The Guardian spends the day getting to know the people Donald Trump tried to avoid during his visit to the UK. More than 100,000 people travelled to London from around the country to protest against the US president, according to the organisers of the two marches that converged on Trafalgar Square

Source: From drag queens to rappers: up close with the UK’s anti-Trump protesters – video | Politics | The Guardian

New Yorkers who do not identify as either male or female may soon have the option to change their birth certificate to a third category.

Under a proposal announced by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Mayor Bill de Blasio, adults will have the option to change their given gender to “X.” The proposal would also remove a rule requiring a letter from a medical or mental health professional to change the gender on a birth certificate.

“You don’t need a doctor to tell you who you are and you shouldn’t need a doctor to change your birth certificate to reflect your true self. This groundbreaking legislation will make New York birth certificates more inclusive for all and will send a powerful signal to the world that New York City government works for everyone,” Johnson said in a statement.

The proposal would only affect adults and does not change the options on birth certificates for newborns, a City Council spokeswoman said. Currently, there is a “undetermined or unknown” option for the gender at birth, according to the AP.

“Transgender New Yorkers, like everyone else, should have birth certificates that reflect their true gender identity,” Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said in a statement. “By allowing self-attestation and ‘X’, the Health Department and City Council are reaffirming our commitment to the self-determination of the transgender and gender non-conforming community.”

The city’s Board of Health will consider the proposal at a meeting on Tuesday. If the board agrees, there will be a hearing on the changes in July and a vote in September, city officials said.

In 2014, the City Council and city health department approved an amendment to remove a requirement for surgery to change the gender on a birth certificate.

California, Oregon and Washington all have a third option on their birth certificates, the AP reported.

Source: NYC birth certificate gender options would include ‘X’ under new proposal for adults | am New York

Luxury brand Louis Vuitton hired a shaman to prevent rain from marring the brand’s recent over-the-top show in the south of France.

Sources tell Page Six that while the guru had also been hired to tame the weather at previous shows around the world, skeptical execs at parent company LVMH had recently axed the jet-setting holy man from the budget.

But when a downpour unfashionably soaked an outdoor Dior show last week in Chantilly, France, the shaman was back on the payroll for Louis Vuitton’s fashion show at the Fondation Maeght, near Antibes, this week.

Top stylist Kate Young posted as part of a fashion diary for Vogue.com for the Louis Vuitton resort show: “Vuitton hired a shaman to stave off the rain and apparently all his work succeeded (kissing trees, or so I heard), because it didn’t rain until after the show finished!”

Harper’s Bazaar reported of the show, “The unidentified shaman also commanded the weather at LV’s Cruise shows in Rio and Kyoto.” But insiders further tell Page Six that after the aforementioned Rio de Janeiro show last year at the Niterói museum, LVMH brass cut the big kahuna loose.

“They used the shaman in Rio,” said a source, to ward off any potential bad weather, but then “the executives thought it was dumb” and gave the cosmic weatherman a pink slip.

Then last week, the Dior show was deluged when, according to WWD, “a heavy rainstorm broke moments before the start of the show, dousing the models as they made their way around the semi-open venue.”

Page Six sources say that’s when LVMH decided to bring back the shaman to the Louis Vuitton show — and the plan seemed to work, keeping rain away until the catwalk was cleared. Guests who stayed dry thanks to the mystical intervention included Emma Stone, Léa Seydoux, Ruth Negga and Sienna Miller. Reps did not immediately comment.

Source: Louis Vuitton fires, then hires shaman to prevent rain at fashion show

Less than a week before the California primary, Google listed “Nazism” as the ideology of the California Republican Party.

In the “knowledge panel” that provides easy access to information next to search results, Google was showing “Nazism” as an “ideology” of the party as of Thursday morning. The word “Nazism” was hyperlinked to a secondary page that shows “Nazism” alongside other “ideologies” of California Republicans like “Conservatism,” “Market liberalism,” “Fiscal conservatism,” and “Green conservatism.”

