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News Round-Up: May 6, 2021

Disney rolls out brand new rainbow pride gear for Pride Month
Disney rolls out brand new rainbow pride gear for Pride Month
(image via Disney Parks)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Disney Parks: Just in time for Pride Month 2021, fans around the world can showcase their LGBTQ pride with all-new bespoke products featuring Disney brands. To learn more, visit RainbowDisneyCollection.com.

• Pink News: An anti-transgender bill in Texas that would ban trans students from playing sports on the team corresponding to their gender identity has failed to advance out of a House committee. It failed to get the requisite seven votes to move forward, instead receiving a 6-5 vote in favor.

• Kenneth-in-the-212: This week’s installment of Wrestle Wednesdays was a truly worthy honoree (below). Click here for more of KIT212’s regular Hump Day feature.

Follow David Torres here
Make sure to follow David Torres here on Instagram

• OUT: A Republican state lawmaker in Kansas was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery charges for kneeing the groin of a teenaged boy who was in a class he was substitute teaching.

• Edge Media: Olympic athlete Tom Daley is back in familiar form after winning two gold medals at the 2021 FINA World Cup in Tokyo. The event was the diver’s first competitive performance in 14 months, and the judges unanimously agreed that Daley didn’t miss a beat.

• Twitter: Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson says thousands of Americans have died after they received a COVID-19 vaccine, pointing to CDC numbers. What he doesn’t say: “Reports to VAERS of death ‘following’ vaccination do not necessarily mean the vaccine ’caused’ the death.”

VAERS is an open-access system. It’s designed so that anyone — parents, patients and health care professionals — can freely report any health effects that occur after a vaccination whether or not those effects are believed to be caused by the vaccine. People have died after watching Carlson’s TV show. It doesn’t mean they actually died from his show (although I guess that’s possible).

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News Round-Up: March 17, 2021

Ginger go-go dancer Seth Fornea
Ginger go-go dancer Seth Fornea
Ginger go-go dancer Seth Fornea (via BosGuy)

Some news items you might have missed:

• BosGuy: Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with ginger go-go dancer and model Seth Fornea (above). Talk about bringing new meaning to the phrase “lucky charms…”

• Block Club Chicago: Did Eric Trump jump the line for COVID vaccination? A top executive of a West Side hospital in Chicago bragged about vaccinating Eric Trump the same day the hospital vaccinated workers at Trump Tower Downtown. Trump would not have been eligible to be vaccinated in Chicago.

• Kenneth-in-the-212: It’s Wrestle Wednesday over at KIT212 and well-worth the click as he features 30-year-old pro wrestler David Starr (below).

• Washington Blade: Dean Trantalis, currently serving as the first openly gay mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., came under criticism by LGBTQ activists this week for backing and signing a proclamation approved by the Fort Lauderdale City Commission honoring the city’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, which has a history of anti-LGBTQ policy positions.

• The Hill: The Kentucky legislature has passed a bill that would require a governor to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat with a member of the departed senator’s party. While both houses of Kentucky’s legislature is controlled by Republican supermajorities, the state currently has a Democrat in the governor’s mansion, Gov. Andy Beshear.

• USA Today: The House voted 413-12 on Wednesday to award Capitol police, Metropolitan police and other law enforcement agencies with the Congressional Gold Medal, for protecting lawmakers, staffers, reporters and visitors from insurrectionists on Jan. 6. Twelve Republicans voted against the measure for combining the medal with what they deemed “editorial comments about the January 6 sequence of events.”

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News Round-Up: February 17, 2021

Promo photo for 'RuPaul's Drag Race'
Promo photo for 'RuPaul's Drag Race'
Promo photo for ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’

Some news items you might have missed:

• NewNowNext: A new documentary special, RuPaul’s Drag Race: Corona Can’t Keep A Good Queen Down, takes fans behind the scenes to see how the Emmy Award-winning series pulled off shooting a new season amid COVID-19.

• Broadway Cares: The fan-inspiring, steamy stream of ABC Daytime: Back on Broadway, a nostalgic evening of song and conversation with the stars of All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital, raised a stellar $130,565 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the philanthropic heart of Broadway.

