List of All Articles with Tag 'world'

A federal court temporarily halted Florida’s controversial restrictions on drag performances, warning the law was overbroad and could risk infringing on free speech rights. The SB1438 law, signed in May by Republican governor Ron DeSantis, is “dangerously susceptible to standardless, overbroad enforcement which could sweep up substantial protected speech,” US judge Gregory Presnell wrote in his ruling. Far from a neutral attempt to protect children, as its backers have sometimes claimed, the law is an admitted attempt to “specifically suppress the speech of drag queen performers,” Judge Presnell wrote. The governor’s office told Reuters the ruling was “dead wrong.” “Of course it’s constitutional to prevent the sexualization of children by limiting access to adult live performances,” spokesperson Jeremy Redfern said. The suit against the state comes from Hamburger Mary’s, a restaurant chain that features family-friendly drag performances. An Orlando franchise of the restaurant filed suit in May. It claimed the law, which levies criminal penalties at food establishment for admitting children to an “adult live performance,” would “explicitly restrict or chill speech and expression protected by the First Amendment.” “This bill has nothing to do with children, and everything to do with the continued oppression of the LGBTQ+ community,” Hamburger Mary’s Orlando wrote in a Facebook post. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has made limiting the rights of LGBTQ+ people a key part of his agenda, signing bills that restrict gender-affirming care, protections for trans people in schools, and access to youth education on gender and sexuality. This month, courts struck down a Florida rule and statute banning Medicaid payments for transgender healthcare, and partially blocked a state law banning people under 18 from getting gender-affirming medicine. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Tennessee declared the state’s drag ban to be “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.” “There is no question that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment,” Judge Thomas Parker wrote. “But there is a difference between material that is ‘obscene’ in the vernacular, and material that is ‘obscene’ under the law.” “Simply put, no majority of the Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit — but not obscene — speech receives less protection than political, artistic, or scientific speech.” Read More Trump faces questions about whether he'll drag down the Republican Party after his indictments Group with Nazi flags protest outside Florida children’s museum days after similar stunt at Disney World Here are the restrictions on transgender people that are moving forward in US states Florida's law targeting drag shows is on hold under federal judge's order Evangelical leader hopes conference is 'testosterone booster shot' for anti-abortion 2024 candidates Trump, DeSantis interviews show Fox influence on GOP field still strong despite troubled year

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado registered for primaries to choose the candidate who’ll try to end a

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie on Friday defended his criticism of former president Donald Trump before a sometimes-hostile crowd at the first day of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to the Majority Conference, telling an audience of evangelical voters that Mr Trump had let down the people who voted for him in 2016 and in 2020. Speaking from the main stage at the Washington Hilton, Mr Christie recounted to the audience how he’d been the first of Mr Trump’s 2016 opponents to endorse him and helped him with debate preparations on his way to winning that year’s general election before serving as the first chair of Mr Trump’s transition team. He also noted that he’d assisted Mr Trump with debate prep in 2020 by playing Joe Biden in mock debates before asking attendees why, after supporting Mr Trump in two consecutive elections, would he choose to run against him again. “I'm running because he's let us down,” he said. “He has let us down because he's unwilling — he’s unwilling to take responsibility for any of the mistakes that were made, and any of the faults that he has, and any of the things that he's done, and that is not leadership, everybody”. As Mr Christie continued by describing what Mr Trump had done as “a failure of leadership,” a large portion of the evangelical voters who’d gathered to hear him began to boo loudly. The former New Jersey governor responded that the hecklers could “boo all you want,” but shortly after he had some of them offering applause instead after he said their shared Christian faith “teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do”. “People have to stand up and take accountability for what they do,” he continued. “And I cannot stand by”. Mr Christie added that after all his prior support, all Mr Trump now does is call him names and belittle him. He said the attacks from Mr Trump put him on a “great list of Americans,” including Mr Trump’s former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, his former defence secretary, Mark Esper, and former OMB Director, ex-acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former White House chief of staff John Kelly. “You ou can love [Mr Trump] all you want, but I will tell you, I will tell you that doing those kinds of things makes our country smaller,” he said. “It makes our country smaller, and it makes us lesser”. Read More Evangelical leader hopes conference is 'testosterone booster shot' for anti-abortion 2024 candidates Chris Christie delivers epic Twitter takedown of Trump boasts about hiring ‘the best’ White House staff Chris Christie slams GOP debate pledge as a ‘useless idea’ as he doubles down on plans to take on ‘loser, loser, loser’ Trump

