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Published by BANG Showbiz English Tilda Swinton’s inner “film geek” relished the chance to work with George Miller. The Scottish star appears in the 77-year-old filmmaker’s latest movie, ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ – in which she plays lonely academic Dr. Alithea Binnea, who meets an ancient Djinn (Idris Elba) and learns his life story, which spans three millennia – and she found being directed by the ‘Max Max’ helmsman as close an experience to working with the late Alfred Hitchcock as possible. She said: “I had a moment one day when I thought, ‘I never got to work with Hitchcock but I got to work with George Miller.’ “The film geek in me, on the set, seeing the way he tells the story of every shot through working with the camera and the angles and the timing of when the camera should come off the bottle onto your reaction, all of that, that’s directing. “And that’s not ‘smash grab’ montage. It is very Hitchcockian. As Hitchcock said, ‘Let the camera tell the story and the dialogue can just let atmosphere.’ “ Tilda also compared the movie to the work of Hayao Miyazaki, who directed animated classic ‘Spirited Away’. She told Total Film magazine: “To me, I always felt like we were making a kind of live Miyazaki movie. “It’s got that slight sense to it, that feeling of it being slightly animated.” George himself added: “The Djinn is story and cinema. In my mind, he projects it in her head. What we’re seeing is what’s in her head.” The 61-year-old filmmaker relished the “geeky details” that Miller used to present a height difference between herself and Idris. George said: “When he’s really, really big, that was shot in a miniature hotel room. “You can do that – with a little iPad, little books and little tables and chairs and things like that.” Tilda added: “[In other scenes], Idris was in the room and he was Idris-sized. But there were various wonderful geeky details that went into making me capable of looking [up] that high. “At certain points, he wore very high shoes or he stood on things.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Philip Pullella ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) – Pope Francis said on Saturday that what happened at residential schools that the Roman Catholic and other Christian Churches ran to forcefully assimilate Canada’s indigenous children was genocide. The pope made the comment while flying back to Rome after a week-long trip to Canada, where he delivered a historic apology for the Church’s role in the policy. He was asked by an indigenous Canadian reporter on the plane why he did not use the word genocide during the trip, and if he would accept that members of the Church participated in genocide. “It’s true that I did not use the word because I didn’t think of it. But I described genocide. I apologised, I asked forgiveness for this activity, which was genocide,” Francis said. “I condemned this, taking children away and trying to change their culture, their minds, change their traditions, a race, an entire culture,” the pope added. Between 1881 and 1996 more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and brought to residential schools. Many children were starved, beaten and sexually abused in a system that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide”. The schools were run for the governments by religious groups, most of them Catholic priests and nuns. “Yes, genocide is a technical word but I did not use it because I did not think of it, but I described …. yes, it is a genocide, yes, yes, clearly. You can say that I said it was a genocide,” he said. Last Monday, Francis visited the town of Maskwacis, site of two former residential schools, where he apologized and called forced assimilation “evil” and a “disastrous error”. He also apologised for Christian support of the “colonizing mentality” of the times. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Frances Kerry) View the full article

Published by Reuters By James Oliphant WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican voters’ embrace of fringe and divisive candidates is jeopardizing the party’s goal of taking control of the U.S. Senate in November’s midterm elections, as well as winning key governors’ races. Far-right candidates who have echoed former President Donald Trump’s spurious stolen-election claims could win primaries in Arizona and Michigan on Tuesday, likely boosting the odds of Democratic victories in those battleground states this fall. In Arizona, polls show Trump-backed candidates Blake Masters and Kari Lake leading the Republican fields for Senate and governor, respectively. A far-right candidate, Tudor Dixon, could capture the party’s nomination for governor in Michigan. She was endorsed by Trump late on Friday. With Democratic President Joe Biden deeply unpopular among voters and an inflation-ravaged economy, political analysts and strategists say Republicans appear poised to assume control of the U.S. House of Representatives and have a strong chance of reversing Democrats’ narrow Senate majority. Taking either would allow them to kneecap Biden’s legislative agenda. The battle for the Senate has become more complicated, however. Republican nominees in competitive races in Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania are first-time candidates who have raised far less than their Democratic opponents and have struggled to broaden their appeal beyond Trump’s fervent, but narrow, base of support. Democrats, meantime, have become more energized in recent months by the Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized women’s constitutional right to abortion and the ongoing hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. With the Senate divided 50-50, Republicans need to pick up a net total of just one seat to gain control. Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst with Inside Elections in Washington, said Republicans remain favored to take the Senate, but it is no longer the slam-dunk it once appeared to be. “Republicans are certainly creating opportunities for Democrats in Senate races,” he said, “but I think it’s too early to declare that they’re snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” FiveThirtyEight, an influential political analysis website, this week declared the race for the Senate to be a “toss-up” and gave Democrats the edge. CRISIS AVERTED? Republicans may have headed off a potential tough fight to keep a seat in Missouri, which also has a primary on Tuesday. Senate candidate Eric Greitens, a former governor who has been accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, appears to be falling back in the Republican field after a party-funded super PAC blanketed the airwaves with the allegations in the hope of derailing his campaign. James Harris, a Republican political strategist in Missouri, said Greitens’ candidacy should serve as a warning to his party that it cannot take winning Congress for granted given the more galvanized Democratic electorate. “A lot has changed in the last two months,” Harris said. “So if Republicans go into Senate races with weak candidates like Eric Greitens, they’re going to be expensive races that we might lose.” One of those Senate races may well be in Arizona, where Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has amassed a large war chest while Republicans have engaged in a bitter primary. Kelly would go into a race against Masters as the favorite, according to early polls. Masters, a venture capitalist making his first political bid, has echoed Trump’s election-fraud claims and earlier this month cast doubt on the legitimacy of this year’s midterm elections. At a rally led by Trump in Arizona last week, Masters pledged to work to impeach Biden and prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top COVID-19 expert. If elected, Masters