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Published by AFP Women's rights activists marching to the US Capitol to protest the restrictive new abortion law in Texas Washington (AFP) – Texas is appealing a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking the southern US state’s ban on most abortions as the divisive issue appears headed to the Supreme Court. In a blistering opinion, US District Judge Robert Pitman issued a preliminary injunction late Wednesday halting enforcement of the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 (SB), which bans abortion after six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant. The Texas law, which went into force on September 1, is “flagrantly unconstitutional” and violates the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, which enshrined a woman’s legal right to an abortion, Pitman said. “From the moment SB8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” said the judge, an appointee of former Democratic president Barack Obama. “That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right,” Pitman said. The judge’s order was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department seeking to prevent Texas, the second-most populous US state, from enforcing the abortion law, which makes no exceptions for rape or incest. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said Thursday that he would appeal the judge’s ruling to the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the country. “We disagree with the Court’s decision and have already taken steps to immediately appeal it,” Paxton said. “The sanctity of human life is, and will always be, a top priority for me.” Laws restricting abortion have been passed in other Republican-led states but were struck down by the courts because they violated Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, which is typically around 22 to 24 weeks. ‘Fight has only just begun’ The “Texas Heartbeat Act” allows members of the public to sue doctors who perform abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected or anyone who helps facilitate the procedure. They can be rewarded with $10,000 for initiating cases that lead to prosecution, prompting charges that the law encourages people to act as vigilantes. Whatever the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decides, the Texas law is expected to eventually end up in the Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority. The Supreme Court cited procedural issues when it decided by a 5-4 vote last month against intervening to block the Texas law. It did not rule on the merits of the case brought by abortion providers. After the court declined to block the Texas law, the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden entered the fray, citing its interest in upholding Americans’ constitutional rights. Welcoming Judge Pitman’s ruling, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said: “The fight has only just begun, both in Texas and in many states across this country where women’s rights are currently under attack.” The Supreme Court is to hear a challenge on December 1 to a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. It will be the first abortion case argued before the court since the nomination of three conservative justices by former president Donald Trump. Tens of thousands of women took to the streets across the United States last weekend in protests aimed at countering the conservative drive to restrict abortion access. Advocates of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy have called on Congress to enshrine the right to abortion in federal law to protect it from any possible reversal by the Supreme Court. A bill to that effect was adopted two weeks ago in the Democratic majority House of Representatives, but has no chance of passing the Senate where Republicans have enough votes to block it. If the high court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, every state would be free to ban or allow abortions. That would mean 36 million women in 26 states — nearly half of American women of reproductive age — would likely lose the legal right to an abortion, according to a Planned Parenthood report. View the full article

Published by DPA “The Potato Eaters” by Vincent van Gogh, April 1885: The painting is getting a dedicated exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum. For the first time, the Amsterdam museum will exclusively focus on the history of the Dutch painter’s early masterpiece. Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam/dpa Five people are sitting in a cramped kitchen having dinner, their faces tired and distorted – bulbous noses, bony gnarled hands. The scene is dark and gloomy. “The Potato Eaters” is one of the first masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and without a doubt the artist’s biggest “failure,” at least according to its critics at the time. Even today, the Dutch painter is more famous for his cheerful paintings – his bright “Sunflowers” and light-flooded southern French landscapes. But now for the first time, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is devoting an exhibition exclusively to this early depiction of peasant life, full of darkness but also admiration. About 50 paintings, sketches, drawings and letters will be on display from Friday (October 8), telling the story of the painting – a “story of ambition and perseverance,” as museum director Emily Gordenker said. “The painting was never sold and never exhibited during van Gogh’s lifetime.” Today, however, it is world-famous and considered a key work in the painter’s development, she said. Vincent van Gogh painted “De aardappeleters” in 1885 during a turbulent period he spent with his parents in Nuenen, in the south-east of the Netherlands. He made numerous studies and sketches for it. It’s one of van Gogh’s “most thought-out paintings”, said Bregje Gerritse, curator of the museum. The painter himself described it as a “master’s test” and, according to the curator, wanted to make his breakthrough with it. But the painting failed. Van Gogh received harsh criticism for this work, especially because of its use of gloomy colours and the distorted depiction of people’s faces. The works shows five people from a poor family having dinner in the light of an oil lamp. In front of them on the rough wooden table is a bowl of steaming potatoes. A woman is pouring coffee. To bring the painting to life, the museum has now recreated the scene with a life-size, walk-in model for its spotlight exhibition “The Potato Eaters. Mistake or Masterpiece?“. Van Gogh wanted to depict the harsh reality of peasant life, a life he himself admired. He deliberately showed the characters with coarse faces and bony hands worn from labour, Gerritse said. “Van Gogh wanted to show the peasants in all their roughness “ The colours were earthy, dark like the earth, he said. The colour of the faces was that of “a dirty potato, unpeeled of course.” But the painting did not lead to the breakthrough on the Paris art market for which the artist had hoped. Even his brother, the art dealer Theo, did not like it, and his friend and fellow painter Anthon van Rappard slammed it as ugly and coarse. But van Gogh stuck with it and throughout his life considered it one of his best works – and certainly one of the most significant. The message was more important than correct anatomy and technical perfection, he once explained. Art did not have to be beautiful, he said, but honest. “I want to paint what I feel and feel what I paint.” At the end of his life, he even considered painting a new version of “Potato Eaters”. A lifesize recreation of “The Potato Eaters” by Vincent van Gogh is part of an exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum exclusively focusing on the history of the Dutch painter’s early masterpiece. Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam/dpa Lithograph of “The Potato Eaters” by Vincent van Gogh, April 1885: The painting “The Potato Eaters” is getting a dedicated exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum. For the first time, the Amsterdam museum will exclusively focus on the history of the Dutch painter’s early masterpiece. Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam/dpa View the full article

Published by Reuters By Guy Faulconbridge and Natalie Thomas CANTERBURY, England (Reuters) – Europe should greet migrants with compassion rather than barbed wire and the British government is “rather nasty” about those who seek asylum, said Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gurnah, who explored the legacies of imperialism on uprooted individuals in his books, said he was so shocked when he was phoned by the Swedish Academy to tell him of the prize that he thought it was a cold caller. He spoke poetically about the experience of migration – of leaving behind family and part of one’s life for a life in a new society where one would always feel partly foreign. He said he felt the British government seemed nasty about those seeking asylum. “Currently, it seems the government is rather nasty about people seeking asylum or people seeking admittance into this country,” Gurnah, 73, told Reuters in his garden beside an Acer tree in Canterbury, southern England. “It seems such a surprise to them that people coming from difficult places would want to come to a country that is prosperous. Why would they be surprised? Who wouldn’t want to come to a country that is more prosperous? There is a kind of meanness in this response.” Gurnah, who was born in Zanzibar, now Tanzania, said migrants were not coming with nothing – that they wanted to work. He expressed amazement at the resolution and courage of those who travelled so far to escape their own countries for a new life. “This somehow is constructed as if it immoral – you know they use this phrase ‘economic migrant’ – as if to be an economic migrant is some kind of crime. Why not?” “Millions of Europeans over centuries left their homes for precisely that reason and invaded the world for precisely for that reason,” he said. The other side of the equation, he said, was why people felt they had to embark on such perilous voyages for a new life. “But you have to ask the question: what is so horrible about where they are that they will do such things, that they will take such risks?” he said. Europe, he said, should rethink its approach to migration. “With greater compassion rather than with barbed wire – rather than a kind of discourse that Europe is going to be destroyed,” he said. Gurnah said he was not advocating free-for-all “open season” migration but that there should not be an antagonistic and abusive representation of migrants. Brexit, he said, had revealed a “certain meanness” about Britain – and that lurking behind the vote was another narrative about migrants from far beyond Europe’s borders. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Andy Bruce) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Jake Gyllenhaal fancied Jennifer Aniston so much it was “torture” doing love scenes with the actress. The pair starred together in 2002 film ‘The Good Girl’ and the 40-year-old star says it wasn’t easy because of his real life crush on the 52-year-old ‘Friends’ actress. Speaking during an interview with ‘The Howard Stern Show’, Jake was asked by the host if it was “torture” to film love scenes with somebody he fancied in real life. Jake said: “Oh yeah, it was torture, yes it was. “But it was also not torture. “I mean, come on, it was like a mix of both.” But he said that such is the “mechanical nature” of love scenes he thankfully managed to keep his true feelings towards Jennifer well-hidden. He added: “Weirdly, love scenes are awkward, because there are maybe 30, 50 people watching it? “That doesn’t turn me on. “It’s oddly mechanical. “And also it’s a dance, you’re choreographing for a camera. “You can get in it but it’s like a fight scene, you have to choreograph those scenes.” And he added that a well-placed pillow, which was actually Jennifer’s suggestion, helped. He said: “The pillow technique was used. “That was just preemptive and used generally always when actually in a horizontal place in that movie. “I think that was actually a Jennifer suggestion, she was very kind to suggest it before we began. “She was like, “I’m putting a pillow here.”” Meanwhile, Ben Stiller recently revealed how Jake nearly played Hansel in ‘Zoolander’. The 53-year-old actor – who played fictional male model Derek Zoolander in the 2001 cult classic comedy – admitted Owen Wilson almost missed out on his own supermodel role over doubts he’d be available to film. Although Wilson was first choice, Stiller told Esquire: “The only one that I remember clearly was a young Jake Gyllenhaal doing this wide-eyed version of Hansel that was really funny.” Pillow on Towleroad ‘Be You. Don’t Be A Puppet’; Patton Oswalt Gives Lends Voice to Video Used To Reveal The Disaster of Conversion Therapy. WATCH More How ATT Built OAN; ATT Guilty For Help Building Far-Right, Facts-Don’t-Matter Trump-Backing One America News– SPECIAL REPORT More Jamie Spears & Britney’s Management Team Said To Have Tried Conversion-Therapy-Like Religion To Cure The Star Following Breakdown More Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart Friendship Proves ‘Love is Love’ Says Snoop; ‘It’s Always Beautiful, We Always Enjoy Each Other’s Company’ More Matt Gaetz’s Friend Joel Greenberg Asks Judge To Postpone His Sentencing For Extra Time To Turn Over Evidence To Feds More David Furnish gives Elton John health update after hip injury More Pope says French abuse report is ‘moment of shame’ More Anderson Cooper: Instagram depresses me More Repeated Misgendering Of Employees On Purpose is a Human Rights Violation in Canada. ‘Like a Name, Pronouns are… part of a Person’s Identity’ More Supreme Court Gay Issues — As Well As Many ‘Of Interest’ — In This New Term. Rights At Risk. Religion Dominates Concerns More Harry Styles confirms explicit meaning behind Watermelon Sugar More Load More View the full article

