thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-24--I Was Taught To Read The Bible As Literal, And I Have Some Thoughts On Amy Coney Barrett

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The weeks leading up to my engagement were not fun. There was no anticipation of a celebration, no giddy whispering of my excitement to friends. Instead, I was spending hours in my senior year dorm room, pouring over my family’s copy of Vine’s Concise Dictionary of the Bible, trying to parse the differences between two English translations of a certain New Testament verse, so I could write an exegetical analysis to deliver to my father in order to justify my decision to go ahead with my plan to marry my boyfriend against his wishes.
My boyfriend had called me with rage in his voice after he had asked my dad for his blessing. I could hear him trembling as he explained that the blessing had been granted, but permission had not, because it was not on my dad’s preferred timetable (we planned to marry eight months later, but my dad thought that was too long to wait and that sexual temptation would cause us to “stumble”).
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Our pushback on his ridiculousness was met with a stone wall: We were “deliberately rejecting his authority over” me and he had the power to tell me not to marry this guy if he pleased, and I needed to respect that ― the Bible said so.
The text in question was 1 Corinthians 7:37, which is part of a longer passage discussing the merits of celibacy and marriage. Most translations conclude this section with Paul arguing that if a couple has self control over their sexual desires, they would do well to remain virgins. But my father’s preferred Bible translation, the New American Standard Bible, slips in the word “daughter” before “virgin,” thereby changing the whole verse to suggest Paul is giving a father permission to deny his daughter her marriage for the sake of her spiritual development.
My father was adamant that this meant he had biblical authority to refuse me his blessing and permission for my marriage. As I was still a true believer at that point in my life, I wanted to convince him of his misinterpretation of this passage and win an unwinnable power struggle through playing his game by his own rules.
So I spent hours pouring over translations and academic texts exegeting this passage, emailing with professors at my college who taught biblical Greek, parsing out the reasons why the word daughter was in this passage about engaged couples.
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This wasn’t new. My childhood had been shaped by regularly returning to the Bible for direction on behavioural mores and manners. Raise my voice in anger at my sibling? I would be told to go copy out all the verses from the concordance entry on “anger” and to tell my parents what the sum total of the Bible’s teaching on the subject was.
Everything went through this process ― the Bible serving as a meat grinder to pulverise and process my growing pains and evolving emotions. I spent so many hours of childhood hunched over the open concordance on my bedroom floor, my knees red and my legs falling asleep as I read down each narrow column, searching for the verses my dad demanded, wishing I could be reading mystery novels instead.
The author doing Rod & Staff homeschool math homework in 2000. Courtesy of Eve Ettinger
The reasoning behind this exercise and method of interpreting scripture was taken from another passage, similarly taken out of context with its most baldly literal reading: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16, New King James Version), which was taken to mean that if it existed in life, the Bible had something to say about it, and that was really all Christians needed as a tool for learning how to live well.
This meant that every decision could be weighed against a literal interpretation of scripture. Homeschooling was a biblical mandate taken from Deuteronomy 4:1: “You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” This meant, my father said, that parents who allowed other people to educate their children were abdicating responsibility mandated by God. So we were homeschooled.
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Every passage was up for grabs for this literalist interpretive agenda, no matter the context. Psalms was not songs. Ecclesiastes was not poetry. Revelation was not metaphor. We believed there was nothing wrong with taking literature written for a vastly different audience in a different era with different cultural norms and applying it directly to contemporary culture and living.
“Inerrancy” is a little political game that biblical scholars like to play with the English translation of the scriptural texts and have been playing since Christianity came to the United States. If it’s in the Bible, it is deemed holy by God. If it’s in the Bible and thus deemed holy by God, it must be his perfect will. Thus, the United States government’s continued endorsement of slavery (Paul sent a slave back to his owner and told him not to provoke his master any longer), the lagging acknowledgment of the rights of women (women in the Bible didn’t own property! Women are told to keep the home!), among other issues.
All of this, of course, disregards the fact that the canonisation of the Bible as we know it was a politically motivated and highly disputed process brought about by the urging of Emperor Constantine I to shore up his intent to make Christianity the national religion of the Byzantine Empire. (I’m not a historian; this is the gist. There’s more to it, including a bit where St. Nicholas punches someone in the face, but all that is beyond the scope of this account.)
But then in college, as a literature major, I took some Bible courses and was stunned to realise that the analytical tools I was skilled at using in my English classes were applicable to these other courses. I had never considered this a possibility. Though I do not identify as a cis femme, because I presented that way, the blanket reverence for Scripture as inerrant ― and also only up to exegesis, or analytical interpretation, by men ― rendered it untouchable to me up until that point. It was what they said it was: the end.
Now I came to realise that I had not only always had the tools to crack it open and read it for myself, but that there was a great tradition of centuries of scholars before me who had read the Bible with an eye to genre, to historical context, to outside sources for corroboration ― and many of them were women.
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How powerful texts are read will always be a political discussion, as it was with the canonisation process for the Bible and as it was with my choice to assert my legitimacy as a reader and thinker by interpreting the texts my father was using to manipulate my life’s course in ways that questioned the credibility of his personally preferred English Bible translation.
All of this history is brought to mind as I watched the coverage of the Amy Coney Barrett juridical confirmation hearings every day after I finished teaching.
“The overwhelming sense I get as I watch these hearings is how bizarrely similar the originalist methods of reading the Constitution ... are to the biblical literalist methods of approaching Scripture. Neither interpretive mode allows there to be room for growth in the community or society built around these documents.”
When I was a teenager studying civics in a fundamentalist Christian home, I was taught that the Constitution was to be revered, that the founders were men of God to be honored, and that our country was God’s chosen nation, intended to be a “city on a hill,” a beacon of truth showing the international community how a Christian society ought to be. We believed that the U.S. had fallen away from this calling and that we were to right the course of history by being active citizens, nudging policy little by little toward a biblically-based and -run legal system, and bringing glory to God by doing so. Of course, none of this is terribly new now that we’re four years into reaping the fruits of the labor of Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell and others like them.
But the overwhelming sense I get as I watch these hearings is how bizarrely similar the originalist methods of reading the Constitution, which Barrett has stated she follows, are to the biblical literalist methods of approaching Scripture. Neither interpretive mode allows there to be room for growth in the community or society built around these documents. Paul probably never thought that his writings in Romans about pedophilia would be interpreted as condemning queer love, just like the authors of the 14th Amendment probably never considered that text to be the basis of legalising same-sex marriage.
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Humans are not static. We grow and change and evolve. I eventually left both the church and my husband (it turns out, marrying to escape a cult isn’t a good enough reason to marry anyone), and then, later on, lost my fear of offending men in authority. I embraced my bisexuality and questioned normalised gender constructs, beginning to date cis women and queer people as I began to understand myself as queer, both in orientation and self-identification.
I have lived a lifetime’s worth of personal evolution in my 31 years, more than many people experience in 80 years of living. But many of us evolve at some point and find ourselves looking back at a past version of ourselves, saying, Oh wow, why did I like that?
The day the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges in favour of marriage equality in the U.S., I was across the globe in Central Asia, happily hungover from a one night stand with a woman I’d had a crush on. We read the news together in bed, and she laughed, saying it was good to have sex with a woman for the first time on the day same-sex marriage was federally legalised. I kissed her in my glee and wondered what my earlier self would think of everything that was happening.
I still love the Bible ― as literature. I no longer think I have to outsource my reasoning processes to its pages, but I am grateful for the glittery bits of wisdom and beauty that have stuck with me from it. I also no longer interact with it with the reverence I once did when I saw it as a living being with inscrutable knowledge.
The author, left, at Pride Denver with friend Shanna Merceron in 2019. Courtesy of Eve Ettinger
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Just like me, much of America’s community of legal scholars has moved beyond a similar kind of reverence for the Constitution. It is precious and valuable, but it was also written by men who enslaved their own children, men who thwarted non-landowners from having basic rights, men who condoned ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous peoples on this land. What’s more, it needs to be interpreted in relation to the world we live in ― not the one it was written in.
The magical thinking of Amy Coney Barrett and those like her, which refuses to apply context and nuance to reading the Constitution, abdicates responsibility for harm done to humans on the basis of giving the decision-making power regarding human rights to a document that never considered the people whose rights are at stake in the first place.
My father likes to defend himself for the psychological harm he wreaked on my siblings and me through his cudgeling of us with the Bible, saying he was only doing what he thought was right, per the Bible ― an abdication of his responsibility as a parent to protect and nurture his children without causing them irreparable harm. The Bible didn’t make him do those things; the Bible was his tool. And I know that he truly believes he was being good to us, just like Judge Barrett genuinely believes that if she is confirmed to the Supreme Court, she will be doing good through administering her interpretation of justice for our nation’s citizens.
But having come out of this community, I know differently. And I’m worried.
Eve Ettinger is a writer, editor, and educator living in southwest Virginia. This article first appeared on HuffPost Personal.
Have a compelling personal story you want to tell? Find out what we’re looking for here, and pitch us on ukpersonal@huffpost.com


