Taiwan's parliament has become the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage following a vote on Friday.

In 2017, the island's constitutional court ruled that same-sex couples had the right to legally marry.

Parliament was given a two-year deadline and was required to pass the changes by 24 May.

Lawmakers debated three different bills to legalise same-sex unions and the government's bill, the most progressive of the three, was passed.

Thousands of gay rights supporters gathered in the rain outside the parliament building in the capital, Taipei, to await the landmark ruling.

There were shouts of joy and some tearful embraces as the result was announced.

However, conservative opponents were angered by the vote.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48305708

Billionaire investor Robert F. Smith's commitment to pay off the student loan debt for graduates of the historically black Morehouse College covers millions of dollars, the school said.

"When you have to service debt, the choices about what you can go do in the world are constrained," Morehouse President David A. Thomas said Sunday. "(Smith's gift) gives them the liberty to follow their dreams, their passions." Thomas told CNN on Monday that the exact amount of student loan debt to be covered was still being calculated.

Smith's gesture, which Thomas called "a liberation gift," will enable graduates to have more capital to do things like start businesses and support their families.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/20/us/morehouse-robert-smith-student-loans/index.html

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3378076
In his campaign and first few years in office, Donald Trump consistently defied contemporary norms by using explicit, negative rhetoric targeting ethnic/racial minorities. Did this rhetoric lead white Americans to express more prejudiced views of African Americans or Hispanics, whether through the normalization of prejudice or other mechanisms? We assess that question using a 13-wave panel conducted with a population-based sample of Americans between 2008 and 2018. We find that via most measures, white Americans' expressed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after the 2016 campaign and election, and we can rule out even small increases in the expression of prejudice. These results suggest the limits of racially charged rhetoric's capacity to heighten prejudice among white Americans overall. They also indicate that prejudice can behave like an issue attitude: rather than being a fixed predisposition, prejudice can respond thermostatically to changing presidential rhetoric and policy positions.

Un live troll
https://twitter.com/HugoTravers/status/1131660185670430726?s=19

https://nypost.com/2019/05/21/man-wakes-from-boozy-night-out-to-find-his-penis-chopped-off/

When the medical staff asked Tan, "Wtf is wrong with you people?" He said that he and his buddies took that song, "Everybody Wang Chung, Tonight," a little too far.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/business/deutsche-bank-trump-kushner.html

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.

But executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government.

The nature of the transactions was not clear. At least some of them involved money flowing back and forth with overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious.

Real estate developers like Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner sometimes do large, all-cash deals, including with people outside the United States, any of which can prompt anti-money laundering reviews. The red flags raised by employees do not necessarily mean the transactions were improper. Banks sometimes opt not to file suspicious activity reports if they conclude their employees’ concerns are unwarranted.

But former Deutsche Bank employees said the decision not to report the Trump and Kushner transactions reflected the bank’s generally lax approach to money laundering laws. The employees — most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve their ability to work in the industry — said it was part of a pattern of the bank’s executives rejecting valid reports to protect relationships with lucrative clients.

>Trump is refusing to do the work he promised on issues like infrastructure and drug prices as long as Congress keeps investigating his crimes and corruption.


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump abruptly stalked out of a meeting with congressional leaders Wednesday with a flat declaration he would no longer work with Democrats unless they drop all investigations in the aftermath of the special counsel’s Trump-Russia report.

Democrats said the walkout seemed scripted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it all “very, very, very strange” and said she was praying for Trump and the nation.

After turning and leaving the three-minute non-meeting with the Democratic leaders, scheduled for a discussion of U.S. infrastructure problems, Trump strode to the Rose Garden where aides had gathered reporters and TV cameras for his demand that Congress drop its investigations that are increasingly leading to talk of what he called the “i-word” -- impeachment.

Trump assailed Pelosi in particular for her comment earlier in the morning on Capitol Hill that she believed the president was engaged in a “cover up” of the Russia probe.

Trump said, “I walked into the room and I told Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi I want to do infrastructure,” referring to the top Democratic senator, New York’s Chuck Schumer.

“But you know what we can’t do it under these circumstances,” Trump said. “So get these phony investigations over.”

The president didn’t shake anyone’s hands or take a seat, but spent three minutes contending he had been prepared to work on infrastructure, trade and other issue but now he couldn’t because Pelosi said “something terrible,” according to an administration official and another person familiar with what happened in the room. Trump then left before anyone else could speak.

https://www.apnews.com/abf4b46fcb07477d9871ad56df45b3ca

A group of champion female squash players slammed the Spanish tournament they won as sexist after being given vibrators as a prize.

The incident took place after the winner of the Asturias Squash Championship 2019, Elisabet Sado Garriga, received her prize along with runner-up Olaya Fernandez Lence.

Third-place winner Marina Arraiza Mier and fourth-place winner Cristina Barandica Fernandez also were given gifts. The prizes for the four included a “Pure Fantasy” vibrator from Durex, a waxing set and an electronic exfoliator for their feet.

The vibrator is sold as an “elegant personal stimulator designed to give you sensual pleasure.” The winners reportedly filed a complaint with the country’s squash federation for sexism and discrimination.

Local radio show “Ganamos Con Ellas” (“We Win With Women”) posted a photo of the prizes, describing them as “degrading, shocking, harmful, inconceivable but sadly real.”

It added that the organizers had “gone past every limit.”

Club Squash Oviedo, which organized the tournament, released a statement saying it regretted that the players “felt aggrieved by the prizes.” It apologized for the incident and added, “At no moment was it done from a sexist standpoint.”

The squash club at the center of the scandal also has decided not to organize any more events this year. The Royal Spanish Squash Federation passed on the complaint to the Asturian Institute of Women to launch an investigation.

Three people involved in organizing the tournament reportedly have handed in their resignations.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/22/female-squash-stars-furious-after-given-vibrators-as-tournament-prize/

She promised grassroots activism, but this is ridiculous.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken aim at cauliflower, claiming that growing the vegetable in community gardens in non-white neighborhoods is an act of colonialism.

“When someone says that it’s ‘too hard’ to do a greenspace that grows yuca instead of, I dunno, cauliflower or something, what you’re doing is you’re taking a colonial approach to environmentalism,” the 29-year-old freshman congresswoman said in an Instagram video for her proposed Green New Deal economic stimulus package.

“And that is why a lot of communities of color get resistant to certain environmentalist movements — because they come with a colonial lens on them.”

Yuca is another name for the subtropical cassava root native to South America.

The tuber is not native to New York — making planting it here also an act of colonization.

There are no rules against growing it in New York City, and it was not clear whom she was referring to who claimed it is “too hard” to do so.

It “requires a warm humid climate,” according to the US Department of Agriculture.

“Temperature is important, as all growth stops at about [50ºF]. Typically, the crop is grown in areas that are frost free the year round,” according to materials from the agency.

Ironically, AOC talked up the Swiss chard, spinach and collard greens she is growing in another video — even though none of those are native to North America, and collards are actually part of the same family as cauliflower, Brassica oleracea.

https://nypost.com/2019/05/22/ocasio-cortez-likens-growing-cauliflower-to-colonialism/

President Trump threw his latest left-hook on Thursday as he described a Wednesday meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (C-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to discuss infrastructure.

"She's a mess, look, lets face it," Trump said of Pelosi, who he accused of not understanding the pending US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement which must pass through the House.
"She does not understand it. And [administration trade officials] sort of feel she is disintegrating before their eyes," said Trump.

The President also questioned the mental state of 'crazy nancy,' saying "She's not the same person, she's lost it."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-23/trump-unloads-crazy-mess-nancy-pelosi-questions-mental-state