- www.rawstory.com Tens of thousands rally against transphobia at Paris Pride March
Organized on the eve of the first round of parliamentary elections and after "an unprecedented anti-trans campaign", the Paris Pride March gathered several thousands people in the French capital, with the fight against transphobia as its main theme.The Paris Pride March for LGBTQ rights saw an "exce...
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Boeing will get a ‘sweetheart’ plea deal, says lawyer representing 737 Max crash victims
edition.cnn.com Boeing will get a ‘sweetheart’ plea deal, says lawyer representing 737 Max crash victims | CNN BusinessThe US Justice Department is nearing an agreement with Boeing that would include a corporate monitor and a fine in exchange for a guilty plea to criminal charges — an offer the lawyer representing the families of victims of two fatal 737 Max crashes harshly rebuked as a “sweetheart deal.”
- www.theguardian.com South Carolina implements one of US’s most restrictive public school book bans
Education superintendent and Moms for Liberty ally drafts law requiring all reading be ‘developmentally appropriate’
- www.advocate.com California Moms for Liberty chair’s shocking attack on drag queens goes viral
Beth Bourne made a huge scene that was caught on video when she accosted several drag artists at a resort in Hawaii. One of the drag queens spoke to The Advocate about what happened.
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Ron DeSantis vetoes millions in arts grants to defund “sexual” theater festivals
www.lgbtqnation.com Ron DeSantis vetoes millions in arts grants to defund “sexual” theater festivals - LGBTQ Nation“I can’t sell the Fringe Festival to taxpayers," DeSantis said Thursday.
- newsone.com NH Supreme Court Hears Case On Whether ‘Keep New England White’ Banner Constitutes Free Speech
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is hearing a case on whether a white supremacist group’s ‘Keep New England White’ banner is free speech.
- www.motherjones.com A terrifying hurricane is brewing in the Atlantic
Hurricane Beryl is turning into an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm.
- theintercept.com Negotiations Are Underway for Guantánamo’s “Forever Prisoner” From Gaza to Be Released
Abu Zubaydah’s lawyer told a military review board that an unnamed country could admit the “forever prisoner” and surveil him for perpetuity.
DURING AN APPEARANCE before a military review board, an attorney for Guantánamo Bay’s “forever prisoner” revealed that negotiations are underway for his possible release after being tortured and detained without charges for 22 years.
Abu Zubaydah (whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn) is perhaps the most egregious victim of the U.S. national security apparatus that ran amok after the September 11 attacks and still grinds on. He appeared in a Guantánamo courtroom Thursday, listening to his attorney Solomon Shinerock tell a board of U.S. officials that a “redacted” country could admit Abu Zubaydah and monitor his activities indefinitely. The detainee will agree to any form of surveillance by the host country, said Shinerock, who did not name the country during the unclassified portion of the hearing.
Unlike Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other alleged 9/11 plotters, Abu Zubaydah has never been charged with any crime. The U.S. assessment notes that he never swore allegiance to bin Laden because the Saudi militant leader focused on attacking the United States while Abu Zubaydah “had wanted to attack Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.”
Abu Zubaydah has the funds to support himself upon release, Shinerock told the panel. The detainee was awarded more than $200,000 by the European Court of Human Rights in 2022 as compensation for CIA torture at black sites located in Lithuania and Poland. In 2023, a United Nations human rights panel, U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, urged the United States to immediately release Abu Zubaydah.
- www.newsweek.com Georgia's largest newspaper calls for Joe Biden to exit race 'immediately'
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution joins the New York Times in calling for President Biden to exit the 2024 race after last week's debate.
> The Atlanta Journal-Constitution joins the New York Times in calling for President Biden to exit the 2024 race after last week's debate.
- www.nbcnews.com Top Biden allies say he's still the best bet to win against Trump in November
The president’s allies came to his defense amid calls from some Democrats for Biden to step aside from the 2024 presidential race.
- truthout.org Biden Offered No Alternative to Trump’s Pro-Policing Authoritarianism in Debate
Biden did not put forth a progressive or convincing counterweight to Trump’s xenophobic and authoritarian tirades.
Donald Trump's overarching narrative for the debate was that Joe Biden has diminished U.S. power by opening the border and allowing millions of "Illegal immigrants" released "From prisons, jails and mental institutions" to come into the country to "Take our jobs," overwhelm our health care and Social Security systems, and rape and kill us.