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-24--Wedgies and Walkaways: Inside The Kinky Rise Of OnlyFans Porn

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“I charge $100/min for three minutes minimum, and it will usually centre around me saying that they will never be with me,” says porn star Charlotte Lavish*. “Sometimes they have specific phrases they want me to say ... or their name.”
If a viewer wants to see Lavish act out a more specific scenario with sex toys, props or costumes, she makes it clear how that can happen. “If I don’t have something they want me to use, I’ll put it on my Amazon wish list and they’ll purchase it for me to use in their vid,” she says. “I am getting mostly humiliation and tease and denial requests at the moment. That doesn’t require much.”
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Lavish performs on OnlyFans, the UK-based digital platform that allows content creators to earn money directly from the ‘fans’ who subscribe to their content. “Sign up to make money and interact with your fans!” reads the site’s tagline – and the media is full of stories about the crazy amounts of money some OnlyFans creators are making.
There’s the the Birmingham businessman who reportedly makes £60,000 a month without even showing his face; the former Bible studies student who was celibate for six years and now brings in £76,000 a month; not to mention the 19-year-old “naked philanthropist” who raised more than $1m for the Australian bushfire relief effort.
It’s not all sex. Personal trainers, chefs and musicians use the service too and various high profile celebrities are signed up, offering exclusive content, which may include early-access to new music and the opportunity to join Q&As.
It was rumoured that Cardi B, for example, reportedly makes $8m a month, when an infographic showing supposed earnings of creators was shared online (then removed) by the musician Casanova. Cardi shares behind-the-scenes content rather than nudes. When she first joined OnlyFans, she got straight to the point in an Insta story explaining her content would not be X-rated.
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Pornography still accounts for the majority of OnlyFans activity, however, and many of its users say the platform is democratising the medium, making porn more intimate – and kinkier – than ever before.
Marcos Calvo via Getty Images
A subscription to an OnlyFans creator means users can request anything from a friendly chat to live videos of all their favourite fetishes – so long as everyone follows the rules set by the performer. “If someone tries any funny business there’s a block feature,” says creator TrashBlushRage*.
“Fetishes are completely normal and healthy, especially in the right spaces,” adds the non-binary soft-core model and cosplayer, from California. That’s to say: anything goes. “Don’t be afraid to ask your favourite performer,” they say. “If they’re a good egg, they won’t shame you.” Have they seen new kinks and fetishes developing on the platform? “There are too many to name!”
Lavish agrees. “Simple things like high heels and stockings can be a turn on for many people. It doesn’t surprise me that fans enjoy particular outfits, phrases, or just find pleasure in giving me money,” she says. “The only thing that really surprised me was the popularity of wedgies and ‘walkaways’ – but when I think about it, people stare at me when I’m walking around all the time.”
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The recent growth of OnlyFans, which launched in 2016, has been pronounced: the site saw a 75% increase in new users throughout March and April, as lockdown kept more of us inside and – frankly – in need of getting some.
Creators set their own rates and cross-promote their channels and content on other social media and site like Reddit. Marketing is crucial: it isn’t possible to discover creators on the OnlyFans homepage in the way you might imagine; the quickest way for a creator to self-promote is sharing an OnlyFans shortlink.
Potential subscribers can message creators directly, subscribe monthly and request custom content. Some even strike up connections away from porn.
Supplied Charlotte Lavish
No two subscribers are the same, says TrashBlushRage, who hopes the platform is making people more open-minded about our sexual proclivities. “Porn in general has such a negative view, when you give the power to the content creator, it’s a safe and consensual space for all involved.”
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In the queer sphere, where kink culture is already more mainstream, OnlyFans is booming. “If you cater to a niche, you can be really successful,” says Brian Smith, from Belgium, who runs the @onlyxxxguys Twitter account linking to the best male OnlyFans accounts – gay and straight, which has more than 240,000 followers.
“I have seen all kind of kinks: from guys just showing their toes to trans people putting toys in every single hole, from daddies daily bringing home twinks to straight guys just flexing their muscles, from a guy edging all his anonymous dates to an influencer who couldn’t show all his artsy nude pictures on Instagram,” says Smith.
“I have seen all kinds... from a guy edging all his anonymous dates to an influencer who couldn’t show his artsy nudes on Instagram.”
There are plenty of real-life couples on the site, he adds, and a rise in straight guys with big social followings playing gay. “Guys making videos with their straight buddies, ‘pushing boundaries’,” he says. ″Most of them are Instagram influencers who are banking out their following, and get requests from fans willing to pay more for ‘gay-for-pay’ content.”
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OnlyFans has its limits: a list of banned sexual acts includes content which contains injuries, such as with blood; medical role play involving needles, injections or procedures; asphyxiation; knife play; bruises; urine and defecation. (For those who want to push the boundaries further with their kinks, Smith says newcomer site, JustFor.Fans, takes a more liberal approach to fetish and kink content, allowing content with asphyxiation and fisting roleplay, for instance).
But abide by the guidelines, and many performers will happily sing the praises of OnlyFans as a place to work – and socialise. TrashBlushRage says they enjoy interacting with “fans and friends” on the platform.
“We don’t just focus on the porn side of things,” they say. “Sure, they do have that opportunity, but I can also post my other interests, from video games to table-top roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons.”
Arty_Snaps Trashblushrage as Red Riot from Japanese manga series Boku no Hero Academia.
Amy*, who preferred not to give her performer name, is an OnlyFans creator who also subscribes to other porn stars on the platform – and says there is courtesy and conversation to be found.
“I never request custom videos, but I do tip them if I’m extra impressed by one of their posts,” she says. “A good subscriber isn’t always the one who tips the most. I enjoy comments on my post, thoughtful DMs, loyalty. I am in group chats on Twitter with 95% of the people I [am subscribed] to. I speak regularly with most of them and they are all so lovely.”
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Another creator, James Cullen, wrote for HuffPost UK that posting on OnlyFans has boosted his confidence. “I realised that I wasn’t feeling validation from some faceless person online named user78290, I was feeling validation by myself,” he says. “I realised I was looking at my OnlyFans not as a platform to make some fast money, but as a way to accept myself.”
Not everyone has fallen in love with OnlyFans, of course. Jason Domino is an activist and porn performer who runs the PornforPrep site, which works to destigmatise sex work and raise awareness about HIV and other STIs.
He is one of a growing number of people worried about the impact of so many people joining the platform after reading splashy headlines about how easy it is to make money – when the reality isn’t always so simple.
“Personally I am conflicted,” says Domino, who describes the process of getting popular on OnlyFans as like a pyramid scheme: seemingly straightforward but way more sales-y than at first glance. “Many performers do not make the money they hope on the platform,” he says. “When they don’t see why the other is making more than them, their self-criticism can become unhealthy – fixating on things they are already insecure or impacted by.”
HuffPost UK CJ Official, who balances journalism with his sex work
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A BBC Three documentary recently revealed a darker side to the platform – underage performers have been found selling photos and videos on OnlyFans using fake IDs. It’s a legal requirement in the UK to be 18 or over to produce porn, but in the eyes of the law, performers are liable, rather than the platform.
Domino points out that “classic porn safety protocols” are not enforceable for performers working from home – and that organisations offering support and advice such as the one he works with, UKAP (United Kingdom Adult Professionals), aren’t clearly promoted to creators (HuffPost UK has approached OnlyFans for more details on its code of conduct and safety, and will update with any response).
While headlines proclaim that OnlyFans has “put X-rated entertainment in the hands of its entertainers”, Domino fears OnlyFans may be setting unrealistic industry standards and inauthentic ideals about community and success.
“More realistic independence is not about removing the establishments, but in worker rights and unions leading the standards of those establishments,” he says, comparing the OnlyFans model to the gig economy – with its narrative of freedom, but where companies, not workers, still hold the ultimate control.
Many OnlyFans creators lead double lives, working for the platform in the evening while holding down a day job. Despite it being a lucrative way to make money that can work to an individual’s schedule, there can still be a stigma attached to the work.
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TrashBlushRage and Charlotte Lavish are two of the lucky ones. Trash is quitting their office job next April to go full-time on the platform. Meanwhile, Lavish says the money is “great, but not effortless: you get what you put in.”
“I want to reach the point where I can meet someone at a party or dinner and say ‘I make porn’ and have the same reaction I get when I say I’m a journalist.”
But some performers who spoke to HuffPost, including CJ_Official*, a writer from London, have found employers hostile towards their OnlyFans work when it has appeared in background checks. It’s important to remember, he says, that for many people, sex work is still a means to an end, rather than a preference.
“My job had failed to pay me for almost two months due to a payroll error,” he explains. “I support my mum where possible due to her ill health, so I was struggling to come up with the money to cover my costs. A friend suggested OnlyFans and I decided to at least give it a go short-term so I could continue to get by.”
CJ has been fired from one job that found out about his OnlyFans side hustle, and another axed his contract shortly before he was to start work for fear his job would ‘put the company into disrepute’.
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“It was mortifying for me, and definitely a low point in my life. I know many people would probably say “well, you’re to blame!” but I disagree,” he says.
“Monetising our bodies should never be considered shameful, and why should it have any impact on a 9-5 job? I want to reach the point in society where I can meet someone new at a party or a dinner and say ‘I make porn’ and it have the same reaction as I get when I say I’m a journalist.
“But we have a long way to go until that happens.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-24--Some Friendships Are Taking A ‘Pandemic Pause’ And That’s Okay.

