielberg premiere on Saturday evening is one of several celebrating the significance of cinema itself, and the collective experience of watching movies together, along with “Empire of Light” by Sam Mendes.

The “American Beauty” and “1917” director will receive a career-honoring Tribute Award at a Sunday gala, before his latest movie about a romance at a beautiful old cinema in 1980s England premieres Monday.

Elsewhere, stars expected to grace Toronto red carpets include Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in “The Good Nurse,” Jennifer Lawrence in “Causeway,” Viola Davis in “The Woman King,” and Nicolas Cage in “Butcher’s Crossing.”

Director Rian Johnson launches “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” a whodunit sequel in which Daniel Craig’s sleuth meets a star-studded cast including Edward Norton, Ethan Hawke and Jada Pinkett Smith.

And in his first film since the 2018 best picture Oscar winner “Green Book,” Peter Farrelly brings “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” starring Zac Efron.

But few are likely to draw more screaming fans and scrambling photographers to the carpet than Styles, whose high-profile arthouse film “My Policeman” premieres Sunday.

Emma Corrin and Rupert Everett also star in the film about a secretive affair between two men in 1950s England, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal.

Meanwhile “Bros” marks “the first time, in my knowledge anyhow, that a major Hollywood studio has made a film that is unapologetically and proudly queer,” said Bailey.

Other similarly themed films at TIFF include “The Inspection,” about a young Black man who enlists in the Marine Corps after being thrown out of his mother’s home for being gay.

“There’s a breakthrough this year… you’re seeing LGBTQ stories being told in maybe places that they haven’t been before, and in a much more mainstream way,” said Bailey. 

“The biggest companies that make films have often been the most cautious, shall we say, when it comes to this kind of representation,” he added.

“That seems to be changing.”

The festival kicks off Thursday with “The Swimmers” — the true story of sisters leaving Syria to pursue a new life in Europe and the chance to swim in the 2016 Summer Olympics — and ends September 18.

Luca Guadagnino wants to make a follow-up to ‘Call Me by Your Name’.

The 51-year-old director helmed the 2017 coming-of-age romance – that starred Timothee Chalamet and the disgraced Armie Hammer – and revealed that he wants to tell another story featuring Chalemet’s character Elio Perlman, although he is refusing to call it a sequel.

Speaking at the Telluride Film Festival, Luca said: “A sequel is an American concept.

“It’s more like the chronicles of Elio, the chronicles of this young boy becoming a man. It is something I want to do.”

Luca reunites with Timothee on the new film ‘Bones and All’, which tells the story of a pair of cannibalistic lovers who travel across the United States in the 1980s, and always had other projects in mind with the ‘Dune’ star.

The director said: “It’s not as if I left Timothee at the height of his booming success, and then I found him four years later. We kept close. I knew that there was not much time to wait until we worked together, but only for the right project.”

Chalamet is one of the most in-demand Hollywood stars and Luca is delighted to see the actor develop after working with him at a young age.

The ‘A Bigger Splash’ filmmaker said: “To see the humbleness and rigour with which he made his first steps toward stardom – this bright, feverish young man became this planetary star – made me so proud. There is a very beautiful bond between us.”

Luca explained that many gory scenes did not make the final cut of ‘Bones and All’ despite the gruesome premise.

He said: “We had way more.

“I shot so much more, but in the editing process, my editor and I were always clear that we should never be selfish about our capacity to portray horror.

“There was a lot of pain that was happening to our characters, a kind of sacred reverence. It was quite beautiful, humbling, reverential.”

One of Germany’s most progressive Catholic bishops has described homosexuality as “God’s will,” saying in an interview that he had changed his opinion on the matter.

“Homosexuality is not a glitch on God’s part, but God’s will to the same extent as creation itself,” Helmut Dieser, the bishop of Aachen, told the weekly publication Christ & Welt.

“Yes, my view has changed,” he added.

The Catholic Church has traditionally regarded homosexuality as a sin. Today, the church claims that the disposition itself is not yet a transgression, but that homosexuality must not be acted upon.

Last year, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reiterated that it was not permitted for Catholic clerics to bless homosexual partnerships.

Dieser said he was aware that Rome still interpreted homosexuality as a sin, adding that the very concept was questionable.

“When it comes to love, this variety of love, which is an erotic form, when the body becomes an expression of this love and the language of this love, then I think: love cannot be sin,” he said in the interview.

Whether a priest in his diocese blesses homosexual couples is a personal decision of conscience. This is also the case Dieser’s Roman Catholic diocese of Aachen.

Katy Perry has been announced as a special guest for the True Colors Festival.

The 37-year-old pop star will be one of the big-name performers at the upcoming festival in Tokyo, Japan, where diversity and inclusion will be the focus of the celebrations.

