RadioRob

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

Published by Reuters By Robin Emmott, Sabine Siebold and Tom Balmforth BRUSSELS/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine looks designed to take Kyiv and create a land corridor south to the Black Sea, splitting the country into two, military analysts and former officials said, echoing the view of Ukraine’s generals. President Vladimir Putin may still seek some form of control over the entire country, they said, as he strives to stop Ukraine ever joining NATO. He is also not guaranteed victory. A senior U.S. defence official said on Friday that Russia was facing more resistance than it expected, not least in its advance on Kyiv. The tactics of the advancing Russian troops point to a “flanking movement” from Ukraine’s weakest points – its northern border with Belarus, and in the south Crimea, which Russian annexed eight years ago, with its huge naval base. Such a strategy, if successful, could allow Moscow to control eastern Ukraine including its seaboard directly while reducing western Ukraine to a vassal state, and in turn reduce the financial costs of a long-term occupation, experts say. “I think that now they (the Russians) are aiming at creating a land bridge all the way to Moldova,” said Konrad Muzyka, director of the Poland-based Rochan consultancy. Russian tanks and forces began their invasion on Thursday through the eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, and from the south in Tavriya, while missile strikes and bombing from Belarus began an advance towards Kyiv from the north, according to the Ukrainian military. According to a Ukrainian defence ministry broadcast posted on Facebook on Thursday, military movements so far suggest that the Kremlin’s goal is to “block Kyiv, create a land corridor to the occupied Crimean peninsula and self-proclaimed Transnistria”. In 2014, Russia not only seized Crimea but also backed rebels who set up separatist administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk, in the largely Russian-speaking Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. It also has troops in Transnistria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province of Moldova. Joerg Forbrig, at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, said Russian troops could “try to gain control of a very large part of Ukraine, which will include those territories that would make a land corridor between the between the three territories they control already”. ‘UKRAINIANS WOULD RESIST’ Ukraine’s armed forces have so far denied Putin a rapid advance on Kyiv. “As long as the Russians don’t have control of the airspace, they won’t be able really to make their armoured thrust into Ukraine count,” said Jamie Shea, a former NATO official now at the Friends of Europe think-tank. Russian missiles pounded Kyiv on Friday. Moscow claimed to have captured the Hostomel airfield northwest of the capital, a potential staging post for an assault on Kyiv. U.S. officials believe Russia’s initial aim is to topple Ukraine’s pro-Western president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “Putin doesn’t want Donbass or Donetsk – he wants all of Ukraine, but he does not have to occupy the entire country to reach that goal. He will aim to decapitate the Ukrainian state,” said retired German general Hans-Lothar Domroese. Defence experts pointed to the huge expense for Russia of a military campaign in Ukraine, a former Soviet state of 44 million people slightly smaller than Texas. “The Soviet Union spent so much money having its troops in eastern Europe, and they were they were willing participants as communist regimes. Ukrainians would resist any Russian government,” said Elisabeth Braw at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington. It is also unclear how a protracted war with many Russian casualties would be perceived at home, even when Putin does not tolerate dissent. Police detained more than 1,800 anti-war protesters across Russia on Thursday. Putin could seek an arrangement for western Ukraine – where most people speak Ukrainian rather than Russian as their first language – similar to the one Moscow has with Belarus, where Russia has helped long-time president Alexander Lukashenko suppress opposition and dissent. Carlo Masala, professor for International Politics at Bundeswehr University Munich, said Russia had so far not tried to send troops to western Ukraine in numbers. “The Russian military build-up, no matter if it is 160,000 or 200,000 troops, is not enough to occupy Ukraine for any long period of time,” he said. “I am still sure that Putin’s main goal is seizing Donbass … and a land corridor to Crimea, splitting these areas off from Ukraine and establishing a tame government in Kyiv.” (Writing by Robin Emmott; Editing by Kevin Liffey) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Karen Sloan (Reuters) – The addition of Ketanji Brown Jackson will not change the grip that Harvard and Yale Law alumni hold on the U.S. Supreme Court. President Joe Biden on Friday nominated Jackson, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1996, to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, another Harvard Law alumnus. If she is confirmed, eight of the nine sitting justices will be from Harvard or Yale Law – four from each school. Harvard and Yale’s dominance has prompted handwringing for years. Both Representative Jim Clyburn, a Democrat, and Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said before Jackson’s nomination that Biden should pick someone without an Ivy League pedigree. “Everybody doesn’t have to be from Harvard and Yale,” Graham said last month on the CBS “Face the Nation” program. Amy Coney Barrett, a 1997 graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School, is the sole sitting justice without a law degree from Harvard or Yale. Barrett was appointed by former President Donald Trump after the 2020 death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who transferred from Harvard to Columbia in her final year of law school. University of Tennessee law professor Benjamin Barton, a Supreme Court expert, said the concentration of Harvard and Yale law graduates creates a bench that’s out of touch with the country. “It’s not a track where you get broad life experience,” he said. It is also a relatively recent phenomenon. Between 1902 and 1950, about 16% of confirmed justices came from Harvard or Yale Law, according to an analysis by Patrick Glen of Georgetown Law. That percentage steadily increased until the 1986 confirmation of Harvard Law graduate Antonin Scalia, after which only Ginsburg and Barrett joined the court without either Yale or Harvard diplomas. Glen points to the failed 2005 nomination of Harriet Miers as a possible factor. She was criticized for her law degree from much lower-ranked Southern Methodist University, among other perceived shortcomings. “A president may believe he will have an easier time selling a nominee from Harvard or Yale based on the cultural renown that both schools share,” Glen wrote. (Reporting by Karen Sloan; Editing by David Bario and Howard Goller) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Former supermodel Linda Evangelista was pictured in New York City for the first time without a face mask since her botched