The North Park Senior Apartments were created in partnership with the San Diego LGBT Community Center. Inside, they have an office to help connect residents with nearby resources.
“You’re always represented by the center as well as our apartment complex,” said Paul Stewart who lives in one of the new units. “To make sure that both sides of whatever is happening or needs to be addressed is heard.”
Developers said this is the first affordable senior housing community designed to support LGBT seniors.
The complex has 75 total units. Rents range from $740 for a studio to $1,150 for a two-bedroom apartment. Stewart moved to the complex from another apartment in North Park.
The man above is wanted by police for possible battery charges
Another homophobic attack, this time in Newport Beach, California, where three men say they were assaulted and ejected from an Italian restaurant while being called gay slurs.
In their lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court this week, Angel Bonilla, Colton Moyer and Clement Serafin say they were visiting Balboa Island on April 13 when they decided to stop by Siena Restaurant inside the Balboa Inn for dinner.
The trio was immediately met with hostility from a woman working behind the bar, who “demanded that (the men) show their respective identification cards because she wanted to create a ruse for refusing to serve them when her real motive was to not serve gay men,” according to the suit.
The men said they were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
After viewing Serafin’s identification card, the bartender proclaimed that it was fake and then handed it to a person sitting at the bar, apparently a patron, who examined it and “commented loudly that it was ‘definitely a fake,’” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says Serafin’s identification card is not fake and that he is in his mid-30s.
“This was done with the specific intent to cause humiliation and mental suffering … because they are gay and because Bonilla is Hispanic,” the suit says.
Some of the incident was caught on cellphone video below.
Gus Kenworthy & Adam Rippon at Opening Ceremonies of 2018 Winter Olympics
The White House will host members of the 2018 U.S. Winter Olympic and Paralympic teams this morning but several of the bigger names from this years’ Games won’t be in attendance.
Lindsey Vonn won’t be there. Neither will opening ceremony flag bearer Erin Hamlin, or Adam Rippon, or almost all of his figure skating colleagues, or Chloe Kim, or Gus Kenworthy, or Jessie Diggins, or David Wise.
Some, like Vonn, Rippon and Kenworthy in particular, have made it clear they are skipping the U.S. Olympic Committee’s White House visit because they do not want to stand with the controversial Trump, who, among other things, bragged about sexually assaulting women in a video released during the 2016 presidential campaign, mocked a disabled person during the campaign and called some white supremacists “very fine people” after the deadly Charlottesville rally.
Others have just said they are going to be, um, busy.
Rippon has a full schedule with Dancing with the Stars rehearsals even as he’s touring with “Stars On Ice.”
But it was a foregone conclusion neither he nor Kenworthy would be attending today.
Rippon told USA Today:
“I have been invited to so many incredible things, to the Human Rights Campaign dinner, the GLAAD Media Awards. I was so honored and so excited to go to those, more so than I would be to go to the White House. I feel like it was more important for me to go to those events because it’s a cause that I really believe in, it’s a message that I believe in. It’s important for me to align myself with those people who have the same ideals that I have.”
Olympians from the 2018 Games have been invited to go to the White House today. I will not be going. I will not stand with people who discriminate against those that they perceive as different. In lieu of going to DC, I have donated to a few of my favorite causes 🙆🏼♂️❤️ https://t.co/qDXqswTHdF— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) April 27, 2018
My first donation is to @glaad. I love to be partnered with them and will continue to work together to help empower LGBTQ youth. https://t.co/g9cVJfREUc— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) April 27, 2018
Another donation is to @PPFA. They provide many different affordable health care services and have helped so many different people. https://t.co/9fYu1X49N8— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) April 27, 2018
If you want to join me and you’re able to give a little, go for it! I think when we’re able to help each other out and do what we can to lift each other up, that’s when we’re truly making America great 🇺🇸— Adam Rippon (@Adaripp) April 27, 2018
The Swedish four-piece, who had nine No 1 hits in the UK between 1974 and 1980, and who have sold hundreds of millions of records worldwide, announced on Instagram that they had recorded two new songs for a project in which avatars of the band will perform.
The band said in a statement: “The decision to go ahead with the exciting Abba avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence. We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!”
One of the two new songs that resulted, called I Still Have Faith in You, will feature in a TV special to air in December.
