Far out! Loxahatchee dad convinced his son was hit by meteorite fragments

 Far out! Loxahatchee dad convinced his son was hit by meteorite fragments

 LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. -- The odds are astronomical, but 7-year-old Steven Lippard and his dad are convinced the boy was struck by pebbles from a meteorite Saturday while playing outside.Steven has a gash -- stitched up with three staples -- on his head to prove it. Initial testing at Florida Atlantic University indicates the little stones -- pea sized and smaller -- are metallic, a good sign they came from space. Other testing supports the meteorite theory.When it happened Saturday, Steven was bleeding from a wound that apparently came out of nowhere. His dad Wayne thought it might be from a golf ball or maybe a bird swooping down.Moments later they found the little rocks. A chemical test can confirm they came from space.What are the odds? Astronomer Phil Plait figures it's almost impossible to calculate . Only two people in America have had close brushes with meteorites in recent times. An eight-pound fragment hit an Alabama woman in 1954, and a 27-pounder crushed a car in New York in 1992.Steven says he hasn't gained any super powers -- yet -- from the collision, but he's got a story he says he will share with his kids when he grows up. ||||| Wayne Lippard knows the odds are "astronomical," but he’s convinced his 7-year-old son was struck by a small meteorite while playing in the driveway of the family's Florida home.

 Lippard, of Loxahatchee, told FoxNews.com that his son Steven was enjoying his new toolbox in the family’s driveway on Saturday when he was struck in the head by something unusual, causing a small gash that later required three staples to close.

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 "As soon as I looked at it, I realized it was something different." - Wayne Lippard

 “He’s playing in the driveway and I walk into the house and about four minutes later, he comes to the window screaming,” Lippard said Wednesday. “The gash looked pretty bad, but it wasn’t bleeding a lot so we didn’t panic. He actually wanted to go play again because he was so into his new toolbox.”

 Lippard, 43, said he wanted to immediately take his son — who suffers from an autism spectrum disorder — to the hospital for observation, but didn’t want to frighten or startle him. The boy’s grandparents then arrived at the home and were told the incredible story as Lippard searched for any clues online.

 “I did some research and tried to figure out what hit him,” he said. “Maybe it was a golf ball or maybe it was debris from the landing gear of a plane.”

 The possibility that his son was simply covering up for a self-inflicted wound with his new toys also crossed his mind, Lippard said.

 “What if he hit himself with a claw hammer and didn’t want to admit it?” Lippard asked.

 Lippard then returned outside to scour the ground near where Steven was hit and noticed a handful of small rocks — each about the size of a pea or smaller — in a 3-foot diameter that didn’t look like any others in his large driveway.

 “As soon as I looked at it, I realized it was something different,” he said.

 Lippard’s next move was to take the rocks – which he later learned where magnetized, further supporting his claim – to Florida Atlantic University. But scientists at the school were ill-equipped to analyze the rocks and make a determination whether it came from space or not.

 "Upon preliminary observation, researchers at the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Science were not able to determine if the material brought to the laboratory by Mr. Lippard is a meteorite or not," school officials said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "Laboratory equipment used for the study of meteorites would be necessary to make this determination."

 Lippard still has the fragments in his possession and he won’t give them up unless there’s an agreement that they’ll be returned to him once properly analyzed and perhaps verified.

 “I don’t want to let go of them,” he said. “This is a meteorite, I know it. I want to make sure they’re truly investigated properly.”

 The odds of being struck by a meteorite are reportedly astronomically low. Discovery Magazine reported in 2008 that only one person in modern times had been hit: a woman in Sylacauga, Ala., who was struck by an 8-pound meteorite. In 1992, a woman’s car was crushed in New York. In 1997, another Alabama woman was struck by something that plunged to Earth from space, this time a piece of space junk.

 Meteorites, which are pieces of asteroids and other celestial bodies that fall to Earth, are frequently distinguished from terrestrial rocks because they are magnetized due to the presence of iron or nickel. And whatever struck his son, Lippard said, it’s highly magnetic, strengthening the claim in his mind.

 Lippard said his son was not traumatized by the experience, but realizes it could’ve been much worse.

 “He talks about it all the time, he thinks it’s cool,” he said. “But he could’ve been killed. It hit cement and shattered; it grazed him.”

Summary: – Did cosmic debris crash through the atmosphere from outer space to give a 7-year-old Florida boy a nasty gash on his head as he played in his driveway? Steven Lippard's dad believes it did, and initial testing on the pea-sized fragments of rock found in the driveway suggests he might be right, CBS 12 reports. Scientists at Florida State University say the rocks are metallic, which could be a sign they are meteorite fragments, but more testing needs to be done. The father discovered the unusual rocks while trying to figure out how his son had received a sudden injury to the head. Steven needed three staples to close the gash but wasn't traumatized by the experience. "He talks about it all the time, he thinks it’s cool," his father tells Fox. "But he could've been killed. It hit cement and shattered; it grazed him." If the meteorite strike is confirmed, the boy will join just one other known victim in US history: an Alabama woman who was seriously hurt by an 8-pound space rock in 1954.


NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court on Tuesday issued a landmark verdict recognizing transgender rights as human rights, saying people can identify themselves as a third gender on official documents.

 Indian eunuchs dance after Supreme Court’s verdict recognizing third gender category, in Nagpur, India, Tuesday, April 15, 2014. India's top court on Tuesday issued a landmark verdict recognizing transgender... (Associated Press)

 The Supreme Court directed the federal and state governments to include transgendered people in all welfare programs for the poor, including education, health care and jobs to help them overcome social and economic challenges. Previously, transgendered Indians could only identify themselves as male or female in all official documents.

 The decision was praised as giving relief to the estimated 3 million Indians who are transgender.

 The court noted that it was the right of every human being to choose their gender while granting rights to those who identify themselves as neither male nor female.

 "All documents will now have a third category marked 'transgender.' This verdict has come as a great relief for all of us. Today I am proud to be an Indian," said Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a transgender activist who, along with a legal agency, had petitioned the court.

