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WASHINGTON – A small group of activists staged a protest in front of the Russian Embassy in D.C. on Thursday to protest the imprisonment of WNBA star Brittney Griner. The protest included a giant inflated “joint” and activists smoking marijuana at the gate along Wisconsin Avenue.
A Russian appellate court on Tuesday upheld Griner’s 9 1/2 year sentence to a penal colony following her conviction for smuggling drugs into the country. The vaping cartridge for which she was convicted is well within the legal limit of cannabis products to carry in D.C.
“I am outraged that Brittney Griner is now going to be sitting in a Russian slave labor camp for the next nine years after this appeal was denied,” activist Adam Eidinger told reporters.
“I know I’m not the only one that’s outraged,” Eidinger said as he raised a handful of cannabis plant material into the air. “I’m holding cannabis plants that grow in the District of Columbia lawfully in our backyards.”
Eidinger continued, “Brittney Griner is not a drug smuggler. She is not someone who is trying to corrupt the Russian children. It is simply her fate as a political pawn in this horrific war on Ukraine.”
Eidinger pointed to the Cyrillic writing on the inflated joint, “this message right here says it all: Free Brittney Griner and the Russians from Putin. He’s kidnapped this country and now he’s kidnapped a beloved American citizen and I think Americans need to start speaking out. We need to stop holding our tongues. The Russians have kidnapped a beloved American hero!”
A number of Secret Service officers ensured the activists remained on the sidewalk, but Eidinger insisted that their actions were legal.
Following the statement to the press, activists smoked marijuana at the gates of the Russian Embassy.
Man who threatened D.C. hotel workers with gun gets probation
He pointed the gun at one of the security workers and told the worker that his gun is only for faggots and pussies
WASHINGTON – A 21-year-old Tennessee man arrested by D.C. police on Aug. 24 outside the Lyle Hotel near Dupont Circle for threatening two hotel workers with a handgun while saying his gun “is only for faggots” was sentenced on Oct. 26 to three years of supervised probation.
The sentencing by D.C. Superior Court Judge Michael O’Keefe took place after Dylan Nation, a resident of Ooltewah, Tenn., pleaded guilty on Aug. 30 to Attempted Assault with a Dangerous Weapon and Carrying a Pistol Without A License Outside a Home or Business as part of a plea bargain deal offered by prosecutors.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. agreed to drop the more serious charges initially filed by police of Assault With a Dangerous Weapon and Possession of a Firearm During A Crime of Violence.
An arrest affidavit filed in court shortly after Nation’s arrest says he retrieved a handgun from his car parked in the hotel’s parking lot and threatened two hotel security workers after one of the workers attempted to deescalate a heated verbal altercation Nation was having with his girlfriend just outside the hotel’s front entrance.
The affidavit says Nation pointed the gun at one of the security workers and told the worker “he will blow his skull off.” Minutes later, when both security workers attempted to persuade Nation to put the gun back in his car, he told them he didn’t feel safe around them and they are not tough because they are “from the faggot part of D.C. and that his gun is only for faggots and pussies,” according to the affidavit.
It says one of the two security workers then reached for the gun and took it out of Nation’s hand without incident after others at the hotel called police. Nation fled the scene after hearing police sirens but was apprehended by one of the security workers and held until police arrived and placed him under arrest.
Court records show that Nation’s attorney argued that Nation voluntarily surrendered his gun to the security worker and later took full responsibility for his actions and apologized. He later said he was intoxicated from alcohol he consumed while in the hotel restaurant with his girlfriend shortly before the altercation began and had no recollection at all of what happened.
The court records show Judge O’Keefe sentenced Nation to 18 months of incarceration for the attempted assault with a dangerous weapon charge and suspended all 18 months and sentenced him to three years of supervised probation.
For the second charge of carrying a pistol without a license, O’Keefe sentenced Nation to six months incarceration and suspended all but the short time Nation had already spent in jail after his arrest. O’Keefe then handed down another sentence of three years of supervised probation for that charge but said the two three-year terms of probation were to run concurrently.
Portrait of Matthew Shepard dedicated at National Cathedral
“It’s amazing how similar & what a great job [the artist] has done to make it look like and showing the essence of Matt,” said Dennis Shepard
WASHINGTON – Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in a 1998 anti-gay hate crime while tied to a fence outside Laramie, Wyo., will be honored at a ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 1, at Washington National Cathedral dedicating a newly commissioned portrait of Shepard.
Officials at the cathedral said the portrait by artist Kelly Latimore and commissioned by LGBTQ members of the Cathedral staff, is the only artistic image of Matthew Shepard created in collaboration with Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, who were present during the ceremony.
Matthew Shepard’s ashes were interred at the Washington National Cathedral in 2018, 20 years after his death. The Cathedral announced in a statement this week that the Dec. 1 dedication of the Shepard portrait would also take place on what would have been Shepard’s 46th birthday.
“The horrific murders at Club Q in Colorado Springs are a tragic reminder that our LGBTQ friends and family continue to be targeted for who they love, and Matthew Shepard’s legacy reminds us of the urgency to confront bigotry and embrace people of all backgrounds, gender identities and sexual orientations,” said The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, in a statement.
Events surrounding the portrait dedication began with a 7 a.m. online prayer service “to celebrate and recall Matthew Shepard’s life,” the statement released by the Cathedral says. The service was led by Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest to be consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.
The Cathedral next hosted a preview of the portrait for the news media at 10:30 a.m., where Dennis and Judy Shepard talked about the portrait and their son’s life and the impact his death had on the nation’s understanding of hate crimes.
“It’s amazing how similar and what a great job that Kelly [Latimore] has done to make it look like Matt and showing the essence of Matt,” Dennis Shepard told the Washington Blade while viewing the portrait in the Cathedral’s St. Joseph’s Chapel, where the portrait was on display.
Artist Latimore, who also spoke to reporters during the morning briefing at the chapel, said he was moved in his discussions with Judy and Dennis Shepard while getting ready to begin work on the painting by copies of dozens of letters they sent him that had been sent to the Shepards by people across the country after their son’s death.
Latimore included written excerpts from dozens of those letters as the background to his portrait of Matthew Shepard, which can be seen and read when standing close to the portrait.
“Matthew will not be forgotten,” an excerpt from one of the letters on the portrait says.
Dennis and Judy Shepard created the Matthew Shepard Foundation shortly after Matthew’s death, which has been credited with playing a lead role in advocating for the passage by Congress in 2009 of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The measure was the first federal hate crime statute that expanded the coverage of the federal hate crimes law to include a victim’s sexual orientation and gender identity as a protected class.
The Cathedral was to open its St. Joseph’s Chapel from 2-5 p.m. on Thursday to visitors where the Matthew Shepard portrait was on display. Dennis and Judy Shepard were scheduled to be present to greet visitors.
According to the statement released by the Cathedral, later in the evening at 7 p.m., the portrait was to be officially dedicated in a private service in the Cathedral’s crypt near the site where Shepard’s ashes were interred.
“A longtime supporter of the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the life of the church, the Cathedral considers LGBTQ equality one of the great civil rights issues of the 21st century,” the statement released by the Cathedral says.
One of the two men charged with Matthew Shepard’s murder, Russell Henderson, pleaded guilty to a murder charge in exchange for an agreement by prosecutors not to seek a death sentence. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The other man charged in the murder, Aaron McKinney, pleaded not guilty and went to trial, where he was convicted of murder by a jury. In a dramatic statement before the judge at the conclusion of the trial, Dennis Shepard announced and he and his wife had asked prosecutors and the judge to spare McKinney from being sentenced to death, something he said McKinney did not do while fatally striking his son in the head multiple times with the barrel of a gun after the two men tied him to a fence post in a remote field outside Laramie.
The judge sentenced McKinney to two consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.
D.C.’s Children’s Hospital targeted by Libs of TikTok over trans care
Anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing Twitter account cited incorrect claims by hospital employee about female to male trans surgery
WASHINGTON – D.C.’s Children’s National Hospital has become the target of threatening phone calls, email messages and social media postings after a widely read far-right Twitter account known as Libs of Tiktok posted an incorrect report claiming the hospital routinely performs hysterectomies on transgender patients under the age of 18.
Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik included in her Aug. 25 posting audio recordings of two Children’s National Hospital telephone operators who the hospital says incorrectly stated that a transgender boy as young as 16 would be eligible for a hysterectomy.
“We do not and have never provided gender-affirming surgery for anyone under the age of 18,” according to an emailed statement the hospital media office sent to the Blade. “In fact, in D.C. you cannot perform a hysterectomy in a minor without a court order,” the statement says.
“We do not provide hormone therapy to children before puberty begins,” the statement continues. “Care is individualized for each patent and always involves families making decisions in coordination with a team of highly trained pediatric specialists,” it says.
“None of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients,” says the statement. “The information in the recording is not accurate. To reiterate, we do not and have never performed gender affirming hysterectomies on minors,” it says.
The statement added, “Since the spreading of misinformation on Twitter, we have been the target of a large volume of hostile phone calls, social media messages and emails.”
The Washington Post has reported that the harassment encountered by the hospital has included social media posts suggesting that it be bombed, and its doctors placed in a woodchipper.
According to the Children’s National Hospital’s statement; “Children’s National Hospital is committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment for all and to serving our LGBTQ+ patients and families in the full spectrum of their care.”
Threats and harassing calls and email messages were directed at Boston’s Children’s Hospital earlier this month over what the hospital says were similar false claims on social media that it was performing hysterectomies on transgender youth under the age of 18.
Libs of TikTok, which has often promoted “groomer” discourse that falsely linked LGBTQ teachers and parents to pedophilia, began to make a variety of false claims regarding Boston Children’s. One allegation included the lie about Children’s offering gender-affirming hysterectomies to children under 18 years old.
Journalist Martha Bebinger with WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, noted the campaign started last week with criticism of a video posted on the hospital’s website about hysterectomies. Several conservative social media accounts shared posts about the video on Twitter. The hospital performs hysterectomies on patients 18 and older, but not on children as some of the posts claimed.
“We condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms, and we reject the false narratives upon which they are based,” Boston Children’s said in a statement. “We are working with law enforcement to protect our clinicians, staff, patients, families and the broader Boston Children’s Hospital community and hold the offenders accountable,” the statement added.
For over two years, a Brooklyn real estate agent and fanatical adherent of far-right extremist ideology, Chaya Raichik, has wreaked havoc via her social media accounts ‘Libs of Tik Tok’, attacking LGBTQ+ people with special emphasis on spreading lies and propaganda about transgender people.
