By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California must prepare for an influx of women seeking abortions in the liberal state if the U.S. Supreme Court ends the constitutional right to the procedure, dozens of women’s health and rights groups said in a report released on Wednesday.

The report by the Future of Abortion Council is aimed at positioning California as place where women from conservative states can get abortions. It comes as the Supreme Court considers overturning or weakening its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized the procedure nationwide.

Last week, the conservative-dominated court signaled a willingness to dramatically curtail abortion rights in America and possibly overturn Roe during oral arguments for a Mississippi case.

“It is imperative that California take the lead, live up to its proclamation as a ‘Reproductive Freedom State,’ and be ready to serve anyone who seeks abortion services,” Democrat Toni Atkins, president pro tem of the state Senate, wrote in a letter introducing the report.

The council made more than 40 recommendations, including a call for the state to fund programs to train additional abortion providers and legal protections for women from states where abortion becomes illegal.

Twenty-six states are certain or likely to ban abortions if the court limits or overturns Roe, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies abortion rights.

More than 40 health care providers, women’s rights groups and Democratic politicians formed the council in September after the Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law that effectively bans abortion at about six weeks and allows people to sue doctors or others who have helped a woman end a pregnancy after fetal cardiac activity can be detected.

The Guttmacher Institute predicted in September that as many as 1.4 million women may drive in to California for abortion services if neighboring states outlaw or severely limit access to the procedure. That estimate doesn’t include women who might fly to the West Coast for abortions.

When the new Texas law took effect in September, Planned Parenthood clinics in California began treating two to three Texans per day, said Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for the clinics.

“We started to see an immediate impact on our health centers in California,” Richards said.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)

By James Oliphant and Nathan Layne

GRIFFIN, Georgia (Reuters) – Protesters filled the meeting room of the Spalding County Board of Elections in October, upset that the board had disallowed early voting on Sundays for the Nov. 2 municipal election. A year ago, Sunday voting had been instrumental in boosting turnout of Black voters.

But this was an entirely different five-member board than had overseen the last election. The Democratic majority of three Black women was gone. So was the Black elections supervisor.

Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board – thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media.

The panel in Spalding, a rural patch south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards that Republicans have quietly reorganized in recent months through similar county-specific state legislation. The changes expanded the party’s power over choosing members of local election boards ahead of the crucial midterm Congressional elections in November 2022.

The unusual rash of restructurings follows the state’s passage of Senate Bill 202, which restricted ballot access statewide and allowed the Republican-controlled State Election Board to assume control of county boards it deems underperforming. The board immediately launched a performance review of the Democratic-leaning Fulton County board, which oversees part of Atlanta.

The Georgia restructurings are part of a national Republican effort to expand control over election administration in the wake of Trump’s false voter-fraud claims. Republican-led states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona have enacted new curbs on voter access this year. Backers of Trump’s false stolen-election claims are running campaigns for secretary of state – the top election official – in battleground states. And some Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to eliminate the state’s bipartisan election commission and threatening its members with prosecution.

The stakes are high in Georgia, which last year backed a Democrat for president for the first time since 1992. Its first-term Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock will be up for reelection in 2022, a contest that could prove pivotal to which party controls Congress. The governor’s race next year pits incumbent Republican Brian Kemp against Trump-endorsed candidate David Perdue in a primary. The winner will likely face Democrat Stacey Abrams, a voting rights advocate. Both Warnock and Abrams are Black.

The county board restructurings and statewide voting restrictions, Democrats and voting-rights groups say, represent the most sweeping changes in decades to Georgia’s electoral system. Until 2013, Georgia elections operated under federal oversight to ensure fair participation for Black voters in this once-segregated Southern state.

Democrats say Republicans are trying to expand their control over election administration functions that should be nonpartisan. That could result in suppression of votes, they said, and could give Republicans control over certification of results, along with recounts and audits of contested elections.

“We are talking about a normalization of Republican takeovers of local functions,” says Saira Draper, director of voter protection for the Georgia Democratic Party.

Republicans say the changes aim to restore public trust in elections after many problems during the 2020 elections.

“What we want to make sure is that we have election integrity,” said Butch Miller, the No. 2 Republican in the Georgia Senate, a leading advocate for Senate Bill 202 and a sponsor of the bill to reconstitute the Lincoln County election board.

In five of the Georgia counties that restructured election boards – Troup, Morgan, Pickens, Stephens and Lincoln – the legislature shifted the power to appoint some or all election board members to local county commissions, all of which are currently controlled by Republicans. Previously, the appointments had been split evenly between the local Democratic and Republican parties, sometimes with other local entities controlling some appointments. The intent of the old system: To ensure a politically balanced or nonpartisan board.

