Aaron Rodgers, Feist, Ben Cohen, Tasmania, Asperger’s, David Dao, Kelly Clarkson, Lexus: HOT LINKS

HOUSE DEMS. Suspend Jared Kushner’s security clearance: “President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser failed to disclose numerous foreign contacts when he applied for top secret clearance, including at least two meetings with high-profile Russians during Trump’s transition to the White House, according to a New York Times report cited by the lawmakers. It is, they noted, a felony to intentionally conceal such meetings on a national security form.”

SHEILA ABDUS-SALAAM. Nation’s first Muslim judge found dead in the Hudson River: “It was not clear how long the 65-year-old judge, who lived in nearby Harlem, had been in the water when she was discovered near West 132nd Street.”

NO INTEGRITY. Trump flips on four policies in one day: “In an interview and a press conference, Trump either shifted or completely reversed positions on matters of foreign and economic policy, including how to handle China and the future of the Federal Reserve chairwoman.”

BACHELOR. Aaron Rodgers dumped Olivia Munn because…

BORIS JOHNSON. UK Foreign Secretary condemns alleged detentions of gay men in Chechnya: “The statement by the regional Government, implying that such treatment towards LGBT is acceptable, is particularly abhorrent. The human rights situation for LGBT people in Russia has deteriorated significantly in recent years and we continue to voice our concern with Russian authorities at all levels.”

BOX OFFICE BEAST. At 1 billion, Beauty and the Beast is the highest grossing live action musical of all time.

SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE. When Kelly Clarkson hits a bad note it’s pretty damn funny.

UNITED. David Dao, passenger dragged off plane, files legal papers: “David Dao filed an emergency “bill of discovery” against the carrier in Illinois State Court demanding that evidence documenting Sunday’s ‘re-accommodation’ aboard a Kentucky-bound plane be ‘preserved and protected.’”

PULSE ORLANDO. Shooter’s wife pleads not guilty to federal charges: “Documents filed indicated a June 5th trial date before Judge Paul Byron, just one week before the one year anniversary of the Pulse massacre. Salman’s next court date is June 15.”

FANTASTIC BEASTS. Will Jude Law’s Dumbledore be openly gay?

TOYS. Providing help to people with Asperger’s: “I am one of a growing number of adults in Britain who are buying children’s toys. According to research by retail analysts NPD Group, sales of toys for grownups have shot up by 65% since 2012 and increased by a fifth last year.”

CALIFORNIA. Attorney General says North Carolina remains restricted.

MONTAGUE AND CAPULET. New theater production recasts Romeo and Juliet as two young Premier League footballers. “The production will explore the Shakespearean tragedy through live music and physical theatre to try and convey the passion of a football stadium.”

HITTING THE GYM. Straight ally Ben Cohen.

Back in the gym training!! ?? pic.twitter.com/W2HkWtY3ZU

— Ben Cohen (@RugbyBenCohen) April 13, 2017

TASMANIA. Government apologizes for criminalization of gay sex: “Acting Attorney-General Matthew Groom told the Tasmanian Parliament ‘we are sorry’. ‘We hope those affected will accept our acknowledgement that those laws were wrong.’ Tasmania was the last jurisdiction to decriminalise sex between adult men in private, in 1997, after decades of campaigning by the gay community.”

BRIGHT LIGHTS. LED-covered Lexus is a joy to behold: “I’m told the LEDs were hand-applied and output 175,000 lumens when they’re all switched on at maximum brightness. You think your tricked-out import car with its neon under-glow looks cool cutting through the night? Wouldn’t even compare with the LIT IS.”

I could stare at this LED-covered Lexus F-Sport all day #NYIAS2017 #NYAutoShow pic.twitter.com/xdXcdD09Fc

— Raymond Wong ??? (@raywongy) April 12, 2017

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE DAY. Feist “Pleasure”. “I made this record last winter with 2 of my closest friends, Mocky and Renaud Letang. I was raw and so were the takes. Our desire was to record that state without guile or go-to’s and to pin the songs down with conviction and our straight up human bodies. I titled the album Pleasure like I was planting a seed or prophecising some brightness. The experience of pleasure is mild or deep, sometimes temporal, sometimes a sort of low grade lasting, usually a motivator. If the way you look at things is how they look then my motivation is to look with a brighter eye.”

THIRSTY THURSDAY. Chico Huggins.

The post Aaron Rodgers, Feist, Ben Cohen, Tasmania, Asperger’s, David Dao, Kelly Clarkson, Lexus: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.

