LGBTQ Breaking News

LGBTQ Breaking News Service

Travel

Slog AM: New Travel-Related Vaccination Rules Coming, Death to Golf Courses, and More Money for Trains – TheStranger.com

Kim Martel
Welcome to America, try not to inhale.

Welcome to America, try not to inhale. courtneyk / Getty images

Papers, please. The Biden administration is said to be mulling a requirement that all foreign travelers to the US be vaccinated. Unclear if that’s meant to protect Americans from unvaccinated foreigners, or the foreigners from idiot American anti-vaxxers.

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Everett’s oldest golf course is now Everett’s deadest golf course. A contractor sprayed the wrong chemicals on the (city-owned!!!) golf course and now all of the grass is dead. Good. The whole thing should be destroyed and replaced with native habitat and housing.

Prey upon the gay. Rave reviews have greeted Pray Away, a new Netflix documentary about “pray away the gay” snake oil. Filmmaker Kristine Stolakis found that ex-gay scammers tend to be queer people who were suckered in by other ex-gay scammers, who were themselves tricked by ex-gay scammers … and so on, going back years. It looks quite harrowing. I’d love to see a documentary tackle the origin of TERFs next.

Landlords can’t wait to evict you. Various housing-industry trade groups are suing to stop the Centers for Disease Control from ordering a ban on evictions. Yes, good idea, putting tons of vulnerable people out on the street will definitely stabilize the whole pandemic situation.

Seattle to trains: Take my money. A new survey from the Northwest Progressive Institute shows overwhelming support for a funding measure that would accelerate Link light rail expansion.

The head of Fullbright Studio has gone home. Polygon has a particularly unflattering portrait of Steve Gaynor, the co-founder of Portland game studio Fullbright. Over the last few years, the company has earned a public reputation for innovative, narrative games with a focus on women characters; behind the scenes, employees say, Gaynor was hostile and cruel, particularly toward women. Gaynor recently stepped down from his role.

Is Elon Musk … unpleasant to be around? An excerpt from an upcoming book about the bald billionaire paints an even more unflattering portrait than we’ve grown accustomed to expecting.

There really is no point at which Fox News viewers will go “wait a minute, this is dumb.” Right-wing pundits really think they’ve got something with this new episode of Muppet Babies in which Gonzo wears a dress, and they’re continuing to bang the culture-war drum over this one silly incident. After one conservative influencer tweeted her longing for “manly muppets” (?????) now Fox and Friends is trying to wring some outrage out of the whole stupid thing. Ugh!

I hate to say it but I want to do Disney’s obscenely expensive new Star Wars vacation. I will never, of course, pay five thousand dollars for a two-night hotel stay, but ohhhh I hate how tempting it still feels. Disney just revealed a new Star Wars-themed vacation package that costs thousands of dollars and includes meals, “missions and activities,” and admission to a neighboring theme park. Wasn’t there a whole sequence in The Last Jedi about how Canto Bight, a playground for the wealthy, is a terrible place filled with the worst people in the galaxy? Anyway, here’s a new sneak peek at some of the amazing Imagineering stuff they’re working on, and oh no I think I want to be one of the worst people in the galaxy.

Imagine how terrifying it must be to be a Facebook whistleblower. A data scientist named Sophie Zhang is continuing to speak out about what she says are tricks used by governments around the world to use Facebook to manipulate public perception and sway elections. I can’t even fathom how terrifying it must be to speak out against Facebook, one of the most powerful governments on Earth.

A surprise game show twist! The frontrunner to become the new permanent host of Jeopardy! is producer Mike Richards, oddly, and not any of the dazzlingly popular guest hosts such as LeVar Burton. I will phrase my response to this news in the form of a question: Who?

Thanks, I hate it. A new experimental feature for VR headsets aims cameras at your eyes and displays them on the outside of the headset, so people around you can look you in what appears to be your eyes. Would you believe that it looks even more dystopian than it sounds?

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I hate this, too: It’s been hotter than usual, and more unseasonably hot weather is on the way.

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