Katy said: “What moved me to join True Colors Festival was the spirit and uniqueness of the festival’s message and the opportunity to share the stage with all these diverse artists. I’m excited to be back in Tokyo to perform at this inspiring event.”

Katy and all the other artists will perform at Japan’s Tokyo Garden Theatre on the evenings of November 19 and 20.

The two-hour concert will feature more than 90 singers, dancers and musicians, and fans have been told to expect a unique experience.

Sydney Tan, the creative and music director of the True Colors Festival, said: “It’s been a crazy roller-coaster ride putting together this mega concert across time zones and language barriers using WhatsApp, FaceTime, Email and Zoom … and in the midst of a global pandemic to boot! But what a wonderful privilege it’s been for me and my team. To seek out and to get to know each of these artists as friends, building relationships of trust and mutual respect.

“So, what can you expect at the Concert 2022? I believe you will experience incredible levels of performance in a show with the highest production values, featuring the True Colors artists performing alongside the one and only Katy Perry.

“But beyond that, I believe it’ll be our privilege to get a peek into the lives of these extraordinary performers, and we hope that we’ll all come away with a sense of feeling like we are a part of ‘One World’, belonging to ‘One Family’.”

Queen Latifah insists on having a ‘no death’ clause in her film contracts.

The ‘End of the Road’ star has revealed that she takes a long-term approach to all of her film projects, as she insists on having a ‘no death’ clause written in her contract because she wants to leave the door open for possible sequels.

The 52-year-old rapper – who starred in the 1996 crime heist movie ‘Set It Off’ – told ‘Entertainment Tonight’: “I was like, ‘I don’t get to do any sequels if I keep being this good at [dying].’ So I said, ‘Look, you gotta put a no death clause in these contracts so they can’t just kill me off like this. I’m never gonna get a sequel in!'”

Despite this, the rapper-turned-actress is willing to make a compromise for the right price.

She quipped: “I mean, of course, for the right price, you know. She dies! That s***’s in the script, you know?”

The ‘Ladies First’ hitmaker – who has won a host of awards during her career – is currently readying herself to star in the ‘Girls’ Trip’ sequel.

The original movie starred the likes of Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the rapper revealed that the follow-up is already “locked and loaded”.

She said: “From everything I know it’s locked and loaded and ready to go. It’s just that somebody’s gotta make it happen.”

‘Girls Trip’ follows a group of four friends who go to New Orleans to attend the Essence Music Festival.

At the moment, the actress is “not quite sure” where the sequel will be located – though she confirmed “it will be international”.

Lea Michele broke down in tears after being cast as Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl’.

The former ‘Glee’ star was getting brunch with her two-year-old son Ever when she learned that she’d been cast in the Broadway production.

The 36-year-old actress told PEOPLE: “Funny story, I got the call from my agents that I got the part. I had no idea.

“I was literally sitting out at Bubby’s with my child, feeding him buttered pasta and broccoli. And I get a call from my agents, and they said, ‘You are going to be Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl’. And as I looked up, I start hysterically crying, and I’m like, oh my God.”

Lea still has vivid memories of Gideon Glick looking at her while she started crying.

She recalled: “He saw me crying. People had been asking me [about the role], but I didn’t really know what was going to happen.

“He was like, ‘Oh my God, did you just get the part?’ And I was nodding. And so he took a picture of me on the street hysterically crying, getting the part of Fanny Brice.

“Gideon used to be my old roommate. And he was actually there with me when I got the call that I would be in ‘Les Miz’ as well. So it was just a very full-circle moment for me.”

Meanwhile, Lea recently rubbished talk of there being any tension between herself and Beanie Feldstein, who headlined the musical when it opened earlier this year.

She said: “I saw the show. I wrote her and told her what an incredible job I thought that she did.

“I think that everybody just thinks everything is so drama-filled. I also think that people really love the excitement of pitting women against each other, which I think is really sad and unfortunate.”

Washington (AFP) – Reality TV star-turned-entrepreneur Kim Kardashian announced Wednesday she is branching into a new business arena with the launch of a private equity firm co-founded with a former partner at industry giant Carlyle.

“I’m pleased to announce the launch of @SKKYPartners with private equity veteran Jay Sammons as co-founder and co-managing partner,” Kardashian wrote on Twitter.

Kardashian said her mother, Kris Jenner, would also serve as partner.  

According to the new firm’s Instagram account, SKKY Partners will focus on investments in consumer and media companies in sectors including “consumer products, digital and e-commerce, consumer media, hospitality and luxury.” 

It is the latest of a series of business ventures for megastar Kardashian, who came to fame with the US reality show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which tracked the lives of her family members in Los Angeles.

The 41-year-old has steadily built her business empire in recent years — most visibly with her apparel and beauty brands — and has a net worth of $1.8 billion, according to Forbes. 