In the sixth county, Spalding, the parties still choose two members each, but the fifth member is now chosen by local judges. (It used to be decided by a coin flip.) Those judges tend to be politically conservative; they appointed a white Republican to replace a Black Democrat on the election board, giving Republicans a 3-2 majority.

In Morgan County, the majority-Republican county commission reconstituted its election board, ousting two outspoken Black Democrats. In Troup County, a Black Democratic member claims the board shake-up was aimed at ousting her after she fought to increase voting access.

Reuters could not determine the exact split of Democrats and Republicans in the five counties that handed control to county commissions before and after their restructurings. That’s because board members’ party affiliation is not public information in Georgia, and board representatives declined to identify their allegiances.

RESTRICTING ACCESS

The county election boards have broad authority over voter access, such as polling locations and early-voting procedures. They also have considerable sway over post-election provisional-ballot tallies, audits and recounts.

Reconstituted boards in two of the six counties have already moved to restrict voting access. In addition to Spalding’s termination of Sunday voting, Lincoln County has proposed consolidating its seven precincts into one voting center, which critics say would discourage voting by people traveling from remote areas. Proponents say it would make voting more efficient and secure. The proposal is set for a vote on Thursday.

In Lincoln County, the new law removes appointments by political parties and gives the Republican-led county commission discretion to appoint the board’s three-member majority. County Republicans say the changes are meant to comply with a 2018 state Supreme Court ruling, which dictated that private entities cannot appoint members to government bodies. That decision, however, involved boards of ethics, not elections, and many other Georgia counties continue to allow political-party appointments to election boards.

The changes come in the wake of Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Trump won Spalding County with 60% of the 2020 vote. But his margin of victory declined by 4 percentage points from 2016 as turnout among Black voters jumped 20% in a county where the population is 35% black.

Trump supporters rifled through the dumpsters behind Spalding’s election office, looking for tossed ballots. None were found. Others demanded to watch the vote-counting. Sheriff’s deputies had to escort election workers to their cars. In Georgia and nationwide, some Trump supporters have threatened election officials with violence.

With conservative judges now choosing the county election board’s fifth member, the previous fifth member, Vera McIntosh, a Black Democrat, has been ousted. She was replaced by James Newland, who is also vice-chair of the county Republican Party. In September, he voted to end Sunday voting.

The board’s new chair is Ben Johnson, a former official of the county Republican party. Johnson declined to comment on his social media posts endorsing Trump’s false voter-fraud claims. He would not answer questions about whether he acknowledged that Biden won the 2020 election fairly.

McIntosh, the ousted Democrat, called the changes a “power grab” by local Republicans who wanted to “go back and prove the ‘Big Lie’ was real,” referring to Trump’s election-fraud claims.

“They wanted control,” she said. “They got control.”

The law restructuring Spalding’s board also required the elections supervisor to live in the county, a change that forced out the incumbent supervisor, Marcia Ridley. Two other Black Democrats on the board quit: Margaret Bentley and Glenda Henley, who cited objections to the law and harassment from Trump supporters.

Henley said the board’s meetings were increasingly attended by Trump supporters crying fraud. She called the tensions “exhausting” and said: “I have never been afraid in this town, but I am now.”

The restructured board still includes two Democrats, one of whom is Black.

Republican state representative David Knight from Spalding, who co-sponsored a bill to reconstitute the board, said the changes had nothing to do with race or partisanship. They aimed, he said, “to restore the integrity of our election board and voter confidence.”

On Election Day in 2020, voting machines malfunctioned in all 18 precincts, resulting in long waits. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger called for Ridley’s resignation, and the Republican-controlled State Election Board referred her handling of the problems to the state attorney general, who has to date not taken any action.

Ridley denies any mismanagement, saying her staff “worked hard to ensure that no voter got disenfranchised and all were able to vote.”

FREE AND FAIR?

In western Georgia’s Troup County, the Republican-controlled county commission now appoints all election board members, a power previously shared by three cities and the two political parties.

Lonnie Hollis, one of two Black female members, will leave the board at year-end. Hollis, who has served since 2013, said the restructuring was aimed at unseating her because she fought to increase voter access. Her efforts included advocating for the first voting location in a predominantly Black church in the county, which she said has multiple precincts in predominantly white churches.

Patrick Crews, the Republican chairman of Troup County commissioners, denied Hollis was targeted for removal.

“Our goal is to be inclusive and appoint members who are concerned about having fair and honest elections,” Crews said.

In Morgan County, two Black Democrats on the board, Helen Butler and Avery Jackson, were removed after the new law eliminated political-party appointments and handed appointment power to the Republican-dominated commission. Butler and Jackson sought reappointments but were denied.

The commission chair, Philipp von Hanstein, did not respond to a comment request.

Butler has long advocated for voting rights and social justice. Testifying before a special U.S. Senate subcommittee in July, she said she was ousted for fighting the closure of polling locations and advocating for ballot drop boxes.