Puppet policies still linger in the destructive hope some hold on to of changing an LGBTQ person. The only real choice is between supporting who they are or forcing them to pretend to be someone else. [This post contains video, click to play] THANK YOU ⁦@TheBornPerfect⁩ for letting me be a part of this. However insane, medieval and twisted you think conversion therapy is, believe me, it’s WAY worse. Patton Oswalt‘I Don’t think that’s therapy, Bobby. I think that’s abuse.’ From the filmmakers: See what conversion therapy looks like through Bobby’s eyes. Born Perfect is the national campaign to end conversion therapy through litigation, legislation, public education, and media. We created this video as a public education tool to raise public awareness about the absurdity of conversion therapy. If you or someone you know is experiencing conversion therapy and are seeking legal support, please contact Born Perfect’s legal support line: 1-800-528-6257 Follow us on Instagram https://instagram.com/bornperfect Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/thebornperfect CAST “Bobby” – RB Butcher “Renee” – Jasika Nicole “Mother” – D’Arcy Carden “Conversion Therapist” – Patton Oswalt Puppeteers – Kate Katz, Rachel Herrick, Alissa Hunnicut CREW Writer / Director – Carly Usdin Executive Producers – Mathew Shurka, Shannon Minter, Michael Dabbs, Brad Jenkins Producer – Rudy Jansen First Assistant Director – Selina Ruthe Director of Photography – Keitumetse Mokhonwana First Assistant Camera – Briana Monet Second Assistant Camera – Gee Moon Gaffer – Chris Bond Key Grip – Annie Williams Production Manager – Noah Kinsey Production Coordinator – Hope LaVelle Production Designer – Fon Davis Art Director – Kat Roberts Puppet Fabricators – Tim Osteen, Jared Carlson Costume Designer – Lauren St. Laurent Costumers – Claire Max, Kelsey Sissions, Lauren Ramsdell Set Construction – Todd Eric Valcourt Puppet Wranglers – Jeremy Deibo, Alexis Randolph Location Manager – Jimmy Ambrose Stage Manager – Joe Cedillo Production Assistants – Jacob Skoda, Candace Nelson, Juan Pazmino Editor – Carly Usdin Graphic Designer/Animator – Dani Okon Composer – Joanna Katcher Voiceover Recording – Todd Eric Valcourt / The TV Studio Sound Mix by Doug Clarke for Vaudeville Sound Head of Post for Vaudeville Sound: Jon Plane Executive Producer for Vaudeville Sound: Annabelle Dunbar-Whittaker Color by Luis Amaya for Apache Head of Production for Apache: Stefanie Schaldenbrand Producer for Apache: Kirsten Harris Producer for Enfranchisement – Elle Kurata Camera Rental – BeCine Filmed at FONCO STUDIOS in Los Angeles, CA Published by The Kansas City Star Comedian Patton Oswalt is a puppet in his latest role, made of fabric with an oversized head and a shock of wild hair. He plays a therapist trying to turn a “broken” little boy named Bobby straight by throwing a football at him and blaming Bobby’s “problem” on his mother, whose “motherly influence has sucked the masculinity right out of him.” All the characters are puppets in “Bobby’s Big Problem,” a short film released Tuesday by the LGBTQ rights group Born Perfect, to warn people about the dangers of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gend… Read More Puppet on Towleroad How ATT Built OAN; ATT Guilty For Help Building Far-Right, Facts-Don’t-Matter Trump-Backing One America News– SPECIAL REPORT More Jamie Spears & Britney’s Management Team Said To Have Tried Conversion-Therapy-Like Religion To Cure The Star Following Breakdown More Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart Friendship Proves ‘Love is Love’ Says Snoop; ‘It’s Always Beautiful, We Always Enjoy Each Other’s Company’ More Matt Gaetz’s Friend Joel Greenberg Asks Judge To Postpone His Sentencing For Extra Time To Turn Over Evidence To Feds More David Furnish gives Elton John health update after hip injury More Pope says French abuse report is ‘moment of shame’ More Anderson Cooper: Instagram depresses me More Repeated Misgendering Of Employees On Purpose is a Human Rights Violation in Canada. ‘Like a Name, Pronouns are… part of a Person’s Identity’ More Supreme Court Gay Issues — As Well As Many ‘Of Interest’ — In This New Term. Rights At Risk. Religion Dominates Concerns More Harry Styles confirms explicit meaning behind Watermelon Sugar More US jury orders Tesla to pay ex-employee $137 million over racism More Load More View the full article