Jay Sammons, who in the summer left his long-time role as head of consumer, media and retail at Carlyle — one of the top private equity companies in the world — told The Wall Street Journal he approached Kardashian and her mother about launching the firm this year.

Kardashian told the Journal she liked the idea of working closely with entrepreneurs to help them grow their vision.

“The exciting part is to sit down with these founders and figure out what their dream is,” Kardashian told the paper, adding the firm plans to make its first investment before the end of 2022.  

“I want to support what that is, not change who they are in their DNA, but just support and get them to a different level.”

SKKY did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment. 

By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) – Steve Bannon, a onetime top strategist for former U.S. President Donald Trump and recipient of a presidential pardon, is expected to surrender to New York authorities on Thursday to face a new indictment, a person familiar with the matter said.

Bannon in 2020 was accused in federal court of defrauding donors to a fund to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but that indictment was dismissed after he was pardoned in the final hours of Trump’s presidency.

The new indictment is for state criminal charges that may mirror parts of the earlier federal case, though it is unclear because the indictment is still sealed, the person said.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Bannon himself issued a statement Tuesday night, after the Washington Post first reported the new indictment.

“This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system,” Bannon said in the statement.

He said Manhattan federal prosecutors did the same thing in August 2020 to try to take him out of that year’s election.

“It didn’t work then; it certainly won’t work now,” Bannon said.

Bannon is expected to appear in state court in Manhattan on Thursday and then be released pending trial, the person said.

A president can pardon people for federal crimes but not state crimes.

Bannon is not the first Trump ally to be charged in state court. In 2019, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office attempted to pursue former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on felony charges, including mortgage fraud, that were similar to crimes for which Manafort had been convicted in federal court.

But the charges were dismissed after rulings that they amounted to double jeopardy, or trying someone twice for the same conduct. Manafort was pardoned by Trump in 2020.

Bannon had pleaded not guilty in the federal case, but double jeopardy may not apply because he was never tried.

Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who were charged alongside Bannon in the federal “We Build the Wall” case, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in April.

Bannon runs a popular hard-right podcast, “War Room,” where he regularly promotes pro-Trump information and hosts guests who deny that Trump lost the 2020 election.

In July, Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the select committee investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, a verdict the panel called a “victory for the rule of law.”

Bannon was a main adviser to Trump’s 2016 Republican presidential campaign, then served as his chief White House strategist during 2017 before a falling out that was later patched up.

Bannon, 68, championed “America First” right-wing populism and fierce opposition to immigration that became hallmarks of Trump’s presidency.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Luc Cohen; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Washington (AFP) – Former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama finally got their official White House portraits Wednesday, after four years of being snubbed by Donald Trump, in an emotional ceremony doubling as a rousing defense of American democracy.

The paintings, destined to hang alongside those of generations of previous first couples in the White House, were unveiled by the Obamas themselves.

Deafening cheers sounded through the packed East Room as they pulled up the plain blue cloths covering the art works.

Obama, the country’s first Black president, was depicted by Robert McCurdy looking straight out, hands in pockets, his dark suit contrasting against a startlingly white background, and shadow falling over half of his face.

Michelle, who was painted by Sharon Sprung, posed in a light blue gown, seated on a red sofa.

Obama joked that McCurdy’s signature precision and sharp lines meant he “refused to hide any of my grey hairs,” but said the directness of the style countered the tendency where presidents “often get airbrushed,” getting “mythical status, especially after you’ve gone and people forget all the stuff they didn’t like.”

The cheers kept coming during President Joe Biden’s speech kicking off the event and the volume rose further when the Obamas took the podium.

Michelle Obama veered into distinctly political territory with a powerful homage to US democracy and barely disguised criticism of Trump.

“Traditions like this matter,” she said, describing the portraits custom as part of the passing of the torch between successive, even opposing administrations.

“We hold an inauguration to ensure a peaceful transition of power,” she said in a barbed reminder of the way Trump refused to accept his 2020 defeat by Biden, stymied the incoming government’s preparations — then failed to invite the Obamas to unveil their official portraits.

Michelle Obama reduced the room to silence with her observation that growing up as a Black girl in Chicago she’d assumed “she was never supposed to be up there next to Jacqueline Kennedy” or other famous — always white — first ladies.

“Too often in this country, people feel like they have to look a certain way or act a certain way to fit in,” she said. 

“What we are seeing is a reminder that there’s a place for everyone in this country,” where “the two of us can end up on a wall in the most famous address in the world.”

“Our democracy is so much stronger than our differences,” she said.

“We love you,” a man in the crowd called out, prompting more cheers.

Contempt

Past presidents and first ladies have typically had their portraits hung in White House halls and corridors after ceremonies hosted by successors. Democrat Obama, for example, hosted George W. Bush, a Republican, and his wife Laura Bush at portrait unveilings in 2012.