plastic surgery. The 56-year-old Canadian supermodel made her first brave public outing since revealing her “brutally disfigured” body after getting a cosmetic fat-freezing procedure. Evangelista was dressed in all-black loungewear with no attempt to hide her face or her appearance. The former CoverGirl was seen in Manhattan’s Chelsea Market on Wednesday — one week after her telling interview with PEOPLE. Mega The model spoke to the magazine accusing CoolSculpting, a popular FDA-approved “fat-freezing” procedure, that she says left her “permanently deformed.” Evangelista had a message to her fans saying, “To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’ careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured.” She added, “CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised.” Model Linda Evangelista ‘Brutally Disfigured,’ Shares First Photos Since Botched Plastic Surgery Mega The ’90s fashion star revealed she “stopped eating” because she feared she was losing her mind after noticing the bulges on her body post-procedure. Evangelista said she went to her doctor and had a full-body inspection to figure out what she was doing wrong — only for the doctor to diagnose her with Paradoxical Adipose Hyperplasia. She filed a lawsuit suing CoolSculpting’s parent company, Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., in September for $50 million in damages. Evangelista claims she has been unable to work since the procedures so she underwent liposuction in an attempt to fix the botched job. The former model claims she had to wear girdles, a chin strap, and compression garments for eight weeks after the liposuction to prevent the PAH from coming back. Evangelista said the condition returned after her second liposuction. Mega Fashion’s former “It Girl” was once married to Gerald Marie from the late ’80s to early ’90s. She later dated French football player Fabien Barthez in 2000 but broke up after a reported miscarriage of their child. Evangelista has one son, Augustin James, 16, with French billionaire Francois Henri Pinault whom the model dated for only a few months in 2005. View the full article

Published by Reuters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told senior European officials on Friday that China respects countries’ sovereignty, including Ukraine’s, but that Russia’s concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion should be properly addressed. After weeks of warnings from Western leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed an invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south on Thursday that was the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. Weeks before the invasion, China and Russia announced a strategic partnership, and so far Beijing has stayed clear of condemning Moscow’s actions. Wang said the current situation in Ukraine was not something Beijing wished to see and that it would welcome direct dialogue between Russia and Ukraine as soon as possible. “China firmly advocates respecting and safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries,” Wang said, according to a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry. “This equally applies to the Ukraine issue.” Wang held separate calls with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell and a French presidential adviser. “Given five consecutive rounds of NATO’s eastward expansion, Russia’s legitimate security demands should be taken seriously and properly addressed,” Wang said, according to the statement. The U.N. Security Council was expected to vote on Friday on a resolution condemning Moscow’s invasion. Russia is expected to veto the measure, and Wang said China historically had opposed Council resolutions that applied sanctions or the use of force. He said the Council should seek to ease tensions, “not fuel them.” U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday said any country that backed Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine would be “stained by association,” and Washington has said Chinese firms will face consequences if they seek to help Moscow evade export controls imposed by Western countries. (Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Chris Reese and Kevin Liffey) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Whoopi Goldberg feels on top of the world now that she’s back on The View. The talk show host has reportedly been “strutting around” the studio as her return from her two-week suspension also means a return of the viewers. Goldberg was suspended from her talk show after making some ill-advised comments about the Holocaust — but now that the actress is back, she’s reportedly feeling more powerful than ever. When the panelist was semi-booted from the show, she took a good chunk of the viewership with her. The View had a noticeable dip in ratings during the Star Trek actress’ absence — a burn to Whoopi’s rival Meghan McCain, who jumped at the opportunity to gloat about the host’s suspension. The first full week the host was missing from the program, The View allegedly lost up to 283,000 viewers. The biggest hit was from women aged 18-49 and 25-54. Rating demographics are weird. Once Goldberg returned, the viewership jumped a whole 113,000. She didn’t win back everyone who jumped when she was suspended without pay, but it’s enough to bring the overall viewership back to 2.3 million viewers. This marked the biggest week-to-week gain for the entire show’s history. “With Whoopi out from the show on suspension, the ratings dropped to the lowest in total viewers and key demos of the season,” an insider explained. “At the end of the day, TV is a business. The only thing that really matters is ratings.” The news seems to have gotten to Whoopi’s head. “She’s strutting around the place,” the source said. “She’s peacocking.” Goldberg was “livid” about the suspension and was telling coworkers she was going to “quit” the show after getting the blunt end of the stick even after she apologized on air. The Sister Act star sparked outrage when she claimed on the Jan. 31 episode that the Holocaust was “not about race.” The next day, she apologized, saying it was indeed about race because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race. Later that night, the network announced her suspension. ABC News President Kim Godwin called Whoopi’s comments “wrong and hurtful.” She added, “While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.” What Goldberg ended up learning in that time is how valuable she really is to the show. View the full article