Aaron Rodgers, Feist, Ben Cohen, Tasmania, Asperger’s, David Dao, Kelly Clarkson, Lexus: HOT LINKS

Trailblazing Judge Who Expanded LGBT Rights Found Dead in Hudson River

Sheila Abdus-Salaam had ruled that people without a biological or legal tie to a child could seek custody and visitation rights, an important decision for same-sex couples.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/4/13/trailblazing-judge-who-expanded-lgbt-rights-found-dead-hudson-river

Zeke Smith describes the worst part of being outed as transgender on ‘Survivor’
He says Jeff Varner is claiming “living as my authentic self is a nefarious trick.”

www.queerty.com/zeke-smith-describes-worst-part-outed-transgender-survivor-20170413?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer Holds Press Briefing After U.S. Drops ‘Mother of all Bombs’ – Watch LIVE

White House Press Secretary is holding a press briefing shortly after the U.S. dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan, targeting ISIS forces.

The briefing is Spicer’s first since his remarks that Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” like Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad did.

The post WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer Holds Press Briefing After U.S. Drops ‘Mother of all Bombs’ – Watch LIVE appeared first on Towleroad.

WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer Holds Press Briefing After U.S. Drops ‘Mother of all Bombs’ – Watch LIVE

Chicago, California Join Growing List of Cities and States Banning Official Travel to NC

HRC and Equality NC hailed the news that Chicago and California are maintaining their bans on taxpayer-funded travel to North Carolina. The announcements come after North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Senate President Phil Berger, and House Speaker Tim Moore passed a law doubling down on many of the worst aspects of the state’s notorious anti-LGBTQ HB2 law.

“We thank California Governor Jerry Brown and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for their leadership — and we commend Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for taking action in the wake of fresh attacks on equality in North Carolina,” said JoDee Winterhof, HRC Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs. “This sham ‘deal,’ passed without a single LGBTQ person at the table, actually doubles down on discrimination against millions of North Carolinians. It’s far past time North Carolina politicians — both Republican and Democrat — stop using LGBTQ people and other communities as political pawns to target for discrimination. In order for North Carolina to move forward, lawmakers must fully repeal HB2 and pass inclusive non-discrimination protections.”

“Cities across the country are seeing HB142 for what it really is — a fake repeal of HB2,” said Equality NC Executive Director Chris Sgro. “The new law continues to make North Carolina the only state in the nation to reserve for itself the exclusive ability to regulate bathroom access and one of only three states to ban cities from passing crucial non-discrimination protections. Cities like Chicago want to ensure that all of their employees are safe when traveling. It is unfortunate that HB142 continues to put LGBTQ people in harm’s way when a simple full repeal of HB2 would have resolved the issue.”

Chicago and California join an ever-growing chorus of cities and states not fooled by North Carolina’s new anti-LGBTQ law, including Minnesota; New York City; Washington, DC; San Francisco; Seattle; Portland, OR; Atlanta; Baltimore; Burlington, VT, Los Angeles; Oakland; Santa Fe; Cincinnati; Salt Lake City; Palm Springs, CA; West Palm Beach; Portland, ME; and Wilton Manors, FL.

HB 142 is not an HB2 repeal, and replaces one discriminatory, anti-transgender, bathroom bill with another. It bans local LGBTQ non-discrimination protections statewide through 2020, and it substitutes the previous anti-transgender bathroom provisions with a new provision that forbids state agencies, public universities, primary and secondary schools, and cities from adopting policies ensuring transgender people have access to restrooms consistent with their gender identity.

www.hrc.org/blog/chicago-CA-join-list-of-cities-states-banning-official-NorthCarolina-travel?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

The entire Internet is pissed at Melania Trump for ruining Easter at the White House
Sure, it may just be an Easter Egg Roll. But it’s a 138-year American tradition!

www.queerty.com/entire-internet-pissed-melania-trump-ruining-easter-white-house-20170413?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Adios, Vaquita Marina? Mexico’s ‘Little Sea Cow’ is Being Pushed to the Edge of Extinction

The vaquita is a critically endangered porpoise species endemic to the northern part of the Gulf of California. It is considered the smallest and most endangered cetacean in the world. Credit: Vaquita photo taken under permit (Oficio No. DR/488/08) from the Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT), within a natural protected area subject to special management and decreed as such by the Mexican Government.

It’s just in the wrong place at the wrong time, except it has nowhere else to go.

The vaquita marina — the little sea cow — is the world’s smallest porpoise. It lives only in the far-northern Gulf of California, just east of Mexico’s Baja peninsula, right where local fishermen are in hot pursuit of a very valuable creature. And its unfortunate fate has it on the brink of extinction.

“The vaquita marina [is] a source of pride for many in Mexico,” says American marine biologist Peggy Turk, who works on the Gulf of California. It’s a knobby-nosed creature about 4 and a half feet long, with clown-like dark accents around its eyes and mouth. It’s a very shy animal that few people have ever seen alive. And it exists nowhere else in the world.