Rather than pointing out Trump's utter lack of concern for people's well-being, Biden's rebuttal fell into the trap of trying to respond to Trump's tirades, allowing the former president to control the agenda and tone of the debate.
Trump used this as an opportunity to point out how little progress has been made under Biden and that Biden helped drive these disparities through his embrace of the "Superpredator" myth in the 1990s.
While many in the Biden administration and its key constituencies favor dialing back criminalization, they feel that it is politically impossible to state that clearly and openly, leaving the president to quietly support some good programs, while publicly leaning into a police-centered crime control strategy that will never be able to compete with Trump's undiluted authoritarianism.
Biden's weak policies and incoherent responses during the debate may give us another four years of Trump and his drive to turn the U.S. into a despotic kleptocracy.
- www.theguardian.com ‘A death sentence for music’: the battle for America’s last Live Nation-free city
Portland has no Live Nation concert arena, and fans and artists love its fiercely independent music scene. But with a new venue looming, will all that change?
From tiny coffee shops where folkies sway to acoustic guitars and mandolins, to thronging dark halls where bodies collide as metal bands and hip hop artists dominate the stage, live music can be heard seeping out of venues across Portland on almost any given night.
The city is known for its fiercely self-sufficient music scene, where local venues keep ticket prices low and artists experiment for curious audiences. It’s also the only major US city without a venue owned or operated by Live Nation, the controversial entertainment conglomerate that dominates the US concert-going experience.
That could all be about to change. Over the past several months, Live Nation has made significant inroads toward its first Portland conquest. It appears poised to operate a proposed 3,500-capacity venue, planned for a long-vacant site across the Willamette River from Portland’s downtown. To get here, it has won over a small developer and many city officials.
“[It] would be a death sentence for the music scene,” says Colescott Rubin, a jazz bassist who got his start busking on streets and booking shows in Portland as a teen. Thanks to Portland’s independence, he says, “you can talk with the people who are calling the shots on the spaces you’ll be performing in directly.” The arrival of Live Nation, he and others in the city’s music scene fear, would send Portland the way of cities such as Austin and Boston, where independent venues have shuttered and local journalists and musicians have lamented the corporatization of scenes that once felt organic and unstoppable.
- www.theguardian.com Trump loyalists plan to name and shame ‘blacklist’ of federal workers
AAF to publish dossiers of employees they consider hostile to ex-president, with goal of ultimately replacing them
Armed with rhetoric about the “deep state”, a conservative-backed group is planning to publicly name and shame career government employees that they consider hostile to Donald Trump.
This “blacklist” of civil servants, which will be published online, is intended to advance Trump’s broader goals, which, if elected, include weeding out government employees and replacing them with loyalists.
The group behind the list is the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), which was founded in 2020 and describes its mission as “working non-stop to expose the left’s secrets and hold Biden accountable”. A 2022 New Yorker profile described AAF as a “conservative dark-money group” and “slime machine”.
Backed with a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing thinktank, AAF will compile information, including social media posts, about civil servants they suspect will “obstruct and sabotage a future conservative president”. They plan to publish dossiers on those non-public facing individuals, starting with the Department of Homeland Security, and expose them to scrutiny.
- www.nbcnews.com Rep. Jamie Raskin says 'honest and serious conversations are taking place' about Biden's political future after debate
Raskin’s remarks are a break from what most top Democrats have said publicly in their defense of Biden following the presidential debate.
- www.theguardian.com Toxic PFAS absorbed through skin at levels higher than previously thought
Absorption through skin could be ‘significant source of exposure’ to toxic forever chemicals, study shows
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17080384
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China: New guidelines are an unacceptable escalation in attack on Taiwan’s freedom of expression, rights group says
www.article19.org China: New guidelines are an unacceptable escalation in attack on Taiwan’s freedom of expression - ARTICLE 19On 21 June 2024, the Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, and Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China issued alarming new guiding opinions under the 2005 Anti-Secession Law.
On 21 June 2024, China issued alarming new guiding opinions under the 2005 Anti-Secession Law.
The guidelines threaten to impose a maximum potential death penalty for a range of vaguely defined supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ activities. They allow Chinese courts to conduct trials in absentia and appear to apply to both Taiwanese nationals and foreigners alike, in an unacceptable escalation in Beijing’s assault on the freedom of expression of the people of Taiwan and the international community.
