Today in Focus: What has changed since the Stonewall rebellion?

On the evening of 27 June 1969, gay men and their trans and lesbian peers gathered as usual at a bar called the Stonewall Inn. What followed would change the course of LGBT rights in the US and the wider world. A police raid on the bar in the early hours of the following day descended into violence as supporters came out on to the streets and stayed there defiantly.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington has tracked down some of those who took part in the rebellion and joins Anushka Asthana to discuss what happened and the growing recognition of LGBT rights in the decades that followed.

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openDemocracy: Don't throw the word 'fascism' around with abandon

But today the word is being used expansively in ways that very inaccurately and unhelpfully conflate everything from neo-Nazis and white supremacists to people who voted leave in the 2016 referendum. When being interviewed about President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the U.K., Rupa Huq MP referenced the Leave vote in warning of us being on a slippery slope towards fascism.[...]

George Orwell in the early 1940’s said “the word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’”. How true. The discourse around Brexit has become so polarised, so toxic, that the word is being thrown around with abandon by senior politicians as a means of shutting down debate and extolling one’s own virtuosity.

This is dangerous. We know from the ensuing research that the most significant issue driving the 2016 referendum result was concern over immigration. Inevitably, this has come to frame much of why people voted to leave the EU. In the simplified world of social media Brexit = Racism. And yet, this has been a missed opportunity to have a proper discussion about immigration which has largely been ignored by political parties of all persuasions over the last three years. These are issues that we should feel a lot more comfortable talking about. If we do not retain them within mainstream discourse, then we surrender them to the extremes. [...]

To add insult to injury, to be a member of the forgotten tribe is also to be branded a “fascist” when the debate becomes uncomfortable. And there has been a definite shift on social media from the use of the phrase “I’m not racist but...” to “If that makes me racist, then I’m a racist”. Just look at the sense of threat in response to recently reported incidents of an army veteran and Brexit Party supporter having a milkshake thrown over him, a male being called “Nazi Scum” and again having a milkshake thrown over him at a Trump rally, and an elderly male Trump supporter being pushed over at a demonstration. What this tells people is that you’re either with us or against us. And if you’re against us then you’re fair game. We should all be concerned by the escalating levels of violence. Britain feels like a febrile environment at the moment, like a tinder-box of rage that will only take a nudge for us to see wide scale public disorder implications.

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The Atlantic: Celebrating My (Gay) Divorce

At the same time, the politics of our wedding weren’t lost on me. I didn’t want to be “gay married”; I wanted us to be “married” like any other couple, thank you very much. I wanted us to be recognized like the other married couples in our families and our town. I wanted us to be counted in the next census among all the couples who have chosen to say “I do.” [...]

I still remember our officiant’s words that day in California, especially because the language of love—which dares to shout its name—was part of what made our union feel so special. (Marriage equality had come to the Golden State by then, but two more years would pass before the Supreme Court would make it the law of the land, in Obergefell v. Hodges.) Fred noted how marriage “makes us equal—in the eyes of social institutions, friends, and family—to every other loving, committed couple.” I loved when Fred, referencing his husband, Gerard, told the wedding party, “Marriage can become a source of pride in seemingly small but poignant ways. For example, whenever I introduce Gerard or check the ‘Married’ box on various forms, I think, Yes, this is who we are … You can like it or not.” [...]

But the people around us didn’t use the established language of separation and divorce to describe what we were going through, instead talking around the issue. Friends expressed their sorrow over “our split” or the fact that we’d “broken up.” I was surprised that I found such language disrespectful, and I wrote in my journal at the time: “This isn’t a break-up. It’s a separation. A legal thing. There’s a weight and history to what’s happening.” I wanted the recognition afforded by the law to all divorcés, and respect—as measured by language—from our friends and family. (I also didn’t want to be known as the “gay divorcé,” as some of my friends began calling me.) Four years earlier I had identified with newlyweds; now that I was a divorcé, I wanted equivalent recognition of my status. [...]

It may be ugly, but divorce—just as much as marriage—is part of the rights and responsibilities that come with marriage equality. I found it easy to be proud of our freedom to marry, but the freedom to divorce took some getting used to. Along with the deep sadness about the end of my marriage, I finally came to feel pride in knowing that the hard path of divorce is one that millions of couples—no qualifier necessary—have walked before.

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The Atlantic: What If the Chaos Is Strategic?

Of the many challenges facing anyone trying to understand Donald Trump’s presidency is the fact that it is maddeningly nonlinear, lurching several times each day between policy objectives that may be dictated by a Fox News anchor, a friend from Mar-a-Lago, or the prime minister of Norway. This was especially true in the first six months of his administration, when the chief political strategist Steve Bannon was at the height of his influence, while Reince Priebus wielded the chief of staff’s potentially awesome authority with all the gravitas of a substitute teacher.[...]

