Brazil’s sole openly gay congressman leaves country after death threats
Jean Wyllys said he was currently outside of the country and had no plans to return after a growing number of threats in past year
Brazil’s first and only openly gay congressman has announced that he is leaving his job – and the country – after receiving death threats.
In a newspaper interview on Thursday, Jean Wyllys said he was currently outside of Brazil and had no plans to return after a growing number of threats over the past year.
Wyllys, who was re-elected in October and had been set to begin a third term in February, was a close friend of Marielle Franco, the gay Rio councilwoman who was shot and killed along with her driver in March.
His departure is likely to add to fears among Brazil’s LGBT community that homophobia is set to rise even further under the government of president Jair Bolsonaro, who has won notoriety for his overt homophobia.
In the interview, Wyllys said his decision to leave wasn’t because of Bolsonaro’s rise, but rather the climate of heated rhetoric and intensifying violence toward members of the LGBT community in the wake of last year’s heated election campaign.
Bolsonaro made no explicit comment on Wyllys’s announcement, but soon after posted a thumbs-up emoji on his twitter feed. Bolsonaro’s son Carlos – also a Rio city councilman – greeted the news with a tweet saying: “Go with God and be happy.”
Wyllys told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper that the decision had been a painful one, but he asked: “Why would I want to live four years of my life in an armoured car with bodyguards? Four years of my life when I can’t just go where I want to go?”
Wyllys first found national fame when he won Brazil’s version of Big Brother, and went on to become one of the country’s most high-profile advocates for gay rights – a role which led to frequent attacks from the religious right.
“It is a difficult battle to fight. Sometimes I feel like Don Quixote, you know?” he told the Guardian in 2012. “But this is my vocation. My calling. I feel that I need to be here.”
Wyllys said that the former Uruguayan president Pepe Mújica had advised him to take the death threats seriously. “He told me: ‘Take care, man. Martyrs are not heroes.’ And he’s right: I don’t want to sacrifice myself,” Wyllys said.
In Congress, Wyllys was frequently at odds with Bolsonaro, a congressman for 28 years with a long history of homophobic, racist and sexist comments.
In their most notorious public clash, Wyllys spit towards Bolsonaro on the floor of the lower House of Deputies after Bolsonaro dedicated his vote to impeach then-president Dilma Rousseff to a dictatorship-era torturer.
In a tweet on Thursday, Wyllys said: “Preserving a threatened life is also a strategy to fight for better days. We did a lot for the common good. And we will do much more when new times come.”
Despite Brazil’s image as an inclusive nation that is home to the world’s largest gay parade, homophobia is rampant, and often violent. In 2017, at least 445 LGBT Brazilians died as victims of homophobia – a 30% increase from 2016.
T.I. Calls Travis Scott’s Super Bowl Performance A Selfish Decision
Article via HotNewHipHop
“I think every man [has] an opportunity…”
As we all know, Travis Scott is set to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show alongside Big Boi and Maroon 5. His decision to perform was not taken lightly with people such as Nick Cannon saying he isn’t for Black culture, considering everything Colin Kaepernick has been through with the NFL.
The latest person to weigh in on the debate is T.I. who offers up his opinion on how Travis had a choice to be selfless but chose the other hand. “I think every man [has] an opportunity … he can make a decision for himself, or he could be selfless. And, nobody can tell someone when to be selfless,” T.I. told TMZ, as seen in the video below.
“That’s every man’s right to choose that moment for themselves. So, if this ain’t something that he wanted to be selfless about, hopefully in the future we’ll see other moments where he will. You dig?”
Quavo previously talked about Travis and the Super Bowl, telling Rolling Stone that he’s proud of Travis to be performing on such a big stage.
“It’s just too much going on. We talked about [it] and had a great conversation. I’m proud of Big Boi because he represents the city of Atlanta. It’s not as tough as the world want to make it. As long as we got understanding as grown men and what our understanding is for the future,” he said.
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Coca-Cola Pulls Out of Super Bowl
Article via Variety
Coca-Cola is pulling back from the Super Bowl after an 11-year run, opting to run a commercial just before kickoff of the CBS broadcast of the game on February 3, but not in the event itself.