said he “would finish the work that President Trump got started.” A Reuters/Ipsos survey taken last week found 60% of the U.S. public views Trump unfavorably, with 34% viewing him favorably. Talk of election fraud is unlikely to resonate with the crucial voters who swing between both major parties in elections. That same poll found that 45% of independent voters view the 2020 election as legitimate, while 24% believe fraud was involved and 31% didn’t have an opinion. More than 70% of voters said Trump is at least partly responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. GOVERNOR GAMBIT Republicans could also lose the governor’s mansion in Arizona, particularly if Lake emerges as the nominee. Lake, a former TV news anchor, has been a leading proponent of Trump’s election-fraud claims in a diversifying state that has been shifting toward Democrats and went for Biden in 2020. “I know for a fact we will no longer accept rigged elections,” she said at the rally with Trump, whom she referred to as “Superman.” Former Vice President Mike Pence recently stumped for Lake’s more mainstream opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson, in defiance of Trump. Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former top aide to Senator Marco Rubio, said Republicans want the election to be a referendum on Biden and his handling of the economy. “Candidates that don’t come off as qualified or say things that turn off independent voters have a tough time getting across the finish line even in a very favorable environment,” Conant said. In Michigan, all the leading Republican candidates for governor have said the 2020 election was riddled with fraud. After a tumultuous race to take on Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, once considered among the nation’s most vulnerable governors, the Republican primary has come down to a slate of little-known conservatives. One of them, Ryan Kelley, was arrested last month for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. This week, a group backed by the Democratic Governors Association began running TV ads in the state attacking Dixon, a conservative media personality and self-styled “working mom of four” who has emerged as the putative favorite. The ads ostensibly aim to boost more extreme candidates such as Kelley, part of a risky Democratic strategy to elevate Republicans whom Democrats view as easier to beat in November. (Reporting by James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Moira Warburton; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Ismail Shakil OTTAWA (Reuters) – A person can be charged with sexual assault for not wearing a condom without a partner’s consent during sex, Canada’s top court ruled on Friday. The case was decided 5-4. The court was unanimous in saying Ross McKenzie Kirkpatrick must go on trial for sexual assault for not wearing a condom during sex with a woman who consented only to protected sex. It did not say whether he was guilty of those charges. Kirkpatrick was initially acquitted of the charges in British Columbia before an appeals court ordered a retrial. “Since only yes means yes and no means no, it cannot be that ‘no, not without a condom’ means ‘yes, without a condom’,” Justice Sheilah Martin wrote in the majority opinion. “Recognizing that condom use may form part of the sexual activity in question is also the only way to respect the need for a complainant’s affirmative and subjective consent to each and every sexual act, every time,” the judgment read. Kirkpatrick met a woman online and then in person for a possible sexual relationship. They had sex twice in one night in 2017, once with a condom and then again without one, though without the woman’s knowledge, according to the complaint. The complainant said she did not know that he did not use a condom the second time, and if she did, she would not have agreed to it. Under Canadian law, sexual assault requires proof of a lack of consent to a particular sexual activity in question. (Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Steve Scherer and Howard Goller) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. judge who in 2012 sentenced Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to 25 years in prison has voiced support for a deal proposed by the United States to Russia to swap him for basketball star Brittney Griner, though a federal agent involved in the case said such a trade would “belittle the rule of law.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he spoke by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and pressed the Kremlin to accept Washington’s proposal to secure the release of Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan. A source familiar with the situation has told Reuters the United States would be willing to exchange Bout, known by some as the “Merchant of Death,” for those two Americans detained in Russia. “We tried him, we convicted him, we gave him a very long sentence,” retired U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, who presided over Bout’s trial and sentencing in Manhattan federal court, told Reuters on Thursday. “But now the situation has changed and this is a trade we should make.” Scheindlin, who retired in 2019 and is now in private practice, said she likely would have given Bout a shorter sentence had there not been a mandatory minimum of 25 years. She said the risk that he will now return to arms trafficking is minimal as he likely has lost touch with his contacts during his 11 years in prison. Robert Zachariasiewicz, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who helped lead the team that arrested Bout, said the proposed deal could provide fodder to critics who argue that U.S. criminal cases against foreigners are sometimes brought for political reasons. “We don’t conduct political cases,” Zachariasiewicz, who left the DEA in 2020, said in an interview on Thursday, adding that consideration of the swap has “completely belittled the rule of law.” Zachariasiewicz said the exchange could also anger foreign law enforcement agencies that helped investigate Bout in part because the United States told them “he is such a bad actor.” The United States has said Bout supplied weapons to governments in Afghanistan, Liberia, Sudan and elsewhere. Bout was convicted for agreeing to sell weapons to U.S. informants posing as agents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Bout, arrested in a sting operation in Bangkok in 2008, is scheduled for release in 2029 from a federal prison in Marion, Illinois, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. The American proposal has prompted a debate between critics of prisoner swaps – who argue they undermine due process and encourage U.S. adversaries to arrest Americans for leverage – and others who believe the United States has little to gain by keeping Bout behind bars and should do what it can to secure the release of Griner and Whelan. Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a star of the Women’s National Basketball Association who also played professionally in Russia, was arrested on drug charges at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17 and could face up to 10 years in prison. Whelan, who holds American, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in jail in Russia after being convicted of spying. President Joe Biden’s administration in April swapped Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in the United States of drug trafficking, to secure the release of another former Marine, Trevor Reed, from Russia. Families of U.S. citizens detained abroad are stepping up efforts to pressure Biden to conduct more prisoner swaps with foreign governments to secure the release of their loved ones. Robert Appleton, a former federal prosecutor and U.N. investigator who previously investigated Bout but was not involved in the case leading to his arrest, said even though Bout may not return to crime if he is released, a swap would be “disproportionate.” “He’s not the same guy and I don’t think he immediately at least could do the same kind of harm,” said Appleton, now a partner at the law firm Olshan. “But the world hasn’t seen a bigger gun smuggler than Bout.” (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham; Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Harry Styles has reportedly signed a five film deal with Marvel Studios worth $100 million to play Eternal’s character Eros. The ex-One Director singer, 28, is said to have been in talks with executives to play Thanos’ brother, aka Starfox – the same character the singer teased at the end of ‘The Eternals’ last year. Sources in Los Angeles told The Sun on Friday night (29.07.22) the studio is optioning Harry for “as many as five projects”. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige confirmed Harry will feature in a movie alongside Eternals’ Pip the Troll at last weekend’s ComicCon in San Diego. He has also has revealed plans are already in place for two new phases of franchises and spin-offs of the comic book world. An LA film consultant told The Sun: “Harry was in Marvel’s sights for the last 18 months. “Not only is he the biggest pop star of the moment, his star is so huge it transcends just film and music. “Harry has the midas touch and will be a huge deal bringing in different demographics and showing older comic book fans his talent. “For Harry and his handlers, it was all about whether the project and the feel of the movie being right. “Following several secret calls and discussions the deal has been struck. “And the surprise is that their deals pave the way for Harry to do as many as five projects for Marvel, which could see him as Starfox for 15 years. “Feige and his team are delighted with the development. “With his two new movies out this year, the talk is that Harry will become one of Hollywood’s most in demand leading men. “And certainly for Harry the deal is enormous. Certainly the money on the table for him to appear in a Starfox solo film would be astronomical – pun intended. And of course with each film, the wages rise. “So should he keep playing the role for five projects, it is no understatement to say he could be looking at £40 million and higher for a long term run. “Nowadays leading stars in these films get profit-share percentages too, the way that these Marvel films have performed and the loyal fan base that Harry commands, we are talking about very significant income figures.” It comes after Harry’s film ‘Don’t Worry Darling’, on the set of which he found love with director Olivia Wilde, 38, will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. His romantic drama ‘My Policeman’ is set for a world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival the same month. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) -People at high risk of severe disease who have yet to get a second COVID-19 booster should not wait for next-generation, Omicron-targeted vaccines expected in the fall, five vaccine experts told Reuters. In many countries, including the United States, the BA.5 Omicron subvariant of the virus is surging, but current vaccines continue to offer protection against hospitalization for severe disease and death. And, as the virus evolves, it is not known what version will be widely circulating in the fall or whether new vaccines – expected to target BA.4/5 in the United States and BA.1 in Europe – will be a good match. “If you need a booster, get it now,” said Dr. John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, who co-wrote an editorial on the subject published on Friday. In the United States, regulators have asked Pfizer Inc with partner BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc to develop vaccine boosters that target both the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron cousins, as well as the original virus. The government on Friday said it had ordered 66 million doses of Moderna’s shot in a $1.74 billion deal. Combined with the 105 million doses already on order of Pfizer/BioNTech, the full tally is 171 million shots, which are expected in early fall. Regulators in Europe, meanwhile, have signaled that they would be willing to use whichever Omicron-based booster is available to Europe soonest, which may well be the one aimed at the BA.1 variant that drove last winter’s record surge in infections. U.S. regulators are hoping an updated vaccine that targets the original strain and an Omicron variant will offer broader protection against future variants, and believe a booster that is closest to the circulating version is valuable. Given the current surge and people’s waning immunity, experts told Reuters the best booster for those at risk is the one at hand. Only about 30% of people 50 and older who are eligible for a fourth vaccine dose have received one, and fewer than 10% of those aged 50-64, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For those under age 50 or with no major risk factors, a fourth dose has not been approved and there is little support for it among scientific experts. Moore said the evidence he has seen, including at a June U.S. Food and Drug Administration meeting and since, suggests that the benefit of a BA.4/5 booster compared to the original vaccine is “negligible” in terms of preventing infection. “The public should not regard these Omicron-based boosters as some kind of magic bullet that’s going to change the face of the pandemic and solve all their problems. It will have a marginal impact compared to the booster we currently have,” he said. ‘TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE WAITING’ Dr Eric Topol, a genomics expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California, said getting a second booster offers a survival benefit over just one booster that has been documented in five different studies. “Too many people are waiting when we have really good proof,” he said. Dr. Bob Wachter, chief of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said the evidence is increasingly clear that the longer a person has gone since their last booster, the less protection they have against infection and severe disease. “There’s a ton of COVID around, and it’s a very infectious agent,” he said. BA.5 has driven a wave of new cases globally, and now makes up nearly 82% of all U.S. coronavirus infections. Wachter is not convinced retooled BA.4/5 vaccines will be ready to roll out in two months. “It seems a bit ambitious to me, and even if they hit the timeline, it will probably go to the highest-risk groups first,” he said. “I think it’s probably three or four months away for the average person.” Pfizer told Reuters it has a few million shots of a BA.4/5 vaccine manufactured. As for the newly authorized Novavax Inc vaccine, the company has yet to seek approval for its use as a booster. Moore, who participated in the Novavax clinical trial, said while it is an excellent vaccine, the company’s boosters are unlikely to be available soon. Novavax has said it is developing a BA.4/5 booster and is aiming to have it ready by the fourth quarter. “Whatever is in the pipeline is months away,” Topol said. “This is a more virulent, more pathogenic version of the virus and being protected as best you can is smart.” (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, additional reporting by Mike Erman in Maplewood, N.J.; Editing by Caroline Humer, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed legislation banning assault-style rifles that have been used in mass shootings, sending it to the Senate where it faces likely defeat. By a mostly partisan vote of 217-213, Democrats won passage of the measure amid public anger over mass murders in which rapid-fire AR-15 rifles were used to kill and wound school children