Published by AFP Figures from 2020 — the last time the survey was carried out — showed Los Angeles city alone had more than 66,000 homeless people, up more than 13 percent from the year before Los Angeles (AFP) – Tents, makeshift shelters and dilapidated campervans line the streets of Skid Row as Mike Murase and his team tally the exploding population of homeless people in Los Angeles. In the United States’ second biggest city, the unhoused huddle by small fires, trying to keep warm on one of the coldest nights of the year. Homelessness is “an intractable, stubborn issue that the politicians and agency leaders have not had the will to try to solve,” 75-year-old Murase tells AFP. Murase and his colleagues criss-cross the dozen-or-so roads they have been assigned as part of a three-day effort to count the number of people living on the streets. Figures from 2020 — the last time the survey was carried out — showed Los Angeles city alone had more than 66,000 homeless people, up more than 13 percent from the year before. Everyone expects this year’s number to be much higher. “During Covid there were so many jobs that were lost, you know, restaurant workers or laborers,” says Murase. “A lot of these people were unable to pay rent for maybe two, three months. They get kicked out and they have no family or other relatives to go to and they end up on the street. “I think there is a misconception that they’re mostly criminals, or addicts, or mentally ill people. “There’s a large number of people with those conditions, but there are (also) families, children.” Tourists shocked Visitors to Los Angeles often express shock at the sheer number of people living on the streets of one of the wealthiest cities in the wealthiest state of the wealthiest nation on the planet. Tents and tarpaulin shelters clump next to Hollywood tourist spots, or string out along embankments next to the city’s freeways. Rusting mobile homes with broken windows line the roads of Venice Beach, where multi-million dollar houses glower down at them. Obviously ill people wander through traffic, railing at unseen demons, or picking at their grimy clothes as they mutter into greasy beards. Others rummage through trash cans, or lie dazed on thoroughfares, the smell of urine a fug that pedestrians pick their way distastefully around. Some of the unhoused are new to the streets, victims of the pandemic economic crush, but others have been there for years. “I’ve lived downtown for about like seven, eight years. And it’s always been an issue seeing people on the street,” says Kimberly Briggs, who is volunteering alongside Murase. “I just want to participate in something that helps bring resolution to this problem, because there is suffering on the streets and housing is a human right.” The count is a federal government requirement that will help to determine grants to the local organizations trying to fix the unfixable. Volunteers are instructed not to interact with people; rather they must simply document what they see. The survey Murase and Briggs are doing takes them between warehouses ripe with spices whose heady scents mingle with the smell of cannabis. Many of the streets appear deserted, though there is evidence of people: here, the carapace of a campervan; there, plastic sheets stretched between shopping carts to form a rudimentary tent. A closer look at a darkened area reveals a human form lying against a brick wall, almost camouflaged by the head-to-toe blanket that covers him or her. Briggs carefully logs their presence in a special app on her phone, and the team walks on. An occasional “good evening” comes from some of those trying to settle in for the night, but most — like the man who sits blankly in his wheelchair — ignore the census-takers. Trash and rats Homelessness comes easy in the United States, where the welfare safety nets of other developed countries are largely absent, and the uninsured or under-insured can be a hospital bill away from a missing rent check and the resulting eviction. In California that problem is exacerbated by skyrocketing real estate prices that have pushed the average purchase price of a home to around $700,000 — twice the national figure. Before the pandemic, experts calculated that a person earning minimum wage would have to work 80 hours a week just to afford the rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. To be able to pay for food and bills, they would have to work even longer. On Skid Row, the flickering campfires fueled by scraps of trash cast shadows on the walls, revealing the occasional rat scurrying from one hiding place to another. Less than a mile away, ritzy apartment buildings and office towers gleam silently into the night sky. “Look at all the private developers that are building all these tall buildings in Downtown LA,” splutters Murase. “What we need in the city is more affordable housing, and more services. That’s what we should be spending our dollars on. “Let’s treat people as human beings.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Matthias Williams LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – The morning after Russian missiles rained down on Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed the nation in his favourite style: the selfie video. Unshaven, wearing a khaki jacket and flashing a smile, he told the nation that contrary to reports of him trying to flee, he was staying put in the capital. “Good morning to all Ukrainians! Lately there has been a lot of fake information online that I am calling on our army to lay down their arms and to evacuate. Listen. I am here,” he said, in a video that received 3 million views on Instagram in an hour. The setting was suitably eerie, with Zelenskiy standing in the morning light in front of the “House with Chimeras”, an Art Nouveau landmark covered in otherworldly animal figures across the road from his presidential office in Kyiv. It has been an unlikely transformation for the 44-year-old, who was a comedian and actor with no political experience before he was elected as president in 2019 – except when he played a fictional president in a satirical TV series. At the beginning of the crisis, some Ukrainians on social media feared Zelenskiy was out of his depth against veteran Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Moscow massed troops on the border to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He had been criticised for taking public swipes at the United States and other friendly powers when he felt they were not being sufficiently supportive. But Zelenskiy’s refusal to evacuate with Russian troops closing in on Kyiv and his calm presence in social media videos has won plaudits, even from self-described sceptics. “Whatever happens next, history will remember the simple physical courage Volodymyr Zelens’kyi displays in remaining in his capital, with his people, amidst a horrible invasion, knowing that he is its target,” Timothy Snyder, a history professor specialising in Ukraine at Yale said on Twitter. Olena Halushka, an activist at a well-known Ukrainian anti-corruption organisation, said on Twitter she had misjudged him. “I couldn’t imagine I’ll be proud of him as the supreme commander. He is worthy of our incredible nation.” THE PRESIDENT STAYS Zelenskiy has been a prolific social media user throughout his time in politics, goading his rivals during the election campaign in 2019, snapping pictures and videos of himself at the gym, in his office or addressing the nation with instructions during the coronavirus pandemic. Critics and political rivals have often sought to label him as a “clown” unsuited for high office. Before 2019, he dressed up in buffoonish costumes on stage, performed song and dance acts and, as the fictional president on TV, drunkenly fell into a swimming pool after a meeting with the head of the International Monetary Fund. Now, he is posting videos trying to give reassurance. In a previous selfie video, he stood on the street with his inner circle, showing them that his chief of staff, prime minister and closest advisers had also not left the capital. His