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Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear banned the use of “conversion therapy” on minors in Kentucky on Wednesday, calling his executive order an overdue step to protect children from a widely discredited practice that tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling.

The governor took action using his executive powers after efforts to enact a state law banning the practice repeatedly failed in the state’s Republican-dominated legislature.

“My faith teaches me that all children are children of God,” Beshear said during the signing ceremony at the Kentucky Statehouse. “And where practices are endangering and even harming those children, we must act. The practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy’ hurts our children.”

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters will not issue an endorsement in the presidential election for the first time since 1996, and for only the second time since 1960.

The Teamsters union on Wednesday said polling shows most of its members back Republican former President Donald Trump's bid for a new term in the White House over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

The 1.3 million-member union said its executive board plans to announce later on Wednesday who it is endorsing in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The union said a national electronic poll of its members from July 24-Sept. 15 showed rank-and-file Teamsters voted 59.6% to endorse Trump compared with 34% for Harris.

Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. and his wife, La’Quetta, the city’s superintendent of schools, have been indicted on child endangerment and other charges for allegedly beating their teenage daughter on numerous occasions, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said the indictment was made Tuesday by a grand jury that accused the couple of child endangerment. Marty Small also was charged with assault and making terroristic threats.

Prosecutors said both parents hit and emotionally abused the girl, who was 15 to 16 years old, on multiple occasions in December and January.

A Mississippi town has taken down a Confederate monument that stood on the courthouse square since 1910 — a figure that was tightly wrapped in tarps the past four years, symbolizing the community’s enduring division over how to commemorate the past.

Grenada’s first Black mayor in two decades seems determined to follow through on the city’s plans to relocate the monument to other public land. A concrete slab has already been poured behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.

But a new fight might be developing. A Republican lawmaker from another part of Mississippi wrote to Grenada officials saying she believes the city is violating a state law that restricts the relocation of war memorials or monuments.

The city received permission from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument, as required. But Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes of Picayune said the fire station site is inappropriate.

Tuesday's report details firsthand accounts of several Gazans who say they are doing everything they can to protect themselves and their families from becoming human shields for Hamas militants.

Nasser al-Zaanin, for example, was forced to flee his home in northern Gaza in October, and relocated to a school that had been turned into a shelter in the town of Deir al-Balah, along with his adult sons and grandchildren. When al-Zaanin arrived at the shelter, he helped set up a system of committees to improve life for families who had taken refuge by overseeing the distribution of food, water and medical needs. They also established one hard and fast rule: no armed men allowed in the compound.

"All the families agreed," said al-Zaanin, who once worked as a civil servant for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. "We simply want to save all families, women and children and not let there be any potential threat against us because of the existence of police and members of the Hamas government."

Five contestants competing on a MrBeast-hosted reality competition show have filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the YouTube star’s production company and Amazon, claiming they were denied pay, forced to participate in unsafe conditions and subjected to a “culture of misogyny and sexism.”

The lawsuit was filed Monday in a Los Angeles court by participants on the Amazon Prime Video show called “Beast Games,” which was announced in March. It features “over 1,000 contestants, $5,000,000 prize, and many other world records,” the creator MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, said at the time.

The 54-page document describes allegations of players being subjected to “unreasonable, unsafe, and unlawful employment conditions” that led to “several” contestants being hospitalized. Plaintiffs said they were fed “sporadically and sparsely” and not given “adequate access to hygienic products or medical care.”

Lustery’s announcement says the company’s new contract clause was inspired by recent agreements between Hollywood studios and two unions, the Writers Guild of America and the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which introduced limitations last year on how studios can use AI for scriptwriting and for generating performances.

Early this summer, Amin Abed, a Palestinian activist who has spoken out publicly about Hamas, twice found bullets on his doorstep in northern Gaza.

Then in July, he said he was attacked by Hamas security operatives, who covered his head and dragged him away before repeatedly striking him with hammers and metal bars.

“At any moment, I can be killed by the Israeli occupation, but I can face the same fate at the hands of those who’ve been ruling us for 17 years,” he said in a phone interview from his hospital bed, referring to Hamas. “They almost killed me, those killers and criminals.”

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon's south and in Beirut suburbs, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group's pagers.

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Florida Judge Aileen Cannon failed to disclose lavish trips hosted by influential conservative law school

Florida District Court Judge Aileen Cannon failed to disclose her attendance at several right-wing judicial seminars — including one that took place after she began overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case, which she ultimately threw out — in apparent violation of federal court rules.

According to a Tuesday report from ProPublica, in May of 2023, Cannon attended a swanky banquet hosted by George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School

one of the leading conservative law schools in the nation. The school was renamed in honor of the late Supreme Court justice after a $20 million donation brokered by Supreme Court architect Leonard Leo, who controls a billion-dollar dark money fund and serves as co-chair chairman of of the Federalist Society, the powerful conservative lawyers network. 

Cannon, a longtime member of the Federalist Society, attended a lecture and dinner alongside members of the society, Scalia's family members, and prominent federal judges, according to materials obtained by ProPublica. Cannon submitted several reimbursement requests to the law school related to her travel expenses.

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JD Vance has suggested that American support for NATO should be predicated on the European Union not regulating Elon Musk and his X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio senator claimed in an interview with YouTuber Shawn Ryan that a top EU official had threatened to arrest the billionaire if he allowed former President Donald Trump back on X.

“The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” Vance said in the interview published last week.

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Emails reveal Georgia Election Integrity Coalition, a group of officials and election deniers, coordinating in swing state

This will be their narrative now.