A television weather anchor has claimed she was fired because her natural curly hair did not conform to company policy. According to Tabitha Bartoe, WATE bosses pulled her away from training for a hair appointment and to shop for new clothes. After she was criticised for her appearance, Bartoe claims she was let go because her style was not in line with the station’s policy. In the last year, several female TV journalists have reported being let go after their natural appearances diverged from station beauty standards.
General Motors may struggle to deliver its target of 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025, according to an analysis by research and analytics firm AutoForecast Solutions, as a slow ramp-up of its three US battery plants could limit production to just 550,000 vehicles a year by 2025. The analysis cited the slow ramp and the capacity constraints of GM’s joint venture with LG Energy Solution as the main factors limiting production, while the report also said access to components and materials would become increasingly difficult.
San Francisco has become the first city in the US to appoint a "drag laureate" to represent its LGBTQ+ community. D'Arcy Drollinger, nightclub co-owner and drag performer, will become the first holder of the 18-month position, which carries a salary of $55,000. Her remit includes serving as a spokesperson, producing and participating in drag events and preserving the community's history. Last year, the Proud Boys sparked a hate crimes investigation when they protested against Drag Story Hour, which sees drag queens reading to children.
San Francisco has made history by creating the first “drag laureate” position. The role, which will span 18 months and carry a $55,000 stipend, will be held by D’Arcy Drollinger, a well-known drag performer and nightclub owner. She will serve as an ambassador for the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco, representing the city at a time when many rights are coming under threat across the US. Her duties will include participating in and producing drag events, serving as a spokesperson for San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community, and ensuring that the city’s drag history is “honoured and preserved”.
The position is inaugurated three weeks before Pride Month begins. Drollinger said that while there are still many “anti-drag folks out there,” she was honoured to take up the position and hoped to help “make San Francisco sparkle.” The American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking 474 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the US. Tennessee has the first anti-drag law, which essentially bans drag from public property or in the presence of minors; a federal judge temporarily blocked the measure hours before it was set to go into effect in late March.
West Hollywood and New York are also considering their own drag laureate positions. West Hollywood is expected to name its drag laureate in the coming weeks and will pay $15,000 annually for the two-year term that begins on 16 July, International Drag Day.
Republican-controlled states across the US have introduced more than 500 bills affecting LGBTQ+ people, of which 48 have passed, in the first five months of this year alone. The majority target transgender people, with the bills touching every aspect of the community’s public life. Many of the measures aim to prevent transgender girls from participating in female sports, require trans people to use the bathroom that matches their gender assigned at birth, or restrict trans people from changing their gender on their identity documents. LGBTQ+ rights activists are pushing back, with protests in Texas leading state lawmakers to send back a bill seeking to ban gender-affirming care. Meanwhile, many Republicans in the five states to have passed bills arguing that it is a mistake to let gender-affirming care occur. They distrust the medical consensus endorsing gender-affirming care, branding it dangerous and experimental.
The Governor of Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee, is modernising the state's community oversight boards by replacing the panels with review committees that have no power to investigate police misconduct allegations. The new law takes effect on 1 July, with the boards being transformed into police advisory and review committees that only allow mayor-appointed members to refer complaints to law enforcement internal affairs units, rather than independently investigating the complaints. The move has raised concerns over the lack of accountability and oversight, with Democratic lawmakers and local officials having earlier opposed the move.
A street will be named DeFord Bailey Avenue in Nashville in honor of the Grand Ole Opry pioneer behind country music and blues. Bailey overcame many barriers in his life, including a polio diagnosis and racism during the Jim Crow Era, which limited his access to hotels, restaurants, and bathrooms. In 2005 he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The new edition of a biography authored by David Morton is now available on the CMHOF’s museum website. Bailey's grandson hopes this will help keep his legacy alive.
Remains of Georgia woman killed 46 years ago identified, confirmed serial killer victim
The Toronto Star
23-05-18 16:32
The remains of Yvonne Pless, a Georgia woman who was killed in 1977, have been identified and confirmed as a victim of Samuel Little, known as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Little confessed to killing two Macon women in 2018, and Georgia investigators confirmed that his confessions matched the unsolved Macon cold case. Pless' remains were identified using forensic genetic genealogy and her family was located in Macon. Little died in December 2020, having confessed to killing 93 people between 1970 and 2005.
ARC Automotive is refusing to recall potentially exploding airbag inflators that are present in the vehicles of more than 33 million people in the US. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has demanded the recall of the units, which have been linked to two deaths and at least seven injuries, and has claimed that the inflators have been found to be defective following an eight-year investigation. Automakers, including Chevrolet, BMW, Ford and Porsche, have sought clarity from the NHTSA. No manufacturer has so far identified an issue affecting all 67 million inflators, necessitating a recall, according to ARC.
FedEx Express pilots have voted overwhelmingly to authorise a strike in support of their union's fight for a new contract that would feature pay increases. Some 99% of the Air Line Pilots Association's FedEx members agreed to support industrial action in the vote, while turnout was 97%. Despite this support, airline unions are not permitted to launch strikes until US mediators have brought negotiations to their conclusion, while Congress and the president can effectively block any walk-out. FedEx and the pilots union have been negotiating over a new agreement for two years but a deal is yet to be struck.
The son of Samuel Pettyjohn, a former ally of union boss Jimmy Hoffa who was gunned down in 1979 after testifying about corrupt officials selling prison pardons, is suing the FBI for failing to protect his father. Marrell Graham claims that the FBI's actions led to the deprivation of "income, services, protection, care, assistance ... counsel, and advice of his father". The "cash-for-clemency" scandal in Tennessee ultimately led to the removal of Governor Ray Blanton, although he was not indicted in the investigation. Three of his aides were indicted.
