Nick Jonas Gets Sensual with ‘Close’ Performance on Ellen: WATCH

Nick Jonas appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday and gave an impressive performance of his new track, “Close.”

The song, off his upcoming album Last Year Was Complicated, features Tove Lo but Jonas did the song solo while appearing on the daytime talk show.

RELATED – Nick Jonas Wants to Get ‘Close’ with Tove Lo in New Single: WATCH

Watch Jonas show off his pipes, below.

Jonas also talked with Ellen about his dating life. USA Today reports: 

“You’re really single right now?” Ellen asked Jonas who went stag to the Met Gala.

“I really am,” the smooth singer replied. “You don’t believe me?”

The talk show host shook her head in disbelief and asked, “So, how’s Kate Hudson doing? She’s good?”

“She great,” the Champagne Problems singer said about the actress that he admitted to having “an unbelievable connection” with. “It was great. We had a group dinner the night before the Met Gala with lots of people. And she was there, and I was there. But it was a group.”

You can watch that segment, here:

The post Nick Jonas Gets Sensual with ‘Close’ Performance on Ellen: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

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Real-Life “King Cobra” Killer Joseph Kerekes On Jame’s Franco’s Adaptation

Hollywood loves a sordid tale, which makes it all the more obvious why the murderous plot of King Cobra would resonate. Now, another of the film’s real-life characters is speaking out about the production.

While there’s much to glean about the power of greed and lust from the 2007 murder of gay porn studio Cobra Video owner Bryan Kocis by two escorts, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes (above, left), let’s not forget that these two men are and will almost certainly continue to be residents of the US prison system until they day they die.

Related: Brent Corrigan Blasts Hollywood For “Bastardizing” His Life, Cashed That Check All The Same

And Joseph Kerekes, for one, is not staying quiet.

In a phone interview with NewsChannel3 from a Pennsylvania state prison where he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for second degree murder, Kerekes expounds on his state of mind leading up to the vicious killing, as well as his thoughts on the James Franco-produced film.

“[The movie] is very, very lifelike and very true. Even some of the quotes, I have no idea how they captured them,” Kerekes said, adding, “When you think you can get away with anything, you will try anything.”

The convicted killer attempted to contextualize his downfall, explaining how his ministry career at Bethel Temple Assembly of God in Hampton, Virginia, went “to hell” after he was dismissed due to “fits of rage.”

That’s when he turned to escorting, and after meeting Harlow Cuadra in a Yahoo chat room, the two embarked on starting an escorting business that would become their amateur gay porn company, BoyBatter.com.

“Eventually from the street I would own a million dollar house in Virginia Beach,” said Kerekes. “I mean, I worked my way up in about five years.”

But that’s where Kerekes’ version of events parts ways from Peter Conway’s, a Norfolk resident whose book about the trial, Cobra Killer, inspired the film.

“They had over a million dollars’ worth of bills that they were paying,” Conway said a few days before the movie premiere. “They had to make about $3,900 a day just to stay afloat.”

Related: The First Review Of James Franco’s Sexy Gay Murder Drama May Surprise You

Conway argues it was the couple’s financial woes that pushed them to murder Kocis in order to embark on a business plan with then-aspiring porn actor Brent Corrigan, real name Sean Lockhart, who was still under contract with Kocis’ Cobra Video.

“They came up with this wild idea that if they killed Bryan [Kocis], there would be no need for the contract between Sean [Lockhart] and Bryan any longer,” said Conway, “and they would make the millions that they thought they would.”

Kerekes didn’t rebuff that theory entirely, saying, “We were blurred and blinded by greed, and we thought that we were Gods.”

But for whatever reason, he’s not copping up to the debt part.

Related: First Look At Disney Star Garrett Clayton As Brent Corrigan In James Franco’s Gay Biopic

“Even the movie with James Franco got it wrong,” said Kerekes. “We did not do any of this because we were in debt. We did this because we wanted more, and we thought we could get away with it.”

Now he says he spends his days working out and replying to pen pals, noting to NewsChannel3, “I’m in the best shape of my life.”

That may be, but it’s a life that will never again know freedom, something we can all agree is likely for the best.

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/cCX-yzUEPXk/real-life-king-cobra-killer-joseph-kerekes-james-francos-adaptation-20160509

Bernie Sanders Cancels Meeting with HIV/AIDS Activists, Won’t Return Calls and Emails

Bernie Sanders has cancelled a meeting with HIV/AIDS activists scheduled for later this week and his campaign has not responded to requests from those activists to reschedule the meeting.

