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<p>Wal-mart Stores reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations on Thursday.</p> <p>The company posted first-quarter earnings per share of 98 cents, compared to $1.03 a share in the year-earlier period.</p> <p>Revenue for the quarter came in at $115.9 billion, against the comparable year-ago figure of $114.83 billion.</p>

An openly gay pastor who claimed that a grocery store bakery wrote a homophobic message on his cake has dropped his lawsuit against Whole Foods, claiming he made up the story, according to news reports.

The Texas Republican Party considered a platform Friday that would soften support of widely rebuked “reparative therapy” for gays while still preserving some of the toughest anti-gay language on any party plank in the U.S. The new platform also would oppose bathroom rights for transgender persons — an unsurprising move after the state’s Republican lieutenant governor said Friday that Texas is ready to forfeit billions of federal dollars rather than comply with a new Obama administrative directive on transgender rights in public schools. …

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has suspended all city-sponsored travel to North Carolina and Mississippi due to the states’ new transgender laws. Rawlings-Blake made the announcement Tuesday in a letter to city officials, saying she hopes the city’s efforts combined with those of other governments and companies “will push North Carolina and Mississippi” to change. …

We are in the midst of a top-down sexual revolution, being forced on the public by the massed power of media, corporations, and governments in thrall to the small but powerful sexual minority intent on redefining sexuality.  Those who dare to oppose them, especially with mockery, can see their livelihoods destroyed.  They cannot handle mockery, because their latest cause is absurd and based on lies. Curt Schilling, a hero to Red Sox Nation and a highly regarded baseball analyst for CNN, dared to protest and mock the forcible intrusion of males on women’s restrooms.  As The New York Times...

Manipulated Conservatives: Transgendered Bathrooms are Trivial As I watch people get involved with dramas over this issue, I think: What is it that we are not supposed to pay attention to? What is it that the elites, the media and the government don't want us to notice? Is it the loss of our history and culture with the change with monies, another knife in the gut by the Obama administration? Is it the subtlest of this election? Is it the lousy depression like statistics in some areas of the country? Is it the invasion of western Civ and our country...

A proposal to name a street after pioneering gay leader Harvey Milk is the latest display of Salt Lake City standing out as a blue dot in a deep-red state where the prevailing Mormon faith still has a fraught relationship with the LGBT community. Utah's capital city recently elected its first openly gay mayor and its second sitting gay councilman, creating an increasingly friendly atmosphere for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The conservative religion's tone on gay issues has softened in recent years, but it still...

Target Corp. made it clear that transgender people in its stores are welcome to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. The statement Tuesday by the Minneapolis-based retailer comes amid debates in many state legislatures over restricting public restroom use to the sex listed on a person’s birth certificate. While many of those conversations have centered around restrooms in public schools and government buildings, Target appears to be one of the first big-box retailers to take a proactive stance in declaring its position on the matter when it comes to its own restrooms. While they may not be...

A Tennessee transgender bathroom bill has failed after a sponsor pulled the measure until next year. The move Monday comes after intense opposition from businesses and gay, lesbian and transgender rights’ organizations that called the measure discriminatory and amid questions of whether the state would lose more than $1 billion in federal education funds. …

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said Monday the company is reshaping its product lineup to better reflect the growing interest in healthy eating and noted it has reduced its reliance on colas for sales. The maker of Frito-Lay snacks, Mountain Dew, Naked juices and Quaker Oats now gets less than 25 percent of its global sales from soda, Nooyi said. And she said just 12 percent of global sales comes from its namesake soda. Representatives for PepsiCo were unable to provide how those figures have changed in recent the years.The remarks underscore PepsiCo’s recent shift in tone as the world’s biggest...

The head of Britain’s digital espionage agency has apologized for the organization’s historic prejudice against homosexuals, saying it failed to learn from the treatment of World War II codebreaker Alan Turing. In a rare public speech, GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan told a gathering organized by the rights group Stonewall that the agency’s ban on homosexuals had caused long-lasting psychological damage to many and hurt the agency because talented people were excluded from working there. […] The speech offered a poignant tribute to Turing, the gay computer science pioneer and architect of the effort to crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma cipher. Turing...

More than 60 businesses including some of Missouri's biggest corporate names joined a coalition opposed to state legislation that would protect businesses objecting on religious grounds to same-sex marriages, the latest sign of a backlash against such proposals across the country. Agricultural giant Monsanto, prescription drug benefits manager Express Scripts, and pet food maker Nestle Purina are among employers to join the recently formed Missouri Competes, according to gay rights advocacy group PROMO, which released the list just hours before a House committee heard testimony from business, sports and religious groups. Dozens crammed in the Capitol basement for the late-night...

PayPal sits on remittances for up to a month, money they use as Float on the back of small merchants and businesses. PayPal is a nuisance. Don't use PayPal. Sorry to WCPE listeners who aren't leftists, your station is great, North Carolina is a great state despite UNC Raleigh-Durham. Take back your country.

The Obama administration is considering whether North Carolina’s new law on gay and transgender rights makes the state ineligible for billions of dollars in federal aid for schools, highways and housing, officials said Friday. Cutting off any federal money — or even simply threatening to do so — would put major new pressure on North Carolina to repeal the law, which eliminated local protections for gay and transgender people and restricted which bathrooms transgender people can use. A loss of federal money could send the state into a budget crisis and jeopardize services that are central to daily life. Although...

The Christian owners of an Illinois wedding venue have vowed that they will never host same-sex wedding ceremonies at their family-run bed and breakfast even after they were forced to pay over $80,000 in fines. Jim and Beth Walder, the owners of Timber Creek Bed & Breakfast in Paxton, Illinois, were fined by the state's Human Rights Commission on Tuesday for declining to host the wedding of Todd and Mark Wathen in 2011. After the Wathens reached out to Timber Creek to express interest in having their wedding there, Jim Walder responded with an email saying that they could not...

Best-selling author Fay Weldon has caused controversy after suggesting that men are being driven to sex change because 'women have it better than men'. The 84-year-old, who lives in Dorset, also said anorexia was for 'girls who don`t want to grow up' and 'have periods', claiming that for many 'sex is disgusting'. It comes after fellow writer Ian McEwan sparked a row on Thursday after warning of a 'troubling' wave of political correctness when discussing the rights of transgender people.

The CEO of PepsiCo, Inc., a company with roots in North Carolina, has written Gov. Pat McCrory, asking him to repeal the new law preventing specific anti-discrimination rules for LGBT people for public accommodations and restroom use. In a letter hand delivered to McCrory on Friday, PepsiCo head Indra Nooyi called the law inconsistent with how her company treats its employees. …

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump may want to avoid West Hollywood when he campaigns in California ahead of the state's potentially decisive June 7 primary. Lindsey Horvath, the mayor of West Hollywood, Calif., which is located in the heart of Los Angeles County and home to a sizable population of gay men, penned a letter to Trump this week explaining that he is unwelcome in her city. "With the primary making its way to California, as West Hollywood's Mayor, I want to make very clear that your campaign of violence and intimidation is not welcome in our City," she wrote...

You'd be surprised how many people ask me about my crotch. It's a lot. I have had people ask me which "parts" I have, how they look, what I plan to do with them. I don't run around with a sign that says "ask me about my crotch," but as soon as I bring up my gender identity to certain people, all of a sudden it appears on the discussion table like a highly inappropriate Seamless order. Yes, even in New York. Yes, even among seemingly "progressive" people. And it stems from the fact that most people you meet simply...

If you needed proof that America has lost it corporate mind, here are 5 compelling examples. 1. In New York City, Cooper Union College has decided to remove all “gender markings” from its bathrooms. As reported by The Guardian, “Last fall, the oldest building on the Cooper Union campus underwent a sudden renovation. A group of students, agitating for their transgender classmates, stripped the words ‘men’ and ‘women’ off the doors of the Foundation Building’s restrooms.” But rather than discipline the unruly students, “the Cooper Union administration this month moved to remove the gender designations from all the bathrooms on...