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Published by AlterNet Last year, the Minnesota House Preventative Health Policy Division approved a bill that bans conversion therapy in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. The practice has long been decried as torture and is prohibited in nearly half the country. “Mental health professionals would be prohibited from providing conversion therapy to vulnerable adults and clients under age 18,” Minnesota Public Radio reported on March 2nd, 2022. The full measure passed the Minnesota House of Representatives in February 2023. Democratic Governor Tim Walz noted that he intends to sign it if it clears the Republican-dominat… Read More View the full article

Published by Orlando Sentinel ORLANDO, Fla. — The DeSantis administration next month could effectively bar all public school teachers from providing classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, a move that would expand Florida’s controversial 2022 law and go even further than the legislation Republican lawmakers are pushing in Tallahassee this spring. A proposed State Board of Education rule, scheduled for a vote next month, says teachers in grades 4 to 12 “shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction” on either topic, expanding the prohibition in last year’s law that critics dubbed “don’t say g… Read More View the full article

Published by Reuters By Jennifer Rigby LONDON (Reuters) – Some of the world’s leading makers of flu vaccines say they could make hundreds of millions of bird flu shots for humans within months if a new strain of avian influenza ever jumps across the species divide. One current outbreak of avian flu known as H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b has killed record numbers of birds and infected mammals. Human cases, however, remain very rare, and global health officials have said the risk of transmission between humans is still low. Executives at three vaccine manufacturers – GSK Plc Moderna Inc and CSL Seqirus, owned by CSL Ltd – told Reuters they are already developing or about to test sample human vaccines that better match the circulating subtype, as a precautionary measure against a future pandemic. Others, like Sanofi, said they “stand ready” to begin production if needed, with existing H5N1 vaccine strains in stock. There has also been a push among companies to develop a bird flu vaccine for poultry, a market potentially far larger than that for humans. Less reassuring, however, is that most of the potential human doses are earmarked for wealthy countries in long-standing preparedness contracts, global health experts and the companies said. Many countries’ pandemic plans say flu shots should go first to the most vulnerable while supply is limited. But during COVID-19, many vaccine-rich countries inoculated large proportions of their populations before considering sharing doses. “We could potentially have a much worse problem with vaccine hoarding and vaccine nationalism in a flu outbreak than we saw with COVID,” said Dr Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which helps fund vaccine research. An international framework for pandemic flu allocates 10% of global supply for the World Health Organization to share with low- and middle-income countries. By contrast, the WHO is seeking guarantees of 20% global supply for other types of pandemic in the wake of COVID. The U.N. agency said it has signed legally binding agreements with 14 manufacturers for 10% of their pandemic flu vaccine “as it comes off the production line”, in a mix of donated doses and doses to be bought by the agency at an affordable price. The agreements include six of the largest seasonal flu manufacturers, such as GSK, Sanofi and CSL Seqirus, the WHO said. WHO did not comment on the potential for vaccine hoarding in a flu pandemic but said mechanisms were being developed “so that countries can work together – not in competition with each other” to respond to such a crisis. It said it was “fully confident” manufacturers and member states would meet their obligations. NEW APPROACHES In a pandemic, vaccine manufacturers would shift production of seasonal flu vaccines and instead make shots tailored to the new outbreak when needed. They already have the capacity to make hundreds of millions of doses. Many of the potential pandemic shots are pre-approved by regulators, based on data from human trials showing the vaccines are safe and prompt an immune response, a process already used with seasonal flu vaccines. This means they might not require further human trials, even if they have to be tweaked to better match whichever strain does jump to humans. Data on how well the vaccines actually protect against infection would be gathered in real-time. In all, the WHO said there are close to 20 licensed vaccines against the broader H5 strain of flu. Existing antiviral treatments for people already infected will also help mitigate the impact. At the same time, moving to large-scale production of a more targeted shot could take months, the manufacturers said. Some potential shots use a traditional method, growing the virus used in the vaccines in chicken eggs over four to six months. “Creating the first dose is the easiest,” said Raja Rajaram, head of global medical strategy at CSL Seqirus. “The hardest is manufacturing in large quantities.” Experts have long advocated for new approaches in developing vaccines, both for seasonal and pandemic flu. COVID proved the potential of mRNA technology to adapt more quickly to changing viruses because the vaccines use genetic information from the pathogen, rather than having to grow the virus itself. Moderna’s mRNA vaccine research actually began with pandemic flu, and was modified for COVID, said Raffael Nachbagauer, executive director of infectious diseases at Moderna. The company plans to launch a small human trial of an mRNA pandemic flu vaccine tailored to the new avian influenza subtype in the first half of 2023, he said, adding Moderna could respond “very quickly” in an outbreak scenario. The results will be closely watched, as the data on Moderna’s seasonal flu candidate was mixed. Nachbagauer said the company was mindful of the equity issue needing to be addressed but has no contracts yet. “It would be premature to sign anything or commit to anything that we can’t actually deliver on as of today,” he said. (Reporting by Jennifer Rigby; Additional reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Michele Gershberg) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Toni Collette has sent away intimacy coordinators because she doesn’t find them helpful. The 50-year-old actress insisted the experts – who are brought in to help choreograph sex scenes and to make sure the cast involved feel comfortable – only serve to make her feel “more anxious” so she’d rather not have them on set. She told The Times magazine: “I think it’s only been a couple of times where they’ve been brought in, and I have very much trusted and felt at ease with the people I was working with. It just felt like those people who were brought in to make me feel more at ease were actually making me feel more anxious. They weren’t helping, so I asked them to leave.” The ‘Power’ star ackowledged she’s been “very fortunate” to have worked with just “a few a********” during her long career. Asked if she’d have welcomed the intimacy experts earlier in her career, she said: ““It depends. Look, every job is different. Every single job is different. Because it’s a bunch of new people it’s a new energy; everyone brings their whole life with them, and it’s all thrown in the pot. “You never know what you’re going to get and it’s a miracle that a film ever comes together, let alone thrives. “I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve only worked with a few a******** over the several decades that I’ve managed to keep this boat afloat.” Toni also hit out at the trend for cancel culture and how it has led to people feeling “stifled”. She said: “God, when [cancel culture] was first mentioned to me, a while back now, I didn’t quite understand what people meant… “I mean, we don’t want people who are offensive swinging their stuff around with freedom. But people who are authentic and have something within them to share in life, feeling stifled? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Paris Hilton has credited Demi Lovato with inspiring her to write her tell-all book. The hotel heiress has lifted the lid on her life in ‘Paris: The Memoir’ which gives a brutally honest account of her early years and her career in the spotlight, and she’s now insisted Demi inspired her to put pen to paper after the pop star shared her own story in 2017 documentary ‘Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated’. In her book, Paris writes: “I was as stunned as the rest of the world by how real, vulnerable, and courageous she [Demi] was. In the doc, Demi shared a painful reckoning with a difficult past; in person, I saw her in the midst of an intense journey of self-acceptance and discovery. I envied that acceptance. I wanted that discovery for myself.” In Demi’s documentary, she opened up about her struggles with an eating disorder as well as her bipolar disorder diagnosis and her battle with addiction issues. She followed it up with another film in 2021 called ‘Dancing With The Devil’ in which she spoke about the 2018 overdose which almost claimed her life. Paris relived her own traumatic past in her book, detailing the alleged abuse she suffered at a boarding school for troubled teens, being raped as a teenager and the sex tape scandal which marred the early days of her career. During a recent appearance on ‘Good Morning America’, Paris explained writing the book felt like therapy for her past trauma. She said: “‘This book was like a diary. I put everything in there, so many really traumatic experiences that I endured, especially as a teenager, and so many just memories I didn’t want to remember – but also a lot of the good, exciting times. I’ve lived such an amazing life. “It was so cathartic and therapeutic letting go of so much because carried so much on me for so long and I’ve been through so many hard times. But just to put it all out there felt good.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Alvise Armellini ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s courts should stick to tradition and avoid the novelty of gender-neutral symbols in official documents, according to the institution that acts as the guardian of the Italian language. The Accademia della Crusca was asked to weigh in on the matter by the equal opportunities committee of the Corte di Cassazione, Italy’s top appeals body, illustrating the national debate over gender issues and political correctness. In Italian, as in other Latin-based tongues, nouns can take a feminine or masculine form, but the plural masculine form tends to take precedence. For example, the masculine form “tutti” is routinely used for “everyone”, rather than the feminine “tutte”. Some see this as an expression of male dominance and support the introduction of gender-neutral noun endings, such as asterisks or the so-called “schwa”, a symbol that looks like an inverted “e”. For example, an email or a letter to a man or a woman would no longer start with “caro” or “cara” (dear), but with the gender neutral “car*”, which would also replace the plural “cari”. But the Accademia della Crusca, in its response to the Cassazione, rejected these changes for legal documents, saying they would be artificial and supported only by minority groups, “however well-intentioned.” “Legal language is not the right place for minoritarian innovative experimentations,” the Accademia said in a six-page opinion that Reuters reviewed on Monday, after the Corriere della Sera newspaper first reported on it. The Accademia said the Italian masculine plural form remains “the best instrument” to collectively represent “all genders and orientations”, but also backed the wider use of the feminine form of professional titles. In October, Italy’s first woman prime minister, right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni, sparked controversy after saying the preferred her title of “Presidente del Consiglio” to be preceded by the masculine article “il”, rather than the feminine “la”. (Reporting by Alvise Armellini; Editing by Keith Weir) View the full article

