Top challenger in Cambodian polls awaiting official approval
Cambodia’s National Election Committee has announced that 20 political parties have registered for July’s general election but nine of them still have not been approved, including the Candlelight Party, the sole credible challenger to the governing Cambodian People’s Party
2023-05-09 00:53
Brownsville: Driver charged after car strikes migrants in Texas
The driver, identified as George Alvarez, is charged with eight counts of manslaughter in Texas.
2023-05-09 00:52
Bidens to host UConn, LSU basketball teams at White House
President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, plan to welcome the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball champions to the White House
2023-05-09 00:48
Airstrikes rock Sudan as truce talks yield no breakthrough
Air strikes again shook Sudan's capital Monday while the latest truce talks in Jeddah yielded no progress and a Saudi diplomat said both sides consider...
2023-05-09 00:48
Oklahoma governor blocks funding to PBS station over LGBT+ characters
Oklahoma’s governor is joining the messaging war against gay, lesbian and transgender Americans with an announcement on Monday that he would veto a bill set to fund the state’s PBS station through 2026. Kevin Stitt made the news on Friday, and expanded on his decision in an interview with Fox News. He told the right-wing network that Oklahoma’s local PBS station OETA was responsible for the “sexualization” of children. “OETA, to us, is an outdated system. You know, the big, big question is why are we spending taxpayer dollars to prop up or compete with the private sector and run television stations? And then when you go through all of the programing that's happening and the indoctrination and over-sexualization of our children, it's just really problematic, and it doesn't line up with Oklahoma values," he said. “I mean, some of the programming that we're seeing… it just doesn't need to be on public television.” he continued. “Oklahoma taxpayers are going, 'Hey, hang on, time out for just a second. That's not my values.” His office provided numerous examples of supposedly objectionable instances of PBS programming to Fox News. Some were typical of the recent anti-transgender panic: A reading of The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish by drag queen Little Miss Hot Mess, while others were more in line with the typical efforts by conservative Republicans to paint any mention of LGBT persons as “propaganda” in support of some sinister political agenda. In that vein, the governor’s office took issue with a PBS Newshour segment where persons who supported the use of puberty blockers were interviewed, as well as a depiction of a same-sex marriage on the show Odd Squad. He argued that the prevalence of digital technology in contemporary life made the concept of a publicly-funded broadcast channel obsolete. Republicans have long made that argument from a government spending standpoint. During the 2012 presidential election, funding for PBS was among the federal programs that would-be president Mitt Romney would have cut had he defeated then-President Barack Obama. At the time, the Obama campaign savaged Mr Romney over his suggestion. “There’s so much television, there’s so much media,” the governor told Fox News. “Maybe in 1957 you could have made an argument that you needed a public television station. That’s totally outdated at this point.” His critics, including some Republicans, argue that his explanation displayed a critical lack of understanding regarding rural life in his home state. “Our broadcast towers are how we inform a lot of rural Oklahoma about disasters like tornadoes and thunderstorms,” said Kenneth Busby, a board member of Friends of OETA and CEO of the Route 66 Alliance. His concerns were highlighted on an MSNBC segment hosted by Joy Reid over the weekend. Mr Stitt dismissed concerns that rural Oklahomans without access to cable news or internet would be adversely affected by a cut to the channel’s broadcast infrastructure. Oklahoma is largely enveloped by an informal section of the American midwest known as “Tornado Alley”, where particularly violent storms are known to form with regularity. "All those towers and our communications, that's all owned by the state and whether we continue to fund an outdated public television station with taxpayer dollars, or we let the free market work, we're still going to have the same capabilities, the same assets, the same towers," he said. "Our DPS system is what rolls out the Amber Alerts, for example. None of that's going away," the governor continued. "So that's just people confusing the issue, not being clear with their mission, trying to make excuses of why the tax dollars should still fund this outdated system. His effort to make his own personal contribution in the campaign to smear content that features LGBT persons or supports their basic rights as the “sexualization of our children” doesn’t appear to be headed for success. If it does, members of his own party (not to mention Democrats) say it will hurt the state’s Department of Public Safety — specifically, the state’s early emergency alert system. A number of Republicans are reportedly against the governor’s veto and told local publication Tulsa World that they plan to override the veto. Doing so would take two-thirds of Oklahoma’s legislature, which leans heavily Republican. The state House speaker and president of the Senate both say they support OETA’s funding. The Oklahoma Senate Pro Tem, Greg Treat, told Tulsa World that he had been reprimanded by his predecessor over his support for a previous attempt to cut OETA’s funds, and was informed at the time about OETA’s importance for the state’s early warning system. “Ever since then, I have supported its continuation,” he told the publication. 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2023-05-09 00:48
Sudan conflict: 'How I saved my red guitar from Khartoum war zone'
Some 40,000 people have fled fighting in Sudan to go to South Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries.
2023-05-09 00:46
Southern border braces for a migrant surge with Title 42 set to expire this week
The United States is bracing for the expiration of a pandemic-era border restriction this week, with officials fearing it will spur a surge of migrants and exacerbate an already challenging humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
2023-05-09 00:30
Russian forces lash out indiscriminately as Ukraine increases military pressure on frontline towns
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King Charles III as head of state in St Vincent and the Grenadines 'absurd'
Ralph Gonsalves says he would welcome an apology for injustices related to slavery.
2023-05-09 00:26
Texas driver charged with eight counts of manslaughter in crash
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US Immigration: What happens when Title 42 is lifted?
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2023-05-09 00:24
Twitter beats disabled worker's lawsuit over layoffs, for now
By Daniel Wiessner A federal judge in California has tossed out a lawsuit accusing Twitter Inc of discriminating
2023-05-09 00:16