California voters have been casting their absentee ballots for weeks ahead of Tuesday’s statewide primary elections, which will help determine the majority in the House of Representative and the potential next governor of the world’s fifth-largest economy.

But voters looking for information by searching “California Republicans” or “California Republican Party” were getting “Nazism” next to their search results until Google took the listing down later Thursday after a query from VICE News.

Google’s information box on the California Republican Party.
The listing is provoking outrage among Republicans who already believe Silicon Valley tech giants are stacking the deck against them.

“It is disgraceful that the world’s largest search engine has labeled millions of California Republicans as Nazis,” said Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Majority Leader and potential successor to Speaker Paul Ryan. “This is just the latest incident in a disturbing trend to slander conservatives. These damaging actions must be held to account. The bias has to stop.”

The company’s “knowledge panel” at the top of its search results is often populated, at least in part, with information from Wikipedia. But the words “Nazi” or “Nazism” do not appear in the current Wikipedia page for the California Republican Party.Google listed “Nazism” as the ideology of the California Republican Party – VICE News

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ireland’s prime minister on Saturday hailed the culmination of “a quiet revolution” in what was once one of Europe’s most socially conservative countries after a landslide referendum vote to liberalize highly restrictive laws on abortion.

Voters in the once deeply Catholic nation backed the change by two-to-one, a far higher margin than any opinion poll in the run up to the vote had predicted, and allows the government to bring in legislation by the end of the year.

“It’s incredible. For all the years and years and years we’ve been trying to look after women and not been able to look after women, this means everything,” said Mary Higgins, obstetrician and Together For Yes campaigner.

For decades, the law forced over 3,000 women to travel to Britain each year for terminations and “Yes” campaigners argued that with others now ordering pills illegally online, abortion was already a reality in Ireland.

The campaign was defined by women publicly sharing their painful experiences of leaving the country for procedures, a key reason why all but one of Ireland’s 40 constituencies voted “Yes”.

In Northern Ireland, abortion rights groups clamor for change
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who campaigned to repeal the laws, had called the vote a once-in-a-generation chance and voters responded by turning out in droves. A turnout of 64 percent was one of the highest for a referendum.

“Today is an historic day for Ireland. A quiet revolution has taken place,” Varadkar, who became Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister last year, said in a speech after the vote.

“Everyone deserves a second chance. This is Ireland’s second chance to treat everyone equally and with compassion and respect. We have voted to look reality in the eye and we did not blink.”

The outcome is a new milestone on a path of change for a country which only legalized divorce by a razor thin majority in 1995 before becoming the first in the world to adopt gay marriage by popular vote three years ago.

The once-mighty Catholic Church took a back seat throughout the campaign.

ASTONISHING MARGIN

Anti-abortion activists conceded defeat early on Saturday as their opponents expressed astonishment at the scale of their victory. Lawmakers who campaigned for a “No” vote said they would not seek to block the government’s plans to allow abortions with no restriction up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

“What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions,” the Save The 8th group said. “However, a wrong does not become a right simply because a majority support it.”

Voters were asked to scrap the constitutional amendment, which gives an unborn child and its mother equal rights to life. The consequent prohibition on abortion was partly lifted in 2013 for cases where the mother’s life was in danger.

The country’s largest newspaper, the Irish Independent, described the result as “a massive moment in Ireland’s social history”.

Campaigners for change, wearing “Repeal” jumpers and “Yes” badges, gathered at count centers, many in tears and hugging each other. Others sang songs in the sunshine outside the main Dublin results center as they awaited the official result.

The large crowd cheered Varadkar as he took to the stage to thank them for “trusting women and respecting their choices”.

People celebrate the result of yesterday’s referendum on liberalizing abortion law, in Dublin, Ireland, May 26, 2018. REUTERS/Max Rossi
Reform in Ireland also raised the prospect that women in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal, may start traveling south of the border.