Michael Caster, Asia Digital Program Manager at ARTICLE 19, commented: >“In these new guidelines, Beijing is seeking to wield the maximum threat of in absentia death sentences to instill fear and gag independent expression on all things Taiwan. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with preserving cross-straits peace, as Beijing would have it. This development serves to further bully the international community into isolating Taiwan. The only acceptable response is to redouble solidarity and accelerate coordination and cooperation with Taiwan.
- patch.com NJ Does Not Renew Trump's Liquor Licenses At 2 Golf Clubs After Felony Conviction
The golf clubs are temporarily allowed to continue to serve alcohol until a final hearing on the renewals is held in July.
LOL
- cointelegraph.com Bitcoiner contributes to Julian Assange’s freedom, pays $500K debt in BTC
Assange appeared in a district court in Saipan on June 26, where he pleaded guilty to one charge of breaching the U.S. Espionage Act by leaking classified documents.
WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange is free after a 14-year battle against extradition to the United States. In a final effort to secure his freedom, an anonymous Bitcoiner donated over 8 Bitcoin, worth around $500,000, to help Assange’s family pay off the debt incurred by his travel and settlement expenses. [...] The donation link was posted by Stella Assange on June 25, and within 10 hours, an anonymous Bitcoiner paid over 8 Bitcoin (BTC) to the fund, almost clearing the goal of $520,000. He has also received over 300,000 British pounds ($380,000) in fiat donations so far.
The single Bitcoin donation was the largest donation to the fund, more than all other donations in all currencies combined. As a result, Assange will arrive in Australia debt free.
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Outrage as China hospital charges patient fee for sitting down on a chair while receiving an intravenous infusion as health authority says fee is in line with regulations
www.scmp.com China hospital charges patient 70 US cents for seat used during treatmentA hospital patient in China who sat down to receive intravenous treatment and was hit with a fee for the chair he used has sparked controversy.
Addition for clarification: The "South China Morning Post"(SCMP) is a state-controlled Chinese media outlet. In this article, however, it criticizes the Chinese health care system and even cites ordinary citizens' posts which don't appear to be censored, a rare move in China. This is why the article is linked here. In general, however, one should be very careful using this source.
A hospital in China has stoked controversy by charging a patient for the use of a chair they were sitting on while receiving an intravenous infusion.
On mainland social media at the end of June, a person released a billing statement by the public-funded Ningxia Children’s Hospital, which showed that five yuan (70 US cents) had been charged for a seat, Zonglan Video reported.
It is not clear how old the patient was, or what they were being treated for, but the bill showed the medication contained antibiotics.
An official at the hospital in Yinchuan in Ningxia Hui autonomous region, northwestern China, said the fee was for two days’ use of a chair by the patient who was sitting on it while receiving an infusion. [...] The controversial chair fee has become the subject of heated discussions on mainland social media, after being viewed 5 million times on Douyin alone.
“Hospitals are so commercial. I feel speechless about this fee,” one online observer said.
“It’s the first time I’ve heard of this kind of cost in a hospital. Is there anything left that they do not charge fees for?” said another person.
“Are ordinary people now expected to bring their own chair to see doctors from now on,” a third said.
- mashable.com Etsy to ban sale of most sex toys, explicit content, and more
Policy changes go into effect next month.
Online retailer Etsy will prohibit sales of most sex toys, content that depicts sex acts and genitalia, and more starting July 29.
The indie seller published its Adult Nudity and Sexual Content policy yesterday, which states that sales of adult toys that are insertable, "applied to the genitalia," or "designed for genitals to be inserted into them" will be prohibited. That pretty much runs the gamut — dildos, vibrators, rings, plugs, and the like will be banned.
- www.thenation.com “They Didn’t Spare Anyone”: The Story of an Israeli Massacre in Gaza
In December, Israeli ground troops entered a Gaza apartment building filled with innocent people. Survivors told Al Jazeera that the soldiers left a “bloodbath” in their wake.
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South China Sea: Chinese academics urged to ‘construct narratives’ to defend maritime claims by China
www.scmp.com Chinese scholars urged to ‘construct narratives’ to defend South China Sea claimChina faces ‘an increasingly arduous battle’ to win over public opinion in the disputed waters, speakers tell an academic seminar in Hainan.
