Category: News

Posted on

News Round-Up: February 28, 2020

(image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Woofy Joe Blizzard (above) thinks he looks ‘thick’ in this pic??? If only I were so ‘thick.’ Follow Joe on Instagram here. #beardgoals • New York Times: Stocks tumbled for a seventh consecutive day on Friday, with the S&P 500 index falling about 0.8 percent, bringing its loss for the week to more than 11 percent. It was the worst weekly decline for stocks since the 2008 financial crisis. • Washington Post: California has a second case of community transmission of the coronavirus, a 65-year-old resident of Santa Clara County who has no known history of travel to countries hit hard by the outbreak, people familiar with the case said Friday. There is also no apparent connection between the new patient and anyone else with the disease caused by the covid-19 virus. • KIT212: Kenneth rounds up the what’s what in local gay publications like Matt Spike on the cover of London’s QX Magazine (below).
(via QX Magazine)
• WDRB: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear defended a photograph of him posing with drag queens at a gay rights rally and accused a Republican lawmaker of using homophobic tactics by displaying the photo at a recent campaign rally while accusing Democrats of corrupting traditional values. Beshear, a Democrat, told reporters Thursday that he would pose for the photo again, saying he was practicing his faith to treat everyone with respect. • ABC News: A 19-year-old was taking a video of herself with a gun when she allegedly shot her 10-year-old nephew in the abdomen by accident, according to Texas authorities. Caitlyn Smith, 19, has been arrested and charged with serious bodily injury to a child — a second-degree felony. • New Music: Lady Gaga released “Stupid Love,” the first single off her highly anticipated sixth studio album. The single is accompanied by a music video that was shot entirely on an iPhone 11 Pro and directed by Daniel Askill. The not-so-good news: the music video is kinda silly, the costumes look like something out of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and the choreography is just so-so. The good news: Gaga is back in dance mode a la “Born This Way.” Her vocals are on point, the bop has serious bounce, and it’s all joy and love. This is one of those I’d rather listen to than watch 🙂

Posted on

Beer Drinkers Avoiding Corona Beer Amid Virus Scare

Admit it – you knew this story was coming. From the New York Post:

Some American beer drinkers are avoiding Corona, the beer, amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak, according to a new survey. A surprising 38 percent of beer drinkers insisted that they would not, under any circumstances, buy Corona as the deadly virus spreads across the globe, according to the survey conducted by 5W Public Relations.

“There is no question that Corona beer is suffering because of the coronavirus,” Ronn Torossian, founder of 5WPR, said in a statement.

In fact, 14 percent of respondents who said they regularly consume Corona beer admitted in the survey they would not order the beverage in public. There was also some confusion as 16 percent of those surveyed said they were not sure whether the virus is related to Corona beer.

Posted on

News Round-Up: February 27, 2020

(image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Handsome Ignacio Pérez Rey (above) sums up France: “Nice is NICE!” Follow the world traveler on Instagram here. • LGBTQ Nation: A trans woman was shot at a gas station by a man shouting anti-trans epithets. But a judge ignored state law and ruled that it wasn’t a hate crime. • KWWL: The Iowa Democratic Party announced the results of the limited-scope recount requests from the Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders campaigns. The recount process resulted in no change to the National Delegate allocation. Pete Buttigieg has 14 national delegates, Sanders has 12. As a result of the recount, county-level delegate allocation changed in 19 precincts. • Out Music: Check out the new music video “Revival” from Broadway actor/singer Juwan Crawley (Aladdin). As a gay black man, Juwan started writing music as a response to the epidemic of police brutality towards and killings of innocent black Americans and has since used it as a platform for the values he holds dear. He continues to write music to express that which tethers us together: self-love, spirituality… and just f*cking fun.

• Gaily Grind: A disturbing cell phone video has been making the rounds on social media showing a Texas high school student viciously beating a transgender classmate. • Pew Research: About two-thirds of Americans (66%) feel worn out by the amount of news there is, while far fewer (32%) say they like the amount of news they are getting, according to a survey of more than 12,000 U.S. adults conducted in October and November of last year. • MSNBC: Democratic White House hopeful Mike Bloomberg tells Kasie Hunt in a new interview airing tomorrow morning on Morning Joe he intends to stay in the race “right to the bitter end.”

Posted on

Netflix Does Deep Dive Into The Murder Of 8-Year-Old

Sadly, I remember all too well covering the story of young Gabriel Fernandez’s death – a horrifying case of an 8-year-old boy who was murdered by his own mother and her sadistic boyfriend. According to many reports at the time, he was tortured over and over because the boyfriend believed Gabriel to be gay. Not only were the duo prosecuted for their crimes, but charges were brought against four social workers who had checked on Gabriel over months and months but appeared to have done nothing to help Gabriel. “Looking away when you have the power to make a difference – that is true evil.” Witness an unflinching look at the case that put the system on trial. On Netflix now.

Posted on

Stock Market Rout Continues Over Coronavirus Fears

Stock markets around the world dropped for the sixth day in a row due to escalating fears that the coronavirus outbreak will affect economies across the globe. From the New York Times:

The S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent on Thursday, the worst single-day market slide for the market since August 2011. The index is on pace for its worst weekly performance since the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks in Europe and Asia were also hard hit on Thursday.

The sell-off came after public health officials in the United States and Germany said new patients in each country had no known connection to others with the illness, a development that could complicate efforts to track the virus. Cases of the virus have appeared in at least 47 countries.