ATT Guilty of playing far-right politics as reported in this special report. Channel bases a not insignificant amount of coverage on ridiculing and taking down LGBTQ people — If it’s not Demi Lovato’s quest for identity, the modern use of pronouns, it’s the societal ills of Drag Queen story hour, discussions of militarized homosexuals, or the “trans trends” coming for your kids. ATT built OAN it is now made clear. Hearkens back to possibly the lowest moment in GLAAD’s history when an ATT board member led the organization to opposed net-neutrality on the absurd notion that net neutrality would be bad for our people. It isn’t. Published by Reuters By John Shiffman SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T Inc, the world’s largest communications company. A Reuters review of court records shows the role AT&T played in creating and funding OAN, a network that continues to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic. OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives. “They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.” Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant. Herring has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.” Dallas-based AT&T, a mobile-phone and Internet provider, also owns entertainment giant Warner Media, which includes CNN and HBO. AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 and in August spun off the satellite service, retaining a 70% share in the new, independently managed company. AT&T’s total U.S. television subscriber base, including satellite and streaming services, fell from 26 million in 2015 to 15.4 million as of August. AT&T spokesman Jim Greer declined to comment on the testimony about OAN’s revenue streams, citing confidentiality agreements. He said that DirecTV broadcasts “many news channels that offer viewpoints across the political spectrum.” “We have always sought to provide a wide variety of content and programming that would be of interest to customers, and do not dictate or control programming on channels we carry,” Greer said. “Any suggestion otherwise is wrong.” Although the contracts are confidential, in court filings Herring cited monthly fees included in one five-year deal with AT&T. According to an AT&T filing citing Herring’s numbers, those fees would total about $57 million. Greer said that figure is inaccurate, but declined to say how much AT&T has paid to air OAN, citing a non-disclosure agreement. Herring and his adult sons own and operate OAN, a subsidiary of their closely held San Diego-based Herring Networks. Their AT&T deal includes Herring’s other network, a little-watched lifestyle channel, AWE. The Herrings declined interview requests. Herring, who just turned 80, is a self-made businessman who amassed a fortune in the circuit board industry, then turned to television and boxing promotion. OAN’s influence rose in late 2015, when it began covering Trump rallies live, at a time when some of the media still saw the New York celebrity businessman as a longshot presidential contender. The network continues to shower Trump with attention and often provides a friendly platform for his Republican allies. As president, Trump frequently urged supporters to watch OAN. In his final two years in office, Trump touted the network, known as @OANN online, to his 88 million Twitter followers at least 120 times. “Hope everybody is watching @OANN right now,” Trump tweeted on December 1, citing a dubious report about a truck carrying more than 100,000 fake ballots. “Other media afraid to show.” The state and federal court documents reviewed by Reuters detail a lucrative relationship for OAN with AT&T, even as the two occasionally tangled in court. The records include a reported offer by AT&T to acquire a 5% equity stake in OAN and AWE, though the two sides ultimately signed a different deal. The court filings also cite a promise by OAN to “cast a positive light” on AT&T during newscasts. The confidential OAN financial records are drawn in part from testimony, including by Herring and the accountant, generated during a labor lawsuit brought against OAN by a former employee and unrelated to AT&T. When that case went to trial last year, the network’s lawyer told the jury that AT&T was keeping OAN afloat. “If Herring Networks, for instance, was to lose or not be renewed on DirecTV, the company would go out of business tomorrow,” OAN lawyer Patrick Nellies told the court, a transcript shows. Researchers who tracked the rise of conservative media pillars Rush Limbaugh and Fox News see similarities between those pioneers to One America News and other new rightwing networks, particularly during their formative years. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said the births of Fox News and OAN share common threads: money and opportunity. She noted that the late Republican operative Roger Ailes had the foresight in the 1990s to recommend that Fox create a conservative news network. “If somebody recognizes there’s a market for something and there’s a lot of money attached to that market, you get a news outlet,” Jamieson said. “So this is AT&T playing the Roger Ailes role.” Greer, the AT&T spokesman, called that comparison “a ridiculous claim,” noting that other distributors also carry OAN. A BOOST FROM THE INSURRECTION America’s post-election turmoil, punctuated by the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, continues to roil the country. Dozens of election administrators in battleground states Trump lost have received a barrage of death threats, Reuters has reported. A Reuters poll in May showed that a quarter of Americans – and 53% of Republicans – wrongly believe Trump won the 2020 election. OAN caters to this audience. Trump’s loss was OAN’s gain, social media data show. The network’s online audience soared in November, after conservative mainstay and OAN competitor Fox News affirmed Joe Biden’s victory. Trump and his camp blasted Fox. A record 767,000 people installed the OAN app that month, nine times as many as in October, according to data firm Sensor Tower. In January, Trump supporters, including at least one carrying an OAN flag, stormed the U.S. Capitol. That month, app installs spiked again to 517,000. The OAN website averages 8 million visits a month from desktop and mobile users, having peaked at 15 million from November through January, data firm Similarweb found in an analysis for Reuters. Two in three people on desktop computers return to the website after an initial visit, about the same loyalty rate as Fox News and Newsmax, another rival conservative news channel. One America’s television ratings are harder to measure, partly because it is available in only about a quarter of the estimated 121 million TV households in the United States. Ratings services Nielsen and Comscore, which both show that Fox News continues to be the leading cable network, do not release OAN figures. In an internal email, an OAN news director told staff that the week of the Capitol assault produced the network’s “best ever” ratings, but gave no statistics. OAN says it is the fourth-rated news network, behind Fox, CNN and MSNBC, and ahead of CNBC, the BBC and Newsmax, but has not provided figures to back this up. (Each of these networks, including One America News, pays Reuters fees to publish the news service’s stories, videos and/or pictures.) Even so, the number of viewers OAN reaches may be less important than the kind of observers it attracts and galvanizes, said John Watson, an American University journalism professor specializing in ethics and media law. “If you have 12 Americans being fed a diet of untruth, that’s 12 too many – and here, it’s literally millions,” Watson said of the OAN audience. “When you have that sort of poisonous influence on mass media, it’s a problem; because elections in the United States tend to be so close, a few percentage points here or there can really make a difference.” At least one self-described regular OAN viewer recently sent a threatening note to an election official. In August, Sheila Garcia of Riverside County, California, sent Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold a scathing message. Biden beat Trump in Colorado, and Garcia accused Griswold, the state’s top election official, of treason – warning her that punishments for that crime are hanging and legal injection. “Within several months you will have to decide between the two,” Garcia wrote. In an interview, Griswold said she considered threats like Garcia’s message a credible threat on her life. That threat and dozens of others caused her to seek extra security measures, she said. Garcia, 55, told Reuters she’s convinced Biden stole the election and said she gets most of her news from OAN. She compared U.S. mainstream media to state propaganda outlets in China and Cuba. Her message to Griswold, she said, was legal. “If you’re afraid of a little old lady in a trailer park in California, I feel sorry for you,” she said in an interview. Neil W. McCabe, OAN’s former Washington bureau chief and now national political correspondent for The Tennessee Star, rejects the idea that the network is a toxic influence. He said OAN serves an important public role and has earned loyalty from viewers who share a similar world view. “When you give a voice to the voiceless, you’re going to bond with them,” McCabe told Reuters. “Who else is doing these stories?” In several instances, records show, the network broadcast statements and theories that were proven false. YouTube suspended OAN from making money off its YouTube channel last year for, among other things, repeatedly violating its COVID-19 policy, which prohibits content claiming there’s a guaranteed cure. OAN touts hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug promoted by Trump, without scientific evidence, as a cure for COVID. During last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, OAN aired an unconfirmed report that an elderly demonstrator in Buffalo, New York, who was knocked down and seriously injured by police was trying to jam the cops’ radios. Trump, citing the OAN story, tweeted that the man “could be an ANTIFA provocateur.” The false accusation went viral. In the two days after the OAN broadcast, one-third of all online references cited the network, an analysis compiled by Zignal Labs for Reuters found. On January 6, after Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol, an OAN news director cautioned staff via email, “Please DO NOT say ‘Trump Supporters Storm Capitol …’ Simply call them demonstrators or protestors … DO NOT CALL IT A RIOT!!!” A day later, Herring suggested the riot might be a false-flag operation by the leftwing Antifa movement. “We want to report all the things Antifa did yesterday. I don’t think it was Trump people but lets investigate,” he emailed OAN producers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation says there is no evidence of Antifa involvement in the riot. All but a handful of the some 600 suspects charged so far have been rightwing Trump backers. The next day, Herring tweeted: “If anyone thinks we will throw the best President America has had, in my 79 years, under the bus, you are wrong. We will continue to give him honest coverage.” His network went on to support Trump in an unusual way: OAN allowed two reporters to raise $605,000 to help fund a “private” audit of the presidential vote in Arizona, despite Republican officials’ assurances that Biden won the state. According to an OAN executive, they did so with the network’s blessing but in a private capacity. One of the OAN reporters, Christina Bobb, also worked part-time for the Trump recount legal team, according to a recent deposition by Trump’s then-lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. An OAN executive confirmed the arrangement. Bobb, a lawyer and former Trump administration official, did not reply to a request for comment. Five former OAN producers said in interviews that they found the practice of reporters raising funds for events they cover unethical, but said OAN’s move did not surprise them. “If there was any story involving Trump, we had to only focus on either the positive information or basically create positive information,” said Marissa Gonzales, an OAN producer from 2019 until she resigned in 2020. “It was never, never the full truth.” Since March, OAN has sold hours of infomercial time to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a leading purveyor of false claims the election was stolen. Lindell has used that time on OAN to repeatedly broadcast his election conspiracy “docu-movies.” A primary Lindell target is Dominion Voting Systems Inc, whose machines count votes in 28 states and use paper ballots and records for auditing. In August, Dominion sued OAN for defamation. “OAN saw a business opportunity” and fueled bogus conspiracies about alleged vote tampering, Dominion contended. “OAN helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs have wings,” the lawsuit said. The network’s lawyers have said in letters to Dominion that the election coverage is protected free speech and that the Lindell programs include a disclaimer that they are “opinions only and are not intended to be taken or interpreted by the viewer as established facts.” Other Trump supporters, including Lindell and lawyers Giuliani and Sidney Powell, offered a similar free speech defense in related lawsuits brought by Dominion. In August, a federal judge said the Lindell, Giuliani and Powell cases should proceed toward trial, noting that the Constitution does not necessarily offer “blanket immunity for statements that are political in nature.” Generally, the network runs few commercials compared to its competitors, and former bureau chief McCabe said the paucity of advertising is a kind of superpower. The network’s reliance on fees from cable, satellite and streaming providers, instead of commercials, inoculates it from advertiser boycotts faced by counterparts such as Fox News and rightwing online news site Breitbart, in McCabe’s view. “Because they basically live off the cable and satellite fees, nobody can organize a protest against One America News,” McCabe said. AT&T & OAN: ORIGIN STORY From the early 1970s to the late 1990s, Robert Herring Sr, with sons Charles and Robert Jr, created highly successful and profitable circuit board companies. They sold one such business in 1988 for about $52 million and another two in 2000 for $122 million. In 2004, they created a television network called WealthTV, a channel dedicated to affluent lifestyles – yachts, mega-mansions and private jets. It proved to be a tough sell. Most cable and satellite providers declined to carry it, even when the Herrings offered WealthTV at a discount, or even for free, just to get it on air. “We went to every place you could think of, begging to get on,” Herring said last year on his network. In 2007 and 2008, Herring petitioned the Federal Communications Commission and courts for help, alleging that the large cable providers favored networks they owned or co-owned, discriminating against independent broadcasters like him. The providers countered that they had the right to broadcast channels they believed provided the best content. The FCC concluded that the providers had exercised appropriate business discretion and a federal court affirmed that decision. The Herring litigation irritated some providers, lawyers for two carriers told Reuters, making it even harder to get WealthTV on cable or satellite. Still, the Herrings say they developed a good relationship with AT&T, which began carrying WealthTV in 2006 through U-verse, an Internet set-top box service that can access live TV and video on demand. By 2012, WealthTV had evolved, carrying news updates and live boxing. The Herrings were keen to leverage their existing production facilities in San Diego to launch a second network, either a boxing channel or news outlet. In a pivotal moment for the company, the Herrings say in court filings, depositions and sworn statements, unidentified AT&T executives told them there was an audience for another conservative news network. Herring seized the opportunity. In his 2019 deposition in the labor suit unrelated to AT&T, the elder Herring said he created OAN for two reasons. “To make money, number one,” Robert Herring said. “But number two, is that AT&T told us … they wanted a conservative network.” The lawyer questioning Herring, Rodney Diggs, followed up. “So,” the lawyer said, “AT&T kind of dictated the kind of network that they wanted. Because there was an opportunity, you jumped at it?” “Yes, sir,” Herring replied. EQUITY, CELEBRATION, SURPRISE A few months after launching OAN in July 2013, AT&T proposed acquiring a 5% stake in Herring Networks. In a sworn statement, OAN president Charles Herring said he accepted the oral offer in October 2013. Emails show that the two sides executed a non-disclosure agreement that December and that AT&T due-diligence executives visited the Herrings in San Diego in January 2014. But the equity proposal did not materialize into a signed contract. Instead, in April 2014 the two sides signed a more conventional deal: AT&T agreed to pay the Herrings 18 cents per subscriber on U-verse each month for five years. AT&T had 5.7 million U-verse subscribers. Suddenly, after years of rejection, the Herrings were players. The joy lasted less than a month. In May 2014, AT&T announced that it planned to acquire the satellite service DirecTV, which had 20 million TV subscribers at the time. This alarmed the Herrings because their deal with AT&T was limited to U-verse. If AT&T moved all its U-verse customers to DirecTV, the Herrings feared they might receive nothing, court filings show. OAN would lose millions of potential viewers. To prevent that, Charles Herring hustled to Los Angeles to see a key AT&T executive. LOBBYING FOR AT&T That executive, according to Charles Herring’s sworn account in a lawsuit the Herrings would later file against AT&T, was Aaron Slator, then AT&T’s president of content and advertising. Slator told him AT&T needed help to allay FCC and other officials’ concern that the DirecTV deal – a consolidation of providers – might make it harder for independent networks to get on the air, Charles Herring said. So, he said in the affidavit, Slator proposed a new deal: If the Herrings lobbied on AT&T’s behalf, AT&T would air OAN and WealthTV on both U-verse and DirecTV. The Herrings would be paid one-third less per subscriber, but because DirecTV had so many more subscribers, the deal could be worth $100 million over five years. The Herrings got to work. Charles Herring hired a Washington lobbyist and met with FCC officials, FCC records show. He says he signed a filing of support “ghostwritten by AT&T” and sent it to the FCC. He says he attended a $50,000-per-person Republican fundraiser as part of the campaign. The Herrings even offered to air positive news about AT&T on OAN, the network said in its lawsuit against AT&T, which said it could not comment on the litigation. “Herring’s support of AT&T ran deep,” the Herrings’ lawyers wrote. “Herring invited AT&T to utilize OAN’s news programs to cast a positive light on the acquisition and advocated for other issues affecting AT&T’s business.” In court records, AT&T denied it made such a deal to carry OAN on DirecTV if the Herrings lobbied for the merger. “Support for the merger was never a condition of or part of any content agreement,” an AT&T spokesperson recently told Reuters. Slator, no longer with AT&T, could not be reached for comment. Another former senior AT&T executive told Reuters the company never made quid-pro-quo offers linking network deals to political support. “You just don’t mix the two,” he said. In any event, the former executive said, such lobbying by a conservative news channel would be implausible or ineffective because it would have come during the presidency of Barack Obama, a Democrat. “The Herrings were not going to have influence with Obama’s people,” said the former AT&T official. The FCC approved the AT&T-DirecTV deal in July 2015. The Herrings say AT&T still refused to put OAN and WealthTV on DirecTV, leaving them only on the shrinking U-verse platform. In March 2016, the Herrings sued AT&T, alleging it had broken an oral promise. AT&T denied any wrongdoing, issuing a statement at the time that said, “This lawsuit is simply a ploy by Herring to negotiate a slanted deal.” The Herrings won a key pretrial ruling from a federal judge, however, and in March 2017, the case was settled on undisclosed terms. A month later, OAN and WealthTV (since renamed AWE) began appearing on DirecTV. KEEPING HIS NETWORK On February 5, 2020, the U.S. Senate, sitting as a jury during Trump’s first impeachment trial in Washington, acquitted him of abusing his power for asking Ukraine’s president to launch an investigation into then-candidate Biden. On the same afternoon, in a San Diego courtroom, Robert Herring sat before a different jury, the one that heard evidence from the OAN accountant in the employment case. The jury had already found that OAN had wrongly fired the former producer for filing a racial complaint. Now, the jury was considering punitive damages. To help determine an appropriate penalty, the law allowed the jury to hear testimony about OAN’s financial condition. In addition to testifying that AT&T provided 90% of Herring Networks’ income, the accountant said the company’s book value – the net value of its assets – was a modest $16.6 million. When Herring took the witness stand, he said OAN’s market value was far higher. He confirmed a 2020 Wall Street Journal report that pro-Trump private equity investors sought to buy OAN for $250 million. Herring told the court he had given the group a few exclusive months to come up with the money but that it had only raised $35 million. “No way I would sell for $35 million,” Herring testified. For nearly four decades, Herring had worked closely with his sons to build several successful businesses, including OAN. The network, he said, carried sentimental value. “I am not sure I want to sell for anything,” he said. (Reporting by John Shiffman in San Diego. Additional reporting by Elizabeth Culliford, Linda So, Jason Szep and Brad Heath. Editing by Ronnie Greene) At&T on Towleroad Jamie Spears & Britney’s Management Team Said To Have Tried Conversion-Therapy-Like Religion To Cure The Star Following Breakdown More Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart Friendship Proves ‘Love is Love’ Says Snoop; ‘It’s Always Beautiful, We Always Enjoy Each Other’s Company’ More Matt Gaetz’s Friend Joel Greenberg Asks Judge To Postpone His Sentencing For Extra Time To Turn Over Evidence To Feds More David Furnish gives Elton John health update after hip injury More Pope says French abuse report is ‘moment of shame’ More Anderson Cooper: Instagram depresses me More Repeated Misgendering Of Employees On Purpose is a Human Rights Violation in Canada. ‘Like a Name, Pronouns are… part of a Person’s Identity’ More Supreme Court Gay Issues — As Well As Many ‘Of Interest’ — In This New Term. Rights At Risk. Religion Dominates Concerns More Harry Styles confirms explicit meaning behind Watermelon Sugar More US jury orders Tesla to pay ex-employee $137 million over racism More Clean environment could become U.N. human right. Not so fast, say U.S., Britain More Load More View the full article

Published by OK Magazine Jamie Spearstried using religion to heal his daughter’s mental struggles. After her public “breakdown” in 2008, Britney Spearswas reportedly diagnosed with a mental illness following an involuntary psychiatric evaluation — and apparently her father thought the Bible the solution. According toTMZ, sources with direct knowledge claimed that Jamie — along with the former singer’s management team, Tri Star Entertainment — tried using their religious beliefs as a cure-all for Britney’s struggles. MEGA Jamie and Lou Taylor, the founder of Tri Star, and Robin Greenhill, who also worked for the company alongside Britney’s management, were all born-again Christians. BRITNEY SPEARS REJECTED TYRA BANKS’ OFFER TO APPEAR ON ‘DWTS’ AS HOST SLAMMED FOR HER TRIBUTE TO THE PRINCESS OF POP The outlet reported that all three of them, who were all prominent figures in the pop star’s life, would walk around with Bibles and preach about God. The source also claimed that Britney was only allowed to read religious material at one point, and that anyone who wasn’t a “good Christian” wasn’t accepted into her inner circle. However, that all seemed to change after the Circus tour, when Jamie and the management team started to care more about the money that was going directly into their pockets rather than their spiritual roots. MEGA At the time, Tri Star received 5% of Britney’s gross profits — and when the singer stopped performing in 2019, Taylor asked Jamie for a guarantee of $500,000 a year, which he approved. The actions of Taylor, Greenhill, and Britney’s father are all under speculation as new details about the shady nature of the conservatorship came to light in the newly released documentaries about the conservatorship. Britney’s lawyer, Matthew Rosengart is reportedly going to stop at nothing to investigate the unethical nature of the conservatorship, which may have included illegally bugging Britney’s bedroom and recording her conversations. BRITNEY SPEARS SHOWS #FREEBRITNEY MOVEMENT LOVE, SAYS SHE CRIED BECAUSE ‘MY FANS ARE THE BEST’ MEGA Just last week, the judge on the conservatorship case suspended Jamie as the conservator of his daughter’s estate. However, Rosengart still insists that Britney’s father isn’t getting off that easily, and is maintaining that an investigation into his actions as conservator will be conducted. “Mr Spears and his representatives did something unfathomable, unfathomable – they eavesdropped on some of the most intimate communications of my client,” the lawyer said during the hearing. Religion on Towleroad How ATT Built OAN; ATT Guilty For Help Building Far-Right, Fact-Don’t-Matter Trump-Backing One America News– SPECIAL REPORT More Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart Friendship Proves ‘Love is Love’ Says Snoop; ‘It’s Always Beautiful, We Always Enjoy Each Other’s Company’ More Matt Gaetz’s Friend Joel Greenberg Asks Judge To Postpone His Sentencing For Extra Time To Turn Over Evidence To Feds More David Furnish gives Elton John health update after hip injury More Pope says French abuse report is ‘moment of shame’ More Anderson Cooper: Instagram depresses me More Repeated Misgendering Of Employees On Purpose is a Human Rights Violation in Canada. ‘Like a Name, Pronouns are… part of a Person’s Identity’ More Supreme Court Gay Issues — As Well As Many ‘Of Interest’ — In This New Term. Rights At Risk. Religion Dominates Concerns More Harry Styles confirms explicit meaning behind Watermelon Sugar More US jury orders Tesla to pay ex-employee $137 million over racism More Clean environment could become U.N. human right. Not so fast, say U.S., Britain More Load More View the full article

[This post contains video, click to play] Published by BANG Showbiz English Snoop Dogg thinks his friendship with Martha Stewart “shows the world that love is love”. The hip hop icon has opened up on the unlikely bond he shares with his former ‘Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party’ co-host, and how he thinks they can teach the whole world a valuable lesson to about unity and acceptance. He told ‘Extra’: “Me and her together, it’s always beautiful, we always enjoy each other’s company. It just shows the world that love is love! “If you get a chance to sit around somebody, talk to them, understand them, you can become friends with them no matter what colour they are, where they come from, how old they are, race, background, religion. “And that’s what we doing, we break all the stereotypes when we’re together. We make the world feel like it’s OK.” Although the pair’s friendship started with them seeing a “great business opportunity”, their relationship blossomed. He added: “It’s more personal now. I think in the beginning, it was business. I think we seen a great business opportunity, and shooting on set, we loved it each other. “And then it was opportunities that came up. I would do a commercial and I’m like, ‘Yeah, you wanna do one?’ ‘Yeah!’ ‘OK, let’s do this!’ “And she would bring me opportunities, I would bring her opportunities. And then it became, ‘I don’t wanna do it unless Martha in’, and then she would say, ‘I don’t wanna do it unless Snoop in!’ “ The pair are set to reunite for a new Peacock series ‘Snoop and Martha’s Very Tasty Halloween’, which will see them serve as judges for the programme. He explained: “We did a little thing we got where we got some people that’s baking. Me and Marth, we’re the judges – we taste the food, we judge it, we say what they do.” View the full article

Published by Radar Online MEGA Joel Greenberg, the close friend of Matt Gaetz who made headlines earlier this year for pleading guilty to sex trafficking charges, has asked a judge to move his sentencing date into next year so he can continue his cooperation with authorities. According to the Associated Press, Greenberg asked a federal judge on Tuesday to postpone his sentencing date from mid-November until March of 2022. Per the court filing, the extra four months will reportedly provide Greenberg more time to participate in interviews with the federal authorities investigating his sex trafficking case. “Indeed, Mr. Greenberg’s ongoing cooperation, which will not be completed prior to his current sentencing date, could have an impact on his final sentence,” the court filing said. The federal prosecutors reportedly do no oppose this request. Greenberg is facing up to 12 years in federal prison. His crimes include sex trafficking of a child, identity theft, stalking, and more. His plea agreement with prosecutors states he must continue cooperating with the investigation into Gaetz. MEGA Although Matt Gaetz was never mentioned in Greenberg’s plea deal, there is speculation his cooperation could act as a major role in the ongoing investigation regarding whether Gaetz paid an underage 17-year-old girl for sex. In the past, Gaetz has denied the accusations against him, and swears such allegations are nothing more than an extortion plot against him and his family. A criminal defense lawyer named David Hill, who like Gaetz and Greenberg hails from Florida, reportedly told the outlet that Greenberg’s request for more time is not unprecedented because oftentimes extra time is needed in federal probes – especially with someone like Greenberg and his cooperation. MEGA “If this is potentially going to take down a big fish, and the government thinks there is something to it, they want time to get as much information and verify it as well,” Hill told the outlet. The judge has yet to rule on the request to postpone sentencing. View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Sir Elton John’s husband David Furnish has revealed the singer is “in pain” but “soldiering on” after his recent hip injury. The ‘Rocket Man’ legend was forced to postpone the European and UK leg of his ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ tour until 2023 following a fall, and his husband has provided an update on his health. Speaking to HELLO! magazine, David said: “He’s good. He’s in pain. His hip is quite sore. He’s been soldiering on for a long time, and he really was devastated to have to reschedule the next three months of shows. “But your health has to come first and I don’t think he would have been able to finish the tour if he wasn’t going to go in and have the hip surgery done so I’m actually really relieved and excited. “Then he’ll be able to go back on the road and be pain-free and then everybody will get a better show and he’ll be happier.” Elton, 74, revealed on September 16 he was having to delay his planned tour dates due to his nasty fall. In a statement issued to his social media pages, he said: “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I am forced to reschedule the 2021 dates of my Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in Europe and the UK to 2023. “At the end of my summer break I fell awkwardly on a hard surface and have been in considerable pain and discomfort in my hip ever since. Despite intensive physio and specialist treatment, the pain has continued to get worse and is leading to increasing difficulties moving. “I have been advised to have an operation as soon as possible to get me back to full fitness and make sure there are no long-term complications. I will be undertaking a programme of intensive physiotherapy that will ensure a full recovery and a return to full mobility without pain.” View the full article

