RadioRob

Published by Reuters By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) – In the five months since the U.S. Department of Justice launched a task force to seize Russian oligarchs’ assets to pressure Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, prosecutors also have targeted something less tangible: Russia’s influence. Prosecutors in that period have charged five Russians with acting on the Kremlin’s behalf without registering as foreign agents, as the Justice Department broadly ramps up enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and a related law known by its code number, 951. FARA and 951 let prosecutors go after broader activity – such as lobbying or running media campaigns – than espionage statutes, which focus on agents seeking classified or military information, experts said. “The Russian playbook is so much bigger than that,” said David Aaron of law firm Perkins Coie, a former national security prosecutor. In the latest instance, federal prosecutors in Tampa, Florida, last week charged Russian national Aleksandr Ionov with 951 conspiracy for financially supporting U.S. political groups. In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Ionov – who is in Russia – called the U.S. charges “complete nonsense” and a “political decision.” The charges against the Russians come as U.S. prosecutors increasingly wield the two foreign-influence laws, which they previously used only rarely, against a variety of defendants. Since 2018, the United States has accused 52 people – including Russian, Chinese and American citizens – of violating or conspiring to violate FARA, 951 or both, according to a Reuters analysis of Justice Department statements and records from seven major district courts. In the prior six-year period, just 13 people were charged under those laws, the analysis shows. Of the 52 people, 13 have since pleaded guilty, including Maria Butina, a Russian student who in 2018 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-butina/butina-admits-being-russian-agent-pleads-guilty-in-u-s-to-conspiracy-idUSKBN1OC1AI admitted to 951 conspiracy by trying to create back channels between Moscow and Republican politicians. Others charged include Thomas Barrack – a fundraiser for former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign – who will stand trial next month on charges under 951 of illegally lobbying for the United Arab Emirates. Barrack pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors have also charged several alleged Chinese agents this year and in 2020. Some have pleaded not guilty and others are at large. The Justice Department declined to comment. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and calls its campaign in Ukraine a “special military operation.” Its embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. CONFERENCE IN YALTA, FORT IN HAWAII Section 951 was passed as part of the 1917 Espionage Act – enacted partly to combat resistance to the World War One draft – and criminalizes acting as a foreign agent without notifying the U.S. attorney general. While once mainly used against traditional espionage, cases brought in recent years have targeted lobbying and influence operations. FARA was enacted in 1938 to counter Nazi propaganda. It requires foreign lobbyists to register with the Justice Department. Prosecutors brought a handful of FARA cases in the postwar era; in recent decades, they were wary of bringing charges under an untested statute, experts said. But in 2019, a Justice Department official said at a legal conference that prosecutors would focus more on FARA in a “big shift https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-trump-lobbying-idINKCN1QO097” spurred by Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. “For national security issues, FARA has become one of the first tools out of the bag,” said Matthew Sanderson of Caplin & Drysdale. In addition to Ionov, the other Russians charged recently include Aleksandr Babakov – a Vladimir Putin-aligned Russian parliament member – and two of his staffers. They were accused in April of hiring consultants to lobby U.S. members of Congress to advance Russia’s interests. Babakov directed an unnamed U.S. associate to invite a U.S. congressman to a 2017 conference in Yalta sponsored by the U.S.-sanctioned leader of Crimea, prosecutors said. The unnamed congressman did not attend. Babakov could not be reached for comment. In March, prosecutors accused Elena Branson, a U.S.-Russian dual national, of violating 951 and FARA by receiving $170,000 in Russian state funds to organize an “I Love Russia” campaign for U.S. youth. She also lobbied Hawaiian officials not to change the name of a formerly Russian fort, prosecutors said. In an October 2021 interview with Russian state broadcaster RT after returning to Russia, Branson said she did not communicate with U.S. politicians. In a March 8 Facebook post, Russia’s embassy in Washington called the charges against Branson “unfounded.” Branson, Babakov and Ionov are believed to be in Russia. They are unlikely to be arrested by U.S. authorities, but charging fugitives sends a message to Moscow to thwart further activity, said Brandon Van Grack, a partner at Morrison Foerster and former chief of DOJ’s FARA unit. “It is a way to deter the other government – to say ‘look, we know what you’re doing here, so stop it,'” he said. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Amy Stevens and Matthew Lewis) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Nia Williams and Anna Mehler Paperny COUTTS, Alberta/TORONTO (Reuters) – In late January five friends, just a few years out of high school, piled into a rented camper van and drove 37 hours in the Canadian winter from southern Alberta to Ottawa to join anti-government protests led by a convoy of truckers. “We were worried about vaccine mandates and our freedom, and it all just going to hell,” said Ursula Allred, 22, from her small, rural hometown of Magrath. Another member of the group, Justin Martin, excitedly phoned home to say the protest — which occupied Ottawa with tractor-trailers, hot tubs, bouncy castles and scattered symbols of hate for weeks until it was broken up by police — was “the best experience, ever,” said his mother, Lynette Atwood. “They wanted their freedom back. These were young men who wanted to date, hadn’t been able to date, wanted to have a life,” she said, referring to the impact of lockdowns and restrictions imposed by provincial and federal governments to curb infections during the coronavirus pandemic. “They just felt that no one was listening.” Their excitement came to an abrupt end a few weeks later, when all five were arrested at another protest they had joined near the U.S.