“The outcome of the referendum is an extremely worrying development for the protection of the unborn child in Northern Ireland,” said Jim Wells, a member of Northern Ireland’s socially conservative Democratic Unionist Party.

No social issue had divided Ireland’s 4.8 million people as sharply as abortion, which was pushed up the political agenda by the death in 2012 of a 31-year-old Indian immigrant from a septic miscarriage after she was refused a termination.

Campaigners left flowers and candles at a large mural of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, in central Dublin. Her parents in India were quoted by the Irish Times newspaper as thanking their “brothers and sisters” in Ireland and requesting the new law be called “Savita’s law”.

Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said he believed a middle ground of around 40 percent of voters had decided en masse to allow women and doctors rather than lawmakers and lawyers to decide whether a termination was justified.

“For him, it’s a different Ireland that we’re moving onto,” said Colm O’Riain, a 44-year-old teacher referring to his son Ruarai, born 14 weeks premature in November who was in his arms.

“It’s an Ireland that is more tolerant, more inclusive and where he can be whatever he wants without fear of recrimination.”F

Source: Ireland ends abortion ban as ‘quiet revolution’ transforms country | Reuters

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan has defended reported comments by Pope Francis to a gay Chilean man that “being gay doesn’t matter,” saying they represent “conservative” Catholic teaching.
In a reconstruction of his conversation with the pope, Juan Carlos Cruz, an alleged victim of clerical sex abuse, said that Francis told him, “Juan Carlos, you being gay doesn’t matter” during their meeting in April.

“God made you like this and loves you like this and it doesn’t matter to me. The pope loves you like this, you have to be happy with who you are,” he reportedly said.

Cruz is one of three victims of Father Fernando Karadima who were in Rome in late April for three days of meetings with Francis. His comments came in an interview published on Saturday with the Spanish daily El País.

Commenting on the news during his weekly radio show Tuesday, Cardinal Dolan said that it is hard to know with certainty exactly what was said, and that one would want “a little bit of ‘wait and see’ here, let’s see exactly what the Holy Father said.”

While noting he had no intention of questioning the young man’s sincerity, he did say it would be wise to “keep in mind we got it third-hand, so what the pope said to him, he said to the press, so one would want to get a clarification.”

It is of course possible that the pope used those very words but it is also possible that Mr. Cruz walked away with that message, but that the pope’s words were somewhat different, he suggested.

In his own reconstruction of the meeting, Cardinal Dolan said the conversation probably went something like this: “Well, God loves you and so do I.”

“What he says is beautiful,” Dolan said. “Jesus could have said that.”

“That’s sort of conservative, traditional, Catholic, orthodox teaching. The Catechism insists on that,” he added.

“Yes, yes, while any sexual expression outside of a man and woman in marriage is contrary to God’s purpose, so is not treating anyone, including a gay person, with anything less than dignity and respect,” he stated.

The cardinal tied the conversation back to the pope’s celebrated remark in 2013 “Who am I to judge?” in reference to gay individuals in the Church trying to live chaste lives.

“People thought this was revolutionary,” Dolan recalled. “What he would say today would be similar to what Jesus would say.”

“People don’t understand those teachings of the Church,” Dolan said.

The Catholic Church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”

Men and women “who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” however, “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided,” the Catholic Catechism states.

“Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection,” it concludes.