CBS is seeking between $5.1 million and $5.3 million for commercial packages that air in the game itself. Ads that run pre-game can cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to a few million, depending on their proximity to the start of the annual pigskin contest.
Coca-Cola intends to run a 60-second commercial just before kickoff that burnishes themes of diversity and inclusion, says Stuart Kronauge, senior vice president of marketing for Coca-Cola North America and president of its sparking beverages business unit. “We have a long history of using the country’s biggest advertising stage to share a message of unity and positivity, especially at times when our nation feels divided,” he said in a statement. “This year, we decided to place our ad just before the national anthem as Americans come together in their living rooms to remind everyone that ‘together is beautiful.”
The new commercial, crafted by the independent ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, will feature original animated characters reminding viewers that the company’s flagship drink is for all consumers. It’s inspired by a 1975 quote from artist Andy Warhol, which will be used as the closing line in the commercial: “We all have different hearts and hands; heads holding various views. Don’t you see? Different is beautiful. And, together is beautiful, too.”
Coca-Cola has employed a similar strategy in the recent past. Last year, during NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LII, the beverage giant ran a spot featuring people from different races, nationalities and geographic regions. In one scene, a person in a wheelchair and a helmet takes part in a daredevil athletic competition. A poem read during the commercial played up the fact that anyone might enjoy a Coca-Cola: “We all have different looks and loves / likes and dislikes, too. / But there’s a Coke for we and us / and there’s a Coke for you.” In 2014, Coca-Cola got attention for running a Super Bowl commercial with children singing “America the Beautiful” in many languages. The spot included people from various walks of life. Some wore cowboy hats. Some wore hijabs. The commercial is believed to be the first Super Bowl ad to show same-sex parents.
Interestingly, the company ran the same ad in 2017 during Fox’s pre-game coverage before its broadcast of Super Bowl LI.
Many of America’s biggest marketers have in recent years widened their depictions of consumers, taking pains to include in their commercials people from all different walks of life. Ads from Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and General Mills in recent years have focused on marriages between people of different races; children from all sorts of different backgrounds; and people who must overcome a physical impediments like a missing limb. The commercials reflect the influence of younger consumers, who have already fostered massive shifts in attitudes about race and sexuality. Commercials, which typically function as a sort of lagging indicator, not a leading one, as advertisers try to follow their customers’ tastes – are simply trying to keep pace.
While Coca-Cola will still have a presence around the game, it will not pay the out-of-orbit prices required for Super Bowl entry, and in doing so, might take itself out of consideration when critics sift through this year’s Super Bowl ad roster.
In doing so, Coca-Cola brings to an end – for now – an era of dazzling Super Bowl commercials. Working hand in hand with Wieden, Coca-Cola has, to borrow one of its slogans, added life to the game. In 2008, the beverage company ran a dazzling spot showing Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon characters (Underdog and Stewie from “Family Guy”) chasing after a balloon version of a bottle of Coke — only to be outmaneuvered by Charlie Brown. Recognizing more Super Bowl viewers were using smartphones during the game, Coca-Cola in 2013 ran a feed on social media of its famous animated polar bears commenting on all the Super Bowl commercials.
More companies have recognized the power of the half-hour of program time leading up to the Super Bowl broadcast. Yum Brands’ Pizza Hut typically makes strong use of pre-game time, the better to convince consumers to order pizza before they get too involved with the football games itself. Ford Motor Co,. has run a Super Bowl pre-game ad featuring actor James Franco.
This isn’t the first time Coca-Cola has tamped down its Super Bowl ad spend. The soda giant took an eight-year break from the game after 1998. In a different era, a Coca-Cola ad featuring former Pittsburgh Steeler defensive tackle “Mean” Joe Greene throwing a jersey to a young football fan became a classic thanks in part to its appearance during Super Bowl XIV in 1980 (even though the commercial had aired previously on TV).
Coca-Cola will have to hope its pre-game message is interesting enough to resound throughout Super Bowl LIII. Its main competitor, PepsiCo, is a sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show and plans to run ads for a variety of soft drinks. One commercial for buble sparking water will feature crooner Michael Buble.
