http://time.com/5447591/jared-polis-openly-gay-governor/

Colorado Congressman Jared Polis made history Tuesday night by becoming the first openly gay man to be elected governor of a U.S. state.

A five-term member of Congress, Polis, a Democrat, beat his Republican rival Walter Stapleton by six points.

Polis’ historic milestone came amid a night of other groundbreaking electoral moments. Polis joins Oregon Gov. Kate Brown as the second LGBTQ person to be voted a state governor. Brown, who identifies as bisexual, took office in 2015.

Polis took 51.6% of the vote, with 84% of precincts reporting, after a campaign during which he championed progressive causes such as universal healthcare, renewable energy expansion and gun violence prevention.

The win is particularly significant in light of Colorado’s reputation as a “Hate State” — a moniker activists gave it after voters there passed a constitutional amendment in 1992 to prevent the creation of protections for the LGBTQ community.

Polis has been open about his sexuality throughout his political career and before he was first elected to Congress in 2009. On the campaign trail, he emphasized his campaign’s distinction from the less “inclusive” tone of the Republican leadership.

“I think it really gives Colorado an opportunity to stick a thumb in the eye of Mike Pence,” he told state democrats in a June speech , “whose view of America is not as inclusive as where America is today.”
Mary Parker, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, a nationwide organization that supports LGBTQ candidates, told the Denver Post of Polis’ victory: “The fact that the state of Colorado, in 25 years, has gone from being dubbed the ‘Hate State’ to a place that can elect someone who is not just openly gay, but publicly gay, that’s historic.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-dakotas-racist-voter-id-law-is-already-backfiring

North Dakota’s Native American communities suffered a setback on Thursday, as a court ruled that the state’s voter suppression law can remain in effect for this year’s election. But outrage over the law has led to a huge backlash and grassroots efforts to help people vote despite the law.

In 2012, now-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp won a surprise, razor-thin victory to become North Dakota’s only statewide elected Democrat. She won by fewer than 3,000 votes. There are roughly 30,000 Native Americans in North Dakota, roughly 5 percent of the state population, and they overwhelmingly supported Heitkamp.
...

>An Australian TV host has been fired after he described Chinese visitors to Shanghai Disneyland as
>>"black-haired, slanty-eyed (and) yellow-skinned" live on air.


https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/02/australia/sky-news-ross-cameron-australia-intl/index.html

None of the crocodiles were hurt

Surveillance video shows a Florida man being attacked by a crocodile after jumping into a pit at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm.

Officers identified the man -- who reportedly spent 4 hours in the exhibit after breaking in -- as Brandon Hatfield.

Surveillance cameras captured video of Hatfield repeatedly jumping into the pit from a 20-foot roof. Video also shows him swimming around the pond with the crocodiles.

Park staff finds trail of blood near crocodile pit

Park director John Brueggen tells Action News Jax that workers found evidence of a break-in as they were getting the park ready for opening Tuesday morning.

Several lamps and signs were broken, and a statue in the middle of the crocodile pit -- that you can only get to by swimming -- was toppled.

Brueggen said they found a pair of shorts and a rubber "Crocs" shoe floating in the pit and thought it might be a prank.

Minutes later, they found "a lot" of blood at the top of the zipline platform -- overlooking the crocodiles.

When police got to the park, staff told them about the blood.

An officer reportedly said, "Oh, I think we've already got the perpetrator in custody. We got somebody who told us they were bitten by an alligator."

Surveillance video shows the crocodile encounter

Action News Jax obtained surveillance video that shows a man repeatedly lunge into the pit full of crocodiles.

At one point, he climbed onto the bank of the pond, where an approximately 9-foot crocodile lunged toward him.

An officer notes in his arrest report that it appears he had no idea a crocodile tried to eat him.

The report says he was sitting on the bank of the pool when a crocodile locked onto his left foot.

The officer said Hatfield could be seen trying to fight off the crocodile -- then managed to get away.


https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/florida-man-breaks-into-st-augustine-alligator-farm-jumps-into-crocodile-pool/867644141

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMxGv9X62lM

Real Madrid, one of the world’s most popular football clubs is currently testing TV urinals in the men’s bathrooms of their stadium, Sandiago Bernabeu, and it’s not the only one.