 The court's decision would apply to individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

 "The spirit of the (Indian) Constitution is to provide equal opportunity to every citizen to grow and attain their potential, irrespective of caste, religion or gender," the court said in its order.

 The Supreme Court specified its ruling would only apply to transgender people but not to gays, lesbians or bisexuals. India's LGBT communities have been protesting the court's recent decision to reinstate a colonial-era law banning gay sex, which they say will make them vulnerable to police harassment.

 The court also ordered the government to put in place public awareness campaigns to lessen the social stigma against transgender people.

 Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan told the court that the "recognition of transgender (people) as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue."

 "Transgenders are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other rights," he said.

 The court ruled that transgender people would have the same right to adopt children as other Indians.

 The court said any person who underwent surgery to change his or her sex would be entitled to be legally recognized as belonging to the gender of their choice.

 The apex court also ordered state governments to construct separate public toilets for transgender people and create health departments to take care of their medical problems.

 Recently, India's Election Commission for the first time allowed a third gender choice — "other" — on voter registration forms. The change was made in time for the national elections being held in phases through May 12.

 Some 28,000 voters registered themselves in that category.

 Many transgendered men in India earn a living by singing and dancing at weddings and births, but others must resort to begging or prostitution. ||||| In India, as in almost every nation in the West, members of the transgender population have historically been forced to designate themselves as either a “male” or “female” on all governmental forms.

 No longer.

 In what local media are calling a landmark judgment, India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday created a “third gender” status for transgender people, granting the group formal recognition for the first time. “Recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue,” Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan said when he announced the ruling. “Transgenders are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other rights.”

 He directed local governmental bureaucracies to identify transgender people as a neutral third gender, adding that they will now have the same access to social welfare programs as other minority groups in India, the world’s largest democracy and currently in the midst an election campaign.

 The court’s decision would apply to individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth, the Associated Press said.

 The Supreme Court specified that its ruling would apply only to transgender people and not to gays, lesbians or bisexuals. India’s LGBT communities have been protesting the court’s recent decision to reinstate a colonial-era law banning gay sex, which they say will make them vulnerable to police harassment.

 The case was brought in 2012 when a group led by transgender activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, a Hindi film actress, sought equal rights for India’s transgender population.

 On Tuesday, Tripathi was triumphant. “Today, for the first time I feel very proud to be an Indian,” she told reporters gathered at the New Delhi court. “Today, my sisters and I feel like real Indians, and we feel so proud because of the rights granted to us by the Supreme Court.”

 Across much of South Asia and Southeast Asia, the language of gender is substantially more ambiguous than it is in the West. In countries such as Thailand and Cambodia, transgender people aren’t usually referred to as either a man or a woman — but as kathoey. India’s decision follows other regional countries’ decisions to recognize a third gender. Last year, neighboring Nepal offered a third gender option on official documents for its transgender population.

 The West has been a tad slower to adopt such measures. Last year, Germany became the first European country to recognize a third gender, allowing parents of newborns to mark “male,” “female” or “indeterminate” on birth certificates.

 Across the rest of Europe, Spiegel Online reports, change has been more halting. “Things are moving slower than they should at the European level,” human rights activist Silvan Agius said. “Though Brussels has ramped up efforts to promote awareness of trans and intersex discrimination, I would like to see things speed up.”

 Things in India sped up this year. For the first time, India’s Election Commission allowed a third gender of “other” on voter registration forms for this election. Nearly 30,000 people designated themselves as “other,” the Associated Press reported, and there are an estimated 3 million transgender individuals in India.

 “The progress of the country is dependent upon [the] human rights of the people, and we are very happy with the judgment,” Tripathi said. “The Supreme Court has given us those rights.”

Summary: – In a major Supreme Court decision today, India is changing the way it defines gender. Transgender people are now officially considered a third gender, along with male and female, the Washington Post reports. "Recognition of transgenders as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue," says a justice. "Transgenders are citizens of this country and are entitled to education and all other rights." Transgendered people, the court says, must be granted access to social programs offering career, educational, and health care support, the AP adds. "All documents will now have a third category marked 'transgender.' This verdict has come as a great relief for all of us. Today I am proud to be an Indian," said transgender activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi. Some 3 million people in India identify as transgender, the AP notes. The new rules do not, however, apply to gay, lesbian, and bisexual citizens, the court said. Indeed, the court is currently facing protests for reviving a law against gay sex.


Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| On May 15, the WNBA suspended Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson—two married all-stars for the Phoenix Mercury and Tulsa Shock, respectively—for seven games apiece, calling the behavior of both parties equally “unacceptable” in a statement. However, contrary to what was originally reported, evidence provided by Johnson's attorney, Howard Snader, suggests that Johnson was the target rather than the perpetrator of the incident.

 On April 22, Griner and Johnson were arrested in Goodyear, Ariz., after police were called to a residence for a domestic dispute. Many of the details of the incident remain murky, but in a medical evaluation conducted two days after Johnson was arrested—according to records provided by Johnson’s lawyer—Phoenix-based orthopedic doctor Thomas C. Fiel noted that Johnson had been struck twice “on the back of her head by a hard carrying case.” A CT scan corroborated that Johnson had experienced head trauma and suffered a concussion. The CT scan also found evidence of spinal trauma. Griner, according to the police report, suffered only minor scratches.

 Attorney Jane Bambauer, who is a professor at Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law and teaches and writes about criminal procedure, wrote in an email to SI.com that the police report and Johnson’s medical reports clearly indicate to her that Griner “was the aggressor” even though each woman was referred to as "The Victim" in separate probable cause statements taken at the time of their arrests.

 “If I’m being fought,” Johnson said during an exclusive interview with SI.com last Thursday. “I’m not just gonna sit back … there’s probably a better way to handle it. But at the time … you’re just thinking of protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to stand up for yourself.”

 Despite having access to all of the legal and medical information, the WNBA still decided to punish both spouses equally.

