gender – The News Desk

Column: The Newby Awards sends out an invitation to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

29Dec

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Entertainment

Column: The Newby Awards sends out an invitation to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

In a year when “Everything Everywhere All at Once” dominated the Oscars, Taylor Swift took that theme to a whole new level before 2023 was done.We're not even talking about the mammoth tour or the blockbuster movie or the overwrought fan base.This was The Year of Traylor.When Swift hooked up with Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, the world's two most unstoppable forces — Swifties and NFL aficionados — were suddenly joined as one.We'll likely never be the same again.With that in mind, the 11th annual Newby Awards would like to extend a far-fetched but sincere invitation to the ultimate power couple.If y'all can find the time to attend our ceremony, we'll guarantee a Couple of the Year statuette. Two of them, in fact, one for each of you.This is no small gesture, considering our combined ...

Disney says in lawsuit that DeSantis-appointed government is failing to release public records

26Dec

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Entertainment

Disney says in lawsuit that DeSantis-appointed government is failing to release public records

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Disney has filed a lawsuit claiming that the oversight government for Walt Disney World, which was taken over by appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year, has failed to release documents and properly preserve records in violation of Florida public records law.Disney said in the lawsuit filed Friday that the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, often referred to as CFTOD, has been so slow in fulfilling its public records duties that it has failed to respond completely to a request the company made seven months ago when it paid more than $2,400 to get emails and text messages belonging to the five district board members appointed by DeSantis.Disney, DeSantis and the DeSantis appointees already are battling for control of the government in two pending lawsuit...

3Dec

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Entertainment

Who Gets to Play in Women’s Leagues?

Boulder, Colorado, where I was born and raised, is sometimes called the fittest city in America. Septuagenarians go skiing before work, high-school delinquents hang out at the climbing gym, and people do not so much hike as trail run. Every year, the town hosts the BOLDERBoulder, one of the largest road races in the country and a sort of festival day in honor of the local god of exercise. I first ran the ten-kilometre course when I was six, not an unusual age of initiation for locals, and discovered that I was a bizarrely good runner. Three years in a row, I finished first out of some four hundred girls my age, and fifth or sixth out of a similar number of boys. At twelve, the last year I raced, I ran what was then the sixth-fastest time ever recorded by a twelve-year-old girl in the race...

Texas school reverses decision that banned transgender student from role in musical

14Nov

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Entertainment

Texas school reverses decision that banned transgender student from role in musical

SHERMAN, Texas -- A Texas school district has apologized and reversed a decision that ousted a transgender student from a part in the musical “Oklahoma!”The school board in Sherman voted unanimously Monday to reinstate the original show and cast after a meeting in which dozens criticized them and spoke in support the 17-year-old transgender boy who'd lost his role in the production because of a new policy.“We want to apologize to our students, parents and our community regarding the circumstances that they have had to go through to this date," President Brad Morgan said in a statement on behalf of the board following the vote.Sherman, a city of 45,000 about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Dallas and near the Oklahoma border, became the latest community embroiled in the national debate ...

`The Laramie Project’ stages a special reading in Wyoming on the 25th anniversary of Shepard murder

12Oct

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Entertainment

`The Laramie Project’ stages a special reading in Wyoming on the 25th anniversary of Shepard murder

NEW YORK -- It has been 25 years since the body of Matthew Shepard was discovered in Laramie, Wyoming. The gay college student had been tied to a fence post, tortured and left to die.The murder drew national attention to violence against gay people, and attracted the interest of theater director Moisés Kaufman, who turned the horror into art with “The Laramie Project.”This 25th anniversary has triggered deep sadness for Kaufman, founder and artistic director of the New York-based Tectonic Theater Project. He wonders about all the things Shepard could have become.“Every year around this time, it’s painful to remember, but this one has hit particularly hard,” Kaufman tells the AP. After Shepard's 1998 killing, Kaufman and members of Tectonic traveled to Laramie and wrote the play based on m...

2Oct

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Business

PAWs for a Cause? Maybe Not

A children’s cartoon debuts a ‘nonbinary’ character but avoids being inappropriate.

Disney, DeSantis legal fights ratchet up as company demands documents from Florida governor

30Sep

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Entertainment

Disney, DeSantis legal fights ratchet up as company demands documents from Florida governor

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The legal fights between Disney and Gov. Ron DeSantis ratcheted up this week.The Florida governor asked that the company's First Amendment lawsuit against him be tossed from federal court, and Disney demanded emails, texts and other communications from the governor's office in a separate state court lawsuit originally brought by DeSantis appointees of Walt Disney World's governing district.The legal filings marked an escalation in the battle between the entertainment giant and DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. The confrontation started last year when Disney publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, and DeSantis retaliated by taking over the governing district that provide...

Accusers in Japanese boy band producer’s sex scandal say they hope for apology, compensation

4Sep

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Entertainment

Accusers in Japanese boy band producer’s sex scandal say they hope for apology, compensation

TOKYO -- A group of men who say they were sexually abused by a Japanese boy band producer expressed hope Monday that the company will provide financial compensation and introduce measures to prevent a recurrence. They say producer Johnny Kitagawa sexually preyed on young dancers and singers for decades, having them stay at his luxury home, handing them cash and leveraging promises of potential fame. The company, Johnny & Associates, is a powerful force in Japan's entertainment industry.The men said at a news conference Monday that they have been ignored for decades by the company, Japanese society and mainstream media.Company Chief Executive Julie Keiko Fujishima released a brief statement on YouTube in May about the accusations but has not appeared before reporters. The company has s...

Workers in Disney World district criticize DeSantis appointees’ decision to eliminate free passes

23Aug

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Entertainment

Workers in Disney World district criticize DeSantis appointees’ decision to eliminate free passes

Employees of Walt Disney World’s governing district on Wednesday confronted new board members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis over a decision to eliminate their access to free passes and discounts to the theme park resort, saying it makes park visits unaffordable. During a monthly board meeting, several current and former district firefighters spoke emotionally about how the free passes to Disney parks were a benefit for them and their families that played a major role in their decision to work for the 56-year-old district, which provides municipal services like mosquito control, drainage, wastewater treatment, planning and firefighting to Disney World.“The removal of this benefit takes away, for some, their entire reason for working here,” said firefighter Pete Simon. The Central Florida ...

29Jul

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Entertainment

Why Barbie Must Be Punished

My childhood Barbies were always in trouble. I was constantly giving them diagnoses of rare diseases, performing risky surgeries to cure them, or else kidnapping them—jamming them into the deepest reaches of my closet, without plastic food or plastic water, so they could be saved again, returned to their plastic doll-cakes and their slightly-too-small wooden home. (My mother had drawn her lines in the sand; we had no Dreamhouse.) My abusive behavior was nothing special. Most girls I know liked to mess their Barbies up; and when it comes to child’s play, crisis is hardly unusual. It’s a way to make sense of the thrills and terrors of autonomy, the problem of other people’s desires, the brute force of parental disapproval. But there was something about Barbie that especially demanded crisis...