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Published by DPA Jan Hempel, former world-class water diver, is pictured in the studio of the ARD talk show "Maischberger". Hempel has announced he will sue the German Swimming Federation (DSV) for compensation and damages after being sexually abused by his coach during his career. Henning Kaiser/dpa Former German top diver Jan Hempel has announced he will sue the German Swimming Federation (DSV) for compensation and damages after being sexually abused by his coach during his career. Hempel’s lawyer, Thomas Summerer, told broadcasters ARD in an interview Sunday that they were seeking more than €1 million ($1.07 million) from the DSV. Hempel went public with the case last year, and the legal complaint says the two-time Olympic medallist was abused more than 1,200 times during his career by the late coach Werner Langer over 14 years in the 1980s and 1990s. “It is the most blatant case of abuse that German sport has ever experienced,” Summerer said. The lawyer spoke of a precedent which could open the door for other athletes to take similar action, and that they were ready to fight in court for many years, if necessary. “The German Swimming Federation organisation has completely failed in monitoring and controlling its coaches. There was only cover-up. This organisational culpability leads to a federation being liable,” Summerer said. Hempel had accused the DSV of cover-up last year. The federation then suspended national team coach Lutz Buschkow who was said to have known of the abuse but had done nothing. Buschkow said he only became aware of it when Hempel went public. Summerer said they had talked with the DSV about compensation and that there had been a verbal agreement in principle but that they were now going to court because nothing has happened since then. “Nothing has happened that would keep our confidence in the German swimming federation high,” he said. View the full article

Published by DPA Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes hands with President of Finland Sauli Niinisto during their meeting at the Presidential Complex. -/Turkish Presidency/dpa President Sauli Niinistö has defended Finland’s decision to proceed with accession to NATO without its neighbour Sweden on the grounds that rejecting Turkey’s pending ratification of its candidacy would have been problematic. “Should we have rejected ratification by Turkey? That sounds a bit crazy,” Niinistö said in an interview with Sweden’s SVT national public service that was broadcast in full on Saturday evening. “It would have been a very problematic situation, if we had said no to Ankara,” he added. Niinistö’s comments came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that his government would begin the ratification process for Finland. While he had always emphasized that Finland would go “hand-in-hand” with Sweden to the extent that the decision was theirs to make, ratification ultimately lay with Turkey and Hungary, the two NATO member still to ratify the applications, Niinistö said. After decades of neutrality, the two Nordic countries applied to join the trans-Atlantic defence alliance last May following Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine. They made clear that they wished to join together. Turkey continues to block Swedish accession on the grounds that Sweden refuses to extradite 120 people seen by Turkey as terrorists. Hungary too has yet to ratify the Finnish application, with a decision expected on March 27. View the full article

Published by AlterNet In an article published by The Nation on March 7, attorney Elie Mystal — who has often appeared as a legal analyst on MSNBC — laid out some reasons why former President Donald Trump could face a criminal indictment in the months ahead but still win the 2024 GOP presidential nomination and possibly even end up back in the White House on January 20, 2025. It remains to be seen whether or not such an indictment will come about, or whether the Republican Party’s next presidential nominee will be Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (assuming that he runs) or someone else. But Trump is facing a variety… Read More View the full article

Published by Raw Story Clashes between Proud Boys and counter-protesters led to at least one arrest on Sunday. The incidents occurred on 7th Avenue in New York City at the Drag Queen Story Hour with Attorney General Letitia James event. Videos shared online showed some protesters wearing gear and colors associated with the Proud Boys. Members of the far-right group were seen clashing with counter-protesters in the street. One video shows a man in Proud Boys colors being arrested. ALSO IN THE NEWS: ‘Enough is enough’: Dem fires back at GOP meltdown over possible Trump indictment In another video, a group member appea… Read More View the full article