Addition for clarification: The "South China Morning Post"(SCMP) is a state-controlled Chinese media outlet. Sometimes they appear to publish articles like this one that are, at least to some degree, critical of the CCP, although the article increasingly reiterates the CCP's stance as you read along. The post provides a rare glimpse into the Chinese propaganda machinery, however, which is why I posted it here. In general, however, one should be very careful using this source.
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“Narrative construction and discourse building are essential if we are to effectively defend our rights and interests in the South China Sea – both in the present and in future,” Wu Shicun, founder of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, told a seminar held in Hainan province last week.
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Without naming any country, Wu said China faced “an increasingly arduous battle over public perception and opinion”, adding that “rival claimants” were “stepping up cooperation with extraterritorial forces in the study of historical and legal issues” concerning the South China Sea.
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Beijing lays claim to much of the South China Sea, citing historic activities and records in support.
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Its claims were rejected by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 2016 in a case filed by the Philippines.
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Beijing has dismissed the Hague ruling as “null and void” and continued to build up its infrastructure and troop presence in the South China Sea. But the Philippines and other claimants – which include Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei – along with the United States and its allies have repeatedly urged China to abide by international law.
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Yi Xianliang, a former ambassador to Norway who previously served as deputy director of the foreign ministry’s boundary and ocean affairs department, also spoke at Tuesday’s seminar and dismissed the 2016 ruling as a “bad joke”.
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But Yi warned “we have to ask why the ruling is flawed” and ask if it “will happen again and how we can prevent it from happening again”.
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- newrepublic.com Los Angeles’s Mayor Was Contemplating a Mask Ban. She Just Got Covid.
Karen Bass floated banning masks for protesters days before coming down with Covid-19.
- apnews.com A private call of top Democrats fuels more insider anger about Biden's debate performance
A sense of deep concern is growing among some Democratic officials that leaders inside Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance.
A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. They largely ignored Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.
Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as a rosy assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.
- www.theguardian.com Revealed: the tech entrepreneur behind a pro-Israel hate network
The Guardian used public records and open source materials to identify Daniel Linden of the Shirion Collective
A prime mover behind the Shirion Collective, a conspiracy-minded, pro-Israel disinformation network seeking to shape public opinion about the Gaza conflict in the US, Australia and the UK, is a tech entrepreneur named Daniel Linden living in Florida who co-wrote a guidebook for OnlyFans users, the Guardian can reveal.
Shirion has harassed pro-Palestinian activists, including many Jews, offered bounties for the identity of pro-Palestinian protesters, spread conspiracy narratives centered on figures like George Soros, and boasted of an AI-surveillance platform but offered few concrete details of how the technology functions.
The Guardian investigation used public records and open source materials to corroborate information originally provided by the White Rose Society, an Australian anti-fascist research collective.
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State Farm seeking 30% rate hike for California homeowners
abc7.com State Farm seeking 30% rate hike for CA homeowners: Here's what to knowMany California homeowners are concerned about their home insurance, and that anxiety ratcheted up when State Farm requested one of its biggest rate increases ever.
- www.nbcnews.com 'It's a mess': Biden turns to family on his path forward after his disastrous debate
Democratic leaders have stood by the president as he faces questions about his ability to defeat Trump in November. But privately, many are expressing concern.
>Moreover, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden were to drop out after receiving the nomination than if he did so beforehand. Once a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process for the Democratic National Committee members to choose a successor. Biden is the dominant force at the DNC, and his preference for a successor would surely carry sway.
>If Biden were to exit before that, his delegates might do what he asked of them — but they wouldn’t be bound in the same way they are now. In that scenario, the delegates could nominate anyone, and there could be a political brawl at the convention.
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CNN reports 20-year record low debate viewership
www.salon.com CNN reports 20-year record low debate viewership | Salon.comAward-winning news and culture, features breaking news, in-depth reporting and criticism on politics, science, food and entertainment.
- www.nytimes.com Memo Reveals Trump’s Plan to Slash the Size of the G.O.P. Platform
In another sign of Donald J. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, his team wants the party’s platform to be a succinct pro-Trump document, not an “unnecessarily verbose treatise.”
- www.commondreams.org Iranian Snap Elections Head to Runoff After Reformist Pezeshkian Takes Narrow Lead | Common Dreams
A total of 24,735,185 people voted, representing a turnout of around 40%—the lowest turnout in an Iranian election since the 1979 revolution.