 Photo: Maricopa County Sheriff's Office via AP

 “[The WNBA] definitely knew about it,” Johnson said, referring to her injuries and how they occurred. “And that’s another reason it surprised me that they came up with the same conclusion. I’m not going to throw Brittney under the bus … and she’s not going to throw me under the bus … [but] what the [

 ] did not say in the statements they released was that I pled not guilty … So for them to release a statement saying that we were both guilty in the situation, it’s not right. It’s not correct … Brittney pled guilty … Brittney understands why I pled not guilty, and I understand why she pled guilty … she was even willing to speak to whoever she needed to, to get the point across.”

 WNBA

 Johnson, who is 6'4" said police officers told her she was being arrested along with the 6'8" Griner (despite the fact that neither wanted to press charges) due to official policy. When domestic disputes occur between a man and a woman, the officers said, it's not automatic to arrest either party, but that “when it’s two women … they take both.” Lieutenant Scott Benson of the Goodyear police department says that the same-sex policies conveyed to Johnson were either "misunderstood or misrepresented. There's not anything with male or female in domestic violence laws," he says. "When there's a dual arrest made, [it's because] we can't determine who the aggressor is."

 According to Stacey Long Simmons, director of public policy and government affairs at the National LGBTQ Task Force, the dual arrest policy Benson describes is part of a larger problem in police protocol. "While we are unable to comment on the facts of [Johnson's] case, we find that local police departments still lack sufficient knowledge and cultural competency of LGBTQ couples and their families," Simmons wrote in an email to SI.com. "For example, in cases related to intimate partner violence involving same-sex couples, local officers still continue to arrest both parties."

 Bambauer agreed that dual arrests create problems for victims like Johnson. “After looking at these [documents],” Bambauer wrote, “I suspect the ‘primary aggressor’ issue is pretty relevant and important. If police (or the WNBA, for that matter) do not put in the work to figure out who the first, or most dominating, aggressor is, victims are doubly punished—first by their partner, and then by the state.” From a legal standpoint, Bambauer wrote, “the treatment of Johnson is a real source of liability for the Goodyear prosecutors. They, and the WNBA, deserve some criticism over their handling of this sad incident."

 Photo: Shane Bevel/NBAE via Getty Images

 Tulsa Shock issued a statement agreeing with the

 A popular player among fans, Tulsa’s Facebook,

 and Twitter pages featured photos of Johnson up until her arrest. Images of Johnson are noticeably absent from these pages now.

 TheWNBA’sWhen asked whether his position on the suspensions had changed in light of the circumstances surrounding Johnson's concussion, Steve Swetoha, president of the Shock, said that he stood by the statement he made after the WNBA's decision was released. Meanwhile, a representative from the Mercury told SI.com, "We're a little bit confused about it because [this new information] wasn't in the findings of the police report. It wasn't in the findings of the WNBA investigation." Griner's agency did not return calls seeking a comment.Instagram

 Although Johnson admits to being confused and disappointed by the league’s decision, her feelings about Griner haven’t changed. Throughout last Thursday’s phone conversation, she laughed whenever Griner’s name came up—there was a lightness in her voice, even when she was describing something difficult between them. She remains committed to her spouse, and said that one of the stressors leading to their altercation—on top of the strain of moving, buying a house, planning a wedding, and dealing with health crises in both of their families—was that the two were also meeting with fertility doctors to begin planning their own family.

 “A lot of people know we were considering the process—a lot of friends, anyway. But with two women, you know, it’s not like you can get somebody pregnant overnight. It’s a very huge process.

 "A lot of people were telling us that we rushed the wedding," she continued. "But if we had done it Brittney's way, we would have gone somewhere without telling anybody, and we would have done it way before anybody knew—which is something that I really like about her. She doesn't care what people think." In spite of the media storm surrounding her arrest, Johnson said she is enjoying being a newlywed and looking forward to playing against her spouse this season. "Our schedules are really hectic, and we might meet up maybe four times the entire season. It's tough at times, so [I need to] take advantage of each time [I] see her." ||||| WNBA's Brittney Griner OUR MARRIAGE IS OVER Files for Annulment (Update)

 Brittney Griner -- OUR MARRIAGE IS OVER ... Files for Annulment (Update)

 EXCLUSIVE

 4:31 PM PT -- In court docs obtained by TMZ Sports, Griner says she has NO biological connection to the baby ... and she doesn't know any of the key details about Johnson's pregnancy.

 In short, it seems like Griner is suggesting they were not on the same page when it came to the pregnancy.

 Griner also says the marriage to Johnson is based on "fraud and duress" -- because Griner was "pressured into marriage under duress by [Johnson's] threatening statements."

 Griner does not specify the nature of the threats.

 Griner also says there was fraud -- but does not say why. It seems to be related to the pregnancy.

 As for the fetus, Griner does not say if she wants to have any type of parenting arrangement with the child. IT'S OVER -- WNBA superstar Brittney Griner has officially filed papers seeking to annul her 28 day marriage to her pregnant new wife Glory Johnson ... TMZ Sports has learned.

 Griner and Johnson tied the knot on May 8th in a small ceremony in Arizona ... just weeks after they were both arrested in a domestic violence incident at their home.

 The move is especially shocking considering Johnson just announced she's pregnant.

 Johnson and Griner have been together for a while -- and even appeared on an episode of "Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta" together back in January.

 As we previously reported, Griner and Johnson were taken into custody for domestic violence on April 22nd. Both women say it was mutual combat after a heated argument got physical.

 Griner later pled guilty to disorderly conduct and was ordered to complete a 26 week domestic violence counseling program. Johnson's case is still pending.

 Both women were hit with 7 game suspensions from the WNBA ... though it's unclear how the league will handle the situation with Johnson, considering she's missing the entire 2015 season due to pregnancy. ||||| Glory Johnson Brittney Griner Is a Liar ... She Blindsided Me

 Glory Johnson -- Brittney Griner Is a Liar ... She Blindsided Me

 EXCLUSIVE

 Glory Johnson says she was "blindsided" by Brittney Griner's decision to file for an annulment today -- telling TMZ Sports she's "extremely hurt" by Brittney's actions.

 We spoke with Johnson's sports marketing agent, D.J. Fisher, who tells us "Glory was unaware of the filing and still loves and cares for Brittney."

 TMZ Sports broke the story ... Griner filed the court docs Friday -- saying Johnson essentially threatened her into getting married ... and claims the whole thing was a fraud.