The speed of the market slump has been stunning, with the S&P 500 falling more than 10 percent from its Feb. 19 high, a drop that Wall Street labels a correction to suggest the decline is more significant than a few days of downbeat trading.

The CDC has confirmed the first U.S. coronavirus case of ‘unknown origin.’ Donald Trump continues to deny the severity of the coronavirus threat.

Posted on

After Bungled HIV Outbreak, Pence Is The Guy To Head Up Coronavirus Efforts?

L-R Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump (public domain)
Donald Trump’s announcement that Vice President Pence would head up U.S. efforts against the spread of the coronavirus caused many to raise eyebrows given Pence’s woeful handling of one of the biggest HIV outbreaks in Indiana’s history. From the Washington Post:

“He’s got a certain talent for this,” Trump said at a White House briefing about the virus, which has infected nearly five dozen people in the United States so far.

The announcement has cast light on Pence’s record as a lawmaker and his handling of a major public health crisis during his time as governor of Indiana. The worst HIV outbreak in the state’s history happened on his watch in 2015, which critics blamed on Pence’s belated response and his opposition to authorizing a needle-exchange program.

In 2011, as a member of Congress, he voted to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Two years later, a Planned Parenthood clinic that had been the only HIV-testing center in Scott County, Ind., closed after public health spending cuts, HuffPost reported.

Two months passed from the start of the outbreak in 2015 before Pence declared a public state of emergency.

Pence’s solution for the HIV outbreak was to turn to prayer. It wasn’t until after 75 more people were diagnosed as HIV+ that Pence finally allowed a 30-day needle exchange program to be implemented. Pence also opposed condom distribution to combat HIV. That led, in part, to his overseeing the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Indiana. As a result, the Planned Parenthood clinic in Scott County, which housed the county’s only HIV testing center, closed in 2013. But this is the guy to spearhead the federal government’s response to a worldwide virus…? Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in on the choice of Pence via Twitter:

Posted on

Podcast: Billy Porter On Sesame Street, National Guard LGBTQ Inclusion, Homophobes In Croatia

The Randy Report podcast

The Randy Report podcast delivers the week's top stories in a quick, convenient podcast - 'the 60 Minutes of gay news - only shorter' In this week’s podcast: • National Guard units are taking positive steps to promote LGBTQ inclusion • A crowd in Croatia cheered at the burning of an effigy depicting a same-sex couple with a child • Texas teacher wins $100K settlement for LGBTQ discrimination • Atlanta man convicted of rape after pretending to be gay in order to befriend lesbian • The ‘Love, Simon’ TV sequel will premiere in time for Pride Month on Hulu • One Million Moms is really, really mad Billy Porter is heading to Sesame Street All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

Posted on

News Round-Up: February 25, 2020

Karl Thorssen (via Twitter)
Some news items you might have missed: • Twitter: After the hashtag #BisexualMenExist began to trend on Twitter, Karl Thorssen joined the party tweeting the pic above with the caption, “Joyfully reminding y’all that and sometimes take selfies in trucks.” #woof • The Advocate: An Atlanta man who pretended to be gay in order to befriend a lesbian has been convicted of raping her in 2015. • HRC: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is technically still running for the Democratic nomination for president, refused to answer questions regarding LGBTQ issues for the Human Rights Campaign. • Politico: Two Florida Democrats have filed a lawsuit asking that Sen. Bernie Sanders be disqualified from the Democratic primary because he’s a declared independent. The two military veterans argue that because Florida has a closed primary only declared Democrats should be on the ballot. • Reuters: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against a Border Patrol agent for fatally shooting a 15-year-old Mexican boy on Mexican soil from across the border in Texas. The family sued in federal court accusing the agent of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unjustified deadly force and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The court dismissed the case saying people who are not in the United States at the time of a cross-border incident to file civil rights lawsuits in federal court. • New Music: Hailing from rural isolation on a sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands, ONR (pronounced “honor”) drops his new track “Sober” (feat. Carina Jade). The track draws musical inspiration from both indie rock and 80s synth-pop while the video is an intoxicating wash of pink, black and blue light. “Sober” is his debut release on Warner Records and the first off his forthcoming Must Stop EP, out May 15.

Posted on

News Round-Up: February 24, 2020

(image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: I hate to say it, I’m guilty of this as well, but Bremen Menelli (above) is right: there are no excuses to get some kind of workout in  – even if it’s just a few sets of bicep curls. Get up and do something folks. • Deadline: The TV series inspired by the praised 2018 movie Love, Simon is moving from Disney+ to the Disney-controlled Hulu streaming service. The half-hour comedy, which will be re-titled Love, Victor after its protagonist, will debut in time for Pride month. • Reuters: Stock market experts pointed to the growing coronavirus outbreak threat as well as the surging Bernie Sanders campaign for the S&P 500 managed healthcare index of health insurance stocks (SPLRCHMO) tumbling over 7% early Monday afternoon. • LA Times: Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and a felony sex crime Monday. Weinstein was acquitted on the two most serious charges of predatory sexual assault, which each carried a potential life sentence. Sentencing for the 69-year-old is set for March 11. • Axios: The Trump White House and its allies, over the past 18 months, has assembled detailed lists of government officials perceived to be disloyal to oust. The plan would be to dismiss those officials and replace them with Trump loyalists. • NBC News/Marist Poll: A new poll in South Carolina shows Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by only four points. That said, Biden continues to lead the pack of Democratic contenders among African American voters by double-digits with only five days before the South Carolina primary.