Abstinence-only education is now illegal in Illinois. A bill passed two days ago by the state senate will require that schools with sex education classes include units on birth control. Schools can opt out of sex education altogether if they so desire (as they can now), and they’ll still have to teach that abstinence is the only absolute, surefire way to prevent pregnancy and STIs, but now they’ll have to provide information on contraceptives as well. The governor is expected to sign the bill. source
There’s a wrinkle here: In its recounting of today’s revelations, the Daily Caller writes that the lawyer “blamed four news outlets — CNN, The Daily Caller, Telemundo and Univision — for allegedly encouraging him to fabricate false accusations about Menendez.” This isn’t true; according to the Post, the man only accused the Daily Caller—not the other three outlets—of offering to bribe him (the other three were mentioned as having requested to interview the man after he made the claims). The lawyer’s reliability is already shot, having reversed his story at least once, but the Daily Caller has seriously undermined its own credibility by reporting the original story in such a misleading, and indeed factually inaccurate, way. This is one of those weird news stories where all parties involved seem to have been dishonest to some degree—with the possible exception of Menendez himself.
The law makes abortions illegal after 12 weeks - a violation of Roe v. Wade, which allows a fetus to be aborted until it’s viable outside outside of the womb (roughly 24 weeks). Democratic Governor Mike Beebe, who unsuccessfully tried to veto the legislation, called it “blatantly unconstitutional,” and several progressive groups have pledge to challenge the law in federal court.
After Australian cyclist Caroline Buchanan attached the image above to a tweet reading “Haha, the rumours are true. Olympic village,” IOC officials descended on the Olympic Village to determine how the unauthorized prophylactics got past security. Once spotted, officials promptly pulled the condoms out of the village, and have asked that athletes not share unsponsored products with one another. Admittedly, prior to this story, we weren’t aware that the Olympics even had an official condom; however, after doing a bit of digging, we think we may have figured out what the real problem is here. We figure the Kangaroo condoms probably didn’t pass Boris’ rigorous inspection. (context here) source
Police in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco are confiscating condoms from sex workers and transgender women, undermining health department campaigns to reduce HIV.
Don’t take away people’s condoms!
Read more and watch our interviews of sex workers here.
© 2012 Human Rights Watch
Questionable approach of the day. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 300 people in putting together this report, and some of the findings are fairly shocking. “Criminalizing HIV prevention undermines human rights and endangers the public health,” said Human Rights Watch senior health researcher Megan McLemore.
integrity won’t pay the mortgages I will ask all of u how many of u would do your job for no pay?R&B singer Brian McKnight • Discussing on Twitter why he chose to make a theme song for an adult Web site, roughly a month after another sexually-explicit song of his gave the singer some late-career notoriety. The Washington Post’s Sarah Anne Hughes smartly gets past the weirdness of a guy known for wedding songs shilling for a porn site, and instead focuses on what this means for R&B in general: “It’s hard to fault McKnight for writing explicit songs if they pay the bills and allow him to keep creating R&B,” she says, noting that McKnight’s style of R&B rarely shows up on the radio these days.
Hey, Belvedere, here’s a free marketing tip: Sex sells! Rape, on the other hand, doesn’t. Unless it’s the first half of a horror film, and it’s followed by the victim exacting sweet revenge on her assailants. Belvedere pulled the ad an hour after tweeting it, and promptly apologized, but still, we’re rather shocked this got past even the initial stages of consideration. source
Welcome to our first edition of the Newsweek also-rans, a brand new nwk tumblr feature from our friends in the art department!
Here’s Dirk Barnett, Newsweek & The Daily Beast’s Creative Director:
Every week we produce anywhere from 10-20 different cover ideas until we settle on what works best or as the story develops, so at the end of each week we wind up with a proverbial wastebasket full of scrapped concepts.
The week’s cover, “The Politics of Sex,” is a perfect example to kick this off. These directions are a combination of ideas generated in-house and commissions to various illustrators, designers, studios, ad agencies, etc. This week, we tapped the creative minds at ad agency Hill Holiday and the design studio Dress Code, as well as renowned book designer Rodrigo Corral. Take a look at what’s left on our cutting room floor this week. Enjoy!
Here’s the cover that made newsstands this week. Which of the also-rans is your favorite?
[Design credits, from top left: Dress Code, Dress Code, Hill Holiday, Hill Holiday, Hill Holiday, Rodrigo Corral, Rodrigo Corral]
Are these covers better than the one that actually ran? Admit the one with the condom flag (bottom right) is kind of amazing.
In her last days, my mother occasionally became confused....
”The reporter...
I can’t add much to what’s already been (and will be) ...
One of the perks of being an early employee...
Over the last 90 days, the Digg...
#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Headway in the fight against HIV: A drug called Truvada is effective in preventing AIDS contraction up to 73% of the time, according to two new studies carried out in Africa. The drug has been tested before with less stellar results, but researchers now suspect the earlier study may have been flawed. The catch with preventative drugs, of course, is that you have to remember to take them before the risk presents itself, but still, this is great news. source
Not. A. Typo.
There is a photo with this story (it’s SFW) that shows the man in question … fondling a vehicle.
» Last June, he called for a “truce” on social issues. Now, with a presidential run looking ever-so-tempting, Mitch Daniels has no problem cutting reproductive services for 9,300 Medicaid recipients in Indiana, of which he is regrettably the governor. Today, a court rejected Planned Parenthood’s efforts to postpone enforcement of the bill. For low-income Indianans who feared they might have life-threatening illnesses, Planned Parenthood was one of their only resources. Now, thanks to Daniels’ quixotic presidential ambitions, they’re out of luck. (Note: A separate request for an injunction, filed by the ACLU, has not yet been ruled on)
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