Brian Hagedorn declared victory Wednesday over fellow Appeals Judge Lisa Neubauer in a close race for Wisconsin Supreme Court even as both sides were preparing for a potential recount.
If the result holds, conservatives would likely keep control of the court for at least four years. “We made history,” Hagedorn said in a news conference. “We made history in a significant way and our margin of victory looks to be insurmountable.”
Hagedorn led Neubauer 50.25% to 49.75% with nearly all of Tuesday’s votes unofficially counted — at a margin that allows a recount. The results won’t become official until a canvass of the votes. The Associated Press has not yet declared a victor. Even as Hagedorn claimed victory, Neubauer prepared to seek a recount in the race.
Hagedorn, who is running for the state Supreme Court, wrote a blog beginning in 2005 in which he addressed readers as “fellow soldiers in the culture wars” while posting sometimes provocative comments on homosexuality and abortion.
For example, Hagedorn twice wrote that a landmark gay rights ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law could lead to the legalization of bestiality, sex with animals, in America. “The idea that homosexual behavior is different than bestiality as a constitutional matter is unjustifiable,” he wrote in October 2005.
The National LGBT Chamber of Commerce is among the chambers of commerce that have launched a new initiative that seeks to provide additional support to business owners around the country.
The U.S. Black Chambers Inc., the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce Education Foundation, along with the NGLCC, are behind the Chamber Leadership Development Program.
A press release notes the initiative “is aimed at educating and developing leaders of diverse state and local chambers of commerce to support diverse entrepreneurs.” The press release also says the initiative will work with universities and target “more than 400 chamber leaders through innovative programming designed to empower chamber leaders to better serve their local communities of diverse businesses.”
Wells Fargo has made an initial investment of more than $800,000.
NGLCC President Justin Nelson on Tuesday said during a press conference at the National Press Club the initiative plans to work with groups that represent women, veterans and people with disabilities “so that all of our chamber leaders have the skills that they need to be the best they can be and to empower their businesses and their communities.”
Scientists have developed an all-in-one immunotherapy approach in a bid to ‘cure’ HIV.
University of Pittsburgh researchers say they have developed a way to ‘kick’ HIV cells hiding in the immune system. And not only does it kick it out of hiding, the approach also kills it.
No clinical trials have taken place yet.
However, researchers say this is an exciting step to one day developing a vaccine.
New all-in-one approach that ‘kicks and kills’ HIV
(Photo: rawpixel | Unsplash)
Robbie Mailliard, assistant professor of infectious diseases and microbiology, said it was ‘promising’.
‘A lot of scientists are trying to develop a cure for HIV. It’s usually built around the ‘kick and kill’ concept,’ he said.
‘There are some promising therapies being developed for the kill, but the Holy Grail is figuring out which cells are harboring HIV so we know what to kick.’
Antiretroviral therapy controls HIV infections so the virus is virtually undetectable and cannot infect others.
However, people living with HIV must take a daily regimen of medications. The virus goes into a latent, inactive phase that is hidden in the DNA of certain immune cells.
Nearly two dozen participants living with HIV donated a large amount of blood for the exciting study.
Men would sit for as long as four hours hooked up to a machine that processed the blood.
Inspired by cancer immunotherapy
The team used dendritic cells, used in cancer immunotherapies, to induce the immune system to kill HIV.
Resarchers then engineered these cells to seek out and activate the cells in which HIV was hiding, and also kill it.
Mailliard described it as the ‘Swiss Army knife of immunotherapies’.
The team is now pursing funding to begin clinical trials to test on humans.
But be cautious
HIV rates in China have surged 14 percent in the last year (Photo: Mil.Army)
Matthew Hodson, HIV advocate and sexual health expert, called the study ‘exciting’.
‘It’s exciting that there are a number of studies underway at the moment that are aiming towards a cure,’ he said.
‘This new work seems promising but it is very early days yet, as human trials have not yet started.