“Nobody wants to kill the vaquita,” Turk says. “It just happens to live in the same place that fishermen are fishing with gill nets.”

What they’re fishing for is another endangered species — a mammoth fish called the totoaba that can weigh as much as 200 pounds. Many Chinese believe the totoaba’s swim bladder has medicinal powers, and they’re worth big bucks in Asia. A single bladder can sell for up to $10,000 in China.

It’s illegal to catch totoabas, but the temptation can be irresistible. And the gill nets local fisherman use to snag them also trap and kill other marina life, including the vaquita. After years of this fishing, scientists now estimate there are as few as 30 vaquitas left.

A very small and very shy porpoise, the vaquita marina lives only in the far north of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California. It’s been brought to the edge of extinction by fishing for another endangered but extremely coveted marine species, the totoaba. Credit: NOAA/Paula Olson

Mexican authorities have created a no-fishing zone in the area and imposed a temporary ban on gill nets, which environmental activists are pushing to make permanent. Across the border, the US Attorney’s office in San Diego has cracked down on smugglers who ship totoaba bladders from US ports to Asia. Since 2013 at least seven people have been convicted and more cases are pending.

Still illegal fishing continues. In the past year, the marine activist group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reports pulling more than 200 illegal nets from waters of the no-fishing zone.

“Many fishermen have no choice but to turn to illegal fishing,” says Marcos García, a lifelong fisherman who lives in the local port town of Puerto Peñasco. “Amongst ourselves we ask, ‘who will disappear first, us or the vaquita?’”

García says the no-fishing zone has hurt local communities, some of which rely almost entirely on fishing. Mexico funds a compensation program for fisherman, but García says it’s rife with corruption.

Fishermen in and around Puerto Peñasco, Mexico say they often have no choice but to fish illegally for the totoaba, whose swim bladders can fetch up to $10,000 as a traditional medicine in China. But getting caught in gill nets meant for totaba is the main cause of death of the vaquita marina. Credit: Mónica Ortiz Uribe

The situation has created a climate of tension and fear among locals.

Government inspectors charged with patrolling the no-fish zone weren’t authorized to talk, but say they’re being watched by what they call “bad people.” In March a mob of angry fishermen reportedly set fire to their patrol cars and boats. Some of the inspectors were physically beaten.

Meanwhile, out in the waters of the gulf, time is running out for the vaquita marina. In a last-ditch effort to save the species, Mexico announced in January that it will capture some of the porpoises and hold them in a sea pen until it’s safe for them to return to the wild.

This story was produced with support from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

This map from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the northern Gulf of California shows vaquita habitat, a vaquita refuge, and the gillnet fishing exclusion zone. Credit: NOAA

This article first appeared on PRI The World.

The post Adios, Vaquita Marina? Mexico’s ‘Little Sea Cow’ is Being Pushed to the Edge of Extinction appeared first on Towleroad.

Adios, Vaquita Marina? Mexico’s ‘Little Sea Cow’ is Being Pushed to the Edge of Extinction

#AM_Equality Tipsheet: April 13, 2017

HRC CALLS ON SENATORS TO DRAW A LINE IN THE SAND – #STOPMARKGREEN: In a new video, HRC exposes Mark Green, Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of the Army, for what he is: a dangerously anti-LGBTQ politician who encouraged the state of Tennessee to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the Supreme Court ruled in Oberfell v. Hodges, characterized being transgender as a “disease,” and supports license to discriminate laws that target LGBTQ people. In his first public statement since being nominated, Green attempted to dismiss his disgraceful attacks against the LGBTQ community as just “politics.” Our service members deserve better. HRC is urging senators to stand up and #StopMarkGreen. Check out the video here, and read the latest news coverage on Green’s disqualifying record at HRC.

HRC TO TRUMP — TAKE ACTION TO STOP ANTI-LGBTQ VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA, PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS AT HOME AND ABROAD: According to numerous media outlets and human rights organizations across the globe, authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya have been rounding up dozens of men on the suspicion of being gay. They have been humiliated, tortured, placed in detention and killed. HRC is urging the White House to take immediate action to stop the persecution of LGBTQ people in Russia. For more about the atrocities, and steps being taken by HRC and other rights organizations to address the crisis, read this report at NBC.