When Raichik attacked Boston Children’s Hospital, spreading lies and falsehoods about the healthcare facility’s treatment of transgender youth. Her ‘call to arms’ was then joined by conservative journalist and anti-LGBTQ+ activist Christopher Rufo and The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, a vehement anti-Trans pundit.
The resulting chaos including death threats against Children’s clinicians and staff was acknowledged by a spokesperson for the Boston Police who told the Blade that officials had stepped up security to augment the efforts by the hospital to protect its staff and that an investigation had been launched.
The United States Department of Justice has also launched an investigation into the threats according to an announcement by the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Rachael Rollins.
In a lengthy statement issued by GLAAD, the organization wrote:
“Libs of TikTok is synonymous with maliciously targeting LGBTQ organizations, people, and allies by posting lies, misinformation, and blatant hate,” said a GLAAD spokesperson. “Meta and Twitter continue to profit from accounts like Libs of TikTok as doctors and staff members of Boston Children’s Hospital, and other providers of healthcare to transgender people, receive death threats and hate.
“These companies are complicit in hosting content which expresses malicious falsehoods and which incite anti-LGBTQ hate. This is the latest in a long pattern of blatant inaction from the platforms to content that directly leads to the recent rise in real world violence and harassment facing LGBTQ people.”
Tennessee man utters threats against DC hotel workers with a gun
He made the threats that the workers were from “the faggot part of D.C. and that his gun is only for “faggots and pussies”
WASHINGTON – A 21-year-old man arrested by D.C. police on Aug. 24 at the Lyle Hotel near Dupont Circle for allegedly threatening two hotel workers with a handgun stated at the time he made the threats that the workers were from “the faggot part of D.C. and that his gun is only for faggots and pussies,” according to an arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court.
Court charging documents show that Dylan Nation, a resident of Ooltewah, Tenn., and who was a guest at the hotel at the time of the incident, was charged with Assault With A Dangerous Weapon, Possession of A Firearm During a Crime of Violence, and Carrying a Pistol Without a License.
The arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police says the incident began about 1:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 24, when a hotel security worker observed Nation, who is identified in the affidavit as the suspect, engaged in a verbal altercation with a woman identified as his girlfriend outside the hotel, which is located at 1731 New Hampshire Ave., N.W. The affidavit says the security worker “stepped in” to deescalate the altercation and escorted Nation and the girlfriend back into the hotel lobby.
Once inside Nation told the security worker, who is listed in the affidavit as Complainant 1, and another person the affidavit identifies as Complainant 2, that he needed to go to his car in the hotel parking lot to get some face wash. According to the affidavit, Complainant 2 escorted Nation to the parking lot where Nation allegedly removed a handgun from the glove compartment of his car.
The affidavit says the girlfriend, meanwhile, told Complainant 1, the security worker, that Nation had a gun in his car, prompting Complainant 1 to go to the parking lot, where he observed Complainant 2 attempting to persuade Nation to put the gun back in the car.
“Complainant 1 sees a black handgun in the Suspect’s left hand and tells the Suspect that guns are not allowed in the hotel and that he must leave it in his car,” the affidavit states. “Complainant 1 stated that while in the back parking lot the Suspect points the gun at him and tells him he will blow his skull off,” the affidavit continues.
“Complainant 1 then reaches for the gun and takes it out of the Suspect’s hand,” the affidavit says, after which it says Complainant 1 walked back to the hotel lobby, removed the bullets from the gun, and asked someone to call police. The affidavit does not say whether Nation struggled to resist giving up his gun or passively allowed the hotel worker to take it from him.
The gun is identified in the affidavit as a Glock 23 .40 caliber handgun.
The affidavit next describes both Nation and Complainant 1 standing in front of the hotel, with Nation demanding that he get his gun back. It says Complainant 1 refused to return the gun and told Nation that police had been called. Minutes later, when sirens from arriving police cars were heard, Nation attempted to flee the scene, running north on New Hampshire Avenue.
“Complainant 1 ran after him and tackled him in front of 1806 New Hampshire Avenue Northwest,” the affidavit says. “While holding the Suspect down a marked MPD cruiser stopped and an officer ran over and placed the suspect in handcuffs. Complainant 1 immediately told the officer that the suspect had pointed a gun at him,” the affidavit says.
It says D.C. police obtained a security camera video from the hotel that also included an audio recording in which the voices of the hotel workers and Nation could be heard during part of the altercation.
“In the video you can hear the Defendant’s voice arguing with the Complainants about having a gun and that he should put it in the car for everyone’s safety,” the affidavit states. “The Defendant refuses, then starts to talk about not being safe around the Complainants and that the Complainants are not tough because they are from the faggot part of D.C. and that his gun is only for faggots and pussies,” says the affidavit.
It concludes by saying Nation waived his right not to talk to police detectives following his arrest and that he denied he ever took a gun from his car and pointed it at anyone in a threatening way.
Court records show that at a presentment hearing on the day of Nation’s arrest on Aug. 24, Superior Court Judge Dorsey Jones ordered Nation held without bond pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for 11:00 a.m. Friday, Aug. 26.
The initial D.C. police incident report does not list the incident as a suspected hate crime.
Gay couple assaulted in D.C. by teens shouting ‘monkeypox faggots’
The men were treated and released at Howard University Hospital for head and facial bruises, with one receiving stitches for a deep cut
WASHINGTON – Two young men appearing in their late teens shouted the words “monkeypox faggots” at a gay male couple walking along 7th Street, N.W. in the city’s Shaw neighborhood on Sunday, Aug. 7, before punching the two men in the face and head in an incident that D.C. police have called a suspected hate crime.
The gay men were treated and released at Howard University Hospital for head and facial bruises, with one of the two receiving stitches for a deep cut on his upper lip, according to one of the victims who spoke to the Washington Blade.
The victim, an Alexandria resident who asked that he and his partner, a D.C. resident, not be identified by name, said the attackers were part of a group of four or five young men appearing to be between 17 and 19 years old and two young women accompanying them. He said the group crossed paths with the gay couple around 5:40 p.m. in front of a store on the 1700 block of 7th Street, N.W., as the couple was walking to a nearby bus stop on Rhode Island Avenue.
The victim who spoke to the Blade said a nearby witness called D.C. police, who arrived within a few minutes as the two attackers and the other young men with them fled the scene. He said although an ambulance arrived on the scene, one of the police officers drove the couple to nearby Howard University Hospital, where they spent about six hours in the emergency room.
The couple had spent part of that 90+ degree day at the city’s Banneker Pool and later stopped at the Kiki gay bar on U Street, N.W. before taking what the victim who spoke to the Blade said was a leisurely walk from Kiki via 7th Street on their way to the bus stop, where they planned to take the bus to his boyfriend’s Northeast D.C. house.
As the couple walked south on 7th Street about a block from their destination on Rhode Island Avenue they crossed paths with the group of teenagers in front of a store that a D.C. police report says was at 1731 7th St., N.W.
“They were about 17 to 19 years old,” the victim who spoke to the Blade said. “And one of them started saying stuff like, hey, look at these monkeypox faggots and some not so nice stuff like that,” he said.
“We turned around to walk away and one of them came up behind me and got my attention and then sucker punched me and then hit me again and then hit my boyfriend in the face,” the victim said. “And another person hit him in the face as well,” he said. “And then someone across the street called the cops. And then the cops came, and they scattered off.”
To the couple’s surprise, the two young women remained on the scene and apologized for the actions by the guys they were with.
“So, I said something like thanks for the apology, but this is the kind of people you hang out with,” the victim recounted. “And one of them said their dad was gay, and they kind of walked away before the cops got there,” he said. “It was nice of them to apologize I guess for the other people.”
The D.C. police report lists the incident as having two offenses, a simple assault against the two men and a misdemeanor destruction of property related to the destruction of a pair of sunglasses worn by one of the two men that were damaged in the assault against him.
The report also lists the incident as a suspected “Sexual orientation – Anti-Gay” hate crime.
As in all incidents of violent crime, D.C. police call on members of the public to contact the police with information about an incident like this to call police at 202-727-9099 or text a tip to the department’s TEXT TIP LINE at 50411.
D.C. LGBTQ+ community services center closes after finances collapse
Earlier this year the entire Board of Directors had resigned, raising the question of whether Casa Ruby could legally operate without a board
WASHINGTON – Casa Ruby, the D.C. LGBTQ community services center that provided transitional housing services for homeless LGBTQ youth and adults and support for LGBTQ immigrants, has shut down all of its programs after it lost most of its city funding, one of its few remaining employees told the Washington Blade.
Tania Cordova, a Casa Ruby official who has coordinated the group’s LGBTQ immigrant services program, said a failure to pay the rent for Casa Ruby’s offices and rental homes for its transitional housing program made it impossible for the remaining staff of about 10 employees to continue any of the group’s programs.
The Casa Ruby shutdown this week took place nine months after Ruby Corado, the group’s founder and longtime executive director, resigned last October. She announced her resignation less than a week after the D.C. Department of Human Services disclosed it would not renew an annual Casa Ruby grant of what was said to be $850,000 to operate a low-barrier shelter for LGBTQ people.
At the time of her resignation, Corado said Casa Ruby’s then-Government Affairs Director Alexis Blackmon would assume the position of interim executive director while a search took place for a permanent director. But Blackmon resigned from the interim position a short time later and Casa Ruby announced that Jackie Franco, one of its managers, would serve as interim leader for the group with the title of Chief of Staff.
According to Cordova and others familiar with Casa Ruby, who spoke on condition of not being identified, Corado retained full control of Casa Ruby’s finances and made all key decisions despite her claim to have resigned. Cordova and other Casa Ruby staffers have also pointed out that Corado since the time of her announced resignation has spent most of her time in El Salvador operating, among other things, a Casa Ruby she opened in the capital city of San Salvador.
Corado told the Blade in an interview in May that the Casa Ruby board approved the creation of the Casa Ruby in El Salvador. Among its objectives, Corado said, was to provide services for LGBTQ Salvadorans so that they would not be forced to immigrate to the U.S.
Neither Corado nor Franco could immediately be reached this week for comment on the claim by the Casa Ruby staff that they had shut down the D.C. Casa Ruby’s operations.
One source familiar with the D.C. Casa Ruby said there were only about 10 staff members left as of June of this year. Cordova said that as of earlier this year, the entire Casa Ruby Board of Directors had resigned, raising the question of whether Casa Ruby could legally operate without a board.
The Washington Post reported this week that Casa Ruby employed as many as 100 people as of 2020, eight years after Corado founded the group in 2012.
In its 2020 IRS 990 finance report, which all nonprofit organizations are required to file each year, Casa Ruby reported its total revenue for the year was $4,161,905, with most of the funds coming from D.C. government grants. The 2020 report, the latest one the IRS has released, also shows that Corado’s salary and total compensation for that year was $260,416.
Casa Ruby sources said the group filed a request for an extension of the deadline for filing 2021 IRS 990 report because Corado had not provided the needed financial information. The sources said that while the D.C. government has withheld several hundred thousand dollars in grants for Casa Ruby in the past year or two due to “noncompliance” with the terms of the grants, Casa Ruby has continued to receive funds from private donors. And the staff has not been informed by Corado, according to the sources, on how the private donor funds have been used.
In her interview with the Blade in May, Corado said she believes the Department of Human Services, which has provided much of Casa Ruby’s D.C. government funding, as well as the mayor’s office, was retaliating against her for her outspoken criticism of the city’s handling of programs for the homeless and other programs.
The Department of Human Services has not responded to repeated requests by the Blade for its specific reasons for determining that Casa Ruby was not in compliance with the DHS grants, which prompted DHS to cut off its funds for those grants.
The Menkiti Group, the company that owns the building at 7325 Georgia Ave., N.W., which Casa Ruby used as its headquarters and for the low barrier shelter, claims in a Landlord Tenant Court filing that Casa Ruby owes the company over $1 million in unpaid rent and late fees, among other expenses. Corado told the Blade last year that she withheld some of the rent in a dispute over what she said was the owner’s failure to maintain the building that led to multiple violations in the city’s fire and building code.
A spokesperson for the company told the Blade last year that Corado agreed to a lease that holds the tenant responsible for all needed repairs for the building. Casa Ruby has since moved out of that building.
The landlord for two smaller buildings in the Dupont Circle area in which Casa Ruby rented space have also filed eviction notices for failure to pay the rent.
Cordova said that the Union Temple Baptist Church, which rented four small townhouses to Casa Ruby where Cordova helped to operate the group’s LGBTQ immigrant services program, filed for eviction in court over failure by Casa Ruby to pay the rent. The church owns the buildings. Cordova said the immigrant occupants of the buildings as well as she, who lived in one of them, were forced to move out.
“Everything is closed,” Cordova said. “Nobody is going there to get services because there is nobody to provide the services,” she said. “We don’t have an office, we don’t have office supplies, we don’t have an internet. How are we going to provide services?”
D.C.’s Duke Ellington arts school theater not renamed after Chappelle
The renaming was postponed after anti-transgender jokes in Chappelle’s Netflix special “The Closer” sparked controversy
WASHINGTON – The Duke Ellington School for the Arts on Monday officially renamed its theater, but not after Dave Chappelle, the school’s most famous alumni, as had been expected.
The renaming was initially scheduled for Nov. 23, 2021, it was postponed after anti-transgender jokes in Chappelle’s Netflix special “The Closer” sparked controversy. Chappelle himself eventually helped choose a different name for the theater, saying that he did not want students to feel upset with his name being on it, since “the idea that my name will be turned into an instrument of someone else’s perceived oppression is untenable to me.”
The theater is now called the Theater for Artistic Freedom and Expression, and in an interview with NBC4, Chappelle said that he chose to highlight artistic freedom because “that’s what I would want for myself, and that’s what I want for every student that goes to this school.”
“And I do feel like if that’s threatened, then the society at large is threatened,” Chappelle said. “If artists feel stifled, then everyone’s stifled. And I feel like artists have a responsibility to really be true to their art right now.”
Chappelle has previously included anti-trans jokes in his comedic repertoire.
He has previously made jokes about former President Trump’s decision to ban trans service members from the military and the possibility of Caitlyn Jenner posing nude on the cover of Sports Illustrated. However, in a one-on-one interview with the Washington Blade in August 2017, Chappelle denied being transphobic.
“I wouldn’t consider myself that because I’m not even sure what the term means,” Chappelle said. “I’m not an obstructionist of anybody’s lifestyle, as long as it doesn’t hurt me or people I love and I don’t believe that lifestyle does.”
Chappelle also called North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which prohibited trans people from using public restrooms consistent with their gender identity as “fucking absurd” and “clearly a mean-spirited law” designed to deny trans people their basic humanity.
While Chappelle has at times defended the LGBTQ community and has denied being transphobic, trans activists and students at the Ellington School alike have expressed discomfort with his apparent lack of understanding and empathy about the ways his jokes harm trans people.
“I appreciate a good joke as much as anyone. But when jokes lead to dehumanization, violence and death aimed at trans people, that’s when a line has been crossed and it has to be called out,” the late-Monica Roberts, a trans activist of color from Houston, said in response to Chappelle’s comments to the Blade.
In light of this controversy, which has only gained more airtime since “The Closer” premiered in 2021, Chappelle chose to take the focus off of himself by supporting an alternate name for the Ellington School’s theater. Currently, students at Duke Ellington — many of whom are LGBTQ — have access to “listening sessions” planned by the administration in which they can air their thoughts about the theater’s renaming.
Vice-President Kamala Harris addresses Capital Pride in D.C.
“We should not have to be dealing with 300 laws in states around our country that are attacking our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters”
WASHINGTON – In a surprise appearance, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke from the main stage of D.C.’s Capital Pride Festival late Sunday afternoon before a crowd of as many as a thousand people who had been watching the Capital Pride concert that had been taking place prior to Harris’ unannounced appearance.
To the delight of the crowd, Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C. Pride events, introduced Harris and her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, on the stage, drawing thunderous applause.
“Happy Pride everyone!” Harris told the crowd. “Oh, what a glorious day. Listen, we have so much to celebrate, and we celebrate each other every day,” she said.
“We celebrate the progress we have made,” she continued. “And we celebrate the fact that we are in this to stand for what we stand for and fight for what we stand for,” she said.
Also making an unannounced appearance on the festival stage about an hour before Harris’ appearance was D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who expressed her strong support for LGBTQ Pride.
Harris’ appearance at the Capital Pride Festival on Sunday came exactly one year after she and Emhoff joined hundreds of LGBTQ participants in D.C.’s Capital Pride Walk as it reached 13th Street, N.W., near Freedom Plaza, becoming the first U.S. vice president to participate in an LGBTQ Pride event.
Her unannounced appearance in last year’s Pride Walk came as a surprise to the Capital Pride organizers as well as to the delighted onlookers who saw Harris and her husband join the walk, which was an abridged version of the Capital Pride Parade that had been cancelled in 2021 as it had in 2020 due to the pandemic.
In her short speech on Sunday, Harris referred to the Pulse nightclub shooting exactly six years ago in Orlando, Fla., which took the lives of 49 mostly LGBTQ people, saying, “no one should fear going to a nightclub for fear that a terrorist might try to take them down.”
She also referred to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ laws under consideration or that have passed in states around the country.
“We will always be fueled by knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us,” she told the cheering crowd. “We will be fueled by saying no one will be made to fight alone. We will be fueled by knowing we are all in this together,” she said. “And we will fight with pride. Happy Pride everyone!”
Observers familiar with D.C.’s Capital Pride Festival, which was held this year for the first time since 2019 due to pandemic restrictions, said it appeared to have attracted one of the largest turnouts ever, with several hundred thousand people in attendance throughout the day. Like past years, the festival took place on a four-block section of Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between Third and Seventh Streets.
More than 270 organizations or businesses registered to set up a booth at the festival, according to a list released by Capital Pride Alliance. Many of the organizations and businesses participating in the festival had also marched or road in vehicles or on floats in the Capital Pride Parade one day earlier.
Bos said there were about 245 contingents in the parade on Saturday, about the same number that participated in the 2019 Capital Pride Parade, the last one held since this year. But those familiar with the 2019 parade and those held in earlier years said they believed this year’s parade attracted more spectators than in past years, most likely because LGBTQ people, like so many others, wanted to join the celebration after the two-year hiatus brought about by COVID.
Full text of Harris’s remarks:
“Happy Pride everyone! Oh, what a glorious day. Listen, we have so much to celebrate, and we celebrate each other every day. We celebrate the progress we have made. And we celebrate the fact that we are in this to stand for what we stand for and fight for what we stand for.
Because no one should fear going to a nightclub for fear that a terrorist might try to take them down. No one should fear going to a Pride celebration because of a white supremacist. No one should fear loving who they love. Our children in Texas and Florida should not fear who they are. Black and brown and women of color, transgender women cannot fear for their lives.
We should not have to be dealing with 300 laws in states around our country that are attacking our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters. For we know what we stand for and therefore we know what we will fight for. And we will do what we have always done in this movement, in this community, which is collectively, we will continue to build unity. We will continue to build coalitions.
We will always be fueled by knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. We will be fueled by saying no one will be made to fight alone. We will be fueled by knowing we are all in this together. And we will fight with pride. Happy Pride everyone.”
Six years after Pulse shooting, calls for change grow around the nation
Thousands gathered on the National Mall as March For Our Lives held a rally calling for solutions to escalating gun violence
WASHINGTON – On the night of June 12, 2016, 49 people were killed and 53 were injured in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The shooting has since remained one of the deadliest mass shootings in United States history.
Six years later, efforts to curb gun violence in America and halt the country’s epidemic of mass shootings have reignited in the wake of more recent mass shootings.
Just before noon on Saturday, June 11, thousands of people carrying signs and clad in anti-gun-violence clothing flooded the north lawn of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. across from the White House.
One of those in the crowd was Jessica Mahoney, a young activist with ties to a national past littered with gun violence.
“My close family is from Sandy Hook and, as the sign references, I used this sign four years ago,” Mahoney said. “This has been a very personal issue for me since 2012 when I had to spend over an hour wondering if my cousins were alive or not. I just feel like it’s so important that people are out here that haven’t been personally touched by the issue because I just think that shows that there’s a real movement behind what’s going on.”
Mahoney and her fellow protesters in the crowd were some of the hundreds of thousands more protestors who marched in different cities across the country on that day calling on state and federal lawmakers to pass legislation reforming the nation’s gun laws.
The marches, organized in large part by the youth-led gun violence prevention organization March for Our Lives, were triggered by a sustained national outcry for action following the latest mass shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, both in late May. The organization held similar nationwide rallies in 2018 following the Parkland school shooting that led to the group’s inception.
Mahoney described her feelings about having to return to another rally four years later in an effort to address the same issue.
“It’s frustrating and a bit maddening at times to be honest that we still have to do this,” Mahoney said. “But it just seems like there’s more energy every time and so I think that I’m also hopeful about it.”
The issue has been one plaguing Americans in various settings and from various walks of life and has affected those across a spectrum of identities, including the LGBTQ community.
Marking the six-year anniversary of the Pulse shooting in Orlando, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released a statement the day before the March for Our Lives rally.
“Gun violence remains an LGBTQ+ issue, with three-fourths of homicides against transgender people – including nearly eight in ten homicides of Black trans women – involving a gun,” HRC Interim President Joni Madison said in the statement. “Compounding this tragedy is the fact that in the six years since Pulse, we have been unable to advance meaningful federal gun reform legislation.”
But in an effort to prevent future mass killings like those in Parkland, Uvalde, Buffalo, and Orlando, prominent activists have since brought a spotlight to the issue of gun violence in America. Many such activists descended on the grounds of the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital on Saturday to speak to those gathered and amplify their message.
David Hogg, a survivor of the mass shooting on February 14, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and a founder and board member of March for Our Lives, spoke to the crowd.
“We need to stop these shooters before they get on campus and stop endangering the lives of our first responders, our students, our teachers because people on Capitol Hill don’t want to do their job and protect us,” Hogg said.
Alongside Hogg were a number of other activists and politicians who shared the goal of reducing gun violence in America, including Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, D-MO 1st District.
Bush described her own proximity to gun violence in calling for action, sharing with the crowd her past escape from such as she ran from an abusive partner who kept firearms in their home.
“When I turned back for a moment, because, ‘Why isn’t he chasing me?’” Bush said. “I turned back, and I saw him standing still, ‘Why is he standing still?’ Next thing I knew, I heard shots.”
Bush believed the near-death experience to be “completely preventable.”
“Closing the boyfriend loophole could’ve saved me from a near-lethal encounter with gun violence,” Bush said. “A red flag law could’ve saved me from a nearly lethal encounter with gun violence.”
Hogg and others took aim at counterarguments from pro-gun entities that have advocated for mental health support rather than gun reform to solve the problem.
“We also must address the fact that mental health does have a role to play in stopping gun violence, but that racism is not a mental illness,” Hogg said. “Hatred, racism, radicalization, xenophobia are not mental illnesses.”
But even at an event meant to highlight what gatherers felt was a need to curb the nation’s scourge of gun violence, the specter of fear and violence remained ubiquitous.
During a moment of silence for the victims of America’s gun violence, a man toward the front of the crowd began to shout and attempted to breach the event’s main stage. A source close to the stage told the Blade that the man threw a megaphone into the crowd while shouting, “I am God.”
Those assembled feared the worst. Due to the size of the crowd that had assembled, rallygoers across the lawn perceived the disturbance to be an active gun threat. Hundreds dropped flat to the ground while others ran from the stage in an attempt to escape the potential violence.
After organizers and police were able to apprehend the disruptor, rally organizers attempted to reconvene the frightened crowd and push forward.
Alert: An individual interfered with a permitted event on the Washington Monument grounds. The individual was detained by officers. No weapons were involved and there is no risk to the public.— USPPNEWS (@usparkpolicepio) June 11, 2022
“Do not run, freeze, do not run,” an organizer said over the sounds of emerging police sirens. “There is no issue here, do not run.”
But the moment of fear clung to many who were present.
Rallygoer Kirsten Hiera witnessed the moment of mass confusion but was unable to flee the scene despite her own fear.
“I was scared but I didn’t want to run away because I’m with someone who’s elderly and I didn’t want to have her be abandoned,” Hiera said. “I felt scared and confused but I didn’t want to abandon my friend.”
As those gathered began to tepidly rise and return to the stage, the organizer proceeded to draw attention back to the focus of the rally, leading a chant exclaiming peace to be a lifestyle.
Exiting the stage toward the end of the rally after the crowd had reconvened, the organizer left them with advice that touched to the core of the movement’s mission – one that, in the wake of tens of thousands of gun deaths in shootings like Orlando, organizers like Hogg have described as not pro-gun or anti-gun, but pro-peace.
“The other thing that I want to say is let’s not give into the hate,” she said. “Let’s not give into the hate. There’s more people who are about love than there is that is about hate.”
Plea bargain: 7 month sentence in homophobic attack in Washington D.C.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office thoroughly investigated and analyzed the facts and provided what we determined to be an appropriate plea offer”
WASHINGTON – A D.C. Superior Court judge on Thursday sentenced District resident Patrick Trebat, 39, to seven months in jail following a dramatic court hearing in which a gay Asian man, Sean Lai, described how Trebat assaulted him and his parents while shouting homophobic and anti-Asian slurs in an unprovoked attack last August on a Northwest D.C. street.
The sentencing came after Trebat pleaded guilty during the same hearing to three counts of misdemeanor simple assault, with one of the counts designated as a hate crime based on the victim’s ethnicity. The guilty plea was part of a plea bargain offer by prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C.
In exchange for Trebat accepting the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop two earlier felony charges of bias-related assault with significant bodily injury brought against Trebat in connection with the attack on Lai and his parents.
Judge Michael O’Keefe officially sentenced Trebat to 21 months of incarceration for the three charges, but suspended all but seven months of the sentence. O’Keefe also sentenced Trebat to three years of supervised probation upon his release, with the stipulation that he will be required to serve the full 21 months if he violates the terms of his probation.
Trebat, who had been released on a partial home detention order shortly after his arrest just under 10 months ago, was placed in immediate custody and escorted out of the courtroom by U.S. marshals after the conclusion of the sentencing part of the hearing to begin serving his sentence.
In delivering a victim’s impact statement in the courtroom, Lai told O’Keefe that in addition to inflicting physical injuries on him and his parents that required emergency treatment at a hospital, Trebat’s attack on his family caused deep emotional scars that continues to haunt all three of them.
He said he objects to the plea bargain deal on grounds, among other things, that it does not designate Trebat’s violent attack as a hate crime based on Lai’s sexual orientation, only on his and his parents’ ethnicity.
Court records show that Trebat attacked Lai and his elderly parents, who are of Chinese ancestry, as they were walking on a street in the city’s Observatory Circle neighborhood near where they were living and within sight of the Washington National Cathedral.
Police charging documents filed in court state that Trebat called the three victims “faggots” and shouted, “You are not Americans” as he approached them while they were walking along the 3700 block of Fulton Street, N.W. at about 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2021. One of the documents says Trebat punched and shoved the three victims, knocking each of them to the ground, after initially punching Lai’s father in the head from behind while shouting, “Get out of my country.”
“As painful as it is to relive this moment when this atrocious attack took place, I choose to be here today because I wanted you to hear my own voice and perspective, as well as the perspective from my parents,” Lai told the judge. “The defendant attacked me and my elderly parents without provocation, motivated simply by his hatred toward our race and my sexual orientation,” Lai continued.
“But what breaks my heart the most is what was done to my parents,” he said. “I had to take them each to several orthopedics appointments over the following months. I secretly cried in my bed each night after seeing the pain that was inflicted on them and the psychological trauma that they experienced.”
Gay D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Mike Silverstein followed Lai by delivering an LGBTQ community impact statement before the court on behalf of the city’s ANC LGBTQ Rainbow Caucus, the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, and what Silverstein said was Lai’s request that he speak on behalf of the Asian and Pacific Islander community.
“Thank you, Your Honor, for the opportunity to give this victim’s impact statement,” Silverstein said. “And please forgive me for the next 13 words, which were not mine,” he said.
“’Fuck you bitch!’ ‘Faggot!’ ‘You are not Americans! Get out of this country!’”
“Those were the 13 words Patrick Trebat shouted at Sean Lai and his elderly mother and father just before Mr. Trebat physically attacked them without provocation,” said Silverstein as courtroom spectators listened intently.
“As members of the LGBT+ community, we feel this was an attack on every one of us,” Silverstein continued. “It was a direct attack on our right to exist and to live openly in the District of Columbia. We respectfully ask the court to issue the maximum jail sentence so that our community can feel that we are protected, and that we need not live in fear that those who would do us harm will get off easy,” he said.
After asking Trebat to confirm that he fully understands and agrees to the terms of the plea offer, O’Keefe invited Trebat to give his own statement just prior to the sentencing.
Trebat, who was dressed in a suit and tie, offered his “deepest apologies” to Lai and Lai’s parents, who were not present in the courtroom. Trebat said he was intoxicated on alcohol and drugs at the time of the incident and had no recollection of what happened.
“I was legitimately out of my mind that night,” the told the judge. He said alcohol and prescription drugs caused him to engage in “stupid” acts. “I am sorry for the shame I brought to my parents, to American University, and to the victims,” he added.
He was referring to his status as a graduate student at American University at the time of his arrest. The university later expelled him from his enrollment there after American University students protested that he had initially been allowed to continue his studies following a hate crime arrest.
“This event was not personal. I ’m not a racist,” he said. “I take full accountability for what happened. I’m a changed person.”
Trebat’s attorney, Brandi Harden, asked O’Keefe to sentence Trebat to only a suspended jail term and a stringent term of probation rather than incarceration, saying that he suffers from and has long been treated for mental health issues, which would be worsened if he were to be sent to jail.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Platt, the lead prosecutor in the case, expressed opposition to Harden’s request, telling the judge that Trebat was already receiving a “significant benefit” from the plea offer.
“We don’t dispute that the defendant was intoxicated,” Platt said. But he added that the plea deal includes a provision for mental health and substance abuse treatment and that Trebat needs to be held responsible for his actions.
“This was part of hate crimes against Asians across the country,” Platt told O’Keefe before providing statistics of the violent hate crime attacks against Asian Americans nationwide. “This type of attack will not be tolerated,” he said.
Although Platt acknowledged that Trebat also hurled homophobic slurs at Lai and his parents during the attack, he did not explain why prosecutors chose not to include a hate crime designation pertaining to sexual orientation in the plea bargain offer.
“I believe he is remorseful,” O’Keefe said in handing down his sentence. “But there has to be some punishment,” he said. “You have been shamed, and that is part of the penalty,” O’Keefe added. “It was your own actions that brought this on … I think this sentence strikes a good balance.”
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for comment on why prosecutors decided to reduce the severity of the charges against Trebat through the plea agreement and did not include sexual orientation in the hate crime designation, U.S. Attorney spokesperson William Miller sent a brief statement to the Blade.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office thoroughly investigated and analyzed the facts and circumstances of this case and provided what we determined to be an appropriate plea offer,” the statement says. “We extend a plea offer in almost every case charged in Superior Court,” it says.
“The plea offer extended in this case included a bias enhancement,” the statement continues. “Our office is committed to fully prosecuting bias-related crimes and held this defendant accountable for his appalling conduct.”
The texts of the victim’s impact statement delivered in court by Lai and the community impact statement given by Silverstein can be viewed below:
U.S. v. Trebat
Victim Impact Statement
By: Sean Xiangwen Lai
Thank you for the opportunity to give my victim impact statement. I have gathered the courage to stand before you today at this hearing, to tell the court and my community about the defendant’s assault on me and my elderly parents, and the suffering we have endured as a result of his horrific actions. As painful as it is to relive the moment when this atrocious attack took place, I choose to be here today because I wanted you to hear my own voice and perspective, as well as the perspective from my parents.
The defendant attacked me and my elderly parents without provocation, motivated simply by his hatred toward our race and my sexual orientation. We were walking on the streets of our neighborhood, enjoying our time outdoors during this unprecedented time when being outside of our home was a small joy of which we could take advantage. We were defenseless, feeling what we thought was secure so close to our home, when he assaulted us, beating up my parents and me. I am here today to tell the court in person that a man who would do this to an innocent family deserves the maximum prison sentence and does not deserve the leniency he has already received from the plea bargain offered by the prosecutors, which my family and I have expressed is very disappointing.
Last August, my parents and I were taking a walk in our neighborhood, very near our home. It was a beautiful Saturday night, but little did we know that our lives would be changed forever that night. “Fuck you bitch! Faggot! You are not Americans! Get out of this country!” were the words the defendant yelled at us before he punched my dad in his head with a closed fist from behind causing him to fall to the ground. When my mom and I hurried over to help my dad, the defendant attacked us as well. As a result of the fall my dad took when the defendant attacked him, my dad suffered a fracture to the bone of his left wrist and both of his knees were injured; my right pinky finger was fractured; and my mom’s right shoulder muscle was torn. All of us had bruises and cuts on all over our bodies. He appeared to get scared as I started yelling loudly for help on our quiet neighborhood street. He stopped attacking us and attempted to leave. As he was trying to flee the scene, I yelled at him: “This is a hate crime. You are not getting away with this.” He stopped, turned around and smirked at me saying “Oh, I will!”
This frightening image of his maliciousness and remorselessness has played repeatedly in my worst nightmares ever since. And he remained unrepentant, even after he was arrested. With blood dripping from my mouth, I tried to explain what happened to the responding police officer at the scene. Handcuffed and detained, this man was still yelling at me saying “Shut the fuck up. Drama queen!” right in front of the police officer.
Not a day goes by that what my parents and I suffered does not interfere with our lives. I had to take several weeks away from work and lost countless nights of sleep. I spoke to a therapist for several months and I am still working through the trauma inflicted on me. Even now I can feel the pain in my right pinky finger, which serves an enduring reminder I cannot ignore. I continue to live in fear for being who I am: An openly gay Asian man.
But, what breaks my heart the most is what was done to my parents. I had to take them each to several orthopedics appointments over the following months. I secretly cried in my bed each night after seeing the pain that was inflicted on them and the psychological trauma that they experienced. For a long time, my mom was afraid to even walk on the street in the middle of the day, still afraid an attack could happen at any time. My dad still has pain in his wrist and both his knees.
I strongly believe that the attacker thought that he could easily get away with what he did, avoiding any severe punishment, based on his unrepentant words and behaviors following the attack and his arrest. And the plea deal proves that it was just a slap on the wrist for the hate crime he committed against me and my elderly parents. We have repeatedly expressed the frustration on the plea deal to the prosecutors. Three counts of simple assault with only one hate crime enhancement on national origin are simply unacceptable.
Therefore, I respectfully request that the court serve justice and issue the maximum jail sentence, which I believe is the right thing to do and will show the community that unprovoked violence against defenseless members of the community will not be tolerated, and that no one in the District of Columbia should live in fear of being targeted simply because of who they are.
U.S. v. Trebat
Community Impact Statement
By: Mike Silverstein, ANC Commissioner
I am offering this on behalf of 16 other openly LGBT+ elected D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, and on behalf of the DC Center for LGBT. Sean Lai has asked me to speak for our community, and the AAPI community. As someone who was Bar Mitzvah at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, this takes on a special urgency to me.
Thank you, Your Honor, for the opportunity to give this victim impact statement. And please forgive me for the next 13 words, for they were not mine….
“Fuck you bitch!”
“You are not Americans! Get out of this country!”
Those were the 13 words Patrick Trebat shouted at Sean Lai and his elderly mother and father just before Mr. Trebat physically attacked them without provocation.
As they were out for a walk, the Lai family was beaten for no reason other than their race and Sean’s sexual orientation.
As members of the LGBT+ community, we feel this was an attack on every one of us. It was a direct attack on our right to exist and to live openly in the District of Columbia.
We respectfully ask the court to issue the maximum jail sentence so that our community can feel that we are protected, and that we need not live in fear that those who would do us harm will get off easy. The maximum sentence will deter others from committing this brutal crime on our community and it will show the community that it is never open season on Asian Americans or LGBT+ people or anyone.
What happened to Sean and his parents reminds our community that violence against us — for being ourselves — can happen anywhere at any time: San Francisco City Hall, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Atlanta shooting targeting Asians, an arson fire at a queer nightclub in New York City a month ago and all those unprovoked attacks on streets and subways against Asian Americans in the past two years.
Violent hate crimes are a plague upon our nation. What’s next? The defendants’ assault on Sean and his family is part of this ongoing horror.
Despite the progress we have made as a community, the LGBT+ community is still at risk, especially minorities. Murders of trans people have reached epic proportions. And here, this unspeakable attack on an Asian American and his family began with homophobic slurs.
Sean Lai is openly and proudly gay. He is proud of his Asian heritage.
He was attacked because of who he is — and that is who we are: Members of a minority, supposedly protected by law against discrimination and violence.
This brutal attack has deeply impacted and harmed us in many ways:
What happened to Sean brought back bad memories to nearly all of us, and fear and nightmares to some of us. So many of us spent years hiding who we are for fear of rejection and out of fear for our safety. Those of us who were in the closet kept silent as members of our community were bullied or attacked.
Those who have been bullied or attacked will always remember what happened to us. It becomes a part of us. Some in our community — especially our trans siblings — often do not walk alone in parts of D.C. or at certain times of the day because they don’t feel safe unless they are with someone else. Each of us must deal with the emotional harm individually — and attacks like this one — out of the blue, on a pleasant summer evening — in the shadow of the National Cathedral — triggers us in so many ways.
We are sickened and angered by the incidents of physical violence against our community and we are tired of being overlooked or silenced. We are especially angered by the process of the criminal justice system.
To begin, this was an irrational, unprovoked attack on Sean and his family – and the community is extremely disappointed that the defendant was not detained pending the outcome of this case.
Sean and the LGBT+ community have waited months for closure in this criminal case, only to be here today to listen to a plea deal on misdemeanor charges. A victim of another hate crime in DC several years ago may have put it best, when she said, “when you bargain away the hate crime enhancement, you bargain away part of my soul.”
I also want to address the fact that, with respect to the crimes against Sean, the defendant was never charged with a hate crime enhancement with respect to sexual orientation; and, the crime that the defendant pled guilty to did not include any hate crime enhancement at all – just simple assault. Sean has repeatedly expressed to the prosecutors how important it is that the hate crime enhancements be included for both national origin and sexual orientation. Our community is disappointed that the defendant was not charged with a hate crime based on sexual orientation because a gay person was called “bitch” and “faggot,” physically assaulted, injured. If that’s not a hate crime based on sexual orientation, what is?
A sentence without significant jail time will leave members of the LGBT+ and Asian American community even more victimized, vulnerable and distrustful of the criminal justice system.
We are here today to implore the court to impose a sentence that will send a clear message that violence against people for who they are will not be tolerated.
We must stop Asian hate. We must stop violence against the LGBT+ community. We must stop violence against all people who are attacked because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or whatever. This epidemic of hatred and madness and violence is tearing our nation and our community apart. We must not live in fear, one of another.
We request a long jail sentence that shows that this court affirms the right of every person in the District of Columbia to live honestly, openly, and without fear.
We ask that the court provide justice for Sean and his family, the Asian-Pacific community, and the LGBT+ community. Thank you.
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Weather: Better get out there today because it’s going to be sunny and 67 degrees! And wasn’t yesterday beautiful, too? Could be some rain tomorrow, though… and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… Whoa, wait a minute. What’s up with that? The National Weather Service forecast.
Traffic: What traffic? It’s Saturday for goodness sake. Oh, wait, the Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed in both directions until 5 a.m. Monday so construction crews can shore up a section that is over a portion where the new tunnel will be built. It’s closed between the north end of the Battery Street Tunnel and the West Seattle Bridge. The map and cams.
[google-map-sc width=”250″ height=”250″]
Drunken moped riding? A 27-year-old man on a moped smashed up his face badly after he collided with a car at 25th Avenue and East Spring Street in Seattle about 1:30 a.m. today. The moped operator, who was taken to the hospital, was wearing a helmet and is expected to live. Police say he showed signs of drinking and was tested and processed for DUI. The driver of the car was not impaired.
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Wiring stolen, not once, but twice: Burglars got into a vacant house on South Sullivan Street in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood recently and made off with some of the wiring, according to Seattle police. The wires were replaced and the place was boarded up… OK, the entry used by the burglars was boarded up. Then yesterday, two cops were in the area on another call and saw two guys in the alley behind the house. Guess what? They were holding new electrical wiring. The house had been broken into, again, and it was determined that the wiring they had came from the house. The men were busted. Not the sharpest tools in the workshop…
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text:
A culinary masterpiece with charitable means – First Initiative Foundation (FIF) 2019 Gala
Stars in Harmony, the 2019 FIF Gala was held on 10th November 2019. Chef Sato was invited to join the culinary team, together with 4 well-known Michelin chefs, to create a diverse and sumptuous five-course meal for 450 guests.
The Mushroom Soup with lobster topped with celery foam created by Chef Sato was widely praised. This French-style soup is rich in mushroom flavour with an extremely chewy texture for the lobster meat. The addition of celery foam provides a refreshing after taste which makes the ingredients perfectly in lined with each other.
Let’s watch this video to have a deep understanding about the dinner preparation!

domain: food


text: The third session of classes begins Monday, March 10th, at Merge Dance Studio in Manayunk! Merge Dance Studio offers professional dance and fitness instruction for ages 2 to adult and for all skill levels. They offer both daytime and evening classes at low affordable rates. Contact them at info@mergedancestudio to get registered for their third session today! For more information and to view a complete class schedule please visit www.mergedancestudio.com.

domain: artistic


text:
List of American Music Awards Winners
Notable musicians celebrated their winning at the 33rd annual prestigious American Music Awards held Tuesday Nov.22 at the Shrine Auditorium. Mariah Carey was one among many who got nominated at the event. Unfortunately, the pop diva only brought home one award, Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist, from the total four nominations she got, including Favorite Female Pop/Rock which went to Gwen Stefani, Pop/Rock and Soul/R&B which went to Green Day's "American Idiot" and Destiny's Child "Destiny Fulfilled."
Apart, multiple honors went to country star Tim McGraw, who won Country Male Artist prize and Country Album for his "Live Like You Were Dying." Black Eyed Peas, Kelly Clarkson, 50 Cent, Eminem, and R&B singer R. Kelly also scored great, but none of them were attending the Awards.
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domain: celebrity


text:
(Toronto, ON) As the third ever On Point Summer Pro-Am gets underway, we are two games into what is a shortened season this year.
The defending champion Toben is off to a perfect start, winning both of their games while On Point and X-Men are 1-1 with major playoff implications in their final games.
Starting 5, although unlikely to secure a postseason berth being winless in two games, is putting up a fight and could potentially play spoiler.
Here is an in-depth at the teams in play thus far.
1) TOBEN (2-0)
July 17: Starting 5 (91-66 win)
July 21: X-Men (64-61 win)
Point Differential: +28
The reigning champion Toben has wasted no time thus far, winning both of their regular season games to start off their title defence over Team Starting 5 (91-66) and Team X-Men (64-61).
One major catalyst during their two wins has been forward Denny McDonald, averaging 19.5 ppg. and 6.0 rpg. Plus their defence is tops in terms of opponent points per game (63.5), including limiting X-Men to just 14 second half points last Sunday. Toben also leads the league with 32 assists through two games as well.
If there is one thing that Toben needs to improve upon, however, it would be how they start the game. In both games, they fell behind by double digits, including having to overcome a 17-point deficit against Team X-Men.
Game 1 On Point Performer(s) of the Night: James Siakam/Denny McDonald (18 points apiece)
Game 2 On Point Performer of the Night: Denny McDonald (21 points, nine rebounds)
2) X-MEN (1-1)
July 17: On Point (93-86 win)
July 21: Toben (61-64 loss)
Point Differential: +4
Despite hosting the tournament, head coach Ryan Xavier has yet to grasp that elusive Pro-Am title in the two years since the league was formed. With the lineup that he has right now, he is poised to at least make some serious noise.
Team X-Men had a difficult test ahead of them to start off the season as they were to play last year’s finalists in On Point and Toben. They led nearly wire-to-wire in their 93-86 win over On Point and held a double-digit lead against Toben before falling, 64-61.
Late game execution on the offensive end has been a thorn in the side of the X-Men, especially in that game against Toben, where a cold shooting second half came back to haunt them as there was no single person who was hot enough to create for himself and get a bucket down the stretch.
But their size on the interior has been crucial in limiting teams to just one shot as X-Men leads the league in rebounds per game (38.0)
Game 1 On Point Performer of the Night: Jayden Frederick (29 points, five rebounds; 11/21 FG)
Game 2 On Point Performer(s) of the Night: Yusuf Ali (13 points, six assists, four rebounds), Warsame Mohamed (13 points, six rebounds)
3) ON POINT (1-1)
July 17: X-Men (86-93 loss)
July 21: Starting 5 (80-72 win)
Point Differential: +1
After winning the inaugural title and finishing in second place the following year, Team On Point is in serious danger of not even getting a chance of playing for a championship.
Like Toben, slow starts have been a problem for On Point, being down for much of the game against X-Men and being down seven at the half against Starting 5.
However, offense has not been the issue whatsoever as they lead the league in scoring (86.5 ppg) and had all six of their players score in double figures against Starting 5 to keep their championship hopes alive.
Jamal Reynolds’ all-around game has been on full display in these two games, averaging 18.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg, and 4.5 apg. On Point also possesses guards who can heat up in a hurry in Darnell Landon and newly acquired Chris Parker.
Game 1 On Point Performer of the Night: Jamal Reynolds (25 points, five assists, three rebounds)
Game 2 On Point Performer of the Night: Chris Parker (19 points, eight rebounds, three assists)
4) STARTING 5 (0-2)
July 17: Toben (66-91 loss)
July 21: On Point (72-80 loss)
Point Differential: -33
It has been a tale of two halves… literally for the Starting 5. Except they have the opposite problem of what has plagued Toben and On Point.
Referring to their team name, Starting 5 came out of the gate strong in both games, holding a double-digit lead over Toben in the first half and a seven point halftime lead against On Point on the strength of hot perimeter shooting, led by guards Reggie Perez and Devin Johnson. As a result, Starting 5 leads the league in triples made with 19 through two games.
However, a game consists of two halves and the second half has not been kind to this relatively young squad. Starting 5 have been outscored by a combined 40 points in both second halves as they had a hard time generating consistency on both ends on the floor.
Robert Nortmann’s presence on the interior gives Starting 5 a solid threat on the low block and his veteran presence has helped this team through trying moments. Reggie Perez has been red hot from downtown, shooting 43.5 per cent from that distance.
Game 1 On Point Performer of the Night: Shakur Daniel (18 points, five rebounds, three assists)
Game 2 On Point Performer(s) of the Night: Robert Nortmann (19 points, six rebounds), Reggie Perez (19 points, six rebounds, 5/11 3FG)
All four teams have not officially clinched a playoff spot just yet as there are numerous scenarios that could go down after each team finishes their last game of the season on July 24. On Point plays a must-win game against Toben in order to stay alive while X-Men look to solidify their chances with a win over Starting 5, who will look to play spoiler.
Week 3 (July 24)
8:00pm: X-Men vs. Starting 5
9:20pm: Toben vs. On Point
Written by Kajan Thiruthanikasalam. Check out Kajan on Twitter
Photos by Jeremy Zheng

