Daily Archives: January 22, 2019



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NEWS

Brad Pitt, ‘Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa, Spike Lee Gets Oscar Nod, and More: HOT LINKS

Brad Pitt, ‘Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa, Spike Lee Gets Oscar Nod, and More: HOT LINKS

RELAX The day is almost over just look at Spidey.

YOUNG GIFTED AND BLACK  Ncuti
Gatwa, who stars in Netflix’s hit show Sex
Education, has said that it’s important to represent the
experiences of the black, gay community because TV only offers a “narrow
representation” of gay people.

“It’s very important to see a black gay teen represented,” Gatwa told PinkNews of his character. “I think there’s quite a narrow representation of gay people on TV and I think that we need to push that.

SAY IT AIN’T SO Chris Brown is arrested on rape and drug charges in Paris.

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE ROMA Yalitza Aparicio was nominated in the Best Actress category for her work in Netflix’s Roma at the 2019 Oscars, and she actually recorded and posted her reaction to the news.

This is just the second time that a Mexican actress has been nominated in this category (the first being back in 2002 when Salma Hayek was nominated for Frida.)

Aparicio woke up bright and early to watch the live stream of the nominees! In a video posted to her official Twitter account, Aparicio could be heard cheering and then seen crying.

BREAKING The New York’s Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is suing the NYPD on behalf of a transgender woman who was charged with “false personation” after she provided officers with both her previous and current legal names. “We can’t allow the NYPD to continue criminalizing transgender people for existing. “

BREAKING: We’re suing the NYPD on behalf of a transgender woman who was charged with “false personation” after she provided officers with both her previous and current legal names.

We can’t allow the NYPD to continue criminalizing transgender people for existing. pic.twitter.com/MOaNCQlKqF

— NYCLU (@NYCLU) January 22, 2019

BREAKING THE BANK Page Six reports that Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is essentially broke, hasn’t built a new house since 2016, hasn’t updated its website since 2015, and last publicly posted its tax filings in 2014. Brad’s been pointing fingers and trying to get his name removed from a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of MIR homeowners. They are suing because the MIR homes they bought with their hard-earned money are garbage. And potentially life threatening.

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS  Every single part of this awards season has felt crazy-early, and it’s only going to get worse next year, when they move the Academy Awards up by three weeks (are they still doing that? They need to not do that). So this feels hella early, but Academy voters have already voted on this year’s Oscar nominations. There are some surprises, like always, but what remains the same is how quickly various “consensus” nominees there are. Also consistent: Academy voters are pretty dumb and racist. I’m devoting this post to the “big nominations” (sorry costume designers) and you can see the full list of 2019 Oscar nominations here.

DAWWWW Your daily dose of cute.

A FIRST  Spike Lee finally gets an Oscar nod for Best Director for  BlackKklansman; the film earned six Oscar nominations overall. The news comes as Lee’s original screenplay Do the Right Thing will celebrate its 30th anniversary this summer.  Less acclaimed, but certainly celebrated classic films include: Jungle Fever (1991), Crooklyn (1994), and Mo’ Better Blues (1990). She’s Gotta Have It was adapted for small screen in 2017. 

While Lee received an Honorary
Oscar in 2015, this Academy Award nomination arguably commemorates his
longstanding contribution to cinema and documentary filmmaking. 

“After what happened with Do the Right Thing, I just
had to let it go and just be at peace with knowing that the great work is going
to outlast awards,” Lee told Variety’s “Playback”
podcast in October. Do
the Right Thing was notoriously passed over in a number of
categories, including best picture, where Driving Miss Daisy reigned.

“People are still shocked to this day that Driving Miss Daisy won best picture,” Lee continued. “Who’s watching that film now? So, I’m at peace with it.”

TV DINNER Tonight on Frontline: Coal miners across Appalachia are dying from a resurgence of severe black lung disease. But could this epidemic have been prevented? NPR Correspondent Howard Berkes was reporting on the disease when he received a tip about an outbreak of severe black lung — a disease that epidemiologists thought was nearly gone. Berkes met with a radiologist whose clinic was so overwhelmed with such cases, he turned to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), for answers. The NIOSH researchers found it difficult to believe what the radiologist had seen.

“It’s pretty difficult to hear the miners just working so hard to catch their breath and to know that the reason for that is those exposures at work that we absolutely know how to prevent,” Celeste Monforton, a former top official at the Mine Safety and Health Administration says. She adds, “It’s abundantly clear…this problem really is a silica problem…this is such a gross and frank example of regulatory failure.”
And while the mining industry and federal regulators both say they’ve made progress in protecting miners, there still is no plan for tougher regulation of silica at coal mines – and there are still more than 50,000 coal miners working nationwide.

