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Published by Radar Online mega A man who claims to have watched Don Lemon assault his friend will be allowed to testify in court. According to court documents obtained by Radar, a New York federal judge ruled Lemon’s accuser will be allowed to call two additional witnesses to the stand. As we previously reported, Lemon is currently being sued for sexual assault by a man named Dustin Hice. In his suit, Hice claims he ran into Lemon at Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor bar in 2018. mega He claims to have noticed the newscaster at the bar and approached him. Hice says he offered to buy Lemon a drink but he declined. Moments later, Hice claims Lemon approached him aggressively and got into his face. Lemon allegedly stuck his hands down his pants and rubbed them on his genitals. Hice says Lemon took his hands out and put his fingers under Hice’s nose. The news anchor denies the incident ever happened. Recently, he even accused Hice of deleting evidence including homophobic text messages. Lemon believes the alleged victim even tried to pay off people to back up his story. His attempts to dismiss the case have been unsuccessful. The jury trial is scheduled for June. Hice plans to call two men to testify during the trial named Williams Erdman and George Gounelas. mega The latter is likely not to excite Lemon. Gounelas is a friend of Hice who was out with him on the night in question. He backed up his friend’s claim Lemon brushed him off after their first encounter at the bar. Gounelas said a few moments later Lemon came back “pretty drunk.” He said the CNN anchor got in Hice’s face and then “put his hands down his pants, inside his board shorts, grabbed his [genitals], and then came out with two fingers” and put them under his friend’s nose. The man previously said he believed Lemon could have been attempting to flirt with Hice. “I think it might have been flirting. I think Dustin was more in shock… If someone was flirting with me like that I’d say, ‘alright man I’m not gay,” Gounelas said. Lemon has yet to respond to the court’s decision. He has a bit of time to prepare before jury selection starts on June 2. As Radar previously reported, Lemon is also demanding Hice pay him$106k in sanctions for deleting the texts messages. A judge has yet to rule on the issue. mega View the full article

Published by Reuters (This Feb 25 story corrects ownership of Mid Atlantic Offshore Wind LCC in paragraph 10.) By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration’s sale of offshore wind development rights off the coasts of New York and New Jersey drew a record $4.37 billion in high bids from developers that included major European energy companies. The auction, which began on Wednesday and stretched into Friday afternoon, is the first offshore wind lease sale under U.S. President Joe Biden, who sees the expansion of the industry as a way to tackle climate change and create jobs. The administration has set a goal to install some 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030 along the nation’s coastlines and several states, including New York and New Jersey, have set ambition mandates for clean power adoption. “This week’s offshore wind sale makes one thing clear: The enthusiasm for the clean energy economy is undeniable and it’s here to stay,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The auction’s scale marks a major step forward for offshore wind power in the United States, which has lagged European nations in developing the technology. Currently, the United States has just two small offshore wind facilities, off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia, along with two additional commercial-scale projects recently approved for development. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees energy development in federal waters, offered six leases across 488,201 acres (197,568 hectares) between New York’s Long Island and New Jersey, an area known as the New York Bight. By the end of the auction, total high bids on the six blocks amounted to $4.37 billion. That is more than three times the revenue received from all U.S. offshore oil and gas lease auctions over the past five years. The top bidder was Bight Wind Holdings LLC, a joint venture between Germany’s largest power producer RWE and Britain’s National Grid, which won a single 125,964-acre parcel for $1.1 billion. Other winning bidders included Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight LLC, a fifty-fifty joint venture between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America, whose parent companies are European energy giants. Other winners included Mid Atlantic Offshore Wind LCC, which is owned by a Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners fund; OW Ocean Winds East LLC, which is a joint venture between Portugal’s EDP Renewables and France’s ENGIE; Attentive Energy LLC; and Invenergy Wind Offshore LLC, BOEM said. An offshore energy industry group, the National Ocean Industries Association, said the auction reflected optimism among offshore wind developers of strong future demand. “The record-shattering interest in the New York Bight lease sale is testament to how bright the American offshore wind outlook is and how confident developers are in the strength of the U.S. offshore wind industry as a whole,” said Erik Milito, president of NOIA. WINDFALL BOEM spokeswoman Tracey Moriarty said the revenues also marked a big win for taxpayers. “The high bids will benefit tax payers, as the money incurred will go to the U.S. Treasury,” she said. It was not immediately clear how or if the high price of the leases would impact the cost of power eventually generated by the projects. Trade group American Clean Power Association praised the record-breaking auction and said it supported BOEM’s goal to hold six more lease sales through 2024. “We challenge policymakers to provide even more certainty to this new industry, ensuring that the American people benefit from its growth and job-creating potential,” said CEO Heather Zichal. Not everyone supports offshore wind development. The Biden administration’s ambitions have stoked concerns among commercial fishermen and coastal communities about harm to their livelihoods and property values. In January, a group of New Jersey residents sued BOEM over its leasing plans for the New York Bight. The group, from the summer colony of Long Beach Island, is concerned about the aesthetic impacts of the turbines and potential lost tourism. Commercial scallop fishermen in the region are also worried that the construction of offshore projects will hurt scallop populations and complicate navigation. (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Aurora Ellis and Jonathan Oatis) View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s family members are speaking out against the controversial author and making sure to distance themselves from his views. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a bombshell article that included quotes from several of RFK Jr’s family members — many trashing him over his recent stances on the pandemic and Covid vaccines. MEGA RFK Jr. — the son of the late New York senator Robert F. Kennedy — has been vocal about his disdain for President Biden, Dr. Fauci, and the government mandates. He recently got into trouble after he suggested Anne Frank and other Jewish people fleeing for their lives in WWII had a better chance to escape death than the people today dealing with vaccine regulations At the time, Kennedy’s wife Cheryl Hines was forced to come forward and release a statement about the holocaust remarks. “My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive. The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own,” she tweeted after days of criticism over her silence. MEGA “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did,” Kenney said during a “Defeat the Mandates” rally in D.C. In his recent book, he claimed Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates worked together with Big Pharma to make money off the vaccines. Robert’s sister Kerry Kennedy told the outlet, “He’s brilliant, he’s well-read, he cares deeply, he is extremely charismatic … And then he has this. In regard to his comments invoking Anna Frank, Kerry said, “Bobby’s lies and fear-mongering yesterday were both sickening and repulsive. I strongly condemn him for his hateful rhetoric.” MEGA Sources told the outlet Kennedy’s views have caused a divide in the Kennedy family. Five of his siblings have called him out publicly in the past couple of years. RFK Jr’s brother Christopher G. Kennedy said, “I love my brother but could not disagree with him more.” Despite the backlash from his inner circle, RFK Jr. continues on with his campaign against Fauci and vaccine mandates. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Jake Spring, Andrea Januta and Gloria Dickie (Reuters) – Climate change is already disrupting billions of lives and humanity is not doing enough to limit the suffering, the United Nations climate science panel warned in a major report on Monday. Noting that nearly half the world’s population was already vulnerable to increasingly dangerous climate impacts, the report calls for drastic action on a huge scale: A third to a half of the planet needs to be conserved to ensure future food and freshwater supplies. Coastal cities need plans to keep people safe from storms and rising seas. And more. “Adaptation saves lives,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said with the report’s release. “As climate impacts worsen – and they will – scaling up investments will be essential for survival… Delay means death.” The 3,675-page report, the latest in a series by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), details the global consensus on climate science. This report, however, focuses on how nature and societies are being affected and what they can do to adapt. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine overshadowed the release of the report and drove the sole Ukrainian author to leave the proceedings to take shelter, although a government representative did attend its final approval by nearly 200 nations. British, Spanish and Egyptian officials said the report was a call to action. U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry lamented that too little has been done to adapt to climate change and said the report offered a “blueprint for action”. “Denial and delay are not strategies, they are a recipe for disaster,” Kerry said in a statement. TOUGH CHOICES On nearly all counts, the report makes clear that climate change is impacting the world far faster than scientists had anticipated. Meanwhile, countries have failed to rein in planet-warming carbon emissions, which continue to rise. “Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world’s most vulnerable on a frogmarch to destruction,” Guterres said in a video address Monday. “The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal.” While governments need to drastically curb their emissions to prevent runaway global warming, they can also work to limit suffering by adapting to the conditions of a warmer world, the report says. That will take a lot of money – to finance new technologies and institutional support. Cities can invest in cooling areas to help people through heatwaves. Coastal communities may need new infrastructure or to relocate altogether. “The scale of transformation that we need is unprecedented in human history,” said Zinta Zommers, a report review editor with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. U.S. and European investment firms said the report was a wake up call to the huge risks climate change presents to the financial system and that most companies are not doing enough to adapt. The report predicts disruptions to economies and food production will push millions into poverty. In some cases, the report acknowledges, the costs of adapting will be too high. LIMITING WARMING The report’s release three months after global leaders met at a climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, highlighted the urgency of efforts to contain global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial temperatures. Breaching that threshold will deliver irreversible damage to the planet, it says. And every increment of warming will cause more pain. “Adaptation is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. There are limits to adaptation,” said Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and a report co-author. Limiting global warming to close to 1.5C may not prevent losses to nature, societies or economies, but will substantially reduce them, the report says. Having already warmed 1.1C, the planet is expected to hit the 1.5C threshold within two decades. “Our atmosphere today is on steroids, doped by fossil fuels. This is already leading to stronger, longer and more frequent extreme weather events,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization. Societies will fail to adjust well to a warming world if they aren’t socially inclusive in tackling the task, the report warns. Solutions need to consider social justice and include indigenous populations, minorities and the poor, it says. “It’s the poor and most marginalized who are most vulnerable” to climate change, said Timon McPhearson, an urban ecologist at The New School in New York and one of the report’s 270 authors. Losses and damage from climate-related events, such as storms or heatwaves, are already mounting. In the decade up to 2020, highly vulnerable people in places such as Africa, South Asia and South America were 15 times more likely to die from floods, droughts or storms, the report said. Hundreds of plant and animal species have disappeared at a local level, and some altogether from the planet. Australia’s Bramble Cay melomys rodent, for example, was driven to extinction by sea level rise, noted said IPCC co-author Brendan Mackey of Australia’s Griffith University. And marine heatwaves are killing off swathes of the Great Barrier Reef. For people, time is running out to make the society-wide transformations needed, the report authors warn. “There is a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future on the planet,” said Hans-Otto Portner, co-chair of the IPCC working group that generated the report. “We need to live up to this challenge.” (Reporting by Jake Spring, Gloria Dickie in London and Andrea Januta in New York; Additional reporting by David Stanway in Shanghai, William James in London, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Isla Binnie in Madrid; Editing by Katy Daigle and Alex Richardson) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Lawrence Hurley and Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared skeptical of the federal government’s authority to issue sweeping regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in a case that could undermine President Joe Biden’s plans to tackle climate change. The court, whose 6-3 conservative majority has shown wariness toward broad federal agency actions, was weighing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under the landmark Clean Air Act. Although some justices questioned the EPA’s power in an abstract sense, it remained unclear how they would rule, as lawyers representing the EPA and power companies pushed back against a decision that would prevent the agency from issuing any regulation that went “outside the fenceline” – meaning beyond restrictions on individual plants. An eventual ruling restricting the EPA’s authority could hamstring the administration’s ability to curb the power sector’s emissions – representing about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gases. The United States, behind only China in greenhouse gas emissions, is a pivotal player in efforts to combat climate change on a global basis. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito indicated that any broad assertion of authority sought by the EPA would constitute a “major question” that under court precedent requires Congress to have expressly authorized it. “You are claiming that the interpretation gives you the authority to set industrial policy and energy policy and balance such things as jobs, economic impact, the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change as well as costs,” Alito told U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing Biden’s administration. The Supreme Court is reviewing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s 2021 decision striking down Republican former President Donald Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy rule. That regulation would have imposed limits on a Clean Air Act provision called Section 111 that provides the EPA authority to regulate emissions from existing power plants. The United Nations earlier in the day released a 3,675-page report https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/un-climate-report-urges-world-adapt-now-or-suffer-later-2022-02-28 urging global action to combat climate change. Outside the Supreme Court, a small group of demonstrators carried signs reading “Protect the Clean Air Act.” The case was pursued by Republican-led states led by coal producer West Virginia. Other challengers include coal companies and coal-friendly industry groups. Coal is among the most greenhouse gas-intensive fuels. Democratic-led states and major power companies https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/us-utilities-side-with-environment-agency-supreme-court-climate-case-2022-01-27 including Consolidated Edison Inc, Exelon Corp and PG&E Corp sided with Biden’s administration, as did the Edison Electric Institute, an investor-owned utility trade group. During the argument, their lawyer Beth Brinkmann, stressed the value of flexibility that would allow for some “outside the fenceline” regulation, including authorization of emissions trading between plants. That argument seemed to draw some interest from the bench, including conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. “I don’t know how you can draw such clean distinctions,” Thomas told Yaakov Roth, a lawyer representing coal companies. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said that “inside the fenceline” regulations can be just as onerous on coal plants as a more industry-wide rule. “Reform can be very small or can be catastrophic. There are ‘inside the fence’ technological fixes that could drive the entire coal industry out of business tomorrow, and an ‘outside the fence’ rule could be very small, or it could be very large,” Kagan said. The rule proposed by Trump, a supporter of the U.S. coal industry who also questioned climate change science, was meant to supplant Democratic former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan mandating major reductions in carbon emissions from the power industry. The Supreme Court blocked https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-carbon/supreme-court-blocks-obama-carbon-emissions-plan-idUSKCN0VI2A0 Clean Power Plan implementation in 2016 without ruling on its lawfulness. Coal-aligned groups want the justices to rule that Biden’s administration cannot take a sweeping approach to regulating carbon emissions under Section 111. Such a decision would prevent the EPA from enforcing industry-wide changes, limiting it to actions targeting individual plants. That would be a blow for the administration, which wants the U.S. power sector decarbonized by 2035. If Biden’s administration loses the case, Congress would need to pass new legislation for the government to impose sweeping climate-related regulations – unlikely given congressional divisions. Prelogar said the EPA will unveil a proposed new regulation by the end of the year, which would likely come after the Supreme Court’s ruling – expected by the end of June. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Will Dunham) View the full article

Published by Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that there is no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism, after two Republican lawmakers appeared at a white nationalist conference last week. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Leslie Adler) View the full article

Published by AFP A school destroyed not far from the centre of the city of Kharkiv, which came under heavy fire from Russian troops on Monday, Ukrainian officials said. Kharkiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Russian President Vladmir Putin on Monday levelled conditions on ending Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine as Russian forces shelled the country’s second city in the face of sweeping Western sanctions. The Russian attacks on Kharkiv killed at least 11 people, Ukrainian officials said. Kyiv says more than 350 civilians, including 14 children, have been killed since the invasion began on Thursday. The United Nations said more than half a million people have fled the country. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on Monday met for the first time since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion with Ukraine demanding a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops. The talks ended with both sides agreeing to continue a second-round of negotiations “soon”. In a lengthy telephone call, Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron that “the demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine and Western recognition of Russian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula were prerequisites to ending fighting in Ukraine, the Kremlin said. “The Russian enemy is bombing residential areas of Kharkiv, where there is no critical infrastructure, where there are no positions of the armed forces,” said Oleg Sinegubov, the governor of the region that includes Kharkiv. An AFP photographer in the city inspected damage caused by fighting on Sunday, finding a destroyed school, as well as several burned out Russian infantry vehicles. Russian corpses in army fatigues could also be seen in the streets. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned what he called “the barbaric air strikes being carried out by Russia against innocent civilians, including children”. Earlier on Monday, the Russian army urged Ukrainians to leave Kyiv “freely” on one highway out ahead of what is an expected Russian offensive to capture the capital. Financial pain Long queues for groceries snaked through the streets of Kyiv on Monday after a strict 36-hour military curfew was lifted and volunteer militias learned how to make home-made explosives. “We will greet them with Molotov cocktails and bullets to the head,” bank employee Viktor Rudnichenko told AFP. “The only flowers they might get from us will be for their grave.” The Russian ruble crashed to a record low as sanctions imposed by the West over the weekend had an immediate impact in Moscow, forcing the central bank to more than double its key interest rate to 20 percent. “Ninety percent of Russians are going to rush to withdraw their rubles and change them into dollars, property or even gold,” predicted 51-year-old retired soldier Edward Sysoyev, who was in line to take out cash from a Moscow bank. “It’ll be ordinary people who pay for this military bun-fight.” As Russia becomes increasingly isolated on the world stage, it faced a crucial test of support Monday as the 193 members of the UN General Assembly held an extraordinary debate on a resolution condemning Moscow’s “unprovoked armed aggression” in Ukraine. During the rare emergency special session — just the 11th the Assembly has held in the United Nations’ 77-year history — Russia defended its decision to invade as member state after member state made a plea for peace. “The fighting in Ukraine must stop,” warned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, after the session began with a minute of silence for the victims. “Enough is enough. Soldiers need to move back to their barracks. Leaders need to move to peace. Civilians must be protected.” Separately the United States said it had banned all US transactions with Russia’s central bank, while traditionally neutral Switzerland said it would adopt the same measures as the EU. The economic pain is intended to change Putin’s calculations, but the roughly 100,000 Russian troops thought to be inside Ukraine continue to move forward from positions in the north, east and south on Monday. “The Western sanctions on Russia are hard, but our country has the necessary potential to compensate the damage,” insisted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Putin, who put his nuclear forces on alert on Sunday, banned foreign currency transfers outside of Russia and ordered exporters to exchange their foreign reserves for the ruble in moves to support the currency. There were more signs of rare dissent on Monday among the usually ultra-loyal oligarchs who surround the Russian leader — in addition to anti-war demonstrations that saw an estimated 2,100 people arrested on Sunday. Russian advances “It is necessary to change the economic policy, it is necessary to end all this state capitalism,” tycoon Oleg Deripaska wrote on Telegram while criticising “fantasists” in charge. Western defence officials and the Kyiv government say Ukrainian troops have so far kept the country’s major cities out of Russian hands despite incursions in the capital and Kharkiv over the weekend. The small southern city of Berdyansk has been occupied, however, Ukrainian officials said. Moscow claimed it had “gained air superiority over the entire territory of Ukraine”, while accusing Ukrainian troops of using civilians as human shields. “You don’t conquer a country in two days,” said Olivier Kempf, a security analyst at the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank, warning against Western optimism about Russia’s slower-than-expected progress so far. “There have been difficulties, yes, that’s war. They perhaps have logistical problems, but no matter what anyone says, they are still advancing,” he told AFP. The talks on the Belarus-Ukraine border were led by Ukraine’s defence minister and Russian presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky. Kyiv had been initially reluctant to send a delegation to Belarus, given the country’s role in facilitating Russia’s attack on Ukraine by hosting troops and weaponry used for the invasion. “We agreed to keep the negotiations going,” Medinsky said at the end of the talks. Financial hit The weekend featured a momentous series of announcements from Europe, with Germany unveiling a historic change to its defence policies, and the EU saying it would buy and supply arms to Ukraine, the first such move in its history. Fresh sanctions announced over the weekend on Russia’s economy are intended to cut it off from the global financial system in the way that Iran, Venezuela or North Korea have been frozen out of international trade. The Moscow Stock Market was closed Monday to prevent an expected mass sell-off. Many Russian banks have been excluded from the SWIFT bank system, which is used to settle international trade, and the Russian central bank has seen its foreign assets held in Western countries frozen. The response from the world of sports has also been gathering steam, as Russia was expelled from the World Cup and the country’s clubs and national teams suspended from all international football competitions “until further notice”, FIFA and UEFA said. burs-adp/jm/dl View the full article