-Canada border in Coutts, Alberta. But the reverberations from the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests against mandatory vaccination policies had only just begun. The protests, featuring hundreds of trucks and thousands like Allred and Martin, had already paralyzed downtown Ottawa and international border crossings for more than three weeks. Copycat protests featuring trailers and trucks followed in the United States and France. At home, the protests amplified anti-government sentiment among Canadians angry at COVID-19 restrictions and, less visibly, offered a hook for anti-establishment and far-right voices to draw a bigger audience. Extremists used the convoy “as a pulpit to get their ideas across and, in that sense, it was a success,” said David Hofmann, associate professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, who has been researching extremism in Canada for about a decade. They did that directly, with talk of deposing and prosecuting the heads of Canadian government during the protests, as the convoy’s organizers declared was their goal in a “Memorandum of Understanding” leading up to the blockade. But they were also able to do that less directly, by talking up the merits of the convoy on social media and podcasts that also promoted more extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theories. They were helped by a relatively high level of sympathy for the protesters’ frustrations — which stood at 46% in one Ipsos poll in February — even if most Canadians did not agree with the convoy’s main message of opposing public health measures. Around 30% of Canadians agreed with the convoy’s message in February at the height of the protests, a number that has since shrunk to 25% in July, according to polling research firm Ekos Research Associates. “This has become a lightning rod, a magnet to kind of focus all of this insecurity, disaffection, anger which predated COVID but which has been reinforced and strengthened by COVID,” Ekos President Frank Graves said of the convoy movement. Its message has become: “You’re not alone. You’re not the only one who thinks vaccines are unnecessary… Come on out,” Graves said. Though most COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings, wearing masks and vaccine requirements have been lifted in recent months, smaller anti-government protests have continued, with some held as recently as the national holiday on July 1. ‘GATEKEEPING ELITE’ Among the most prominent to tap into sympathy for the convoy is Pierre Poilievre, the frontrunner in a leadership race for Canada’s opposition Conservative party, who dueled with rivals in a debate over who was first to support the movement. Fashioning himself as an anti-establishment force determined to free Canadians from a “gatekeeping elite,” Poilievre posted footage of himself supporting the convoy rolling into Ottawa. He promises, among other things, to take on the “state media” by defunding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the public broadcaster, and to sack the Bank of Canada governor. He has also pledged to ban federal ministers from attending the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland — a popular whipping boy for convoy participants and far-right supporters more globally. Anger against the forum has been buoyed by viral videos falsely claiming the WEF used the pandemic to put in motion a plan by “global elites” to subjugate society in a “Great Reset” – a twist on the WEF’s stated plan to identify solutions to major challenges facing the world. “The gatekeeping elites will try to destroy anyone who threatens their power,” Poilievre said on Twitter in response to criticism that he is pushing authoritarian populism. “I want to become PM to give you back control of your life & make Canada the freest country on earth,” he wrote in another post. Poilievre’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview or to questions on his support for the convoy. Ekos’s Graves says his polling shows that Canadians who support the convoy have “an authoritarian, populist outlook” and could be “the strongest force in the Canadian political landscape” because they are energized and motivated to vote. Not surprisingly, Canadian conservative politicians are trying to appeal to convoy supporters and tap into the rising populist sentiment, says Jared Wesley, political science professor at the University of Alberta. “There’s a group out there that conservative politicians want to bring back into the fold,” Wesley said. “That results in constant escalation of anti-establishment demands, that has the leading candidate for the Conservative Party promising to fire the Governor of the Bank of Canada.” SIMMERING RESENTMENT IN ALBERTA The boldness of the convoy movement — with days of honking in downtown Ottawa, border crossing blockades and the open display of a swastika and confederate flags — took many outside Canada by surprise. But those involved and people close to the protesters said it was a natural progression of frustration and disenfranchisement, especially in parts of western Canada, where resentment towards Ottawa has simmered for decades. Researchers point to a history of anti-government sentiment in largely conservative, oil-rich Alberta. The province prides itself on a frontier spirit and has long felt alienated from eastern Canada, accusing the federal government of relying on its fossil fuels without offering respect or autonomy in return. “Albertans see themselves as the people who pay for everyone else in Canada,” said Peter Smith, a researcher for the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a non-profit organization that examines hate crimes and hate groups. In Magrath and the nearby town of Raymond, where Allred’s four camper van companions lived, anti-government sentiment and worries about federal over-reach remain strong. Shortly after Allred and her friends were arrested in Coutts in February, a large black flag reading “Fuck Trudeau,” with a red maple leaf replacing the first word’s “u,” flew in a backyard along the main road into Raymond. Another house bore “Hold the Line for Freedom” painted in red across a downstairs window, while many vehicles sported Canadian flags and symbols of support for the blockades. There was widespread sympathy for Allred and her companions, who were each charged, along with five others, with possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose and mischief. They have since been released on bail. In the most serious charges related to the convoy movement, four men from southern Alberta involved in a border blockade were arrested in February and accused of conspiring to kill police officers. They remain in custody awaiting trial. Two weeks after the Coutts blockade disbanded, another protest camp remained on the side of the highway farther north in Milk River: a small encampment of trailers and a food truck in a large open field, monitored by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser parked a discreet distance away. “That is waking the country up,” said Elliot McDavid, one of the camp organizers, adding the protests had achieved their goal of forcing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act to disband them. In the Ipsos survey in February, 58% of Albertans found convoy participants’ frustration legitimate and worthy of sympathy, compared to the 46% national figure. ‘A DANGEROUS TIME’ With broad support for policies like universal healthcare and gun control, Canada has long been viewed as more moderate than its southern neighbor. But analysts say right-wing extremism has long had a home north of the U.S. border — and the “Freedom Convoy” movement and related anti-government protests against COVID-19 restrictions have given it new momentum. A 2015 study identified about 100 far-right extremist groups. The number has tripled since then, Hofmann said. Larger groups have splintered but the overall number of participants has also grown, Hofmann said. He and his colleagues have identified about 1,200 visibly active participants who have either had contact with police or the media or have been active on social media, he said. This is up from previous counts but changing methodologies make comparisons difficult, he said. One group that has drawn the attention of analysts in recent months is the Hammerskins, an offshoot of a U.S. neo-Nazi organization. It had been quiet in Canada for nearly a decade but now has a presence in cities like Hamilton, Oshawa, and the Greater Toronto Area, with members also recruiting in British Columbia, said the Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s Smith. Attempts to contact the Hammerskins for comment were unsuccessful. “The convoy was huge and significant and will be a propaganda tool for a long time,” Smith said. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino in February alluded to the link between the convoy protests and extremism, saying: “We need to be clear-eyed about the seriousness of these incidents.” He said that some of those charged had “strong ties to a far-right extreme organization,” which a source in his office said at the time referred to the Diagolon right-wing network. Patches featuring Diagolon’s flag were affixed to body armor police seized in connection with arrests at the Coutts border blockade in February. Jeremy MacKenzie, the de facto founder of Diagolon — a fictional breakaway state that has become a symbol of anti-government sentiment among right-wing Canadians — has given prominent space to the convoy on his podcast and Telegram channel. In an interview with Reuters, MacKenzie said Diagolon started as a joke and is a loose social network of “patriotic people”, rather than a political movement. He says he is being unfairly targeted by Canadian authorities. The convoy was a success for Diagolon “because it is part of their goal is to destabilize and to sow doubt, and to delegitimize the government and the state,” a federal government source familiar with the matter said in February. Another group, Veterans 4 Freedom, emerged from the protests and aims to protect anti-establishment protesters and opposes COVID-19 restrictions, said Andrew MacGillivray, a military veteran who is part of the group. “The rights and freedoms of Canadians are eroding and we are going to work to sustain lawful civic action in order to restore those fundamental rights,” MacGillivray said in an interview. “We just want to make sure that if there’s any sort of protest and counter-protest that our volunteers can help keep the peace.” The group helped organize a June 30 protest in Ottawa featuring a veteran who walked thousands of kilometers to protest vaccine mandates and who now faces a court martial for criticizing vaccine policies while in uniform. Other anti-establishment voices have also been galvanized. Outspoken Calgary pastor Artur Pawlowski, who reckons he racked up about 40 tickets for violating pandemic restrictions, was charged with inciting people to damage or obstruct essential infrastructure during a speech at the Coutts blockade. Out on bail, he told Reuters he is fighting the charges and that the convoy had “awakened” people to fight for freedom. “The truth is I have become a symbol of freedom,” he said, later adding he is considering running for office. “I would clean your swamp. That’s what I do.” His son Nathaniel Pawlowski said he worries about what will happen if people angry at government restrictions are pushed too far: “If you study history, you know this is a dangerous time.” (Editing by Deepa Babington) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Harry Styles assisted a fan with his proposal at his concert in Portugal. The ‘As It Was’ hitmaker brought his ‘Love On Tour’ jaunt to Lisbon’s Altice Arena on Sunday (31.07.22), and helped a couple get engaged during his set. Harry – who is dating 38-year-old actress-and-director, Olivia Wilde – spotted the guy in the crowd and handed him a microphone, before he began singing Elvis Presley’s classic ballad ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ with the help of the crowd. The former One Direction star, 28, could be seen watching on as the man’s partner started singing along in a clip shared on social media. He then got the ring from his wallet and asked her: “Will you marry me?” She said “yes” before screaming and sharing a sweet embrace with her new fiancé. Harry congratulated the pair before resuming the show. The ‘Watermelon Sugar’ singer is always happy to help fans with their special requests at his shows. In June, Harry helped an Italian fan come out as gay at his Wembley Stadium concert. The fan, named Matteo, was holding a sign that read: “From Ono to Wembley: Help me come out.” And the ‘My Policeman’ star was more than happy to oblige. The ‘Sign of the Times’ singer declared Matteo “officially gay my boy” as he raised a Pride flag above his head. He said: “Congratulations Matteo, you are a free man.” And it wasn’t the first time. Last October, the pop star – who has a strong LGBTQ+ following – was performing a solo gig at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, when he assisted an audience member in their request to publicly declare their sexuality. After he spotted a girl holding a sign with “Help me come out” emblazoned across it in the packed-out crowd, the ‘Kiwi’ singer threw up a rainbow pride flag and said: “Anyone particular you’d like to come out to? “Is it for yourself? When I raise this flag you’re officially out, heard that’s how it works! She’s oooout!” The previous month, Harry did a gender reveal for a pregnant fan midway through his show. View the full article

Published by Reuters JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Monkeypox outbreaks in Africa are not concentrated among gay men, unlike in other parts of the world, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa CDC said on Thursday. Outbreaks of the viral disease have been reported from 78 countries, mostly in Europe, and 98% of cases outside the countries in Africa where it is endemic have been reported in men who have sex with men, the WHO says. But in Africa, where repeated outbreaks have been documented since the 1970s, the pattern of transmission is different, the experts said. “Currently 60% of the cases that we have – the 350 – 60% are men, 40% are women,” said epidemiologist Dr Otim Patrick Ramadan, who was answering questions on monkeypox at a media briefing organised by the WHO’s regional office in Africa, and who was referring to the continent’s number of current cases. He said that more than 80% of cases in Africa were in countries where transmission had happened before, and that typically people were initially exposed to the virus through contact with animals carrying it, before passing it to household members. He added that women typically took care of sick people at home, which was one of the factors in the spread among women. Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a separate media briefing there was no evidence that transmission among gay men was a specific factor in African outbreaks. “We’ve been collecting data on monkeypox since 1970 and that particular indicator, men having sex with men, has never come up as a significant issue here in Africa,” he said. More than 18,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported worldwide in what the WHO has declared to be a global health emergency. Monkeypox spreads via close contact and tends to cause flu-like symptoms and pus-filled skin lesions. Public health agencies have stressed that although in many countries the outbreaks are concentrated among men who have sex with men, anyone can contract the virus through prolonged close contact or from particles on items such as bedding or towels. (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Alexander Winning; Editing by David Holmes) View the full article