 Griner issued a statement saying, "Last Wednesday, Glory and I agreed to either legally separate, get divorced, or annul our marriage. In the week prior to the wedding, I attempted to postpone the wedding several times until I completed counseling, but I still went through with it. I now realize that was a mistake."

 But Johnson's camp says Brittney's full of crap -- saying they NEVER agreed to annul the marriage.

 Johnson's rep adds, "Glory loves Brittney and made a huge sacrifice to carry a child, put her career on hold, to invest in their relationship and their future. As a result she won't be playing this season."

 "Glory wouldn't intentionally do anything to hurt Brittney and has tried her best to protect her and their marriage. Obviously this marriage was about them starting their life together. Glory is the sweetest thing in the world and she was dedicated to their partnership."

 "She knows how important marriage is and made a lifetime commitment and decision to spend the rest of her life with Brittney."

Summary: – This looks messy: WNBA players Brittney Griner and Glory Johnson seem headed for a breakup just 28 days into their budding marriage, People reports. The move comes right after Johnson announced her pregnancy, and six weeks after the 24-year-olds were arrested and got league suspensions for getting in a fight at home. "Last Wednesday, Glory and I agreed to either legally separate, get divorced, or annul our marriage," Griner says in a statement; she filed papers to annul their marriage on Friday, TMZ reports. Hours later, Johnson posted an Internet meme about "unperfect people refusing to give up on each other," but deleted it soon after and said Griner's move blindsided her. Johnson revealed her pregnancy Thursday in an Instagram photo of a bun going into a cake shaped like an oven, but Griner says the pair agreed to call it quits Wednesday. She also claims to know very little about the pregnancy. On Friday, Johnson posted on Instagram, "One day until I'm reunited with my wife @brittneygriner. . . This is about to be one CRAZY SUMMER!!!" All of this follows a Sports Illustrated interview with Johnson published Tuesday, in which she claims Griner targeted her in their Goodyear, Arizona, domestic dispute. Medical records say Johnson was hit twice "on the back of her head by a hard carrying case," giving Johnson spinal trauma and a concussion, while Griner escaped with minor injuries. Adding to the mix, Griner now says Johnson threatened her into getting married in the first place, but doesn't dish on details, notes TMZ.


FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump... (Associated Press)

 FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump has panned Saturday Night Live's season premiere but tweeted praise for Kanye West. As the show... (Associated Press)

 FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump has panned Saturday Night Live's season premiere but tweeted praise for Kanye West. As the show... (Associated Press) FILE- In this Sept. 7, 2018, file photo Kanye West attends the Ralph Lauren 50th Anniversary Event held at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park during New York Fashion Week in New York. President Donald Trump... (Associated Press)

 NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has panned Saturday Night Live's season premiere but tweeted praise for Kanye West, who closed the show with a pro-Trump message.

 Saturday's show opened with Matt Damon playing Brett Kavanaugh in a parody of Thursday's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on sexual assault claims.

 As the show ended, West took the stage wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and made an unscripted pro-Trump speech after the credits rolled.

 Videos of the speech circulated on social media.

 Trump tweeted Sunday that he didn't watch the show — it's "no longer funny" and "is just a political ad for the Dems."

 He added: "Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told 'no'), was great. He's leading the charge!" ||||| Rapper Kanye West got boos and jeers from the audience at “Saturday Night Live” after he went on a pro-President Trump rant during the closing credits of the season premiere.

 West, wearing a red “Make American Great Again” hat and with the show’s cast standing behind him, launched into the screed off camera, but it was caught on video by comedian Chris Rock.

 “I wanna cry right now, black man in America, supposed to keep what you’re feeling inside right now,” he sang as he paced the stage.

 He continued: “The blacks want always Democrats you know it’s like the plan they did, to take the fathers out the home and put them on welfare. Does anybody know about that? That’s a Democratic plan.”

 Then he turned to his support of Trump.

 “There’s so many times I talk to like a white person about this and they say, ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist.’ Well, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago.”

 A smattering of applause was quickly drowned out by boos in the audience.

 Rock could be heard on the video saying, “Oh, my God.”

 West appeared on the show’s 44th season opener as a last-minute replacement for Ariana Grande, who canceled. ||||| Like many, I don’t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) - no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems. Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told “no”), was great. He’s leading the charge! ||||| The rapper, sporting a Make America Great Again hat, called for more open political dialogue and hinted at a 2020 run.

 During the 44th season premiere of NBC's Saturday Night Live on Saturday, musical guest Kanye West gave a pro-Trump speech while wearing a Make America Great Again hat in a speech made after the TV broadcast ended.

 “There’s so many times I talked to a white person about this and they’re like, ‘How can you like Trump, he’s racist?’ Well, if I was concerned about racism I would have moved out of America a long time ago,” West said to the crowd at Studio 8H in New York, eliciting several claps and a number of boos.

 "You’ve got a situation where you need to have a dialogue and not a diatribe...It’s easy to make it seem like it's so, so, so one-sided," West said in his speech.

 West also briefly alluded to plans of running for political office in 2020.

 His speech was filmed and posted to Instagram by comedian Chris Rock, who was in the crowd at the taping.

 Looks like we missed a lot after the credits

 Kanye is back to talking about running for president in 2020.

 : @chrisrock pic.twitter.com/yObaal85CA — Complex Music (@ComplexMusic) September 30, 2018

 The rapper delivered the comments after a final performance following the cast's sign-off. He was given extra time to perform a third song and when the broadcast ended, West invited the cast back onstage. When he began speaking, the moment made the cast uncomfortable, says a show insider — something that could be seen in the videos posted on social media. The insider said the cast returned to the stage assuming they would be dancing for his performance and what transpired was "unfair."

 During his speech from the SNL stage, West said he was "bullied" backstage before coming out in his MAGA hat. "You see they're laughing at me, they screamed at me," West said onstage. "They said, 'Don't go out there with that hat on.' They bullied me backstage. They bullied me! And then they say I'm in a sunken place. You want to see the sunken place? Okay, I'm going to listen to y'all now, or I'm going to put my Superman cape on," he said, replacing his MAGA cap. "This means you can't tell me what to do."