In the early days of the pandemic, a group of my friends was getting together for Zoom game nights every week. But as time passed, these virtual hangouts became less and less frequent until they stopped altogether. I wasn’t sad to see them go — I was relieved actually. What had started as a fun way to catch up and see each other’s faces soon became another task on my to-do list that I didn’t have the energy to complete.
Since then, I’ve managed to stay connected to a few of my closest friends and family, but have struggled to maintain the other friendships in my life — and that’s something I feel guilty about.
As a person with anxiety, I get drained easily under normal circumstances; 2020 has taken that exhaustion to another level. When I’m running on fumes, even basic tasks like texting a friend I haven’t talked to in a while seem daunting.
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It’s not unusual to feel depleted right now, said marriage and family therapist Abigail Makepeace. “This kind of mental and emotional fatigue is extremely common and very normal, considering the state of the world. Much of our energies are focused on how to best deal with the very unfamiliar experiences of the pandemic,” she said.
Ada Yokota via Getty Images During this period of unrelenting stress, it's OK to invest your energy in a few close friendships, while taking a step back from others.
As we’ve adjusted to certain elements of Covid-19 life — like working and learning from home, social distancing and wearing masks — additional stressors have piled on. More people getting sick. More people losing their jobs.
When everything feels overwhelming, just getting by is all you can manage some days. In a September New York Times story titled “How to Deal With a Friendship ‘Quiet Season,’” journalist Anna Goldfarb wrote, “Many people are so focused on their own immediate needs that they don’t have the bandwidth to show up for others. These are the cases in which there hasn’t been hostility between friends, just a noticeable drifting apart.”
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Friendships that felt easy pre-pandemic may now seem harder to maintain
For some, trying to schedule a Zoom or FaceTime to catch up with friends after spending all day on the computer for work can feel more taxing than relaxing. Plus, virtual hangouts tend to be less fulfilling than in-person ones and leave us longing for that physical connection.
“Conversations that once flowed freely may now feel strained or awkward and require great effort,” Makepeace said. “Small talk may seem implausible or silly when you’re facing the loss of a job or a member of your family is ill.”
Making plans to hang out with a friend IRL is doable if safety precautions are taken, depending on your tier (e.g., meet outdoors, stay two metres, wear face masks, etc.). But those outings are not without stress either.
“Even participation in former social activities, such as going out to get coffee or having an outdoor dinner with a friend, may not feel safe or allow for the same experience of connection,” Makepeace said.
It’s okay to put some friendships on ‘pause’ if you feel burned out
Burnout is what happens when the “external demands are greater than the sources that fill you up,” said Pasadena, California, psychologist Ryan Howes. That feeling of depletion is a sign that you need to take time to refill your own cup.
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“You won’t be of any good to others if you have nothing left to give,” he said. “So meet your own needs first, and then those of others.”
Because our mental and emotional reserves are finite, it may be better to focus on staying close to a small number of friends, rather than trying to maintain a dozen surface-level connections.
“Quality is more important than quantity, so if you only have enough energy to reach out to a few cherished friends, that’s fine,” Goldfarb wrote in the New York Times article.
“It might feel like you’re deserting these relationships, but self-care and mental and emotional health have to take priority. There are only so many hours in the day.” - Abigail Makepeace, marriage and family therapist
This is a time to nurture the reciprocal friendships that uplift you without feeling obligated to invest in those that don’t.
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“If this means putting some relationships on pause, so be it,” said Howes, author of the “Mental Health Journal for Men.” “You may be at risk of losing the peripheral relationships, but that may be a positive outcome: holding on to relationships that bring meaning and purpose, and weeding out those that don’t.”
While it’s possible some friendships may fade away, the stronger ones can likely withstand the “pandemic pause.” Be honest with loved ones about your emotional, mental and physical limitations at this time.
“If you need to be more out of touch right now, odds are the friendship will be able to be reestablished later,” Makepeace said. “If you seek to communicate healthy boundaries for self-care when you are experiencing burnout, most healthful relationships are able to rebound when your capacity to safely balance them returns.”
Try not to beat yourself up about taking a step back
You may feel like a crappy friend because you haven’t been regularly checking in on everyone in your life. But cut yourself some slack: You’re doing the best you can in some very challenging circumstances.
“There is the potential for great anxiety and pain when you feel you are unable to meet the expectations of connectedness from a friend,” Makepeace said. “It might feel like you’re deserting these relationships, but self-care and mental and emotional health have to take priority. There are only so many hours in the day.”
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Now’s the time to practice self-compassion. Even if you’re falling short of your normal “good friend” standards, that’s OK. Remember that this situation won’t last forever.
“Feelings are non-negotiable, and that applies to now and before the pandemic,” Howes said. “If you feel like you need to keep to yourself and avoid some Zoom or distanced social engagements, then you are entitled to do so.”
But know that withdrawing from all social connections is cause for concern
If disengaging socially is accompanied by other symptoms of depression or anxiety — such as feelings of worthlessness, sleep issues or excessive worry — consider seeking professional help.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-24--Thousands Sign Petition Against Non-Essential Items Ban In Welsh Supermarkets

A petition calling on the Welsh government to allow supermarkets to sell non-essential items had received more than 19,000 signatures at the time of writing on Saturday afternoon.
“We do not agree that this is a prudent or rational measure, and will create more harm than good,” the petition states.
“We do not agree for example that parents should be barred from buying clothes for their children during lockdown while out shopping.
“This is disproportionate and cruel and we ask that the decision be reversed immediately.”
Drakeford said on Friday that stopping supermarkets from selling non-essential items was “a straightforward matter of fairness” as hundreds of high street businesses had been forced to closed.
He told a press conference in Cardiff that it was also “not the time to be browsing around supermarkets looking for non-essential goods”.
During the two-week lockdown, all leisure and non-essential retail are closed including clothes shops, furniture stores and car dealerships.
The ban was announced in the Welsh parliament on Thursday following a question to Drakeford from Conservative MS Russell George.
George said it was “unfair” to force independent clothing and hardware retailers to shut while similar goods were on sale in major supermarkets.
On Saturday, Andrew RT Davies, shadow health minister of the Welsh Conservatives, called for the ban to be “dropped immediately”.
He said: “This ludicrous ban has caused real anger across Wales and it’s not fair on those staff working in our supermarkets, and the general Welsh public who are already at their wit’s end with a difficult fortnight looming.”
Under lockdown rules, people can only leave their home for limited reasons, such as to buy food and medicine, provide care or take exercise, and must work from home where possible.
Leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses are closed, along with community centres, libraries and recycling centres, while places of worship are shut other than for funerals or wedding ceremonies.
The rate of coronavirus across Wales was 156.8 cases per 100,000 people on Friday, with only one county under the Welsh government’s threshold for intervention of 50 cases per 100,000.
On Saturday, a further 1,324 people were reported to have tested positive for coronavirus in Wales, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 41,577.
Public Health Wales said 16 people with Covid-19 had died, with the total number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic rising to 1,772.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-24--Joe Biden Trolls Donald Trump With Spoof Covid-19 Plan Website