Butler warned that the restructurings could “enable members of the majority party to overturn election results they do not like.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant and Nathan Layne; editing by Soyoung Kim and Brian Thevenot)

Don Lemonposted a picture of himself seemingly unbothered by the allegations lodged against him that could potentially cost him his job at CNN.

The journalist is accused of tipping off Jussie Smollet prior to the actor’s arrest for allegedly faking a hate crime. Don told provided the Empire actor with inside information that the police on the case did not believe his story.

In his latest Instagram post, Don was seen with a big grin on his face while posing in front of a Van Gogh Exhibit in Manhattan, New York.

Lemon wrote in the caption, “Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit in #Manhattan. Amazing! Have you been?”

The CNN host has been under fire since the news broke of his involvement in helping Jussie behind the scenes.

He was also criticized after failing to mention his involvement while covering his friend’s trial.

Despite posting an image of himself looking all smiles at the art show, some followers were not ready to let go of their opinions on his latest scandal.

One Instagram user asked, “Have you been feeding info to Jussie Smollet to influence his trial @donlemoncnn?” Another commented, “All smiles right now, until you end up like Chris Cuomo.”

A third user even called for the news anchor to be terminated from the network, “@donlemoncnn I HOPE U GET FIRED AND LOSE YOUR PENSION NEXT,” followed by several exclamation marks.

Speaking of firing, this revelation also comes after his former co-worker Chris Cuomowas axed from CNN.

Chris was accused of helping his brotherAndrew Cuomo cover up his sexual harassment allegations. He was also hit with sexual harassment allegations by a former co-worker.

Radar previously reported that Chris and Don are currently not on speaking terms following the firing. An insider revealed Don was left with no choice other than to take his boss CNN President Jeff Zucker‘s side.

“Don is clearly Team Jeff all the way,” the source claimed. “Jeff has changed Don’s life. Not only making him into a star but also making him very rich. Don has ambitions of having his own talk-show on CNN and isn’t about to burn that dream because of Chris Cuomo.”

The new information regarding Lemon’s role in Smollet’s case had sparked comparisons between Lemon and Chris’ situation.

On Saturday, Dec. 4, CNN announced their decision to fire Chris.

“Chris Cuomo was suspended earlier this week pending further evaluation of new information that came to light about his involvement with his brother’s defense,” the network released a statement. “We retained a respected law firm to conduct the review, and have terminated him, effective immediately.

Don Lemonhas found himself at the center of a scandal after Jussie Smolletttold the jury that the CNN host tipped him off that cops didn’t believe his story via text message in 2019.

Jussie revealed the news on the stand during his hoax trial on Monday. The former Empire actor claimed Lemon had been told by a law enforcement source that Chicago Police Detectives were doubtful about Jussie’s attack on the night of January 29, 2019.

Lemon allegedly sent the text before Jussie was arrested on February 21.

Jake Tapper Poised To Replace Axed Chris Cuomo In Primetime At Troubled CNN

Lemon asked reporter Omar Jiminez to recap Jussie’s trial during his show segment on Monday, but neither newsmen mentioned the host being brought up during questioning. If what Jussie said about the text is true, it would be a huge conflict of interest for the CNN host and the network.

CNN fired popular primetime host Chris Cuomo after discovering he helped cover up his brother Andrew Cuomo‘s sexual harassment scandal. The 51-year-old journalist was canned over the weekend and just days after being “indefinitely suspended.”

‘Embarrassed’ Chris Cuomo Breaks Silence Hours After Being Indefinitely Suspended From CNN Due To Helping Cover Up Andrew Cuomo’s Sexual Harassment

Last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James‘ office released a number of text messages that reportedly showed Chris helping Andrew strategize his response to the sexual harassment claims earlier this year. He was also accused of using his contacts and position at the network to burry the scandal.

Days after losing his job, a former ABC colleague came forward and accused Chris of sexual misconduct. He’s allegedly gearing up to sue CNN over his $6 million-per-year contract if the network doesn’t pay up.

Radar broke the story — after Chris was suspended from CNN, Lemon was “inconsolable.” In the light of Jussie’s claims, his reaction may have been concern for himself and not so much his friend.

mega

Many people will shrug their shoulders and denounce this commentary as conspiratorial.

But the fact is, after six days of testimony in the much-anticipated trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in a New York courtroom, the very valid question ought to be asked: Is the prosecution tanking the sex trafficking trial against the Parisian-born daughter of ex-British media tycoon Robert Maxwell?

The Southern District of New York is considered one of the toughest units of the Department of Justice. Known for being highly independent and nonpartisan, it has earned itself the moniker the “Sovereign District of New York.”

Its resources and accompanying FBI field office have given the SDNY a reputation for being exceptionally aggressive in its pursuit of criminals.