Published by DPA Pope Francis speaks during his Wednesday General Audience at the Paul VI hall. Evandro Inetti/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa Pope Francis has said a damning report concerning sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France is “a moment of shame.” A commission of enquiry had reported on Tuesday that an estimated 216,000 children and young people had been victims of sexual violence in the Catholic Church in France since the 1950s. Together with the institutions run by the Church, there may have been 330,000 victims. This is a “considerable” number, the pope said at a general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. He expressed “my sorrow and my pain to the victims for the trauma they have suffered. But also my shame, the shame of all of us, my shame.” Francis urged bishops and church leaders in France to do everything possible to ensure that such incidents do not happen again and “so that the Church once again becomes a safe home for all.” The French Bishops’ Conference on Wednesday reaffirmed that there should be financial compensation for the victims. “You can’t repair the irreparable,” Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French Bishops’ Conference, told broadcaster France Info. The Church must recognize the victims and acknowledge its own wrongdoing, he said. The bishop did not say anything specific about the possible amount of compensation. Pope Francis interacts with the audience during his Wednesday General Audience at the Paul VI hall. Evandro Inetti/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Anderson Cooper says Instagram leaves him feeling depressed. The 54-year-old CNN presenter admits there are elements of the photo and video sharing social media platform which he enjoys but often he logs off feeling worse about his own life than when he logged in. He said: ““I’m on Instagram and I enjoy it. I follow friends and look at art sites and things like that. But I gotta say, it depresses me. I mean, I leave feeling worse than when I got on.” The presenter was speaking on his show ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, in conversation with Syracuse University’s Associate Professor of Communications Jennifer Grygiel about the effects of social media on teens. She told Anderson: “What we’re seeing on Instagram is an imminent threat to teenagers. I am seeing self-harm. I’m talking about starvation … teenagers cutting themselves.” Anderson went on to admit that he sympathises with the teenagers today, after the report claimed that “teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression” and that the findings were “unprompted and consistent across all groups.” He added: “I feel worse about my own life, I cannot imagine what a teenager feels. I mean, I’m supposedly an adult. What some kid feels looking at other people’s lives and how their lives seem much more exciting than their own.” The interview came about after finds of a report released by a whistle-blower at Facebook claimed that almost a third of girls asked had admitted to questioning their body image after using the Instagram platform. It read: ““32 per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.” View the full article

Misgendering: “Using correct pronouns communicates that we see and respect a person for who they are. Especially for trans, non-binary or other non-cisgender people, using the correct pronouns validates and affirms they are a person equally deserving of respect and dignity … when people do not use the right pronouns, that safety is undermined and they are forced to repeat to the world: I exist.” Equality March in Katowice Human Rights Violation As America continues multiple fights for civil rights protections for trans and gender-diverse individuals, a court ruling in favor of Canada trans and gender-diverse communities established precedent for how the nation’s federal government recognizes purposeful misgendering. The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled Wednesday that restaurant worker Jessie Nelson’s rights were violated by their employer’s continued deliberate misgendering of them under Canada’s Human Rights Act. The decision effectively classified such purposeful misgendering as a human rights violation under Canadian federal law. “Like a name, pronouns are a fundamental part of a person’s identity,” said Tribunal representative Devyn Cousineau in the Tribunal’s ruling. “Using correct pronouns communicates that we see and respect a person for who they are. Especially for trans, non-binary or other non-cisgender people, using the correct pronouns validates and affirms they are a person equally deserving of respect and dignity … when people do not use the right pronouns, that safety is undermined and they are forced to repeat to the world: I exist.” The Tribunal ordered a $30,000 judgment for Nelson to be paid by the restaurant and named offenders and ordered the restaurant to implement mandatory diversity and inclusion training alongside a pronoun policy for all employees. The case represents the first real challenge of protections against discrimination based on gender identity or expression approved by Canada’s parliament in 2017. This decision can be appealed through the federal court system. The restaurant has not indicated whether it will or will not pursue one. “A Place In This World” Nelson, who identifies as nonbinary and genderfluid, filed the complaint alleging their employers at Buono Osteria restaurant continually referred to them by gendered nicknames, including “sweetheart” and “honey,” despite Nelson going out of their way to explain why being properly gendered in the workplace was personally important to them. These pronouns aren’t preferred. It’s not a preference. It’s not an option to respect the pronouns that trans people choose for themselves. It’s a legal requirement Adrienne Smith, Civil Rights attorney, Vancouver B.C.According to the complaint, Nelson floated the idea of using non-gendered language for restaurant guests at a 2019 staff meeting but was met with resistance, namely from their manager. He rejected the idea outright, saying he wouldn’t “change how he spoke to guests” without direct orders from his superior. Further attempts from Nelson to speak to him resulted in a confrontation where Nelson’s manager claimed they were trying to “police our language,” a sentiment which he describing as going “against what his grandfather had fought in the war.” Nelson was fired shortly after that conversation took place with the manager claiming that Nelson didn’t “fit in” with the rest of the restaurant’s staff, a number of which had voiced support for Nelson’s suggestions during the staff meeting. “I’ve lived my entire life attempting to self-express and figure out who I am and find a place in this world,” Nelson said in the complaint. “It’s a challenging battle to have on a daily basis, even when people don’t mean it, let alone when somebody is doing it purposely.” “What this decision says is that workers in those situations need to be treated with respect,” Adrienne Smith, Nelson’s attorney, told CityNews following the ruling. “Importantly, what it says is that the correct pronouns for transgender people are not optional. They’re the minimum of courtesy and respect. And they’re a legal requirement.” Similar protections have been outlined for addition to U.S. civil rights laws under the proposed Equality Act, but the bill remains at a standstill in Congress “These pronouns aren’t preferred. It’s not a preference. It’s not an option to respect the pronouns that trans people choose for themselves. It’s a legal requirement to use the pronouns that a trans person uses for themselves and asks to have used in the workplace,” Smith added. Similar protections have been outlined for addition to U.S. civil rights laws under the proposed Equality Act, but the bill remains at a standstill in Congress despite multiple calls from President Joe Biden and other lawmakers to pass the it. Misgendering: Previously on Towleroad Repeated Misgendering Of Employees On Purpose is a Human Rights Violation in Canada. ‘Like a Name, Pronouns are… part of a Person’s Identity’ Brian Bell October 5, 2021 Read More Canada Transgender Pastor Sues Former Church For Being Fired After Coming Out During Pride Month Sermon Brian Bell August 12, 2021 Read More Soccer Star Quinn is First Out Trans Nonbinary Olympic Gold Medalist as Canada Tops Sweden in 3-2 Shootout Brian Bell August 6, 2021 Read More U.S. Extends Severe Travel Restrictions On Land Border Crossings to Canada, Mexico Through Aug. 21 Towleroad July 22, 2021 Read More Meet Your New ‘Canada’s Drag Race’ Queen [FINALE RECAP] Bobby Hankinson September 23, 2020 Read More Man Arrested After Spitting on Asian Skateboarder, Hurling Racist Slur: VIDEO Towleroad July 20, 2020 Read More Photo courtesy of Silar/Creative Commons View the full article