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Joe Biden has “finally found” President Donald Trump’s plan to beat the coronavirus pandemic, a tweet from the Democratic nominee declared on Friday.
After eight months of this pandemic, we finally found President Trump's plan to beat COVID-19. https://t.co/KO4g328Uvr — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 23, 2020
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But the website linked in the post — www.TrumpCovidPlan.com — just forwards to what appears to be an error message.
“Not Found,” it reads.
Then comes the zing: “The Trump plan to defeat the Coronavirus and reopen safely does not exist.”
The page also contains – via a click on the “Learn More” button – a series of damning quotes that Trump has made throughout the pandemic downplaying the virus, which has now killed more than 220,000 people across the US.
“Donald Trump has had eight months to use science, public health, and the power of the Presidency to reopen safely and save American lives,” it reads. “But we are barely better equipped to manage the Covid-19 threat today than we were eight months ago.”
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Trump has repeatedly ignored advice from public health experts with his push to reopen schools and businesses without proper safety measures in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The president has also held multiple campaign rallies in recent weeks – even after contracting the virus and being hospitalised for three days – where many of his supporters have been standing side by side and not wearing masks.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-25--Trump Has Been Even Worse Than Everyone Expected

When Donald Trump kicked off his presidential bid in 2015, he rode down a golden escalator in Trump Tower, using the media attention to promote his own brand and property. He lied. He made racist comments. And he exaggerated the crowd size.
In other words, he showed exactly the type of president he would become.
The rest of his campaign was no different. He continued to stoke racial tensions, bully and demean.
Unable to believe that he could truly be as bad as he presented himself, some Democrats thought maybe Trump would change once in office. Maybe there would be a way to work with him. Chuck Schumer, a top Democrat, said there were areas where Trump “voiced very progressive and populist opinions,” and perhaps those would be areas of cooperation.
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“I don’t think it makes sense to say, ’No, we’re not gonna work in any way in any form with the Trump administration,’” senator Bernie Sanders said at the time.
🇺🇸 Running Mate is a US election podcast – just for Brits. Now available everywhere.
The late civil rights icon representative John Lewis was one of the few Democratic members willing to call Trump out and speak forcefully against him. Even before Trump’s inauguration, Lewis said he was not a “legitimate” president. Some Democrats supported Lewis, but plenty distanced themselves from him and said he had gone too far.
Meanwhile, top Republican leaders, when asked about Trump’s rampant dishonesty during the course of the campaign, offered assurances that a Trump presidency would be different. They said the burdens of the Oval Office would weigh on him, and he’d have a competent team of aides. The Trump White House, they said, would function like most others.
“I think many Republicans who held their nose and voted for Trump in 2016 thought he would at least be surrounded by seasoned staffers and career Republicans who would provide the policy road map for the administration,” said Jennifer Pierotti Lim, the co-founder of Republican Women for Progress, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. “But as we’ve seen, Republicans have abdicated their responsibility and instead of putting our country first, they have elevated Trumpism in all its forms.”
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“Every warning we made about Trump’s unique badness has seemingly come true.” - Ian Sams, Clinton campaign spokesperson.
Trump has been exactly the man he presented himself to be during the campaign, if not worse. He largely abandoned his populist promises to pursue the same trickle-down economic policies that are standard for Republicans. He has continued to make racist and sexist remarks – and pursue those sorts of policies – and has used the presidency to enrich himself and his family.
Various Democrats told HuffPost that Trump has indeed been worse than they expected.
“I thought he would be not just focusing on [infrastructure] but sustain the focus, would be in communities talking about – just bridges, for example,” said senator Bob Casey. “I thought he would use the opportunity to try to help rebuild the country. I thought he missed a big opportunity. Of course, I never thought he would abuse his power the way he did.”
Senator Jon Tester said he expected Trump to at least try to get bipartisan agreement on some matters.
“He just wasn’t interested in that at all,” Tester said. “It surprised me.”
The lack of bipartisanship has been laid bare in the past few weeks as Trump, with the full support of Senate Republicans, has tried to push through Amy Coney Barrett to replace liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. The vote is likely to come just one week before the election, although Republicans protested when Barack Obama tried to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia months before the 2016 election.
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Trump personally lied about the size of his inauguration crowd on his first full day in office, standing before a memorial to agents killed in the line of duty at CIA headquarters. Sean Spicer, his press secretary, repeated and embellished the lie later that afternoon, and the tone was set for the coming four years.
To date, Trump has made tens of thousands of false statements, about matters great and small. A significant percentage of them have been lies: things that he has been told were false but that he repeated anyway, such as his claim that he signed into law the Veterans “Choice” Act, or that his tax cuts were the largest in American history.
“If you look back to the 2016 campaign, every warning we made about Trump’s unique badness has seemingly come true – but it’s not enough to just say ‘I told you so.’ Voters have to be shown the math,” said Ian Sams, who served as a spokesperson for Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Sadly, these past four years – and especially the pandemic – have revealed too clearly the depth of Trump’s fraudulent pitch as a tough, problem-solving leader, and most Americans now see him for the failure he is.”
In many ways, Trump has turned out to be the worst version of what people feared. He has separated immigrant children from their parents, emboldened white supremacists, flattered strongmen who run dictatorships and treated the presidency like his own private business.
“I often say there [were] many shocks but there was never a surprise,” said senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2016.
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The consequences of his incompetence have been deadly. He may not have known the coronavirus was coming, but he could have been better prepared. And his inability, or unwillingness, to shepherd the country through the crisis has made his presidency even worse than some of his critics feared, as the death toll from the coronavirus rises to more than 220,000 Americans.
Here’s a look at the some of the ways Trump has exceeded expectations on just how low he’d go:
Separating Families And Decimating Legal Immigration
In this 2018 photo, an asylum-seeking boy from Central America runs down a hallway after arriving from an immigration detention center to a shelter in San Diego. The Trump administration separated thousands of migrant children from their families. Gregory Bull/Associated Press
Trump began his campaign obsessed with immigration and vilifying immigrants. Undocumented immigrants, a majority of whom are Latino, Black or Asian, were not surprised that Trump followed through.
“We knew who Donald Trump was,” said Greisa Martinez, executive director of United We Dream Action, the political arm of an immigration advocacy group. “We never thought that Trump wasn’t serious. We believed that he would drive a white nationalist agenda.”
Soon after Trump took office, he enacted a disastrous travel ban for several Muslim-majority nations that left people stranded in airports or unable to reunite with their families. While the initial ban was blocked in court, Trump eventually found one that worked. He cut refugee resettlement to record low levels. He ended prioritisation for deportations, putting more undocumented immigrants who live in the US at risk of removal. He repeatedly went after so-called sanctuary cities that have policies to limit cooperation with immigration enforcement. He decimated the legal immigration system and raided Pentagon funds in order to pay for his border wall.
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That’s not even counting the things Trump wanted to do, but didn’t succeed in: changing “birthright citizenship” so babies born in the US wouldn’t automatically be American citizens; ending the diversity lottery, which grants visas to people from nations the president derided as “shithole countries”; cutting family reunification visas that his allies dismiss as “chain migration”; and more. Although he was blocked in court from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, the administration delayed renewals even after the Supreme Court ruling.
Martinez wasn’t shocked at Trump’s ability to push white nationalist policies. But the way the rest of the government went along – Congress, courts and federal agencies alike – was dismaying. The “biggest surprise” for her, she said, was “the inability of the rest of our democratic system to be able to apply checks and balances.”
Corrupting Justice
Attorney General William Barr has protected President Donald Trump from political harm. Evan Vucci/Associated Press
Trump’s presidency has devastated the standing of the Justice Department (DoJ) and the FBI. From the beginning of his 2016 campaign, fuelled by chants of “lock her up” aimed at Clinton, Trump has treated the Justice Department as a means of protecting his political interests and punishing his political enemies.
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Trump has plowed through the normal restrictions meant to guide contacts between the White House and the Justice Department and prevent improper political interference in DoJ’s law enforcement mission. He’s unleashed an extensive campaign against the FBI, accusing the nation’s buttoned-up and conservative-leaning leading law enforcement bureau of being behind some secret cabal to take him down, and leaving the bureau to deal with the long-term, real-world impact on its reputation.