Why then was a larger and more substantial case against Maxwell — racketeering — overlooked in pursuit of a six-count federal indictment, which relates to accusations that she facilitated the sexual exploitation of girls for her longtime lover, the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

 

The six counts center on the accounts of four accusers. The charges against Maxwell include:

If convicted, 59-year-old Maxwell will never see daylight again: Conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors carries a maximum 40-year sentence; the other charges have maximum penalties of five or 10 years.

It’s long been established that Maxwell and Epstein were not only partners—but also partners in crime. It is why, as part of Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida state court of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute, Epstein sought out and received immunity for Maxwell and others from prosecution as it pertained to that case.

(Epstein had been charged with recruiting dozens of girls, some as young as 13, for massages and sex at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Under a plea deal reached in 2007 with then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, Epstein was given immunity from federal prosecution and pleaded guilty to the lesser state charges.)

 

So, it’s not unreasonable to question why the prosecutors have yet to link a trove of evidence to its real purpose – kompromat — seized in a raid on Epstein’s Upper East Side mansions which the FBI and SDNY gloated about in 2019. The government introduced as evidence yesterday.

It yielded “an extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially-nude young women or girls,” they said, according to court filings at the time, which the SDNY introduced as a request to the court to hold the billionaire without bail until trial. (On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein died in jail. The verdict: suicide. The timing: convenient, to say the least.)

It said Epstein, a registered sex offender had “hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of sexually suggestive photographs of fully—or partially-nude—females.” Some of them appeared to be underage girls.

Some were in a locked safe that contained CDs labeled “Misc nudes 1,” and “Girl pics nude,” or even individual names, prosecutors said. They also found a massage table with sex toys.

What’s more, Epstein (and by virtue of the sex ring he ran, included others) had an “apparent previous willingness to obstruct a federal investigation, harass or tamper with witnesses, and hire private investigators that “forc[ed] off the road” the father of an individual relevant in the investigation.”

The wide consensus and evidence suggest that while Epstein and Maxwell were flying around the world on his private jet and hosting lavish parties inside Epstein’s palatial homes in New York, Paris, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Palm Beach, Florida, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, the pair was also was secretly masterminding an international child sex ring—one that may have involved the richest and most influential men in the world.

This, according to the FBI, was a “criminal enterprise.”

 

(When Dr. Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019, when she was probed about Epstein’s Aug. 10 suicide by hanging at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, she said: “If the FBI is involved, then they are looking at criminal enterprise, yes.”

So whatever happened to pursuing justice against that criminal enterprise?

What lies at the very heart of what’s left of this horrible case is how those involved were allowed to make it happen in the first instance—and that raises some critical questions.

Will we proceed with Maxwell’s trial without asking the reason behind why she allegedly procured these young women?

The answer is yes.

Why?

Because the fallout of exposing the “criminal enterprise” be considered too dangerous to the United States’ legislative, executive, intelligence, and judicial branches.

With the evidence of the criminal enterprise in mind, compare Epstein and Maxwell to the case of musician R. Kelly.

 

The multiplatinum R&B artist was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking for a scheme that, while equally as monstrous, did not involve nearly as many victims. He was convicted of one count of racketeering based on sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping, forced labor, and eight violations of the Mann Act, a sex-trafficking statute.

In that case, prosecutors said Kelly and his “inner circle” worked for more than two decades, in multiple states, to promote the singer’s brand, to recruit girls and young women for sexual exploitation, and to produce pornography.

Indeed, just two weeks ago, a top associate, Michael Williams, was sentenced to eight years in prison after intimidating an accuser in Kelly’s trial. In June 2020, he drove 200 miles to where one of Kelly’s accusers, known pseudonymously as “Jane,” was living, and set a car leased by Jane’s father on fire.

If R. Kelly was found to have run a criminal enterprise and suffered the full wrath of the law, Maxwell and what is left of the Epstein and Maxwell’s “criminal enterprise” should face the same fate.

 

Since Epstein’s suicide, Maxwell has been the sole custodian of the “empire of dirt” that they built up over more than three decades working as an intelligence source for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other countries.

They used their power to exploit the vulnerable and underaged, all the while hiding in plain sight within the innermost circles of the establishment.

That, there, is the answer to the aforementioned question of why she allegedly procured these young women for Epstein.

 

They used their access to trap the rich and famous and traded in the dirt they had on them to the world’s most secretive intelligence agencies. It explains how he and Maxwell amassed their respective fortunes when neither had legitimate jobs.

The current prosecution of Maxwell is little more than a convenient legal circus, bending to the whim of public outrage. The truth is that top levels of government and law enforcement knew what was going on. Those same people are supposed to protect the 36 young and innocent women who the FBI has identified as victims of Epstein.