 West went on to say: "Follow your heart and stop following your mind. That's how we're controlled. That's how we're programmed. If you want the world to move forward, try love."

 The insider refuted West's "bullied" claim. West also wore the MAGA hat in promos leading up to the premiere with host Adam Driver and castmember Kenan Thompson, and in show photos leading up to his performance that aired during the broadcast.

 SNL goes off the air at 1 a.m. and West began his speech several minutes after 1 a.m., said the insider about why the moment didn't make it to air.

 KANYE SNL TALK THAT GOT CUT OFF FREEDOM OF SPEECH SHOULD HAVE EXTENDED pic.twitter.com/IpULoEJxsN — MIKE DEAN! #MWA (@therealmikedean) September 30, 2018

 On Sunday morning, President Donald Trump responded to West's performance on Twitter: "Like many, I don’t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) - no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems. Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told “no”), was great. He’s leading the charge!"

 Trump has not been shy about criticizing SNL in the past. The president has been strongly critical of Alec Baldwin's impersonation of him on the program, saying, "Alec Baldwin, whose dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alec, it was agony for those who were forced to watch."

 The rapper had previously voiced support for Trump, tweeting a picture of a MAGA hat he owned signed by the president and declaring they both had similar "dragon energy."

 "Just as a musician, African-American, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me and then told me that I couldn't say that I like Trump," West told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this year. West also took issue with the notion that "blacks can only be Democrats," an adage that fellow Chicago musician Chance the Rapper echoed on Twitter in April.

 Trump, at the time, responded to West's support by thanking the rapper via Twitter.

 Jackie Strause contributed to this story.

 Oct. 1., 9: 30 a.m. This story has been updated with additional details of West's performance.

Summary: – Kanye West's Saturday Night Live performance drew both praise and criticism after the vocally pro-Trump rapper appeared onstage in a "Make America Great Again" hat over the weekend. However, he reportedly made another statement regarding the president during his appearance, one that was cut from the show's final broadcast. Per the New York Post, West was booed by the audience as he ranted during closing credits that Democrats want to keep black Americans on welfare. He then addressed his well-known support of President Trump. "I talk to like a white person about this and they say, ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist.’" West said. "Well, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago.” Per the Hollywood Reporter, West also briefly suggested a 2020 run could be in his future. In the audience was former SNL cast member Chris Rock, who recorded West's statement on video and cringed audibly from behind the camera as West spoke. Among West's supporters was none other than the president himself, who tweeted Sunday that he doesn't watch the show ("a political ad for the Dems") but that he heard about West's hat. "Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told 'no'), was great," Trump wrote, per the AP. "He's leading the charge!" Among the topics tackled earlier in the Adam Driver-hosted premiere were the Kavanaugh testimony and show writer Pete Davidson's engagement to singer Ariana Grande.


Image copyright Reuters Image caption This file photo shows an identical coin from the same mintage

 A giant gold coin bearing the Queen's image, and worth $4m (£3.2m), has been stolen from a museum in Germany.

 The Canadian coin, nicknamed the "big maple leaf", has a face value of $1m - but because it is 100kg (220lb) of pure 24-carat gold, its value is much higher at today's price for gold bullion.

 It was taken during the night from the Bode Museum in Berlin.

 It is not clear how the thieves evaded the alarm system or carried the heavy, half-metre (20.9 in) coin away.

 The theft is believed to have happened at around 03:30 Monday morning (01:30 GMT).

 The coin is thought to be too heavy for a single person to carry, and police believe the thieves entered through a window.

 A ladder was found on the train tracks nearby.

 "Based on the information we have so far we believe that the thief, maybe thieves, broke open a window in the back of the museum next to the railway tracks," police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel told Reuters news agency. "They then managed to enter the building and went to the coin exhibition."

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The stolen Canadian £1m coin was stolen from behind bulletproof glass

 "The coin was secured with bullet-proof glass inside the building. That much I can say," he added - but refused to discuss details about security staff or the alarm system.

 The coin was minted by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007.

 It is 3cm (1.18in) thick, 53cm in diameter, and carries a likeness of Queen Elizabeth II on one side, as Canada's head of state.

 The other side shows the Canadian national symbol, the maple leaf.

 The coin cabinet at the Bode Museum holds more than 540,000 objects, but German media report only the "big maple leaf" was stolen. ||||| (CNN) A precious gold coin that's in the Guinness Book of Records for its unsurpassed purity was stolen early Monday from a museum in Germany.

 The coin, which weighs more than 200 pounds and has a diameter of more than 20 inches, was taken from the Bode Museum in Berlin after 2 a.m. local time. German media reports put the current value of the gold coin at 3.7 million euros, or slightly more than $4 million.

 Nicknamed "the "Big Maple Leaf," the coin was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, ahead of Queen Elizabeth II's state visit to Germany. It has a face value of more than $1 million and a purity of 999.99/1000 gold.

 The coin had been in the Bode Museum collection since 2010.

 Read More ||||| A group of Berlin thieves pulled off an improbable heist early Monday morning, breaking into a German museum with a ladder and carting away a 100-kilogram gold coin named the “Big Maple Leaf” in a wheelbarrow.

 Between 3:20 and 3:45 on Monday morning, thieves entered the Bode Museum through a window and stole the coin, which was originally issued by the Royal Canadian Mint. It has a face value of $1-million but, according to current gold prices, could be worth at least $5-million.

 Thieves steal 100-kilogram gold coin worth millions (Reuters)

 Martin Halweg, a spokesman with the German police, told The Globe and Mail that the suspects are believed to have set up a three-metre-long ladder, which enabled them to enter at the back of the Bode next to a set of railway tracks. They then used a wheelbarrow to remove the valuable, which is one in a series of six certified by Guinness World Records because of its size and 999.99/1000 gold purity.

 Pictures taken before the burglary show that the coin, which is three centimetres thick and roughly as wide as a car tire, was displayed inside a glass-enclosed, bulletproof cabinet. Like all Canadian gold coins, it bears the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse side.

