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California could provide legal refuge to displaced transgender youth and their families under a proposal announced Thursday that joins a growing list of initiatives from the nation’s most populous state aimed at counterbalancing actions in Texas and other conservative places.

Check the Neck of the Pfizer CEO at time code: 1:50 It looks freaky, like it blows up like a balloon.

BRADDOCK, Pa. — A local restaurant owner appeared to be mocking the person who is leading the state’s fight against coronavirus on social media. Robert Portogallo is the owner of Peppers N’at in Braddock. It's super popular in our region, but Portagallo is coming under fire for recent Facebook comments that he posted on his personal page -- comments that some say are transphobic. In one of the Facebook posts, Portogallo is wearing a wig, glasses and pearls, appearing to mimic the look of Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, who is a transgender woman. Another post shows Portogallo...

Emmanuel Macron is 24 years younger than his wife, and the incoming French president is exasperated that people keep talking about it. Discussing the assumptions and rumors about his relationship his wife, Brigitte, Macron told Le Parisien newspaper this week that “if I had been 20 years older than my wife, nobody would have thought for a single second that I couldn’t be.” It's a sentiment many French women seem to relate to. Speaking to The Washington Post's Mary Jordan ahead of the election, some suggested that the Macrons' marriage was social “revenge” for years of powerful men seeking younger...

When Susan Allen was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2012, she became the first openly lesbian Native American woman to win office in any state legislature. But framing that achievement as one for the lesbian community alone obscures another aspect of Allen’s identity, and one that is directly connected to her Native American ancestry: Allen also identifies as “two-spirit.” While Americans are increasingly familiar with the elements that make-up our modern LGBTQ abbreviation, other, often older queer identities like two-spirit remain unappreciated to the point of erasure. But if Allen and other two-spirit folks have their way,...

The nation's Republicans are working against the clock to answer two key questions: Can conservative Ronald Reagan possibly attract enough independent and Democratic votes to win in November? "Reagan is the opponent of choice for Carter," says I. A. Lewis, director of the Los Angeles Times Poll, a point on which most analysts agree. "But Reagan can reach across and cause mischief in the Democratic constituency," Mr. Lewis says. "Reagan appeals to blue collar, working-class voters. He can win Democratic votes..."

Colorado Springs police responded this afternoon to reports of an active shooter at a Planned Parenthood facility:

NEW YORK, June 19 (C-Fam) The World Health Organization jumped into the culture wars this week and issued a report telling every country to remove restrictions on abortions – including for adolescents – provide sex change surgery, and remove criminal restrictions on sexual conduct such as extramarital sex, prostitution, and homosexual behavior. WHO’s controversial policy prescriptions, such as sex counseling and advocating cheap and unsafe abortion, have been previously exposed by the Friday Fax. However, this report was hailed as “major and long-awated [sic]” by an Australian intersex advocacy group because it “contains a specific section on intersex people, as...

KIEV, Ukraine -- Want a better understanding of the world's worst nuclear disaster? Come tour the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Beginning next year, Ukraine plans to open up the sealed zone around the Chernobyl reactor to visitors who wish to learn more about the tragedy that occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Monday. Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing radiation over a large swath of northern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people were resettled from areas contaminated with radiation fallout in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Related health problems still...

Jerry Jalava has built a special prosthetic finger which contains computer storage for photos, movies and other useful files. While the prosthetic looks like a normal finger Jerry can peel it back from the 'nail' and plug it into the USB slot on his computer using it as an additional hard drive. ...snip... Using a traditional prosthetic finger Jerry has been able embed a 'USB key' - like the ones used in traditional flash drives - giving him the world's only two gigabyte finger. The finger is not permanently attached to his hand meaning it can be removed when plugged...

Hollywood films rarely even attempt the sweep and heartbreak of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a bewitching, at times overpowering movie that seems likely to win about 50 Oscars. There aren’t actually that many Oscars to hand out, but I wouldn’t put it past the Academy to invent some new categories. Based on but greatly expanded from an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, the film by Fight Club director David Fincher proves that this gifted director can deploy all of his visual gifts to create a richly satisfying, emotionally engaging, and more than a bit schmaltzy old-time romance with...

LYNN, Mass. -- Adrian Exley was wrapped tightly in heavy plastic, then bound with duct tape. A leather hood was put over his head with a thin plastic straw inserted so that he could breathe, and he was shut up in a closet. That, apparently, was the way Exley liked it. But the way it ended -- with Exley suffocating -- was not what he had in mind when he traveled from Britain for a bondage session with a man he had met through a sadomasochism Web site. Exley's body was discovered in the woods last year, two months after...

A CALL TO IMPEACH CLINTON IN ABSENTIA by Mia T, 11.17.05         id you see it? More to the point, did the American press? bill clinton made page one of Aljazeera today. The reportage was a schizophrenic mix of schadenfreude and agitprop. It was the story of an impeached ex-president of America trashing America--to standing Os--in the Arab state of Dubai--in the middle of a war zone--only several hundred miles from the American troops. And, if that weren't enough, the traitor pocketed $200,000 from the Arabs for his efforts. Having failed to snare the Nobel Peace...

ASPEN - Hunter S. Thompson heard the ice clinking. The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier. But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir - Chivas Regal on ice. "It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky," Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon's death Sunday. "It was just like...

A Glimpse Ahead Timothy Snodgrass The Impossible Will Come Alive In 2005 01/28/05 In January of 2004, as we began to intercede for the New Year the Holy Spirit gave us the prophetic slogan, "The Seas will Roar in 2004". This year we were given a new slogan, "The Impossible will come Alive in 2005". As the veil of darkness begins to come down over nations and regions, along with great shakings will come great breakthroughs; signs, wonders, healings and a spectacular release of miracles in impossible circumstances. This year, although we are ultimately poised to gain much ground, there...

Gangster ends life by consuming lizard Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Aug 18: An arrested gangster committed suicide by consuming a lizard in the lock-up of Satwari Police Station. Police spokesman said that the gangster was arrested by DySP Special Branch Pritam Singh on August 15 and was kept in the Satwari Police Station for questioning. After two days of interrogation, the gangster reportedly consumed a lizard in the lock-up.Some police personnel saw him consuming the lizard and shifted him to Government Medical College Hospital Jammu. Doctors attending on him provided him stomach wash but he could not survive. A case under...

Chris Stephen In Bagram www.scotsman.com BRITISH marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains spoke last night of an alarming new threat - being propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers. An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village." While the marines failed to find any al-Qaeda during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned by dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search. "We were pretty shocked," Marine...