domain: sports


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I have a confession. On this cake, I didn't stick completely to Martha's recipe, in two ways. The first way was I wanted to give the cake a little taste boost and used an actual vanilla bean (it was hard to find: Whole Foods) instead of vanilla extract. It definetely paid off.
The second change was the website recipe called for the egg white frosting (holy smokes. Again! Really! That frosting is foul!) I made my own go-to chocolate frosting. And, it also paid off in a big way. My poor 6 year old (sarcasm). I said "A" do you want some cake? No. I replied, "I put my frosting on it." She quickly said, "OK then." It is sad when my sweet tooth kid will turn down cake because of the last few weeks experience with the Martha Frosting. Whoo! ANYWAY, the chocolate frosting and the vanilla tasting cake was OUT OF THE PARK. The cake was gone by Wednesday.
1 Cup (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, room temperature, plus more for pans


You would think a Jack Russell with an inside leg measuring seven inches might have difficulty completing a marathon.
But they’re a resilient breed and are usually up for any challenge. Never underestimate mans’ best friend.
Buddy managed two marathons during January.
Running every day for around twenty minutes equates to ten hours padding round the ochre lit streets of Kelvindale, which is good going for a dog pushing eighty years old, and with a heart murmur.
There’s no need to be too ambitious during the first few weeks of the New Year; the foot contact and lack of solid traction is treacherous on the packed ice, snow and slush.
Black ice presents an extra hazard partially countered with good running shoes and a shortened stride.
Buddy, pulling on the lead like a husky, adds to the precarious apprehension and I’m one misstep from a tumbling calamity.
The drop from the upper part of Kelvindale to Great Western road is through a series of four steep connecting narrow alleyways, but this doesn’t seem to concern the dog as he strains even harder.
It’s a relief to reach ground level with a passing nod to the garage that serves-up a decent freshly baked almond croissant. Sometimes we do a few circuits of Bingham’s pond for good measure.
The final half-mile of the evening jog is a steady climb, one last hurrah of effort to reap the benefits of living at the top of the hill, which also slopes towards Kelvindale train station, a short stretch testing the stamina of a regular assortment of enthusiastic runners.
Three pounds have been shed during the first month of the year and the seat-belt fastens easier.
At three days shorter February feels like a breeze, it’s also the year of the dog in the Chinese calendar.
Buddy, tail wagging, was quite taken when I told him that.


The first case of ash dieback disease has been confirmed in Wales.
Chalara dieback of ash has been found in a small, privately-owned, young broad-leaved woodland in Carmarthenshire, according to Forestry Commission Wales.
It said the trees, which were planted in 2009, are still quite small, and measures are being taken to minimise the risk of the disease spreading.
A containment notice will be issued for the site and Forestry Commission Wales will work with the woodland owner to deal with the infected trees.
The discovery follows a survey of Wales over the past four days to check the condition of the country’s ash trees in an effort to tackle the disease, caused by the fungus Chalara fraxinea.
Welsh Government representatives and Forestry Commission Wales attended a tree health summit in London on Wednesday, November 7, to develop an action plan for tackling the disease in the UK.
Environment Minister John Griffiths said: “This is a serious disease and we, along with our colleagues in the Forestry Commission, Defra, the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Forest Service, are taking steps to tackle this disease as a matter of the utmost urgency.
“Today’s tree health summit, along with the evidence we gather from our surveys, will enable us to develop our long-term strategy for dealing with this disease.”
The disease was recorded for the first time in Britain earlier this year at a car park in Leicestershire, followed by several sites in the south-east of England and Scotland.
Map: Ash dieback disease sites in the UK (Source: Forestry Commission)
The UK Government last week imposed a ban on imports and movements of ash plants and seeds into and within Great Britain.
John Browne, Forestry Commission Wales’s head of forest regulation and tree health, said: “Wind borne spores are the main mechanism for the disease to spread in the wider environment, typically during August and September. We now have a window to capture the best scientific advice to help shape our response.
“However, now that we have found the first case of the disease in Wales, we believe that more infected trees could be discovered here.”
Forestry Commission Wales advised those visiting the countryside not to move ash trees and leaves, and take steps to remove the mud from their boots.
Visit the Forestry Commission’s website at www.forestry.gov.uk/ashdieback for more information.


text: ZIP ZAP PAYS IT FORWARD ‘VIRTUALLY’ FOR MANDELA DAY Zip Zap Circus is paying tribute to the father of our nation, Nelson Mandela, for his birthday on 18th July. This being the ‘year unusual’ and considering continued lockdown restrictions, the iconic circus institution will pay it forward in a virtual way. They will be gifting a virtual screening of ‘The Caretaker’ circus performance to children in twenty-two paediatric hospitals and children’s homes across the province and abroad. Inspired by Madiba’s Dream In 1992, South African born Brent van Rensburg and his French wife, Laurence Estève arrived back in Cape Town from performing circus acts across the globe. The country was at the height of political instability and instead of packing their bags, they decided to start Zip Zap Circus to be part of the solution in South Africa. Their dream was to use the circus as a tool to bridge gaps and to inspire young people to help build a new culture of peaceful co-existence in South Africa, inspired by the late Nelson Mandela. Today, 28 years later, the full impact the circus arts have had on social transformation and youth upliftment is a manifestation of Madiba’s dream of a Rainbow Nation. This is evidenced by the thousands of children who have run through Zip Zap’s doors with aspirations to transcend their circumstances and realised their own dreams. Going virtual on Mandela Day While many of our nation’s children are stuck in bed in paediatric hospitals and care centres all over the country, Zip Zap is sending them ‘The Caretaker’ virtual screening to share the circus magic and lift their spirits on this significant day. The show was initially performed in 2009 and combines theatre, dance, and circus. Set in a quaint apartment block, inhabited by a kaleidoscope of people, ‘The Caretaker’ tells their stories and the events that transpire in the courtyard, including a fire in the building! Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment.


Supportive Services for Veteran Families
Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program
Grant Per Diem Bridge Housing Program
To procure and retain housing for homeless Veterans, MAP provides:
• Affordable housing help through payment of application fees,
security deposits and move-in costs
• Short-term rental subsidy
• Access to job training and placement services
Through temporary financial assistance and other supportive services, this program helps individual Veterans and Veterans with families find stability in their new housing and self-sufficiency as they work towards financial independence. Funded through the Veteran’s Administration, this program was dramatically strengthened in 2018 by support from KeyBank, providing $300,000 over 3 years to house those who have served our country. MAP is now able to serve 130 Veterans each year.
1 in 4 homeless men have served in our armed forces.
SUPPORTIVE SERVICES FOR VETERAN FAMILIES
SSVF offers Rapid Re-housing for low-income Veterans to prevent eviction and assist homeless Veterans with finding housing.
To qualify for SSVF:
You must be a Veteran who has served active duty
You must have a discharge other than dishonorable.
You must be currently homeless or at imminent risk of being homeless.
Your household income must be under the 50% median area household income.
Please follow Washtenaw County coordinated entry process:
Call Housing Access for Washtenaw County (HAWC) - 734-961-1999
Connect with a VA Outreach worker at the Ann Arbor VA
Connect with SSVF staff here at MAP
homeless veterans' reintegration program
The Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program (HVRP) helps Veterans suffering from barriers with navigating their entry back into the workforce.
This program is open to US military Veterans
(No dishonorable discharge) that are any of the following:
working with HUD/VASH or SSVF
in transitional housing or GPD
homeless or at risk of becoming homeless
GRANT PER DIEM Bridge HOUSING PROGRAM
Veterans Affairs GPD Bridge Housing Program provides temporary housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness. This 90 day temporary program offers supportive services to assist vulnerable Veterans move into permanent housing.