The statement concluded: “We may have come of age, but the song is new. And it feels good.”
The allegations for a year and a half have been that someone from the Trump campaign met or coordinated with Russian actors connected with the Kremlin.
Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign, now admits she is a top Kremlin informant.
The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.
But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.
Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general. “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”
“I’m an informant” says Russian Lawyer who offered dirt on Clinton in 2016 Trump Tower meeting -NYT https://t.co/uy5B2HeI2E
Just Out: My son, son-in-law and campaign manager met with an admitted Russian spy during the campaign in an attempt to find dirt on Hillary Clinton. Wow! What was I saying about a WITCH HUNT? https://t.co/KDl50XKiDa
• Paleontologist Francesc Gascó (above) redefines the old saying, “Walk tall and carry a big… hammer?” Ok, I’m not complaining… 🙂
• Out Olympic bronze medalist Adam Rippon not only attended the TIME 100 Gala in New York City as one of the news magazine’s “100 Most Influential of 2018” but he got to sniff country music star Keith Urban along the way.
• Hottie Simon Dunn trolled anti-LGBT Australian rugby player Israel Follau for saying gays will go to hell by kissing his bf after his own rugby match and then retweeting the pic to Follau. Follau has doubled-down in his hateful comments saying he’d rather end his career than take back what he said.
• A NYC subway rider found DWTS and ANTM champ Nyle DiMarco so hot she took creeper pics of him. She didn’t know he did the same 🙂
• Parker Matthews dropped his new music video for “Hit and Run” recently. In writing about the video, Pop Dust gushed, “Matthews’ confidence in his sexuality glows onscreen.”
I interviewed the talented popster back in February. You can catch my chat with him here and check out the video below.
The governor of Texas wants Republican Blake Farenthold to pay for the special election necessary to replace the now-former congressman after his sudden resignation three weeks ago.
It was revealed in December that Farenthold had used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Initially, the Texas Republican signaled he would not seek re-election this fall and promised to repay the $84,000 funds.
But he never repaid the money and suddenly resigned from Congress earlier this month in an attempt to avoid writing that $84K check.
The House Ethics Committee was about to rule against Farenthold in its investigation into whether he sexually harassed members of his staff, used official money for campaign purposes and lied in previous testimony to the committee, according to the office of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.).
The committee gave Farenthold a heads-up about its ruling, which it is legally required to do before issuing a decision, so he quit, per Speier’s office. Speier, who is not a member of the committee, has been one of Farenthold’s biggest critics and a vocal advocate for changing how sexual harassment allegations are handled in Congress.
By stepping down, Farenthold was able to avoid whatever punishment the committee would have handed down.
Farenthold’s district must now hold a special election June 30 and Gov. Greg Abbott wants him to pony up the $84,000 to help pay for the election.
Life comes at you fast, huh, Mr. Farenthold?
RT to tell Blake Farenthold to pay for the special election that had to be called to fill the seat he resigned from because of his disgraceful conduct. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for his misdeeds. #txlege@Elect_Blakehttps://t.co/TATimZEkaz
NEW: @GovAbbott has sent a letter to Blake Farenthold demanding that he “cover all costs” for the special election to fill his seat. Abbott wants Farenthold to use the $84,000 in taxpayer money that he used to settle sexual harassment claim. #TX27
Helmut Muller Estrada (center) honored for defending gay couple in homophobic attack after Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade
When Dmitry Logunov and Rene Chalarca were attacked by four men after the Miami Beach Pride Parade earlier this month, a good samaritan named Helmut Muller Estrada jumped in to defend the gay couple.
His actions helped to contain the incident even though he found himself with his own hospital-level injuries requiring stitches to his head.
At the time, Estrada told CBS Miami: “To step up for those guys, I thought it was the right thing to do. I try my best. On sex and religion, I hope they get along someday.”
On Wednesday, the City of Miami Beach honored Estrada with a Miami Beach medallion.
Speaking at the ceremony, Commissioner Michael Gongora cited Estrada for “for acts of heroism, bravery and significant contributions to our city.”
The four men who attacked Chalarca and Logunov turned themselves in to police and face possible felony assault charges.
Watch the report from the local CBS affiliate in Miami below:
