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☆ Far right protests targeting the LGBTQ community show a troubling correlation with violent attacks
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Right-wing extremists have held at least 55 protests targeting LGBTQ people this year, ACLED reported. That is up from just 16 such protests in 2021, an increase of over 340%According to ACLED, a monitoring group, far-right activity is "strongly" linked to violence. Groups such as the Proud Boys conflate the reading of books by members of the LGBTQ community with the predatory "grooming" of kids. Such deadly attacks are often carried out by self-styled vigilantes who are not formally members of any far-right group, Roubadeh Kishi, director of research at ACLED, said in an interview. "It usually ends up being a resurgence of some kind of old narrative, packaged in a new way," Rishi said.

☆ Top media analyst from Bank of America names the best value stock in the sector
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Carmen Reinicke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Warner Bros. Discovery is the best value stock in the media and entertainment sector, according to Bank of America. That implies that Warner Bros. Discovery has made a tremendous amount of operational and strategic changes since April, wrote analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich. Warner Bros.

☆ Oldest DNA sheds light on a 2 million-year-old ecosystem that has no modern parallel
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A core of ice age sediment from northern Greenland has yielded the world’s oldest sequences of DNA. They then compared the DNA fragments with existing libraries of DNA collected from both extinct and living animals, plants and microorganisms. It was super exciting when we recovered the DNA (to see) that very, very different ecosystem. They found no DNA from carnivores but believe predators — such as bears, wolves or even saber-toothed tigers — must have been present in the ecosystem. Further study of environmental DNA from this time period could help scientists understand how various organisms might adapt to climate change.

☆ China eases some of its Covid restrictions, in significant step toward reopening
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Jessie Yeung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNS/AFP/Getty ImagesSince early in the pandemic, China has used health codes on mobile phones to track individuals’ health statuses. Residents line up for Covid tests in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China on December 1. Schools with Covid cases can continue “normal teaching and living,” as long as they designate certain “risk areas” with control measures. Since early in the pandemic, China has required a prescription and negative Covid test to buy these. Some experts have warned that a broader reopening inevitably brings health risks, especially to those vulnerable groups.

☆ Factbox: China COVID policy: Major changes in further easing
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Rules covering quarantine, people movement, lockdowns and testing were loosened, and other aspects of policy were also adjusted. The main changes are listed below: - High-risk areas must be accurately designated by buildings, units, floors, and households, and cannot be arbitrarily expanded to residential compounds and communities. - Mass COVID testing cannot be carried out by administrative regions. - High-risk areas without new infections for five consecutive days should be released from lockdowns in a timely manner. Those with COVID cases should precisely mark designated risk areas and ensure normal order of teaching and living outside these areas.

☆ Colorado shooting prompts top drag queens to tour with armed guards and metal detectors
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Matt-Lavietes-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Matt Lavietes | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

Curtis Brown“We’re trying to smile and make people happy for the holidays, and in the back of our heads we’re thinking, ‘I hope I don’t get shot,’” said Jinkx Monsoon, winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” season five and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” season seven. For months, many right-wing lawmakers, media personalities and activists have accused LGBTQ people — and drag performers in particular — of “grooming,” “indoctrinating” and “sexualizing” children. Latrice Royale, who has appeared on both “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” reasoned that the backlash is due to the greater visibility of drag brought on by the global success of the RuPaul-led competition shows, which have spinoffs in at least 16 other countries. Drag performers who have hosted events that have catered to children, such as Drag Story Hours at public libraries or family-friendly drag brunches, have particularly drawn the ire of conservative protesters. Them.”BenDeLaCreme, who appeared on the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and the third season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” shared a similar sentiment.

☆ Kids Online Safety Act may harm minors, civil society groups warn lawmakers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Ranking Member Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) speaks during a Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security hearing on Protecting Kids Online: Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube on October 26, 2021 in Washington, DC. Dozens of civil society groups urged lawmakers in a letter on Monday against passing a bill that aims to protect children from online harm, warning the bill itself could actually inflict further danger on kids and teens. The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future and Wikimedia Foundation were among the groups that wrote to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Ranking Member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., opposing the Kids Online Safety Act. Sites would have to let their young users know when parental tools are in effect. The KOSA opponents warned that prescriptive parental controls could be harmful to kids in abusive situations.

☆ Huge COVID protests erupt in China's Xinjiang after deadly fire
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Reuters verified the footage was published from the Xinjiang capital Urumqi. Videos showed people in a plaza singing China's national anthem with its lyric, "Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!" The Urumqi protests followed a fire in a high-rise building there that killed 10 on Thursday night. Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday, denying that COVID measures had hampered escape and rescue but saying they would investigate further. Some lamented its similarities to the deadly September crash of a COVID quarantine bus.

☆ Bill Gates has 5 new book recommendations for your holiday reading list
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Tom Huddleston Jr. | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"Stranger in a Strange Land" — Gates' favorite sci-fi book from his youth, he noted — is the story of a human who was raised on Mars, by Martians. This holiday season, billionaire Bill Gates is gifting you a list of five books to read while you're hopefully enjoying some much-deserved downtime. We need to learn to learn from our mistakes without obsessing over them," Gates wrote. The name comes from Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev, who formulated the first version of the periodic table in 1869. It's "the best book I've ever read on the periodic table," Gates wrote.

☆ Fact check: Trump responds to special counsel news with debunked claim about Obama and the Bushes
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Daniel Dale | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

They took documents with them. As NARA explained in an August statement, Barack Obama did not take the presidential documents Trump claimed Obama had taken. Again, it was NARA that took the Bushes’ presidential documents to facilities that NARA managed near the future locations of their presidential libraries. Trump’s claim about a bowling alley and restaurantTrump’s suggestion that past presidents’ documents were stored in an insecure manner is also false. Bush’s presidential documents were temporarily stored, in College Station, Texas, was indeed a former bowling alley connected to a former Chinese restaurant.

The rapid moves Tuesday in Berkeley County, the fourth largest school district in the state, showed the impact of Moms for Liberty’s focus on electing conservative school board members, and prompted uproar among some community members in attendance. Deon Jackson was voted in as district superintendent during a special meeting of the Berkeley County School District board on May 19, 2021 in South Carolina. Berkeley County School DistrictMoms for Liberty said it has endorsed more than 500 school board candidates across the country this year, and 49% have won. Berkeley County School DistrictNone of the board members responded to emails or phone calls Wednesday. Each vote — firing the superintendent, picking his replacement, terminating the district’s lawyer and banning critical race theory — passed with support from only the six Moms for Liberty-backed members.

☆ The Visions of Octavia Butler
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Lynell George | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +27 min

As a science fiction writer, Butler forged a new path and envisioned bold possibilities. Mural with a portrait of Octavia Butler and her name, composed of dots of various densities in 3-D space. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. “‘Kindred’ was a story of ordinary people trapped in fantastic circumstances,” Butler wrote in a 1988 notebook. Her point of view was one not traditionally found in science fiction and, simply by writing, she demanded a larger world.

☆ A reckless version of free speech is spreading across America, partly because of unchecked rhetoric by Elon Musk, Kayne West, and Kyrie Irving. We can't be complicit.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Marguerite Ward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Elon Musk and Ye are among multiple notable figures embracing a misguided notion of free speech. And it's likely to get worse amid a growing, misguided movement for free speech. Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Ye (previously known as Kanye West), and the basketball star Kyrie Irving have become strange bedfellows in a growing fight for so-called free speech. Americans are on the precipice of accepting hate speech as free speech, and nobody is stepping up to say, "This is wrong." Speaking out on social media against unbound free speech, or withholding your business from a company, sends a message to executive board rooms.

As a result, political observers say, public school funding is effectively on the ballot Tuesday. “These groups have been demonizing what is being taught in public schools, and that’s the fastest way to erode faith that public schools work,” Rottinghaus said. (Abbott publicly came out in support of private school vouchers two months after winning the primary with 66.5% of the vote.) Greg Abbott in the GOP primary, campaigned in support of private school vouchers. “I will never support vouchers.”Rep. John Bucy III said he will continue to oppose private school vouchers.

☆ Hate in America is on the rise. It's making it more dangerous for everyone from politicians to librarians to do their jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Marguerite Ward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Politicians, poll workers, and even librarians report growing harassment, threats, and attacks. "I'm scared for this country," Ringer told Insider. B-A-D," George Rattay, the chair of the Democratic Party in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, told Insider. Poll workers and even librarians face violenceThere have been multiple reports of increasing threats and violence targeting poll workers. The breadth of the threats to politicians, poll workers, and other civic employees like librarians indicates hate in America has become prolific.

☆ A Seattle-based real estate investor who has 'never lost money on a deal' explains exactly what he's looking for when buying property. 'I say no to 99.5% of deals.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Seattle-based real estate investor Todd Baldwin is picky when it comes to selecting properties to buy. "It's not because I'm afraid of the market or because I'm bearish on real estate," he emphasized. It's worth noting that multi-family properties aren't prevalent everywhere. That's what Baldwin did with most of the single-family properties he's owned over the years. If it's a house I'm renting out by the bedroom, I want one parking spot for every rentable bedroom.

☆ Toho plans to release a new Japanese Godzilla film next year as the monster's audience grows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

To capitalize on this moment, Toho, the Japanese film studio that owns the monster and licenses it to Legendary in the U.S., said it will produce a new Godzilla film a year from Thursday, the anniversary of the monster's first film. The new film comes as global audiences have more access to Godzilla content than ever before thanks to deep libraries of movies and TV series on streaming services. The recent box office success of U.S. studio Legendary's Monsterverse, which kicked off with a Godzilla film in 2014 and led to "Godzilla vs. Kong" in 2021, has also helped. The films, especially the most recent installment, have been among some of the most in demand on streaming services. "There's more access to Godzilla than ever before because of streaming services and the internet," said Bill Tsutsui, a historian and academic known for his expertise in Godzilla.