One would think that the management of the Spanish club is trying to make it easy for fans to follow the action on the field even when going to the bathroom, but according to several news reports, the screens installed in the urinals have nothing to do with football and everything to do with generating revenue. Apparently, the footage played on these screens will focus mainly on advertising, instead of showing the live game on the pitch, and there’s a good reason for that – it’s much more profitable.


These TV urinals were created by a Swiss company named Swiss Invent, and have already been installed in the VIP toilets of another stadium in Spain, Butarque. The company convinced football club CD Leganes to install the 3,000-euro urinals in their bathrooms after presenting scientific evidence showing that these screens command the full attention of the user for an average of 30 seconds, which in advertising is about the good as it gets.

Swiss Invent reportedly studied the matter and found that while peeing, men spend an average of 30 seconds staring down and not focusing on anything else. This seemingly small window of time is apparently very valuable if you can find a way to capture the attention of the urinal user, and these screens do just that.
https://www.odditycentral.com/news/football-teams-in-spain-are-installing-tv-urinals-in-their-stadium-bathrooms-but-not-for-the-obvious-reason.html

Japan has a culture of long working hours, but even in this generally tough and stressful working environment some companies stand out because of the complete disregard for their employees’ well-being. They are known as “black companies” and anyone who has ever wanted to experience what working for such organizations is like, without actually getting a job at one, can find out by applying for a special event called “The Black Holiday”.

It’s hard to imagine anyone ever wanting to experience what it’s like for a ‘black company’ is like, but especially so on Friday, November 23, when Japan celebrates Labor Thanksgiving Day. It’s a national holiday and a rare opportunity to enjoy a long weekend free of work-related stress. But I guess that’s exactly why the organizers of The Black Holiday chose this date for their special event. What better way to emphasize just how bad working for a black company can be then having you do it on your day off, right?

Super Miracle Happy, the fictitious black company that 30 “lucky” applicants will have the chance to work for during The Black Holiday, is actually made up of a group of Japanese actors who will do their best to replicate the working environment of real black companies. It’s unclear what exactly these volunteers will experience during their one-day employment, but we do know that the actors’ performances will be based on true stories from people who have worked in Japanese black companies. Here are some of the stories organizers heard during their research:

“If my boss didn’t like you, he’d make you stand by his desk while he ignored you and fiddled with his PC for four to six hours,” one former black company employee said.

“For a required ‘development retreat,’ we were confined in a tiny one-room apartment near our office for several hours,” another person said.
https://www.odditycentral.com/news/japanese-labor-day-event-lets-people-experience-what-its-like-to-work-for-horrible-bosses.html

Efforts to nudge the nation away from burning fossil fuels and toward harnessing renewable source of energy were rejected by voters Tuesday across a swath of resource-rich states in the western United States.

Voters in Arizona, one of the nation's most sun-soaked states, shot down a measure that would have accelerated its shift toward generating electricity from sunlight. Residents in oil- and gas-rich Colorado defeated a measure to sharply limit drilling on state-owned land.

Even in the solidly blue state of Washington, initial results were poor for perhaps the most consequential climate-related ballot measure in the country this fall: A statewide initiative that would have imposed a first-in-the-nation fee on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming.

The failure of the ballot measures underscores the difficulty of tackling a global problem like climate change policy at the local level, even as environmental advocates and lawmakers have turned to state governments to counter the Trump administration's rollback of Obama-era efforts to reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions and as scientists warn the world has only a bit more than a decade to keep global warming to moderate levels.

Since President Donald Trump took office, a handful for Democrat-controlled states - notably California - have vowed to be a counter weight on energy and environmental policy to the president, who frequently dismisses the consensus among climate scientists that the way we use energy is warming the globe. In September, California codified into law a commitment to produce 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free courses by 2045.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Ballot-measures-taking-aim-at-climate-change-fall-13370355.php