• Kenneth-in-the-212: It’s Wrestle Wednesday over on KIT212 – click over to see this week’s athletic twunk.

(image via kenneth-in-the-212)

• Washington Blade: Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) signaled he would oppose the Equality Act, legislation to expand the prohibition on anti-LGBTQ discrimination under federal law, unless Christians get a carve-out to discriminate based on religious grounds.

• Revry: The queer streaming platform celebrates Black History Month with an entire February calendar highlighting incredible Black Queer content made by and for the community. Check out the 2019 film Trade which tells the tale of two men, one a streetwise hustler, the other a straight-laced lawyer, who meet and form a relationship that brings to light who they really are.

• Disney: Academy Award® winner Emma Stone (La La Land) stars in Disney’s Cruella, an all-new live-action feature film about the rebellious early days of one of cinemas most notorious – and notoriously fashionable – villains, the legendary Cruella de Vil. Due out May 2021.

• NBC News: Tim Boyd, mayor of Colorado City, Texas, resigned after lashing out at constituents who have been paralyzed by this week’s devastating cold snap. In a Facebook post, Boyd told town residents to stop complaining about the cold weather that has left millions across Texas stranded without power. “No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice!”

• CNN: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly laughed about Donald Trump’s recent attack statement and has no plans to engage the former President. He’s done talking Trump, with plans to focus on push to take back Senate and focus on Biden agenda. “He’s moving on,” one source said.

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News Round-Up: October 22, 2020

Me, Olivia Newton-John, Michael and Lindsay Wagner (2012)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Throwback Thursday: I was reminded of this moment in 2012 (above) when Olivia Newton-John played a concert in Palm Springs and the one and only Lindsay Wagner showed up! Michael and I squealed like the Bionic Woman fans we are 🙂

• NBC News: Seventy percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, according to the 11th annual American Values Survey, the highest percentage recorded by a major national poll. The results, released Monday, found just 28 percent of respondents oppose the right of gay couples to wed.

• Edge Media: TikTok announced in a statement that the social media platform will ban anti-LGBTQ content, including that which promotes conversion therapy. Users appear to trust TikTok, as it has become a space for survivors — and younger LGBTQ people who fear being subjected to conversion therapy — to find and connect with one another.

• Kenneth in the 212: I’m a day late, but Kenneth’s ‘Wrestle Wednesday’ entry this week is definitely worth clicking over to 🙂

• VICE News: Almost 21,000 Election Day polling places have been eliminated heading into the 2020 U.S. election, a drastic dip in voting locations driven by a heavy shift to mail voting, coronavirus-related consolidations, cost-cutting measures, and voter suppression.

• Coronavirus: Spain became the first Western European country to exceed 1 million COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, doubling its tally in just six weeks despite a series of increasingly stringent measures to control the second wave of the virus.

• Fox News: Donald Trump holds a narrow advantage in Ohio, while voters in the three battleground states that put him over the top in 2016 prefer Joe Biden, according to Fox News polls of likely voters. Biden leads by 12 points in Michigan (52-40 percent), 5 points in Pennsylvania (50-45 percent), and 5 points in Wisconsin (49-44 percent). Trump carried each of these states by less than a percentage point in 2016.

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News Round-Up: July 29, 2020

Men’s saunas may make a comeback in San Francisco

Some news items you might have missed:

• Gay Star News: San Francisco may finally see gay bathhouses return thanks to the city relaxing rules it brought in at the height of the AIDS crisis. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city’s governing council, voted unanimously on Tuesday to remove the restrictions on saunas in hopes that the businesses will now ‘reopen as part of the city’s COVID-19 economic recovery’.

• Meidas Touch: A Democratic super PAC is launching an anti-President Trump ad that uses former President Reagan’s comments in a 1980 presidential debate when he was challenging then-President Carter. The ad is set to air exclusively on Fox News over the course of the next week and features Reagan’s famous debate moment when he asked the country if it was “better off” than it was four years ago.

• Queerty: Actresses Indya Moore and Angelica Ross, of FX’s Pose, have criticized the Emmy Nominations, just one day after their announcement. The two transgender actresses attacked the Television Academy for ignoring the trans performers on the show, and lashed out at the show’s network, FX, for a lack of promotion.

• KIT212: Kenneth helps us all over Hump Day with his latest installment of ‘Wrestle Wednesday’ (below).

• Boy Culture: When the man who wrote Encyclopedia Madonnica 20: Madonna from A to Z, literally THE BOOK on Madonna, calls the international superstar out over COID-19 batshittery, you know it’s serious.

• The Gaily Grind: Four plainclothes NYC police officers were caught on video jumping out of an unmarked grey Kia minivan in broad daylight, snatching an 18-year-old transgender protester off the street, wrestling her to the ground, and throwing her into the vehicle before speeding away from the intersection.

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News Round-Up: July 23, 2020

Ellen DeGeneres (image via Depositphotos)

Some news items you might have missed:

• US Weekly: Show staffers at The Ellen DeGeneres Show are reportedly gleeful since the publication of a report about the “toxic work environment” at the TV gabfest. “They’re loving that the truth — which has been an open secret for years in the industry — is finally receiving more interest.”

• Buzzfeed News: A federal prosecutor arrested for drunk driving used anti-gay slurs and other abusive terms according to an inspector general report obtained by BuzzFeed News. Nine officers went on record saying the unnamed prosecutor used the word “f*ggot” repeatedly.

• NY Times: On July 9, the U.S. crossed the 3 million mark in terms of positive COVID-19 tests. Just 14 days later, we crossed the 4 million mark. #SoMuchWinning

• KIT212: I’m late but Kenneth nailed this week’s ‘Wrestle Wednesday’ (below). Hit the link for more reverse stripping.

• NBC News: Donald Trump finally succumbed to the writing on the COVID-19 wall and has canceled his huge, in-person Republican convention in Jacksonville, Florida. The Republican National Party will still hold virtual events, and the Trumpster will still get to give his acceptance speech.

• USA Today: The Senate overwhelmingly passed a massive defense bill Thursday afternoon that includes the removal of Confederate names from army bases and creates a possible showdown between Congress and President Donald Trump, who opposes renaming the bases. The bill passed by a lopsided count of 86 to 14, well over the number required to override a presidential veto.

• The Hill: Donald Trump whined today about an ad released by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden that featured former President Obama saying the U.S. is not dealing with the coronavirus pandemic as “smartly” as other countries with similar resources. The conservative anti-Trump group, The Lincoln Project, trolled back asking Trump to identify an elephant in reference to the Donald’s constant preening about passing a dementia test.

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News Round-Up: June 17, 2020

Joel Green (via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• InstaHunks: Wise words of the day from fitness guy Joel Green (above) – “It’s not about your reflection, it’s what you see beyond it.” #DreamBigger

• Washington Blade: Sara Hegazy, 30, an LGBTQ rights activist from Egypt who was arrested for raising a rainbow flag during a 2017 concert in Cairo died by suicide on Sunday at her home in Canada. She was reportedly tortured for months in prison before an Egyptian court ordered her release on bail in January 2018.

• KIT212: Kenneth’s weekly ‘Wrestle Wednesday’ (below) is really worth the click 🙂

(via kenneth-in-the-212)

• CNN: Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground by two Buffalo, New York police officers earlier this month, has a fractured skull and is still unable to walk, his lawyer said in a statement provided to CNN. Gugino’s attorney passed along a message from the senior protester: “I think it’s very unnecessary to focus on me. There are plenty of other things to think about besides me.”

• NY Daily News: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has issued an order requiring all lawmakers to wear masks in committee hearings after Rep. Tom Rice (R-South Carolina) announced he and several family members have contracted the COVID-19 virus. Rice has refused to wear a mask at House meetings. Pelosi has ordered the Sargeant at Arms to deny entry by any violators.

• OMG Blog: RuPaul is so good at ‘Family Feud’ he doesn’t even need to hear the question! Watch below.