Supreme Court gay rights watchers have their short list of potentially difficult cases in light of the conservative court, but all argue this is neither all the danger nor all that should be of great interest to LGBTQ people. A roundup of Supreme Court gay issues and concerns in the new sessionFirst in the spotlight as the U.S. Supreme Court begins its new session Monday (October 4) is the seemingly precarious state of the right to abortion, an issue LGBT groups have long considered to be of “vital importance” to LGBT people. But there are also several LGBT-related cases petitioning for review and several other cases that involve LGBT issues in some way. Off Docket Concerns Add to this two important off-the-docket concerns: One is the growing anxiety over when 83-year-old liberal Justice Stephen Breyer might vacate his seat; and the other is the unusual step by conservative Justice Samuel Alito to defend publicly the court’s conservative majority increasing use of preliminary procedures to shore up conservative positions on highly controversial issues. Precarious Abortion Rights; LGBTQ Responses and Relevance Most discussions of the court’s new session are focused on abortion cases. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in December about the constitutionality of a new Mississippi law that bans abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy. In that case, Dobbs v. Jackson, U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin and Kyrsten Sinema, along with all nine LGBT House members, signed onto a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Mississippi’s ban. Two dozen LGBT groups —including Lambda Legal, GLAD, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Human Rights Campaign, Equality California, Equality North Carolina, LPAC, and longtime marriage equality activist Evan Wolfson— also filed a brief arguing against the Mississippi ban. The groups’ brief states that the Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey decisions, upholding the right of women to have an abortion, are of “vital importance” to sexual minority women, adding that federal statistics estimates one in 12 women between 18 and 44 is a sexual minority. “Overruling Roe and Casey would have catastrophic effects on sexual minority women,” states the groups’ brief. It notes that, “Lesbian, bisexual, and other non-heterosexual women are at least as likely as other women to experience unintended pregnancies and to require abortion care. Sexual minority women are more likely to experience unintended pregnancies as a result of sexual violence….” In a separate appeal involving an even more restrictive state abortion ban, in Texas, the LGBTQ legal group GLAD issued a press release, criticizing the Supreme Court’s vote in September to deny an injunction to stop the law from taking effect until the court could rule on its constitutionality. GLAD said allowing the Texas ban on abortion to go into effect would “hurt women, LGBTQ people, and families….” “Safe, accessible reproductive healthcare – including abortion care – is a matter of racial, economic, and gender justice,” said GLAD, “and we must all be in the fight to repeal or reverse this ban and stop the erosion of the constitutionally protected human right to reproductive choice.” Steady Wave of Appeals For Right To Discriminate The Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm dedicated primarily to undermining laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people, has, so far this session, asked the Supreme Court to review five cases in which people are seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT people by claiming a free exercise right to do so. The court could announce any day now whether it will take up these cases: Seattle’s Union Gospel v. Woods –Seattle’s Union of Gospel Mission, an evangelical group that provides food, shelter, and religious guidance to people in need, asks the high court to affirm a part of the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) that allows “any” non-profit religious organization an exemption to the law’s prohibition on sexual orientation discrimination in employment. The Mission appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after the Washington Supreme Court ruled in March that the exemption was unconstitutional as applied to one gay man who applied for a job at the Mission, after first serving there as a volunteer.Gordon College v. DeWeese-Boyd—This appeal brings a question similar to that in Seattle’s Union Gospel case. Gordon College, a private Christian missionary school in Massachusetts, was sued by one of its associate professors after the college refused her a full professorship. The school claimed the teacher failed to subscribe to its statement of religious faith; the teacher said it was because she criticized the school’s policies on LGBT people and same-sex marriage.Dignity Health v. Minton—In this case, a Catholic-run hospital in California refused to perform a hysterectomy for a female-to-male transgender patient. The hospital said that to do so would violate the ethical and religious directives that govern Catholic health care institutions. The patient sued, saying the hospital’s refusal violated the state’s human rights law. So far, the patient has won, but the case has gone only as far as an intermediate state appeals court. The appeal has been on the U.S. Supreme Court’s conference list for more than a year.Arlene’s Flowers v. Washington – This case has been at the Supreme Court since 2018 and involves a florist who refuses to sell wedding arrangements to same-sex couples, claiming a religious belief necessitates the discrimination. The Washington Supreme Court has ruled against the florist twice, and her petition to the U.S. Supreme Court was rejected in July this year. The Alliance has asked the Supreme Court to rehear that appeal, saying it is very similar to another case arriving at the court from Colorado (see below).303 Creative v. Elenis –This is a variation on the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. In this case, a graphic artist who creates websites for couples getting married, refused to create one for a same-sex couple, claiming it was against her religious beliefs. The couple sued, saying the artist violated a state law prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations; the artist appealed and the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against her. On appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Alliance argues that Colorado’s law violates the artist’s right to free exercise of her religious beliefs.Other cases of LGBT interest In other cases of interest to the LGBT community, the Supreme Court announced on September 30 that it would review a lower court decision from the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. That court held that the City of Boston’s right to allow some groups, but not a Christian civic group, to raise their flag over City Hall was a legal exercise of “government speech.” According to Liberty Counsel, a legal group promoting religious liberty, Boston allows secular flags, including the LGBT Pride flag, to fly over City Hall but won’t allow a “religious flag.” The city said its policy is “consistent with the well-established First Amendment jurisprudence” against the “establishment of religion.” Liberty Counsel, representing Harold Shurtleff whose camp sought to raise a flag prominently displaying a white Christian cross, says the city’s action violates the First Amendment. The court has scheduled for argument December 8 Carson v. Makin, which is not an LGBT-related case but is yet another case in which religious entities are seeking special dispensation under ordinary law. It’s also a case that echoes the arguments religious entities have been making to avoid complying with non-discrimination laws: that the religious person isn’t discriminating against a gay person, but discriminating against a person because his or her partner is of the same-sex. In Carson, the parents of five children in Maine are fighting a state policy of providing public funding for parents to send their children to private schools that are willing to provide “nonsectarian education.” Maine does not provide funding for parents to send their children to schools providing religious education. The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Maine could withhold funding to sectarian schools because the exclusion was not based on any school’s religious affiliation but on “on what the school teaches through its curriculum and related activities, and how the material is presented.” © 2021 Keen News Service. All rights reserved. Image by Adam Zuscik Supreme Court Gay on Towleroad Harry Styles confirms explicit meaning behind Watermelon Sugar More US jury orders Tesla to pay ex-employee $137 million over racism More Clean environment could become U.N. human right. Not so fast, say U.S., Britain More Facebook whistleblower’s allegations should be investigated by regulators – U.S. Senator More China Bans Games With LGBTQ, Effeminate Men or Nazi Characters; Activision Blizzard Settles; ‘Life Is Strange’ Promotion Benefits Community More Upbeat Biden to hit road selling endangered spending plans More ‘The Pride LA’ Owner Calls For Local School Board Recall Over Pronouns, ‘Woke Kids Equal Soft Kids’; Deletes Post When Exposed More Tommy Dorfman loves being at Paris Fashion week as ‘myself’ More Merck pill seen as ‘huge advance,’ raises hope of preventing COVID-19 deaths More Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp hit by outage: tracker More Biden goes on offensive against ‘reckless’ Republicans More Load More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Harry Styles has confirmed the explicit meaning behind ‘Watermelon Sugar’. The 27-year-old pop star revealed during a gig in Nashville that his 2019 single is centred around the subject of female pleasure – as many fans have previously speculated. He said: “This song is about … It doesn’t really matter what it’s about.” Harry – who shot to international stardom as part of One Direction – subsequently claimed that the hit single is about the “sweetness of life”, before he encouraged the crowd to sing some of the lyrics. He then added: “It’s also about the female orgasm but that’s totally different – it’s not really relevant.” Harry’s fans have often speculated about the meaning of the song over recent years. But the pop star has previously remained tight-lipped about the real inspiration for the record. When the fan theory about the song’s meaning was put to him in 2019, Harry simply replied: “Is that what it’s about?” Harry hasn’t released an album since ‘Fine Line’ in 2019, but he’s been busily working on new material and is hoping to surprise his fans in the near future. The singer is “excited” about releasing his next record, after being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Speaking about the rumoured new record, a source recently explained: “Harry started working on the album in early 2020 and had a few writing sessions under his belt before the pandemic really took hold. “As a result plans were put on ice but most of the record ended up being recorded in the UK. “Right now exact details are top secret but the track listing should be decided soon.” Harry released his debut album in 2017 and he can’t wait for fans to hear his latest effort. The insider added: “Harry is really excited about the album.” View the full article

Published by AFP A US jury awarded a former Tesla employee $137 million over workplace racism at the electric car maker's Fremont plant San Francisco (AFP) – A jury in California on Monday ordered Tesla to pay a Black former employee $137 million in damages for turning a blind eye to racism the man encountered at the firm’s auto plant in Fremont, US media reported. Owen Diaz was hired through a staffing agency as an elevator operator at the electric vehicle maker’s Fremont factory between June 2015 and July 2016, where he was subjected to racist abuse and a hostile work environment, according to the court filing. In his lawsuit, Diaz said African-American employees at the factory, where his son also worked, were regularly subjected to racist epithets and derogatory imagery. Instead of a modern workplace, the plaintiffs “encountered a scene straight from the Jim Crow era,” said the suit, originally filed by Diaz, his son Demetric and a third former employee. “Tesla’s progressive image was a facade papering over its regressive, demeaning treatment of African-American employees,” the court filing said. Diaz alleged that despite complaints to supervisors, Tesla took no action over the regular racist abuse. The jury at the federal court in San Francisco on Monday awarded Diaz $130 million in punitive damages and $6.9 million for emotional distress, Bloomberg News reported, citing one of Diaz’s attorneys, Lawrence Organ of the California Civil Rights Law Group. “We’re just gratified that the jury saw the truth and they awarded an amount that hopefully will push Tesla to correct what people testified about in terms of this widespread racist conduct,” Organ told the Washington Post. “It’s gratifying to know that a jury’s willing to hold Tesla accountable, one of the world’s largest, richest corporations finally is told, ‘You can’t let this kind of thing happen at your factory.'” ‘Not perfect’ Following the verdict, Tesla released a blog post by human resources vice president Valerie Capers Workman, which it said had been distributed to employees. In her post, Workman downplayed the allegations of racist abuse in the lawsuit, but acknowledged that at the time Diaz worked there Tesla “was not perfect.” “In addition to Mr. Diaz, three other witnesses (all non-Tesla contract employees) testified at trial that they regularly heard racial slurs (including the n-word) on the Fremont factory floor,” she wrote. “While they all agreed that the use of the n-word was not appropriate in the workplace, they also agreed that most of the time they thought the language was used in a ‘friendly’ manner and usually by African-American colleagues.” Workman said Tesla had responded to Diaz’s complaints, firing two contractors and suspending a third. She also stressed that Tesla had made changes since Diaz worked at the company, adding a diversity team and an employee relations team dedicated to investigating employee complaints. “While we strongly believe that these facts don’t justify the verdict reached by the jury in San Francisco, we do recognize that in 2015 and 2016 we were not perfect,” Workman said. “We’re still not perfect. But we have come a long way from 5 years ago. We continue to grow and improve in how we address employee concerns. Occasionally, we’ll get it wrong, and when that happens we should be held accountable.” Tesla, a global leader in electric cars, has a market capitalization of around $780 billion and its chief executive, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, is the world’s richest person, currently worth $211 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Emma Farge, Kate Abnett and Valerie Volcovici GENEVA (Reuters) – Britain and the United States are among a few countries withholding support for a proposal brought at the United Nations that would recognise access to a safe and healthy environment as a human right, prompting criticism that they are undermining their own pledges ahead of the Glasgow climate conference. Diplomats say the Geneva-based Human Rights Council is expected to adopt the resolution later this week even if an opposing country calls a vote, as supporters are numerous and include Costa Rica, the Maldives and Switzerland. If adopted, environmental defenders say it will pressure countries to join the more than 100 nations that already recognize a legal right to healthy surroundings. And while the resolution would not be binding, lawyers say it will shape norms and help campaigners develop arguments in climate cases. The World Health Organization estimates that some 13.7 million deaths a year, or around 24.3 % of the total, are due to environmental risks such as air pollution https://www.reuters.com/world/india/pollution-likely-cut-9-years-life-expectancy-40-indians-2021-09-01 and chemical exposure. “At national level, this right has been shown to empower people, particularly those most vulnerable to environmental damage or climate change, to drive change and hold governments to account,” said Marc Limon of Universal Rights Group think tank. “This might explain why some governments like the U.S., Russia and UK don’t like it.” Observers following the discussions have criticised the stance of London as host of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow next month. “Climate leadership must be reflected across diplomacy commitments – there is more to it than hosting the COP,” said Sebastien Duyck, campaign manager on human rights and climate change at the Center for International Environmental Law. “The UK must join the overwhelming majority of countries in support of this resolution so as to avoid undermining its position,” he added. Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, said she hopes Britain “comes to its senses” because the resolution is supported by “many countries more vulnerable to climate change, the very countries that (Prime Minister Boris) Johnson pledged to support.” “The UK’s leadership on climate action is well documented and our efforts are currently focussed on a successful COP26 in Glasgow,” a spokesperson for the UK mission in Geneva said. “Whilst we have legal concerns about recognising a right to a safe and healthy environment in this way, we continue to engage constructively with the main authors of this resolution at the Human Rights Council.” The U.S. mission did not respond to a request for comment. In discussions about the resolution, Washington also referred to legal concerns as well as worries that recognising new rights could dilute traditional civil and political rights, according to sources following the talks. The United States is not currently a Council member but is vying for a seat and can still join debates as an observer. While the lack of U.S. support clashes with President Joe Biden administration’s promise to play a global leadership role on climate change, Washington has historically been hesitant to add new rights and tends to avoid legally binding treaties that could be difficult to ratify. Brazil and Russia are opposed to the resolution which they say needs amending, sources following the talks say. CHALLENGE TO STATUS QUO For David Boyd, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, the U.N. proposal, which was first conceived of in the 1990s, is long overdue. “The evidence is overwhelming that these environmental challenges are directly affecting people’s enjoyment of fundamental human rights,” he said. “There are definitely countries that have a deep-rooted interest in maintaining the status quo and this is a challenge to them,” he added, without naming them. Past U.N. resolutions such as one in 2010 on the right to water and sanitation, have prompted countries like Tunisia to pass legislation enshrining it in domestic law. Aspects of the historic 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights later became law via an international treaty. Globally, the number of climate-related litigation cases has soared in the past few years and more are invoking human rights to support their arguments. Remo Klinger, lawyer for environmental non-profit Deutsche Umwelthilfe, said the resolution represents an example of “soft law” which could be used to make better cases. The group organised a successful legal case https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/germany-must-further-tighten-climate-change-law-top-court-rules-2021-04-29 that in April forced Germany to tighten its climate policies. Dennis van Berkel, legal counsel to the Urgenda Foundation which won a landmark climate case https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-netherlands-idAFL8N28U284 against the Dutch government in 2019, said the resolution could help courts interpret the right in future cases. “Although it is enshrined in many constitutions, courts do not have a huge amount of experience in how to apply this right,” he said. The Council’s 47 members are also set to decide this week on a parallel resolution brought by the European Union and others and supported by Britain that would create a new special rapporteur on climate change. Top U.N. rights official Michelle Bachelet opened the Council’s session in September by calling environmental threats “the single greatest challenge to human rights of our era”. (Reporting by Kate Abnett in Brussels and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Lisa Shumaker) View the full article