Published by DPA Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a speech to the nation at the presidential palace. -/Ukrainian President's Office via ZUMA Press Wire Service/dpa Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has again appealed to his European backers to let his country into the European Union. “We turn to the EU for immediate admission of Ukraine according to a new special procedure,” Zelensky said. “I am convinced that this is just. I am convinced that we have earned this.” In the past few days since Russia invaded Ukraine, 16 children had been killed and 45 others injured by shelling, according to the president. This information could not be independently verified. Addressing Russian soldiers in Ukraine, Zelensky said, “Just save your lives! Go!” View the full article

Published by TDPel Media A Ukraine sailorwas arrested and later released after he tried to sink his Russian boss’s luxury yacht. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 55-year-old Ukrainian sailor tried to submerge the £5m vessel at Pord Adriano in Majorca He was arrested for his actions but was released after explaining the situation to authorities. He was quoted as saying upon his release: “I don’t regret anything I’ve done and I would do it again. ” The man worked as a mechanic on the Lady Anastasia ship for roughly 10 years and said, according to local media, that the attempted sinking was an “act of revenge”… Read More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Ariana DeBose hopes she can pave the way for more queer Afro Latinas in Hollywood. The 31-year-old actress became the first openly queer woman of colour to win an individual film Screen Actors Guild Award when she scooped the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role accolade on Sunday (27.02.22) and while it is an “honour” for her to be “seen”, she hopes her victory will help other women succeed in the future. Speaking in the SAG Awards press room after her win at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar, she said: “I think it’s just indicative that the doors are opening. “It’s an honour to be seen, it’s an honour to be an Afro-Latina – an openly queer woman of colour, a dancer, a singer, and an actor. It’s indicative to me that I will not be the last, and that’s the important part. “Whatever firsts are attached to my name, they are immensely special to me, but I’m focused on the fact that if I’m the first of anything that means I won’t be the last.” Ariana also paid tribute to Rita Moreno and Chita Rivera, who previously played Anita in ‘West Side Story’, for opening doors for her too. She said: “The legacy of Anita means a great deal to me, for many different reasons. “I’m a Broadway girl at heart. We speak so frequently about Rita Moreno, as we should, she’s legendary. “But the OG Anita on stage is Chita Rivera, and I have looked up to Chita for such a long time. She [paved the] way for me on the stage for me to be able to do what I do in that facet of the industry. “So, to be able to be a part of the legacy of Anita that includes both Chita and Rita—and now Ariana— it’s really special to me. And we’re all very different types of Latinas, that’s beautiful and important too. “There’s no one way to be Latina or Hispanic. There are many beautiful ways. I think each one of us is a testament to that.” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Jessica Chastain was “completely stunned” to be named Best Actress at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on Sunday (27.02.22). The 44-year-old actress was nominated for the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for her work on ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ accolade alongside Olivia Colman (‘The Lost Daughter’), Lady Gaga (‘House of Gucci’), Jennifer Hudson (‘Respect’) and Nicole Kidman (‘Being the Ricardos’) and admitted she felt like the “luckiest person ever” when she was announced as the winner. Speaking on stage at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar, she said: “Whoa. Wow. Okay I’m really surprised. Thank you SAG-AFTRA for this, I’m completely stunned. I’m the luckiest person ever… “I wanted to be an actor my whole life, and ever since I was a kid it was the only thing I ever really thought about, and there were years of studying and auditioning and not getting jobs. And I know what that feels like and I know the loneliness of what that feels like. “And so, for those of you who are struggling and feeling unseen I just want you to keep going because you’re one job away, I promise! And the thing that really kept me going was you. It was everyone in this room and it was this community.” Jessica admitted it had been a “dream” to play evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in the movie and paid tribute to the “trailblazer”. She said: “She wrapped her arms around those who were repeatedly cast aside and she launched herself into decades of LGBTQ love. I worked on the project for 10 years, and I hope that we made her story in a way that she would be proud of.” Like many other winners, the actress touched on the situation between Ukraine and Russia. She concluded: “And I love my artistic family, and my heart is with our international family all over the world right now who is fighting for their safety and their freedom. I love you all so much, thank you very, very much.” Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role was awarded to Will Smith for his portrayal of Richard Williams in ‘King Richard’ and he gave a shout out to her alter ego’s real-life daughters, tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. He said: “That may have been one of the greatest moments of my career just now because my name was called for King Richard sitting next to Venus Williams and her sister.” Will hailed Richard a “dreamer like no one you’ve ever known” before thanking his castmates Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton. He said: “You guys are actors, so you know how sometimes your onscreen characters kind of bleed into real life. To walk you around this room tonight, to parent you on this film, to deliver you into this business has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life. “ Javier Bardem (‘Being the Ricardos’), Benedict Cumberbatch (‘The Power of the Dog’), Andrew Garfield (‘Tick, tick… BOOM!’) and Denzel Washington (‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’) were also nominated for the award. View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Josh Gad thinks Disney “didn’t go far enough” in depicting his ‘Beauty and the Beast’ character as gay. The 41-year-old actor played the part of Le Fou in the 2017 movie, but Josh regrets not making more of Disney’s first-ever “gay moment”. He told The Independent: “We didn’t go far enough to warrant accolades. “We didn’t go far enough to say, ‘Look how brave we are.’ My regret in what happened is that it became ‘Disney’s first explicitly gay moment’ and it was never intended to be that. It was never intended to be a moment that we should laud ourselves for, because frankly, I don’t think we did justice to what a real gay character in a Disney film should be.” On reflection, Josh now regrets not making more of the opportunity. The actor – whose character briefly danced with another male character in the film – said: “If we’re going to pat ourselves on the back, then damn it we should have gone further with that. “Everybody deserves an opportunity to see themselves on screen, and I don’t think we’ve done enough – and I certainly haven’t done enough to do that.” By contrast, Josh previously claimed that he felt “so proud” of the film’s “gay moment”. The Hollywood actor – who starred in the movie alongside Emma Watson, Dan Stevens and Luke Evans – explained: “Here’s what we decided, we decided that LeFou’s happy ending would be to dance with another man, [and] that became such a controversial thing apparently, even though it was three seconds of screen time. “We never put a spotlight on it, we never meant to put a spotlight on it. I think the director Bill Condon was very proud of the moment and he made some comments about being very proud of it. “[But] the movie speaks for itself, and that moment speaks for itself.” View the full article