Published by Reuters (Corrects byline) By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Mohammad Yunus Yawar ISLAMABAD/KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban on Thursday said the government had no information about al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri “entering and living” in capital city Kabul and warned the United States to never repeat an attack on Afghan soil. The United States killed Zawahiri with a missile fired from a drone while he stood on a balcony at his Kabul hideout on Sunday, U.S. officials said, in the biggest blow to the militants since U.S. Navy SEALS shot dead Osama bin Laden more than a decade ago. “The government and the leadership wasn’t aware of what is being claimed, nor any trace there,” Suhail Shaheen, the designated Taliban representative to the United Nations, who is based in Doha, said in a statement. “Investigation is underway now to find out about the veracity of the claim,” he said, adding that the results of the investigation would be shared publicly. Taliban leaders have remained largely tight-lipped about the Sunday drone strike and have not confirmed the presence or death of Zawahiri in Kabul. Referring to the drone strike, the Taliban said “if such incidents are repeated again and if the territory of Afghanistan is violated then responsibility for any consequences will be on United States.” Top Taliban leaders have been holding lengthy discussions about how to respond to the U.S. drone strike, three sources in the group said. How the Taliban react could have significant repercussions as the group seeks international legitimacy and access to billions of dollars in frozen funds, following their defeat of a U.S.-backed government a year ago. Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, was closely involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and was one of the world’s most wanted men. His death in Kabul raises questions about whether he received sanctuary from the Taliban, who had assured the United States as part of a 2020 agreement on the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces that they would not harbour other militant groups. Shaheen said the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the name the Taliban use for the country and their government – was committed to the agreement, signed in the Qatari capital, Doha. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban had “grossly violated” the agreement by hosting and sheltering Zawahiri. (This story corrects byline) (Reporting by Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Editing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel) View the full article

Published by Reuters KHIMKI, Russia (Reuters) -A Russian prosecutor demanded U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner be sentenced to nine and a half years in prison on drugs charges at a trial that is expected to end in a verdict later on Thursday. Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and a Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star, was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Feb. 17 with vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. Cannabis is illegal in Russia for both medicinal and recreational purposes. “The verdict is expected to be announced this evening,” said Griner’s lawyer Maria Blagovolina, partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Partners law firm. The cartridges threw the 31-year-old Texan athlete into the geopolitical maelstrom triggered when President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. During the most strained U.S.-Russian relations since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, U.S. President Joe Biden is under pressure to intervene on behalf of detained Americans – including Griner. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) View the full article

Published by Miami Herald MIAMI — As monkeypox stays on our minds, people turn to the internet for answers to their questions. The internet has no shortage of information, but it also has no shortage of misinformation. Much of the confusion is due to the mystery surrounding the monkeypox outbreak this year, said Dr. John Esin, medical director for the department of emergency medicine at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. In the past month, Esin has seen at least 20 confirmed cases of monkeypox. You may be wondering: How can I sift through monkeypox fact and fiction? Let us help. Is monkeypox a sexually transmitted di… Read More View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Michael K. Williams, the late actor who passed away last year from a drug overdose, was high on drugs when he met Barack Obama in 2008, Radar has learned. The startling incident was revealed in Williams’ upcoming posthumous memoir, Scenes from My Life, which he was in the process of writing when he was found dead from a fatal fentanyl, heroin and cocaine overdose in September 2021. Mega According to Williams, the incident took place in 2008 after Obama invited The Wire and Boardwalk Empire actor to meet him during a presidential campaign stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “I couldn’t even put my words together,” Williams wrote in his memoir. “I was such a mess. Obama shook my hand and I could see it in his eyes. He was like: ‘I don’t got time for this.’” “He kept it moving,” Williams continued, revealing he was on a “three-day cocaine binge” before the meeting. “I was not in my right mind. I told people I was nervous but actually I had lockjaw from too much cocaine.” Mega As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Williams was found dead in his Brooklyn, New York apartment on September 6, 2021. He was 54-years-old. The New York City Medical Examiner, who conducted the Lovecraft County star’s autopsy, found that Williams died of “acute intoxication from the effects of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.” Nearly five months after Williams’ tragic passing, in February 2022, four men were arrested and charged with narcotics conspiracy and suspected conspiracy in connection to the fentanyl-laced heroin that resulted in the actor’s fatal overdose. Prior to his passing in September, Williams was very vocal about his battle with drug addiction and the negative impact it had on both his life and his successful acting career – although he never stopped fighting the battle to get sober. Mega “I still wrestle with the demons that won’t leave me. They never go away, they just get quiet enough so I can think straight,” he wrote towards the end of Scenes from My Life.“The struggles that nearly broke me connect me with so many others. I want to tell my story not because it is unique but because it is not.” “Everyone who is left here has lived to fight another day.” View the full article

Published by Chicago Tribune CHICAGO — Chicago actor Theo Germaine debuted on screen in the Ryan Murphy Netflix series “The Politician.” Then came their role on the Chicago comedy “Work in Progress” for Showtime. Now Germaine stars alongside Kevin Bacon in the slasher film “They/Them” for Peacock, set at a LGBTQ conversion camp. The movie’s writer-director is one-time Chicago playwright John Logan and Germaine calls it an “experimental journey into a different subgenre, in the sense that it is a clear empowerment film but it’s also a horror film at the same time. It’s a scary movie that takes a lot of negative stereotypes… Read More View the full article

Published by Euronews (English) An anti-LGBTQ campaign named Fetrah is making waves on social media after it urged users to promote the idea that there are only two genders, male and female. Taken from the Arabic word for “human instinct”, Fetrah surfaced after International Pride Month in the Middle East. Its creation follows a number of political controversies particularly in Saudi Arabia where authorities announced a recall of all rainbow-colored toys and clothing for children in Riyadh for “promoting homosexuality”. Designed by three Egyptian marketing professionals who have experience creating marketing campaigns for st… Read More View the full article