The question of intentionality is impossible for anyone but Trump to answer, and he would surely answer it by claiming that he has had a plan all along. That would be a typically Trumpian boast. That aside, however, it is undeniable that the exhausting storms that mark political life in Washington obscure the ruthlessly effective work happening across the federal government.[...]

The diversionary maneuver has been so effective because Trump remains an object of intense public fascination. If nothing else, Trump is an effective distraction from Trumpism, which is to say a kind of raw modern Republicanism that has shed the last vestiges of its eastern-establishment roots. The more Trump acts like Trump, the more it seems to the rest of us that his administration is about to collapse into a heap of faux-golden shards, the more the Trump administration actually gets done.[...]

In Trump’s first several months in office, Republicans used the CRA more than a dozen times. They repealed a rule that prevented internet companies from selling individuals’ data without their explicit consent. They undid the Stream Protection Rule, which was intended to keep surface mines from polluting waterways with the potential toxic products of their activities. They killed a mandate that employers report workplace injuries. And they made it easier to hunt bears in Alaska. Now you can shoot them from helicopters again.

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Politico: Extreme right-wing violence on the rise in Germany

Figures from the annual report on the protection of Germany's democratic constitution, put together by the intelligence services to monitor anti-constitutional activities, suggest there were 24,100 right-wing extremists in the country in 2018, up slightly from 24,000 in 2017.

Of those designated by the report as right-wing extremists, around 12,700 people are classified as "violence-oriented." The report is due to be presented this coming Thursday.

Right-wing extremism also fuels anti-semitic violence, the report's authors conclude, highlighting an "increase in sedition with anti-Semitic motives."

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EURACTIV: Only eight EU countries plan to phase out coal by 2030

Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and Finland aim to do so by 2030, the Spanish commissioner told a press conference in Brussels. [...]

An EU official told AFP the remaining 20 countries, including heavily coal-dependent Poland, had not submitted timelines for weaning themselves off the fossil fuel. [...]

“Germany, which currently accounts for around one third of the EU’s coal capacity, is discussing exiting coal between 2035 and 2038,” the policy analyst said. [...]

Under the 2015 Paris treaty, the EU pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

During its review on Tuesday, the commission said the bloc is on track to meet that goal but was falling short on its target for renewable energy use and energy savings. [...]

22 countries, including Germany, now endorse the 2050 carbon neutrality target, according to the latest count.

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EURACTIV: EU Commission documents reveal fund that pays coal lobby staff

A little-known EU fund managed by the European Commission invests around €40 million each year into coal and steel research.

Around 150 projects are currently receiving financial support under the EU-funded programme, according to documents obtained by green activists at the European Environmental Bureau (EBB), and shared with EURACTIV. [...]

The project is carried out by Euracoal, the EU-wide lobby organisation for the coal industry. “This means that the EU Commission uses this fund to finance employees of the coal lobby,” said Anton Lazarus, who requested the documents for the EBB. [...]

For Christian Schaible, policy manager at the EEB, the coal fund is about something else: “If you read the proposal, it is clear that this project is just a vehicle to spend EU money on promoting coal”. Clean coal, as promoted by the RFCS, does not exist, Schaible claims.

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IFLScience: Astronomers Looked For Alien Civilization In Our Closest 1,300 Stars. Here's What They Found

“We scoured thousands of hours of observations of nearby stars, across billions of frequency channels. We found no evidence of artificial signals from beyond Earth, but this doesn't mean there isn't intelligent life out there: we may just not have looked in the right place yet, or peered deep enough to detect faint signals,” Dr Danny C Price, a radio astronomer who leads the Breakthrough Listen project, said in a statement. [...]

Founded in 2015, the Breakthrough Listen project was funded by Yuri Milner, Russia's answer to Peter Thiel, who founded the colossal Russian internet company "Mail.ru Group" and an investor in Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Whatsapp, and numerous other big names in tech. Stayed tuned because there's plenty more on its way.

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IFLScience: 23 Facts You Learned About Healthy Eating As A Kid That Are No Longer True

This is because people who skimp on fat (something our bodies need to function properly) are more likely to fill up on sugar and refined carbohydrates instead, and that can lead to measurable weight gain over time. Studies of people around the globe show this to be true time and again. [...]

"People who are more health-conscious overall tend to eat breakfast because they are following health guidelines," Lowery pointed out, "whereas people who skip breakfast are usually unhealthier overall because they are ignoring guidelines" [...]

Intermittent fasting can help people ward off diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. The practice can also boost the production of a protein that strengthens connections in the brain and can serve as an antidepressant. Scientists even think fasting can lengthen our lifespans by keeping cells healthy and youthful longer. [...]

A long-term study of over 131,300 people in the US found that the more animal protein people ate, the more likely they were to die of a heart attack, suggesting that it may be best to favor plant proteins like those from nuts and beans, rather than relying on meat.

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