and adults engaging in day-to-day activities. “They’re easier for a teenager to get than to buy a beer,” Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett said during debate. “We’ve turned our churches, our schools, our shopping centers, our entertainment venues, almost any place into a battleground with one massacre after another,” he added. Democrats have been trying for years to renew a federal ban on the weapon, which was first imposed in 1994 and expired in 2004. The ban resulted in a significant decrease in mass shootings, according to a 2021 study by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Republicans have resisted, accusing Democrats of attacking the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which grants the right to “keep and bear arms.” Democrats have argued that is not a blanket prohibition on the control of some guns and their enhancements. Assault-style rifles are lightweight, semi-automatic weapons popular among hunters in the United States. They also are capable of causing severe damage to humans when they tear through organs, bones and muscle in rapid fire. Republican Representative Guy Reschenthaler accused Democrats of a “never-ending attack on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.” “Once again, we’re considering legislation that would do nothing more than penalize law-abiding citizens while doing absolutely nothing about the root cause of gun violence,” he said. Many Republicans say providing additional federal funding to treat mental illnesses would be a more effective way of reducing mass shootings. SHIFTING SENTIMENT With public opinion moving in favor of some new gun controls, Congress one month ago approved a bipartisan bill that Democratic President Joe Biden signed into law containing modest safety measures. It included tougher background checks before gun sales can be transacted, with a particular eye toward keeping weapons out of the hands of people convicted of domestic violence or significant crimes as juveniles. It marked the first time in three decades that Congress succeeded in passing a significant gun control bill. The most recent in a string of mass shootings with AR-15s included 10 killed and three wounded at a Buffalo, New York supermarket, 19 children and two teachers murdered at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school and seven killed at a July 4 holiday parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Democrats vowed, however, to keep pushing for additional controls. Earlier this week, House Oversight Committee Democrats questioned top executives of two U.S. gunmakers – Sturm, Ruger & Co Inc RGR.N and Daniel Defense Llc – in a hearing that centered on marketing of assault-style rifles to young men seeking to emulate soldiers on battlefields. The 100-member Senate is divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, who control the chamber because Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is its ceremonial president and has the power to break tie votes. But Senate rules require that most legislation needs the support of at least 60 senators to advance, meaning that Republicans can block a bill from even being debated. During the June push for passage of the bipartisan bill there were not enough votes among Republicans to raise the age for buying an assault rifle to 21 from 18, much less ban the weapon. (Reporting by Moira Warburton, Rose Horowitch, Makini Brice and Richard Cowan; Editing by Susan Heavey, Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool) View the full article

Published by DPA Brooks Ashmanskas as Stanley James, Neil Patrick Harris as Michael Lawson and Emerson Brooks as Billy Jackson (l to r) in episode one of Netflix’s “Uncoupled.” Sarah Shatz/Netflix/dpa With “Uncoupled,” premiering this week on Netflix, Darren Star (co-creating with “Modern Family” vet Jeffrey Richman) offers up another urban lifestyle fantasy. One can think of it as the third in a New York trilogy beginning with Star’s “Sex and the City” and “Younger,” or a tetralogy if we include the short-lived 1995 prime-time soap “Central Park West.” But let’s call it a trilogy. Like “Younger,” in which Sutton Foster played a 40-year-old woman passing for someone in her 20s, it begins with a midlife breakup. Neal Patrick Harris stars as 40-something Michael, whose partner of 17 years, Colin (Tuc Watkins), tells him he’s moving out just as they’re about to enter the elaborate surprise party Michael has arranged for him. (Colin is turning 50; this is a story in which all the main characters are middle-aged.) Michael will spend the remainder of the eight-episode first season obsessing, trying to move on, obsessing some more, falling flat on his face (literally, in a nice bit of slapstick) and getting up again. (There is also a choice bit of him going downhill on skis, backwards.) Michael is a high-end residential real estate broker; the mighty Tisha Campbell plays his friend and business partner, Suzanne. (His other significant friends are art dealer Stanley, played by Brooks Ashmanskas, and TV weatherman Billy, played by Emerson Brooks.) The properties they deal with tend to be modern and charmless, in a way that spells money. (You are probably meant to find them impressive.) The interpolated shots of the city favour new glass towers over venerable landmarks. “I feel like I’m in one of those 1930s movies where the Depression is happening outside, but up here it’s just Fred Astaire and cocktails and soirees,” Michael says, viewing the apartment of Claire (Marcia Gay Harden), whose recent abandonment mirrors Michael’s. Yet this is true of nearly the entire series, if not the whole of Star’s oeuvre, in which even the bohemians are glamorous. His Manhattan, here a place of terraced penthouses, fancy restaurants and exclusive clubs, is scrubbed clean of the least sign of poverty or even middle-class life – as does seem to be the actual plan in a place where the average rent recently reached $5,000. (“I remember Hell’s Kitchen when you couldn’t walk west of 9th Avenue without getting knifed,” says Stanley. “Now it’s Chelsea, with better gays.”) Everyone here is well-off, though some are more fabulously wealthy than others. We are to understand Michael, who works on commission and is constantly hustling, as a kind of working stiff; still, when we see him walking out of an ordinary drugstore and into a “meet cute,” it feels for an instant as if we’ve entered a different series, and one we might like to stay in a little longer. As is common in Star’s shows (also including “Emily in Paris”), characters often find themselves meeting at private parties and exclusive events – an art opening, a roller disco fundraiser, a Central Park fundraiser, a celebration of the city’s most eligible men, a bris, a wedding, a poker game. And of course that exposition-rich opening surprise party, which includes a performance by Tony-winning composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (“Hairspray”). Inevitably, it will be suggested that the cure for lost love is sex – that is the custom in television – and thus we are treated to the 100th iteration of the “first time on a dating app” scenario. There is a lot of penis talk. But the explicit message is that sex is only sex; human connection, whether friendship or durable romantic love, is what matters. The lovelorn Stanley (“You do not want to be gay and single in this town at our age – you’re invisible”) and sexual butterfly Billy (“I think it gets better with age – the number of young guys who want to hook up with an older man is ridiculous”) put a dialectical frame around Michael, who is far from invisible but is not exactly on the prowl. His (comparatively) older-generation conservatism and his own proper nature keep him from diving headlong into hooking up, though he does wade in a little – and so, while there is sex, there is also refused