Published by Reuters By David Shepardson and Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Facebook took another pounding in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday and a senator called on federal regulators to investigate accusations by a whistleblower that the company pushed for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety. In an opening statement to a Senate Commerce subcommittee, chair Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said that Facebook knew that its products were addictive, like cigarettes. “Tech now faces that big tobacco jawdropping moment of truth,” he said. He called for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before the committee, and for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission to investigate the social media company. “Our children are the ones who are victims. Teens today looking in the mirror feel doubt and insecurity. Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror,” Blumenthal said, adding that Zuckerberg instead was going sailing. In an era when bipartisanship is rare on Capitol Hill, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed on the need for big changes at Facebook. The top Republican on the subcommittee, Marsha Blackburn, said that Facebook turned a blind eye to children below age 13 on its sites. “It is clear that Facebook prioritizes profit over the well-being of children and all users.” Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said in an email ahead of the hearing that the company sees protecting its community as more important than maximizing profits and said it was not accurate that leaked internal research demonstrated that Instagram was “toxic” for teenage girls. Frances Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team, said the company keeps its algorithms and operations a secret. “The core of the issue is that no one can understand Facebook’s destructive choices better than Facebook, because only Facebook gets to look under the hood,” she said in written testimony prepared for the hearing. “A critical starting point for effective regulation is transparency,” she said in testimony to be delivered to the subcommittee. “On this foundation, we can build sensible rules and standards to address consumer harms, illegal content, data protection, anticompetitive practices, algorithmic systems and more.” Haugen revealed she was the one who provided documents used in a Wall Street Journal investigation and a Senate hearing on Instagram’s harm to teenage girls. The Journal’s stories showed the company contributed to increased polarization online when it made changes to its content algorithm; failed to take steps to reduce vaccine hesitancy; and was aware that Instagram harmed the mental health of teenage girls. Haugen said Facebook had also done too little to prevent its site from being used by people planning violence. Facebook was used by people planning mass killings in Myanmar and the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump who were determined to toss out the 2020 election results. (Reporting by Diane Bartz, Elizabeth Culliford, David Shepardson and Sheila Dang; Editing by Mark Porter and Grant McCool) View the full article

China bans games with gay characters; Activision Settles, Life Is Strange x mxmtoon JacketActivision Blizzard Settle One Of Many Discrimination Lawsuits After a summer defined by copious allegations of discrimination and sexual misconduct spurred multiple Activision Blizzard lawsuits, the video game developer/publisher took one off the books in quick fashion. The company reached an $18 million settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shortly after the agency filed suit against the company for multiple instances of workplace discrimination. The filing came after a three-year investigation that the EEOC argued found evidence that Activision Blizzard failed to address complaints of sexual harassment, discriminated against pregnant employees and retaliated against employees who filed complaints about such behavior. Activision Blizzard announced the settlement on Wednesday, stating the money would be used to form a fund “to compensate and make amends to eligible claimants.” The company stated that any unclaimed funds would be divided among charities that ‘advance women in the video game industry or promote awareness around harassment and gender equality issues … diversity, equity and inclusion initiative, as approved by the EEOC.” Labor organizers have levied heavy criticism of the settlement following the announcement, pointing to the monetary amount as “pennies” compared to the company’s financial value. “Activision Blizzard is worth $72 billion – an $18 million settlement is mere pennies considering the resources available to this cash-rich corporation,” read a statement from the Communication Workers of America’s (CWA) Campaign to Organize Digital Employees. “Even worse, Activision Blizzard’s management does not acknowledge that their actions harmed their workers, viewing the settlement as a very small price to pay to rid themselves of a ‘distraction,'” the statement continued. Beyond company finances, the amount of the settlement pales in comparison to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s earnings, amounting to $154 million. CWA secretary-treasurer Sara Steffens expounded on that criticism while highlighting what the settlement says to affected workers. “Yesterday’s insufficient EEOC settlement made it clear that the thousands of Activision Blizzard workers who have suffered from years of toxic workplace misconduct on behalf of Activision Blizzard will not receive true justice,” Steffans said. Activision Blizzard was not required to admit to any guilt per the settlement. The company still faces separate lawsuits from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and investors as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched its own investigation into allegations of workplace misconduct. China Bans Games With “Effeminate” Characters, LGBTQ Stories Amid a sweeping number of policy changes meant to curtail the consumption of video games by Chinese youth, the Chinese government is now pressing Chinese game developers to restrict LGBTQ and “effeminate” depictions of men in future titles. According to a report from the South China Morning Post, Chinese officials communicated the initiative to officials from China-based gaming megacorps Tencent and NetEase last month, who both have financial stakes in multiple game developers based outside of China. The discussion labeled LGBTQ imagery and depictions of “gay love” in games as promoting a ‘wrong set of values.” A separate report published on the official English-language website of China’s State Council included similar sentiments. “The authorities ordered the enterprises and platforms to tighten examination of the contents of their games. Obscene and violent content and those breeding unhealthy tendencies, such as money-worship and effeminacy, should be removed,” read the report. Obscene and violent content and those breeding unhealthy tendencies, such as money-worship and effeminacy, should be removed, Chinese officials on video game contentLife Is Strange Charity Team-Up Game studio Square Enix is celebrating the sucessful release of “Life Is Strange: True Colors,” the latest installment in the popular and very queer series, by offering fans a way to give back to the LGBTQ community and score some sweet, exclusive swag. The company, along with “Life Is Strange: True Colors” developers Deck9, announced a fundraising partnership with LGBTQ advocacy group Outright Action International last month in an effort to support the community which the “Life Is Strange” series provides much needed representation. https://www.instagram.com/p/CUVSsvgIOL4/ The news also came with the first action in the relationship, launching a donation drive where those that provide financial assistance to Outright Action International are entered to win a one-of-a-kind denim jacket adorned with patchees celebrating the organization, the influential game series and its community. The jacket was designed in cooperation with musical artist mxmtoon, who provides the singing voice for “Life Is Strange: True Colors'” bisexual protagonist Alex Chen, and many of the patches were designed by people who work on the game’s development. It also features a patch crafted by a fan of the series. Fans can enter for their chance to win the unique item and donate to Outright Action International here. China Bans Games: Previously on Towleroad China Bans Games With LGBTQ, Effeminate Men or Nazi Characters; Activision Blizzard Settles; ‘Life Is Strange’ Promotion Benefits Community Brian Bell October 4, 2021 Read More ‘Frat Boy’ Culture at Activision Blizzard: Groping, Junk-Grab ‘Gay Chicken’ Game, ‘The Cosby Suite,’ Cited in California Suit. Employees Walk Out Brian Bell July 28, 2021 Read More E3 News 2021 is Gayer Gaming: Romance ‘Boyfriend Dungeon’; Kiss Nonbinary ‘Frogsong’; ‘Just Dance’ with Todrick Hall, And More Brian Bell June 20, 2021 Read More Pride Month Video Games Roundup: Queer Games Bundle; GaymerX; Queer Women of Esports; Xbox; Riot Games Brian Bell June 7, 2021 Read More Powerful Trans Representative Video Game Tell Me Why Available for Free During Pride Month Brian Bell June 1, 2021 Read More Report: Popular Video Game Valorant Rumored to be Adding LGBTQ Pride Items in June Brian Bell April 27, 2021 Read More Image courtesy of Square Enix View the full article

Published by AFP US President Joe Biden says he is confident he can win passage of two huge spending packages that comprise his political legacy Washington (AFP) – President Joe Biden said Saturday he will hit this road this week to sell his mammoth spending plans, which are in jeopardy in Congress amid a fight between centrist and progressive factions of his Democratic Party. Biden struck an optimistic note as he spoke of prospects for passage of a huge infrastructure package and even larger social spending bill that are central to his political legacy. Speaking as he left the White House to travel to Delaware, Biden said he was “going to work like hell to make sure we get both these passed. “And I think we will get them passed,” the president told reporters. “I’m going to be going around the country this week making the case why it’s so important,” added Biden, who has been criticized for not doing more to sell the bills to everyday people. “There’s nothing in any of these pieces of legislation that is radical, that is unreasonable when you look at it individually,” Biden said of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, and the $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” bill allocating money for education, child care, clean energy and other issues. The impasse on the Democratic side is rooted in political differences over how much the government should spend, but also on the sheer lack of trust between competing factions. But Biden reiterated, “I believe I can get this done. I believe when the American people are aware of what’s in it, we can get it done.” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki added in a statement that Biden and his team would “continue close engagement” with both House and Senate lawmakers through the weekend. On the other pressing issue facing the president — an urgent deadline to raise the national debt limit ahead of a default date of October 18 — Biden called on Republicans to join his party in approving an increase. A US default on its debt would be unprecedented and have catastrophic effects on the US and world economies. Usually this is not a complicated issue. But this year Republicans are refusing to join Democrats in granting authorization, while Democrats argue they should not have to bear responsibility alone. “I hope the Republicans won’t be so irresponsible as to refuse to raise the debt limit and to filibuster the debt limit,” the president said. “That would be totally unconscionable, never been done before and so I hope that won’t happen,” Biden said View the full article