Published by PsyPost New research sheds light on the cultural values that played a key role in shaping people’s attitude toward Donald Trump and their intentions to vote for the Republican candidate in 2016. The findings, published in New Political Science, indicate that beliefs related to hegemonic masculinity, race/ethnicity, and authorities on truth influenced the likelihood of adults developing an affinity for Trump. “As social scientists, we were particularly interested in the social forces that encouraged people to develop affinities for Donald Trump — who was such a controversial, divisive, and fascinating … Read More View the full article

Published by uInterview.com Actor Lukas Gage revealed that he feels pressured to label his sexuality. “An agent that dropped me was like, ‘Stop dyeing your hair, stop wearing weird clothes, and pick a lane: gay, bi, or straight. It’s too confusing,’” he told The New York Times. “I understand representation and voices that need to be heard, but I don’t want to do anything on anyone’s accord but my own.” 50 BEST CELEBRITY BIKINIS SLIDESHOW! “Let me do it when I’m ready. And it’s acting. I feel like everyone should get the opportunity to play whatever they want,” Gage continued. “I’m a pretty open book about most things in … Read More View the full article

Published by New York Daily News A masked protester was arrested during clashing demonstrations outside a Manhattan drag story hour hosted by state Attorney General Letitia James Sunday, cops said. The gold-masked man was taken into custody about 11:30 a.m. after an assault at the protest outside the LGBTQ Community Center on W. 13th St. in Greenwich Village. Video posted on Twitter shows a small group of protesters, including a man in a Proud Boys sweatshirt, across the street from the center while a much larger crowd of counter-protesters lined the sidewalk to show their support for the event. At one point, the gold-masked … Read More View the full article

Published by AlterNet Rep. Park Cannon (D-GA) is committed to helping her colleagues understand the dangers of banning gender-affirming care in Georgia. According to The Cullman Times, a Georgia GOP-backed bill could allow the banning of “sex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures and hormone replacement therapies that are performed on anyone younger than age 18 for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics.” As Georgia House members gathered last week to vote on the legislation, Cannon, who is only queer, pleaded with her colleagues to protect transgender children. READ M… Read More View the full article

Published by AlterNet After the 2022 midterms gave Republicans a narrow single-digit majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, the reelected Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) made a major announcement: She would be remaining in Congress but stepping down as Democratic House leader. Pelosi, now 82, was ready to pass the torch, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) was chosen as House minority leader. Jeffries now finds himself frequently butting heads with conservative House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California). Journalist Nolan D. McCaskill takes a look at Pelosi’s post-speaker life in an article published by … Read More View the full article

Published by Reuters By John Kruzel WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a traveling Christian evangelist’s free-speech challenge to a University of Alabama requirement that he obtain a permit before handing out religious pamphlets and preaching from a sidewalk adjacent to its campus. The justices turned away an appeal by preacher Rodney Keister of a lower court’s ruling rejecting his claim that the university’s permit requirement violated free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Keister, founder of a Pennsylvania-based group called Evangelism Mission, regularly visits U.S. university campuses in hopes of spreading his Christian message to students, according to court filings. In 2016, Keister, along with a companion, preached using an amplifier and distributed Christian literature from a sidewalk adjacent to the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa, trying to engage passersby. School officials told Keister he needed a permit for a public-speaking event, prompting him and his companion to leave. The university’s policy at issue governed when, where and how a person unaffiliated with the school may engage in public speaking on campus including on sidewalks, other than “casual recreational or social activities.” It required a permit application 10 business days in advance – which has since been reduced to five business days – and sponsorship by a student organization or university academic department. Keister in 2017 filed a civil rights suit against University of Alabama officials, arguing that the sidewalk’s status under the First Amendment is that of a “traditional public forum,” affording speakers the most robust protections available under the Constitution. Following losses in lower courts, Keister’s appeal in 2018 was turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court, prompting him to file an amended civil rights suit against school officials the next year. A federal judge in 2020 ruled in favor of the school officials, finding that the sidewalk was a “limited public forum” – a status giving public universities and other government entities more leeway to regulate particular classes of speakers or kinds of speech. The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed last year. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, in recent years has taken an expansive view of religious rights, though this case came to the justices as a free speech dispute. The high court is due to rule by the end of June in another free speech case involving religion. The court’s conservative justices during arguments in December appeared ready to rule that a Christian web design business owner named Lorie Smith has a right to refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages. Smith has said that under her Christian beliefs marriage should be limited to opposite-sex couples. (Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham) View the full article

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