The World Health Organization is planning to release two new reports on the safety of aspartame, the popular

A man has been indicted on five drugging murders in New York City, including that of a fashion designer who worked with Lady Gaga. Kenwood Allen, 33, is facing allegations that he was part of a widespread campaign of drugging and robberies in the city. He was indicted for the murder of designer Kathryn Gallagher, the office of the Manhattan District Attorney said on Wednesday. Gallagher, 35, was found lifeless in her bed by her neighbour in July last year. There were no clear signs of trauma, according to The Daily Beast. The front door of her apartment was open with the keys still in the lock when she was discovered. The cause of death was unclear until the medical examiner determined that she had died from “acute intoxication” because of a cocktail of drugs. The indictment shared on Wednesday states that Mr Allen is suspected of three murders in addition to the two killings he was indicted for last year. Mr Allen is alleged to have worked both alone and with a group of others when he conducted a number of robberies between March and December last year. He allegedly drugged his victims with fentanyl and other opioids to steal their credit cards, watches, phones, and other items. He pleaded not guilty on Wednesday. He would then proceed to empty their accounts at ATMs and make a number of charges on the victims’ credit cards, according to authorities. The “drugging, robbery and larceny spree” affected a total of 21 victims, five of which died, according to the Manhattan DA. The three additional murders Mr Allen was indicted for on Wednesday allegedly took place on 22 July, 23 July, and 6 August last year. The New York Supreme Court indictment includes 10 counts of murder in the second degree, 13 counts of robbery in the first degree, two counts of robbery in the second degree, 11 counts of assault in the second degree, two counts of attempted robbery in the first degree, three counts of grand larceny in the fourth degree, three counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, and one count of conspiracy in the fourth degree. The 10 murder counts, two for each of the five people who died, include one count of acting with depraved indifference to human life, and one count of acting in furtherance of another crime. “These alleged pernicious drugging and robbery schemes have left far too many families mourning the loss of their loved ones,” District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “The careful and meticulous work of our prosecutors and the NYPD has led us to charge this individual with a spree of criminal conduct that now includes five murders – four of which took place over a mere 15 days last summer. We will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to aggressively uncover and investigate these incidents.” The Manhattan DA said in a press release that “in most of the incidents, Allen drugged his victims with fentanyl and other opioids in order to steal their credit cards, watches, phones, and other personal identifying information. Many of the victims were later found unconscious on the street. He would then withdraw cash from ATMs and use the stolen credit cards to make purchases and transfer money”. Vogue wrote that Ms Gallagher was “a hands-on artisan” who was “fiercely independent and sure of her vision”. Her pieces have been worn by Chrissy Teigen, Kourtney Kardashian, Rita Ora, Laverne Cox, and members of the New York Ballet. “Katie established her own fashion line, Katie Gallagher, in New York City in 2010. Under this label, she completed 26 collections that premiered during New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week,” her obituary said. “She was unique, beautiful, smart, unabashed, and always wanting. She was hardworking and talented, with so many ideas and plans for future projects,” it added. “We are so proud of who she was and all she achieved in her brief but full and beautiful life.” Police have said that in one of the robberies, the perpetrators smeared a white powder that included fentanyl under the nose of a victim, and in another case, they offered marijuana also laced with the drug. They took aim at people active in the nightlife in Lower Manhattan who looked like they were wealthy and waited for them to leave the club before pushing them against a wall to take what they had. The chief of detectives at the New York Police Department, James Essig, said on Thursday that “they bum-rushed them,” according to The New York Times. Mr Allen was charged in December with the deaths of Nurbo Shera and Ardijan Berisha. On Wednesday, he was charged with the deaths of Ms Gallagher, 25-year-old student Alexander Rudnitsky, and Sadath Ahmed, 33. Sean Shirley, 36, is charged in the drugging deaths of Mr Rudnitsky and Mr Ahmed. Facing charges of second-degree murder, robbery, and grand larceny, he was arraigned on Thursday. He also pled not guilty. Assistant district attorney Brian Rodkey said in court that Mr Allen and Mr Shirley “robbed them, and left them on the street, not caring whether they lived or died,” according to The New York Times. The Gallagher family said in a statement that they hope the case will make people aware of how fentanyl and other drugs have been used “as weapons against innocent people”. “The number of victims confirmed at this point is shocking. We are gutted by the magnitude of this collective and senseless loss,” the family said, according to The New York Times. In a separate case, five men were accused in April of the druggings and killings of people going to gay bars in Manhattan. Read More Police identify suspects in fatal drugging of men at New York City gay bars Julia Fox’s brother arrested in NYC apartment raid as police find ghost guns, drugs and ‘explosive materials’ NYC robbery crews drug unsuspecting men, some fatally