ALABAMA SENATE COMMITTEE ADVANCES SHAMEFUL ANTI-LGBTQ CHILD WELFARE BILL: Yesterday, HRC Alabama called out the Alabama Senate Health Committee for advancing the anti-LGBTQ bill H.B. 24, and renewed its call for the full Senate to defeat this proposal. The bill would allow taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies to reject qualified prospective LGBTQ adoptive or foster parents based on the agency’s religious beliefs. The measure has already passed the Alabama House. Said HRC Alabama’s Eva Kendrick: “This bill is a solution in search of a problem, and the consequences it may bring — such as political and economic fallout similar to what we’ve witnessed in North Carolina after it passed anti-LGBTQ legislation — are potentially disastrous for the state. Alabama has a chance at a fresh start after more than a year of political scandals; it should not create a new, unnecessary scandal by targeting LGBTQ people.”

.@HRC calls on AL Senate to reject bill allowing child welfare agencies to discriminate against #LGBTQ parents t.co/RRhzqlzbFC

— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) April 12, 2017

CALIFORNIA JOINS STATES AND CITIES BARRING STATE-FUNDED TRAVEL TO NC: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra yesterday announced that the state will continue to prohibit state-funded and state-sponsored travel and expenditures to North Carolina based on that state’s discriminatory laws, joining an ever-growing chorus of cities and states not fooled by NC’s anti-LGBTQ law. Cities and states now barring travel to NC by government employees include: Minnesota; New York City; Washington, DC; San Francisco; Seattle; Portland, OR; Atlanta; Baltimore; Burlington, VT, Los Angeles; Oakland; Santa Fe; Cincinnati; Salt Lake City; Palm Springs, CA; West Palm Beach; Portland, ME; and Wilton Manors, FL.

OUTED ON NATIONAL TELEVISION — TRANSGENDER  “SURVIVOR” CONTESTANT TELLS HIS STORY: In a piece for the Hollywood Reporter, Zeke Smith opens up about being outed by fellow contestant Jeff Varner during last night’s episode of Survivor, and about his own personal journey. He had this to say about Varner: “I don’t believe Varner hates trans people, just as I don’t believe conservative politicians who attack trans people actually care where we use the bathroom. For both, trans people make easy targets for those looking to invoke prejudice in order to win votes..” Read his powerful story here.

WATCH: DOVE CELEBRATES TRANSGENDER MOM IN NEW AD: Shea, a transgender mom and grad student, is one of several moms being featured a groundbreaking new ad that’s part of Dove’s #RealMoms campaign. “There’s no one right way to do it all,” Shea says of parenthood. Read more via the Los Angeles Blade.

“There’s no one right way to do it all,” says Shea, a trans mom featured in a groundbreaking #RealMoms ad campaign t.co/e63BAi671y

— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) April 12, 2017

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS LEGALIZES MARRIAGE EQUALITY: The Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality. “It does not matter whether they are a same sex couple or not and the law now reflects the Falkland Islands’ tradition of being an open, tolerant and respectful community,” said the spokesperson for the islands, located just off the southern coast of Argentina. Find out more via GT.

Marriage equality comes to the Falkland Islands! #LoveWins t.co/cFXx185jKa

— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) April 12, 2017

ONE MAN’S STORY OF THE DANGEROUS, DEBUNKED PRACTICE OF “PRAYING THE GAY AWAY”: In a powerful piece for the Springfield (Missouri) News-Leader, reporter Jackie Rehwald (@JackieRehwaldNL) tells the story of Caleb Marshall, who spent nine horrible months in a church-based, so-called “conversion therapy” program that tried to change his sexual orientation. “What I got from the therapy was not a new sexuality. I got really good at lying,” Marshall, now 20, told Rehwald. “And I got a really great case of chronic depression that I’ve been through and still am going through therapy to handle.” Today he’s a math and psychology double major at Missouri State University, and plays cello for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Read his harrowing, and inspiring, story here.

HRC’s #AskTheGays NAMED FINALIST IN SHORTY AWARDS: Just days after the horrific shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Donald Trump had the audacity to pander to LGBTQ voters by challenging his skeptics to “ask the gays” about where he stood on LGBTQ equality. HRC answered. Using the hashtag #AskTheGays, countless took to social media to call out Trump and Mike Pence on their anti-LGBTQ records. More on the campaign and the Shorty Awards here.

READING RAINBOW

The Atlantic asks, “Should acting prizes be gender-neutral?”; Washington Blade reports that the haphazardly planned White House Easter Egg Roll is unlikely to include an LGBTQ presence as in years past; Vice interviews Jennifer Boylan about her new book Long Black Veil; Knoxville News Sentinel shares Chandler Frumin’s story about coming out and finding acceptance from her family and the University of Tennessee rowing team.

Have news? Send us your news and tips at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to #AM_Equality and follow @HRC for all the latest news. Thanks for reading!

www.hrc.org/blog/am-equality-tipsheet-april-13-2017?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed