Breaking News

The radical right grew explosively in the United States in 2011 and for a third consecutive year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama.

The SPLC, on March 8, said the ranks of extremist groups have grown to record levels, largely with the expansion of the “Patriot” movement.

For the first time, an American Bar Association commission will formally honor lawyers who have advanced lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the legal profession and championed LGBT legal causes.

The American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity is taking nominations of lawyers, judges and legal academics for its inaugural Stonewall Award. The annual award is named after the New York City Stonewall Inn police raid and riot of June 28, 1969, which was a turning point in the gay rights movement.

A business offering walking tours of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s haunts in Milwaukee has offered to donate some proceeds to a charity that supports the parents of murder victims, but that group said on March 6 that it wants no part of it.

Nancy Ruhe, executive director of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, told The Associated Press that even though the economic downturn has led to a drop in donations, the organization would never accept money from a group that profits from someone else’s murderous acts.

The U.S. Justice and Education departments and six student plaintiffs announced a tentative settlement with Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District in a complaint of sex-based harassment.

A proposed consent decree was filed March 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. The agreement would resolve complaints of sex-based harassment of middle and high school students in the school district. Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 each prohibits sex-based harassment, including harassment based on nonconformity with gender stereotypes and sexual harassment.

A Colorado advocacy group is in Montrose following a murder-suicide in which a man shot and killed his estranged wife’s girlfriend before turning the gun on himself.

The Colorado Anti-Violence Program works to prevent violence within and against the gay community.

A brutal attack on a gay Chilean man drew strong condemnation from political leaders and entertainer Ricky Martin.

Doctors in Santiago said 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio had been put in an induced coma while being treated for severe head trauma and a broken right leg suffered in the beating on March 3.

The Racine Common Council approved on March 6 a proposal to extend domestic partner benefits to municipal employees and their families.

The 10-4 vote followed about two hours of debate and citizen comment.

The CDC in its March 2 Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report highlighted the continued vulnerability of the nation’s intravenous drug users to HIV infection. 

According to a new study, which focused on 20 metropolitan areas, 9 percent of all IDUs tested were living with HIV. Also, 45 percent were unaware of their infection, meaning IDUs are more than twice as likely to be unaware of their HIV status as the general public, placing not only themselves, but their partners at increased risk as well. 

Parents claim in U.S. district court that a Christian military school allows students known as “the Disciplinarians” to bind, gag, beat and urinate on younger students.

The parents of four students sued St. John’s Military School, of Salina, Kan., and The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, according to a report from the Courthouse News Service.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Mexico have filed a lawsuit on behalf of Shantelle Hicks, 15, who was initially kicked out of middle school and then publicly humiliated at an assembly by the school director and another staff member because she was pregnant.

The complaint alleges that school administrators violated Hicks’ constitutional right to equal protection under the law, Title IX’s prohibitions against sex and pregnancy discrimination and violations of her right to privacy. 

A South Carolina county GOP committee has a new set of rules for its candidates.

In Laurens County, Republicans on the ballot, according to the Clinton Chronicle newspaper, must:

The Human Rights Watch on March 5 urged St. Petersburg Gov. Georgiy Poltavchenko to veto a an anti-gay bill adopted by the city’s parliament.

The St. Petersburg city parliament on Feb. 29 adopted a bill that would impose fines on people engaging in “public activities to promote sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transsexuality” that might be observed by minors.