Pride LA, an LGBTQ publisher in Los Angeles said, “In the real world, no one gives a hoot about your gender identity. Woke kids equal soft kids which equal soft adults.” PrTJ Montemer, Owner of ‘The Pride LA’Gay Publisher Makes Anti-LGBTQ Argument The owner of Los Angeles-based LGBTQ publication The Pride LA is in hot water after making disparaging comments toward LGBTQ youth and a Los Alamitos school teacher’s attempts to recognize students’ gender identity. The publication’s owner, TJ Montemer, posted his comments on Facebook amid calls to recall multiple members of the Los Alamitos Unified School District board after a teacher at Oak Middle School sent out a survey asking students to inform him of their preferred name and pronouns. Students told Spectrum News Orange County that the survey was meant to help ensure a welcoming and inclusive classroom, with one student saying “he wanted his students to know that they are in a safe space.” But the survey sparked controversy similar to those that have popped up in other school board meetings nationwide. After last week’s Los Alamitos school board meeting turned highly contentious, Montemer voiced his support for the anti-LGBTQ contingent in a Los Alamitos resident Facebook group. “They should recall the board,” Montemer said. “There is no place in school where this should be a teacher’s place to let kids in middle school decide anything without parents. In the real world no one gives a hoot about your gender identity. Woke kids equal soft kids which equal weak adults. Hope this changes in the right direction before my kids get there.” School board meetings have rapidly become the center of these fights, morphing into powder kegs of conservative commenters decrying support of marginalized communities as propaganda that endangers children. The situation has gotten so bad that the National School Boards Association requested federal assistance in combatting the deluge of “threats and acts of violence” against school board members and students. “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat,” reads the NSBA’s letter to President Joe Biden. “As the threats grow and news of extremist hate organizations showing up at school board meetings is being reported, this is a critical time for a proactive approach to deal with this difficult issue.” Pride LA: Previously on Towleroad ‘The Pride LA’ Owner Calls For Local School Board Recall Over Pronouns, ‘Woke Kids Equal Soft Kids’; Deletes Tweet When Exposed Brian Bell October 4, 2021 Read More ACLU Joins Indiana Gay-Straight Alliance Lawsuit Over Unequal Treatment by Schools; Same District Banned Pride Flags Few Months Ago Brian Bell September 30, 2021 Read More LGBTQ School News Roundup: Scotland Adds LGBTQ Education; Texas Students Protest Discrimination; Catholic School Rehires Out Coach; Florida School District Investigating Hate Actions Brian Bell September 24, 2021 Read More California Teacher Investigated Over Joking Students Could ‘Pledge Allegiance’ to LGBTQ Pride Flag Brian Bell August 31, 2021 Read More Kansas City Christian School Reportedly Tells Teachers to Oust Out LGBTQ Students or Find Another Job Brian Bell May 10, 2021 Read More London’s Highgate School to Allow Skirts For Boys In School Uniform Adam Rhodes May 17, 2017 Read More Screenshot via YouTube View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Tommy Dorfman has relished being at Paris Fashion Week as “myself”. The ’13 Reasons Why’ star, who came out as transgender in July, has “more of an affinity” with skirts and dresses and has loved trying on new designer pieces at various runway shows in the French capital. She said: “It’s been such a fun week to be back – as myself. I’m enjoying going to shows I’ve never gone to before, finally getting to explore different houses in Paris, and to try on different things.” The 29-year-old actress insisted she has never seen fashion as “binary”. Tommy explained: “I never really saw fashion in binary, it’s just a matter of expression. I think about history and men in tunics, men in skirts, men in dresses and to see that sort of re-translated to today is really exciting. It’s fun to be a part of all those things coming together.” The ‘Jane the Virgin’ star loved wearing a power suit for Givenchy, as it made her feel “so powerful and beautiful”. She told WWD: “I really wanted to wear a power suit. I wanted to feel that confidence and Matthew [Williams’] tailoring is so exceptional. I wore a suit of his a couple of weeks ago to an event and I felt so powerful and beautiful at the same time, so when I knew I was coming to the show I wanted to feel the same.” Tommy always saw herself as a woman, and even knew she’d be a “mother or a grandmother” in the future. She said recently: “A trans elder asked me what I see myself as when I’m older, when I’m 60, 70, 90. It was so clear, I just saw Cate Blanchett. But I really couldn’t imagine not being a mother or a grandmother. “My spirit was so attuned to whatever it means to be a woman. I’ve walked in the privilege of a male body, but [being a woman] is all I’ve known on the inside. Trans women would clock me all the time and be like, ‘Hey, girl, what’s up?’ because it’s sort of a thing you recognise.” View the full article

Published by Reuters (Corrects paragraph 22 to women of child-bearing age in the study could not be pregnant) By Deena Beasley and Carl O’Donnell (Reuters) -An experimental antiviral pill developed by Merck & Co could halve the chances of dying or being hospitalized for those most at risk of contracting severe COVID-19, according to data that experts hailed as a potential breakthrough in how the virus is treated. If it gets authorization, molnupiravir, which is designed to introduce errors into the genetic code of the virus, would be the first oral antiviral medication for COVID-19. Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said they plan to seek U.S. emergency use authorization for the pill as soon as possible and to make regulatory applications worldwide. “An oral antiviral that can impact hospitalization risk to such a degree would be game-changing,” said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Current treatment options include Gilead Sciences Inc’s infused antiviral remdesivir and generic steroid dexamethasone, both of which are generally only given once a patient has already been hospitalized. “This is going to change the dialogue around how to manage COVID-19,” Merck Chief Executive Robert Davis told Reuters. Existing treatments are “cumbersome and logistically challenging to administer. A simple oral pill would be the opposite of that,” Adalja added. The results from the Phase III trial, which sent Merck shares up more than 9%, were so strong that the study is being stopped early at the recommendation of outside monitors. Shares of Atea Pharmaceuticals Inc, which is developing a similar COVID-19 treatment, were up more than 21% on the news. Shares of COVID-19 vaccine makers https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/merck-covid-19-pill-success-slams-moderna-shares-shakes-up-healthcare-sector-2021-10-01 Moderna Inc were off more than 10%, while Pfizer was down less than 1%. Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said investors believe “people will be less afraid of COVID and less inclined to get vaccines if there is a simple pill that can treat COVID.” Pfizer and Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG are also racing to develop an easy-to-administer antiviral pill https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/covid-19-pill-developers-aim-top-merck-pfizer-efforts-2021-09-28 for COVID-19. For now, only antibody cocktails that have to be given intravenously are approved for non-hospitalized patients. White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said on Friday that molnupiravir is “a potential additional tool… to protect people from the worst outcomes of COVID,” but added that vaccination “remains far and away, our best tool against COVID-19.” A planned interim analysis of 775 patients in Merck’s study looked at hospitalizations or deaths among people at risk for severe disease. It found that 7.3% of those given molnupiravir twice a day for five days were hospitalized and none had died by 29 days after treatment. That compared with a hospitalization rate of 14.1% for placebo patients. There were also eight deaths in the placebo group. “Antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with COVID-19 out of the hospital are critically needed,” Wendy Holman, Ridgeback’s CEO, said in a statement. ‘A HUGE ADVANCE’ Scientists welcomed the potential new treatment to help prevent serious illness from the virus, which has killed almost 5 million people around the world, 700,000 of them in the United States. “A safe, affordable, and effective oral antiviral would be a huge advance in the fight against COVID,” said Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at the University of Oxford. The study enrolled patients with laboratory-confirmed mild-to-moderate COVID-19, who had symptoms for no more than five days. All patients had at least one risk factor associated with poor disease outcome, such as obesity or older age. Drugs in the same class as molnupiravir have been linked to birth defects in animal studies. Merck has said similar studies of molnupiravir – for longer and at higher doses than used in humans – indicate that the drug does not affect mammalian DNA. Merck said viral sequencing done so far shows molnupiravir is effective against all variants https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/merck-says-research-shows-its-covid-19-pill-works-against-variants-2021-09-29 of the coronavirus including the highly transmissible Delta, which has driven the recent worldwide surge in hospitalizations and deaths. It said rates of adverse events were similar for both molnupiravir and placebo patients, but did not give details. Merck has said data shows molnupiravir is not capable of inducing genetic changes in human cells, but men enrolled in its trials had to abstain from heterosexual intercourse or agree to use contraception. Women of child-bearing age in the study could not be pregnant and also had to use birth control. The U.S. drugmaker said it expects to produce 10 million courses of the treatment by the end of 2021. The company has a U.S. government contract to supply 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir at a price of $700 per course. Davis said Merck has similar agreements with other governments, and is in talks with more. Merck said it plans a tiered pricing approach based on country income criteria. The U.S. government has the option to purchase up to an additional 3.5 million treatment courses if needed, a U.S. health official told Reuters. The official asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the contract. Merck has also agreed to license the drug to several India-based generic drugmakers, which would be able to supply the treatment to low- and middle-income countries. Molnupiravir is also being studied in a Phase III trial for preventing infection in people exposed to the coronavirus. Merck officials said it is unclear how long the FDA review will take, although Dean Li, head of Merck’s research labs, said, “they are going to try to work with alacrity on this.” (Reporting by Deena Beasley and Carl O’Donnell; Additional reporting by Josephine Mason, and Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Kirsten Donovan, Alexander Smith, Bill Berkrot and Sonya Hepinstall) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Anderson Cooper has revealed that his son is obsessed with feet and that his first word was shoes. The 54-year-old broadcaster – who welcomed 17-month-old Wyatt with then-partner Benjamin Maisani via surrogate back in 2017 – joked about his son’s unusual fascination on The Ellen Show. He said: “Wyatt is always showing off his feet. I’m not sure why, but there it is”. Host Ellen DeGeneres smiled at the comment and quipped: “Maybe he’s gonna be aerialist!” Anderson then revealed that Wyatt has recently started to speak his first words. He added: “He’s just started to talk a little bit. One of his first words was ‘shoes’ which I love.” It comes as the CNN presenter shares the cover of People Magazine with his son, which he unveiled on the talk show. He also went on to talk about his new book later in the chat with Ellen. ‘Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty’ tells the story of his famous family, who began a shipping empire in the 19th century with Cornelius Vanderbilt being called ‘America’s first great tycoon.’ Anderson joked about how he was shocked to learn during research that he is far from being the only gay member of his family. He said: “My mom was taken away from her mom as a child by courts and given to an aunt. One of the reasons the court ruled to take my mother away is that her mother was seen kissing a woman in bed who she was having a relationship with. She had been married to a man. My mom’s aunt – who she was given to – also had a secret gay life.” Further research revealed that Cornelius Vanderbilt had a gay son too. He added: “Commodore Vanderbilt – one of his sons, who he hated – was secretly gay and yeah, it didn’t end well but he gave his house to his male lover.” He then quipped: “I was like ‘Wow, it’s chock full of gays!'” View the full article