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Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee resigns as Congressional Black Caucus Foundation chairwoman in wake of ex-staffer’s lawsuit
Article via FoxNews
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, resigned as the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) Wednesday after a former staffer filed a lawsuit earlier this month claiming she was fired as retaliation for planned legal action related to an alleged 2015 rape by a supervisor.
“We are grateful for Rep. Jackson Lee’s unswerving commitment to the Foundation, and her efforts to help shape and elevate our programming for the last two years as chair, and a number of years as a board member,” CBCF interim President and CEO Elsie Scott said in a statement. “The congresswoman values the Foundation’s ideals and does not want to be a distraction during the legal proceedings of the suit filed against the CBCF.”
Jackson Lee’s office had no immediate comment on her resignation, but previously denied “that it retaliated against, or otherwise improperly treated” the staffer, who is identified in the lawsuit only as “Jane Doe.”
Earlier Wednesday, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Jackson Lee had decided to “voluntarily and temporarily step back” from her post as chairwoman of the panel’s crime subcommittee.
“This decision does not suggest any culpability by Rep. Jackson Lee,” Nadler said.
The move comes one day after the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence said it could not support making Jackson Lee the lead sponsor of legislation reauthorizing the federal Violence Against Women Act.
“We begin and end all of our work with supporting survivors and support Jane Doe and many others who have been unsupported in their attempts to speak out,” the group’s statement said.
According to The New York Times, which first reported on Jackson Lee’s plans to resign, CBCF board members told Jackson Lee to step down as chairwoman or face a removal vote after the lawsuit became public late last week.
In the suit, Jane Doe alleges she was raped while a CBCF intern by Damien Jones, the foundation’s internship program coordinator and her supervisor at the time. Two years later, Doe was hired to work for Jackson Lee, who had recently been made chairwoman of the CBCF’s board of directors. Shortly after she was hired, Doe said Jackson Lee received a text message from the CBCF’s chief executive at the time, A. Shaunise Washington.
“I just received a notification that you have a new staffer,” Washington allegedly messaged Jackson Lee, mentioning Doe’s name. “Call me, I have background on her.”
Doe says she was fired in March 2018, roughly two weeks after she told Jackson’s chief of staff, Glenn Rushing, that she had “recently learned more about her case involving Mr. Jones and CBCF, and planned to move forward with legal action” against the foundation.
The lawsuit says Rushing was initially supportive of Doe and agreed to arrange a meeting between Doe and Jackson Lee to discuss the matter but never did so.
When she was dismissed, Doe claims, Rushing told her she was being let go because of “budgetary issues” and added that as the most recent hire, she’d be the first to go. However, Doe claims, Jackson Lee had hired at least two new employees who made “at least the same salary” as her since her arrival in November 2017. She also claims two more employees were hired shortly after she was fired, while another staffer received a raise.
Native American activist Nathan Phillips says he forgives ‘MAGA’ teen
Article via NYPost
Native American activist Nathan Phillips, whose face-off with a Kentucky Catholic school student was caught in a controversial viral video, said in a new interview that he forgives the 16-year-old.
“Even though I’m angry, I still have that forgiveness in my heart for those students,” the 64-year-old Omaha Nation elder told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday.
“I forgive him,” Phillips said of Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student who stood toe to toe with Phillips while wearing a cap emblazoned with President Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
Phillips said he was disappointed at first by statements Sandmann released after videos of the incident went viral.
“Insincerity, lack of responsibility. Those are the words I came up with,” said Phillips, who took part in an Indigenous People’s March shortly before the fateful confrontation.
Phillips added that after praying about the episode he “woke up with this forgiving heart. I forgive him.”
Sandmann has said that he and his classmates, who were in DC to attend an anti-abortion rally, were confronted by several Hebrew Israelites who began hurling slurs at the group.
Phillips said he started to beat a hand drum in an effort to defuse the “explosive” situation when he was met by Sandmann, who had what critics have described as a smug smirk on his face.