Published by Raw Story By Brad Reed One-time Republican strategist Stuart Stevens on Wednesday implored Democrats to go on offense ahead of the 2022 midterm elections — and he said that his former party has given them plenty of ammunition to work with. Writing on Twitter, Stevens reacted to a tweet from CNN host Jake Tapper in which he remarked on how productive Congress has been recently in passing significant legislation despite being split at 50-50. “Between infrastructure, gun safety, CHIPs, and the PACT Act, all passed in less than a year, I can’t recall a period of so many big and substantive bipartisan accom… Read More View the full article

Published by AlterNet By Meaghan Ellis Several Republican lawmakers and presidential hopefuls have verbalized their support of former President Donald Trump’s proposed plan to make it easier to terminate workers employed with the federal government. Speaking to Axios, a number of lawmakers and Republican hopefuls weighed in with their take on the initiative. The responses indicate the significance of Trump’s influence over the political party. Regardless of whether or not he wins the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, the next Republican president may still carry out his proposed initiative — one that woul… Read More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Selena Gomez is in talks to produce a reboot of the 1980s rom-com classic ‘Working Girl’. According to Deadline, the ‘Only Murders in the Building’ star is in final negotiations to revive the 1988 Mike Nichols flick, which starred Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. The critically-acclaimed blockbuster told the tale of Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith), a secretary whose idea is stolen by her boss, only for her to steal it back by pretending she has her boss’ job. The screenplay is being adapted by Ilana Pena, who is known for her work on Disney+’s ‘Diary of a Future President’. It’s reported that the reboot could be released on Hulu. At the time of writing, there is no director attached or cast. It’s not known if the 30-year-old singer-and-actress will have a role in the film as well as producing. Selena started her career on kids TV series ‘Barney and Friends’ before starring in Disney’s ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ and she recently admitted it was “frustrating” when she later attempted to move into grown-up acting roles. She said: “I felt like it was very difficult for people to take me seriously. I have slowly pushed through that, and I’m really glad, but it was very frustrating. I felt like a joke, you know?” Selena made the move from child star after ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ ended in 2012 and one of her first breakout roles was in crime drama ‘Spring Breakers’ opposite another former Disney star Vanessa Hudgens. She has since been able to carve out a career for herself post-Disney and her most recent project is Hulu TV series ‘Only Murders In The Building’, in which she plays Mabel Mora. Selena also previously served as executive producer of the Netflix teen drama ’13 Reasons Why’. View the full article

Published by Reuters (Reuters) – Pat Cipollone, a White House counsel to former President Donald Trump, has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building, ABC News reported on Tuesday. Cipollone late last month testified by videotape before a congressional committee investigating the events of that day. ABC News, citing unnamed sources, reported that attorneys for Cipollone were expected to negotiate terms of his testimony before the grand jury. Thousands of Trump supporters breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s November 2020 victory. (Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bradley Perrett) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Jane Fonda “avoids depression through exercise”. The 84-year-old actress revealed there is a lot of depression in her family so she does everything she can to avoid it. She told Vogue.com: “I come from a long line of depressed people. One of the ways that I avoid depression is through exercise. When I move, when I walk, when I exercise, the depression lifts. That and activism are the two best anecdotes for depression as far as I’m concerned. I mean, unless you have chronic depression, which is a different thing.” Jane also revealed she finds exercise empowering and has heard similar sentiments from other women who have done her famous workouts over the years. She said: “It started off with ballet. I started there and, oh, boy, that was it. I got hooked. When I took a ballet class, my body would change. So I did ballet almost every day. Then I was making a movie with Michael Douglas, ‘The China Syndrome’. I fell toward the end of the movie, and I broke my foot. It was in a cast for a while. Within a month, I had to do a movie where I wore a bikini, ‘California Suite’. So I had to do something, and I couldn’t do ballet. So after my foot got better, my stepmother told me about a class taught by a woman named Leni Cazden at the Gilda Marx studio. After a few weeks and my foot got better, I went and took the class and it was basically the workout. Oh, my God, it had a huge impact on me. “So that’s what I was doing. Leni and I decided to do a workout studio. Then she got married and was sailing around the world. I went ahead and did it. I was just fascinated with how [people embraced it]. I mean, maybe people started doing it because they wanted to get thin, but women would say to me, ‘I don’t take insulin anymore for my diabetes,’ or, ‘I stood up to my boss for the first time because I could see the muscles in my arms’. It empowered women in very profound ways. I was really happy about that.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Gabriella Borter (Reuters) – Kansas voters on Tuesday rejected an effort to remove abortion protections from the state’s constitution, a resounding win for the abortion rights movement in the first statewide electoral test since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The amendment’s failure in the conservative state lifted Democrats’ hopes that the issue of abortion rights will draw voters to the party in November’s midterm elections even as they worry about surging inflation. The result also will prevent Kansas’ Republican-led legislature from passing severe abortion restrictions in the state, which has become a key abortion access point for America’s heartland. “This should be a real wake-up call for abortion opponents,” said Neal Allen, a political science professor at Wichita State University. “When a total ban looks like a possibility, then you’re going to get a lot of people to turn out and you’re going to lose a lot of the more moderate supporters of abortion restrictions.” Political analysts had expected the Kansas amendment to pass, given that Republicans typically turn out in greater numbers for the state’s primary elections than Democrats and independents. But Tuesday’s vote drew higher-than-expected turnout. With 98% of the vote counted, 59% of voters favored preserving abortion rights compared to nearly 41% who supported removing abortion protections from the state constitution, according to Edison Research. “This is a titanic result for Kansas politics,” said Allen. Kansas’ ballot initiative is the first of several that will ask U.S. voters to weigh in on abortion rights this year. Kentucky, California, Vermont and possibly Michigan will have abortion on the ballot this fall. The successful “vote no” campaign in Kansas could offer a blueprint to abortion rights groups looking to harness voter energy in the wake of Roe’s reversal, Allen said. U.S. President Joe Biden joined Democrats across the country in applauding the results on Tuesday. “This vote makes clear what we know: The majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions,” Biden said in a statement. A statewide survey released by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University in February showed most Kansas residents did not support a total abortion ban. Sixty percent disagreed that abortion should be completely illegal, and 50.5% said, “The Kansas government should not place any regulations on the circumstances under which women can get abortions.” Kansas Republicans had been pushing for a state constitutional amendment to eliminate abortion rights since 2019, when the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state constitution protected the right to abortion. As a result of the ruling, Kansas has maintained more lenient policies than other conservative neighbors. The state allows abortion up to 22 weeks of pregnancy with several restrictions, including a mandatory 24-hour waiting period and mandatory parental consent for minors. HIGH STAKES IN NOVEMBER Patients travel to Kansas for abortions from Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and other states that have banned the procedure almost entirely since the Supreme Court in June overturned Roe, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. A spokesperson for the Trust Women abortion clinic in Wichita said 60% of their abortion patients are from out of state. Tuesday’s referendum drew national attention and money. The Value Them Both Association, which supported the amendment, raised about $4.7 million this year, about two-thirds of that from regional Catholic dioceses, according to campaign finance data. Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the main coalition opposing the amendment, raised about $6.5 million, including more than $1 million from Planned Parenthood groups. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion group, said it spent $1.4 million to promote the amendment and canvassed 250,000 homes in Kansas. “Tonight’s loss is a huge disappointment for pro-life Kansans and Americans nationwide,” said Mallory Carroll, a spokesperson for the group. “The stakes for the pro-life movement in the upcoming midterm elections could not be higher.” (Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Cynthia Osterman) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Brad Pitt has praised Ana de Armas’ “phenomenal” Marilyn Monroe performance in ‘Blonde’. The 58-year-old actor revealed the movie was in development for 10 years with his production company Plan B but it was only when Ana was cast that they could finally move forward. He told Entertainment Tonight: “It was 10 years in the making. It wasn’t until we found Ana that we could get it across the finish line. She is phenomenal in it. That’s a tough dress to fill.” ‘Blonde’ is a fictional account of Marilyn’s life, based on the 2000 novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Along with Ana, 34, the movie also stars Bobby Cannavale, Adrien Brody, Julianne Nicholson, Xavier Samuel and Evan Williams. Although Ana has been blasted for keeing her Cuban accent to play Monroe, she insisted she wants to defy traditional casting in Hollywood. She said: “I do want to play Latina. But I don’t want to put a basket of fruit on my head every single time. So that’s my hope, that I can show that we can do anything if we’re given the time to prepare, and if we’re given just the chance, just the chance. You can do any film – ‘Blonde’ – you can do anything. The problem is that sometimes you don’t even get to the room with the director to sit down and prove yourself.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Nathan Layne (Reuters) – Pro-Trump operatives are flooding local officials with public-records requests to seek evidence for the former president’s false stolen-election claims and to gather intelligence on voting machines and voters, adding to the chaos rocking the U.S. election system. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Arizona, an election battleground state, has fielded 498 public records requests this year – 130 more than all of last year. Officials in Washoe County, Nevada, have fielded 88 public records requests, two-thirds more than in all of 2021. And the number of requests to North Carolina’s state elections board have already nearly equaled last year’s total of 229. The surge of requests is overwhelming staffs that oversee elections in some jurisdictions, fueling baseless voter-fraud allegations and raising concerns about the inadvertent release of information that could be used to hack voting systems, according to a dozen election officials interviewed by Reuters. Republican and Democratic election officials said they consider some of the requests an abuse of freedom-of-information laws meant to ensure government transparency. Records requests facing many of the country’s 8,800 election offices have become “voluminous and daunting” since the 2020 election, said Kim Wyman, head of election security at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Last year, when she left her job as Washington secretary of state, the state’s top election official, her office had a two-year backlog of records requests. “You still have a group of people in each state that believe that the election was stolen,” said Wyman, a Republican. In April, the official in Arizona’s Maricopa County in charge of responding to public records requests, Ilene Haber, assigned four of her nine staffers to pull 20,000 documents out of holding boxes, sort them for scanning, and then carefully return them to their proper place. It took four days. The staffers were filling just one of several records requests from Haystack Investigations, who had asked for chain-of-custody records for all 2.1 million ballots cast in the election. The firm says on its website that it conducts a variety of investigations for companies, law firms and individuals. The company worked on Arizona’s “forensic audit,” the examination of Trump’s defeat in the county by pro-Trump partisans that ended last year without uncovering voter fraud. The labor-intensive Haystack requests illustrate the growing challenge facing stretched election offices across the country. In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, extensive requests like the one submitted by Haystack make up about one-quarter of the total the office has received this year, said Haber, the director of communications and constituent services in the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. “The requests are getting bigger, more detailed, more burdensome, and going back even further” in time, she said. Heather Honey, who heads Pennsylvania-based Haystack, said the requests were unrelated to the firm’s work on the Arizona audit and were for her own research. “All are meaningful and contribute to specific professional research activities,” said Honey, who has sought similar election-related records in Pennsylvania. The local officials told Reuters that the surge in requests from election deniers is drowning their staffs in extra work at a time when they are struggling to recruit and retain voting administrators vital to democracy. Election workers have already endured an onslaught of death threats and harassment from Trump activists. Reuters has documented more than 900 such hostile messages since the 2020 vote. “The concern is burnout,” said Jamie Rodriguez, the interim registrar of voters in Washoe County, Nevada. “With burnout does come the potential for mistakes.” Rodriguez took over this week from the former registrar, who resigned after being targeted with death threats and other harassment. Ryan Macias, an election security consultant for CISA, likened the swarm of records request to a denial-of-service cyber-attack, in which hackers attempt to overwhelm a network with internet traffic, and said it was creating potential security risks given the stresses already weighing on election workers. “We have the attrition rate; we have people who are under threat from the community, people who are getting death threats, people who are overworked,” Macias said at a gathering of state election directors in Wisconsin on July 19. SECURITY RISKS All 50 U.S. states have freedom-of-information laws that are used routinely by journalists, advocates, academics and everyday citizens to access records on government. Such statutes aim to ensure the public has the information needed to hold their leaders accountable. Local officials told Reuters they believe in the importance of such laws and said they are trying to find creative ways to lessen the burden of the election-related requests on their staffers. Rather than ask for a bigger budget, Haber of Maricopa County said she has trained her whole team to help respond. Washoe County temporarily halts the production of documents at a certain point prior to the election, to ensure staff can focus on administering the vote, Rodriguez said. Donald Palmer, a commissioner on the federal Election Assistance Commission, told a gathering of secretaries of state on July 8 in Baton Rouge that they should help local officials more efficiently respond to the deluge of requests by, for instance, creating a “reading room” site to simultaneously respond to duplicative requests from different people. Rodriguez said most of her nine current staffers joined in 2021 or 2022 after a rash of staff departures. She is trying to limit their overtime to keep them fresh for November. But the records requests aren’t letting up. One request sought various information on the county’s election workers during the 2022 primary, including their phone number, mailing address and party affiliation. Another one was filed in late June by Robert Beadles, a businessman who moved from California to Reno in 2019 and is now leading a movement to push election-fraud theories and target politicians who don’t support his agenda. Beadles requested 38 different data sets. Beadles tells visitors to his website, operationsunlight.com, to send requests to their county clerks for a list of voters in the November 2020 election, broken down by voting method, and the total number of ballots cast for each candidate. He asks them to email the records to Shiva Ayyadurai, a leading purveyor of election fraud conspiracies. Neither Beadles nor Ayyadurai responded to emails seeking comment. As strapped government staffs struggle to keep up with the extensive inquiries, some election officials express concern about slipping up and releasing information that could compromise election security. Samuel Derheimer, director of government affairs at voting-equipment manufacturer Hart InterCivic, said his company has seen an explosion of requests from election officials for help determining when releasing certain records threatens election integrity. Public records requests sometimes target operational manuals containing security protocols that should not be released to the public, he said. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said one of the challenges is analyzing whether seemingly separate individuals or groups might be working together to piece together sensitive information about voting equipment and processes. “That’s when your antenna starts going up,” she said. “We are having to spend a lot of extra time thinking in those terms.” (Reporting by Nathan Layne; editing by Jason Szep and Brian Thevenot) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Whoopi Goldberg says pioneering actress Nichelle Nichols inspired her to appear in ‘Star Trek’. The comic, 66, added her late friend, who died at the weekend aged 89 and played lieutenant Nyota Uhura on the bridge of the show’s starship, showed her black people could make it “to the future”. Whoopi said on Monday’s (01.08.22) episode of The View: “Nichelle Nichols was a trailblazer, a heroine, and an extraordinary woman – somebody who inspired millions and millions of people, but who inspired me because I explained when I went to get my gig at ‘Star Trek’ that Nichelle was the first black person I’d ever seen who made it to the future. “She was head of communications. And this show and this woman was the one beacon that said, ‘Yes, we’ll be there.’ “And it just made me feel like that was an amazing thing. She helped propel other women to go into space. She was extraordinary and I was lucky enough to spend time with her over the years. “She was my friend. She’ll be missed.” Whoopi went on to play Guinan in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and in 2018, Nichelle recalled a time when the comedian’s agent reached out to series writer and producer Gene Roddenberry about getting her on the show. Nichelle said: “This is what Gene told me. Whoopi said, ‘It’s all Nichelle Nichols’ fault’. “Whoopi said, ‘Well, when she first came on the screen, I was nine years old. I thought she was the most beautiful thing that ever happened on television or anywhere else. And she was a black woman playing in the future and I knew we had a future’.” When Nichelle was cast in 1966 on the show it was one of the first major roles for a black woman in a US television series and among the first portrayals of a black woman in a military-style command role in any format. It later culminated in one of the first interracial on-screen kisses, between Nichelle and Admiral James T Kirk actor William Shatner. She passed away Saturday (30.07.22), with her son Kyle Johnson confirming on Sunday (31.07.22) via Instagram: “Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and passed away. “Her light however, like the ancient galaxies now being seen for the first time, will remain for us and future generations to enjoy, learn from, and draw inspiration. “Hers was a life well lived and as such a model for us all.” View the full article

Published by OK Magazine mega Donald Trump‘s family tree could have looked very different. In Jared Kushner‘s soon-to-be released book, Breaking History: A White House Memoir, the dad-of-three recounted his and now-wife Ivanka Trump‘s relationship, revealing his father-in-law used intimidation tactics of sorts to try and dissuade him from popping the question. mega After two years of dating, Kushner, 41, began discussing the proposal with the former POTUS, explaining that the blonde beauty, 40, was going to convert to his religion of Judaism. “I could feel my voice shake as I managed to say that Ivanka and I were getting more serious and that she was in the process of converting,” he writes, per a published excerpt. Trump’s response? “Well, let me ask you a question. Why does she have to convert? Why can’t you convert?” mega Kushner replied by noting it was Ivanka’s decision, to which Trump, 76, countered by proudly reminding him that NFL superstar Tom Brady still had his eyes on the model, so he better step up his game. IVANKA TRUMP SHARES SWEET PHOTO WITH LATE MOTHER IVANA TRUMP AFTER HER UNTIMELY PASSING AsOK! has shared, Kushner and the businessman weren’t on the best of terms, as when Kushner’s publication, The New York Observer, released their annual Power List, the Apprentice host didn’t even crack the top 20, ranking at No. 38. mega In 2020, Brady was asked about a potential romance between him and Ivanka, but he played down the buzz. “That was a long time ago in my life,” he told Howard Stern. “No … [we never] dated or anything like that.” In the end, Ivanka and Kushner walked down the aisle in 2009, which coincidentally, is the same year the athlete wed Gisele Bündchen. Kushner and the former White House senior advisor share daughter Arabella, 11, as well as sons Joseph, 8, and Theodore, 6. Last summer, it was reported that the parents-of-three were trying to distance themselves from the business guru. “This sounds like a rehab tour on the part of Jared and Ivanka,” said journalist Jim Acosta. “They want to rehabilitate their image somewhat, because as you and I both know, they’re just not as welcome in polite society as they once were.” View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Actor Joe Manganiellogot a surprise of a lifetime when he uncovered his family’s hidden past, including that his fifth great-grandfather was an enslaved Black man and his famous last name isn’t his surname at all, Radar has learned. The double bombshell came when the Magic Mike star, 45, was featured on PBS’ Finding Your Roots. Before the episode aired, the show’s host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., called Manganiello with the explosive news. Mega “My family and I had a betting pool of what it is, like what’s so bad that you can’t announce it on the episode?” Manganiello, who is married to Sofía Vergara, said during a TV critics meeting on Thursday. The True Blood actor was told the man he had always believed to be his paternal grandfather really wasn’t. “My grandfather was a Black man of mixed race,” said Manganiello, who is white. “That was fascinating.” The show’s research went through his family line and discovered the actor’s fifth great-grandfather was a slave who was freed before slavery was abolished in Massachusetts. Manganiello’s father was born in Boston. Mega Besides the shock about his grandfather, Gates also told him, “You are zero percent genetically related to anyone named Manganiello in the world.” Reflecting on the bombshell, Manganiello stated, “If Manganiello’s not my last name, what is?” “None of us would have guessed that if we’d had 10 years of guessing,” he said about the news. Manganiello’s paternal side wasn’t the only one who got a shakeup. The show also discovered shocking information about his mother’s side of the family. His maternal great-grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian genocide. She lost her husband and 7 of their children during World War I. She survived because she played dead after being shot, only to escape with the couple’s eighth child, who later drowned to death. Mega Manganiello was told his great-grandma was captured and met a German officer at camp, who got her pregnant. Researchers on Finding Your Roots uncovered that the actor’s mom and aunt were the children of his great-grandmother’s half-German baby. “That was a really profound moment for me,” he said. “To think that I don’t look like the other people in m family is because I look like the Germans, OK, now that makes sense,” Manganiello stated. “It’s really wild what we uncovered.” The new season of Finding Your Roots starts on January 3. Besides Manganiello, episodes will also feature Julia Roberts, Viola Davis, Carol Burnett, Danny Trejo, and more. View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Reality star-turned-convicted criminal Todd Chrisley opened up about his obsession with money, revealing his fixation got so bad that he “couldn’t tell the difference in my self-worth and my net worth.” As Radar reported, theChrisley Knows Best star and his wife, Julie Chrisley, are facing up to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and tax fraud. Julie was also hit with an additional conviction — wire fraud. Mega During a recent episode of Chrisley Confessions, Todd admitted that he got obsessed with increasing his net worth and keeping up with the Joneses. “I got lost when I couldn’t tell the difference in my self-worth and my net worth,” he said. “And the bigger my net worth became, the less I focused on my self-worth because everything was being built around that net worth. Around stuff.” Todd continued by stating he felt pressure “to keep up with everyone” around him, and began purchasing “all these cars and all these houses.” “You become a slave to the things that you thought were going to bring you peace,” the reality TV dad claimed. “So I got lost in that and for my whole life because I think I was too ignorant — and when I use the word ignorant [I mean] I [didn’t] know that I understood how to differentiate self-worth and net worth.” Mega Todd told his viewers he finally realized he wasn’t competing with those around him, he was battling himself because his “self-worth is low.” Despite the possibility of being locked behind bars for decades, the Chrisley Knows Best star claimed his relationship with Julie has never been better. “I said in my perspective it has drawn me closer to my wife. I feel like my marriage for me personally, internally, is the strongest that I’ve ever felt that it’s ever been — that’s for me, that’s how I feel,” Todd said about his 26-year marriage to Julie. Despite admitting his obsession with money, Todd continued to point the finger at someone else for the crimes. Mega According to him, an unnamed ex-employee is responsible for “so much of the stuff that has happened.” “People will get what’s coming to them, but it’s in God’s time,” Julie added. “We want to hurry it up because we’re hurting so badly that we just want to see an ounce of love from someone else because we feel like we’re hemorrhaging.” In June, RadarOnline.com obtained legal documents revealing Todd and Julie are on house arrest until their sentencing. They must also inform their probation officer of any spending over $1,000. The Chrisleys will find out their fate when the judge hands them their sentence on October 6. View the full article

Published by Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States sued Idaho on Tuesday over a state law that it says imposes a “near-absolute ban” on abortion and also sought to block the Western state from prosecuting or disciplining doctors, according to a court filing. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Idaho, seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction against the state prohibiting enforcement of the law and asked the court to rule that the state law violates federal statutes. The lawsuit also alleges the state law interferes with the United States’ pre-existing agreements with hospitals under Medicare, referring to the federal health care program for seniors. “Today, the Justice Department’s message is clear… if a patient comes into the emergency room with a medical emergency jeopardizing the patient’s life or health, the hospital must provide the treatment necessary to stabilize that patient,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Washington announcing the filing. “This includes abortion, when that is the necessary treatment,” Garland added. Tuesday’s lawsuit marks the Justice Department’s first legal battle over reproductive rights since the Supreme Court in June overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling which recognized women’s constitutional right to abortion. Idaho in March became the first state to enact a six-week abortion ban modeled on a Texas law that empowers private citizens to sue abortion providers. The law bans abortion before many women know they are pregnant and is modeled after Texas’ six-week abortion ban. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Doina Chiacu; editing by Jonathan Oatis) View the full article