‘Last year’s RIVER study, which followed a broadly similar strategy, ultimately failed to reduce HIV DNA in the body, beyond the level provided by HIV treatment.’
Kat Smithson, Director of Policy and Campaigns at NAT (National AIDS Trust) said: ‘Developments in cure research are always exciting and welcome; in the future it will be interesting to see how these developments might continue in human trials.
‘But while we do still have a long time to wait when it comes to finding a cure for HIV, there are a great deal of technological innovations in treatment and prevention that are having an impact right now.
‘We have excellent available treatment for HIV, which suppresses the virus and stops onward transmission.
‘And we can even prevent acquisition of HIV using the drug PrEP. These innovations have led to a reversal of the epidemic in the UK.’
Utah has finally added hate crime protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Republican Governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, signed a bill on Tuesday (April 2) that expands state hate crime statute to add protections for LGBT+ people for the first time.
The bill passed after decades of stalled progress in the state, which had been one of 15 with no state-level provisions for anti-LGBT hate crimes.
However, the proposal passed after the Mormon Church, which dominates politics in the state, signalled that it would not resist the change.
LGBT+ rights group Equality Utah said the moment represents “an impressive leap forward for our state.”
The group added: “This was an intersectional victory, with multiple ethnic, faith and community organisations coming together to denounce hate crimes in Utah.
“Prosecutors now have the tools they need to bring justice to victims who are targeted for who they are.”
Lawmakers in the Utah House of Representatives (Creative Commons/Scott Catron)
Their comments were echoed by state senator Derek Kitchen, a Democrat and the only openly gay member of the Utah legislature.
According to AP, Kitchen said: “This bill comes at such an important time in our community. Everywhere we look we seem to be seeing more hate, more violence, more directed remarks.
“The thing with hate crimes is there are two victims: the person that was harmed, and the community they represent.
“It’s the community at large that we’re also trying to protect.”
Utah lawmakers hail LGBT-inclusive hate crime law
The bill’s Republican sponsor Lee Perry also spoke about a gay cousin who had been beaten for his sexuality.
He said: “This represents him. This is to protect him.”
Governor Herbert said: “Everybody, every person, every individual in our society, is worthy of dignity, respect and love.
“Today I signed S.B. 103, which will protect Utahns of all races, creeds, religions, and orientations from hate crimes. Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with us.”
A federal law signed by President Barack Obama in 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, allowed federal criminal prosecution of hate crimes motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
LGBT people are typically depicted as city and coastal dwellers. And those who live in rural America are often characterized as people yearning to escape rural life for more acceptance in urban areas.
But a new study from the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that advocates for LGBT equality, shatters that stereotype.
Between 2.9 million and 3.8 million LGBT people live in rural America, that’s up to 5 percent of the rural population and up to 20 percent of the LGBT population. For the most part, they chose that life for the same reasons other Americans do: tight-knit communities with a shared sense of values that typically revolve around places like the church, schools or local businesses.
Same-sex parents, like many other parents, also gravitate to life outside the cities. The report says that “the highest rates of parenting by both same-sex couples and LGBT individuals are in the most rural regions of the country.” It points to data from The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law that says 24 out of the 30 states where same-sex couples are raising children are mostly rural in the Midwest, the South and the mountain regions of America.
“The most important goal was to work against the stereotype that LGBT people only live in the cities or on the coast and to shine a light on the millions of LGBT people living in rural America,” said Logan Casey, a policy researcher for the Movement Advancement Project. “They are a fundamental part of the fabric of rural communities across the country.”Discrimination against LGBT people is not unique to rural areas. But the impact is different. – Logan Casey, Movement Advancement Project
LGBT people face the same challenges that others in rural America face: limited access to health care, housing shortages, a growing opioid epidemic and job loss.
But being LGBT can make those challenges more difficult.
First, in small communities, there’s a ripple effect, so if LGBT members are discriminated against, it can quickly spread through the community and vice versa. There are also fewer protections in rural areas.
“Discrimination against LGBT people is not unique to rural areas. But the impact is different,” Casey said.
He says that in places where there are fewer doctors and employers, it makes the impact of discrimination more acute. If the local clinic decides it won’t treat an LGBT person or if an employer won’t give an LGBT person a job, alternatives are almost impossible to find. That’s not the case in cities.
So it’s incredibly important, the study says, to improve life for all rural Americans such as creating better access to health care, employment and the Internet, as well as by protecting the most vulnerable by passing “LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination protections at the federal, state, and local level,” and by stopping or rolling back religious exemption laws “that may allow service providers to discriminate.”
“When you don’t have those non-discrimination protections, it disproportionately impacts LGBT people in rural areas,” Casey said. “LGBT people throughout the country shouldn’t have to choose between these basic rights and protections and where they call home.”
The study comes as Congress debates the federal Equality Act. It was reintroduced last month. The act would amend civil rights laws to include protections for LGBT people against discrimination in key parts of their lives like employment, housing, public accommodations and federally funded programs.
Mayoral candidate Satya Rhodes-Conway has achieved victory in her bid to become mayor of Madison, Wisconsin. In doing so, she becomes the first openly gay mayor of the US city, and only the second woman.
Democrat Rhodes-Conway, 47, a former three-term Madison City Council member, ousts incumbent Paul Soglin.
Soglin, 73, served as mayor from 1973-1979, 1989-1997, and from 2011 until now. He was Madison’s longest-serving mayor and it was his 22nd year in the office.
Rhodes-Conway’s victory was called around 9.25pm local time Tuesday. She had 62% of the vote with 92% of precincts counted (47,915 votes to Soglin ‘s 29,1500).
New Madison mayor: ‘Full of hope for our city’
Rhodes-Conway campaigned on a platform of developing affordable housing, improving Madison transportation with rapid transit, tackling systematic racial inequities and addressing climate change.
In her victory speech at Prism Dance Club, Rhodes-Conway paid tribute to Harvey Milk as an inspiration. She also said, ‘I am full of hope for our city!’
Her victory comes on the same night as another LGBTI candidate made history in Chicago. Lori Lightfoot became the first black, lesbian to be elected mayor of the Illinois city. Lightfoot becomes the highest-ranking LGBTI mayor in American history.
Other LGBTI candidates to achieve success in local elections yesterday included Democrat Jolie Justus in Kansas City. She secured the top spot in the run-off for Mayor. The mayoral election will take place there on June 18.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted on Tuesday (2 April) for the releaseof whistleblower and activist Chelsea Manning.
A federal judge jailed Manning in March for refusing to testify in a federal investigation. While details of the investigation remain under seal, Manning confirmed authorities asked her about WikiLeaks.
‘These secret proceedings tend to favor the government,’ she told reporters outside the courthouse before the hearing. ‘I’m always willing to explain things publicly. I’ve given voluminous testimony; I’ve given voluminous information.’
In her tweet, Ocasio-Cortez wrote authorities ‘trapped’ Manning in solitary confinement and described it as ‘torture’. She also wrote the authorities should release Manning on bail.
Solitary confinement as ‘torture’
According to Chelsea Resists, a support committee for Manning, she has been held in solitary confinement for 16 days as of 23 March.
They provided a screenshot of a statement describing ‘Administrative Segregation’, in which inmates are in their cells ‘for a maximum of 22 hours a day’.
The committee also states Manning can make phone calls and move outside of her cell during the hours between 1 and 3 am.
Further in the statement, they quote Juan Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and a professor on human rights at American University.
‘I have defined prolonged solitary confinement as any period in excess of 15 days,’ he wrote.
In his research, he has come to define solitary confinement as a form of punishment that can constitute torture.
He continued, describing the negative effects of solitary confinement: ‘This definition reflects the fact that most of the scientific literature shows that, after 15 days, certain changes in brain functions occur and the harmful psychological effects of isolation can become irreversible. Prolonged solitary confinement must be absolutely prohibited, because it always amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and may even constitute torture.’
The statement concludes with various health problems Manning has faced while in confinement.
