Sexual abuse investigations mishandled at Tacoma ICE lockup, UW report finds
A new report from the University of Washington Center for Human Rights raises questions about how sexual assault investigations are handled at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
Read in KUOW Public Radio: https://apple.news/A9lLz_AVEQOW_gXpPgULyAw
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Paxton opens investigations into 29 Texas ISDs over Ten Commandments law
Texas AG Ken Paxton is investigating 29 school districts to ensure they display the Ten Commandments and vote on prayer time. Here’s what to know.
Read in USA TODAY: https://apple.news/ABcQqvWWZS2yGBENWwmpHag
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A First-Of-Its-Kind Law Will Allow A Red State To Track Patients And Their Providers
LGBTQ+ advocates say the law threatens the privacy of doctors and trans patients seeking gender-affirming care.
Read in HuffPost: https://apple.news/AWjY4w2B5Q8GjqtQbHRosRA
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Anytime Donald Trump is accused of being a pedophile, his base runs to the rescue as if they were personally slapped in the face. Currently, there are over 80 comments on this cartoon on my Facebook page, with the bulk of them being MAGAts demanding “verifiable” evidence that Trump is a pedophile. Of course, the same people who are demanding “verifiable” evidence are posting memes with fake quotes about Joe Biden and his daughter.
But how is this for verifiable evidence? Donald Trump went on the Howard Stern show in 2005 and bragged about walking into dressing rooms for teenage contestants in his beauty pageants. He bragged about it as if he had just won Michigan.
Here’s a small portion of that conversation: (snip-MORE; go read it!)
“This person is already thinking bigger, writing, ‘If this succeeds the people can band together to buy even more companies that get intentionally bankrupt by private equity and we can start bringing back consumer friendly practices or seizing the means of production maybe.’”
“Get in losers, we’re going to buy an airline.”
“Get in losers, we’re going to buy an airline” is the short bio next to the smiling face of Hunter Peterson, an aviation enthusiast making waves as he tries to disrupt the air travel industry. On Saturday, May 2, at 3 a.m., Spirit Airlines abruptly shuttered, leaving thousands of employees out of work and thousands of travelers holding unusable tickets.
There was no notice or warning. One day, people were booking tickets, and the next, the budget airline went dark. The airline made air travel affordable to a subset of people who otherwise couldn’t afford it.
The FAA and other airlines scrambled to offer solutions for those booked with the budget airline. While Spirit is offering refunds, the loss of a budget airline giant will be felt. Peterson decided to go further by doing something unheard of in the airline industry–crowdsource to buy an airline.
The idea behind crowdsourcing funds is to make the airline people-owned. This means there would be no corporation backing the airline. No overpaid CEO, and no large shareholder who gets to decide the fate of the company. Peterson calls it Spirit 2.0, and much to his surprise, an astonishingly large number of people were interested.
What started as a zany idea quickly turned into an unexpected movement. Peterson set up a website where interested people could pledge money starting at $45–the average price of a Spirit ticket. The potential CEO wanted to keep the price point within reach. None of the money has left anyone’s accounts. Their pledge acts as a placeholder for future funds, but the clock is ticking.
It may sound like an elaborate joke or scheme to go viral, but Peterson is doing the work. Not only has he met with the Spirit Flight Attendants’ Union, but he’s also spoken with attorneys. In videos shared on Instagram, he explains the importance of doing the legal footwork before money leaves people’s accounts.
“I just got off two calls,” Peterson says. “One, with one of the largest law firms in the world that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, aviation distress assets, and debt, and they basically said, this is doable. We can do this. I also got off a call with someone that represents high-net-worth individuals who may be interested in basically giving us some money to just burn to figure out the legalities of this.”
Peterson explains that in less than a week, they’ll be auctioning the operation certificate for Spirit. This means that if this lofty goal is going to be reached, potential small-donor investors need to reach the astronomical $1.75 billion total. Yes, billion.
