Russian Mercenaries Recruiting HIV-Positive Prisoners to Fight

Spoilers ahead for the grand finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season four. 

North Texas Performing Arts’ ‘Scrooge the Musical.'(Courtesy photo by AKA Photography)

SINGAPORE: Up until the moment that FTX started collapsing, the consensus view was that everything was generally fine with the crypto exchange, with former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried a star of the corporate world.

Attention Euphoria fans! A German iteration of the show has been officially confirmed.

An anti-LGBTQ activist who lost her write-in campaign this month for a county clerk position in Utah previously resigned as a teacher over misconduct involving her relationships with students.

I'M A Celebrity fans have slammed the show producers and accused them of bullying Matt Hancock after his recent trial. The former Health Secretary - who has mentioned his dyslexia on the show - was tasked with solving an anagram on last night's show. Controversial MP Matt, 44, was joined by rugby ace Mike Tindall for the challenge to win snacks for camp last night.

Het is in Rusland voortaan verboden voor iedereen om lhbti-denkbeelden uit te dragen. De straf: een fikse boete, en voor buitenlanders zelfs celstraf.

(CNN) -- Russia's lower house of parliament passed in the third reading amendments to a law on so-called "LGBT propaganda" on Thursday, expanding liability to all ages.The discriminatory law proposes to ban all Russians from promoting or "praising" homosexual relationships or publicly suggesting that they are "normal."The original version of the law adopted in 2013 banned "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors. The new iteration would apply the law to adults as well.Individuals who spread or attempt to distribute what the bill calls "LGBT propaganda" will be fined up to 400,000 roubles ($6,600).

Russia’s lower house of parliament passed a law expanding its ban on so-called ‘LGBT propaganda’ to all adults.

GEMMA Collins looked incredible as she posed in a ski suit in the Austrian Alps yesterday. The 41-year-old jetted off to film her latest TV show at the start of the week and has been keeping fans up to date with her amazing outfits.

SHE may be the queen of reality TV but now Gemma Collins has set her sights on a brand new career path. The Essex star, 41, has revealed that she plans to quit reality TV in a bid to become a film star. Gemma - who shot to fame on Towie and who landed her own show Diva Forever - said she has big ambitions of becoming a Hollywood actress.

GRAHAM DUNBAR  |  AP Sports Writer

SINGAPORE: The police are investigating Singapore-based crypto lender Hodlnaut and its directors for suspected cheating and fraud offences.

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

The father of the accused Club Q shooter has expressed relief that his child isn’t gay.Aaron Brink, the father of Anderson Lee Aldrich, gave a homophobia-filled interview to San Diego TV station KFMB. Brink, 48, who has worked as a porn star and mixed martial arts fighter and coach, said he wondered what his offspring was doing in a gay bar. Aldrich, 22, is accused of killing five people and injuring nearly 20 at the Colorado Springs nightclub Saturday night.When Brink heard from Aldrich’s defense attorney Sunday, “they started telling me about the incident, a shooting involving multiple people,” Brink said told the station Tuesday.

Like many, I woke up Sunday morning to the horrific, gut-wrenching news of yet another mass shooting — this time at Club Q in Colorado. A pit hardened in my stomach as I learned of the hate-fueled attack on my own community, in a place I used to go to feel safe as a young,queer college student living in Colorado Springs.Sadly, the feeling was all too familiar — it was the same one I felt after the tragedy at Pulse nightclub in Orlando: My achy queer heart spilling over in every direction with grief, with rage, with bewilderment, and more than anything, with love for my LGBTQ+ community.I went to Colorado College in Colorado Springs, a city where, as in many other places, there were forces — including radical antigay extremism — that made it challenging to be queer.

 (CNN) -- People take strange things on planes -- that's nothing new. And the suitcase checked for a journey from New York JFK to Orlando, Florida, on November 16 certainly contained some oddities.

GEMMA Collins has opened up about the terrifying moment she was robbed during a holiday abroad. The 41-year-old was in Mexico when she discovered her hotel room has ben ransacked while she was on a night out.

The Heritage Foundation, an anti-LGBTQ think tank, is reportedly spending $1.3 to air an anti-LGBTQ ad on TV and online during Thanksgiving weekend.

Ky Schevers, who once was a poster child for the “detransition” movement, now says she regrets embracing that.Schevers, assigned female at birth, came to identify as a trangender man and took testosterone to transition. She eventually stopped the treatment and spoke out about detransitioning. But then she saw that anti-trans bigotry was rampant among those who championed detransitioning, she recently told ABC News.“I never liked people who call transitioning mutilation or call trans bodies mutilated.

Filmmaker Cheryl Allison didn’t let the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic keep her from making a new friend — and forging a relationship that changed both their lives. No spoilers, but have some Kleenex handy.In March 2020, Allison and her wife, Natalie Murray, were on lockdown in Dallas. Unable to see any other friends or family, Allison began taking walks around Turtle Creek Park in their neighborhood.

Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert is on the defensive after many pointed out the correlation between her attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and this weekend's mass shooting at a queer Colorado nightclub near her district, where five people died and at least 18 were injured.Boebert, a gun fetishist narrowly reelected to Congress this month, has made a political career of villainizing minorities, including sexual and gender minorities. She often conflates transgender people with drag artists and has attacked both groups of people.

The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration and the Keith Haring Foundation awarded a team of geriatricians at Mount Sinai’s Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine in New York $1.25 million to expand their work with elderly HIV patients.This funding will support programs that will can be utilized by other health systems and hospitals to help older people living with HIV all across the country.AIDS-related deaths have significantly decreased over the years due to advancement in treatment and preventions.

CNN) -- The 22-year-old accused of carrying out a mass shooting inside an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, over the weekend is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday for the first time since the attack that left five dead and more than a dozen injured.Anderson Lee Aldrich is expected to attend the initial court hearing via video conference from the El Paso County Jail.The hearing will include "the advisement of the arrest charges as well as advisement of bond conditions," according to Colorado's Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen.Aldrich is set to be held without bond, Allen added.Preliminary charges include five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of a bias-motivated crime -- elsewhere called a hate crime -- causing bodily injury, per El Paso County Court's online docket.Formal charges can be expected within about 10 days, Allen said.Ahead of the hearing, attorneys for Aldrich submitted a court filing stating the suspect identifies as non-binary."They use they-them pronouns, and for the purposes of all formal filings, will be addressed as Mx.

(CNN) — Josh Cavallo, the only openly gay top-flight male soccer player in the sport, has told CNN that FIFA's decision to ban players from wearing "OneLove" armbands at the Qatar 2022 has made him feel "excluded."The captains of several European teams decided not to wear "OneLove" armbands at the World Cup due to the danger of receiving yellow cards.England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Wales were set to participate in the "OneLove" campaign to promote inclusion and oppose discrimination.But those countries' associations said in a statement on Monday that the armband — which features a striped heart in different colors to represent all heritages, backgrounds, genders, and sexual identities — would not be worn in Qatar."I'm disappointed in FIFA. They have made me feel excluded," Cavallo told CNN's Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday."You know, representation is so important and there's so many people watching these games, you know, that it just shows that FIFA's intentions are not to make ...

Legislation to ban ‘conversion therapy’ has been announced in Belgium, bringing an end to the cruel practice for all LGBTQ+ people.

A veteran who was instrumental in taking down the gunman in the Club Q shooting has spoken out about the tragedy in Colorado Springs.

Germany’s national team contested FIFA’s ban on pro-LGBTQ+ gestures at the Qatar World Cup in their first match of the tournament.

Huwelijken tussen mensen van hetzelfde geslacht die op een ambassade in het buitenland zijn gesloten, worden in Nederland erkend. Minister Weerwind voor Rechtsbescherming schrijft aan de Tweede Kamer dat de onduidelijkheid die hierover in de praktijk was ontstaan, moet worden weggenomen.

A local gay man was arrested on Tuesday for the recent brick attacks on a popular Hell’s Kitchen gay bar in NYC. Sean Kuilan, 34, was taken into custody and charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and criminal possession of a weapon for three of the four incidents at the VERS gay nightclub which took place within the past two weeks, The Gothamist reports. Three of the incidents were caught on video, and Kuilan was identified with the help of tips to the Crime Stoppers hotline.NYPD chief of detectives James Essig said investigators do not believe the crimes were motivated by anti-gay hatred, but instead resulted from a personal dispute Kuilan’s female friend had with the VERS nightclub.“Basically, what he says [is] he knows a girl who had a problem with one of the guys in the bar and he was ‘exacting revenge,’” Essig was quoted by the NY Post. “As of right now we don’t have any reason to believe it is [a hate crime].”Video of the “perp walk” at the NY Post showed the muscled and handcuffed Kulian escorted to an awaiting unmarked police car.“I’m gay myself,” he quietly responded to reporters’ questions in the video.“Something personal,” he responded when asked why he allegedly threw the bricks.Kuilan, who reportedly goes by the moniker “Paper Kid” in the neighborhood, was also arrested on an outstanding warrant for a 2021 incident of menacing.

The founder of the anti-trans hate group Gays Against Groomers appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and put the blame on the mass shooting at Club Q on gender-affirming health care.Jaimee Michell spoke to Tucker Carlson and suggested that shootings like the one at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo., would continue until the “evil agenda” of gender-affirming health care was put to an end.“You know, saying that ‘groomer’ is an anti-LGBTQ+ slur, that is doing irreparable damage to us as a whole, and it’s putting a really large target on our backs,” Michell told Carlson.Carlson and other pundits on Fox News have continued to target LGBTQ+ people in recent years, especially trans people and gender-affirming health care.Michell said her group saw the violence coming “from a mile away,” adding, “Sadly I don’t think it’s going to stop until we end this evil agenda that is attacking children.”Michell and her group argue that gender-affirming care for trans youth is child abuse, which goes against most medical associations' support for gender-affirming care as life-saving medicine.  NBC News’s Kat Tenbarge wrote on Twitter, “Fox News broadcast that mass shootings in LGBTQ spaces will continue unless we adopt laws that medically discriminate against transgender people. This is direct amplification of the threat of mass murder for political gains.” Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that left 49 people killed and press secretary of LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Florida, wrote, “Here’s [Gays Against Groomers] founder on Fox with a crystal clear threat: “The mass murders will continue until you do as you’re told”He added, “My blood is boiling all over again.

A LOVE Actually star was forced to wear dead people's clothes in a care home after she was swindled out of her £65,000 life savings. Meg Wynn Owen, 82, had her savings raided by costume designer Brian Malam, 60, who had been made her power of attorney. Instead of transferring money to the home the actress was staying in, Malam helped himself to £53,000 in electronic payments.

Anderson Lee Aldrich and his mother, Laura Voepel, in July 2022

The post Drag Race UK stars Black Peppa and Cheddar Gorgeous reflect on “super competitive” season 4 appeared first on GAY TIMES.

Actor Lee Pace has criticised online debate over Heartstopper actor Kit Connor’s sexuality, comparing it to his own experience of Hollywood.

The foreign secretary James Cleverly has stated that Qatari officials have taken ‘real steps’ to keep LGBTQ+ fans safe during the World Cup in the state.

Olly Alexander performed an emotional rendition of the hit Years & Years song Shine alongside an inclusive new choir.

SINGAPORE: When it comes to investing in early stage companies, there are no high returns without the high risks involved, analysts told CNA after the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Attorneys for the suspected gunman in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub say their client is nonbinary.Anderson Lee Aldrich is accused of killing five people and injuring 19 others after entering Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Saturday night.“Anderson Aldrich is nonbinary. They use they/them pronouns, and for the purposes of all formal filings, will be addressed as Mx.

Results from a Phase I CORAL-BOOST and CORAL-CEPI trial under biotechnology company Gritstone Bio shows their self-amplifying mRNA (samRNA) vaccine can induce a safe, strong, and durable immune response against COVID-19.BioSpace reports that although the data was preliminary, it could provide the needed technology to fill the unmet needs in the COVID battle.The trial consisted of three dose levels in CORAL-CEPI, all of which were found to be immunogenic. A spokesperson for Gritstone said their primary goals consisted of “evaluating our self-amplifying mRNA candidates for potential application against COVID, and providing clinical proof-of-concept for the use of the samRNA platform and other infectious diseases.”The 340 participants in the CORAL-CEPI studies had never been immunized for COVID and are all HIV-positive.

The National LGBTQ Task Force has assembled a group of straight and queer, transgender, and cisgender men for a campaign to persuade cis men to support the fight for reproductive freedom.The campaign, “Ban the Reproductive Binary,” consists of several short videos from a diverse set of male-identified voices, was released ahead of the midterm election to emphasize why reproductive rights affect cis men. The project was produced with funding from the Pop Culture Collaborative.The recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v.

“Just as it’s unacceptable for Americans to sit behind bars for simple possession of cannabis, it's absolutely unacceptable for an American sitting in a Russian gulag.” So said DC Marijuana Justice co-founder and cannabis activist, Adam Eidinger, to The Washington Post.So on October 26, when WNBA star Brittney Griner lost her appeal and, despite hope for a reduction in her punishment, a Russian court decided to uphold her nine-year prison sentence for drug smuggling charges, the same advocacy group and her supporters decided to hold a “smoke out” in protest.The demonstration kicked off at 4:20 local time outside the country’s embassy, and the group told demonstrators, “If you have used vape cartridges, bring them!"Griner, who was arrested February 17 at the Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow, had 0.702 grams of cannabis oil in vape cartridges in her luggage. "I had no intention to break the law," Grinder said during her initial testimony. She then added that it was an accident due to stress and rushing while packing, while also recovering from a then-recent COVID-19 diagnosis.At the time, she’d also testified that she’d used cannabis oil to treat various injuries she’d sustained over her basketball career.During the demonstration, protesters not only smoked marijuana, they also  carried a 51 foot inflatable joint.

Russia has taken steps to extend the country’s archaic ‘gay propaganda’ law to all adults. 

Russia has taken steps to extend the country’s archaic ‘gay propaganda’ law to all adults. 

Russian men are looking to potential scammers on the application Telegram to purchase fake HIV diagnoses to avoid the Russian draft.LGBTQ Nation reported that the groups contain tens of thousands of users and offer transportation to bordering countries in addition to work and housing. The falsified HIV and hepatitis diagnoses can be paid via Bitcoin and come alongside forged government documents and currency exchanges.The fake diagnoses come in the wake of the September 21 announcement from Russia’s anti-LGBTQ president Vladimir Putin ordering 300,000 male citizens to aid in his ongoing invasion of Ukraine.An anonymous seller told the global tech website Rest of World, “At the moment, the most effective way [to avoid being drafted into the Russian military] is to get a certificate that you have HIV or hepatitis.”He added, “Vendors offered HIV diagnoses that would be added to the Ministry of Health’s database, rendering someone as unfit for military service, for $620.

(CNN) — A judge in Russia has left Brittney Griner's verdict in place, upholding on Tuesday the US basketball star's conviction on drug smuggling charges and reducing only slightly her nine-year prison sentence.Griner's sentence will be modified to count the time she spent in pre-trial detention after her February 17 arrest at a Moscow airport, the judge ruled, with each day in pre-trial custody counting as 1.5 days toward her prison sentence. It was not immediately clear by exactly how much that would reduce the sentence.The decision came after an appeal hearing Tuesday at which Griner again apologized as she and her attorneys asked the court for a more lenient sentence, arguing the verdict was unfair and unjustified under Russian law.

(CNN) — Eight months on from her detainment in Moscow, Brittney Griner is celebrating her 32nd birthday in a Russian jail instead of with her family.The American basketball star released a message on Tuesday, saying she had been buoyed by the support she has received, according to a statement shared by Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin, Gortsunyan, Dyakin, and Partners law firm."Thank you everyone for fighting so hard to get me home. All the support and love are definitely helping me," Griner said in her message, according to the statement.Griner's attorneys, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, spent a few hours with Griner on Tuesday and relayed numerous birthday wishes to her, the statement said.The basketball player's wife Cherelle Griner and others close to the basketball player have launched the #WeAreBG campaign to put pressure on the US government and other parties to bring her home.In a video released as part of the campaign Cherelle said, "I've felt every moment of the grueling seven months without her."She thanked those who have supported the cause as well as specifically mentioning Joe Biden saying, "I want to thank President Biden for the Administration's efforts to secure her release."Griner was detained in February when entering Russia for possession of cannabis oil.

A high school student in Grant, Mich., has been accused of promoting witchcraft with some images in an LGBTQ-inclusive mural she created at the school.There will now be changes to the mural, but the LGBTQ+ imagery will remain, Michigan TV station WZZM reports.The student artist, Grant High School sophomore Evelyn Gonzales, won a contest to create a mural at the Grant Middle School health center. Her winning design included a boy wearing pink, light blue, and white, the colors of the transgender Pride flag; a girl in the colors of the bisexual flag, pink, royal blue, and purple; and a girl in rainbow colors.The final mural, however, had some elements that weren’t in her design, including a character from the video game Genshin Impact that had the face of a demon and a Hamsa hand (also known as the hand of Fatima), which is used as a symbol of good luck and protection in many cultures.