Trump fired former FBI director James Comey on a false pretext and forced former attorney general Jeff Sessions to resign. Attorney general William Barr, once thought to be an institutionalist who would stand up to improper political interference, instead protected the president from political harm by spinning and mischaracterising the findings of Robert Mueller’s special counsel report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
As laid out in Mueller’s report, Trump worked to interfere in the investigation into wrongdoing. The only thing that protected Trump from a definitive accusation that he committed crimes was a Justice Department memo that found it was unconstitutional to indict a sitting president and improper to accuse Trump of committing crimes without formally charging him.
Some Republicans hoped that the Mueller report – as well as Trump’s impeachment for trying to pressure a foreign country to launch a politically damaging investigation against former vice president Joe Biden – would chastise the president and teach him a lesson. Yet just weeks before the election, Trump was publicly calling for the Justice Department to use its powers to attack Biden, his chief political rival.
“We’ve gotta get the attorney general to act. He’s gotta act. And he’s gotta act fast. He’s gotta appoint somebody,” Trump said on Tuesday. “This is major corruption and this has to be known about before the election.”
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Giving Life To Conspiracies And The Far Right
QAnon conspiracy theorists hold signs during a protest at the state Capitol in Salem, Oregon, May 2, 2020. John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Trump retweeted a post this month to his 87 million followers suggesting that Biden and Obama “may have had Seal Team 6 killed,” and that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still alive. A link in the post alleged that the person gunned down in the US Special Forces’ raid on May 2, 2011, was not bin Laden but a body double.
“I don’t take a position,” Trump later said in defence of the retweet. “I’ll put it out there, and people can decide for themselves.”
Under normal circumstances, a sitting US president pushing – and then defending – such a ludicrous conspiracy theory would be front-page news across the country and beyond. But throughout his time in office, and even before, Trump has openly embraced disinformation that is flattering to him or paints his rivals in a negative light, facts be damned.
His Twitter account has become an integral part of the far right’s fake-news pipeline, with falsehoods worming their way from fringe websites to hyper-partisan social media influencers to media outlets such as the One America News Network and Fox News and, finally, to Trump’s retweets.
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Trump has amplified disinformation from the start. As he campaigned for the presidency in 2016, he aggressively zeroed in on the false, bad-faith notion that Obama was not a US-born citizen – an already-debunked lie that he’d been promoting for years. Trump is now pushing a similarly untrue birther rumour about Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Now, Trump has opened his arms to QAnon, the far-right conspiracy movement that claims a “deep state” cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats is running an underground child sex ring with Hollywood elites. QAnon adherents believe Trump is single-handedly saving the world from this cabal, and Trump has repeatedly declined to deny this. He has referred to QAnon followers as “people that love our country.”
As Trump has amplified conspiracy theorists, he has also emboldened far-right extremists. Earlier this month, the FBI charged a group of militia members – most of them Trump supporters – with plotting to violently kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. Trump had repeatedly condemned Whitmer for coronavirus lockdown measures, and in April tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN.” After the plot was foiled, Trump continued to stoke hate, while a crowd at a Trump rally in Michigan chanted “Lock her up,” referring to Whitmer.
Michigan may have narrowly avoided a violent extremist attack, but during the Trump administration, far-right violence has surged around the country. Domestic terrorism is the deadliest it has been in decades, and a resurgent far right is now one of the country’s biggest national security threats. White nationalist attackers have left manifestos that closely align with the same grievances Trump has fomented at rallies, in speeches and on Twitter. Many attackers have been open and enthusiastic Trump supporters, targeting groups, such as Muslims, immigrants and journalists, that the president constantly vilifies.
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Trump has sometimes given perfunctory condemnations of such violence, before immediately returning to fanning its flames. After neo-Nazis held a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, Trump claimed there were “very fine people” on both sides of the confrontation there. During the first 2020 presidential debate, Trump told the Proud Boys, a violent far-right gang, to “stand back and stand by.” Within hours, members of the group had added the slogan to their online profiles as they basked in the president’s approval.
In Trump, far-right extremists and white nationalists have found a vehicle to mainstream their beliefs and turn them into policy. Fringe, racist ideology that had languished in far-right online spaces has been given a direct line into Trump’s White House, with leaked emails showing that adviser Stephen Miller recommended articles from white nationalist sites and abhorrently racist literature in exchanges with far-right media.
Trump’s tacit embrace of white nationalists and the far right has made him an icon for extremists around the world. Researchers of the far right long ago began to look for Maga symbolism in online profiles and groups, finding that it was one of the easiest ways of tracking extremism. German and Italian far-right politicians have posed in Trump hats, as did an extremist who killed six Muslim men at a Quebec City mosque in 2017. One of Trump’s avowed fans is the leader of a German far-right network that was stockpiling body bags and weapons as it planned to kill politicians who supported refugees.
Treating The Presidency As His Own Business
Trump has continued to promote and visit his own properties, using them for campaign and government business. Mark Tenally/Associated Press
Trump’s mendacity has been matched by his personal corruption, as he’s used his office to funnel millions of taxpayer and donor dollars into his own pocket, as well as openly solicit money through his hotels and golf courses from both domestic and foreign interests that had business before his executive branch agencies.
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By insisting on visiting his own properties hundreds of times to play golf and for official and campaign trips, Trump put at least several million tax dollars into his own cash registers in the form of room rentals and meals for Secret Service and other government employees who must travel with him. The exact amount is not known, because the White House refuses to turn over those records.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, Trump has also diverted $8 million in Republican donor money into his businesses since taking office. His golf clubs and hotels – particularly his Washington, DC, hotel just blocks from the White House – became attractions for lobbyists who wanted Trump to know they were spending money that would benefit him personally.
Robert Weissman, president of the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, said he expected Trump would be corrupt when he was elected.
“Still, it was hard to imagine the enormity and complete pervasiveness of the corruption we have experienced,” he said. “It was equally difficult to foresee that Trump and his administration wouldn’t even bother to hide the corruption – from rampant abuses of the Hatch Act to putting a former coal lobbyist in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
The blurred line between the presidency and Trump’s own personal interests was on full display this summer at the Republican National Convention, when Trump took the unprecedented step of giving his acceptance speech at the White House. Traditionally, presidents keep political rallies and activities separate from their official government functions. The convention ended with Trump and his supporters standing at the White House, watching a fireworks display over the Washington Monument.
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Deadly Incompetence
Trump has consistently refused to wear or promote masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Many people who voted against Trump crossed their fingers that there wouldn’t be a serious national emergency during his term that would require true presidential leadership.
But there was, and there is.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought all of Trump’s incompetence into focus.
Trump wasn’t prepared for a pandemic that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and continues to grow worse. He has tried all his usual tactics of hiding it, blaming it on his enemies and slapping some different branding on it. But it’s not working. And this time, the consequences are deadly.
From the early days, Trump knew how dangerous the virus was, telling journalist Bob Woodward in early February that it was “deadly stuff.” But publicly, he downplayed it. He compared it to the flu and predicted it would go away on its own once April came, or when the weather warmed up.
He also pushed quack coronavirus “cures” – like taking the drug hydroxychloroquine or injecting bleach – even after the medical community said they were ineffective or even dangerous. Meanwhile, he mocked masks and tried to push away and discredit the scientific community, which refused to get on board with his administration’s agenda of downplaying the virus’ severity.
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Getting sick himself didn’t change anything. Trump announced that he and his wife, Melania, had contracted the coronavirus on October 1, after months of not wearing masks and continuing to hold events in person. He and his White House became super-spreaders, with at least 35 people in his orbit testing positive for the virus.
Yet while still sick at the hospital, he risked the life of Secret Service agents, and everyone else he came into contact with, when he left the building to ride around in the presidential motorcade and wave to supporters. He then left the Walter Reed Medical Center and returned to the White House – even though he was still sick and contagious – where he promptly took off his mask while standing on the balcony for photos.
Since then, the White House has embraced the idea of allowing the virus to essentially spread unchecked, while trying to protect the elderly and vulnerable. Leading experts say this strategy is dangerous, and reaching the point of “herd immunity” is much further off than the administration seems to think it is.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-27--BAME Communities Hit Harder By Covid-19 Due To Decades Of 'Injustice, Inequality And Discrimination'