 The coin has been on display since 2010 and was part of the Munzkabinett collection, Berlin’s most important archive of coinage, which includes more than 540,000 objects.

 No other thefts have been announced.

 A Berlin police communiqué said a museum security staffer alerted police after 4 a.m.

 Quoting unnamed police sources, the German newspaper Bild said that the thieves took advantage of construction work at the museum and that the chances of its recovery are slim because the coin could be promptly melted.

 Police later had to interrupt service on the S-Bahn rapid-transit system after they discovered the ladder on rail tracks near the Bode, which is at the tip of an island on the Spree River, in the middle of the German capital.

 It is not clear how this seemingly old-hat operation eluded the museum’s high-tech alarm system.

 The police communiqué asked the public to report any occurrence where someone had offered to sell large, unusual volumes of gold.

 The big coin exhibited by the Berlin museum was on loan from an owner who had purchased it from the Royal Canadian Mint.

 The mint had made six of them in 2007 to promote a new line of high-purity bullion.

 A Royal Canadian Mint spokesman said five of the giant coins were sold while the sixth remains in a vault in Ottawa.

 When asked what the thieves could do with the coin, police spokesman Winfred Wenzel told the German newspaper Die Welt: “Either they were hired to do it by someone who wanted to have the coin, but it’s more likely that it will be melted down.”

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Summary: – Thieves kept their eyes on the target in the early hours of Monday morning when they somehow circumvented a German museum's security system and made off with just one coin. But it's not just any old coin; the so-called "big maple leaf" Canadian coin is pure 24-carat gold, big and heavy, and valued at around $4 million, reports the BBC. Thieves carried away the 220-pound coin, which is more than 20 inches in diameter, sometime after 2am local time, reports CNN. It has a face value of $1 million, and while it would make investigators' job very easy if the crooks tried to spend it, police believe they will either melt the coin down or deliver it to a collector who hired them to steal it, the Globe and Mail reports. The Bode Museum in Berlin has housed the coin in its collection since 2010, reports the CBC. First issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 with an image of Queen Elizabeth II on one side and the country's symbolic maple leaf on the other, the coin made it into the Guinness Book of Records for its record-breaking gold purity of 99.999%. Authorities say the coin was secured behind bullet-proof glass in the building and that the bandits appear to have entered through a window, using a ladder that they left on nearby train tracks. The original coin is in Ottawa, while five others, including this one, were sold to private individuals. (Check out which day these thieves picked to pull off a jewelry heist.)


Winner of the Science (Adult Non-Fiction) Foreword INDIES Award of the FOREWORD Reviews

 PRESS KIT

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it’s a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the test case.

 In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a "sting," the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering.

 The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index, published here for the first time. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he’s sampled so far, Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: "Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless" and "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel."

 Schmidt explains that, for some insects, stinging is used for hunting: small wasps, for example, can paralyze huge caterpillars for long enough to lay eggs inside them, so that their larvae emerge within a living feast. Others are used to kill competing insects, even members of their own species. Humans usually experience stings as defensive maneuvers used by insects to protect their nest mates. With colorful descriptions of each venom’s sensation and a story that leaves you tingling with awe, The Sting of the Wild’s one-of-a-kind style will fire your imagination. ||||| Stung By 83 Different Insects, Biologist Rates His Pain On A Scale Of 1 To — OW!

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Jillian Cowles/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press Jillian Cowles/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press

 If you think your job is painful, try spending a workday with Justin Schmidt.

 Schmidt is an entomologist who focuses on a group of insects called Hymenoptera — we know them as stinging ants, wasps and bees.

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Justin Schmidt Courtesy of Justin Schmidt

 Schmidt has traveled all over the world looking for bugs ... and getting stung by them. The result of his work is an alarmingly comprehensive pain index, ranking 83 insect stings on a spectrum of 1 to 4.

 For example, the red fire ant, native to South America is a 1: "Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming," Schmidt writes. "Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch."

 Far worse is the tarantula hawk, which clocks in at a 4: "Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath."

 As for whether he wants to be stung, Schmidt says "want" isn't quite the right way to put it. "Want is kind of a dual word," he tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer. "I want the data, but I don't want the sting."

 Schmidt has written a book about his travels (and travails) called The Sting of the Wild: The Story of the Man Who Got Stung for Science.

 Interview Highlights

 On the giant mandarin Japanese hornet

 These things are about 2 inches long — they're huge, absolutely enormous. And I was so worried about getting stung by those that I actually succeeded in doing a really nice couple of studies on them and never got stung. So I guess you could say that was disappointing in the respect that I'm missing a very valuable data point, but I'm also still in tact.

 On bullet ants

 Bullet ants are wonderfully beautiful organisms. They live going from Nicaragua down to about southern Brazil. They live in the forest and nest usually on the bottom of the forest floor. But they go up into the canopy, way, way up into the top of the trees and that's where they forage for prey.

 They're black and very stocky looking — you look at them and you say: That's kind of like a dinosaur, that's a very primitive looking ant. But, boy, don't let that deceive you because these ants are really, truly acrobats. You often think of big ants as being sluggards and slow ... don't make that mistake with bullet ants.

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Graham Wise/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press Graham Wise/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Press

 On his favorite — the harvester ant

 They have the most toxic known insect venom. It's really potent — something like 40 times stronger than a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. The good news, of course, is that they have very little of it. They have this extremely long, lasting pain.

 They're the only insect sting venom that causes the hair on your arm where you've been stung to stand up kind of like the hair on the back of a dog's neck when it's frightened. And it causes sweating. These are all kind of neurological things which are unique to it. It's got very complex biochemistry that still, after 35 years, we have lots of mysteries left to discover with them. ||||| This Scientist Stung Himself With Dozens Of Insects Because No One Else Would

 “They have really won the psychological warfare game over us.”

 More Science & Health

 On What’s The Point, we often talk to people who are trying to gather data and build cohesive information in a new field. This week’s show is about that, but it’s also unlike any conversation I’ve had so far. Dr. Justin Schmidt, an entomologist, is obsessed with trying to codify the pain associated with various stinging insects. And the only way Schmidt has found to gather his data is by stinging himself, over and over, with more than 80 insects so far. His new book, “The Sting of the Wild,” chronicles that process.