Friday, July 12, 2013
Parklets are typically the temporary use of parking spaces, bus stops, or other spaces for parks, green space, or other occupation within the public right-of-way. The public spaces are privately maintained, and meter fees will continue to apply.
The idea has best been represented by PARK(ing) Day, which has been held in Cincinnati since 2009.
The City picked up on the trend in a January 5, 2013 motion by six councilmembers, who advanced the idea following the February 5, 2013 meeting of City Council's Strategic Growth Committee.
Specifically, the motion asked City administration to develop criteria for a pilot program for temporary parklet installations that would be created and maintained by community groups. The groups would be charged with developing requirements for dimensions, construction, safety, and access; plans for maintenance and operation; guidelines for design; and identification of appropriate sites.
To qualify, an applicant must submit a preliminary application based upon technical feasibility and organizational capacity. If approved, the applicant must submit professionally certified design plans.
Any plan for a parklet must gain the approval of its neighborhood community council. Criteria include a low traffic speed street, typically with a 25 mile per hour speed limit, less than 5,000 vehicles per day, and where peak-hour parking is prohibited; a location that's not located in front of fire hydrants, driveways, or other encumbrances; on streets under a 5 percent grade; and on streets not scheduled for construction.
The City's Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE) will administer the program and supervise the permitting process, and it will be permitted under the City's Revocable Street Privilege process and DOTE's Right of Way use permit.
The parklet initiative follows similar initiatives in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Oakland.
Photo credit: Freewheel Parklet on Valencia Street in San Francisco. "SFParklet.jpg" by SaltyBoatr, Wikimedia Commons via CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
Posted by Kevin LeMaster at 4:00 PM


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Jason Katz, 47, has spent nearly his entire career at Pixar and was part of the team that made “Coco,” which just won the Oscar for best animated feature. The Pixar story producer, who lives in Oakland, also worked on “Ratatouille,” “Finding Nemo” and the “Toy Story” series.
J.: Mazel tov on the Oscar for “Coco.” Given Pixar’s track record, don’t you always expect to win by now?
Jason Katz: Never! I was raised in a superstitious house with Eastern European Jews so there was a lot of knocking wood and throwing salt over your shoulder. So saying that you hope to win out loud makes me uncomfortable. You just hope it happens, and it’s amazing when it does.
Though “Coco” is a beautiful celebration of Mexican culture, the themes seem very Jewish.
I agree. What was important to us from the very beginning was a strong desire to get it right, to educate ourselves and do the research. Of course we wanted to be as authentic as possible. We spoke about that all the time, the importance of community, the responsibility to keep traditions alive by handing them down to the next generation in a loving way, and to acknowledge our collective responsibility to doing so. All of that feels very familiar to aspects of growing up Jewish. My parents both grew up in kosher homes in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh and they would talk about what it was like growing up in community. My grandparents were very involved in our upbringing, so I really related to that multigenerational household, where everyone has a voice at the table.
I’ve read that you compared Miguel’s Abuelita to your own grandmother.
My grandma raised my younger brother and me while our parents were at work. She was this amazingly powerful woman, larger than life, and when I would think about Abuelita, she would remind me of her. My grandmother was a bit of a softie and it was easier to get away with things, but she did run our day-to-day, and a lot of my values and the way I look at the world came from her.
— Lee Unkrich (@leeunkrich) October 17, 2017
Having a strong matriarch who helps guide you as a child was something I really related to. In earlier versions of “Coco,” Abuelita was a lot more superstitious, which was something I got from my grandmother to a T. She’s the one who taught me to draw, and about film and movies, and she laid the tracks for who I am today. We’d read TV Guide together and circle the highest-rated films to watch that week. We loved anything with Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Gene Kelly.
With cultural appropriation a current topic of discussion, were you pleased about how well the film was received in Mexico?
I was so appreciative that Disney decided to release it in Mexico a month before it was released here. People reached out to us with such incredible gratitude via Twitter. It was one of the highlights of working on the film. We talked a lot about the importance of making a movie that was centered on something so specific to Mexico and Mexican heritage, but that others would connect to. The theme of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is this acknowledgement and understanding that those of us who are living must remember and celebrate those who have passed on. We make an altar to gather around them and make a physical display of remembrance to those we loved. That idea is central to the theme of the movie — connection and remembrance and reaching across the veil to those we can’t see anymore. In addition to our Mexican American co-creator, we had many advisers to make sure we got it right. They gave us a lot of very frank feedback on earlier versions and that made it so much better. This movie took six years to make, and we kept doing screenings and getting more and more feedback.
You’ve now been at Pixar for almost 25 years. Where does one go from there? Isn’t it kind of an animator’s dream job?
That’s the existential question. It was my dumb luck that I stumbled into Pixar in 1994; it was the year after I graduated from CalArts, and the year before “Toy Story” came out. The company was trying to figure out how to make an animated movie and had a really awesome chip on its shoulder and wanted to make a film that could “out-Disney” Disney. In college, I worked with someone who equated the world of animation to “Star Wars”; there was the empire and the rebel outpost, and at that time, Pixar felt like the rebel outpost while Disney was the empire. Everyone was young and hungry and feisty and it was an opportunity to really try and push the medium. I really won the lottery, and I’ve been really fortunate to work with amazing, generous people.
When you started working on “Coco,” you had no idea of the political climate we’d be in when it came out. Do you see the film in a different light now, given what our president has said about Mexicans?
There was no way we could anticipate where we are right now, and it’s so opposite of the way we develop our films. We’re searching for stories that mean something, and in this process, we’ve learned so much about the beauty of the Mexican people and their culture. The fact that we can have this film be part of building a bridge and having people understand a culture that maybe they’re not completely familiar with, but that they can see themselves in it, is the best path to having us all get along. I don’t think that’s a blue state or red state kind of thing. Anyone of any political belief understands the importance of family and tradition and love and respect. So if we can have a small role in helping the conversation turn toward the positive, that’s lovely.


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Singer-songwriter and record producer who worked with many popular singers and released four solo albums.
She started out as a backup singer for R&B musicians like Usher,
She had a cameo appearance on television in the show All About You and voiced commercials for P&G and Nissan.
She married Shawn Carter Peterson, a fellow actor-musician.
She appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, substituting for their house band's lead singer.


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Pioneer Recovery Center
Pioneer Recovery Center is based in Cloquet, Minnesota - (241 Highway 33 55720). The program can be reached at 218-879-6844.
Pioneer Recovery Center accepts Self-Payment or Cash Payment, Medicaid Public Insurance, Medicare for Alcohol and Drug Treatment, Private Insurance for Alcohol and Drug Treatment for the programs that it offers, like Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Relapse Risk Reduction, 12 Step Drug and Alcohol Support. It offers their services in various settings, such as Inpatient Treatment Services, Short Term Treatment, Long Term Substance Rehab.
The program offers all of its services for these care types: Alcohol and Drug Rehab, Substance Abuse Recovery Programs. Lastly, the program has a number of special programs for clients, like Drug and Alcohol Rehab for Persons with Co-Occurring Substance Use and Mental Disorders, Drug and Alcohol Rehab for LGBT Clients, Drug Rehab for Women, Continuing Care Plans, Drug Abuse Assessment, Mental Health Rehabilitation , Substance Abuse Testing.
We can help you find the right treatment facility that best fits your overall needs and financial requirements.

domain: medical


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Magnitude 6.5 quake hits off Philippines' Mindanao island -USGS
Sept 23 (Reuters) - A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck off the Philippine's Mindanao island on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake, which struck at 6:53 a.m. (22:53 GMT on Friday), was centered 71 miles (114.26 km) east of Davao on Mindanao. The quake was deep, 43 miles (69 km) below the seabed, and was not expected to cause a tsunami, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.
(Reporting by Sandra Maler; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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domain: geography


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The government would reap $45 billion in extra tax revenues if the number of high school dropouts in the U.S. were cut in half by 2018. That's an economic stimulus package that everyone should be able to get behind.
Almost fifty percent of students in the fifty largest American cities drop out of high school. In some cities, there is over a seventy percent drop out rate. One consequence is an increase in crime and the prison rate.

domain: news


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Who is Photobombshell?
Rose Mercado, a.k.a. Photobombshell, is an independent music reviewer, playlist curator, professional photographer, SEO specialist, social media professional, audio editor, and on-air personality from New Jersey. She lives, bleeds, and breathes music as a multigenerational musician herself. She shares her passion and knowledge with others without desire for the limelight.
Photobombshell has found a passion for catapulting talented independent artists forward through her work. She specializes in attraction marketing, using basic sales principles to promote music, developing a personal brand, and SEO optimization across platforms. If you haven’t yet, check out her free tips and tricks for independent and unsigned musicians across her various social platforms.
Photobombshell.media features independent music reviews, underground independent music news like release dates, artist interviews, and much more for independent hip-hop, rap, and R&B artists and all music lovers.