A review by Labour peer Doreen Lawrence concluded that decades of injustice and inequality led to BAME people being disproportionately hit by coronavirus Anthony Devlin via Getty Images
Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people have been disproportionately hit by the Covid-19 pandemic as a result of “decades of structural injustice, inequality and discrimination”, a damning review led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence has found.
The report – which was commissioned by Labour leader Keir Starmer – branded the situation an “avoidable crisis”, warning that the pandemic must be a “watershed moment for change”.
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“Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have been overexposed, under protected, stigmatised and overlooked during this pandemic – and this has been generations in the making,” Lawrence wrote.
It comes a week after HuffPost UK revealed that intensive care beds across England are filling up with BAME people at the same disproportionate rate as during the first peak, suggesting no lessons were learnt – despite the government making plenty of noise about the commissioning months ago of a review into the problem by Public Health England.
Lawrence’s work has now concluded that BAME people are not only more likely to work in sectors that have been “overexposed” to Covid-19, but to have a higher chance of having other conditions that increase the risk of serious illness and face greater barriers to accessing healthcare.
Workers have been put at risk by the government’s failure to facilitate Covid-secure workplaces, and the “no recourse to public funds” rule has disproportionately affected BAME communities, the report said.
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It also warned that BAME people have faced “disgraceful racism” as people have sought to “blame different communities for the spread of the virus” – fuelled in part by global leaders dubbing it the “Chinese virus”.
Covid-19 dowell via Getty Images
In September, youth worker Hesketh Benoit told HuffPost UK how he had lost 37 friends to Covid-19 – 36 of whom were Black.
“The penny started to drop very early on in the pandemic for me that all the people I knew who were dying of coronavirus were Black,” he said.
“I remember thinking: ‘I don’t know any Caucasian people who’ve died of it.’ And I have lots of friends and know so many people from very diverse backgrounds.”
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Lawrence said her report was a “rallying cry” to break the “clear and tragic pattern” of discrimination and inequality that had led to BAME people being hit harder by the pandemic.
Among her recommendations to government was a warning that it must improve access to PPE in high-risk workplaces and make sure it is appropriate for all staff – including those who wear hijabs, turbans or have a beard for religious reasons.
Employers must also be reminded that they have a legal duty to record Covid-19 deaths caused by occupational exposure, the report said.
Meanwhile, Lawrence said the the government should suspend the “no recourse to public funds” rule for migrants – which prevents them from accessing services – during the pandemic.
And Labour peer also called for barriers to public health information – including linguistic, cultural and digital hurdles – to be removed by ministers by working with faith and community groups to get important messages about coronavirus across.
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Labour leader Starmer welcomed the report, saying it must be a “turning point”.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-27--Victoria Derbyshire Admits She Will Break The Rule Of Six At Christmas If It Is Still In Place

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With many of us thinking about how we’re going to spend this Christmas in light of the various restrictions currently in place around the country, Victoria Derbyshire has admitted she won’t be playing ball.
The presenter says she intends to spend the festive period with her relatives and is willing to break the rules to do so.
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Victoria Derbyshire Mike Marsland via Getty Images
She told Radio Times: “If the rule of six is still in place at Christmas, we’re breaking it to have the rule of seven. We just are.
“Joining me, my husband and our two boys will be my mum, her partner and my husband’s dad.”
The presenter admitted she felt “irresponsible” getting together with more than six people from different households but would be taking precautions.
“It’s fine,” she said. “We’ll do it knowing what the risks are. We’re not stupid. We’re going to be sensible and buy a thermometer gun. But we have to be together at Christmas.
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“It feels almost irresponsible saying that, but I don’t think we’re alone in feeling that way. We need to see my elderly mum and my husband’s elderly dad. We just do.”
Victoria has since apologised for her comments in Radio Times.
David M. Benett via Getty Images
Victoria also told the magazine that it was family she has missed the most during the pandemic.
“What I’ve missed most is having loads of people round my house and seeing family,” she said.
“My mum lives in Bolton, I live in London, so I’ve not been able to see her much. We do Zoom calls every Saturday, but that’s it. It’s mad.”
Read the full interview with Victoria in this week’s Radio Times, out now. www.radiotimes.com


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--No, Biden Didn't Refer To Trump As 'George' During A Campaign Event

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Right-wing Twitter was in a frenzy Sunday night when President Donald Trump’s campaign tweeted a clip purporting to show Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden referring to Trump as “George” during a virtual campaign event.
“Joe Biden confuses President Trump with George Bush,” the Trump War Room, an official campaign account, tweeted along with a 13-second clip of Biden’s remarks.
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The so-called gaffe was picked up by several outlets, including Fox News, Mediaite and NBC News. Right-wing websites Breitbart and The Daily Caller also published stories on it.
By Monday morning, Trump had seized on the clip, telling his more than 87 million Twitter followers that Biden couldn’t remember his name and that the “Fake News Cartel” was “working overtime to cover it up.”
But Trump, his right-wing allies and several of the news outlets that published stories about Biden’s “George” remark failed to mention a key detail: He was speaking to comedian George Lopez at the time.
Lopez had asked Biden why Americans should vote for him.
“Well, first of all, the reason they should vote is that there’s a lot on the ballot this year,” Biden said, adding: “This is the most consequential — not because I’m running, but because who I’m running against — this is the most consequential election in a long, long, long time.”
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“And the character of the country, in my view, is literally on the ballot,” he continued. “What kind of country are we going to be? Four more years of, George, uh ... George, uh ... is gonna find ourselves in a position where, if Trump gets elected, we’re gonna be in a different world.”
1.1 million views and a Fox story based on the premise that Biden was confusing Trump with George Bush.
He was talking to George Lopez. (Clip in next tweet) pic.twitter.com/Y0poyu0ejS — Dave Weigel, Re-Animator (@daveweigel) October 26, 2020
Both Biden’s campaign and Lopez said the former vice president had been referring to Lopez when he said “George.”
“He was addressing George Lopez, the interviewer, as is a common practice ― that is, unless, like Donald Trump, you blow a gasket and storm out because you can’t stomach being fact-checked,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, appearing to refer to Trump’s decision to walk out of a recent interview with journalist Lesley Stahl of CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
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Lopez on Monday retweeted political commentator Ana Navarro-Cárdenas, who was part of the virtual campaign event with Lopez on Sunday.
“This is a damn lie,” Navarro-Cárdenas had tweeted. “But that won’t stop them. This is the kind of unethical crap they do to spread false narratives.”
By Monday afternoon, some outlets had updated their stories to note that Biden had been speaking to Lopez when he said “George.” But not before the false claim was peddled to millions and millions of people.
The clip tweeted by the Trump campaign has been viewed on Twitter more than 1.9 million times and shared more than 14,000 times.
Asked for comment, Matt Wolking, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, stood by the campaign’s claim that Biden was confused.
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“All the media gaslighting in the world can’t hide the fact that Joe Biden either confused President Trump with former President George Bush or he thinks the country is in danger of experiencing ‘four more years of George’ Lopez,” Wolking said in a statement.
Fox News digital reporter Tyler Olson published a story Monday morning titled “Joe Biden appears to confuse Trump with former President George W. Bush.” In his story, Olson reported that celebrities were part of the campaign event, but did not mention Lopez, with whom Biden was speaking at the time.
HuffPost reached out to Olson on Monday afternoon for comment but did not receive a response from him. However, Olson’s story was subsequently updated to include Lopez’s role in the event and featured a new title: “GOP accuses Joe Biden of confusing his opponent after ‘George’ comment.”
Fox News declined to comment about the initial omission of that detail.
And though the story was eventually updated, it had been shared on the “Fox & Friends” Facebook page, which boasts more than 2.6 million followers. The post was shared more than 7,000 times.
A misleading story about a Joe Biden campaign event was shared on the Facebook page for "Fox & Friends" before it was updated. Fox & Friends / Facebook
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The Daily Caller added an editor’s note to its story on Monday, claiming that Biden was “very likely addressing Lopez after appearing to forget Trump’s name” rather then “confusing Trump for either of the former presidents George W. or H.W. Bush.”
As of Monday afternoon, Breitbart hadn’t updated its story to include Lopez.
But it wasn’t just the usual Trump-friendly websites that peddled the right-wing misinformation.
NBC News’ Kristen Welker delivered a report about the “George” comment during Monday morning’s episode of the “Today” show, which averages more than 3 million viewers daily. She didn’t mention Lopez in the segment.
“Biden making headlines overnight after appearing to confuse his opponent’s name,” Welker said during the broadcast. “It comes as the former vice president was pressed to respond to the president’s claims that Biden is not mentally fit to serve.”
NBC later added an editor’s note to the “Today” show video on its website.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--Adele Faces Backlash Over Saturday Night Live Sketch About African Sex Tourism