A juvenile has been charged with the second-degree murder of two high school students that officials believe overdosed in the parking lot of their high school in Tennessee. A third student was hospitalised but has now been released. The judge has released the teenage girl charged in the deaths on house arrest to the custody of her grandmother while a hearing has been set for 7 June to decide whether to send the case to adult court.
Kenneth Followill, a judge who served in the case of the Stocking Strangler, has died at the age of 87. Carlton Gary was arrested for the 1977 deaths of three women in Columbus, Georgia, and subsequently convicted of nine crimes, including murder, rape and burglary. Seven of the nine targets, mostly elderly women, died in the attacks. Police did not catch the strangler until 1984. Followill took partial retirement in 2008 and became a part-time senior judge the following year.
Two US senators have called for an investigation into Bud Light’s use of marketing featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a trans social media figure. Republicans Marsha Blackburn and Ted Cruz stated, in a letter to Anheuser Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, that the beer company failed to engage in appropriate due diligence when working with Mulvaney and demanded that Mulvaney be forced to delete all related social media content. The case follows a general rise in anti-trans rhetoric in the US, with state-level anti-LGBT+ legislation and personal attacks on the validity of transgender individuals’ existence.
New measures that severely curtail access to abortions in North and South Carolina are expected to force more women to seek terminations in Virginia, placing more pressure on the state's already strained abortion providers. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled legislatures in Florida and South Carolina are seeking to ban almost all abortions after six weeks. Whole Woman's Health, which operates two clinics in the area and a telehealth facility that provides abortion pills by mail, was seeing more women cross state lines prior to last June's Supreme Court decision.
Robert Moran writes for the Sydney Morning Herald about the sad reality of losing a friendship of 25 years because of a trivial argument through social media. The ending of this long-standing friendship was particularly devastating because these two people used to communicate through the dial-up ether of Internet Relay Chat in the 90s, before meeting up in person. They had reunited in the US in 2001, around the same time as 9/11. The author’s Facebook friend, Stu, was someone that he had admired and respected as a musician and therefore to lose him entirely from his life is painful. Moran believes that the terrible finality of ending a friendship should never be done from a position of pique, because neither party gets the chance to explain their feelings. A little pause could have done instead of a full stop to the relationship. In a world where most of us are content to let old friendships simply shrivel and wither on the vine, it is important to cherish and value the people that are in our lives, because we don’t know if one day they will vanish completely from it.
The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that the number of abortions in the US fell in 2020, after two consecutive years of increases. This decline represented the lowest rate on record since the Roe v. Wade decision. However, the abortion ratio showed a slight increase, indicating that the likelihood of women opting for abortion remained unchanged. Additionally, from 2014-2020, the abortion ratio nationally increased by 3%. The study indicates a moderate negative correlation between the number of abortion restrictions and the abortion ratio. Therefore, more abortion restrictions are associated with lower abortion ratios.
Various reasons have been suggested for why the number of abortions rose in 2018 and 2019, including a growing cultural acceptance of abortion, and privately run funds established to pay for women’s abortions. The FDA also loosened safety protocols for the abortion pill mifepristone, which likely led to an increase in overall chemical abortions. It is also unclear why the number of abortions declined in 2020 but may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study shows that while fewer abortions occurred in 2020 compared to 2019, the likelihood of women opting for abortion remained unchanged. However, as the number of pregnancies decreased in 2020, so too did the number of abortions. The percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion also remained virtually unchanged from the estimated percentage of pregnancies that ended in abortion in 2019. The study concludes that the decline in abortions indicates the resumption of the long-term trend of declining abortions in the US, but it remains to be seen if this trend will continue in the future.
Republicans in North Carolina have passed a 12-week abortion ban despite the governor's veto. The law also extends the waiting period for abortions to 72 hours on top of the newly placed strict rules on clinics, severely restricting access to abortions and other reproductive health services to only those with the resources to leave the state. Republicans across the US are implementing and passing laws that restrict or ban access to bodily autonomy, including abortion and gender-affirming healthcare for transgender individuals. The net result of these laws is the marginalisation of access to healthcare for those who are already economically and socially disenfranchised. The broader aim of these anti-abortion and anti-gender affirmation laws is to restore and bolster traditional hierarchies of gender and sexuality. In this sense, the actions of Republican-led states provide the best insight into the Republican Party's priorities and the society it is trying to construct, which is one of domination and domination building on the freedom to censor and menace.
Following the recent banning of several books in schools across the US, PEN America and other groups have filed a lawsuit against the Escambia County School Board and School District in Florida. The groups allege that the “book restrictions” imposed on school libraries in Escambia County are unconstitutional, as they infringe on the rights of students to receive information, and target specific viewpoints. Parties to the lawsuit include two parents from Escambia County, PEN America, Penguin Random House, and a group of young adult and children’s authors. The legal action seeks to gain a declaration that the school district’s book restrictions have no legal basis, given their infringement of students’ rights. The lawsuit will be closely watched across the US amid a spate of book banning cases in libraries and schools, with fears increasing over the censoring of texts on critical race theory and gender identity. The lawsuit claims the Escambia book restrictions constitute “an emblematic and egregious example of the pattern that we’ve been documenting across the country as far as an escalation in book removals and targeting of specific narratives involving people of color and LGBTQ authors and stories”.
St Louis Governor, Mike Parson, will announce his pick to replace former chief prosecutor, Kim Gardner, who left earlier this week. The new circuit attorney will take on the remainder of Gardner’s term finishing in 2024. Black church members have urged Parson to appoint a Black person to the role, with the previous appointment being St Louis’ first Black circuit attorney in 2016. Gardner has faced scrutiny and controversy since her appointment and faced a more recent potential ousting by Republican Missouri Attorney General, Andrew Bailey.