Disputes from the sheriff
Dana Lawhorne, the sheriff of Alexandria, Virginia, where Manning is being held, disputed these claims to CNN. She claimed the reports were ‘not accurate or fair’.
‘Our facility does not have “solitary confinement” and inmates housed in administrative segregation for safety and security reasons still have access to social visits, books, recreation, and break time outside their cells,’ she said.
Lawthorne also added ‘(the) federal government has never suggested to us how to treat any inmate and it is unfair to imply that there is a “conspiracy” of any kind’.
In 2013, the government convicted Manning in a court-martial trial for violations of the Espionage Act when she was an analyst in the United States Army. She disclosed over 700,000 military and diplomatic documents, both classified and unclassified, to WikiLeaks.
Initiated in 2006, WikiLeaks operates in publishing news leaks and secret information from anonymous sources.
Manning received a 35-year prison sentence before President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.
Authorities also charged WikiLeaks’ founder, Julia Assange, in a separate case that remains under seal. He currently has asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Azerbaijan police randomly began detaining LGBTI people on Monday (1 April) night.
LGBTI rights organization Minority Azerbaijan broke the news yesterday (2 April) morning, revealing shocking details of authorities ‘hunting’ transgender people, then handcuffing them and detaining them.
Now they confirm authorities detained at least 14 people and they can identify five.
Authorities fined two of them under Article 510 of the Code on Administrative Offenses – Minor Hooliganism.
While three detainees had official charges under section 535.1 (wilfully not obeying lawful orders of the police officer who engaged protecting of public order) of the Code of Administrative Offences.
Protest in Germany. | Photo: Ghvinotsdaati
Yesterday, the Binagadi District Court in Baku sentenced two detainees with 10 days and another one with 15 days of administrative detention.
Authorities are keeping the detainees in police custody at the Temporary Detention Centers of Police Departments (TDC).
Local sources explain TDCs should only hold people for 48 or 96 hours of detention.
‘Therefore, it is wrong to keep persons who [have been] punished with more than 10 days of administrative detention in the TDC,’ an anonymous source told Gay Star News. ‘From this point of view, the conditions of the victims are inadequate in that place.’
Breaking the law
The source then explained how authorities were illegally detaining LGBTI people.
‘In general, the detainees are considered to be held administratively,’ the local source explained. ‘The law does not specify the compulsory examination of persons held in an administrative if it’s not a criminal case.’
Authorities are also breaking the law in another way, with forced medical examinations of people living with HIV.
The source continued: ‘The law… states that medical examinations to persons living with HIV cannot be accomplished by physical, psychological or moral pressure.
‘But, when an HIV [positive] person posing a threat of infecting others or their legal representative does not agree to a medical examination, the medical examination for HIV-infected person is compulsory by court order in the manner prescribed by law,’ the source explained.
According to eyewitness testimony, detainees did not receive any official request or signed paper before they had to undergo medical examinations.
‘There was no court decision that justifies the examinations,’ the source said. ‘Therefore, under current conditions forced medical examination is not lawful.’
What’s going on in Azerbaijan?
One report claims police are trying to ‘hunt’ transgender people via the internet. Police allegedly deceived a transgender sex worker, inviting them to a hotel to provide sex services.
Upon the trans person’s arrival to the meeting place, ‘they pulled out handcuffs’ and took the trans person to the police station, according to local activists.
Brutality of Azerbaijan police in September 2017. | Photo: Aziz Karimov / supplied
Similar reports of authorities in Azerbaijan randomly detaining LGBTI people emerged in September 2017.
Eyewitness reports at the time claimed authorities detained LGBTI people, beat, verbally abused and forced medical examinations on transgender people. Some reports even suggest authorities shaved the hair of transgender women.
One gay man told how authorities beat, electrocuted and detained him for nine days.
The man – known only as Xeyal – said authorities beat with a baton on the head, knees, and arms. They also administered electric shocks to his head and body more than 30 times.