Before giving the brief update, Peterson’s site letsbuyspiritair.com had already raised over $24 million. The total continues to climb rapidly, with people pledging amounts anywhere from $45 to $850. Since the website popped up, the total pledged has reached $437 million, and it’s restoring hope in people trying to make this proposed people-owned airline a reality.
“ITS ACTUALLY HAPPENING WE CAN DO THIS,” one person screams.
“Is this feeling I have…. hope? It’s been so long since I’ve felt it lol,” another says.
This person is already thinking bigger, writing, “If this succeeds the people can band together to buy even more companies that get intentionally bankrupt by private equity and we can start bringing back consumer friendly practices or seizing the means of production maybe.”
Someone else shares, “This Spirit Airlines 2.0 project is giving me hope for America. I know there are more important fish to fry when it comes to issues in America. But if we are successful with this, imagine all the other issues we can address (e.g. healthcare, reparations, homelessness, etc.) using this framework. Like truly power to the people.”
The Times of London reports:
A week before the US went to war with Iran, Pete Hegseth, the war secretary, invited the head of his church to lead prayers at the Pentagon. From his pulpit in Idaho, Doug Wilson, a 72-year-old ultraconservative pastor, preaches that homosexuality is a sin, women who dress immodestly are “sluts”, and Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is the “silliest thing in the world”.
Despite Hegseth’s evangelising, Wilson says the Trump administration is far from morally pure. He says the president is “not someone I would call a godly Christian man”, and disagrees with Trump’s appointment of a gay man, Scott Bessent, as his Treasury secretary because homosexuality is not just a sin, it is “a bad one”.
Of all his gripes, however, Wilson is most indignant about the 1960s sexual revolution, a moral catastrophe that he condemns frequently in his blog posts, sermons and books. He thinks women should dress modestly. But what is modest dress? “Not what they’re doing now,” he says. “I could pick on yoga pants.” He continues: “Men know what they think of hookers, which is not very much. When you’re just giving it away to every slob on the bus who wants to look, you’re degrading the currency.”
Does that mean Wilson and his followers sympathise with the dress codes enforced by Shia clerics in Iran? “No, because wrapping them up in a bedsheet is another way of degrading them. It is possible to be modest and attractive — attractive without attracting. Bundling them up the way really conservative Muslims do is a different kind of degradation. Like you’re not a person. But for a woman to dress like a slut is a different kind of degradation. Both kinds of degradation play off of each other.”
Read the full article. It’s quite the deep dive.
Wilson appeared here last month when he called for criminalizing homosexuality and outlawing all LGBTQ events.
In March, Wilson declared that under his Christian nationalist theocracy, all non-Protestant public events – such a Catholic parades that venerate the Virgin Mary – would be banned.
Also in March, a separate pastor at Hegseth’s church prayed for God to kill Senate candidate James Talarico.
Axios reports:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued the New York Times for discriminating against a white, male employee who claims to have been denied a promotion based on his demographic attributes. It marks the third lawsuit President Trump or his administration has filed against the Times in less than five years.
The Times also filed its own lawsuit against the Defense Department last year over its restrictions on journalists. A federal judge ruled in the outlet’s favor in March. The EEOC said Tuesday that the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges the Times violated the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.
The federal agency, which sits under the executive branch, pointed to the lack of promotion for a “well-qualified white male employee” along with the Times’ diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and a 2021 “Call to Action” to increase non-white and female representation in its leadership. “Federal law is clear: making hiring or promotion decisions motivated in whole or in part by race or sex violates federal law. There is no diversity exception to this rule,” EEOC chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement.
New York Magazine reports:
People at the paper say the claim is absurd. “I’m sorry, there are plenty of white guys at the top of the New York Times. Not really something that’s holding you back,” said the reporter. To name one prominent example, Joe Kahn, the paper’s executive editor, is a white male, as are many members of the masthead.