The Indiana chapter of extremist group Moms for Liberty has been forced to explain why the first page of its newsletter carries a quote from Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. “He alone who owns the youth, gains the future,” the quote reads on the front of its June issue. The quote was correctly attributed to Hitler, who was responsible for the murders of six million Jewish people and five million other victims including Romany people, gay people and Soviet prisoners of war. The group later took to its Facebook page to make some sort of an attempt to explain the shocking decision to reference to a murderous Nazi. “The quote from a horrific leader should put parents on alert,” it read. “If the government has control over our children today, they control our country’s future. We The People must be vigilant and protect children from an overreaching government.” The move to showcase a Hitler quote comes as the group secured Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a speaker at its event, The Joyful Warriors National Summit, next week. Other speakers at the event include GOP candidates Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Moms for Liberty was recently classified as an “anti-government extremist” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which found in a recent report that it was among a handful of groups pushing to undermine public education and restrict access to books, classroom materials and honest discussions of race, racism, LGBT+ people and gender and sexuality. “Hate and anti-government extremist groups are intent on staging public spectacles of hatred” to threaten LGBT+ people and other vulnerable communities and minority groups, said Susan Corke, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project. Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich pushed back on the label in a statement shared with The Independent where they said the group is “devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child’s public school education.” “Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school – parents or government employees?” they added. “We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that.” Read More Moms for Liberty rises as power player in GOP politics after attacking schools over gender, race Moms for Liberty named anti-government extremist group by civil rights watchdog Florida mom who tried to ban Amanda Gorman’s book has ties to far-right groups Gunman used social media attack to attack Jews before attack at Pittsburgh synagogue, jurors learn Modi and Biden pull up Pakistan as Indian prime minister concludes US visit Cambodian lawmakers approve changes to election law that disqualify candidates who don't vote

Drone footage shows the moment a Russian troop position is completely wiped out by a bomb in a huge explosion seen miles away from the impact. The clip was published by Ukraine’s defence ministry, which did not give any further details of the drone attack, although said it was carried out by the 72nd Mechanized Brigade. Earlier, president Vladimir Putin was accused of committing war crimes “on steroids” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. US Republican senator Lindsey Graham also warned that the threat of the Kremlin using nuclear weapons was “real”. Speaking at a joint press conference with Democrat senator Richard Blumenthal, he said: “Senator Blumenthal and I want to put everybody in this congress on notice that the threat of a use of a nuclear device by Russia is real and the best way to deter it is to give them clarity as to what happens if they do that - they will be in a war with NATO.” Read More European Union countries agree on a new package of sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine Jailed Putin critic Navalny launches anti-Kremlin campaign – as new trial could keep him in prison for decades Britain backs fast-track Nato membership for Ukraine

The Philippines has tapped Eli Remolona, a member of the central bank’s policymaking board, to head the monetary

The United Kingdom government has said that Indian clearing houses overseen by the nation’s central bank meet its

JPMorgan Chase & Co. expanded one of the most high-profile projects to bring blockchain technology to traditional banking,

Egypt looked past a pick-up in inflation to keep interest rates unchanged for a second month, with the

Economic momentum in the euro area almost came to a halt in June, signaling an end to the