The boy has said he was merely smiling and meant no disrespect.
Phillips said he was “trying to walk away” and heard the kids chanting, “Build that wall!”
“That mass of young men surrounded me and the folks that were with me,” Phillips said, adding that when he did finally find a path to walk through the “clear space, a person was there. I was blocked.”
Sandmann has said that a school chaperone gave the students permission to shout chants at the Hebrew Israelites, but Phillips said Thursday he thinks chaperones “should have said to those students, ‘This isn’t the place.’”
Still, “forgiveness even goes to those chaperones, those teachers,” he said.
Phillips said he believed the students were “mocking” Native Americans, and that Sandmann “was the leader of that.”
On Wednesday, Sandmann — whose family quickly hired a PR firm — went on “Today” and said his school doesn’t “tolerate racism, and none of my classmates are racist people.”
The school was closed Tuesday “due to threats of violence,” but reopened Wednesday amid heightened security.
Sandmann has said that some students have received death threats. Phillips said he also has also received threats.
“You know, I didn’t have any problems until the students started saying they were getting death threats, and then as soon as that happened, it started happening with me,” Phillips said.
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Phillips also clarified Thursday that he was a US Marines reservist during the Vietnam War, but didn’t actually serve in Vietnam.
Gas station clerk who shot patron he wrongly thought stole $1.10 worth of candy gets 9 years in prison
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former gas station clerk in St. Louis has been sentenced to more than nine years in prison for shooting a customer he wrongly suspected of stealing candy.
Taleb Jawher was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court, where he pleaded guilty in May to being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm. He is awaiting trial in state court on a first-degree murder charge.
Jawher was working at a Phillips 66 store on Sept. 26, 2017, when he accused 34-year-old Christopher Simmons, of trying to steal a $1.10 bag of candy.
Court documents say Jawher followed Simmons outside and was beating him on the head when his handgun discharged.
Immigration officials say Jawher, who is originally from Jordan, came to the U.S. legally but overstayed his visa.
Mom charged after infant drinks meth-laced breast milk
BANGOR, Maine — Police have charged a Maine mother after her 7-month-old child ingested methamphetamine through breast milk.
Authorities say 20-year-old Alyssa Murch, of Bangor, is facing charges of felony aggravated furnishing of a scheduled drug and endangering the welfare of a child.
Bangor Police Sgt. Wade Betters says officers responded to a hospital Dec. 16 after the baby was reported unconscious after ingesting the drug.
The child regained consciousness by the time police arrived and was being treated by medical staff. The child’s current condition has not been released.
Murch is due in court Feb. 20.
It is unclear if she has a lawyer, and The Associated Press was unable to find a working phone number for her.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/01/24/mom-charged-after-infant-drinks-meth-laced-breast-milk/
Mother says 10-year-old son who killed himself was bullied over colostomy bag
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky mother says her 10-year-old son was bullied relentlessly at school before he took his own life over the weekend, according to WAVE.
Tami Charles said her son, Seven Bridges, was tormented over the colostomy bag he used after undergoing numerous surgeries that failed to completely repair a medical defect. Bullies reportedly targeted him over the smell from the device.
“Twenty-six surgeries from the day my son was born. Twenty-six surgeries,” Tami Charles told WHAS. “He just wanted to be normal, that’s all.”
Charles said she came home from the grocery store Saturday morning to find Seven Bridges dead of an apparent suicide.
She said the fifth grader loved to dress up as a super hero, but she always worried that his smile hid a deep sadness.
Tami and Donnie Charles told WDRB that they are considering legal action against Jefferson County Public Schools, saying that their son was routinely bullied at school and on the bus – including one instance when another student allegedly called Seven Bridges a racial slur and choked him until he nearly lost consciousness.
Communications Director Renee Murphy said the school district will conduct a “full investigation” into past complaints and added that “our hearts are breaking for this family.”
Charles said Seven Bridges was already signed up to change schools the next year.
“We would talk to him about having new friends and a new start,” she told WAVE. “He just had to get to the end of the year.”
A GoFundMe page has been created to help pay for the boy’s funeral.