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Adele has been called out over one of the sketches that appeared in the episode of Saturday Night Live she guest hosted over the weekend.
Adele presented SNL for the first time on Saturday, and took part in a skit with regulars Kate McKinnon and Heidi Gardner, which saw them playing three middle-aged women who had come to Africa after divorcing their husbands.
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The four-minute sketch – billed as a “message from the tourism board of Africa” – saw the characters speaking about African men they had encountered using sexual innuendo, referring to “tribesmen” and “massive bamboo”.
While they spoke, shirtless Black actors were seen walking in the background on the arm of white women and, in one instance, carrying a white woman on their shoulders.
Adele's involvement in the sketch has come under fire. NBC
After footage of the sketch was posted online on Sunday morning, many voiced their disappointment that Adele took part in it, suggesting the clip fetishises Black men and perpetuates harmful stereotypes.
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Others suggested the sketch was particularly distasteful to air at a time when #EndSARS protests are ongoing in Nigeria.
That Africa skit was tone def, insensitive and inappropriate. Men and women in Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa and The Democratic Republic of the Congo are fighting for their lives and to reduce the continent as sexual destination for white women is shameful. #SNL — Kamala’s Flat Iron (@GoldingGirl617) October 25, 2020
That Adele SNL sketch about going to Africa to find Black men. pic.twitter.com/Ovymvt3ngG — Marianne Sunshine (@MissMSunshine_) October 26, 2020
@Adele, babes have u no idea whats going on in Africa?. Surly u have African friends who can educate you. #SNL jokes were tasteless and the wrong time babe. #smh!
Bring out that album insted. — Vana♥Young♥Lioness (@vana87) October 26, 2020
I was so excited for @nbcsnl with #Adele hosting but I HATE that they did a skit about fetishizing black men and visiting Africa to exercise that fetish WHILE Africa is fucking suffering right now. Horrible timing/missed opportunity to bring awareness #EndSARS #AfricaIsBleeding — Neriah Kharece (@Neriah_K) October 26, 2020
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Also I hope people don’t get mad with #AdeleOnSNL because it wasn’t her she didn’t write the script BUT homegirl was laughing a little too hard BUT she just arrives and says what they tell her to say in a Cue Card so it’s not all on her. #SNL #EndSARS #AfricaIsBleeding — Neriah Kharece (@Neriah_K) October 26, 2020
Never thought I’d hate Adele and stop watching SNL but I really think that was an innappropriate sketch about “Africa” — Masheke 🤙🏾 Made in 🇿🇲🇿🇲🇿🇲 (@MashekeMalimba) October 26, 2020
@nbcsnl @Adele The Africa skit wasn’t funny and most definitely wasn’t appropriate, especially with everything going on in Nigeria. Please stop promoting stereotypes and the fetishization/hyper-sexualization of black people. — Ava Marie BLM ALL THE WAY (@AvaMari93699497) October 25, 2020
I know SNL is hit and miss. A lot of misses.
But this African Tourism sketch is horrendous.
And I’ve always backed Adele, but this is so wrong.
Unoriginal, unfunny and leans too much into offensive stereotypes without educating, yawn. — freedom & veg (@edgarallanglow) October 25, 2020
That "Africa" #SNL sketch was Not Good. It portrayed bad stereotypes of black men and objectified them which is truly just not funny. — Matteo Boyd Voted Absentee, Go Vote (@matteo_boyd) October 25, 2020
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A skit about white women going to Africa for sex tourism with Adele breaking character constantly because she can’t control her laughter. Really??? — Mayra Mejia (She/Her) (@MayraTweeets) October 25, 2020
During the scene, which aired live, Adele was seen repeatedly struggling to say her lines through her laughter, which many also found insensitive.
HuffPost UK has contacted representatives for both Adele and Saturday Night Live for comment.
Back in August, the Someone Like You singer faced a backlash from many critics who accused her of cultural appropriation, after she posted a photo of herself celebrating Notting Hill Carnival in an outfit consisting of a Jamaican flag-print bikini, gold jewellery and Bantu knots.
Adele did not address the controversy at the time, but did receive public support from a number of high-profile figures, including politician David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, where the Grammy-winning star was raised.
Branding the debate “poppycock”, Lammy tweeted: “This humbug totally misses the spirit of Notting Hill Carnival and the tradition of ‘dress up’ or ‘masquerade’... Adele was born and raised in Tottenham she gets it more than most. Thank you Adele. Forget the Haters.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--Was This Just Another Manic Monday, Or A Deeper Problem For Johnson?

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Mondays in a Commons half-term recess are supposed to be quiet times for MPs and, to a lesser extent, ministers. Not today, as the torrid weekend of public anger over free school meals continued unabated. WhatsApp groups and texts have seen backbenchers message each other with their despair at the sheer lack of direction and leadership on the topic.
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As I write in my longer piece on what’s gone wrong over the issue, the Marcus Rashford campaign has exposed a deeper unease over just how No.10 does politics and how much it listens to its foot soldiers. It’s also raised questions over the very nature of “Johnsonism” itself: is it really about interventionist spending (as the voters were told) or is it about balancing the books and individual responsibility (as many Tory MPs think)?
That spectre of “the nasty party”, that Boris Johnson so effectively neutralised in the north and elsewhere in the last election, is certainly back. The PM has gone out of his way to say he won’t be returning to austerity (though his refusal to use the word perhaps gives a clue to how shifty he can be on the topic) and that he will be delivering on his promises of new hospitals, more nurses and “levelling” up the whole country.
The toxic nature of the free school meals vote last week means that the government looks like it’s “grinding down” the poorest, not levelling anything up. But some MPs think that term itself is totally meaningless to many voters. A former minister tells me that when he tested the “levelling up” phrase randomly among constituents, one voter replied: “do you mean the potholes?”
Johnson normally gets away without focusing on details because he’s so good at the big picture that voters prefer. The problem is that his (and Gavin Williamson’s) handling of the Rashford campaign has left the government with neither a big picture answer nor a detailed rebuttal. As Manchester University’s Rob Ford tells me, he’s not learning the lessons of his own Brexit or election campaign: focus on symbolism.
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Or, as one former minister put it more pithily to me: “What would it cost, £70m max, to sort it? He should have said ‘fuck it, just do it’ and we could have all avoided the flak we are getting.”
Instead, the best the PM could do today was to issue a short TV clip with a vague message that he would “make sure that we have no children” in England “who go hungry this winter”. No plan, no policy, just a ‘trust me’ plea. Backbenchers were unsure whether this was the PM standing firm, or coming up with a smarter policy, or just treading-water waffle.
Rashford’s combination of a long-term policy solution and a short-term social media campaign has proved he has a better feel for politics (without being party pris) than most professional politicians. The “cut-through” has been huge, as the raft of quotes from MPs I’ve had in the past 24 hours makes clear. The last two times anything had such an impact was Rashford’s summer campaign on the same topic, and when Dominic Cummings took a scenic tour of the north east.
As yet another ex minister said to me, this latest row is “months after the Cummings fiasco..both handled really badly, both cut through the noise and both won’t be forgotten. Drives me to despair.”
Perhaps the most worrying thing for many Tory MPs is just how fragile their 80 seat majority now looks, just 11 months after that comprehensive victory over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. Several of them are just appalled at how their party could be humiliated by such an obvious and predictable device as an Opposition Day motion. Many assumed the PM had something up his sleeve but in fact there was nothing other than a weak set of talking points.
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With even No.10 now realising that it cannot allow the October half term nightmare to turn into a Christmas catastrophe, Keir Starmer is threatening to force another vote. I’m told Labour had been due another Opposition Day on November 4 next week, but – surprise, surprise - the government pulled last Thursday, the morning after last week’s vote. Starmer could use an emergency Standing Order 24 debate instead, however, if the Speaker permits.
There is still some hope on the Tory backbenches that No.10 can stop the self-inflicted wounds, that the Covid curve will flatten before Christmas, that a Brexit deal will lift the gloom in part and that even the PM’s own poor ratings are bottoming out.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--Guardians Of The Galaxy's Dave Bautista Gives Joe Biden A Ringing Endorsement