 

These are the questions the SDNY needs to be asking:

The answers will be found in a complicated web of power and corruption — and those behind it are hoping the current trial of Maxwell will deflect attention from. It is the trial equivalent to an over-staged prosecutorial performance, one that, somehow, inexplicably, leaves Maxwell on a razor edge of guilt or innocence, due to nothing more than the limited scope of the charges she faces.

Epstein and Maxwell were one of most disturbing criminal networks in American history. That, it seems, will never be prosecuted.

In the meantime, be prepared for the jury foreperson to mutter the words “not guilty” at the end of what is expected to be six-week trial. Maxwell’s team don’t need to prove a thing; all they need do is show doubt.

 

It is the prosecution who bears the burden of proving that the defendant is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Maxwell’s conviction – or acquittal – largely relies upon the testimony of her alleged victims, all of whom will be called upon to relive memories dating back decades.

The defense has to date shown that the accusers’ memories are to an extent unreliable. To prevail, all they need do is simply befuddle the jury about their testimony to demonstrate that Maxwell might not — or could not — have done what is alleged against her … and any weakness presented thus far have been torn apart.

What’s more, with Maxwell herself expected to take the stand, she too is likely to take a turn in attacking the credibility of her accusers. As nauseating as that sounds, it’s her only card to play if she is to walk free again. Even more nauseating, the chances of that being a winning hand remains a distinct possibility.

 

REELZ

The Facts of Life – the hit television show that became a staple of NBC’s lineup in the 1980s – was a female-centric spinoff of another popular sitcom, Diff’rent Strokes. It ran for nine seasons and became a cultural touchstone for many reasons.

And Radar‘s exclusive sneak peek of REELZ upcoming documentary, The Facts of Life: Behind Closed Doors, touches upon one of those reasons.

Jerry Mayer, a writer for the series, penned an episode about weed. It was unprecedented.

“One of the early shows that I wrote was about girls trying marijuana,” he recalls. It was a moment that stood out to the cast, too.

“I remember the dope episode,” adds Julie Anne Haddock Becker, who played Cindy. “I believe it was Sue Ann who got busted with pot,” she adds with a laugh.

But no one remembers the episode quite like Sue Ann, who was played by Julie Piekarski Probst.

 

“They chose my character, Sue Ann, and when we kinda do the first day cold reading of it, I kinda was like, ‘Ok, now wait a minute, so this is me. Though it’s my character, what is that gonna mean for me?'” she recalls having thought.

It was after a conversation with the late Charlotte Rae, who played maternal figure Edna Garrett, that Piekarski Probst says she felt comfortable taking on what had felt like a daunting task.

“Charlotte actually and I had a conversation about it,” explains Piekarski Probst. “She said think about it this way – it is sometimes those more innocent people that you don’t expect because of peer pressure, they actually do succumb to it and end up doing it. So when she explained that to me and I really sat and thought with it, I thought, ‘This is important to do it.'”

The episode featured a guest star who ended up securing her own place in the must-see NBC TV lineup: four-time Emmy Award winning Mad About You star Helen Hunt.

Eve Brandstein, the casting directorwho placed Hunt in The Facts of Life, describes Helen as “very talented” and remembers her being in a “very unique group of actresses I could rotate in and out of roles.”

“Helen was one of those,” says Brandstein with pride. “She was one of my top choices.”

Hunt’s character was part of a modern-day “cool-girl” clique called The Group, which peer pressured Sue Ann to get high.

“I like gagged and coughed, and then __Lisa [Whelchel__, who played Blair Warner] started laughing at it,” recalls Piekarski Probst.

And with that episode, the first season of the groundbreaking series wrapped.

 

The Facts of Life: Behind Closed Doors premieres Wednesday, December 8 at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT on REELZ.

Watch REELZ on DIRECTV 238, Dish Network 299, Verizon FiOS 692, AT&T U-verse 1799 and in HD on cable systems and streaming services nationwide. Find REELZ on your local cable or satellite provider at reelz.com/get-reelz/.

By Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chile’s Congress passed a law to legalize same-sex marriage on Tuesday, in a milestone for the conservative South American nation after a decade-long legal battle and with the country delicately poised ahead of a crossroads election this month.

“Today is a historic day, our country has approved same-sex marriage, one more step forward in terms of justice, in terms of equality, recognizing that love is love,” Minister of Social Development Karla Rubilar said after the vote.

Chile’s Senate and lower house of parliament both voted heavily in favor of the bill on Tuesday, which had previously been partially approved in November before the Senate sent it back to a committee to clarify ambiguities.

Current President Sebastian Pinera, who will leave office in March, has backed the bill and is expected to sign it into law.

The vote culminates a process that began in 2017, when the first bill was introduced, backed by then-President Michelle Bachelet. Chile is now poised to join over 20 countries globally with legal same-sex marriage, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay in Latin America.