ope Francis has reportedly told a gay man that “God made you that way and loves you as you are,” apparently pushing the pontiff’s acceptance of homosexuality to a new level.Francis made the comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse who recently spent days with the pope at the Vatican to discuss his ordeal as the pontiff moves to tackle decades of coverups and ostracism of victims in the Chilean church, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.Cruz was quoted as having discussed his homosexuality with Francis. “He told me: ‘Juan Carlos, I don’t care about you being gay. God made you that way and loves you as you are and I don’t mind. The pope loves you as you are, you have to be happy with who you are.’ “A spokesman at the Vatican on Sunday declined to confirm or deny Francis’ comments, stating, “We don’t normally comment on the pope’s private conversations.”In 2013, Francis famously said, “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with goodwill, who am I to judge?” when asked for his views on homosexuality, signaling a sea change in Catholic views on sexual orientation.That year he also told an interviewer, “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality,” adding, “I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ “His reported remarks based on Cruz’s account go further, however, by suggesting he believes people are created gay by God — a position likely to anger Catholic conservatives.”This is a big deal, I cannot remember the pope making a comment about gay people being born that way,” said Father James Martin, an American Jesuit priest, whose 2017 book “Building a Bridge” urged greater ties between the church and the LGBTQ community.”Pope Francis has repeated what all reputable biologists and psychologists say — you don’t choose your sexual orientation. And that is a great comfort to many gay and lesbian Catholics who have been told by priests that they have chosen their orientation and are therefore guilty,” he said.The comments do not suggest a change to church teaching, Martin said.The Catholic Church’s catechism currently states the “psychological genesis” of homosexuality “remains largely unexplained.””Basing itself on sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’ ” it states, but adds that gay people “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” in the church.Martin stressed that the pope’s comments were reported, not announced. “We have to distinguish between something the pope said on the record and a conversation,” he said.Cruz endured sexual abuse as a youth in Chile by prelate Fernando Karadima, who was sentenced by the Vatican in 2011 to a lifetime of penance.The Vatican did not, however, believe his claim that the abuse was witnessed and covered up by Chilean Bishop Juan Barros. Francis appointed Barros bishop of the town of Osorno in 2015, hugged him publicly during his visit to Chile in January and dismissed accounts by Cruz and other victims as “slander.”But as public fury in Chile grew, Francis in February dispatched an abuse investigator to interview the victims, inviting them to Rome, admitting he had made “serious mistakes.”Summoning Chile’s bishops to Rome, he accused them of destroying evidence of abuse and putting pressure on church investigators to downplay accusations.On Friday, all 33 bishops in Chile offered to resign.In his interview with El Pais, Cruz said Francis had been told that Cruz was “deranged” by his detractors before the meeting at Casa Santa Marta, the residence used by the pope at the Vatican.”The pope treated us like kings in Santa Marta and the bishops as children,” Cruz was quoted as saying. “It is clear that he believed us.”Kington is a special correspondent.

Source: Pope’s reported comment to a gay man may indicate a new level of acceptance of homosexuality

POPE Francis has told a gay man that God loves him during a private meeting, it has been claimed.

In a private dialogue, the Pontiff is understood to have told Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, that God loves gay people and it is fine to be homosexual.

Juan Carlos Cruz is a key whistleblower in Chile’s most famous case of clerical sex abuseAP:ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Juan Carlos Cruz is a key whistleblower in Chile’s most famous case of clerical sex abuse
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The comments are the most striking public acceptance about homosexuality ever made by a head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The remarks were made during a private meeting at the Vatican between the pair, in which the Pope offered a heartfelt apology.

Cruz was a victim of Chile’s most notorious paedophile priest Fernando Karadima.

Father Karadima, now aged 87, was found guilty of sexual abuse by the Vatican in 2011.

Chilean sexual abuse victims Jose Andres Murillo (R), James Hamilton (C) and Juan Carlos Cruz (L) in RomeAFP OR LICENSORS
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Chilean sexual abuse victims Jose Andres Murillo (R), James Hamilton (C) and Juan Carlos Cruz (L) in Rome
Cruz claims that his suffering was ignored by a number of Latin American bishops who used his homosexuality to brand him a liar when he spoke out.

Speaking to Spanish newspaper El País, Cruz said: “He [the Pope] told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter.

“God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care.

“The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

The Pope’s words signal a much more open and inclusive approach by the often restrictive faith – a move which will likely upset many conservative Catholics.

The Vatican has neither confirmed nor denied the comments the Pontiff’s comments to Cruz.