HEY ANT How do ants sniff out the right path? They may seem like automatons, but ants are surprisingly sophisticated in their navigational strategies.Carpenter ants follow trails. Just watch them wandering about on your wooden porch until they strike a trail of pheromones (chemicals ants use for communication) that another ant has laid down. Ants don’t have noses, so they wave their antennas around to pick upthe trail, then off they go on the road to ruin. (Carpenter ants destroy houses.) Scientists know plenty about ants, including their ability to follow scent trails, but researchers at Harvard wanted to get a more detailed understanding of how exactly ants sniff, or taste, the pheromone-marked path. First, some basics: Ants use their antennas to pick up chemical cues left by other ants.

And the chemical sense of
ants, call it smell or taste or chemo-reception, enables them to follow
straight trails, curved trails, even zigzags.

FROM THE OVAL OFFICE President Trump on Tuesday said he directed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to stop holding regular briefings, citing unfair treatment by the news media says The Hill.

“The
reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the ‘podium’ much anymore is that the press
covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the
press,” Trump tweeted. “I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway!”

“It’s not that they’ve
ever stopped, it’s just that sometimes we need to come to the podium to
communicate things and sometimes we don’t,” Gidley said.

THE FUTURE IS NOW Connecticut’s 5th grade Kid Governor is sworn in with LGBTQ platform. Every year, the state’s 5th graders elect a student with a specific platform. The 2018 Kid Governor Megan Kasperowski made videos and helped people with cancer. The 2019 Kid Governor ran on a very different platform.

“I’m looking forward to having your help to keep our schools safe and to spread the message that love is love,” said Briggs in her campaign video.

Briggs wants to educate students and teachers about accepting everyone.

“To start gay-straight aliances, otherwise known as GSAs, and safe spaces where members of the LGBTQ community and their allies can find pride in who they are,” Briggs said in her inauguration address

CARE BEAR STARE Why you should give and get more hugs. We hug others when we’re excited, happy, sad, or trying to comfort. Hugging, it seems, is universally comforting. It makes us feel good. And it turns out that hugging is proven to make us healthier and happier. According to scientists, the benefits of hugging go beyond that warm feeling you get when you hold someone in your arms.

BACK ON THE BRINK? #euroboom tacked on to news of any sign, no matter how faint, of a euro-area recovery. (opens in a new tab)” href=”https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/01/22/the-euro-area-is-back-on-the-brink-of-recession?cid1=cust/ddnew/email/n/n/20190122n/owned/n/n/ddnew/n/n/n/nNA/Daily_Dispatch/email&etear=dailydispatch&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Dispatch&utm_term=20190122″ target=”_blank”>It began as a joke: the Twitter hashtag #euroboom tacked on to news of any sign, no matter how faint, of a euro-area recovery. By 2017, when French, German and even Spanish GDP grew by more than 2 percent, it seemed to describe a real phenomenon. Alas, all too quickly #euroboom has turned to #eurogloom. GDP data scheduled for release later this month are likely to confirm that in the final three months of 2018 Italy’s economy contracted for a second consecutive quarter, satisfying one of the technical definitions of a recession. Germany appears to have escaped recession, but only just. The euro area, formed in January 1999, may pass its anniversary on the brink of another downturn.

The euro has been an economic fiasco. GDP growth in the euro area has lagged behind that in other advanced economies, and in the European Union as a whole, throughout its life—before the financial crisis, during the global recession and its euro-area encore, and even during the recent #euroboom. Perhaps the area would have done as badly without the single currency. But attempts to estimate euro-zone performance relative to a counterfactual world sans euro suggest not. The past decade has been especially brutal. A list of the world’s worst performers in terms of real GDP per person since 2008 contains places suffering geopolitical meltdowns—plus the euro-area periphery. Greece has been outgrown by Sudan and Ukraine. Cyprus and Italy have been beaten by Brazil and Iran; France and the Netherlands by Britain.

The Hummingbird Project You’ll make a lot more money at the stock exchange if you’ve got the fastest connection to it. In The Hummingbird Project, a team of traders attempts to get the best connection possible by actually building their own fiber-optic network. Out on March 15th, the film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Mando, and Salma Hayek.

TOPLESS TUESDAY Yes please.

2019 Oscar
nominations: who got rewarded & who got snubbed?Every single part of this awards season has
felt crazy-early, and it’s only going to get worse next year, when they move
the Academy Awards up by three weeks (are they still doing that? They need to
not do that). So this feels hella early, but Academy voters have already voted
on this year’s Oscar nominations. There are some surprises, like always, but
what remains the same is how quickly various “consensus” nominees there are.
Also consistent: Academy voters are pretty dumb and racist. I’m devoting this
post to the “big nominations” (sorry costume designers) and you can see the full list of
2019 Oscar nominations here.

The post Brad Pitt, ‘Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa, Spike Lee Gets Oscar Nod, and More: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.