 The Schmidt Pain Index, as its informally known, runs from 1-4. The common honey bee serves as its anchor point, a solid 2. At the top end of the scale lie the bullet ant and the tarantula hawk (which is neither a tarantula nor a hawk; it’s a wasp).

 Schmidt isn’t just measuring raw pain levels as he feels it, but also incorporating more subjective information into his data set. The honey bee sting is, as he writes, like “a flaming match head lands on your arm and is quenched first with lye and then sulfuric acid,” while a harvester ant produces “waves of deep, throbbing visceral pain.”

 With all the stinging, Schmidt hopes not just to build a body of knowledge within entomology but also help us come closer to understanding what pain is and how to treat it.

 Stream or download the full episode above, or subscribe using your favorite podcast app. Below, transcripts of a few highlights from the conversation, and a video showing Justin Schmidt at work.

 What is pain?

 Justin Schmidt: I view pain as the body’s indication that damage has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur. In other words, it’s really a warning. Pain in itself is not damage. You could say, to a certain extent, it’s a signal that is suitable for being “cheated,” which is what stinging insects do. They make this intense pain with their sting, which is cheating.

 The amount of pain that you get in, say, a honey bee sting, is like putting your hand on a glowing red burner of a stove. But that does serious damage, and a honey bee doesn’t do any damage at all. You get a little swelling … maybe some itching, but you’re none the worse. You don’t have skin falling off or scars or real damage.

 So it’s kind of cheating. It’s making you think that something really serious is happening to you. And yet it hasn’t. They’ve really won the psychological warfare game over us.

 Our language for pain falls short

 Jody Avirgan: We’ve been discussing how hard it is to discuss pain. I wonder if you feel there are implications there for the fact that there’s a growing crisis of addiction to pain medicine in this country. Does the fact that we don’t have reliable language play a part in that?

 Schmidt: Exactly. That’s a real problem. We don’t have reliable language. Think of colors. We have hundreds of different names for different hues and tints. But there are just a very few words we use to describe pain. And it has to do with how we measure and how we quantify different kinds of pain and intensity and flavors of pain, so to speak. We don’t have good terms for either one of those.

 I try to use “piercing” vs. “burning” and combine that with the 1-4 [scale] to give you intensity. But it’s really rather primitive, in retrospect. And it’s kind of a disappointment. I think [that] causes the medical profession a lot of trouble, because if you can’t precisely define something, it’s awfully hard to treat it.

 If you’re a fan of What’s The Point, subscribe on iTunes, and please leave a rating/review — that helps spread the word to other listeners. And be sure to check out our sports show Hot Takedown as well. Have something to say about this episode, or have an idea for a future show? Get in touch by email, on Twitter, or in the comments.

 What’s The Point’s music was composed by Hrishikesh Hirway, host of the “Song Exploder” podcast. Download our theme music. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| View Images A mud dauber's (Sceliphron caementarium) sting isn't much fun, but it rates only a one on Schmidt's pain scale for insect stings.

 Photograph by Rolf Nussbaumer, Alamy

 We know there’s not supposed to be any math in summer, but this word problem is unavoidable: outdoor activity + exposed skin = higher risk of insect stings.

 Peeking from behind our bug net, Weird Animal Question of the Week takes the author’s prerogative to wonder, why do insects sting us in the first place?

 Take the Hint

 Stings are insects’ defense when they feel threatened, says biologist Justin Schmidt—and he ought to know. In his new book The Sting of the Wild, he puts the thousand or so stings he’s endured while collecting and studying insects to good use. Not only does he explain his Schmidt Sting Pain Index, wherein he rates the pain of numerous stings on a scale of one to four, but he also relates the fascinating natural histories of these animals.

 Mud dauber wasps, for example, rate a lowly one on the scale, like “jalapeno cheese when you were expecting Havarti,” Schmidt says, while the chapter on the warrior wasp, a 4, opens with the word “Torture.” (For more nasty stingers, see Ask Your Weird Animal Questions, Insect Edition: Wings and Stings)

 Insects typically try to avoid stinging, an act which could cost them “a leg or an antenna or a chunk of wing,” if the target fights back, Schmidt says. This is why they try to clue us in with warning colors, like the bright red velvet ant’s (which is actually a wasp) or loud, buzzing wing beats, like the noisy cicada killer wasp’s.

 Male insects don’t have stingers, but they’’ll fake it, “curling their abdomen around and jamming it into you,” causing you to drop them so they live another day, Schmidt says.

 View Images A naturalist views a tarantula hawk, a wasp with a four-inch wing span.

 Paul Zahl, National Geographic

 Why Do Only Females Sting?

 Stingers evolved from ovipositors, the tubes through which eggs are laid, which are, of course, found only in females. Stinger and ovipositors are now separate in all insects except parasitic wasps, which often inject their eggs into a host with just a splash of paralyzing venom. (An immobile host is easier for babies to eat.)

 Tarantula hawk wasps have major stings because they take tarantulas on which they lay their eggs which will hatch out and eat the hairy host. Rating the wasps a four on the sting-pain scale, Schmidt advises that if you’re stung, “lie down and scream,” as you’re likely to hurt yourself even more while stumbling around in an out-of-control state of total agony.

 Why Don’t All Insects Sting?

 Stingless insects, like butterflies and moths, lay their eggs on top of plants’ surfaces rather than injecting them. They “don't need an ovipositor, thus they haven't evolved stingers,” says Katy Prudic, an entomologist at the University of Arizona.

 She does warn that some caterpillars pack a punch.

 “Don’t touch a caterpillar that looks like Donald Trump’s hair," she says. “It will sting you.” Called the puss moth caterpillar, this species has hollow spines through which it secretes venom and is one of the most venomous caterpillars in the U.S.

 View Images A puss moth caterpillar (Megalopyge opercularis) feeds on a leaf. Puss moth larvae have venomous spines which inflict painful stings.