style stands in contrast with Putin, who has often kept even close officials on the other side of a long table during meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. Nassim Taleb, the best-selling author of the book “The Black Swan”, compared Zelenskiy to the images that Putin has used in the past to project strength, including images of him riding bare-chested on horseback. “Putin the poseur on horseback is hiding in his remote bunker, while Zelenski, the former comedian, is risking his life on the frontline,” he said. On camera, Zelenskiy has spoken mainly in Ukrainian but also switched to Russian to address the Russian people, urging them to come out into the streets to protest the war. Vyachslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, asserted on Saturday without evidence that Zelenskiy had fled to the western city of Lviv and that his self-recorded video appearances were in fact pre-recorded. There was heavy fighting in several parts of the country on Saturday including clashes in the capital, and there have been media reports of Zelenskiy declining offers from foreign governments to be evacuated. Asked to comment on the reports, Zelenskiy’s spokesman said: “The president stays in Kyiv, the president stays with his people. No one will run away or drop weapons.” (Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by David Clarke) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Cecile Mantovani and Stefica Nicol Bikes GENEVA/SYDNEY (Reuters) -In a sea of blue and yellow flags and banners, protesters around the world showed their support for the people of Ukraine on Saturday and called on governments to do more to help Kyiv, punish Russia and avoid a broader conflict. Several hundred people marched through heavy rain in Sydney chanting “Ukraine will prevail”, while protesters in Tokyo called for Russia to be expelled from the United Nations Security Council. Thousands of people also took to the streets in Europe, with protesters – including many Ukrainians living abroad – in London, Nicosia, Berlin, Athens, Helsinki, Madrid and Milan draping themselves in flags and holding “stop the war” placards. “You look at the people gathered here and everybody is scared … We had peace for 80 years and all of a sudden, war is back in Europe,” said Stefan Pischel, among a crowd of some 2,500 in Munich’s Karlsplatz square. A rally that organisers estimated to number 20,000 people was held in the Swiss capital of Bern. The Ukrainian flag flew over the seat of the city council. Some called for the Swiss government to take tougher action against Russia and President Vladimir Putin, who said he ordered the “special military operation” not to occupy territory but to destroy Ukraine’s military capabilities and capture what the Kremlin regards as dangerous nationalists. In Istanbul, Ukrainians living in Turkey sang their national anthem and held banners with images of bloody handprints. “My family is in Kyiv region and they are attacking Kyiv today. I don’t know what to do, what to think. I am calling them every 10 to 15 minutes,” a protester who gave her name as Victoria said. “I hope the whole world will … just stand up and do something to protect our families.” ‘NOT ALONE’ Hundreds of people demonstrated in the square in front of the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, carrying signs such “Make Ukraine a member of NATO now” and “Say no to Putin”. “I’m here because I’m extremely ashamed for my country of birth,” said Valery Bragar, a native Russian who has lived in Switzerland for 15 years and is now a Swiss citizen. The protests come on the heels of other demonstrations around the world in the past days. In Latin America, protesters joined rallies on Friday in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru, chanting “Long live Ukraine”. In Russia too, anti-war campaigners have defied warnings from the authorities to voice their anger. Police on Thursday detained more than 1,600 Russian protesters. In Sydney, some speakers demanded the government expand sanctions against Moscow and ban Russian citizens from visiting Australia, while others called for NATO to step in. “I want more economic sanctions on Russia, I want military help for Ukraine,” said Katarina, a protester who gave only her first name. “I want more action, more concrete action and less words. It’s too late for diplomacy right now.” Several hundred Russian, Ukrainian and Japanese protesters gathered in the busy Shibuya shopping district in central Tokyo, many with their children and holding Ukrainian flags, chanting “stop the war” and “stop Putin” in Japanese and English. “I just want to say, ‘Putin stop this, regain your sanity’,” said Hiroshi Sawada, a 58-year-old musician. In India, some of the anger was directed towards NATO and the West. “The kind of aggression we are witnessing in Ukraine has been forced by U.S. through NATO and also the Russian military forces who have entered Ukraine. Both are responsible for this situation,” student activist Neha said at a protest in New Delhi. (Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Lidia Kelly and Alison Williams; Editing by William Mallard and Ros Russell) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Maria Tsvetkova and Aleksandar Vasovic KYIV (Reuters) – A defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv remained under Ukrainian control on Saturday as Russian forces renewed their assault, pounding the capital and other cities with artillery and cruise missiles. A U.S. defence official said Ukraine’s forces were putting up “very determined resistance” to the three-pronged Russian advance that has sent hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing westwards, clogging major highways and railway lines. “We have withstood and are successfully repelling enemy attacks. The fighting goes on,” Zelenskiy said in a video message from the streets of Kyiv posted on his social media. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he called a special military operation before dawn on Thursday, ignoring Western warnings and saying the “neo-Nazis” ruling Ukraine threatened Russia’s security. Top Russian security official and ex-President Dmitry Medvedev said military operations would be waged relentlessly until Putin’s goals were achieved. That ratcheting up of Russia’s rhetoric came as the Kremlin said its troops were advancing again after Putin ordered a pause on Friday for anticipated talks that never happened. An adviser to Zelenskiy denied that Kyiv had refused negotiations but said Russia had attached unacceptable conditions. He also said it was untrue that Russia had paused troop movements. Russia’s assault is the biggest on a European state since World War Two and threatens to upend the continent’s post-Cold War order. Medvedev said new sanctions on Russia were a sign of the West’s impotence in the conflict and he hinted at a severing of diplomatic ties, saying it was time to “padlock the embassies”. The United States has observed more than 250 launches of Russian missiles, mostly short-range, at Ukrainian targets, the U.S. defence official said. “We know that (Russian forces) have not made the progress that they wanted to make, particularly in the north. They have been frustrated by what they have seen is a very determined resistance,” the official said, without providing evidence. Moscow says it is taking care not to hit civilian sites. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally, said on Saturday his fighters were also deployed in Ukraine. He said Russian forces could easily take Kyiv and other large cities but their task was to avoid loss of life. Putin has said he must eliminate what he calls a serious threat to his country from its smaller neighbour, accusing it of genocide against Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine – a charge dismissed by Kyiv and its Western allies as baseless propaganda. CAPITAL UNDER CURFEW Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said there was no major Russian military presence in the capital, but that saboteur groups were active. The metro system was being used as a shelter for citizens and trains have stopped running, he said. Klitschko, a former world heavyweight boxing champion said 35 people, including two children, had been wounded overnight and that he was imposing a curfew from Saturday evening until Monday morning. Ukrainians faced lengthy queues for money at cash machines and for fuel at petrol stations, where individual sales are mostly limited to 20 litres. Many shops in the city centre were closed and the streets were largely empty on Saturday afternoon. “I was smart enough to stock up food for a at least a month,” said Serhiy, out for a walk before the curfew. “I did not trust the politicians that this would end peacefully.” At least 198 Ukrainians, including three children, have been killed and 1,115 people wounded so far in Russia’s invasion, Interfax quoted Ukraine’s Health Ministry as saying. It was unclear whether the numbers comprised only civilian casualties. Interfax later cited the regional administration in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, saying 17 civilians had been killed and 73 wounded by Russian shelling. Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million people, won independence from Moscow in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union and wants to join NATO and the EU, goals Russia opposes. Putin says Ukraine is an illegitimate state carved out of Russia, a view Ukrainians see as aimed at erasing their distinctive history and identity. REFUGEES AND PROTESTS Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had captured Melitopol, a city of 150,000 in southeastern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials were not immediately available to comment and Britain cast doubt on the report. If confirmed, it would be the first significant population centre the Russians have seized. The city of Mariupol, a key port on the Sea of Azov in southeast Ukraine, remained under relentless shelling on Saturday, its mayor Vadim Boychenko said in a televised address. “They are shelling schools, apartment blocks,” he said. About 100,000 people have crossed into Poland from Ukraine since Thursday, including 9,000 who have entered since 7 a.m. on Saturday, Polish Deputy Interior Minister Pawel Szefernaker said. “The most important thing is that people survive,” said Katharina Asselborn, wiping away tears while waiting at the Polish border for her sister, aunt and her three children to arrive from their home in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odessa. “The last 30 kilometres to the border they went on foot.” Ukrainians were also crossing the borders into Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Protests against the war took place in Berlin, Berne, London, Tokyo, Sydney and other cities worldwide. “I’m here because I’m extremely ashamed for my country of birth,” Valery Bragar, a Russian who is now a Swiss citizen, said at a rally in Geneva. The crisis has galvanised the NATO Western military alliance, which has announced a series of moves to reinforce its eastern flank. Germany has approved the export of 400 rocket propelled grenades from German military stocks in the Netherlands to Ukraine, its defence ministry said, in a shift in policy after Berlin faced criticism for refusing to send weapons, unlike other Western allies. Western nations have also announced new sanctions on Russia, including blacklisting its banks and banning technology exports. They have stopped short of forcing Russia out of the SWIFT system for international bank payments, but the governor of a central bank in the euro zone told Reuters on Saturday such a decision was “just a matter of time, very short time, days”. In one of the first visible signs of sanctions being enforced over the invasion, France seized a car cargo ship in the Channel on Saturday that has been linked to the son of a former Russian spy chief. The invasion is also affecting Russia’s sports, cultural and other links. On Saturday Poland and Sweden said their national soccer teams would not play its World Cup qualifiers against Russia next month. (Reporting by Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic, Natalia Zinets and Maria Tsvetkova in Kyiv, Aleksandar Vasovic in Mariupol, Alan Charlish in Medyka, Poland, Fedja Grulovic in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania and Reuters bureaus; Writing by Robert Birsel, Gareth Jones and Alex Richardson; Editing by William Mallard and David Clarke) View the full article

Published by AFP Texas Governor Greg Abbott has sparked outrage after ordering a state agency to investigate transgender medical care for youth as potential child abuse Washington (AFP) – “Unethical,” “scary” and “maddening” — human rights groups have reacted with fury to a Texas order that a state agency should investigate cases of transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care as child abuse. Earlier this week, Republican Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, directing it to probe “any reported instances of Texas children being subjected to abusive gender-transitioning procedures”. The order — which has been condemned by US President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration — followed a legal opinion issued by the Texas attorney general stating that “a number of so-called ‘sex-change’ procedures for minors already constitute child abuse under existing Texas law.” Human Rights Campaign, a US-based LGBTQ advocacy group, called the opinion and order “unprecedented” and “a craven, politically motivated attempt to criminalize healthcare decisions made between parents, medical experts, and transgender youth.” In a virtual meeting hosted by the group, 11-year-old Libby Gonzalez said it “feels very scary”. “It’s also super annoying that all of these lawmakers are just bullying me and other trans and non-binary kids. It’s really sad,” she said. “To say that it’s scary is an understatement of a lifetime,” said her mother, Rachel Gonzales. The US-based League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) on Friday called the order “unethical and illegal.” In a statement, LULAC LGBTQ committee chair Jesse Garcia said the move was “attacking a marginalized population… to score political points” and “fueling discrimination.” Dr. Stephen Rosenthal, medical director of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, which offers medical care and advocacy to transgender children, called the moves “maddening.” “There are more than 25 years of published scientific evidence that support current clinical practice guidelines and standards of care,” he said. “This interdisciplinary model of care that is referred to as a gender-affirming approach has been endorsed by every major medical and mental health professional health society in the United States.” The Transgender Law Center has slammed the opinion and order as seeking “to criminalize parents, caregivers, guardians, or health care professionals.” The White House issued its own condemnation on Thursday. “The Texas Attorney General’s attack on loving parents who seek medical care for their transgender children is dangerous to the health of kids in Texas and part of a much larger trend of conservative officials cynically attacking LGBTQI+ youth to score political points,” a spokesperson told US media. Several US states, including South Dakota, Alabama and Florida, have put forward legislation regarding transgender youth in recent years. View the full article

Willow, Bosco and Daya are The ShangRu-Las on RuPaul’s Drag Race.Right on time, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14 is hitting that midseason slog. If last week was a breath of fresh air with unexpected twists and turns, this episode loses some gas. It starts promisingly enough, kicking off with the fan-favorite Library reading mini-challenge. The gals don’t disappoint, firing barbs at Kerri’s frozen face, Angeria’s overlong surname and Bosco’s complexion. We even get a little drama when Jasmine accuses Daya of being two-faced. (It blows over like the Daytona Wind later when Jasmine confronts Daya about something Daya said mid-rant during Untucked a few weeks back.) There are a lot of strong reads, but Bosco steals the show. She ends on a mic-dropping moment that ropes Mama Ru into the gag. The joke boils down to Ru requesting all the remaining queens serve as pallbearers at her funeral on the catwalk, that way they can let her down on the runway one last time. Brava! Ru rightly gives her the win. Reading is FUNdamental on RuPaul’s Drag Race.It’s the high point for an otherwise disappointing episode. It’s another group challenge, this time writing lyrics, choreographing a routine and recording vocals for a Drag Race take on 1960s girl groups. Just to further chum the waters, Ru leaves the gals to cobble together their own teams and claw for their song choices. All that’s missing is Daya shouting ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? and a colosseum (sponsored by SweeTarts Sweet Ropes!). The queens immediately start making bids for the tracks. Willow, Bosco, DeJa and especially Daya vie to be part of the trio performing “Bad Boy, Baby.” No stranger to being this season’s villain, Daya really digs in her heels. When one of the milder-mannered queens suggests Rock-Paper-Scissors to resolve the conflict, Daya flat out refuses. Is this squatters’ rights? Occupy Werk Room? Is Daya Betty the Mitch McConnell of Drag Race? But before Daya can go full filibuster, DeJa relents. It turns out to be worth fighting for. Daya lands in the ShangRu-Las with Willow and Bosco. The trio worked together in The Daytona Wind, and they all have a similarly sharp (and twisted) sense of humor. They infuse the lyrics with a naughty little story about falling for a creepy stalker. Maybe it’s because the challenge wasn’t really structured for the verses to tell one cohesive narrative, but, for whatever reason, their lyrics don’t quite gel the way they hope. Still, props for at least attempting to do SOMETHING. Couple that with Willow’s secret choreo talents, and the group shows out. Daya especially shines, never dropping character. After weeks of slowly simmering resentment, Ru finally gives her a win. Daya, Jorgeous and Jasmine get ready to become the Runettes on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Despite surrendering a spot in the winning track, DeJa does OK for herself. As the clear lead of the Runettes, DeJa is serving full Ronnie Spector fantasy. She nails the hair and eye makeup, but she also looks the most comfortable with the choreo — as she should, since she choreographed the number. She even delivers a strong vocal for someone who claimed not to be a singer. Then again, next to her partners Jasmine and Jorgeous, DeJa sounds like Adele. Watching Jorgeous record vocals is truly torturous. At one point, Michelle turns to the producer and simply squeaks, “Help.” Jorgeous knows it’s bad and repeatedly gives the camera a panicked look like this is a very special episode of The Office. It’s so bad, they eventually let her just talk the lines on the track and never speak of it again! She literally couldn’t complete one of the core aspects of the challenge, and she was still safe! I love Jorgeous, but that just doesn’t seem fair. It strikes me as a particularly egregious act of favoritism when Jorgeous’s partner, Jasmine, isn’t afforded the same courtesy. She’s only a marginally better singer than Jorgeous, but she gets no get-out-of-singing-free card. Instead, her caterwauling makes the track, and she seems uncomfortable and distracted during the performance. It lands her in the bottom two this week. The final group is tasked with honoring Ru’s favorite, The RuPremes. Angeria assumes the lead, having incorporated Diana Ross into her shows back home. She’s got the energy and a solid voice, even if dancing isn’t her strong suit. The bright and breezy performance snags Angie a top spot. The making of The Rupremes on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Last week’s winner Lady Camden isn’t as lucky. Her restrained choreo (designed to benefit her partners Angeria and Kerri) handicaps her strongest asses. It’s not very memorable, and the judges put her in the bottom for fading into the background. I’m surprised they don’t clock her makeup for the performance, because I think she looks terrible. It was as if they replaced one of the Supremes with an old crone. Or Madame. Or an extremely dehydrated Miss Richfield 1981. That leaves poor Kerri. She discusses her tough Christian upbringing in the Werk Room, which barred her from most secular music and popular culture. It’s impossible for that not to be a hindrance in a competition where having a wealth of references is the most valuable currency. Even younger viewers who couldn’t tell their Chiffons from their Shirelles have still had a lifetime of references to draw from. That’s got to be a driving reason behind Kerri’s struggles here. She just can’t quite muster the effervescence needed, and instead she infuses the number with a manic, gospel energy. Considering her upbringing, it’s just what she knows, and, sadly, it lands her in the bottom two. When the lipsync against Jasmine begins, it’s not clear if Kerri picked up her dance moves at church or RuPaul’s School of Dance, because she is sleepily step-touching like a true Super Model of the World, mawmaw! Even when Jasmine loses a shoe and her garment barely clings to her torso, Ru has to declare her the winner. It’s sad to see Jasmine send Kerri home after they bonded over their experience with gender on last week’s powerful episode of Untucked. Kerri’s departure wasn’t unexpected (nor unwarranted), but she will be missed nonetheless. The playing field gets tighter and tighter each week. How is your personal top four shaking out? Check out our rankings