This is not the first time Pope Francis’ comments have suggested a more open and tolerant attitude toward homosexualityREUTERS
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This is not the first time Pope Francis’ comments have suggested a more open and tolerant attitude toward homosexuality

Pope Francis hit in the face by object thrown through Popemobile window in Santiago, Chile
The Catholic Church teaches that gay sex – and all sex outside of heterosexual marriage – is a sin.

This is not the first time Pope Francis’ comments have suggested a more open and tolerant attitude toward homosexuality.

In July 2013, when responding to a reporter’s question about the existence of an alleged “gay lobby” within the Vatican, Pope Francis said: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”

The Pontiff’s most recent remarks come as several high profile members of the clergy have sought to publicly make amends with gay Catholics, many of whom say they feel shunned an d unwelcome in the church.

It is the most striking public acceptance about homosexuality ever made by a Pontiff
Juan Carlos Cruz was one of three former sex abuse victims from Chile who were summoned to Rome to receive an apology from the Pontiff for years of abuse endured by them as children.

The victims described clerical sexual abuse as “an epidemic that has destroyed thousands of lives.”

Initially, the Pope had been slow to realise the gravity of the crisis in Chile, at one point even coming to the defence of a controversial bishop linked to Father Karadima.

However, he swiftly changed his stance after Vatican investigators presented him with a 2,300-page dossier documenting the sexual abuse of minors that had been covered up in Chile for decades.

Last week, Chile’s 34 bishops offered to resign en masse over the abuse scandal, in an unprecedented move in the history of the Catholic Church.

Source: Pope Francis tells gay man ‘God made you like this and loves you like this’

He’s one twisted monster.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis war-whooped “Woo-hoo,” blared a WWII Japanese military anthem on his phone and shouted cruel taunts as he opened fire on his cowering classmates, according to new accounts a day after the Texas high school junior allegedly killed eight students and two teachers.

The admitted gunman even chillingly sang “Another one bites the dust!” as he fired away with his father’s Remington 870 shotgun and .38-caliber handgun.

“My friend Trent was in the classroom and said after [Pagourtzis] would shoot a student he would sing, ‘Another one bites the dust!’” Sante Fe High School sophomore Kole Dixon, 16, told The Post of a classmate, whose last name he asked not be printed.

“He also kept playing a kamikaze song over and over as loud as he could,” on his cellphone, Dixon said of the shooter.

Pagourtzis had the same kamikaze military anthem on his now-deleted YouTube page, Dixon said.

Pagourtzis had earlier bragged of wearing a “Rising Sun” insignia on his black trench coat, explaining it signified “Kamikaze Tactics,” according to a photo and text posted on his also-deleted Facebook page.

New details of the 17-year-old’s sick sense of humor went well beyond the previously reported “Born to Kill” T-shirt he wore, and his taunt of “Surprise!” as he blasted through the walls of an art class supply closet.

“They hear the gunman in the classroom next door yelling Woo Hoo! and firing more shots,” mom Deedra Van Ness said in a Facebook post Friday night, recounting details from her by her daughter Isabelle, who survived unscathed but was covered in blood.

“Surprise, motherf–ker!” the shooter hollered as he fired into the closet wall, instantly killing two of the half-dozen students who had barricaded themselves inside with Isabelle, Van Ness said her daughter told her.

“Are you dead?” he later asked from the other side of the closet.

“Do you think it’s for you?” he also joked, as cell phones left behind in the classroom rang unanswered.

County officials revealed that Pagourtzis exchanged “a lot of firepower” with authorities before surrendering. Despite this alleged show of firepower, Pagourtzis purposefully collapsed while giving himself up — so he wouldn’t be shot by his arresting officers. The shooter, “sort of fell to the ground and surrendered,” said Republican Texas Rep. Michael McCaul.

So-called “explosive devices” found in the school and in Pagourtzis’ car and home were duds — incapable of detonating, Texas officials said. The devices included carbon dioxide canisters tapped together, and a pressure cooker with an alarm clock and nails inside.Source: Texas school shooter taunted victims during rampage: witnesses