Republican legislators in Arizona are attempting to pass legislation that forces transgender people to only use public restrooms, dressing rooms and showers associated with the gender listed on their birth certificate. According to the Associated Press, conservative lawmakers are proposing the legislation in response to a human rights bill passed by the city of Phoenix which prohibits gender identity discrimination in public accommodations.
Republican state Rep. John Kavanagh of Phoenix is leading the charge to make it a criminal offense for transgender people to use public restrooms not associated with their birth gender.
According to U.K. paper The Independent, violation of the new law would be a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by fines as high as $4,000 and up to six months in prison.
Gay state Rep. Tom Simplot told the Independent, "This kind of extremist legislation is exactly what brings criticism to Arizona and compromises our work to make Phoenix an accepting and competitive city.”
Activists say that opponents of the human rights bill's choice to characterize their legislation as "the bathroom bill" is inflammatory, as is their decision to stoke fears of sexual predation.
Simplot said the bill would criminalise the “very nature” of being transgender, adding “they're creating a problem that doesn't exist.”
UPDATE: Raw Story spoke with Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Keisling said the new legislation "clearly has to do with the anti-discrimination law" enacted in Phoenix, "which is about people being able to work, people being able to be fully part of society."
"These (anti-discrimination) laws are in effect in more than 160 cities and 16 states," said Keisling, and that the problem of sexual predation on minors that the discriminatory policy alleges to address, "isn't happening anywhere. It just doesn't occur. It's one of the terrible things that opponents of equality always raise in hopes of scaring people."
An MSNBC report this Monday chronicled the shifting explanations offered by former President Donald Trump regarding the FBI's recovery of classified documents during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
Trump has so far offered multiple explanations for the documents, one being that he took them from the White House to "work on them," falsely claiming that former President Barack Obama had done the same. His latest explanation came in the form of a statement, claiming he had a "standing order" that documents removed from the White House "were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them."
Speaking on NBC News, former national security adviser John Bolton said that claim is likely a lie.
"I think that claim is almost certainly a lie." Bolton said, adding that he was "never aware of anything even remotely approximating that policy and I haven't heard anything of it since I left [the White House]."
"So, I think this is made up, and I think a key point her is when somebody is making up stories like that, I think it indicates a level of desperation."
Threats against FBI agents and other federal law enforcement have grown even worse Monday a week after a search warrant was executed at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. In response, Trump has attacked law enforcement and the FBI, with his followers doxing them and their families.
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported Adam Biles was charged with "influencing, impeding or retaliating against federal law officers" as a result of the search warrant on Trump.
"Come and get me you piece of sh*t feds" and "I am going to f*cking slaughter you," were among the comments Bies made on Gab, according to the complaint filed on Monday. He went on to compare the FBI to the Nazi SS and Soviet-era KGB saying that everyone at the FBI all the way down to the janitors should be killed.
"I’ll shoot an SS officer in the head just as quick as I’d shoot a KGB officer in the head," he said in one of his rants. "Keep that in mind. There are plenty of other letters in the alphabet. Police state scum are (sic) police state scum. Period."
"My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop," he wrote Thursday. "I will not spend one second of my life in their custody."
"HEY FEDS. We the people cannot WAIT to water the trees of liberty with your blood. I’ll be waiting for you to kick down my door," he also said.
The day after Bies made his threats another Trump supporter, and man who was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, went to the FBI in Cincinnati with an AR-15 Cincinnati with an AR-15 and nail gun attempting to attack the agents and staff there.
Bies also tagged Gab CEO Andrew Torba when attacking FBI Director Christopher Wray, saying, "I sincerely believe that if you work for the FBI, then you deserve to DIE."
He then alluded to the fact that Gab had an issue with his complaints on the site, noting Gab "just gave me an account warning today for saying that a bunch of child moleseting [expletives] at the FBI should be put down."
So he attacked Torba, telling him to "go ahead and ban me.
KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian and Russian-installed officials reported shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine on Monday, with both sides blaming each other days after the world nuclear watchdog warned of disaster if the fighting does not stop.
Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations this month of shelling near the plant, which dominates the south bank of a vast reservoir on the Dnipro River, amid fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Russian soldiers who attack Europe's largest nuclear power station or use it as a base to shoot from that they will become a "special target".
The plant is in the now Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar.
Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the administration of the Nikopol district, which lies across the river from Enerhodar, accused Russian forces of shelling the city.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-installed official in Enerhodar, said that over the past two hours about 25 heavy artillery strikes from U.S.-made M777 howitzers had hit near the nuclear plant and residential areas.
Russia's Interfax news agency, quoting the press service of Enerhodar's Russian-appointed administration, said Ukrainian forces opened fire, with blasts near the power plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is seeking access to the plant, has warned of possible disaster. Nuclear experts fear fighting might damage the plant's spent fuel pools or reactors.
"The Russians think they can force the world to comply with their conditions by shelling the Zaporizhzhia NPP (nuclear power plant)," Andriy Yermak, chief of the Ukrainian presidential staff, wrote on Twitter. "This will not happen. Instead, our military will punish them by hard hitting with precision on pain points."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the establishment of a demilitarised zone around Zaporizhzhia. The United Nations has the logistics and security capacity to support an IAEA visit if both Russia and Ukraine agree, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu held a phone call with Guterres to discuss conditions for the safe functioning of the plant, the ministry said.
A spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry said it would do all it could to allow IAEA specialists to visit.
"In close cooperation with the agency and its leadership, we will do everything necessary for the IAEA specialists to be at the station and give a truthful assessment of the destructive actions of the Ukrainian side," spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
DEATH PENALTY
Ukraine, where parliament on Monday extended martial law for a further three months, has said for weeks it is planning a counteroffensive to recapture Zaporizhzhia and neighbouring Kherson province, the largest part of the territory Russia seized after its Feb. 24 invasion and still holds.
Ukrainian forces reported heavy Russian shelling and attempts to advance on several towns in the eastern region of Donetsk that has become a key focus of the near six-month-old war, but said they had repelled many of the attacks.
The General Staff of Ukraine's armed forces also reported Russian shelling of more than a dozen towns on the southern front - particularly the Kherson region, mainly held by Russian forces but where Ukrainian troops are steadily retaking territory.
A Russian-backed separatist court in Donetsk charged five foreign nationals captured fighting with Ukrainian forces with being mercenaries, saying three could face the death penalty, Russian media reported.
Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation" to demilitarise its smaller neighbour and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and Western backers accuse Moscow of waging an imperial-style war of conquest.
The conflict has pushed Moscow-Washington relations to a low point, with Russia warning it may sever them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to offer modern weapons to its allies, using a speech at an arms show near Moscow to boast of Russia's advanced weapons capabilities.
"(We) are ready to offer our allies the most modern types of weapons, from small arms to armoured vehicles and artillery to combat aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles," Putin said at the opening ceremony of the "Army-2022" forum.
"Almost all of them have been used more than once in real combat operations."
Putin's military has performed worse than expected in Ukraine. It has been beaten back from Ukraine's two biggest cities and is making slow headway, at heavy cost, in the east of the country, making the war an unconvincing showcase for Russia's arms industry.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kyiv, Yoruk Isik and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, Andrea Shalal in Yuzhne, Maya Gebeily in Beirut and Jonathan Saul in London, and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Nick Macfie; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Alex Richardson and Philippa Fletcher