The meeting was scheduled after a coalition of HIV/AIDS activists and activist groups sent letters to both Sanders and Hillary Clinton, asking to meet with them in person to discuss their HIV/AIDS policies. Those letters were sent following Clinton’s remarks praising Nancy Reagan’s “effective, low-key advocacy” on HIV and AIDS, a gaffe she quickly apologized for.

PREVIOUSLY: 70 AIDS Activists and Organizations Urge Hillary Clinton to Commit to Intensified AIDS Strategy

The Washington Blade reports: 

The 30-minute meeting between Sanders and HIV advocates was set for May 13 in Indianapolis. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton also agreed to meet the activists, who say they’re are still on track to meet with her Thursday for one hour in New York City. Hilary McQuie, director of U.S. policy and grassroots mobilization for the HIV/AIDS group Health GAP, told the Blade the Sanders campaign cancelled the meeting without explanation. “He did cancel — no reason given and they have not rescheduled,” McQuie said. “We feel a bit burned by the bern, and hope they will answer our emails now.”

HIV/AIDS activist Peter Staley says the campaign was in touch daily regarding the meeting prior to it being cancelled:

“They sent a ‘need to reschedule’ email last Sunday (for our Tuesday meeting), and then bizarrely stopped communications completely after that. We’ve been emailing and calling every day since then, including warning them days ago about our intent to go public.”

A news release from HIV/AIDS activist group Housing Works, an organization dedicated to fighting the dual crisis of HIV and homelessness and one of the signees of the letters to Clinton and Sanders, blasted the Vermont Senator for cancelling the meeting:

The Clinton meeting has been confirmed for several weeks, but the Sanders meeting remains an elusive, moving target. On April 15, the Sanders campaign committed to meeting with 20 HIV leaders during “the first week of May” on a date and location to be decided later. Not until April 29, with only four days’ notice, did Sanders representatives set a 30-minute meeting to take place in Indianapolis on the morning of the May 3rd Indiana primary. Attendees purchased expensive, last-minute airfares, only to be informed two days later, on April 30, that the May 3 meeting was cancelled. Despite another promise to “reschedule” as soon as possible, thus far the Sanders campaign has not proposed a new date, time, or city.

These delays and failures to make good on previous commitments by the Sanders campaign are becoming a growing concern for the 70 HIV/AIDS advocates who signed the mid-March letters to candidates.

Charles King, President and CEO of Housing Works, added of the cancellation,

“This is incredibly disappointing. I have been a supporter of Bernie Sanders, and was proud to vote for him in the New York primary. It is disheartening to see the ‘revolutionary’ candidate who claims to value grassroots organizing and visionary politics not make time in his schedule to meet with us. He is supposed to be the guy who walks the walk, but all we’ve heard the past six weeks is talk—and fairly tepid, reactive talk at that.”

The post Bernie Sanders Cancels Meeting with HIV/AIDS Activists, Won’t Return Calls and Emails appeared first on Towleroad.

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Loretta Lynch Announces Federal Lawsuit Against NC, Tells Trans Americans ‘We See You’ – WATCH 

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the Department of Justice will be filing a federal lawsuit against the state of North Carolina over the state’s anti-LGBT bathroom bill, HB 2. As previously reported, HB 2 prevents transgender citizens from using bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity.

Lynch excoriated HB 2 in her news conferences, denouncing the law as “state-sponsored discrimination.” She also spoke personally about the “beautiful” state of North Carolina, her home state, and assured transgender Americans that the DOJ and Obama administration support them in their fight for civil rights. “We see you. We stand with you…And please know that history is on your side,” said Lynch.

Lynch went on to paint transgender citizens’ struggle for the right to go to the bathroom, a right which most Americans take for granted, Lynch said, as part of a broader struggle for civil rights that includes the fights for racial equality and marriage equality.

Lynch said that pushback against civil rights historically come after progress has been achieved. Lynch compared HB 2 and similar bathroom bills in the U.S. to Jim Crow laws and bans on same-sex marriage.

Watch an excerpt from Lynch’s address, below.

And the full address is here:

The post Loretta Lynch Announces Federal Lawsuit Against NC, Tells Trans Americans ‘We See You’ – WATCH  appeared first on Towleroad.

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Department Of Justice Sues North Carolina Over Its Anti-Transgender Law

The DOJ wasn’t bluffing.

The post Department Of Justice Sues North Carolina Over Its Anti-Transgender Law appeared first on ThinkProgress.

thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/05/09/3776614/doj-sues-north-carolina/

Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Gov. McCrory

Today, HRC and Equality NC responded to an announcement by Attorney General Loretta Lynch that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, the state’s Department of Public Safety, and the University of North Carolina and Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina. The U.S. Department of Justice also requested the judge prohibit the state from enforcing HB2 in regards to discriminating against transgender people.

“The U.S. Department of Justice has made clear that Governor McCrory’s HB2 is a discriminatory and dangerous piece of legislation that violates federal civil rights laws,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Rather than working with state lawmakers to fix the mess he’s created, Governor McCrory is instead choosing to waste even more time and millions more of taxpayer dollars trying to defend his indefensible attack on transgender people. We commend Attorney General Lynch and the Justice Department for taking action to enforce the rule of law and protect the civil rights of all North Carolinians.”

“The lawsuit filed by Governor McCrory is another attempt to sidestep the inevitable need for a full repeal of HB2,” said Equality NC Executive Director Chris Sgro.“North Carolina’s image, economy, and citizens are hurting because of the deeply discriminatory bill. Governor McCrory and the NCGA leadership are risking billions of dollars in federal funding to uphold a law that should have never been passed in the first place. We applaud Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the U.S. Department of Justice for standing up for North Carolinians when its own leadership has failed to do so.”

The U.S. Department of Justice put Governor McCrory and state officials on notice last week saying North Carolina’s discriminatory HB2 violates federal civil rights law — including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 — and gave them until today to address the situation “by confirming that the State will not comply with or implement HB2.” In response, Gov. McCrory announced today that he is filing a lawsuit in an attempt to recklessly defend his discriminatory law. Senator Berger & Speaker Moore also filed a lawsuit.

North Carolina has already lost more than a half billion dollars – and counting – in economic activity just from companies canceling or reconsidering plans to come to the state, and in cancelled conventions, concerts, and other lost tourism dollars. That doesn’t even include potential economic development that now just won’t happen in North Carolina because of McCrory’s radical law, or the potential catastrophic loss of federal funding for schools, roads, bridges, and other essential services. Nearly 200 leading CEOs and major business leaders have signed onto HRC and Equality NC’s open letter urging McCrory and the state’s General Assembly to repeal HB2.

HB2 has eliminated existing municipal non-discrimination protections for LGBT people and prevents such protections from being passed by cities in the future. The legislation also forces transgender students in public schools to use restrooms and other facilities inconsistent with their gender identity, putting 4.5 billion dollars in federal education funding alone at risk. It also compels the same type of discrimination against transgender people to take place in publicly-owned buildings, including in public universities, convention centers, and airports. It also eliminated the ability of North Carolinians to be able to sue if they experienced discrimination in the workforce, including on the basis of race, religion, national origin and sex.  

Lawmakers passed the legislation in a hurried, single-day session, and McCrory quickly signed it into law in the dead of night.

North Carolina has the unfortunate distinction of becoming the first state in the country to enact a law attacking transgender students, even after similar proposals were rejected across the country this year — including a high-profile veto by the Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota.

www.hrc.org/blog/department-of-justice-files-lawsuit-against-gov-mccrory?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

LGBT Clergy to Methodist Church: 'We Are Here Because God Called Us'

More than 100 clergy members have come out in a challenge to the church’s anti-LGBT policies.

www.advocate.com/religion/2016/5/09/lgbt-clergy-methodist-church-we-are-here-because-god-called-us

DOJ Files Federal Complaint Against North Carolina's HB 2

Loretta Lynch says North Carolina “created state-sanctioned discrimination against transgender individuals who seek to engage in the most private of functions in a place of safety and security.”

www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/5/09/doj-files-federal-complaint-against-north-carolinas-hb-2

HB 2 Author Lauds Gov. McCrory's 'Excellent Decisions' in North Carolina

Rep. Dan Bishop called the Obama administration’s determination that HB 2 violates federal law a “media-fueled ideological carpet bombing.”

www.advocate.com/politics/2016/5/09/hb-2-author-lauds-gov-mccrorys-excellent-decisions-north-carolina