Rhoades Ha, the Times spokesperson, said, “The allegation centers on a single personnel decision for one of over 100 deputy positions across the newsroom, yet the EEOC’s filing makes sweeping claims that ignore the facts to fit a predetermined narrative.”
The employee originally filed the complaint in July 2025 with the EEOC office in New York. One staffer noted it could now be impossible for the Times to take action against the complainant: “This person now has job security for good after this suit. What a mess.”
Purely by coincidence, yeah, last week the NYT reported on the “deeply demoralized” work culture at the EEOC.
EEOC chief Andrea Lucas last appeared here when a judge ruled that she can have the names of Jewish employees at the University of Pennsylvania.
She appeared here in January 2026 when she ended federal guidelines against anti-LGBTQ workplace harassment.
In December 2025, Lucas appeared here when she posted a video seeking plaintiffs in lawsuits for anti-white male workplace discrimination.
Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed surprise to see the Vatican publishing the testimonies of married gay men.Some of the hundreds of LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families who joined a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome, celebrating a new level of acceptance in the Catholic Church and crediting Pope Francis for the change, walk through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Sept. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)Aleja Hertzler-McCainMay 5, 2026The Vatican released a report on Tuesday (May 5) that included the testimony of two married gay Catholics and acknowledged the church’s role in “the solitude, anguish, and stigma that accompany persons with same-sex attractions and their families.” The report also reflects on the negative impacts of conversion therapy, or “the devastating effects of reparative therapies aimed at recovering heterosexuality.”
“ It’s a big deal because they included testimonies and published testimonies from two LGBTQ people, both of them married, which is also unusual for the Vatican to do,” said the Rev. James Martin, a founder of Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic ministry. “As far as I know, it’s the first time that in any official publication of the Vatican, they’ve included witnesses and testimonies and stories from LGBTQ Catholics in any kind of detailed way.”
The report comes from a group of theologians, including bishops, priests, a sister and a layperson, convened by the Vatican to study “controversial” issues raised by the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis’ signature listening initiative, to which Martin was a delegate. Though church reform advocates hoped — and traditionalists feared — that the synod would bring major changes to church teaching around gender and sexuality, the decision to relegate contentious issues, such as LGBTQ+ inclusion, to study groups instead of general discussion was widely seen as a damper.
As expected, the synod study group report does not announce major changes to church doctrine, but it does suggest that the Catholic Church address the impasse between “doctrinal firmness” and “pastoral welcome” by listening and using a transdisciplinary approach, such as incorporating insights from psychology, alongside the Bible and church doctrine.
“ It’s a really good — I would even say historic — document,” said Yunuen Trujillo, a lesbian lay minister from Los Angeles. “ It’s still calling for all Catholics to engage in a process of discernment that is respectful of people’s lived experiences.”
Trujillo, author of “LGBTQ Catholics: A Guide to Inclusive Ministry,” said it might take a while for LGBTQ+ Catholics in the pews to feel the impact and noted that the document only focuses on lesbians, gays and bisexual people. “But I do believe it would be a positive impact, not a negative one,” she said.
In this Oct. 4, 2023, file photo, Pope Francis, far right, participates in the opening session of the 16th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Marianne Duddy-Burke, a married lesbian Catholic and DignityUSA’s executive director, said, “ The most significant thing for me was the recognition that top-down trying to dictate behavior and morality on the basis of dogma isn’t working,” adding she was “hopeful” to see the report using the language of a “paradigm shift.”
The “paradigm shift” the report proposes is a move away from applying abstract theological principles to on-the-ground realities and instead seeing theory and practice as a “virtuous cycle.” For the two to effectively inform each other, the report argues, requires a focus on relationships, transparency and learning. The document offers this theological framework not just for LGBTQ+ issues but for broader use, including in nonviolent activism and protest.
This synod document was written by the study group, not the pope, but its release to the public would have required his authorization.