below, and leave yours in the comments! Even when safe, Willow remains my top pick. She revealed this week she’s been hiding a secret talent: she’s a choreographer. We know she’s smart, funny and creative. We know she can sew. And she can move? Willow may be unstoppable. What I love most about this unique young queen is how she always has a delightful surprise up her sleeve. This week’s panty-dropping Heart-On runway was so fun.It’s neck-and-neck with Angeria, especially after Angie did such a strong job emulating Ru’s idol, Diana Ross. I’ve been humming her catchy little “My baby, he’s the one for me” lick ever since I first saw the episode. I wasn’t nearly as taken by Angeria’s look on tonight’s runway. It was … bizarre. Part Sia, part Cruella, part Meredith Marks, it was a lot! I wish the wig had a cleaner blunt cut. The choppy ends just looked sloppy.Bosco seems primed to breakout any week now. She slays every assignment and, perhaps more than any other queen in herstory, she has an ability to sniff out all the unspoken references in the material. I can easily see her slide right into the top three under the radar without facing a lip sync.You can’t deny Daya‘s dominance this week. She was unquestionably the strongest of any group, and her neon futuristic punk runway was this week’s most memorable. It’s nice to see her doggedness finally pay off, but with still so much race left, can she maintain this intensity to the end?I mean, yes, Jorgeous was a flop in this week’s challenge, but does it even matter? When she’s good, she’s so very, very good, Ru seems content to change the rules to keep Jorgie around. She was excused from the singing portion of this week’s challenge. Why not just let her sit-out choreo? Walk the runway in flats? Ultimately, we know the final challenge always includes a verse on a Ru track, and I’m not sure Ru loves Jorgeous enough to share a Spotify credit with the Bobcat Goldthwait of Drag Race chanteuses.This may be a harsh ranking for Lady Camden, but when I went to list the queens in my notes, I honestly forgot her. It’s the exact criticism the judges levied at Camden this week, and it’s a bad sign. Camden needs more big, bold swings. That’s what won her so much praise last week.Deja was a top performer this week, but I still struggle to see her make it to the end. It just never feels like she’s mixing it up with the likes of Willow, Bosco, Angeria and Daya.Where was the Jasmine that ripped Maddy limb from limb on that runway a few weeks ago? This lip sync was limp. Maybe she just never recovered from losing her heel, but I found the whole thing deeply disappointing. She was never going to be able to sing, but she could’ve done what she did with her Southern accent previously and leaned into the absurdity for the recording. There is something special in Jasmine, and I still think she could bounce back from a few rocky weeks, maybe with a strong Snatch Game.Kerri has been barely holding on for a few weeks, but once she turned the corner with the waistband of her stockings showing, it was all over. The runway looked unfinished, incomplete. It’s actually a testament to Kerri’s beauty, charm and star power that she made it this far despite what seems like a fairly limited skillset. She’s still left quite the impression and can leave the Race with her head held high.What did you think of the episode? Catch up on our RuPaul’s Drag Race coverage. View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA The three former Minneapolis, who stood by idly as George Floyd begged for his life, have been found guilty on all charges by a jury in their federal case. Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane were convicted on Thursday by a 12-person panel following a two-day deliberation, and all face the possibility of the death penalty. MEGA Thao, Kueng, and Lane were on sight and watched as their ex-cop colleague Derek Chauvin held his knee of Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes on May 25, 2020. As he begged for relief, telling Chauvin over and over again he couldn’t breathe, all three officers did nothing to help. The only one to even speak up was Lane, to no avail. All three men were charged with depriving Floyd — who was a Black man — of his civil rights while acting under government authority. Thao and Kueng were additionally charged with not intervening despite Chauvin using excessive force. Lane was not hit with the additional charge because he was caught on camera asking if they should roll Floyd over to which Chauvin scoffed. View the full article

Published by AFP The International Space Station, a symbol of US-Russian cooperation, has been continuously inhabited for more than 21 years Washington (AFP) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has placed a question mark over the future of the International Space Station, long a symbol of post Cold War cooperation, where astronauts and cosmonauts proudly live and work side-by-side. The outpost was the subject of a menacing Twitter thread by Russian space agency head Dmitry Rogozin, who warned Thursday that US sanctions could “destroy our cooperation” and said the research platform would plummet to the Earth without his nation’s help. Experts view such threats as inflated political rhetoric, given the two sides’ reliance on one another for the safety of their personnel. But it could hasten a long expected divorce in their fragile marriage. “Nobody wants to put the lives of astronauts and cosmonauts in danger by political maneuvering,” John Logsdon, a professor and space analyst at George Washington University, told AFP. “It was a very conscious decision when Russia was brought into the station partnership in 1994 to make the station interdependent,” he added — a decision taken at the time with cost and speed concerns in mind. Hostile tweets The ISS, a collaboration among the US, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency and Russia, is split into two sections: the US Orbital Segment, and the Russian Orbital Segment. At present, the ISS depends on a Russian propulsion system to maintain its orbit, some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above sea level, with the US segment responsible for electricity and life support systems. Rogozin referenced this co-dependence in a series of hostile tweets posted shortly after US President Joe Biden announced sanctions aimed at Russia’s aerospace industry. “If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling on US or European territory?” said Rogozin — noting that the station doesn’t fly over much of Russia. NASA, for its part, responded with a bland statement emphasizing it “continues working with all our international partners, including the State Space Corporation Roscosmos, for the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station.” Julie Patarin-Jossec, a French academic and author of a book on the ISS, said Rogozin “is a political figure, who is known to be very loyal to power” and has a history of making fiery statements. Those aboard the station — Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, the United States’ Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron, and Germany’s Matthias Maurer — are highly trained professionals, and unlikely to be affected, she told AFP. “Most astronauts of the last decades, or