- apnews.com The AP is setting up a sister organization seeking grants to support local and state news
The Associated Press says it is setting up a sister organization to solicit donor funding in support of local and state news, both at AP and elsewhere.
> NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press says it is setting up a sister organization that will seek to raise money in support of state and local news reporting, as the crisis in that sector shows little sign of abating.
> ...
> AP in particular can play an important role in bolstering coverage of government and political news in the states, said Tim Franklin, who leads the local news initiative at Northwestern’s Medill journalism school. The Pew Research Center has detailed that there are fewer full-time reporters working in statehouses than there were a decade ago.
> ...
> Besides philanthropy, the AP has been more aggressively marketing its own news website and asking for reader donations. “We believe there is a gap in the U.S. market, in the consumer arena, for people who want independent, fact-based, non-partisan news, and that’s the role that the AP plays in the ecosystem,” Veerasingham said.
- www.pbs.org Nevada adds proposed constitutional amendment for abortion rights to 2024 ballot
A ballot question to enshrine Nevada’s abortion rights in the state constitution has met all of the requirements to appear in front of voters in November, the Nevada Secretary of State’s office announced Friday, and Democrats across the nation hope similar measures mobilize supporters on Election Da...
A ballot question to enshrine Nevada's abortion rights in the state constitution has met all of the requirements to appear in front of voters in November, the Nevada Secretary of State's office announced Friday, and Democrats across the nation hope similar measures mobilize supporters on Election Day.
- www.nytimes.com Facial Recognition Led to Wrongful Arrests. So Detroit Is Making Changes.
The Detroit Police Department arrested three people after bad facial recognition matches, a national record. But it’s adopting new policies that even the A.C.L.U. endorses.
- www.pbs.org Iranian reformist Pezeshkian and hard-liner Jalili head to runoff presidential election
Iran will hold a runoff presidential election pitting a little-known reformist against a hard-line former nuclear negotiator after results released Saturday showed the lowest-ever poll turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.
Iran will hold a runoff presidential election pitting a little-known reformist against a hard-line former nuclear negotiator after results released Saturday showed the lowest-ever poll turnout in the Islamic Republic's history.
- knowablemagazine.org Nature interrupted: Impact of the US-Mexico border wall on wildlife
Scientists on both sides of the border are working to understand how the barrier is affecting the area’s biodiversity. Meanwhile, communities try to save animals left without access to water.
The wall has been devastating to wildlife, it has effectively stopped them from accessing water, but it has not stopped humans.
- www.pbs.org Police in New York shoot and kill 13-year-old holding a pellet gun, authorities say
An officer in upstate New York shot and killed a teen fleeing while pointing a replica gun, police said Saturday.
- www.cnn.com The Boeing saga has reached a new level of absurdity | CNN Business
If you’re a PR person, I can’t possibly think of a harder job to have right now than working at Boeing. It’s not just clean up in aisle six, it’s clean up the entire store, loading dock and parking lot on a daily — if not hourly — basis.
- Boeing admitted that a missing work order led to a door plug blowing off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max in January.
- The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reprimanded Boeing for sharing investigative information and referred Boeing's conduct to the Department of Justice.
- Boeing's attempt to be transparent and take responsibility for the incident was criticized, highlighting the impact of procedural lapses on flight safety.
- www.khq.com Idaho book ban goes into effect on Monday
BOISE, Idaho – A new book ban goes into effect in Idaho on July 1.
>A new book ban goes into effect in Idaho on July 1.
>House Bill 710, a key political win for the Idaho Family Policy Center (IFPC), is targeted at books with Black, feminist or LGBTQ+ themes. It allows any person affiliated with a student at a public or private school to sue its library for carrying a book with “obscene materials.”
>The policy defines obscene materials as any literature containing nudity or homosexuality.
>While the Bible contains each of these concepts in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, it does not seem that Christian and Jewish texts were the intended target of the ban, but rather books written by queer or Black authors.
>IFPC voiced its opposition to The Handmaid’s Tale, the popular dystopian novel criticizing fascism and misogyny, on June 7 after it was removed from the Idaho Fine Arts Academy school library.
>Governor Brad Little [R] signed the policy in April, saying that the bill would keep children from reading harmful materials.
>The Idaho Library Association is against the bill and says it is harmful to young people, librarians and LGBTQ+ people.
>Idaho’s education system ranked 47th in a January analysis of state education levels conducted by Scholaroo.