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Actor/pro wrestler Dave Bautista, who is best-known for playing Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians Of The Galaxy and Avengers films, is endorsing Democratic candidate Joe Biden for president.
Dave, a frequent critic of Trump on Twitter, said there was a key difference between Biden and the current US leader: “toughness”.
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“It’s easy to lie to people. It’s easy to bully people,” Dave said, referring to Trump. “That does not make you a tough guy.”
Biden, he said, will tell people the truth. Dave also praised Biden’s plan to lead the country out of the coronavirus pandemic.
“A leader is someone who can unite people, who takes responsibility,” the actor said. “That’s toughness. That is Joe Biden.”
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In addition to acting, Dave was formerly a champ in the WWE, where he performed under the name Batista.
He was set to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2020, but the ceremony was put on hold due to the pandemic.
However, over the summer, Dave gave fans a glimpse of how he would’ve dressed for the occasion had it taken place:
Well this would’ve been my @wwe #HOF tux but now it’s going to be my @dunemovie red carpet tux. Hopefully🙏🏼Anyway!! One way or another this bad boy is getting some flash bulb attention cuz it’s 🔥🔥🔥🔥 can’t do anything about the gorilla in it.😂 It is what it is🤷🏻♂#DreamChaser pic.twitter.com/5vt3kOkoJu — Super Duper Fly (@DaveBautista) August 7, 2020
At the time of his tweet, Dune was set for a 2020 release, although this has since been pushed back to the autumn of 2021.
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thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--AJ Pritchard Quit Strictly Come Dancing As Show 'Wouldn’t Allow A Lot Of Things To Happen'

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Former Strictly Come Dancing professional AJ Pritchard has claimed he stepped down from the show as he felt it was too restrictive when it came to pursuing other opportunities.
AJ quit Strictly after four series earlier this year, saying at the time he hoped to “follow his dreams to explore opportunities within the presenting world”, alongside his famous brother Curtis Pritchard.
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In a new interview with The Sun, he admitted that he felt that there were things that the show “wouldn’t allow” him to do, which inspired his decision to leave the show.
AJ Pritchard at the Strictly launch in 2018 Karwai Tang via Getty Images
“I did four years of Strictly, which I absolutely loved, but it was definitely the right time for me to venture into new things,” AJ explained.
“Strictly wouldn’t allow a lot of things to happen that I wanted to happen, so it meant you do have to do that leap, and for me it’s not a risk, it’s something I’m passionate about.”
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He also said: “I’m the sort of person — for example coming off Strictly — I make decisions, then I just deal with them and I go with them 100 per cent.”
AJ with his brother, Curtis Pritchard Jo Hale via Getty Images
AJ has been heavily rumoured to be one of the contestants on the upcoming series of I’m A Celebrity, which will be set in a castle in Wales this year rather than the Australian jungle, due to coronavirus restrictions.
The professional dancer was recently seen at what is believed to be a photo-shoot for I’m A Celebrity, alongside other rumoured stars like Vernon Kay and Beverly Callard.
Speaking to the newspaper, AJ dodged questions about whether we’d soon be seeing him on the line-up, but did say: “I’m intrigued as to how it’s going to work this year, not being in Australia in the sunshine.
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“I do like the sun, so I don’t know how the celebrities will take it. I think whoever wants to do that show would prefer it in a hot country.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--Nottingham Becomes Latest City To Move Into Tier 3 Coronavirus Restrictions

The measures, which were shared by Broxtowe Council on Twitter, will be formally announced on Tuesday. The new rules follow discussions between the government and council leaders.
In a shared statement, the council leaders said the new measures had been designed to reduce infection rates and “help protect our vulnerable residents, the NHS and social care services”.
“A package of support similar to those secured in other parts of the country has been agreed to help residents and businesses who will be impacted by the new restrictions.”
Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome said it was “regrettable” that Nottingham would enter the highest level of restrictions.
“This situation was totally avoidable had we had a proper track and trace system in place, and had the government given people financial support to stay at home, instead of encouraging the reopening of workplaces and social spaces before this system was fully functional,” the Labour backbencher said.
“Nottingham City Council is clear that the government’s proposals are not adequate to cover the costs of protecting health, livelihoods and businesses in Nottingham.”
Whittome added: “While we await further detail and clarity on the proposals, the government must urgently change its attitude towards Nottingham MPs and get round the table with us.
“I will continue to fight to secure a financial settlement that properly reflects the needs of our city and my constituents.”


thehuffingtonpostuk--2020-10-26--Nasa Says There's Plenty Of Water On The Moon And That Sounds Quite Appealing Right Now

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The moon’s surface holds more water than previously thought, scientists have confirmed – a discovery that could make deep space exploration easier than ever.
While it has been known that hidden pockets of water exist in the permanent shadows, this is the first time liquid has been identified in the sunlit areas.
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Paul Hertz, director of the astrophysics division in the science mission directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington, said: “We had indications that H2O – the familiar water we know – might be present on the sunlit side of the moon.
“Now we know it is there.
Water has been found on a sunlit surface of the moon (file picture) Amr Dalsh / Reuters
“This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration.”
Nasa had teased the announcement about the moon earlier.
And Celine Dion prophesied this in 1992 https://t.co/YwjwiFdGsY — jamie grayson (@TheBabyGuyNYC) October 26, 2020
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Can’t wait to spend $50 on a single cube of moon water ice in an old fashioned at a LA cocktail bar. https://t.co/Y88ITylPcN — Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) October 26, 2020
THEY’RE GIVING IT TO ME. SPOILER ALERT! MY MOON NOW. https://t.co/dzzge1MlM0 — CARSON (@CallMeCarsonYT) October 23, 2020
It emerged that existing pockets of water on the moon could be much more common than scientists previously thought.
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Researchers suggest that in some cases tiny patches of ice might exist in permanent shadows no bigger than a penny.
They explored phenomena on the moon called cold traps, which are shadowy regions of the surface that exist in a state of eternal darkness.
It is thought that many have gone without a single ray of sunlight for potentially billions of years.
Now scientists say there may be a lot more of these nooks and crannies than previous data suggests.
Paul Hayne, assistant professor in the laboratory of atmospheric and space physics at University of Colorado Boulder, said: “If you can imagine standing on the surface of the moon near one of its poles, you would see shadows all over the place.
“Many of those tiny shadows could be full of ice.”
Drawing on detailed data from Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the researchers estimate the moon could harbour roughly 15,000 square miles of permanent shadows in various shapes and sizes.
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According to scientists, these might be reservoirs capable of preserving water via ice.
Prof Hayne added: “If we’re right, water is going to be more accessible for drinking water, for rocket fuel, everything that Nasa needs water for.”
Previous research has reported signs of hydration on the lunar surface, particularly around the south pole.