Mackenzie Phillips brings as much perspective as anyone to a discussion about public disclosure. She was twice fired from a beloved network series; arrested in a high-profile drug bust; and told Oprah and the millions watching of the long-term incestuous sexual abuse by her father, a famous musician who helped define the 1960s sound. And those are connected. She blames that abuse for her addictions and other unhelpful strategies. All that makes this a different disclosure, one without the downside, judgement, especially in how the world has changed for queers. DAVID YONTIF: You know you’re a gay icon, right? MACKENZIE PHILLIPS: Well, I love that… on Behidn the Velvet RopeOut On Behind The Velvet Rope, Casually In the wake of all that, her casual coming out on podcast two days ago was so full of other updates we are pleased to get to break this news just about worldwide. And for those of us of a certain age it’s big news. We watched Phillips grow up on ‘One Day at A Time’, a show that treated its characters as more real, and we got invested. Sources close to Phillips confirmed their belief that it’s her first time on the record/publicly revealing that she isn’t just an LGBTQ ally but has been and will continue to operate as a queer in practice and strongly identifies her place as in the broader gay community. …and I also love that throughout my life, I have lived on both sides of the curtain. –Mackenzie PhillipsA 10+ Year Sober Survivor with channels for all that actualization Sober more than 10 years since her arrest, she’s healed the deep rifts with her siblings that formed when she spoke out about the abuse. She’s maintained her lifelong friendship with co-star Valerie Bertinelli and spends weekends playing complicated board games with her son, who is in his mid 30s. In the last decade, Hollywood called a few times with roles in “Orange Is The New Black”, “Hot In Cleveland” and the reboot of “One Day At a Time”, but she spends more time counseling addicts and managing the Breathe Life Recovery Center where she’s a parter in the business started by “Oprah’s interventionist” Brad Lamm. I’ve had boyfriends, I’ve had girlfriends. –Mackenzie Phillips “One of our most attended tracks here [at Breath Center] is the chem-sex track, which is gay men with crystal meth and sex addiction issues because those those are so entangled.” Phillips says, describing the work and another way she’s part of the bigger community. She and Lamm also host a podcast called American Recovery, embedded below. So after weathering and growing through all those issues and some of the highest profile media circuses over the last few decades she is unconcerned with what others think. She feels not need to feed anyones need for details nor help them through their discomfort. What i hear is real joy in this part of the podcast. And why not? It’s all good news. If you really can’t listen to the entire Behind the Velvet Rope discussion, the queer segment is at 1:07:00 I am neither one, nor the other. –MACKENZIE PHILLIPS Breaking it down. Parsing it out The interviewer asks, in a somewhat set-up cut, if Phillips realizes she’s a Gay Icon.(Full text below) She says she is aware of it and moves into saying she’s more than an “ally”. i really like her next silly turn of phrase, “I have lived on both sides of the curtain.” A shower? Is this about her seeing things that a woman just ain’t supposed to see… from behind a curtain? I assume it’s akin to another phrase heard recently about sometimes “jumping the fence”. Then there’s the hard proof if you didn’t get the curtain bit, the hard news of having had relationships with men and women, but you’re not getting specifics on that either. I love our gay community. –MACKENZIE PHILLIPS COMES OUT QUEER ON “BEHIND THE VELVET ROPE” podcastWrapping it up is the best statement. It’s joyful. It’s so carefully worded that it’s got to be intentional. And it’s not something any young, testing-the-waters naif would say. No one says, “I love our gay community.” And for Phillips, It’s explicit in just the way she just said she’s not going to plant any flags or swear any oaths. This sounds like an oath. Why flip flop? I’ll assign intention here and guess Mackenzie Phillips isn’t needing to put any limits on who comes to bed. She can handle it. Has and will. Coming out Super Confident But when it comes to what counts, being part of a community that is committed, she’s already there. She’s is in, knows what she’s in for, participating in the communal and mutual defense agreements that bind especially communities of diverse groups each with struggles. Ms. Phillips could have been a Karen. She could pass, and “put all that behind her” and would have had powers and privileges waiting. But no. She knows better than most folks who come out a lot earlier, without the experience to know what’s important. At that point most of us hedge. We’re scared enough about and self conscious about what others think of us, let alone that whole community. That’s why we give and hear the caveats, the fears of suffocation, the fear of pressure to conform; and they don’t know the gay community like they know themselves and so we shy away from representing it then, saying blah blah “…but i’m not into the scene”, “but i’m not going to give up my life and join the gay community”. “but i’m not that gay. I don’t like dance music.” [This post contains video, click to play] Mackenzie Reflects on the Disclosures Starting with her child actor experience, not many get their big break in a film with pressures the size of “American Graffiti”. That then led to playing Julie Cooper on the classic hit show “One Day At a Time” In the episode above — her podcast with Brad Lamm, Phillips recounts the most harrowing pivotal moment going on Oprah’s show to share the big secret she’d held until release of her autobiography — that she’d been the victim of incestuous sexual abuse by her famous musician father for many years. That disclosure drove a wedge between Mackenzie and her siblings that took the better part of a decade to put back together. She happily reports they share texts and time together all the time these days, and as you heard on the first podcast will even sing a few lines her favorite Wilson Phillips tune. Published by Radar Online Mega The once-fractured Phillips family has seemingly healed. Since 2009, One Day At A Time star Mackenzie Phillips has been on the outs with most of her siblings. It was in the fall of that year that the now-62-year-old actress released her explosive memoir, High On Arrival, in which she detailed a longterm incestuous relationship with her father, late Mamas & Pappas singer John Phillips. The allegations shocked and horrified Mackenzie’s family, including her half-sisters – actress Bijou Phillips and singer Chynna Phillips – as well as her brother-in-law/Chynna’s husband, Billy Baldwin. Revealing her truth caused her relationships to become so “strained,” she wondered whether they’d ever be able to be reconciled. Mega Stopping by the Behind The Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast, Mackenzie said she credits Oprah Winfrey with both shining a light on her book as well as helping her realize that her relationship with her father was not consensual, as she had previously and mistakenly thought. In fact, she recalled her story being initially dismissed by her siblings – until it took off. “I think that there was a thought that, ‘Oh, yeah, Mackenzie is writing a book. No one’s ever going to read it,'” she explained. “And then Oprah came into play and Simon and Schuster, a huge publishing house came into play, and I think everybody got really upset.” “And I understand that,” she made sure to note. “And had I known the distress it would’ve caused everybody on such a visceral level, I would certainly have considered doing things slightly differently. I certainly would not have decided to not tell my truth, because my truth needed to be told, but I likely would have done it slightly differently.” Mega “On the day that the book was published, the day that it hit the stands, there was a lot of unrest and distress in my family, which has over the years gotten much better,” Mackenzie revealed. “Just in case anybody was wondering, there’s a family thread,” she added joyfully. “We all text and we’re all in touch. And we spend time together whenever we can.” As a former drug addict who’s now a manager and counselor at Breathe Life Healing Centers in West Hollywood, California, Mackenzie knows that “hindsight is 20/20.” She told David she and her siblings “killed a lot of those wounds” and are “all back in love with each other, as brothers and sisters should be.” “Not only did I survive, I actually am thriving,” she added. “And so that is something that I’m proud that I have weathered the storm, but I’m 62 years old. You know, what the F to be still here. I’m quite often amazed that I’m able to even put together an elusive sentence, let alone a paragraph, let alone help run a treatment center.” Mega In addition to having pride in her mended family and commitment to recovery, Mackenzie is also proud in other ways. Seemingly revealing for the first time that she