Police also tortured Xeyal into revealing names of former sexual partners. They then forced him to sign documents without reading them.
Azerbaijan is actually getting worse when it comes to LGBTI rights.
Although same-sex sexual activity is technically legal, Azerbaijan lags behind in anti-discrimination laws, parenting rights for same-sex couples, transgender rights and same-sex marriage.
Lori Lightfoot won a resounding victory Tuesday night to become both the first African-American woman and openly gay person elected mayor of Chicago, dealing a stinging defeat to a political establishment that has reigned over City Hall for decades.
After waging a campaign focused on upending the vaunted Chicago political machine, Lightfoot dismantled one of its major cogs by dispatching Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, whose candidacy had been hobbled in part by an anti-incumbent mood among voters and an ongoing federal corruption investigation at City Hall.
Lightfoot’s campaign, which started last May as a long-shot bid to replace the city’s clouted politics with inclusive change, took the former federal prosecutor and first-time candidate from toiling in relative political obscurity to toppling the head of the Cook County Democratic Party.
From DNC Chairman Tom Perez:
“Congratulations to Chicago Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot on her historic victory tonight. In 2018, trailblazing candidates made history, and broke records across the nation. With Lori’s election, that trend shows no signs of stopping.
“As the first openly LGBTQ woman of color to be elected mayor in any of America’s 100 largest cities and the first black woman to serve as Mayor of Chicago, Lightfoot is an inspiration to thousands of LGBTQ people of color who have a new role model in elected office.
“This historic win reaffirms that our diversity is our greatest strength, and that our elected leaders should reflect the diversity of the communities they represent. I look forward to working with Mayor-elect Lightfoot as she fights to build a brighter future for all. The people of Chicago will be well served with her leadership.”
A majority of Americans say they are comfortable with or enthusiastic about a gay presidential candidate, according to a survey.
A poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, published in March, found 68 percent are either enthusiastic (14 percent) or comfortable (54 percent) with a candidate who is gay or lesbian.
Seventy-five percent of American voters under 35 now say they would be enthusiastic or comfortable with a gay presidential candidate, according to the poll.
According to the poll, 56 percent of voters above the age of 65 are now either enthusiastic about or comfortable with the possibility.
A previous survey conducted in 2006 shows Americans’ attitudes towards a gay presidential candidate have changed drastically over the last decade.
More than 50 percent of Americans either had “reservations” about or were “very uncomfortable” with a gay person running for president.
Only 47 percent of those under 35 said they were comfortable with or enthusiastic about a gay presidential candidate in the 2006 survey. Thirty-one percent of voters above 65 said the same.
Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg (Official photo)
Gay mayor Pete Buttigieg announced his candidacy for US president earlier this year and in March, jumped to third place in polls in the key primary state of Iowa.
An Emerson poll released on Sunday (March 24) shows Buttigieg polling at 11 percent in the crucial state of Iowa, behind only former Vice President Joe Biden on 25 percent and Senator Bernie Sanders on 24 percent.
Buttigieg, who would become the first openly gay man to hold the office of US President if elected, started as a long-shot candidate in the Democratic primaries, but the Indiana mayor has built support in recent weeks.
The Emerson poll places Buttigieg ahead of many of the more established candidates in the race, with Senators Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker on 10 percent, 9 percent and 6 percent respectively.
He came out in 2015 in a column in the South Bend Tribune during his second re-election campaign, writing: “Today it remains legal in most parts of Indiana (though not South Bend) to fire someone simply for being gay, and bullying still contributes to tragically high suicide rates among LGBT teens.”
He added: “Putting something this personal on the pages of a newspaper does not come easy. We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I’m not used to viewing this as anyone else’s business.
“But it’s clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good. For a local student struggling with her sexuality, it might be helpful for an openly gay mayor to send the message that her community will always have a place for her.
“And for a conservative resident from a different generation, whose unease with social change is partly rooted in the impression that he doesn’t know anyone gay, perhaps a familiar face can be a reminder that we’re all in this together as a community.”