However, Trump declined to invite the Obamas — amid undisguised contempt between both leaders in the wake of the Republican’s shock 2016 election win — and the tradition ground to a halt.

The norm-shredding Trump even reportedly ordered portraits of Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton to be taken down from the walls of the Grand Foyer and put in storage. 

But a portrait of Hillary Clinton, the former first lady whom Trump had defeated in his presidential campaign, remained visible in a lower corridor through his tempestuous 2017-2021 term.

As for Trump, the Biden administration says it has no direct say on whether or when his own portrait could be hung up. It is not clear whether the ex-president, now in deep legal peril after the discovery of top-secret documents taken from the White House to his Florida estate, has even commissioned an official painting.

Mutual praise

Biden, who served as vice president throughout Obama’s two terms, poured praise on his former boss, recalling how they first took office in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

“We trusted him, all of you in this room. We believed in him, we counted on him. And I still do,” Biden said.

Obama returned the compliments, telling Biden “I was even luckier to have a chance to spend eight years working day and night with a man who became a true partner and a true friend.”

“Joe, it is now America’s good fortune to have you as president,” he said.

Talking of his own rise to the top job with defeat of Trump in 2020, Biden said “nothing could have prepared me more” for the presidency than working alongside Obama.

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -A requirement under the U.S. law known as Obamacare that private insurance plans cover drugs that prevent HIV infection at no cost to patients violates both federal law and the Constitution, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday, siding with conservative lawyers who had challenged the measure on religious grounds.

Ruling in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor found that the HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, mandate stemmed from a recommendation by an advisory body formed in violation of constitutional requirements and could infringe upon the rights of employers under a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The mandate is part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as Obamacare is formally called.

The legal challenge was filed in 2020 by eight individuals and two businesses, all from Texas. They argued that the free PrEP requirement, as well as free coverage requirements for contraceptives and the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, requires business owners to pay for services that “encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use” despite their religious beliefs.

The conservative America First Legal Foundation is helping to represent the plaintiffs. The group was founded by Stephen Miller, who served as an adviser to Republican former President Donald Trump.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said in a statement that the ruling could threaten free preventive care more broadly, including routine cancer screenings.

O’Connor, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, ruled in 2018 in a previous case that the ACA, a landmark U.S. healthcare law signed by Democratic former President Barack Obama in 2010, was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court subsequently ruled in 2021 that Texas and other states that had challenged Obamacare with the support of Trump’s administration lacked the proper legal standing to pursue that case. The ACA has survived several reviews by the U.S. Supreme Court.

O’Connor has not yet specified how his new ruling will be enforced. It is not clear what the judge’s decision means for the advisory body, called the Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF), which is convened by an official of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and recommends a wide range of preventive services to be covered under the ACA.

The judge found that the U.S. Constitution requires that the task force’s members be appointed directly by the president.

O’Connor has not yet ruled on the challenge to the contraceptives mandate and rejected the challenge to the HPV vaccine mandate. The HPV vaccine sold by Merck & Co prevents cancers caused by the virus.

HHS said in a statement that it “continues to work to ensure that people can access healthcare, free from discrimination.”

A lawyer for the plaintiffs had no immediate comment.

The PrEP drugs approved in the United States to prevent HIV infection, which can cause AIDS, are made by Gilead Sciences Inc and by ViiV Healthcare, a joint venture of GSK Plc, Pfizer Inc and Shionogi & Co Ltd.

A GSK spokesperson said PrEP coverage was “critical to ensuring health equity and helping end the HIV epidemic” and that the company would follow the case as it develops.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Will Dunham, Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)

Washington (AFP) – A US judge ruled Wednesday in favor of Christian employers who refuse, on religious grounds, to provide workers with health insurance that covers the cost of drugs that help prevent HIV/AIDS.

District Judge Reed O’Connor of a Texas federal court, known for making several rulings hostile to former president Barack Obama’s sweeping health care law, took aim at a new aspect of the legislation nicknamed “Obamacare.”

The law requires private insurers to reimburse certain preventive care as defined by health authorities. In 2020, they included PrEP — pills that act to prevent HIV transmission.

Two companies and several individuals went to court to challenge the coverage of the drugs, saying it violates their religious beliefs by making them “complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior,” O’Connor said in his decision.

One of the plaintiffs was facing fines of $100 per employee per day for failing to comply with the Obamacare law, said the judge, who ruled that the requirement to reimburse the cost of PrEP pills violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration will likely appeal the ruling, which was strongly criticized by the leader of the House of Representatives.

“This disturbing decision amounts to open homophobia,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

PrEP, short for pre-exposure prophylaxis, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2012 and is now routinely recommended for high-risk people who are HIV-negative to prevent them from becoming infected.

When taken daily, PrEP reduces the risk of infection by 99 percent, but only 23 percent of people who could benefit from it were using the medicine in 2019.