or interrupted sex. (And because it’s funnier that way, one would hazard.) His wanting something more is what keeps “Uncoupled” a sweet, grown-up entertainment. Harris fits the part so well that one would imagine it was written for him. He retains some of his Doogie Howser boyishness, but he’s attractively weathered – the worry furrows in his brow serve the part admirably – and this accords with Michael’s middle-aged naïveté. (He’s buff, though, as is every man with whom he hooks up or almost hooks up; indeed, apart from the soft-edged Ashmanskas and the lithe André de Shields as Michael’s neighbour, the actually elderly Jack, buffness is practically taken for granted.) Still, this is not a one-man show. If not exactly a “Sex and the City”-style ensemble piece, given that the emotional focus is mainly on Michael, Billy and Stanley and especially Suzanne do get some individual storylines, and Claire becomes a more interesting character as she emerges as something like a new, needy friend. The supporting cast is strong. As Stanley, the Tony-nominated Ashmanskas makes a deep impression doing nothing in the least flamboyant; De Shields has the season’s most moving monologue and Campbell its best-delivered laugh line, “I know you’re mad, honey, but we’re going to need that stapler.” (You’ll have to watch for context.) As a straightforward romantic sitcom centred on gay men, “Uncoupled” is still a rarity for television, even for Star, who has been out forever – though that has more to do with the historical temerity of Hollywood than it does with the creator. Star has made a point of noting the story could be anyone’s, which is true enough and good business, even as there are plenty of references that are specific to the community – as when, confronted with a younger man who doesn’t want to wear a condom and has never heard of the AIDS quilt, Michael wails, “Oh my God, you millennials. Don’t you know where we came from, where you got your freedoms? Don’t you know what people like me — well not me, a little bit older, but I’ve seen ‘Angels’ – don’t you know what we sacrificed for you?” It’s that combination of specificity and universality that makes “Uncoupled” feel at once kind of radical and quite relatable. How to watch: Premieres on Netflix on July 29 View the full article

Published by AlterNet By Brandon Gage United States Congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) on Thursday lobbed homophobic attacks on LGBTQ+ people and hocked her reelection campaign’s monkeypox swag to her podcast audience. Greene’s monkeypox T-shirts feature monkey emojis emblazoned over text that reads: “SEE NO MONKEYPOX, HEAR NO MONKEYPOX, SPEAK NO MONKEYPOX.” They first appeared in early June. The virus is spread through close physical contact and infected surfaces and has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. While the first cases appeared am… Read More View the full article

Published by AlterNet By Alex Henderson The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has not only drawn vehement criticism from Democratic Party members and abortion rights activists in the United States — it has also been condemned by leaders of other major democracies, from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to French President Emmanuel Macron to Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. Even on the right, the Dobbs ruling is controversial in Europe; outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a member of the Conservative Party, has blasted the ruli… Read More View the full article

Published by DPA Syringes with Bavarian Nordic's (Imvanex / Jynneos) vaccine against monkeypox lie on a table at Klinikum rechts der Isar. Sven Hoppe/dpa The German government should procure much larger stocks of monkeypox vaccine than currently ordered, the DAH non-governmental organization that focuses on combatting AIDS said on Friday. “We need around 1 million doses of vaccine in order to offer half a million people long-lasting protection,” DAH epidemiologist Jeremias Schmidt said. “We cannot have a situation where gay men wanting to be vaccinated are denied vaccine,” he added. The government should place orders for the vaccine as soon as possible, as purchases over the short term would be barely possible in the period ahead, Schmidt said. According to the Health Ministry, the German government has ordered 240,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine, of which 40,000 have been delivered. The remainder is to follow by the end of September. Schmidt sees this as insufficient. “We do not believe that the epidemic will be over when the doses currently available have been administered,” he said. As long as monkeypox infections were occurring, people at risk should be offered vaccination. According to the official disease control body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), 2,595 cases of monkeypox have been recorded in Germany. The authorities are recommending vaccination for certain high-risk groups along with those in close contact with infected persons. Men having sex with multiple partners are seen as being at increased risk. Schmidt estimated the number of gay and bisexual men having multiple partners at more than half a million, although not all were interested in being vaccinated. The virus could also spread to other population groups, he said. View the full article

Published by Miami Herald MIAMI — After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” law — dubbed the “don’t say gay” law by its critics — the co-owner of R House, which hosts a popular drag brunch in Miami’s Wynwood district, had no qualms speaking out against it. “Whatever is going on in Tallahassee, every weekend we will be representing our community in a positive way,” Owen Bale told the Miami Herald in April. “Doing what we do is a political statement in its own right.” Now, R House itself is under fire from the governor and under investigation by the state over a video of a partially clad drag quee… Read More View the full article

Published by Reuters By Nate Raymond (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Friday nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to become a federal appeals court judge. Biden’s latest slate of nine new judicial nominees included Julie Rikelman, an abortion rights lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights whom the president picked to serve on the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The nomination, which Republicans are likely to oppose in the narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate, came a month after the conservative-majority Supreme Court overturned Roe, which for nearly five decades had guaranteed women nationally a constitutional right to obtain abortions. Rikelman had argued against such a ruling in representing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization – Mississippi’s only abortion clinic – in challenging a Republican-backed law that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The clinic has since closed, after a near-total ban in Mississippi sprang into effect following the decision by the United States’ highest court. About half of the 50 U.S. states have banned or are expected to ban or restrict abortions following that ruling. The nomination followed criticism by Biden’s fellow Democrats about a since-abandoned plan to nominate a Republican who had defended abortion restrictions to a judgeship in Kentucky, in a deal with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Progressive advocates have been warning that the window to confirm new judicial nominees like Rikelman and others is narrowing with Nov. 8 midterm elections fast approaching – and the risk that Republicans regain control of the Senate. Rikelman is one of two new appellate court nominees by Biden. He also nominated Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Maria Araujo Kahn to the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Biden’s latest nominees continued the White House’s push to diversify the federal bench. They include Daniel Calabretta, a California state court judge nominated to become the first openly LGBT federal judge in the state’s Eastern District. Myong Joun, a state court judge in Boston, was picked to become the first Asian American man on the federal bench in Massachusetts, where Biden also nominated Julia Kobick, a deputy state solicitor in the state attorney general’s office. District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman was nominated to be a federal judge in Washington, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffery Hopkins would if confirmed by the Senate become a district court judge in Southern Ohio. Biden also nominated Araceli Martinez-Olguin of the National Immigration Law Center and Superior Court Judge Rita Lin to be federal judges in California’s Northern District. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Jonathan Oatis) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Instagram is halting their controversial revamp. The social media platform – which was known for photo sharing – is pausing it’s pivot to increased video and recommended content after an outpouring of discontent from users, including some its most famous faces, such as Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Chrissy Teigen. After they met with a wave of complaints about not seeing enough of their friends’ posts, Instagram’s parent company, Meta – which also run messaging service WhatsApp and Facebook – said they wanted to “take the time” to get the changes right. The changes were perceived as a response to the competition from the popular video-sharing, TikTok, which according to data from Sensor Tower, a digital analytics company has been downloaded more than 3 billion times internationally, which is the first app not owned and operated by Meta to reach this milestone. Adam Mosseri, the app’s boss told the Verge: “I’m glad we took a risk – if we’re not failing every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” he said. =”But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. [When] we’ve learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we’re going to work through that.” Previous to this statement, Adam released a video on social media explaining the rationale behind the changes to their feeds. Chrissy Teigen responded by claiming people “don’t wanna make videos” while sisters Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian shared “Make Instagram Instagram Again” infographics to their Instagram Stories. A Meta spokesperson told BBC News: “Based on our findings and community feedback, we’re pausing the full-screen test on Instagram so we can explore other options, and we’re temporarily decreasing the number of recommendations you see in your feed so we can improve the quality of your experience. “We recognise that changes to the app can be an adjustment, and while we believe that Instagram needs to evolve as the world changes, we want to take the time to make sure we get this right.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Nancy Lapid (Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review. Reinfections, severe outcomes may be more common with BA.5 Compared with the earlier Omicron BA.2 subvariant, currently dominant Omicron BA.5 is linked with higher odds of causing a second SARS-COV-2 infection regardless of vaccination status, a study from Portugal suggests. From late April through early June, researchers there studied 15,396 adults infected with the BA.2 variant and 12,306 infected with BA.5. Vaccines and boosters were equally effective against both sublineages, according to a report posted on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. However, 10% of BA.5 cases were reinfections, compared to 5.6% of BA.2 cases, which suggests a reduction in protection conferred by previous infection against BA.5 compared to BA.2, the researchers said. Moreover, the vaccines appeared to be less effective in reducing the risk of severe outcomes for BA.5 compared with BA.2. “Among those infected with BA.5, booster vaccination was associated with 77% and 88% reduction in risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and death, respectively, while higher risk reduction was found for BA.2 cases, with 93% and 94%, respectively,” the researchers wrote. While “COVID-19 booster vaccination still offers substantial protection against severe outcomes following BA.5 infection,” they said, their findings provide “evidence to adjust public health measures during the BA.5 surge.” Virus spike protein damages heart muscle cells The spike protein on its surface that the coronavirus uses to break into heart muscle cells also triggers a damaging attack from the immune system, according to new research. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein interacts with other proteins in cardiac myocytes to cause inflammation, researchers said on Wednesday in a presentation at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Scientific Sessions 2022. In experiments with mice hearts, comparing the effects of SARS-CoV2 spike proteins and spike proteins from a different, relatively harmless coronavirus, the researchers found that only the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein caused heart dysfunction, enlargement, and inflammation. Further, they found, in infected heart muscle cells only the SARS-CoV-2 spike interacted with so-called TLR4 proteins (Toll-like receptor-4) that recognize invaders and trigger inflammatory responses. In a deceased patient with COVID-19 inflammation, the researchers found the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and TLR4 protein in both heart muscle cells and other cell types. Both were absent in a biopsy of a healthy human heart. “That means once the heart is infected with SARS-CoV-2, it will activate the TLR4 signaling,” Zhiqiang Lin of the Masonic Medical Research Institute in Utica, New York said in a statement. “We provided direct evidence that spike protein is toxic to the heart muscle cells and narrowed down the underlying mechanism as spike protein directly inflames the heart muscle cells,” he told Reuters. “More work is being done in my lab to test whether and how spike protein kills heart muscle cells.” Omicron-targeted antibody combo nears human trials A new monoclonal antibody combination can prevent and treat Omicron infections in monkeys, researchers reported on Monday in Nature Microbiology. The antibodies, called P2G3 and P5C3, recognize specific regions of the spike protein the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to enter cells. “P5C3 alone can block all SARS-CoV-2 variants that had dominated the pandemic up to Omicron BA.2,” said Dr. Didier Trono of the Swiss Institute of Technology in Lausanne. “P2G3 then comes to the rescue as it not only can neutralize all previous SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, but it can also block BA.4 and BA.5,” he said. “P2G3 is even effective against some BA.2 or BA.4/BA.5 mutants capable of escaping (Eli Lilly’s) bebtelovimab, the only antibody approved for the clinics still displaying activity against the currently dominant BA.4/BA.5 subvariants.” In lab experiments, mutations that might make SARS-CoV-2 variants resistant to P2G3 did not allow escape from P5C3, and P5C3 escape mutants were still blocked by P2G3, Trono said. “In essence, the two antibodies cover for each other, one filling in for the lapses of the other and vice versa.” Aerium Therapeutics plans to start testing the combination in humans next month, said Trono, who is among the company’s founders. If larger trials eventually confirm its effectiveness, the P5C3/P2G3 combination will be given by injection every three-to-six