The war in the Gaza Strip is dividing the LGBTQ+ community
Within New York’s LGBTQ+ community, whose members hail from every ethnic and social background and tend to be highly attuned to issues of social justice, the war in the Gaza Strip has touched off some especially raw conflicts. Divisions have been on full display during Pride Month, a time typically focused on celebration and solidarity. The fight over how the community should respond to the war in Gaza has played out in fiery online comments and false accusations of pro-Hamas activity. Similar disputes have shaken gay bars, LGBTQ+ fundraising dinners and Pride festivities.
Emergencies
declared across
the Northeast as heat index hits
triple digits
A rare June heat wave drove New Englanders to drag fans and air conditioning units out of closets and attics Tuesday and prompted concern for vulnerable residents, as the East Coast braced for a stretch of hot weather expected to drag on through the weekend. Officials declared heat emergencies and opened cooling centers as temperatures reached the high 90s across much of the Northeast and the heat index soared over 100 degrees in parts of Maine. The atypical heat, which is also roasting the Midwest, may foretell a brutal summer.
The Insiders: The 3
men at the core of
Biden’s brain trust
Interviews with people close to President Joe Biden reveal a truth at the heart of his political life: Surrounded by a diverse crowd of campaign operatives, policy experts and Cabinet secretaries, he reserves his full trust for a small circle of old-school insiders: Mike Donilon, a close adviser since the 1980s; Ron Klain, his former White House chief of staff; and Ted Kaufman, Biden’s former Senate chief of staff. They are part of an echo chamber where dissent is rare. In important moments, each has told Biden news he did not want to hear, although none said no when the president was considering whether to run for a second term.
Tree of Life Synagogue to
break ground on
new sanctuary
When 11 worshippers were killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018, the gunman was blunt in his bigotry, declaring on social media that he was acting out of a conviction that Jewish people were conspiring to replace the white race. On Sunday, members of the Tree of Life congregation will gather to break ground for a memorial and a new Tree of Life building that will house a sanctuary for the congregation, an education center dedicated to combating bigotry and a museum chronicling the long history of antisemitism in America.
Family of taekwondo instructors stop
a sexual assault
Simon An just arrived with his parents, his older sister and his younger brother at his family’s taekwondo school in Katy, Texas, on Tuesday afternoon when they heard a scream so loud, it reminded him of a horror movie. That was when the An family, all of whom are taekwondo instructors, sprang into action and stopped a sexual assault at the business next door, delivering the attacker to police. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez confirmed the account in a post on Facebook and thanked the An family, calling them “a group of good Samaritans.” Alex Robinson, 19, faces a felony charge of attempted sexual assault in connection with the attack.
As Ukraine expands military draft, some men go into hiding
As Russian forces are on the attack, the Ukrainian military has been desperately trying to replenish its war-battered forces. While many Ukrainian men have answered the call to serve, others have tried to evade conscription. Even before the latest mobilization push, thousands had fled the country, some swimming across a river separating Ukraine from Romania. Now, as officers scour the country’s cities to draft men of military age, many people have gone into hiding. It is not clear how many, but in big cities like Kyiv and Lviv, social media groups alerting members to the movements of draft officers include tens of thousands of members.
Toxic moonshine
leaves at least
53 dead in
India’s south
The death toll from tainted liquor in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has reached 53 and is likely to rise, with many others in critical condition. The victims were sickened by drinking a bootleg alcohol with a high content of methanol. Rajat Chaturvedi, the police superintendent in the Kallakurichi District, said 98 people had been hospitalized. The first death, from drinking local alcohol sold in small pouches for about 50 cents, was reported Wednesday. The village of Karunapuram was the worst hit, with more than a dozen victims receiving last rites in a mass cremation Thursday.
After Hajj deaths, Egypt suspends companies that took pilgrims
to Mecca
After hundreds of pilgrims died in the scorching desert heat during the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the Egyptian government is taking action against tour companies that facilitated the travel to Saudi Arabia and said it had suspended the licenses of 16. At least 450 people died during the pilgrimage, in which travelers endured maximum temperatures that ranged from 108 degrees to 120 degrees. But the actual number of fatalities is expected to climb far higher as governments get more accurate tallies. The Egyptian government said the businesses failed to offer the pilgrims important services like medical care and did not provide “appropriate accommodation.”
USDA avocado inspectors will
start returning
to Mexican
packing plants
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, announced that inspections of avocados and mangos made by U.S. Agriculture Department workers in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico, would “gradually” resume. It was not immediately clear when that would happen, as Salazar seemed to suggest that the security concerns that had prompted the suspension last weekend had not been fully addressed. On Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico said that two employees of the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service had been assaulted and detained while traveling in Michoacán, where they were surveying avocado orchards and packing plants.
Drag goes mainstream in
the Philippines, a bastion of Christianity
In many places in the Philippines, drag is becoming more mainstream, and more popular. It is no longer confined to comedy bars, gay pageants and LGBTQ spaces. New clubs devoted to drag are opening. Drag queens are on fashion magazine covers and are pitching name-brand products. Students of at least one public university recently held a drag competition. The new visibility of the art form has come largely because of changing mores around religion and gender in one of the biggest majority-Christian nations in the world. For many performers, drag is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also a political statement promoting social justice and gay rights.
By wire sources