“It is hard to believe that today we are taking this step,” said Rolando Jimenez from LGBT rights group Movilh, one of the major backers of the bill and which helped spearhead Chile’s push to legalize same sex marriage for more than a decade.

Chile will elect a new president on Dec. 19, choosing between progressive Gabriel Boric and social conservative Jose Antonio Kast, a practicing Catholic. The two offer wildly different visions for the country’s future.

While Kast disagrees with same-sex marriage, he had said he would have signed the bill into law anyway had it been passed by Congress during a potential presidency of his.

Chile has long had a conservative reputation even compared with its deeply Catholic Latin American peers. Still, a strong majority of Chileans now support same-sex marriage and Chileans have shown signs of moving left on social and cultural issues in recent years.

Civil unions have been permitted in Chile since 2015, which affords same-sex partners many but not all the benefits of married couples, like the right to adoption.

The law, which will come into effect 90 days after it is published in the Official Gazette, was cheered by rights groups and couples, opening the door for both parents in a same sex couple to receive full legal recognition.

“This is cause for all Chilean society to celebrate,” said Isabel Amor, executive director of equality group Iguales.

“Not only will people who have a same-sex relationship be able to marry, but hundreds of children and adolescents will get recognition for their two mothers or two fathers.”

(Reporting by Fabian CamberoEditing by Mark Heinrich and Alistair Bell)

In this sequencing laboratory in Chennai, samples are systematically examined for coronavirus mutations like Omicron. The aim is to rapidly identify mutations that pose a particular risk in terms of transmissibility, disease severity and vaccine. Sri Loganathan/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

The Omicron variant, now present in at least 23 countries around the world, was probably incubated in the body of a person with an immune system battered by HIV or another immune-compromising condition that can cause a prolonged coronavirus infection, according to the South African scientist who detected the fast-spreading genetic mutant.

Tulio De Oliveira said the emergence of Omicron in a patient unable to clear the virus quickly was “the most plausible” origin story for the world’s newest variant of concern.

There’s good reason to think so.

Researchers in the United States and Europe have seen coronaviruses with frightening mutations arise in Covid-19 patients whose natural defenses have been suppressed by drugs to fight cancer, manage autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, or keep transplanted organs from being rejected.

De Oliveira has been warning for months that the people mostly likely to spawn such mutations in sub-Saharan Africa are the roughly 8 million with unrecognized or poorly treated HIV. Largely young, unvaccinated and with debilitated immune systems, these people could “become a factory of variants for the whole world,” he said.

In June, his team chronicled the emergence of more than 30 genetic changes in SARS-CoV-2 specimens taken from a single South African woman with advanced uncontrolled HIV. The mutations they saw — including several that could erode vaccine protection and boost disease transmission — appeared over a period of six months.

Now De Oliveira worries that a similar scenario might have given rise to Omicron. Last week, he alerted the World Health Organization that his team had detected a variant with dozens of new mutations that was circulating in Gauteng, South Africa’s most densely populated province, and in neighboring Botswana. The samples the scientists studied were collected between Nov. 12 and Nov. 20.

More than 30 of the mutations they saw were in the code for the crucial spike protein of the virus — the key that picks the lock to human cells and initiates an infection. Many of the changes were familiar to De Oliveira from his study of HIV patients with prolonged coronavirus infections.

The Omicron variant appears to have played a key role in driving the dramatic rise in new cases among students, most of them young adults, at Tshwane University of Technology in Gauteng, said De Oliveira, director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University.

With Johannesburg at its heart, Gauteng province is the epicenter of South Africa’s HIV epidemic. It is home to roughly 20% of South Africa’s 7.5 million people living with HIV.

Across the country, 2.2 million people are infected with HIV that is undetected, untreated or poorly controlled. These patients’ immune systems are “pretty heavily suppressed,” said Dr. Jonathan Li, a Harvard infectious-diseases specialist who was among the first to detail extensive coronavirus mutations in an immunosuppressed patient. Under attack by HIV, their T cells are not providing vital support that the immune system’s B cells need to an clear infection.

“The sheer number of mutations that arose all of a sudden here is really reminiscent of what we’ve seen,” Li said. “If I had to guess, I would say this is likely how Omicron came about.”

Dr. Bruce Walker, an immunologist and founding director of the Ragon Institute in Cambridge, Mass., warned against stigmatizing patients whose conditions may give rise to variants. But Omicron’s emergence from a patient with prolonged infection is a pretty good bet, he said.

“We know that in the setting of severe immune compromise, the virus can stay in someone’s body for a long time, and the longer it can make copies of itself, the virus can make mistakes and can escape from what’s left of such a patient’s immune system,” Walker said.

A new variant will bear no telltale signature of how or where it came into existence, he added. But “statistically speaking, there are a variety of causes of immune suppression. And in southern Africa, one of the leading causes is HIV.”