is queer, she told David, “Throughout my life, I have lived on both sides of the curtain. I’ve had boyfriends, I’ve had girlfriends, you know, throughout my life. I am neither one nor the other. I love our gay community. And yeah, I love everybody.” “Not everybody,” she quickly noted. “Almost. It’s messy.” TRANSCRIPT Of Mackenzie Phillips Coming Out on Beyond the Velvet Rope Near the end of the show the two are tossing out their favorites in pop culture. Of course we also chat Mack’s favorite Wilson Phillips Song (shout out to sister Chynna Phillips) and Van Halen (shout out to Val). A no holds bar sit down chat with the one and only Miss Mackenzie Phillips. The One Day At A Time actor is featured on a just released podcast episode of ‘Behind the Velvet Rope’. She and host David Yontef have a funny, interesting conversation for the whole hour without a moment of lag. Near the end, the two are talking favorite shows, find much common ground especially when it comes to Scandal which logically leads to the following coming out exchange: DAVID YONTIF: ” When we started you made a joke about like “allyship” and, you know… you have lots of, gay boys, like myself… and lots of women …you know….Like, you are kind of a gay icon, Mackenzie, Do you realize this? MACKENZIE PHILLIPS: Well, I love that, and I also love that I throughout my life I have lived on both sides of the curtain. I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve had girlfriends. I am neither one, nor the other. I love our gay community. MACK: You know, Breathe Life Healing Center is LGBT owned and operated. One of our most attended tracks that we have here is chem-sex track, which is gay men with chrystal meth and sex addiction issues because those those are so entangled. And so we treat a lot of gay men with crystal meth and sex issues. And yeah, I mean, I love everybody. Not everybody almost. Mackenzie Phillips and Brad Lamm are America Recovers View the full article

Published by Factinate In a way, King James I of England is lucky. His predecessor Elizabeth was one of the most powerful and infamous monarchs in history, and his successor Charles got his head chopped off. Between those two, people tend to forget about the absolute hot mess that was King James. From his dark family history to his train-wreck marriage to his infamous boy-toys, it’s about time we brought King James’s dirty secrets to light. 1. His Parents Were A MessFor James, the family drama started even before he was born. His parents were Mary, Queen of Scots , and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley…. Read More View the full article

Published by St. Louis Post-Dispatch WENTZVILLE, Mo. — A banned book again will be available to high school students here after the Wentzville School Board reversed its decision in the face of criticism and a class action lawsuit. The board voted 5-2 on Friday to rescind its earlier decision to ban Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.” The board then voted 5-1, with one member abstaining, to accept a review committee’s recommendation to retain the book, which had been challenged by a parent. “‘The Bluest Eye’ doesn’t offer anything to our children,” argued board member Sandy Garber. She had been a leading critic of the Morrison book,… Read More View the full article

The Latest Zelensky Video Zelensky video: Sizzle Reel for Dancing With Stars Finals 2006 Caption (translated) Tomorrow we will have the grand finale of the #DancingStars show. Let’s remember the best performances of the winners of the first season. In your opinion, what helped Volodymyr Zelensky and Olena Shoptenko get the title of the best dancing couple? Though frequently referred to as a “former comedian”, it’s not like Pete Davidson becoming president. In fact Volodymyr Zelensky has a law degree from the Kyiv Economic University, has accumulated broad experience . So, actually it’s more like Kim Kardashian who has one as well. But that’s where the comparisons stop. Wait, he also starred on a reality show, the Ukrainian Dancing With the Stars, but now that comparison really does stop since he did some things, danced and featured some fashion skills. Turns out he won that competition and here are the highlights TV Series: ‘Servant of the People’, Zelensky Plays a Teacher Elected President Because of a Viral Video : 2 Episodes Subtitles Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old actor who became a household name playing, in what some would call irony and others “lol 2019,” an unlikely president named Vasiliy Petrovich Goloborodko on the Ukrainian television show Servant of the People in 2015 Far from a traditional candidate, Zelensky didn’t do debates or even standard meet and greets. He set up rallies with a big circle that looked like the main ring of a circus and would dance and tell jokes. The Financial Times quoted him as explaining, “Why would there be a need for campaigning? You’re smart people, you know what to do on March 31, right?” This was not all ready for prime time either. It was quirky and described as disturbing, not to mention a serious reliance on jokes that were offensive, with many making a punchline out of a situation or wordplay degrading to women. And he was elected and, well we’re watching and seeing how suited he is to the job under pressure. Zelensky Videos: This week [This post contains video, click to play] Videos of last 3 days by Zelensky have had an impact first directly addressing the Russian people, in Russian. The other two quick ones countering misinformation, encouraging his fellow countrymen to fight, proving he’s not fled Zelensky’s selfie videos have calmed and fortified his country in these first days under Russian attack, even as Russia’s Putin has made it clear he is a primary target. The Russian leader has encouraged the Ukrainian army to overthrow his government, and has made regime change a requirement for any talks. But so far Zelensky has been posting regular messages — ‘We will not lay down our weapons’, he said, going on to rejected rumors that he had told the army to surrender and proved that he had not left the country by filming in front of a landmark. The Headlines: In Video, a Defiant President Zelensky Says, ‘We Are Here’ President Zelensky posts video as Russian troops advance ‘We are all here,’ Ukraine’s Zelensky says in video from Kyiv U.S. stands ready to evacuate Zelensky, Russia’s ‘target No. 1’ Ukraine’s Zelensky asks citizens to resist and Europe to do more – BBC “Enemy’s Marked Me No. 1 Target, Family Is No. 2″: Ukraine President — NDTV Zelensky Posts Defiant Videos From the Streets of Kyiv as Putin’s Forces Close In — Intercept Zelensky Agrees to Talks, as Putin Places Nuclear Forces on Alert — NY Times Posted last night by Zelensky’s No 2 Original post below Cheryl Hole Adele Gay Club London on Towleroad More than 100,000 rally in Berlin against Russia’s war on Ukraine More Ukraine’s government raises crypto worth $8 million in crowdfunding appeal More At war with Ukraine, Putin puts nuclear “deterrence” forces on alert More Trump condemns Russia invasion; hints again at 2024 presidential run More Jussie Smollett seeks a new trial in hate crime case More US Republican party in the long shadow of Donald Trump at key conference More Elliot Page condemns anti-trans laws in Texas More Analysis-Putin’s end-game? Split Ukraine and install ‘tame’ leadership, analysts say More Biden pick preserves Supreme Court’s even split – between Harvard and Yale More Supermodel Linda Evangelista Seen Publicly For The First Time Without Mask After Botched Surgery More China says it respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and Russia’s security concerns More Whoopi Goldberg Is ‘Untouchable’ At ‘The View,’ Peacocking Around After Ratings Dip During Two-Week Suspension More Los Angeles counts its growing homeless population More Load More View the full article

Published by DPA People march in front of the Brandenburg Gate during a demonstration under the slogan “Stop the war! Peace for Ukraine and all Europe” against the Russian attack on Ukraine. Kay Nietfeld/dpa More than a hundred thousand people took to the streets of central Berlin on Sunday to decry Russia’s war against Ukraine, far exceeding organizers’ hopes for 20,000 protesters to turn out. About an hour after the start of the demonstration at 1 pm (1200 GMT), the police put the number of participants in the low six figures. That figure was expected to rise as more anti-war demonstrators continued to pour in. People were packed on the boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column. They waved Ukrainian flags and held signs reading “Stop the war,” “Stop all trade with Putin now” and “Solidarity with Ukraine.” Authorities said coronavirus capacity limits had been reached and so the demonstration area was expanded farther into the area around the Tiergarten park. An alliance of trade unions, churches, environmental organizations and peace groups had called for the demonstration. People hold march during a demonstration under the slogan “Stop the war! Peace for Ukraine and all Europe” against the Russian attack on Ukraine. Jörg Carstensen/dpa People hold signs, flags and placards during a demonstration under the slogan “Stop the war! Peace for Ukraine and all Europe” against the Russian attack on Ukraine. Kay Nietfeld/dpa View the full article