Published by Knewz A Ukrainian soldier has it under good authority that the eastern European Country will be developing a bomb that has an uncanny resemblance to a penis. The once-journalist now a warrior, known on Twitter as Spaghetti Kozak has revealed that Ukraine is developing a bomb that is not only capable of bringing death and injury to Russian troops on the frontline but also insult in that the weapon is phallic-shaped. Spaghetti Kozak has claimed this ‘phallic’ bomb is created using 3D printing techniques and wrote in a tweet “serious historians of this war will be forced to record that dozens of Russia… Read More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Martina Navratilova and her wife Julia Lemigova have put their plans to adopt a child on hold as the sports star battles cancer. The 66-year-old tennis legend and her partner had been hoping to expand their family this year, but Julia has now revealed they halted the process after Martina was diagnosed with stage one throat cancer and breast cancer in January as they want to wait until she has recovered before bringing a child into their home. Speaking on ‘The Real Housewives of Miami’ reunion show, Julia explained: “When you’re adopting a child, it has to be about the child. And right now it’s everything about Martina and for her getting health. We’re putting it on hold. “We were thinking any moment the agency would call and give us the happy news that we were going to have a baby.” Host Andy Cohen asked if they were far along in the adoption process, and Julia replied: “Instead, we are fighting two cancers. Like one is not enough. I’m just waiting for Martina to get better.” Julia went on to thank fans for all their messages of support, saying: “I want to thank all of you here for reaching out and for showing your support. Thank you so much, she’s going through a very hard time right now.” The couple married in 2014 and Julia is mum to two daughters Emma, 17, and Victoria, 21, from a previous relationship. She also had a son who died when he was an infant. Martina – who won 59 Grand Slam singles and doubles titles in her four-decade career – went public with her cancer diagnosis in January after discovering an enlarged lymph node in her neck in November. Tests later confirmed she had stage one throat cancer and another “suspicious form” was then found in her breast which was unrelated. Martina said: “This double whammy is serious but still fixable. I’m hoping for a favourable outcome. It’s going to stink for a while but I’ll fight with all I have got.” It comes 13 years after the tennis icon underwent radiation therapy for breast cancer and was given the all-clear after undergoing six weeks of chemotherapy. A spokeswoman for Martina added both her cancers “are in early stage with great outcomes”, saying in a statement: “Martina Navratilova has been diagnosed with stage one throat cancer. The prognosis is good and Martina will start her treatment this month. “The cancer type is HPV and this particular type responds really well to treatment. Martina noticed an enlarged lymph node in her neck during the WTA finals in Fort Worth. When it didn’t go down, a biopsy was performed, the results came back as stage one throat cancer. “At the same time as Martina was undergoing the tests for the throat, a suspicious form was found in her breast, which was subsequently diagnosed as cancer, completely unrelated to the throat cancer. “Both these cancers are in their early stages with great outcomes.” View the full article

Published by Sports Illustrated By Madison Williams The 25-year-old admitted he initially didn’t intend to come out during his fighting career because of the possibility of negative responses. After an intimate video of UFC fighter Jeff Molina was posted without his permission on Thursday, the 25-year-old posted a statement on social media Friday revealing he is bisexual. In his statement, Molina said he preferred to come out on his own terms but stated that he wanted the news to come from him. Based on his statement, it sounds as if Molina didn’t intend to come out during his mixed martial arts career because he was worried… Read More View the full article

Published by Raw Story The latest episode of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ takes aim at right-wing inspired drag bans, The Daily Beast reports. The Emmy-award winning reality show in its 15 season features a conversation in which the artists get real about the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ targeting in America. The episode was filmed last year, but aired following the passage of a sweeping Tennessee bill that restricts “adult cabarets” in public or in the presence of children, and bans such performances anywhere within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks, or places of worship. “It feels like we’re taking a giant step back,” said Anetr… Read More View the full article

Published by AFP Sensitivity readers are fair game in children's fiction, argue some authors — but adults have the option to put a book down if it offends them Washington (AFP) – It’s a profession which is increasingly under the spotlight as the culture wars rumble on: “sensitivity readers” — editors who identify insensitivities or stereotypes in manuscripts — are becoming a lightning rod for the publishing industry. Such readers have worked in the wings of the Western literary world for years now, though they were largely confined to children’s literature. But amid social reckonings such as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, sensitivity readers are becoming prominent in contemporary fiction publishing also — and not everyone is pleased about it. Publishers “are doing a damn good job, trying to ruin our books, and to ruin our fun as readers,” the American author of “We Need To Talk About Kevin,” Lionel Shriver, complained on ultra-conservative British channel GB News last month. Sensitivity readers have recently been pilloried again with the announcement that books by children’s writer Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond novels, were being republished to be more adapted to current sensibilities. In Dahl’s books, for example, some characters are no longer identified as “fat” or “crazy.” Fleming’s books were being reissued with racial references — including the N-word — removed. Accusations of censorship began flying almost immediately from observers who fear sanitized literature could whitewash the past as well as the present. “People say that, but I don’t feel that they understand the process,” Patrice Williams Marks, a Los Angeles-based sensitivity reader, tells AFP. “If you’re writing about a people or community that you’re unfamiliar with, and you want it to be authentic… then you find somebody who’s a sensitivity reader who’s part of that community and ask for their opinions,” she explains. “I always let them know that they don’t have to accept the changes that I suggest,” says Lola Isabel Gonzalez, another sensitivity reader, also based in Los Angeles. Modern censors? So who are “sensitivity readers”? Mostly they are freelance editors, often paid by the word or number of pages — and with strict confidentiality clauses, of course — by authors or publishers concerned about the accuracy of their manuscripts. Or, as critics charge, to avoid at all costs the disaster of being canceled in a social media storm over a faux pas. The proofreaders often list their areas of expertise: “child of immigrants,” “bisexual,” “autistic,” “hijabi,” “deaf,” “expertise in both mainland Chinese and Hong Kong culture” and so on. “There are good reasons for regulating children’s reading: it is foundational and formational,” British author Kate Clanchy wrote last year. But she is much more circumspect when it comes to adults. Adults “are able to put books down if they upset them, so their books may safely contain difficult ideas,” argues Clanchy, who was herself at the center of a sensitivity reader controversy when her memoir was accused of being racist and insensitive. For Shriver, who has long complained about such readers, they are nothing less than “sensitivity police.” “At the keyboard, unrelenting anguish about hurting other people’s feelings inhibits spontaneity and constipates creativity,” she wrote in The Guardian newspaper in 2017. In France, a country widely resistant to this type of revisionism, the essayist Raphael Enthoven in 2020 denounced these “modern censors” as “the vanguard of the Identity Plague.” Progress But many other writers are in favor of readers — like the American Adele Holmes, who called on Marks’s services for her first book, “Winter’s Reckoning.” “Patrice was able to point out some areas of white privilege and the white savior role,” Holmes told AFP. And, more prosaically, for the character of a Black woman described as having “silky” hair, Marks suggested using the word “coil” instead, to make it more realistic. Holmes feels that the proofreader helped her “immensely.” As for the criticisms, she argues they come from people who feel “threatened” by minorities, in a publishing world long known to be predominantly white. For her part, Marks dates the renewed interest in her profession to the 2020 killing of George Floyd, an African American man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis. The murder ignited protests and a social reckoning on modern racism in the United States and around the world. Since then, authors have “become more conscious of the lens that they’re looking through,” Marks told AFP. Gonzalez also sees this increased care as reflecting social evolution. “I don’t think I could have done it professionally in any other decade,” she says of her job, welcoming the fact that “Generation Z” is challenging established social narratives. Those younger generations understand the importance of sensitivity reading, she argues — as opposed to their elders, who might “have a harder time seeing it as progress.” View the full article

Published by AlterNet Right-wing Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, whose talk show is supremely focused on the dehumanization of LGBTQ+ people, had no problem dressing in drag and portraying gay roles on film as an actor in college, according to multiple internet sleuths who discovered Knowles’ past performances earlier this week. Knowles’ filmography is available on IMDB. Media Matters for America also has an extensive collection of Knowles’ bigoted diatribes. On Friday, March 10th, Twitter user Witches Truth Post stated: What’s this? ‘A 2020 tweet from Knowles said, ‘Drag is funny because men aren’t supposed to we… Read More View the full article

Published by PsyPost A new study published in Behavior Genetics provides evidence of a bidirectional relationship between same-sex attraction and psychological distress. The findings indicate that experiencing attraction to people of the same sex can result in higher levels of depression and anxiety, but this relationship goes both ways – psychological distress can also result in an increase in same-sex attraction. Research has demonstrated that individuals who are sexually attracted to people of the same sex tend to experience higher levels of psychological distress, including depressive symptoms and anxiety, com… Read More View the full article

Published by New York Daily News Rep. George Santos has a plan to survive — and it’s straight out of the MAGA playbook. Mocked by late night comics and mostly shunned by his own party’s leaders, the controversial Long Island Republican has found a political home in the far-right wing of the GOP. Santos, who admits to lying about much of his background, now says he’s a victim of the liberal media, Deep State prosecutors and so-called Republicans in name only, the same cast of villains that former President Donald Trump and Fox News hosts rail against. “MAGA world is a safe harbor for Santos, perhaps the only one he has left,” … Read More View the full article

Published by Newbury Today By [email protected] (Trish Lee) Following a visit from Sir Ian McKellen to the Corn Exchange panto last year, to see his friend Adam Brown’s Cinderella – which Adam co-wrote and directed – the Hungerford actor is now touring the country in Sir Ian’s own panto Mother Goose. The two met when they worked together in Newzealand on the Peter Jackson film of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Adam played the dwarf Ori and Sir Ian was the wizard Gandalf. https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/sir-ian-mckellen-checks-out Adam told @newburytoday arts editor Trish Lee: “I’m having a wonderful time on Mot… Read More View the full article