The report’s release garnered some blowback, a portion of which fell on Pope Leo XIV. Far-right Catholic news organization LifeSite published a story on the report, raising concerns that the report was questioning “the sinful nature of homosexuality” and leaving unresolved the “debate on same-sex ‘marriage.’” Co-founder John-Henry Westen released a video warning that the report’s pro-LGBTQ+ stance makes clear the meaning of “synodality” under Leo.
Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed surprise to see the Vatican publishing the testimonies of married gay men.
“ I was expecting a rather bland report. And this was not that,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which serves LGBTQ Catholics. “ In days gone by in the church, they would try to tick off the token box by getting someone who had certain traits and characteristics, but who was just not critical of the church in any way.”
Martin said this is the first time he remembers seeing conversion therapy “critiqued that strongly” in a Vatican document. “There have been certain bishops who have been very muted in their critique of conversion therapy, but then there have also been bishops who have used organizations whose techniques really verge on conversion therapy,” he said.
One gay Catholic wrote of “wounds from the Christian community” in his Vatican-released testimony. “I cannot ignore the scars I carry. I have witnessed the devastating effects of ‘conversion therapies’ and the break-up of families, which felt like an attack on God’s sensitive and blameless creation. These experiences deeply hurt, because they target the inherent dignity of a person who simply bears the love of another of the same gender.”
But the married Portuguese man also wrote of his deep faith in the Eucharist and his sharing “a life of faith, service, and love” with his husband. “I live my life in profound peace with God, who knows me from my mother’s womb.”“I feel the Church needs to move beyond mere ‘welcoming’ and ‘pity,’” he wrote in the testimony. “We need to proclaim the unspoken truth: God loves you and desires your wholeness. Sexuality is one part of our life, and difference is a hallmark of Creation.”
DeBernardo said the testimonies of LGBTQ+ people and their advocates have also been moving for the 17 bishops who have participated in three different meetings with New Ways Ministry in recent years. “We had a bishop at the end of the meeting in tears because he was so regretful of the way he had thought about LGBTQ people,” DeBernardo said.
“Dialogue really is the first step,” said DeBernardo. “ The genius of Pope Francis is that he realized that people had to start talking with one another, and learning about each other and not having the fear and the stereotypes.”
For Duddy-Burke, who represents a grassroots group led by LGBTQ+ Catholics that was banned 40 years ago from meeting in Catholic spaces — and who said she has struggled for years as a result to even have these conversations — the document inspires hope: “We didn’t have a place at the table and, and this document says that it’s time that we did,” she said.
At the same time, Duddy-Burke worries about whether those who hold the power will continue to dialogue and be willing to have their “minds and hearts changed.”
“And how will that be managed in parts of the world where it’s absolutely unsafe and it’s sometimes illegal, you know, for people to come forward as queer?” she asked.The synod report also addresses “active nonviolence,” highlighting the examples of Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Filipino “People Power” and Polish “Solidarity” anti-government movements, as well as the experience of a Catholic Serbian conscientious objector. Peace has been a major focus of Leo’s pontificate, and his recent anti-war statements have led to conflict with the Trump administration, which has used theological language to promote its war in the Middle East.
In the Vatican report, the theologians suggest that “just war theory,” which Catholic U.S. Vice President JD Vance has referenced to defend the war, is “inadequate” in the modern context. “Since war can no longer be confined to military targets but overflows into civilian life, taking on new forms (hybrid, asymmetrical, etc.), the recourse to frameworks used in the past for legitimate defence — and even more so for ‘just war’ — appears increasingly inadequate,” they write.
On Tuesday, the Vatican also released the report of another Synod study group dedicated to bishop selection and other bishop issues. That report proposed broad consultation — including the perspectives of lay people, in addition to clergy and religious — when it comes to potential bishop candidates as well as ideal future bishop qualities.