who have had experience of the ISS, are very attached to international cooperation,” Patarin-Jossec said. What’s more, she added, withdrawing from the ISS program would leave Russia without a crewed space program — unless it quickly pivots to working with China aboard the Tiangong space station, which is still under construction and currently hosts three crew members. Long history US-Russian cooperation has a long history that stretches back to the height of the Cold War, but it hasn’t been without it ebbs and flows. After America placed the first men on the Moon in 1969, then president Richard Nixon looked for opportunities to make the space program more cooperative, inviting allies to join the Space Shuttle program. “In parallel he and Henry Kissinger decided to use a possible joint US-Soviet mission as a symbol of detente,” explained Logsdon. That led to the landmark Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975, when US and Russian spacecraft docked for the first time in a globally televised event. The partnership was supposed to expand even further, with possible Space Shuttle missions to an early Russian space station, but president Jimmy Carter nixed such plans after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It wasn’t until the collapse of the Soviet Union that Russian officials reached out to the administration of Bill Clinton about the idea of a merger, which paved the way for the launch of the first module of the ISS in 1998. The ISS has weathered geopolitical storms in the past — most notably the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 — but current tensions, which Logsdon said were the most serious since the Cuban missile crisis, could mark the beginning of the end. Space watcher Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, noted that the US is already developing propulsion capacity using Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo ships. NASA currently wants the station to orbit until 2030, while Russia hasn’t committed itself to beyond 2024. “I would think that unless the current situation gets resolved quickly, that could affect the Russian desire to stay involved, or the US desire to keep them involved,” said Logsdon. View the full article

Published by DPA Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives to attend the Special meeting of the European Council on the situation in Ukraine. Alexandros Michailidis/EU Council/dpa Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday criticized Russia for the first time over its invasion of Ukraine. “Together with our EU and NATO allies, we condemn Russia’s military action,” Orban said in a video posted on his Facebook page. “Russia attacked Ukraine with military force this morning,” he added. Orban had so far avoided naming Russia in connection with the acts of war in Ukraine and its preparations. The right-wing nationalist head of government has maintained a friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent years. He had visited him in the Kremlin at the beginning of the month. In Budapest on Thursday evening, several thousand people demonstrated against what they see as Orban’s pro-Moscow policies. They demanded an end to the Budapest government’s dithering and a clear commitment to the West. View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Patti LaBelle had ‘no idea’ that the ‘Lady Marmalade’ lyrics were so suggestive. The 77-year-old music legend – who is known for the 1974 hit thought to be about prostitution – had “no idea” what the French lyrics meant when she recorded the song with her band Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. She said: “When we heard it, it sounded great, but that ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi,’ sounded so piercing and it just stayed in my ear. So, when we went there, I said that we had to record that one first. After we recorded the song and the song went out and people were loving it, the nuns talked about us and asked, ‘Why are they talking like hookers?!” Patti went on to explain that she was simply “jamming” to the infectious chorus and was oblivious to the fact that the lyrics were in fact sexually suggestive. She told Entertainment Tonight: “I didn’t know ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi,’ meant ‘Will you sleep with me tonight?’! I had no clue girl! And I was jamming on that! And the nuns… they called us bad names and stuff, but it sold!” The legendary songstress went on to describe the song – which would later be covered by Christina Aguilera, Lil’Kim Pink and Mya as a four-piece for the film ‘Moulin Rouge!’ as “revolutionary” that pays homage to streetwalkers. She added: “it was revolutionary and it was something that people were doing. Women walked the streets since way back in the day and now there’s a song about them.” View the full article

Published by AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with Valery Gergiev during an awards ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 22, 2016 New York (AFP) – In an extraordinary last-minute move Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall has cut the acclaimed Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, a close supporter of Vladimir Putin, from its programming this weekend “due to recent world events,” a spokesperson at the prestigious institution told AFP Thursday. The decision — which Carnegie and the Vienna Philharmonic had earlier delivered in a joint statement, without specifiying an exact cause — comes in the wake of the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine, which has drawn international condemnation. Protesters were expected at the superstar maestro’s three highly anticipated appearances leading the Vienna Philharmonic in New York to begin Friday. Gergiev has not yet spoken publicly regarding Moscow’s offensive, but he has proven fiercely loyal to the Russian president in the past, and has triggered protests at previous New York performances for allying with him on matters including the annexation of Crimea and a law aimed at stifling LGBT rights activists in Russia. Russian pianist Denis Matsuev — another Putin supporter who was scheduled to solo with the Vienna Philharmonic on Friday — was also dropped from the performance. Yannick Nezet-Seguin will fill Gergiev’s spot, according to the statement, conducting the weekend of shows ahead of his direction of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” on Monday at the Metropolitan Opera, of which he is musical director. The soloist for Friday’s program has yet to be announced. “Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra are immensely grateful to Yannick Nezet-Seguin for stepping in for these performances at very short notice,” read the statement. The globe-trotting Gergiev has also faced pressure in Milan, where he is currently leading Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades” at the Teatro alla Scala, to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If he doesn’t, “the collaboration will be over,” Italian media quoted Milan’s mayor as saying. Gergiev is also on deck to conduct the Mariinsky Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in early May. The prestigious hall did not indicate whether those performances were still scheduled to go ahead as planned. View the full article