In an essay published in a December edition of the journal Nature, De Oliveira and three South African colleagues warned that “Africa is being completely left behind,” as Covid-19 vaccines, medicines and testing supplies are hoarded by the world’s affluent countries. If those countries fail to help African countries control both HIV and Covid-19, the scientists wrote, it will undermine their efforts to extinguish the pandemic worldwide.

While nearly 40 per cent of the global population has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the rate for Africa is less than 7%, the scientists wrote. In South Africa, 24 per cent of the public has been fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.

To complicate matters, the continent’s fitful progress in securing vaccines has prompted public health officials to focus first on elderly patients. The result is that virtually all of Africa’s young adults remain unvaccinated. And since 80 per cent of those with HIV across the continent are under 50 years old, vanishingly few patients who are at risk of harboring a prolonged coronavirus infection have been vaccinated.

In an interview this week, De Oliveira said there could be other explanations for the sudden emergence of a variant with so many mutations.

It’s possible Omicron has been circulating for months somewhere else, steadily accumulating genetic changes. (It was present in the Netherlands by Nov. 19, nearly a week before De Oliveira’s announcement.) If the variant matured in countries where genetic sequencing is rare or absent, it might have flown under the radar until it arrived in South Africa — the continent’s genetic sequencing powerhouse — already laden with mutations, he said.

Walker, who called the detection of Omicron “an absolutely world-class performance” by the South African scientists, said that wherever it came from, the world cannot afford to allow the pandemic to rage unchecked on any continent.

“It’s in the nature of the virus to mutate,” he said. “It’s not like, if there were no HIV infection, we wouldn’t have to worry about this.”

 

Former First Lady Melania Trump has reportedly been implicated in the alleged cover-up by the White House to hide Donald Trump’s positive Covid-19 test just before a debate with Joe Biden in 2020.

According to a political analyst named Greg Sargent in The Washington Post, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is the one making these claims against Melania in his upcoming new book.

“The Trump family has long treated rules and laws as nuisances that are only for the little people. And the news that Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 before the first 2020 presidential debate shows that this tendency may be even more depraved and malevolent than you thought,” Sargent wrote in an article for the political news outlet.

“It turns out that this revelation, which comes in a new book by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, also implicates members of Trump’s family, including Melania Trump and Donald Trump Jr,” he also writes, entrapping not only the former first lady but also one of the former president’s sons in the entire scandal and cover-up.

With this first 2020 presidential debate resurfacing due to these bombshell allegations, people are pointing out how Donald Trump failed to uphold coronavirus standards and procedures at the time. People are also quick to point out that members of the former-president’s own family refused to wear masks while in attendance.

Now, following the revelation that Trump was in fact positive with the Covid-19 virus at the time of the debate, and his family was also potentially exposed to the virus through him, people are up in arms.

“That’s because multiple people around Trump, including his wife, Melania Trump, and his kids Donald Jr. and Eric, all sat mask-less at the Sept. 29 debate, according to contemporaneous reports, despite the fact that debate attendees were required to wear masks,” Sargent also explained in his article.

“As numerous reporters personally witnessed at the time, Trump’s family members did this after rebuffing a direct request to mask up from a doctor with the Cleveland Clinic, which helped organize the debate. That doctor even offered them masks, and they declined.”

This is not the first bombshell report to resurface regarding former first lady Melania Trump.

As Radar previously reported, Melania’s former Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham alleged in her new book that the former first lady slept through the 2020 election night.

Grisham also claimed that Melania staunchly refused to make a statement denouncing the violence at the Capitol during the insurrection on January 6.

Mega

Nick Cannon‘s daytime talk show is all the talk right now, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for showrunners, it doesn’t seem that anyone is focused on what its evidently well-endowed host has to say.

During a recent episode of The Nick Cannon Show, the outline of what appeared to be a massive bulge in the 41-year-old’s fitted slacks was front and center as he delivered his What’s Poppin’?! segment that covers all the latest in pop culture news.

Though the multimedia personality was dishing on a Golden Girls convention, viewers pointed out that wasn’t really what was “poppin'” after all.

 

In the days that have passed, social media has been fixated on the man’s crotch.

“So are we not gon talk about Nick Cannon and that andouille sausage he got stuffed in those pants?” wondered one Twitter user, as another quipped, “So Nick Cannon actually has a CANNON.”

“Nick cannon got to chill man…whoever crushed up viagra in this man coffee this morning gettin’ fired and going to hell lol,” someone else joked, while a fourth person went so far as to give the host a whole new identity: “His [name] ain’t Nick Cannon, his name is Dick Cannon.”

 

Many indulgers also pointed out the fact that he’s a father of seven. “Nick Cannon is trending…my first thought is that he was expecting another baby,” read a comment.

“Apparently the reason Nick Cannon has so many kids is, he can impregnate you long distance,” noted one person on Twitter, as another female user added, “I would like to apologize to Nick Cannon’s baby mamas because now…I understand.”

 

Indeed, Cannon is a dad to seven kids by four different women.

He was famously married to Mariah Carey from 2008 to 2016. Together, they had 10-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan. He went on to have 4-year-old son Golden Sagon and 1-year-old daughter Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell. With Abby De La Rosa, he had his second pair of twins– Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir – this past June. Less than two weeks later, Alyssa Scott gave birth to Zen.

 

When he’s not procreating, Cannon is busy hosting his syndicated program, which sadly debuted at less than half a million viewers and received devastating reviews.

But executives are reportedly so desperate to lock in a plan B amid Wendy Williams‘ ongoing health concerns that Nick is still being considered to take over that coveted 10 AM slot.

Perhaps his “andouille sausage” will help boost viewership? That is, if it doesn’t get him in trouble with the Federal Communications Commission. We’ve reached out for comment.

 

Kyle Rittenhouse is on a press tour after being found not guilty of murdering two BLM supporters and injuring another, and he has some words for LeBron James.

The 18-year-old appeared on The Blaze TV’s You Are Here show where he revealed, “I liked LeBron. And then I’m like, ‘You know what, f*** you, LeBron.'”

Last month, during Rittenhouse’s trial, LeBron took to Twitter to laugh at the teenager crying on the stand while being grilled about the incident

“What tears????? I didn’t see one. Man knock it off! That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court,” LeBron wrote to his 50.5 million followers on Twitter.

Rittenhouse was on the stand detailing the August 25, 2020 shootings in Wisconsin. He drove from Illinois to Kenosha as the protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake were starting. Rittenhouse decided to drive down to protect a car lot that he did not own.

During the protests, Rittenhouse ended up killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounding Gaige Grosskreutz. He claimed his actions were done in self-defense and he was able to convince the jury of just that.

Kyle Rittenhouse All Smiles At Tiki Bar Hours Before Telling Tucker Carlson ‘I’m Not A Racist Person’

Kyle not guilty on all counts including first-degree intentional homicide, 2 counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree reckless homicide, and first-degree attempted intentional homicide.

During the podcast. Rittenhouse added, “I was a Lakers fan too before he said that. I was really pissed off that he said that.”

As Radar previously reported, despite LeBron not being a fan, Rittenhouse still has former President Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson on his side. Following the acquittal, the teenager was invited for a sit-down with Tucker on Fox News.

Kyle Rittenhouse GoFundMe Ban Lifted Following Not Guilty Verdict

On the show, Rittenhouse claimed he wasn’t racist and actually supported peaceful protesting. “I believe there’s a lot of prosecutorial misconduct, not just in my case, but in other cases,” he said before adding it’s “amazing to see how much a prosecutor can take advantage of somebody.”

Jussie Smollett name-dropped his former boss Lee Daniels during his hate crime hoax trial and not in a good way.

The 39-year-old actor took the stand for the first time on Monday, claiming he hired the Osundairo brothers to help him lose weight only after the Empire creator fat-shamed him.

Jussie didn’t hesitate to throw Daniels under the bus, saying under oath that Lee called him “fat.” The ex-Empire star claims Daniels’ crude comment made him want to drop pounds for a music video, and that’s why he sought help from the two brothers.

According to Jussie, he wrote Abimbola Osundairo a $3,500 check for nutrition and training advice. The brothers claim the payday was for their help in orchestrating an elaborate fake attack on the actor.

Jussie was repeatedly asked on the stand if the attack was a hoax. He denied it every time.

Jussie Smollett Tells Jury He Did Not Stage Alleged Hate Crime Against Himself Under Oath In Trial

When it comes to Jussie’s comment about Daniels’ alleged fat-shaming, Radar reached out to the Hollywood director for the tea. So far, no word back.

Their friendship didn’t quite weather the storm, despite working together for 5 seasons on Empire.

The pair are no longer on speaking terms. Jussie and Daniels’ “relationship is nonexistent, and it was tense even before Jussie’s attack incident,” a source told Page Six last year.

According to insiders, one major clash between the two centered around R. Kelly. Daniels’ allegedly wanted the disgraced musician to write songs for Jussie’s character, but the actor put his foot down due to Kelly’s reputation in the industry.

Jussie reportedly went to Fox executives on the regular to complain about the director. “It was things like that that did not sit well with Lee,” their source added. “He [was frustrated by] Jussie because he was constantly going over his head to Fox about their creative differences.”

Jussie is currently on the stand after police accused him of staging his own hate crime to get attention. The actor tells a different story, claiming he was attacked by two masked men wearing MAGA hats who put a noose around his neck and beat him up on January 29, 2019.