Brad Pitt, ‘Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa, Spike Lee Gets Oscar Nod, and More: HOT LINKS

MISC

The Trump-Pence Administration’s Latest Proposal Threatens People Living with HIV

The Trump-Pence Administration’s Latest Proposal Threatens People Living with HIV

In November, the Trump-Pence administration announced a proposed rule that could have a devastating impact on people living with HIV. This proposal would remove critical safeguards currently in place designed to ensure that people living with HIV and AIDS can access the medications they need. If this rule goes into effect it could result in the denial of coverage for life saving medications, including antiretrovirals.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it was proposing modifications to the Medicare Part D prescription drug program that would have a detrimental impact on program participants living with HIV and other life-threatening chronic conditions.

Currently, Part D is required to cover at least two medications in a given therapeutic class. This policy also requires that Part D sponsors provide coverage for all drugs for six specifically designated therapy classes including antiretrovirals. This policy was adopted more than a decade ago and is designed to ensure that patients have access to the medications they need. For people living with HIV, it is imperative that doctors have flexibility to prescribe any medication that works for individual patients.

The proposed rule change would allow providers to require a series of “cost-saving” steps including prior authorization. Experiences show that prior authorization is counterproductive and can delay access to early treatment and can make sticking with treatment harder. It can also also threaten patients achieving and sustaining viral suppression — which is key to ending the epidemic. The changes would allow Part D sponsors to exclude a protected class drug when the price for the drug rises faster than inflation over a designated period. This would in effect allow them to stop covering expensive HIV treatments. Zeroing out these protections could also lead to their eventual exclusion from Part D altogether — placing them out of reach for patients.

HHS is accepting public comments until this Friday, January 25. Tell HHS protect access to HIV and AIDS drugs today.

www.hrc.org/blog/the-trump-pence-administrations-latest-proposal-threatens-people-living-wit?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

NEWS

As State Legislative Sessions Get Underway & New Officials Take Office, We See Why Elections Matter

As State Legislative Sessions Get Underway & New Officials Take Office, We See Why Elections Matter

As legislative sessions begin across nearly all 50 states, HRC is tracking more than 150 pieces of LGBTQ-related legislation.

We were proud to mobilize our members and supporters in November to turn out the pro-equality vote for hundreds of HRC-backed candidates, following 18 months of unprecedented engagement and mobilization in more than 70 congressional races and key state-level races in 23 states from coast-to-coast.

Within the first weeks of the 2019 session, the governors of four states signed executive orders prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity against state employees.

Kansas’ new governor, Laura Kelly, was one of those governors. Last year, then Governor Jeff Colyer signed legislation that discriminated against LGBTQ families. Kansas turned around and made their voices clear on Election Day by electing Kelly.

Following Florida Governor DeSantis’ decision to exclude LGBTQ workers from discrimination in his executive order, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried issued historic LGBTQ protections for her agency to protect employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

These historic victories in the past few weeks alone show why pro-equality wins at the ballot box are vital to moving LGBTQ equality forward.

While there remain many dangerous bills in states across the country, here are some other wins we’re celebrating:

Illinois

The Illinois State House Of Representatives has its first-ever openly gay majority leader. On January 10, the Chicago Sun Times reported that House Speaker Mike Madigan’s credited his decision to name state Rep. Greg Harris House majority leader with Harris’ leadership on issues such as marriage equality, overhauling Medicaid and taking the lead during the budget crisis.

Michigan

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive directive prohibiting LGBTQ discrimination in state employment and by employers receiving contracts and in grants from the state. The directive, which went into immediate effect on January 8, also prohibits LGBTQ discrimination in the provision of state governmental services.

New York

Two vital protections for LGBTQ people headed to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s desk on January 15 to be signed. The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) will solidify existing law by explicitly adding gender identity and expression to the New York Human Rights Law. The legislature also passed a bill protecting LGBTQ youth in the state from the dangerous and debunked practice of so-called “conversion therapy.” Gov. Cuomo is scheduled to sign these bills this Friday.

Ohio

On January 14, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity against state employees.

Texas

Five House members, including HRC-endorsed Reps. Mary González and Julie Johnson, formed the Lone Star State’s first-ever LGBTQ caucus. González, the chair of the caucus, told the Dallas Morning News that “she hopes the caucus will advance bills that are ‘transformative’ for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Texans across the state.”

Virginia

Equality Virginia and HRC commended the Virginia State Senate for passing legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and called on the House of Delegates to prioritize these bills this session. The two bills that passed the Senate, SB 1009 and SB 998, would add crucial, common-sense protections against discrimination for LGBTQ Virginians in housing and public-sector employment. Several Republican members of the House of Delegates announced their support for these bills at a press conference last week, but it remains to be seen whether House Speaker Kirk Cox will allow a vote on the House floor.

Wisconsin

On January 7, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in state employment and by employers receiving contracts and in grants from the state, and bars LGBTQ discrimination in the provision of state governmental services.

As we celebrate these victories, we continue to prepare to fight back anti-LGBTQ legislation such as South Dakota’s SB 49, a bill targeting transgender student athletes, which is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee this Thursday.

www.hrc.org/blog/as-state-legislative-sessions-get-underway-new-officials-take-office-we-see?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

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