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News Round-Up: April 29, 2020

I’m a little late getting this News Round-Up out, so rather than make you wait while I scour the Gram of Insta for an InstaHunk, you get this pic of me from this morning before the day got away from me. Just want to let you know we’re still kicking out here in Las Vegas and I hope everyone’s going great as we close out Hump Day.

Here are a few news items you might have missed:

• The Advocate: After teaching English for 23 years at Archbishop Alter High School in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, a teacher has been notified his contract will not be renewed for the coming school year because he’s married to his husband.

• Gay City News: LGBTQ groups in Morocco are encouraging gay men to get rid of the Grindr accounts after a social media influencer encouraged people to use the app’s location data to identify gay locals.

• Out Music: After years battling a debilitating chronic pain condition, out indie artist Stefan Alexander recently released his first new music since 2016. Check out the pop-synth title track from his new EP, Cry Again.

“Cry Again is sort of the aftermath and getting back in touch with my emotions, all these emotions I had bottled up for so long and didn’t allow myself to feel,” Alexander shared with American Songwriter earlier this year.

• Washington Post: U.S. intelligence agencies issued warnings about the novel coronavirus in more than a dozen classified briefings prepared for President Trump in January and February, months during which he continued to play down the threat, according to current and former U.S. officials.

• KIT212: For this week’s edition of ‘Wrestle Wednesdays,’ Kenneth notes “there’s so much going on in this scene you have to see it for yourself.” In addition to the athlete, that coach can seriously wear some pants…

 

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News Round-Up: April 15, 2020

Daniel Newman (via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• InstaHunks: Walking Dead star Daniel Newman (above) asks that you please forgive his “messy room.”

• NPR: Despite pleas from cities across the state, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) has held out on issuing a statewide stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But an outbreak of COVID-19 at Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, S.D., has infected nearly 450 workers and caused the number of cases in the city to grow so quickly that the mayor, Paul TenHaken, calls it an explosion.

• KIT212: Kenneth’s ‘Wrestle Wednesdays’ (below) certainly help brighten Hump Day. Find all of his WW posts here.

(via kenneth-in-the-212)

• Axios: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said Wednesday he will be issuing an executive order requiring all New Yorkers to wear masks or face coverings in public situations in which social distancing is not possible.

• Vox: Kentucky’s heavily Republican legislature voted Tuesday to require voters to show a government-issued photo ID, overriding Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto in the process. Meanwhile, all of the state’s offices that issue such IDs are….wait for it…closed.

• NewNowNext: In the new film, Sublet, Michael (played John Benjamin Hickey), a New York Times travel writer, journeys to Tel Aviv after suffering a tragedy. The energy of the city, and his relationship with a younger man (played by Niv Nissim) who becomes his tour guide, brings him back to life.

Director Eytan Fox shares a scene from the movie where Michael and Tomer meet on the beach in Tel Aviv after spending a few days together. “This sensual setting sparks real intimacy between them for the first time,” says Fox. “As these two men sit there, they open up to each other about matters of the heart—and soul.”

The film was to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this year which, clearly, was canceled. No word on when the movie will be officially released but the scene below certainly sparks my interest.

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News Round-Up: January 8, 2020

Australia’s Human Nature (image via Instagram/Denise Truscello)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Las Vegas: Australia’s biggest pop group, Human Nature, will be donating 100% of the ticket sales from their January 25 concert at The Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip to support victims of the Australian bushfires.

• The Advocate: Preparing an end-run around Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature, activists are getting ready to gather signatures for a ballot initiative that could codify employment and housing protections for LGBTQ residents.

• NBC News: Prince Harry & Meghan Markle have announced they “intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent.” The couple says they plan to split their time between the U.K. and North America.

• KIT212: Kenneth’s ‘Wrestle Wednesdays’ post might pose a challenge to ‘hockey butt.’

• USA Today: The head of ABC Entertainment confirmed today there will (again) be no formal ‘host’ at this year’s Academy Awards telecast.

• Billboard: Check out this month’s edition of Queer Necessities, a monthly LGBTQ-driven playlist (via Spotify) from Billboard Pride catching you up on the latest and greatest bops by queer musicians and fierce allies.