months to people who are immunocompromised and do not have a strong response to COVID-19 vaccines, the company has said. Click for a Reuters Global COVID-19 Tracker https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/index.html and for a Reuters COVID-19 Vaccination Tracker https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/vaccination-rollout-and-access. (Reporting Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Moira Warburton and Rose Horowitch WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Comedian Jon Stewart, an outspoken advocate for military veterans, erupted in anger on Thursday after U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill to provide healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving abroad. “I’m used to the lies, I’m used to the hypocrisy, I’m used to the cowardice, I’m used to all of it, but I am not used to the cruelty,” Stewart told reporters outside the Senate during a news conference called by the bill’s advocates. Republicans “haven’t met a war they won’t sign up for and they haven’t met a veteran they won’t screw over,” Stewart said. The military burn pits bill, which initially passed the 100-member Senate with the support of 34 Republicans and all 50 Democrats, would expand access to health services and disability benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxic smoke from the U.S. military’s use of burn pits to dispose of waste on foreign bases until the mid-2010s. The bill will return to the floor for another vote on Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Thursday. Rare cancers and respiratory illnesses were found to have been caused by fumes from burning everything from rubber, chemical waste, ammunitions and human feces in the burn pits. A technical correction held up the legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, then Republican Pat Toomey blocked a quick procedural passage in the Senate, citing concerns with how money was appropriated in the bill. The bill, without Toomey’s amendment, came up for a final vote in the Senate late on Wednesday, and it won the support of 55 senators, five votes short of the 60 needed for passage. The vote took place after news broke that Democrats had reached an agreement on a separate bill that would allow them to pass without Republican votes a $430 billion climate and drugs bill that contained many of President Joe Biden’s priorities. At that point, many Republicans who had initially voted in favor of the bill declined to do so again. For his part, top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell blamed Schumer, Biden’s fellow Democrat, saying there was “no excuse why the Democratic Leader should continue to block Senator Toomey’s commonsense amendment.” (Reporting by Moira Warburton and Rose Horowitch; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Kelis has accused Beyonce of stealing her song. The 42-year-old pop star released the song ‘Get Along With You’ – which was written by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo – back in 2000 and claimed that samples of it appear on Beyonce’s new song ‘Energy’ from her album ‘Renaissance’ but slammed her fellow pop star as “utterly ignorant” for only giving the original songwriters credit. She wrote on Instagram: “My mind is blown too because the level of disrespect and utter ignorance of all 3 parties involved is astounding. I heard about this the same way everyone else did. Nothing is ever as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they have everyone fooled. It’s not a collab, it’s theft! It’s ridiculous!”(sic) Back in 2020, the ‘Milkshake’ hitmaker also accused Pharrel and Chad – who are also known as The Neptunes – of failing to adhere to their agreement to split the profits from her first two albums equally, and also she had been “lied to” and “tricked” by the songwriting duo. ‘ She said: “I was told we were going to split the whole thing 33/33/33, which we didn’t do. I was blatantly lied to and tricked by the Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff and just the fact that I wasn’t poor felt like enough. Their argument is: ‘Well, you signed it.’ I’m like: ‘Yeah, I signed what I was told, and I was too young and too stupid to double-check it.’ “I think if it were not for my faith, I feel like I would probably be [angry]. It’s very clear to me, especially being on a farm, that whatever you put in the ground, that is what’s going to come back to you View the full article

Published by AlterNet By David Badash Herschel Walker, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, has drawn tremendous criticism from both Democrats and Republicans alike, as the former NFL star hides from debates after hiding three of his four children. Walker is being scrutinized as Fox News tries to prop him up, after The Daily Beast recently revealed he has three other children that he has all but never publicly acknowledged. Christian Walker, who does not identify as gay but says he is attracted to men, is the only Walker child most Americans know about. On Wed… Read More View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has become a target for liberals in the last few months, is out of his lecturing role at a prestigious law school, Radar has learned. Thomas, a staunch conservative, has been a leading voice in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. He has also come under fire for his wife’s text messages with White House officials to protest the 2020 presidential election results. Thomas has also called for the high court to look at cases involving gay marriage and contraceptives. According to the George Washington University student newspaper, The Hatchet, Thomas will not teach at the law school in the fall. He has been a lecturer since 2011 and an email went out to students to inform them. Thomas taught with Greggory Maggs in the program. “Unfortunately, I am writing with some sad news: Justice Thomas has informed me that he is unavailable to co-teach the seminar this fall,” Maggs said in an email, according to The Hatchet. “I know that this is disappointing. I am very sorry.” MEGA A University spokesman told the paper that Thomas was “unavailable” to teach in the fall but will offer a seminar. The move came after 11,000 people signed a petition on Change.org to remove Thomas from teaching at the school. The petition was started after the court overturned Roe and ended federal abortion protections. It is now up to each state to decide if they will allow the procedure. The decision has led to waves of protests and a massive drop in the court’s approval. “With the recent Supreme Court decision that has stripped the right to bodily autonomy of people with wombs, and with his explicit intention to further strip the rights of queer people and remove the ability for people to practice safe sex without fear of pregnancy, it is evident that the employment of Clarence Thomas at George Washington University is completely unacceptable,” the petition read. The effort had roughly 11,500 signatures as of Thursday morning. View the full article