 Photograph by George Grall, National Geographic Creative

 How Not to Get Stung

 Giving stinging insects a wide berth is the best way to avoid getting zapped, Schmidt says, but there’s an additional trick for avoiding bee stings: Hold your breath. (Related: “Hot Bee Balls” Cook Enemy Hornets - But How Do Bees Endure The Heat?)

 Our humid, chemical-laden breath smell says “predator” to bees, and Schmidt advises moving slowly and holding your breath so they won’t notice you. Anecdotal evidence: I tried it while walking past some Utah torch lilies abuzz with bees and remained unstung.

 Great advice, but would I keep cool enough to try it near a whole hive?

 I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Summary: – If you ever get stung by a tarantula hawk, Justin Schmidt has some advice: "Lie down and scream." The entomologist has endured the sting of that wasp, along with the stings of 82 other insects from around the world, as part of what FiveThirtyEight describes as an obsession with "codify[ing] the pain associated with various stinging insects." He's even come up with the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which is included in his recently released book, The Sting of the Wild. The index runs from one to four; the aforementioned wasp's sting comes in at a four, and Schmidt likens it, per NPR, to this scenario: "A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath." Compare that with the mud dauber wasp, whose sting is akin to “jalapeno cheese when you were expecting Havarti”; it registers as a one, to the common honeybee's two. In addition to providing colorful, connoisseur-grade descriptions of the pain caused by stings, the Sting of the Wild provides all sorts of information about stinging insects. For instance, stingers evolved from the tubes through which eggs are laid, ovipositors, so only female insects can sting. Male insects fake it, Schmidt tells National Geographic, by “curling their abdomen around and jamming it into you,” in hopes you'll let them go. Butterflies, moths, and other insects that don't sting don't need to, another entomologist tells National Geographic. They lay their eggs on the surface of plants, in a process that doesn't require an ovipositor, hence, no stinger. When asked whether he wants to be stung, Schmidt tells NPR, "Want is kind of a dual word. I want the data, but I don't want the sting." (Another researcher has determined the most painful spot to get a bee sting.)


Mayor Ed Lee (D) announces ban on public funding of city employee travel

 North Carolina law prohibits local laws against LGBT discrimination

 New policy includes exception for "absolutely essential" matters

 Bloomberg/Getty Images San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (D) sent a strong message to North Carolina on Friday.

 San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (D) is barring public funding for city employees’ travel to North Carolina in protest of the state’s new law prohibiting localities from passing legislation to protect LGBT rights.

 “We are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolina’s new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals,” Lee said in a Friday statement announcing the ban.

 The mayor specified, however, that there would be an exception for travel that is “absolutely essential to public health and safety.”

 The North Carolina legislature passed a law on Wednesday that prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, country of origin, age or “biological sex,” but deliberately excludes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. It also barred municipalities in the state from passing their own laws against LGBT discrimination.

 North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) promoted the law in part by stoking fears that laws against transgender discrimination would effectively allow men to prey on women in the bathroom.

 It is not clear how often the city of San Francisco paid for trips to North Carolina, but the effort carries symbolic weight. The mayor’s move is part of a growing wave of governments and businesses trying to penalize the state for enabling anti-LGBT discrimination.

 Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has fought state-level anti-LGBT laws across the country, has said he will enlist the help of the CEO of the Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America in an effort to overturn the law.

 PayPal, Dow Chemical, the NCAA, NBA and Google have come out against the law.

 Lee indicated that San Francisco’s travel boycott is intended to serve as a warning to other states. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| San Francisco mayor bans government travel to North Carolina

 Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press Image 1 of / 2 Caption Close Image 1 of 2 File - In this Jan. 15, 2015 file photo, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee gestures while delivering his State of the City address at a new facility of the Wholesale Produce Market in San Francisco. File - In this Jan. 15, 2015 file photo, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee gestures while delivering his State of the City address at a new facility of the Wholesale Produce Market in San Francisco. Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press Image 2 of 2 Demonstrators rally outside the Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center in Charlotte, a day after North Carolina passed a law forbidding cities from enacting anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT community, March 24, 2016. The measure � hastily presented, passed and signed into law in just 12 hours � quickly prompted a wave of criticism from the business community as well. (Travis Dove/The New York Times) less Demonstrators rally outside the Charlotte Mecklenburg Government Center in Charlotte, a day after North Carolina passed a law forbidding cities from enacting anti-discrimination protections for the LGBT ... more Photo: TRAVIS DOVE, NYT San Francisco mayor bans government travel to North Carolina 1 / 2 Back to Gallery

 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has banned city workers from non-essential travel to North Carolina after that state approved legislation preventing anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people.

 Lee said in a statement Friday that residents in the city with a large gay and lesbian population "will not subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination." He says the new law turns back the clock on civil rights protections.

 North Carolina Gov. Pat McGrory signed legislation this week voiding a Charlotte ordinance that would have allowed transgender people to legally use restrooms aligned with their gender identity. The ordinance also would have provided wide protections against discrimination in public accommodations.

 The law prevents cities and counties from passing anti-discrimination rules and imposes a statewide standard that leaves out protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Summary: – San Francisco has banned travel to North Carolina in protest of what Mayor Ed Lee calls the state's "new discriminatory law," CBS San Francisco reports. Specifically, the mayor banned any city-funded and non-essential travel to the state. The Huffington Post notes he made an exception for travel that is "absolutely essential to public health and safety." This week, North Carolina passed a non-discrimination law that pointedly excludes lesbian, gay, and transgender people while simultaneously barring cities and counties from passing their own protections for LGBT people. Lee's travel ban is meant to ensure San Francisco residents don't "subsidize legally sanctioned discrimination," according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "We are standing united as San Franciscans to condemn North Carolina’s new discriminatory law that turns back the clock on protecting the rights of all Americans including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals," CBS quotes Lee in a statement issued Friday. HuffPo points out it's unclear how many trips to North Carolina San Francisco was paying for, but the travel ban carries "symbolic weight." Other governments and businesses, including Google and the NBA, are also making their disapproval over the North Carolina law known in various ways. Lee says San Francisco will issue similar travel bans to Georgia or any other state that passes laws discriminating against LGBT people.