Organizers of the Beijing Olympics are touting greater gender equity at this year’s Games, but Nordic combined remains the only event not open to women.
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Missouri man who fought to ban ‘inappropriate’ queer-themed books from public school libraries faces felony charge for child abuse
A US man who pushed to ban several LGBTQ books from public schools now faces a felony charge for second-degree child molestation. He is also facing a misdemeanor charge of attempting to show pornographic material to a minor in a separate case.
The accused, 29-year-old Ryan Utterback from a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, appeared for a hearing on Thursday, according to KMBC-TV. According to court documents, the felony charges relate to separate incidents in 2020 – when he allegedly touched a 12-year-old girl under her clothes and rubbed a teen’s leg underneath her jeans.
The misdemeanor case alleges that Utterback used his cellphone to show pornographic video footage to a child, beginning from when she was around four. He also faces another misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree domestic assault. The second hearing will reportedly take place in March.
The charges came after he and other parents complained at a North Kansas City School District board meeting last year about “pornographic” LGBTQ-themed books on school shelves. At the meeting in October, Utterback held up enlarged prints of two pages from the graphic memoir ‘Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic’, while another parent argued that distributing the material amounted to “solicitation of a minor.”
“I definitely understand their struggles and it’s not lost on me. But again those conversations are to be had at home. Only I have the intimate understanding as to what is and isn’t appropriate for my children,” Utterback had previously told KMBC.
The school district pulled two books from the school libraries, but later reinstated them after a warning from the ACLU. Besides the graphic memoir, which deals with gender identity, the second book was ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’, a compilation of essays about growing up as a queer black person.
In a tweet this week, George M. Johnson – the author of the second book – highlighted the charges against Utterback and his earlier objections about the books being “pornographic and inappropriate for his kids.” Johnson noted that “our books teach [and] give resources to kids about predators like him.”
Neither Utterback nor the school board have offered comments as of yet.
For the last three years, a retired cook in northern Burkina Faso has been providing shelter for people displaced by armed attacks in the country, where the security situation continues to deteriorate.
The Winter Olympics are now underway and the FBI has been telling athletes heading to Beijing to bring a burner phone. There are all kinds of digital threats to the Olympics.
Reverses Trump’s decision to rescind waivers related to Tehran’s civilian nuclear activities
Washington has allowed foreign companies to engage in some civilian projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, Tehran Research Reactor and Arak heavy water plant, in an apparent bid to push forward negotiations to restore the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The waiver with respect to these activities is designed to facilitate discussions that would help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA commitments,” the State Department said in a notice to Congress seen by the Associated Press on Friday.
As part of the JCPOA, Tehran agreed in 2015 to strict oversight of its nuclear energy program – maintaining that it never sought to obtain atomic weapons – in exchange for relief from sanctions imposed by the UN at the US’ urging. Former US President Donald Trump, however, decided that the deal was not good enough and unilaterally reimposed those sanctions in 2018. Some waivers granted at the time were later rescinded in 2020 as part of Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign.
Upon taking office in January 2021, US President Joe Biden said he was open to returning to the JCPOA if Iran came back into compliance. Tehran responded that Washington needs to come into compliance first, starting with the removal of sanctions.
“If the parties are ready to lift sanctions, the ground for reaching an agreement on nuclear issues is absolutely ready,” President Ebrahim Raisi told RT in an exclusive interview last month.
The State Department, however, emphasized that the sanctions relief serves “US nonproliferation and nuclear safety interests” and should not be seen as a “commitment or as part of a quid pro quo.”