Published by Reuters By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) – Ukraine’s government has raised almost $8 million in cryptocurrencies after posting appeals on social media for donations of bitcoin and other digital tokens, according to blockchain analysis company Elliptic. Ukraine’s official Twitter account made the appeal for cryptocurrency donations on Saturday following the country’s invasion by Russia, posting digital wallets addresses for tokens including bitcoin and ether. Ukraine’s Vice-Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov Tweeted the wallet addresses. “Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations,” wrote Fedorov, who is also minister of digital transformation. The donations came as Russian military vehicles pushed into Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv on Sunday and explosions rocked oil and gas installations on a fourth day of fighting in the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two. By 1030 GMT Sunday, the wallet addresses had received crypto worth $7.9 million across almost 11,500 donations, London-based Elliptic said. The company tracks the movement of digital coins on the blockchain, a public ledger that records crypto transactions. Ukraine’s ministry of digital transformation did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Its crypto crowdfunding appeal is unprecedented. Though some states such as El Salvador have embraced cryptocurrencies, Ukraine’s appeal for direct donations is among the first of its kind. It was not clear what Kyiv would use the funds for. Crypto donations to Ukrainian volunteer and hacking groups have also spiked since Russia launched its invasion on Thursday, Elliptic said this week. The donations to such groups, some of which have supplied equipment to government forces, grew strongly in January as Russia massed troops near Ukraine’s border ahead of its invasion. (Reporting by Tom Wilson, editing by Ed Osmond) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Maria Tsvetkova and Aleksandar Vasovic KYIV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military command to put nuclear-armed forces on high alert on Sunday as Ukrainian fighters defending the city of Kharkiv said they had repelled an attack by invading Russian troops. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that “President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable and we have to continue to stem his actions in the strongest possible way”. On the fourth day of the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two, the Ukrainian president’s office said negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow would be held at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. They would meet without preconditions, it said. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly women and children, were fleeing from the Russian assault into neighbouring countries. The capital Kyiv was still in Ukrainian government hands, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rallying his people despite Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure. But Putin, who has described the invasion as a “special military operation”, thrust an alarming new element into play on Sunday when he ordered Russia’s deterrence forces – a reference to units which include nuclear arms – onto high alert. He cited aggressive statements by NATO leaders and economic sanctions imposed by the West against Moscow. “As you can see, not only do Western countries take unfriendly measures against our country in the economic dimension – I mean the illegal sanctions that everyone knows about very well – but also the top officials of leading NATO countries allow themselves to make aggressive statements with regards to our country,” Putin said on state television. Russian soldiers and armoured vehicles rolled into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, and witnesses reported firing and explosions. But city authorities said Ukrainian fighters had repelled the attack. “Control over Kharkiv is completely ours! The armed forces, the police, and the defence forces are working, and the city is being completely cleansed of the enemy,” regional Governor Oleh Sinegubov said. Reuters was unable to immediately corroborate the information. Ukrainian forces were also holding off Russian troops advancing on Kyiv. “We have withstood and are successfully repelling enemy attacks. The fighting goes on,” Zelenskiy said in a video message from the streets of Kyiv. In other developments, Russian troops blew up a natural gas pipeline in Kharkiv before daybreak, a Ukrainian state agency said, sending a burning cloud up into the darkness. Ukraine’s Western allies ratcheted up their response to Russia’s land, sea and air invasion with an almost blanket ban on Russian airlines using European airspace. In the strongest economic sanctions yet on Moscow, the United States and Europe said on Saturday they would banish big Russian banks from the main global payments system and announced other measures aimed at limiting Moscow’s use of a $630 billion war chest of central bank reserves. (Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Aleksandar Vasovic and Natalia Zinets in Kyiv; Alan Charlish in Medyka, Poland; Fedja Grulovic in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania; and Reuters bureaus; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel and Angus MacSwan; Editing by David Clarke and Kevin Liffey) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Alexandra Ulmer ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump condemned on Saturday Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said he was praying for Ukrainians, switching tone from his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week. Trump’s remarks at the CPAC conservative gathering in Florida came hours after the United States and allies announced sweeping new sanctions that would kick some Russian banks off the main global payments systems and limit the ability of Russia’s central bank to support the rouble. Addressing an adoring crowd at an event that touts itself as the world’s largest conservative gathering, Trump used his speech to bash Democratic President Joe Biden and again hint at a possible run for president in 2024. Trump had irked some Republican party members by describing Putin’s actions in Ukraine, where cities have been pounded by Russian artillery and cruise missiles, as “genius” and “pretty savvy.” Trump expressed empathy for Ukrainians and this time praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, calling him “brave” as he stays in Kyiv, the capital. “The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling. We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine. God bless them all,” Trump said. Trump said that Putin took advantage of Biden’s being “weak” to attack Ukraine. He also linked the invasion to the U.S. 2020 presidential election, a fixation of his, again falsely saying that fraud was to blame for Biden’s victory. “As everyone understands, this horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president,” he said, to which a woman in the packed audience responded: “You are the president!” Trump has not confirmed whether he will run for president again in 2024, but has hinted at it heavily recently and did so again on Saturday. “On November 2024, they (Democrats) will find out like never before. We did it twice, and we’ll do it again. We’re going to be doing it again, a third time,” Trump said. Democratic lawyer Marc Elias tweeted that Trump’s words should trigger a “series of legal requirements related to his spend and disclosures.” Trump’s fundraising operations have raised a cash pile of more than $100 million and he is criss-crossing the country holding rallies. TRUMP BLAMES BIDEN, WORLD LEADERS Trump also cited Russia’s invasion of Georgia under George W. Bush and Crimea under Barack Obama before declaring: “I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country.” Trump did address his past praise of Putin, saying he was correct that Putin was smart because he was outfoxing world leaders and NATO. “The real problem is that our leaders are dumb, dumb. So dumb,” he said. The Democratic National Committee criticized Trump’s comments. “The defeated former president took the stage at CPAC to double down on his shameless praise for Putin,” it said in a statement. In an interview released earlier on Saturday, Biden mocked Trump’s comment that Putin was a “genius.” “I put as much stock in Trump saying that Putin is a genius than when he called himself a stable