☆ My 'glamorous' van life involved a lot of sacrifices. Here's how I built it and what it's like working on the road.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Jen Glantz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Mariah Arianna, 30, lives and works out of a van with her partner as a digital nomad. Arianna says even though van life appears glamorous, the lifestyle requires a lot of sacrifices. I was enamored with living life anywhere but home. I was working with a lot of clients in Frankfurt and was able to get a long-term work visa to stay in the country. I usually work in small coffee shops, local libraries, or inside our van, which is very bright and open.

☆ Explainer: Drag queens and how they got pulled into politics
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

Opponents often coordinate protests at drag events that feature or cater to children, sometimes showing up with guns. Some politicians have proposed banning children from drag events and even criminally charging parents who take their kids to one. Is drag sexual? Many drag opponents cite nudity in their objections. Threats to drag events, and story hours in particular, have increased along with the rhetoric.

☆ Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer faces off against Trump-backed Republican Tudor Dixon in Michigan's governor race
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Gretchen Whitmer is facing off against Republican Tudor Dixon in Michigan's gubernatorial election. Trump backed Dixon before her primary win and she has raised unfounded questions about the 2020 election. Gretchen Whitmer is seeking reelection against former media personality and Trump-backed Republican Tudor Dixon. But as recently as this past summer, Dixon raised the unfounded claim that Trump won Michigan in 2020. What experts sayThe race between Whitmer and Dixon is rated as "tilt Democratic" by Inside Elections, "likely Democratic" by The Cook Political Report, and "likely Democratic" by Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

☆ Michigan librarian dedicated to 41-year-old Halloween cold case
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Sarah Portney | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +12 min

On October 31, 1981, 11-year-old Karl Heikell told his parents he was going out for a walk in his town of Calumet, Michigan. “And sure enough, I found newspaper clippings about Karl Heikell going missing.”The young librarian was eager to learn more about this local mystery. Cleary told Dateline. “It's a shame that so many people have Billy in their heads as this” kind of person, he told Dateline. Detective Cleary told Dateline that after Billy’s suicide, police looked into his possible involvement in the case.

☆ Drag story time at Oregon pub draws gun-carrying protesters
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

EUGENE, Ore. — Protesters, some of them armed, threw rocks and smoke grenades at each other outside a drag queen story time event at an Oregon pub, but the weekend show that was to have featured a child performer went on as planned. The nonprofit Drag Queen Story Hour was started in San Francisco in 2015 by activist and author Michelle Tea. As part of Drag Queen Story Hour’s programming, drag queens read to children and their parents at libraries, bookstores, fairs, parks and other public spaces to celebrate reading “through the glamorous art of drag.”Other drag events have also been in the headlines lately. Most recently, a half-hour “Drag Kids” program planned for the Boise Pride Festival generated national backlash and anonymous threats. Festival organizers envisioned a short performance where kids could put on sparkly dresses and lip-sync to songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “People Like Us” on stage.

☆ ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ author Jeff Kinney shares his book picks for middle readers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Megan Thomas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —When author Jeff Kinney started writing the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series more than 15 years ago, he set out to create a comic that would resonate with adults and live in the humor section of book stores. “I’m really glad that I didn’t know that I was writing for kids because I think that oftentimes when an adult writes a kid’s book, they start with the lesson in mind. And so the priority of the book becomes the lesson,” Kinney recalled in a recent interview with CNN. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” has sold more than 275 million copies, according to its publisher, with book number 17 in the series, “Diper Överlöde,” releasing Oct. 25. Kinney's next "Wimpy Kid" book, "Diper Överlöde," releases on Oct. 25.

☆ I was a 'screenager' addicted to my smartphone. So my friends and I ditched them and founded the Luddite Club.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Lola Shub | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

That's why a bunch of my friends and I started the Luddite Club. The Luddite Club began in 2021, led by my friend Logan. The three of us felt like a group, and that's when the Luddite Club was officially born. We have a rule to never take out your phone, even your flip phone, in the company of others. We're hoping to create mini "take a book, leave a book" libraries around Prospect Park in Brooklyn, with signs painted by the Luddite Club.

☆ ABCs not LGBTs: Battles over race, gender inflame Texas school board vote
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( James Oliphant | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

ROUND ROCK, Texas, Oct 22 - At traffic-choked intersections in this Texas town, a blunt campaign slogan stands out from clusters of candidate signs: “Teach ABCs + 123s, Not CRTs & LGBTs." Blood-sport politics have come to school board elections in Round Rock, a rapidly growing and diversifying suburb of Austin. Zimmerman is running against incumbent Tiffanie Harrison, a progressive and the first Black woman elected to the Round Rock school board. Ryan Girdusky, who founded the 1776 Project, estimated about 70% of his school board candidates have won in elections held so far this year. FOLLOW THE MONEYIn school board races where name recognition may be the largest factor, a few thousand dollars can make a difference.

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