FL Man Arrested On Felony Hate Crime Charges For Brutally “Beating The Gay Out Of” Five-Year-Old Boy
West Palm Beach’s CBS affiliate reports:
A Florida man is facing life felony charges after allegedly brutally assaulting a defenseless 5-year-old boy in an act of hate-fueled child abuse. “This was a brutal and hateful attack on a defenseless child. There is absolutely no excuse for it. We will make sure justice is served and these children get the safety and support they deserve,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said that on Sunday, May 3, 33-year-old Andre Brown Jr. from Davenport was arrested for child abuse. According to officials, this charge has been categorized as a life felony because it is considered a hate crime.
During interviews with the children in Browns care, it was revealed that Brown had been physically abusive toward a 5-year-old boy, specifically targeting him because he was “mad at him for being gay.” Brown reportedly told deputies that he abused the child because of his sexual orientation, claiming he would “beat the gay out of him if possible.”
The Orlando Sentinel reports:
The boy told authorities he was afraid of Brown and did not want to talk much about what happened. He had the worst injuries of the three: marks and bruising on his legs, arms, back, and stomach; a fracture to his right wrist; and a contusion to his forehead. He had marks all over his body consistent with being hit by a belt, the sheriff’s office said.
When deputies attempted to remove Brown from the scene, he pulled away, became loud and began yelling slurs, the sheriff’s office said. He continued yelling and pulling away once placed in handcuffs, according to the release, and also was charged with resisting arrest.
Brown has a lengthy criminal history, including domestic battery strangulation, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, kidnapping with intent to commit a felony, home invasion robbery with a firearm and battery on a law enforcement officer, the release said.
He’s being held without bond.
When Spirit Airlines shut down on Saturday, it left thousands of customers and employees stranded. Customers finding themselves without a flight couldn’t even complain at the ticket counter, as there were no employees there. So basically, the quality of Spirit’s customer service didn’t change because of the bankruptcy.
Spirit, a budget airline whose business model forced other airlines to change the way they did business, had a reputation as the worst airline. If you ever purchased a flight on Spirit and told a friend, their reply was probably, “I’m so sorry.”
I did fly on Spirit once from Washington to Atlanta, which, fortunately, is a very short flight. But yeah, it was cheap. The seats don’t recline, and they feel very cheap, as though they might break underneath you.
Spirit had been in financial trouble since at least the pandemic, and there are several reasons why it went out of business so suddenly. Many blame a court that would not allow them to merge with JetBlue, but Spirit itself cites the “megaspike” in fuel prices caused by Donald Trump’s chosen war with Iran. There was also an attempt by the government to bail Spirit out, but since Donald Trump is not the best negotiator in the world, those talks collapsed. Maybe Trump should have brought in his negotiating dream team of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. (snip-MORE)
For months, anytime Donald Trump’s planned ballroom, which he destroyed the East Wing, was criticized, a MAGAt would come along and point out that it was only being paid for by donors and Donald Trump himself. Now that we know that is no longer true, where are those guys?
Of course, it’s not new that what Trump was telling us was a lie. We always knew it was a lie. Remember the lie that Mexico was going to pay for the border wall? Trump began his 2016 campaign on that lie, along with telling us that Mexico was sending us rapists and murderers.
When a promise by Donald Trump falls apart, and it is undisputed that it is a lie, we’re supposed to forget about it. We’re supposed to forget that Donald Trump promised that he would be “too busy” to play golf if he won the presidency. We are supposed to forget that he would eventually release his taxes. We are supposed to forget that he was going to give us a brand new healthcare plan in two weeks, way back in 2016. We are supposed to forget that Donald Trump was going to lower the price of gasoline. We are supposed to forget that promise about no new wars. We are supposed to forget that Donald Trump was going to make housing more affordable. We are supposed to forget that Donald Trump was going to drain the swamp. We are supposed to forget that Donald Trump was going to lower the price of groceries. We are supposed to forget that he was going to release the Epstein files. We are supposed to forget that he was going to end the Russia/Ukraine war in his first 24 hours back in office. And we are supposed to forget that Mexico was going to pay for his racist border wall. (snip-MORE)
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