genius,” Biden said. Conservatives at the CPAC conference in Orlando, Florida, which ends on Sunday, have repeated the line that Putin decided to invade Ukraine because he knew Biden was “weak.” Republican politicians have broadly steered clear of lauding Putin, however, and hot-button domestic issues, such as mask mandates, have featured far more heavily than foreign policy. Earlier on Saturday, J.D. Vance, a Republican candidate for an Ohio U.S. Senate seat, said the American political class was fixated on the Ukraine conflict to the detriment of problems closer to home, such as record crossings at the Mexican border. “I’m sick of being told that we have to care more about people 6,000 miles away than we do people like my mom, and my grandparents, and all the kids who are affected by this crisis,” said Vance, a venture capitalist and author. (Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Susan Heavey in Washington, D.C.; Writing by David MorganEditing by Leslie Adler) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Jussie Smollett is seeking a new trial after being convicted of falsely reporting a hate crime. The 39-year-old actor was convicted of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for making false police reports, after staging a fake hate crime in 2019, but he’s now filed paperwork to get a new trial. In the 83-page document, the actor claims that his constitutional rights were violated during the case, as his legal team were blocked from actively participating in the jury selection process. In the documents – which have been obtained by NBC – his attorneys claim that the court “made numerous trial errors leading up to the trial and during the pendency of the trial”. The legal team also argue that the evidence was “insufficient and inconsistent so that no reasonable trier of fact could have found Mr. Smollett guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and thus there is evidence that the jury verdict was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence”. The document adds: “As such, the Defendant now respectfully requests that his convictions be vacated or in the alternative, that the Court grant the Defendant a new trial.” In December, the former ‘Empire’ star was found guilty on five of the six charges he faced in court. Smollett was convicted on five counts related to giving a false report to police on the day of the alleged attack. However, he was found not guilty on the sixth count of giving a false report to police at a later date, following the incident in Chicago in January 2019. The actor initially reported an alleged attack outside his apartment by two men in ski masks. Smollett claimed that he was subjected to racist and homophobic abuse. Smollett also alleged that he had an “unknown chemical substance” dumped on him and had a noose put around his neck. View the full article

Published by AFP The 75-year-old billionaire and former US president Donald Trump is due to speak on February 26, 2022, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida Orlando (AFP) – Donald Trump may have lost the last US election and be under investigation over the 2021 Capitol riot, but the former president’s dominance remains undented in the Republican party, where he is virtually unchallenged. The 75-year-old billionaire is due to speak on Saturday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida — an opportunity to gild his popularity. Even before his arrival at the hotel hosting the conference, Trump’s presence is felt in the numerous red “Make America Great Again” hats and in speeches, like that of Senator Ted Cruz, rife with taunts and attacks on figures reviled by conservatives. “Trump is so popular that whatever position he takes most Republicans feel that they have to go along with them or at least not overly criticize them,” Aubrey Jewett, political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told AFP. “Because if they do, the president is going to take political revenge.” – ‘Future of the party’ – Trump’s influence looms large as midterm legislative elections approach in November, with the political risks to Republicans who don’t fall in line implied in some of his statements. Last month, Trump suggested he might pardon those who participated in the January 6 assault on the US Capitol if he were reelected president, a provocative proposal met with little pushback from Republicans save a handful, including New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who said those who stormed the seat of US democracy to stop the certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s election win needed to be held accountable. The former president continues to insist the election was stolen, despite 50 percent of Republican voters wanting to put those accusations aside and look to the future, according to a Politico poll published earlier this month. “I think many of the Republican leaders, including a lot of campaign managers, would rather put that behind them,” Jewett said. “They don’t see it as the future of the party. They’d rather not talk about any issues that could be controversial with voters.” But Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, underscored that Trump “is still a person whose endorsement is sought after, especially in the most conservatives areas.” She added, however, that “we are increasingly seeing that some of the language and tone things don’t work as well with woman voters. And they are often the swing voters.” – DeSantis, a possible adversary? – Trump’s dominance is such that few other leading voices stand out in the party, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appearing to be the only possible exception. On Thursday, DeSantis’ CPAC speech, in which he again criticized Biden and presented himself as a defender of individual freedom against a heavy-handed federal government, was met with cheers and applause. Some of his policies in Florida, such as prohibiting Covid-19 mask mandates in schools, made him a favorite of media like Fox News. While DeSantis hasn’t said he’s aiming for the White House, he also hasn’t ruled it out even if Trump runs. A poll released this week by the University of North Florida found that among Republicans registered in the state, the governor is almost neck and neck with Trump as a favorite for president. “As a governor, DeSantis has a very good feel of the economical issues that affect local governments and local businesses,” MacManus said. “And he’s able to speak about the economy in a way more meaningful to people as the grassroot. And right now the economy is the big issue.” A possible sign of DeSantis’ growing influence, according to the New York Times, is that he’s drawn Trump’s ire by refusing to declare he won’t run for president in the 2024 election even if the former president stands. Trump, who was a key contributor to DeSantis’ rise from little-known politician to governor of Florida — a key state in presidential polls — expects loyalty. “I think that, at this point, it will be political suicide if DeSantis comes out against Trump,” said Jewett. View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Elliot Page has condemned Texas government officials for declaring that medical care for transgender youths is child abuse. The ‘Juno’ actor – who came out as transgender in December 2020 – has spoken out after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared earlier this week that hormone therapy, puberty blockers and other types of gender-affirming health care for trans youth are forms of child abuse. Texas Governor Greg Abbott added that “prompt and thorough investigations” into gender-affirming care for trans-youth would take place. In a statement to Variety, Elliot said: “I am horrified by the inhumane and downright dangerous declarations by the Texas Governor and Attorney General. “Trans youth deserve gender-affirming care and to be able to live their true, authentic selves without fear and oppression. I stand with trans youth and their families.” Gabrielle Union has also hit out at the new laws, with similar legislation being passed in Florida. She tweeted: “This is where we are. “We shot past dangerous and horrific a long time ago. The rubber has hit the road so who is standing shoulder to shoulder in this fight? Who truly gives a s*** and whose on that performative bs? Let’s see. (sic)” Prominent trans actor Jen Richards also slammed the politicians for their proposals. The ‘Better Things’ star wrote on Twitter: “Texas has declared that the kind of care recommended by every major medical and paediatric association, with decades of proof of efficacy, and provided by doctors in full cooperation with parents… is child abuse.” Richards added: “We know what the result will be. Because trans people exist, have always existed, and will always exist, it just means that trans youth will be more at risk, more vulnerable, at home and in schools. They will be kicked out or run away and suicide rates will spike.”` View the full article