Published by The Detroit News LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Michigan’s current laws against discrimination based on sex includes a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation, a ruling that effectively stops businesses from denying services or employment opportunities to the gay community. The 5-2 decision written by Republican-nominated Justice Elizabeth Clement found that discrimination based on sexual orientation involves bias based on sex because the individual’s sexual orientation is “generally determined by reference to their own sex.” “For example, attraction to females in a fel… Read More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Madonna was determined to make her upcoming biopic herself because “misogynistic men” were trying to make movies about her. The 63-year-old Queen of Pop has admitted she’s been “hacking off my limbs” working on the flick about her life and career. She told Variety: “I’ve been whittling away at it, but it’s like hacking off my limbs.” It’s been reported that ‘Inventing Anna’ star Julia Garner, 28, is to play the ‘Material Girl’ hitmaker, though nothing is confirmed yet. And Madonna has spilled that she came to make the movie because she was fed up with men wanting to tell her story in a misogynistic way. She said: “I’ve had an extraordinary life, I must make an extraordinary film. “It was also a preemptive strike because a lot of people were trying to make movies about me. Mostly misogynistic men. So I put my foot in the door and said, ‘No one’s going to tell my story, but me.’” The ‘Like a Virgin’ hitmaker also ruled out selling the rights to her back catalogue like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young have done lately. She told the outlet: “Because they’re my songs. Ownership is everything isn’t it?” In 2021, Madonna released a trap version of her 1998 hit ‘Frozen’ after it went viral on TikTok, and four remixes followed. It came after the music legend announced her plans to re-release her back catalogue. She said: “I’m just looking for interesting, fun ways to rerelease my catalogue and introduce my music to a new generation.” And the ‘Vogue’ singer hinted she’s planning to head out on tour again. Madonna added: “The whole thing with ‘Frozen’ was so fun, but I woke up one day and went, ‘I’m sick of living in the past!’ I want to go on tour again, I’m a creature of the stage. That is my happy place.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign trail promise to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy as part of a battle against glaring income inequality in the United States got an unexpected boost on Wednesday. Early proposals to increase tax rates from Biden and his fellow Democrats hit a brick wall in Congress after Republicans, and some Democrats, opposed them. But a sudden reversal by West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a swing vote in the divided Senate, has given Biden’s tax agenda a new lease on life. The amount that U.S. companies contribute to tax revenue that funds roads and schools has plummeted https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-BIDEN/INVESTMENTS/xlbvgkbxlvq since the 1940s. Biden has often said in office that companies should instead pay a “fair share,” a contrast to deference to private markets begun by Republicans with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, and buoyed by rounds of tax cuts and deregulation, by both parties. The new compromise bill includes $430 billion in new spending on energy, electric vehicle tax credits and health insurance investments. It more than pays for itself by raising minimum taxes for big companies and enforcing existing tax laws, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. The bill would impose a 15% minimum tax on corporations with profits over $1 billion, raising $313 billion over a decade, they wrote. Companies could claim net operating losses and tax credits against the 15%. The U.S. corporate tax rate dropped to 21% from 35% after a 2017 tax cut pushed by then-President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, but many companies pay much less than that, and some of the largest pay no federal taxes, research groups including the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy have found. Biden proposed raising that rate to 28% last year, as part of an infrastructure spending bill, but the tax component was struck from the bill. The new Manchin-Schumer bill also aims to close the so-called carried interest loophole, long a goal of Democrats. Carried interest refers to a longstanding Wall Street tax break that let many private equity and hedge fund financiers pay the lower capital gains tax rate on much of their income, instead of the higher income tax rate paid by wage-earners. Eliminating the loophole would raise $14 billion, the senators say. Schumer said he expected the Senate to vote on the legislation next week, to “lower prescription drug prices, tackle the climate crisis with urgency and vigor, ensure the wealthiest corporations and individuals pay their fair share in taxes, and reduce the deficit.” The Manchin-Schumer measure is substantially smaller than the multi-trillion-dollar spending bill Democrats had envisioned last year. But it still represents a major advance for Biden’s policy agenda ahead of midterm elections on Nov. 8 that could determine whether Democrats retain control of Congress. It came just as Biden celebrated Senate passage of a bill aimed at boosting the U.S. semiconductor industry, another key priority of his administration, and as he struggles with low job approval ratings and ebbing support from his own party after a series of conservative Supreme Court rulings. “This bill will reduce the deficit beyond the record setting $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction we have already achieved this year, which will help fight inflation as well,” Biden said in a statement. “And we will pay for all of this by requiring big corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, with no tax increases at all for families making under $400,000 a year,” he said. (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Heather Timmons) View the full article

Published by Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday that there were no agreements yet on a possible prisoner swap involving jailed U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25 year sentence in the U.S. CNN reported on Wednesday that the White House had offered to free Bout, whose release has been sought by Russia, in return for Griner and Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran jailed in Russia on espionage charges. WNBC star Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17 after cannabis-infused vape cartridges were found in her luggage. She has pled guilty to drugs charges that carry up to a ten year prison term in Russia. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) View the full article

Published by Reuters MOSCOW (Reuters) – A former state TV journalist charged with discrediting Russia’s armed forces by protesting against Moscow’s actions in Ukraine told a court on Thursday that the charge against her was absurd. Marina Ovsyannikova defiantly repeated her protest and said she would not retract her words. “What’s going on here is absurd,” Ovsyannikova told the court. “War is horror, blood and shame.” Ovsyannikova gained international attention in March after bursting into a studio of Russian state TV, her then employer, to denounce the Ukraine war during a live news bulletin. At the time she was fined for flouting protest laws. She is now being tried over subsequent social media posts in which she wrote that those responsible for Russia’s actions in Ukraine would find themselves in the dock before an international tribunal. She faces up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces under a law passed in March, soon after President Vladimir Putin launched what he calls his “special military operation” against Ukraine. Addressing the court, Ovsyannikova said she did not understand why she was there and what she was being judged for. “Your accusations are like accusing me of spreading monkeypox,” she said. “The purpose of the trial is to intimidate all the people who oppose the war in the Russian Federation.” She described Russia as an aggressor country, saying: “The beginning of this war is the biggest crime of our government.” A lawyer for Ovsyannikova said she had the right to speak out under Article 29 of the Russian constitution which protects the right to freedom of expression. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) View the full article